BABYL OPTIONS: Version: 5 Labels: Note: This is the header of an rmail file. Note: If you are seeing it in rmail, Note: it means the file has no messages in it.  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 1 JUL 1980 0522-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #1 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 1 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 1 Today's Topics: TZone Episode Guide, Physics Imaginary - MT, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 July 1980 0220 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Twilight Zone Episode Guide [ approx. length = 73K chars ] The Twilight Zone Episode Guide is now ready for distribution. And just in time for the people going to the TZFF. Copies of the Guide have been established in files at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, to Jon again for Rutgers logistic support, and to Saul and Lauren for the labor that went into preparing the episode guide. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS TWZNEG PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLovers-TZGuide.Txt Rutgers PS:Twilight-Zone.Episode-Guide SU-AI TZGUID[T,DON] MIT-Multics >user_dir_dir>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>twilight-zone-episode-guide [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ ALAN@MIT-MC 06/30/80 12:29:18 Re: Matter Transmitters The distinction has been made between matter transmitters that actually transmit the matter and those that just transmit the necessary information. Presuming for the moment that we aren't going to violate (or make convenient modifications to) any familiar conservation laws, like conservation of mass/energy, then just how might the former mode of transmission (matter mode) operate? Well, we already have several such transmitters already, like cars, trains, planes and even feet. I presume these don't interest us very much at the moment, so I will add the restriction to the definition of "matter transmitters" that we all almost certainly have in mind: transmission must take place at (or at least near) the speed of light. There is this problem with traveling at the speed of light: you cannot be carrying any mass with you. So it would seem that the only way for a matter transmitter, that we would really feel was transmitting matter, to work would be for it to convert the mass of the object to be transmitted into energy, transmit that (don't stand in the way!), and reconvert the energy to mass at the other end. How about the other mode (information mode), how could that work? For one thing it takes a certain amount of energy to transmit any information; and there is a limit to just how much information you can send using a given foot-pound. I would guess that to send all the information in something as complex as a human would take a fair amount of energy. Perhaps the same amount as was necessary in the last paragraph? My physics fails me here, but perhaps someone might be able to provide some real insight here. My intuition is that there really is very little difference between these two modes of matter transmission. In information mode, you might still have the original object in your hands after you have sent its information to Alpha Centauri, but you have the problem of how to produce enough energy to send all that information (Hmmm... I have this worthless object that I have to dispose of, and I seem to remember that E=mc^2, and this object feels pretty heavy...). Perhaps in information mode you don't have to send ALL the information in a person, perhaps you can send a fairly high-level description (somewhere between "5'2'', blue eyes" and "1 pink quark at location 69.105, 00.123...") and still be certain that the person emerging at the other end will remember his own name. ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 06/30/80 19:28:22 Re: matter transmitters OK, I'll bite. There may be no way to distinguish between (1) actually sending the matter from one place to another, and (2) breaking down the matter in one place and building it up at another using different particles. It seems to me that there is no way to "tag" an electron or a proton so that you can later see whether such-and-such an electron is the "same" one as the one that was in the original matter. In Lisp jargon, perhaps particles do not have EQ-ness in some sense. If you want to worry about whether a new human being, created by a teleporter that works by scanning, passing information, and rebuilding, is the "same" person or not, you may wish to consider the related (but certainly not identical) problem of what happens when you grow a clone of a person and replay a recording of that person's memories into the clone. John Varley has done a good job of presenting this, although without too much speculation about "souls"; see the truly excellent short story "The Phantom Of Kansas" (is that the right name?), as well as his novel "The Ophiuchi Hotline". I don't much care to debate whether such a new person has a "soul"; I consider that question pretty meaningless. An important question is whether he has *rights*: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, freedom of speech, etc. I think the answer is clearly "yes" and I doubt many people would disagree (maybe I'm wrong about that). A really hard and by no means ethereal question is what about property? Think of the complex laws and customs we have regarding care of children; it is legally defined that parents take custody of children, but who is responsible for a newly-created adult who has a full set of memories? Varley mostly just outlaws them (clones are instantly put to death -- I guess he does NOT think they have rights!), and then has fun with people who break the law by creating such clones. Some of the answers to these questions may also apply to artificially intelligent creations made in AI labs. Do they have rights? Who is responsible for them? And the real kicker: is it immoral to hurt them? (Could a human get a life imprisonment sentence for wiping out all the software of an AI machine?) Drawing analogies and comparisons between teleportation, clones plus memory playback, and AI machines might help clarify the issues. (It also might overflow SF-Lovers for the next month...) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/01/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 30 June 1980 10:41-EDT From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: TESB Problems Problems of scale (ala ST:TMP) didn't bother me as much as outright post-production flaws in the mattes near the end of the film. Most noticeable was the obvious contrast problem in some of the scenes inside the cloud city which also had exterior backgrounds. Also, if it does say something like "long ago and far far away," then what's to say that we are not viewing something from an historian's viewpoint of our future (as in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love"). (This might either tend to resolve the technological inconsistences in the film, or add fuel to that discussion.) On another note: maybe there should be something done to augment our rating system...it was probably the cleanest PG film I ever saw - not one "bad" word in it. Except for the so-called "violence" in this fantasy (and in particular the rather bloodless cutting off of Luke's hand - which turned off my kids), I didn't mind having them see the film. On the other side, there are PG-rated films which virtually demand an adult preview to determine how much "parental discretion" I should use - namely language and even brief nudity. Clearly SW and TESB does not belong with the other PGs I have seen. Yet this makes it difficult to refuse a child to view some other PG "because you let us see SW and TESB and they were PG, why not this one?", etc. (The particular child in this case is a nine-year-old girl...) --Frank ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 1980 0751-PDT (Monday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: TESB In the new issue of, I think, Starlog, Harrison Ford is interviewed. Although I only skimmed the interview at the newsstand, two points caught my attention. First, evidently Ford is certain to appear in Episode VI, about which story he claims to know nothing at all. And second, it was apparently Ford's own idea to change Han's last line. They shot it both ways, and evidently Ford's version was the one that stuck. And incidentally, my vote goes for the line as shown, not as written. It's more in character, and rounds the scene off better. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 1980 at 1134-PDT From: chesley at SRI-UNIX Subject: Parsecs As I was rewatching "Forbidden Planet" last night on video-tape, I remembered the origin of my explanation of "in under n parsecs" (from Star Wars). [ SFL V1 #86 ] When asked what it would take to contact HQ for further instructions, Captain Adams says, "Fundamentally, it's a question of crude power: how to short circuit the continuum on a four or five parsec level." Could the SW quote be an allusion to FP? --Harry... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 2 JUL 1980 0552-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #2 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 2 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 2 Today's Topics: Physics Imaginary - MT, Movies - Ratings & TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 July 1980 2226-EDT (Tuesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: Matter Transmission hmmm, it seems to me that irrelevant of whether or not you send the matter or just the info, you have to worry about how to insure the data gets there...if you consider that sending something will take lots of energy, sending (for instance) parity and correction will take lots more...then you still have problems with that random radiation from nearby suns etc...EXCEPT...(and I will probably be corrected if this is wrong, but) why not use neutrino's...the people who are looking for them don't seem to be able to find very many of them, so there is not much of a problem due to background pollution, and since they seem to have no problems passing through most objects there would be not much of an interference problem either... now to solve to energy requirements...if you could somehow record the state info about the object in question whilst simultaneously converting it to energy, which could then be used either as the message itself, or to power the message sending device...hmmm... Doug ------------------------------ Date: 1 July 1980 01:25-PDT From: Lasater at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Reference on matter transmission I won't give my two cents worth (if it is that valuable) but rather point out that Arthur C. Clarke has an EXCELLENT discussion of the subject (he calls it teleportation) in Profiles of the Future, which was issued as a revised edition in 1973 (the original came out in 1961) and should be available without much hassle. He approaches the subject from a variety of angles, including rumors of teleportation through psychic powers, or the application of will, and a description of a television as Leonardo Da Vinci might have designed it and the relationship of this design to the technology of the 15th century. He points out that any speculations about highly desired but currently imposssible devices are limited by the technology available at the time. Imagine James Clerk Maxwell conceiving of the atomic bomb. Profiles of the Future also discusses a wide variety of possible developments in the future, including a discussion on artificial intelligence which is still very relevant 20 years later. -- Robert ------------------------------ Date: 1 July 1980 11:25 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: rights of AI programs/systems And if they sentenced you for wiping the "mind" of an AI machine, would the judge suspend your sentence if you could come up with a recent enough backup tape? ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/02/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following 2 messages are the last messages in this digest. The first message discusses the movie rating system and briefly mentions an incident in Star Wars. The second message mentions a "nit" about The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 01 JUL 1980 1453-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: rating the PG's I wonder how many people will point out the allegedly common knowledge that Lucas was offered his choice of G or PG ratings for SW 4 and elected to include the shot of a sabered-off arm in the cantina to be sure of a PG rating, allegedly because everyone knows that a G is a killer for any movie not primarily targeted at subteens and the Bible Belt? As far as I'm concerned, the problem is not the exact definition of the ratings but their existence, which represents a surrender to the forces of censorship that should have died with the Hays Office. The current system was not intended to fall into the divisions we now see but the hangovers from the 50's into the mid-60's (when the rating system was introduced--and some of them, like Jack Valenti, are still hanging over) made it that way. (If any of you are still uncertain after that blast about my opinion of censors, especially when disguised under such titles as Network VP for Standards, see Ben Bova's THE STARCROSSED, a howlingly funny, thinly-fictionalized version of the processes by which Harlan Ellison's brainchild, THE STARLOST, was turned into perhaps the worst piece of SF ever put on the boob tube.) The current rating system works something like this: everything from LITTLE MURDERS to the latest Russ Myers gets an R, only the rawest material is stuck with an X (including some items of far less salaciousness than Myers, such as LAST TANGO IN PARIS) (thus making X a killer rating --- even FLESH GORDON wiggled and squeezed and cut 13 minutes (roughly) to get an R after its first release), PG is the dump, and G is almost exclusively restricted to Disney and similar inanities --- the hypersensitivity of the early raters meant that only something with Disney's squeaky cleanness could get a G, and by the time the standards relaxed the prime market (adolescents) had concluded that G was only for squares, and the marketing "experts" that run too much of everything now followed suit. In England they have a system with similar markers, except that they are called U(nlimited), A, AA, and X (AA limited to 14 and over, A for 5 and over --- the book of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL has an amusing letter concerning the process of getting an AA changed to an A by deleting certain obscenities while trying to maintain the more startling or colorful ones); the system is applied with somewhat less slippage into the middle categories (Russ Myers' latest, here R, are rated X while SW 4 was rated U). It is ironically amusing to me that two of our four ratings have become essentially useless, especially with all of the election-year editorializing about the candidates trying to occupy the center (and a scathing article in the latest SATURDAY REVIEW about the process of creating a TV show with no fragment of excellence but an absolutely minimal level of objectionability (at least to the average viewer)). What we have here, in fact, is rating inflation (the academics among you may now snicker that someone else has their "problem"). Well, not quite; grade inflation usually is entirely towards one end (today's B+, it is alleged, would have been a C- or worse ten years ago) while the rating inflation has moved toward the center -- but then, school grades are one of the few scales in which it is still desirable to occupy an end rather than the center. The M.I.T. TECH recently proposed a solution which I think would also work here, with suitable modifications; given that all these unworthy people (it says here) are now getting A's, let us subdivide the grade system into A1, A2, A3, A4, A5; the A's, being observably superfluous, can shortly be dropped, leaving us a reverse numerical grading system (which may confuse the hell out of people, since the only other 1-5 scale is the Advance Placement exams (on which 5 is best), but so what). When inflation again overtakes the grading system, with many undeserved 1's, the system is again subdivided into 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, and in no time we're back where we started (or \you're/ back where \you/ started; having taught SF last summer, I'm quite sure that I'll never make a profession of traditional pedagogy, and I have similar doubts about becoming a student again). The alternate, which I think would be a much better system (and is therefore virtually certain never to come about), is to go to a twin system. All of us right-thinking liberals (or nattering nabobs of negativism, if you don't consider yourself an RTL) hold (in distinct disagreement with at least the early raters) that violence is at least as offensive as sex; thus films should be rated independently for both factors, with at least four divisions in each scale. (You want an even number of divisions because otherwise there will be an excessive tendency to clumping in the middle division; there might also be some sort of normalizing requirement, i.e. the board would be juggled until it produced roughly an equal number of assignments to each division from a year's worth of films.) How to represent this twin scale is another matter, though my vote goes for some sort of multiple symbol (like restaurant or movie quality ratings), awkward as that might be, because it gets away from the tyranny of words to a supposedly smooth scale. What should the symbols be? Well, at first thought, the violence could be rated at 1-3 or 1-5 dripping daggers (or maybe clubs, given the lack of subtlety in today's flicks) with a dove or flower or a picture of Bambi (if the rights are available) to indicate a totally peaceful flick, while the sex could be rated 1-3 or 1-5 nipples, with Jack Armstrong or a cow in a bra to indicate no overt offensiveness. Anyone who says this is impossible underrates the ingenuity of the average newspaper publisher; even the lowly above-mentioned TECH was using for some time an inverse rating system in which a film was rated from 5 to 1 turkeys while a terrific film got a no-turkeys sign (turkey overlaid with circle and bar dexter, the international traffic negation symbol). I think they finally gave it up when too many theaters protested. ------------------------------ ACW@MIT-AI 07/01/80 14:01:04 Re: TESB bug. Dear friends, in each of our hearts there lurks the soul of a nitpicker. Not to be outdone, I have a small nit to pick with TESB. When Han is about to be "carbon-frozen" (whatever that means) his hands have been tied in front of him. But when Han Solid emerges from the freezing chamber, his hands are held up to about shoulder level. We were distracted by the Romantic Dialogue, but you didn't expect to slip that one by us forever, did you? ---Wechsler P. S. During the ground battle, there were little bipedal walkers scurrying around (not people, but machines). They looked pretty useless. What were they? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 3 JUL 1980 0507-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #3 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 3 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 3 Today's Topics: TZFF Short Subjects, SF Books - Dragon's Egg, Physics Imaginary - MT, SF Movies - Ratings & TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Jul 1980 1352-PDT (Wednesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: TZFF - short subjects Special Announcement Regarding TZFF ... SHORT SUBJECTS I have arranged for several short subjects to be shown at the TZFF. These include: 1) HARDWARE WARS -- the classic satire of "Star Wars" with kitchen utensils. 2) POWERS OF TEN -- explore the universe via 24 powers of 10. 3) KICK ME -- a rather bizarre animated short. Hope these will make the TZFF even more enjoyable for all. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 02 Jul 1980 0742-PDT From: James P. McGrath Subject: Nits picked from DRAGON'S EGG I just got around to reading DRAGON'S EGG. It is probably one of the best hard science fiction novels I've ever read. I thought the human characterization was weak in places (not enough introspection, lack of diversity of characters), but clearly Bob knows about the scientific establishment! Actually, I thought that the alien characters were better drawn. But there is a nit to pick, which I do not believe I have seem mentioned in SFL. With a very high gauss field, not to mention the dense atmosphere, would not there be some strange optical effects? The atmosphere should make for strange refraction patterns, similar to those on Venus, where the horizon curves UP into the sky. And the high gauss EM field should make optical effects dependent upon the direction you are observing them. If this is correct, then the optics practiced on the DRAGON'S EGG must be far more complicated than were presented in the book. The only real mention I recall of strange optics were those at the poles, which were attributed to relativity. Are they the EM effects mentioned above? Or were they effects due to the high gravity (acceleration) at the surface? (I believe the distinction here is between the special and the general realitivity effects). ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1980 2211-PDT From: Mike Peeler (MDP at SAIL) Subject: Teleportation The ideal teleporter moves things from place to place instantaneously. Now, about the best we can hope for is to beam things at the speed of light, which takes a certain amount of time. We can do this in two ways: we can either beam the matter itself, or we can beam a representation of it. On second thought, these two ways do not seem to be very different after all. Because matter cannot travel at the speed of light, we have to convert the mass to energy and then back again. This amounts to encoding and decoding it. Yet, one kind of transporter produces a copy of the original object, and even if we destroy one of them we still have two objects at one point, whereas another kind of transporter destroys the original in the process of sending it. I am not sure whether I would be appalled at or consoled by having a backup copy of me! Even if we always have only one object, though, there is no way to make sure that the matter received is precisely the same matter as we sent. (``Sure it looks like him and acts like him, but is it really him?'') Like particles cannot be distinguished. If two identical particles collide, we cannot tell which ends up going which way; we cannot even be sure that we end up with the same particles we started out with. Nonetheless, we can still profit from the distinction as separating different approaches to the problem. When we encode something, there are lots of ways we can go about it. There are straightforward codes and there are tricky ones, some abbreviate a lot and some only a little, some codes lose information (which would have to be reconstructed) and some are highly redundant. In fact, it is misleading to think of any encoding as sending \the/ information, because there is an infinite variety of representations. However, some teleportation systems might concentrate on extracting only certain ``pertinent'' information, while others would collect it all indiscriminately. This corresponds roughly to the distinction between digital and analog. Possible advantages of digitizing include saving space that would be taken up by ``irrelevant'' information, and having great flexibility to manipulate and alter the data in precise ways. On the other hand, information can often be packaged more compactly in analog form than in digital, and usually some natural mechanism makes the analog device easier to perfect than the digital device. In the case of teleporting people, I would prefer to be as inflexible as possible. I want to always end up exactly the same as I started out, or at least to the extent that I feel no threat to my identity. We do not yet know what is the ``pertinent'' part of a person, and I want to take as little chance as possible of omitting some insignificant detail that sparks me to be me. It is that feeling of continuity as an entity, me, that keeps my private universe from flickering out, and it is the only thing that tempers the inevitable nothingness of nonexistence for me. You know, I don't think I'm quite ready to try out that there transporter just yet, however it works. (MDP CDR) ------------------------------ KED@MIT-MC 07/02/80 12:25:22 Enough of this information transfer proposal!! Time to do a little physics and a little math. The body consists of about 10^28 particles. It is actualy more, but i am kind today. The position of each particle will have to be specified to at least 10 significant digits, as well as the momentum. That is 10 digits in base ten of course. Anyway, about 10^30 bits of information have to be sent, at the bare minimum. Does anybody have a proposal for a system that can do that? Of course not! Enough said? ------------------------------ Date: 2 JUL 1980 1055-PDT From: AYERS at PARC-MAXC Subject: Movies and 'X' Ratings I wasn't going to get into this one, but I've got to mention that an interview with Valenti appeared a while back in which he said that the movie Clockwork Orange got its 'X' for the sex, NOT the violence!!! ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1980 11:22 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: movie ratings Indeed, a local paper here also uses pictures of turkeys. I would like to see a rating system for different elements too (e.g., sex, violence, whatever) 'cause I have no desire whatsoever to see something that's going to make me sick every time I think of it for the next six months. A short huzzah for the San Jose Mercury News, which publishes a movie guide periodically and, in addition to the ratings, indicates WHY the rating was assigned. Karen ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/03/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jul 1980 1008-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: TESB problems: scale & aim Particularly annoying scale problem: the Millenium Falcon swooping up from under a huge cloud, nearly as big as the cloud, when we know how big it's supposed to be from close up: the size of a small house. Aim: studies done by the Army Medical Corps during and after WW II showed that American soldiers didn't take three quarters of their opportunities to fire their guns (not artillery, their own rifles and handguns) at the enemy when they had him in their sights. I've read speculation that this reflects our populist tradition, and really shows how good-hearted the American boy truly is. (I paraphrase.) One thing our war in Viet-Nam provided us was a proving ground for new methods of training, and the Army now proudly boasts that they can turn out a soldier who will fire at the enemy at least two thirds of the time. Yay. But my original point wasn't that they did or didn't fire; it was that no one seems able to hit anything important ... and with recoilless weapons, even! ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1980 10:55 am PDT (Wednesday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: TESB bug No fair creating your own nits just so you can pick them! So what if Han's hands are tied in front of him? He can still raise them up (together) in a vain attempt to ward off his doom. It's not as if his hands were separated when he emerged. Sheesh! Go pick another nit! -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 1980 at 2221-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB Transcription ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ We weren't ignoring MJL at MIT-MC's request for the text of the roll-up at the beginning of SW-5, but I only got it recorded Sat. nite, to augment the audio tape of the sound track which the "Texas Consortium" IS in the process of transcribing. Already, the duel scenes, when studied in detail, have raised a conundrum to add to the "What's the other hope?", "IS Vader Luke's father?" and "How will the romantic triangle be resolved?" questions. This new question, for pondering on by those of you who go to see TESB before I get the relevant scenes fully described, is-- WHY DOES VADER MAKE SUCH A CAT-AND-MOUSE GAME OF THE DUEL? Repeatedly he "disappears", Luke goes looking for him, and he reappears from (usually?) behind Luke, to re-engage in the duel. More details on this point, another time. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 4 JUL 1980 0547-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #4 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 4 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 4 Today's Topics: Physics Imaginary - MT, SF Movies - TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Jul 1980 0630-PDT From: Zellich at OFFICE-1 Subject: Teleportation/Information Transfer Yeah, of course we can't send 10^30 bits NOW, and the exact method of transmitting it quickly enough, and with less energy expenditure than the output of a sun or two doesn't exist NOW, but we ARE talking about the *future* and about *fiction* [ and remember never to let the facts stand in the way of a good story... ] How about the possibility that you might NOT want to reassemble in exactly the same way on receipt? If one wants a nose job, one could perhaps go to the friendly local plastic/information surgeon and step in and out of the surgeon's special-purpose MT, with the nose particles rearranged just as desired... ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 1980 1229-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: more on matter transmission No, it's not clear that you would need to send ten to the thirtieth bits to transmit a human being. The uncertainty principle would prevent you from knowing the positions and velocities of all the particles in the body to ten places in any case. Human bodies are pretty much the same from one example to the next, and a handy code already exists for describing them in the form of DNA. Add a few megabits for tans, scars, moustaches etc. and you're all set. Transmitting the contents of the brain probably requires sending the state of every synapse in it, of which there are ten to the fourteenth, give or take an order of magnitude. Sending this to Alpha Centauri with an Arceibo sized antenna on both ends at 3 GHz with a signal to noise ratio of 1, and with only the galactic background noise to contend with requires about fifty trillion joules, which isn't too bad. That's about 14 hours output of your average billion watt power plant. Sort of rules out commuting, though. ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 07/03/80 19:50:55 Re: Matter transmitters In response to KED: so every time you walk across a room, you have transmitted 10^30 bits of information. Yes, it is impractical to send people in the form of information down a 9600 baud phone line, but the theoretical limits of information transfer rate, since we are hardly setting ANY such limits on ourselves in a general discussion of teleporters, is nothing like that. The previous letter in yesterday's SF-Lovers said "the speed of light is the best we can hope to do" in the first paragraph, but then somehow started assuming in the second paragraph that ANY matter transmitter must transmit at the speed of light. Why set this restriction? I assume that our working definition of a teleporter or matter transmitter is simply "anything that acts like the devices that generally get called that in SF books", rather than more technical definitions involving "no transmission of non-zero-rest-mass particles is allowed". Arguments based on unjustified assumptions are never very convincing. ------------------------------ Date: 2 July 1980 1822-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: MT There is one form of MT I did not see discussed in the last few issues, which is the actual transfer of the matter, rather than information. Many stories are either explicit about this ("Dimensional gates" of various sorts; the first one I recall like this was Heinlein's "Tunnel in the Sky") and even more just have it as an underlying assumption ... which may or may not be relevant to the story. It does have the advantage of eliminating all those nasty problems, such as bandwidth, redundancy, "soul", and what to do with the original... joe ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1980 0220 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Matter transmission - some relevant references Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, available in the SF Hall of Fame V2B Algis Budrys' story "Rogue Moon" deals with the philosophical problems and psychological consequences of a deliberate use of an informational matter transmitting aparatus to duplicate people. It is a profound and unsettling oeuvre; highly recommended to all those who have not read it already. -- KGH All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven I'm surprised no one has mentioned it to date, but I think Larry Niven has probably said most of what there is to be said about MT. In "All the Myriad Ways" he has an article about it, and in many of his short stories it is a central feature (c.f. the floating riot clubs, the new types of murders, etc.) -- Jim "One Way from New York" by Lee Robinson (short story), available in Analog (July 1979) A horrible description in a couple recent stories (I think in ASF, but perhaps Galaxy or IASFM), the "originals" are in fact "murdered" once the copy is known to have successfully arrived and the MT people keep this fact a deep secret. One story is based on this sticky metaphysical issue: one of the attendants develops a conscience which tells him that this is indeed murder, and...well, I don't want to generate a spoiler. -- Joe The Complete Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith (collection) This message is really to recommend 'Venus Equilateral' by George O. Smith, which is about a group of engineers who spend most of their time drinking and designing things on tablecloths. There are a couple of stories in the book about matter transmitters and their consequences. One idea is that one can record an object on something like a disk of metal; bars would keep a record collection of vintage scotch etc... The economy falls apart until the good guys invent some stuff that blows up when you try to scan it. -- Larry "There is a Crooked Man" by Jack Wodhams (short story), available in Analog (Feb 67) and Analog 7 The replication of people by MT devices is a frequent story line. One such story is "There is a Crooked Man" by Jack Wodhams (Analog, Feb 67, reprinted in Analog 7) but the incident is a minor one in one of many scenarios of the story. -- Joe Here's the Plot, What's the Title? Also, what was the name of that fine story about the aliens who tried to ruin the Earth's economy by introducing duplicators? The protagonist is a department store manager who adapts to the new conditions by noon. -- Larry ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/04/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 1980 2121-PDT From: Yeager at SUMEX-AIM Subject: TESB Some immediate impressions after seeing TESB for the second time: 1. Darth Vader is NOT Luke's father. I think that OBK and Yoda both knew that Luke would not complete his initial training but that they wanted to teach him as much as possible so that he would be able to avoid being turned to the dark side of the force. The cave scene where Luke saw his own image inside of DV's helmet simply said that Luke was very vulnerable to the dark side of the force. 2. Leia is the other. It simply "feels" like the best way for things to work out. I think both she and Luke will return to Yoda and complete their respective Jedi training. She was tortured and apparently (as someone mentioned) not particularly affected by it. Not only does she sense Luke is in distress near the end of the film, but knows just where he is...a bit more than a hunch. 3. There were at least 4 women on the ice planet. 4. The gunsights had some numeric code on the left side and glyphs on the right that could be alien. Some sort of fallout like shelter was marked with apparently alien writing (I think these were mentioned before). ----- Not very new observations for sure, but I don't think everything is as mysterious as we'd like to believe. ------------------------------ JWP@MIT-MC 07/04/80 00:30:35 Re: Nitpicking TESB If ACW was looking close enough instead of being distracted by "the romance", he would have seen that a guard took off the handcuffs before Han was put into the chamber. The glimpse of the guard was very brief and hard to see. I thought the same thing after seeing TESB for my first time, but looked for it my second and saw the guard. Sorry ACW, -JWP- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 1980 (Thursday) 1119-EST From: DYER at NBS-10 Subject: TESB - 'Cat and Mouse Duel' It would not have been as exciting to see Vader walk up to Luke, flick on his lightsaber, say "Hi, son!", and then lop off Luke's hand [or whatever]. Personally I thought that, next to the 'Freezing scene', the duel between Vader & Luke was one of the best parts of the Movie. The Cat & Mouse business was A) a lead into the scene in which Luke discovers the 'truth' [DON'T give me a hard time about that!] about his father, and B) exciting to the audience. Admit it, how many of you were on the edges of your seats (figurtively, anyway...) during that scene the first time you saw TESB? By the by, I am sure that we have all had enough of this "I've got a new candidate for 'the other hope'", and the "Who is Luke's father, \really/" stuff. Face it; George Lucas can do anything he damn well pleases. Who says that Lucas has to do something sensible? Its his universe.... I would be dissapointed if SW6 were to be completely dependent on the sort of plot twists that are in SW5. I think that discovering that "person-x is person-y's father, but is also person-z's clone of a clone of a . . ." belongs in normal daytime soap opera, and not in megadollar motion pictures. -lmd ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 5 JUL 1980 0526-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #5 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 5 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: Physics Imaginary - MT, SF Movies - Ratings & TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 JUL 1980 0828-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: WATTS PER BIT. In a little side issue on matter transmission: How much energy is the theoretical minimum needed to send a bit of information? I have a U.S. patent on a device that seems to indicate that there is no minimum, but I know better than to expect that Mother Nature will allow me to get away with it. The basic idea is an extreme form of pulse position modulation. The transmitter sends two very short pulses separated by a good fraction of an hour (1000 seconds). The receiver measures the time interval between the two pulses in nanoseconds (or picoseconds if the pulses are sharp enough), then converts that number of 10^12 or 10^15 into its binary representation, then reads the number as if it were a message. Anyone out there know of some good reference as to a theoretical minimum for the number of watts per bit? Bob Forward ------------------------------ Date: 2 July 1980 0138-EDT (Wednesday) From: Mike Inners at CMU-10A (C621MI10) Subject: Matter Transmission There are a number of methods of matter transmission I can think of (plausible methods, not known methods!): 1) Transportation of the object (or more likely, the space containing the object), exchanging it with the space at the target. Would probably require equipment at both ends. Sort of a 'cut and paste' method... 2) Transmission of the information needed to construct the original, with or without destroying the original, and using a source of energy at the destination to construct a copy. No matter how you handle this one, it will be a matter duplicator. Even if you destroy the original, there is nothing to prevent the receiver from storing the information and churning out duplicates as long as energy is available, perhaps without the knowlege of the transmitter. Imagine someone 'pirating' a copy of YOU by tapping into a signal you are beaming along... 3) Conversion of an object into energy (directly) and transmitting the energy to a receiver which reconstructs the matter. Has the important advantage of not requiring a large power source at the receiver, but avoiding signal attenuation would be a big problem. (Can you imagine what would happen of you lost even 1 atom in a million? A good number (most) of your DNA chains would have defects or breaks...) Especially convenient if the breakdown of the original can be used to modulate the outgoing energy so as to provide the necessary direction for reassembly. Any method of matter transmission would have to overcome the problem of errors in transmission. The number of bits required to describe even a small molecule, including electronic, nuclear, vibrational, and rotational states. If you are going to move a living organism, and don't want to poison it, you need to make sure that reactions in progress aren't disrupted. Cargo probably wouldn't suffer more than a bit of radioactivity if you don't transmit the nuclear state. Cut and pasting probably has the fewest unpleasant side effects and smallest problem with noise, but I can't see a basis in current physical theory for doing it. -- Mike ------------------------------ DMM@MIT-ML 07/04/80 15:09:49 RE: Movie Ratings... Then there's the rating system used in Dallas...The Dallas film board assigns their own rating in addition to the usual G,PG,R, or X. This consists of either "Suitable for all audiences", "Not suitable", or, "Suitable with exceptions: S,L,V,D,N, and/or P" which stand for Sex, Language, Violence, Drugs, Nudity, and Perverse Behavior. (Let's hear it for Perverse Behavior!) These are generally used only on PG films, as all R films seem to get an automatic "Not Suitable", and G's seem to always get "Suitable". Of course, some films seem to get Suitable with exceptions SLVDNP, which doesn't seem that different from "Not suitable". Of course, it's still not as bad as the good old Legion of Decency Ratings... ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/05/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jul 1980 2342-EDT From: Saul Jaffe Subject: Origin of Dagobah A friend of mine and I uncovered an interesting piece of trivia the other day while reading a passage from Arthur C. Clarke's "View from Serendip". In the passage he mentions Buddhist shrines or "dagobas". This poses an interesting point since "dagoba" means "shrine of knowledge" and the Buddhist word "yohda" means "learned master". ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jul 1980 at 0114-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^ THE PATERNITY QUESTION: SOME TANGENTIAL DATA ^^^^^^^^^^ As I have said earlier, \intellectually/, I can't accept Vader's paternity, but the emotional impact of the relevant lines as spoken by Jones and Hamill is so strong that I fear it is probably true. (Dave Prowse, according to My Friend The Ultimate SW Fan, thinks it's true. So does she.) So I modified my original strongly negative position to maintain merely that whether the claim is true or just a red herring, it is a RECENT addition to the plot line. If, as we know from McQuarrie's early drawings, Luke's role was originally that of a girl, Lucas is capable of making VERY great changes as he goes along. I have just now come across some support for my "recency" hypothesis. The idea for raising the paternity issue occurred somewhere between Leigh Brackett's initial outline of the TESB plot and 4th draft of the shooting script. None of the relevant lines (the claim itself or the "Son...", "Father..." interchange) are in our 4th draft script, but where the claim should be is a unique note to the effect that further dialogue is to be added at that point. That the paternity issue post-dates Brackett's original outline comes from Bill Warren's film news columns in FANTASY NEWSLETTER #25 & #26, June & July, 1980. He had been employed by the executors of Brackett's estate to sort and catalogue her papers, in the process of which he came across that outline. There was nothing at all in it about the paternity--he was as surprised as anybody when he saw it in the film! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SCENES LEFT OUT OF TESB ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Further from Bill Williams' July FANTASY NEWSLETTER film news column: In Leigh Brackett's outline were scenes of "Luke riding to the rescue of Han and Leia on the back of a flying manta ray-like creature, and a glimpse of Darth Vader's palace -- black iron in a sea of lava. ... Some scenes that were shot but left out of the movie included more action with the ice monsters. ... Apparently the snow monster suits didn't work very well.... Also, ... a couple of semi-romantic scenes between Luke and Leia, and her line commenting on how Luke looks almost the same after the damage done to his face by the snow monster -- which was to explain the fact that Mark Hamill actually \does/ look different than he did in the first movie." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "BIPEDAL" WALKERS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Have you ever SEEN a chicken running around with its head cut off? It DOES happen. It was a clever touch, I thought, to have that portion of dismembered Walker scuttle around as mindlessly as the proverbial chicken. (Presumably there were separate and independent motors for the front and back pairs of legs, sort of like 4-wheel drive on a Terran vehicle, to make them as adaptable as their alternate name implied -- All Terrain Armored Transport.) ------------------------------ Date: 1 July 1980 2232-EDT (Tuesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: reference of other works in TESB sometime later in the movie, when C3PO was in the 'con' of the MF and Chewie was there, though I don't know if anyone one else was as C3PO was leaving I thought I heard him say: What do you expect from an overgrown Muppet though I can't be sure if the last word was Puppet or Muppet since it was said very softly... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 6 JUL 1980 0723-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #6 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 6 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 6 Today's Topics: Physics Imaginary - MT, SF Books - Tech Development Query & Misc Responses, SF Movies - Blues Brothers & Airplane & TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DERWAY@MIT-AI 07/05/80 06:53:45 Re: Matter Transmission. Does anyone remember the MAD magazine satire of Star Trek? At one point they seem to be having troubles with the transporter, and when Kirk beams down, he ends up grossly rearranged; his face is where he normally sits. I don't remember where the appendage that is normally there was. "You'd better get that transporter fixed soon, Scotty. My face is getting a tremendous urge to sit down." Can we achieve immortality this way? Well of a rather limited variety. You could protect yourself against accidental death by making a recording of yourself each night. (See Varley's story "The Phantom of Kansas" in his collection THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION, for a treatment of this idea, though it is achieved through memory recording, and cloning). If you keep backup copies, when you get cancer or something, the doctor could back you up to where it is curable, or maybe even to before you came in contact with whatever caused the disease. And finally, when you get real old, you can back up to 24 years old, or whenever and start all over, but of course, you don't get all that experience that you had accumulated in the last body. Oh well. ------------------------------ STEVEH@MIT-MC 07/05/80 18:15:39 Re: Matter Transmission I find it interesting to read all of the hubbub about the feasibility of matter transmission. Many people say that it denies all physical laws, etc. I can point out that there are more than a few points of history that "knew" all of the physical laws, but Ma Nature keeps throwing in quirks and quarks to teach her children manners. This is a SF mailing list and it appalls me to see such inflexibility. Instead of showing each other how this thing can never happen, I would have expected more from this audience. Something along the line of, "If it is to work, we must solve the problem". An awful lot of progress has come about because we didn't let our "knowledge" that something isn't possible get in our way. I'm getting dizzy from being on my high horse so long, so on to better things. Steve ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1980 0722-EDT From: JoSH Subject: telep> >ortation If matter transmitters work by breaking down/analysing an object and having it built up again at the other end, I personally wouldn't ride in one of them. Trusting your life to something that had to be that complex and handle that much power would be like putting the national defense and the administration of justice in the hands of the federal government. I agree that there wouldn't be much difference in trans- mitting the actual mass as energy and transmitting all the information -- remember Maxwell's Demon (ie its information-theoretic solution). The only rationale I can think of for matter transmission that strikes my admittedly arbitrary fancy is "tunnelling" -- although how one would go about it remains obscure. Presumably one induces all the subatomic particles in the object to tunnel coherently to the destination ("tunnel coherently?" well...). Unless you can assume that this is doable by some kind of catalyst effect, the amount of power (not to mention information-handling capability) implied by the feat completely blows away all the "peripheral technology" I've seen in any story. That pushes one of my buttons: coherency of technology, and the fact that few sf writers seem able to grasp any idea of technological development. This century has seen the crossover point where the physical power available to a person via technology surpassed that of his body (at least, on the average and in this country). I imagine the next will see a similar crossover with respect to information handling ability. What happens when you put orders of magnitude into the equation? Request: stories with a coherent sense of technological development, particularly as impacts the individual. Examples: The City and The Stars by Clarke; (negative example: Childhood's End, by Clarke, though as a rule Clarke is the sort of thing I'm looking for;) The Last Question by Asimov (yes. although the "point" of the story is a semantic pun, IA had to draw a sketch of technological development from here to the ultimate in order to make it); the "bridges rusting" stories by Niven are in the vein, although they focus closely on (surprise) the transfer booth. More as I think of them... --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 5 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: More Responses to the Bibliography Queries Computers in SF: ---------------- The Mightiest Machine by John Campbell John Campbell wrote a book about a machine that came and created a utopia on earth ( very bad situation ). The book was called "The Mightiest Machine". -- Steve Imaginary Books: Date: 24 Jun 1980 1220-EDT ---------------- Jack Vance makes good use of non-existent text books to give overviews of worlds he has created. -- Steve PSI with hints of genetic engineering: -------------------------------------- Cat's Eye by Andre Norton Andre Norton's "Cat's Eye" deals with the hero's ability to communicate telepathically with specially bred and imported terran animals (two cats, a kinkajou, and two foxes). The animals are telepathic and very intelligent...perfect for espionage...except that they are a bit too intelligent for human comfort... -- Haruka Takano SF Stories referencing SF: -------------------------- The Silver Eggheads by Fritz Leiber I just recalled this morning that in the book "The Silver Eggheads," by Fritz Leiber, there exists a large population of robots, co-working among the humans. Just as the humans had saints, so did the robots. Among them were Saint Isaac and Saint Eando. A nice enough way to refer to past masters in robotic development. -- ------------------------------ Date: 5 July 1980 06:13-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: FRANK OZ and THE BLUES BROTHERS I noticed in the credits that Frank Oz played a character in this film (as did Carrie Fisher), is this the same Frank Oz of YODA/Muppet fame? For you satirists...I recommend AIRPLANE...it is a crazy take-off (pardon the pun) on the AIRPORT disaster films. I know it isn't SF but I couldn't help myself! I will try to control myself next time. The "Force" just wasn't with me. ---Bill ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/06/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 1980 at 0436-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ PRINTED ENGLISH WORDS IN SW-4 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "POWER" and "TRACTOR BEAM" appear on the gauges where Obi-Wan turns off what's holding the Millennium Falcon. ------------------------------ Date: 2 July 1980 02:29 edt From: SALawrence at MIT-Multics (STEVE at SAI-Prime) Subject: Powerful Jedi => Immunity from Temptation?? Nonsense. First of all, Lucas is not a total illiterate, and hence he must have read the Lord of the Rings. Hence, he knows (Tolkien said so, so it's true) that the more powerful the character is, the greater is his peril when dealing with the dark forces (or dark side of the force -- it was all the same force in Tolkien as well, I point out, though this was made less obvious). Second, it only makes sense. The more powerful the character is, the larger his rewards would be were he to become corrupted. Hence, even though he (presumably) becomes more resistant to temptation as he becomes more powerful and mature, the temptations he is faced with grow to match, and more than match, his resistance. Third, it's too useful a hook to hang plot twists on. Though I strongly doubt that we'll see a powerful character (such as Yoda) become corrupted in SW6, that possibility, even if never articulated, provides a perfect rationalization for keeping the big guns in the rear. Thus, Yoda \cannot/ "kick ass", as has been proposed on this list occasionally; the risk, save as an ultimate last resort, would be far too great. If Yoda were to be corrupted, there'd go the whole ball of wax. He'd make the Emporer look like a piker. Fourth, Yoda has already pointed this out. When he said the Force must only be used for defense, he was not just banging his gums. While the rule can be bent, characters who break it with impunity do so only at their peril -- that way lies darkness, the more so as the character can use the force more powerfully. As a last point, I'd like it to go on record that Vader is obviously Luke's father. Remember, the correct background here is not Greek tragedy, but rather Marvel comic books. They have traditions of their own. In this case, if one throws in a real shocker of a line at the end of one episode, one does not casually refute it in the next episode; the relationship may turn out to be something we wouldn't call "father-son", but to simply claim Vader was lying would be gross cheating on Lucas's part. We won't see that. And second, there is a tradition in comic books of ambiguous heroes and villains who have children who become heroes. The latter don't always know it, and when they find out it's a shock; the idea that the greatest character in the story is the son of the most wicked villain is certainly not new to Lucas. Nor, I should add, is the need to stretch some of the earlier occurences a bit to make later ideas fit. I'd also explain why I very much doubt we could see Vader reform before the end of SW9, but this has already grown much too long. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 7 JUL 1980 0640-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #6 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 7 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 7 Today's Topics: SF Books - Futurians & Covenant & Cure for Cancer, Alien Intelligence - Influence on Human History, Physics Imaginary - MT, SF Movies - TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Jul 1980 1309-EDT From: CCIS.ZEVE at RUTGERS Has anyone read (or am i just late in reading it) "the Futurians" by Damon Knight? Also for the fantasy lovers, I noticed that Stephen Donaldson has a new Thomas Covenant story out, entitled "The Wounded Land". steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 6 July 1980 18:30-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: INFO ON "CURE FOR CANCER" WANTED Could someone comment on what they thought of this book by Michael Moorcock? If there are comments in previous SF-LOVERS editions, could you direct me to those editions? Thanks --Bill [ This book has not been reviewed in SF-LOVERS as yet. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 1980 at 1134-PDT From: chesley at SRI-UNIX Subject: Ancient astronauts While considering the idea that the Easter Island statues were made by "ancient astronauts" (an idea I don't really take at all seriously), it occured to me that they were probably made by intergalactic forgers, who were attempting to forge an existing work of art. Of course, it took them a few tries, and they left the unsuccessfull attempts behind. Being lazy forgers, they most likely got the locals to do the work, which is why the Easter Island inhabitants still know how to make the statues. Has anyone else noticed the influence of extraterrestrial bad-guys on human history? Or any other influence, for that matter (is the Bermuda Triangle a space warp into the galactic zoo?). ------------------------------ Date: 6 JUL 1980 2301-EDT From: RWK at MIT-MC (Robert W. Kerns) Subject: Watts per bit It would seem from your two-pulse method that a lower-limit on the amount of power per bit would imply either a limit to our ability to measure large time intervals accurately (sort of a time-scale uncertainty principle (if you know what time it is, you must be lost?)) or that it must take energy to transmit nothing for an adequately long period of time. Perhaps one limit would be where the probability of a noise spike during the interval of interest becomes significant. But perhaps this could be made as low as necessary by replacing a single pulse with a specific sequence of pulses, thus adding redundancy and noise immunity beyond the additional cost in energy. That sounds like an interesting patent. What is the patent number? Philosophically speaking, I don't see any reason why transfer of information should require more than the transfer of one SOMETHING per transfer. If the SOMETHING can be massless and energyless, then so could be your transfer. Absorbing and encoding information from/for transfer both probably have some minimun, however. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 1980 1309-EDT From: CCIS.ZEVE at RUTGERS Matter transmission, if it ever comes, will most likely rely on a completely new way of looking at things. Our current scientific background is not sufficient for it. ------------------------------ Date: 6 July 1980 08:11-EDT From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: Tunneling as "MT" Since it was mentioned...several years ago I worked with a quite sane genius, although you might not believe that after you read what I am about to tell you. He was about 22 or so at the time and had obtained a dual bachelors degree in math and physics and has since gone on directly to his PhD in nuclear physics. He had this idea that you can bring up the tunneling effect to a large enough scale to transport a small spaceship as follows: Surround the ship with a very tight magnetic field to protect the ship and its occupants and help the random nature of the effect along by causing a medium fusion detonation. Since the ship in this field could not move at "normal" speeds to be propelled out of the area, he concluded that it must be tunneled to another place instantaneously. There is much more to this, but this is briefly what I can remember. There are several ramifications to this (given the hypothesis), when attempting to pop out at stellar distances, namely the navigational aspects discussed here before with regard to hyperspace drives. However, in this scheme, it would be very unlikely to pop out in a star or planet, since the nature of the effect seeks a lower potential than the one you left... At least this is no worse (and perhaps more feasible) than the methods of MT described so far. (I'd rather not be directly challenged on the physics of this as my memory is hazy on all the details. I offer this only as food for thought and discussion.) --Frank ------------------------------ JDD@MIT-ML 07/06/80 19:31:25 Re: Matter Transmission Perhaps, while we're on the subject, we can talk about representative matter transmission ``technologies'' in various SF stories. For example: On Star Trek (the TV show), it seemed to work on a more-or-less particle level: McCoy once objected to having his molecules scattered all over the universe, and bad guys (Nomad, Jack the Ripper, others?) were gotten rid of by beaming them into deep space at maximum dispersion. The sparkling effect certainly suggests things happening on a small scale. I always thought it unusual that such a transmission could take very non-zero time, especially since the transportees are conscious of their surroundings in the meanwhile. In the Motion Picture we see the problems with accidental rearrangements during the process. (Note: I've read that the only reason that the transporter was invented for Star Trek was because their budget wouldn't allow shots of the Enterprise landing and taking off on a different planet every week). The more satisfying stories I've read (sorry -- no names) involve the cut-and-paste method. The idea is that once science progresses to the point where we really \understand/ the reason an object is HERE instead of THERE, we can make the switch by twiddling the reason, not the object. In Niven's World Out of Time, though, the particle mechanism is used to support a nice side-effect. On a future Earth, stepping disks provide both transportation and continuous rejuvenation by failing to transmit molecular poisons. One of the most ridiculous matter-transmission-like stories I've read (but my name-memory is blank today) involved a scientist who solves a subway system's problem of tracks having to cross each other at multiple levels by inventing a computerized gizmo that would let trains pass through each other automagically, thereby letting all of the tracks be at the same level. One day, though, one of the trains gets stuck in the funny state and doesn't come back. Only then does everyone discover the awful truth -- that the computer was accomplishing all of this (totally unbeknownst to the inventor!) by storing digital images of the trains and reconstructing them on the opposite sides of occupied intersections. Unfortunately, its memory deteriorated with time (why?), so when they finally got the train unstuck and its occupants waddled/crept/slithered off, they sort of wish they hadn't. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/07/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 1980 0845-PDT From: Haruka Takano Subject: TESB: some first impressions. Just thought I'd throw my two cents in...having read much of this discussion BEFORE seeing the movie, I wanted to see how I would react to the issues when I actually went to see it. As a control, I took along a friend who is not a SW fan - for that matter, I'm no fanatic myself. 1.) By gut feeling, we both agreed that Vader IS Luke's father. My brother, who saw it a week earlier, and who has no knowledge of SFL, also felt that Vader spoke the truth. 2.) Leia is probably the other hope. 3.) The light sabre duel was probably the best part of the movie. As to why the cat and mouse game, consider: a.) Vader did not want to kill Luke if he could avoid it - Luke is much more valuable to him alive; b.) Vader was testing Luke on the extent of his current training as a Jedi; c.) Vader wanted to drive home the fact that he was still Luke's superior in terms of combat ability. What better way to accomplish the above than a cat and mouse game? Oh, well, none of the above is really anything new...which to me indicates that we've beaten this dead horse to a pulp already...how about getting on to other topics? Haruka ------------------------------ Date: 2 July 1980 14:30-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: TESB Bugs 1) Has anyone out there wondered how Luke finds Yoda? I've heard lots of people complaining that it was kind of contrived for Luke to land within 20 feet of Yoda, but I've yet to hear any complaints about how Luke manages to find the *planet* so easily. Just imagine yourself in Luke's position. You're told: "Go to the system of Sol. There you will find Roger Duffey, who will add you to the SF-LOVERS mailing list." How easy would it be for you to realize that the particular planet you were looking for was Earth? 2) With all this fuss about cloning, has anyone ever considered the possibility that the reason no one seems to care about the stormtroopers is that they're all clones? Remember, all the st's seem to be the exact same size, etc. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 8 JUL 1980 0724-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #8 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 8 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 8 Today's Topics: Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, SF Books - Title/Plot & Cure for Cancer & Futurians, SF Movies - TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 07 Jul 1980 1920-PDT From: JPM at SU-AI Subject: watts per bit Bob's technique for sending a message is essentially an implementation for sending a Godel number. For a good, non-technical description of Godel number encoding of information see `The Gold at Starbow's End' by Anderson. The idea is simple: any amount of information can be encoded with a very large number whose prime factors give you the message. This means that the message is EXTREMELY compact (in the above story the ratio is roughly a savings of 5 orders of magnitude - better savings are easily attainable). However, on reception one has to compute the prime factors: a non trivial task for a such extremely large numbers. Bob's technique reduces to transmitting a Godel number by representing it as a time lapse between two spikes. The straight transmission of the number is probably a better technique. You have to transmit very slightly more information, but you do not have to worry about measurement errors when measuring the time lapse between signal peaks. Also the time spent between the peaks could be used to re-transmit the message a few times. With error correcting code the noise loss should be kept down to practically nil. So any amount of information can be TRANSMITTED with what is essentially zero power and in an extremely short time with low bandwidth. But the DECIPHERING of the message might take years... The trade-off here is clear, and I do not think that there is anyway around it, but who knows? Jim ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 1037-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: Forward's info transmission scheme Yes, this two-pulse method is an interesting way of sending information with very low energies per bit, but it does have a problem with data rates. The 10^12 number you get by timing the interval between pulses only gives you 40 bits or so, and takes 20 minutes to get. Taking this idea to the limit, if you could measure time in increments of 10^-23 seconds (about the time it takes light to cross a proton) and were willing to wait until the heat death of the universe (maybe 30 billion years on the outside) for a response, you could send some 136 bits. The energy cost would be that of two unmistakably non-noise pulses or sequences of pulses. Background noise can be made arbitrarily small by focussing your transmitted energy into an arbitrarily narrow beam. The noise induced by the receiver can be lessened by cooling it down to absolute zero, but even there the atoms are still bopped around by quantum effects. This zero-point energy probably puts the theoretical mininum on the amount of energy that you need to send in the pulse. Anybody out there know what it is? ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 1329-PDT From: Dolata at SUMEX-AIM Subject: 'cheap' data transmission About the 2-bit data transmission idea. I haven't looked carefully into the exact numbers, but; In sending the 2 bits through anything except a 'perfect' transmission medium will cause the bits to 'spread', thus ruining the timing. For any large bit capacity (10^13) a small bit of spreading would destroy the least significant bits real fast! Also, does the Heisenberg Uncertainty principal affect this? ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 6:04:45 EDT From: Dan Franklin Subject: story answer That fine story about the aliens who tried to ruin the Earth's economy by introducing duplicators (V2 #4) is "Business as Usual, During Alterations" by Ralph Williams. It can be found in Prologue to Analog, John W. Campbell, ed. (That's where I found it, anyway.) ------------------------------ DERWAY@MIT-AI 07/07/80 10:22:10 Re: A Cure for Cancer. A CURE FOR CANCER by Michael Moorcock, also available in THE CORNELIUS CHRONICLES, which includes THE FINAL PROGRAMME, THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN, and THE CONDITION OF MUZAK, is very enjoyable, but even more bizarre. I read all four a couple of months ago, and still don't know what to make of them. THE FINAL PROGRAMME, and A CURE FOR CANCER are the best ones, with THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN getting stranger still, and THE CONDITION OF MUZAK reaching heights of absurdity rarely seen by mere mortals. It is modern fantasy, (with planes, cars, guns, etc.), and all four involve the same characters, with Jerry Cornelius the hero, his brother Frank one of the baddies, and their sister Catherine the point of contention. If you like Moorcock's other works, or any of Stanislaw Lem's stuff, you'll probably enjoy it. I can't say much more without spoiling it. THE CONDITION OF MUZAK has the one redeeming feature that it explains what it's all about. If you haven't read any Moorcock before, start with the ELRIC series, which is considered one of the classics of the swords and sorcery tradition, along with the CONAN stories by Howard. Don ------------------------------ Date: 07 Jul 1980 1754-PDT From: JPM at SU-AI I found "the Futurians", by Damon Knight, a highly interesting book. In many respects I feel Pohl's `The Way the Future Was' was a better book, but this might simply be because Pohl's work is essentially auto-biographical, while Knight attempts to document the lives of many people. Both books deal with fandom, roughly during the Golden Age (although both contain material from other time periods). Many of the fans will actually become pros in times to come (as the authors themselves did). If you are interested in the history of the field from a human viewpoint (as opposed to a literary viewpoint) then I cannot recommend either book too highly. I believe both are out in paperback. ------------------------------ Date: 07 JUL 1980 1054-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: THE FUTURIANS came out something over two years ago, to very mixed reactions. I enjoyed it; it was a good, personal history without the sort of pompous idiocy that Moskowitz put into THE IMMORTAL STORM (the title alone is ridiculous, given that it's about NY fandom in the late 30's-early 40's). A lot of people complained, with some justification, that there was too much in it that could only be classified as gossip (Frederik Pohl, who was at the Boston GLOBE Book Festival the subsequent autumn ('78) to talk about SF and his autobiography (THE WAY THE FUTURE WAS), obviously didn't like the book but was careful to limit his public criticism). I thought it was fascinating just to see the kind of seethe that happened when that much raw (and I mean \raw/) creative talent was tossed together. I suppose it's also some sort of measure of how slan-like fans really are; the exclusion at the first Worldcon and the subsequent infighting have appeared repeatedly, even to the point of supposedly open-minded fans excluding an alleged pederast from the 1958 Worldcon (San Francisco; the man was gay but the evidence of child molestation can charitably be called slim). Those of you planning to go to Noreascon II can hear a panel of former Futurians (I think Knight, Pohl, Lowndes, and Dick Wilson (?) are confirmed) talking about whatever comes up, probably on Sunday afternoon. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/08/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 1980 0212-EDT From: FISCHER at RUTGERS Subject: TESB responses (again (recurse (recurse))) Some time after SW came out, David Gerrold, who wrote 'The Trouble With Tribbles' for the original ST, discussed what was wrong with SW in his editorial column in Starlog magazine. He claimed that what was needed were scenes of Luke being shown the ways of the force by Obi-wan. He visualized something like this: Luke and Obi-wan visit secluded mountain shrine. Luke recieves some training and a few lightning bolts later he becomes a full-fledged jedi. When the TESB novel came out I was suprized at how accurate Gerrold's vision was. He probably just second guessed a very logical need, but... ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 1329-PDT From: Dolata at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Luke and Dagobah As per Dagobah, the planet might not be 'real'. The similarities between Dagobah and Organia has already been poitnted out, and several times Luke comments on how 'unreal', 'dreamlike' or 'familiar' Dagobah feels to him. Yoda is powerful, but ....???? ------------------------------ Date: 07 Jul 1980 2241-PDT From: Judy Anderson Subject: TESB In response to DUFTY@MC, (about how in the nine billion names of god does Luke know where to look for Yoda), he knew the name of the system, and he DOES have a computer on board; presumably there is some sort of catalog of systems. It seems to me that they just name the system after the habitable planet in it. Of course, there may be many different definitions of "habitable"... But also his catalog of systems would list the planets of each system and what type of life they could support. Judy. ------------------------------ DERWAY@MIT-AI 07/07/80 10:06:03 Re: TESB: Finding Dagobah, and cloned Storm Troopers. It seems to me that Kenobi refered to the system, by the name of the planet of interest, so Luke could look it up, and would know it was the third (or whatever) planet in the system of M-27953. Perhaps many systems are known, (to humans), only by the planet(s) of interest to humans?? I hope the Storm Troopers aren't cloned. If they are, they should be cloned from some close to super-human warrior, and should be raised from birth to be good soldiers, but they are CRUMMY! Don ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 9 JUL 1980 0619-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #9 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 9 June 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 9 Today's Topics: SF Books - Starbow & Mightiest Machine & Covenant, Prisoner, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, SF Movies - TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Jul 1980 1155-EDT From: Moon at MIT-MC, CCIS.ZEVE at RUTGERS Subject: The Gold at the Starbow's End The Gold at the Starbow's End was written by Frederik Pohl, not Poul Anderson. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 1430-EDT From: CCIS.ZEVE at RUTGERS, DErway at MIT-AI Subject: "The Mightiest Machine" I was wrong in naming this book. It appears that the title I was looking for might actually be "The Machine Passes", Josh pointed this out to me. I will have to check up on it. -- Steve CCIS.ZEVE mentioned a book by John Cambell called "The Mightiest Machine". So far, so good, but the story has nothing to do with a computer creating a utopia on earth. The mightiest machine refers to stars, and the story revolves around a brilliant inventor who comes up with a goody which sends some sort of beam out to the nearest star, and "conducts" gross amounts of energy back to the ship, or power station or whatever. It isn't a great story, as the entire plot revolves around this inventor coming up with a new miracle every 15 pages or so, to beat the bad guys, figure out FTL flight, and inter-universal travel, etc. etc. etc. I don't know what the title of the story he described is. Oh well... -- Don ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 1980 (Tuesday) 1105-PST From: SHL at MIT-MC, Dave Smith (DWS @ LLL-MFE) Subject: Convenant Books I heard that there are 3 new Covenant books (another trilogy) and that Donaldson is trying for a trilogy of trilogies. -- $tephen There will be a reception in honour of Stephan Donaldson's new book "The Wounded Land" (with S.D. present, no less) at Books, Inc. 420 Town & Country Road, San Jose, CA (Just north of 280), on Wednesday, July 16, from 8:00 pm to ? -- Dave ------------------------------ KED@MIT-MC 07/08/80 11:01:40 Does anyone know where the show "The Prisoner" was filmed? If I remember correctly it was a hotel in Wales. I am going to Europe in December and have to visit the place! Next, Heisenberg's "Uncertainty Principle" does says something about the information transfer problem. For those with a little expertise in physics, the equation is "delta"E*"delta"t~h/(2*(pi)). That is for optimum conditions of course. For those who don't know physics, the equation says that to send information faster you have to use more energy. Be seeing you. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 2110-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: Time/Energy uncertainty There is an analogue to the uncertainty principle involving time, with the other quantity being energy. Basically, it states that the uncertainty in the measurement of the energy of something is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent measuring it. Consider the problem of measuring the energy of a photon. This is proportional to its frequency. The frequency can be measured by counting the number of cycles that occur in a given length of time. The longer the period of time, the more accurate the count, if 1 cycle is measured in 1ms, the frequency could be estimated to be 1kHz, but if the counting time is extended to 1sec, and 995 cycles are measured, then the frequency must be close to 995Hz, etc. Atomic nuclei are bound together by particles (analogous to photons, but transmitting the "strong" force) which are created and destroyed in such a short time that the energy fluctuation cannot be detected. This is also the loophole by which a black hole can radiate energy - a "virtual" positron-electron pair is created in the vicinity of the black hole. Normally they would rejoin quickly enough that the uncertainty principle covers the energy necessary for their creation. However, near a black hole, it is possible that one particle is "sucked in" and the other is not - thus the black hole appears to radiate a particle, and the energy for the electron creation does indeed come from the mass of the black hole, that being the nearest source. (Good references are Stephen Hawking's article in Scientific American a couple of years ago, and a book edited by Larry Niven, titled Black Holes, containing stories and fact articles about black holes.) -S ------------------------------ MOON@MIT-MC 07/08/80 18:35:16 Re: JPM at SU-AI's disinformation about Godel numbers Actually, Godel numbering is a technique for mapping a sequence of arbitrary sized integers into a single integer, so that arguments based on ordering and counting can be used to reason about such sequences. If one was mapping a sequence of bounded integers, e.g. a,b,c,... all less than say 128, one could use the encoding a+128*(b+128*(c+ ... )). The Godel encoding allows arbitrary sized integers to be encoded, at the expense of requiring a much larger number as the encoding. In the above example, the encoding would be (2^a)*(3^b)*(5^c)*.... It is easy to see that a Godel encoding is not orders of magnitude more compact than a stream of bits, but is in fact orders of magnitude less compact. If we have n numbers to transmit, each 0 or 1, the binary encoding is a number less than 2^n. The Godel encoding of the same n numbers is a product of some subset of the first n primes. This will be larger than 2^n most of the time if the 0's and 1's are randomly distributed, since almost all primes are greater than 4. If you put more than one bit in each exponent, the Godel encoding is an even larger number since the size of the exponents increases much faster than the size of the primes multiplied together decreases. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/09/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LPH@MIT-MC 07/08/80 07:40:04 Re: dagobah Does my memory fail me, or do I remember correctly that Luke tells R2D2 that he knows that Dagobah is not on the stellar maps? Then they wind up at Dagobah, and I conclude that this is a manifestation of the Force. Or do I have it all wrong? ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jul 1980 12:010:08 EDT From: David Mankins Subject: star wars heresies First, to jolt you all in the proper frame of mind: Star Wars is really about the US involvement in S.E. Asia, with the U.S. in the starring role as the *Galactic Empire*. (huh?) Well, its like this, you see -- here we have this mighty technological war machine unable to cope with this ill-equipped band of rebels. And the Empire keeps losing because the empire keeps waging a limited war (why not just bomb Hoth till it glowed? Sure, the rebels had energy shields -- so trap them inside their energy shield by stationing one cruiser in Hoth-synch orbit, dropping one H-Bomb every 30 minutes or so (at that rate it would take over two years to exhaust just the American stockpiles (I think, a long time, anyway) of nukes, so I'm sure the Empire can handle it))). Though its a shift in the metaphor, I think there are also LOTS of parallels between the destruction of Alderaan, a quiet, non-military, relatively defenseless planet, and Hiroshima, a quiet, non-military, relatively defenseless city, as the first excercise of new technological weapons. Anyway, my point in all this is: we really know nothing about this rebellion. Are we SURE we want these clowns to win? After all, Princess Leia doesn't seem to have dropped her title yet. Sure, Ben Kenobi is a lovable old man, I'm sure Ho CHih Minh was, too. Sure Darth Vader is a baddy, I'm sure everyone huddling in bomb-shelters in Hanoi thought the same of Walt Rostow (and later Henry Kissinger) (I've seen film clips that make Walt Rostow come off like a fatherly (hee hee) Darth Vader...) Maybe after the victory celebration the purges will start, with interstellar boat people. Now, what can YOU say about chocolate covered manhole covers? **** Star Wars glorifies War dept: Obviously. All one needs do is look at the derisive replies David@UTEXAS got when he first suggested such heresy to see how thoroughly we accept the violence and killing portrayed in Star Wars. Don't forget, in some corner of the Death Star when Luke blew it up there was an eighteen year-old draftee writing home to his girlfriend, a drill-sergeant worrying about how he's gonna cover his kid's orthodontist bill on this measly military pay, and probably hundreds of political prisoners (they have more than one prison, evidently, if the line "transfer from cell block 1138" sounded plausible enough that the officer had to confirm it). Sure, sure. "They had no choice." (after all, there were whole CIVILIZATIONS on that jungle planet (or at least ruins of them)). The point is that Lucas has contrived a situation in which there was no choice. I don't want to press this issue too hard, however, 'cause I'm not prepared to go out and make a dramatically pacifist science fiction film, just yet (mmm, The Dispossessed, maybe, or possibly The Forever War...). But after all, science fiction is a genre of *new possibilities*, and is the oldest possibility there is... **** No aliens in Star Wars, or Why do the space-ships rumble? dept: Its taken me three years (of not really thinking too hard on the subject) but I have finally contrived an explanation for the lack of aliens in Star Wars (or actually, the presence of so few). (I mean an explanation that works in the context of suspended disbelief, not the mundane one that it was just too expensive to have lots of non-humans flailing their tentacles in the background, and technically infeasible to put convincing and alien aliens in the foreground). Think of Wisconsin in 1760. Lots of indians. Not very many Frenchmen, fewer Englishmen, and rumors of Spaniards somewhere down south. So the aliens you see are the people who live on the edge (ignoring the missionaries). They are types you would expect to find as bounty hunters, or haunting a bar, or hanging around as co-pilot to an indebted smuggler who won his spaceship in a card-game. So this isn't REALLY a Galactic Empire, it just has a pretentious name, as Empires are wont to do (or at least emperors are wont to do). ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 10 JUL 1980 0439-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #10 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 10 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 10 Today's Topics: SF Books - Black Holes & Pilgrim & Covenant, Prisoner, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Jul 1980 15:03 PDT From: AQE at MIT-MC, Chapman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: The editor of the collection "Black Holes" [ SFL V2 #9 ] The editor of the collection Black Holes is Jerry Pournelle, not Larry Niven as mentioned by Thomas at UTAH-20. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 10:50 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: Here's the story and title, where's the story? I hardly ever read SF magazines, just paperbacks or hardbacks. But I picked up the August issue of Analog a few days ago and read a story called "The Cloak and the Staff" by Gordon Dickson. I would swear I read this story multi-years ago. Yet I could find no indication in the magazine that it was a reprint...... Is my mind flaking out, or is it now customary to use reprints in magazines, or is there a clone of this story somewhere? (The story is about a time when earth is dominated by aliens; the main character goes around marking a symbol of rebellion at places where the aliens have executed earth people, etc.). Karen [ From the IN TIMES TO COME column of ANALOG (July 1980): Six years ago next month, Gordon Dickson introduced the "Pilgrim" series, about an Earth and humanity enslaved by the Aalaag -- a sinister race of aliens who viewed humans as "cattle" and wielded such power that resistance was unthinkable. But, humans being human, it could hardly remain unthinkable for long. "Enter a Pilgrim" was a short story, hinting at a background so big and potential-laden that it whetted the appetite for more. Finally more has arrived. Next month we lead off with Dickson's "The Cloak and the Staff", a new Pilgrim story wherein the seeds of the rebellion planted six years ago begin to grow. Note that the events of "Enter a Pilgrim" play a pivotal role in "The Cloak and the Staff" and therefore are described within the framework of the new story. However, they are distinct stories. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 07/09/80 09:50:39 Re: Donaldson Donaldson certainly gets around. He was supposedly going to be at the sceince fantasy bookstore in Harvard Square on July 7. (I didn't go by) Do you get the feeling that the publishers are pushing something?? Dan ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 0916-PDT From: Stevan Milunovic , LEE.MOORE at CMU-10A Subject: KED at MIT-MC's query on the Prisoner [ SFL V2 #9 ] In response to KED@MIT's query regarding the location of the village in the Prisoner series: the place is called Portmeirion and is in Wales, according to the McGoohan interview in the series guide called 'The Prisoner Puzzle'. -- Steve The last time I was in England, I was told that the Village was really a resort in or near Portmeirion, Wales. This place is in the Northern half of Wales and is south of Mt. Snowdon. Naturally, it is on the coast. -- Lee ------------------------------ Date: 9 July 1980 23:35-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Elaboration on MOON's explanation of Godel numbers It is true that Godel numbering by itself is not an information compression technique. Its purpose is merely to represent a message as a number so that the message can be operated on with arithmetic and number theory. Godel's original use of this device was to enable statements in number theory to talk about statements in number theory, possibly even about themselves, unambiguously. In Pohl's "The Gold at the Starbow's End", some very smart people want to send a very long message with a very small ammount of energy. They Godelized the message, and then converted it to a compact expression (perhaps by magic - these are VERY smart people) which evaluates to the original number: 354 852 2008 47 9606 88 1973 + 331 + 17 + 5 + 3 + 2 - 78 The recipients, although they are unable to compute the number and decrypt the message, are able to estimate the size of the message as "equal to the contents of a standard unabridged dictionary." --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 09 JUL 1980 1635-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Godel numbers I have no direct mathematical background with which to counter MOON@MIT-MC's description of Godel numbers. However, from the way Pohl described them in "The Gold at the Starbow's End" they do indeed present a way of substantially reducing the information encoded by accumulating powers, i.e. 2^X1 * 3^X2 * 5^X3 * . . . (0 < X < 27, if you settle for a simple alphabetical coding) which is equal to nnnnn^nnnnn^nn + nnn^nn (plus maybe some more terms); the point is that once you have this humongous number the encoding reduces it to a manageable bulk. Of course, calculating for either encoding or decoding would take ridiculous amounts of time and precision, but for the class of geniuses Pohl portrays that's supposed to be trivial . . . . (And there's a distinct suggestion of the reason the geniuses use Godel numbers in the end of DRAGON'S EGG, although in the latter case the end is apparently kindness rather than malice.) ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jul 1980 0750-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: JPM at SU-AI's disinformation about Godel numbers Of course, Godel numbers are not the most efficient representation of information when limitations are placed upon the character of the message. But such alternate techniques are refinements, not basic alterations of the Godel encoding technique. 'It is easy to see that a Godel encoding is not orders of magnitude more compact than a stream of bits, but is in fact orders of magnitude less compact.' -- Dave Simply wrong. You can always take a message, Godel encoded into some sequence of integers, and `pad' the message with additional characters of information (say spaces) which the decoder will ignore. This padding can always make the long string of digits collaspe into the sum of various powers of some basis. Thus we have 321^679 as a number which may actually encode a message that, transmitted without filler, would indeed be longer that the original message. Naturally, this compactness comes at an increased cost of encoding the message. I NEVER said that such encoding (and decoding) was simple (or even practical), only that a trade off between transmission costs and encoding-decoding costs could be arranged. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 9 JUL 1980 1942-EDT From: MOON at MIT-MC (David A. Moon) Subject: more on Godel codes What you are saying is the equivalent of the joke about the prisoners and the numbered jokes. A bunch of life-sentenced prisoners have been in prison together for years. A new one shows up, and in the dining hall is astounded at the dinner conversation. One lifer says, 37, and everyone laughs. Another prisoner says 151 and they all roll on the floor. The person next to him explains that these are page numbers in a joke book in the prison library; they all know all the jokes by heart, so there's no need to tell them, they just call out the numbers. The key to what you have been saying is the "loss of flexibility" of the code. Indeed if you have only a small number of messages to send you can assign names to them and just send the names rather than the full text. This does not help if you have to send an arbitrary message. There is no particular advantage to using Godel numbers rather than ordinary integers or names of cities in South Dakota or 5-letter nonsense words as your code words. I don't believe your assertion that by inserting filler an arbitrary sequence of integers can be turned into one whose Godel encoding collapses into something small. But I would love to see a reference. I don't have a copy of The Gold at the Starbow's End on my shelf, but as I recall for the sake of the story Pohl made the tacit assumption that all numbers of arbitrary size had names among the characters on the ship (as English has names for the first 20 numbers), and therefore any number could be communicated in almost no time by mentioning its name. Then with their lightning brains the listeners could factor the number and extract the Godelized message. Of course this is ridiculous if you fail to suspend disbelief, and think about it. Heinlein did it much better in "Gulf", where there is a secret language in which the number of pronounceable syllables is larger than in English, so that Speedtalk uses a word to convey a message that takes a sentence in English. I can't resist saying a little more about the prisoners. After listening to several days of numbered joke-telling, the new chum decides to try his hand. 54 he calls out, and no one laughs. 88 he says, and there is stony silence. Says another prisoner, "Ah, some guys just don't know how to tell a joke". Later the prisoners are telling jokes, when an old guy says 354, and no one laughs but the newest inmate. "I never heard that one before," he explains. This joke can of course be elaborated indefinitely. Interested people could send mail to Greenberg @ MIT-Multics. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/10/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 0958-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: SW heresies Yea, you know I thought that jungle planet looked a lot like Cambodia, complete with Angkor Wat..... It wouldn't do any good to bomb Hoth until it glowed, 'cause the transports could still slip out from under the energy field and flit away into hyperspace. Besides, your Army guys like General Veers would get restless unless they got to try out their toys. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 at 2352-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ VERIFYING TESB DIALOGUE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If Doug Philips at CMU-10A will give us a bit more identification about what scene he thought he heard C-3PO mention the word "puppet" or "Muppet", we'll try to clear it up. We suspect the setting may have been the cage-cell on Cloud City rather than in the cockpit of the Falcon. As for what Luke said about finding Dagobah, the FILM had only-- LUKE: There's nothing wrong, R2; just setting a new course. R2D2: {bleepity} LUKE: We're not going to re-group with the others. R2D2: {bleepity} LUKE: We're going to the Dagobah system. R2D2: {bleepity} LUKE: Yes, R2? R2D2: {bleepity} LUKE: That's all right. I'd like to keep it on manual control for a while. R2D2: {bleepity} ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 11 JUL 1980 0511-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #11 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 11 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 11 Today's Topics: SF Books - Changling & Dune, Prisoner, Physics Imaginary - MT, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Jul 1980 1430-EDT From: CCIS.ZEVE at RUTGERS For any who are interested Zelazny's new book "The Changling" is a nice light read. ------------------------------ Date: 9 July 1980 09:58 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Ancestors of Dune While reading W.H.D. Rouse's prose translation of Homer's Odyssey (early SF, maybe) I discovered that the last name of Agamemnon was Atreides. (two dots over the i, a carat over the last e). Any relation to the Duke Leto, Paul, and the Dune-royalty? ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1980 10:41 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: Prisoner query The complete address of the "Village" is: Hotel Portmeirion Penrhyndeudraeth, North Wales Karen ------------------------------ Date: 10 July 1980 18:32 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Watts per bit I recall an article in Scientific American several years ago on exactly this topic. It analyzed various then current computer storage systems and compared them to the theoretical minimum. The article also contained an interesting refutation of Maxwell's Demon. It seems that in order to identify the fast and the slow molecules, the Demon must extract information, and the energy value of this information is exactly that wich might be gained by redirecting them. Or, put differently, in order to tell the fast from the slow, the Demon must shine a light on them, and the energy consumed by the light matches the energy extracted. Either way, you can't win. ------------------------------ Date: 10 July 1980 14:32 edt From: Sibert at MIT-Multics (W. Olin Sibert) Subject: Godel at the starbow's end A moments brief exercise with logarithms reveals that the "Godelized" number in the story is not nearly as unfathomable as the author would have us believe; it only has 4584 digits, and could be calculated and factored quite easily with even a small computer (since we already KNOW what the factors are, just not how many there are of each). As for its information content: if we assume (naively) that the 26 letters are evenly distributed between 1 and 26, so their mean value is 13, this mammoth number suffices to encode 75 characters (using primes from 2 to 379). More realistically, if we assume that they rearranged the alphabet so that the most frequent letters have the smallest value, and we assume a mean value of 3 for each letter (this is a completely random assumption, though I rather doubt it could be made any smaller than 3, it might be somewhat larger), the Godel number will encode 248 characters (using primes from 2 to 1571). An unabridged encyclopedia, indeed. Moon is surely right that this is less compact than a stream of bits, by many, many orders of magnitude. Perhaps someone would care to prove that the density of "nameable" numbers approaches zero faster than one can add "filler" ? ------------------------------ Date: 11 July 1980 01:19-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: More on the big number in "The Gold at the Starbow's End" On second glance, that number is far too small. A five-minute back-of-envelope estimation says the number is about 15000 bits long. A minute with a scientific calculator pins it down to 15226 bits. Another minute on MACSYMA confirms that by actually computing the number, writing it out in binary, and counting the bits. Now, when Pohl wrote the story, neither MACSYMA nor scientific calculators were available, but backs of envelopes were plentiful. Why did he make this mistake, considering that he almost always gets easy details like this right? Is it possible that the message is in fact NOT from the space travellers to earth, but is actually from Pohl to his readers? Unlikely, because even though it is far too small to contain "a standard unabridged dictionary", it is far too large for Pohl to have computed it when he wrote the story. Even so, I tried decrypting it Project Ozma-style by re-arranging it into a 46 X 331 binary matrix, and even adding 3 leading zeros and putting it into a 97 X 157 matrix, but no magic pictures showed up. If anyone else wants to try and decrypt it, you can find it in MC:USERS0;AQE POLNUM, but don't get your hopes up. It is interesting to speculate, though: 15000 bits could hold about 500 words of english text; what would have been a good message to put in there, if the computational power had been available? I think what I would have done is made the number a little bigger and put the story itself into the number. Of course the story contains the number in magically-compressed expression form. Taking this to the limit, what would you say about an expression which when computed into a number and then unpacked into text via some de-Godelization scheme, yields itself? I think a number that does this could actually be derived today. Any takers? If so, please use one of the familiar Godelization schemes, e.g. Godel's original P1^C1 * P2^C2 * P3^C3... where Pn are the primes and Cn are some ASCII-like coding of the characters of the message; e.g. the more compact B1*2^0 + B2*2^1 + B3*2^2... where Bn are the bits of the message (write out the ASCII codes of the message in binary, concatenate all the 8-bit groups, and that whole string considered as a binary number is the Godel number). --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1980 1303-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: more on "Gold..." One can work out fairly easily how big the Godelized number quoted in "The Gold At the Starbow's End" actually is. The largest term in the sum is 3^9606, which is equal to about 2x10^4583. Since this is only 4584 digits long it would not be enough to encode the story much less an unabridged dictionary. A much more interesting question is that posed by the story's theme. As I remember, the idea was that if you put a group of geniuses (genii?) in isolation with no mundane matters to worry about and no dullards to slow them down, they would bootstrap themselves into a higher intellectual plane. In a matter of years they proved Fermat's last theorem, obtained continuous fusion, achieved telepathy and did a host of other things that I can't recall. Now, the reason this is interesting is because this is the principle that MIT and Caltech, and to a lesser extent most universities, are based on. Restrict admittance to an elite and make sure that, at least for their freshman year, they live in the company of their fellow elitesees. The ivory tower isn't quite as remote as a ship en route to Alpha Centauri, but the concept is the same. My own belief is that this doesn't really work except for the narrowest technical matters. Most good engineering and much good science is done by being in intimate contact with the outside world, even with that natural enemy of research, the miltary. Comments? ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/11/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 06 JUL 1980 1741-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Concerning HJJH's remark [SFL V2 #5]: I wasn't convinced, looking at the two-legged walker, that it was intended to be the cut-off half of a four-legged walker. It was distinctly smaller, and moved much faster --- and I don't see how the 4-legs could balance with that long snout if they were cut off just behind the front legs. 2-legs looked like a completely different type. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 1980 0212-EDT From: FISCHER at RUTGERS Subject: TESB responses (again (recurse (recurse))) Several people have mentioned the two legged walker(s) that stomp by in TESB. My fanatic former roomate SF freak tells me that in the new Joe Johnston portfolio for TESB (J.J. did many of the design sketches for SW, TESB and other films(?) Anybody out there know what else he's done?) these were described as two man transport vehicles. So much for the 'chicken without a head' theory. Now if only they'd shown some troopers climbing out of one... ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 10:18 PDT From: LStewart at PARC-MAXC Subject: Storm Troopers [ Re DUFTY at MC's message in SFL V2 #7. ] The storm troopers are deficient clones, that's why they: 1: Die when hit anywhere. 2: Always have to wear armor. 3: Can't seem to aim. ------------------------------ Date: 10 July 1980 13:34-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty In response to Doug Philips at CMU-10A. I believe the line C-3P0 used was "What do you expect from an overgrown Mop-head?" --Dennis ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 1980 at 2127-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "I LOVE YOU" ... "I KNOW" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ According to Harrison Ford in STARLOG, the line was to have been "I love you, too" instead of the "I'll be back" one in the book, and the idea to make it just "I know" was his, and that was the only version of the line that was actually shot. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THE SHOOTING SCRIPT ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To someone familiar with scripts for stage plays, the differences exhibited by a shooting script are fascinating. There are often, for instance, descriptions which seemingly casually take for granted as accomplishable some kind of effect something in a scene should produce-- "A dark, ominously finned back breaks the surface. The thing swims up behind the little droid and dives, creating a loud clunk. Artoo's periscope disappears as he lets out a pathetic electronic scream. The black surface is as still as death itself." This kind of detailed description that reads like narrative rather than drama sometimes seems to run away with itself, as in The Big Romantic Scene-- "With an irresistable combination of physical strength and emotional power, the space pirate begins to draw Leia toward him...very slowly. He kisses her with slow, hot lips. He takes his time, as though he had forever, bending her body backward. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes her faint. When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. His mouth stops her. A swimming giddiness spins her around until, before she knows it, she is kissing him back. Finally, Han breaks the kiss and looks at her. They stand there for a moment looking at each other. Leia is totally, frantically confused by her feelings." Whew! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 12 JUL 1980 0359-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #12 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 12 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: SF TV - Lathe, SF Books - Face of the Deep & Starbow, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, Physics Tomorrow - MT, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Jul 1980 07:30 PDT From: Weyer at PARC-MAXC Subject: lathe of heaven The PBS movie version of Ursula LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven will be on Channel 9 (SF Bay Area) on Mon. Jul 21 9pm, also Sun. Jul 27 2:30pm. Steve ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 07/11/80 16:17:29 Re: Godel randmoness I offer this quote without comment: "Attached to the note were a series of hard-copy documents about the record box the Citadel had left. The metallic plates were covered with a numerical code, according to the first report, that could condense thousands of pages of data into a single symbol. It was an old twentieth- or twenty-first-century technique called Godelizing numbers; Rafe had only heard of it, and didn't know much more about it. Just breaking the code had taken two weeks." --from "The Face of the Deep", by Jim Young (1979) The novel itself is okay but undistinguished. Picked it out of a library stack the other day. ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 07/11/80 07:06:04 Re: Gold at the Starbow's End Actually, the idea behind this story also depended on the assumption that if you give a person fewer resources to work with, he will achieve a better solution. Pohl cites one experiment, in which children are told to get across a room using only two planks of wood and some string, without touching any parts of themselves to the floor. The children loop the strings around the boards, forming two "skis", and walk across. Then a second group of children are given the same task, but with only ONE board, and they solve the problem by forming one ski and sort of scooting across, faster than the first set of kids had. See, the first set of kids could have found this superior solution, but didn't because they had MORE resources. So by sticking these guys on a spaceship, they become super-good at doing everything. Generalizing this example to all of science and technology would revolutionize government funding of research! The idea seems utterly ridiculous, as do a bunch of other assumptions in the story. But I liked it anyway. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jul 1980 08:46 PDT From: Chapman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Maxwell's Demons and the Win/Loss Ratio V2 #11 Schauble's comments about not be able to win when attempting to separate slow and fast particles reminded me of the layman's version of the three laws of thermodynamics, as I heard them many years ago: 1. You can't win. 2. You can't even break even. 3. But it's the only game in town, and you gotta play. Cheryl ------------------------------ WGK@MIT-AI 07/11/80 08:10:31 Re: Godel numbers and Info Encoding The information in 15226 bits (# per Jef) could be significant. It doesn't have to translate into a random list of characters. It would be a waste of channel capacity to have a system which can carry any random list of characters. The information a channel can carry is dependent on the amount of 'mutual information' which exists. An example could be that it carries answers to a long list of questions (15226 guess...) If you encode words directly, ...now I can't find it... Oh well, for characters limited to English language constraints, Shannon estimated that it requires between 0.6 and 1.3 bits per CHARACTER. Even if I can't find the ref, for English words, it takes around 4-5 bits per word. That works to 3,075 to 3,806 words. Larger, but still not a dictionary. Did the senders use a verbose language like English? (ref: Information Theory and Coding, by Abramson McGraw-Hill, 1963) //Bill ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 10 July 1980 21:44-EDT From: SWERNOFSKY at BBN-TENEXD Subject: compact messages from Godel encodings SF people, It's quite amazing what the invokation of a Great Name can get people to believe! It should be clear that the message compaction which occured in Pohl's "The Gold at the Starbow's End" is a result of re-expressing the Godel encoding of the original message into an alternate form. The alternate form happens to use sums of (number)^(large power) as a way of expressing the large numbers which result from using Godel's original method of encodement. I don't know any way to do this re-encodement (perhaps the characters in the story read it with the I Ching), but I do know that decoding the message should be very easy! After all, just divide (a^b + c^d + ...) by each prime repeatedly to extract successive characters of the message. This can be done easily by determining (m mod p^i), where m is the message, looping over prime p and integer i. The sample message is divisable by: 2^0, 3^1, 5^0, 7^0, 11^0 ... After I've built my controlled fusion device, I'm planning a short vacation on some neat planets around Tau Ceti. See you there! -- Steve ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 12:41 pm PDT (Monday) From: Kusnick at PARC-MAXC Subject: MT thoughts Here's my two cents' worth on matter transmission: First of all, I am skeptical of any MT system that works by scanning/rebuilding. Leaving aside the duplicator aspects of such a system (see Damon Knight's "A For Anything" for an excellent treatment of this theme), I don't believe such a system can be made to transmit a living human. Carl Sagan has estimated (in "Dragons of Eden") that the human genome contains some 10^10 bits of information, the human brain about 10^13. This puts a lower limit of 10^23 "pertinent" bits you must transmit -- less than KED's 10^30 but still quite large. Note that to achieve this compression you must first have BOTH ultra-fast cloning AND mechanical telepathy. More to the point, I don't believe there can be a scanning system fast enough to record 10^13 bits of brain info within a reasonable interval. By "reasonable" I mean short enough to be imperceptible to the brain being scanned. Let's be generous and call it a millisecond (though even this might be too long to avoid scrambling a train of thought). That means a scanning rate of 10^16 bits/second, i.e. ten million gigabits. The wavelength of such a pulse train is around 10^-8 meters, or 100 Angstroms. You'd need an X-ray modulator to transmit it. Like I said, I don't believe it. As for "space-warp" systems, I see two kinds: those based on a new kind of fundamental force, and those that work by tunnelling. New forces, needless to say, will tend to shake up current physical theory a bit -- especially if they can be propagated faster than light (while we're shaking things up we might as well go the whole route). I would hesitate to predict what kind of side effects such a shakeup would have. I'm not a physicist, but it seems to me that large scale tunneling involves some violations of probability by arranging for ALL the subatomic particles in an object to tunnel simultaneously to a distant point. Of course, a device that affects probabilities offers some interesting variations of its own. You could use it to disrupt the timing of atomic clocks, randomize bits in a computer memory, make all the air rush to one end of an occupied room, cause an H-bomb to fizzle or blow Diablo Canyon sky-high... CONCLUSION: No matter what kind of technology you use to build your MT system, you end up with something else as well: a duplicator, or a probability distorter, or a whole new concept of physics. In each case the technical/social impact of the something else by far outweighs the reduction in transportation costs gained by the MT application. As with many new technologies, fulfilling the stated goal turns out to be the LEAST important result. -- Greg ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/12/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 06 JUL 1980 1741-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: nits, gnats, and other beasties in TESB . . . . CCA-TENEX having elected to declare its own independence (by crashing vigorously early July 3 and staying down some 72 hours) I have several items to bring up, especially since I saw TESB for the second time last night. Some interesting points I noticed (some of them from my perspective as a stage , director, tech and designer): Kershner (or his photographer, or his film) seems to get off on darkness, even when it's not particularly expected (as in interiors), and especially on darkness broken by one or two sources of \orange/ light. Am not sure whether this signifies much to him, but it gets tiresome the 4th or 5th time it happens (it may be because any other strongly-colored light would look terrible on people's faces, even with good makeup). There is one appallingly cheap-looking shot (probably of a glass painting, possibly a set-piece they didn't have time to finish) when Luke steps out to see the backs of the crew walking off with Han's frozen body. It looks like a flat that somebody painted the primary design on and forgot to add the edge coloring that gives it the appearance of having three dimensions. I counted at least 3 separate female radar techs in a continuous shot (i.e., a pan following someone around the room) and saw a fourth who by the position and timing of the shot should have been another person but looked like one of the previous three. The cheer that went up when it was announced that the first transport was away was stagey -- everybody lifts his right fist in unison and gives a half-hearted but coordinated yell. I had a little trouble believing the ordinary aluminum ladder that Luke used to climb into his X-wing when he was leaving Dagobah -- it was right out of the corner hardware store. I thought I remembered seeing something more like what is now used (smaller treads and supports, so it would be lighter and less bulky) just before the final battle in SW4. I got a fair look at the whatever-it-was that fell past Luke when he was hanging from the bottom of the cloud city. It did not seem to be either his lightsaber or his hand. I would describe it as square, about six inches on a side from where we see it, and metallic blue in color. I'm unconvinced that Lukas or Kershner intended it to be anything but a stomach-dropping warning of how far he'd fall if he let go. A general remark: on the second go-round, I was much less impressed with some of the matte work than I was at first--although I understand that they had to invent a new process to make the atmosphere flyers appear against a white background. There were some cases where the perspective seemed funny; I would call it more a matter of uncertainty as to the match between what we can see of something and its apparent distance. The cloud match someone mentions is arguable; as an instrument pilot I know that clouds come in all sizes. I also note that Kershner et al use some very effective indirection (possibly from K's experience with other movies where certain things simply couldn't be shown); the best example is the look on the new admiral's face as he's watching Vader get "dressed", then the cut so we see just the tail end of the process (that mass of [scar tissue] on the back of his head). I don't want to get into a detailed comparison of directorial skills, but it's obvious that some of the critics have underestimated Kershner's ability. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 13 JUL 1980 0551-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #13 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 13 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 13 Special Issue on Bibliography Query Responses (w/ WORLDcon Reminder) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 JUL 1980 1620-EDT From: DEE at CCA (Don Eastlake) Subject: Noreascon II SF-LOVERS are reminded that a July 15th postmark is the deadline for joining the 1980 WorldCon by mail at the low $30 rate. It will be held August 29 through September 1 at the Sheraton-Boston hotel and Hynes Auditorium and will cost $45 (for all four days) at the door. Noreascon II is the 38th annual World Science Fiction Convention and there really isn't space here to begin to describe all the things that will be going on there. ------------------------------ chuck von rospach (chuqui@mit-mc) 07/05/80 15:06:20 Re: humourous SF? In an attempt to start up a new subject of conversation and pick the brains of the people and others out there, I would like to ask you all to run through your collections for me. I am looking for SF novels, stories, and other material which was written with a comedic point of view. Things such as Laumers 'Retief', Harrison's 'Bill, the Galactic Hero', Bova's 'The Starcrossed', and the Callahan's bar series by Robinson come immediately to mind. I am not looking for material which is humourous as an aside as much as written for the humour, and I am also not looking for material that is humourous because of its writing (Bester's 'Computer Connection', while a VERY funny book to read, is not a humourous book, it is just so poorly written that you snicker the whole way through) chuck ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1980 10:51 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC, HJJH at UTEXAS Subject: cats and more cats HJJH and I are cat freaks and would like to get together a list of science fiction/fantasy books that have cats (read: EVERYthing from felis domesticus to mutated cats/cat-like beings to "intelligent" cat-like aliens....) as prominent characters (not necessarily main characters, but more than just walk-ons). Our motives are mixed: HJJH is working on an article on cats in SF for submission to a cat magazine, while I just want to pig out on cat books. So, we would appreciate your letting us know the titles (and authors if you know them) of any books that fall in this category. To avoid swamping the Digest with messages, please send your messages instead to BOTH of us, and we will send the resultant list along to the Digest after we eliminate duplicates, etc. Many thanks. Karen ^^^^^^^^^ N.B: Just BOOKS, not short stories. And, we've already gathered the relevant ones by SF's prime "Cat Lady", Andre Norton. -- HJJH ^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ Date: 13 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Responses on Imaginary Books / Gene Eng Applications / MT Imaginary Books: ---------------- Encyclopedia Galactica in "The Foundation Trilogy". -- Peter Kaiser We forgot a set near & dear to our hearts -> the 4 from Dragon's Egg (Sawlinski et al., S-Y Wang, P. C. Niven and Del Rey's Science Encyclopedia, 2064 Edition). -- David Rossien Genetic Engineering Applications: --------------------------------- "The Winnowing" by Isaac Asimov (short story), available in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (collection) and in Analog (Feb 1976) ON the use of man-made organisms, the one story that comes to mind initially is Asimov's 'The Winnowing' where an artificially created virus is to be used to zap 30% of the world's population (in poor subcontinent areas, of course). This beastie was to be set up to infect only people with a certain genetic makeup, thereby saving the rich (WASP) folks. The interplay between the outraged scientist and the sponsors examines the ethics of triage. -- chuck "I Put My Blue Genes On" by Orson Scott Card (short story), available in Analog (August 1978) I remember a story about some colonists that revisit earth after a long time and find nothing but this group engaged in fighting a long since over war, the war was fought via genetic engineering (the story had a very strange flavor). -- Steve Babel 17 by Samuel Delaney (novel) Babel 17 by Delany doesn't talk about genetic engineering exactly, but some of the results are the same. The book is filled with "reworked" humans who have totally different physical forms. Getting reworked is about as serious as a trip to the dentist. Minor jobs are performed by the equivalent of tattoo artists. -- Dan Shapiro "Jerry Was A Man" by Robert Heinlein (short story), available in Assignment in Eternity (collection). Robert Heinlein's short story "Jerry Was A Man" is a particularly apt example in which a planned breeding experiment has produced throwbacks to Homo Neanderthalensis. Due to a patent precedent covering created life forms, these intelligent near-human creatures are regarded as property and used for slave labor. The story covers the legal battles to win civil rights for the throwbacks and make them legally people. -- Greg Methusalah's Children & Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein The Howard families are the result of genetic engineering if we stretch the point to include selective breeding in genetic engineering. Actually it isn't much of a stretch, selective breeding is one of the crudest of the genetic engineer's tools. -- Steve Proteus by Morris West (novel) Proteus by Morris West centers around two genetic engineers engaging in bootleg experiments on people. The results are impressive; a living asteroid and a chlorine breathing pseudo-human that has increased intelligence. It was a good book, I am surprised it hasn't been mentioned. -- Dan Shapiro Matter Transmission: -------------------- The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (novel) My personal favorite teleportation is "Jaunting" in Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. Any one want to explain the mechanism? The end kind of implies dimension doorways brought around with some kind of psi force every one has. -- Mike I am surprised that no one has yet mentioed the more "organic" (i.e. non-technological) occurrances of teleportation in SF, such as Jaunting (from Bester's "The Stars My Destination"; it was "discovered" by a scientist (Jaunte) who was trapped in a fire and through gut-reaction teleported out of it. In an effort to reproduce the effect, they put convicts, etc. in certain-death situations and watched for any of them to jaunt out.) -- One Step from Earth by Harry Harrison (collection) a Harry Harrison short story collection on matter transmission is entitled "One Step from Earth" -- Steve I don't want to get into the battle of possibility of teleportation, the article mentioned earlier in Niven's All the Myriad Ways covers that quite well, BUT Harry Harrison has a collection of stories under the title One Step from Earth. In each of these stories the central theme is teleportation, social, criminal and physical problems connected with same. -- Mike The Goblin Reservation by Clifford Simak (novel) In the book "The Goblin Reservation" by Simak, the main character is duplicated during matter transmission. He shows up at home after a trip outsystem (that he didn't expect to take) to discover that he arrived a week ago and was killed by particularly disgusting aliens. The rest of the book follows his (the professor's) actions along with a neanderthaller, a sabertooth tiger, a ghost, several fairies, a disgruntled goblin (made angry by being forced to live in drafty castles all those years) a dragon, some digusting aliens and the everpresent beautiful young maid as they unravel the surrounding mysteries. I liked it alot. -- Dan Way Station by Clifford Simak (novel) One of my favorite books is CLifford Simak's Way Station. Briefly, it tells of a single Earthman who operates a relay station for a Galaxy-wide matter transportation system. He has done so for over 100 years, but now Earth is begining to notice him. The plot does not concern us here, instead I quote a desription on the matter transmission system: For the impulse patterns which carried creatures star to star were almost instantaneous, no matter what the distance. Moments ago the creature in the tank had rested in another tank in another station and the materializer had built up a pattern of it - not only of its body, but of its very vital force, the thing that gave it life. Then the impulse pattern had moved across the gulfs of space almost instantaneously to the receiver of this station, where the pattern had been used to duplicate the body and the mind and memory and the life of that creature now lying dead many light years distant. And in the tank the new body and the new mind and memory and life had taken almost instant form - an entirely new being, but exactly like the old one, so that the identity continued and the consciousness (the very thought no more than momentarily interrupted), so that to all intent and purpose the being was the same. There were limitations to the impulse patterns, but they had nothing to do with speed, for the impulses could cross the galaxy with but little lag in time. But under certain conditions the patterns tended to break down and this was why there must be many stations - many thousands of them. Clouds of dust or gas or areas of high ionization seemed to disrupt the patterns and in those sectors of the galaxy where these conditions were encoun- tered, the distance jumps between stations were considerably cut down to keep the pattern true. (c) 1963 by Clifford D. Simak, quoted from the Del Rey edition ISBN 0-345-28420-8 In other portions of the book he mentions that the original can be stored and sent many times as duplicates are desired, this is proposed to supply Enoch (the Station Keeper) with fresh eggs. No mention why the scanning process kills the body, but dead bodies are destroyed with acids. -- The World of Null-A and The Players of Null-A by A.E. Van Vogt Another "organic" teleportation method is similarizing (? I am not sure of the actual term.) It is from VanVogt's Null-A books. The main character (Gilbert Gosseyn (sp)) can teleport merely by memorizing all of the relevant data about a point ("to 20 places") and then can pop around among these memorized points at will. Of course, he DOES have 2 brains...) -- [ SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following description of Niven's novel A WORLD OUT OF TIME is the last piece of material in this digest. It gives away a major element of the plot of this novel. People who have not read this book may not wish to read any further. -- RDD ] A World Out of Time by Larry Niven (novel) The concept of using transporters to achive immortality mentioned by Don Erway was the crux of a Larry Niven (I believe) book, where the 'hero' is a thawed-out 20th Century (or thereabouts) 'corpsicle', who, after a long journey to the galactic center and back via ramrocket, returns to Earth to find chaos and a search for a 'fountain of youth'. Well, after a bit of gnashing around, the hero finds out that the 'fountain of youth' is a specially tuned transfer booth where they seperate your atoms and those of various impurities. Disposal of said impurities causes not only arrestation of aging, but a reversal of its effects. Interesting concept -- instead of surgery or medication, have your atomic pattern run through a filter circuit.. -- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 14 JUL 1980 0358-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #14 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 14 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 14 Today's Topics: SF TV - Lathe, Physics Today - Neutrino & Forward Info Transmission, Physics Tomorrow - MT, TESB, Cambridge Visit, SF Blooper - Star Trek (TV) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jul 1980 (Sunday) 1330-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Lathe of Heaven The PBS production of "The Lathe of Heaven" is excellent, but beware: One of the key paragraphs in the screenplay IS NOT in the book!!! It occurs during an alien monologue. See if you can spot it. --Dave ------------------------------ Date: 14 July 1980 0220 EDT From: The Editor Subject: A brief article on Neutrino [ approx. length = 15K chars ] The neutrino has been in the scientific news recently because of an experiment which suggests that the neutrino may have a non-zero mass. Robert Lasater has transcribed a short article from the July 1980 Scientific American which briefly examines the experiments and their far reaching implications for physics. It also serves to cast an interesting light on our discussion of scientific development and the feasibility of matter transmission. Copies of the article have been established in files at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, and to Robert Lasater for preparing the article. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS NUTRNO PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLovers-Neutrino.TXT Rutgers Ps:Nutrino-Scientific-American SU-AI NUTRNO.SF[T,DON] MIT-Multics >user_dir_dir>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>neutrino-article [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 12 July 1980 1253-edt From: J. Spencer Love Subject: Encoding numbers I don't want to fool with the actual numbers (I don't have a copy of them handy), but the general Idea for compressing information as Godel numbers and then reexpressing the number more compactly as a sum of otherwise irrelevant numbers doesn't have to be as simple as was assumed. From the original sum which fit on a tty line (700 bits max), we got 15,000+ bits to play with. Couldn't we use these, which are relatively easily derived, to encode a REALLY large number, and if that number is still too small, repeat as needed? The story didn't need to state that they had carried this process to the limit of available computer capacity and were left with a next step that was orders of magnitude harder. Remember, we are utterly unconcerned with the difficulty of encoding; presumably these characters would be unimpressed by Rivest's code. After all, if I had 700 bits and didn't care about the result much I could get MUCH more than 15,000 bits out; the relative inefficiency of the encoding step lends a minescule credibility to this interpretation. ------------------------------ MOON@MIT-MC 07/12/80 17:00:44 10^13 + 10^10 = 10^23 ?? ------------------------------ DANNY@MIT-AI 07/12/80 13:10:15 Re: KUSNICK'S ARITHMETIC 10^13 + 10^10 does not usually add up to 10^23, but I suppose that if you are going to add together two numbers that Carl Sagan pulled out of a hat, you might as well multiply them instead. ------------------------------ KED@MIT-MC 07/12/80 14:34:17 Math Notes: 10^13 bits plus 10^10 bits = 10^13 bits, not 10^23 as claimed in the message from Greg. Also I stand by my estimate of at least 10^30 bits of information. I am a physicist and could do a more detailed analysis which would increase the lower bound of the number of bits needed to be sent. Secondly, we are all not cray-1 computers, so each person's brain has a unique set of interconnections which determine what they do with the 10^13 bits of information. Anyway, if anyone wants a more detailed explanation of my calculation, just send me a message. Be seeing you. Keith ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1980 (Sunday) 1716-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON (William Westfield) Subject: Matter transmission As Greg pointed out [SFL V2 #12], all you have to do is distort the probabilities involved, after all, there is a finite probability that you will disappear from HERE and end up THERE without the need for any machiney, psi, or whatever. The trick is to fix things so that this probability approachs 1, while the probability of scattering yourself all over stays low. How to do this isn't clear, but the guy from Mercy Men (author ?) could probably learn it pretty easily. ------------------------------ BATALI@MIT-AI 07/12/80 15:44:29 Re: MT I agree about the improbability of using a scanning-rebuilding type system. Such a setup would require scanning rates and transmis- sion reliability that would be very difficult. Another problem with scanning something living and expecting it to recover on the other end is the mutually defeating requirements of high accuracy (to precisely duplicate the "state" of the electro-chemical reactions) and the necessity of using scanning radiation that is of low enough energy not to destroy the very fragile protein and nucleic acid complexes. I should point out that transmission electron microscopes can resolve on the order of tens of angstroms which is barely possible to recognize certain configurations but not nearly fine enough to record (say) the state of a sodium channel in a neuron. But there is no question of using a transmission electron microscope on living tissue -- and even the (quite dead) preparations used must be viewed quickly before the interesting stuff disintegrates. Still, a scanning system could be used for cargo -- perhaps the element ratios of the transmitted matter could be preserved. It would be useful to bring metals back from the asteroids. But that is interesting also because, as matter isn't actually transmitted, the receiver must use a supply of matter which is then "transmuted" according to the incoming signal. So just make a tape of some gold... Certainly, though, all of this depends on future science not modifying anything we think we know now. A new form of radiation that obeys a completely new uncertainty principle is certainly not impossible. But scanning-rebuilding makes me nervous and I would prefer that something else be used. If we get to dream about the way science will be in the future, I'll dream about what I would hope will be discovered. A possibility was suggested by the observation that we move enormous amounts of information around whenever we cross a room. The reason that this works is that matter is in equilibrium. The reason that life works is that the interaction between the electronic forces and the matter in the particles that respond to them is capable of many stable configurations -- stable enough for evolution to occur. Matter takes much energy to get moving, electromagnetic forces don't.(?) I wonder if some other type of "stuff" exists that doesn't have momentum but still forms stable configurations with electro- magnetism. What we would do then is to replace the matter in a body by this stuff and then send it wherever we wanted to. Hopefully the stuff would be convertible to/from energy so we could do the replacement a particle at a time, using the energy from the matter. I suggest a field, in which matter converts to this new material and instantly shoots off in some preferred direction at the speed of light. A station in the path of the beam neutralizes it and the matter reappears. "Sure," you say, "you can suggest anything." "Yes," I say, "this IS science fiction." John Batali ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 07/12/80 15:56:26 Re: empire strikes back sketchbook Just out is the Empire Strikes Back Sketchbook by joe Johnston and company. Its not a bad read, although it goes a little too quickly, for my tastes. In it you can see Yoda as a sort of Santa Claus - gnome in his early incarnations, see how the snowspeeders were adapted from Y-wing fighters, see how Boba Fett used to be a "supercommando", see the rationale behind the two-footed Imperial Walkers,see the.... well, you get the idea. For $5.95 it's not a bad buy, but as I say, it does go by very fast. Took me only 30 minutes to seriously digest it. Also, and I mention it only in passing, is a hardback version of the novelization, filled with storyboard drawings and concept sketches by Ralph McQuarrie. Its fair. ------------------------------ Date: 13 July 1980 05:51 edt From: Margulies at MIT-Multics, Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Upcoming visit I will be in Cambridge/Boston for 3 weeks starting Wednesday. I'd like to meet some of the Boston/Cambridge SF-LOVERS, anyone with ideas for facilitating same is encouraged to drop me a line. --paul ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/14/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It points out a blooper in the Star Trek episode "Court Martial", and asks a question about an actor. People who have not seen this episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 2144-PDT From: Lasater at SUMEX-AIM Subject: STAR TREK BLOOPER I saw a really nice blooper on Star Trek last night. In the "Court Martial" episode, a disgruntled member of the Enterprise crew is hiding on the ship. The others find Ben by using the acoustical recorder of the computer, which can amplify sounds by a factor of "one to the fourth power". Not too much power gain there. Overall, "Courtmartial" must be one of the poorer episodes. Kirk is on trial for the supposed death of Ben. The key element in the prosecution's case is a computer log which shows that Kirk jettisoned Ben's pod while the ship was on "Yellow Alert". Kirk claims he ejected the pod while on "Red Alert", and insists the computer is wrong. Unfortunately, this conflict is never resolved, even though much is made of a chess program written by Spock which "logically" should play him to a draw, but actually loses several times to Spock. Rather, the court reconvenes on the "Enterprise" where Ben is found using the acoustic amplifier. The final conflict between Ben and Kirk is (what else) a fist fight. The plot is not helped by having the prosecutor be a former lover of Kirk's. Nor are the discrepancies in what is allowed as testimony believable. The prosecution asks Spock several "hypothetical" questions, but objects when the defense asks a question "which calls for a conclusion from the witness." In its defense, there are several interesting references to information storage and retrieval, including a desk sized device which indexes centuries of legal cases. I described the episode in some detail, because the actor who played the lawyer for Kirk looked familiar. Does anyone know his name? Is he a Star Trek regular? robert [ Kirk's lawyer, Samuel Gogley, was played by Elisha Cook, Jr. This part was his only role on Star Trek. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 15 JUL 1980 0448-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #15 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 15 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Hanger 18 & Portraying the Government, Physics Tomorrow - MT, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, SF Books, Space Week in LA, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 July 1980 13:29-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: HANGAR 18 and INFO WANTED HANGAR 18 ... whatever happened to the scientific method? This film was a very cheap thought out film. I felt that the audience was cheated of a potentially good story. There were many loose ends. I don't wnat to discuss the film yet, until others have seen it and want to comment. Does anyone remember the name of the film (having a similar plot to HANGAR 18) in which the US Government fakes a manned trip to Mars as a result of faulty equipment. They leave the astronauts off the vessel and fake a landing. The plot revolves around what happens when the space craft burns up reentering earth's atmosphere. What do you do with 3 live astronauts that the world thinks are dead? I have a general observation about the current trend in representing the US Government. I am not thrilled by all that the government does in real life, but there seems to be a trend to represent the government as an evil force. I can't imagine a film that would represent the government in a good light. What do people think about this ... what will the future bring? Will we have more and more films that take shots at our government? As I said earlier I have a hard enough time dealing with what it does in real life whithout having to leave a theater feeling even worse. --Bill (please excuse my ramblings!) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 0910-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Matter transmission William Westfield's message today reminds me that Jeremy Bernstein had an article on I.I. Rabi in the "New Yorker" some years ago in which Rabi says something like "there is a finite probability that the collision of two particles will produce a grand piano." ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 1525-PDT From: Ken Olum Subject: Magic information encoding Any scheme for encoding N bits of information in less than N bits is going to have some numbers it can't encode. You can't get more information out of an encoding scheme than you put in. If you can encode a great deal of information in very few bits, then the chance than the message you want to send can be encoded becomes vanishingly small. Searching for a method that will encode it doesn't work either; you have to tell the recipient which method you used, thus requiring more information transfer. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 0613-EDT From: JoSH Subject: TANSTAAFL Come ON, you guys. Why is the number 2^504 so vitally expressive of both of us? It represents your weight and my IQ -- and is the maximum number of different messages that can be expressed by 72 ascii characters, no matter how ingenious an encoding scheme is used. I imagine that one could come up with some proof regarding the compressibility of giant numbers, but just looking at it from the front end first, there are only that many messages you can encode. I just flipped a coin 4 times. It came up heads, tails, heads, and heads. Now ANY encoding of that last sentence HAS to contain AT LEAST 4 bits. (Well, almost any encoding. I could always weight the scheme to favor that message. But given that I want to report the results of flipping a coin 4 times, I have to send on the average, at least 4 bits.) I would be very surprised to find a compression scheme that retained even the sketchiest semantics of a piece of text at any better than, say, a bit per word. However, I wander from the point, which is this: if you are compressing (say) 1000-bit messages into lines of 72 ascii chars, you can only send one out of 2^496. Even if only one in a trillion is interesting or worth encoding, you still have a lot of hard choices ahead of you. Conceptualization may be broken down as global or local. The local is the mode of the builder, putting together known pieces to form new structure; the global is the mode of the dreamer, drawing the shape of the possible by universal constraints: For example, we have Malthus (global) vs Ricardo (local) in economics and Jefferson (global) vs Hamilton (local) in politics. However, the doer is to be cautioned against thinking globally, as he may mistake the possible for the achievable; equally is the dreamer to be cautioned against thinking locally, in steps, as he may mistake the plausible for the possible. I think that Pohl in Starbow's End is guilty of this last. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 10:01 am PDT (Monday) From: Kusnick at PARC-MAXC Subject: BLUSH!! Actually, 10^10 + 10^13 is the Godel encoding of my REAL message, comprising some 10^23 characters of information -- which NONE of you apparently bothered to decode and read. Oh, well, it's your loss... -- Greg ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 1053-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "Web of Angels" "Web of Angels" by John M. Ford is an interesting new book, sort of a mixture of Samuel Delany's style and the subject of "Shockwave Rider". A future galactic civilization has FTL ships, anti-gravity, life-prolonging treatments etc., but the greatest of their tools is the Web, a universal communication and processing system that can reach any part of the Galaxy instantaneously. As a result, people are graded by their ability to use the system: First Literacy is the ability to understand symbols, Second Literacy to run programs, and Third to write code. People without First Literacy are not allowed to leave their planet. The book's protagonist has Fourth Literacy: the power to make unauthorized use of the system resources in spite of safeguards. He calls it Webspinning. The Bell Stellar Communications Corporation terminates spinners with extreme prejudice. The black-clad agents of CIRCE are constantly hunting for them. Far worse, though, are the Geisthounds, semi-intelligent programs that roam the Web in search of tampering. While the hero is teaching his lover to become a spinner she is murdered by them. All of this is mixed in with legends, the Tarot, and old folksongs. The way he scatters these tidbits around shows either amazing erudition or, if they are all invented, equally amazing imagination. His view of computers is perhaps too romantic, but the glitter of the rest of the story more than makes up for it. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 09:03 PDT From: Weyer at PARC-MAXC Subject: doing more with less The theme mentioned by DLW@MIT-AI -- "if you give a person fewer resources to work with, he will achieve a better solution" in Gold at the Starbow's End (which I haven't read) reminds me of the situation which was set up on the ship Earthling in Frank Herbert's Destination: Void, i.e. stick people far enough out in space with dead navigation systems and no outside help and they may just have to invent "consciousness" in a machine to get out of the predicament. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 0531-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: familiar lawyer on Star Trek The lawyer on the Court Martial episode, Elisha Cook, Jr., may look familiar because he has a marvelous history of being a punk gunman in 1930's and 1940's movies. One of his best was as a minor private detective with Bogart in The Big Sleep. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 1538-PDT From: Alan R. Katz Subject: Space Week in LA In commemoration of the 11th. anniversary of the first Lunar Landing and the 4th. anniversary of the Viking landing on Mars, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization (OASIS), and the Calif. Musueum of Science and Industry present: SPACE WEEK at The Calif. Museum of Science and Industry 700 State Drive, Los Angeles (Across the street from USC) Activities include a Getaway Special Workshop, a panel discussion on the Moon Treaty, and an art contest for students in grades 4-12. The Moon Treaty discussion promises to be very interesting; on the panel will be Lee Ratiner, lobbiest for the L5 society, speaking against the treaty. Also, Ray Bradbury, Harry Stine, and astronaut Pete Conrad are scheduled to speak. SCHEDULE: Saturday, July 19 Sunday, July 20 9-noon Getaway Special 9-noon Getaway Special Workshop Workshop 10-4 Art Contest 1-6 Multimedia space shows 1:00 Ray Bradbury Nichelle Nichols 2:00 Jim French from JPL Astronaut Pete Conrad 3:00 G. Harry Stine Live concert 4:00 Moon Treaty Panel discussion For further info contact me (KATZ@ISIF) or call the museum at 749-0101 ext. 228 Alan PS. for those who dont know, the Getaway special is an inexpensive way to buy a small amount of payload on the Space Shuttle. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/15/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 06 JUL 1980 1741-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: nits, gnats, and other beasties in TESB . . . . First, the nit that people have been picking here and mundanely: when Han is brought into the freezing chamber, he's wearing \two/ sets of restraints, one across the biceps, holding the upper arms against the rib cage, (looking rather like the clamp strapping used on crates) and one acting like normal handcuffs. A couple of the repulsive pint-size types take around 15 seconds to remove this second set (they aren't exactly inobtrusive about it either) and we see Han flexing his forearms as he's dropped into the pit. When he comes out ("Solo on ice", as TIME put it), the upper strap isn't visible, but his arms are bent only at the elbow, in the way they could be if, for instance, he were trying to protect his face but had been stopped by the strap. (And while we're talking about tributes, referencing other SF, etc. --- what \is/ that stuff they freeze him in? Half the time it sounds like "carbonite" (which is a bit mundane), and the other half like "corbomite" (as in the first-season STAR TREK episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver").) Vader is certainly playing some sort of game in his duel with Luke; it isn't until they come together for the third or fourth time that he handles his lightsaber with both hands (I could swear I saw waving a finger of his other hand at Luke when he says how much Luke has learned of the Force). In fact, I think he doesn't start using both hands until Luke gets him in the shoulder of the arm he was using. [ In the novelization of TESB the material that Han is frozen in is "carbonite". -- RDD ] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 16 JUL 1980 0443-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #16 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 16 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 16 Today's Topics: SF TV - Elisha, SF Movies - Capricorn 1 & Hanger 18 & Portraying the Government, SF Books, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, TZFF, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 July 1980 11:07 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Elisha Cook Elisha Cook has become famous as the answer to many movie trivia questions e.g. "Who played the part of Jimmy (or Johnnie, or something) in The Big Sleep?". As a matter of fact, there is a trivia group that calls themselves the Elisha Cookies. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1980 00:00 From: Tou at PARC-MAXC, SHL at MIT-MC, CHUQUI at MIT-MC The film about a fake U.S. manned trip to Mars was "Capricorn One", with Eliot Gould, O.J. Simpson and Telly Sevalas. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jul 1980 (Tuesday) 0838-PST From: HIRGELT at LLL-MFE Subject: Capricorn 1 & Hangar 18 To answer Bill Daul's question: The movie is Capricorn 1. Starred people like James Brolin (one of the astronauts), Brenda Vacarro as his wife, and Elliot Gould as the reporter that tracks down the story. It doesn't really paint a pretty picture of the government. The group that put out Hangar 18 is Sunn Pictures (or some such). The seem to have a history of this class of picture, relatively sensational but apparently low on facts, science and other reasonable things. At least that has been my impression. Its really a shame since I suspect some people take this thing seriously. Ed ------------------------------ DR@MIT-MC 07/15/80 09:53:22 Re: Bill Daul's movie query The movie you're inquiring about is Capricorn One. As to your comment about the movies making attacks on the US Government, I think it is pretty unfortunate that they do that, but that seems to be the general trend in movies now days: some brave reporter (or something or other like that) vs the establishment. And that is true not only for Sci-Fi movies, but in general a lot of post-Watergate movies seem to deal with the subject of government corruption. And really, I seem to recollect having seen some old movies where the government is portrayed as the good guy, trying to send a man to the moon, Mars or somewhere else where no man has gone before. These movies are full of see through heroics and are generally very boring (President Ford's speech last night reminds me of them), and after you've seen one, you've seen them all. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 (Monday) 0820-EST From: DYER at NBS-10 Subject: (More) encoding -- compact languages I seem to recall a story by Samuel Delany in which there is a race of alien beings that supposedly can describe the makeup, layout (whatever...) of a nuclear power generator (in the book such a device is about the size of a middlin' big asteroid and is very, VERY complicated) to the extent that one alien can say \seven/ words (!) [Note: presumably very small, english like words] to another alien, whereupon the second alien can go home and build his own power generator from the description given by the first. With a language like that, who needs encoding? However, I think that Delany pointed out that such a language would have blank spots in it (like english, even) and would end up not having words for concepts common among other languages. I think that the book was "Babel 17", but it may have been in one of his short stories instead.... lmd ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 07/15/80 07:26:32 Re: Data compression and coding schemes We have developed a discussion of how to express N bits of data into less than N bits. For purely random data, you cannot do it; however, you can express a PATTERN of N bits in less than N bits. A good example of this is digital transmission of human speech. If we just digitize speech, we need approximently 6000 eight-bit samples/sec. This works out to be 48Kbits/sec. On the other hand, if we analyze the speech and break it down into it's component parts, the information can be transmitted at a rate of 2400 bits/sec. We have just achieved a data compression of 20 with no loss of information. The key to any data compression is to know what patterns have to be conveyed. If both the originating and the receiving end agree on the commonality of certain messages, we can achieve a remarkable reduction in bandwidth required to convey information. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 1617-PDT From: Steve Saunders Subject: Compact encodings? All you guys who want to "represent" a huge number (lots of information bits) by a smaller number (fewer bits) had better bone up on information and computability theory, especially Kolmogorov/Chaitin complexity measures. Basically you will find that the number of bits in the message can almost never exceed the bits transmitted plus the bits agreed upon ahead of time (in the encoding scheme). In other words, if you send only n bits your hearer gets to choose among at most 2**n possibilities for interpretations. Some of those interpretations can be very "big", of course ... if for example the possible messages are the Mersenne numbers, or the powers of a googol, or whatever. But these are NOT "many-bit messages compactly represented", in the sense of the SF-LOVERS discussion. They are very far apart, very sparsely scattered among the integers; searching among them for one that begins (say) with the message you want to send is definitely not a reasonable way to compress your message text! (Note that the naive "compression ratio" is so disconnected from reality that it can easily be made infinite -- let my agreed-upon texts be the integers, the even integers, the divisible-by-3's, -by-4's, etc.; then a short message from me can be decoded into an infinite text, implying that I have achieved infinite compression!) Kolmogorov and Chaitin show why these simple intuitive impossibility arguments are really the way things are, and why you can't expect to find a short representation for your arbitrary message by just padding it with nulls (or nonsense) until the padded result has a short representation. It isn't just these simple tricks that fail; you can't even win by sending an arbitrary computer program to reconstruct your message text. Of course, you CAN get lucky and be able to "represent" some particular long message under some particular encoding arrangement in some particularly short way; but you can't do this often, nor can you predict when it will be worth your while to try. Maybe the Starbow's End message is supposed to be such a lucky text? The basic answer to the proposition that Goedel numbering is a way to compress information is that, in a very strong sense, there is no such thing! Steve ------------------------------ Date: 15 July 1980 00:17-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Godel at the Starbow's End The following is excerpted from "Looking for the Starbow", an article by Fred Pohl in Destinies, V2 #1 (Feb-Mar 80) which could be interpreted as an apology for "The Gold at the Starbow's End" (although it also contains a speculation (threat?) about expanding the story into a book!): "I had given one of those Godel numbers, and incautiously mentioned that it was too large for any computer to write out. Thirty people wrote me at once to say that it wasn't, and at least half a dozen actually programmed computers to write it out. (I keep one of the printouts pinned up on my office wall as a reminder of humility.) I do have a sort of excuse for that one. In the first draft of the story I had a REALLY big number, but when I revised it I had a moment's compassion for the typesetters and left off one superscript." The article also tells about a paper by John M. McKinley and Paul Doherty, two "meddling physicists" from Oakland University in Michigan who show that there isn't really a starbow. Pohl continues: "One of the best reasons for writing science fiction is the science-fiction audience. They are SMART. They miss very little. They understand almost anything. It is a constantly stimulating challenge to find something to say that is both new and interesting to them; and when they write in to raise a point that has not occured to the author it is like having your opponent make an unexpectedly brilliant move in a chess game. True, it may cost you the game. But that's what makes it interesting!" --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 0234-PDT (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: TZFF Epilogue I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who came to the Twilight Zone Film Festival. The peak turnout was around 75 people, which is pretty respectable, all things considered. I hope everyone enjoyed the brief visit to the days of early 1960's television, and the "fifth dimension, beyond that which are known to man". Special thanks goes to Mike O'Brien for running off to a library to pick up the short subjects on very short notice. I hope to hold another TZFF at some point in the future, though exactly when is completely unknown at this time. By the way, I made a special point to look out for any TCCC representatives who might have been among the crowd. I am sorry (or is it glad?) to report that I could find nobody that I could definitely identify as such an entity. There were plenty of pretty strange people though. Once again, thanks! ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/16/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 at 0122-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB: VARIANT VERSIONS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ My Friend The Ultimate SW Fan reports that the 35mm version is not really a let-down. In some ways, it seems sharper, and there are some things in it that weren't in the 70mm print shown in Houston. When Luke is floating in the bacta fluid, there's a shot of Leia, et al., watching through the infirmary window, for one. MFTUSWF also thinks there's more to the battle with the Walkers. Then, at the end, when Lando and Chewie are leaving, in addition to: LANDO: Luke, we're ready for take off. LUKE: Good luck, Lando. \*/ I'll meet you at the rendezvous point on . . . Tatooine. LANDO: Princess, we'll find Han, I promise. LUKE: Chewie, I'll be waiting for your signal. Take care, you two. May the force be with you. Lando has an additional line at the point marked by the asterisk, "When we find Jabba the Hutt and that bounty hunter, we'll contact you,", which makes the reference to the signal fit in better. Austin is on its 2nd 70mm print, the first having been defective, and the infirmary window scene and that extra line ARE now in it. (And the latter is indeed absent from our tape of the sound track made in Houston.) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB PHONO RECORD: THE STORY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The "Empire" dialogue phono album is out, a single LP at about $5, and a pretty good job. (Certainly the voices are far clearer than the surreptitious tape recording we're transcribing from!) The narrator is much more dramatic than the one for the SW-4 story album, perhaps even a bit too much so. The "big romantic scene" is absent, and the only major booboo noted on the first listening was the Falcon being described as clinging to the bottom of the Imperial Star Destroyer "like a pilot fish on a whale". The city slicker who wrote that not only didn't know a pilot fish from a remora, but didn't know his TESB! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 17 JUL 1980 0514-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #17 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 17 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 17 Today's Topics: Administrivia, Situation simulation - multi-person, Physics Today - Forward Info Transmission, SF Movies, SF Books- Destinies & Time Story & Humor, Unicon, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: On copyrighted materials A significant percentage of the material distributed through SF-LOVERS has always referenced or summarized material from copyrighted, mass distribution sources. Recently however I have become concerned about the increasing number of cases where people have simply transcribed copyrighted material and the increasing number of suggestions that I have received for material to be transcribed. Clearly this is illegal. It is also unnecessary since the material is already available from other sources. And further it delays other material by taking up limited resources. Therefore let's avoid creating potential problems by not submitting copyrighted material. As the saying goes "Its the law!". -- RDD ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jul 1980 at 2117-CDT From: david at UTEXAS Subject: Imagine a.. Computer simulation of ultimate personal vehicle: travel around the world, at varying scales. Sensations: sight, sound, smell(?) in helmet. Speed, direction controls in hand/foot/vocal/etc. control. (No Gs because of anti-gravity, anti-inertial, automatically compensated drive!) Imagine situation where several people share a common "vehicle". Suppose the effect of everyone's control was averaged. Each person presented with image of their individual ship, as part of group under average control. What would that be like? (P.S. I don't always get a chance to check the bboards. Please send me a copy.) ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 07/16/80 14:38:18 Re: speech compression It's fine to extract the "meaningful" entities from a stream of information and transmit only those, but be careful what you regard as meaningful. Human speech contains alot more information than the strings of phonemes which compose words. A voice contains emphasis, pitch variations (which aid in parsing sentences) accent, and personal signatures in the tambor. If you listen to a synthesized voice (or a poor tape recording) you are immediately aware of what is missing. You understand what is being said, but not all of what was said, if you get my drift. Dan ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 07/16/80 09:03:57 I am pretty sure that the movie "Capricorn One" is the one which DAUL mentioned as simlar to "Hangar 18". It's about a faked space mission which backfires in some way. Incidentally, if you want a ridiculous task, try justifying space industries to some one who BELIEVED Capricorn One..... It's interesting. ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 07/16/80 09:07:54 Has any one seen the new Destinies? It has a big excerpt for Heinlein's new book, "Expanded Universe." It is a fact/fiction combo, and from the excerpt, it looks as though the old master has done it again. Essentially, it's an anthology edited and enriched by R.A.H. But there are some really interesting things, like how to survive a nuclear holacaust, general advice, etc; ------------------------------ Date: 15 July 1980 1944-EDT (Tuesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: Answers to queries : Title of a story about a society which uses time as currency [ SFL V1 #174 ] Here are the answers (duplicates removed) to my query. (Thanx to all who replied) Doug - - - - - - - - - - query replies - - - - - - - - - - I think that Playboy ran a short fiction piece with the name "Time is Money" or somesuch a few years back. You clasp hands to make a transaction, and a computer device records it. The story is about one guy who runs out of time... -- Leo P. Harten There was a novel written by a guy called Van Heynk (I know this is not correct, I'll give you the correct name tomorrow) named "Where were you last pluterday." It involved a society where people could earn time (literally) for a vacation. -- Rich Pattis ------------------------------ Date: 13 JUL 1980 2239-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: humor Much of Leiber's stuff is humorous in a sardonic fashion; THE SILVER EGGHEADS, A SPECTER IS HAUNTING TEXAS, THE GREEN MILLENNIUM. Silverberg's UP THE LINE is alleged to be funny, and also to be pornographic, although it didn't seem to me to be much of either. THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER (and sequels, THE CASTLE OF IRON recently republished by Del Rey with TIC as THE COMPLETE ENCHANTER, a canard because it did not include THE WALL OF SERPENTS) is a quantified-magic story, very funny if you appreciate that variety of humor (a mixture of dry wit and slapstick). One of the classics, certainly; the line "Yngvi is a louse!" is one of the most recognized graffiti in fandom today. All by Pratt and de Camp (or de Camp and Pratt, depending on which source you consult). De Camp has done a number of other works which are humorous (or at least witty, which is frequently not the same thing): THE GOBLIN TOWER, THE FALLIBLE FIEND, LAND OF UNREASON (also with Pratt). THE FLYING SORCERER by Gerrold and Niven is one of the best modern efforts, although I found it somewhat strained after a long barrage of snickering at the ignorant natives who believe magic works; it also has a lovely punch line for a conclusion. There are also two anthologies of humorous SF, of which the only title I can currently recollect is INFINITE JESTS; don't recall whether that is the one assembled by Haldeman or by Silverberg, but would say without hesitation that the best story in either one is "Useful Phrases for the Tourist"--by Joanna Russ, who is the \last/ person I would expect to come up with such a howlingly funny piece (the humor comes not necessarily from the lines but from visualizing the situations in which they would be useful--broad slapstick in some places, but I \like/ \good/ slapstick). (Also another much older anthology, collected by Idella (?) Purnell Stone; good attempts but nothing spectacular.) Brunner did three articles, all appearing in his collection TIME JUMP, allegedly from a galaxy-wide version of CONSUMER REPORTS --- a perfect parody of the style, but the products tested (wishing machines, time travelers) are something else, as are the results they get. Randall Garrett (sp?) has just gotten a book out from Starblaze; called TAKEOFF, it's a collection of his pastiches and parodies from the last 30 years. The pastiches are average, and the parodies aren't, overall, up to the very high standard set by John Sladek when he was writing pseudonymous parodies of various writers for F&SF, but there are some real gems, especially "Backstage Lensman", which combines a variety of tomfoolery with just the right touch out of THE CAINE MUTINY. (This one appeared in ANALOG within the past few years.) Trying to be funny, but not making it (to my mind): EARTHMAN'S BURDEN and the sequel, STAR PRINCE CHARLIE, by Dickson and Anderson (or vice-versa); the Hokas, having no sense of the boundary between fact and fiction, imagine themselves to be various fictional individuals --- Casey at the bat, Leporello (Don Juan's henchman), cowboys (with green reptiles instead of Groaci for Indians), and so on. Very tiresome. Somewhat better: Dickson alone, with the Dilbians (intelligent Kodiak bears, basically) in SPATIAL EXPRESS and SPACEPAW. Characters (human and otherwise) with rather different--and elastic--moral systems. I think this is enough for the moment. ------------------------------ Date: 16 July 1980 22:03 edt From: JTurner.Coop at MIT-Multics Subject: Timelords A thought provoked by a reairing of a "Peanuts" special. Both Snoopy and Oscar the Grouch seem to have interiors to houses larger then the outside. Perhaps they are Time-Lords? NOTE - this reference will not be understood by non-Dr. Who fans, ask a friend. ------------------------------ Israel@MIT-AI 07/16/80 18:26:05 Re: Unicon Is anyone going to be at Unicon (the U of Md. SF Society Convention) this weekend? - Bruce ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/17/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 at 1355-CDT From: ables at UTEXAS Subject: Lucas and his numbers We all know the history of the 1138, don't we? Of course there was the movie THX-1138. There was also the movie AMERICAN GRAFFITI where one of the cars had a California license THX-138 (or 138-THX, I forget which way Calif. licenses go). And of course, in STAR WARS: IMPERIAL OFFICER: Where are you going with this . . . thing? LUKE: Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138. etc... Have I left any out? Does anybody know the story behind the NEW favorite number? The number is 327. When the MF is being brought aboard the Death Star in SW-4, an Imperial voice is heard giving an order: "Clear bay 327. We are opening the magnetic field." Well, in TESB, when the MF lands at Bespin, the patrol which escorts them in tells them "Permission granted to land on platform 327." Deja vu! king ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 1980 1038-PDT From: Dwight E. Cass Reply-To: CASS@USC-ISIE Subject: TESB - The Other One After quite a bit of discussion, I have come to believe that Leia is NOT the Other. I tend to believe that the Other is either an entirely new character, or Leia's (and Luke's..) yet unborn child. Reasoning: - It seems obivious that Leia and Luke should become close enough (if not already), to have a child. Such a child would allow an entirely new character, tied to the rest of the tradition to finish the last chapters of the saga. - Leia has NOT demonstrated any special ability! During the rescue sequence Luke was simply controlling her mind in much the same was as OBK did with the Guards just before the cantina scene in SW. - As I understand the rumor mill, the only characters which survive through all nine SW stories are R2D2 and C3PO, but to date, SW has turned out to be "The Skywalker Family Story." As corny as it sounds, why should that change? - Why is Yoda the only one to see that there is another? You would think that if the Other was in the immediate future that OBK would also see... Is it possible that the Other only just popped into the future because Luke picked his course? If Leia was the Other, then both OBK and Yoda should be able to see that from the begining. I know, Lucas can change the story line at any time. I guess only time can truly tell. PS: I take for granted that DV is Luke's father! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 18 JUL 1980 0508-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #18 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 18 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 18 Today's Topics: Filksongs, Physics Today- Data Compression and Speech, Number Jokes, SF Books- Rammer to A World Out of Time, SW Radio, TESB, SF TV- Elisha, SF Bloopers- Star Trek ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Jul 1980 at 2359-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FOCUS ON FILKING ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ KANTELE is a filk fanzine with relevant text of the usual zine type, plus songs, some with sheetmusic. A "goodie" for active (or even devoted passive) filkers. Pub'd quarterly by The Filk Foundation, (expatriate Texan) Margaret Middleton, ed., PO Box 9911, Little Rock, AR, 72219. 80 cents per copy; bundle of 10 copies, $3.50. It is the source from which the following is excerpted. "MUSICAL CHAS is a fanzine whose (initial issue's) contents are filksongs. 14 pages. Special trial issue for a quarter; regular issues will be 75 cents or The Usual. Editor Charlie Hamilton, c/o CHASFANS, PO Box 1287, Washington, D.C., 20013. "APA-FILK is just what the name implies-- an apa [like SF-L, which Ms. Middleton refers to as APA-ARPA] devoted to filksinging. Send a SASE to query the price which varies from issue to issue depending on thickness. Plenty of room for more contributors; send 50 copies of your contribution along with some money for postage costs. Collating deadlines are the firsts of Feb., May, Aug., & Nov.. Lyrics are swapped, philosophy of filk composition is discussed, some music theory is even explained. Collator is Robert Bryan Lipton, 5566 Green Place, Woodmere, NY, 11598." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ KANTELE'S RUN-DOWN OF FILK SONGBOOKS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "SING A SONG OF TREKKIN", a group of 20 Star Trek-based songs by Roberta Rogow, is slickly bound, professionally printed, and priced at $4.95. Has sheet music for all songs and an illustrating cartoon for each. From Caterpilllar Music, 8 Yale St., Nutley, NJ, 07110 "The NESFA Hymnal", 2nd ed., has done a careful job on their copyright clearances, which no doubt limited their options considerably. There is a lot which is noticeably not there, esp from Midwestern singers, though there is an infusion from Minneapolis and some West Coasters. "The HOPSFA Hymnal"'s last edition is more than slightly notorious for copyright infringements and general printing without permissions. When the University found out about the uproar, it confiscated the text material (a set of computer tapes). "Bruce Pelz' FILKSONG MANUAL was originally printed in 4 parts from 1965 to 1969; parts 1-3 are combined in one vol. in the current edition, with part 4 separate. Much of what is here was picked up by NESFA and HOPSFA...only they left out the sheetmusic. Some of what \didn't/ get into the other volumes: the 4 main songs from SILVERLOCK: "My Fair Femmefan"; Pelz' tunes for "Green Hills of Earth" and "Grand Canal"; "The Duke of Normandy" by Randall Garrett; "The Lay of Gil-Galad" from LORD OF THE RINGS; etc., etc... The set goes for $4 from Pelz at 15931 Kalisher St., Granada Hills, CA, 91344. "THE STANDING SONG STONE BOOK (sic) has Soc. for Creative Anachronism songs, most to reasonably familiar tunes. From Crag "Goodleech" Duggin, Columbia, MO, 65201. No price quoted. "THE COEUR D'ENNUI LETCHER'S GUILD SONGBOOK, a collection of medieval bawdy lyrics, identifies itself as 'definitely NOT an official SCA publication", but as a product of the Shire of Coeur d'Ennui, PO Box 1931, Des Moines, IA, 50306. No sheetmusic; no price given." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HERE'S THE SONG, WHAT'S THE MUSIC? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Has anyone the melody (on paper) and chords for the version of "Green Hills of Earth" in which the verse is the Obi-Wan (or Force) theme, and the chorus is the Leia theme? ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 07/17/80 07:33:17 Re: Data compression and human speech. [ see SFL V2 #16 ] Two days ago I discussed data compression using human speech as an example. The example I used comes from the real world. While at a military/govt. electronics show, I was treated to a demonstration of a system that analyzed human speech and transmitted the information to a receiving unit at 2400bps. The receiving unit used the data stream to synthesize the input speech. The system was amazing in it's ability to recreate small nuances of the speaker's voice. Not only was it possible to fully understand what the speaker was saying, but it was possible to identify the speaker and his/her emotional state. The quality appeared to be about 90% that of an ordinary phone line. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 18 July 1980 00:59 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: stop me if you've heard this one The numbering of jokes brings Bernie Greenberg's Einstein jokes to mind (as opposed to absentminded professor jokes). These run more or less: the summation of T sub sigma sigma times delta super i sub j and the outer product of the Ricci tensor is proportional to g sub i super j ... and so on. The obvious sequel to this is that Prof. X hears this at a conference and comes back to the university where he tells it to a group of other professors and graduate students. This time no one laughs but one of the professors explains: You forgot to substitute x sub i for the metric times the anti-symmetry component Q sub i,j. or something equally obscure. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1980 2035-EDT From: JoSH Subject: JBC I just noticed an odd thing: The name of the protagonist in Larry Niven's "Rammer" is Corbett. I read this story N years ago (it's in "A Hole in Space" amongst other places), and didn't notice later when I read "A World Out of Time" (of which Rammer is the first chapter) that it had changed. The change is significant; "Jerome Corbett" becomes "Jerome Branch Corbell." The "Branch" doesn't appear in Rammer. It's nice to see that Niven deals fairly with his characters... [ for those who don't know the reference: James Branch Cabell was an early 20th century writer of fantasy whose works are full of classical references, some authentic. I recommend him; expect less action and more wit than you find in modern fantasy. ] --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 1980 1120-PDT From: BRITT at USC-ISIB Subject: Star Wars Radio Production From the Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1980, part VI, page 8: The 13-week "Star Wars" radio series, an unprecedented co-production by National Public Radio and the BBC, is now in production here and is scheduled to begin airing early in 1981. Mark Hamill will re-create his film character of Luke Skywalker for the series, as will Anthony Daniels as the urbane, fussbudget robot, See Threepio. Other principals include Perry King (Han Solo), Ann Sachs (Princess Leia), Bernard Behrens (Ben Kanobi [sic]), Brock Peters (Darth Vader), John Considine (Tion), Keene Curtis (Tarkin) and Stephen Elliott (Prestor). John Madden will direct the 13-week series, with Richard Toscan, the executive producer. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1980 at 2352-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LUKE LOOKALIKES? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Likely to be overlooked in the TESB coverage in the current issue of US because it's on the contents page, is a photo of Mark Hamill with wife and baby. Marilou (sp?) looks enough like Mark here to be his female clone. If, when SW-3 rolls around, the baby looks as much like its parents as they appear to resemble each other, he'd be a natural for "little Luke". ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 16:40 CDT From: Phil Karn via Csvax.JDD at BERKELEY Subject: SW 4, 5 As long as everybody is making observations of trivial details in the sets of SW4 and TESB, I might as well throw in *my* observations. Maybe you guys aren't hardware types, but I found some of these props and effects somewhat humorous: In SW4: One of the control panels of the Death Star's planet zapper is nothing more than a Grass-Valley Group video switcher console. On the bottom of an opium(?) pipe in the cantina scene is a coax cable connector, the PL-259, well known to us ham radio types... In TESB: The most prominent sound effect in the rebel's command center is the ASCII time-code from Canada's standard-time station CHU. And you guys didn't notice these things??? ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1980 1042-PDT From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Elisha Cook, Jr's role in Star Trek I could have sworn the same actor also played in the Jack the Ripper episode, but maybe not. /Mike [ Elisha Cook, Jr. did not appear in the episode "Wolf in the Fold", the Jack the Ripper episode written by Robert Bloch. The guest stars for that episode were John Fiedler as Hengist, Charles Macauley as Jaris, Pilar Seurat as Sybo, Joseph Bernard as Tark, Charles Dierkop as Morla, Judy McConnell as Yeoman Tankris, Virginia Ladridge as Karen Tracy, Judy Sherven as Nurse, and Tania Lemani as Kara. The information is taken from THE WORLD of STAR TREK by David Gerrold. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/18/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses bloopers in the Star Trek episode "Court Martial". People who have not seen this episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 14 July 1980 14:08-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty With reference to the letter by Lasater at SUMEX-AIM [ concerning "Courtmartial - SFL V2 #14 ]: 1) Let's assume that the Enterprise's speakers and pickup mikes are really that sensitive. Ok, why can we only hear loud heart-beats. We should also be able to hear the breathing of the people on board, and Kirk's commands should seem like bellows when amplified with a gain of "1 to the fourth power." 2) How come McCoy has to go around with a white-sound device anyway? After he blanks out the heartbeats of all present, Kirk asks Spock to mask the heartbeat of the single crewman in the transporter room. Why didn't Spock just mask out the entire bridge while he was at it? 3) In this episode *only* were we shown a visual log kept automatically. [We'll disregard the fact that it had multiple camera angles, including one that showed nothing of particular interest, but provided a nice angle for knowing which button Kirk was pressing] If the Enterprise truly kept such logs, why would Kirk be required to keep a "Captain's Log?" When his personal motives were important, he could add them to the official log, but why would he need to describe what was going on aboard ship when it was already being filmed? It seems clear that Roddenberry & Co had a momentary lapse when filming this episode. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 19 JUL 1980 0453-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #19 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 19 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 19 Today's Topics: Effects of Special Environments, SF Bloopers - Venus Equilateral & Star Trek, SF Games - Darkover, SF Books - Humor II, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JTurner.Coop@MIT-MULTICS 07/11/80 22:02:25 Another thing about isolated groups of intellectuals. Did anyone see 'Simon'? ------------------------------ Date: 18 JUL 1980 1218-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: VENUS EQUILATERAL blooper The current spate of messages about information transmission brings to mind a question that has been bothering me for some time. Somebody recently mentioned George O. Smith's "Venus Equilateral" stories. While these are mostly entertaining (especially if you can think like a 40's ASTOUNDING reader), there is one error permeating the series that I've never been able to figure out: given the existence of VE (which is definitely needed if you want to avoid relays or interruptions), why was it necessary for the characters to sweat over the development of transmission techniques the effects of which we take for granted? Unless I'm seriously misled the current generation of interplanetary satellites are easily able to communicate over greater distances and at far higher rates than Smith considered possible. Was this just shortsightedness on Smith's part (there have been many cases of writers underestimating the rate of progress of technology), or could he have been setting up artificial difficulties for his characters to solve? I'm under the impression that he was, for his day, a competent radio hacker (although he obviously didn't have the general science knowledge a good SF writer \ought/ to have; see my previous remark about his mistake in basic chemistry/biochemistry in the last VE story), so I'm curious if anyone on SFLovers who knows more about radio than I do could supply some explanation of how either Smith was off-base or I am misreading something either in his stories or the current space technology. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 1980 10:19 PDT From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: Courtmartial On the right armrest of Kirk's command chair were five buttons. The bottom two were unlabeled, and the others were marked "yellow alert," "red alert," and "jettison pod." Come on! Richard ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 1980 1233-EDT From: FISCHER at RUTGERS Subject: Unusual games ...and here is a parting shot from a friend of mine about a rather fascinating game called "Darkover: Psychic Conflict in the Ages of Chaos," which is availible from Eon games: From: Steven Sherman Just a small shout from the lips of a Fantasy reader/game player. Having played through Eon's Darkover many a non-existant night, I feel that I would be recalcitrant in not giving it a much deserved "plug" . Based on the apparently endless novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley, the game accurately mirrors the fascinating perplexities which can be found in such works as "Stormqueen" and "The Spell Sword." Be forewarned, however \the most interesting aspect of this game is in the guise of a 'ghostwind',/ a pregame 'dare' (as it were) in which you write down an action which can be done by all players when a fatal Ghostwind chit is solemnly drawn. Examples: "describe oral sex in detail for 2 minutes"; "Take off all clothes and do 13 pushups"; "sing like Deborah Harry for 1 minute", etc. Note that you always have the option of voting not to perform and can simply move all those strategic tokens back to their boring home domain. In the novels the 'Ghostwind' was a cloud of hallucinogenic spores which caused the people of the planet Darkover to lose a large percentage of their self control. It behooves you to perform the Ghostwind if you want to win. Note that if you're the shy type you may want to go see TESB 29 more times rather than play this game. But, if you have guts, definitely give the 'Darkover' game a try! P.S. - Any Aridani out there wanna play? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 1980 at 0108-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ COMEDIC SF ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Assuming that "SF" in this context means "speculative fiction" so as to include fantasy, my vote for the most (purposely) amusing SF book is WARLOCK IN SPITE OF HIMSELF by Christopher Stasheff. It has splendid puns exploding all over the place like roman candles at a 4th of July fireworks. Fess, the talking robot horse is priceless. (The first 2 or 3 times I read the book I had the strangest sensation: I would "hear" the horse's lines in my head while I was reading them, and he sounded just like HAL in 2001, but FUNNY.) There is a sequel, KING KOBOLD. On the opposite end of the genre from fantasy, H. Beam Piper's A PLANET FOR TEXANS (re-issued last year as LONE STAR PLANET) was the most amusing. You don't HAVE to be a "naturalized" Texan to enjoy it, but it does enhance one's perception of the aptness of the underlying satire. Though knowledgeably-written humorous fantasy is one of my favorite sub-genres (more about THEM another time), I found very few strictly science fiction books-with-comedic intent on my shelves. The only definitely qualifying ones were G.C. Edmondson's THE ALUMINUM MAN (you'll get a tummy-ache from doubling up with laughter), and Robert Sheckley's THE TENTH VICTIM which might be funnier in the movie version. Dickson's SPACIAL DELIVER (not 'SPATIAL EXPRESS', as Hitchcock had it in [SFL V2 #17]) is almost as greatly adventurous as it is humorous. Its sequel is SPACEPAW. (I don't have them, but a lot of people like the collection of "Hoka" stories, EARTHMAN'S BURDEN, and a related novel, STAR PRINCE CHARLIE, by Gordon Dickson and Poul Anderson, which fit, but "too-cutesy" aliens don't appeal to me.) Beyond those, the adventure predominates over the comedic intent in-- L. Sprague DeCamp: ROGUE QUEEN. An alien "warrior" from a bee-like culture has to eat "queen's food" to survive, and develops interest in ess-ee-ex. James White: STAR SURGEON and HOSPITAL STATION. A galactic Dr. Kildare has the most gosh-awful-wonderful patients. His mosquito-like colleague, Dr. Prilicla, is my favorite alien. (Also try White's MONSTERS AND MEDICS collection.) Murray Leinster's quiet humor leavens the exploits of the dour heroes of most of his extensive output. THE GREKS BRING GIFTS with its wry commentary on human foibles is great fun and prime adventure. (I'm a sucker for a good world-saver.) Laurence Janifer's duo, KNAVE IN HAND and SURVIVOR, have something of the same flavor but much more derring do. His collaboration with Randall Garrett (as Mark Phillips) in the "Malone" series, BRAIN TWISTER, SUPERMIND, and THE IMPOSSIBLES, is closer to the requisite comedic intent. The hero, a try-anything gov't agent, foils Enemies by relying on the telepathic powers of a little old lady found in a mental hospital, who claims to be Queen Elizabeth... the FIRST. Harry Harrison's DEATHWORLD pits the macho hero's mere wits against the inimical flora and fauna of a world whose colonists have had to develop super-human reflexes just to survive, and in comparison with whom, he is no better than a toddler. (Its sequels DEATHWORLD 2 and DEATHWORLD 3 don't come off as well so I don't have them. Likewise Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series, romping spoofs of the genre.) And finally, something that is and/or is not SF... and/or soft-core porn... AND/OR spy story... Rod Grey's LAID IN THE FUTURE (double meaning is patently intentional) from the "Lady from L.U.S.T." series. ------------------------------ JBARRE@MIT-AI 07/18/80 20:29:00 Re: Luke-alikes Several months a go, a local program (dallas) ran some interviews with the TESB stars. Mark Hammill said at the time that the producers were very interested in using his son, because they want to go back to a time when Luke was about eight years old. In the interview he said that he told the producers "No way, one actor in the family is enough!" But then, who knows what will happen in seven or eight years??? ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/19/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1980 (Sunday) 1729-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON (William Westfield) Subject: TESB: storm troopers and bombing Hoth 1) Stormtroopers are obviously the dregs from the nearest low-culture planet, who are impressed into service, who then are fanatically devoted, similar to friendly troops in the Dorsai books. (there are other similarities between these two works - consider Joda an exotic, with the Jedi as Dorsai types with ocassional really powerful people like Donal Graehm (Luke or Obi Wan) Darth Vader could be William of Ceta, and other similarities) 2) The empire can't bomb the bleep out of Hoth, because I dont think either the they or the rebellion have nuclear explosives! I haven't seen any, at least. I am not sure why not, since the death star reactor made a lovely bang when it exploded. Maybe missles/bombs were given up a long time ago, since there is a good chance they would be too slow to use against spacecraft. Bill W ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 07/11/80 12:02:13 Re: are storm troopers clones? Given that we know that Vader is no fool, would he want clones that were the perfect fighting men? I.e., would he want clones that could always hit their mark, were bright, resourceful, etc? Just possibly such a force of troopers would be too much of a temptation for mischief. Whoever controlled such a force would be quite powerful, and although Vader now controls the storm troopers, the perfect fighting man would be one who would obey ANY order from ANY superior (if your willing to believe the military mentality). So, might not such a force of troopers be difficult to keep in one's control? The senior officer that has been made a fool of by Vader in front of his men: "I'm not goona take this from him any longer!", he muttered to himself. .. .. Of course, someone will point out that it might be better to make clones that are more intelligent but that are also loyal to only one person. But then what of the military hierarchy of command? Would Vader have to give each command himself personally in order to insure his continued leadership? No, that is not reasonable. Well then, maybe one needs intelligent clones that are capable of deciding for themselves whether or not a given order is actually coming from Vader (via a subordinate), or makes sense in and of itself, etc. Aah, but then what if such a force decides to start looking out after their own tails and rebel? Or even worse, such a soldier might actually have to have a CONSCIENCE!! IMPOSSIBLE!! UNTHINKABLE!! Therefore, maybe the safest force to control are fairly stupid clones that are totally expendable and that are not very effective in small numbers. Then one only has to make as many of them as one needs for the moment and control the capability of making them (this assumes that the clones can somehow be produced fully grown, which is exactly what one would want). After all, the only one thing we CAN be sure of is that Vader is NO FOOL. Why else would he want to have a force of imbecilic incompetents at his disposal? Just a thought, Greg ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 20 JUL 1980 0718-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #20 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 20 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 20 Today's Topics: Bibliography Queries and Responses, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Jul 1980 1155-EDT From: CCIS.ZEVE at RUTGERS Subject: Effects of Special Environments There are a number of stories that deal with what happens when you take a group of people and force them to treat problems in new ways. Does anyone know any of them? (I vaguely recall having read several but don't remember the titles). There are two other kinds of related stories: 1) stories where something supposedly impossible has been 'demonstrated' to be possible and some person or people are required to duplicate it. 2) stories where a group of children are raised under totally controlled (or so it is believed) conditions completely separated from the universe except thru the controlled contacts of the experiment (these stories inevitably wind up with the experimenters getting a lot more than they reckoned on). Does anyone remember reading any stories like these? There was one of type 2 in a fairly recent book called SPACE MAIL (should be of interest to SF-Lovers, all the stories were written in the form of letters or diaries or memos). Also Piers Anthony's book Macroscope assumed that the main character had come out a group from a type 2 story. I have read many stories like these but as usual have forgotten when, where, and by who. Oh well, maybe i'll get a list of interesting stories out of it. Steve Z. ------------------------------ Date: 20 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Responses on Telepathy / Self Ref SF / Gene Eng / MT / ? Telepathy: ---------- Re-birth by John Wyndham (novel) Someone's mention of the telepathic hillbillies by Kornbluth reminds me of the short novel by John Wyndham called Re-birth. An interesting note is that about 5 lines from this novel were lifted verbatim by The Jefferson Airplane and made into a song called "Crown of Creation" (without a reference, I might add). -- Mike SF Stories referencing SF: -------------------------- Titan by John Varley (novel) In John Varley's Titan, the heroine liked fantasy, she dreamed of destroying the Death Star! -- bill John Varley's 'Titan' is loaded with it. It takes place mid next century, see, and they have both a 'classic science fiction' fan and an old 'flat movies' fan on the crew, so when they hear about the sand-worms in the desert its "gee, just like in 'Dune'", and "Maybe this whole thing is a generation ship which has broken down, just like in 'Orphans in the Sky'". There is also a meta-self-reference (one of Hofstadter's tangled hierarchies) involving the wizard of oz... Varley does it real well, citing films and books that are well on their way to being classics, so that the astronaut-types of the 21st century WOULD know about those things, and it would be funny, in fact, if they failed to make the connection... -- David Mankins Genetic Engineering Applications: --------------------------------- The Warriors of Dawn by M. A. Foster (novel) Back in the twentieth century, scientists had been fooling with people's genes in order to come up with some super-people who could then breed with regular people and improve the race. Unfortunately, the first stable race that came out of these experiments turned out to be a different species, so the cross-breeding idea didn't work out. These new people (ler) went off and formed a culture of their own. This story involves a human male and a ler female getting to know each other as they chase baddies across the galaxy. -- Terry To Live Forever by Jack Vance (novel) A couple of people have mentioned Varleys' stories for immortality by cloning. An earlier example of this is Jack Vance's To Live Forever, which also covers social problems of this. -- Mike Teleportation: [ short bibliography from Chip ] -------------- Stories suggesting the actual transportation of the object: ALL THE COLORS OF DARKNESS by Lloyd Biggle also suggests that self-transmission (which is the key to FTL spaceships) is a stage in MT development. First of the five (so far) Jan Darzek stories; recommended. THE WITLING by Vernor Vinge Takes Niven's ideas concerning the conservation of various momenta and looks at how maps could be drawn to allow for this in a race of natural teleports. Otherwise dull. Scanning theory: THE TOWER OF GLASS by Robert Silverberg specifically mentions the protagonist brooding over the fact that he's being torn down and reconstituted -- which should be inconceivable agony, except that it happens too fast. Mixture: THE UNIVERSE BETWEEN by Alan Nourse Researchers think they are scanning something, memorizing it, breaking it down to atoms, shipping the atoms, and reconstituting them -- but they're going through another universe to do this and destroying it in the process. Finally, people are simply carried instantaneously through the other universe -- which, being extradimensional, allows them to go anywhere in no time at all. Worthwhile, even though sometimes cataloged as a juvenile. THE COMPLETE VENUS EQUILATERAL by George O. Smith (collection) This collection also has one actual-object-transmission story (the last one, written for THE ASTOUNDING MEMORIAL ANTHOLOGY), which would be better if Smith didn't blow basic biochemistry. The almost forgotten stories: ----------------------------- The computer utopia story [ see SFL V2 #6,9 ]: Perhaps the story you are looking for is "The Machine Stops"? I leave it as an exercise to the audience to come up with the author... -- Computers rebuilding a man from cell plans story [ see SFL V1 #165 ]: The story referenced about computers rebuilding a man from cell plans may be a Zelazny story called something like "For breath While I Tarry". I am very hazy about this tho. I remember the story and I think it was Zelazny. -- Steve Someone asked about a story with computers re building people based on cell plans(?), which sounds a lot like The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke. -- Mike And once more for good measure: ------------------------------- The correct title for the Dickson novel which [SFL V2 #17] referred to as "SPATIAL EXPRESS" and [SFL V2 #19] referred to as "SPACIAL DELIVER" is in fact "SPACIAL DELIVERY" as HJJH has pointed out. The typo was accidentally introduced during digest preparation. -- RDD ------------------------------ Date: 18 July 1980 13:01 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Remake of SW IV While idly browsing through a magazine (whose title escapes me) devoted to amateur special effects (especially starships and explosions) I saw a letter from one of the readers who is attempting to make his/her OWN version of SW IV!. Included was a film clip, showing a white-robed "Luke" kneeling down to talk to some sand-people. Also shown were C3-P0 and R2-D2 models. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/20/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 17 July 1980 03:35-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: TESB DARTH (DADDY) VADER Here is a suggestion a friend made regarding DV being Luke's father... What if DV is really Luke's father and he is trying to destroy the empire from within. He would have to prove himself by displaying the evil side of the force. Perhaps if he can get Luke on his side they can bring order to the EMPIRE and depose the emperor. The problem I have with that is that I find it hard to believe he would be so obsessed with getting Luke (especially cutting one's son's hand off). Oh well, it isn't my idea. Perhaps DV is the "other" hope? ------------------------------ Date: 15 July 1980 13:14-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: Cat and mouse It appeared to me that Vader only started using both hands when he realized that simply taunting Luke wasn't going to work. To me, anyway, it seemed that Vader's "game" was to bring out the anger in Luke. He said "Release your \anger/...only your \hatred/ will destroy me." [Remember what Ben said as Luke left: "Luke...don't give in to hate"] It seemed as if he was just showing off to Luke just how powerful he was when he gestured with one hand ["You have learned much"] while still defending himself. It was only when he realized that a much better way to release Luke's anger was to attack, that he started using both hands. He definitely began using two hands before Luke hit him, tho. Remember, after Vader falls backwards off the platform [a cunning ploy], how Luke cautiously walks down a dimly lit corridor [aren't they all?] and Vader suddenly jumps out from behind something-or-other and barely misses Luke? He then starts attacking Luke furiously, with both hands, pushing him back. The last step in releasing Luke's anger was to cut off his hand, but even that didn't seem to work [unless, of course, he isn't Luke's father]. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1980 10:30 PDT From: Klose.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: TESB in another Time/Space I'm suprised nobody has discussed the significance of Luke's disappearance (or "dream sequence") which occured to him during the climactic battle against DV. There certainly must be some explanation of this "temporary transportation" to Tattooine to talk with his father. As I recall, the dialog went something like this: LUKE: (suprised) I'm home! FATHER: Yes, son. You are home. Come forward, my son. LUKE: Father! Is it really you? FATHER: Luke, listen to me. You have a destiny. Follow that path, but be aware of the FORCE, Luke. Beware the FORCE. (he fades) LUKE: Father! Is this man (standing in the shadows of his childhood home) a ghost of Luke's real father? Maybe his real father is still alive and Jedi have the power to teleport objects momentarily to great distances? The man never answers the question Luke asks, so this leads me to believe that he is not Luke's real father. I think it was a mental trick played on Luke by DV as part of a scheme to weaken Luke and to get him to join DV. What's wrong with all you SF-LOVERS? Were you all asleep during this crucial scene? A few other comments: I seem to remember there being a female in the room with DV when we see the back of his head. I think that the underwater backgrounds for Araton, the underwater (underswamp?) city, looked somewhat fake. I was, however, quite impressed with the light sabre assembly line. It looked very realistic. The most startling scene has to be when Chewie catches on fire. That had me at the edge of my seat. After Luke fell off his taun-taun at the Hoth rodeo, Leia gave Luke much more attention than Han, even though Han was the winner in taun-taun roping. I thought this scene was most humorous. If it jams, FORCE it! - Paul ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 21 JUL 1980 0434-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #21 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 21 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 21 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Reality factors, SF Bloopers - VE & ST, SF Books - O'Donnell & Brunner & Bester & Timebank, TESB - Lucas Hallmark & Luke's Gender & Alternities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MARG@MIT-AI 07/19/80 02:14:18 Re: 2001 revisited...(ramblings)... I just did, for the doubledigit'th time, and I decided that, tech flaws and all, it is NOT a movie, it is a DOCUMENTARY. The qualities that make 2001 "real" for me seem to be the same ones that make some folks bored (yes, there really are some) - time to think, slow pace, quiet. So far I am the only person I know who liked the movie SOLARIS, and I liked it specifically because with all of its implausibility I found myself able to empathize with the first contact situation. It simply gave me time to think and fantasize around the obvious questions - What would this really feel like? What would I really do? This particularly affecting sense of being there, especially poignant for me in alien contact situations, usually appears after the fact (of reading) in written works, not during my initial reading. It rarely happens at all in visual works, because they are usually cluttered, wrong, absurd technically ... you name it. Thinking it over tonite, then, SOLARIS and 2001 are the ones that had this effect in real-time, and yet they seem to be maximally capable of boring other people. Am I so strange? In what, if anything, do other SF-LOVERS find themselves actively, personally involved in alternate worlds? What about differences between written and seen works? Finally, did anyone else like SOLARIS (movie) for any reason? ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 07/19/80 09:47:18 Re: 1940's radio technology. In the 1940's, the KNOWN radio spectrum was pretty well limited to the chunk below 200 Mhz. At the time, the magnetron was stil top secret and microwaves were a pipe dream. The concepts of pulse-coded signals were known mathematically, but practical uses had not been determined. On the basis of these facts, practical bandwidths were on the order of 10's of Khz, not the Ghz bandwidths we are familiar with today (remember there were no such things as electronic digital computers then so they had no need to send digital data). Brian ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jul 1980 00:50 PDT From: LStewart at PARC-MAXC Subject: Communications stuff About communicating over interplanetary distances. I think George O. Smith was pretty accurate with his radio information for his day (late 1940s). One of his stories mentions 'bouncing radar off the moon' which was done at 400 MHz by the Signal Corps in 1946 (Project Diana). They used umpteen kilowatts but by the the late '60s and in the '70s, hams were communicating via moonbounce with one kilowatt. How? Two reasons: higher frequencies/high gain antennas and better low-noise amplifiers for the receiver. Smith had to work with tubes, which are pretty noisy; I think the parametric amplifier (magic with non-linear capacitors) and the maser amplifier were invented in the fifties. Smith's stuff about penetrating the ionosphere was bunk though - of course no one had yet been above it! I recall an article about interplanetary communications engineering in the IEEE Communications Society magazine. The data rates from the first Mariner spacecraft were about nine bits per second. These days, spacecraft like the Voyagers can run at 10 to 50 kilobits from Jupiter distances - but it takes a 200 foot receiver dish and a cryogenically cooled receiver amplifier. Getting 90 megabits (TV) from a satellite only 40,000 klicks out is child's play. Remember, the received signal runs as the inverse square of the distance. -Larry ------------------------------ Date: 19 July 1980 23:22 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Brodie MAXC's Star Trek 'Court Martial' Blooper Brodie complains that the arm of Kirk's chair contains only five buttons, two unlabelled, one each for red and yellow alert, and one to jettison the pod. Brodie must think that the labels are too specific, but I say that (given that Kirk pushes buttons instead of speaking, which he clearly could do, since the Enterprise computer can recognize voices) the button labels are dynamic. There are several such technologies used today, so that the options presented to you are only the reasonable ones. Most times there would not even be a pod to jettison, but when a storm is coming up, the Enterprise knows that jettison is a likely choice, as is red and yellow alert, so these are the options on his chair. Now we could all envision better command and control systems than that. Notice though, that it makes sense to offer Kirk only maximum of five choices, since this fits within 7 plus or minus 2. Well, are there any would-be star-ship control designers out there? Anybody want to survey the various types of star-ship controls in the literature? ------------------------------ Date: 14 July 1980 23:51-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Request for material by Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. I am looking for any information about this man and his writing. So far I have found only three items by him: - "Three Aliens", a novelet in Destinies V1 #5 (Oct-Dec 79); - "Judo and the Art of Self-Government", a short story in Destinies V2 #1 (Feb-Mar 80); - "Mayflies", a novel, published by Berkley, 1979. All three are very good, but the best part is that this guy really understands computers and computer networks and their effects on their users. If anyone knows of any other stories by Mr. O'Donnell, or even any personal data about him (i.e. who is he?) please send me the information. If I get anything interesting, I will forward it to the list. --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 1980 1718-PDT From: Lasater at SUMEX-AIM Subject: The Shockwave Rider I just finished reading John Brunner's, *The Shockwave Rider*. I found it to be excellent entertainment. It is particularly relevant for those of use who work with computers and the ARPAnet. We are the midwives at the birth of a new technology which will affect society as profoundly as nuclear energy and space travel. It is important that information processing technology not be misused like nuclear power, until many people advocate its removal from our society or allowed to wither from neglect as space travel has. The countless delays in launching the Space Shuttle are the most visible sign of our declining interest in space travel. I keep thinking that Precipice is actually Santa Cruz, CA. Just look at a map of California. But no, it couldn't be. Precipice was describe as flat, built on alluvial soil. Santa Cruz is surrounded by mountains. I also want to mention that I read this novel, plus Bester's *The Demolished Man* because of discussions in the SF digest. Please, if you read a novel or story collection which is commendable, let other know about it. Robert ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 07/17/80 09:18:40 The story about using time as currency [ SFL V1 #174, V2 #17 ] is entitled "Time Bank" or "The Timebank" (not sure which). ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/21/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 15 July 1980 20:26 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: Arms and the Like So Lucas has discovered that he can maximize profits by cutting arms off. The secret with Travolta is to have him hold his left arm up behind his head as in Saturday Night Fever and Urban Cowboy. I wonder if this can be described as a "hallmark"? ------------------------------ Date: 17 JUL 1980 1132-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Luke's gender There has been a fair amount of discussion grown out of the suggestion (which from this distance I haven't been able to track down) of one of the contributors to SF-Lovers that Luke was originally supposed to be female. I am curious as to whether any of the people who support this idea have any other evidence than the McQuarrie sketch in THE ART OF STAR WARS, which sketch I suspect to have been incorrectly captioned in the book. For those who haven't seen the piece in question, it shows a fairly tall man with a short full beard, holding a light-saber (not well drawn in, but the handle is obvious and there is a line or two to suggest the "blade"); a few lines by his left side suggest a knee-length flaring cloak. Someone is sprawled at his feet, leaning on the left elbow and pointing one of the SW-standard sidearms; the body is more female than male, but the costume includes a rather emphatic codpiece and the face is thoroughly androgynous. Looking at other McQuarrie sketches said to be of Leia, I'd say the person is intended to be female --- which suggests that in fact the sketch should have been captioned "Luke and Leia". Certainly there are discrepancies between this and any of the conceptions which have been discussed; however, I'm inclined to this view by other published material which has indicated that Lucas intended Luke as his own surrogate -- Lucas was "the kid" among filmmakers for quite a while, apparently, and it has been claimed that Lucas occasionally misspoke himself and referred to Mark Hamill on the set by the nickname Lucas had been given when he came to Hollywood. Not conclusive, certainly, but I'd like to know what other evidence people have come across for the Luke-as-female theory. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jul 1980 12:34:55 EDT From: David Mankins Subject: re: TESB in alternate universes I thought it was a stroke of genius casting Humphrey Bogart as Han Solo, even though he looked uncomfortable without a cigarette drooping from his mouth. Lauren Bacall as Princess Leia was nice, too. ------------------------------ Date: 20 JUL 1980 1433-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: "?" It looks like the dark side of the Force of our recent discussion of SF humor got the better of you [ Klose.ES ]--or else you've found an unusually effective brand of hash. ------------------------------ ZRM@MIT-MC 07/20/80 15:52:18 Re: American Grafitti strikes again? I formally introduce the motion to chain Klose.ES to a keypunch machine and drop him into a trash chute in Bespin. --zig ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 22 JUL 1980 0409-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #22 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 22 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 22 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Reality Factors, SF Bloopers - ST & VE, TESB- Sales & Luke's Gender & SW/Muppets & Alternities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DLW@MIT-AI 07/21/80 05:39:20 Re: 2001 I have seen 2001 many times and have never been bored at any point in the movie. I think the reason is that I just enjoy seeing that world, even if nothing is happening in it. For example, remember the scene in the space station, just after Floyd has arrived, during which he has a brief conversation with some fellow scientists in which essentially no information gets transferred (except that the audience finds out that Floyd's mission is secret)? This scene is typical of what the critics complained about: the human charcters are very two-dimensional and say boring things. But look at that background, with the floor curving away and the Howard Johnson (or something) signs -- it is all very believable. A lot of the lack of action is made up for by the stunning cinematography, especially in the Dawn of Man part. Maybe it really is the slow pacing that makes it so easy to get into enjoying just watching what is going by. (I am told almost universally that this same sort of thing is what makes Barry Lyndon a loser, though. I haven't seen it, but I suspect *that* world is one in which I have much less interest in immersing myself.) I've never seen Solaris, though. ------------------------------ Date: 21 July 1980 20:32-EDT From: Gail Zacharias Subject: SOLARIS I didn't find SOLARIS boring, however I wasn't able to fully enjoy it because of its throughly terrible technical aspects. I don't mean the SF technical aspects, I mean the movie was simply badly made. Every time I would start getting into the movie and really thinking about it, I would get distracted by not being able to help noticing how the camera moved abruptly from face to face as each face spoke its lines. Or a guy stands by a window and suddenly a bucket of water is poured out outside the window as he says "looks like it's raining" or some such. Totally amateurish. What a waste of a good book. I do agree with MARG@AI in that I felt they took the right basic approach. They took a "thinking" book and made a "thinking" movie - they didn't try to spice it up or speed it up or `up' anything. Now if they only found a decent director and some decent actors..... (I am referring to the Russian movie SOLARIS, the one that gets shown around MIT from time to time. If there is some other version, I sure would like to know about it!) ------------------------------ DR@MIT-MC 07/21/80 15:31:30 Re: Star Trek bloopers (the court-martial episode) The thing I don't seem to understand about the whole discussion of this episode, i.e. "bloopers" such as having buttons on Kirk's armchair labeled, log taking pictures from different angles, a question of need for captain's log when you have this picture-taking facility, need for McCoy to walk around with this white thing shutting off people's heart beats while Spock does it through a computer (for the crewman not present on the bridge), etc, etc, etc, is why do you all people fail to understand the necessity for movie theatrics? There is such a concept in movie production as "a dramatizing effect" and some of you should become familiar with this concept. I am surprised no one brought up the fact that the log camera all of a sudden zooms in on Kirk's hand right before he jettisons the pod! Clearly most of the stuff you people are complaining about were put in for sheer dramatic effect!!! Without them Star Trek would never have been as good as it is! ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jul 1980 (Monday) 0851-PST From: HIRGELT at LLL-MFE Subject: Enterprise Control Console From: Ed Hirgelt Regarding Kirk's console controls: My complaint with the layout is not the number of buttons, but the proximity of the two "alert" buttons and the jettison pod button. It seems like lousy human engineering to me. Why put a command that could cost a life near buttons that are essentially warning in nature? The probability that yellow or red alert would occur is relatively high. Placing the jettison button there is asking for an error. Humans are fallible afterall. Oh, I know the real reason, no story line. Ed ------------------------------ Date: 21 JUL 1980 1314-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: George O. Smith (2nd go-round) In-Reply-To: Brian Lloyd's and Larry Stewart's msgs on 1940's radio technology [ SFL V2 #21 ] It looks like what both of you are saying is that Smith was accurately describing his contemporary technology transplanted, unchanged, some number of centuries into the future --- which I would consider to be a major failing on the part of a science fiction writer; to assume that a technology will simply stand still, especially when he'd seen the advances that had taken place in his own lifetime, is simply foolish. Obviously he couldn't predict which direction technology would develop in --- the transistor was a quantum leap in electronics design, especially for someone as mired in practicalities as Smith was --- so it looks like he decided to set up a future about which he could talk knowledgeably in 40's terms rather than simply saying "this will have happened" and leaving it at that to concentrate on the rest of the story. I suppose that's reasonable, given that the stories were written to an audience that liked highly technical discussions of the solution of technical problems, but from current perspective it badly dates not just the stories but the style and the (sub)genre. I have one cavil with the explanations given, however; digital information was the first to be transmitted over radio (i.e., Morse code), and in fact Smith does describe the VE system as involving digitalized transmission. I think I take your intended meaning: that because digital computers were virtually nonexistent (likewise TV) the average electronicist would have little reason to think in terms of the order of data transmission rates we consider routine today, provided he was (as Smith apparently was) not all that interested in anything that wasn't right in front of him. It's interesting that this also shows up in some of Smith's other works. In THE FOURTH "R" (aka THE BRAIN MACHINE, or some such awful title), he edges toward the typical technician's mistake of assuming that intelligence is easily quantifiable --- potentially even measurable in terms of current knowledge (which is all that a lot of the current standardized tests can do). He acknowledges in passing that the boy-hero has little or no judgment but shows him surviving in situations where judgment --- and its parallel attribute, the ability to synthesize conclusions from data --- is required. Take for example the first scene, in which it is stated that he is an accomplished bridge player at the age of ~6. Bridge is like chess, in that attempting to memorize and grade all possible situations is not the way the masters do it and probably not strictly the way winning computers will succeed in it; patterns must be recognized and probabilities calculated (especially in bridge, which has subtleties such as deliberately playing the "wrong" card in order to confuse the opponents or reduce their chances of regaining control) to apply current knowledge to new situations (doesn't this sound more like a better definition of genius than being a walking encyclopedia?). I suppose all this may be taking Smith a good deal too seriously; I've never seen anything suggesting that most of his stories were intended as more than light entertainment. But "pure" entertainment is especially likely to reflect the prejudices and unquestioned assumptions of its audience (if it doesn't it will be disturbing, which isn't entertaining to most people), and even if the average ASTOUNDING reader didn't share Claude Degler's beliefs in SF fans as \the/ future rulers, there's evidence in many of the most popular stories of that period of the contempt of the self-defined superior types for their alleged inferiors (consider the remark in HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL that anyone who can't use a sliderule is an illiterate who shouldn't be allowed to vote, or another ASTOUNDING story (by Smith but never reprinted as far as I can find) in which literacy itself is a profession, accepted as necessary but considered by the public to be undesirable in anyone not a member of the guild (come to think of it, the social situation is similar to that of the espers in THE DEMOLISHED MAN, except that Smith is taking a didactic position rather than standing open to argument). I know I've got some arguable positions here; I'll be interested to see what anyone comes up with in the line of corroboration or opposition. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/22/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 07/21/80 0937-EDT From: FOCUS at LL Subject: TESB Does anyone out there know current sales figures for TESB? ------------------------------ Date: 21 JUL 1980 1302-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: oops! In my discussion of Luke's gender I neglected to mention that the picture in question is captioned "Han and Luke". ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 1980 2030-PDT From: Lasater at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Muppet show with our friends from SW/TESB I saw the Star Wars/Muppet show tonight. It was a fine show. The opening scene has Luke and C3P0 stumbling warily onto the set of the show. Luke says, "We seem to have landed on some comedy-variety show planet." Two questions: 1) The show featured appearances from Luke, Chewbacca, R2D2 and C3P0, who did a rather attractive dance routine (considering his restrictive costume). Were the characters who played these roles in the movies also on the show? 2) Does Mark Hammill have a cousin who looks just like him? Or was this a cute electronic trick? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 at 0056-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ WHO WAS ON THE SW/MUPPET SHOW ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In re Lasater at SUMEX-AIM's query about who was really on the Star Wars/Muppet show, unfortunately I've missed that every time it's played here. I'd presume that Peter Mayhew was indeed in the Wookiee suit, but that Kenny Baker was not in the R2 unit. Hamill was surely Luke and the lookalike, and I know Tony was Threep. To be on the safe side, I'll have this all verified by My Friend The Ultimate SW Fan, hopefully via LARKE at MIT-ML. ------------------------------ Date: 21 July 1980 21:39 edt From: SALawrence at MIT-Multics (STEVE at SAI-Prime) Subject: Re: TESB in another space-time What space time was this other TESB viewed in, pray tell? Certainly not the one I saw it in; the version in Boston didn't have any of the referred to scenes in it. Light saber assembly line, indeed. For the use of the remaining 1 jedi knight, no doubt. If we assume Luke is a jedi. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jul 1980 at 1323-CDT From: clyde at UTEXAS Subject: reality effects & TESB Come, come, now boys! Klose is only having a little fun with you. Being a heretic can be fun, especially when the believers are SO serious about the whole thing. BTW -- if that was hash, where did you ..... (never mind). -Clyde Hoover P.S. I did like the anti-gravity assembly area in the light saber factory. But how did they generate those quantum black holes, much less package them into batteries? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 23 JUL 1980 0423-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #23 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 23 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 23 Today's Topics: SF Movies - The Works & Reality Factors, SF Bloopers - ST & VE, SF Books - Roadmarks & Comedy, TESB - Lucas Numbers & Alternities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 July 1980 1521-EDT (Tuesday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: THE WORKS Saw the promo for \THE WORKS/ (Feature-length Sci-Fi Computer Animation effort from N.Y.I.T.) at the SIGGRAPH Conference in Seattle. Has anyone heard about it?? Does anyone know the expected date of release?? The effects were absolutely dazzling. Hopefully, though, more attention will be paid to making the motion of natural forms look smooth and realistic than was evident in the promo. ------------------------------ BATALI@MIT-AI 07/21/80 12:29:19 Re: First-contact Let me list four first-contact films for comparison: 2001; Alien; Solaris; Close Encounters. (Is anyone snickering yet?) I will humbly refer to two of them as the "good" ones and the other two as the "others". A fundamental difference between the two groups is the nature of the aliens. In the others, the aliens are pretty conventional, predictable **understandable**. The popular idea of aliens is conformed to nicely by little white creatures with big heads (for the optimists) or ugly toothy slobbery disgustingly rude creatures (for the pessimists). The good films have aliens that are much more confusing. Their power is huge but somewhat removed from human interests. (It's not clear if they want to eat us or study us or mate with us or what) They certainly satisfy no preconceived notion and even the path (if any) towards understanding them seems nonexistent. They seem, in a word: alien. This is the reason both for why the good films appeal to me, and why they would not to those who expect to have films that require no thinking. (Actually, I'm not being fair. It is perfectly reasonable to be turned off by an incomprehensible movie -- but it's nice to find one where the effort at comprehension pays off) As has been discussed here before, aliens will indeed be alien to us. The real value in first contact movies is to illustrate human nature by placing it in contact with the unknowable. Kubrick seems to make his living doing this. The alien in Solaris was very troubling to the crewmen and to the audience. Did it dislike them or was it just confused about what humans wanted? Or... The brooding quality of the film emphasized nicely (to humans at least) the discomfort of a first impression that is less than pleasant. The alien kept throwing memories and thoughts at the humans that they didn't want to think. Certainly not nice. But if hostility was present why didn't they die instantly, or did it understand humans so well that it knew how best to make them suffer? And why would it possibly care? I could go on. The film is worth seeing for the questions it raises -- the same sort of questions that a real alien encounter would. btw: Whether documentary, animal film, religious picture, snuff flick, drug movie, cartoon or whatever, 2001 is my number-one favorite and I'll see it and discuss it forever. What tech errors? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 09:27 PDT From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Star Trek bloopers (the court-martial episode) While I am glad you have familiarized us with the concept of a "dramatizing effect," and while the farthest thing from my mind is to contribute to the disillusionment of True Believers in anything, I must say that the effects you mentioned did little to induce a sense of drama in me. Instead, they detracted from my suspension of disbelief. It's difficult to keep your S. of D. going when you burst out laughing. Seriously, you must agree that certain other Trek episodes were more believable than "Courtmartial." Richard Brodie ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/11/80 02:29:42 Re: Starship controls There seems to be an erroneous idea (at least I think is is erroneous) that technologically advanced "things" have lots of lights, buttons, and switches. We often joke that you can tell how "smart" a computer is on TV by how many flashing lights and tape drives it has. I sincerely hope that the converse is true. If you look at the capability of todays most complex conveyance, the jet fighter, the trend is toward building intelligence into the avionics. Also, targeting and weapon selection is becoming automatic. The weapons control system on the F-16 is far advanced of the X-wing fighter. Take for example the "targeting computer" (SW episode IV, attack on the Death Star); the pilot had to position a special display in front of his face. In modern fighters the sight reticle and targeting information appears parallax free, located at infinity (so refocusing of the eye isn't necessary). Some weapons systems TODAY are so advanced that all the pilot has to do is arm the system and LOOK at his target to aim and fire. I expect that we will see even greater improvements by the time starships roll around. If I had to specify the controls of a starship now, I think there would be NO buttons or knobs at all. All control inputs would be by voice or thought. Information to the pilot would be presented on an "as needed" basis on a single, multiplexed display (maybe even directly impressed on the visual and aural centers of the brain). Of course, the ship itself would be artificially intelligent, requiring a minimum of input from the pilot. Brian ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 at 2359-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A KIND WORD FOR GEORGE O. SMITH ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ One often comes across reverent and/or glowing references to "Golden Age" SF (whose vintage varies with the age of the speaker). Every once in a while I succumb and give it a try. But even tho I approach them with more of "an open mind" than contemporary books, so very rarely do I enjoy any from before the 1950's, that the fact that Smith's VENUS EQUILATERAL is such a rarity may indicate that for a technologically naive reader his storytelling skill compensates to some degree for his lack of speculative endeavor. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jul 1980 1109-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "Roadmarks" Roger Zelazny's recent novel "Roadmarks" is a worthless retread of "Nine Princes in Amber". Here again we have a Road of Mystery that only a few can travel. This time it leads forward and backward in time rather than to alternate universes. We have a hero who longs to return to a place that he cannot remember, and we have random people trying to kill him. The difference is that "Nine Princes In Amber" did eventually supply motives and answers to its characters and "Roadmarks" does not. No reason is ever given for the hero's old friend to try to kill him or to stop trying to kill him once they meet up. No explanation is ever given of what the hero is doing trundling up and down the Road, and even he doesn't seem to know. At first you think that he's trying to recreate the circumstances that lead to America, since he dresses like a truck driver and keeps trying to smuggle guns to the Greeks so they can win at Marathon, but later you find that the Road runs right past Cleveland. Sure, maybe he'll tie it all together in a later book, but that's no excuse for making the first installment as incomplete as this. I also thought that "The Changeling", his last book, was a skimpy piece of work (though it didn't help that it was only a novella padded out with illustrations), so maybe Zelazny's mind just isn't in it any more. ------------------------------ Date: 23 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: More Responses on SF Comedy & Parody SF Comedy & Parody: ------------------- THE DRAGON AND THE GEORGE by Gordon R. Dickson (novel) A man and his girlfriend get transported accidentally to a land in the middle ages, complete with dragons and magic. Unfortunately, he finds himself in the body of a dragon named Gorbash, while she is still human. -- Bruce Don't forget Gordon Dickson's, "The Dragon and The George". A little teleportation, a bit of sword and sorcery, a lot of magic, sprinkled with nobility, a Quest, and very human (not to mention draconic!) lusts. Be sure that your credit with the Auditing Department is good before you enter, else the balance between Chance and History may go awry. The Dark Powers love things like that. -- Mark Crispin BILL, THE GALACTIC HERO by Harry Harrison (novel) Although it has been mentioned in regard to the Bloater Drive, 'Bill, the Galactic Hero' by Harrison has to go down on the list of classic SF humor. -- STAR SMASHERS OF THE GALAXY RANGERS by Harry Harrison (novel) This is perhaps the funniest SF novel I have read. It is a spoof of the E.E."Doc" Smith "Lensmen" and "Skylark" series. -- Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/23/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 21 July 1980 15:27-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: Lucas and his numbers In response to ables at UTEXAS's query about the overuse of the numbers 1138 and 327, I have another. Remember [SW4] how Luke and Han overpower a guard and then use his uniform to gain entry into the command center? Well, the command center's supervisor (?) says "TK-421 ... do you copy?" and Luke shakes his head. Well, in the book, this guard's number was THX-1138! ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 0225-PDT (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Hardware Wars and THX I was just re-watching a tape of HARDWARE WARS, the classic SW satire, and noticed something I had missed every other time I saw it. In the scene where they are about to go to "light speed", we see an old car speedometer "zoom up". The cute part is that the odometer reads: 1138. Not bad! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 22 July 1980 04:32-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: TESB in other dimensions I'm surprised none of you have mentioned the climactic scene on Bespin where Vader insures that Luke is the last of the Jedi by cutting off, not his hand, but.... [ouch!] [Never fear, those medi-droids can fix anything] ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 07/22/80 13:23:55 Re: quantum black holes and light sabers Hey! My light saber was made in that factory too, and when I opened it up to look for the quantum black hole, I didn't find a damned thing. Where'd it go? Dan ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 at 0918-CDT From: ables at UTEXAS Subject: Klose.ES's alternate SW Well, you know what they say . . . That's the way the Wookiee grumbles! (sorry about that, I didn't make it up). -ka ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 24 JUL 1980 0548-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #24 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 24 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 24 Today's Topics: Today's Date, SF Books - MT & Plot/Title, SF Movies - Works & Reality Factors, Physics Imaginary - FTL, Starships - Control Design, SF Bloopers - ST ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jul 1980 1300-PDT From: Lasater at SUMEX-AIM Subject: 24-JUL-1980 July 24, 1980 is Julian date 2444444. Six consecutive identical digits in the Julian date happens only once every 304 years. ------------------------------ Date: 24 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: More stories involving MT Matter Transmission: -------------------- Web of Everywhere by John Brunner (novel) "Web of Everywhere" is a short novel by John Brunner about the potential sociological implications of MT. Everyone has an "address" on the system. You get delivered into the home of whom-ever you dialed in. Protecting ones "address" is critical due to the ability of muggers, thieves and other unsavory types. There is more to the story than this, of course, but it paints the dimmer view of low cost, universally accessible MT. Its shorter than most of Brunners works at about half the length of ShockWave Rider (for what thats worth). -- Ed And the almost forgotten stories: --------------------------------- A few years ago there were some stories in (I think) Galaxy that dealt with matter transmitters that transmitted by scanning and duplicating, actually this was background to the story. At any rate they wound up with a lot of copies of people wandering around in different parts of the universe. Each copy chose a new middle name so that they could be distinguished by name. James Blish also dealt with the question briefly in "Spock Must Die". -- Steve Z. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 07/23/80 07:48:42 Re: MT addendum / query For the first time in a month I've caught up with all the digests. Maybe now I'll get a chance to contribute something without missing the boat completely; anyway, perhaps the MT ferry is still close enough to jump. Throughout the MT discussion I was expecting someone to mention a certain story that I always think of whenever the topic comes up. Unfortunately I cannot recall either the title or the author(s) -- I'm hoping that someone else will remember and vanquish this particular tip-of-tongue annoyance. It was novel-length, I believe serialized in one of the magazines like Galaxy about 6-7 years ago. The setup is that there's this interstellar civilization wherein citizens communicate via tachyon beams; they have tachyon transmitters wherein an object can be scanned and the necessary information transmitted to some location several parsecs distant where a duplicate is constructed. This isn't done lightly and there are some interesting rules governing the transmission of intelligent entities, since the process results in the existence of (e.g.) two people with exactly the same memories and thoughts, who begin diverging immediately. There is no FTL travel, and galactic exploration is done by sublight robot probes which carry tachyon matter receivers. The story opens as one of these probes detects a very strange object that, although enormously huge, is neither a planet nor a sun and in fact is somewhat ellipsoid (although my memory may be wrong here). It is decided to investigate, so the tachyon receiver on the probe is activated and various materials & beings (the civilization is fairly cosmopolitan) are pushed through to construct an observation platform. As an example of how MT duplication figures in the plot, everyone in the "first wave" is a volunteer who knows that they are doomed (owing to the hard radiation generated by probe/station deceleration). They volunteer with some trepidation, wondering which fate awaits them in the transmitter chamber: to remain where they are ("whew!"), or to step out into the probe ("oh shit!")? Of course, BOTH always happen. Second, third, and Nth waves finish up the work and begin exploration of the object (it has a name, but I forget it). All I really remember is that it harbors some intelligent flying creatures. Another aspect to the plot, I think, is that people ARE stored "on tape" (i.e. transmission record) and re-created whenever the current persona is killed, which happens now and then. (Don't miss your backup dump!) Another reason for wanting to track this story down is the nagging feeling that I never did read the concluding section; either I missed an issue, or the author(s) punted and never did explain the object at all. (somewhat like the Riverworld, although Farmer does seem to have reached the finish line; has any other SF book been written up in TIME?) --Ken ------------------------------ Date: 23 July 1980 1333-EDT (Wednesday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: The Works I was told by a former employee of NYIT that the trailer shown at SIGGRAPH is something that they are taking around in search of backers. Thus it is quite possible that the feature length version will never be made. For those who don't know about it, the movie is done in three dimensional hidden-surface animation. (as opposed to cartoons which are 2-D) The story is supposed to be about a future Earth in which the surface has been rendered un-inhabitable. Only robots can work there.After many years, a space traveler returns to see whats up. The robots in the story are almost a necessity because everything (almost) is created out of geometric solids. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1980 1436-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: "The Works" A slight bit of enlightenment about the forthcoming movie "The Works". I don't know when it will be completed, but it should be pretty soon. It is basically Lance Williams PhD thesis from U of Utah (thus the name). -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1980 1559-EDT From: JoSH Subject: alien aliens Most the arguments for the existance of aliens I know proceed from the assumption that they got there the same way we got here. Thus I would be surprised rather than otherwise if they were so alien we couldn't understand them ... well, at least as well as we understand ourselves. The weirdest aliens I can more or less go along with are the ones in Herbert's BuSab stories (Whipping Star, Dosadi Experiment, etc). I like Niven's the best -- they're so delightfully human! (To point this out graphically: which would you rather have for a friend, Speaker-to-Animals from Ringworld, or Lucy from I Love Lucy?) It would be nice if there were a quantitative psychology with which we could predict what these aliens would be like, the way we can use physics, chemistry and so forth to reason about their planets and stars, or even biology to reason about their bodies. --JoSH ------------------------------ ZRM@MIT-MC 07/20/80 15:47:23 Re: Some thoughts on FTL: 1) The speed of light is thought to be the fastest rate at which usable information can be transmitted. Should this belief change we will be faced with the conclusion that matter contains rather more energy than we thought it did and so "dematerializing" your spaceship to FTL transfer it somewhere else will involve the channeling of energies orders of magnitude (if we are to go, say, across the galaxy in a matter of days) greater than turning matter into energy under our present theories. Considering that turning a pencil into energy could, if you did it at an explosive rate, level Boston, increasing the matter to energy ratio a millionfold and then zapping big spacships around would really be hard and dangerous. 2) If you did indeed throw "c" out the window then most of what we know of physics, cosmology, electronics (Seymour Cray would just love FTL circuitry), information theory (are you listening Ed Fredkin?), and chemistry would go out the window with it. Ever the pessimist, I think we are doomed to slowboats. --zig ------------------------------ Date: 23 July 1980 16:04 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Starship Controls, AI pilots Well, yes, the more advanced the technology the fewer the buttons, the higher the level of input to the starship (the starship becomes artificially intelligent: "Take me to Dagoba"). Remember Dark Star, where the ship and the bombs were both intelligent? Star Trek had an AI on board (it could do voice recognition) but it was claimed that "real" AI was too hard (M-5 didn't work too well). Clearly HAL could run the Discovery fine, except for EVA repair (and need for humans to go through the Gate, except I wish HAL had gone through instead of the Astronaut (boring clone he was)). In "Known Space", there are computers smart enough to do translation (mere autopilots are that smart) but they can't pilot starships because the Mass Detector is "psionic" so the poor TTL-things can't tell whether they are about to hit a gravity well. In the end, I claim, you replace not starships but PEOPLE with the AIs (plug into your ship and fly, plug into the submarine and swim). ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1980 1026-PDT From: Dave Dyer Subject: spacecraft controls I think LLOYD@AI has the right idea about how controls will be constructed, but is ignoring the realities of moviemaking. Verisimilitude, not reality, is the determining factor. A film can't be any smarter than its audience. Hence, X-Wings have a clumsy, obstructive viewfinder because the audience will recognise it, not because it would be done that way. The same thing makes them bank into turns. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/24/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses the dramatizing effects of the bloopers in the Star Trek episode "Court Martial". People who have not seen this episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 23 JUL 1980 1445-EDT From: DR at MIT-MC (David M. Raitzin) Subject: ST bloopers (court-martial episode) [dramatizing effects] Well then, imagine the script for that episode going as follows: while Enterprise is being repaired at the star base, Kirk is charged with jettisoning the pod while on yellow alert. Kirk pleads "not guilty" and goes on trial. Prosecution's main witness is the computer that testifies (through some tape and not via a video display, mind you) that indeed Kirk has committed the crime. The trial proceeds as in the original episode, without a computer tape though, and we are deprived of actually seeing Kirk press the jettison button while on yellow alert, and of hearing him say "but that's not the way it happened!!!" Oh well, those are only cheap theatrics... Anyhow, Spock ingeniously figures out that the computer is screwed up, and that Finney might actually be alive. He isolates all the crewmen's heart beats through a computer, while the court is waiting for results, (no need for the court to proceed to the Enterprise, you know), and lo and behold, Spock finds Finney. A bunch of red-shirts snatch him and bring him down to the court where he confesses. Everybody is happy, and no cheap theatrics or "dramatizing effects" necessary! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 25 JUL 1980 0617-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #25 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 25 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 25 Today's Topics: Yesterday's Date, SF Movies - LA Broadcast of Plan 9, SF Mags - Films & Galaxy, Starships - Control Design, SF Books - Starship controls & Title response, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Jul 1980 4:28 am PDT (Thursday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: 24-JUL-1980 Of course, 608 years ago the Julian date contained six consecutive identical digits for 10 days in a row! ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 0944-PDT From: Dave Dyer Subject: Yesterdays date Foo! Another clear case of base 10 chauvinism! If the numerologists in you likes consecutive digits, use binary - or better yet unary. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 1980 0214-PDT (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Plan Nine From Outer Space "Plan Nine From Outer Space", which has been voted the WORST film of ALL time and in ALL catagories (not just SF) will air tonight (Friday night/Saturday Morning) in Los Angeles on KCOP-TV 13, at 2:30 AM. A MUST see. Sorry for the short notice; I just discovered it myself. It is a laugh riot. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 0126-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: from a recent review of current magazines By James Warren (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) Fantastic Films (September). Not one of the deeper journals, it features a 12-page interview with the producer of "The Empire Strikes Back." Neesa Sweet dissects the phenomenon of Dungeons and Dragons, an extremely sophisticated game beloved on college campuses. There's a wonderfully light retrospective on "The Twilight Zone" television series that includes synopses of nearly all the episodes. ($17 yearly, 1224 Wadsworth, Lakewood, Colo., 80215.) This gives me a rare chance to recall my favorite newspaper headline ever. Conceived by brilliant, if not tactful, minds at a Jersey City (N.J.) newspaper, it marked the death of the show's creator, Rod Serling, and was bannered across page one: "Rod Serling Enters Twilight Zone" ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 1307-PDT From: Jim McGrath Has anyone gotten a copy of the slick version of GALAXY? I've just read the last digest version, and thought it was HORRIBLE! Unfortunately, I have a subscription to the mag, so I will continue to grin and bear it, hoping for a recovery (although, given the care with which they handle their subscriptions, I may not be bothered by them much at all). Details: the 'stories' in the last issue had little plot, no worthwhile characters, bad writing, and were just plain DULL. The new features (such as a SF news column that will ALWAYS be 4 to 6 months out of date due to publishing lags) are worthless as well. I've heard the GALAXY will be the little sister of GALILEO. Although I have always liked the latter mag, it is still nowhere near the quality of the 'old' (say 3 years old) GALAXY. I think we (all SFers) lost a lot in the bargain. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 1339-PDT From: Richard Pattis Subject: Random rumblings on our inability to predict the future Pop-up display screens and visual aiming (guiding a missile by looking at the target) for fighter pilots is discussed in the recent fiction paperback ``FoxFire.'' The technology for visual aiming is actually quite old. It is derived from the device (I'm not sure what it is called) used by psychologists to measure eye movements. I have seen articles in Scientific American which use this device, showing the sequence of eye movements as a subject looks at some object (a chess board, for example). Relating to SW and TESB, is it necessary for a society that is more technically advanced than ours to be able to do EVERYTHING that we can do, better than we can do it? Now on to the main topic. Predicting anything interesting in the future is difficult. I am not sure how one can train for such a task, and I have very few examples where a really far-seeing prediction has come true. Does anyone wish to supply me with some examples? Of course, the inability of people to predict the future -- even those people paid to do so, such as Science Fiction writers -- can be amply documented. My favorite example comes from Heinlein's ``Starman Jones.'' Jones' job is to look up the binary equivalents of base 10 coordinates so that they can be input to the navigation computer. While it seemed to Heinlein very plausible that computers would handle complex navigational calculations -- computers, after all, only understand binary. What now appears ridiculous to us, seemed like a perfectly good logical extension of technology. Do we, living in a time of accelerated change, have any better idea of the future? I say no, the complexity of society is growing faster than the complexity of the predictions we can make. Before ending, I would like to plug two enjoyable books. Both predict the unpredictability of human endeavours. They were written pre-World War II, by Czech writer--and almost nobel prize winner--Karel Capek. The first is ``R.U.R,'' Rossum's Universal Robots, although the term androids would better describe these creations. The book is a fusing of the Frakenstein legend, with the struggle for ``human'' rights. The second book, ``War with the Newts'' is a satire (I think it quitefunny) concerning a similar situation. I won't give too much away, but the plot concerns the discovery and exploitation of a large (the size of a ten year old), intelligent, amphibious newt. The book describes, from a global as well as personal viewpoint, the impact of this new source of labor. In this sense, it is similar to ``RUR,'' but it paints a darker and funnier picture of the human race. I strongly recommend both books. Rich ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 11:02 PDT From: LStewart at PARC-MAXC Subject: Starship control Re: how many buttons on the command chair. In "Earthman Come Home" by James Blish, there is a remark by Amalfi that he had three buttons on the bridge, which at times meant various things. He had never needed a fourth option in 500 years or so. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 1058-PDT From: CSD.EADAMS at SU-SCORE Subject: Starship engineering, TESB. Heinlein's starship (the slow, cylindrical kind) in the short story "Universe" which was later novelized (I forget the name) used controls which required placing a hand over some lights to effect the change. I think the idea there was that they had all the time in the world to do it (so no thought- or voice-directed controls were necessary) but they needed something that wouldn't wear out (even microphones and speakers will go after a few hundred years!). ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 1149-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) Subject: MT Stories Both Steve Z. and KLH are referring to the same stories, by Fred Pohl and Jack Williamson, eventually novelized as "The Farthest Star" (if my memory serves). Aside from the MT aspect, it's notable for fore- shadowing some of the themes of Pohl's later "Gateway" and "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" (and the shorter "Merchants of Venus"), all of which I highly recommend. The best sort of MT is where you warp space in some way (folding it fourth dimensionally, I suppose?) and just walk to your destination, as in Heinlein's "Tunnel in the Sky". Such MT is really just a special case of Hyperspatial FTL (or vice versa) and thus kills two birds with one stone; you need believe only one impossible thing before breakfast. Dave Lebling ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/25/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 07/25/80 01:01:00 Re: FEMALES IN STAR WARS - WAS LUKE ONE OF THEM? Hitchcock has been wondering about the tales of Luke-as-female, and their veracity. From the sources I have been able to piece together, Lucas *did* indeed, in an early draft of the first film, have a female lead. You can find a number of McQuarrie sketches to this effect. In the SW portfolio of McQuarrie paintings, an oil of "luke" overlooking Mos Eisley indicates that the figure is female - the explanatory text below the painting says that this was the case in an early draft. There are several unlabeled pix in "The Art of Star Wars" which also support this theory, beside the one Hitchcock had mentioned. Early in the book, (page 23 if you have it), there is a doube page spread of "Princess Leia" sketches. In one she is wearing a costume which never appears in the final film, but which *does* match the early "Luke-Leia" costume. And in the color film-poster section (page 151) there is a shot of the entire cast, which appears to be a finished version of another McQuarrie sketch. There is a bearded, baboon-like Wookie, a blonde, bearded Solo-type, and a tomboyish but definitely female Luke-type. Oh yes, R2-D2 is shown with an extra arm. All these are consistent as early depictions of the characters. It makes some sense. It would seem Lucas just took two characters, male and female (which would make a very direct love story) and expanded them into three, which gave him more alternatives... Answering another question: the "Muppet Show" episode with guest Mark Hamill did indeed also star Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca and Tony Daniels as Threepio. R2D2 was played by a robot. This confirmation comes from the "Ultimate Star Wars Fan" who adds that Tony Daniels told her he had to repeat his tap-dance for the cameras five times, and it damn near sprained his ankle. What some folks won't do for showbiz... ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jul 1980 2304-PDT From: KATZ at USC-ISIF Subject: Is Darth really Lukes father?? Aunt Beru: Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him. Owen: That's what I'm afraid of. (This was pointed out by Rebecca Roode of Irvine in a letter to the L.A. Times Calendar Section.) Alan ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1980 at 0001-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^ THE PATERNITY QUESTION: CLUTCHING AT A (SODA) STRAW ^^^^^^^^ The indefatigable SW devotee picks up info from any source detectable. For example, we first found the name for SW-4's "creature in the garbage chamber" in the sheet of text accompanying the sound track music album. Now, clutching at a glass, not at a straw, we find an anti-paternity clue on the "Luke" 'collector series' glass available at BURGER KINGs during the 4th week of the current promotion: "LUKE IS THE SON OF A JEDI KNIGHT WHO WAS KILLED YEARS BEFORE BY THE EVIL DARTH VADER. LUKE FIRST LEARNS OF THE FORCE THRU OBI-WAN KENOBI, THE LAST OF THE JEDI KNIGHTS, WHO LATER ALSO FALLS TO VADER'S TERRIBLE LIGHTSABER." (the rest of the text relates to TESB events.) It's got a Lucasfilm copyright, and what I find particularly intriguing is the distinction between the outright "WAS KILLED...BY" vs. the ambiguous "FALLS TO". Why would they bother with such nuances of expression if they're lying? ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 07/22/80 20:38:48 Re: TESB in alternate universes But I really was shocked to find that Obi-Wan was Darth's father... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 26 JUL 1980 0502-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #26 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 26 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 26 Today's Topics: ADA Comment, Future - Prediction, Hugos - 1980 Voting, SF Bloopers - ST & 2001, SF TV - Buck Rogers, SF Movies - Plan 9, Media on SF - Riverworld, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Jul 1980 0647-EDT From: NIVEN at MIT-DMS (Marilyn Niven) Subject: chocolate covered manhole covers The American Dental Association thinks they are bad for children's teeth. Jack Harness ------------------------------ Date: 25 JUL 1980 1351-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: looking forward . . . In reply to REP's query, the immediate example of a far-reaching forecast is Clarke's suggestion, over 30 years ago, of the synchronous communications satellite (remember, at this point there had been no successful orbital launches and (so far as I can figure) no radio communication with anything beyond the ionosphere). The problem with looking for forecasts much further back is sorting serious forecasts from amusing societal fictions (Bellamy and Gernsback, to name two terrible examples, are both \way/ off). Leonardo da Vinci sketched helicopters and a bicycle (and someone else well before the Wright brothers (George Cayley??) actually built a small helicopter [working] model---but much of this was considered entertainment rather than serious prophecy. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 1980 at 1304-CDT From: korner at UTEXAS Subject: predicting the future I was struck by the recent flame on our inability to predict (extrapolate) the future well. Without going home to track down the reference, I remember quite well an anthology of short stories edited by a decent writer (let's not argue that). The editor introduced the book with an assault on our ability to predict what will be possible in the future. His chosen tack was a simple what if - a contemporary (early 70's) airforce robot ramjet engaged in atmospheric sampling over China (scoop them nasty atomics and see what they're making go bang, etc.) gets caught in a timewarp and sent back to ~1945. He apologizes for the kluge of a timewarp and goes on to describe the wonderful time that the army air corps would have taking the bird apart (no reagents pure enough to analyze the semiconductors, no equipment sensitive to detect a nanosecond pulse- even if they knew where to look, total incomprehension over waveguides, ramjet principles (it just seems to squirt kerosene into a strangely shaped tube), etc.). After an interesting description of the scientific/technological chaos created by the plane, he asks about the conclusions drawn by the investigators (is this a product of our culture, from how far in the is this artifact, etc.)- it is unlikely that they would opt for a reasonably accurate estimate. How then should we be so cocky about what will happen in 100 or even 30 years? But then we're talking about control systems in a place far, far away and a time long long ago..... Cheers- Kim Korner BTW, who is responsible for the all pervasive "Cheers?" ------------------------------ Date: 21 JUL 1980 1313-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: CHUQUI's dilemma revisited (Noreascon II news) [ see SFL V1 #157,158 ] For those of you who recall my flame on the Hugos and the low numbers of voters (a few months back), the following: with most of the legal ballots in (deadline was 15 July postmark) the unofficial count is just over 1600. This is much more than either of the past two years, but in view of the higher preregistration (unofficial approximation = 5300) it seems to be about the same fraction of people voting. At least we're not \losing/ ground; Noreascon I reported something like 730 voters out of 1350 preregistrants, but the voting fraction hasn't been that high in some time. ------------------------------ Date: 25 July 1980 19:35 edt From: SALawrence at MIT-Multics (STEVE at SAI-Prime) Subject: Star Trek Court Martial episode Pointing out that nearly everything in this episode was done just for cinematic effect supports the contention that the episode was really pretty content free. Since almost nothing which happened on screen had any real motivation, and most of it was implausible, the conclusion that the episode stank is really pretty unavoidable -- so why on Earth are we discussing it?? Let's try to find something to attack which at least has some redeeming social value. ------------------------------ Date: 25 July 1980 19:35 edt From: SALawrence at MIT-Multics (STEVE at SAI-Prime) Subject: Technical errors in 2001 My last viewing of 2001 was a long long time ago, so I don't recall a whole lot, but I do remember being somewhat offended by the scene where one of the astronauts has to pass through a minute or so of hard vacuum to get back into the ship. This is certainly possible, but in the film the character HELD HIS BREATH during and after decompression. Bye, bye lungs. Clarke did it much better in (I think) Earthlight (anyway, the one about the war between Earth and the colonies). Of course, having him puff out his cheeks and strain to keep every last molecule in his lungs was certainly more impressive on the screen, and made it very clear what was going on, even if it would have been fatal in practice... ------------------------------ Date: 24 July 1980 12:52 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Buck Rogers meets Asimov Speaking of SF that references other SF, consider this. According to Ron Miller, of Knight Rider newspapers, (see Boston Globe 24 July 80 page 43) the Buck Rogers TV show is going to change format. Buck will roam the galaxy, looking for lost colonies of earth. There will be some additions to the cast: "One is Admiral Ephraim Asimov, a 25th-century descendant of popular science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. This may be one of TV's greats in jokes. But since Asimov and new producer John Mantley are old pals, Mantley took the precaution of getting a letter from Asimov granting permission for this rather unusual homage." The entire article is good, since Gil Gerard (Buck) has a good sense of humor about his part. ------------------------------ Date: 25 July 1980 1306-EDT (Friday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Plan 9 "Plan Nine From Outer Space" will be shown in Pittsburgh on Sunday July 27 on Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park. The show starts at dusk and also includes "War of the Worlds". Free. "Plan 9" was voted by somebody to be among the worst films of all time. ------------------------------ Date: 25 July 1980 12:27 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Riverworld review There is a full-page review of "The Magic Labyrinth" and the rest of the Riverworld series in the July 28 copy of Time magazine. It is a pretty good review from the point of view of someone who has not read the series. It has decided me to go out and read them. But I guess that the big point is that an SF series got such big press. ------------------------------ Date: 26 July 1980 0220-EDT From: HJJH at UTEXAS, CSTACY at MIT-AI Subject: The Making of TESB Rumor has it that Saturday's (ie. today's) TV broadcast of UNIVERSE will include a segment on "The Making of TESB". Please check your local papers for the appropriate station and time in your area. UNIVERSE is a television-magazine format program devoted to science and technology. The show is hosted by Walter Cronkite. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/26/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 1508-EDT From: JHENDLER at BBNA Subject: where is Yoda ?? I've noticed a strange thing of late... In almost all the SW5 (TESB) items for sale (T-shirts, Burger King glasses, plastic figures, and the like) that some of the new characters appear (Lando and Boba Fett) but not Yoda!! Does anyone know the reason??? Does someone else own his rights? Is Frank Oz pulling a fast one on us?? This is a shocking situation that must be remedied if our candidate is going to get enough media coverage to win the upcoming election. Jim Hendler Yoda for President Campaign Headquarters Dallas TexaS. P.S. I didn't mind the scenes in the light sabre factory, but Luke shooting J.R.??? That was going too far. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 1980 (Friday) 0946-EST From: DYER at NBS-10 Subject: Recall notice - lightsabers made by Damoclese, Inc. Those of you who own light sabers with serial numbers that have a '1138' prefix on them -- WATCH IT! These are early models with a couple of bugs still in them, to wit : 1) The quantum black holes were made too small. If you don't feed them enough they tend to explode in a burst of gamma radiation. Keep your sword happy and well-fed, or else! 2) The gravitic support subsystem (the little red thingy on the side) is a lemon -- the field wavers sometimes. Jedi knights have been known to be plastered all over the surface of a black hole when the support system on their swords failed. The amount of wavering seems to be connected with the mass of the hole -- so don't feed your sword TOO much.... If you have such a sword, contact "Vader's Raiders", webcode VADER1138- SWORD, and for god's sake GET AWAY FROM THE THING! Sincerely, Ralph Vader, Sec. cc:bf ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 1980 at 0911-CDT From: clyde at UTEXAS Subject: TESB realities Gee, you were shocked, MJL@MIT-MC?? It's a good thing you didn't notice the revelation that Chewbacca is an altered clone of Yoda assigned to keep track of Luke, or that R2D2 is made of components from Vader's spare parts bin. Why, there must be a bunch of blind people out there...... (I guess it comes from scouring over the text on Burger King glasses in bad light). ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 07/25/80 23:56:56 Re: TESB IN ALTERNATE UNIVERSES Personally, I thought that the casting of Margaret Hamilton as Darth Mater, wife of Darth Vader, was a masterstroke. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jul 1980 at 0049-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS Subject: Alternate TESB Universes... Ah-h-h-h! So THAT'S where that platoon of Chinese female Rebel pilots is! ------------------------------ CSTACY@MIT-MC 07/19/80 12:46:03 Re: The Ending So Bad I thought that TESB was kinda short, to have such long waiting lines: Luke: (dreamily) "I dunno..I feel like we're....being...WATCHED!" Yoda: "Away put your weapon, I mean you no harm." Luke: (firing his blaster) "We cant take any chances!" (the crumpled form of a decrepit little old creature that was once Yoda falls into the mud with a thud. Almost immediately, the corpse vanishes. A shimmering figure appears behind Luke.) Obi-Wan: (hauntingly) "Luke! Luke! You cretin!" (another shimmering apparition appears next to Ben.....) Yoda: (somewhat annoyed) "Told you I did: reckless is he. Now matters are worse." -or- C3PO: "The odds of successfully navigating an asteriod field are....." Solo: "NEVER tell me the odd ---BOOOM--- " Chewie: "HUgnguahhh Haauhtqqouchfoojkhs" (rough translation:"He asked you not to tell him that...") -or- Vader: " The next time, the boy will not escape....The son of Skywalker WILL join us." Emperor: "You have failed me for the last time, Darth Vader." Chris ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 27 JUL 1980 0602-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #27 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 27 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 27 Today's Topics: Rating Books, Bibliography Queries and Responses ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 07/23/80 1516-EDT From: FOCUS at LL Subject: A Suggestion I suggest that all book or story titles submitted to SFL for inclusion in a subject list, for instance humorous SF, should include a simple rating. An example would be: ...Dune (r=9)... With all the lists that have been made lately of various catagories of books, it is often the case that a brief analysis is not included. If a review is given, the addition of a rating helps to quantify how strongly the reviewer feels about the book. In the example above I have used a rating scale of 1 to 10. If some other scale is used, such as a star ( * ) scale, an absolute rating level should be indicated. Inclusion of ratings in SFL correspondence would serve two purposes. One, it would help direct other people to new books. Two, it could generate many interesting discussions as a result of the rating alone if someone happens to rate a book quite differently than others might. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 (Tuesday) 1010-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: Short Story Series Request I have flipped through my short story collection and have found that those stories that I enjoy the most are generally centered around a common Universe. Examples : Niven's Known Space, Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Man, Varley's Invaders, etc. What I am interested in are: 1) Short stories (not novels, though there may certainly be novels included in the Universe [each of the above has at least one novel as part of its series]). 2) Not blatently related, that is no "to be continued" style. Reading the stories in random order should be possible (though there may be an "approved" order which maximizes understanding). 3) Preferably more "science fiction" than "fantasy", whatever that means. Send your suggestions to ROSSID@WHARTON and I'll put them together and ship them out to SF-Lovers. Dave ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1980 (Sunday) 1716-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON (William Westfield) Subject: requests (words and blurbs) Now that we have gone over fictional references and such, I would like to complie (have someone compile) a list of fictional or new words invented by SF writers. (names of planets, etc dont count) typical examples are: GROK, from Heinlein's Stranger is a Strange land, Swingle (Swinging single) and Bayquake (totally rearrange or destroy) from Brunner's Shockwave Rider. Also, how about some interesting bad blurbs, eg some blurbs for books are written by people who do not seem to have read the book. For example: Time Enough for Love (heinlein) The blurb says Lazarus Long becomes his own ancestor, which he does NOT, at least not within the book. Cyborg (Martin Caidin) (the novel version of the $6E6 man -- much better than either the movie or TV series better science, and more believable personalities) The blurb says Steve gets a powerful bionic eye and ear, neither of which is true. Any others? ------------------------------ Date: 27 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Responses on Environments / SF Comedy & Parody / Gene Eng Effects of Special Environments: -------------------------------- Macroscope by Piers Anthony (novel) The main characters in Piers Anthony's Macroscope were a group of selected children raised specially. -- Mike "The First Men" by Howard Fast (short story) available in The Edge of Tommorrow (collection) This story is about a secret govt. project to create an environment where children with IQ of > 150 are raised with no interference from outside. As you might expect, something unexpected happens. -- Mike The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert (novel) The Dosadi Experiment is about a controlled environment and the experimenters certainly did get much more than they bargained for. -- In the Problem Pit by Frederik Pohl (short story) Frederick Pohl's "In The Problem Pit" was explicitly a story about bringing together a group of people to work on problems in isolation. The twist was that they would be chosen completely at random, and their backgrounds would have nothing to do with the problem under study. This way they would hopefully come up with something beyond a merely technical answer. The story was in an early seventies FASF; I don't know if it's been reprinted. -- SF Comedy & Parody: ------------------- So much comes to mind! How about: * any collection of short stories by Sheckley * The Best of Henry Kuttner * Clarke's "White Hart" stories * any collection of short stories by Fredric Brown (the O Henry of SF) * Martian Go Home (also by Brown) * Wasp, by Eric Frank Russell * The Cyberiad, by Stanislaw Lem * Another Fine Myth, by Asprin * Earthman's Burden, by Anderson & Dickson (mentioned before in SFL V2 #17,19) * The Flying Sorcerers, by Niven & Gerrold -- Don Woods [ and here are a few comments on some of Don's suggestions. -- RDD ] EARTHMAN'S BURDEN and STAR PRINCE CHARLIE by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson These are two books about Hokas from the planet Toka. Hokas are teddy bear-like creatures who like to read fiction and act out those characters to the hilt, getting the humans who associate with them into all sorts of messes. -- Bruce MARTIANS GO HOME by Fredric Brown (novel) Fredric Brown's "Martians Go Home" is deliberately funny. I read it when I was young, it might seem silly now, but then it was good. The Martian invasion of Earth is one of nuisance. The Martians are intangible, but not transparent. They can go anywhere, make insulting remarks, get in your visual way, etc. They are disposed of in a way not here to be revealed. -- Much of Stanislaw Lem's work Much of Stanislaw Lem's work is humorous, ranging from semi-serious satire to total theater of the absurd. I believe a fair number of his stories have now been translated into English, but all the titles seem to be swapped out of my memory at the moment. One of his short stories dealt with the invention of a probability machine and its consequences. I remember laughing out loud all while reading it. Anyone remember the title? -- Gail Zacharias FLYING SORCERORS by Larry Niven and David Gerrold (novel) A novel about the meeting between a NASA astronaut and the culture of a primitive species which believes in magic. It includes a couple of brothers named Orbur and Wilville who try to build a flying machine. It also has some self-referential SF. One example of this is one of the gods they worship. He is Elcin (read Ellison), the god of little nasty creatures. -- Bruce [ with some other suggestions. -- RDD ] A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON, THE SOURCE OF MAGIC, CASTLE ROOGNA by Piers Anthony (trilogy) Not science fiction, but fantasy: Piers Anthony's "trilogy" of A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON, THE SOURCE OF MAGIC, and CASTLE ROOGNA are great in that the story is serious, but the descriptions are funny. They are extremely well-written with tight pacing, suspense, and believable characters and endings. -- Alan WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE by Alan Dean Foster (collection) Alan Dean Foster has a short story called "With Friends Like These..." In a collection of stories by the same name. The other stories are not as amusing or memorable as "Friends" but it is a good collection. -- and GLORY ROAD by Robert Heinlein (novel) I thought Heinleins "Glory road" was hilarious. I think it was supposed to be. -- Bill THE FLIGHT OF THE HORSE - Larry Niven This is a collection of stories about a bumbling time-traveler who tries traveling to the past, but each time winds up in a land full of myths. One time he travels back to get a horse before they became extinct, but the pictures in the history books didn't seem to include the long horn on the top of the horses head. -- Bruce "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" by John Varley (short story) available in THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION (collection) This story is about what happens when a human gets stuck within a computer when his body is misplaced. -- Bruce COSMIC LAUGHTER (anthology) As to humorous SF, there is a hilarious anthology called "Cosmic Laughter", which is definitely worth reading. -- Genetic Engineering Applications: --------------------------------- Bordered in Black by Larry Niven (short story) available in Convergent Series (collection) There's another short story called BORDERED IN BLACK I think, where there is a planet-full of humanoids, which were food animals. I don't know if they were engineered to be that way. -- Don This short story can be found in The Shape of Space and also in the (easier to find) Convergent Series. -- Don Woods The Instrumentality Series by Cordwainer Smith Finally, on the subject of genetic engineering, what about all the stories by Cordwainer Smith? -- Mike Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality series (I think this included at least one book length work) has all sorts of genetically modified animals, C'Mell was a cat-lady of some importance. -- Bill Gladiator by Phillip Wylie Building a superman, done thru some kind of serum/formula, I don't remember how tho. This story and the previous one are excellent works on what would happen to a superman in our world. -- Steve [ SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It talks about The Exile Trilogy by Ben Bova. People who have not read this trilogy may not wish to read any further. -- RDD ] The Exile Trilogy by Ben Bova (novel) The Exile Trilogy by Ben Bova deals with a bunch of Genetic engineers that are exiled from earth because their work is deemed "dangerous to world stability". They modify the space station they are shut up in to make it a starship, and take off for the stars. I didn't like these books. I found them very melodramatic and cliche-ish, with poor science and unbelievable people (after reaching a potentially habitable system, they decide NOT to genetically modify their children because "they'd be inhuman monsters", and risk the ship (which is falling apart) to try and reach a better system). -- Bill ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 28 JUL 1980 0505-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #28 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 28 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 28 Today's Topics: Future - Prediction, SF Bloopers - 2001, Hugos, SF Books - On Wings of Song, Rating Books, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Jul 1980 0344-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: looking forward . . . Although Clarke was far ahead of his time in regard to synchronous communications satellites, even here he missed a few beats. Although I have not read his science article detailing the suggestion, his early fiction always had the satellites MANNED. He did not forsee the fantastic reductions in size of electronics (semi-conductors were yet to be invented) or their corresponding increase in reliability. Heinlein is another author who made some good conceptual predictions. He broached the concept that nuclear power plants might entail serious hazards in 'Blowups Happen' (although the specific danger he was talking about never really materialized). He also 'predicted' the nuclear stalemate in 'Solution Unsatisfactory', although here his technical details concering the bomb were off (he considered radioactive dust, a version of fallout, as the primary weapon, not nuclear bombs). Just goes to show that even though people have correctly predicted a CONCEPT on occasion, they have seldom correctly predicted the eventual implementation (and thus many of the major economic, social, and political implications). As a matter of fact, I cannot remember a non-trivial prediction that really predicted the full implications of several novel ideas interacting (like satellites and electronics). To do so seems to be a task an order of magnitude harder than simply predicting a single concept. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 26 July 1980 1441-EDT (Saturday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: 2001: A Lung Burster It should be noted that the emergency airlock sequence of 2001 was known to be feasible when the movie was made. It was known to them through an Air Force study on apes. ------------------------------ BATALI@MIT-AI 07/26/80 12:00:36 Re: heavy breathing It is not altogether clear to me that holding one's breath upon decompression is a bad thing. The maximum difference in pressure, after all, is probably less than one atmosphere. NASA used a lower pressure, higher oxygen mixture and I think that the commies use higher pressure with a nitrogen component closer to normal air. So in any case the danger is a rapid decompression of about one atmosphere. My scuba instructor told us that there are two ways to lose when surfacing: holding one's breath -- which causes the lungs to rupture and release air embolisms; and coming up too fast from too deep -- which causes nitrogen fizzies (the bends). Although you never decompress as fast as you would in space, surfacing from, say, 200 ft involves a much greater change in pressure. (about 30 feet of water is an atmosphere). And although air embolisms can form in very shallow water they are usually only serious when much greater depths are involved, and the treatment usually involves recompression. The severity of the bends depends on the speed of decompression and the degree to which the blood is saturated with nitrogen at the pressure one is rising from. Treatment also involves recompression but the effects of even relatively minor cases are fairly unpleasant. In any case, the tradeoff is between air embolisms and the bends. (There also may be a problem with the contents of the stomach and other organs with a pipe to the outside.) The most important factor is the rapidity of the decompression. It is possible that embolisms may be even worse if the air passages are left open due to the difference between the pressure of the blood and vacuum. It seems to me that the best strategy may just be to get all internal organs as tense as possible, holding one's breath and using the chest and abdominal muscles to counteract the pressure change. This would prevent the bends and minimize lung damage. I'm just speculating, of course. Does anyone know what astronauts or jet pilots are told to do in this eventuality? ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jul 1980 1428-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "On Wings of Song" A paperback edition of Thomas Disch's "On Wings of Song" has come out, just in time to miss the Hugo balloting deadline. Although most of the novels that get nominated seem to be available in hardback, few seem to hit the mass markets in time for the voting. The shorter categories are even more inaccessible, particularly the nominees that appear in hardback anthologies like Orbit that are only bought by libraries. Is it any wonder then, that so few votes get cast? It's just an example of the fine scientific attitude of not deciding unless all the data is in. Be that as it may, "On Wings of Song" is a well-written novel with a minimal amount of science fiction in it. It's set in a near-future America that is slowly going down the tubes. The Eastern cities are largely in ruins, energy supplies are so tight that when terrorists blow up the Alaska pipeline the country is plunged into darkness, industry, agriculture, everything is down. The only unfamiliar element in the picture is that astral projection is regularly possible. By plugging into this machine and singing with sufficient soul, one's mind can leave the body and fly about the world at will. The singing is a necessary, though never really justified condition; if you are tone-deaf or emotionless you'll never make it. The protagonist is raised in Iowa, a state that is so fearful of the religous implications of flying that it has banned the sale of flying equipment and even frowns upon music in general. Naturally it becomes his life's ambition to fly. He lacks real musical talent, however, and so the book becomes story of his steady degradation in search of his goal. Only when he reaches the very bottom, by becoming a concubine of a castrati opera singer, does he come close to taking off. The reason why this is only barely science fiction is that the flying part of it is hardly touched on. Any transcendent experience could be substituted for it and the plot would work out much the same. Aside from an increase in religous fanaticism in Iowa, no social implications of it are mentioned. People in New York refer to it as casually as if it were a new kind of drink. Disch could be saying that it'll be business as usual in spite of such changes, but I think that he just isn't interested in what is basically a ridiculous premise. Instead he takes a cynic's delight in describing the decay of the country and the humiliation of his characters. The writing is funny and clever enough to pull you through the book, but it leaves a bad aftertaste. PS I'm against the idea of rating books we describe in SF-LOVERS a) because people's tastes differ so much that the ratings will be meaningless and b) because you're trying to quantify something, namely the quality of a book, that is not really quantifiable. If a description here and a few minutes standing in the Coop or wherever reading the first couple of pages isn't enough, tough. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/28/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ DMM@MIT-ML 07/26/80 21:34:51 Re: cinematic effect, etc. Just so none of you get too carried away in over-analyzing TESB... The following is an excerpt from the 7/26/80 Universe program in which George Lucas was interviewed by Walter Cronkite: "We sort of go off on our imaginations, and whatever we can do to entertain ourselves is where we go; whether it's logical or scientific or not. The films have sound in space, and we violate a lot of natural laws just for sort of entertainment-enjoyment effect, which is the prime mover. But it also gives ...young people an interest in space generally..." ------------------------------ JBARRE@MIT-AI (Sent by DMM) 07/26/80 21:41:57 Re: Yoda Marketing Come, come! You don't expect LucasFilm and Kenner to market *everything* connected with TESB right away now, do you? It seems perfectly logical to me to hold back marketing Yoda until Christmas since he is obviously a big favorite from the film. As George M. Cohan used to say: "Always leave 'em wanting more." From what I hear tho, Yoda hasn't been completely left out of the current round of TESB paraphanellia. A friend reports that she has a pair of Yoda sweatsox.... --julie ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 1058-PDT From: CSD.EADAMS at SU-SCORE Subject: TESB The Empire is too smart to use nukes -- you have to wait too long before you can go have a look at the place you've just conquered. But the suggestion that this prevents them from bombing the hell out of Hoth is ridiculous -- look at what happened to Leia's home planet! (Now, perhaps the Empire didn't have the resources to build another Death Star...) Also, unless the Death Star was only a one-shot device (destroy a planet, go home and refuel, destroy another, go home...), it should have made a hell of a lot bigger bang than it did when it went. Anybody got any statistics on what it takes to reduce a planet, say, Earth-sized, to shrapnel? Final, feminist note: The Other Hope damned well better not be Leia's SON. If it's Leia, OK. If it's Vader or even Lando, OK. But it would be crass for it to be Son of Son of Skywalker. PS: it ain't Vader. If he's really a good guy trying to destroy the Empire from within, he could have found nicer ways to get the information he wanted out of Leia than blowing up her planet, and nobody would have known the difference. Ernest ------------------------------ ISRAEL@MIT-AI 07/18/80 21:25:59 Re: Yoda's hope I don't think that Luke and Leia's future child is going to be the other hope. There are two situations where Yoda and Ben need another hope. The first is if Luke dies. If this happens then Luke and Leia are obviously not going to have a child (this is assuming that Leia doesn't get pregnant before he dies, a not unreasonable assumption). the other case is if Luke gets converted by Darth. Knowing Leia's feelings about evil, I don't think that she and Luke would get together in that case unless she didn't know about it. I don't think its possible to hide the fact that one has gone over to the dark side of the force, though. However, Lucas can do absolutely anything he feels like; after all, its his universe. - Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jul 1980 (Sunday) 2133-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Luke's lineage It would be interesting if Leia turned out to be "the other" by virtue of being Luke's mother. Then, in SW-6, Luke could sleep with his mother and stab his father. Oh my. -Dave ------------------------------ JBARRE@MIT-AI 07/27/80 01:19:46 Re: TESB in an alternate Universe I agree with LARKE that the casting of Margaret Hamilton was indeed a stroke of genius. She stole the movie with the line to Princess Leia: "I'll get you my pretty. And your little 'droid too!" ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 29 JUL 1980 0524-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #29 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 29 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 29 Today's Topics: Niven Cameo Appearance, Request, Future - Prediction, SF Bloopers - 2001, SF Movies, Rating Books, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MOON@MIT-MC 07/28/80 11:56:56 Anybody notice the picture of Larry Niven in Sunday's Steve Roper and Mike Nomad comic strip? ------------------------------ Date: 28 JUL 1980 2326-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: address query Does anybody know the address of William Rotsler, the famed SF fan artist? Please reply directly to RODOF@USC-ECL. Many thanx, Bob ------------------------------ Date: 28 July 1980 2055-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Prophecy The article dealing with the failure of prophecy was an editorial by John Campbell in the May, 1968 Analog. While a verbatim extraction would violate copyrights, I think a summary of the more interesting points are worth summarizing (it is one of my favorite articles on the failure of prophecy): The aircraft, after being thrown back in a time warp from 1970 to 1930, lands at an airbase in Dayton, Ohio, and it can't possibly exist. It's radioactive, and one of the elements is, for goodness sake, /barium/. Not only that, but a lot of other elements known /by direct, positive observation/ to be stable are found to be radioactive. Absurd. It has radio devices, but no vacuum tubes. A vaguely vacuum-tube like device has no detectable emission (it is a low-frequency microwave tube that nothing of 1930 technology could be used to detect). Some of the larger power transistors can be analyzed, and are absolutely pure silicon; the technology of 1930 could not detect the doping levels of impurities. The radar microwave plumbing would be unintelligible. Gallium arsenide laser communications gear would likewise be unintelligible; they lase only at termendous current densities and the technology of the 1930s could not produce the microsecond pulses required so that the /average/ current density was reasonable. The drone is a ramjet, and uses the classical coke-bottle shape, but the wings won't lift and the ram won't work at <500mph, and nothing in 1930 could achieve that speed. One of the points of the article is that the standard operating technology of a simple drone reconaissance plane of 1968 or so operated on physical principles which were totally unimagined in 1930. Teflon, silicone rubber, welded(??!!!) titanium (!!!!?????!!!!) Now, for those of you who have been hacking computers for >10 years: think about how fast computer technology has changed; if we consider just hardware, I can now go out and buy a complete processor for $8.00 which is 10 times faster than the processor on my first computer, and costs less than one day's punched card supply for that beast (remember punched cards?). Do you really want to predict where hardware tech- nology will be in 20 years? How much is the energy crisis going to change our basic mode of living---instead of shipping people to work, ship work to people? This has always been a recurring theme in SF, but always, it seems, coupled with an energy-abundant environment (amazing, how most sf writers cannot overcome their cultural biases; read most mediocre sf of the 50's, then compare with the "classic" works of the same era, Pohl, Anderson, Asimov, Heinlein, et. al., which are much less, if at all, dated by massive changes in our society). Turns out, there is no motivation to make 2-hour workdays and home offices when in an energy-surplus economy. But when there is no gas to get to work, only those services for which physical presence is absolutely essential will require people to "go to work" ...and current robotic research, plus existing technology for sophisticated waldoes, will either reduce the need for people in such positions, or make it possible for them to work in remote locations. Although I don't like the idea, I'm afraid that Mack Reynolds' society is more likely than most of the alternatives I've seen proposed. Toffler, you ain't seen /nothin'/ yet! joe P.S. On Words in SF: Funny, a word I just used in a previous note: "Waldoes", those mechanical hands used in nuclear material handling, were named after the mechanical hands described by Heinlein in the story "Waldo". ------------------------------ Date: 28 July 1980 22:47 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) I personally don't think the world has been getting more and more complex. Most complicated modern things (e.g. Eurodollars) have been around in some form or another for a few thousand years. There is a tendency to simplify the past because we weren't there. The difficulty in projecting the future is similar to the problem with figuring out what a program is going to do. The solver is part of the problem. Furthermore things are not deterministic, there is always chance. Two good references on predicting the future would be Godel, Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension. Martin Gardner had a comment on the future in his Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. He described a game called Stump the Prophet in which the prophets predict what they want and everyone listens and then goes home and does exactly what he wants to. The game is described as simple, but for a simple people quite entertaining. I would also like to point out that you can't SEE a black hole for obvious reasons (also for non-obvious reasons). Seth ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 07/28/80 06:50:41 Re: Explosive Decompression I have been through the USAF physiological training and we were trained to deal with explosive decompression (I even got to experience it in an altitude chamber that was explosively decompressed from 8K to 25K feet). The first instruction is DO NOT HOLD YOUR BREATH. The lungs cannot maintain a 1 atmosphere pressure differential without rupturing. Another interesting piece of information is the estimated time of usable consciousness. It ranges from infinity at or below 12K feet to 20 sec at or above 45K feet (a vacuum). So, if you ever have to "breathe space", don't hold your breath. Also, don't worry; your blood won't boil until after you are unconscious. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1980 1514-PDT From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM Subject: 2001 air lock scene, and other movies In scuba diving, you have to be VERY careful surfacing. If you hold your breath, coming up from 12 feet can do some real damage (every 30 feet or so is 1 atmosphere). Thus a pressure change of 1 atmosphere in the air lock could really hurt the guy (was it Bowman? I forget). The problem isn't just the presure change, though, since he could let the air out, like you do diving. When you hit a vacuum (or close to it), body temperature is well above the boiling point of water, thus any mucus membrane the comes in contact with the vacuum (eyes, nose, lungs, etc) is going to get dehydrated like hell. This isn't to say he wouldn't survive, just get burned awfully bad. To say nothing of being cold. Of course, if I were faced with the same problem, I might be willing to take the chance of surviving a vacuum for a few seconds. I don't imagine that little pod would make it back to earth. Also it seems to me was one scene with a ship landing on the moon where you see swirling clouds of dust under the jets. Since there is no air, it seems to me the dust (at least around the edges) should have gone in a parabola. Its the air presure on the side that would cause the swirling clouds. I do realize this would be hard to film, though. As long as I'm on sf movies, I might as well mention Solaris. I saw it twice, and then read the book. I didn't like it too much the first time, but enjoyed it quite a bit the second. The book, however, was much better. As far as favorite sf movies of all time, I have two to recommend. One is Silent Running, a surprisingly intelligent movie about the last bits of forest and natural terrain of earth, in a somewhat unusual setting. The second (an oldie, but still a favorite) is Forbidden Planet. It has some flaws, but given the year it was made (1952 or 53 or thereabouts) it is extremely well done. Intelligent plot, some interesting ideas, and not bad effects. ------------------------------ Date: 07/28/80 0951-EDT From: FOCUS at LL Subject: Subjective Book Ratings I would like to comment on Redford's feelings about the rating of novels in SFL lists, and to expand on the reasons behind my suggestion. First, if all novel reviews in SFL were as well considered and complete as Redford's review of "On Wings of Song", then I could easily order books from the publisher sight unseen and not be disappointed very often. Note that I purposely did not recommend that all novels mentioned in SFL receive such treatment, but only those which get submitted for inclusion in the many subject lists that have been compiled of late. Often titles of this type fly by all too quickly to receive adequate comment. Indeed, it would defeat the purpose of such lists and over burden SFL if everyone submitted a lengthy review of each selection. A brief subjective rating would help to float the better titles to the top for possible further consideration. Concerning Redford's remark about the unavailability of many SF titles before awards time, I can only wonder at his lack of belief in the usefulness of subjective ratings. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1980 0013-EDT From: JoSH On using numeric ratings for comparison: 0 ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1980 10:54 PDT From: Karlton at PARC-MAXC Subject: More Re: Yoda Marketing My son (who has purchased all of the Kenner 2 to 4 inch dolls connected with SW and TESB that he can find) has in his possession a Yoda doll, complete with robe, cane and "snake" (which wraps around him lovingly). PK ------------------------------ Date: 28 JUL 1980 1614-EDT From: DR at MIT-MC (David M. Raitzin) Subject: yoda disappeared It appears to me that it was Yoda who shot J.R. and not Luke, therefore the police are holding him for questioning and hence the disappearance of Yoda memorabilia. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jul 1980 1737-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: TESB music A symphonic suite of the music from TESB has been released as a digital recording by Chalfont Records. Support new technology and buy one (it sounds good, also). It should be available in any audiophile shop. -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jul 1980 at 0003-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB: RECORD vs. FILM ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The dialogue in the TESB narrative album differs slightly from the film. The record has two extra 1-word lines: [Rebel Base, infirmary] C-3PO: Master Luke, sir, it's so good to see you fully functional again. *LUKE: Thanks. ......... [carbon freeze chamber] LEIA: I love you! HAN: I know. *VADER: Begin! The second may have been necessitated by the purely auditory medium, but not the first. Elsewhere, tho I'll not absolutely swear to it until I check one more time: during the dialog between Luke and Han at the beginning of the film, Han says (on the record), "...sensors are placed; I'm comin' back", but our (admittedly scratchy) tape seems to have "I'm goin' back". ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 30 JUL 1980 0427-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #30 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 30 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 30 Today's Topics: Future - Electronic commuting, SF Bloopers - 2001, SF Movies - SF/F/H awards, SF Books - Dragon's Egg & Roadmarks & Eyes of Amber & Invented Words, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Jul 1980 at 1010-PDT From: chesley at sri-unix Subject: Electronic commuting Of course, the surplus of energy didn't allow people to commute to work rather than the work commuting to them. It allowed people to live in some place other than where they work. Thus, without the surplus, people may go back to living near where they work rather than commuting electronicly. I worked in a place where it was an iron-clad rule that people had to be in by 8:30 (a rule which I was constantly at odds with), and the impression I always had was that the company didn't really trust you to work unless they knew you were at work at least eight hours a day. That is, they wanted to actually see you working, or at least not sleeping, read SF, etc., for a solid eight hours. Research places have always been an exception to this (I think because people enjoy working there, and would probably be doing it in their spare time if they had to dig ditches 8 to 5), but for the bulk of the jobs out there, this I-don't-believe-you're-working- unless-I-see-you-working attitude will have to be changed (if possible) before electronic commuting becomes a reality. ------------------------------ Date: 29 July 1980 15:51-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty As long as we're on the subject of 2001 bloopers, has anyone mentioned the classic scene in which several people begin to eat, and the only way to eat food is by sucking it up in a straw... Well, we know that there isn't any gravity, 'cause they're in free fall, so why does the liquid fall down the straws after the people have had their sips, hmm? Someone may mention suction from the container of food, but I got the impression that these containers were tupperware-like, i.e. not flexible enough to have that much suction, and besides, it \looked/ like the effect of gravity. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 07/29/80 23:35:59 Re: FILM AWARDS (UPI-Hollywood) - The outer space chiller "Alien" has been voted the best science fiction film. "The Muppet Movie" was voted best fantasy film and "Love at First Bite" best horror film during presentation of the annual Science Fiction Film Awards. The winners were selected by 3000 members of the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The presentations were made Saturday. Special life career awards were given to William Shatner and Gene Roddenberry, the star and producer of "Star Trek - the Motion Picture." Roger Moore was named top international star. Does anyone know what other awards were given out at the presentation? And who dares to offer other comments? Myself, I'm not too happy with the choices, but then, what was the alternative? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 1980 (Tuesday) 1852-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: Dragon's Egg Note to Dr. Forward : the book had to be special ordered... how many are out and why are they so scarce? Also, do you ever think a single book will win the Nobel, Pulitzer, Hugo, Nebula, and Moebius {?} prizes? Somehow, no matter how good a book it is would seem not to appeal to at least one of the judging groups! Also, how fast is long and short talk? Does the reference to acoustic waves mean "sound" speed? The speed of sound seems fantastically slow communication method to beings a million times faster than us. Dave ------------------------------ Date: 29 JUL 1980 0259-EDT From: JDD at MIT-ML (John DeTreville) Subject: Roadmarks I disagree with ICL.REDFORD's recent analysis of Zelazny's "Roadmarks" [SFL V2 #23]. Although somewhat related to the Amber series, the style of writing is very different. In Amber, Zelazny described everything, presented everything, left very little to the imagination. This makes the books seem very rich but is ultimately disastrous. By the third book or so, the setting completely overwhelms any character develop- ment or plot, everything gets terribly convolved, and when the series finally ends it's a sort of euthanasia. The Amber series is incredibly topheavy. In Roadmarks, on the other hand, Zelazny seems to be reacting to the sort of writing mess he got himself into in Amber. Oh sure, there's a Road, and travellers on it, and so forth, but the style has become much more spare. Zelazny is leaving much more to the imagination. He doesn't tell what it is that the protagonist is seeking: the important thing is that he's seeking something. By leaving out the background it becomes possible to tell a story comparable to Amber in one book instead of half a dozen. It doesn't work all that well, overall, but it's occasionally brilliant. The Amber series is better than Roadmarks, but Roadmarks is better than the nth member of the Amber series. -- John DeTreville ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/11/80 02:29:42 Re: a book I have just finished reading Joan Vinge's collection of novelettes called "Eyes of Amber and other stories" (Signet-451-J8863). Her ability to create characters and take technology "for granted" is well advanced (no hard science here). I recommend it to all who enjoy "light" SF (I may be prejudiced here as I know Joan and Vernor. They are now separated so that limits my exposure to Joan. Vernor still teaches mathematics at San Diego State University.) Brian ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 1980 (Tuesday) 2019-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: Question on new books Those who have reqd the following "new" books please send ME your comments. I am particularly interested in answering the question : "Is the book worth buying in hardback/tradeback, or should one wait for the softback, or not get it at all?" WIZARD - J. Varley THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST - R. A. Heinlein BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON - F. Pohl THE PATCHWORK GIRL - L. Niven Also, I would be interested in hearing from people who read "Floating Worlds {Holland}" and LIKED it because I HATED it and must assume I missed something. Oh, and did anyone read/like "RISSA KERGULEN" by F. M. Busby? Dave ------------------------------ Date: 30 July 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Responses on SF Words Invented Words in SF: --------------------- For a whole slew of new words try Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar". -- I imagine there are thousands of such. "Stand on Zanzibar" for example is a goldmine for made-up words. "TANJ" from Ringworld. "Waldo" from "Waldo". This is an example of words that have passed into the language. "hyperspace" is a term from math but surely "hyperdrive" is from the SF mass consciousness. "Clockwork Orange" has a whole language. One might also point out phrases which have old words but new concepts: "cloaking device", "transfer booth", "warp factor seven". -- JoSH I was completely taken by Niven's new word in his latest book, "The Patchwork Girl". The police are unable to look at part of the surface of the Moon because they are missing a spy sattelite, they had requested another but it was "proxmired". The word is not only appropriate but has the right flavor due to its resemblance to "quagmire"... -- ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 1980 13:48 PDT From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Language? Words? writertype past Brunner and Burgess, from turn of theme to structure of sentence, brings us by a commode of viscous regurgitation back to James Joyce and the Wake. James Joyce, violer de mots, raised in Eire and unreturned child prodigal, taughts to us with a precession of words in all wise scene. Ah the sham of his shimmerrocks, the lien on his limnaracks! For just betixt Jute and Mute, the plain dallies and sense of the matter is a mite gyroscopic (When Earish Eyes are Smelling), what to be listed in these fellow sages. Whats a matter to doe when Joyce exposes his private parts of speech with nouns and thens, (1 + ad)verbs, personal propositions, conjectives, the jokes of ughs (believing, as do we all, that the pun is mightier than the surd), intoned groanwails, messes for the dad sprinkled with wholey water, various millitarried ranks including Private Parts, Major Incident and General Confusion (alls fear in law and war), rising sons and fallen knights. This silence friction will rust your clackwords orange. To fairappraise the mister hinselbsts, Three Quarks for Germs Choice! After alls shed and donned, nose choler of languishins should leave this dream undrammed, 'cause this clickyclick /Mike ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/30/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 29 July 1980 00:31-EDT From: Charles E. Haynes Subject: Exploding Death Star C'mon now! Since when will destroying a powerful weapon cause it to release its energy? You think dynamiting Oak Ridge would wipe out Tennessee? -- Charles ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1980 1129-PDT From: Dolata at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Lando and the Carbonite container A friend claims he saw Lando Calrissian slip somthing into the controls of the Carbonite container thats holds Han. Did anybody else see this? Dan ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 1980 at 0149-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^ 2001'S LUNG-BUSTER & SF FILM REFERENCES IN TESB ^^^^^^^^^^ In TESB when Luke goes seeking Vader between the 1st and 2nd segments of the duel, he goes thru a brightly-lit "tunnel" which seemed to me so reminiscent of the setting in the "lung-buster" scene that I thought it might be a "cinematic reference" to 2001. Does that seem likely, to anyone else? (Did anyone notice what might have been other such "references"? John M. has suggestesd that Chewie holding C-3PO's head was modeled on a well-known statue/picture of an ape gazing thoughtfully at a human skull. This has some support in the shooting script which says that Chewie picks up the head and "barks a few remarks of a philosophical nature".) ------------------------------ VAD@MIT-AI 07/26/80 12:44:52 Re: Belated TESB comments I finally got around to reading the list archive. I don't know if anybody brought this out: When DV chops off Luke's hand, not one drop of blood comes out, and a mere squeeze under the other arm seems to keep things dry also. This sort of got me wondering, is Luke either an insect, or a droid??? I like the way they fixed his hand up, but I had this feeling that it was just a replacement part for the one he had lost! Any ideas? Another thing I was wondering about is the 'bent' gravity field passing through that central shaft in the city,which made Luke fall first 'down', and then sideways and [luckily!] through that hole in the side into the garbage chutes. The inhabitants of that city must have very clean garbage,too.... I noticed no slime on the funny bars that he fell down on to. If you look at any modern dumpster that's used at all it's pretty revolting inside! Actually all the garbage probably winds up in Hydroponics. oh well, back to the archives...... -- Hobbit ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 31 JUL 1980 0525-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #31 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 31 July 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 31 Today's Topics: Last lines, SF Bloopers - 2001, Future - Electronic Commuting, SF Books - Dragon's Egg & Rating Books & The Number of the Beast & Vinge, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Jul 1980 0935-PDT (Wednesday) From: Lou at UCLA-ATS (Lou Nelson) Subject: Cheers origin I believe Vint Cerf of DARPA started using "cheers" about 8 or 9 years ago. I may be responsible for "regards" and "best regards". ------------------------------ Date: 30 July 1980 1614-EDT (Wednesday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: Regarding the food scene in 2001 It would seem to me that in packaging food for space, that a collapsible container is desirable to keep a smooth supply of food to the straw. Given a tupperware like container, one can not assume that putting the straw to the bottom of the container will reach food, as any airspace within would as likely be there. It would also, though, be desirable to have the container give some resistance to the collapsing, or else once the user starts sucking food out, it could continue in a stream that could well prove to be hazardous and messy. It is, I believe, this resistance at work, and not gravity, that we see at work in the food scene. (Heinlein's Podykane (sp?) of Mars gives a good description of the problems of free floating food, and the potential danger of infantile regurgitation at zero-g) ------------------------------ Date: 30 July 1980 20:19 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: predictions and SF Jules Verne predicted the Ocean Liner movie, now the Airport movie. You could even use the modern conventions to pick out who is going to get it. ------------------------------ Date: 30 July 1980 2258-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Commuting to work A VP of our local bank observed that the real issue is controlling information flow. Since the bank is located in an older downtown office building, they were having severe space problems for new personnel; there was no room to expand. Then the high-level management discovered that if you give them terminals, you can move the operation to a suburban building which is cheaper, more desirable for the employees, and, more importantly, /available/. With the realization that one does not need physical presence to adequately supervise work, they have been able to substantially expand departments which they formerly had restricted in size. The increase in overall productivity by having /enough/ people to do the work, rather than a few overworked people, has also been a revelation. Of course, the managers in those departments probably still believe that their employees have to be physically present, but when an institution like a bank can make such a fundamental decision at such a high level, it will not take long before the next level down makes the same discovery. By the way, if you want a fun b.s. session, think of how a bank would have to protect its information if people /really/ were working from home! Especially if one has read/WRITE access to a financial database! I know of very few stories in which much attention is paid to the security problem in large multiaccess databases; for example, in most of Mack Reynolds' stories, an "access code" is required to obtain details of a person's dossier. It might be fun to list a few and explore the feasibility/credibility/absurdity of the portrayed multiaccess model. If anyone cares to start a discussion of this, I'll scratch my head a bit and come up with some titles. joe ------------------------------ Date: 30 JUL 1980 1052-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Queries by Dave Rossien about Dragon's Egg Random House/Ballantine/Del Rey printed 7500 copies of Dragon's Egg, which according to C. Brown of Locus was a relatively large printing for a hardcover SF by a first author. Most bookstores only stock paperbacks in SF, unless the author is well known, which I am not, so you will probably have to have them special order DE unless it is a store that specializes in SF, like the "Change of Hobbit" in Westwood, CA. Pierre's book is a three volume set, one on the physics of the star, one on the facts of the expedition, and a third which is a fictionalized history of the cheela, and has chapters in it that go Prologue, Pulsar, Volcano, God, Trek, Contact, and Interaction. One volume won the Nobel, another the Pulitzer, etc. (At least it SOUNDS plausible.) The speed of sound in neutron star material is close to the speed of light because the crust is so rigid. The P and S waves in tne earth crust travel at different speeds, so I presume long and short talk will too, but the exact speed depends upon your model for the material in the crust. Bob Forward ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jul 1980 at 0120-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^ RATINGS & HEINLEIN'S "NUMBER OF THE BEAST" ^^^^^^^^^^^ Count another ANTI vote on the SF-rating proposal. For one thing, it would be 'work`, adapting to some scale, and SF-L is for fun. For another, a rating scale would be unworkable in the flux of the SF-L situation with correspondents coming and going all the time. Moreover, a single rating scale, like a bare PG on a movie, doesn't tell enough to be really useful. A case in point: I've just finished Heinlein's THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST and thoroughly enjoyed it hour after hour. I think most SF-L readers would (tho not Kolling). But it's n-o-t a GOOD book. The structure is whomperjawed. He starts out with an aliens-after-the-good-guys story, shifts to emphasis on the socio-psychology of leadership, lapses into an addendum to TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, and ends up with The Ultimate Con as a l'envoi. The last two are largely irrelevant, the first gets lost somewhere along the way, and the 2nd eventually lapses. TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE was episodic, but it maintained adequate cohesion in its focus on and thru Lazarus Long. For most of the book, BEAST...shifts focus around among the 4 main protagonists with each chapter, then jumps to Lazarus, and then ends up with nobody in particular. It was the kind of book one romps thru with gusto, and then when done starts thinking, "But... but... but...". No simple, single rating scale can handle that. (Gil Gyer's scoring, if you're familiar with what is probably the most ambitious SF rating project extant, it is workable because he is seemingly more concerned with how well one enjoyed a book than with its "merit".) ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jul 1980 10:14 PDT From: Weissman at PARC-MAXC Subject: "The Number of the Beast" What can you say about Robert Heinlein? As one of SF's "Grand Old Men", he commands an awful lot of respect, especially when you re-read some of his older, highly imaginative and prophetic works. But "The Number of the Beast", alas, doesn't measure up. If you've been keeping up with Heinlein in his post-"Stranger in a Strange Land" period, you probably know what to expect from his latest novel. More of the same, ala "I Will Fear No Evil" and "Time Enough for Love", over and over and over and over again. Let me say right off that I liked all of those books, but I was hoping Heinlein would come up with something new this time around. Briefly, the story concerns "a mad scientist and his beautiful daughter" who have a "time machine" in their basement and use it to explore amongst the universes with their respective spouses. Needless to say, if you know recent Heinlein, the heroes are canonically heroic, the women are beautiful, the computers are cutesy, the villians are nasty, and EVERYBODY is incredibly oversexed. This book marks a new high in self-indulgence for Heinlein, as you will see if you get past the first half of the story. I borrowed the trade paperback from a friend (the artwork isn't bad) and I'm glad I was able to read it for free. -- Bob ------------------------------ Date: 30 JUL 1980 1321-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Vinge Actually, Joan Vinge married her editor (Jim Frenkel of Dell) last month; I think she'd been separated 3 years or so (and I wonder whether a factor in the breach was that she was a much better writer than he was even then). ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/31/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 31 July 1980 0220 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Luke's Hand On the use of light sabers as a surgical tool: Ref VAD@MIT-AI's question about Luke losing so little blood when he lost his hand: the amount of blood lost depends on what happens to the ends of the blood vessels as a result of the wound. -- Karen the majority opinion seems to be: Let us note that the light sabers are probably quite hot, and thus would quite neatly cauterize such an amputation. Lasers, for instance, have been used to seal bleeding capilaries through the lenses of a patient's eye. -- Yeah, it did look strange for there to be no blood around when Vader chopped off Luke's hand. There was certainly gore in evidence when Obi-Wan and Luke sliced off critters' arms! Regrettably, however, there IS a way for this discrepancy to be weasled out of. Those gory slashes were not done with Vader's particular light-saber. His, as the blackened stubs of the 3 posts he slashed on the gantry catwalk (see last month's TESB commercialized poster issue) show, is h-o-t. It cauterized the wrist as it cut off the hand. (~sigh~) I still haven't been able to spot an honest-to-Gawd blooper in SW5 unless the odd lack of tauntaun tracks counts. -- and was also mentioned by the following people: JHENDLER at BBNA, Drew Powles , and David Rossien On the other hand: I assumed mental tourniquets were a simple matter for those with the Force. It's not much different than bio-control feats done by present-day Earth yoga masters. As for the Luke-as-droid hypothesis, a technology capable both of creating droids as psychologically human-like as C3PO and prosthetic arms as realistic as Luke's might be capable of combining the two and making droids which appear human until you cut them open (though I'd expect artificial mouths to provide more technological diffi- culties than hands). It would almost certainly be illegal, since the law apparently distinguishes between the two types of beings (among other things, we've seen that droids can be sold, but there is no evidence of human slavery), so droids should be recognizable as such. Human-looking droids would undoubtably be much more expensive to make, also. But the underworld, and possibly the underground, would probably not miss the advantages of disguising an almost infinitely fixable droid as an ordinary mortal. Still, I seriously doubt that Lucas chose to follow up on this interesting implication of his fantasy-world's technology in any way at all, let alone in Luke. I won't swear by Luke's humanity, though, until I see what happens when he is beheaded. -- Teri ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 1 AUG 1980 0601-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #32 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 1 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 32 Today's Topics: Costume Query, Physics Tomorrow - Ringworld Dynamics, SF Books - Jeppson's Second Experiment/Last Immortal & The Number of the Beast & Dragon's Egg, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 July 1980 19:48 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Information request for costumes. A friend is producing a costume workshop for the Worldcon. To help this out, we are looking for books that could be used as setting for costumes. The best choices would be those that meet all of these criteria: - have enough scope that creation of new characters/costumes is reasonable - contain major female characters, so that the creation of new female characters is also reasonable - is well known, but not a cliche, and - is set in a climate such that its costumes are wearable in Boston in September, i.e. hot and humid. Please reply to me directly, and I will summarize the replies and feed them back. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1980 1134-PDT From: KATZ at USC-ISIF Subject: Ringworld unstable?? I have heard that a Niven Ringworld would be unstable. Does anyone know of a proof of this fact? I am looking for either a reference or an outline of a proof, not a hand waving argument. Alan ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 07/28/80 18:21:01 Re: Completely random review Just a warning. Some of you may in your travels encounter a couple of novels by J. O. Jeppson, to wit "The Second Experiment" and "The Last Immortal". AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!! Worse garbage I have rarely seen in hardcover. Perhaps they are simply refugees from the children's section, but they weren't in large print and the blurbs gave no clue to the requisite MA (Mental Age). I can't really explain why I read the second book. Perhaps I thought the author would do better next time, or develop some substance to the framework, or something. Optimistic jerk, that's me. In fact, I couldn't even understand why the publishers let them slip past. At least not until I took a closer look at the back jacket blurb of the second book, wherein it claims that JOJ is hitched to the worthy Isaac Asimov. Ah so. SIGH...... On second thought, perhaps the idea is to emulate "Plan 9" and reap in the receipts of notoriety? Naw, it's not funny enough; my vote for "worst SF novel" is already committed to Simak's "Cosmic Engineers". JOJ should place well, though. --Ken ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1980 1159-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: Heinlein Another problem with Heinlein's writing, and the reason that I refuse to read him anymore is that he is *incredibly* sexist. -Spencer ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 07/31/80 18:01:09 I could not agree more with Bob Weissman's criticism of Heinlein's "The Number Of The Beast". This is self-indulgance at its worst. I was unable to finish the book. I recommend that you don't waste your time trying. ------------------------------ OTA@MIT-MC 07/31/80 01:41:03 Re: Review of Heinleins "The number of the Beast" I have been meaning to send in a review of Heinleins new book for a while now so here goes. I have read the British version which came out in hardback a month or two ago. I have seen plenty of copies of the american trade paper back version at the (non) local bookstore so I guess it is out for real now. The American version was appearently edited down by on the order of 100 pages. This is widely considered not to be much of a loss. The book, in a word, is "uncontrolled". Basically Heinlein didn't exercise much control at all about what he wrote. There is a story line. There is characterization. There is adventure. But there are also long diatribes about such varied topics as: womens rights, wifely duties, husbandly duties, responsibilities of a military commander and the like. The same themes and points of view as come out in most of his books particularly "Time Enough for Love". As for you fans of books that reference other books this one has it in spades. It is partly contrived like as though he heard this discussion on SF lovers and decided to write a book that would reference lots of other SF books. On the whole I enjoyed it but several friends of mine did not finish it, perhaps I'm incurable but there are presumably quite a few incurable Heinlein fans out there so I'm not alone. [ Don't even imagine that RAH has heard about SF-LOVERS. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1980 at 2122-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HEINLEIN'S "...BEAST" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Would I recommend buying it? Not unless you do so expecting nothing more for your money than a few hours of amusing reading. It \IS/ amusing... lots of puns, and F-U-L-L of SF-self-references such as have been appearing in SF-L recently. Ardent SF'ers would have a ball with the book, just finding and figuring those out. One has SF-L relevance, and can be shared without spoiling the story. Lazarus has an SF con, The Ultimate Con, attended by fictional characters as well as real people. As he discusses the participants he says-- "It turns out that the degree of doctor is so common on that list of my special guests as not to be worth noting. Listen to this: 'Asimov, Benford, Biggle, Bone, Broxon, Cargraves, Challenger, Chater, Coupling, Coster, Dorosin, Douglas, Doyle, Dula, Forward, Fu, Giblett, Gunn, Harshaw, Hartwell, Haycock, Hedrick, Hoyle, Kondo, Latham, MacRae, Martin, Mott, Nourse, Oberhelman, Passovoy, Pinero, Pournelle, Prehoda, Richardson, Rothman, Sagan, Scortia, Schmidt, Sheffield, Slaughter, Smith, Stone-- Hazel and Edith --Taine, Watson, Williamson-- there are more; that's just the add-on printout.' ........ Numerically, at least, the British edition has 50 more pages. Does anyone know if it actually has more text? ------------------------------ Date: 31 JUL 1980 1128-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Availability of Dragon's Egg I got a message from: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics I went to several bookstores, they couldn't find DE in Books In Print. Whatever is needed to order it. Perhaps SFL would like to get this info. I talked to my local bookseller, who runs a small one-person operation here in Malibu. He said that DE would not be in the 1979-1980 Books in Print, since it was issued in late May and missed the last edition of BiP. However, he subscribes to the Ingram microfieche service and he easily looked it up there under Random House, Dragon's Egg and Forward, R.L. I guess is just depends on how good the bookstore is. If the bookstore can't or won't get it for you, you can order it direct from Random House/Ballantine for $9.95 + $1.00 shipping. Ballantine Books Dept. AL 201 East 50th Street New York, New York 10022 ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1980 0903-PDT From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Availability of Dragon's Egg At least one sf bookstore around here (Science Fiction - Fantasy on El Camino in Palo Alto) had two copies of Dragon's Egg, last I saw. I bought my copy at B. Dalton, which is decidedly not a specialized science fiction store. Is there a weighting factor in the distribution across the country, maybe? /Mike ------------------------------ Date: 30 July 1980 2034-EDT (Wednesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: Dragon's Egg. Several msgs recently (last week or two) seem to hint that you-ens on the west coast are having problems finding Dragon's Egg. Here in Pittsburgh I have run across it in every book store I have been in (most of them had 3 or 4 copies, that I could see) but I think the price of HardBack books these days is becoming prohibitive, for I will NOT fork out that much money for a hardback (I will either wait for the paper back or the Science Fiction Book Club to carry it.) I also have seen a couple copies of 'The Wounded Land,' the new Thomas Covenant story... Doug ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 07/31/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1980 at 2036-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MORE ON BLOODLESS DE-HANDING ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Recall the color difference between Luke's and Obi-Wan's sabers vs. Vader's? If instead of thinking of them as red-hot vs. white-hot, we use the more common color associations of red=hot, white/blue= cool, that supplies the rationale for Vader's saber cauterizing but the others merely slashing. ------------------------------ Date: 30 July 1980 From: Pettit at PARC-MAXC Subject: Luke's Fall It also seemed to me that the shaft itself bent at the bottom. But if Luke was indeed falling in a "hook" trajectory, you can always attribute that to the Force too, a very convenient catch-all for all sorts of plot implausibilities. ------------------------------ Date: 30 JUL 1980 1328-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: garbarge chute; carbonite controls It was my impression that the chute actually leveled out after the initial vertical drop, and that Luke fell through a trap in the bottom of a cylinder with its axis horizontal -- certainly he wasn't in the middle of the city when he fell through that last door. I've heard several people arguing about whether Lando was gimmicking the carbonite controls, and the conclusion seems to be that he was simply taking a reading. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 1980 at 1010-PDT From: chesley at sri-unix Subject: The Other Hope I think I've got The Other Hope figured out: it's Darth Vader. I expect Darth will eventually kill Luke and rape Leia, only to discover that due to a time warp they're really his parents. He'll be so upset over this that he'll kill himself. It would be just like Lucas to make a recursive Oedipus complex. One question: if Yoda's such a great Jedi master, why doesn't he just go kill Vader himself? And on the subject of unnoticed subtleties, if you take all the "magic" numbers mentioned here, in the order they appear in the various movies and books, they form a Godel number which when decoded tells who really killed J.R. --Harry... [ For some possible answers to why Yoda "doesn't just go kill Vader himself", see Steve Lawrence's message in [SFL V2 #6]. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 1980 1309-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Politics In regard to Jeff's (DP@MIT-ML) comment in [SFL V1 #132] (5/28/80) that, at DISCLAVE, "there were enough nominations to get Darth Vader on the Virginia Presidential Ballot (but there would be some question as to party...)' --- It seems obvious to me that Darth Vader should be the Favorite Son from New York State (the EMPIRE State...) hee hee hee ....(scuttle off into the darkness).... Will Martin ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 2 AUG 1980 0541-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #33 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 2 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Future - Prediction, SF Bloopers - 2001, SF Books - Mythconception & Dragon's Egg & Beast, What happens at a Con?, TESB, Spoiler - All You Zombies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 August 1980 22:24 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: rocket probe hits time warp [ see SFL V2 #26,29 ] I don't think the 1930's is far back enough. People saw it fly so it obviously was capable of it. Quick calculations will show that it must have been launched somehow. Remember the V-1 was not that far beyond technology then and it was more or less a low speed ramjet. Lenses imply optics and television research at that point would prevent ruling out that this device was electronically controlled and had some kind of television camera in it albeit a peculiar one. The wiring, it's still wiring. I imagine they might lose an IC or two before they get the hang of how to cut them open and study them under the old phase contrast microscope. It is harder for me to figure out what they would make of the microwave components of the radar system but remember those people would still be alive today. They would probably guess that the device was military in nature, even if they didn't read the labels on it. If it landed in the U.S. the British Intelligence would have had a chance to help going over it, Ian Fleming always like gadgets, and they would have probably spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how the Nazi's had built it and from where in Latin America it was launched. The labels in English might cause someone to wonder if the device was in some way anachronistic but time warp physics was still pretty far away; they were still guessing about quantum electrodynamics. Now if it had landed in Ancient Rome the reaction might have been a bit different. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Aug 1980 18:01:35-PDT From: Phil Karn via CSVAX.UUCP at BERKELEY Subject: More technical goofs in 2001 Here's yet another technical goof in 2001 that I don't think anybody has noticed yet. Remember the meeting in the conference room at Clavius? No one seems to have any trouble walking around the room. Think what would happen if you tried to walk normally in a room where the gravity is 1/6 G. Your head would be hitting the ceiling. Of course, maybe the room was in a conically shaped centrifuge so that the moon's gravity plus the centrifugal force would give 1G, but considering 2001's detailed showing of every other artificial gravity scheme, I doubt it. ------------------------------ Date: 28 July 1980 2104-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: humor For those of you who don't know it, the sequel to "Another Fine Myth" will be called "Mythconception". It has been "about to come out, probably next month" for about a year now, so I'm not holding my breath, but I ask every time I visit any decent sf shop (the answer has been constant since last March, actually, so it is more than a year now). joe ------------------------------ Date: 01 Aug 1980 1551-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Availability of Dragon's Egg I just chatted with the owner of Future Fantasy (SF bookstore just off the Stanford campus). It seems that they only ordered a handful of copies (first time author syndrome), and have been trying to get more. But there seems to be a decided time lag. It is also highly possible that since Bob is a first time author, the major bookstore chains initially ordered NO copies of the book. At least that appears to be the case in this part of the Bay Area (based on my own random sampling). Given the lack of a track record, I am actually NOT surprised that DE is not all over the place. As a matter of fact, I am a little shocked that some major book chains would order copies INITIALLY from the publisher. That looks unusual to me. Jim ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 08/01/80 07:54:04 Re: R.A.Heinlein Come on folks. If I hadn't gotten hooked on Heinlein's books as a youngster, I wouldn't be here right now (whether that is good or bad is a different story). R.A.H. has written some pretty fair books in his life. I don't think that "Number of the Beast" deserves the vehement put-down I have seen in this medium. I agree with most of the criticisms, but I don't agree that it is in the same category as "I Will Fear No Evil". IWFNE was written when RAH was having problems mentally (the problems were physically induced). "...Beast" does not (to me) have the same flavor. It looks like Heinlein was having a bit of fun with his readers. As for him being sexist, I'm not too sure that is true. Let me point out that there are indeed physical differences between men and women. These differences do lead to biases in the area of familial duties. As for his characters being oversexed, I don't agree. I have been known to enjoy extended periods of sexual activity and noone has branded me "oversexed" (come on now, it's not that funny). Let's not use too broad a brush to paint this book "BAD". I agree, it's not his best, but I did enjoy it. If you are looking for something really bad, read Murry Leinster's (SP?) "Pirates of Zan". It is so bad, it is hilarious. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 07/23/80 00:42:02 Re: CONventional topics Warning: This article is quite SMOFish, Roscoe has determined that SMOFing may be hazardous to your ego. Balticon: GOH: John Varley Hotel: Hunt Valley (the usual) Rooms: $32. gets you 4 keys. Flyer: available in October (none of this nonsense about number of people in the room.) Baltimore has had problems with townies showing up to get drunk, and make general nuisances of themselves. They are considering not having bheer in the con suite. This should make the obnoxious go away. For the realfen there will be an alternate suite sponsored by the Baltimore in 83 bid. It will be semi-private, admission to reasonable people and/or members of Denvention. (the con where the bid voting takes place) Con report. Unicon.... Silver Spring, MD. It was held in a Sheraton designed to accommodate lots of small non-connected meetings. The hotel was also designed to be located in Alaska, with no sundeck, and air conditioning that lost when the parties started to fill up. As is traditional for a con hotel the elevator's and ice machines were not up to the load. It was 4 blocks from the Metro so it had a few redeeming points. We left at 11 pm Thursday with me, RMS [Richard Stallman], a neo, and one of Boston's few Marklander's [The Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia]. The trip was rather uneventful, we spent 1 hour lost in Baltimore, trying to find breakfast, arriving at about 8:30 AM. I checked in, (single, $44, yetch...) the four of us went up, and crashed until around 1. We took the subway into the city and spent the afternoon at the Museum of History and Technology. We returned about six, and I set up my huckster table. sold very little and the room closed at 9. (Despite what it said in the program book.) Two other huckster's took me up on my offer of crash space, making it 6 to the single. I put 10 hymnals in my pack, (I sell them) and set off to find Filthy Pierre and start a filksing. I found him, we set up in the hall, and filked from 10 till about 1 AM. I wandered around partyhopping, till the shaved gorilla in the double knit suit told us at 3:30 to get to a room or leave the hotel. Explanations about dawn as the time for good parties to end were not understood. The idiot then began to drop hints about police (to a guest !!). Since I had to be at my table at nine if I was to afford the convention, I did not take him up on his offer. On Saturday I was up at the incredible hour of 9 am to go deal and spent the day at my table trying to sell stuff and SMOFing with Scott Dennis, a very political Baltimore fan. Saturday night dinner in a giant group, and then the closed Baltimore party/Moose's (Robert Lovel) 33 1/3 birthday party. This was going well, when some of the twits discovered that the breaker boxes weren't locked. The party was in one of the rooms blacked out. 20 min later, when the hotel turned things back on, we decided the light hurt, and turned them back off. Thing's were starting get friendly at the party, when Scott walked in and informed us that someone had thrown a dud smoke bomb into an elevator. 5 of us left to go walk halls. We closed the Con suite, and cleared some of the halls (our orignial (pre smoke bomb) plan was to have a 4 am SMOF in to protest to the double knit gorilla.) Things were calming down, I was waiting on the 8'th floor for an elevator to return to the party, when I saw some femfan (femtwit?) pull the fire alarm at the other end of the hall. She ducked down the stairs, passing one of the others who was coming up to investigate on the 6'th floor stairway. this was at 4:30 am. the fire department arrived and spent 3/4'ths of an hour trying to shut the alarm off. They had to enter the hotel engineer's office with an axe. They shut thing's off (including the two alarmed roof doors) and I got to sleep at 6:30 - 7:00. Up again at 9:30, I ran the table till noon. We were to leave then but one of the people in the car was missing. They were off saying goodbye to the member of opposite that they had met at the con. They showed up about an hour later and we went off to find some steamed crabs. We finally left Washington at 4:30 for the 10 hour drive north. Things went well until we hit the Tappan zee bridge. 14 cars were stalled at about 1/4 mile intervals. We did the obvious, we filked. The reaction of the cars around us was good. As we approached the toll booth, we sang "My God How The Money Roll's In" with people in 5 cars joining in the chorus. Arrived home at 2 AM 8 pounds lighter from tne heat (it was in the 90's all the time) --- Jeff DP ------------------------------ JBARRE@MIT-AI 08/02/80 00:50:32 In Friday's comics, John Darling was interviewing George Lucas about his upcoming basebal movie. It's name? "The Umpire Strikes Back" ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/02/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It invites discussion of the ending of Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies". People who have not read this story may not wish to read any further, especially since it is the ending that gives the story its power. People who would like to read this story may find it in the Heinlein collection, 6 X H, and also in the more recent hardcover collection, The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (compiled by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg). ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1980 10:39 PDT From: Shipper.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: "...All You Zombies..." I just read "zombies" after seeing its title in SF-LOVERS a number of times. I think I understood what the ending is supposed to imply, that the "zombies" were all of the narrator's other selves that he "had" encountered in time. Also, I was not sure how the Mistake of 72 fit in. If anybody disagrees with me and/or has their own interpretation of this (too hip) story, I would appreciate your thoughts. /Steve. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 3 AUG 1980 0339-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #34 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 3 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 34 Today's Topics: Bibliography Queries and Responses ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Jul 1980 at 1110-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: Books on networks I was just going to mention the new release "Web of Angels", by John M. Ford, when someone reviewed it in SF-LOVERS even before I'd finished it. I went off and thought for awhile, and then decided to ask what other books have been written which were a) based on computer technology; b) not outrageously incorrect; and c) based mainly on HUMAN characters, not cardboard cut-outs. The only three books or novellas I can think of that satisfy all of these criteria are "The Shockwave Rider", by John Brunner, "Fireship", by Joan D. Vinge, and now, "Web of Angels", by John M. Ford. The last is not up to the first two but is certainly a VERY impressive first showing. Note that "When Harlie Was One" is not included since by my lights it violates both (b) and (c). "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" violates (b), somewhat. [ Please note that this is a much more restricted query than the earlier Computers in SF bibliography query. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 3 August 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Responses on Words / Blurbs / SF Comedy & Parody / Cats / Environment Invented Words in SF: --------------------- I first encountered "TANSTAAFL" in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" --- I don't know if he invented it or not, but it certainly is part of the common vocabulary of a large number of computer scientists of wide acquaintance. -- joe Brunner's STAND ON ZANZIBAR has so \many/ inventions in it that the words stand out less than they might (also because of the sheer size of the book). THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER seems to have at least as much new vocabulary, much of it strongly visual (sanding, deevee'd, veephone, bayquake [previously mentioned] and so on). -- Chip Hitchcock SF Blurbs: ---------- I seemed to recall that the blurb on the back of "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" mentioned a "crusty old pop" who never appeared in the story. -- SF Comedy & Parody: ------------------- PROSTHO PLUS by Piers Anthony (novel) (rating: 8, but not if taken seriously) In which a "conservative, successful twentieth-century bachelor prosthodontist" gets kidnapped by an alien who needs some dental work, and continues on to treat some pretty bizarre mouths. Lotsa fun, esp. at the planet-sized University of Dentistry. Anyone who ever had braces should love this. -- "Author, Author!" by Isaac Asimov (short story) available in THE EARLY ASIMOV (collection) When I think of humorous Sci-Fi, Asimovs "Author, Author!" comes to mind. I thought it was really funny. -- BUY JUPITER AND OTHER STORIES by Isaac Asimov (collection) For humorous SF I prefer anything by Lafferty, most of Laumer, and some Asimov, notably Asimov's short story collection "Buy Jupiter". -- Charles E. Haynes "Shah Guido G." by Isaac Asimov (short story) available in BUY JUPITER AND OTHER STORIES (collection) How about Shah Guido G., by Asimov? I can't remember what the story was about, just the title (for some strange reason). -- "The Holmes-Ginsbook Device" by Isaac Asimov (short story) available in OPUS 100 (collection) This is the last story in OPUS 100 by Asimov. It is a parody of THE DOUBLE HELIX by James Watson. This book explains how scientists are simple souls, desiring only women, fame and wealth, in that order. -- Bruce "What Mad Universe" by Frederic Brown (short story) Frederic Brown's "What Mad Universe", one of the best parallel-world stories around. -- Michael Urban [ Also mentioned by JoSH . -- RDD ] THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT, THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT'S REVENGE, THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT SAVES THE WORLD, THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT WANTS YOU by Harry Harrison (series) A good collection of funny novels is Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series. They are parody in the sense that they include everything that anyone has complained about in SF: Paper-thin characters, stories centered around action and plot, instead of theme and character development, ridiculously absurd shifts in plot, unreasonable gadgetry pulled out of thin air to save the day... things of that nature. (Sort of like watching "The Wild, Wild, West.") -- Alan Cats in SF: ----------- [ Here is (1) a condensation of the results of HJJH's and my recent request for books (other than by Andre Norton) featuring cat-like beings, and (2) some flaming about Heinlein: -- Karen When reading the Heinlein commentary, please bear in mind that it was written BEFORE the TNotB reviews began to appear in SFL. -- RDD ] THE STONE GOD AWAKENS by Philip Jose Farmer (novel) THE STONE GOD AWAKENS deals with a man who awakes in the distant future (having accidentally suspended himself in a petrified, stonelike state, hence the first part of the title) to find himself an idol for one of the dominant mutant species (human sized bipedal cats) (hence the rest of the title). -- Matt Lecin [ KK: also mentioned by David Rossien . ] GODSFIRE by Cynthia Felice (novel) -- Haruka Takano The Known Space series by Larry Niven Any Larry Niven story with Kzinti in it. -- David A. Moon [KK: Kzinti were also mentioned by Dan Shapiro ] THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert A. Heinlein (novel) Probably the biggest role for a cat outside of Norton is in Heinlein's A DOOR INTO SUMMER --- the hero talks more to his cat than he does to the woman he ends up marrying. [ KK: That doesn't surprise me; Heinlein seems to hate all human females over the age of 12. HJJH: Sorry, Karen, but for a long time I've maintained that R.A.H.'s supposed anti-women stance is a base canard perpetrated unjustifiably by many loud-mouth Libbers in SF. (Finally Spider Robinson has come to R.A.H.'s defense about it in the latest issue of DESTINIES.) How any fair-minded woman can read ROLLING STONES and yap at Heinlein is incomprehensible! KK: well, I got this idea all by myself, no input from anybody else. I base it on his prediliction for 12-14 year olds, the presence of a literally castrating female in which book I forget, plus, as I recall, Podkayne turning into a dummy when she developed hips, etc., etc., etc. ] Heinlein talks a lot about cats and his characters are usually sympathetic to them, but this story has a much bigger role than usual for them. -- Chip Hitchcock [ HJJH: TDIS was also mentioned by ISRAEL at MIT-AI, McJones at PARC-MAXC, and WESTFW at Wharton. KK: Pete from THE DOOR INTO SUMMER is HJJH's and my nominee for Best Fictional Cat Of All Time. ] THE GREEN MILLENIUM by Fritz Lieber (novel) This novel involves cats as magical beings. -- David A. Moon In ...MILLENNIUM, something which everyone thinks is a cat isn't quite, but it behaves like one. -- Chip Hitchcock "Space Time for Springers" by Fritz Leiber (short story) Only novels? well, that rules out "Space Time for Springers", one of the all-time great cat stories in SF. [HJJH: Amen!] -- Chip Hitchcock THE WANDERER by Fritz Leiber (novel) THE WANDERER has the aliens which eat the moon being feline derivatives. Lousy book in my opinion, although redeeming qualities. -- Dan Shapiro DECISION AT DOONA by Anne McCaffrey (novel) -- Haruka Takano -- Mark Crispin THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (novel) Authors have theorized that because cats couldn't fall and land on their feet the way they are used to, that zero gee would confuse them. If I remember, Niven/Pournelle mention it in THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, and use ferrets instead of cats to catch mice/watchmakers. -- David Rossien "Tobermory" by Saki [H. H. Munro] (short story) "Tobermory" though not everyone would agree that it is science fiction. -- David A. Moon THE UNIVERSE AGAINST HER by James Schmitz (novel) Though Tick-Tock isn't exactly a cat, it \is/ a feline creature. -- Bruce Israel THE GOBLIN RESERVATION by C. Simak (novel) THE GOBLIN RESERVATION has a sabertooth tiger as a major character, tho it is just a normal pet sabertoother. -- Dan Shapiro "The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer Smith (short story) available in THE BEST OF CORDWAINER SMITH (collection) Cat lovers should read "The Game of Rat and Dragon", available in THE BEST OF CORDWAINER SMITH. It is worth making an exception for this one. -- David Rossien NOSTRILIA by Cordwainer Smith [aka Dr. Paul Lindbarger] (novel) In NOSTRILIA the protagonist is given a cat/human form, and travels with a cat who has been mutated with human germ plasm (or was that vice versa). -- David Rossien SUPERNATURAL CATS by (novel) ...contains many short stories by many authors ranging from humorous to serious. This was just so obviously the right book I had to ignore your "no short story, please" restriction. -- Peter J. Castagna via SPECIAL EDITION by Charles DeVet has some pretty rough feline aliens. BODELIAN (sp?) WAY, author forgotten, has a spoiled feline alien major female character, as I vaguely recall. (Neither are "nice kitties", such as you and I like.) -- HJJH afterthought [ P.S. from HJJH: Karen is NOT a "loud-mouth Libber", but a \very/ nice lady (even if misled). ] [ SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following review is the last review in this digest. It discusses Ian Watson's THE EMBEDDING in response to the Effects of Special Environments query. People who have not read this novel may not wish to read any further. -- RDD ] Effects of Special Environments: -------------------------------- The Embedding by Ian Watson (novel) An interesting novel that deals (partly) with a group of children raised in a lab is "The Embedding" by Ian Watson. The kids here are the subjects of an experiment in linguistics; they grow up hearing nothing but artificial languages. The title refers to one with (so far as I could make out) a completely recursive grammar. The experimenters move among the kids wearing masks that convert their speech to that under study by means of a computer, so the kids still had normal human contact. They all eventually go crazy, the kids because their normal mental processes have been warped and the scientists because of guilt. -- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 4 AUG 1980 0443-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #35 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 4 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: SF Books - RAH sexism and The Number of the Beast & Flying Sorcerers & Budrys Review, TESB - Play Ball! Spoiler - All You Zombies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 03 AUG 1980 1212-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: sexist? I hate to restart a topic that everyone may have thought was safely buried, but the conjunction of Heinlein, Spider Robinson, and THE ROLLING STONES provides too provocative an opportunity for comment. THE ROLLING STONES happens to be a fascinating example of degener- ation --- Grandma quit engineering because three less-competent men were promoted over her, Mother is a competent but very womanly doctor, and Daughter (what little we find out of her) is mostly hormones. I think it's also fair to say that TRS is the most liberal portrayal of women that Heinlein has ever created. Granted, Heinlein is a hack who wrote most of his famous material to well-defined audiences (THE STAR BEAST, complete with tiresome mother and conniving female chum, might have been written to order for BOY'S LIFE, but my copy doesn't mention any serialization (means nothing, though; I have the Ace reissue and they are among the worst at crediting prior publication) ). Not even Anne McCaffrey, perhaps the most conservative serious female SF writer, has a good word for Podkayne --- calls her "that unbelievable minx". As for JoAnn Eunice Smith --- when Laumer included a short piece (in THE TIME TRAP) assuming that attitudes were the result of biology, at least he made it \funny/. As for Spider Robinson --- well, both of the Robinsons are friends and I value them, but Spider's literary judgment simply isn't of the highest or most balanced (someone put it very neatly: "Spider worships the ground Heinlein walks above.") For a good example, see his vitri- olic review of Nicholls' SCIENCE FICTION ENCYCLOPEDIA in the latest (well, latest but one by now) ANALOG; having read the sections he bitches about, I'll grant that Disch may be over-praised but Heinlein is not treated nearly as brutally as Spider claims. The author of the RAH article is quite right that RAH has difficulties with sex (even though he fills books with it). Look at Time Enough to Screw Around: a man bedding his mother is a classic fantasy; a man being tripped into bed by his daughters is becoming a stock modern fantasy (the "funny uncle" is a much smaller part of child molestation today than the father after his daughter; there's even a substantial slice of the porn market devoted to this appetite); and his claim that a woman is at her most beautiful when she's 8-9 months pregnant is the result of his own bile at never having had kids --- in this direction, strangely enough, the closest author thematically (although both of them would probably deny it furiously) is Spinrad, who has written several books in which the leading woman is there mostly because she has a thing for strong men's implements. Oh well, enough flaming (well, almost). Probably some of you will consider this ridiculously puritanical of me, but I think the strongest condemnation of NUMBER OF THE BEAST was the monstrous advance paid for it. Most of us started reading SF because it offered entertainment on a level completely removed from both the "literature" beloved of schoolteachers and the sludge that winds up as popular fiction; that Fawcett saw such a goldmine in this that they were willing to advance $600,000 is an indicator of how far towards the trivially marketable RAH has gone. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1980 0013-EDT From: JoSH Subject: SF Comedy and Parody Those who have mentioned "The Flying Sorcerers" may have missed the point: The story is on at least 3 levels: the top level as taken literally from the narrator's point of view (ie, belief in magic, etc. It is self-consistent at this level and better than most magic-type stories I've seen.) Then there is the level where we "really" know what is going on, and we know Purple's magic to be technology and Shugar's to be mostly biochemistry and some psychology and luck. Then, and succeeding primarily because it's not necessary or obvious, the set of puns mostly on SF writer's names, but also relating to various bits of history of science and technology. The only really terrible groaner is Purple's real name. The first time I read the book, I missed most the fun. It's definitely worth rereading. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 1980 0342-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Don Woods By Algis Budrys (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) A rich variety of science fiction is represented by our various entries this time. All but one are paperbacks, so what we have is an inexpensive sampler for those who'd like to increase their acquaintance with the breadth of the field. Old buffs will also recognize that most of the writers listed below are among the best at doing the kind of thing they do. Roger Zelazny, for instance, has a deft, charming touch with fantasy. In the case of ''Changeling'' (Ace trade paperback, $6.95, copiously and beautifully illustrated by Esteban Maroto), what we get is science-fantasy: A 40,000-word compressed novel set in a universe where magic long ago triumphed over technology. It's a medieval, rather stable culture, with the evil magicians destroyed, their castles ruined, and all their dragons and trolls slumbering under a good magician's spell. Well, you know that can't last, and it doesn't. Out of mercy, the principal black magician's infant son wasn't killed after the climactic battle. Instead, he was taken away to an alternate universe-our own time and place-and, to keep the mystical balance, surreptitiously exchanged for the infant son of an engineer. Adopted by a peasant family in the magical kingdom, the Earthly infant soon grows into an inquisitive, energetic, tactless tinkerer with the forbidden science. Only one desperate measure can save the world: the other child-who has grown into a cafe folk balladeer with a mysterious ability to hold an audience-must be brought back to fight him. I will say no more; Zelazny knows how to do this sort of thing very, very well. In ''Naked to the Stars,'' (Ace paperback, $1.95). Gordon Dickson tells the story of Cal Truent, invalided spacewar veteran, who is put into the Contact Corps. The Corps is non-combatant. More than that, its members are present at the interplanetary battles while they are taking place. Their job is to make contact with the alien enemy, shorten the war as much as possible, and as quickly as possible establish relations on which a lasting peace can be founded. That's a proposition met with suspicion and anger by almost everyone outside the Corps. It might well take several additional centuries before any such thing could be put into actual effect. But Dickson makes it seem possible. ''Star Driver'' (Ballantine-Del Rey, $1.95), is by ''Lee Correy,'' the fiction pseudonym of maverick engineer Harry Stine. Stine is among the hard-headed technologists who sincerely feel the Establishment is check-reining potential major lines of development for politico-economic reasons. His fictional presentation of the case involves the invention of a reactionless-non-rocket-space drive in the engineering labs of an old-line New England company. NASA, with its huge investment in conventional aerospace, might not welcome it with open arms. More important: Will the company's own conservative board of directors accept this piece of wild boat-rocking? At the very least, a highly readable piece of rich fiction is one result. ''The Best of Destinies'' (Ace, $2.25), is itself a sampler of the best selections from Ace editor James Baen's paperback ''magazine.'' ''Destinies,'' which appears on the racks every so often with new fiction and illustrations by topflight contributors. Among the collected authors are Zelazny, Joe Haldeman, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Spider Robinson and Jerry Pournelle. Nonfiction pieces include essays by Charles Sheffield and Frederik Pohl, as well as Harry Stine. Good stuff, much of it, wide-ranging and thought-provoking. The late Tom Reamy was a highly original writer who might have grown into a noteworthy figure in American letters. But before dying in his 40s, Reamy produced some outstanding and award-winning science fiction stories with an uncommon touch that readers of his posthumous 1979 novel, ''Blind Voices,'' will prize. That short fiction-and an outstanding introduction by Harlan Ellison-is now collected from major magazine sources as ''San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories.'' It can be ordered in a beautifully made trade edition ($14.95, $25 slipcased) from Earthlight Publishers, 5539 Jackson, Kansas City, Mo. 64130, through your bookstore. We would also like to note the passing away of Dr. Joseph Samachson of Oak Park, Ill., in June. He was an ornament to research medicine and husband of critic Dorothy Samachson. As ''William Morrison,'' this gentle, brilliant man wrote some of the best short science fiction of the early 1950s, a time when memorable work was being done. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 1980 at 1304-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: The Umpire Regarding JBARRE's report on the comics [SFL V2 #33]: The Westercon art show had a rather good painting, titled "The Umpire Strikes Back", with Yoda on the mound, DV at bat in ump's outfit (since it was all black it was hard to see that anything had changed), Chewie catching, and all the rest of our friends in the bullpen. The back of Yoda's uniform was a patch for "Yoda's Zen Forceball Team". You can imagine the path followed by the ball, as shown by a dotted line. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/04/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss the ending of the Heinlein short story "All You Zombies". People who have not read this story may not wish to read further, since it is the ending that gives the story its power. ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 08/02/80 07:35:42 Regarding the query about the meaning of the end of "All You Zombies", here is what I have always assumed he meant. No; read it again. The line is something like "I know where I came from; but where did all you zombies come from?" He is addressing the rest of the world. It is a nice incongruity; the reader is initially struck by the feeling that the character's origin is peculiar, and then the character tells you that, in his opinion, *his* origin makes perfect sense; it's the rest of the world that's peculiar. The zombies are everybody else *but* the various versions of himself. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 1980 6:04 pm PDT (Sunday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: All You Zombies One would think that Shipper hadn't actually read the ending at all. I thought it was fairly clear: the "zombies" are everyone ELSE. The narrator says that he (she?) knows where HE comes from, but doesn't understand how all the OTHER people in the world came to be. I have no thoughts on how the "Mistake of 72" fits in, except that maybe it doesn't. (I guess that would be a shame, but then again, there do have to be SOME things in the story that aren't directly associated with the narrator, or the story would lose all its punch.) -- Don. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 5 AUG 1980 0538-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #36 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 5 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: SF Bloopers - Asimov & VE, Rating Books, SF Books - RAH and Sexism & NYT on SF & Final Countdown & Tolkien & Recursion, SF Movies - TESB & CE3K Revision ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Aug 1980 1933-EDT From: Steve Lionel (via Paul Young ) Subject: 1940's Radio Technology Please forgive me if my submissions to SF-LOVERS seem a bit out of date; I only get to see SF-LOVERS every two weeks and it can take another two weeks to submit any contributions. I thoroughly enjoyed the Venus Equilateral stories, even though the technology (vacuum tubes) was obsolete. Many pre-semiconductor authors filled their spaceships with the bright orange glow of filaments. Isaac Asimov, in his autobiography, says that the name for his master computer, Multivac, came from the mistaken assumption that Univac (TM?) meant one-tube (Uni-Vac), so naturally, his computer had LOTS of tubes, hence its name. I dare anyone to say that Asimov hasn't always been up on his science! The last story in *The Complete Venus Equilateral* however, has at least one serious flaw (other than the ones previously mentioned in SF-LOVERS). The son of Walt Franks, (who married Don Channing's daughter), chides his father-in-law saying something like "Back in your time, all you had were vacuum tubes. Today, we have transistors." Assuming that Channing and Franks didn't wait several centuries before having kids, the time frame for the series of stories HAS to encompass the 1950-1960 era. Therefore, the only possible explanation is that Venus Equilateral exists in a parallel universe where spaceships wandered around the solar system in 1950. Either that, or in that alternate universe transistors weren't invented until sometime in the 23rd century. Flaws aside, though, I still love the stories. ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 08/02/80 03:51:41 Re: ratings I'm not particularly adverse to digitized ratings accompanying reviews... after all, I know (as everyone should) that these ratings will be totally SUBJECTIVE. That is, simply a terse statement of "how much I liked it". It does not CLAIM to be a Godel encryption of the entire contents of the work, and shouldn't be interpreted as anything other than the arbitrary value judgement it represents. Just because there may not be any overwhelming reason TO have ratings doesn't imply there SHOULDN'T be ratings. Let's try 'em. -leor ------------------------------ Date: 04 Aug 1980 1317-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject : RAH and Spider The latest issue of 'Destinies' has 100 pages oof exerpts from RAH's latest non-fiction work and a critical (of RAH haters) essay on RAH. Although I do not agree with all his points, I feel that Spider puts on a worthy defense of RAH. I would even go so far as to say that this essay is the best I've seen on the subject from a pro-RAH prospective. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 08/04/80 1026-EDT From: FOCUS at LL Subject: Point of Information The Sunday New York Times had reviews (see the NYT Book Review) of the following books (with the reviewer's reaction): HAWK OF MAY, by Gillian Bradshaw (high praise) LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE, by Silverberg (poor) THE EXPERIMENT, by Richard Setlowe (mixed) THE SNOW QUEEN, by John D, Vinge (mixed) The reviewer was Jack Sullivan. ------------------------------ Date: 2 August 1980 14:30-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (the book) THE FINAL COUNTDOWN written by Martin Caidin based on a story by Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell and David Ambrose. I have found it to be quite interesting. I read it in one sitting. I had problems with the time paradox at the end. It did present an interesting thought or two about the powers of the military 1980 versus 1941. I look foward to the movie...for better or worse. --Bill ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1980 1148-PDT (Thursday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: New/Old Tolkienia From the Houghton Mifflin Fall 1980 announcements... Unfinished Tales J.R.R. Tolkien Edited by Christopher Tolkien "Unfinished Tales" is for those who have not yet sufficiently explored Middle-earth -- its languages, its legends, its politics, and its kings. Here are narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Rings and comprising such various elements as Gandalf's lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End. The book contains the only story that survived from the long ages of Numenor before its downfall and all that is known of such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri, and the legend of Amroth. The collection has been edited by Christopher Tolkien, who explains in his introduction the variety of treatments these writings have demanded and has provided a commentary on each of the tales. He has redrawn the map accompanying "The Lord of the Rings" on a larger scale and with the addition of new features and names and has reproduced the only map of Numenor J.R.R. Tolkien ever made. CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN has, like his father, taught at Oxford and now devotes himself full time to editing the papers of J.R.R Tolkien. October $15.00 Fiction 368 pp. 6x9 6 maps ISBN 29917-9 _____ Goshwowoboyoboyoboy. Mike PS Anyone else out there seriously interested in Elvish Linguistics? This should be a minor goldmine. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 1980 1309-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Recursive SF Whew! Over the past few weeks I have read ALL the SF-Lovers archives and can now consider myself up-to-date and may make a comment or two. Regarding the far-past discussion of "recursive SF": DAW published (1974) a book by Gerard Klein, titled "The Overlords of War", translated from the French by John Brunner. I'd rate it about 3-4 on the just-discussed rating scale. This is very consciously recursive, and the main character discusses and ruminates on the recursive actions he performs, in looping back through time to guide himself and do things to make the past come true, as it were. ------------------------------ Date: 08/04/80 1026-EDT From: FOCUS at LL Subject: .Yoda for V.P.? There was a very humorous article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine by Ellis Weiner entitled: "On the Campaign Stump with Yoda" It has an interview with Yoda who is out campaigning for vice-president as a part of John Anderson's ticket. ------------------------------ Date: 4 August 1980 20:02 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: JBARRE's report on the comics As usual, John Darling only has half of the story. Lucas' next film is about a major symphony orchestra that, through a series of events I won't go into here, find themselves playing in the World Series. The title is "The Umpire Strikes Bach". ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 at 2306-CDT From: AMSLER at UTEXAS, HJJH at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THE "SUPPRESSED" SW PHONO RECORD ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A year ago (7/6/79), in THE [Comics] BUYER'S GUIDE (#294) was a half page ad about a phonograph record by "The Rebel Force Band", with the following information-- Album title: "Living in These Star Wars" Songs include: "A Respirator for Darth" "Don't Fall in Love with an Android" "The Ballad of Obi-Wan" "Leia" "Chewie the Rookie Wookie" And Many More! Produced by: Bonwhit Records under license from 20th Century Fox Film Corp. Price: $6.99 + $1.00 for shipping and handling Address: Theta-Force Marketing Dept. BG-1 1610 Argyle Ave., #102, Hollywood, Ca 90028 In last month's BUYER'S GUIDE there was just a small ad-- "20th Century-Fox does not want you to read this ad! The 'other' Star Wars record is still available but in limited quantities since 20th ordered its production stopped. Find out more about this rare collector's item and why 20th doesn't want you to hear it. SASE to: TFM, 1610 Argyle #102A, LA Calif. 90028" Does anyone on SF-L know anything about the record or "TFM"? ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/05/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in the digest. It compares the recently released, revised version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the original version. People who have not seen either version of the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 08/03/80 23:20:53 Re: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE REVISED KIND Nano Review -- More or less better. The biggest faults in Speilberg's revision of CE3K are two - First: the alien at the end doesn't give his little half-smile to Lacombe. Second: Speilberg still didn't have the guts to insert the original Disney version of "When you wish upon a Star." These glaring omissions aside, the revision is better for his changes. For the most part the story moves without interruption toward the climax, without a few of the diversions of three years ago. Gone are scenes of Roy Neary inside the power plant; gone are scenes of the offial 'debunking' of UFO reports; gone is most of the comedy surrounding Neary's wife and kids deserting him. Added are scenes where Lacombe visits a ship found high and dry in Mongolia; added are scenes establishing Neary's love for "Pinocchio" (ironic since the song still doesn't appear) ; added is a highly emotional confrontation between Neary and his wife; and added of course are some scenes of Neary seeing the *inside* of the Mothership. Speilberg also made tens of minor revsions - little additions and deletions and changes in the soundtrack which can for the moment be skipped over. So what is the effect of the changes? The story moves forward with better rhythm towards the meeting at the tower. The obession to get there becomes more obvious and understandable. Thus , the story is made even simpler - less mysterious. (Have you ever noticed what an unusual plot this film has? All there is is a tale of people going to a single focal point for something to happen.) The payoff is nearly as strong as last time, but this is hard to evaluate since the sense of wonder that comes with seeing for the first time is now gone. Neary's entrance *inside* the mothership is pretty obviously new footage, but once the transition from old to new has been made, the new stuff stands up pretty well. What we see inside the ship is an extension of what we see on the outside: all sparkling and pretty (and if I were a cynical type, looking like V'Ger from Star Trek.). I really do miss seeing that alien smile. Can someone who is going to see CE3K for the first time please comment on what you thought of it. Nearly half the folks in the theatre seemed to be seeing it for the first time. Curiously, the theatre was barely half-full (this being Sunday 7 pm) while the line for TESB was as long as ever!Granted, CE3K *is* being shown at 18 houses in Houston, but I would think that the lines would still be a little longer than they were... And most importantly: yes, you can still see the little R2D2 model hanging on the mothership. Check out the film for yourself: look quickly! Larry ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 6 AUG 1980 0500-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #37 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 6 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 37 Today's Topics: SF TV - NBC Plans, SF Books - TANSTAAFL & TNoTB & RAH and Sexism, TESB, SF Movies - CE3K Revised ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 05 Aug 1980 1953-PDT From: Jim McGrath From the AP news wire: NBC is planning to produce several hour long specials aimed at younger audiances. Some may be of interest to SFLers. Details below: ... The ''Project Peacock'' series will begin in January, and will continue on an every-other-week basis through the year. Programs will be broadcast weeknights at 8, and Sunday evenings at 7. The schedule will include 20 specials. There are several programs in the series in various stages of development, including: - ''Alice in Wonderland,'' a new two-hour adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic, starring Miss Streep and produced by Papp, the Broadway entrepreneur. - ''The Electric Grandmother,'' a one-hour fantasy-drama adapted by science fiction writer Ray Bradbury from his own short story, ''I Sing the Body Electric.'' - ''Ghost Story,'' an hour-long classic ghost story from Norman Lear, producer of ''All in the Family'' and other prominent series. ... Jim ------------------------------ Date: 05 Aug 1980 0142-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: SF coinages: Tanstaafl I, too, first encountered "Tanstaafl" in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and wondered for some time whether that was its first appearance. Since then I have found earlier references; in particular, Paul Dickson's "The Official Rules", a collection of interdisciplinary laws, refers to it as "Crane's Law", crediting it to Burton Crane in "The Sophisticated Investor" (Simon and Schuster, 1959). That predates "Mistress" by a good six years. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1980 0948-CDT From: map at CCTC (Mike Padlipsky) Subject: 666 and all that Gee, based on the rash of stuff last week I assume somebody out there might well be grateful to me if I were to offer to take the english edition of "The Number of the Beast" off their hands for 25 cents on the dollar...just to be sporting, though, I'd go as high as 50 cents on the dollar if you pay postage. First to send me name and US mail addr, first to get my check and US mail addr. Cheers, MAP P.S. Better cite price, too; us old RAHphiles tend to be pretty out of touch with the new reality. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Aug 1980 at 0234-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^ \MUST/ HEINLEIN BE FAIR GAME TO ANY ATTACK? ^^^^^^^^^^ I'm not particularly a Heinlein fan. I've probably read most of his work, but there are only 3 of his books I've kept to enjoy reading again. I've kept more than 3 of a LOT of other authors, such as Leinster, McCaffrey, Dickson, James White, and even Philip E. High. Nor did I "cut my teeth" on RAH, so I've no sentimental associations or long-standing loyalties. To me, he's just another SF-writer, tho more competent than most. The strongly emotional negativism RAH and his books engenders in certain readers is strange. Now, what Spider Robinson worships, if anything, is no concern of mine, but unlike the emotional attacks, his article in DESTINIES struck me as a reasonable, straightforward presentation of indeed familiar anti-RAH statements, each rebutted by cogent evidence. Read it for yourselves, and decide. While I am in complete agreement with Chip that Spider's criticism of the entry for Heinlein in Nicholls' SF ENCYCLOPEDIA is unwarranted, I have not found any such error in the DESTINIES article. From background arising out of my collection and study of SF books with female protagonists, the accusation of Heinlein being "sexist" seems more than strange. If by this it is meant that R.A.H does not subscribe to the theory of the equality of the sexes, then -- Yes, he and Ashley Montague (anthropologist-author of the classic THE NATURAL SUPERIORITY OF WOMEN) are a pair of them. (And they make any PRO-female position a lot more palatable than Joanna Russ' bludgeonings in THE FEMALE MAN!) As I read it, H's message that so galls Libbers is that a female has a right to be womanly. There is a regrettable strain of self-hate underlying the sexism of virulent Libber-hood. Chip's initial sentence about THE ROLLING STONES [SFL V2 #35] doesn't make sense. Nothing he says about the 3 women exemplifies degeneration. His 2nd sentence seems a common ploy of anti-RAHers: points of evidence counter to their position are dismissed as exceptional. But whether or not "TRS is the most liberal portrayal of women that H. has ever created" is immaterial beside the fact that he DID create it. See \in particular/ H's portrayal of the attitudes and behavior of Mr. and Mrs. Stone when there's an epidemic aboard the space liner. It IS exceptional! But what's exceptional about it is that this is in a juvenile, a juvenile written in 1 9 5 2 !!! Hilda's role in ...BEAST has distinct parallels with Mrs. Stone's in the epidemic segment. Of the 4 central protagonists, she is the one best equipped by experience and personality to be leader. Her worst trouble is from her husband. In fact, insofar as that dreadfully structured book has a main plot or central theme, it concerns the problems of leadership. (And if it weren't so badly structured, it might have qualified as H's 2nd book with a female protagonist.) But what about his FIRST such candidate, poor PODKAYNE, who is ever advanced as a Horrible Example of H's portrayal of a female character? As a specialist in SF books with female protagonists, I get darned peeved at the ignorance this displays. Sure, compared to the later Lessa's and Rissa's, it might seem so, but is it fair to assay it out of its temporal context? If you except the "Golden Amazon" stories from the pulps and a Utopian novel of 1880, PODKAYNE is the 10th genre science-fictional book ever to have a female protagonist. Now, there are over a hundred. Give the old gentleman credit for doing something so daring in 1963. And let sf-writers not look down on their literary ancestors -- on whose shoulders they are standing. The sexual mores of societies H depicts often repulse me, but so do those of the Trobriand Islanders and some contemporary mating patterns in Austin, TX. I do see, however, that his distinction between liberty and license is a thoughtful one, with a strong emphasis on personal responsibility. Chip's references to child molestation and the porn market are smears by inference. His reference to "a man being tripped into bed by his daughters" is (probably) equally culpable error. I say "probably" because I may have forgotten an actual instance in the H corpus. But of the two possibilities which come to mind-- both from TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE-- in no case is physical paternity involved. (Good grief! this is getting as bad as TESB!) The 3 girls stood in a \social/ relationship of daughter, but Dora's was adoptive, and Laz and Lor were genetic SISTERS to Lazarus. As for Chip's finding it objectionable that RAH made a lot of bucks off of ...BEAST, I somehow can't find it a bad thing for \any/ SF writer to be well paid. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Aug 1980 1729-EDT From: JHENDLER at BBNA Subject: politics It is quite obvious from recent mail that not enough members of the SF community are aware of the Yoda for President campaign. It is clear from hints in the movie that Yoda is not only old enough to run, but as a Jedi could be considered a "citizen of the universe" (or some other such loophole in the elections law that will enable him to meet the citizenship requirements) We need a "man" in office with his clear cut qualifications, an ability to tell good from evil, a no nonsense approach, the ability to force an issue (ok I'm sorry about that one) and the ability to teach us how to deal with our nations enemies. Further, running on the ticket of Yoda and Organa (we clearly could use a female vice-president - it is about time) the votes would flow in. And his choice for secretary of State -- Obi-wan of course! (imagine the benefits of a discorporate secy of state) So vote : YODA IN 80, DEFEAT THE FORCES OF EVIL! (send your tax free (more or less) contributions to: Jim Hendler Yoda Campaign Headquarters Dallas, Texas and support the force of the future) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/06/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in the digest. They review the recently released, revised version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. People who have not seen either version of the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1980 1140-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: CE3K Why should anyone go to see this? the original version was (in my opinion) a dreary piece of rubbish that shouldn't have been released. The first contact theme has been handled better many times in sf. In my eyes (cynical I admit) Speilberg is merely trying to cash in on Star Wars again. He knows that the original CE3K was rubbish so now he hopes to entice us back by adding a a scene that promises to be full of highly creative makeup, costuming work, and special effects (or so I guess). but these things can't change the fact that the basic work simply fails to stir my (or very many others) sense of wonder. Why should I go to see a work by someone who has clearly demonstrated his incompetence with SF? I think I will be better off spending my money on some more Darkover books. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1980 11:33 PDT From: Pugh.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Close Encounters of the Revised Kind The newly released & revised version of CE3K turned out to be much more entertaining than I thought it would be. The story did seem to move more smoothly with the power-plant, Air Force investigation, and tree branches through the window sequences edited from the new version. The opening scenes and the special effects sequences still retained their impact! Sorry Larry -- the alien did smile to Lacombe at the end!. /Eric ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1980 (Tuesday) 1317-EDT From: LANGR at WHARTON (Robert Lang) Subject: Special Addition of Close Encounter OTK. Having seen the new edition (for a total now for both versions 3 times) I got the impression that Neary was transformed into the alien at the end. I realize this sounds crazy, but the last scenes were Neary entering the craft, the insides opening up with the (?droid) crafts entering and then all kinds of glitter coming down on top of Neary. The very next scene is the alien walking down the ramp and looking around (admittedly not smiling - but close). The two scenes were so close it gave me the impression of deja vu with the end of 2001 and the star child - with alien/Neary coming out to visit humanity. Any one else get this impression?? Rob Lang LANGR @ WHARTON ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 7 AUG 1980 0709-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #38 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 7 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 38 Today's Topics: Replies - Invented words in SF, SF Books - RAH and Sexism & CPU Wars, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Aug 1980 1039-PDT From: Rounds at OFFICE-1 Subject: Coined & Invented Words in SF The recent discussion of the coined SF word came to mind as I was rereading the opening of Niven's Ringworld. It brought to mind what I suppose is a pet peeve (actually, I have so many peeves that they are more in the category of herds of livestock than pets, but, anyway...): Coined words are great for technical subjects and professional jargon. They eventually migrate into the general language if appropriate, useful, or otherwise deemed worthy (radar, laser, microwave, etc.). They DON'T replace really important uses of language like swearing! "TANJ" as a curse derived from an acronym (There Ain't No Justice!) is ridiculous! First off, it's an English slang acronym, and just before it is first defined, the book explicitly states that Terran languages were replaced by "Interworld" in the general conforming tendency of the transfer booths. Secondly, curses come from the gut and core of human emotion and experience; all I can think of, aside from Elizabethan literary constructs, come from sex and religion, prime motivating factors of human behavior. No acronym can possibly be so internalized in human feelings to become an emotional outburst, which is usually what prompts a curse. As a practical matter, I guess made-up curse words certainly help an author sell his books to libraries and such censored markets. Regards, Will Martin (ROUNDS@Office-1) ------------------------------ RMS@MIT-AI 08/07/80 05:05:41 Re: TANSTAAFL I always thought that TANSTAAFL was what one says when all the lines on the computer are in use. ------------------------------ Date: 08/06/80 1019-EDT From: JSOUTH at LL Subject: RAH sexist !? Heinlein; sexist??! The author of Podkayne, and Glory Road? Is anybody going to claim that Star isn't the BOSS in Road? Isn't Heinlein the one who put adventure in adventuress? So I sprang the question on my wife over dinner. Mark me down for an MCP (and I didn't think I had it in me). She says "Chomp, chomp, Yes, I think so." "But, but, but, why?", sez I. "All his women get pregnant first thing in his recent books" Silence. And this from a female mathematician who has just become eagerly pregnant with my very reluctant cooperation. So I accept the gauntlet. RAH's recent women get pregnent quickly because he's trying to get it into some thick skulls out there that a society or family that doesn't think that an 8 month pregnant women is the most beautiful sight around (so to speak), has just about joined the dinosaurs. Of course if women find it too much of an inconvenience to bear children (I personally think its an inconvenience to even help raise them) and if our society makes it clear (and it most certainly does) that having children is a crushing burden to our instant gratification, consumer and "me" oriented ethic, then our ethics are counter-survival. NUMBER OF THE BEAST is poor writing for all the reasons given in this network before, but it is not sexist and I can prove it. The second theme of NOTB is not "the problems of command", but the inability of some men (otherwise able) to accept that a women can be the best in what they have been brought up to believe is "man's" work. It is this theme that is unresolved (Jake thinks he's in line, but he still has and is a problem). Lazarus and Zeb have adapted: one by resolving to avoid Sharpie except where the situation is limited by aquaintance to aquaintance protocol, and the other by accepting her leadership. Jake hasn't done either. The men also get their ears pinned back over who's going to do what once the children are born - they're not going to get to leave the women and children home. Heinlein can't resolve these problems short of making them all Howards and Howards have all the time they need for all the activities they want (ie. time enough for screwing around and time enough for love). It's because he isn't a sexist that: 1) he raises these ideas 2) can't resolve them. Enough of flaming (really), but does anyone know what "floccinaucinihilipilificatrix" is supposed to mean (NOTB p 134). As Schlafly would say if she were a man, "I have my wife's permission to write this". ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 1980 1933-EDT From: Steve Lionel (via Paul Young ) Subject: "CPU Wars" A not-too-long time ago, in an office not very far away, there worked a DEC Technical Writer named Charlie Andres. Charlie was involved with the documentation for VAX/VMS V1 and is partly responsible for the now-classic VAX-11 Common Run-Time Procedure Library Reference Manual. Other than being a technical writer, Charlie was also an amateur cartoonist. In his spare time, he created a series of cartoons which told the story of how IPM (Impossible to Program Machines) decided to take over an upstart firm named Digital Equipment Corporation. Initially entitled "Corporate Wars", then retitled "CPU Wars", Charlie's saga followed the exploits of Virtual George, Belynda Bliss and Digital Dog as they attempted to overthrow the usurping IPM. From its modest beginnings in 1977 to its conclusion in 1979, "CPU Wars" had hundreds of DEC-ites world-wide hanging around their inter-office mailboxes eagerly awaiting the next episode. In early 1980, Charlie decided that it was time that the world learned of this heroic struggle. He expanded the page-size to 11x14, added a lot of new artwork, and had copies bound with full-color covers. However, to keep DEC's legal folks happy, he thinly disguised all direct references to DEC. Therefore, you will be reading about HEC (Human Equipment Corporation) which is based in Barnyard, Mass. and which has a super-duper new computer named the VEX-11/1978. Charlie is unfortunately no longer with DEC, (no, not because of "CPU Wars"), but you can still get your very own copy of "CPU Wars". If you are at all familiar with DEC, you'll be laughing your head off on every page. If you want a copy, send $2.95 plus $0.50 postage to CHTHON Press, 77 Mark Vincent Drive, Westford, MA 01886. It's worth it. -- Steve ------------------------------ Date: 6 Aug 1980 1918-PDT From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow Subject: JHENDLER's message on politics wrt to Yoda for President. You stated: "We need a `man' in the office with his clear cut qualifications, an ability to tell good from evil, a no nonsense approach, the ability to force an issue and the ability to teach us how to deal with our nations from enemies". I think these qualifications are more fitted for a mogul like your fellow Dallas Texas neighbor, J.R. Ewing. Perhaps next time you're in the vicinity of Dallas General Hospital, you might drop by and pay ol' J.R. a visit. I think he'd make a much better president than a Jedi myself. Perhaps he could put Yoda on his payroll as one of his henchmen. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/07/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1980 at 0003-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB'S TOKEN ORIENTAL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Like predicting a new planet and having one turn up where you said it would be, I can't help gloating a little when my prediction of a token Oriental in SW-5 is borne out unmistakably. I reported earlier the black-moustached Cloud City guardsman among those that waylay the Imperials when Lando rebels, who might or might not be Oriental (I've seen similarly Oriental-looking Chicanos, possibly due to Amerindian genes (which are essentially Oriental)). But there can be no doubt about the guardsman on the right-hand side immediately behind Lando's bald aide when they first go out to meet the people from the Millennium Falcon. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 1980 1517-EDT From: Paul Young There seems to have been some controversy over why Darth Vader puts up with the ineptness of the storm troopers. I think the answer is simple; Darth Vader is just as dumb as they are. Granted, he controls the Force, but does that make him intelligent? There are many people who are gifted with photographic memories whose I.Q. are well below average. Maybe the emperor only puts up with him because he's the only evil Jedi around. Consider how DV commands. Is killing off subordinates after a single error (and not allowing them to learn from their mistakes) the sign of a wise leader? And his clumsy trap for Luke. And how Leia and Luke (and Chewbacca, R2D2, and C3PO) have escaped from him twice... -- Paul (YOUNGP@DEC-2136) P.S. What would be the effect of splitting a planet in half? would gravity pull it back together? or would centripetal acceleration cause it to fly apart? ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 08/03/80 23:27:22 Re: Luke's Hand... An interesting thought is this: would not a master of The Force, which Luke is yet to become, not be able to regrow a missing limb? We see Obi-Wan incredibly agile for the age he must be. (He was a master of The Force at least 30 years before, in the Clone Wars - and was a teacher with a YOUNG pupil, so we assume he was over thirty THEN; and possibly older...) We see a MUTILATED Vader be incredibly agile - yet NOT able to regenerate, but perhaps this is the one weakness of the Dark Side? (Yoda's comment that the Dark Side is NOT stronger means it is weaker, or would Luke be the Only Hope of destroying an equal enemy?) I say, that when Luke is done with his training and is a Jedi, there will be mention or actual visuals of him regenerating, from the perfectly sheared stump, a new hand. If not, no other mention will EVER be made of the bionic hand. Lets discuss this - sort of interesting, to me anyway. If anyone has any comments they feel aren't worth sending to the list, send them to me and I will compile a message in the next few days to SF-L. {Matt} ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 07/28/80 22:04:40 Re: TESB IN ALTERNATE SPACE/TIME I don't know about any of you out there, but it seemed to me in that scene where they took off Darth Vader's helmet...wasn't it marvelous how it turned out to be Woody Allen behind the mask? ------------------------------ ISRAEL@MIT-AI 07/28/80 12:07:58 Re: TESB university scene Does anyone know why Yoda kept his job as full professor of Jedi Science at Dagobah State University instead of getting a lucrative job consulting with industry, as obviously Luke is planning on doing? Could it be the pretty female students in his classes? I thought his article in the JAJK (Journal of the Association of Jedi Knights) was absolutely brilliant! Also, what did everyone think of Luke's game-winning 95 yard touchdown run in the homecoming game, without even touching his feet to the ground once? - Bruce ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 07/26/80 15:05:36 Re: star wars in alternate universe FLASH!!! The evil Darth Vader is a transsexual. "Not Luke's father", educated sources reveal. Dan ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 8 AUG 1980 0705-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #39 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 8 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 39 Today's Topics: Replies - Invented words in SF, SF Books - RAH and Sexism & Lens Series, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Aug 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Derivation of floccinaucinihilipilificatrix I don't know what "floccinaucinihilipilificatrix" means but I have heard of a similar word, "floccipaucinihilipilification", used by Sir Walter Scott in one of his works. It means something like "the art of estimating as worthless". -- Floccinaucinihilipilification Is the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary. Flocci, Nauci, Nihili, and Pili all mean worthless in Latin, and are apparently taken from some rote in a well known Eton schoolboy's grammar. It means to estimate as worthless. A floccinaucinihilipilificatrix is therefore a women who does that. -- [ Thanks also go to Peter Kaiser and to for responding to this query. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 7 August 1980 11:26 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Acronymic Curses? How many of you have said "Foo!" or "Foobar!" in a moment of pain or anger? Surely you know that Foobar comes from Fubar - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition (or Repair). So, acronym-derived curses are already in use. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 1980 1011-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: not that I blame Heinlein, but...... I should remind people that Heinlein's ethos is intended for circumstances that no longer exist, or might yet exist, but are certainly not the case now. "Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark" would be good advice on the American frontier (though not on say the Canadian frontier) or in the midst of a headlong expansion into the galaxy, but is ridiculous today. More than ridiculous, for ready availability of guns turns a lot of rages into murders. Heinlein might well think that women are most beautiful when eight months pregnant, but the Mexicans and Indians and Chinese probably disagree. He, or rather his mouthpiece Lazarus Long might well believe that it's best to move on when the neighborhood goes sour, but we are not living in a world where you can really do that, because we are living in only one world. And friends, in spite of G K O'Neill, this is the only world you and I are ever going to inhabit. We make it here, and with each other, or we don't make it. Heinlein is not interested in this situation, and has nothing to say about it except get out while you can. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 1980 15:58 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: RAH/population Ref JSOUTH at LL: So if our society discourages having children it is counter-survival, hmm? Because of the population deficiency, no doubt. Thank goodness we have that problem, instead of a population explosion, which would lead to wholesale pollution and destruction of the environment, extermination of other species, poverty and overcrowding, etc. Karen ------------------------------ Date: 07 AUG 1980 1041-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: RAH & sexism (short comment) Sorry; any society that \does/ believe that "an eight-months-pregnant woman is the most beautiful thing around" is already on the Malthusian skids. If you take a historical perspective on Heinlein's writing (compare this attitude with, say, Star's (GLORY ROAD) in 1963) it seems obvious that what is speaking is Heinlein's growing bile at never having had kids of his own; I think he's become a bit bent on the subject. ------------------------------ Date: 29 July 1980 1450-EDT (Tuesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: Lensm(a/e)n Series by E.E.(Doc) Smith After reading references to these and on recommendations from some friends, I decided to read the series...so my problem is What is the prescribed order? I picked up 'Children of the Lens' (paraphrased) but when I started reading it I felt as though I was reading a book later in the series...The reason I felt that Children was the first was that it was listed first on the inside cover...(I premptorily check for alphabetical ordering, and reverse alphabetical, but no luck, they appeared to be listed in chronological order) Thanx, Doug [ Nicholls (via HJJH) gives the internal sequence for the Lens series as: 1. TRIPLANETARY, 2. FIRST LENSMAN, 3. GALACTIC PATROL 4. GRAY LENSMAN, 5. SECOND-STAGE LENSMAN, 6. CHILDREN OF THE LENS Also in the "Lensman" universe, but not dealing with the central conflict, is a 'fix-up', MASTERS OF THE VORTEX aka THE VORTEX BLASTER, which might be pseudo-numbered 5.5 for best placement. Thanks go to HJJH for this information. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ MOON@MIT-MC 08/06/80 04:33:27 Re: Lucas next film jokes This brings back to mind an F&SF competition of a few years ago which included a remake of "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (remember that?) as 3 films, directed by Isaac Asimov. The films concern themselves with a group of giant crabs which emerge from the ocean to win the world series, and are called Crustacean, Crustacean and Umpire, and Second base-Crustacean. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/08/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 07 AUG 1980 1058-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: LARKE's comment In one of the spinoffs from MAD magazine this month there is a \terrible/ parody of TESB; in the last panel Darth Vader is revealed to be Mork from Ork. ------------------------------ Date: 07 AUG 1980 1055-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: regrowth In "Lost Legacy" (Heinlein novella in his collection ASSIGNMENT IN ETERNITY) one of the characters has an induced vision of \ancient/ history. In his symbology it comes out as the rebellion of the younger gods (Greek pantheon); at one point "Zeus" tells "Vulcan" (a rebel) that Vulcan could heal the twist in his leg if he would straighten out the twist in his mind. Don't know whether Lucas was actually thinking about this but it makes a fascinating parallel to Matt (MJL@MIT-MC)'s comments. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/07/80 13:07:18 Re: blown apart planets I expect that gravity would pull a "temporarily inconvenienced" planet back together IF the individual particles (landmasses) were not pushed away with more than the required escape velocity (about 5 miles per second for earth). Assuming the mass distribution remains spherically symmetric, the expanding system should still behave as if the attraction comes from a point mass at the cloud's center. e.g., the full initial velocity is still required. This is a lot of kinetic energy. Even if the planet manages to congeal again, the death star's blast, ought to heat it up a tiny bit (anyone want to do the calculation?). Also note that from the vantage point of the Death Star, they had plenty of time to casually leave the scene of the crime before the refuse arrived, probably on the order of 10 minutes. In fact, the explosion should have appeared gracefully slow (and barely perceptible at the start), assuming D.V. and chums were employing the minimum amount of energy necessary to complete the task. Dan ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 1980 1933-EDT From: John Burns (via Paul Young ) Subject: TESB bugs How in GALAXY's sake could the seen that took place on the asteriod in TESB actually occur? 1) How could a 'monster-like worm creature' get enough food to survive. The odds that enough, or even any, space ships will pass through are small. Reduce those odds by the fact that ships (except when being chased) usually avoid asteroid fields, and multiply those odds by the probability of a monster catching one, and you have one starving monster. 2) That is assuming the 'monster' can survive, for asteriods don't have enough mass to hold an atmosphere (witness our moon). 3) Where did the gravity inside the monster come from? I didn't notice the asteriod spinning. 4) HAN, LEIA, & COMPANY had to wear oxygen masks when they left the ship while inside the monster, but with no atmosphere why didn't they simply explode? 5) My final complaint regards the sound effects of the asteriod scene which in space are not audible. However the chase, etc. wouldn't be as exciting without them, and if the ENTERPRISE in STAR TREK can make a whoosh as it goes by, the <-> |+| imperial ships certainly have the right to explode in stereo. John Burns P.S. Does anyone have reasonable explanations or more BUGS? ------------------------------ Date: 01 AUG 1980 1636-EDT From: GFH at CCA Subject: Star Wars, Hope, ets The "Other" Hope is really R2D2. He's calm, cool and collected (at least more than the humans in the movie and doesn't Yoda say that the force permeates everything. Now if that little 'droid can only learn how to use the force... ------------------------------ Date: 07 AUG 1980 1517-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) DGSHAP's alternate universe is reminiscent of a piece called STAR WARS ROOTS, performed at the 1978 Disclave. Darth Vader (played by Avedon Carol, noted LoCcist) was a woman who paralyzed men by flashing them, thereby saving on use of the force; Skywalker Sr. was the one man she couldn't dazzle, which was how Leia was born. The show had a number of good bits, such as the Storm Troopers' March (with GoH Bob Tucker bringing up the rear; "Darth VADer was THERE when you LEFT" "you(')r(e) RIGHT!" etc., ending with "DOOOOOOOOM" as the chorus performs a famous cabalistic gesture) and Vader's fury when she found the nurse in the lying in ward hadn't run the baby down the Dispos-All: "You gave it to a gypsy woman? What do you think this is. . . an opera?"(nurse chokes and collapses). ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 1980 0946-PDT From: REYNOLDS at RAND-AI (Craig W. Reynolds ) Subject: Ineptness of Imperial Storm Troopers See what happens when you reinstate the Draft? Ah, for the good old days of the All Volunteer Imperial Forces. Why I remember one time during the Clone Wars, must be 30 years ago now ... ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/07/80 13:14:42 I was trying to track down a copy of the JAJK (Journal of Associated Jedi Knights) to find that ad for zen-chips (the snack that you never want to eat) but I couldn't locate a single issue. Does anyone know where I can pick up a copy? Dan ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/07/80 16:20:52 Re: zen-chips and the JAJK Never mind, I found out the problem. The JAJK is never published at all (in corporeal form). All the subscription holders already know what would have been published, and they seem to have great fun not debating it over the aether. These Jedi Knights are a very confusing people. Dan ------------------------------ DAUL@MIT-MC 08/02/80 04:19:20 Re: SW's Alternate Universe If you remove the D, T, one of the As, V and E, and then add the letters ICH NIXON in the right order....you get the name of an ex-president of the United States. Amazing! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 9 AUG 1980 0643-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #40 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 9 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 40 Today's Topics: Replies - Invented Words in SF, SF Books - RAH's Ethos & Lens Series & Floating Worlds, SF Bloopers - Leave it to Beaver, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 AUG 1980 1436-EDT From: DR at MIT-MC (David M. Raitzin) Subject: acronymic curses From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics How many of you have said "Foo!" or "Foobar!" in a moment of pain or anger? Surely you know that Foobar comes from Fubar - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition (or Repair). So, acronym-derived curses are already in use. Actually, it was derived from Fucked Up Beyond All Recognizable Form, but then Form was dropped... ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 0925-EDT From: JoSH Subject: RAH comments Funny. Actually, many of the Heinlein dictums which sound the most rough-and-ready, such as putting your weapons where you can get them in the dark, and not sitting with your back to a door, are more appropriate for "over-civilized" milieus where population pressure is high and life is cheap (Dune; Stand on Zanzibar; Newark, NJ); these are precautions against >people<, not lions-and-tigers-and-bears. Furthermore, if you want to increase the population, you would want to make the >impregnable< females look the most irresistible, and vice versa, which is what evolution has done. Then you make the baby irresistible so it will be well cared for. This, too, is the way things work. What is the usual lag time for a book out in trade paperback to reappear in m.m.? (I refuse to pay a 200% premium to have my books look like they were produced for third-graders, with pictures and large print.) (Besides, they don't fit in my shelves.) ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 11:38:28 EDT From: David Mankins Subject: lensmen I also picked up a couple of the Lensmen books after reading about them here in the SF-Lovers newsletter. Umm, as one of those narrow-minded types who happens to think the Golden Age of Science Fiction is right now, I recommend that anyone else who is tempted to do so scour your local used book stores before laying out real cash money for them. The Lensmen books have all those neat features that gave Sci-Fi its good name among middle-aged High School English teachers. All the problems that arise in the book (in this case, First Lensman) threaten to End Civilization before the end of this chapter, if not by the next page. Oh My! But not to worry, our heroically heroic heroes (HHH's) have foreseen this very circumstance, allowing them to deus-ex-machinate a solution in the next paragraph. Whew. The dialogue is, well, juvenile (oh but the descriptions are vivid, "the valiant war-machine turned suddenly, thrusters blazing. Suddenly from all gun-ports a brilliant cone of orange destruction spewed forth, sundering the armored hull of the startled pirate ship.") Ships are boarded with grappling hook and sword, and space battles are concluded by hand to hand combat, in a fine swashbuckling tradition, though accompanied by the complication of taking place in free fall (this, incidentally, is not a problem for our HHH's, due to their swift reflexes and superior strength). Well, it was okay when I was ten years old, but I only got halfway through the book before my strength gave out. Actually, I think the Golden Age of S.F. is actually the extended present -- including all the good stuff from years gone by (Stanley G. Weinbaum, Cordwainer Smith, etc.). Not including Doc Smith, however. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1980 1456-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: "Floating Worlds" "Floating Worlds" by Cecilia Holland is a terrific book, and I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. Maybe the reason a lot of people don't like it is that the world and the characters it portrays aren't at all nice; the book isn't for kids, because it's full of the grime, confusion, and unpleasantness of real life. That's what I liked so much about it: it seemed very realistic -- not the technology (although it seems to me that Holland handles that very well) but the human interactions. As I read, I kept being happily surprised at how deep the characters were. They kept doing things I didn't predict that were both perfectly consistent for them in that universe, and realistically complex. I sure wouldn't want to live in that world, but then, some of what I found so unattractive about it I also find unpleasant in real life. I read "Floating Worlds" because of a review in SFReview in 1978 or 1977, can't remember which. Dick Geis and I agree that a work of art should pick you up by the throat and shake you. "Floating Worlds" did that to me, and I loved it. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 10:34 PDT From: Richard R. Brodie Subject: More technical errors I noticed a glaring error in this morning's episode of Leave it to Beaver. Eddie Haskell says that there must be 1000 murders a year "in California alone," implying that they live in California. This observation is borne out by their referring to the "Department of Motor Vehicles." However, it a later episode, June is upset when she finds out that Wally's girlfriend's parents live in California! "I'd feel better if they lived in Ohio," she says. There is no excuse for this kind of inconsistency! In the episode before, Wally is in the eighth grade while Beaver is in second. But at the end of the series, Wally is graduating high school while Beaver is finishing eighth grade! Where did those two years go? C'mon, guys! It's just as easy to get these things right in the first place. The comic effect of an otherwise excellent scene can be instantly ruined by one of these careless blunders. Let's hope that sitcom writers in the future read this and become more careful when it comes to blatant blunders like these. Richard Brodie ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 1980 at 0157-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SW/TESB PHONOGRAPH RECORDS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The jackals are at it again... After SW-4, 9 phonograph records with at least one full side of SW material were issued and had conventional distribution. (There was that other "unofficial" one I described a few days ago, but it obviously wasn't a normal, commercial record.) A variety of commercial producers were involved. So far (counting the "digitized" version which hasn't reached here yet) there are 6 comparable records based on TESB. \This/ time, predictably, the principle of -- "If ANYbody's gonna make any bucks offa SW, it's gonna be \US/!" has been in effect. Except, presumably, for the digitized one (reported to have been re-orchestrated by John Williams himself and conducted by Gerhardt) all have been issued under the "official SW" RSO label. Good ol' free enterprise produced a mixed bag, but over-all, the output was enjoyable. Monopolies (to coin a new 'law' if it doesn't already exist) encourage mediocrity. As just a TESB fan without any background in audio reproduction, I found the 2 based on the sound track adequate, but others have reported negatively. My own disappointments (in order of increasing glumness) concern the 3 spin-off platters: MECO Plays Music from TESB BORIS MIDNEY -- Music from TESB (synthesizer) EMPIRE JAZZ The devoted TESB fan who enjoys hearing the various melodic themes given different treatments will too often find so much emphasis on treatment that the themes get lost in the razzmatazz... even in the MECO, the least flawed in this regard. The cover on the jazz record is amusing, and the altered but readily recognizable presentations of the themes at the beginning and end of each band are distinctly intriguing. But the rest of the time the musicians don't touch base enough for a listener to determine w-h-i-c-h theme is, supposedly, being developed. This last is too often true of the synthesizer version, also. A jazz buff I checked with damned the quality of the jazz with faint praise. A synthesizer-record-collector panned that version as "Muzak-level, with out-moded, would-be pyrotechnics". DON'T buy before listening. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/09/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 1013-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: planet-busting It's not hard to figure out how much energy it takes to disassemble a planet. Don't worry about the escape velocity, which changes with distance from the center, anyhow. Just calculate the energy needed to remove the outer layer and integrate from zero to the planet's radius. Assuming constant density throughout the number comes to 1.6 x 10^32 joules for the earth. This is a lot. For comparison, the power output of the Sun is 2.7 x 10^23 watts. If the Death Star took one second to destroy Alderaan then during that time it was putting out almost 600 million times the power of the Sun, minimum. Fairly hefty hunk of hardware, there. ------------------------------ Date: 08 Aug 1980 1402-PDT From: William Gropp Subject: Nuclear Weapons in SW There have been several opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons in Star Wars. First was when Leia's ship was captured in SW4. This was a perfect opportunity to use a fusion bomb to destroy the Imperial ship and give the droids a better chance of escaping. Hoth in SW5 has already been mentioned. I propose two possible rationalizations. First, since this is a long time ago, perhaps the laws of physics are different. Secondly, there is precedent in science fiction for a "nuclear reaction supressor". The Mule in "Foundation and Empire" had such a device; he used it (in part) to defeat the Foundation Navy. One of the stories in "Hammer's Slammers" (Drake) mentions a nuclear damper which is used to render a nuclear bomb almost powerless. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 1:01 pm PDT (Friday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: TESB bugs I agree with John Burns that the asteroid monster was the least believable part of the movie, though it WAS entertaining. I can explain away some of the bugs in it (or whatever those energy vampires were); maybe other people can tackle the rest. (1) The monster's diet certainly consists of more than spaceships. It probably eats various minerals, and for the most part dines on asteroids, which it can find in abundance. That might also explain why it waited so long to close its maw; it was surprised enough at having a tidbit fall in of its own accord (usually the asteroids just wander nearby and it grabs them), and certainly it never expected the morsel to try to escape! (2) I'm willing to conjecture that a living creature can be built so as to withstand vacuum. (3-4) I too would like to know where the gravity and pressure originated. (The former would account for the latter, of course.) (5) As has been pointed out several times with regard to Star Trek, Star Wars, TESB, etc., the producers are well aware of their "error" in having sound effects in space, but they had to put them in in order to get the proper audience reaction. This is entertainment, not a documentary! -- Don. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 10 AUG 1980 0804-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #41 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 10 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 41 Today's Topics: New Bibliography Query and Responses, SF Books - Plot/Title Request & Ringworld Engineers & Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Aug 1980 1456-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: bibliographic query (language in SF) Bibliographic query: SF works in which language or linguistics is a serious element; it needn't be the major theme. Reply directly to me. I'll republish in SFL after a decent interval. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 10 August 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Responses on Invented Words / SF Comedy / Imaginary Books Cats / SF Series / Self Ref SF / Gene Eng App Invented Words in SF: --------------------- Did Niven invent "droud"? -- Dave Dyer "bayquaked" is one of my all time favorite coinages, because of the teriffic way it was written into the story. In most coinage, the word is introduced and explicitly explained, rather like ( but usually not so crudely as ): ... as you know, a widget is ... The aspects of The Shockwave Rider that make "bayquaked" intelligible are examples of absolutely top quality writing. -- William Westfield SF Comedy and Parody: --------------------- Work by Ron Goulart or R.A. Lafferty My belated comments on this subject are: Check out just about ANYTHING by R. A. Lafferty or Ron Goulart. -- Zellich at OFFICE-1 STAR SMASHERS OF THE GALAXY RANGERS by Harry Harrison (novel) So you don't like the Lensmen? For a real treat, plow through one or two or all of the Lensmen series, and then read Harrison's STAR SMASHERS OF THE GALAXY RANGERS. Ol' Harry H. musta cut his eyeteeth on a "crystal solidified from the very substance of the ether itself." -- RODOF at USC-ECL Imaginary Books: ---------------- Ralph von Wau Wau Series by There are countless examples of imaginary books being referenced in stories, but how many times has the imaginary book then shown up in the bookstore? I can think of one, a recursive series. I don't remember all the names and titles, so maybe someone out there can fill in the blanks. In several of Kurt Vonnegut's novels, , one of the characters was Kilgore Trout, who was an author of SF. Sometime later, a paperback by "Kilgore Trout" named "Venus on the Half-shell" showed up. (I once read that the book was really written by Philip Jose Farmer.) The hero of the story was a character named Simon Wagstaff (the Space Wanderer). Simon liked a series of stories by which revolved about a character named Ralph von Wau Wau. Ralph was a super-intelligent dog who was a detective somewhat like Sherlock Holmes. Well, sometime later, Ralph von Wau Wau stories started showing up in F&SF! I saw two, maybe there were more. The titles were puns on Sherlock Holmes stories. I'm sorry I don't remember them. Q: At what point will we need to use LISP to describe SF stories? -- Steve Lionel of DEC [ For some earlier comments on Farmer's involvement with Venus on the Half Shell and other imaginary books see [SFL V1 #157]. -- RDD ] Cats in SF: ----------- "Polesotechnic League" Series by Pould Anderson Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic league stories: The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World, Mirkheim, etc. often feature Chee Lan the Cynthian - a cat-person if there ever was one... -- Ly SF Short Story Series: ---------------------- "Polesotechnic League" Series by Poul Anderson Poul Anderson's "Polesotechnic League". A good introduction to this universe is the collection "The Earth Book of Stormgate". There are several short stories and a few novels as well (such as "Satan's World") in this series. -- Also note that "The Earth Book of Stormgate" includes a timeline and list of all the stories in this series. -- THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW by Robert A. Heinlein (series collection) Heinlein's "Future History". Originally published scattered across several books, this is a bargain when picked up in the single volume "The Past Through Tomorrow". There are several excellent stories in the collection. Though there is a timeline worked out for the series, there aren't as many cases of overlap as in the other series that have been mentioned -- that is, there aren't as many cases where characters are found in multiple stories, or where events or background from one story turn up in another; still, there's enough of this sort of thing to qualify the series under ROSSID's criterion. "The Past Through Tomorrow" also includes "Methuselah's Children" (or is it stepchildren -- I always confuse it with the "Plato's mumble" Star Trek episode title), which is part of the series and touches back on much of the earlier material. "Time Enough For Love" is more a sequel to "Methuselah's Children" than it is part of the history. -- [ The STAR TREK episode is entitled "Plato's Stepchildren". The Heinlein novel is indeed entitled "Methuselah's Children". -- RDD ] Self Referential SF: -------------------- WHO WAS "WOODROW WILSON SMITH"? That's "Lazarus Long's" natal name, but also perhaps an SF self-reference since it was one of the early pseudonyms used by Henry Kuttner. -- THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST by Robert A. Heinlein (novel) I just read 'The Number of the Beast' by Heinlein. Forget about the fleeting references to other works (like references to "Dune" in Varley's 'Titan') -- this book not only manages to make references to Star Trek, the Lensman series, Alice in Wonderland, the Land of Oz, Stranger in a Strange Land [and Heinlein trashes himself here by saying, "'My God, the things some writers will do for money!'"], Known Space, the Foundation Series, Poul Anderson, SF critics, but it also \recurses/! I think this wins the prize. Since the book is about 90% conversation, it is probably only for die-hard Heinlein fans.... And there are some \weird/ illustrations in the trade-paperback.... -- Landon Genetic Engineering Applications in SF: --------------------------------------- A WAR OF SHADOWS by Jack Chalker This involved a virus (?) that had to have created by genetic tinkering, the story is mostly figgerin' out who-dun-it -- Steve Zeve THE WEB OF THE CHOSEN by Jack Chalker -- Steve Zeve THE WELL OF SOULS series by Jack Chalker This is stretching it a lot!! -- Steve Zeve A JUDGEMENT OF DRAGONS by Phyllis Gottlieb Entire race of main characters was created by what amounts to a genetic tinkerer. This may be stretching it a little. -- Steve Zeve THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. LeGuin (novel) The Gethinian race (is that the right race?) was created by genetic tinkering. -- Steve Zeve LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE by Robert Silverberg (novel) The references are to things done long ago. -- Steve Zeve THE OPHIUCHI HOTLINE by John Varley (novel) Most of the information coming down the Ophiuchi Hotline is on genetic engineering. -- Charles SUPERBABY by This involved collecting genes from people who were the best in their fields and recombining them to create a new human being. -- Steve Zeve ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 0925-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Title/author request I have the vaguest recollections of some story (novel, I think) which begins with a scene of cat-burglar sabotage (blowing up a factory, I think) and ends with a gunfight in a temple. Somewhere in the middle there is a girl on the prostitute staff of some hotel, who is a fan of some general, whom she recognizes one of her customers to be in disguise, so she runs off with him. I think his mission has something to do with re-establishing the lost supremacy of Earth, though I'm not sure. Ring any bells? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 1980 (Tuesday) 0836-PST From: HIRGELT at LLL-MFE Subject: The Ringworld Engineers Review: The Ringword Engineers by Larry Niven (novel) Rating: 7 (out of 10) This is the sequel to Ringworld. We meet up with Louis Wu 23 years after his return from the first expedition to Ringworld. Speaker-to-animals is involved, but earned the name Chmee based on his exploits on Ringworld. Nessus' spouse kidnaps Louis and Chmee to go to the Ringword. Read the book to find out why and what happens. We do find out who built Ringworld and what happened to them and their civilization. All in all, a reasonable sequel, even after 10 years. I was sort of lucky, I just read Ringworld 2 weeks ago, so everything was fresh in my mind. Niven does intersperse references back to the previous story to keep you informed. They really don't interrupt the flow. The book was quite enjoyable and well worth reading. Enjoy it, Ed Hirgelt ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/10/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses some apparent anomalies between Niven's "Protector" and some of the other Known Space stories/novels. Spoilers for "Protector" and other stories in the series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 07/29/80 07:44:38 Re: Some apparent anomalies in Niven's "Protector" I am reasonably comfortable with Larry Niven's "Known Space" universe, however I have just finished rereading "Protector" for the umteenth time and I am somewhat disturbed by the apparent incompatibility with other "Known Space" stories. In "Protector" Roy Truesdale seeks out Brennan and they leave Sol for Home with the Pak scouts close behind. Brennan infects Truesdale with the modified Tree-of-Life virus just before they get there. After they arrive there, the virus spreads to all members of Home. The net result is that you have a planet full of childless protectors. Many years later ("Known Space" time) I believe We Made It buys the hyperspace shunt from the Outsiders. How come I have never seen reference to Home being wiped out by plague (that would be a likely story for the protectors to send to Earth) or reference to protectors on Home (I have not read "Ringworld Engineers" yet and I understand that protectors have something to do with Ringworld). With the advent of the hyperspace shunt, someone should have visited Home. Sometimes I read so fast that I miss things. If so, could someone please cite examples to get me back on track. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 11 AUG 1980 0658-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #42 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 11 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 42 Today's Topics: What happens at a Con?, Global 2000 Report Reviews, SF Books - Dragon's Egg & Ralph & SF Best Sellers, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 09 AUG 1980 1033-EDT From: DEE at CCA (Don Eastlake) Noreascon II, the 38th World Science Fiction Convention, will be held in Boston in under three weeks. SF Lovers in the area who are interested in helping on the convention should call its office at 923-8998 most any afternoon or evening. There is lots of work to do. ------------------------------ Date: 9 AUG 1980 1237-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Light Reading The ending of DRAGON'S EGG in the original draft sent to Ballantine/Del Rey was a long, rambling discussion on the future of intelligent life. It was full of philosophy on robotics and the nature of intelligence, space, time, and the universe. It encompassed all of space and time and contained zero plot, characterization, and action. Fortunately Lester del Rey got to me before the readers had this rambling letdown ending imposed upon them. HOWEVER, those masochists among you who would like to plow through 4000 words of the stuff (cut from 7000 words) can send me their NETMAIL address and sometime next week I will inflict a copy on you. As you will see, it is not publishable by itself, but it will be the text that I will read from in the Author's Forum at NOREASCON II in Boston around Labor Day. Bob Forward (FORWARD@USC-ECL) ------------------------------ MOON@MIT-MC 08/10/80 15:41:27 Re: Ralph von Wau Wau stories They are by "Jonathan Swift Somers III", who is surely Philip Jose Farmer. See "A Scarletin Study", F&SF March 1975, and "The Doge Whose Barque was Worse than his Bight", F&SF November 1976. It's pretty good stuff. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 1980 2252-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: SF books popular with the masses From the New York Times News wire, this week's Bestseller list had: MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS 9 THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, by Donald F. Glut. (Ballantine-Del Rey, $2.25.) Novelization of the current film. [there since the movie release] TRADE PAPERBACKS 10 THE NUMBERS OF THE BEAST, by Robert A. Heinlein. (Fawcett-Columbine, $6.95.) A journey through an alternate universe: science fiction. [first week on the list] ------------------------------ Date: 10 August 1980 20:58-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: GLOBAL 2000 REPORT To: NATURAL-DISASTERS at MIT-MC The GLOBAL 2000 report has now been released (766 pages). It doesn't appear to paint a very rosy picture of the world environment by the year 2000. There is a brief mention of the report in Science News (August 2, 1980 Vol. 118, No. 5). Here are a few details: 1. World food production should increase 90% from 1970 to 2000, but world population will swell more than 50% - from about 4 billion in 1975 to 6.35 billion. As a result, food production per person will increase only about 15% and most of that increase will be consumed by those who already are fairly well fed. People in the poor countries of South Asia, the Middle East and Africa will have little more food, or less, than now. 2. Land used for agriculture will increase only about 4 percent and soil deterioration will continue, so most of the increase in food production will rely on higher yields through techniques depending on costly oil and natural gas. As a result real prices for food are expected to double by 2000, and underdeveloped nations may depend more heavily on food from exporters like the US. 3. Extinctions of plants and animal species will increase dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of species - perhaps as many as 20 percent of all species on Earth - will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish, especially in tropical forests. 4. Regional water shortages will become more severe as forest destruction reduces the water-holding capacity of land while demand for water increases with population growth. 5. Mineral resource cost will increase with rising energy prices. There will be fewer resources to go around. Resource based inflationary pressures will continue and intensify. The report said the study's findings point to increasing potenial for international conflict and increasing stress on international financial arrangments. Even the panel that created this report says that it may be too optimistic. One more added note: Under current trends, the globe will lose 40 percent of its remaining forests. In fact, the July 28 World Development Letter by the US AID pegs world wood harvest at 50 ACRES OF FOREST PER MINUTE. You can write to the Council on Environmental Quality in Washington for more information. The above excerpts are from the mentioned Science Weekly and also an article from the Indianapolis Star 7/24/80. --Bill PS. I apologize for sending this to SF-Lovers also...I just thought that it might be appropriate. ------------------------------ Date: 11 AUG 1980 0447-EDT From: POURNE at MIT-MC (Jerry E. Pournelle) Subject: President's Gloom report To: NATURAL-DISASTERS at MIT-MC, ENERGY at MIT-MC 1. The man in charge of the Big Gloom Report on the Year 2000 was Gus Speath. You may glean a measure of his scientific competence from his paper presented at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Houston, in which he worried considerably about the "Problem of nuclear wastes contaminating vast areas in the event of re-glaciation of the North American continent." This caused me to ask if, given that my house was under 40 feet of ice, I would give a damn about nuclear wastes; and also to ask him if he knew that after 600 years the only wastes to worry about were the actinides, all the fission products having long since decayed to insiginificance. He didn't know that; indeed, didn't know what an actinide was. 2. The report uses a number of unconnected models. What it doesn't do is look at the effect of large investments in new sources of energy, such as Solar Power Satellites. Any system that models only one Earth will inevitably predict doom and gloom; indeed, it MUST, since, given only one Earth, on some time span we are indeed finished. But there is no reason why the human race cannot outlive the Earth and the Sun, providing only that we get the hell off this ball. We could take the first steps in that direction this generation. We won't, of course; Carter has successfully cancelled the $5 million appropriation for continued study of the Solar Power Satellite concept, and the L-5 Society has not been able to get Congress to ram it down Carter's throat. Thus we have lost at least a year; possibly longer. 3. Given models that can accomodate breakthroughs in energy technology, you can get dramatic differences from the Gloom and Doom results Carter's Council on Environmental Quality comes up with. Notice also that new sources like SPS are required to justify themselves on narrow economic grounds -- while the CEQ can fling in the cost of extinct species and various other disasters in defense of their efforts. This is double standard budgeting with a vengeance. It is obvious that we CAN save many of those species, and increase human standards of eating and living; we need only take bold (and somewhat expensive in investment capital) steps, get out of the mire, and look to the heavens. We won't do that, of course. Thus maybe the new report is right. J. E. Pournelle ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/11/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 0025-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: sw4 and planet busting. Are you sure about that 10^32? Don't forget that the planet itself will be helping you. The inside of a planet is under a fair amount of pressure, as a result the planet will have a tendency to explode when you take some of the pressure off. (after all isn't a volcanic eruption vaguely akin to a planet letting off pressure?) I do admit that I don't know how much pressure you would have to release. steve z. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 08/06/80 23:50:55 Re: STRIKING BACK AT THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I have a friend with whom I was speaking the other day about TESB. She had just seen it, and was very upset at it and its implications. Her arguments have some merit, so I asked her to write them down. I repeat them here . "There is no question that George Lucas is creating the mythology which will color the subconscious of the growing generation, just like Walt Disney's characters are forever a part of my psyche. That's why The Empire Strikes Back makes me so angry. It is merely a rehash of old war movies, with all their worst cliches and pat killing intact. But even John Wayne and Frank Sinatra, in all their male-buddy kill-the-Krauts (or Injuns) showed some compassion - if for nothing else than their horses. But the Taun-Taun in TESB doesn't rate such compassion. It has the audacity to freeze to death and stink in the process. The whole film just glorifies killing. To be a true man of grit, one must kill without flinching, it says. You need no justifi- cation for your killing. We aren't told why the empire is so bad and the rebel forces so good; The only bad thing we can be sure about the empire is they all speak with British accents, all wear Mao jackets, and Darth Vader has a disturbing habit of choking up incompetent subordinates. But we never see why the empire is bad government, or who the people are who are paying for all those high-tech rebel spaceships. We are only shown one group of men killing another, for the glorious Sam Pekinpah Hell of it. "And there are never any consequences to this killing! No one ever weeps for the dead. Luke's hand is chopped off-tragic-but in the next scene it's all sewed up again. See, war doesn't really hurt! "Ah, but there is the Force. A power of Life. Bull. The Force is only mental power used for killing. You do it with extreme prejudice. The purpose of the lightsaber is to kill. How does Yoda demonstrate the Force? By raising up a vehicle of war. Luke's own Forcetest is to kill someone in a cave. No life (other than a large slug) lives on the the planet where the supreme teacher of life-force lives. No light, sunshine, flowers, children, women, young things growing. Just a wizened old Yoda and a dead swamp. The Force is nothing but a cheat. "Now I wouldn't be so angry about this conscienceless war- glorification film if Lucas and his crew weren't so talented with the FX and the fantasy, thereby capturing the psyche of my kid so effectively. Militarism doesn't need this glorification. But life certainly does. If Lucas could turn his talents to glorifying living and loving and making society function peaceably. That's why the bar scene in the first film showed such promise. It was a wonderful combination of strange creatures enjoying one another, engaged in peaceful activities - at least until Lucas introduced the destruction and killing into this wonderful scene. If Lucas could turn his talents from this rut of warmongering, he could contribute to the making of a generation concerned enough with life to prevent a World War Three." I am still a bit taken aback by all the above. She makes a powerful statement. What is this here, the most popular films of all time...is there something wrong with them, or something wrong with us? Your comments? Larry ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 12 AUG 1980 0643-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #43 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 12 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 43 Today's Topics: Ride for NorEasCon II, Global 2000, SF Books - A Step Farther Out, TESB - Glorifies War? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ISRAEL@MIT-AI 08/11/80 10:21:44 Re: Ride to Noreascon II Is anyone driving to Noreascon II from or through the Washington D.C. area? - Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 at 2318-CDT From: david at UTEXAS Subject: Abandoning Earth. To: Energy AT MIT-MC The kind of person who would use up and then discard a planet strikes me as worse than a slovenly wastrel who would throw a six-pack by the side of the road. Planet Earth is a nice place to live (with notable exceptions); not just someplace to visit on the way to the next galactic conquest by humans. Most of us I think grew up here. We depend on a remarkable set of circumstances where Earth alone in our solar system supports life as we understand it. Barring nuclear war or unforeseen catastrophe, and if humans begin using the earth more wisely, humans can expect to live here many years. We could probably even survive long enough to allow us to develop the knowledge and systems to send explorers, perhaps colonizers into space. But even then, few would be willing to abandon the home planet. The most important issue for now and the near future is whether we can control humans' effects on our planet so as to provide a future we can live with for many years. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 08/12/80 03:40:51 Re: Pournelle's 2000 view There is a collection of JEP's essays titled "A Step Farther Out" which I would recommend to anyone who has any expectation (hope?) of being around 20 years from now. I rarely feel any urge to spend cash for the stuff I read (I visit at least 2 libraries a week), but on occasion I'm sorely tempted; in this case not to review it for myself, but to push in front of other people. Basically the book looks at hard-science possibilities for the near future, especially with respect to escaping the gloomy predictions of reports such as the "Global 2000". I'd rather let JEP elaborate on the details if he choses. The only problem is that the technological optimism is frequently swamped by political pessimism. It's easy to snipe at legislative or public short-sightedness, but harder to figure out the appropriate methods for changing the situation. After my first reading I had the distinct feeling that a sequel was in order, to chronicle whatever efforts have been made and to chart clearer channels for active lobbying. On a somewhat related topic, there was a recent news item to the effect that some military intelligence folks are convinced the Soviets have developed such a lead in laser/particle-beam weapons research and construction that they will have a first-strike capability (i.e. immunity to incoming warheads) by perhaps 1985, certainly 1991. If you suspect the worst, all ruminations about 2000 will probably remain academic. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/12/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss whether Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back glorify war. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 at 1044-CDT From: clyde at UTEXAS Subject: Strking at....... Well, there is something to be said about the criticisms voiced about how cheap life is in that galaxy far far away. However, I have great trouble dealing with those criticisms when they are clothed in a broadside against modern civilization. My reaction to the assertion that there is no compassion in The Empire Strikes Back, a la John Wayne's feeling for his horse, is that such compassion in those flicks was a myth, part of the American hero that could kill a hundred marauding Indians/Krauts/Japs/Gooks but adopt a frightened child or puppy who was orphanged by his very actions. This was the romantic view of the American hero. That part of the mythos was very badly damaged in Vietnam. What we see here is a post-Vietnam, less romanticized hero image. The heros in Lucas' universe are NOT cut from the John Wayne cloth -- I dare say there is little of the romantic hero in the Han Solo character (except where Leia is concerned). Second, in the Lucas universe, one does what one needs to for survival. If the Taun-Taun freezes to death and it needs to be gutted to use the body cavity for warmth, it needs to be done! And there is no reason to be romantic about the details (smell, etc). The Lucas universe is one in turbulant change, with the order of the Empire apparantly having been imposed in recent times, (and BTW, I feel that SW4 gave us a reasonable background about the ethics of the Empire), with a struggle under way by those who represent the old deposed order, (as opposed to fighting for a new, never-tried order). It is not all a universe at war, but the part that is warring (the rebel alliance and the Imperial navy) is 'where the action is', and hence the focus for the fantasy. Finally, on the criticism that Lucas should turn his talents to the support of life and not violence, I think the criticizer has got her signals VERY crossed. The Star Wars mythos is one of conflict - a classic good vs evil battle, with the guarantee that good will eventually triumph. I am sure that Lucas would be gratified to hear that someone thinks that HE could turn mankind aside from the path to war. However, he would probably react as 'What? Me? I just make films.' Methinks that the damsel expects too much from the filmic art. I do not wish to ad hominum the friend of LARKE@MIT-ML, but it appears to me she is a slightly naive, highly idealistic pacifist who is taking the whole thing much too seriously. Children will go for the fantasy, and play Star Wars. But children are smarter than the average adult gives them credit for -- most of them know the difference between fantasy and reality, though they may ignore that difference when playing out the roles of Skywalker and Vader. In this world, cuts bleed, explosions mangle and frostbite victims loose limbs. For anyone who thinks otherwise, the reality of such a situation should adjust their reference frame to realize the difference. There are a number of things wrong with the world around us. We may indeed be tripping down the primrose path to WWIII. But our popular media fantasies can neither damn us faster or save us from ourselves. And lastly, I would like to remind all involved, that while we may get drawn up in the excitement of the story, and speculate as if the entire thing was/is real, that this is all the creation of the mind of eorge Lucas. In short folks, it ai'nt real. If you want to treat it seriously as a story or mythos, that's fine, but if you want to act like it is real and has significant impact on this world, you are welcome to, even though it is misguided and self-delusory. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 1124-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: SW attack Larry's friend is right all the way down the line about the militarist attitude of SW 4 and 5. As Mankins@BBN-UNIX noted previously, we do know nothing about who is right and who is wrong in this conflict. This however is irrelevant, for this is Adventure and Adventure is best when played for high stakes, meaning war. Think of Luke back on the farm on Tatoonie. He had love and peace and even security if he kept out of the way of stormtroopers, but he still had this itch for something more. This country today is prosperous and at peace, but the fact that Americans will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to see these movies indicates that they are far from content. Further example. Just a couple of days ago I saw "The Final Countdown", wherein a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with 106 aircraft and 6000 crew is swept back through time to the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The acting was bad and the effects mediocre, but the machinery was gorgeous. There is a real glee in seeing these Tomcats, planes like living swordblades, play cat and mouse with Japanese Zeros. You become eager to see the USS Nimitz take on the entire Japanese fleet, and not because it will save lives in future battles. Looked at rationally these hankerings are crazy, and real soldiers lose them very quickly. They are real however and will not be dissipated by movies or books filled with sweetness and light. Navy recruiting films like "The Final Countdown" ARE dangerous, but Star Wars channels these desires into pure fantasy, the safest place for them to be. Ta, John Redford ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 1329-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: TESB, SF, and War To Larke's closing comment, "is there something wrong with them [the films that purportedly glorify war], or something wrong with us?" there is a third alternative, that there is something wrong with an immature, naive, view of war and the place of conflict in literature and art. I use the terms immature and naive carefully, even though many who hold those views are mature and sophisticated in areas removed from a discussion of conflict and violence. In fact, SF-Lovers is just about the one place that I would not have expected to see that set of attitudes. SF has long been reviled in the mainstream for being too concerned with war, empire, violence, conflict, etc. Those, criticisms, too, are misplaced. There are (at least) two problems with the view expressed in Larke's friend's comments. First, unless done explicitly, art and literature that portray some aspect of war do not necessarily glorify war. This is a classic canard. Few people or philosophies have ever glorified war for its own sake; even the most vile prefer a peace under their control, to war for its own sake. Even the current academic demonology in which businessmen are held to be the ultimate embodiment of evil by being willing to make money selling war supplies to governments, agrees that where nonviolent profits are available, they will be pursued instead. No, TESB does not glorify war for its own sake. Rather it does what people of good will have long done: it glorifies the just war, the war fought against tyranny, the war to end all wars, etc. The fact that the evils of the Empire are not spelled out is strictly from artistic necessity. It is made clear that, for the sake of the film's argument, the Empire is to be regarded as "the bad guys." Since most people accept war against certain classes of bad guys as being legitimate, the story requires the viewer to accept the premise, and then goes on to make its literary point. This leads directly to the second issue. Simply stated, literature needs conflict of some kind. Certain kinds of conflict are classical forms: one is war. The point of nearly all war stories to to present studies of people under a particular kind of extreme stress. I can understand a child not understanding that the literary use of war is a vehicle for telling a story. Fine. That is what parents are for -- to tell the kids what is happening. What I can't understand is adults who don't understand the difference between art and life. Writing about war is not the same as fighting one; enjoying a war movie is not the same as voting for someone who will get you into a war because he or she was too stupid to be sensitive to other \real people's/ needs and problems. It just doesn't work that way. Literary conflicts are not real conflicts, and the mindless, automatic transference of one to the other just doesn't make sense. This is probably more of a response than the stimulus requires. TESB had its problems, but for goodness' sake, glorifying war was not one of them. Mike ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 13 AUG 1980 0652-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #44 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS Digest Wednesday, 13 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 44 Today's Topics: What happens at a Con?, SF Books - A Step Farther Out & The Dracula Tapes, TESB - Glorifies War? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Aug 1980 0058-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Worldcon SFL party! Sometime during Worldcon SFL will have its second convention party (Westercon was the first). I've been nominated to inform those interested via NET mail about the particulars BEFORE we all go to Boston. To do that I would like to create a mailing list of Worldcon going SFLers and keep those people informed as to goings on. If you will be attending Worldcon, just drop me a line (jpm@SAIL). When you send that note in, give a preference as to what day you would like the party to be held. Friday and Saturday are the best bets, as Thursday and Sunday evenings might not find us all there. Friday has the regional parties (all evening) and the GoH speeches (8:00pm), while Saturday has the Masquerade (8:00pm). We have provisional hold on a suite (whose room number I hope to give you BEFORE Boston). It should be free Friday. On Saturday it will be tied up in the early evening with Masqurade things. Enough for now. Send you names once, send your names often! Jim ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 1644-PDT From: Stuart M. Cracraft Subject: A Step Farther Out I also recommend this highly. For those of you who have read (or have been forced to read in school) the Club of Rome report THE LIMITS TO GROWTH, ASFO is a fine rebuttal. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 0135-PDT From: Mark Crispin Subject: "The Dracula Tape" by Fred Saberhagen At last, the Count himself tells his own version of the shocking events of 1891, to clear the noble name so vilely slandered by Bram Stoker. He eloquently points out the inconsistancies and transparent falsehoods in the story as related by his enemies, and his version of what occurred is far more believable. Who can deny the nobility and honor of a vampire who -- at great personal risk to himself -- stages an elaborate show of his own destruction rather than killing his tormentors? Who with the greatest reluctance made Lucy a vampire in a futile attempt to save her life, doomed by Van Helsing's quackery? (Alas that Van Helsing achieved her murder anyway!) From the teaser: 'True, the Count is capable of murder in self-defense or even for vengeance. True, also that he is not one to waste blood once it has been spilled. But consider the nobility of his actions in attempting to preserve his beloved Mina from the vile and almost certainly fatal attentions of the demented "Professor" Van Helsing (who as a matter of routine attempted blood transfusions in complete ignorance of blood types, and blamed VAMPIRISM when --surprise!-- his victim died. Compare the restrained and civilized behavior of the Count with that of the stake-wielding, superstition-ridden humans who attempted to hound him and all that he loved to their deaths. 'Let Count Dracula tell his side of the story. He asks only that you listen with an open mind--and only then decide.' ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/13/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss whether Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back glorify war. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 0922-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: more on SW criticisms But literary conflicts ARE real conflicts, because they are the only ones most of us will ever see. Few of us have ever fought in a war; all we know about such things comes through what we read and see. For people who don't read much SW could have a lot of influence. Look at the amount of space that we've devoted here to something that barely qualifies as SF. Larry's friend is not naive in believing that this stuff can go deeper than merely diversion, rather the opposite. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 at 0934-CDT From: david at UTEXAS Subject: Reality versus fantasy in SW n. I must take exception to my friend Clive's point of view of reality versus fantasy as portrayed in SWn. The point is that in non-SF war stories the death and destruction is portrayed in a realistic fashion. You are shown the blood and guts and other horrible aspects of war. Not so in SWn. There, for instance, it makes no difference if you lose an arm in battle, you can easily get it replaced by one even better than the original. So if you have no personal loss to fear, why hesitate to fight the glorious fight? Unlike Clive, I see little reason for optimism regarding the ability of people, whether they be children or adults, to clearly distinguish fantasy from reality. I believe SWn will have, in fact has already had, a bad influence on the way people view war, space, science fiction, and relations with other cultures. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 14:53:27-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: SW4, killing As regards the comments on the glorification of war, I agree that TESB (and SW) both do that. This seems to be an effect, rather than a cause, of the attitudes of our (adult) society. Witness the "Nuke Iran" and similar attitudes. It would be nice if the ethics of the situation (specifically WHAT is wrong with the Empire, and what the rebels are advocating to replace it) were more fully discussed, and thereby the justification (rationalization?) for the violence would be clear. I suppose, however, given the rest of the film, that they are really fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and probably favor a representative government with two houses, a judicial and executive branch, and probably free football games. I do, however, feel that Yoda lifting up a warship is a poor example of militarism. It was a demonstration that what Luke wanted to do could indeed be done. If Luke had been trying to lift a boulder, Yoda would have lifted that instead. Ken Arnold ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/12/80 13:57:01 Re: war, movies, fantasy It seems to me that 80% of the reason why people enjoy TESB is BECAUSE it is an escapist fantasy. What better way to take a deep breath than to live through a fantasy where the forces of good (non-realistic heroes) battle the incredibly evil forces of evil (de-humanized char- acters that "deserve" to die) in a titanic struggle (that glorifies war), with tremendous -but temporary- setbacks (effortless tragedy) that nevertheless lead to the inevitable, staggering victory (falsely manifest destiny) for the forces of good and the total eradication of evil (violence without consequence) from the land ??? Hell, I'd buy it in hardback. Dan ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 at 0215-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MISREPRESENTATION IS ALSO "CONSCIENCELESS" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ First, a personal statement: In theory (and in the hands of masters such as Gandhi and King) I have serious respect for the principles of Non-Violence and Passive Resistance. In practice, though (and this was the flaw I was trying to point up in regard to a similar message from David@UTEXAS some weeks ago) they can readily support manipulation of the naive by the unprincipled -- i.e., turn out to be just a mug's game. ----- I was tempted to just smile at LARKE's friend's (let me call her "F") flaming about TESB. After all, as has often been stated on SF-L, and without contradiction, it's ONLY a movie. Moreover, however popular, it is still only a miniscule segment of the whole complex of media impact in our culture. But if, however unlikely, readers might really see it as indeed a "powerful" argument against SW/TESB, THAT misconception I can refute. For, how much credence can be placed in any appraisal of SW/TESB which contains glaring inaccuracies? "No life (other than a large slug) lives on the planet where the supreme teacher of life-force lives... a dead swamp." F may be ignorant of the proliferation of life in a swamp, but she might have paid attention to when, on approaching Dagobah, Luke told R2 of "massive life-readings". But, obviously, F's inattentiveness led her to confuse the Space Slug's asteroid with the swamp planet. In fact, it looks suspiciously as if she didn't really see TESB at all but just read her kid's comic book -- or else how could she have overlooked all those lovely, slithery snakes!? "Luke's own Forcetest is to kill someone in a cave." To the contrary! Luke was abjured NOT to take his weapons, and his handling of the encounter there was referred to as a "failure". "No one ever weeps for the dead." Admittedly Leia is made of sterner stuff, ("We have no time for our sorrows, Commander"), but what is Luke doing when the camera returns to him after slowly panning the Tattooine homestead to rest on those two smouldering skeletons? Or, when he sits huddled in grief at the loss of Ben, as the Falcon is leaving the Death Star? Was it shown as a matter of no concern to Obi-Wan when it felt "as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror... and were suddenly silenced"? "The purpose of the lightsaber is to kill." Then it has certainly proven singularly inefficient so far, having scored merely 2 arms, one hand, one dematerialization, and the evisceration of a dead taun-taun to SAVE a life. "See, war doesn't really hurt!" Oh, go see the film! And watch Luke out on the gantry as he cradles the stub of his lost hand in his other arm. Look at that face, ugly with pain. Doesn't hurt, hunh?! (And remember those skeletons.) "The only bad thing we can be sure about the empire is they all speak with British accents, all wear Mao jackets,..." etc. No Sandcrawler-full of Jawas exterminated? No innocent homestead devastated? (And, of course, no smouldering skeletons!) Oh, well, that was just a little My Lai incident, nothing to really signify. Yeah... and Earth-like Alderaan still sails blue and serene through the heavens of that faraway galaxy. (Incidentally, for any who share F's Anglophobia, the "bad guys" with British accents are only Tarkin, Ozzel, Piett, Veers, and Needa. Vader's, over all that wheezing, is "stage speech", but nevertheless American. And if British accents are marks of evil, we'd better be plenty suspicious of that Obi-Wan fellow!) The cantina scene "was a wonderful combination of strange creatures enjoying one another, engaged in peaceful activities" Well, as a hangout of pirates, smugglers, hit men, and mean drunks who relish picking fights with green farm kids, Ben's "This place can be a little rough" was at best an understatement. But "peaceful" is nonsense. ............................................................. More could be said, noting lines such as "Wars do not make one great" or "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge or defense, never for attack" or "Don't give in to hate!" (and Luke's crucial vulnerability when he does). The only line supporting F would be in SW-4, "I can't get involved", and John Donne has answered that one. If indeed "Lucas is creating the mythology [which] will color the subconscious of the growing generation", F's kid might be better off than s/he would have been without that influence. Purdue social psychologist Robert Baron, author of HUMAN AGGRESSION (1977), has pointed out that children's games and fantasy life in other eras had no question of who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. But today the combination of violence as shown on television and of criminals often being depicted "almost as heros" in the news media has changed all that. He cites movies such as DEATH WISH, with its vigilante justice, and the DIRTY HARRY type of films which could confuse the young in their assessment of what's right and what's wrong. BAMBI is sweet, but Godzilla has awfully big feet. And even the STAR WARS series may have 'redeeming social values'. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 14 AUG 1980 0642-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #45 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 14 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 45 Today's Topics: What happens at a Con? - Party, SF Books - Title/Plot, SF Movies - Final Countdown & Another Horrible One, TESB - Who's Who & Glorifies War? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 AUG 1980 1139-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: party I will of course be going to Noreascon, although I make no promises as to being anything but asleep when I'm not working. I would strongly suggest Friday, as the GoH speeches are likely to be over by 9:30 while the masquerade will run close to midnight. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 0216-EDT From: JoSH Subject: My title request [SFL V2 #41] The story was "To Die in Italbar" by Zelazny. Thanks go to KLH, GSB, DYER, and AYERS. Upon being reminded of the title, I remember it, (not too well) and I thought I had it so I was going to reread it and send in a review. Now I can't find it... Oh well --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 13 August 1980 0220 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Reviews of the FINAL COUNTDOWN Brief: pretty, but the plot logic is thin. Better than, but in the same class as, the Black Hole. For some 'good' reviews by the critics, see the files at the sites listed below. All reviews were taken from the New York Times and AP news wires. -- Jim McGrath Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Jon Solomon, and Jim McGrath for providing space for the reviews on their systems, and again to Jim McGrath for compiling the material. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS FCNTDN PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLovers-Final.TXT Rutgers Ps:Final.Countdown SU-AI FINAL.NS[1,jpm] MIT-Multics >udd>PDO>Lamson>sf-lovers>final-countdown-reviews [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 1980 0305-PDT (Sunday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: a BAD movie In my never ending search for the poor, the awful, the truly BAD science-fiction films, I am continually amazed to find that however far down in the muck you search, there are always more "gems" waiting to be uncovered. Something like turning over logs in a forest -- there are always more disgusting creatures waiting under the logs to say hello in their own special way. Tonight I was "treated" (to use a term from the Spanish Inquisition) to a FINE film: "Mars Needs Women". This 1964 thriller consists largely of dramatic shots of a FEDTRO loudspeaker mounted on a wall. (I know it was FEDTRO, because the name was prominently placed where it was continuously visible.) We would then hear all sorts of fasci- nating communications between Earth government and the Mars invaders. I would like to tell you more, but my stomach has been bothering me since the film started (apparently a direct effect), and further discussion will probably make it worse. I can only suggest that if this amazing movie appears in your area (probably at around 0400 hours), it is certainly worth watching if you are interested in reaching a low exceeded in depth only by "The Creeping Terror" and "Plan Nine From Outer Space". --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 at 0727-CDT From: clive at UTEXAS Subject: David@UTEXAS' recent message to SF-Lovers "I must take exception to my friend Clive's point of view of reality ... Unlike Clive, I see little reason for optimism..." Sorry, but I can't take credit for the point of view and the optimism! If you check yesterday's digest, you'll find that the message you were responding to was sent by CLYDE, not CLIVE. Don't worry--I've spent my entire life answering to "Clyde", "Cleve" and even "Olive", and I've long since resigned myself to the fact that if I ever hope to hear people get my name right, I'll probably have to go live in England, where the name is a little more common. But I bet this is the first time Clyde has had his name converted to Clive! (Clyde, maybe you'd better hurry up with that implementation of full names in the "From:" field!) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 at 0906-CDT From: clyde at UTEXAS Subject: Reply to Clive@UTEXAS' recent message to SF-Lovers Well, Clive, as a matter of fact I have been called Clive on a number of occasions, especially just after coming to work at the UT Computation Center. It's enough to make a guy use his middle name ........ Clyde (Bill) Hoover ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/14/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss whether Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back glorify war. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 at 1406-CDT From: ables at UTEXAS (King Ables) Subject: Re: LARKE's friend's comments ([SFL V2 #42] 11-Aug-80) I, too, am a bit "taken aback" by these comments. However, her strong statement does make a point. Even though the Star Wars series started out to be more or less innocent fantasy adventure, the second of the group is much more grim than the first (or 5th than the 4th if you're counting). I think she takes the story too seriously, though, differently than the way I take it too seriously. Maybe in our entertainment, we do crave violence to some degree, but humans are barbarians and will continue to be for quite some time. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak. While there is something to think about in what she has said, I would much rather sit back and enjoy the story for what it does to my imagination. Even if I feel it really is happening somewhere and feel like I'm part of it, I don't get it confused with my reality (even if I am referred to as a "Star Wars Trekkie" by one of my friends). Deep down, I know it's just a story, and violent stories have been a part of human existence all along (Mythology, much old European literature, etc.). If we don't mix our reality and fantasy, we'll be OK. -ka P.S. And yes, I know it's partially aimed at kids, but wasn't anyone ever scared by The Wizard of Oz? ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 1015-PDT From: Zellich at OFFICE-1 Subject: Re: STRIKING BACK AT THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. No, but there's something wrong with your friend -- she overreacted, to put it mildly. The comments ARE valid, but are much too strongly stated and, at least in a couple of cases, she apparently misunder- stood the intent -- for instance, "Luke's own Forcetest is to kill someone in a cave" - remember, he FAILED his test by killing the person he encountered there; also, the freezing (and smelling) of the Taun-Taun -- it was understood when Han left that the Taun-Taun couldn't survive the exposure, and the animal was deliberately sacrificed that a (supposedly important) HUMAN life could be saved. And how much compassion would YOU give a Taun-Taun, anyway!? And as for the bar scene in the first film, that was a piece of pure fluff, and as likely to misguide anyone's psyche as anything else in either film. Your friend should visit an East St. Louis bar some night, and see just how well a "combination of strange creatures" gets along together in REAL life! It can make Sam Pekinpah look like Disney ...speaking of which, it just goes to show that ANYTHING will be flamed at by SOMEBODY -- you should hear my ex- flame about how racist and sexist the old Disney movies are! (actually, they are, kinda...but again, an OVERreaction) Besides, there is no obligation on the part of every single movie-maker to turn out an "All Quiet on the Western Front" -- If Lucas wants to make a piece of schmaltz, he has a perfect right to. Rich Zellich ------------------------------ Date: 11 AUG 1980 1318-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Striking Back at TESB LARKE's friend raises some interesting points, but I'm inclined to feel that she overstates her case. Attempting to step aside from some of my own strong feelings (mostly) in favor of TESB, I'd make the following answers: The taun-taun is not treated compassionately, true; but I'd rather have protagonists who can show compassion to people (Luke trying to pull his buddy out of the wreckage, for instance). Han's remark about the animal's smell is uncouth for a drawing room, but he's out in a blizzard and is still playing his own role of hard-shelled wisecracker. A valid point about the question of the evilness of the Empire, although it shouldn't be necessary for them to blow up a peaceful planet in every film to establish their villainous credentials. The Empire's commander is quite sufficiently evil, though; Vader tortures Han and turns him over to a bounty hunter (a debatable act from a legal standpoint as well, since Han is wanted because he dumped a smuggled cargo rather than getting through with it). Hand or no hand, I don't see Luke as particularly triumphant at the end of the movie. Hopeful, yes, but with the chief villain for a father he's not exactly happy--and how long would you want the scenes of him suffering to go on? We get a sufficiency of closeups of his anguished face just before he drops. There is a \complete/ misreading of the scene of Luke in the cave on Dagobah. Lucas/Kirshner couldn't have made that more obviously an illusion in Luke's mind if they'd included pink clouds and perfume --- and Yoda makes it quite clear that by resorting to the light saber \instead/ of the Force (which should be able to abolish the illusion) Luke failed an important part of the training. And the swamp on Dagobah is far from lifeless if you're paying attention --- although I'd call it a valuable lesson that "Life" isn't necessarily pretty by our standards. Who are we to judge what an elvish gnome finds homey? And if all the creatures in the bar were enjoying each other peaceably, why didn't some of them object when a couple of randoms started picking on an obvious tenderfoot (Luke)? If you pay attention, the sequence is obvious: one of the randoms draws, the bartender yells "No blasters!" (and is that any indication of peace? It sounds more like the typical western bar where you can beat each other to a pulp if you don't hurt the bystanders) and Obi-Wan cuts in --- and note that Obi-Wan doesn't go for the body (a much easier target when the opponent doesn't have a sword, as any other fencer will tell you) even though he has almost no time to act. Hell, it's \announced/ that the bar is a rough place! I think LARKE's correspondent is simply overimpressed by the violent aspects of the film (which, if you recall my recent remarks on censorship, were partly in response to the unrealistic rating system in this country). Obviously it would be better if the Empire could be shut out by judicious use of the Force --- but why do you think Vader and/or the rest of the Empire wiped out the rest of the Jedi knights? (The implication of SW4 is that Vader did most of this personally, through treachery.) Again, the severest weakness in TESB that this points to is the assumption of background on the part of the viewer --- and I'm not sure that that is a weakness, since there are other, written series I'm familiar with which are annoying specifically because of the amount of background they repeat (often verbatim) in each story. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 14:010:42 EDT From: Drew Powles Subject: SW criticism Bravo for HJJH at UTEXAS and levelheadedness. What was needed was a logical, point-by-point examination and refutation of each of LARKE's friend's statements on SW and TESB. HJJH has given us this. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 15 AUG 1980 0559-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #46 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 15 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 46 Today's Topics: SF TV: Dyson, D&D Revisited, Query - Fusion, SF Bloopers - Space Sound, SF Books - Golem^100 & Dragons, TESB - Glorifies War?, SF Movies - Countdown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Aug 1980 1254-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Dyson on Cavett show Dick Cavett's show tonight (Friday August 15) at 7pm on your local PBS station will have Freeman Dyson, physicist and astronomer, as the guest. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1980 1635-PDT From: Mclure at SRI-KL Subject: Egbert update ( also see [SFL V1 #93-99] ) A spokesman for the hospital where Egbert (the Dungeon kid) is currently suffering from a self-inflicted gun wound now says he has suffered "irretrievable brain damage and he will never recover a meaningful existence." They don't know if and when they'll pull the plug on the machines supporting him. ------------------------------ Date: 14 AUG 1980 2336-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Help on fusion power article for Omni I have been given a contract by Ben Bova to write an article on fusion power for a future issue of Omni. The article will cover the impact of fusion power on the future course of society, ultimately leading to the launch of a fusion powered interstellar spacecraft. In the course of the 3000 word article, I am supposed to explain how all the present candidate techniques for fusion work (in non-techical language), as well as bring out some unusual possible side effects of a fusion society. 1. If any of you know of some unusual side-benefits of a fusion society, I would appreciate Journal name, year, page, and author. 2. If any of you feel you are a "local (in either space or time) wizard" on some aspect of fusion, I would appreciate your volunteering as a critic of the next-to-final draft. I don't like to get my physics wrong, especially for the technically-interested readers of Omni. Thanks, Bob Forward ------------------------------ Date: 14 August 1980 03:36 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: sound fx in space Think of them as navigational aids. You can use sound to tell where things are and in a situation in which many things need to be looked at the computer system driving the "window" (you didn't think it was a piece of glass) could calculate trajectories, watch your eyeballs and let your hear any important things happening. We did stuff like this at the Arch Mach all the time - you could even yell at the computer and have it insult you back or sing new wave .... ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 2214-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Bester's latest (no spoiler) It's probably safe to say that Alfred Bester's latest book GOLEM^100 (Simon and Schuster) is the ultimate Freudian SF novel. He has gone far beyond the Freudian overtones in THE DEMOLISHED MAN and THE STARS MY DESTINATION with an extremely vivid tale of a quest for the Id. However, a major difference is the lack of a central anti-hero char- acter rebelling against society as there had been in his two earlier famous works. This change detracts somewhat from the tale. Instead, we are given three characters: a Black woman with extraordinary vision, a highly-paid chemical-sniffer, and a police investigator. Their headlong search for a murdering 'monster' takes them hither and thither through a near-future gigantic city. As is usual with Bester, the tale is fairly straightforward. But once again, his writing style takes grip of the reader like few SF authors can. Also present are many gruesome scenes and explicit language not found in his earlier works. Some may find this offensive. However, the story is enriched a great deal. The B&W illustrations by Jack Gaughan intertwine the text in several places, being more essential to the narrative than is the case with most other illustrated SF novels. And in places, they extend for upwards of 40 pages and are quite well done. Several scenes involve a stream-of-consciousness writing style that Bester hasn't practiced before, and it is quite refreshing. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 1009-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Mythical books and a new strange book I was just browsing in the St. Louis Public Library today and ran across a book in the new-books shelf which I realized I must immediately bring to the attention of SF-Lovers. I haven't read it yet, just skimmed through, and find it rather interesting, in several regards. The book is DRAGONS, by Pamela Wharton Blanpied, 1980, Warner Books. It purports to be "An Introduction to the Modern Infestation". The book is described as a monograph on the "habits, anatomy, psychology, and lifestyles of the elusive quadruped", the dragon. Full of photographs, charts, drawings, maps, and footnotes, it includes five pages of bibliography, which is where the subject reference to "mythical books" comes in. I find it hard to believe this. This is well-written, in the traditional style of pop-science monographs, and obviously took quite some effort. A notable achievement in the history of spoofs, I would say. The library classified this as Dewey #398.469; any librarians out there care to say what that category is defined as? I would consider this to truly be SF -- check your local libraries for it, but don't expect to find it under the SF section. In the "Suggestions for Further Reading" section, before the bibliography, there is a sentence, "LeGuin's work from the East and West Reaches may be read with profit." LeGuin is not listed in the bibliography, so I do not know if the reference truly is to Ursula K. LeGuin, which would qualify this as an SF-book-referencing-another-SF-book. I expected to find some reference to Anne McCaffery in the bibliography, but it is all spurious entries. Simply amazing. Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 14 AUG 1980 2143-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL As a matter of interest for those who are arguing "Empire's" glorification of war and violence, I heard on the news this morning that both Sweden and Norway have banned the film for viewing by anyone under the age of 15. The reason? Too violent. Norway also plans to cut ten minutes of the film. Stan Forward ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1980 11:34 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: poor ole' taun-taun In the discussions of violence and TESB, the point has been made that compassion towards humans is more important than towards the taun-taun. So, that motivates me to ask a question that has bothered me for a long time: To wit, I never have understood the almost-universal attitude that a human life and the feelings of a human are supposed to be more important than those of another creature. About the only justification I can see for this attitude is if the other creature is incapable of pain or thought or is attacking. Otherwise how on earth can anyone have a right to harm it? How can people justify killing animals for food, when many plant sources are available, for example (and when the experiments that indicate that plants "feel" have been thoroughly discredited)? Is it all based on the belief that our species somehow has the right to rule the universe and everything else is expendable? Or what????? Explanations would be appreciated. Karen ------------------------------ Date: 13 August 1980 1020-EDT (Wednesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: latest tesb murmurings. Ta throw in my few pennies worth: From what Larry's friend had to say, then reading HJJH's and others 'rebuttals' I have a feeling that even if Larry's friend saw these messages, little would be taken with an open mind (I hope I am wrong) we hardly see children and women running around monestaries??? (after all these are the closest real world analogies I could come up with for Yoda and his planet. No, no-one ever comes out and says that the empire is bad because so and so and the Rebellion is good because of so-and-so, but by observing the behavior of the characters on both sides, I would rather see the rebellion win. Remember SW: (paraphrasing liberally) Now that the emperor has disolved the Senate, the local governments will/can be ruled with fear. (I am not sure if this is from the book or the movie)...in any case not my kind of people. I could flame for pages and pages, but I would not be saying much more that others have. Decide for yourself, it matters little, what has been done has (probably) already been done, for better or worse. Doug P.S. If you are worried about America's youth, I see the problem as lack of Discipline by Parents and not movies per se. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 10:16 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Many have mentioned that they think that SW and TESB should go into more detail on the causes of the conflict and "the ethics of the situation" are. SW and TESB are parts 4 and 5 of a 9 part epic. I suspect that by the time the last flick in the saga has appeared, we will have found the answers to that question. Of course, at the present rate of one SW saga every 3 or so years, the justification for all the conflict may not be known until our kids are grown up into fanatic war-mongering devils as feared by 'F'. Why is it that people like 'F' seem so out of control of the lives of their children that a fun movie like SW or TESB is expected to have more influence on their values than they themselves as parents? For that matter, is a story about 'Good' knocking the hell out of 'Evil' necessarily bad for them? I have been reading SF since I was very young, seeing violent movies (blood and guts horror movies, Jaws, etc.) and I still claim to value life as sacred, reject war as the solution to the world's problems, and fight violence with non-violence. My opinion is that parents have been failing in their job of instilling values in their children and using sociological studies on the effect of violence on TV and in the movies as excuses for the lack of parental guidance that gives children the ability to distinguish between escapist fantasy and reality. When was the last time you heard of mommy and daddy talking to Johnny about the right and wrong of the bloody massacre he just saw at the Bijou last Saturday? -- Larry -- ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1980 1546-PDT From: REYNOLDS at RAND-AI (Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand)) Subject: The Final Countdown Since there was some traffic on SF-L lately on this film, I thought I would pass on this piece from "The Hollywood Reporter" (a film and TV trade publication) Aug 14 '80: $6 MIL "COUNTDOWN" "The Final Countdown" a suspense drama set aboard the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz, continues its run with a 10-day gross of $6,100,000 at 630 theatres, announced Gene Goodman, United Artists senior vp for domestic sales. -your Tinsletown monitor ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/15/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses The Final Countdown. People who have not seen this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ MASEK@MIT-MC 08/05/80 19:47:45 Re: The Final Countdown Last Saturday I made the mistake of going to see the Final Countdown. It is a Turkey. The science is mediocre and the story is bad. Its high points were 1) the theatre was air conditioned, 2) the Japanese pilot's reaction to Nimitz's knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, and 3) the missle attack on a Japanese Zero. I would give it a 3. In the story the USS Nimitz goes thru a time warp to December 6, 1940. After they realize what is happening (and they shoot down 2 Zeros using 2 F-14(?)'s) they decide to destroy the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However just before they intercept the attack the Nimitz goes back to our time. Bill ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 16 AUG 1980 0630-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #47 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 16 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 47 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Countdown & Twonky, SF Books - L of L, & Leguin & Ringworld & Ratner's Star & Golem^100, What happens at a Con - Schedule, TESB - Glorifies War? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Aug 1980 0756-EDT From: JoSH The Final Countdown: it's ok. See CaddyShack a second time if that's your alternative. Still, it's a whale of a lot better than the last Kirk Douglas film I mentioned here (ie, Saturn 3). Let's just hope they keep improving at this rate. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1980 at 0955-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: The Twonky How many of us remember the classic Henry Kuttner short, "The Twonky"? Well, imagine my surprise when the Sherman Theater's SF Film Festival dug out a full-length feature film titled "The Twonky"! It was made by Arch Oboler. Unless you're a trivia expert (I'm not) you'll need to be told that it was he who started the classic radio program "Lights Out". The movie starred Hans Conreid in a 1951 role. It was rather faithful to the story, but much lighter in tone; in fact, it was a comedy with a happy ending, which in fact given the production values they were forced to work with was a much better choice than a faithful rendition would have been. I had never heard of this film before, and I cannot understand why not. It was VERY funny and everyone had a great time. As an interesting sidelight, the film was introduced by Arch Oboler in person, and Hans Conreid was in the audience. Neither of them had seen the film in 29 years. This was the first commercial film to use magstripe sound recording, and the sound was VERY good for a film of that age. If you ever have a chance to see this film, don't just regard it as a curiosity. It's worth seeing on its own merits. ------------------------------ Date: 9 AUG 1980 0923-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL By the way, I finally got a hold of "Lord of Light". Overlooking the fact that I HATE multisyllabic names, especially in a large cast, and ESPECIALLY when the first three syllables are almost identical, and REALLY REALLY ESPECIALLY when everybody has three or FOUR polysyllabic names which are frequently exchanged -- the book was okay. But if they make a movie out of the thing, they can have it. Bob ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1980 1441-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: dragons The reference to LeGuin seems to be a clear pointer to the Earthsea Trilogy, an excellent set. -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 1821-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: Ringworld stability (see [SFL V2 #32]) Some time ago, a question was raised about the stability of Niven's Ringworld. This question is resolved in "Ringworld Engineers" (it is unstable - with disastrous consequences). -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 1341-PDT From: Richard Pattis Subject: From the NYT Book Review Paperbacks: New and Noteworthy Ratner's Star, by Don Delillo. (Vintage, $3.95) A 14-year-old mathematical genius who is a Nobel Laureate is summoned to a computer-radio-telescope complex called Space Brain to decode a radio message from a distant star, and while there he encounters such a motley collection of weirdos that all reason goes awry. A surre- alistic staire on the modern scientific mind, very funny in a nervous kind of way. --If you don't know why there is no Nobel prize in mathematics, ask a friend its a great story. --In passing: Stanislaw Ulam (I believe) was on a recent Nova, where he explained that Teller was not the father of the Hydrogen Bomb. He said Von Neuman impregnated Teller with the idea, at which time Teller worked out the details. I guess this makes him Mother of the Hydrogen Bomb. --And...I have frequently seen Carl Djerassi referred to as the Father of Birth Control. Rich ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1980 (Friday) 0851-EST From: DYER at NBS-10 Subject: Golem 100 -- *Y*E*C*H*H**!*!*!* Some months ago (at Disclave '80) I made the mistake of purchasing a copy of Alfred Bester's GOLEM-100. I quickly found out that the only redeeming feature of this book is the art inside, and you can get that for free by simply opening the book at the bookstand. I have never finished GOLEM-100, I got 150 pp or so into it, gave up, and went back to reading ATTACK OF THE ANT MEN (don't ask....) which, by comparison, is almost decent reading. There are some 'cutesy' things about GOLEM-100. The art inside (which is, unfortunately, wasted on this book.) The murder scenes near the beginning of the book (which are \very/ original.) The way in which (almost all of) the main characters get killed off, one by one. The surprise ending (yes, I skipped ahead....but it wasn't worth it.) I very much enjoyed Bester's earlier works. THE COMPUTER CONNECTION (also called EXTRO and THE INDIAN GIVER) I read through in one sitting. THE STARS MY DESTINATION is a classic of sf. It is too bad that Bester could not equal his previous acheivements with GOLEM-100. It is too bad that I bought the book.... Anybody want a very slightly used hardback copy of GOLEM-100? *Cheap*? -Landon- ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1980 (Friday) 0844-EST From: PALEVICH at NBS-10 Subject: Golem^100 I read Golem^100 a month ago, and was very disturbed by the ending. Never the less, I seem to recall reading the first half (or third) of the book (the part about Mr. Wish, but without any of the Golem or Hive scenes) several years ago. Can anyone tell me what shorter story Bester has incorporated into Golem^100? Jack Palevich ------------------------------ Date: 15 August 1980 11:37 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Golem^100 Sounds like an expansion of Bester's "The Four Hour Fugue" - same characters, same plot. The short story was great. ------------------------------ Date: 13 August 1980 0220 EDT From: The Editor Subject: Programs for NorEasCon II Chip Hitchcock has provided a copy of the General Interest and Fannish Programs, and the schedule of Guest of Honor appearances at NorEasCon II. Copies of the programs have been established in files at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, and to Chip Hitchcock for making the programs available to us. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS WRLDCN PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLovers-WorldCon.TXT Rutgers PS:WORLD-CON.GUEST-SCHEDULE SU-AI WRLDCN.SFL[T,DON] MIT-Multics >user_dir_dir>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>worldcon-program [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 16 August 1980 00:56 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: TESB opens in Sweden Today is the first day that TESB will be shown in Sweeden. Unfortunately, it opens under a cloud. The Swedish Film Board has decided that the film cannot be seen by those under 15, claiming that the film contains excessive violence and is too scary. This will, of course, affect the box office receipts. The promotors were expecting that 15% of the audiance would be from this age group. (Source: local radio news program) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/16/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They continue the discussion about the taun-tauns and whether Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back glorify war. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1980 0756-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Killing the poor taun-tauns The two major sources for ethics that I know about are (a) religious and (b) philosophical. Religious ethics are generally given as exegesis from some holy writ; philosophical ethics are generally elucidated as moral norms from the prevailing ethos. In a majority of the cases I am aware of, both kinds make a drastic distinction between (say) killing a person and an animal. If you want to throw out the accepted ethics of the society and reason from first prin- ciples as Karen seems to, I don't see anything to keep us from killing >people< as well as animals (cogito ergo sum. So what?). [Besides, it was my understanding that the taun-taun had just died from exhaustion+exposure by the time Han sliced it open. Of course, that does mean he ran it to death...] ------------------------------ Date: 15 August 1980 17:09-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: pore 'ole taun-taun Seemed to me that Solo didn't sacrifice the Taun-Taun, he merely used its dead body. We weren't that repulsed by 'ALIVE', the story of the people who ate their friends in order to survive, so why should we be angry at Han here? True enough, Solo was warned that his Taun-Taun might die, but again he also knew that *he* might die, too. Using the Taun-Taun was the only way that he could reach his friend. I'm sure that Solo would have never intentionally sacrificed the Taun-Taun, but, who can blame him for using its body to give life? ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 08/15/80 23:57:27 Re: poor ole' taun-taun Poor Old Taun-Taun? Solo sacrifices an animal to save one of the Alliance's most NEEDED `warriors'. We know from other NON-ENGLISH speaking intelligences having been seen that the Taun-Taun is ONLY an ANIMAL or SOMEBODY would have been talking to it! Solo also KNOWS it will die, and comments on seeing the officer to which he spoke in HELL. As in HE KNOWS THAT HE MIGHT DIE TOO. For Solo to be expected to be concerned about an animal, must we assume he is not more concerned with his own life? And that in going out to save Luke, he is WILLINGLY laying his life "On the line"? Does he expect to find one small human type out there in all that pretty snow? And what if Solo meets up with one of those things (Wampa Ice Creature Indeed!) that tried to have Luke for dinner? I think (from what an over-the-shoulder observer just said) I can rest my case. {Matt} ------------------------------ Date: 13 August 1980 1605-EDT (Wednesday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: And DIRTY HARRY Too So what's all this then about TESB not having been specific enough about the nature of the baddies? To borrow from D.H., If someone blows up my home planet, and kills my aunt and uncle, and then comes running out of an alley towards me, with a light saber in his hand, I don't stop to ask him if he's collecting for the Red Cross- I BLAST THE F___ER!!! -W.W. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 08/15/80 09:11:49 Re: TESB I hope over the weekend to have my friend respond to the comments published so far answering her charges against TESB. You should be able to see them Monday or Tuesday. Thanks to all of you who have added to this discussion. Larry ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 17 AUG 1980 0231-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #48 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 17 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 48 Today's Topics: Landmark SF Bibliography Query, Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Aug 1980 1620-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft I would like to put together a list of the most important SF work of the last 50 years. Obvious candidates are the recipients of the various awards: Hugo, Nebula, Jupiter. However, some very good works have had to compete against each other for these awards, and a number of worthwhile books are necessarily overlooked. These nominees make excellent candidates for the list. This list would be a particularly useful document for readers who would otherwise spend an enormous amount of time discovering the works on their own accord, even if they had that much spare time. Here are the eligibility criteria for this bibliography query: 1. The work should be considered classic: landmark novels, single author collections, collaborations, or series that established new categories within SF or substantially altered older ones. Single author collections are included so that authors who are far more talented at shorter works are not excluded. For example, Ellison's "Alone Against Tomorrow: Stories of Alienation in Speculative Fiction" and Varley's "The Persistence of Vision" could be considered since both Ellison and Varley are better at writing short stories than novels and these represent their best collections as well as being considered very significant works. 2. Strict fantasy works are not eligible. All of the works nominated should have a strong SF flavor. They may include elements from fantasy, provided that those elements do not overshadow the SF nature of the work. Saberhagen's "Empire of the East" is an example of a novel which includes magic and demons but retains the nature and assumptions of an SF work. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series, and Le Guin's "Earthsea Trilogy" are examples of ineligible fantasy works. 3. Juvenile books are not eligible. By juvenile are meant books that were aimed strictly at the juvenile market (and received as such). For example, Asimov's "Lucky Starr and The Oceans of Venus" would not be eligible. One that was originally intended as a juvenile but received as non-juvenile is Heinlein's "Starship Troopers.", which would be eligible. 4. A story or novel series is eligible in itself. There is a distinction between nominating an entire series, and nominating only one book from a series, because the remainder of the series is not particularly notable. For example, you can nominate only Herbert's novel "Dune" and exclude "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune", or you can nominate the series as the "Dune Trilogy". Also note that a series does not have to consist only of novels to be eligible. For example, Niven's Known Space series, or Asimov's positronic robot series are both eligible, although they have never been collected in a single book. This poll will be run somewhat differently from the earlier bibliography queries, because of the potential for a very large number of responses. The poll will consist of three steps: 1. An initial list of nominations is being distributed through SF-LOVERS today. For the next week people are invited to nominate other works for inclusion in the list by sending the title and author of the work to POLL@MIT-AI. You may include commentary or a review of the work if you wish, but that is not necessary to nominate the work. 2. The following week the final list of nominations along with any commentary will be made available for FTP distribution. People will then be invited to review any of the works or to comment on whether or not specific works that have been nominated should be included in the final list. 3. Lastly, the list will be pruned based on the comments that everyone has submitted. The final list and representative reviews will be made availble for FTP distribution and included in the archives. The following list of initial nominees was culled from three sources: the various awards and nominees, del Rey's book "The World of Science Fiction", and Nicholl's "The Science Fiction Encyclopedia." Initial List of Nominations --------------------------- Aldiss, B. Greybeard -----. Hothouse Anderson, P. Brain Wave Asimov, I. The End of Eternity -----. The Foundation Trilogy (1) Foundation (2) Foundation and Empire (3) Second Foundation -----. The Gods Themselves Ballard, J.G. The Crystal World Bester, A. The Demolished Man -----. The Stars My Destination Blish, J. A Case of Conscience Brackett, L. The Long Tomorrow Bradbury, R. Fahrenheit 451 -----. The Martian Chronicles Bradley, M. The Heritage of Hastur Brunner, J. Stand on Zanzibar Budrys, A. Rogue Moon Cherryh, C.J. Brothers of Earth Clarke, A. The City and the Stars -----. Rendezvous with Rama Clement, H. Mission of Gravity Clifton, M. and Riley, F. They'd Rather be Right De Camp, L. Lest Darkness Fall Delany, S. Babel-17 -----. The Einstein Intersection Del Rey, L. Nerves Dick, P. The Man in the High Castle Dickson, G. Dorsai! Disch, T. Camp Concentration Ellison, H. Alone Against Tomorrow: Stories of Alienation in Speculative Fiction Farmer, P. To Your Scattered Bodies Go Haldeman, J. The Forever War Harrison, H. Deathworld Heinlein, R. Double Star -----. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -----. The Past Through Tomorrow -----. Starship Troopers -----. Stranger in a Strange Land Herbert, F. Dune Hubbard, L.R. Fear Keyes, D. Flowers for Algernon Knight, D. Turning On Laumer, K. A Plague of Demons Le Guin, U. The Dispossessed -----. The Left Hand of Darkness Leiber, F. The Big Time -----. Gather, Darkness! -----. The Wanderer McCaffrey, A. Dragonflight McIntyre, V. Dreamsnake Miller, W. A Canticle for Leibowitz Niven, L. Ringworld Niven, L. and Pournelle, J. The Mote in God's Eye Panshin, A. Rite of Passage Pohl, F. Gateway -----. Man Plus Robinson, S. Stardance Shaw, B. A Wreath of Stars Silverberg, R. Dying Inside -----. A Time of Changes Simak, C. A Heritage of Stars -----. Way Station Smith, C. The Best of Cordwainer Smith Smith, E.E. First Lensman Spinrad, N. Bug Jack Barron Stapledon, O. Star Maker Sturgeon, T. More Than Human Tubb, E.C. The Winds of Gath Vance, J. The Durdane Trilogy (1) The Anome (2) The Brave Free Men (3) The Asutra Van Vogt, A.E. Slan Varley, J. The Persistence of Vision Wilhelm, K. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Williamson, J. The Humanoids Wyndham, J. The Day of the Triffids Zelazny, R. This Immortal -----. Lord of Light ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/17/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some apparent anomalies within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for PROTECTOR and other stories/novels in the series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 08/10/80 15:08:12 Re: LLOYD's query about Protector I believe Home is never mentioned in any other part of the known space series. Ringworld Engineers does not illuminate this problem at all. A cheap but viable excuse that Niven could give is that the protectors on Home carefully hide themselves or go away or something, as they feel that is most beneficial to the humans in the rest of Known Space, and that they are Out There Somewhere. However, I don't think Niven has ever tried to make any excuse for their fate. The Known Space universe has gotten quite big and involved, and even someone as top-notch as Niven is bound to have trouble holding it together. Now, what I *really* want to see is a novel set on Wunderland. Niven has dropped all sorts of hints about the interesting social structure and revolutionary activities going on there; I want to see it up close! ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 at 2137-CDT From: clyde at UTEXAS (Clyde Hoover) Subject: Known Space, Ringworld and the Pak While I don't offhand see any complications within the Protector storyline, the comments by LLOYD@MIT-AI on that led me to think some more about the role of the Pak in the construction of the Ringworld. One thing that did bother me in reading The Ringworld Engineers was that here were these Pak, who apparently upon seeing the fate that the galaxy was about to have visited upon it, built the Ringworld and populated it with the beings of many planets, including Earth, Kzin, and Mars. What disturbs me is the time frame: 1. A group of Protectors and breeders set out along the galactic arms looking for yellow dwarf stars in their hollowed out asteroid slowboat, which moves about .06 lightspeed. These find Sol and its evolving ape men, and decide to set up shop. They are shocked to find that the tree of life will not grow properly. They are stranded on Earth because they used almost their last resources to land there. And they have no guarantee that any other planet in that region will grow tree-of-life. Hence the protectors die and the breeders intermingle with the nascent humans already there. Thinking about it, these protectors almost certainly could not have built the Ringworld, for if they had the technology to build the Ringworld, then they certainly could have refitted their ship to travel to another system to try again or figured out something as simple as lack of thallium in the soil. In any case, they really would have to posses hyperdrive in order to get out TO the worksite, much less move the mass of material involved. Again, if they had hyperdrive (it is possible that the Outsiders swept through the galactic vicinity before), they could have looked for new planets to establish themselves on. 2. Two and one-half million years later, Phssthpok finds the record of this ill-fated expedition, including a 2 million year old distress call. Then many of the resources of the Pak homeworld are cranked up to produce another interstellar ship (which leads to the plethora of ships which follow Phssthpok), and off he goes, having adopted these long lost breeders as his children. Now, in "Protector", we are told of the considerable resources mobilized to build that one ramrocket. Although it is not impossible that another expedition also went out along the galactic arms in search of suitable planets, they would have left a record of at least the collection of resources needed to do it. In a century or two, other ships leave the Pak homeworld, with more childless protectors looking for a piece of this new world. It appears evident that the Pak had no idea of the existence of humanity or even of the planet Earth, in that there is no record of any other expeditions into the galactic arms other than the ill-fated one to Sol. 3. 700 years later, the Ringworld is discovered and it's origin traced back to the Pak. Taking the age estimate in "The Ringworld Engineers" as a good working range, that places the age anywhere from 2 million to 500,000 years. Now, 500,000 strikes me as too young, for Phssthpok had not even gone to the Library yet to discover the lost colonization effort. Two million would be consistent with this colonization flight being responsible, but they didn't have the technology to even save them- selves, much less any other races of the region (and a large region at that -- Kzin is some distance from Earth). To get to the final point: If the Pak knew enough about Earth (and Mars), to put maps of them on the Ringworld (even going as far as putting the control center in the map of Mars), and populate them with the creatures of the era, why didn't they know and do something about the lost colony of Pak on Earth and therefore there would have been no Pak version of the Lone Ranger to ride across the interstellar void to rescue them? I know this seems a bit overboard, as Niven himself writes that the whole thing just sort of came to be and the pieces just sort of fell together, but it seems that a book that took as long to write as The Ringworld Engineers would allow time enough to create some mechanism to fill in this gap. Comments? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 18 AUG 1980 0357-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #49 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 18 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 49 Today's Topics: SF Books - Landmark SF Query & A World Between, SF and Violence, TESB - Glorifies War?, Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Aug 1980 1559-PDT From: Roger Duffey, Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Some reminders about Landmark SF query The one day response to the Landmark SF bibliography query has been very good. However, some reminders are in order: 1. Single short stories are \NOT/ eligible for nomination. A later query may focus on them if there is enough interest. 2. Please be specific with your nominations. We cannot do much with suggestions like "Oh, throw in one of Lem's novels." or "Why not one of Anderson's series?". 3. Please do \NOT/ send in why you disagree with some of the preliminary nominations now. Mixing the new nominations with the disagreements makes it extremely difficult to organize the responses. You will have the opportunity to send in your arguments pro and con during the next phase of the query. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 08/12/80 04:34:41 Re: Sexism and computer networks - A WORLD BETWEEN At last, a good excuse to stick in a plug for a book nobody's mentioned yet! Norman Spinrad has come out with a recent novel called "A WORLD BETWEEN" --- the crux of the story is a "Pink and Blue War" between men and women. Stated like this, it seems rather implausible. In fact, the cover blurb isn't encouraging, and at the checkout desk I wondered what sort of stuffing this turkey would have. Pleasant surprise... it's a good yarn, and Spinrad is a good enough story-teller to carry things off, even if you don't quite go along with everything he says. One particularly interesting aspect is the planet's world-wide computer communications net, which is an integral part of practically everything. In fact, the world's economy is based on its role as an entertainment center for other star systems (information transmission is supralight, matter travels sublight, so interstellar trade is principally based on information flow). He postulates a society, democratic to the core, based on total freedom of access to this global network. As it turns out, its strengths are also its weaknesses... It's interesting; after you finish the story and forget about the sex-conflict plot details (which are fun, incidentally) the world as a whole lingers in the mind... How would YOU set up a worldnet? How are access rights of citizens compatible with an information-based economy? What could be done better? In short, how much of it would work? By the way, all uses of computers/nets portrayed are accurate; none of this nonsense about artificial consciousness, biological analogies (tapeworms, viruses, etc), or logical conundrums blowing pyrotechnic fuses. For this alone I was impressed. --Ken ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 at 2313-CDT From: david at UTEXAS Subject: Killing in a science fiction setting. I am angry that science fiction is being exploited as a medium where killing is "acceptable"; where it is "okay" to kill an "evil" alien. Last night I saw part of an episode of "Galactica 1980". It was grotesque -- not just the miserable acting, sets, and story line, but the reckless "killing". There were "aliens" dropping right and left. Funny thing though, they acted and looked and sounded like humans. And even though it was only a colored beam of light instead of the explosion of a gun, the result appeared to be death after a brief moment of pain. I thought some progress had been made in keeping that crud off television. But here it is, disguised in science fiction and made to look like comics, and it is even worse because it also disguises the horrible reality of killing and death. Does anyone know about groups opposing violence in television? I want to join. Are there creative people who produce entertaining, exciting, and interesting stories based on themes of caring, concern, and cooperation with other creatures: alien, human, foreign, plant, animal, and whatever? ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 2146-PDT (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: violence on TV I am afraid that most of the organized groups that oppose violence on TV (and/or films) are these religious mania types who essentially propose censorship and also are against any aspects of human love (sex) and similar "non-wholesome" subjects. I doubt if you would really be interested in joining up with them. The national PTA organization is involved with TV violence issues, though to what extent I don't know. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 12 AUG 1980 0058-EDT From: JBARRE at MIT-AI (Julie A. Barrett) Subject: Violence It seems that science fiction is not the only medium in which it is ok to go about killing people (or aliens) just for the sake of doing it. How many cop shows have you watched lately? There are plenty of producers and writers who want to put out decent science fiction (and TV shows in general) but the networks, studios, etc. are the ones who insist on putting out the crap we see day after ever loving day on the tube. You might read Harlan Ellison's THE STARLOST because he talks about that kind of activity by studios, networks, etc. Also his GLASS TEAT series might be interesting reading. But in a nutshell, the reason that this garbage permeates into our living rooms is because the executives (praise A.C. Nielsen) think that we want to see that kind of drivel. There's not much you can do except turn off the set. If you want to join a group that is opposed to violence on TV, go to your local PTA. They sponsor a national list of "good" and "bad" programs. Of course, that is just "good" and "bad" in the view of the PTA, but they have genuinely tried to do something about the violence on TV. Also try local church groups in your area. These may be somewhat of a turnoff to some of you, but the fact is, they seem to be the only ones who are trying to do anything about the issue. I think that right now the reason that science fiction is getting a lot of attention in the violence area, is because that is the current trend (or a current trend) in TV. BS Dyslexia and other Star Wars/Close Encounters clones are on the air to make a buck, and let's face it, gang, violence is what sells. It's a sad, but true commentary on our way of life. --julie barrett P.S. That's what makes certain games sell, also--violence. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 (Tuesday) 1433-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: Comments I happen to consider myself pretty much of a pacifist. I am not "good" enough to get C.O. status {A pacifist with a brown belt in Judo seems a bit strange to the Feds} but I would rather switch then fight. However, I really enjoy the Dorsai novels by Dickson, and various other stories which clearly glorify war. I am not altogether sure what this means though. Any comments? It seems it is possible to enjoy such stories, just so long as it is "the other guy" or something. Dave ------------------------------ JTR@MIT-MC 08/16/80 22:20:01 Concerning the discussion on TESB and its content being a glorification of war, one should be reasonable in examining the film's plot line and where such a plot line must take the film. The main subject of the film is a war. As such it is very war centered. You must keep in mind however, that neither the rebel forces or the empire desires the war. Both would rather have peace, only they want peace on their own terms (i.e. without the other around). I am very surprised at the very low casualty counts in both Star Wars and TESB. The storm troopers can't hit the side of a wall with the blasters, even when given the best of targets, there is very little blood when someone does get hit ( notice that the storm troopers could very well be droids for all the 'human' signs you will see from them, no blood, no talking, etc. ). TESB went a little farther toward correcting the above 'problem' than Star Wars, as you actualy see several people get wounded in the film. I really can't see where the film 'glorifies' war any more than your average T.V. show or War monument. Through the entire film, I heard no character say 'Gee, this is fun'. JTR ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 1305-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Known Space Stories Would someone please send in a recommended reading sequence for the entire group of Niven's "Known Space" stories? I would think that some sort of chronological order would be the best, but other approaches are also welcomed and discussions encouraged. I've noticed several similar requests lately, and I think that this is one of the most excellent and rewarding functions of a confederation such as SF-Lovers, whereby those familiar with certain authors/areas can enlighten others just becoming familiar with them. What would the practicality be of establishing some sort of multi-author database, with each branch consisting of each author's universe (selecting those authors who have created a consistent background for many stories)? These branches could contain a list of all relevant publications, in the best possible sequence for reading (admittedly a subjective judge- ment in many cases) and, perhaps, some other background info, such as cross-references to other authors who have shared the construct (such as the group that grew up around Lovecraft), and maybe some general description/introductory remarks. This looks like an ideal project for the world's first computerized fanzine/discussion group. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/18/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some apparent anomalies within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for PROTECTOR and other stories/novels in the series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 11 AUG 1980 1232-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: PROTECTOR anomalies It has been alleged that Niven quit writing Known Space stories specifically because his universe had become too crowded -- he kept inventing new species for a relatively small volume of space, producing unresolved paradoxes such as the one mentioned. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 08/17/80 21:30:59 Re: Pak and Outsiders. The Pak wouldn't have bothered with the outsiders as long as they didn't pose a threat . Pak are notoriously non-inquisitive. Brian Lloyd LLOYD @ AI ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 1980 0012-PDT From: Dave Dyer Subject: Ringworld Engineers I think the protectors would never have built the ringworld in its apparent form, even if they had the technological capability. Ask yourself why a protector would populate his Eden with Kzin? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 1980 0819-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Who built the ringworld Hmm. I had gotten the idea that the planetful of human protectors from Home had done it. In a brief rescan of RwE the only evidence I see one way or the other is an implication that the ringworld is much too old. Am now more confused than before. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 19 AUG 1980 0438-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #50 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 19 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 50 Today's Topics: Global 2000, SF and Violence, SF Books - Dorsai & Known Space Series, Physics Tomorrow - Ringworld Dynamics, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 08/12/80 1315-EDT From: JSOUTH at LL Subject: Malthus, population, doom and gloom, etc. It is not surprising that science fictioneers should take guidance from Malthus, he provided a simple mathematical relationship between population (exponential growth, or geometric as he put it), and food production (constant growth). Such a formula is extremely useful since it can be applied to any society or time. Oh, for younger days before I was awakened from my dogmatic slumbers. I too once believed that the world was becoming overcrowded, and that poverty, starvation, disease, and war were due in large part thereunto. Historical study, current observation, or theoretical considerations (if you're a pure Marxist or pure capitalist at least) show things are not so simple. Starting arbitrarily with a million, let us construct a list of areas con- taining a million people ordered by density. Let us do likewise with 10 million, 100 million, 1 billion, and downwards too if you like. Correlate this with starvation. It won't. Likewise historically. The practical and theoretical joker is Malthus' food production model. I suggest that he was observing the beginnings of exponential growth in productivity, and not having a model for it (as he did for repro- duction), he assumed linear growth. Seventy years ago, conventional wisdom would have insisted on unlimited exponential growth. Today, in spite of only minor, if any, setbacks, it is stylish to insist on low and immediate absolute limits. Let me suggest another model, seemingly unrelated: that innovation transfer can be considered as a gas diffusion process. [*1] This would indicate that in order to increase our production, we require a denser if not a greater population. I think this was true in the jump from hunter-gatherer to agricultural. It would be interesting to try to figure out whether the population increased before or after the start of the industrial revolution in G.B., but I suspect they didn't keep good enough statistics. (Exercise for the reader - try to apply this model to the difficulties of central and southern Africa in their attempt to industrialize, or even feed themselves). [*1] I ought to credit somebody, but I can't remember the name. I'm glad J.E.P. put in his ounce of gold on the recent doom and gloom model before I got in my 2 cents (which would have been on the Club of Rome LIMITS TO GROWTH model anyway). I have a question though, how does one model breakthroughs anyway? I just had an ironic thought. I got to this point via RAH, and now I'm on the other side of prof's position in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS. There, if you recall, prof forced Mike to predict famine in n years (where n was a small integer), as opposed to Mike's original position which included a technological breakthrough. The rest of the plot stems from this prediction. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1980 1234-PDT From: REYNOLDS at RAND-AI (Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) ) Subject: TV network programming (good vs. bad vs. ratings) To respond to comments by David@UTEXAS and Julie Barrett@MIT the issue of what goes on TV is not a matter of what is good or bad since those decisions are made for "business" reasons. Dow Chemical makes (made?) napalm not because it was good, but because it sold. The TV networks are run by the same kind of people, responsible to the stockholders, not to the artistic tastes of the viewing public. Of course there are creative people out there that want to do good stuff, but it is not up to the individuals. The network people know that their income is based on ratings (via their fee schedule which is based on viewership), hence it is irreponsible to let issues like "taste" to enter in. Perhaps when better communication techniques allow lots and lots of bandwith (1000's of times what is available now) it will become feasible to program to smaller audiences. - Craig ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1980 1743-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: dorsai and known space The Dorsai books don't glorify war so much as humanity. Dickson claims to be describing the growth of a social consciousness. One of the major hallmarks of the Dorsai soldiers is that they win wars with the minimum of bloodshed. And that they honor their contracts, debts, and obligations. This extends to all phases of their lives. They also don't seem to hassle you for being whatever you are, unless you hassle them. Read the story "The Lost Dorsai". I believe that the book "Tales of Known Space" has a timeline in it. (by the way i am never absolutely positive about titles of things so.... but i think that the titles i have given here are right.) steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1980 1:38 pm PDT (Monday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Known Space Stories I suggest "Neutron Star" (collection) first, to give you a good background of the various races and history that comes up elsewhere, and probably "Tales of Known Space" (collection) next, since it covers a wider time range and also includes a chronology listing where the novels fit in. Most of the rest can be done in just about any order, though chronological (in the history) is probably best. However, "Ringworld" and "Ringworld Engineers" should almost certainly come last, since they refer back to so much of the rest of the series. -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 1980 0957-PDT From: William Gropp A short analysis of the (in)stability of a ringworld Let the ringworld have radius r, mass m, and mass/length p. Let the parent sun have mass M. Put the center of the ringworld at the origin, with the axis of rotation along the z-axis. Now, place the sun at dr along the x-axis (a small perturbation in the plane of the ringworld). Call the distance from the sun to the part of the ringworld at angle t, R(t). By one of the triangle formulas, we know that R(t) = sqrt(r**2+dr**2-2*r*dr*cos(t)) Using the well known formula for the gravitational potential energy between two masses, we find that the potential energy in the ringworld-sun system is: / 2 pi | r dt U = | --------------------------------- * (-GMp) | (r**2+dr**2-2 r dr cos(t))**(1/2) / 0 This beast can be integrated exactly in terms of elliptic functions of the first kind; if you are interested, look in "Tables of Integrals, Series, and Products" by Gradshteyn and Ryzhik, page 154 (4th ed). However, for dr small compared to r, we can expand the integrand in a taylor series in dr about dr=0 and integrate term by term. The result is 4 pi r**2 + pi dr**2 -GMm dr**2 U = -------------------- * (-gMpr) = ---- *(1 + ------) 2 r**3 r 4 r**2 Note that as you move offcenter, the potential energy of the system decreases; thus the system is unstable. Note that the rotation of the ringworld does NOT affect the motion of its center of mass. A similiar analysis shows that for motion along the axis of the ringworld, the potential energy is: -GMm r U = --- - r R Here R, the distance from the sun to the ringworld, is constant. Note that as the ringworld moves offcenter ALONG ITS AXIS, R is larger than r, so the potential energy increases (becomes less negative), and the system is stable (to perturbations along the axis of rotation) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/19/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss whether Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back glorify war. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 1980 at 2153-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^ THE \REALLY/ BAD THING ABOUT THE "RAISING THE X-WING" SCENE ^^^^ It's not that the X-wing is a 'vehicle of war'. Ken Arnold has demonstrated that reasonably. But David Gerrold in the Sept. STARLOG argues convincingly that the handling of that incident in Luke's training in the Force is a real flaw in the film. Here is the gist of his argument. When Luke fails in his attempt to raise his X-wing from the swamp by using the Force, he complains 'It's impossible!' and stalks off to sulk. He obviously hasn't finished growing up. Yoda's initial assessment of Luke's primary weakness, 'I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience', was not far out. You know how the scene ends: 'I don't believe it!' . . . '\That/ is why you fail.' Then Yoda goes and raises the plane \for/ Luke, denying him a motive for learning. Getting the X-wing 'handed to him on a platter' is certainly no way to teach Luke patience. As Gerrold puts it: "In fact, when we next cut back to Luke and Yoda, Luke is ready to drop everything to fly straight into Darth Vader's trap. And it has yet to be established that Luke has learned how to use the Force for anything more than lifting rocks while standing on his head -- a skill of somewhat limited usefulness." Calm, control, patience -- we largely HEAR about these rather than seeing Luke developing them. For Yoda to be \effective/ as a Jedi m-a-s-t-e-r, in the sense of 'one who teaches', after he has raised the X-wing out of the bog to show it can be done, he should let it drop right back in, telling Luke, 'When you believe you can do it, then do it you will.' "And the next time we cut back to Luke and Yoda, it would be enough to see the fighter out of the swamp again, cleaned off, and Luke grinning like a man who's just discovered he can run the 4-minute mile in 3 and a half." It would have been just as audience-effective. It would show Luke actually progressing in learning about the Force and maturing from the scatty adolescent we saw him on Tattooine. And his subsequent impatience and final catastrophic loss of emotional control would become even more poignant. \That/ is where Lucas failed. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 1980 13:28:02 EDT From: David Mankins Subject: war and tesb Well, I must admit that every so often I find myself swaggering down the street, imagining a light-saber at my belt. My own pet fantasy when SW first came out was that the "next one" would show the rebel victory, and after effects, at which time we'd see Leia elevated to the thrown as Emperess (it still disturbs me that she hasn't dropped that "Princess" -- Gen. Whosits addresses her as that in the early scenes, as Han Solo is usually being sarcastic), Luke heads up the Imperial KGB, and we see scenes with Leia before the Revolutionary Council denouncing Han as a counter-revolutionary, shortly before he gets axed in a resort in Mexico... In the alternative universe TESB, I thought it oddly ironic when OB1 appears on Hoth in front of Luke, and says: "Luke, you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows." Sure, Yoda's lines were a good example of Right Thinking, as far as I am concerned, but somebody decided to cut most of them in favor of lots of zap-pow-booom. [ They could have shown the months Han & Leia had to take getting to Bespin with no hyperdrive, if they thought it was going to look like Luke spent more time on Dagobah than H&L spent bopping around, though I guess that would have complicated the romance a bit--they'd be sick of one another by the time they got to Bespin... ] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 20 AUG 1980 0341-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #51 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 20 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 51 Today's Topics: SF Books - Last Visions & Atlantis, Global 2000, TESB, Physics Tomorrow - Ringworld Dynamics, Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Aug 1980 1235-PDT From: Lasater at SUMEX-AIM Subject: request for information Many years ago, when "Again, Dangerous Visions" came out, Ellison promised us a final sequel to the Dangerous Visions series, "The Last Dangerous Visions". Nine years have now passed since the publication of ADV. The only thing I have heard about the sequel is vague rumors to the effect that it was supposed to come out sometime in 1976. Apparently it did not. Does anyone have any information as to the ultimate fate of the sequel? Robert ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1980 1245-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: DANCER FROM ATLANTIS Recommended A fellow worker here asked me to pass on to the group her enthusiastic recommendation for Anderson's DANCER FROM ATLANTIS. It falls into the recursive time-travel category discussed earlier, but she is just enthusiastic about the book for its own sake, not just because it is about such a subject. I have not yet read it myself, but would read anything by Poul Anderson just because of his authorship. Will Martin ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 08/19/80 18:44:10 Re: Global 2000 food About the nature of the food production curve -- I ran across an interesting item in the paper a couple days ago. It mentions that the threat of large-scale starvation in Asia is drawing closer in spite of "miracle" strains of food crops. The reason is that those plants need lots of fertilizer, and 2/3 of the energy consumed in SE Asia is already devoted to the production of fertilizer. Energy is becoming more expensive & harder to get, therefore they have less fertilizer, therefore less food. (It doesn't help that they continue to make deserts by chopping up any burnable wood in sight). The article didn't cite a source, but it certainly adds some weight to JEP's essays. ------------------------------ Date: 19 AUG 1980 1349-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: doom and gloom? Pournelle's virulently infectious optimism is severely misplaced. Other people have already pointed out that his strategy involves the probable abandonment of Earth and the bulk of its population (whatthehell, they're just gooks anyway); I'll just add that even RAH saw this approx. 30 years ago (in FARMER IN THE SKY a character acknowledges that even with the huge ships in use they can't possibly take off more than a fraction of the population increase -- or absorb it in a colonial world; they're simply hoping to have some racial survival after Earth is ruined). Addressing the question of a breakthrough: There are a number of intended-to-be-humorous laboratory "rules" which many computer people are familiar with even though they are less applicable in the terminal room (I got a full dose of them because I used to be a chemist). Aside from the 1001 permutations of Murphy's Law, there are such gems as "First draw your curves; them plot the data." and "Don't just believe in miracles--rely on them." I contend that this latter is what JEP, JSOUTH, etc. are in fact doing because a technological breakthrough fits many of the usable definitions of a miracle, of which the most important is unpredictability under known physical laws. It's all very well to treat such laws as temporary and superable obstacles in research, but to \expect/ to defeat them is foolish. Looking at the specific example of THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, there is proposed a particularly miraculous breakthrough: the transmutation of lunar rock into food and water. (I suspect that Heinlein may have been deliberately Biblical at this point, since by other evidence he's quite familiar with that overrated book.) The computer which assumed any such breakthrough in even the most optimistic current modeling system would be thought squirrely, and Mike himself admits that he is looking for a breakthrough on the order of 50 years (i.e., 5-500 years, says Manny) away --- and he expects cannibalism (not given this breakthrough) in less than 20[*1]. Treating the rest of JSOUTH's message: Without more statistics than can conveniently be transmitted, I'm not prepared to accept either of his simple models ("dogmatic" or "enlightened"). Malthus' food production model was in fact optimistic. Granted, certain technologies (hardly breakthroughs either; most are over- application of ancient practices) have increased productivity per acre, but such gains have been near zero in recent years --- in fact, we have to keep producing new insecticides (and sometimes herbicides) to keep pest populations under control as they evolve to deal with current methods. I find the figures recently given for rate of loss of arable land quite credible, especially in view of this month's SMITHSONIAN, which carries an article from someone surviving on a farm that is useless according to current high-technology agricultural standards; the best estimates show a loss of 3 to 5 \feet/ of topsoil, the accumulation of over a hundred millennia, in the past 150 years. Nor have I seen any challenges to the assertion of the 1959 edition of the World Book encyclopedia, hardly a gloomy publication given the date and audience, that since the arrival of white men in America the countrywide average depth of topsoil has gone from 9" to 6". The gas diffusion model of innovation, like many simple models, leaves out a few important factors --- such as the fact that labora- tories require substantial amounts of space. Technologists would hardly be immune to the debilitating effects of population pressure --- does anyone believe that a researcher in the world of MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM would be as effective as one now, given the effects of poor nutrition, bad air, simple lack of personal space, etc.? (The geniuses in cubbyholes have commonly been those who worked best alone.) Statistics suggest that despite our slowly increasing population this country is producing fewer and fewer people capable of contributing to even the basic drudgework of research from which a breakthrough is most likely to come. Recall that the first portion of the industrial revolution in Britain had relatively little to do with farming --- I wouldn't be surprised if any increase in the rate of population increase could be attributed to the fact that Britain was producing more manufactured goods which could be traded for food (my recollection is that Britain has been a net importer of food for some time). In any case we are now dealing with a qualitatively different problem; it was trivial, then, to say that if food could be harvested faster and stored better there would be less spoilage, but the total loss today in the fields and in storage (especially if we discount spoilage of grain stored for several years because of policies which encourage the continued production of unusable surpluses, further removing trace nutrients from the land) is small. I would suggest that believers in ultimate salvation by technology consider the modern tomato as a measure of that potential salvation. Bred to a consistent size and ripening time and to a consistency suitable for mechanical harvesting, it is picked green and gassed to make it turn red (which \does/ \not/ ripen it); the result is something not worth the energy to throw it out. The problem with any technological "progress" is choosing the parameters; as SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN pointed out 6 1/2 years ago the traditional choice in energy has been to spend a lot of [energy] finding new sources and very little conserving. I personally am not expecting doom (although I \am/ hedging a few bets) --- unless the people who believe that there just isn't a problem at all get their way. Eat, drink, and be merry, Chip [*1] I recall at least 3 different numbers given (of which at least 2 must be wrong) but all of them were under 20 years). ------------------------------ ZRM@MIT-MC 08/09/80 12:57:39 Re: TESB records The Coop record department (in part of its recent downhill slide) doesn't have the digital TESB suit yet but I did get the TESB soundtrack album: Music, great; Recording, fair; Surface, printed on vinyl recycled from Neil Sedaka 45 rpm's with some melted down Frisbee's thrown in -- RETCH! I had to return 8, no exaggeration, copies before I got one with less than 30 big pops and grunged grooves per side. DOWN WITH RSO! Aside from the annoyance of returning 8 copies of a disk I had to admit to myself that most people who buy this disk own record players that do more damage to a disk than RSO built in to it in one playing and so wouldn't notice the crappy vinyl. This is depressing. It looks as though decent vinyl is goin the way of prime beef. --zig ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1980 0724-PDT From: CSD.TUCCI at SU-SCORE (Christopher Tucci) Subject: TESB Now I know how out of proportion this whole TESB craze really is! Just yesterday I was listening to the radio and I heard a commercial: starting with a catchy tune, it ended with "Oh-oh-oh-oh, what a feeling to buy --- a toy Yoda!" When I called to inquire, they turned out so expensive, too... ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 08/19/80 05:32:10 Re: Stability of the ringworld For those of you who shy away from equations, here is a summary of the instability of the ringworld without the equations to prove it. Suppose you build a ringworld and put it around the sun. Now, suppose there is a little perturbation, or that you didn't place the sun EXACTLY in the center; instead, the sun is closer to some point X on the ringworld than to any other point on the ringworld. That is, the sun is slighly off center, pushed a bit towards point X. If you calculate the graviational force between the sun and the ringworld, you find that there is a net force tending to pull the sun and point X closer to each other. That is, the sun moves closer to point X. Thus, it moves farther off-center: things get worse. The closer it gets to point X, the more it is attracted to point X, and things will just get worse and worse until they crash into each other. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1980 0801-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Ringworld Engineers It seems pretty obvious to me that Niven really didn't want to write RWE, but was pressured into it by agent/publisher/fans/whoever. This seems clear on reading the introduction. It was just a money-making venture, as opposed to the joy of creation which permeated the original Ringworld. Consequently, it's not surprising that there are inconsistencies to be found. Niven's basic skill keeps it from being hackwork, but RWE can't stand up against Ringworld. Ringworld is a joy to read; RWE is interesting, but definitely inferior. The inexplicable anomalies outlined by others are the result of churning out something to meet the demand, not lovingly crafting a precise construct, as a writer may do when SELF-driven. Outside pressure can never equal a writer's desire to perfect his creation. In short, I'm a little surprised that RWE is as good as it is. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/20/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages is the last message in this digest. It discusses an apparent anomaly within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for PROTECTOR and other stories/novels are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 08/18/80 17:19:36 Re: Pak The one obvious hole I see, is that people are assuming only one planet full of pak. It would be reasonable for a group to set up a colony without the rest of the races knowledge (remember war secrets are kept. Since this colony was of one clan, it would not continually war, and might have time to develop hyperdrive, ringworlds, etc. ---jeff ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 21 AUG 1980 0413-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #52 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 21 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 52 Today's Topics: SF Books - Last Visions & Ringworld & Bailey Trilogy, Global 2000, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Aug 1980 1143-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Ellison's "The Last Dangerous Visions" According to the latest SF Review, it's due out in December 1981. Yes, 1981. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1980 1557-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: TLDV When Ellison was here a few years ago, he claimed "It's five volumes and is going to cost $60". Later rumors were that his publisher thought it too expensive; Ellison balked at any cutting; a second publisher screwed up on some contract points and it was stalemated; that Ellison had too many commitments and couldn't finish it on schedule; that it was too big to do any sooner; etc. For a long time, some sf shops I patronized in various cities had a "set of standard answers to standard questions" taped to the cash register, or front of the E shelf, or whatever, reporting the status of TLDV; most people have just stopped asking, and expect that it will happen someday or just be forgotten about. The last time I asked someone who I knew to follow the gossip, I got a response which can be described as a mournful look, a shrug, a pained expression, and an obscene word, in about that order. No information, and I concluded that (a) it is too complicated to explain and (b) I was the 237th person that month to have asked for an explanation. joe ------------------------------ Date: 20 AUG 1980 1454-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Last Dangerous Visions Is going to be a very expensive boxed two-book set with some monstrous amount of material in it (something like three complete novels, including one by John Christopher, and >50 shorter pieces). LOCUS and SF CHRONICLE said in January that it was due this December; a later but less certain source says late 1981. (It seems that Harlan is changing publishers again; he is shifting to Boston's own Houghton Mifflin, along with Kate Wilhelm, and will be at Noreascon for a few hours specifically as part of a tour.) If the book could have been assembled earlier, it probably would have been published by Doubleday, but with Lawrence Ashmead's departure there was probably nobody there who could work with Harlan. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1980 0302-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: The Reasons for Ringworld sequels Now we're going to argue the reasons for sequels? It's straight- forward here. Niven obviously doesn't need the money (although it can't hurt too badly). It's those damned readers who keep begging for more and pawing after him at every convention, in every fanzine, in all his letters, etc. ad infinitum. He's got to do *something* to shut them up, else go insane, bug-nuts. And also, remember that Ringworld, no matter how much we may like it, is an essentially incomplete story, with no real beginning, a middle, and no real ending. The 'resolution' is the strangest one I've ever seen, but a really clever ending for a series. So, its sequel, if reasonably done, can at least attempt to fill out the idea with more concrete information, not to mention satisfying those maniacs out there. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Aug 1980 0157-PDT (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: (1) The Caves of Steel (2) The Naked Sun (3) ??? Does anyone know if Asimov ever plans to write the third book in the Elijah Bailey saga? "The Caves of Steel" and "The Naked Sun" are obviously the first two books of a trilogy. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 20 AUG 1980 0843-EDT From: KLH at MIT-AI (Ken Harrenstien) Subject: Hitchcock 1999?? Are we talking about the same book? Did you read it? I'm confused. If technology is no salvation, and topsoil is disappearing, where is the logic connecting that with your non-expectation of doom? You just didn't mention any alternatives, and I have only vague ideas of what you might be assuming; surely there is no point to a completely negativist attitude? (I don't know what Heinlein has to do with it, unless it all means that you plan on inviting your friends to a joyful discorporation ceremony in the near future.) ------------------------------ Date: 20 AUG 1980 1135-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: "Hitchcock 1999??" I confess to having seen only published fragments of the report that started this uproar --- but I'm annoyed when people who may or may not have read it dismiss it for spurious and invalid reasons. Many of the conclusions published are only quantitatively different from those which the more foresighted people have been warning of for 20 or 30 years (cf the recent "discovery" that in the early 50's the United Automobile Workers [union] warned management that more small cars should be built). My message was a specific response to JSOUTH (having been involved with clashes with Pournelle in other forums I doubt it's worth arguing with him), which is how Heinlein specifically got into it. As it happens, I had been thinking about some of Heinlein's work in regard to Pournelle's recent message; from my perspective Heinlein and Pournelle are virtually indistinguishable politically (though I don't claim they'd be comfortable with each other's beliefs) but Heinlein was seriously considering the problems we now face (and Pournelle now denies) when Pournelle was in school. I do tend to wander in essays which haven't been formally drafted (you should read some of my apazines if you want to see some really random paths) so I hope this clarifies the matter. As for the coming doom, note my specific words: I personally am not expecting doom (although I \am/ hedging a few bets) --- unless the people who believe that there just isn't a problem at all get their way. Again, this could have been expressed more precisely, and it's possible I'm attributing more to Pournelle than he would acknowledge. My impression (based on reading several of his essays and skimming several others, and on his recent reply) is that he believes that the only social change needed for us to survive is to persuade government to spend the money in the right places and get rid of "useless" regu- lations --- technology will take care of the rest. I see our only chance as a major revision of social priorities --- but looking at postwar Japan and Germany (which, with worker participation in management, is arguably closer to "democracy" than we are now despite its largely autocratic history) I see no reason, despite the fact that they had outside help, why "salvation" should not begin with such an effort of personal will. Remember "Let the word go forth . . . that we will pay any price, bear any burden. . . "? It's a lot easier to be inspired than to actually take the individual steps, make the potentially temporary sacrifices necessary to break ourselves out of this rut --- but it \is/ \not/ impossible, and may be a lot easier than finding a technological miracle. (I see I'm getting perilously close to the poverty-chastity-obedience line of some of the really fanatical "environmentalists" so I'll sign off -- hope this clarifies my opinions somewhat.) ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1980 at 1024-PDT From: chesley at sri-unix Subject: Dloom & goom Peter Vajk expanded the Club of Rome study to include space colonies, and got a much more optimistic prediction. Only a small part of this was due to a part of the population moving to space. The larger part was due to increased availability of energy (via solar power satellites), which increases the rate at which underdeveloped nations develop, which decreases the birth rate (for those of you who didn't know, developed nations have a much lower birth rate than undeveloped nations). A breakthru in fusion research would have much the same effect, I'd expect. Of course, the future of space colonies and solar power satellites is fuzzy at best. It requires either substantial initial funding by the Govt. or some other large organization or consortium, or a breakthru in cheap launch systems. So there's two areas where a breakthru would help greatly. Fusion research seems to be going as fast as it can, with no practical results expected this century, but we can keep our fingers crossed. Cheap launch systems may be given a boost (excuse the pun) by the ever-almost-present unified field theory when it arrives. In the area of food production, genetic engineering holds great promise, and is growing (oh no, two puns in one letter) like anything. The point being that when we talk about breakthrus, we don't have to hypothesize something totally unexpected: there are at least a few within sight. (Anyone with more expertise in the areas mentioned above, or others, who can make more detailed comments?) --Harry... ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/21/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 19 August 1980 2044-EDT (Tuesday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: Hjjh's commentary T'would seem to me that If Luke had developed to a stage where he could lift his own X-wing, he might also have kept his hand. -w- ------------------------------ Date: 19 August 1980 1451-EDT (Tuesday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: David Gerrold's Analysis Not only does Yoda's lifting the fighter hurt Luke's schooling but it enables Luke to run off and encounter DV earlier. This should be something that Yoda doesn't want (or does he?)... -Lee ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1980 23:44-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Lifting the X-wing in TESB. Like most people, I also interpreted that scene as Luke failing to lift the X-wing, and Yoda showing him that it is possible by doing it. If that is what really happened, then the objections of Gerrold and HJJH (see SFL V2 #50) may be valid. However, my friend JoAnn, whose thought-paths are often orthogonal to mine, came up with a significantly different interpretation, with which I now agree. In her view, Yoda INTENDED for Luke to fail, at which point Yoda would yank the X-wing out of the muck and teach Luke not only that it was possible, but that Luke was still a novice and should have more patience. But something went wrong: Luke was actually starting to lift the thing! (Remember Yoda's raised eyebrows?) This could not be allowed - Luke might get wild ideas like going off and fighting Darth Vader single-handed (sick). So Yoda MADE Luke fail by pushing the X-wing back down! I don't think the evidence is conclusive either way, but JoAnn's interpretation seems to me to fit better. I think there was a lot more going on in this scene than just weightlifting. However, Gerrold and HJJH may have the same or similar objections; I don't want to comment on them because I haven't read Gerrold's piece yet. Other opinions? --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 1980 1300-PDT From: REYNOLDS at RAND-AI (Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) ) Subject: lifting X-wing out of swamp Perhaps as HJJH@UTEXAS suggested it would have been better to let Luke lift the X-wing out of the swamp again rather then "handing it to him on a platter". The real problem as Luke and Yoda knew was that if you get too much water in the Revelstrad Anti-Quampus pumps on the top of the X-wing you are sure to suffer a poorly formed jorkex field at low velocities. Hence they were just anxious to keep the hardware in good shape. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 22 AUG 1980 0551-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #53 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 22 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 53 Today's Topics: Current Events, WORLDcon Rider Wanted, SF Books - Ringworld & Landmark SF Query, Global 2000, TESB, SF Movies - CE3K Revised ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Aug 1980 0227-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Gdansk, Poland: MYOB! [eom] ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1980 2326-EDT (Wednesday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Rider wanted I will be driving round trip to the WorldCon from Rochester, NY. I am looking for a rider to split usual. Non-smoker preferred. -Lee ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1980 1551-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: RWE I don't understand why I was disappointed in Ringworld Engineers; I have some conjectures which I offer which may help others who felt the same: . It is mostly a travelogue, and much of the travel and description does not contribute to the plot . In Ringworld, which I recently re-read to make certain (and the re-reading pleasantly confirmed my memories) I was completely blown away every few pages by yet another totally marvelous idea. The description of how the puppeteers migrated is something I found to be one of the most memorable incidents in sf. I didn't find anything comparable in scope or vision in RWE. . There seemed to be almost an effort to bind together a lot of the previous Known Space stories. While one expects that such autonomous stories would not be amenable to this, the attempt seemed unnecessary except to allow the author to say "Look, it's all there, and explained, so quit asking me why the inconsistencies". . I did not find the characterization to be done as well as in much of Known Space; in particular, I thought Louis Wu to be too wearied of life and never really rallying back. I had similar reactions to Clarke's next-to-last novel, and PJF's last Riverworld book. I don't need the here-is-a-marvellous-new-environment- and-it-looks-like-this-and-now-we-take-the-train-through-the-jungle type of sf unless there is something fundamental to the plot (for example, the "travels" in "Mote" present a subtle set of social pheonomena among the descriptions). Partly, I think it was a disappointment in expecations; we /expect/ Niven to do something completely devastating, and when he merely writes good sf, it is a bit of a letdown. joe ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1980 at 2323-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "LANDMARK" NOMINATION ADVICE REQUESTED ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I'd like to nominate the \first/ or the \first major/ SF book with a female protagonist as a landmark. The problem is "which?"... and, whether my assessment of the status of SF books of 30 years ago is reliable. The 'first' was Judith Merrill's SHADOW ON THE HEARTH from Doubleday in 1950 (revised 1966). WAS it ever widely enough known among SF- readers to be considered a landmark? Did it, for instance, have SF Book Club distribution? I do know that it's unusual in not ever having had a paperback edition. All the other "fempro" books by notable authors in the 50's have had. But, as Nicholls' SF ENCYCLOPEDIA says, "her studies of individuals facing unprecedented situations are unrivalled in the sf of the period; she was perhaps a little before her time". If SHADOW... is not a good candidate, the next question is which of two from 1951 could best be characterized as \first major/? From our vantagepoint in 1980, it would surely be DeCamp's ROGUE QUEEN rather than Sam Merwin, Jr.'s, HOUSE OF MANY WORLDS. But from what I read, it seems that back in the 50's, Merwin was much better known than today. ROGUE QUEEN has had a better track record in editions and reprints, in the long run, but HOUSE's record is not all that bad. I would appreciate others' appraisal of this situation, either in SF-L or directly to me. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 1980 at 0220 EDT From: Roger Duffey Subject: First as a criterion in the Landmark SF Query I am afraid that HJJH's dilemma arises from a problem with the term "landmark" which I chose as the title for this query. I am responding at large, because some of the other responses appear to reflect the same dilemma. I did not intend for anyone to use the title term as an unstated criterion for the query. The query is seeking series and novels that had a major impact on the field, that opened new areas or refined old ones. The intention was to create a list of references that would trace the evolution of the field over the last 50 years. There are two problems with using "first" or "first major" as an additional criterion for this query: [1] The body of work that eventually comes to characterize an area or theme in SF may not include the work that was first historically. As an example consider robots in SF. Prior to 1930, Frankenstein and R.U.R. characterize the plight of the robot: robots are created and destroy their creator. The major body of work that defines modern science fiction's view of the robot is Asimov's positronic robot series. However, Asimov was not the first to write about robots that were "machines designed by engineers, not pseudo-men created by blasphemers. ... [that] reacted along rational lines that existed in their `brains' from the moment of construction". [*1] The "Adam Link" stories by Binder precede Asimov with this kind of robot and even foreshadow parts of the 3 laws. While Binder with a few others such as Lester Del Rey's Helen O'loy preceded Asimov, I doubt if anyone can argue that the "landmark" defining work is not Asimov's. [2] The body of work that eventually comes to characterize an area or theme in SF may include several novels or series. Using "first" as a major criterion would tend to discourage consideration of later important work in the area. For example, consider the "post-holocaust" area. There are at least three important works that characterize it: Pangborn's DAVY, Miller's A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, and Stewart's EARTH ABIDES. I would not like to see any of these eliminated on the basis that they were not the "first" in this area. Similar remarks can probably be made for the "female protagonist" area. I would be very surprised to find that a single novel characterizes this development. [ HJJH? ] In short, using "first" as a criterion will tend to distort the query's viewpoint of the field and neither Stuart nor I intended you to use it in that way. [*1] From Asimov's introduction to THE REST OF THE ROBOTS. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1980 1436-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Facts on Economic Development The September issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is devoted to Economic Development. I just got my issue, so have not read the articles. However, the general topics (PEOPLE, FOOD, WATER, ENERGY) look interesting, and there are many 'case study' articles (focusing on China, India, Tanzania, Mexico). Seems like a good source of hard information on present development efforts and pathways to the future. Jim ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 08/21/80 11:12:14 Re: Doom & Gloom and fusion research. Without having the documents to prove it at my immediate disposal, it has long been my understanding that fusion research is not progressing as rapidly as possible as CHESLEY@SRI has indicated. According to a spokesman for a government funding agency for fusion (unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the agency) that gave a seminar here at MIT about a year ago, the largest bottleneck in fusion research is FUNDS! (not surprised, eh?) This gentlemen was claiming that the amount of money being spent on fusion research in this country could be increased by a factor of TEN before the next bottleneck to progress would gum up the works. (after all, a bottle without a neck might well BE progress in this case) Naturally, one must always listen to such claims with tongue in cheek, especially when they are being made by someone who has more than a passing interest in seeing the funds for fusion increase. Nevertheless, he is supposed to be in a position to know, and I tend to believe him qualitatively if not quantitatively. If for no other reason, I have yet to see an area of research that did not necessarily require a major theoretical breakthrough that could not get a speed improvement by the application of large doses of fiscal salve. I couldn't agree with CHESLEY more when he indicates that one of the best ways to avoid having the "doom and gloom" predictions come true would be to perfect practical fusion power. Therefore, I will risk standing on a soap box long enough to say, "MORE CASH FOR FUSION!!". And now I will sign off before I fall off. . . Greg ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 1980 1022-PDT From: Richard Pattis Subject: Pot-shots at Imperial Storm Troopers On a recent TV interview, a pentagon official gave the following statistic: "There were 800,000 rounds of smallarms fire for each person killed in WWII." Although I am not quite sure of how the components of this statistic were computed, this might be a partial vindication of the Imperial Storm Troopers. Rich ------------------------------ Date: 13 August 1980 0807-EDT (Wednesday) From: Steve Byrne at CMU-10A Subject: TESB Two things have I to say: 1) In the closing scene of TESB, we see a large mass of stars (apparently a galaxy) ROTATING IN REAL TIME. I did some calcu- lations in high school that indicated how often a galaxy such as ours rotates, and it doesn't do so real time. It was fun to watch, though. 2) Not being a student of English, it occurred to me that Yoda might be speaking in 'passive' voice, which would account for his odd patterns of speech. Anyone out there know for sure? Steve ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1980 1757-PDT From: REYNOLDS at RAND-AI (Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand)) Subject: SW names: TNH and TESB It should be pointed out that the initials that have been used in this Digest for the 4th film in the Star Wars Saga is not really correct, the full name of #4 is: Star Wars: The New Hope as #5 is: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back The subtitle and chapter of #4 was left off so as not to confuse the masses. In rerelease the full title will be restored. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/22/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in the digest. It discusses an observation made by Robert Lange in [SFL V2 #37] about the revised version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the in-jokes of the mothership. People who have not seen either version of the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 11 August 1980 23:55-EDT From: William B. Daul Subject: CE3K -- an 8 year olds observation This 8 year old came out of the film and made the same observation as one of our other readers here on SFL. He thought that the alien who came out just before the mother ship took off was actually Neary. He thought that Neary had been transformed inside the ship, when the glitter fell from the inside of the spacecraft. In the CINEFANTASTIQUE (vol. 7 no. 3) page 90 there are four pictures of in-jokes that were incorporated into the exterior of the mothership (R2D2, Darth Vader's TIE fighter, a mailbox, and a WW 2 fighter from 1941). Has anyone seen any of these? And is R2D2 seen just as the mothership turn upside-down on the ship's outer rim? --Bill ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 23 AUG 1980 0408-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #54 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 23 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 54 Today's Topics: What happens at a Con? - Party, SF Books - Mechasm, Global 2000, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Aug 1980 0811-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Worldcon Party There will be a SFL party at WORLDCON. Time: 10:00pm friday, 29 Aug. Place: a room has been arranged, but its number is not known at this time. A blurb in the daily sheet at the Con will give you this information. Bring: whatever you want. Beer, soda, munchies, are always needed. There will also probably be a tour of MIT given that weekend for SFL people. Time yet to be determined. It should be determined by the party friday, and will probably be sometime saturday. Questions? Mail to me and I should reply tuesday afternoon (I will be gone from a computer till then). Jim [For those who asked - WORLDcon runs from 29 Aug thru 1 Sept. -- RDD] ------------------------------ SBL@MIT-AI 08/18/80 08:43:25 Subject: MECHASM A few years back, I picked up John Sladek's "Mechasm" as part of a special series of "forgotten classics" by some publisher. (this series also included L. Frank Baum's delightful "The Master Key"). "Mechasm" has been reprinted in paperback, so I thought I'd review it here. "Mechasm" is a story of a toy company, which has made the same style of doll since the 1930's. Finding itself going bankrupt, it decides to get money for doing government research. They come up with "The Reproductive System", a machine which reproduces itself and self- mutates. Inevitably, the system gets out of hand of its creators. "Mechasm" is very funny, with some interesting characters and situations. Sladek writes something like Laumer, but the quality is somewhat uneven. You will have to suspend your disbelief for this book, since some of the situations and coincidences are just TOO unbelievable. I liked this book, and believe that many will enjoy it as light reading. It's only $1.95; a bargain at today's prices. -- Steve Lionel ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 08/13/80 23:57:44 Re: Only One Earth??? Mama Terra sure is a nice place, BUT if for some reason the human race manages to mismanage itself to the point where the only possible futures are: a) to burst Earth's seams and die, or b) get OFF and give the poor planet a breather, I would think the latter is the better choice. And so would, of course, Jerry Pournelle...A Step Farther Out (non-fiction) and The Endless Frontier (mostly fiction) make some good points. -leor ------------------------------ ZRM@MIT-MC 08/12/80 22:57:14 Re: Using up planets Do I really need to get into thermodynamics? EVERYTHING wears out. The whole universe will eventually be a cold, homogeneous, inert, "colloid" of all the matter and all the energy in it, whether or not the universe oscillates or is overdamped. This planet will wear out alot faster because it supports highly organized structures that require energy to be maintained and therefore generate more entropy around them. This ain't ecology, it's physics. Since we havn't found a way to get around Einstein, much less Newton, we had best start thinking about either cutting down on the complex assemblies on this planet (of which humans are the most complex, and I don't think anyone wants to stand by and just watch the starving starve) or get on with reaching out for the resources of the rest of the solar system. Perhaps the no nukes crowd will think twice when the countries that rely on the green revolution start accusing them of genocide. --zig ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 1980 1132-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: Gloom and Doom Let me quote verbatim the abstract of a report. This abstract appeared in the 7/22/80 issue of NTIS's Behavior and Society Newsletter, p. 364. I have not read the full report. Has anyone? Title: "On 1012: A Check on Earth Carrying Capacity for Man" Author: C. Marchetti Affiliation: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg [sic] "The report examines the issue of how much human population the earth can tolerate. The result of this analysis is that from a technological point of view a trillion people can live beautifully on the Earth, for an unlimited time, without exhausting any primary resource and without overloading the environment. The global view of the problems and of their solutions makes the difference, and shows that most of the physical limits to growth stem from an inappropriate frame of reference." Comments? Mike ------------------------------ Date: 21 AUG 1980 1407-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: modeling against disaster My chief objection to models which suggest we will be much better off with satellites beaming down power to the ground comes in several pieces: 1. I have been told that solar flux in the bands used by solar cells is no more than twice as high in orbit as in, for instance, the American Southwest. Granted, there is some advantage to having the power available for longer periods but even a synchronous satellite would be shadowed for ~2.3 hours a day which would not be at the minimum demand time. 2. The question of the effects of the huge amounts of microwaves has never been adequately dealt with. What kind of leakage would there be from a beam carrying a useful amount of energy? (Would you believe Heinlein also considered this ~30 years ago? See WALDO (in book form as WALDO & MAGIC, INC.).) Presumably safeguards would cause the beam to shut down at once if directional control were lost, and air traffic could be rerouted (which would put a greater strain on an already fouled-up air traffic control system) to avoid the receiver sites. 3. The energy that will be beamed down is ~90% energy that otherwise would not have been captured by the Earth at all. No matter how the energy is used, most of it will end up as waste heat. I do not know of anyone who has calculated what the effect would be of continually supplying a significantly greater amount of energy to the earth's \surface/ than it would otherwise receive but I have severe misgivings, especially considering that there are meteorologists who say that we are nearing the end of a period of optimally equable climate. If Phoenix becomes uninhabitable, we'll survive; if Los Angeles has to be evacuated (a far from impossible prospect, given its water dependence) we may have problems. These are inquiries from a relatively lay perspective; I suspect anyone with direct experience and without a stake in the matter could find others. I would also be interested in hearing what answers to this come from knowledgeable people who again have no stake in the matter. I'm not unbiased myself; I confess to an enchantment with the devices Jesco von Putkamer has proposed to build the satellites, and I share the opinion of many SF writers and fans that it was foolish to go straight for the moon rather than building intermediate space stations, but there are questions which I just don't think have been asked. ------------------------------ Date: 22 AUG 1980 0220 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Energy systems This discussion began with reviews of the Global 2000 report and A Step Farther Out. In part it has developed into a discussion of energy systems and in particular SPS. While I do not want to artificially constrain the discussion, I do want to mention that there is a special mailing list devoted to the discussion of energy problems and proposed solutions: ENERGY@MC. A prolonged discussion of energy systems is more appropriate for that list than for SFL. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/23/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 22 August 1980 15:07-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: SW Titles I thought the title of SW4 was Star Wars: 'A' New Hope, but I could easily be wrong... ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1980 1944-MDT From: FISH via THOMAS at UTAH-20 Subject: Re: Jef Poskanzer : Lifting the X-wing in TESB. Interesting, but I think the plot was intended as the surface reading would show: Luke tried and partially succeeded, gave up, Yoda yanked the X-wing so Luke could get on with the confrontation w/DV. Now as to hidden motivations and conflict: Yoda deliberately foiling Luke, Yoda as a lousy teacher (giving it to him instead of having Luke keep trying, with the attendant gain in strength for said confrontation), etc., I think they make very interesting alternate movies which \could have/ been written, but weren't. (Does the book shed any light as to motivation?) I think real works of fiction (much less fact) have to be accepted as having minor inconsistencies and lapses which come out later. Movies are made, not born. -Russ ------------------------------ Date: 21 AUG 1980 1118-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Frankly, I get the feeling that Yoda and Vader may \both/ be playing Luke like a fish on a line. It's quite believable that Luke, for all his defense of the Force against real skeptics like Han, doesn't have the slightest grasp of the magnitude of the powers he's dealing with (the most spectacular \physical/, as opposed to sensory/mental, thing he's seen anybody do with the Force is his own calling of his lightsaber) and needs a vigorous demonstration. It's also possible that Yoda knows Luke has made sufficiently little progress that he can't keep his mind on his [work] when he knows his friends are endangered (sounds callous when it's phrased that way, doesn't it?) and sets him up for an "I told you so" that may crack that thick skull and let a little light in. It's also obvious from our first sight of him that there is a streak of playfulness in Yoda at odds with the traditional vision of a Buddhist master; he's 800 years old and completely isolated, and he may think this whole hoo-raw is a joke. However, in terms of the \story/, I do suspect that Gerrold has caught a point where pedagogy was sacrificed to the plotline. But do you really think someone who \could/ lift an X-wing would be beaten by someone whose greatest achievements with the Force are choking admirals from a distance and throwing around the furniture? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 1980 1037-PDT From: Craig Milo Rogers Subject: TESB Closing Scene Perhaps the rotating nebula in the closing scene of TESB is a reference to The Black Hole. Craig Milo Rogers ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1980 at 0139-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB PARALLELS AND ALTERNITY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Non-computer-person JOHN M. reports: To date, no one seems to have noticed the parallels between Han Solo in SW-4 and Harry Morgan, Bogart's character in TO HAVE AND TO HAVE NOT. Both Han and Harry have a ship for hire | need money | engage to ferry 2 people from 'here' to 'there' | (the people are connected with a resistance movement) | have to be persuaded to undertake the trip | shoot a 'black hat' from under a table | are 'cynics with hearts of gold' | and eventually end up in the resistance themselves. (This obviously explains that business, as Han was leaving the cantina, where Leia was leaning against the door jamb asking, "Anybody got a match?") ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 08/08/80 10:45:22 Re: SW's in alternate universes The casting of Cheech and Chong to play the parts of Hans and Chewbacca was a stroke of pure genius! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 24 AUG 1980 0505-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #55 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 24 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 55 Today's Topics: Bibliography Queries and Responses, Known Space Anomalies, Original SF?, SF Books - 4 Hour Fugue & Female Protagonist & Asimov's Robots & Lens Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DERWAY@MIT-AI 08/18/80 22:40:31 Re: Dickson's Universe. I have only read Dorsai!, but I understand that it is part of a series of about 12 novels, called the "Childe" cycle, and dealing with a history of the human race. What are the other stories, and what is the order? Thanks... Don ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1980 1813-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Language/linguistics in SF I'd like to expand my original request for SF material in which language or linguistics is a serious element, because there were so few responses. (As yet I haven't looked up the SF encyclopedia entries.) I don't want to overdefine what I'm interested in, but it includes the Earthsea trilogy by Ursula Leguin. The way she deals with language constitutes a serious inquiry into language and the relationship between language and reality. Examples: (1) with a spell you can conjure up food and eat it, but it won't nourish you, since it's only words. (2) To use a true name to change something's true nature changes the entire universe. (3) In the original (true) tongue, humans cannot lie -- but dragons can. Leguin doesn't just \ask/ these questions; she goes into them, in a way integral with the theme and action of the works. Does that stir any ideas? Same idea as before: reply directly to me, and I'll republish when appropriate. Thanks in advance, and thanks again to those who've already suggested works. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 24 August 1980 02:20 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Responses on Invented Words / Cats Cats in SF: ----------- The King of the Cats by Saki Something no one mentioned is the short story, The King of the Cats, by (I think) Saki. Not as good as Tobermory, but bizzarre enough to be worthwhile. The references to myths of the King of the Cats were also rather intriging, I thought. -- DOORWAYS IN THE SAND by Roger Zelazny One of Zelazny's tales featured an alien disguised as a cat. I believe it was 'DOORWAYS IN THE SAND'. -- Dave Mellinger Acronymic Curses: ----------------- During my youth in the gutter, we always thought that fuck was an acronym. According to the story, it used to be placed on a sign in front of people in the stocks. This was done to describe their crime. In this case "for un-lawful carnal knowledge". Thus these people were known as fuckers. I can't prove that the above is true but the etymology is known to people that come from various parts of the country. -- ------------------------------ MCTESQ@MIT-MC 08/21/80 03:32:43 Re: Known Space I just re read "World of Ptavvs" and a thought occured to me. Could the Pak be the Tnuctip? Michael Toy mctesq@mc ------------------------------ ZRM@MIT-MC 08/12/80 23:36:03 Re: magazine As all of you know, this telezine has been a big success in promoting dicussion on subjects from the obvious SF topics to sociological and hard science topics. SF-L, and the other digest mailing lists, have also been pioneers in electronic publications, tools for experimentation. The logical outgrowth of this success is a fiction magazine. Whereas SF-LOVERS is a forum for discussions **ABOUT** SF, this new entity will be a vehicle for sharing original SF material. New authors who want to test the waters might find the SF-L readership a good group to try things on. Anonymity will be main- tained for those who wish it. Please send any material you might have on line to me, ZRM@MC, for consideration. I already have some material on hand as the result of MARG's earlier query. Some details of the final form of this telezine will be filled out as the volume and quality of material become apparent. Distribution will be via FTP, in the same way that larger tracts of material related to the SF-L digest are distributed, and a table of contents will go out with the SF-L digest that contains an announcement of distibution. I hope some dormant creativity has been awakened and I look forward to reading your submissions. skoal --zig ------------------------------ Date: 18 August 1980 1330-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Bester "The Four-Hour Fugue" was first published in Analog in 1974; it was reprinted in at least: Bester, A.: Starlight (Doubleday, 1976; SFBC) Wolheim, D.A.: The 1975 Annual World's Best SF (DAW, 1975; SFBC) ------------------------------ Date: 21 AUG 1980 1138-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Re: female first [SFL V2 #53] I haven't read SHADOW ON THE HEARTH, but I would be much more inclined to support it than either of the other two, which I have read and don't consider to be good examples of the female lead; in both the female is ridiculously typed and one-dimensional. The real question is what book first gave a woman a non-traditional role \in/ \all/ \its/ \aspects/ --- i.e., not necessarily even THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, in which the heroine outmasses the hero but is described as thinking "...that an electron is something the size and shape of a small pea." I have further comments on some of the specific choices in the current list which I'll be sending directly to POLL. Re: (1) The Caves of Steel (2) The Naked Sun (3) ?? [SFL V2 #52] At the end of THE REST OF THE ROBOTS, which contains 8 short robot stories and both the mentioned novels, Asimov notes that the second novel was finished at just about the time he began writing extensively in the fields of science and other fact. He says there was obviously a third novel to be written, probably on Aurora (where there is the proper ratio of robots to humans, as opposed to Earth (too few robots) and Solaris (too many)). This postlogue was written around 1960, and although I'd like to see the third book of the trilogy I suspect it would be a wrench because of the >20-year gap and because he probably has never had the necessary inspiration for it and would be writing out of duty, which, as argued in the current discussion of RINGWORLD ENGINEERS, does not make for a good piece of SF. There \has/ been at least one Bailey-and-Olivaw short story since then; it appeared in ANALOG in the early 70's and involved a theft of a research idea on board a spaceship --- and of course there's "The Bicentennial Man"; but there is little if anything else I can recall that he's done with the positronic robots since 1957. (vague recollection of a story in which two robots conclude they have a quasi-religious "duty" to man, similar to the idea of Williamson's "With Folded Hands", and "Segregationist", in which humans consider the robot form so desirable that they have themselves [converted]) ------------------------------ Date: 22 AUG 1980 0220-EDT From: Roger D. Duffey, II Subject: The Positronic Robots of Isaac Asimov Asimov notes in IN JOY STILL FELT, that the 3rd Bailey-and-Olivaw novel was to be entitled THE BOUNDS OF INFINITY to balance the title of his earlier novel THE END OF ETERNITY. He began the novel soon after he terminated his teaching duties at Boston University. Although started with enthusiasm, the writing of the novel moved very slowly and only with great effort. At the same time his science writing was going quickly and well with several books and the beginning of his monthly science column for F&SF. He dropped the novel in October 1958 so he could devote more time to science writing, which he enjoyed and felt to be important. Asimov has added 6 stories to the robot series since 1957/58: [1] "Segregationist" is a brief viginette of a world where humans desire metal replacements for their organs which make them more like robots and robots desire fibroid replacements for their components which make them more like humans. First published in ABBOTTEMPO, Book 4 (1967), the story is also available in Asimov's collection NIGHTFALL AND OTHER STORIES. [2] "Feminine Intuition" is about a feminine robot developed for intuition and specifically to develop guesses about which suns have habitable planets. The 80 year old, retired Susan Calvin plays a brief but essential role in this story. It was first published in F&SF (October 1969). [3] "Mirror Image" is the only other Bailey-and-Olivaw story that has been written to date. It is a short story centering on a disagreement between 2 scientists who both claim to have developed an important mathematical technique and then told the other about it. The problem is complicated when each scientist's robot confirms his master's story. This story was originally published in ANALOG (May 1972) and has since been reprinted in THE BEST OF ISAAC ASIMOV (Sphere Press, 1973). [4] "That Thou Art Mindful of Him" centers around the question of how can robot judge whether or not to obey an order, especially on Earth where people who are not familiar with robots may give them irresponsible orders. In essence what is a human being that robots should be mindful of them? This story was originally published in FINAL STAGE (1974), an anthology of the "ultimate" stories on several common SF themes. [5] "The Tercentennary Incident" returns to the theme of a robot in the guise of a political leader, which Asimov first explored in the 1946 "Evidence" (see I, ROBOT). Here a secret service agent thinks the President of the US may have been assassinated and replaced by a robot. This story first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (August 1976). [6] "The Bicentennial Man" again returns to the theme of what distinguishes a robot from a human being, and provides what appears to be Asimov's final answer. A very important story and in my personal opinion one of the best science fiction short stories ever written. This story was published in STELLAR SCIENCE FICTION #2 (edited by Judy Lynn DelRey). Stories 2, 4, 5, and 6 are also available in the Asimov collection THE BICENTENNIAL MAN AND OTHER STORIES. Anyone interested in a complete bibliography of the 29 positronic robot/MULTIVAC stories should see James Gunn's critical review "On Variations of a Robot" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (July 1980). My single complaint about the article is that he has failed to distinguish between the MULTIVAC and positronic robot series. Also you should be aware that the article gives spoilers for virtually all of the stories. Cheers, Roger ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/24/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses the appropriate reading order for E.E. (Doc) Smith's Lens series, and contains spoilers for THE VORTEX BLASTERS. People who have not read that novel may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 08/12/80 0849-EDT From: JSOUTH at LL Subject: Lensman series ordering [SFL V2 #39] Ref: ordering of Lensman series (also something of a spoiler). For some reason, when I read the Vortex Blasters (long, long ago), I got the impression that it took place after the Children of the Lens. I don't recall any dialog to that effect, but Storm Cloud's abilities seem to fall into the 2 and 1/2 stage area and he doesn't go to Arisia, and he doesn't fight Boskone. Furthermore the whole atmosphere, execpt for the vorticies, seems peaceful; and that problem is just mutual error by beings of essentially good will. I thought that this was the natural development of mankind, as opposed to the forced development practiced by the Arisians. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 25 AUG 1980 0752-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #56 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 25 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 56 Today's Topics: Global 2000, SF Books - Female Protagonist & Landmark SF Query, Acronymic Curses, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 August 1980 1117-EDT (Thursday) From: Mike Inners at CMU-10A (C621MI10) Subject: Resource Exhaustion Have any of the studies cited considered the problem of 'resource capital' in developing new technologies? Any 'save the world' technology will require massive deployment to have substantial effect. The amount of resources needed, for example, to replace all of the oil, coal, and uranium burning power generators with fusion generators (if there was a breakthrough tomorrow) would be staggering. Not to mention building new support facilites, such as deuterium separation plants, etc. Plus undoubtedly political problems - after all, who wants an H-Bomb in THEIR city? [ not that I think fusion plants are dangerous, but many current 'no-nukes' fanatics might, also oil companies and coal mining states would be a bit upset ] With many third-world countries struggling as fast as they can to become 'developed', they will undoubtedly want to be the same kind of resource hogs that the US has been for many years. They might even stop exporting their resources to the US and decide to keep them at home. The result could be that when the 'breakthrough' occurs, the initial resources needed to implement the technology may be unavailable, used up or politicaly inaccessable. You need to keep some reserves around to build for the future. We don't seem to be doing this, and developing nations don't seem to be interested either. The 'reserves' kept by agencies such as the US Gov't won't amount to much - they are only a few months of current usage and would not last long under a heavy load. And protests are growing about 'locking up' resources -- people want them NOW. Mining & energy companies are squeezing every last drop out of already developed sites, and new discoveries are almost always what was once considered 'low grade' ore. The conclusion is that unless we are willing to save and build up some reserves, when the breakthroughs occur later this century we may not have the initial investment. As the old saying goes, 'it takes money to make money'. Without some change in attitude and policy, we won't have it. Note that this doesn't make doom inevitable, just very possible. I'm sure there are some holes in the above reasoning, so criticism is welcome and will be taken in the spirit delivered. ------------------------------ Date: 24 AUG 1980 1530-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: getting off or bursting But this is just the sort of question SF is supposed to ask! Is it moral/ethical/whatever to \leave/ \behind/ most of the human race --- I don't know any of the current dreamers who are willing to claim that more than a small fraction of people could actually be gotten off unless something like Clarke's space elevator is developed --- and once they were off Earth how many of them would survive? Panshin, in RITE OF PASSAGE, addresses this peripherally; one of ~20 massive transports (not necessarily generation ships, since they have FTL capability) now has about 27,000 inhabitants (from voting totals given) and was much more crowded when it left earth --- say 200,000 at the outside. That's 4,000,000 out of a population between 5 and 10 billion --- and even getting that many people up to the ships (I assume they wouldn't try to land a hollowed-out asteroid) would require huge amounts of energy. As a last-minute attempt to save \something/, that's reasonable, but I call planning for it to happen evil. (This is of course ignoring the possibility that Earth could be stabilized, without the more dangerous sources of energy, at somewhere near the current population.) ------------------------------ Date: 24 AUG 1980 1627-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: disappearance The cluster of messages I got off earlier today are likely to be the last thing you see from me for the next week and a half (which comprises the month of Claudius in a useful parallel time band) due to Noreascon. Y'all come, and wave if you see a blur go by; it's likely to be me. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 at 0746-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SF "LANDMARKS" AND "FEMPRO'S" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In reply to Chip's comment yesterday and Roger's previous one to the effect that he would expect the history of female protagonists in SF to be similar to that of robot or holocaust stories-- Au contraire, the histories are quite different, probably because robotics and holocaustics are \themes/, while female protagonists are part of story-engineering rather than primarily intellectual concepts as the others are. Even borderline SF books with a fempro earlier than that cluster in 1950-51 are so rare (perhaps 3 in a 70-year span) that that sudden appearance of SHADOW ON THE HEARTH, ROGUE QUEEN, and HOUSE OF MANY WORLDS all at once strikes me as a breakthrough in the history of the genre. If the focus of the Landmark project is only on theme, then this is, of course, immaterial. I don't think it should be, but that's not my decision to make. I certainly agree with Chip's qualitative appraisal of Iroedh and Elizabeth Marriner -- the latter is not only cardboard, but a gross caricature of the "lady poet". But, Merril's housewife protagonist can hardly exemplify a woman in "a non-traditional role in all its aspects". Moreover, "the real question of what book first gave a woman" such a role, regardless of whether or not she is the protagonist, is a whole 'nother bucket of worms. I originally took up the study of fempro's because I got tired of Libbers (even or perhaps especially academic ones) carping about the female characters in SF and basing their arguments on a few repeated examples without ever doing any honest-to-Gawd research. Since mine would be a first such study -- and was NOT a bloody dissertation -- some restriction on the "population" I would analyze was a practical necessity. Rather than ALL female characters, I chose just those who were THE main character in a book. I assure you that the annelids in my present pail are quite squirmy enough!!! For a SF book to have a female protagonist at all was a giant step. Getting a fully non-traditional one was: a) done in slow increments, and, b) not as gigantic a step, in my opinion, even if it had happened all at once. Historically, there was a breakthrough, and it happened around 1950-51. After that there was a decade-long hiatus with 3 near- borderline candidates, until, starting in 1960, there has been at least 1 per year. There weren't any really half-way respectable female leads until 1964, with Gotleib's SUNBURST (probably ineligible by Chip's standards because the heroine is a child), and Andre Norton's ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE... (which as something of a Norton specialist I would be more than pleased to consider as the best-earliest fempro). But, move up just a couple years and there is not-quite-as-early-but-even- better Rydra Wong in BABEL-17. With the data in front of me, I see no reasonable candidate outside that 1950-51 cluster of 3. [ The landmark SF query is \NOT/ limited to theme development in SF. We are seeking the longer SF work that marked the development of the field. The criteria were stated at an abstract level to encompass the many different ways that a work could be important. The development of the FEMPRO is one of many possible dimensions. I did not mean to imply that the FEMPRO development would parallel the development of the examples. The point was that the importance of any work which approaches a new theme or employs a new technique depends on how SF developed along that dimension. In the case of a breakthru the first is a landmark. In other cases, later work may mark the field's development better. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ John Batali@MIT-AI 08/24/80 13:54:31 Re: Dirty word From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (1980): Etymology of FUCK [perh. of Scand. origin; akin to Norw. dial.: to copulate, Sw dial.: to copulate, strike, push, penis; perh. akin to L fist, to prick, sting, Gk fist] Linguistic thought of the week: Given enough thought, an appropriate acronym can be found for almost anything. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 18:30 PDT From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Acronymic curses Actually, "fuck" has very old Anglo-Saxon roots. It is thought to come from the word "fucken," meaning "to strike" (That would make an interesting warning for matchbook covers . . .). Richard ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/25/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 1980 0051-PDT From: Judy Anderson Subject: TESB rotating galaxy. Has anyone given any thought to the idea that it may be the SHIP which is rotating, not the galaxy? Judy. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 1856-EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Yoda's Speech Pattern Passive voice makes the object of an action the subject and the doer of the action (if mentioned at all) an object, as opposed to active voice in which the doer is the subject and the object is the object. Active: Yoda raised the X-wing fighter. Passive: The X-wing was raised by him. -- Spencer In technical terms, most of Yoda's lines have the subject and the predicate noun or adjective reversed (a predicate noun or adjective is tied to the subject of the sentence by a descriptive verb such as "to be" rather than an action verb); "He is reckless" becomes "Reckless is he". (There is no passive voice in predicates). I seem to remember that some of the action verbs are in the order they take in German, i.e. subject-object-verb. -- Chip Hitchcock Yoda doesn't speak in the passive voice. He merely has a strange syntax and grammar. We find Yoda saying things like "Impatient is he" as opposed to "He is impatient", and "told you I did" instead of "I told you so didn't I?". Passive voice would be more like "Impatience is his" or "it was told to you". In passive voice we find the subject being acted upon rather than doing the acting. (This is pretty good for someone that nearly flunked HS english). -- steve z. Yoda, as far as I can recall, always talked in the active voice, but switched the normal word order ( "Help you I can, um hm" ) or used slightly unusual words ("Away with your weapon, I mean you no harm"). As I think back on it, he usually put the verb towards the end the clause, and sometimes switched the subject and verb ("Luminous beings are we"). You often get this kind of speech pattern with someone not speaking their native language. -- Mike What Yoda is probably doing is trying to force the speech pattern of another language onto English. Is there anybody out there who can comment on the possibility that his speech pattern is modelled on an Oriental tongue? I know a little Japanese, and most of the grammar is reversed -- the verb is \always/ at the end of the sentence, 'prepositions' (particles) follow their 'object', etc. (I put part-of-speech names in quotes because there is not a 1-to-1 correspondence with English grammar concepts.) If not that, perhaps he is trying to remove 'I' from the position of prominence at the beginning of the sentence in an effort to reduce the 'importance of self'. Of course, this is also an Oriental concept. (Of course, we can't discount the notion that Lucas was merely trying to make him 'cuter' and more memorable.) -- Spencer ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 26 AUG 1980 0424-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #57 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 26 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 57 Today's Topics: PSI - TK Results?, Vehicle Guidance - Speculation, SF Books - Cybernetic SF & Short-Shorts & Donavon Who?, SF Bloopers - ST & TESB, TESB - X-Wing & Alternity ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Aug 1980 at 1927-CDT From: wilcox at UTEXAS Subject: Laser ESP Apparently reported in Science News, Vol 116; Dr. Robert Jahn (Dean of Engr. and Applied Sciences, Princeton)...developed a LASER Inferometer which serves as a positive feedback training device for Telekinetics experiments...with widespread and repeatable results. Anyone got any info. on this? Breakthrough, or some pop. science writer's need for a dramatic story? Reply to me. tnx ------------------------------ VAD@MIT-MC 08/23/80 17:11:20 Re: Thoughts on surface travel Recently, on a highway near me, they put in all these low-profile surface reflectors on the lane boundaries. These are angled glass things mounted in a H-shaped bracket and pounded into the road. They look really wild at night under high beams, orange ones on the left and white in the middle. Anyway, when rolling late at night between home and Rutgers, I sometimes get to thinking about autoguidance systems for cars [if of course by the time they implement something like this transit hasn't taken to the air anyway!] Something like this would involve rows of little microwave reflectors, like those described, and antennas and detectors on the vehicle. Of course it would have front and rear speed/range detectors to take canonical actions based on the movements of other vehicles nearby. The whole thing naturally is processor-controlled and is inspected to make sure it is running. I can see it now: At the inspection station, an interface plug to attach to a test port on the cars, and a CRT that types "Win!" or "Parity errors!" or "Broken" depending on the results of the diagnostics. Any ideas on all this? Additional safety features would include the following: In case of software wedging, there is a large red RESET button mounted on the front bumper so that if the system should die, it reboots upon impact with foreign objects. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 1980 at 1008-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: Response to my bibliographic query A couple of weeks ago I inquired as to what books people had found which a) were well written, with good characters, and b) involved computers which were correctly depicted. I mentioned John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider" and Joan Vinge's "Fireship" as examples. I think it's interesting that there was NOT ONE response, either to me, or to SFL. That says something about the sorry state of our professional field in our hobby field, doesn't it? ------------------------------ Date: 23 AUG 1980 0104 EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: Response to Obrien's Bibliographic query I think the main reason that there were no responses to the "realistic computers in SF" query is that it is very close to the "computers in SF" query that ran in early June. However, you are quite right that cybernetic SF is in a very "sorry state". Warrick's "The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction" is a comprehensive study of computers and artificial intelligence as portrayed by science fiction. In her introduction she states: "A comparison of the fictional worlds of computers and robots with developments in the real world reveals a sharp discrepancy. Much of the SF is dystopian, but no such negative attitude prevails in the field of computer science. How is this discrepancy to be explained? . . . "This study demonstrates that much of the fiction written since World War II is reactionary in its attitude toward computers and artificial intelligence. It is often ill informed about information theory and computer technology and lags behind present developments instead of anticipating the future. Only a small number of the later works demonstrate the sound grounding in science that is characteristic of writers during the golden age of SF in the 1930s and 1940s." Her study is well worth reading. In it she develops a view of the SF cybernetics literature that appears to extend to the rest of SF as well. Her final conclusion is one I find extremely intriguing, and I offer it for discussion here: that technology is becoming too complex for the literary imagination to deal with easily. Enjoy, Roger ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 1980 0350-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Dr A's 100 great SF short short stories A great collection of short-shorts, averaging 3 pages, mostly marvelous, some splendid, a few fantastic, a handful hideous, etc. I recommend. It starts with A Loint of Paw, by Asimov, and contains stories by, eg, Ambrose Bierce and Martin Gardner as well as most recognized science fiction and fantasy writers. I can only think of two short shorts that ought to be in it, and aren't. What other anthology covers an entire story form so well? A must for lovers of wit. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1980 06:34 edt From: SALawrence at MIT-Multics (STEVE at SAI-Prime) Subject: ?? Donavon ?? In reading Zelazny's story of the first manned ship on Venus (I can't recall the title -- the one wherein he refers to Venus as a "searing black calm" and as "boiling maple syrup"), the note at the end of the story is signed "Donavon's Brain". This is the first mention of the name of the ship's brain's name, and looked as though it was supposed to have some significance to the reader. Some time before that I ran across a rather strange vignette of an old spaceman dying of cancer of the spine. I don't recall the author or the title; he's lying in bed throughout the story. At one point he gets a little drunk and halucinates; at another point in the story he's had them put his space boots (an old story) on his feet, but they don't fit him any longer (they're too big). Fairly straightforward stuff. The odd part of it was that the character's name was Donavon, and it appeared that the author attached some significance to this detail. And, of course, there's that old gem of disgustingness, Donavon's Brain, by someone who should not have been an author (private opinion). Would anyone care to guess if (a) I'm seeing connections where there aren't any, or (b) if these references are all just references to the story Donavon's Brain (which is old and original enough to be a classic), or (c) there's some starting point I'm not aware of to which all three refer? I'd also be mildly interested in other stories wherein the main character is named Donavon (if this appears to be significant). Stories by Lafferty (such as The Devil is Dead) probably don't count, as his inspiration most likely comes from Joyce rather than old SF. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 1980 09:56 PDT From: Hammer.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Star Trek Blooper? During an episode of Star Trek called "The Menagerie" (part 1), an injured Captain Pike communicates by blinking a light once for 'yes' and twice for 'no'. When Spock tells him privately that he intends on hijacking the Enterprise to Talos 4, Pike signals disapproval by continuously repeating the 'no' signal. Later Scottie notes that something is wrong but it would take "weeks or months" of coaxing to determine what Pike is trying to say. What ever happened to Morse Code? If forgotten, it seems they could have invented a code to interpret Pike's distress in a short period of time. Comments? Bruce ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/26/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 9 August 1980 21:48 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Asteroid fauna Well, since someone brought up this silly scene, let me say that it was my opinion that Han won the "Twit of the Movie" award at that point. After he very cleverly deduces that they have landed and are standing inside a enormous living creature, he decides to test out his theory by firing a blaster into the creature's stomach lining. If you were in a dark jungle, and had figured out that you were probably standing on a sleeping tiger, would you kick it, just to be sure? ------------------------------ Date: 25 August 1980 1613-EDT (Monday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: TESB I don't think that it was the ship that was turning since the MF didn't turn as well, that is to say the Galaxy kept turning but the MF was not being rotated as well. I haven't seen TESB for a while, but, I seem to remember that he said things like: Reckless he is, yes. As opposed to Reckless is he. or He is Reckless... Doug ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 1856-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: And last but not least TESB. I think that Yoda raises the fighter craft because he feels Luke has reached a plateau in his learning. Yoda wishes to demonstrate that what he says is true ie the fighter CAN be lifted by the force and he also wishes to ease the pressure on Luke. Perhaps he thinks that getting beaten will be good by DV will be good for Luke. Who knows what thoughts run around in Yoda's brain, I certainly don't and I bet the shadow doesn't either. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1980 14:46 PDT From: STOGRYN.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Raising the Titanic....X-wing There are less orthogonal explanations why Luke could not raise the X-wing fighter from the muck and mire teeming with life: Expanding on W. Wake's truism . . . Despite Luke's age and field promotion to the officer's ranks, he is still a "kid". He even admits that he has not finished his Jedi training (stating that he will return to finish it) and has proved this by failing on several occasions (in the tree, losing his concentration while balancing Yoda, and at lifting the X-wing). Yoda isn't trying to prevent his successes. The raising of the X-wing is another test for Luke, an example of Luke's inability, and a demonstration showing that the power of the Force does not depend on one's size. If Luke has to run off to save his friends, Yoda wouldn't stop him by leaving the X-wing in the mud; he wants a willing student. Yoda doesn't want to demand that Luke learn the Force. Thus, Luke's proficiency is still limited to doing the small things . . . jumping fifteen feet high, snatching a light saber from one foot away, aiming at an exhaust port without computer guidance, etc. He only sees his friends in danger when he questions Yoda about being able to "see the future", but Yoda has to guide him through the process. He does not have the full use of the Force; he is not yet a Jedi, consequently, he essentially loses the physical battle against Vader. Yoda only took on Luke's training at Ben's insistence. Yoda knew better. He could see that Luke was impatient - but so was Ben at his age. Yoda gives it a try, but later comes up against Vader's long-distance influences. This combined with Luke's immaturity causes him to fly away to fight his archenemy. There upon, Ben regrets Luke's failure, proclaiming, "He is our only hope". Yoda corrects him, however, "No, there is another". A more important question is: Who could that other be? Steve ------------------------------ Date: 23 August 1980 0802-EDT (Saturday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: SW's in alternate universes What surprised me most was when Leia, torn between Luke and Han, ran off with Chewbacca, giving birth to \the last hope/. I still think the little critter is really Yoda in a furry suit. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 27 AUG 1980 0416-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #58 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 27 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 58 Today's Topics: George Stewart, Vehicle Guidance - Speculation, SF Books - Cybernetic SF & Donavon Who?, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Aug 1980 1841-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Obituary George Stewart, author of the sf classic EARTH ABIDES, died last Friday. He was 85. ------------------------------ Date: 26 August 1980 15:55 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: automobile autopilots The closest publicly-installed thing to autopilots for cars that I have heard of is a system currently running in and around Berlin. It is basically a box in your car which is capable of tracking its location in the city and providing directions to the driver. Its primary function currently is to allow traffic officials to direct cars during heavy traffic periods. This way you don't have to get stuck in a traffic jam before you can begin to find a way around it. However, they have future plans along the lines of an on-board road map ("How do I get to the sports arena?" "Well, turn right, then left, then..."). I am not sure what the input-side of that user interface will be like, but it is still interesting. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 1029-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Comment on lack of good computer stories. I think that we must also take note of when computers really began to get powerful. They really begin to be recognized in the 60's, at the beginning of the "New Wave" in SF. You must admit that in the 40's and the 50's there wasn't a really great state-of-the-art in computer science. It is to be noted that much of the "New Wave" took pride in its anti-technological attitude and its lack of understanding of technology. It also took pride in its inability to write, a situation that wasn't corrected until the "Old Wave" writers took pen in hand and wrote good "New Wave" fiction. I think you will find that much of current SF doesn't depend on the writer having a good working knowledge of any state of the art science. steve z. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/26/80 15:42:28 Re: too complex for the literary imagination Now wait a minute. This idea that science is "too complex" to understand is not only a complete fallacy, but it is a mislaying of blame for the dubious state of the art of science fiction. It is entirely possible that PARTICULAR literary imaginations find science too complex to deal with in a reasonable way. But then again, what kind of background do most science fiction writers have? There are very few serious scientists in the field. There are a few more people who are acquainted with some area of technology and are doing a good job at thinking through the books that they are writing. There are probably a number of authors who have turned to science fiction for the freedom that the genre allows. And then, there is an abundance of hacks who couldn't get a book published in any other area even if they bribed the entire staff of a printing company. The fans of sf do not have an excellent record for demanding high quality literature. The other thing which bothers me about the "too complex for the imagination" argument is that it invokes this frightening image of technology as the cornucopia of details which are too numerous to hold in the mind. (Imagine struggling with a tough synthesis problem in organic chemistry when WHAM! you pass out from over-exposure.) If a person doesn't have the background to understand the technology then I am certain that it can appear as an amorphous mass of details with no organizing principles. In truth, there is so much organization to this writhing mass that us magicians routinely communicate with one another by way of abstracts, one page summaries and the like. The beauty of a powerful conception in science is in its simplicity, not its complexity. Now a science fiction author is in the hard position of imagining a technological innovation and then predicting its consequences. This problem is harder than making a reasonable stab at understanding yet-to-be-invented technology. There are more variables involved. It requires writing skill as well as scientific know-how. Still, the author has a great deal of liberty to chose among the alternate worlds that are constrained by the "facts" involved. The mark of a good science fiction author is that he/she carries off the task with grace. This melodrama, that science is "too complex for the literary imagination" seems to me to be way out of line. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 1980 0220 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Donovon Practically all instances of disembodied brains controlling some- thing contain a reference to Donovans Brain. Even Larry Niven in one of early "Known Space" collections refers to it ("The Coldest Place" and one other set on Venus). -- Brian In Tuesdays Digest, SALawerence briefly describes Niven's "Becalmed in Hell", and attributes it to Zelazny (in this story a human astronaut is teamed with a cyborg-spaceship/balloon/ramjet as they explore Venus. I have always assumed that when the cyborg sends a message to the astronaut and signs it "Donovan's Brain" that the cyborg is referring to the old (Crichton?) story as a joke, although there is some chance I guess that the cyborg was named Donovan... -- JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics There seems to be some confusion here. The story being related sounds suspiciously like "Becalmed in Hell", by Niven (not Zelazny). In this story, the ship is controlled by a disembodied brain which has been integrated into the controls. The brain is referred to throughout the story as "Eric". The letter at the end of the story, which reads (the following is an exact quote): HOWIE COME HOME ALL IS FORGIVEN DONOVANS BRAIN was sent by Eric to the other character in the story. It is clearly a humorous reference to the story/movie by Eric himself. Any other interpretation would seem unlikely. -- [ Thanks also to Dave Rossien and Dave Dyer for pointing out that this story was written by Niven. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/26/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 (Tuesday) 1937-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Concerning the ability of Storm Troopers... remember in SW4 when Obi-wan and Luke fint the Jawas (or whatever those little creatures were called) have been ambushed. Luke thinks the sandpeople did it, but Obi-wan remarks "No... look at those blast points, they are too accurate for anything but Imperial Storm troopers" [possible paraphrasing but you get the point...] Are these the same accurate storm troopers we find throughout both movies???????????????? Dave ------------------------------ Date: 26 August 1980 02:37-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Lifting the X-wing in TESB: to be more specific. First, I have to explain my understanding of the force. (This will probably spawn a separate discussion.) There are at least two dimensions to a Force-user: "power", and "control". "Power" measures how much brute strength the user can muster; "control" measures how precisely the user can direct the Force. Tasks like telekineticizing a light sabre or lifting boxes, droids, and X-wing fighters take varying degrees of power, but almost no control. Instant hypnosis of a storm stooper, or dropping a proton bomb into a small target takes very fine control, but very little power. For purposes of discussion, let's set up an arbitrary scale for these attributes: two numbers between 3 and 18. 3 is very low, 9-12 is about average, 18 is superhuman. The distribution of these numbers for the general population is a bell curve centered on 10.5, and with a very small standard deviation. Furthermore, it seems from various clues that power is inborn talent, while control must be learned. * * * So, what is going on in the "lifting the X-wing" scene? If power is indeed inborn (genetic!), then Luke has a lot of it - Obiwan, Yoda, AND Vader have been watching him since childhood. His control however, is erratic (or perhaps non-existant: maybe Obiwan actually controlled the bombing of the Death Star, and just needed Luke to calm down and relax so he could take over). And so he is sent to Dagobah to learn the finer art of controlling the Force. However, he does not yet understand the difference between power and control, and the necessity of the latter. If he got an idea of how powerful he was, he would be likely to quit school and run off to fight Vader. So Yoda has a dilemma: he needs to impress Luke with the Force to keep him interested, and the only aspect of the Force likely to interest Luke is an exhibition of power; but at the same time he must keep Luke unaware of Luke's own power. So he tells Luke to lift the X-wing. He is sure Luke will fail and claim it's impossible; then Yoda will lift it out, showing (1) the Force can be very powerful, (2) Luke is not yet powerful, (3) Luke will be very powerful if he practices enough. Perhaps Yoda even plans to put the X-wing back into the swamp, as Gerrold suggests, to give Luke a very visible incentive. However, Luke concentrates, bubbles rise, the fighter shifts, begins to rise... Yoda gets very alarmed and MAKES Luke fail according to plan by pushing down. Then Yoda gives the big demo. BUT: he can't very well put it back in the swamp for Luke to lift, because Luke WILL lift it the very next time he tries. So if Yoda is the little trickster JoAnn and I think he is, Gerrold's objection goes away. From reading Gerrold's article, he seems to have decided early on that TESB was just a comic book, and was not going to have any subtleties worth looking for. Well, I disagree, but we will really have to wait for more of the series to come out before we can pass judgement. As it stands, the only real evidence is Yoda's facial expressions. When the X-wing starts to rise, his eyebrows lift in surprise; but is there alarm there, too? When it starts to sink again, Yoda's head sinks with it; is this dissappointment, or a gesture accompanying a use of the Force? And afterwards, is he resigned to more teaching, or tired from struggling with a powerful Force-user? Only Lucas knows for sure. --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 2001-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: TESB: "traditional vision of Buddhist masters" There is lots of playfulness in some of the Buddhist masters. Try anything, anything at all in Japanese Zen Buddhism, for instance. (Read "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones", e.g.) Also, Yoda's not forcing anyone to do anything is characteristic; when Luke confronts him in the next episode to find out about the father/Vader business, Y probably won't answer his question, because that is not Y's way. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 1943-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: TESB IN ALTERNATE UNIVERSALS It became clear what the point of lifting the X-wing was when, after Yoda lifted the fighter, all the little rotoscoped chipmunks popped out of the slime and sang "When you wish upon a star." Mike ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 08/26/80 07:16:06 Re: The Last Hope (Alternate Universe) Princess Leia into Beastiality? I always knew she liked the strong, silent type. Say guys, the Princess and a guy like me? Whaddya think? No?!?!? (snicker) Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 28 AUG 1980 0653-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #59 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 28 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 59 Today's Topics: D&D Revisited, SF Books - Cybernetic SF, Vehicle Guidance- Speculation, SF Bloopers - ST & All, SF Movies - Dr. Strange & TESB, Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 August 1980 0220 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: News stories on James Dallas Egbert III Last fall James Egbert was in the news because of a suspected connection between his disappearance and his obsession with D&D. Two weeks ago he was in the news as an apparent suicide victim. Now he is dead. Stuart Cracraft has provided copies of the three newswire stories about Egbert. Copies of the stories have been established in files at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, and to Stuart Cracraft for making the stories available to us. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS EGBERT CMUA temp:egbert.sfl[a210dp0z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLovers-Egbert.TXT Rutgers Ps:Egbert.Sf-Lovers SU-AI EGBERT.SFL[T,DON] MIT-Multics >user_dir_dir>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>egbert.text [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 08/27/80 0955-EDT From: KG Heinemann (SORCEROR at LL) Subject: Science and Literary Imagination Re DGSHAP's comments on the notion that science and technology have become too complex to be encompassed by the literary imagination: Strong backgrounds in both science/technology and literary tradition are required in order to produce high quality SF. The state of the art in SF depends on the ability of the authors to master both fields. Probably very few people are capable of achieving this double mastery. (Think of the investment of time and resources that would be required to earn both a B.A. in English and a Bachelor's degree in a technical field, and then consider higher degrees in both areas. I don't mean to imply that formal education is the only way of acquiring the background needed to produce worthwhile SF, but the amount of work required is comparable.) The state of the art in SF is still quite primitive, in my opinion, and I think that this difficulty is a good part of the reason. Most SF have attained higher than average levels of "literacy" in both some aspects of science/technology and the humanities, but are masters of neither. Some are stronger in one area and correspondingly weaker in the other. The lack of intelligent, realistic, treatments of computer science in SF is explained by the fact that nobody who has invested the energy to become a fully competent "computer scientist" has also had the time, energy, and inclination to pick up the humanities background and writing skills needed to write high quality SF. Regards, KGH ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 27 August 1980 13:06-EDT From: John A. Pershing Jr. Subject: Thoughts on surface travel I, personally, wouldn't want to depend on the reliability of everyone else's automobile's guidance processors -- particularly coming back from the Cape on a Sunday evening. Imagine the traffic jam when one car gets a "parity" error and HALTS (even if only for a minute or two). Considering how reluctant people are to even fix a broken headlight (in spite of semi-annual inspections), I'm sure nobody would bother to have their autopilots repaired. A mix of 50% autopilot and 50% manual during heavy traffic conditions would be disastrous, causing gross oscillitory behavior between the basically conservative autopilots and the vicious, tail-gating humans. -jp ------------------------------ Date: 26 August 1980 16:07 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: communicating with Capt. Pike This reminds me of the cross-country trip I took in a caravan of three cars, all equipped with CB radios. Early on one of the radios broke and ceased to transmit for the duration of the trip, although it was still able to receive. We finally arrived at the "solution" of flashing turn signals to indicate responses to inquiries from other cars. Thus, communication became like a game of 20 questions: "Do you want something?"; ; "Is it important?"; ; "Do you need gas?"; ; "Do you want to stop for something to eat?"; . And so on. We also developed a method for spelling: divide the alphabet up into a 5x5 matrix, then index it by flashing the left n times for the row and the right m times for the column. "Z" was indicated by hazard lights. Needless to say, all this worked much better in the dark. Oh well, I guess that this is a bit off of the point, but it does show that communication is possible with limited resources. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 (Tuesday) 1255-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: More StarTrek Bloopers At the end of a random episode, as the Enterprise is about to fly off happily into the sunset, Kirk turns to Spock and says, "Take us out of orbit, Mr. Spock.". Coincidentally, Spock is manning the scanner controls, and Sulu is at the helm. I don't recall ever having seen the Enterprise controlled from Spock's station (other than the self destruct sequence), and it occurs to me the dialog might as well have been: Kirk: "Take us out of orbit, Bones". McCoy: (approaching Kirk with hypodermic): "This should make you see stars, Jim old boy". Or something similar. I believe it was the same episode in which the Enterprise was shown in orbit about some planet with the stars whizzing by at about warp 3. - Dave ------------------------------ Date: 27 August 1980 13:24 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Nits, Inconsistency/Calibration Many flaws have been detected in SW. Is this because there are an unusually high number in SW, or because we've given it so much thought? (Any estimates as to number of person-years devoted to SFL alone?) Probably the latter, but to test this, what say we all criticise some other work, and see. Maybe EVERYTHING is broken. I suggest Herman Melville's "Moby Dick". Any takers? ------------------------------ CTD@MIT-AI 08/27/80 02:59:02 The other evening, the CBS late movie was a show called "Dr. Strange" (not Strangelove!) That was a pretty fair fantasy/SF thriller. It had many dungeons and dragons type overtones such as travel on the astral planes, etc., and overall, I really liked it. What I am wondering is that judging from the way the movie ended, it must have been a pilot for some series that never made it. Does anyone know anything about this show more that that? Thanks- ___ / * * \ < > \ \_/ / --- CTD ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 at 0300-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^ ...FROM MY FRIEND THE ULTIMATE SW FAN... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "Heard from sound effects superstar Ben Burtt (boy! it sure helps when you can identify yourself as `a friend of Tony Daniels`) about that `Ee choo ta` his twin snaps at C-3PO right after they've landed at Cloud City. Burtt says it's `too horrible an insult to put in writing in this letter`. He refers to similar droid insults in SW-4, citing droid `racial prejudice` in the galaxy far far away. Any guesses as to the `rude` meaning of the remark? I have several interesting ones, all of which would embarrass our hero, Goldenrod, no end." [How about, `Oh, go recharge yourself!`? HJJH] "Another funny nickname for Threep, which didn't make it through the final cut of the film, was `Bronze Britches`. "Tony says the radio version of SW-4 has a lot of good new lines, even better than the original movie's. "Added 4 EMPIRE coloring books to the TESB collection. They would probably shock some over-protective mothers -- drawings of Chewie strangling Lando, Luke in anguish and pain, Vader killing admirals. The only concession is that Luke keeps \both/ his hands! "Was watching my videotape of THE LITTLE PRINCE and realized why the name of Clive Revill (voice of the Emperor) on the TESB credits was familiar. He does the role of the businessman in TLP. "My regards to your computer friends, and I am NOT the ultimate SW fan! Mark Hamill's collection MUST be far better than mine!" Carlotta Barnes ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/28/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss apparent anomalies within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for some of the stories and novels within this series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 AUG 1980 1519-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: tnuctip & Pak??? I don't think so; the Tnuctip slave in WORLD OF PTAVVS fit into a man-size slaver space suit along with a lot of equipment. I also think the dates are wrong because the Pak were an ancient civilization 2.5 million years ago (though I can't remember the estimated age of the "sea statue" that turns out to be the Thrint (slaver)). Also the Tnuctip are said to have disappeared without a trace along with the slavers as a result of the revolt---people discover occasional caches of Thrint/Tnuctip goods which are fantastic finds. The personality profiles even for immature Pak seem too far from the Tnuctip. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 08/24/80 15:46:43 Re: Known Space, Pak and Tnuctipun I sincerely doubt the Pak are the Tnuctipun. The Tnuctipun were masters at genetic engineering but the Pak who led the first migration to Earth were unable to deal with the problems with Tree-of-life virus. It wasn't until Brennan that a Pak (in this case I include Brennan) solved the problem. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 26 AUG 1980 0220 EDT From: Roger Duffey Subject: Speculation on the Ringworld engineers The speculations about Known Space anomalies are interesting. However I think they point to a conclusion that everyone is overlooking: The Pak are not the original Ringworld engineers. Remember that all our knowledge of the Ringworld comes from the observations of 2 small exploration parties and the conclusions Wu and Ch'mee draw from them. They could be wrong and the anomalies seem to indicate that they are. Instead consider the following outline which accounts for what we now know. Long ago there was yet another race within Known Space. They may be unknown to the current cultures within Known Space. They built the Ringworld for reasons that we can only guess at with the evidence at hand. (For some interesting speculation see the article on large structures in Niven's ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS.) Then they disappear. They may have died out, or they may have dispersed. Again we can only speculate with the evidence at hand. At some later point in time the Pak discover the Ringworld which they colonize. In time they proceed to adapt parts of the Ringworld to themselves creating the evidence which Wu uses to conclude incorrectly that the Pac were the Ringworld engineers. There are many different ways of filling in this outline. I think it may be possible to extend it to account for all of the anomalies. It is guesswork at this stage. However, there may be further evidence on the Ringworld or elsewhere in Known Space. And perhaps Niven will tell us one day. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 29 AUG 1980 0514-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #60 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 29 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 60 Today's Topics: What Happens at a Con?, D&D Revisited, Space - Colonization, SF Books - Cybernetic SF & Wizard, SF Bloopers - ST, SF Movies - Dr. Strange & TESB, Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Aug 1980 0220 EDT From: Richard Stallman Subject: Of possible interest to Con goers The L5 Society will host an open party at NorEasCon II. Guests include Poul Anderson, Jim Baen, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and James Hogan among others. The party will be held in Hynes Room 204, from 5 to 7 PM on Sunday, 31 August. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 1402-PDT From: CSD.EYNON at SU-SCORE Subject: Deja Vu One more strange addition to the already strange and sad story of James Dallas Egbert, if such would be possible: The poem "Final Destination", written by Egbert and found during his 1979 disappearance, is almost certainly a rewrite of the song sung by Bobby Joy in "The Law of Conservation of Pain", included in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, by Spider Robinson. It was a very strange feeling to come across it in the collected news stories on Egbert - obviously Spider's themes of communication vs loneliness related to Egbert's personal problems. Unfortunately, only the story had a happy ending. -Barry Eynon ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 at 1310-CDT From: david at UTEXAS Subject: Good Reading for the Discussion To: energy at mc Just back from vacation, I haven't digested all 174 mail messages waiting for me. On vacation I got a chance to read many interesting books. Three in particular seem most germane to recent and current discussions in these distribution lists. And I, for my part, will read Pournelle's book to see what insights it might offer. The references are: AN INCOMPLETE GUIDE TO THE FUTURE, by Willis W. Harman, The Portable Stanford, Stanford Alumni Association, 1976. SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL (Economics As If People Mattered), by E.F. Schumacher, Harper & Row, 1973. SPACE COLONIES, edited by Stewart Brand, Penguin, 1977. In SPACE COLONIES there is a beautifully expressive letter from Wendell Berry (pp. 36-37). I wish I could reproduce the whole thing for you, since it responds so well to the "unlimited growth" advocates. To titilate your thinking on the subject, consider Berry's opening paragraph... Mr. Gerard O'Neill's space colony project is offered in the Fall 1975 'CoEvolution Quarterly' as the solution to virtually all the problems rising from the limitations of our earthly environment. That it will solve all of these problems is a possibility that, even after reading the twenty-six pages devoted to it, one may legitimately doubt. What cannot be doubted is that the project is an ideal solution to the moral dilemma of all those in this society who cannot face the necessities of meaningful change. It is superbly attuned to the wishes of the corporation executives, bureaucrats, militarists, political operators, and scientific experts who are the chief beneficiaries of the forces that have produced our crisis. . . . Yours in learning, DAVID m phillips @UTEXAS ------------------------------ RMS@MIT-AI 08/26/80 05:31:26 Re: It can't be THAT easy to criticize The study of space development and its consequences is being undertaken by lots of serious scientists. There are plenty of places where an insurmountable problem might still conceivably turn up. But there aren't any obvious problems, so anything obvious that looks like a problem isn't really a problem. To refute one example: according to the scenarios, 1) space colonies would accept more people than one might think, and 2) prosperity from space investments would reduce the Earth birthrate to much less than today, so that space colonies could absorb it. So where does the moral question of "abandoning Earth" come in? There is a lot of handwaving in all economic models, so perhaps a careful investigation would unveil many problems, but that's a different story from saying "Well, I can't see how it could possibly..." If a flaw in space colonization plans were THAT obvious, people would not be taking them seriously. I wish that the people who see such glaring, obvious faults in space colonization (or anything else) would give the people working on it credit for enough intelligence to have seen the faults themselves, if they were so obvious. And check with them in private to see if they have an answer, before going public. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 0544-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Info for various references Re the Computers in SF query: This may not qualify strictly, as the computer/program/AI aspects are important to the plot and structure, and are discussed in depth, but I hesitate to characterize their treatment as realistic, as they are so anthropomorphic and advanced. In any case, they are worth mentioning -- Frederik Pohl, GATEWAY, and it's sequel, BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON. In both of these books, AI programs are referred to over and over, and form some of the most important "characters". Mini-review is that GATEWAY is a better book than BEYOND..., but I have not yet finished the latter -- just read GATEWAY a few days ago and am following it with BEYOND... immediately. Perhaps sequels always suffer when so immediately compared? For what its worth... Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 (Tuesday) 0852-EST From: DYER at NBS-10 Anybody out there read John Varley's WIZARD yet? (In case you didn't know about it, WIZARD is a sequel to TITAN, and is the second book of a \trilogy/ following the basic theme (that of a 'living world') set forth in TITAN.) (For reasons that become obvious as you reach WIZARD's ending, I think that the third book is going to be called DEMON...I guess....) WIZARD is a \good/ book -- I couldn't put the book down. I think this one is gonna win.... zemon ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 2:04 pm PDT (Thursday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Dr. Strange CTD failed to mention (perhaps wasn't aware) that the movie "Dr. Strange" was based on the Marvel comic book character. The movie was about the way Dr. Strange came to acquire his supernatural powers; I don't know whether the movie matched the comic book in this regard. -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 1003-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Dr. Strange movie. To CTD@MIT-AI whoever (whomever?) you are, the Dr. Strange thing you saw was probably the pilot for a show called Dr. Strange which never got off the ground. It was one of several things done due to the success of the Hulk on television. The show was to be a spinoff(?) of the Dr. Strange comicbook produced by Marvel comics. Compared to the current general quality of the comic the movie was poor. Try to pick up a copy of the comic book. I will be happy to supply background material on Dr. Strange if you wish. steve z. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 08/28/80 08:23:48 Re: Dr. Strange and other Delights Dr. Strange is an obscure comic book hero. The movie "Dr. Strange" was a pilot around the time when super-heros were the rage. When I was an undergrad at San Diego State University about eight years ago, several of us built a mail system on the statewide timesharing system ( also called ITS). One of the things we did was to have a signature contest. Everyone created a signature file and appended it to each message. After a month, we voted on the best one. Patterns and catchy phrases were acceptable (one guy signed his "the cunning linguist" which not everyone thought was in good taste). I suggest signatures be kept to five lines or less. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 28 August 1980 21:40-EDT From: Robert W. Kerns Subject: Pike's inability to use morse code My rationalization of that is that Pike did not have on-off control of the light, but the light just showed his emotional state. I could see it being VERY hard to do Morse code by changing your emotional state. ------------------------------ Date: 26 August 1980 2114-EDT (Tuesday) From: Mike.Fryd at CMU-10A (C621MF0E) Subject: Computer Hindered dog fighting The other day I saw a short piece on the network news about an airplane that couldn't be tracked by a computer. Apparently the shape of the plane tended to give false radar echoes, and the plane itself was covered with a paint that didn't reflect radar. If this sort of technology was used by the Star Wars characters, it would explain why they are always aiming by hand and missing so much. By the way, all these spoiler warnings are getting to me. Is there anybody out there who hasn't seen TESB? -mike fryd [ It is not enough to ask if all of the current readers have seen TESB, because that readership is constantly changing with new additions to the list. Further, complete archives of SFL are being kept. The future readers of the archives certainly include people who will not have seen TESB. The spoiler warnings give everyone the opportunity to choose whether to read material that may spoil a work for them if they are not familiar with it. Its important that the criteria be applied as uniformly as possible. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/27/80 14:30:00 Re: chipmunks bursting into song (what's a song?) No no no no, those weren't chipmunks. That was a phalanx of captured empire drive animals singing a freedom chant. (Who do you think powers all those big ships anyway?) By the way, the little critters can also be modified to fuel light-sabers, which makes them very important to the jedi (remember Yoda's astonished look?!). If your saber ever runs out of juice in the middle of a tight spot, all you have to do is cram in a couple of fresh gerbils and you're ready to rip. Dan ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses apparent anomalies within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for some of the stories and novels within this series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 0749-EDT From: VAF at MIT-DMS (Vincent A. Fuller, III) Subject: Pak=Tnuctip? etc. In response to the idea that perhaps the Pak were actually tnuctip, I think it very unlikely. The Pak date back about 2.5 Million years, while, according to World or Ptavvs, the 'Sea statue' (Kzanol, last of the Thrint [slaver] race) dates back about 2 Billion years. Also according to World or Ptavvs, the tnuctip were wiped out in the war with the Thrints some 2*10^9 years ago (Specifically, the Thrint were said/speculated to have build a telepathy amplifier that would bring the entire galaxy under control at one time.). In response to the idea that the Ringworld was not built by the Pak, this seems reasonable to assume--there was never any mention, in any Known Space novel or story, of a transmutation device known to the Pak. Such a device would seem to be a necessity in forming the 'scrith' that the Ringworld was constructed of. After all, why would the Pak have been using nuclear radiation based weapons when warring at home if such a protection was available? Another comment (unconnected). Upon reading parts of World of Ptaavs again, I notice a statement to the effect that the female Thrint is non-sentient. The only other race mentioned possesing this trait is the Kzinti race... From supplied illustrations, one can see that the physical forms are roughly similar...Could the Kzinti be a surviving branch of Thrint or semi-Thint? Comments? Vince ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 30 AUG 1980 0732-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #61 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 30 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 61 Today's Topics: D&D Revisited, Here's the Plot - What's the Title?, SF Books - Niven and Pournelle Collaboration, SF Movies - Dr. Strange & TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MJL@MIT-MC 08/29/80 23:37:40 In the name of decency let the poor child rest in peace! Why is that all the morbid people start yammering when somone dies? We all know about his adventures in the steam tunnels and his death from LACK of D&D. Yes, LACK. They made him STOP. SO let him sleep! Matt ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 1980 0412-PDT (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: story query Can anyone out there identify the following story? A spaceship has landed on a bizarre planet where all the various lifeforms are connected into the group "mind" of the planet. Various creatures have tried all sorts of tricks to gain access, and finally a small worm-like creature does. It is waiting to get back to Earth, at which time it can mentally send a signal that will cause all future Earth births to be integrated into a similar group mind. It disguises itself as a piece of wire by knawing out a piece of a real wire and connecting itself between the two ends. When the ship reaches Earth, it is all set to send its signal, when suddenly it vaporizes. Turns out it had attached itself into the airlock circuit and got zapped when they opened the door. Ring a bell for anyone? Thanks much. --Lauren-- [ The story is Green Patches (originally entitled Misbegotten Missionary) by Isaac Asimov. -- Richard Brodie ] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 2035-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Niven & Pournelle Niven and Pournelle By AUDREY V. IRWIN Associated Press Writer STUDIO CITY, Calif. (AP) - Robert Heinlein, the dean of modern science fiction, called the first collaboration between authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - "The Mote in God's Eye" - "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read." Their latest collaboration, "Lucifer's Hammer," spent 10 weeks on the best-seller list. It was nominated for science fiction's top two literary awards, the Hugo and the Nebula. More than a million copies of the novel, printed in seven languages, have been sold. Sitting on the shady patio outside Pournelle's home in this Los Angeles suburb, the authors explained how they got together. "I tracked him down and made him an offer he couldn't refuse," said Pournelle, who had written two science fiction novels, two detective novels (under the name of Wade Curtis) and numerous magazine pieces before teaming up with Niven. The 47-year-old Pournelle said he had seen some of Niven's work (six novels and five short story collections before their collaboration), liked his style and decided to offer him a writing partnership. Pournelle's "unrefusable" offer was to rewrite collaborated works from cover to cover to eliminate any inconsistencies. Niven, who was to have final veto power on their work, took him up on it. "We then set out to write the book we wanted to read when we started reading science fiction," said the 42-year-old Niven, "the ultimate space opera." Niven and Pournelle first sit down and discuss the general outline of a proposed novel and decide who's going to write the first draft. The partners later divide up characters and scenarios. "The crazy ideas are generally mine. When a character gets hysterical, its mostly mine," Niven said explaining what would seem to be an encroachment into Pournelle's territory. Pournelle usually writes about the characters that "bull" their way through one situation after another, "and Jerry designs the evil characters," Niven added. When the manuscript of "The Mote" was completed, Niven and Pournelle mailed a copy of it to Robert Heinlein, one of the most respected writers in the field of science fiction and the author of 30 novels. By return mail, the pair received a 60-page, single-spaced letter from Heinlein suggesting changes in story line and characters. "It was the longest letter I ever got," Pournelle said. "We looked at it and it all made sense so we went through and did it." They sent a revised manuscript back to Heinlein. Apparently the author was amazed, no one had ever followed his advice before, the writing team said. "The Mote in God's Eye" finally hit the book stores, with Heinlein's endorsement, after a three-year effort. The team then began work on the still-unfinished "Oath to Fealty." Work on that novel was interrupted when Niven came up with another idea. "Suddenly, I said there's something that I wanted to do and we went for it," he remembered. The team began work on a modernized version of Dante's "Inferno." The authors' next collaboration was the best-selling novel, "Lucifer's Hammer." Like "The Mote," "Lucifer's Hammer" was long, well researched and had a plethora of characters - the three ingredients that are needed to write a best selling novel, according to Niven. "Our books are superbly researched," said Pournelle. The latest information available on scientific and astronomical phenomena, such as the cometary halo in "Hammer," is used and presented to the reader so fact can be distinguished from fiction, the author asserted. The authors, who received more than $1 per word each for "Lucifer's Hammer," compared to about 1.5 cents per word when they were first published, said they began collaborating because they needed each other's skills. "Phrasology is slightly more my thing than his," Niven said of his partner. "But, I plot better than he does," Pournelle quickly inserted. "I tend to write logically and tightly." "There is no excuse for writing a book (together) unless neither one of you could do it alone," said Niven. "Collaborating is real hard work." Besides teaming up on novels, the two authors also have worked together as consultants on a screenplay. Following the short-lived release of Disney Studio's "Watcher in the Woods," Niven and Pournelle were called in to work on a new ending for the film, which should be re-released this fall. The pair would work as technical advisers (or write the screenplay "if they would ask us to") on films based on their collaborations. Their works have been optioned by movie studios, but neither seemed optimistic that they would see their stories on the big screen. Citing the enormous cost involved for special effects, Pournelle said, "One paragraph could cost them a million dollars." ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 1980 0701-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Dr. Strange. The story in the movie followed the original close enough to be recognizable but changed enough to be annoying to Dr. Strange's following. Dr. Strange is one of those characters with a small but very faithful following. I suspect that his comic book is marginally profitable. steve z. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/30/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 1980 0317-PDT (Sunday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: my thoughts on TESB (finally!) Many people have been questioning why I have not made any comment concerning TESB to SF-LOVERS. Well, it took me awhile to get around to seeing it (I hate watching movies when half the audience yells out lines before they are spoken, when I have never seen the movie before, so I waited for awhile). I also did not want to send a message until the mainstream of discussion had died down, so I have waited until now even though I saw the film quite some time ago. Just about everything that CAN be said about TESB seems to have already been said, so I will just make a couple of short comments: 1) Vader (my favorite character in the films by far) is Luke's father. No clones, clowns, or ice cream cones. Anything else would be too complex for Lucas' universe to manage. 2) We have not met "the other" yet. Lucas has a lot of hours to fill in yet, and he will surely save such a goodie for a later episode. I should add that this is all based on the erroneous assumption that the SW universe is a "fixed" entity. Obviously, Lucas can change anything he wants whenever he wants, so all speculation is clearly little more than an academic exercise. Oh yeah, about the special effects. They were pretty good, but matte lines were clearly visible in several places and the stop-action animation was really pretty bad. Still, they do great "door" effects (SLAM!), which I have always liked. Overall, I liked the film more than SW, simply because it was less comic-booky and had a bit of real character development. I look forward to the next chapter. By the time it comes out, the entry fee to a theater should be around $7.50. Sigh. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1980 at 0643-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LUKE'S VISION-- AND DECISION ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Steve's analysis of the X-wing raising scene was a very cogent one. Personally, I'd only quibble about one point: his saying Luke "only sees his friends in danger when he questions Yoda about being able to 'see the future'". Here is that scene (with line-initial dots marking what's in the dialog album)-- .YODA: Concentrate. Feel the Force ...flow. Yes. .R2-D2: {bleepity} .YODA: Good. Calm, yes. Through the Force, things you will see . ...other places, the future, the past, old friends long . gone. .LUKE: Han? Leia! . .R2-D2: {bleepity}{screams} .YODA: Control, control, you must learn conTROL! .R2-D2: {bleepity} .LUKE: I saw -- I saw a City in the Clouds. .YODA: Hmm. Friends you have there. .LUKE: They were in pain. YODA: It is the future you see. LUKE: Future? . . . Will they die? YODA: Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future. .LUKE: I{'ve} gotta go to them. .YODA: Decide you must, how to serve them best. {But} if you leave now, help them you could, but . . . you will destroy ALL for which they have fought ...and suffered. .............................. To switch to the point of whether Luke should have gone to Bespin... TESB's director views that question in much the same way as it has come to seem to me -- as a ranking of moral obligations. Of Luke's need to decide between remaining to gain powers that could save the galaxy, or leaving to try to save his friends, Kershner says: "This decision is the element of ambiguity that makes the picture's content so rich. Whatever Luke decides can be interpreted 2 ways. His decision can be seen as a character strength or a character weakness, depending on how you look at it. What is more moral: to try to save the world or to attempt to rescue the friends closest to your heart? That is the moral dilemma at the heart of the matter." [This quote, by the way, is from Alan Arnold's ONCE UPON A GALAXY, the just-out pb about the making of TESB, which I'll review as soon as I get a chance. (In brief: only fairly interesting reading, except to us TESB buffs, of course.)] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 31 AUG 1980 0813-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #62 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 31 August 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 62 Today's Topics: SF Article Ref, Bibliography Queries and Responses, Locus Award Results, SF Books - Female Protagonist & Cybernetic SF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Aug 1980 0927-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: SF IN THE MAINSTREAM The "BOOKWORLD" section of the Washington Post's Sunday edition (8/24/80) is evidence of SF's passage into the mainstream. Not only was there a full page review, by Lupoff, of three real SF novels (Number of the Beast, bad; Songmaster by Card, good; Wizard by Varley, bad), but Tom Disch and Leguin each reviewed totally non-SF works. Neither was identified as SF-oriented, although Disch was credited as having received the Campbell award. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 1856-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Dorsai On the question of Dickson's Dorsai or Childe cycle: I understand that originally there were to be 9 books. 3 historical fiction, 3 present day fiction, and 3 SF. I also read that publishers were unwilling to put out SF books of the size of the 3 proposed so they were each split in half. So far only 4 books have been published (or so I believe, correct me if I am wrong). These are "Necromancer", "Tactics of Mistake", "Dorsai!", and "Soldier Ask Not". That is the order of their internal chronology (ie read them in that order), not the order of their publication. Dickson is said to be working on at least two more books in the cycle at this time. I don't know about anyone else but I EAGERLY await these two books. In addition to the books there are several short stories associated with the cycle. Three of these are gathered together with a thin connecting tissue in "Spirit of Dorsai" (I'm not positive of the title, it should be in books in print though), one of these is the very strong story "Brothers" from the collection "Astounding" published in memory of John Campbell. The related stories also include "Lulungomeena", "The Lost Dorsai" (published recently in Destinies), and "Man of War" (as usual I'm not sure of the title, this is an older story and I'm not sure where to find it). Two other Dickson books, "Home From the Shore" and "The Space Swimmers", deal with a theme/subject (I don't know which word to use) similar to that of the Childe cycle. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 1980 0220 EDT From: Roger D. Duffey, II Subject: Dickson's Childe Cycle Listing the future segment of the Childe Cycle is a confusing task. Over the years that Dickson has been writing it, he has published material from the cycle in a variety of forms, from short story to novel, and under several names. Now as the future portion of the cycle nears completion the various pieces are being brought together with the appropriate framing material. The confusion comes in determining out how older work has been rearranged, expanded, and retitled. According to an Ace advertisement, they will bring out the 5 books of the future segment of the Childe cycle in trade paperback form. Currently, 4 of the 5 books are available. They are DORSAI!; SOLDIER, ASK NOT; THE SPIRIT OF THE DORSAI; and LOST DORSAI. LOST DORSAI includes excerpts from the fifth book to be entitled THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. Steve has explained THE SPIRIT OF DORSAI. A cursory bookstore examination of LOST DORSAI indicates that it is a minor reworking of the Destinies novella. The excerpt and illustrations fill it out to full size. I am not sure how all of the earlier titles which Steve lists will map into the 5 Ace books, if indeed all of them will. However, I have one speculation to offer on the basis of the framing material in the SF Book Club's THREE TO DORSAI, a single volume collection of "Necromancer", "Tactics of Mistake", and "Dorsai!". I suspect that THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA will include the material in "Necromancer" and turn the future segment of the Childe Cycle into a non-recursive time loop. Cheers, Roger ------------------------------ Date: 24 AUG 1980 1513-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: acronymic curses That came up in the PLAYBOY adviser (which I confess to reading during my borading-school youth); their etymologist claimed that it was in fact not an acronym but came from German "ficken" (roughly), "to beat" (compare w. English synonym "to bang"). ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 08/29/80 09:15:41 Donavan's Brain is a classic by Clifford Simak about a disembodied brain which controls his doctors into homicide and crime through mental commands. The thesis is that since he cannot excercise his arms, he exercises those other parts of his brain - telepathy. I suspect that Niven was making a sci-fi internal reference, as we've been talking about recently. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 1980 12:23 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: On Computers in SF. Don't robots count? Other books: The Two Faces Of Janus (James P. Hogan) A few flaws, but the author knows his CS (He is a DEC employee) Colossus (D.F Jones) and its attendant movie, "The Forbin Project". There are others, but I don't remember a lot of names. [ The Hogan book is entitled THE TWO FACES OF TOMORROW. Hogan quit his job with DEC to become a full time writer. COLOSSUS is the first book of a trilogy. The other books are entitled THE FALL OF COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS AND THE CRAB. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1980 2236-PDT From: Andrew Knutsen Subject: info What about making an SF INFO node? Cross-treed by author, title, topic, etc, and filled with all the reviews this bibliography thing is generating (among others)... (with optional rating). Could even be open-maintained... ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1980 1307-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: 1980 Locus Award results 1980 Locus Awards BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL Votes/Points/1sts 1) TITAN, John Varley (Berkley/Putnam) 305 1982 87 2) JEM, Frederick Pohl (St. Martin's) 202 1288 46 3) THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE, Arthur C. Clarke 192 1221 53 (Harcourt) BEST FANTASY NOVEL 1) HARPIST IN THE WIND, Patricia McKillip (Atheneum) 189 1314 87 2) THE DEAD ZONE, Stephen King (Viking) 146 1046 85 3) TALES OF NEVERYON, Samuel R. Delany (Bantam) 113 767 44 BEST NOVELLA 1) "Enemy Mine", Barry B. Longyear (IA's, Sept. '79) 172 1242 95 2) "Songhouse", Orson Scott Card (Analog, Sept. '79) 174 1206 84 3) "Palely Loitering", Christopher Priest 150 1043 64 (F&SF, Jan. '79) BEST NOVELETTE 1) "Sandkings", George R. R. Martin (Omni, Aug. '79) 203 1445 107 2) "Options", John Varley (UNIVERSE 9) 132 896 53 3) "Fireflood", Vonda N. McIntyre (F&SF, Nov '79) 118 743 29 BEST SHORT STORY 1) "The Way of Cross and Dragon" 122 838 52 George R. R. Martin (Omni, 6/79) 2) "giANTS", Edward Bryant (Analog, Aug. '79) 99 632 26 3) "Quietus", Orson Scott Card (Omni, Aug '79) 58 375 14 BEST ANTHOLOGY 1) UNIVERSE 9, Terry Carr, ed. (Doubleday) 143 985 62 orig. works 2) THE BEST OF NEW DIMENSIONS, 118 797 39 Robert Silverberg, ed. (Pocket) reprint 3) THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR #8, 93 603 25 Terry Carr, ed. (Del Rey) reprint BEST SINGLE AUTHOR COLLECTION 1) CONVERGENT SERIES, Larry Niven (Del Rey) 140 952 56 2) EYES OF AMBER, Joan D. Vinge (Signet) 138 929 53 3) THE STARS ARE THE STYX, Theodore Sturgeon (Dell) 108 725 41 BEST ART OR ILLUSTRATED BOOK 1) BARLOWE'S GUIDE TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS, 189 1363 106 Barlowe & Summers (Workman) 2) H.R. GIGER'S NECRONOMICON (Big 0) 87 569 26 3) ALIEN LANDSCAPES, Holdstock & Edwards (mayflower) 80 558 34 BEST ARTIST 1) Michael Whelan 159 1141 81 2) Stephen Fabian 124 828 44 3) Boris Vallejo 83 559 30 BEST MAGAZINE 1) F&SF 348 2476 196 2) Locus 289 1927 92 3) Analog 241 1576 50 BEST BOOK PUBLISHER 1) Ballantine/Del Rey 275 1923 120 2) Ace 261 1716 73 3) Berkley/Putnam 232 1503 75 BEST RELATED NON-FICTION BOOK 1) THE SCIENCE FICTION ENCYCLOPEDIA, 331 2304 206 Peter Nicholls ed. (Doubleday) 2) IN MEMORY YET GREEN, Isaac Asimov (Doubleday) 184 1246 80 3) A READER'S GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION, 74 471 15 Baird Searles et al. (Avon) Rating system: Carr Count, 8 for 1st place, 7 for 2nd place, etc. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 1980 1724-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: 1950s female protagonists What's wrong with Dr. Susan Calvin? Wasn't she in the late 50's? I never felt that she was any more of a caricature than any of Dr. A's other protagonists. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 at 1858-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OVERLOOK DR. SUSAN CALVIN? NEVER! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Dr. Susan Calvin is indeed often cited as an archtypical female main character, yet she is not really \the/ protagonist in all the stories in any of the robot books. Often she just serves an expository function rather than being involved in the plot, e.g., "Satisfaction Guaranteed". For a true fempro in a collection, cf. Helva in McCaffrey's THE SHIP WHO SANG, and the difference in roles is readily evident. Dr. Calvin was unusually "strong" for a female character of the 40's & 50's, much more so than the early fempros, but she wasn't one of them. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 08/31/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It gives away the ending of Asimov's positronic robot story "That Thou Art Mindful of Him". People who have not read this story may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 1980 1856-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Positronic Robots. Roger, I believe that you have missed one robot story, unless the one I am thinking of is "That Thou Art Mindful of Him". There is a positronic robot story where US Robots asks one of their experimental robots to come up with a way to make robots more accepted on Earth. This robot the 9th (I think) refinement in the series and its prede- cessor the 8th refinement come up with a way to do this. They suggest the replacement of various extinct or dying portions of the eco-system with robots, ie robot bees, flowers, birds, etc. The end expected result is that having become accustomed to these lower orders of robots humans will also accept that higher order robots, the ones US Robots want to produce. Only one glitch in this scheme, the two experimental robots have reached the conclusion that they owe repect only to each other. They find that only they measure up to the definition of what a human being is. By the way, I agree with Roger's remark about "The Bicentennial Man". It may well be the best piece of fiction writing that Dr. A. has ever done. [ The story you describe is "That Thou Art Mindful of Him". -- RDD ] ------------------------------ End of HUMAN-NETS Digest ************************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 1 SEP 1980 0531-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #63 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 1 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 63 Today's Topics: Sorting F/SF, SF Books - Budrys Reviews, SF Movies - Sneak Preview Review of Flash Gordon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Aug 1980 at 1922-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "LANDMARK" CRITERIA AND FEMPRO'S ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ McLure's eligibility criteria for his Landmark project were of particular interest. Tho his object in assembling such a list differs from mine in making a study-collection of genre-SF-books- with-female-protagonists ("fempros" refer to either the books or their heroines), the 2 projects have similar needs for selection criteria, and, surprisingly similar criteria. I, too, stick to just books, including single-author collections. While his collections' stories do not need to be inter-related, mine do. (What have actually turned up are covert collections masquerading as novels, e.g., the Telzey tales in THE UNIVERSE AGAINST HER; or "fixups" with some narrative "glue" in them, e.g., McCaffrey's THE SHIP WHO SANG.) McLure's restrictions on juveniles, too, is similar. Since certain juveniles ARE widely read by adults, I hit on marketing practice as a useful criterion. Something published \only/ by Atheneum, or Scholastic, for instance, tends not to be widely known beyond a juvenile readership. But if such a book gets a mass market pb edition (e.g., H.M. Hoover's RAINS OF ERIDAN), its accessibility qualifies it. Of course, there's always a troublesome borderline situation -- in my case, the Dell Laurel Leaf's. Originally school- related, they are now found at least in major chain-bookstores and in SF ones. And perhaps even more widely. ~sigh~ The wording of his fantasy restriction is what caught my attention most strongly. I, too, have a restriction: I want to exclude it, which means I have to have a workable definition of the distinction. Believe me -- until you face 150 sf&f books and tried to sort the SF from the F in a reasonable, reliable, and consistent way, you don't truly perceive the inadequacy of seemingly acceptable definitions! Having some background in folklore, I took as the decisive factor the functional operation of element(s) of any \traditional/ mode of the supernatural. As there's no real distinction between "magic" and a lot of "psi" (e.g., the preternatural in the Deryni vs. the Darkover universes), the author's evident stance sometimes has to serve to determine which was intended. But, McLure's reference to "a novel which includes magic and demons but retains the nature and assumptions of an SF work" leaves me wondering -- just what does he consider THAT NATURE and THOSE ASSUMPTIONS to be?!!!! I am not challenging, I am curious. If he (or other brave SF-Lers) can express what those characteristics are, that may enable me to better define my own criteria. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 1980 0237-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft , Don Woods Subject: Budrys Reviews By Algis Budrys (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) Robert Heinlein's agent had hoped to get $1 million for his latest novel, "The Number of the Beast." What he had to settle for was half that, and not from his accustomed publisher nor from any of the houses with heavy SF publishing programs. The U.S. book rights went to Fawcett Columbine, and the resulting trade paperback is $6.95 per copy. Is it worth it? Very likely not. It's full of science fiction community in-jokes. Its payoff depends heavily on your being able to recognize not only the bylines, but also the principal characters and personalities of a fair number of other science fiction writers. No casual reader or newcomer to sci-fi can possibly hope to understand what's going on; taken simply as a narrative reading experience, it's at best inconclusive and frustrating. It begins in Heinlein's classic action mode of the 1940s and early '50s. It has the expectable utterly competent hero in deadly peril as the result of an attack on the world's entire social system. The explicit promise to the reader is that the hero will, as he always has, solve his personal problem by saving the world. But the hero has access to a machine that lets him shift out of this reality into any other reality-including fictional realities. So he slips into the Land of Oz, into E. E. Smith's classic "Galactic Patrol" sci-fi series, and then into Heinlein's own "Lazarus Long" series. The deadly peril is swiftly forgotten. A major purpose of this shifting seems to be to allow everyone to make love to everyone else. . . sometimes expanding these possibilities by having the characters undergo sex changes. This latter feature is very much in keeping with the "new" Heinlein who appeared in the late 1950s, when the back half of "Stranger in a Strange Land" suddenly became like nothing so much as a talky Jack Woodford novel. This new Heinlein is sometimes on, sometimes off, setting up extended sociophilosophical dialogues against rudimentary action backgrounds. Never has he been as excessively verbal as he is in Number, or as prone to killing a point after it's been made. Finally, Heinlein simply throws a party; a vast, rip-roaring fantasy assemblage to which he "invites" those writers for whom he has developed a personal affinity as a member of the West Coast science fiction community. At that party, we are told incidentally that the hero and the world were never in any sort of peril at all. It was all a joke on the reader. Well, you pays your money and you gets your laughs, all the way from the bank. -o- John Varley's "Wizard" (Berkley-Putnam, $11.95) is a sequel to last year's excellent "Titan," and obviously the middle book in a trilogy. Many of the leading characters return. The most engaging is Gaea, the nearly omnipotent alien intelligence who evolved into a vast biomechanical space station in orbit around Saturn. Gaea contains vast landscapes and scores of wonderfully imagined alien races. She's also getting a little frumpy, old and feisty. Gaby Plauget and Scirocco Jones, two female astronauts from Earth, continue as leading human characters. Rocky Jones is now the wizard supervising fertility distribution in the complex centaur culture. Two new characters -- a young man from Earth, and a young woman from a fanatically anti-male space colony -- also figure prominently. Both are incurably ill. Only Gaea can pass the necessary miracle. Because she demands they first qualify by "doing something heroic," they join Rocky and Gaby on a particularly dangerous odyssey through Gaea's interior. Varley fans will know that things will be (a) strikingly ingenious and (b) not necessarily what they might seem. Not as fully satisfactory as "Titan," this is nevertheless a very nice development of the basic situation, and a promising bridge to the concluding book. -o- Librarians take note: At $200 retail, the five-volume "Survey of Science Fiction Literature" is a bargain from Salem Press of Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Its 513 essays, with supporting data, cover the work of 230 SF authors since 1818. In addition to English-language works, novels and story collections from 18 other nations are covered. A total education in SF; no other reference set can even approach it. -o- "The Berkley Showcase," Vol. II ($1.95), is Berkley Books' paperback "magazine," offering short, new work by Berkley novelists and other notable writers. In this second "issue," old reliables R. A. Lafferty, Edward Bryant and Thomas M. Disch are joined by several promising newcomers, and there is an interview with Barry Longyear, this season's hot new name. -o- Another recommended paperback is "What If?," Vol. I (Pocket Books, $2.95), edited by Richard A. Lupoff. These are stories which in his knowledgeable judgment should have won the Hugo Award for excellence in their respective years of first publication, but somehow didn't. They ARE very good stories. This volume covers 1952 through 1958, and includes Lupoff essays on the history of the Hugo and his reasoning on what went "wrong." Doesn't include any of MY nominated losers, mind you, but what the hell. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/01/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They review a sneak preview of DeLaurentiis' FLASH GORDON and give away some aspects of the plot. Some people may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ JBarre@MIT-AI 08/17/80 22:34:46 Re: "Flash Gordon" movie. ("Flash Gordon" was sneaked over the weekend in Dallas) Dino De Laurentiis has jumped on the science fiction bandwagon and produced "Flash Gordon," a cosmic rip-off of the old movie serials. Sam J. Jones plays Flash, an all too cute quarterback for the New York Jets (sounds familiar) who manages to bulldoze his way through saving the universe. Melody Anderson plays Dale Arden, Gordo's beautiful companion. The fabulously photogenic couple meet during a "natural" disaster orchestrated by Ming, Emperor of Mongo (Max von Sydow). Their plane just happens to crash into the laboratory of Dr. Hans Zarkov, an ex-NASA scientist who is convinced that the earth is under attack. Zarkov tricks the pair into his rocket ship, which just happens to be standing in the middle of his laboratory, and they blast off, only to be captured by the evil emperor. The rest of the plot is cliche'd -- Ming wants to marry Dale, Ming's daughter is after Flash's body, Flash fights his way out of almost every situation, Ming's subjects decide to revolt, and of course, the good guys win out in the end. The only character that was not a stereotype was Dale. Instead of cowering in the corner when a fight would break out, she would go in and throw punches with the best of them. She was also a pretty good shot, and able to get herself out of almost every hairy situation. Flash on the other hand, had to be rescued a couple of times. The script was written by Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who wrote a lot of the "Batman" episodes. Upon viewing this film, it seems that Semple wrote a campy script, but after the producer and director got through with it, the whole thing became just plain corny. As far as special effects go, the ones in this movie must have been made on a shoestring budget. You can see matte lines everywhere (most of the mattes look like bad chroma keys), and most of the rockets, cities, planets, etc. did not look realistic at all. My companion tells me that a lot of the characters, sets, etc. were stolen from "Barbarella," a De Laurentiis flick starring Jane Fonda in a role she would rather forget. The only redeeming quality in this department was the sound. Sound exploded from all directions during the battle scenes. Dialogue would come out from a speaker corresponding with where that person was standing on the screen. Too bad that they could not have done that well with the visuals. The sets and costumes retained a lot of the period flavor of the original serials. Ming's palace was full of art deco, and the rocket ship had very few controls and no one wore space suits. The film would not have been so BAD if the bad were intentional, like "Batman," or "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," but De Laurentiis seems to be taking himself all too seriously. In the words of Leonard Pinth-Garnell: Truly bad. ("Flash Gordon" opens this Christmas at some unfortunate theatre near you) --julie barrett ------------------------------ JBARRE@MIT-AI 08/20/80 01:45:27 Re: Addendum to "Flash Gordon" review The Dallas Morning News reported that a lot of MCA and Universal bigwigs were at the Dallas screening, including De Laurentiis. They also report that the film's budget is $35 million, and that the effects (six hundred -- count 'em!) are supposed to be much better by Christmas. --julie barrett ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 2 SEP 1980 0558-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #64 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 2 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 64 Today's Topics: What Happens at a Con - WORLDcon Wrapup ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Sep 1980 0154-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Worldcon blurb By David Michael Ettlin (c)1980 The Baltimore Sun (Field News Sevice) BOSTON The science fiction boom fueled by the likes of "Star Wars" movies and a growing visibility on the book shelf lured more than 5,500 persons - and an occasional bug-eyed monster - here this Labor Day weekend. The largest SF convention ever held on this planet, it was a chance to meet and talk with the writers and editors, to watch dozens of movies ranging from the very good to the very bad and go broke buying books, magazines and original works of art. "I always knew there was a world science fiction convention, but I didn't know anybody could go," said Sharon Foster, a 29-year-old computer programer from Danbury, Conn., and a veteran of one smaller, regional gathering several months ago. Ms. Foster said she fell into the lure of science fiction while growing up in Texas and discovering the literary realm of fairy tales, a surprisingly common way to become a fan. Writer and critic Damon Knight also started with fairy tales, growing up in a small Oregon town with "no one who would talk to me" but a library full of worlds awaiting discovery. Honored here (along with writer-wife Kate Wilhelm) as guest of honor, Knight recalled first the fairy tales and then the early science fiction of the 1930s in his keynote talk. "The idea of another fascinating world somewhere . . . this excited my imagination," said Knight, who has written eight novels and some 81 short stories but is better known as editor, critic, teacher and founder of the Milford Science Fiction Writers Conference. Though he has made a career of science fiction, Knight could provide only his personal definition of the genre: "This is my theory: Anything I like is science fiction." Ms. Wilhelm, who met her husband at Milford, does not like to think of herself as a science fiction writer, though the fans and writers have accorded her their highest honors. She titled her talk "The Uncertain Edge of Reality." "This is my subject matter when I write," she said. "I am asking, what actually do we mean by reality, and are we stuck with the one we have." The reality that humankind seems to accept - the one reflected in newspaper headlines of war and ecological ruin - disturbs Ms. Wilhelm. "I maintain that we deserve better," she said. "We have the wisdom of hindsight, and the magic of foresight. We know, if we will only admit it, that we are capable of truly magnificent things on the face of the earth." Spider and Jeanne Robinson, coauthors of the award-winning novel "Stardance," have their own magnificent dream - one which inspired their story - of modern dance performed in zero gravity. Their story seems fanciful at first look: a troupe of dancers in space who use their art to save the world from alien invaders. But there was a message, Mrs. Robinson said, that "the earth is womb." With a dream of a real zero-G dance, the Robinsons are planning to apply for a slot on the space shuttle and envision how a performance with a backdrop of "the endless beauty of space" would inspire mankind's birth from the womb. "We've got to get people off this mud ball before it's too late," Robinson said. He allowed that their application for the space shuttle might not be accepted, but viewed it as "great publicity" for their philosophical thoughts. As for their novel, he added, "It's selling like God's hot cakes." Mrs. Robinson, a professional in Halifax, Nova Scotia, performed a specially choreographed multi-media work at the convention. Titled "Higher Ground," it was intended to "reflect the course of the natural evolutionary trend which will take man into space." The science fiction fans provided some of their own entertainment at a masquerade competition, dressing as favorite characters ranging from Luke Skywalker to Mickey and Minnie Mouse, or drawing on the imagination to create their own alien creatures and, naturally, bug eyed monsters. Other convention highlights included a film program ranging from the likes of "Star Wars" to the 1950s version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." And for those who survived the parties held most of each night, there were a few films just perfect for hangovers - "The Blob" and "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." Several motion picture studios gave previews and slide presentations on forthcoming projects, including a mammoth-budget epic called "Clash of the Titans" based on myths of the Greek gods and due for release by MGM next summer. Gary Kurtz, producer of the first two "Star Wars" pictures, showed a film on how the box office record motion pictures were made. Saying he believed movies like "Star Wars" are likely to have an influence on "the kids growing up now," he added: "It's nice to think that the men who will walk on the moon were influenced by wookies." The climax of the convention is the awarding of science fictions's achievement awards for best stories, writers, artists and dramatic presentations. The award is called the "Hugo," in memory of Hugo Gernsback, founder of the first science fiction magazine. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1980 2040-EDT From: Bruce Israel , Richard R. Brodie Subject: Noreascon II Special Report *** FLASH *** Live from WorldCon central, your intrepid reporters are speaking to you now from Boston's historic John B. Hynes Civic Auditorium, named for the famed mayor of Boston, father of Channel 5 anchorman Jack Hynes, and grandfather of Harvard hockey star John Hynes III. WorldCons have always been newsworthy events, and this one is no exception. First, the most important event of any WorldCon: the parties. The SF-Lovers party was a huge success, with such notables as Robert Forward, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Roger Duffey, the nameless JPM, and these noted reporters meeting for the first time face to face (with certain exceptions, of course). Bob Forward brought his terminal, which was promptly labeled "The TTY of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow," and used to print the past three issues of the world's largest APA (We @;i[are];\i@ addicted, aren't we?). Several bathtubs of drinks later, and amid untold ritualistic and orgiastic goings-on far too unmentionable for a family APA, the party recessed until the next con. Thanks go to Sheila Oranch and Paul Schauble for supplying the host site, to Jim McGrath for organizing the party, and to all those who donated edibles and bathtubables. On a less serious note, the awarding of the Hugos took place Sunday evening. Robert Silverberg hosted the affair, which lauded Arthur C. Clarke's THE FOUNTAINS OF PARIDISE as best novel. Other winners were: best novella: "Enemy Mine," by Barry B. Longyear best novelette: "Sandkings," by George R. R. Martin best short story: "The Way Of Cross and Dragon," by George R. R. Martin best non-fiction: THE SCIENCE FICTION ENCYCLOPEDIA, edited by Peter Nicholls best dramatic presentation: ALIEN best professional artist: Michael Whelan best professional editor: George Scithers best fanzine: LOCUS, edited by Charles Brown (LOCUS's fifth Hugo) best fan writer: Bob Shaw best fan artist: Alexis Gilliand Other awards: John Campbell Award: Barry B. Longyear Gandalf Grandmaster of Fantasy: Ray Bradbury First Fandom Award: George O. Smith Pat Terry Award (for humor in SF): Douglas Adams When presenting the Hugo for best novel, Issac Asimov added a touch of humor to the ceremony. When ascending to the stage, he kissed the two beautiful women adorning the stage stairs on the mouth, and then to the delight of the audience did the same to Robert Silverberg. The 1982 WorldCon will be held in Chicago. Total attendance exceeded 5700, making this by far the largest WorldCon in history. Craig Miller gave a slide presentation on SUPERMAN II. We learned that the movie will come out in some of Europe and Australia in December 1980, in England at Easter 1981, and in the Orient in time for Chinese New Year. We will not see in in the good old USA until June 1981, when the producers feel they can make the most money from poor children and senior citizens on a fixed income. Miller said the movie would concern SPOILER WARNING!!! SPOILER WARNING!!! THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH GIVES AWAY SOME PLOT DETAILS OF SUPERMAN II. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE MOVIE, EXCEPT EMPLOYEES OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES, THEIR SPOUSES AND IMMEDIATE FAMILY, MAY NOT WISH TO READ THIS PARAGRAPH the menace of villains who escape from the Phantom Zone after being put there by Marlon Brando. As punishment for his incompetence in this matter, he will not appear in this or subsequent SUPERMAN films. The audience greeted this news with much applause. All other major characters, including Gene Hackman, will appear in SUPERMAN II. Christopher Reeve has already signed a contract for SUPERMAN III. Miller implied that Clark Kent and Lois Lane have some form of intimacy in the film. He also responded, in answer to a question, that the producers have in fact read Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex." However, he did not explain how the producers intended to overcome the problems posed in that story. He also assured us that Supie does not reverse time once again, and that the Phantom Zone villains are not released by a nuclear explosion, but in fact by an exploding elevator. Lois Lane makes numerous attempts to discover if Clark has in fact got Kryptonian blood, and really throws herself into this endeavor. One sharp fifteen-year-old asked why Superman did not fly back in time and shake hands with Clark Kent in front of Lois, proving once and for all that they are two different people. Miller responded "Just because the guy has super powers doesn't mean he's bright." Miller said that the movie would once again deviate from the comic mythos with the approval of DC Comics. He declined to specify the manner of deviation, but said that it concerned the climax of the film. He revealed that Darth Vader was neither Superman's father nor a clone of Jor-El. END OF SPOILER Other tidbits: Marvin Minsky gave an interesting talk on the direction of AI research and on AI in SF. Spider Robinson will release another collection of Callahan stories entitled TIME TRAVELERS, STRICTLY CASH. It will contain four Callahan stories and four others. Spike McPhee's table was overflowing with DRAGON'S EGGS at the start of the convention, though presumably not at the finish. Marion Zimmer Bradley will soon release a new Darkover book entitled SHARRA'S UPRISING. Brodie at PARC-MAXC, et al, tied for fifth place in the first Claude Degler Memorial Scavenger Hunt with 83 points to the winners' 115, after failing to persuade any of C.J. Cherryh, Harlan Ellison, or three other pros to accompany them to the second floor. Jeanne Robinson's multi-media dance presentation, HIGHER GROUND, was a smashing success, and Spider announced the next day that rumbles were heard from CBS. CLASH OF THE TITANS will be released June 19, 1981, and looks like a serious effort with many big-name stars and expensive special effects. The masquerade was won by a pair of people in Aztec costumes; other costumes included Disco Klingons, Jedi Stooges, a Dr. Who wearing only a scarf, and a Luke and Yoda pair which had Luke doing standing forward and back flips and handstands. In all, the convention ran quite smoothly with the exception of the hotel elevators. Next year's glorious gathering is Denvention II, to be held in Denver. Until then, Richard Brodie Bruce Israel ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/02/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It reports on an interview with Gary Kurtz, the director of TESB. It discusses The Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Jedi. People who have not seen TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1980 2040-EDT From: Richard R. Brodie , Bruce Israel Subject: SF-LOVERS interviews Gary Kurtz Gary Kurtz, director of The Empire Strikes Back, granted an exclusive interview to a screaming crowd of 600 fans. Your intrepid reporters, scribbling notes in the front row, learned the following important tidbits about the Star Wars saga: "Revenge of the Jedi," the sixth chapter in the series, will appear in theaters in the spring of 1983. Every major character will return. Kurtz gave no help in the area of Luke's paternity, answering the obvious question with a resounding "What do you think?" He seemed to resolve the X-wing question by answering Bruce's complicated reconstruction of our theories on the subject with "That's an interesting idea." He added that Luke was meant to fail in his attempt, and that Yoda lifted the X-wing out of the swamp to give Luke the option of leaving or staying. Kurtz said we will learn more of Boba Fett's history, but will probably not see him unmasked, since "he is a pretty mysterious fellow." Kurtz does not know who shot J.R. Kurtz had an interesting reaction to the question asking why Obi-Wan said that Darth killed Luke's father, and if they could possibly be clones. When repeating the question, he repeated the first portion, but carefully avoided saying anything about clones. His answer was that we would learn more in the future. The major part we gleaned from Kurtz's talk was in regard to Yoda's mention of "another." Flatly, Kurtz stated that "the other" is someone we have NOT YET MET. Kurtz made a mysterious statement: he said "We'll learn who 'the other' is in the future, but we won't see him for a while." Experts disagree on the interpretation of this statement. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 3 SEP 1980 0555-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #65 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 3 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 65 Today's Topics: What happens at a Con, Review Library, Sorting F/SF, SF Books - Childe Cycle & Card's Songhouse & Donovan & Bug Wars & TNotB Quote & Linguistics & One Tree, Space Information, Spoiler Warnings, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Sep 1980 11:29 PDT From: Roger Duffey Subject: SF-LOVERS at Noreascon II The names of the local arrangements volunteers for the party were accidentally left out of yesterday's message. Special thanks also go to John Delaney , Susan Rajunas , and Margaret Minsky for their help with the party. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1980 11:29 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Hear, hear! for Andrew Knutsen's idea of a way (or any way) to organize reviews from the Digests in an easily retrievable form. Karen ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1980 2335-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Dorsai, fantasy/sf, Songhouse Dorsai books (or the Childe cycle). I stand by my naming of books. I too was confused by the Ace ad. Since the advertisement confused me I took my courage in hand and asked Mr. Dickson about the series and the order of books (I was at Noreascon which is why I was able to ask him). Dickson essentially said that Ace didn't know what it was talking about in the ad. The order he gave is the same order I mentioned. Dickson said that "Spirit of Dorsai" and "Lost Dorsai" were illuminations of but not part of the main cycle, he indicated that Ace tended to get confused about this. He also indicated that there is one more illumination coming, a short story about Ian Greame. He claims that he has to avoid the temptation to do the illuminations and get to work on the rest of the books. I hope that we are all straightened out on the order of the Childe cycle now. ("Final Encyclopedia" is due out relatively soon I gather). Next topic, Fantasy/SF. The following books can be classified as fantasy due to their use of magic but due to the treatment they deserve a classification as SF, in my opinion: 1) Conjure Wife -- Fritz Leiber 2) Magicians -- James Gunn 3) Incomplete Enchanter -- L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt (did Pratt work on these? I can't remember offhand) Yet another topic: If you can find copies of the Orson Scott Card stories "Songhouse" and "Songbird" read them. If you like the same kind of stories I do you'll love these. If not they are still good stories. They were in Analog a while back. Steve Z. P.S. I thought the Robinsons' "Higher Ground" was awful. Mrs. Robinson didn't impress me as a dancer. Her movements seemed, somehow, to be unsmooth. I also kept seeing her brace herself against her clear plastic prop and against the floor. Maybe I'm just unappre- ciative of ballet, I do tend to bore easily. My dislike may also have been helped on by the distracting and annoying slide show behind her and also by the fact that I had to stand, with an aching back, for the part of "Higher Ground" I stayed for. sjz [ Pratt did indeed co-author THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER with DeCamp. There were two sequels to THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER: THE CASTLE OF IRON and THE WALL OF SERPENTS. Also note that "The Incomplete Enchanter" and "The Castle of Iron" were recently reprinted in the book THE COMPLETE ENCHANTER, a misnomer since publisher problems prevented including THE WALL OF SERPENTS. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1980 0042-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Donovan's Brain According to my copy of Donovan's Brain, it was written by one Curt Siodmak in 1942. (It is, by the way, the source of the nonsense jingle I advertised a free dinner for the source of a couple of years back on some ITS bboard, with no takers. The jingle was used by Cory (the doctor)'s assistant as a "tenser, said the tensor" style brain-baffle against Donovan.) --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 20 August 1980 1600-EDT From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Rating Asprin's "The Bug Wars" is a definite turkey. Not at all the quality of his other work, and just plain bad writing, no plot to speak of, and the key blurb on the cover around which the story would appear to center is a side incident taking up only a couple paragraphs, and never developed; without development, it is a trick of the same class as the two people finding themselves on a new planet, and being informed that their names are (or phonetic equivalents of) "Adam" and "Eve". Avoid this one. ------------------------------ Date: 08/27/80 1239-EDT From: KG Heinemann (SORCEROR at LL) Subject: Heinlein Biblical reference On a lighter note, I just ran across a Biblical quote which obviously is the source on which Heinlein drew for the title of his latest ouevre. I thought I'd share it with everyone who reads SF-LOVERS. I have not read that work yet; perhaps someone who has can comment whether the quote has any relevance to the story. "This calls for wisdom: Let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six." It appeared in a short Boston Globe article about a woman who insisted on changing her license plates because the plate number 666 signified that she had pledged herself to the Devil. Enjoy, KGH ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 0544-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-1 Subject: Info for various references Re the inquiry about books heavily involved with linguistics: I have received a second-hand referral to JUNIPER TIME, by Kate Wilhelm, as getting heavily into language concepts. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1980 1636-EDT From: VAF at MIT-MC (Vincent A. Fuller III) Subject: Donaldson - new book? All: Does anybody know when Donaldson's next book (The One Tree) will be coming out? I recently finished The Wounded Land, and am looking forward to the sequel. Vince ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 1980 1140-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Space information From the letters section of the July OMNI, some information people may be interested in. ie the names and addresses of some Washington people with a great deal of influence over NASA's budget. If you are interested in space (either pro or con), they would be both good sources of information (just write to them requesting information on a particular topic - like the text of the Moon Treaty - and they will be happy to comply) and people to bitch to if you disagree with current policy and/or have something new to add. Advisor to the President on Space Affairs Benjamin Hubberman Executive Office Building Washington, DC 20500 Director of Space Science and Applications; House Subcommittee Don Fuqua Room 226, Rayburn Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Director of Science, Technology, and Space; Senate Subcommittee Adlai E. Stevenson, U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 You can also get factual information from non-government sources. Probably the best organized group to go to is the L-5 Society. Like all such groups, they are hard put for funds and time, so you might have to wait awhile. By joining the L-5 itself you can get their newsletter, a monthly publication that is full of interesting articles. You can also just subscribe to the newsletter. For more information write to: The L-5 Society 1060 E. Elm Tucson, Arizonia 85719 Jim ------------------------------ Date: 1 September 1980 2322-EDT (Monday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Spoiler warnings Keep them in; they are a courtesy I appreciate. I have not read some of the newest SF which is discussed, and, believe it or not, I have not yet seen TESB. Something to do with the intersection of space-time events, such as spare time, adjacency to a theatre, willingness to put up with disgusting theatre audiences (does anyone watch a movie without talking?), etc. The last time I made the attempt, in Los Angeles, the line at the theatre was 6 blocks long. By the time I found the end of it, I was back at the parking lot, so I left. joe ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/03/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1980 11:29 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: Luke: friends vs. world I think it was Forester (sp?) who said, in more or less these words: "If I have to choose between my friends and my country, I hope I would have the guts to choose my friends." Karen ------------------------------ Date: 19 August 1980 01:57 edt From: SALawrence at MIT-Multics (STEVE at SAI-Prime) Subject: Star Wars, TESB, & Nuclear Weapons With respect to most minor details of these films, I'm as willing as anyone else to meditate on possible rationalizations behind the structure of the film universe. However, with respect to nuclear weapons I find it very hard to ignore the most serious of the "real" reasons I'd expect them to be avoided: these films are supposed to be, in some sense, escapism. The characters in the films spend a lot of time throwing very heavy weaponry at each other; if nukes were used at all, they'd have to be used a LOT, and the question of what to do about the Empire coming in and nuking heck out of whatever rebel base we're seeing would always need to be considered. I dunno about any of the rest of you, but I would think twice about going to see a "fun" film which spent something like 30% of its time considering defenses against nuclear bombs. Exploding Leia's world by magic (which is essentially what was done) was neat; had they thrown a giant nuke at it, or bombed the surface into glass, it would just have been sickening. It would seem MUCH too real. Rather than look for reasons for the lack of nukes in the time/location placement of the universe, I'd be inclined to go at it the other way around: I would not be at all surprised if one of the big problems Lucas faced was how he could set things up so that he could make a science fiction war film without ever mentioning nuclear weapons, and that this probably had a LOT to do with setting it in the past rather than the future. Once he'd made it clear, in the script at the start of SW, that the technology in the film had nothing to do with ours, he could sit back and relax and ignore nuclear weapons for the rest of the series. I really doubt the film could possibly have been so successful had they thrown giant H-bombs at each other rather than just shining red flashlights here and there. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 08/27/80 14:36:01 Re: fuzzy last wishes If Leia and Chewie are the parents of the Yoda's last hope, does that make the kid a charm born of hairy union? just musing, Dan ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 4 SEP 1980 0603-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #66 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 4 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 66 Today's Topics: SF Books - TNotB Quote & Yet Another TNotB & Barbie Murders & Clement's Starlight, Sorting F/SF, TESB - Glorifies War? & Effects, Known Space Anomalies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Sep 1980 1343-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Number of the Beast Just to get the record straight: the number of the beast is from Revelation 13:18: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." Like most of Revelation, this verse is in code. Most biblical scholars agree that it refers to Nero (AD 37 - 68), the first Roman emperor to persecute Christians. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1980 (Wednesday) 1020-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: 666 in fact and fiction For another treatement of "the number of the beast" see a \short/ story titled, appropriately, "The Number of the Beast". It appears in a collection of works by (?) Gordon R. Dickson titled (something like) "The Mind Spider and other stories". It's essentially a piece of detective fiction. -- Dave ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1980 2027-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Varley's THE BARBIE MURDERS Varley's latest collection consists of nine stories, three of which are fairly routine (by Varley standards), and the other six of which range from good to smashing. The title story, 'The Barbie Murders', is a detective story about trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack and is quite good. I felt that 'Equinoctial' (about symb/human relationships), 'Beatnik Bayou' (another one of his Luna stories), and 'Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe' (another Luna story, with a different edge) were the best and completely up to par with the stories of his earlier collection THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION. However, the overall average of the other stories is not as high. For anyone who hasn't read any of Varley's short stories, grab one or both of these books. His characterizations are the best I've come across. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1980 (Wednesday) 1946-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: Various and Sundry things 1) Was looking/buying books this week. I highly recommend Varley's new anthology "THE BARBIE MURDERS", which in general continues his "Invaders" universe. As a matter of fact, I am so used to the universe that when I hit a story which is not part of it, like "Manikins" I really take a while to sort things out. In the anthology are stories on Cathay and Parameter/Solstice from "The Ophiuchi Hotline", and various other works. 2) I also note that there is a sequel to Hal Clement's "MISSION OF GRAVITY" called "STARLIGHT" which evidently has been out since '71, but which I just noticed. I enjoyed "MISSION", though I found "DRAGON'S EGG" a much more interesting discussion of much the same problems. A major difference between the two is that Clement assumes the Mesklinites run on real-time (e.g. "human" time), and the cheela run on mega-human time (1 million times faster). It Is interesting that Clement did think of this, as witnessed by his character remarking "We knew things would fall faster here, but we just assumed you (Mesklinites) would therefore have faster reaction times." 0 Dave ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1980 at 0114-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THE SF vs. F MUDDLE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Steve Z. says that certain items of speculative fiction "can be classified as fantasy due to their use of magic but due to the treatment they deserve a classification as SF". Lists of `mixed SF&F' I've got, already! As with McLure's unspecified "nature and assumptions of SF" -- what IS that \treatment/ which can override the use of magic? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 1980 at 0025-CDT From: Dewey Henize (via HJJH at UTEXAS) Subject: TESB/war glorification controversies Some general observations on the TESB/war glorification controversies. I don't, so far at least, find myself in either of the current camps as far as the all or nothing, complete influence vs "just a movie" positions. Therefore, the following food for thought (fuel for argument?). SW and TESB are fantasy entertainment, and were definitely planned that way. I personally don't think they are all that great, but enjoyed them when I saw them (once each was enough for me - catholic tastes that I am cursed with). There's much more involved here than just the films themselves, however. I still remember clearly the upheavals in our "culture" when four rather uncouth foreign musicians suddenly took over the consciousness of the young American public. Their music wasn't really profound, but the time was right for them to be chosen as leaders and spokesmen, whether they had anything to say or not. You don't have to be a sociologist to know that everything changed rather rapidly for a while - and I won't argue whether it was for good or bad (that's another two week discussion in itself). This I would call a catalytic effect - dissatisfaction suddenly became open and adamant, "rebellion against authority" was something done by more than hoods and punks, etc. SW/TESB seems to catalyze the public to the same degree. This seems more than a fad, more like a release of tensions that we have all seen building for the last several years. I don't know how it's all going to come out, and I certainly don't believe anyone else does either, but the effects on our perceptions will very probably linger for a long while. More to the point of this rambling disertation, while SW/TESB were designed to simply entertain (and make money), I believe the phenomena has moved beyond that now. I ALSO BELIEVE THAT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF RESPONSIBILITY SHOULD BE RECOGNISED IN THE NEXT FEW EPISODES. No one knew what would happen when the first two came out. Now, however, there is a prepared audience waiting, who will be bringing children also. Lucas can't be just a filmmaker for the next few episodes - whether he likes it or not he WILL have a lot of influence. Hope this doesn't offend anyone too severely, just my own naive observations. Dewey Henize ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1980 0109-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Matte lines in TESB In reply to Lauren's comments about the noticable matte lines in TESB, yes but give the LucasFilms folks some credit, they tried to do the most demanding sort of a matte in the Hoth battle sequence. A lucky fact for space-fiction film buffs is that it is much easier to matte onto a black background (eg space) then onto a "positive" background (eg snow). Basically this is because it is easy to make the matte line go dark, since the forground image (spaceship) is shot against a black or blue "limbo" which is processed to black. The other problem which contributes is the poor handling of "motion blur" on the leading and trailing edge of moving objects. Optical printing as the basis of special effects is at best a hack, and is on the way out as soon as the better technology is perfected. More than one group is currently working on better more modern (read computer based image processing) techniques for this applications. Hint: one of them is NOT LucasFilms. PS Yes, the stop-motion animation was a little lame, this looks like a job for (da da dah) Computer Animation! ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/04/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss apparent anomalies within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for several of the stories and novels within this series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1980 2335-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve At (I think) the Noreascon panel on world building Mr. Niven indicated that while he really liked the puppeteers he had come to the conclusion that they could never have evolved because they had no way to defend themselves. I would like to rescue the puppeteers from this plight. Anyone else want to help? I will start with the following piece, but we will need more. In one short story involving a mad puppeteer (I can't remember his name, was it nestor by any chance?) the puppeteer killed someone by kicking with a hind leg, very powerful blow and very effective. One of the other characters, a human, speculated that attempting to get this hind leg into play may be where the puppeteers got their (in)famous cowardice. They weren't necessarily just fleeing, they were also bring their most powerful weapon into position so it could be used. As I recall the story involved finding a slaver stasis box, I also believe that this was the story that Niven "adapted" for the Star Trek cartoon show, replacing the puppeteer with Mr. Spock. Can anyone else come up with any other useful ways of getting the puppeteers evolved or even helping to advance this idea? I don't remember the Known Space series well enough to search my mind for details. ------------------------------ MCLURE@MIT-AI 09/03/80 03:34:43 Re: mad puppeteer The story CCIS.ZEVE@RUTGERS refers to is 'The Soft Weapon', collected in Niven's NEUTRON STAR collection. A \very/ good story. The puppeteer is Nessus. ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 08/30/80 04:02:35 Re: Pak building ringworld Now, wait a minute, VAF. Didn't Ringworld Engineers establish that there WASN'T any transmutation device? But the previous set of arguments about inconsistencies in the Pak's building the ringworld are very good. If it took a major effort to build one spaceship, they aren't all that wonderful. ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 08/29/80 09:15:41 Just looking at my backlogged mail, and have noticed two things which I may be able to add to. First off, I think that Kzanol had taken a racarilaw (save my spelling) slave, which I don't think was tnuctip. Supposedly, all sentient life (excluding bandersnatchi) was wiped out by a massive telepathic "DIE" command, in a Pyhrric victory for the thrints.... Incidentally, what happened to Greenberg/Kzanol's memory of how the Thrint hyperdrive worked (actually tnuctpin, but who cares). Greenberg is presently (future context) falling across the Galaxy at some portion of light speed. (In "Elephant", Bey Shaeffer is told the fact by an outsider, the ship is the "Lazy Eight II" originally bound for Jinx - that was Greenberg's ship. Greenberg seems to be a loose end, just like Alice Jordan (from Protector). What happens when a belter goldskin cop comes back from searching for Brennan with a flatlander - And she is pregnant, without the husband, and with Brennan's antique, much-improved ship.... And what happens to Roy and company.... Are they utterly defeated (another Pyrhhic victory) or is Niven holding back on us. Idea - What if the Protectors MANIPULATED the puppeteers into manipulating the Kzin and human races. Other ideas: After Home fails, people are going to explore it (they don't know that the planet is full of Tree-of-life), and presto! Protectors. The protectors might still be around, but wiser in working with "new" humans. But the whole book "Protector" is not known in "Known Space" - In Ringworld Engineers, Louis Wu didn't know about it... Incidentally, is Louis Wu Bey Shaeffer's stepson (actual son of Carlos Wu and Sharrol)? The dates fit perfectly - But why didn't Niven mention it in regard to the "Long Shot" in Ringworld... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 5 SEP 1980 0654-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #67 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 5 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 67 Today's Topics: SF Books - Yet Another TNotB, Higher Ground Reactions, Known Space Anomalies - Puppeteers, Space Information, TESB - Glorifies War? & Digital Record, SF Movies - Battle Beyond the Stars & CE3K Revised ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Sep 1980 at 2200-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS Subject: "The Number of the Beast" short story reference The story referred to by DWS as possibly being by Dickson is probably the one by Fritz Leiber. It (also?) appeared in THE SIXTH GALAXY READER, ed. by H.L. Gold, 1962. ------------------------------ Date: 09/04/80 1356-EDT From: DELANEY at LL Subject: Higher Ground at NOREASCON II I would like to add my comments on Jeanne Robinson's "Higher Ground" to those of Steven Zeve . It was disappointing, especially given Jeanne Robinson's credentials. Let me add, though, that I have some stylistic biases when it comes to dance. I most enjoy, and have been most exposed to, modern 'classical' ballet a la Ballanchine. In such dance, fluid- ity of motion is considered a mark of expertise. One could say that a skillful dancer never makes a jerky movement; they just flow from one place to another at differing speeds. Jeanne Robin- son moved jerkily. Perhaps that was intentional, but it dis- pleased me. Also, the slide show was annoying and out of place. ___ It is good that people are trying to synthesize science fic- tion and dance, but the quality will have to be better before the synthesis can be called effective. ------------------------------ Date: 04 SEP 1980 1418-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Higher Ground Modern dance (which "Higher Ground" is related to --- it is definitely \not/ ballet) is not necessarily supposed to be smooth. I admit to knowing very little about it myself, but it seemed to me that one of the "jerkiest" sections of the dance was a deliberate reference to the description of "Mass Is a Verb" in the first part of STARDANCE. The slide show was part of the \performance/ of "Higher Ground", which was never proposed as a solo dance work; the viewer's problem was not to ignore one or another facet but to fit them all (music, lights, screen visuals, and dance) into a whole (I won't get into the cliche and argument about "great XXX" demanding something from the audience). Certainly it wasn't entirely successful; zero-gee dance is not easy to simulate under earth-normal gravity, and to compress the history of several years of dreaming about what a zero-gee dance could be into a 20-minute performance is difficult. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1980 at 1038-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: Puppeteer Survival I find it difficult to understand Larry Niven's claim that puppeteers could not defend themselves. They seem, to my mind, very close to the ostrich in terms of evolution, and the ostrich has no problems at all. As someone who has recently completed an exotic animal training course, I can assure you all that lions, tigers, bears, etc. are no problem at all, compared with the sheer physical effort and stamina involved in taking two other people, going into a corral, and TRYING to catch an ostrich! These were relatively tame, and did not try the famous disembowling kick, but the effort damn near killed me anyway. The point is that they are large, powerful, well-armed, and fast as the dickens. If they had intelligence I'd never ever consider coming anywhere NEAR them. The only thing that makes it possible is that they are even dumber than chickens, if such a thing is possible. (The formidable-looking beak is a pussycat. They can't do a damn thing with it.) ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1980 1832-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: SIODMAK, CONGRESS, TESB Just a few short comments on some of the recent digests. 1) Does anyone know how to pronounce Siodmak (as in Curt Siodmak). 2) When writing to Congresscritters, even those who chair committees and subcommittees, it is probably best to address them as "Representative" AND "Senator", rather than "Director." 3) Re the effect of SW and TESB on the populace, can anyone point to any evidence that they had the effect on any substantial part of the population that Dewey claims for them. I suspect that 'Star Trek' has had a much greater effect on shaping attitudes than SW and TESB ever will, but that is just a guess. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 1980 14:42 PDT From: STOGRYN.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Who is to censor whom? I hope I don't seem off the current track, but . . . Even among the pacifists writing in to this SF-Lovers digest, there is are differing points of view: those who feel violence is bad but sex should be allowed, those who feel that the PTA has all the answers, but that any religious affiliations tend to turn people off. (I hear tell a few very religious people were pacifists of the highest caliber). Most objections seem to be about the extremes on the scale of emotions. Too much violence and hate is bad, but so is too much love - "liking" tends to be acceptable. I am able to judge for myself: what I should be able to read, the meaning of what I do read, and what values I place on that material. I don't want anyone telling me what I can or cannot read, see, eat, or like. If I want to read a novel that glorifies a war, I will. That doesn't mean that afterwards I will be a warmonger; most likely just the opposite will happen. War movies make me appreciate peace all the more. No matter how much fun it may seem in the context of a movie, I know it is NOT reality. People such as Dave can enjoy a movie containing violence, know the difference, and still not realize it. I think that there is a silent majority out there that is reluctant to speak up for its right to read what it wants. Adults are capable of their own censorship. BUT if, as an adult, you are not able to make decisions for yourself, a multitude of sources (newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, and others) contain reviews of each of the other media. Movies are reviewed; books are reviewed; so are TV programs. Not just by one person; everybody (from religous groups to Playboy) publishes reviews. If you want someone to tell you what is right or wrong, there are many people out there willing and waiting and wanting to guide you. Parents should be the censor for their children, not the FCC. They should teach their children what is right and wrong, what to question as right or wrong. Parents should teach their children to censor themselves. SHOULD, I say; not that it is easy. Censorship is the enemy of freedom. In America the First Amendment guarantees us freedom of speech . . . this should include the freedom of sight and reading. There should be no censorship of the right to make movies with any subject matter (when I say movies it could just as well be books, or any other media), so that those of us who know reality can experience the multitude of human and alien adventures. If you don't like movies with violence, don't go see them, don't let your kids see them, but, also, don't censor them for those of us who can take it. In any artistic endeavour, there is no right or wrong, whether the art be audio or visual, the genre be science or fiction. Steve ------------------------------ Date: 04 SEP 1980 1425-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Luke: friends vs. world I think the quote referred to is more accurately rendered as "If I were required to choose between betraying a friend and betraying my country, I hope I should have the decency to betray my country." I think the shift from choice to betrayal is significant here, as is the fact that the individual in question (if memory serves) had no reason to waste enthusiasm on his country. ------------------------------ ZRM@MIT-MC 09/04/80 22:29:22 Re: Review of The Empire Strikes Back Orchestral Suite I recently purchased the Chalfont digital (Soundstream) recording of the TESB suite. Don't. The sound is hollow, the hall it was recorded in sounds like a gym. The pace is too slow, lacking the brisk and concise sound of Williams's soundtrack version. All in all this recording is an example of how not to do a digital recording. It sounds like it was done in one take for each cut with no editing or remix as is now possible with digital sound editing machines. It seems, from the end product, that neither the musicians nor the recordists were up to doing this "live" recording properly. Now if only the Mobile Fidelity people would remaster the soundtrack... Performance:FAIR Recording:FAIR Surface:EXCELLENT ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1980 at 1038-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: "Battle Beyond the Stars" I went to see Roger Corman's latest, "Battle Beyond the Stars", the other day, and was very pleasantly surprised indeed. This is by far the highest-class picture he's worked on to date, and is worth every penny. Those who remain staunch fans of "The Little Shop of Horrors" will be pleased to learn that all of the Corman touches that leave you in slack-jawed amazement at the audacity of the man are here and plentiful. It is a VERY funny, up-front space opera of the 30's mold, a la Ron Goulart. Think of "The Seven Samurai Meet Darth Vader" and you'll be pretty close. Do not look for a serious moral, or a message, or great plots, or anything like that; just sit back and enjoy. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/05/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in the digest. It discusses observations made by Robert Lange in [SFL V2 #37] and Bill Daul in [SFL V2 #53] about the revised version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the in-jokes of the mothership. People who have not seen either version of the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 08/26/80 00:18:47 Re: Close Encounters with Roy Neary As much as I like the idea of Roy Neary "turning into" an alien at the end of CE3K, some evidence a friend brought before me tends to deny the incident. He visited the FX center shortly after the filming of the new interior mothership sequences, and tells me that there was some footage omitted from the interior shots because it was too poor in quality. According to him, the motherships acts (so he was told) as an energy sponge - which is why all objects it passes over lose their power. Apparently the "glitter" burst at the end of the scene is an absorbtion or release (I never quite got it straight) of energy from a smaller craft which had spiralled up the central core in a previous shot. The platform Neary was on was supposed to do the same, but they couldn't get the fx work to look good enough. So the end result we now see is largely serendipitous. My friend now has one of the original blueprints of the mothership interior, gleaned while they were throwing them out. He also got to step inside the model, and came away with one of the little plastic aliens which you can see lining the sides of the core. Each alien silhouette stood about one half inch tall. He adds that the folks at the Glencove facilities added little in-joke figures inside the ship just like on the outside. He mentioned a miniature "1941" airplane ramming into some palms, and a girl levitating over a bed. Of course, this doesn't compare in number to the little objects glued to the *outside* of the mothership. Besides R2D2 (the only visible one) they attached a shark, a "1941" fighter plane, a mailbox, Darth Vader, King Kong, some phalluses, a graveyard, sailing ships, and a Tie fighter. What? No Robby the Robot? No Klaatu? Oh well. Larry ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 6 SEP 1980 0816-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #68 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 6 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 68 Today's Topics: Space Information, Known Space Anomalies - Kzinti, TESB - Digital Record & Light Sabre Speculations ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/05/80 07:24:28 Re: Proper address for representatives and senators A representative or senator whose last name is 'X' would be addressed as 'Mr. X'. It is also correct to address a representative as 'Congressman X' and a senator as 'Senator X'. Committee and subcommittee chairmen should ALWAYS be addressed as 'Mr. Chairman'. For instance, if you are going to write to Jim Lloyd the chairman of the Science and Technology Subcommittee for Investigations and Oversight, you would address the letter as follows; The Honorable Jim Lloyd 222 Canon House Office Bldg. Washington, DC 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman: Etc. Etc. It is considered to be a great honor to be elevated to a chairmanship so, to make a good impression (they are probably as vain as Hollywood movie stars), be sure to recognize the title. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1980 0934-PDT From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM Subject: If the opposite of pro is con ... Then the opposite of progress is congress. This gem thanks to Casey Quayle. /Mike ------------------------------ Date: 04 SEP 1980 1450-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Thrint --> Kzin ?? I don't think Larry Niven would have intended that extreme a biological assertion, especially since he knows Bonnie Dalzell, who did several anatomical drawings for his books and is an expert speculator on potential alien creatures. Specific examples: the bone structure of the two species is not even vaguely homologous, and no species has either maintained itself for 2+ billion years or revived in a recognizable form over that interval after declining. (That's a weak phrasing of the argument, but I think you can see what I'm driving at.) As it happens, that casual remark about non-sentient females is one of Niven's more glaring casual errors --- not like the earth rotating backward in the first edition of RINGWORLD, which was simple carelessness, but an item tossed off for effect which he never considered the implications of. There were many pages of discussion about the question in APA:NESFA and/or APALOOSA a few years ago covering this from several angles: -- Wouldn't a non-sentient creature raising potential sentients produce only "feral children"? That has been the result here; Kipling's JUNGLE BOOK is no more than an amusing fairy tale against a rather horrifying reality. -- Or would a non-sentient mother simply be so exasperated with the mischief capacities of intelligent offspring that she'd offhandedly throttle them? (This from the one participant who actually was raising an ambulatory child at the time.) -- Parenting requires training and practice; look at the recent case of a female panda, isolated in a zoo from her peers, who accidentally rolled over and squashed her 8-day-old offspring. Would the raising of sentients be within the capacity of a nonsentient? The discussion culminated in an astounding article from Mark Keller, one of Bonnie's colleagues who is now thesing in history, about how such a society might come about (diseases associated with the onset of puberty) and what the results might be. Anyone in the vicinity of MITSFS is encouraged to drop in and read the article in PROPER BOSKONIAN, in the fanzine files; unless there is great demand I won't put it in the online files since it runs around 30K characters. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/05/80 07:42:50 Re: Digital recordings The problem with the Soundstream Mastering recorder is that it doesn't allow editing or mixing after the fact (I consider this to be a blessing but there are those who don't share my rather puritannical audiophile tastes). In my opinion, the new digital mixing systems ARE NOT HI-FI. The Soundstream system approaches my standards (16 bit X 56Khz sample rate/channel) but I feel that the sample rate is still too slow. The new digital mixing systems are only 14bits wide, causing loss of definition at low levels. There is more to recording than just low noise. Low noise is unimportant psycho-acoustically if all the other parameters are correct. If you don't believe me, go to a concert with a sound pressure level meter and measure the signal/noise ratio. The comments about the hall sound are well taken. The idiots who pass themselves off as recording engineers today have no idea how to record a live orchestra. They forget that in order for a hall to sound right, you have to have bodies (sound absorbing material) in the seats. As far as the performance goes, you just have to argue that with the conductor. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/06/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 12 August 1980 22:07 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Light sabre speculations OK, Here it is: Question: Why do Jedi Knights carry light sabres?? Answer is \NOT/ to get across the street. Consider: 1. Vader, Ben Kenobi, and Yoda, after revealing himself as Yoda, show little, if any, fear of rifles, guns, blasters, and whatever. In fact, when Solo shoots Vader, Vader deflects it with a mere wave of his hand. We must assume that this is an extension of his ability to manipulate (ta-da-da-dahh) THE FORCE. In support, it is established that one skilled in using the Force has control over material objects. It seems reasonable, although I cannot think of direct evidence, that this extends to being able to manipulate electromagnetic energies, as well. This would account for the ineffectiveness of the blasters. [ Speculation: could a group of skilled Jedi use this ability to shield more than just themselves? How about a whole base? A planet? ] 2. During the light sabre battle, Luke manages to strike Vader. Vader appears to be injured. Thus, the light saber is effective where a blaster is not. The most reasonable explanation for this is: 3. The light saber's operation is based on manipulation of The Force. It seems that it is really a form of mechanical aid to a certain type of use of The Force, i.e., a psionic amplifier. Now, if this seems hard to take, consider: a. Vader's and Kenobi's light sabre colors were different and \consistent/. b. From STAR WARS through TESB, Luke's sabre color changes, in some cases according to apparent emotion. Notice the colors in "Luke in the tree", "Luke & Vader, rounds 1 and 2", and that the snow monster's wound bled while Luke's and Vader's were cauterized. But mostly, the color changes are due to practice and improved ability. 4. There have been several (if not many) Jedi or potential Jedi that have gone over to the (hiss) Dark Side of the Force. Consider that both Kenobi and Yoda know a great deal about the Dark Side and those who serve it. Vader may be the only extant example, but he is by no means unique. 5. The Force is also an instantaneous (or nearly so) information carrier, i.e., one can see via use of The Force. Thus it would be difficult, if not impossible, to plan a trap for a Jedi. 6. Nevertheless, there must be a way to kill an aberrant Jedi... So, only an extension of The Force can defeat The Force. This comes back to the light sabre operating through The Force. This explains a number of otherwise loose ends. 1. Why Vader fears light sabres, even when wielded by unskilled hands, such as Luke. 2. Why all Jedi knights, even "Dark" knights, carry them. 3. Why no one else, in the middle of a war, carries or uses such a powerful weapon. This last point raises some very interesting questions. The first of which is "Who is 'The Other'?". My nomination is Han Solo. "Why?" You say... "Why? Because I like him..." uh...oops.. Wrong Universe. But, consider: 1. Han Solo's remarkable piloting ability, evasively (in both films, especially the trick to get away from the battle cruiser), defensively, and offensively (they keep knocking off Tie fighters and generally suffer only an exhausted shield). 2. The general degree of success he has had in staying in front of the law while conducting a successful career in smuggling. 3. His remarkable ability to find Luke: a. at the Death Star, to find his little X-wing amidst a rather large battle, and then to have the relatively large, slow, and non-maneuverable Millenium Falcon cover for one of those fast, fast X-wings. Not to mention actually hitting Vader's ship, something that none of the multi-hundred fighters, which were designed and trained for that purpose, had managed to do. b. On Hoth, to find him in zero visability when even his instruments were freezing. [I suggest that Solo stepping out of Kenobi's image is because Luke was aware of someone using the Force to find him, but just associated it with the wrong person.] 4. Solo's ability to use a light sabre and have it cauterize the wound, as well as being a bright "experienced" color. There was no blood when he killed the Tauntaun. Notice this in particular, we see \nobody/ but Jedi, or potential Jedi as with Luke being given the sabre by Kenobi (who already knew that Luke had the ability) \ever/ use a light sabre. This is despite opportunity and need. Han Solo is the \only/ exception. 5. His utter calm (at the last second) when he is faced with the freezer. It seems sort of a "Oh well, let him do it, it doesn't matter." He wasn't afraid because he "knew" The Force would protect him when he used it at the last second. Vader wouldn't be monitoring him, not with Luke, 'Bacca, and Leia all there. Calrissian's long check of the controls on the case can be used to either prove or disprove this: a. Disprove: he was making sure that Solo was OK, and (maybe) setting something to break him free in flight, then saying "He's frozen (for now))." After more thought, I don't like this theory. Anyone as suspicious as an experienced bounty hunter would notice and suspect and therefore guard against the possibility by either re-adjusting the controls or by stowing the "ice cube" in a vacuum or behind locked doors in case "the fix was in". Besides, I wouldn't trust Vader not to double cross me also. b. Prove: Calrissian realized that according the the instrument readings Solo should not have survived. Yet, according the the readings, he did. His survival must have been due to something outside of the freezing process itself. With the audiance he has, he couldn't afford to show a reaction, but it still took several seconds to convince himself of what he had seen. Perhaps it is this anomaly that started his "conversion" against Vader. All in all, I think there is more evidence for Solo having a great potential in using The Force than there was for Luke before Kenobi started training him. Now, since STAR WARS is supposed to be the Skywalker family story, it may just turn up that Luke and Solo are related. It would be an interesting twist if Vader turned out to be Solo's father also. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 7 SEP 1980 0900-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #69 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 7 Sept. 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 69 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Flash Gordon & Battle Beyond the Stars, SF Books - Sorting F/SF & Misc. Responses & Pliocene Earth, Known Space Anomalies - Non-sentient females & Puppeteers & Genealogy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MASEK@MIT-ML 09/07/80 02:42:04 Re: The new Flash Gordon I saw the movie at a sneak preview in Boston last Friday night. It seemed like an art deco version of the story. Most of the music was by a restrained (I believe) Queen (the rock group). The costumes were very nice. The special effects were mediocre at best. I don't believe they took themselves very seriously. Overall I liked it, but I don't believe it's a great film. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1980 09:59 PDT From: EmbarassedAnonymous at PARC-MAXC Subject: "Battle Beyond the Stars" I find myself forced to disagree with Mike O'Brien's review of BBtS. Not being familiar with Roger Corman's work in general, I'm not qualified to say whether it's his "highest-class picture", but compared to other medium-budget SF films, this is *low* class stuff. It is by no stretch of the imagination science fiction. It is comedy, and as such, succeeds only partially. Some of the jokes, visual and verbal, are very funny, but many are so predictable you'll groan out loud. The effects are incredibly uneven; some are completely believable, but some, especially mattes and models, are ridiculously fake-looking. The "acting" is miserable. Richard Thomas apparently doesn't know how to play any character except John-Boy Walton, and, except for the non-human characters, this movie is a marvel of miscasting. Go to see it if you must, but don't forget to bring a paper bag or newspaper to hide your face on the way out. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 1980 1740-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: mixed sf/f. As to mixed sf/f. To HJJH, have you read "Conjure Wife"? If you had I think you would know what I mean. One author once said that every science fiction story is allowed to make one assumption to make the story work, for instance that FTL exists. In "Conjure Wife" the assumption is that what we call magic exists and works by rules we don't understand yet. All of the books I mentioned make the assumption that magic exists and works by rigid mathematical laws. Ie. you can't do just anything, you must follow the rules. Perhaps the best example of this is Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories (although Garrett has made several assumptions, the first of which is that Richard the Lion-Hearted didn't die from the Crusades but lived to be a superb king and the last of which is that magic works, by strict mathematical laws, and that one must have a talent for it). steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 1980 13:01:45-PDT From: Cory.kalash at Berkeley Subject: One Tree, and Incomplete Enchanter Series I was at an autograph party for Donaldson in mid-July, and he said that he was in the first rough draft of "The One Tree". It looks like it won't be out until next year, at the earliest. Speaking of The Incomplete Enchanter series, I hope nobody has forgotten "The Green Magician", the last in the series (they finally get to medieval Ireland). Joe Kalash ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1980 (Wednesday) 1946-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) What was the name of the Dorsai short story about Ian Graehme coming back to Earth to avenge the death of one of his men. He confronts the man's brother, who "killed" his brother by making him feel like a coward, causing him to get himself killed. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 1980 1740-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Childe Cycle The Ian Graeme story in question is "Warriors", it originally appeared in the December 1965 issue of Analog. This is the story I mistakenly referred to as "Man of War". ------------------------------ Date: 1 September 1980 2300-EDT (Monday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Computers in SF I've missed a couple issues, so this may be redundant: Algis Budrys - "Michelmas" ------------------------------ MASEK@MIT-ML 09/07/80 02:27:57 Re: Novels about Cats I recently read the novel Magnifi-cat. It was about a cat who went to heaven as an ultimate saint and the problems this causes. It is not a `great' novel, but it is amusing. I believe it was written by a bishop who was having fun. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1980 1459-PDT From: Mark Crispin Subject: The Many-Colored Land by Julian May During the 1980 WorldCon, reproductions of the first 64 pages of the manuscript of The Many-Colored Land by Julian May were distributed as souvenirs. The Many-Colored Land is volume I of The Pliocene Earth Trilogy, and is scheduled for publication in the spring of 1981 by Houghton Mifflin. Presumably, this release is to drum up some business early in the game. From the author's teaser: In A.D. 2034, Theo Guderian, a French physicist, made an amusing but impractical discovery: the means to use a one-way, fixed-focus time warp that opened into a place in the Rhone River valley during the idyllic Pliocene Epoch, six million years ago. But, as time went on, a certain usefulness developed. The misfits and mavericks of the future -- many of them brilliant people -- began to seek this exit door to a mysterious past. In 2110, a particularly strange and interesting group was preparing to make the journey -- a starship captain, a girl athlete, a paleontologist, a woman priest, and others who had reason to flee the technological perfection of twenty-second- century life. Thus beings this dazzling fantasy novel that invites comparisons with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula Le Guin. It opens up a whole world of wonder, not in far-flung galaxies but in our own distant past on Earth -- a world that will captivate not only science-fiction and fantasy fans but also those who enjoy literate thrillers. The group that passes through the time-portal finds an unforseen strangeness on the other side. Far from being uninhabitated [sic], Pliocene Europe is the home of two warring races from another planet. There is the knightly race of the Tanu -- handsome, arrogant, and possessing vast powers of psychokinesis and telepathy. And there is the outcast race of Firvulag -- dwarfish, malevolent, and gifted with their own supernormal skills. Taken captive and transported through the primordial European landscape, the humans manage to break free, join in an uneasy alliance with the forest-dwelling Firvulag, and finally launch an attack against the Tanu city of light on the banks of a river that, eons later, would be called the Rhine. Myth and legend, wit and violence, speculative science, and breathtaking imagination mingle in this romantic fantasy, which is the first volume in a series. The sequel, titled THE GOLDEN TORC, will follow soon from Houghton Mifflin. From what I read there are the germs of an interesting yarn here. It is a bit hard to tell, as there are several quite obvious rough spots which will need smoothing out. I'm also not too sure about the author's writing style; but I'll suspend judgement until the book comes out. Did anybody else get this package at WorldCon, and if so, what were your comments about it? Has anybody read anything else by May? ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 1980 3:09 pm PDT (Saturday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Thrint --> Kzin ?? With regard to Hitchcock's remarks concerning non-sentient females caring for sentient offspring [SFL V2 #68], I call foul! His analysis makes the blatantly sexist assumption that only the female is qualified to raise young. Why can't the father raise the sentient children? In fact, Greenberg/Kzanol's memory of when he first demonstrated the Power might be taken as a slight indication that the sons tended to stay with the fathers. -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1980 (Friday) 0845-PST From: HIRGELT at LLL-MFE Subject: Pierson Puppeteers A comment on Mike O'Brien's concerning the ability of Pierson Puppeteers. In RingWorld Niven makes a point of the ability of Puppeteers to defend themselves. There was a comment about their always turning their backs to fight so that they could get their powerful third leg involved in the fight. I was struck by this because a great deal had been said prior to this about their lack of courage. They do have fighting ability and if suitably motivated (or insane) they will fight. I'm not familiar with the Known Space stories to know if this is brought out there as well. Ed ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/07/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses some apparent anomalies within Niven's Known Space series. Spoilers for several of the stories and novels within this series are involved. People who are not familiar with the series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ ACW@MIT-AI 09/04/80 17:22:18 Niven has linked many of the Known Space stories with genealogy. In "World of Ptavvs" and some other stories focussed on the Belt, we meet Martin Schaeffer, nicknamed "Little" or "Lit" because he is around seven feet tall. He has some marital problems: his wife doesn't get to Confinement Asteroid in time and the baby she is carrying hypertrophies and has to be aborted. Lit promises her that she can stay in Confinement until she gets pregnant again. Beowulf Schaeffer belongs to a later era. I don't know whether he is Lit's son: perhaps more intervening generations are involved. Bey is a seven-foot-tall albino, a native of We Made It (or "Crashlander"). He is the hero of several short stories but to my continuing disappointment does not have his own novel. In "Flatlander", Bey meets Sharrol Janss and they fall in love. In "Grendel", we learn that Sharrol cannot tolerate space travel. Bey is willing to relocate to Earth for her sake, but the Fertility Board refuses to grant him a Birthright because he is an albino. He and Sharrol both want children, so they "impose" on a mutual friend, a mathematical genius named Carlos Wu. Carlos lives with Sharrol for two years, fathering two children, Louis and Tanya. For those two years, Bey stays away from Earth, having an affair with a starship pilot named Margo something. Then he returns to Earth and presumably lives happily ever after with Sharrol and his two foster-children. No stories come from this period of his life. It has always struck me as peculiar that Louis Wu had never heard of the Long Shot, nor of Bey's odyssey to the galactic core in "At the Core". As a matter of fact, Louis only remembers that the galaxy is exploding as a vague fact from college. You would think that he would be more familiar with his foster father's exploits. Oh, well: I don't know in what order the stories were written, but I do appreciate how hard it is to hold a universe together. (One look at modern particle physics is enough to convince you that God is having a hard time with this one. "Oh, no, what am I going to do about THAT cludge? Maybe another meson...") ---Wechsler ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 8 SEP 1980 0636-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #70 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 8 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 70 Today's Topics: Future - Breakthru Speculations, SF Books - Sorting F/SF & 2 Plot and Title Queries, Known Space Anomalies - Puppeteers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 SEP 1980 1455-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: musings Recently, some friends of mine and I were sitting around discussing the affairs of the world in our usual all-knowing way, and we got on the subject of where technology would go in the future. The point was made that it seems that, at the moment, there haven't been any really stupendous breakthrus in the scientific world -- ones with the effects of, for instance, the steam engine or the transistor -- effects like greatly improving the way many things are done at the moment, and also capable of great further refinement to inspire thousands of new inventions. The transistor, for instance, has been refined to the point that we can now make calculators so small you can't push the damn buttons. So we postulated what might be next. Suggestions included force- fields, antigravity (it wasn't TOO scientific a discussion), a great new battery or power source, and everybody dying in a nuclear war. The most interesting idea, however, was based on the new recombinant DNA research. Ideas borrowed from Larry Niven (carpet-grass, housecleaning animals) and Cordwainer Smith (underpeople) might soon be possible through selected genetic manipulation. Houses grown from mutated trees, a mutated breadfruit that supplies all the basic requirements for life, an intelligent horse that can read maps, watchdogs with opposable thumbs and who carry guns... and all the developments from plants are solar-powered. It would radically change the way we live. Anyone else find this interesting enough to talk about? Stan Forward ------------------------------ Date: 8 Sep 1980 at 0154-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SF vs. F ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The crucial drawback to Steve Z's proposition is that if the existence of magic is allowed as the one gratuitous assumption an SF story is permitted -- THE SF vs. F DISTINCTION IS LOST. ________ Of COURSE there are rules to magic just as there are in science. For the aim of magic (using and changing nature) approximates that of science, which is itself an outgrowth of magic. I am not referring to just the minor operations like the effects of cold iron, or running water, or silver bullets, or the wooden stake through a vampire's heart, but the major Laws of Sympathy and of Contagion well known to folklorists and anthropologists and pervasive throughout most human cultures' engagement in magic. Cf. Frazer's classic THE GOLDEN BOUGH. \Good/ fantasy (i.e., the kind *I* like best) is that in which the author abides as meticulously by the Laws of Grammarie as he would the laws of physics in penning a comparable SF story. Not all our authors -- whether of F \or/ SF -- do this, but Garrett is certainly a prime example of an expert at this particular style of fantasy. The more one knows one's Grammarie, the more one can appreciate just what he has done. (Other outstanding instances are Stasheff's WARLOCK IN SPITE OF HIMSELF and Anderson's OPERATION CHAOS. I'd also recommend Simak's THE GOBLIN RESERVATION and Koontz' THE HAUNTED EARTH. These, along with Garrett's TOO MANY MAGICIANS and MURDER AND MAGIC, are all books I never got around to writing up as fantasy examples in response to the query of some time ago about comedic SF<&F>.) ------------------------------ Date: 8 September 1980 0040-EDT (Monday) From: Lars.Ericson at CMU-10A (M200LE60) Subject: Does anybody remember? A story, possibly by Clifford Simak, possibly called Journey into Eternity, but probably not on both counts. Involves a man and a woman, who travel through time (strictly Earth context), and meet each other in various guises. One context involves Hanging Gardens in Babylon; another around Stonehenge times; a third has pyramids. I can't remember the ending, but I think it involves them joining in some sort of union, entering a new plane of existence, etc. Ring any bells??? Lars.Ericson@cmua ------------------------------ Date: 8 September 1980 0220-EDT (Monday) From: Roger Duffey Subject: Here's the Plot, What's the Title? I am trying to find a series of light SF stories that deal with religion and terraforming. In this series an ancient alien race has an elaborate set of ethics regarding revenge and a religion which worships many different gods. Their pantheon is clearly an SF adaptation of the far East pantheon. After suitable devotions you can be chosen by one of the god's as his represen- tative. When chosen you gain the ability to use certain natural forces. One of them is a power pull, which is a natural upwelling of force in a certain location. When near one you can manipulate its power. The series centers around the activities of the one human adept who uses his abilities to terraform or manipulate the ecology of planets for hire. There is one image that sticks in my mind from this series. The human adept is about to leave a planetoid that he has recently worked on. As he does all the animals begin to follow him and prevent him from leaving in his ship because they know him as their "god". I believe the stories were by Zelazny, in particular because the religion for these stories also forms part of the background of Zelazny's TO DIE IN ITALBAR. However, I could be mistaken. Does anyone know anything about this series? ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 1980 1305-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: Puppeteers defense ability The only story I know of in which a Pierson's puppeteer actually defends itself (against a Kzin, of all things!) is "The Soft Weapon", which is anthologized in *Neutron Star*. He (Nessus) is quite successful, but almost goes (more) insane as a result. -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1980 1626-PDT From: CSD.MCGRATH at SU-SCORE Subject: NET joke The following was taken from the ITS BBoard: How many NET people does it take to screw in a light blub? Well I lost count. First off, someone proposes that a light blub needs changing. Three more send replies agreeing with this position. Nine more object to the whole idea. Four others think that DCA should supply light blubs. One sends a message saying that light blubs are not an appropriate topic for the ARPANET. Two arise in defense of light blub discussions. One forwards all this to SF-lovers which is where I lost count because of the overlap in interests. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 9 SEP 1980 0727-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #71 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 9 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 71 Today's Topics: Future - Breakthru Speculations, Known Space Anomalies - Non-sentient females & Puppeteers, SF Books - Sorting F/SF & Plot and Title Queries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Sep 1980 15:20:11-PDT From: CSVAX.horowitz at Berkeley (via RODOF at USC-ECL) Subject: contemporary technology Dear Stan, I submit, contrary to your contention, that the laser is a recent technological breakthrough worthy of "transistor" status, and that we have not yet realized its full potential. This potential includes extensions to "X-ray-sers" and "gamma-ray-asers" capable of concentration of and penetration by an enormously powerful coherent energy beam (of course, we'll need to discover new sources of energy to run the things continuously). In fact, a blurb in this week's Newsweek claims that British scientists have tested a working X-ray-aser. Naturally, the US military will meet with them to ascertain the warfare applications... Another major society-shaping breakthrough will be in-vitro gestation. This will give us so-called "bottle babies" a la Brave New World, but more importantly, will allow genetic engineering to produce new mammalian life in the laboratory. Last, but not least, is the continued hope that an advanced extraterrestrial sentience saves us from the impending mess, brought on by technological advances coupled with human emotional and social immaturity (you've heard that one before, no doubt!)... Yours in the future, Steven Horowitz ---------------- Date: 8 Sep 1980 15:20:11-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL Dear Steven, Your message is of interest, although I wish you had sent it to SF-L, because I am hopeful of starting a discussion on the subject that I can use both as a matter of my own interest in the concept and as a basis for dialogue in a story I'm trying to write in which the characters discuss the same thing. However, let's discuss your points. #1: I don't agree about the laser. It was ballyhooed greatly about eight years ago as the device that would practically save the world and restore decency eveywhere, but it really hasn't (with the notable exception of holography and those neat little scanners in supermarkets) graduated much beyond the stage of an advanced welding torch. As a matter of fact, a number of processes that switched to laser technology during the fever of the "race-to-the-moon" sixties have switched back because lasers just don't work well for cutting cloth or wood, stripping bark off trees, or even (yet) as portable hand weapons. Even new advances in the technology such as X- or Gamma- lasers (if such are possible -- I recently read an article that claimed they were not, but articles have been wrong before) may not be better weapons than a charged-particle beam. #2: As for babies in bottles, that, even though the technology for it is real possible in the near future, the stupendous hell of a controversy THAT would stir up would probably result in enough legislative redtape to set genetic research back 50 years. I hope the scientists will have the sense to leave people alone and stick to plants and lower animals for a while. I'd love a second set of arms, or a tail, but I'd be willing to bet that I'll have to make do with an altered intelligent monkey manservant first. The last point here is that I don't mean something new and neat that can make a few things easier, I mean something that will upset the economy, throw thousands out of work, be applicable to thousands of daily tasks, and after everthing has settled down, leave the world tremendously changed. That means something like portable cheap fusion "batteries", easy-to-do antigravity, a truly intelligent robot... or Rover getting up on his hind legs and demanding the right to vote. If you don't mind -- I'll leave the close encounter alone. The variables are many and widespread, and they have been dealt with many times before by better men than I. See you in a hundred years, Stan Forward P.S. -- You must understand, here, that I don't claim to know a great deal about what I'm talking about. If you have, for instance, a degree in laser dynamics and can shower me with facts that SHOW the laser is going to set the world on it's ear in twenty years, then by all means, rain curses down upon me and accept my apologies. I'm just trying to write stories, and all's I know is what I reads in the papers. (Or ask my father about -- but he never DID tell me why the sky is blue) ------------------------------ Date: 08 SEP 1980 1503-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Re: Thrint --> Kzin?? and sexism Oof! a very palpable hit! --- although I would offer that the fault is more in the condensation of several months' lengthy discussions of nearly four years ago than of a sexist bias. I think I misquoted one of the arguments proffered by someone who was at the time raising a 5-year-old; her suspicion was that the male Kzinti temperament could not stand the aggravation of offspring (will you grant that they can be \very/ aggravating? With 6 or more of various ages running around NESFA just now I frequently find them so) and would be more likely to claw an annoying underage Kzin than to tolerate it. I also recall that at some point in the Known Space series someone specifically states that the Kzin survived despite the loss of ca. 2/3 of each male generation to war because the (non-sentient) females weren't involved; since the Kzinti even after "taming" were highly individualistic ("If the Patriarchy were to introduce forced population control, the Patriarchy would be exterminated for its insolence") they probably used labor-intensive child-rearing methods rather than high-efficiency forms (such as creches, BRAVE NEW WORLD-style), which means that there would not be enough males to \raise/ (i.e., not just teach) the children. There's also the question of exactly how children were brought up in \human/ societies in Known Space; aside from Confinement Asteroid and glancing references in A GIFT FROM EARTH I recall very little to suggest that the pattern differs from that of Earth in the late 60's --- i.e., the women have \at/ \least/ half the responsibility. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Sep 1980 3:57 pm PDT (Monday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Puppeteers' defense In reply to THOMAS@UTAH-20, Nessus defends himself similarly at one point in Ringworld. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/08/80 07:32:42 Re: SF vs. F Let us not forget Clarke's third law: "A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Given that, I think that in some cases, magic should be allowed in SF. As long as we violate no physical principles (known or unknown), why not? As far as I am concerned, FTL, teleportation, telepathy, is just as much magic as someone waving his/her hand and something appears or disappears. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 8 September 1980 1914-EDT (Monday) From: Lars.Ericson at CMU-10A (M200LE60) Subject: Yet another plot without title These people land on this planet (which they may want to take advantage of, I'm not sure). The natives make them their governors: they have to wear a seal of government office. The catch is that if any native goes to a polling-place and votes against them for some reason, the seal blows up and kills them. Anybody remember this one?? ------------------------------ Date: 9 September 1980 0220-EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Here's the Plot, What's the Title? Does anyone remember the story about the man and woman time travellers who meet in various guises at different times? "The Path Beyond the Stars" by Emil Petaja The story to which you refer might be "The Path Beyond the Stars", by Emil Petaja. It is loaded with astrological symbolism. The two characters are named Jon Wood and Venus Trine. They finally get together "at the end of time", with this ultimate descendant of the human race who has been watching the universe die, and decides to give them the opportunity to start anew, and sends them off to be Adam and Eve. -- W. Olin Sibert That's the one. -- Lars.Ericson at CMU-10A (M200LE60) I am looking for a series of stories about a polytheistic alien religion involving terraforming. ISLE OF THE DEAD by Roger Zelazny (novel) I can recall only one story dealing with the described subject; it's a full-length novel (although somewhat disjointed) by Zelazny. I believe the piece in question is ISLE OF THE DEAD, which is the location of the final battle between the hero and a conservative member of the religion in question who is outraged at someone not of his own species being able to take on the aspect of one of his gods. (This leaves me hunting for the title of the novel which is based on Egyptian mythology and which begins in the House of the Dead, ruled over by Anubis. TODAY WE CHOOSE FACES, perhaps? Anyway, it contains the Shoe Litany, one of Zelazny's more entertaining bits of whimsy.) -- Chip Hitchcock Roger is correct, the stories are by Zelazny. The human trained as a planet former is Francis Sandow (sp?). He also makes a minor appearance in TO DIE IN ITALBAR, where people think they have killed him (but have not). As I recall, his offstage movements were crucial to the story, although he was not the main character. I believe the scene Roger described was from ISLE OF THE DEAD (title refers to the religion of the aliens who taught the art of planet forming). I'll check my collection tonight to verify the title. It's been too long since I read it...but I know how some of Zelazny's images stick in one's mind...maybe I should re-read it. -- Susan Rajunas The additional descriptions all agree with my other memories of these works. I suspect that some parts of the IotD may have also appeared as short stories in one or more of the SF magazines leaving me with the impression of a series. In any event it is light, entertaining reading. Thanks also go to Glenn Burke , P. David Lebling , Mike O'Brien , Allan Wechsler , and Steve Zeve for responding to this query. -- Roger Duffey ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 10 SEP 1980 0712-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #72 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 10 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 72 Today's Topics: Future- Breakthru Speculations, SF Books- Sorting F/SF & Plot and Title Queries, Basic fantasies of SF, Known Space Anomalies - Non-sentient Females & Thrint ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 SEP 1980 0824-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Future Breakthroughs A very simple breakthrough that would have an effect on the whole world by increasing everyone's productivity 50% and breaking us from time-belt by time-belt day-night slavery would be a method for eliminating the need to sleep. Which brings up an interesting question. Why do we sleep when it is obviously bad for your survival? (Tigers can sneak up on you easier.) I have read the thought-provoking suggestion that sleep is necessary for garbage collection and reprogramming of the brain's software, or perhaps for turning some of the new software into firmware, but has anyone developed any proof of these hypotheses? ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 (Tuesday) 1918-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON (William Westfield) Subject: Technology breakthroughs.... I would tend to agree that the LASER could qualify as a significant breakthrough, although not in the guise of high power cutting tools as was suggested by someone else. There are currently surgical techniques that rely on the properties of lasers, but the most significant impact has been that of semi-conductor LASERs on communications technology. Video-phones and extremely high speed data communications become quite possible, though they havent yet appeared in commercial markets. (more on this in a few sentences). There was also the related developement of thin film optics to go with this, although I havent seen anything on this recently. The Josephson junction is another earth shattering discovery, now that practical circuits are being built with them. However, I tend to fear that although technological breakthroughs still occur, society has gained such effective mass that it has too much momentum to be changed by even greater technical breakthroughs than I have mentioned. This is obvious in the case of something like bottle babies. If there were cheap fusion batteries, they would be held back by anti-fusion battery groups, not to mention oil companies, people with interests in fission, and so on. A lot of currently viable technology is being (supressed) because it would displace too many workers [this is currently being discussed on HUMAN-NETS]. 4 billion people just can't reshape their views overnight, at least not without seriously deranging many of them - see FUTURE SHOCK (Toffler) and the SHOCKWAVE RIDER (Brunner). Bill Westfield (WESTFW@WHARTON) ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 12:51:21-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: technology breakthroughs RODOF at USC-ECL proposes that there have been no really "stupendous" breakthroughs in the scientific world recently. I might propose that s/he consider the silicon chip, especially as applied to computer technology. With it's capabilities barely scraped, it has already changed the way we play, write, create video programs, cook meals, enroll for classes, produce films, diagnose medical problems, and in many ways, the way we approach problem solving. This applies not just to computer scientists, but to the entire society. One can hardly claim an inferiority to the changes wrought by the steam engine or the stirrup. However, I am intrigued by the idea of genetic engineering as the next one. Certainly we have already seen its possibilites in the medical world, and that's probably also just a drop in the bucket. How about chairs, pillows, and beds which mold themselves to fit your body? Alarm clocks that gently waken you with mild shakes and soft sounds, instead of raucous bells, buzzers, and commercials on the radio? The only problem I can see is if the things have to be intelligent enough that they become petulant and, possibly, revolutionary due to their slave state. That could cause some interesting problems. Beware the SPCF (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Furniture)!!! Ken Arnold ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 0938-PDT (Tuesday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: Magic vs Technology Actually, Randall Garrett's Darcy stories and Anderson's "Operation Chaos" stories represent the converse of Clarke's Law, i.e. "Any sufficiently developed magic is indistinguishable from a technology". There are probably other stories on this theme. Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stories, nominally marketed as SF, deal with this idea (the "Matrix Technology" is the hypertrophied magic). This shouldn't be surprising when you consider the history of science on our own world. Copernicus and Newton both had intimations of the occult in their writings. Mathematics was long considered a form of magic. A very credible thesis could be formed that our present technology IS simply a sufficiently developed form of magic. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 09 SEP 1980 1301-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) While I do not recall any light SF dealing with the topic, I believe that what you are looking for is the "prequel" to To Die On Italbar. The novel is The Isle of the Dead, by Zelazny and deals with Francis Sandow and his immortality. (As an aside sometimes I wonder if Sandow and Conrad are the same person, but the two universes do not jib well enough for it to be serious speculation). This novel is anything but light since it deals with death, "reincarnation" and how an immortal reacts written. The Planetoid he leaves, is not a planetoid, it is a full sized planet he created as his home many years previous to the story's beginnings. He is the reincarnation, human manifestation whatever of Shimbo of Darktree, the "lord of thunder". Shimbo seems to be a combination of various chinese(?) and hindu gods. I retract my first statement, I can think of a lighthearted novel, clearly not the one you were thinking of, which does not really deal with gods, but you might enjoy it. Another Fine Myth, by R. Asprin. A magician's apprentice gets involved with a demonsional traveller (a Demon, for short) and goes off with him to see the worlds. The book is full of puns and tongue in cheek humor and I highly recommend it. What brought it to mind is that the apprentice uses "force lines" to work his magic. (There is also a sequel Mythconceptions due out any time now). Gail Hormats (gfh@CCA) ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 0915-EDT From: SRAJUNAS at BBNC Subject: request for title The title Chip was seeking is CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS. I checked my copy of ISLE OF THE DEAD last night; Chip is correct that it was the scene of the showdown between Francis Sandow (alias Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders) and the being who holds the name of Belion, Shimbo's traditional enemy in the pantheon (he and Sandow have never met). The title refers to a painting by Boecklin (I've no idea if he exists) which inspired Sandow to create the world where the showdown occurs. Susan Rajunas ------------------------------ Date: 9 September 1980 1342-EDT From: Dan Hoey at CMU-10A Subject: Zelazny terraforming I think the major work in the series is Isle of the Dead, but there were a few short stories. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 9:06:43 EDT From: Drew M. Powles The title of that Zelazny novel that begins in the House of the Dead is, of course, CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS, which was, incidentally the novel that started me as a Zelazny. Drew [ Thanks also go to and Steve Zeve for supplying the title to Chip's novel description. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 1139-PDT From: Fanning at SRI-KL Subject: Name for Novel, Hitchcock's request The Egyptian-mythology-based Zelazny novel is CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS (novel name only--it may have appeared under other names). It's interesting in that it represents the furthest extreme it the direction of pure fantasy that Zelazny came up with until the Amber series. Highly recommend it for those who occasionally enjoy those gods'-eye views ("You think we have it easy here in the Pantheon -- well, let me tell you.....") which Zelazny has more or less taken out the copyright on. This one is clearly NOT science fiction, and doesn't contain even the mild sops (like "resurrection machines" in LORD OF LIGHT) Zelazny often throws in for the harder SF audience. Since I am a sucker for this kind of pseudo-science fantasy, and since I believe there is an underlying fantasy being tickled and satisfied by even such hard-science SF as DRAGON'S EGG, I'd like to propose yet another identification effort for SF-LOVERS: WHAT ARE THE BASIC FANTASIES THAT SF APPEALS TO? Can we identify a small list of them (just as some claim that there are 3, 7, or 13 basic plots for any story)? Are they different from those in other genres (I think they are to some extent: fantasies of godlike omnipotence and omnicompetence seem to fit in SF better than in Westerns.) Can we come up with non-obvious examples of novels/stories for these basic fantasies? Or does it all boil down to Gershon Legman's general statement that ALL American literature concerns itself with homosexual bondage and necrophilia? Any ideas out there? ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1980 0951-PDT From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM Subject: kzinti childrearing I seem to recall that in both Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers it was pointed out that the Kzinti become putty in the hands of children (I recall an instance where some child jumps on the back of Chmee, and he purrs). This would seem to indicate that male kzinti like children, probably an evolutionary insurance to make sure there are adult kzinti. /Mike ------------------------------ Date: 8 Sep 1980 1617-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Thrint --> what I have the idea, from hints thrown out in some story or another, that the thrint had devolved into grogs after the ultimate weapon had killed off all the slave species. One may assume that the weapon killed most but not all thrint, or killed all the male thrint (which a male thrint might think of as all thrint), etc. [ The theory that Grogs are a devolved form of Thrint is advanced by Garvey in "The Handicapped" (see the collection NEUTRON STAR). Garvey is the (someday to be) owner of Garvey Limited, a company which supplies aids and works with sentient beings who evolved "with minds but with nothing that would serve as hands" (eg. cetaceans and bandersnatchi). -- RDD ] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 11 SEP 1980 0648-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #73 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 11 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 73 Today's Topics: SF Books - Plot and Title Query, Future - Breakthru Speculations, Space - Colonization ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Sep 1980 0455-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: Title for a plot [reply to SFL V2 #71] The story Lars.Ericson describes (in which a populace has the ability to remotely explode its governors' seals of office) sounds like "A Ticket to Tranai", by Sheckley. It can be found in the collection "Citizen in Space". The exploding seal is only one small aspect of a typically strange (for Sheckley) society. ------------------------------ Date: 10 September 1980 1253-EDT (Wednesday) From: wilcox at UTEXAS (forwarded by Lars.Ericson@CMUA) Subject: SF query It's not a book, but (as I recall) a short story. Our intrepid hero gets 'elected' Mayor (President?) by virtue of willingly accepting the medallion of office from the incumbent. He then discovers the problem of a 'vote of no-confidence'. As I recall there is also a scene where he is in a shop talking with the owner when the owner suddenly grabs a gun, runs to the door, and shoots a passerby. 'Potential criminal', he explains, 'It is my civic duty to prevent crime whenever possible.' Couldn't find the story in my collection, unfortunately. Either my memory is faulty, or I read it in a borrowed book. --Jim ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/10/80 07:35:49 Re: LASER as a major technological breakthrough Yes the LASER is a marvelous tool, but it doesn't qualify as a "breakthrough" in technology. The first thing we have to ask ourselves is, "does this item (LASER in this case) markedly change what is POSSIBLE. In the case of the LASER the answer is NO. In almost every situation where a LASER is utilized, we could manage without it (so some things wouldn't be easy or practical, we could still do them). On the other hand, let's look at an item that IS a major technological feat. The vacuum tube made electronics possible. If we had no other amplifying device, electronics as we know it WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE! So, let us not confuse significant state-of-the-art advances with major tech. breakthroughs. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1980 14:13:55-PDT From: CSVAX.horowitz at Berkeley Dear Stan, Perhaps according to your economic/social upheaval criteria, the laser fails to rank. However, I disagree with your putdown. The transistor was invented in the late 1940's, and it's impact to society wasn't felt until the mid 1960's. Also, many of the original applications merely replaced existing technologies, such as radio and TV (much more important in shaping modern society than pocket calculators). You judge lasers on their deflated destructive merits, however just as transistors increased the throughput, miniaturization, and inexpense of computers, so has the laser improved telecommuni- cations via lightguides. With the advent of efficient fiber optics and solid state micro-lasers, we may see a copperless as well as paperless society in the future. Another biological advance related to genetic engineering that you did not mention concerns immortality. If we conquer the aging process, how will we ever achieve a steady-state population? This is another sticky ethical problem akin to bottle-babies and supermen! If you're looking for some REAL upheaval, how about the advent of technologies to enhance our nascent psychic abilities! The impact would be proportional to the scope and power of the abilities unleashed: instant communication without physical devices, knowledge of the future (with all the paradoxes), psychokinesis as a new energy source, etc. Imagine, in the extreme case, a society without privacy, its members remotely viewing any scene, or reading your thoughts at will. Well, I could go on and on with this line of musing, but I've got to get back to my levitation exercises... May your biogravitons multiply, Steven Horowitz ------------------------------ Date: 9 SEP 1980 1615-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL You get me wrong. I think lasers are great things. I even have a small He/Ne. But using them for communications will be a little impractical until they figure out how to repair a broken fiber-optic line. And they don't bounce off ionization layers like radio, so you can't use them over horizons or thru buildings. They are hard to eavesdrop on, however. They may cause great changes in the future, but only, I think, in a supporting role; i.e. as the energy input for fusion, for instance. I like your other suggestions there -- it's more what I'm looking for. Of course, I wish (again), that you'd sent it to the newsletter, but c'est la vie. Immortals are a good possibility, given cancer research; it could be discovered accidentally. Cancer cells are immortal, in their way, though normal human cells stop fission for some reason after about 150 goes. I'm not sure what present research would lead to psychic amplifiers, though. That may be a little further off. Given one, though, we may be around to see the other. And given both, we may make it to Alpha Centauri yet. Stan ------------------------------ Date: 09 SEP 1980 1122-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: It can't be THAT easy to criticize [ Our earlier discussion on space colonization was interrupted by NorEasCon II. This message is a reply to a message from Richard Stallman in [SFL V2 #60] which asserted: "It can't be THAT easy to criticize...If a flaw in space colonization plans were THAT obvious, people would not be taking them seriously." -- RDD ] In blunt fact, it can; everybody has a set of prejudices which blind them to faulty reasoning in certain areas. The spacies have their dreams, the eco-freaks have their dreams, the so-called Right-to-Lifers have their dreams --- and in each case the assumptions the dreams are founded on are unquestioned. Selective blindness is endemic --- try looking at Brunner's THE STONE THAT NEVER CAME DOWN, which is a less-biased discussion of what would happen if the ability of people to ignore facts was removed (the results are startling, even if you feel that Brunner is overoptimistic. Of course, it depends on what you define as "facts" --- but when few are available I'm wary of touted panaceas.) In the case at hand, a particularly vocal exponent of a view opposing my own (I won't say "an opponent", since the wight in question is not a participant in SF-Lovers and probably wouldn't recognize me or my name) has shown himself incapable of applying the scientific method to his own prejudices, especially his prejudices about people. (See back issues of MYTHOLOGIES, a local fanzine, for extensive details; I won't talk here about his behavior when he found himself bested in fair debate because I don't have absolute evidence for some of the incredible but believable allegations.) I have no evidence that his reasoning capabilities are generally defective when he is sober; in fact, he seems a bit more stable than a less-well- known character who commonly refers to his opponents as "peasants with torches" regardless of the merit of their arguments. Nor do I deny that there are similarly irrational people on the "other side" of the question. They simply share the world's disease. I use the term "the world's disease" advisedly. Look at Sturgeon's essay at the back of VENUS PLUS X, in which he quotes a survey in which 64(?)% of the people polled said it was true that all men were equal, but only 4% would acknowledge that blacks were the equals of whites. I doubt that the remaining 60(?)% would claim to see more resemblance between blacks and apes than between blacks and (putatively human) whites; they were merely discarding evidence that didn't fit into their world model. (This is also effectively dramatized in a flashback in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (the book, not the movie).) The talent for self-delusion is similarly described by Damon Knight in HELL'S PAVEMENT ("If I, officiating at High Services, were to stick my tongue out at the [holy symbol], half of the people wouldn't begin to believe their eyes, and if any in the other half spoke up it would be him taken for a demon and not me", someone writes in his diary (very loose quote).) I don't pretend to exclusive knowledge; in fact, reading SFLovers has frequently been eye-opening. It is those who refuse to listen, who deafly mock those who disagree with them, who are most likely to be wrong. Addressing your specific ideas: 1. How many is "more than one might think"? Is it as many as 20 million in 14 years (which is less than the population growth in the US alone)? And HOW WILL THEY GET UP THERE? To repeat an earlier contention, what propulsive system in the conceivable future will get a significant number of people off the earth without consuming all of the energy available, of which we are already short? Theoretically, to teleport somebody to lunar orbit would take around 4 x 10^6 btu's in the change in potential energy, which is trivial next to current consumption of 10's of quadrillions of btu's--but given the recent discussion here, how many take teleportation seriously as a near-term opportunity? 2. Prosperity from space is a hypothetical, and the reduction of birthrate is equally hypothetical (given the above figures, the fact that the experience of the last countries to industrialize is severely unlikely to be like that of the first countries, and the time it would take that we don't have) leaving an extremely frail reed to lean on. Right now, when someone promises me wealth and health from space I feel like the Feiffer cartoon: "I am a technician/I design the new cars/I planned New York City's power system/.../Soon I will build a nuclear reactor near your home town/Trust me." Looked at realistically rather than optimistically, are the payoffs really there? Recall my analogy of two weeks back: when you treat such auxiliaries to Murphy's Law as "Do not depend on miracles; rely on them" as humorous, they're funny; when you start believing in them seriously they are tragic. Instances of such blindness (whether willful or not) are constantly available to anyone following current events. I was almost as much amused as appalled recently to read in the letter column of CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS somebody's claim that a "limited nuclear war" had already been fought and won (in response to the uproar following the contention that it would be possible to fight a limited nuclear war at all); the writer's example was World War II, which fails the test (at least to my inspection) because only one side had nuclear weapons. (The letter got a torrent of response; I sometimes wonder which mundane editors follow the common SF fan editors' practice of including really off-the-wall letters whenever the general written response begins to flag.) For a really good example of how people can ignore evidence that doesn't fit their case, read L. Neil Smith's Libertarian novel, THE PROBABILITY BROACH. He ignores huge chunks of history, including the probability that Britain, which regarded the 1783 peace as anything but final, would have destroyed the American steel industry by flooding it with imports had there not been tariffs; the small portion of pure science (as opposed to technology) that has not been done under patronage of the wealthy (individuals or government); and the difficulty of maintaining not two but three metals in a constant value relationship to each other. It's a good read if you jump over tracts of 5-10 pages and concentrate on the adventure and gadgets, but infuriating in its smug self-righteousness. ------------------------------ Date: 5 September 1980 03:16-EDT From: Richard M. Stallman Subject: It can't be THAT easy to criticize I don't think that I should send SF-LOVERS a detailed discussion of whether SPS would work or would be desirable. But I do want to repeat that anyone who would like to argue against SPS should find out what, in fact, the proponents of it are actually saying, by reading "Doomsday Has Been Cancelled" and Heppenheimer's book. There may be some reasonable argument to make against what they say. But you must direct your arguments against their specific proposals, not vague guesses about them. This cannot be reasonable, even if BY COINCIDENCE you are right. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 12 SEP 1980 0724-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #74 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 12 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 74 Today's Topics: Alien Intelligence - Nobody there?, Future- Breakthru Speculations, Basic Fantasies of SF, Known Space Anomalies, SF Books - Breakaway Station, SF Movies - Battle Beyond the Stars ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 September 1980 0141-EDT (Friday) From: Paul.Hilfinger at CMU-10A (C410PH01) Subject: Galactic Loneliness Recently, I read an article that reported on a school of thought that holds that humankind is probably the only intelligent race in the Galaxy. There was apparently a recent conference with this as its thesis. Unfortunately, I do not recall where I read the article, nor do I recall the names of any of the scientists who were reported to espouse this point of view. Can anyone out there fill me in? The article reported that one major argument advanced by this school is that if there were a large number of intelligent races about, then a non-negligible fraction of them could be expected to be sufficiently advanced technologically that several would have contacted us or have become apparent to us by now. I find that particular argument rather weak, and can't believe that it convinces too many people. Does anyone know if these folks have something more substantial up their sleeves? --Paul Hilfinger ------------------------------ Date: 09/10/80 1444-EDT From: FOCUS at LL Subject: An interesting reference on Technological Breakthroughs The latest issue of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Spectrum is a special edition entitled They Said It Couldn't Be Done..... and it hasn't been, at least not yet. A study of 11 wanted projects requiring technical, economic, or institutional breakthroughs before fruition is possible. The 11 cited areas, each the subject of a separate article, are as follows: 1. The 'no-downtime' computer... Superreliable computers are on NASA's drawing board now. 2. An electronic advisor/companion... Computers able to function as personal consultants are sought. 3. The global video conference... User acceptance and cost block broad use of video conferencing. 4. The technologist's own 'supercomputer'... Information, computation, and simulation capabilities will rise. 5. The blue-collar robot... The machine shop and the assembly line will be beneficiaries of robotics 6. Superconduction power cables... Both technological push and demand pull are needed to spur progress 7. Magnetohydrodynamic power... The road to an operational magnetohydrodynamic power plant is paved with formidable engineering obstacles. 8. A computer center for the homeowner... Information data banks are a key to 'intelligent' home terminals. 9. An electric car in every garage... This optimistic goal is far off; progress hinges on high-performance batteries. 10. 'Collision-proof' airspace... Reducing the risk of midair collisions is the goal of an air-traffic control system proposed by the FAA. 11. An electronic 'human eye'... Artificial vision based on stimulating the visual cortex of the brain is still far in the future. ------------------------------ BATALI@MIT-AI 09/10/80 08:29:01 My neurophysiology instructor had three suggestions for why sleep is necessary: 1) For collecting and organizing the new information of the day; 2) To replenish some chemical or other; 3) It's better than being scared all night long. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 09/10/80 12:59:08 Re: How necessary is sleep? There are various studies which show that people adopt radically different sleep patterns when they are removed from their normal environments. For example, deep in a mine shaft with no daylight, the subject(s) of one study were awake for 36 hours and then asleep for 12. There is also a wide variety in the amount of sleep each individual requires. I need 8-9 hrs, a certain local and frenetic professor runs on 4 per night, and I had a friend in college who got about 4-5 every two nights. I also had a roommate who was happiest if he never woke up. (He would literally spend sixteen hours in bed on weekend days.) Physiological factors are also important. I hear that people in excellent condition (long distance runners for example) tend to require far less sleep than other humans. The presence of all this variance bothers me. Maybe there really is a 3:1 ratio in the physiological need for sleep, but then again, it could be that sleep habits are largely a matter of conditioning. It seems possible that we have all been taught (by our society, by our parents, etc.) to take, and then to physically need 8 hours of sleep per night in order to function. (If this is true, we have all been robbed in a very serious fashion.) The opportunity for conditioning is certainly there. The question is if there is any way to test this hypothesis? Dan ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1980 (Wednesday) 0901-PST From: HIRGELT at LLL-MFE Subject: Survival Functions of Sleep In my undergrad days (> 10 years ago, however) I worked as a faculty aid for some sleep researchers at Ohio State. I remember reading a journal article about the function of sleep. The premise was that dreaming is necessary as the reprogramming, batch processing phase of our minds. Studies were done of dream deprivations as opposed to sleep deprivation that resulted in the same symptoms for a dream deprived subject as a sleep deprived subject. These included paranoia among other things (I can't remember). It seems that dreaming is the critical factor. There are lots of other studies about dreams and our need for them. Ed ------------------------------ Date: 11 SEP 1980 1520-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Technologies and breakthroughs In [SFL V2 #72], the question arose concerning the removal of the need to sleep as a breakthrough technology. the specific question was, was there any evidence as to how sleep affects the transfer of software to firmware. (Paraphrased). While my knowledge of physiological psychology is slightly outdated and the notes and books I should be referancing are all buried in boxes in my attic, I will attempt to address the question. Defining software to mean that which is short term memory and firmware as being much of what is in long term memory, the answer seems to be that sleep is necessary to the proper conversion of short to long term memory. The evidence arises from studies done on LSD trips, sleep deprivation and various forms of psychoses. All three of these areas have two things in common - impaired memories of recent events (or at least extremely strange views in the case of the psychoses) and evidence of serotonin imbalances in the brain biochemistry. Serotonin is a necessary chemical in the sleep cycle (not to mention in other areas) and, if I recall what I was taught quite a few years ago now - I apologize if my memory is false and if there are those who know out there a refresher would be appreciated - it (seratonin) is in fact one of the neuro-transmitters in the brain. Now, if software is the new pathways of neurons firing in the brain and firmware is a more worn (more familiar, so to speak) pathway (line of least resistance, if you will), and my memory about Serotonin is correct, it would seem reasonable that dreams (that which seems to be the important part of sleep) are the non random firing of neurons, forging and familiarizing new pathways. As a practical experiment, undergo sleep deprivation for several days and then try and remember what you really did, wrote, etc. As for sleep being necessary to handle "Garbage". Define Garbage. One thing I do not recall which might be worth researching to further address the question (or someone may know the answer) is Do people with good memories (e.g. better than average, photgraphic, eidetic, etc) have more or more vivid dreams? Does this group of people have better memories of their dreams? gail (gfh@CCA) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1980 1003-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) Subject: Various According to at least one theory I've heard, we sleep precisely because it's dangerous out there at night. Better to tuck yourself away in a hole all night than wander around. A pre-technological human (no fire, no weapons, etc.) is pretty vulnerable blundering around in the dark. I believe this theory is discussed by Sagan in "The Dragons of Eden". As I recall, the "overnight brain garbage collection" theory is not as popular as it once was. Some people get by with no sleep at all, for example; perhaps they never cons? The query about "basic fantasies" recalls Bester's story "5,271,009". It tears the fig leaf off of several of the more blatant adolescent fantasies disguised as SF plots. Very amusing story. Dave ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1980 (Wednesday) 1630-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE I seem to recall that the Kzinti "Speaker to Animals" liked to be scratched behind the ears, but did not like to be called "cute". ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1980 at 2031-CDT From: Dewey Henize (via HJJH at UTEXAS) It may not be completely germane to the Donavan discussion, but a good story with an interesting interface with such an organic controller is "We All Died at Breakaway Station", I think by Simak (never remember authors names - makes book purchases more interesting.) Dewey ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 1980 21:09:46-PDT From: nelson (via menlo70!daul at Berkeley) Subject: Battle Beyond the Stars The critics say "It's not as bad as you'd think it would be", but who listens to critics? It's bad, so bad that it should become popular for being 'camp'. The plot is thin and stupid, the acting and dialogue insipid. Robert Vaughan does excellent Mt. Rushmore imitations; the close-ups give us good views up his nose, and show the pores of his skin so well that you might think you were looking at sandstone. John Boy still acts like a hick, and the movie supplies the usual sex objects (liberated for the modern screen by the addition of intelligence). The special effects are what we've come to expect, and OK in places. The music is awful, an imitation of Star Wars of course. In many ways the film makes cheap attempts to imitate. But now for the good part. 'Battle' suceeds best in imitating not Star Wars, but 'Queen of Outer Space', Zsa Zsa's Saturday afternoon Creature Feature favorite! The audience loved it, and so did I. It is so bad that it transcends being junk. Go see it in a drive-in and get really twisted for this one. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 13 SEP 1980 1220-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #75 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 13 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 75 Today's Topics: SFL Calendar Feature, Basic Fantasies of SF, Future Breakthrus - No-downtime Computer & No Sleep ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Sep 1980 14:51 PDT From: Richard R. Brodie Subject: SF-Lovers event calendar I have agreed to maintain a calendar of upcoming events of interest to SF-Lovers. I expect that almost all of these events will be conventions; however, since there are many members of various con committees in our membership, we should be able to provide more information of personal interest to ourselves than do Locus, Starlog, Asimov's, etc. To this end, I ask those of you who are involved in the planning of events you think would interest SF-Lovers to send me whatever information you think is appropriate. I will keep a chronological list and send out highlights periodically to the membership. In addition to its obvious function, the SF-Lovers Calendar will give us an opportunity to plan in advance for more of the highly successful parties we have had at previous conventions. If you have any ideas about the Calendar, please feel free to share them with me by sending mail to Brodie@PARC-MAXC. Richard Brodie ------------------------------ Date: 12 SEP 1980 1235-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: basic fantasies In HARVARD magazine a couple of years back, somebody wrote about identifying in STAR WARS several of the \hundreds/ of elements that have been systematically abstracted and numbered from traditional fantasies (e.g., "fairy tales"). ------------------------------ Date: 10 SEP 1980 1316-EDT From: DGSHAP at MIT-AI (Daniel G. Shapiro, via Fanning at SRI-KL) I would say that one theme (fantasy?) is the concept of the great human destiny (manifest destiny might be too strong a phrase). It might be a theme that relates more to the domain of selling literature than to sf/fantasy, but the concept underlies almost all of sf. The entire genre is built of stories where humans accomplish ever larger and greater things. It is extraordinarily rare to find a book where humans are losing at very turn. (exception: all recent Brunner). Possibly the grandeur of sf/fantasy appeals to a form of immortality urge in the readers. I.e., that we are all connected to the events being described, or in more physical terms, our descendents will live to see the day that X (in the book) comes to pass. Dan ------------------------------ Date: 11 Sep 1980 2300-PDT From: Fanning at SRI-KL I liked what you picked as an under-fantasy for much SF. I tend to think in too cynical channels, and your comments sort of swept me back to the days when I found a Pocketbook (that's the trademarked name, not the generic) called NEW TALES OF SPACE AND TIME on the racks in our local 5&10, plunked down my 35 cents, and got COMPLETELY blown away on SF. Talk about sense of wonder, talk about the Golden Age--! It seems to me that what blew me away at the age of 11 was precisely what you were talking about. Since then I've forgiven a lot of wretched writing (even E. E. Smith) if the SF only tickled that continuity/immortality fantasy. I wonder if kids growing up under the Cold War/Civil Defense Alerts/Tips for When the Bomb Falls pall were particularly susceptible to this SF promise that THERE WOULD BE A FUTURE, even if the future wasn't necessarily pretty. Since receiving your msg, I have recalled a Bester short story which bears on the topic of underlying fantasies. Bester's protagonist is crazy, and his fantasies take the form of trite science-fiction plots. In each situation, he is beset by some stock dilemma which he eventually overcomes by virtue of "a strange mutant strain" which allows him to triumph over the figure in his fantasy who represents the shrink trying to cure him. A large number such as 5,207,691 or close to it also figures in this. Damned if I can remember the title, but if you're interested in underlying fantasies, this story sure tells what Bester thought they are. It's also hilarious. Thanks Tony PS Can anyone name that plot? --- Tony [ This is the same short story that was mentioned by P. David Lebling in Friday's digest: 5,271,009. One of Bester's best known stories, it has also been adapted for the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 11:13 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: Technological Breakthroughs: The 'no-downtime' computer and sleep I haven't read the IEEE issue on "it hasn't been done" yet, but a suitably connected bunch of computers at least one of which is always up is as good as a 'no-downtime' computer. For example, Tymshare's network supervisor is really four (the last I knew) machines, with three of them waiting in the wings just poised to take over the net if the primary one goes down. Also the last I knew all four had NEVER been down at once since the net was activated multi-years ago. Are there actually people or animals that never sleep? I had a friend who once claimed to get along on three hours of sleep a night, but he spent hours a day "meditating"..... And while we're on the subject, does anybody know why some people are "night people" and others "day people"? That seems to be contrary to the "it's safe asleep in the cave at night theory". Karen ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 1118-PDT From: Stevan Milunovic I recall reading about the causes of sleep in a Scientific American article which appeared a few years ago. A substance (called Substance S for lack of a better term at the time) is apparently secreted by the reptilian complex of the brain and this causes the cortex to go "numb", inhibiting motor responses to protect the body while the conscious mind is temporarily not functioning. Stimulant drugs like amphetamines or caines act to inhibit the action or secretion of this substance to keep one awake. I know of no widely accepted reasons for sleep now that we are the hunters rather than the hunted; i.e. there is no evidence that the brain activities occuring during sleep couldn't be performed as background tasks while awake. Sleep can therefore be considered a vestige of our reptilian heritage when it was necessary to sleep for basic survival. Most species of sharks do not sleep, but this can also be attributed to the fact that they must move constantly to pass water thru their gills for breathing, rather than that they do not have many enemies so don't have to sleep for protection. -Steve ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 0933-PDT From: Yeager at SUMEX-AIM A note on sleep: Nova had a show 2 or 3 years ago on sleep. The most interesting observation for me was that there are people who never sleep, and are none the worse for it. The amount of sleep required appears to have a genetic factor and one British couple, both of whom did not sleep, had a child, and guess what!!! You guessed it. Imagine having a baby that NEVER slept. A humorous side note is that one fellow would hold a spoon in his hand and "drop off" to sleep. When it hit the floor he awakened, and that was about all he required two or three times in a 24 hour cycle! This is making me very...yawn...zzzzzzz Bill. ------------------------------ Date: 12 SEP 1980 1215-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: need for sleep The classic tests on this subject were done something like 25 years ago, and became sufficiently well known that by the late 60's they were turning up (in cut-down versions with animal subjects) in high school science fairs. The test was fairly simple: a sensor was rigged to detect Rapid Eye Movements (characteristic of the deepest (fourth) level of sleep and generally simultaneous with dreams) and attached to various devices to wake up the sleeper whenever REM began. Other than this, the subjects were allowed to have whatever they considered a normal sleep period. Within a few days the number of attempted REM periods went from ~4 to >20 and the subjects were reported as becoming extremely irritable. John Brunner wrote a story around this idea in one of the SPECTRUM anthologies (about what happened when someone didn't react with irritation and what happened when they stopped preventing him from dreaming) and has brought up the idea intermittently since then, particularly in THE STONE THAT NEVER CAME DOWN. Unfortunately, no one at the time thought to do the obvious control of waking people at completely random intervals, beginning with ~4/night and working up to >20 per night; when this was done the behavioral results (to the extent that behavior can be quantified and compared) were reported as being basically the same as in the REM experiments. At about this time, however, it had been found that for many people 2 3-hour periods of sleep separated by a short period of activity were as effective as one 8-hour period. It seems that regularity is as important a factor as duration in measuring the value of sleep. The one person I know who consistently gets by on ~5 hours seems to take basically the same 5 hours (0300-0800) every day, both at slack periods and during SF conventions. (He may be helped by the fact that he's basically a very tranquil type, though there is Shapiro's example of the frenetic type who survives on 4 hours. There are a number of cases of non- circadian patterns being adopted for various reasons; I have only apocryphal information on the person who allegedly converted his week to 6 28-hour days (his sleep period cycled completely around the day every week) but Frederik Pohl in his autobiography describes deciding that he just didn't have enough time for writing and going on a 48-hour "day", thus getting both time to deal with mundanes during their active periods and quiet periods in which to write undisturbed. There are also some developments which I've just seen the first glimmerings of; it seems that researchers have pinned down two nuclei in the hypothalamus as being potentially responsible for circadian rhythms (specific hormone release cycles corresponding to activity cycles have been found). I've gone through so many magazines in the post-Noreascon catchup that I've no certainty of where I found this or who was involved; has anyone seen any more detailed information? ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 1824-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Sleep, garbage collection, and the brain In Gail's (gfh@CCA) reply to mumble's comment on sleep as a time for garbage collection in the brain, she asked "What is garbage?". I think she was implying, and I agree, that in an intelligent memory system, there is no garbage, just information of varying amounts of usefulness. This brings to mind a story told at the recent 1980 Lisp Conference at Stanford by JONL @ MIT-AI (Jon L White). Since I am not sure if JONL is one of us SFLs I will try to retell it. JONL's paper was on using HUGE memories to allow GC to be put off for long periods of time (once a year maybe), but he pointed out that in many Artificial Intelligence applications data bases only GROW, they don't shrink. He told about the Russian Encyclopedia. Apparently he worked at one point for the Library of Congress which has a copy of (everything including) the Russian Encyclopedia. At one point after his death Kruschev was in the process of being vilified (just one step above nonpersonness). The library got a letter from the Soviets requesting that pages N through M of the encyclopedia were to be removed and replaced with certain other supplied text. Well the library certainly didn't want to remove the old version, so they just added the new version, and the letter requesting the replacement, to the encyclopedia before the old version. What is garbage? - Craig ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 14 SEP 1980 0755-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #76 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 14 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 76 Today's Topics: X-Ray Laser Bibliography Query, Known Space Anomalies, SF Books - Witch World & Breakaway Station, Basic Fantasies of SF, The Probability Broach - 2 views ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OTA@MIT-MC 09/11/80 03:47:35 Re: X-Ray Laser reference request I have a friend who is working on a PhD on X-Ray Lasers. He is interested in finding references on the use of X-Ray Lasers in SF stories. So far he has two: The meteor defense system of the Ringworld and, the hand guns used in The Mote in God's Eye. Can anyone think of any others? In particular, interesting applications are being looked for. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 18:42 PDT From: Chapman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: "Your cute" (DWS@LLL-MFE [SFL V2 #74]) You are quite right!. "Speaker to Animals" was introduced to Louie Wu's birthday party (at the beginning of Ringworld), and became acceptable as a member of the party when he accepted Louis suggestion, couched very carefully to assure that Speaker did not take offense, that he . . . (the following is an interpretation of what must have followed next in the conversation, since Larry very cleverly left things with the elipsis above and then went on to write the next scene) let his ears be scratched by others attending the party, the philosophy being that he would thus appear much less formidable and more like a big "pussy cat." Speaker apparently agreed to this, since the next scene in the book finds him very contentedly relaxing with two lovely ladies on either side of him, one to an ear. However, when Teela Brown says he's cute at the same party, he reacts very negatively. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 11:13 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC There is a brand new Witch World out, whose name I have forgotten, I think it is something like "Lore of the Witch World". Karen ------------------------------ Date: 12 SEP 1980 1150-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: WE ALL DIED AT BREAKAWAY STATION WE ALL DIED AT BREAKAWAY STATION was by Richard Meredith, the late, lamented, intelligent libertarian who also wrote THE SKY IS FULL OF SHIPS; RUN, COME SEE JERUSALEM; AT THE NARROW PASSAGE; NO BROTHER, NO FRIEND; and others. Not one of the best writers, but consistently capable and occasionally thought-provoking; generally very pessimistic in tone. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Sep 1980 2112-MDT From: FISH at UTAH-20 (Russ) Subject: Breakaway Station "We All Died at Breakaway Station" was written by Richard C. Meredith. As Dewey Henize mentioned, [V2 #74] one of the main characters was a disembodied brain, or rather a person who had lost his human body in warfare, and was re-fitted with a spaceship or space station to control. (My memory is not completely clear on the details.) Extensive use was made throughout the story of highly developed prosthetic and electronic implant technology, as well as "cold sleep" (hibernation) for transporting injured people. The technology was not really a main focus of the story, however. The narrative desribes a group of people in a supporting role in a rather desparate survival-type interstellar war between humans and an alien species. "Breakaway Station" is a medical, communications, and supply facility which accidentally achieves an important role. Warning: "Breakaway Station" is a strong and vivid book about people at the limits of stress, and as such, can be quite stressful to read. *----------------* Side Issue, intended to provoke further discussion: I remember very little of the plot of "Breakaway Station" which \vitally/ \depended/ on the medical or spaceflight technology for motivation of the personal interactions of the people portrayed. (Okay, so the disembodied starship pilot is an extreme case...) It seems to me that the same general situation could have been set up under other, non-SF, circumstances, such as an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific during WW-2. Many of the same conditions of technological warfare: bodily damage, difficult (long-range) communications and logistics, etc. would apply, and the psychological reactions could be similar, although occurring in a different cultural setting. It seems to me that "What If"s in the medical and interstellar technologies were in a separate layer of the novel from the issues of warfare and personal interaction while under stress. The issue I want to raise is: What themes can be dealt with in SF, that are not mappable to historical fiction, fairy tales, "westerns", "war stories", etc. The mapping consists of being able to imagine a similar story where similar characters and actions would be motivated by circumstances acceptable to the particular genre. Several possibilities come to mind: - "rivets" stories where the primary topic is a hypothetical engineering or technological idea which can only be developed in a future setting requiring extensions of our present technology, and where the people in the story are not strongly characterized and exist to operate and explain the technological goings-on to each other while we (the readers) listen. - "soft rivets" stories which are primarily concerned with the "What If"s of peoples lives in an environment based on a different technology, such as space colonies. - "time travel/paradox" stories. (Some overlap with fairy tales, fantasy.) - "alien culture" stories, which explore the limits of what it is to live a life truly different from ours (not just green skin), or of interactions of a culture similar to ours with an alien one. Involved are issues of what gives a life meaning and what gives a culture stable existence. I keep having the feeling that if a writer managed to space out far enough to imagine a culture \truly/ different from ours and novelize it, the story would be totally incomprehensible to us. (Seemingly random actions.) -Russ Fish (FISH@UTAH-20) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1980 0923-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: Libertarian prejudices in PROBABILITY BROACH While I totally agree with Hitchcock's basic premise about how all of us have blinders, the example of Smith's libertarian ones misses the boat quite thoroughly, and introduces a favorite flame topic of mine: SF people still feel that screwing up social-science facts and theories is less offensive than screwing up hard-science facts and theories. It certainly is true that Britain considered the 1783 peace as nonfinal. It is not true that the political leadership had the wherewithal to "destroy the American steel industry by flooding it with imports," any more than they could have flown zeppelins across the ocean and bombed it to the same effect. Political authorities didn't have the necessary degree of positive control over their own economies to tell their merchants where the trade had to go, much less what to charge. Mercantile policies could tell people where they couldn't go, and could certainly set up local monopolies by restraining competition, but the degree of positive control that would permit trade to be used as a weapon in the way Hitchcock suggests, just wasn't there. Basically, it hadn't been invented as a political-economic weapon. Sure, some British trade would have gotten in, but in the absence of shipping costs, even the fledgling metals industry, unhampered by its own controls, and unprotected by tariffs, would have survived quite nicely. The \fact/ is that while tariffs can have the desired short-term goal (protection), the long-term effect is necessarily an inefficient market, with all that that implies. But, of course, this just proves Hitchcock's basic point: even traditional liberals and conservatives have blinders that permit them to "ignore evidence that doesn't fit their case." Mike P.S. In a libertarian society like Smith's, the government wouldn't even attempt to maintain "three metals in a constant value relationship to each other." The market would determine the relationship, and you can be sure it wouldn't be constant. ------------------------------ Date: 12 SEP 1980 1420-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Libertarian [prejudices] in THE PROBABILITY BROACH I think we are in agreement at least on what we object to; I'm just claiming that Smith managed to screw up both his social "science" and the interface between the social and the hard sciences. It is arguably true that the British \government/ did not have, in and of itself, the power to destroy the nascent American steel industry (although I have no evidence that they could not/would not have subsidized exports the way many countries now do). I have been told, however, that it is a matter of record that the British steel industry was sufficiently far ahead of the American steel industry (at one point, the absolutely worst quality of steel rails was "American" grade) that it could deliver steel to useful points within the US at a lower price than American steel manufacturers could (owing at least partly to the fact that Bessemer was being knighted when the locals were still snickering at his American counterpart). In the absence of reliable citations I won't carry that part of the argument further. I never said that I supported tariffs in general, and happily acknowledge that in the absence of contrary factors (such as the subsidies the Japanese are currently alleged to apply to most exports) tariffs are basically useless \given/ the ability of people to move as freely from country to country as they now can within a country when the economic balance between regions shifts (a rather large given). There is in fact substantial question as to who was controlling whom in Britain at that time; let's finesse the question by saying that there was a great deal of cooperation between the government and mercantile interests---witness the British East India "Company". My major point was that there simply was NO WAY that America could have come out of a Gallatinite revolt as well as it did; there are too many factors that were arrayed against the new country. I also think Smith both over- and underestimates people in several places, but the arguing of these differences via the net would probably take more time and space than they are worth. As for the matter of keeping three metals in synchronization --- how many kinds of chaos would there be if there were no constant relationship between the penny, the dime, and the dollar, and no other way of providing multiples or fractions of a given size of money? I contend that the setup of the story \assumes/ that gold, silver, and copper pieces maintain constant values relative to each other; since coinage is simply an option for whoever discovers minerals it would be trivial for speculators to play hob with the exchange rates. And here's a real unanswerable: if technological progress in that alternate world was so far ahead of ours, why wasn't transmutation of elements available to destroy the bulk of the worth of all precious metals? Heinlein was willing to accept that as a given for 2000 from 1957 our time (see THE DOOR INTO SUMMER). (I could be nasty and say that the real answer is that it would ruin the story.) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 15 SEP 1980 0358-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #77 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 15 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 77 Today's Topics: Charlie and Algernon, SF Movies - Videodiscs and FX, Future Breakthrus - Biotech & No sleep & Lasers, Basic Fantasies of SF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Sep 1980 1535-EDT From: PAIGE.ZEVE at RUTGERS Subject: Flowers for Algernon Flowers for Algernon has now been made into a musical, opening in NY either soon or just has. The show is called "Charlie and Algernon". The commercials make it sound like trash to me, but I am with-holding final judgement. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 14 September 1980 14:31 edt From: Frankston at MIT-Multics (BOB at SAI-Prime) Subject: Video Disks Now that video disks are standard consumer items (the Panasonic one is for sale locally for $749) what is going to be the effect on special effects? Wherein it used to be easy to "slip something by", the video disks have a very good single frame technology. ------------------------------ Date: 14 September 1980 16:14 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Technology that Will Change Us Some of us have been looking for the next technological break- through that will cause as much or more upheaval as the transistor. I submit that our biological technology will soon offer great control over human thought and behavior, and this will come before genetic tailoring of humans. Mind you, I know nothing of this, so any biologists out there should correct me. My head hurts trying to think of what it means to my "sense of personal continuity/integrity" if I can more or less dictate my emotional state. I hurt even worse when I think of this control being in other people's hands (over me). This has been in quite a few stories. Stanislaw Lem's "Futurological Congress", Ira Levin's "This Perfect Day", Lucas's "THX1138", I suppose that "soma" is a big enough piece of "Brave New World" to count here, too. I suppose that non-drug technologies are pretty interesting, too. By which I mean some extension of TM/?biofeedback?/Zen, such that in not too much time and effort you can learn to do interesting things to your consciousness reliably. The effect is the same as powerful drugs, just a little more under your personal control. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1980 7:57 pm PDT (Sunday) From: guest at PARC-MAXC Subject: Sleep, lack of it Addendum to Yeager@SUMEX's message: I also recall the Nova program of a few years ago, and was going to mention it if no one else did. In answer to the inevitable question, yes, it was actually verified that these people never slept at all by having researchers take shifts accompanying them for a period of some weeks. The researchers had actually found several people who got by on anywhere from zero to fifteen minutes of sleep a day. One woman who was interviewed was asked if she ever regretted not sleeping, and if she had trouble finding things to do with all that extra time. She replied that sleep seemed a waste of time, and felt sorry for people who have to spend a third of their lives unconscious. -Randy ------------------------------ Date: 13 September 1980 17:29-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Sleep, Nova show about An amusing thing I remember from the aforementioned Nova show about sleep: A sleep researcher was asked "What is the purpose of sleep?" He replied that at the present time, he could not answer that question any more readily than he could answer the question "What is the purpose of wakefulness?". ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1980 1338-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Why sleep I think this entire discussion of why we sleep has been a little one sided. We keep trying to figure out why we would (evolutionarily) take time out from our valuable waking hours for something as mundane as sleep. Perhaps the waking state is just a utility (food, shelter, and mate finding time) to support the all important sleep phase. [I hope this is taken with a grain of seriousness, I am one of those who think that altered states of consciousness (dreams, orgasm, meditational visions, drug highs) may well be THE point of existence for a consciousness. But then, I also think that the pleasure center of the brain is the seat of consciousness ...] - Craig@LotusLand ------------------------------ Date: 13 September 1980 01:04 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: sleep and lasers I do my most creative and globally productive work in my sleep! The entire concept of forests (as opposed to trees) was probably invented in someone's sleep 500,000 years ago or something. Breakthroughs are kind of strange. People could have come up with calculus and Newtonian (and possibly Einsteinian) mechanics without the telescope. But the telescope provided a renewed interest in astronomy and by providing additional clues (phases of Venus, moons of Jupiter) sped up its development. The laser works a lot like that. Planet and star positions had been measured for thousands of years with astrolabes or sets of sticks but it took a breakthrough to put things together. The laser has advanced surgery and optics, is used in manufacturing and will probably have an impact on communications and energy production. It may even provide the next generation of computers which will make Josephson junction or GaAs semiconductors look slow. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 09/14/80 12:15:09 Re: What is SF? I don't think it is possible to say that a book is or is not SF. To me, SF is fiction in which "Science" takes a part. The only problem with that definition is the the definition of "science" changes with context. SF set in the 19th century (ie. Verne) could be classified as ordinary adventure stories, but is there anyone here who doesn't think that Jules Verne falls into the SF catagory? Brian lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1980 7:41 am PDT (Sunday) From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: Manifest Destiny fantasy [DGSHAP: SFL V2 #75] For a good story based on the assumption that most other intelligent races are better than humans (not just technologically, but ethically, morally, etc.), see "The Earth Quarter" by Damon Knight. It can be found in the collection "Rule Golden and Other Stories". -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1980 1204-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: basic themes of sf James Blish discussed this mapping of sf stories into other kinds somewhere in "Issues At Hand". He called it the "smeerp" method: you call a rabbit a smeerp, put it on Mars, and presto it's science fiction. I don't know if I would call the alien culture story an exclusive preserve of sf. As Philip Farmer pointed out at one of the Worldcon's panels, you can meet a dozen aliens by walking down the streets of your town. The bestseller "Shogun", about an English sailor ship- wrecked in Japan in the 1700's, deals with a confrontation between cultures more different than many in sf. Where sf wins is in its power to change more than just language and tradition, to change a race's biology and environment. No mainstream novel could talk about historical cycles in as direct a way as "The Mote In God's Eye" did because they couldn't conjure up a race that could build itself up from nothing in a matter of generations the way the Moties could. I don't think I buy the idea that a truly alien culture would be incomprehensible either. At the minimum we would share physics and chemistry and certain parts of biology (everything eats, for instance). Their actions would seem random only because we didn't know enough about their motives. This comes up a lot in the novels of C. J. Cherryh. The human characters are constantly baffled by the actions of the alien ones, but the reader can listen to the omniscient author to find out what's going on. Why are the last pair of mri in "Kesrith: the Faded Sun" so intent on going up this valley to commit suicide? Duncan Sten is in the dark, but the reader knows that the valley is the ancient burying place of the mri. It may well be that if we ever did meet aliens we would be unable to communicate well enough to figure out why they did what they did. This is a matter of a lack of data, though, and not an inherent problem. There may be fundamental limits to understanding in something like physics, but I can't see them in the higher order sciences. ------------------------------ Date: 14 SEP 1980 1432-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: unmappable themes It could be argued that the "rivets" type story as Russ describes it is mirrored in the "strange lands" stories of past centuries (Plato's REPUBLIC, More's UTOPIA, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, etc. (and of course WALDEN TWO in our own time). The similarities include the aforementioned shortage of character development and tendency of the story to be built around the exploration of the society rather than what we would recognize as a plot. (The firmest example of this in SF is RALPH 124C41+, which for these reasons is nearly unreadable today.) (I can also see this overlapping to some extent with a strict "alien culture" story --- but then, such are rare in SF, especially good recent SF; the best examples, such as Cherryh, show the boundaries between several different cultures instead of the heart of a single isolated one.) I see the sharpest division in mappability coming around the "soft rivets" stories. Magic is commonly an external force accessible only to a few people; the interaction between mage and mundane provides the conflict that drives both traditional and modern fantasy. A techno- logical breakthrough (when not taken simply as a marvel to "Ooh!" and "Ah!" over) can hit \everybody/ where they live --- videt the effects of organ transplants in several of Larry Niven's works. Silverberg has done some of the best studies of the \personal/ effects of a technology. (Traditional fantasy (and bad examples of modern fantasy) tends not to look at the effects of the supernatural on people as \people/ rather than markers on a game board.) Examples: TO LIVE AGAIN (personality storage and transfer from the recently deceased to the living; earlier treated in the Brunner short, "The Last Lonely Man"), THE SECOND TRIP (reconstruction of a socially acceptable personality in the wiped brain of a criminal), THE TOWER OF GLASS (slaves from the laboratory --- looks at the personal where R.U.R. was societal and didactic). LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE, by contrast, is an obvious and traditional fairy tale with an altered vocabulary. "Time travel/paradox" stories also have an occasional counterpart in fantasy; Aslan aside, there are some pieces considering the "what might have happened if? . . ."/"what if I could change that decision?" Of course, as we discussed a few months back, paradoxes tend to be their own punishment/reward. I suspect Russ is right that a totally different culture would be incomprehensible --- but that might also mean that it would be impossible for the author to imagine it or, having imagined it, to describe it in the languages currently available. Certainly most of Cherryh's cultures have many elements recognizable to an anthropologist; her genius lies in the combinations of elements from several cultures and in imagining the interaction between cultures which never did meet on our world. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 16 SEP 1980 0636-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #78 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 16 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 78 Today's Topics: Sorting F/SF, Basic Fantasies of SF, SF Books - Here's the Plot/What's the Title? & Moderan, Future Breakthrus - No Sleep & Secret Accomplishments, Charlie and Algernon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 September 1980 01:04 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: sympathetic magic Was it Harvey who proposed that things are drawn to Earth as flecks are drawn to a charged sphere? Straight sympathetic magic which is closely related to analogy. Perhaps "science" will again put the two forces into the same basket in another 10-30 years. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1980 1834-EDT From: JHENDLER at BBNA Subject: what can SF do others can't Back in school I did a term-paper on the issue of stories which dealt with the central question "what separates man form \animals/" (where I mean the philosophical question of what the determining characteristic of humanity is.) I developed the thesis that with the exception of poetry and theology, science fiction was the only form of literature that could handle this. For those who will argue let me point out that I had to include some famous works of "horror" (like Frankenstein) and "philosophy" (like VerCours "And Ye Shall Know Them") and say that they were SF. This conjecture is based on the fact that to establish the difference between humans and non-humans you need a non-human intelligence (be it animal, alien, monster, or computer). At the time I wrote the paper I wasn't sure I agreed with the conjecture, but now, after a few years of thought, I think I'll be willing to defend it. -Jim Hendler. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1980 1018-PDT From: Steve Saunders Subject: Incomprehensible Aliens Try "The Dance of the Changer and the Three" (by Terry Carr?) for an exploration of the "incomprehensible aliens" theme. Good story; I found it troubling (but I've always wanted to understand EVERYTHING). Steve ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1980 0219-PDT (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: plot/title query Anyone remember the novel about a man who "dies" in an auto accident only to find himself alive again in a different body many years later? By this time, the concept of "body-changing" is a technologically simple feat, and people can even be technologically "strengthened" so that their minds will survive after death and can communicate (via mechanical means) with the living. In fact, there is a busy market in hijacking bodies. ---- Though it is clearly unrealistic, when I think of man biologically "improving" himself, I cannot help but think of "Moderan". Anyone remember it? Does anyone know if it is still in print anywhere? --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 09/15/80 1041-EDT From: gnc at mit-ll (j.baldassini) Subject: dreaming For an interesting treatment of dreaming (sleeping) and consciousness (waking) see THE KIN OF ATA ARE WAITING FOR YOU by Dorothy Bryant. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1980 1040-PDT From: Steve Saunders Subject: Longer days In reply to: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) There are a number of cases of non-circadian patterns being adopted for various reasons; I have only apocryphal information on the person who allegedly converted his week to 6 28-hour days (his sleep period cycled completely around the day every week) but Frederik Pohl in his autobiography describes deciding that he just didn't have enough time for writing and going on a 48-hour "day", thus getting both time to deal with mundanes during their active periods and quiet periods in which to write undisturbed. I may be the subject of that apocryphal information: several years ago, while working as a programmer for MIT during the summers, I found that my natural tendency in the absence of social phase-locking (one project meeting every Friday, other communication on-line or catch-as-can) was to run on about a 30-hour cycle. This was a bit longer than the ideal for a 6-"day" week, but that's how it seemed. There was lots of noise in the observations, of course; the period was maybe 30+-2 hours. I haven't been able to run my life like that since, but there is evidence that I still would work better on a long cycle if I could. Perhaps most "night people" are really "long-cycle" people, slow to rise and slow to get sleepy, whose phase-locking with the world has a DC phase bias due to the offset in natural frequency? And conversely, might "morning people" really be phase-locked short-cyclers? There are folks who live on a 12-hour cycle, achieved by taking a nap in the afternoon. Steve ------------------------------ Date: 15 September 1980 0158-EDT (Monday) From: Mike.Fryd at CMU-10A (C621MF0E) Subject: Future Technology Whats makes everybody so sure that a major breakthrough hasn't happened? If our government knows how to teleport things, what makes you think they are going to publicize it? Personally I suspect that they have figured out how to do it, but haven't worked out all the bugs yet. I suppose it might use high voltage (greater then 100K volts) electricity. A little research shows that high voltage equipment is much more readily available today than 10 years ago, yet I can't think of anything that uses big volts (except of course for particle beam weapons). But then, I'm paranoid, so what would I know? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1980 0901-PDT From: ADPSC at USC-ISI (Attn: Don) Subject: Charlie & Algernon In response to Steve Z. (V2, #77), Charlie and Algernon has been playing at the Kennedy Center in DC for a while (It just left for NYC). I've seen better. Don Desrosiers ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 09/15/80 22:29:18 "Charlie and Algernon" had its first run in Washington, and though I did not get a chance to see it, I have heard very bad reviews. FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON is a brilliant tragedy, and I would have a difficult time imagining a musical comedy (which the play is purported to be) being drawn from it. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 15 SEP 1980 1223-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: CHARLIE AND ALGERNON CHARLIE AND ALGERNON was mentioned by me in SFL several months ago, following its opening at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. I was appalled by the idea at the time, but the reviews from some critics I would trust were quite good. (It may amuse some of you to know that the story was made into a stage play, probably before the movie came out; a friend who is a collecting nut found in some out-of-the-way bookstore an acting edition put out by Sam French, the leading publisher of scripts for use (as opposed to study) in this country.) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1980 1157-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: waiting for the other shoe Now I know how a lexical scanner feels, I read all the way through Chip Hitchcock's letter in yesterdays SF-L waiting for the final close parenthesis, which never came. Chip - please supply the closer or I'll never pop my stack. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 17 SEP 1980 0605-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #79 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 17 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 79 Today's Topics: SF Books - Plot/Title Response & Alien & Dreams, Future Breakthrus - No Sleep & Secret Accomplishments, Charlie and Algernon, Basic Fantasies of SF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Sep 1980 1346-PDT From: Dave Dyer Subject: Book identity "Immortality Incorporated" by Robert Sheckely ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 13:04 PDT From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: The Dance of the Changer and the Three The "incomprehensible aliens" story Saunders mentioned [SFL V2 #78] is indeed by Terry Carr; I've mentioned it in at least one long-ago SF digest. It can be found in the excellent collection "The Light At the End of the Universe". -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 11:39:34-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: dreaming stories Yet another story dealing with dreams as an interesting and integral part is "The Word for World is Forest" by Ursula LeGuin. Otherwise just a moderately competent work (quite a bit too analagous to Vietnam), the planet's native population deal with dreams as equally important as waking state activities. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 0808-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Sleep and dreaming Two thoughts. One: "The Lathe of Heaven" (Ursula LeGuin) is an excellent treatment of dreaming, and handles cogently the relationship among sleep, dream, and reality. According to an article (letter?) I recall seeing in "Science" years ago, there are peoples who regard their dreams as being just as real as ordinary waking reality. That might be worth looking up. Two: sleep -- this is just a personal observation, mind you -- is very relaxing in a physical way. Loosens the old muscles right up. Could that have anything to do with it? Maybe people who sleep are those whose physical constitutions require that time for physical recovery; then dreaming might be an adaptation to make bearable the time spent in necessary sleep. ---Pete ------------------------------ AUTHOR@MIT-AI 09/17/80 02:48:48 As far as I'm concerned (if anyone cares), sleep is all a matter of physical discomfort. I have found almost no trouble staying awake for up to four days at a time -- the reason I eventually do sleep is due to overwhelming physical fatigue rather than "mind-flakiness". I have often wondered if I would require less sleep if I were to get rid of some of my "equatorial bulge" and get myself in better shape... Greg ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 1013-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: sleep cycles I remember seeing a paper somewhere that came to the conclusion that some insomiacs were that way because their natural cycle was like 26 hours long rather than 24. This one schoolteacher was killing himself trying to get up at the same time each morning, but slept normally if he let his cycle drift. I like the idea of "morning people" being on 12 hour cycles. Maybe this comes from the need for siestas in hot climates? ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 0820-PDT From: ADPSC at USC-ISI Subject: Longer days The discussion on non-circadian patterns reminds me of a series of experiments performed at the US Army laboratories in Natick, Mass in the mid-60's (if memory serves me right.) For the most part they were studying why some people preferred warmer climates to colder, but they also got into why some people need more or less sleep than others. They were primarily interested in being able to predict these preferences so that they might more easily match persons with jobs. The study went into a great many physical, psychological, hereditary, etc. factors in order to determine these facts. Many bucks were spent. In the end it was found that the best way to find out this information was to simply ask the person. don ------------------------------ Date: 16 SEP 1980 1041-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: future technology (Mike.Fryd's msg) It's a marvelous idea, but the question is --- \what/ \kind/ of high-voltage equipment? Simple transmission equipment has become much more available because of the improved economics of transmitting at higher voltages. I've read that long-distance transmission lines routinely operate at >300kV and that a >700kV line is the subject of much argument from the people who live near the proposed right-of-way; I suppose a megavolt line is likely within the next few years. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 1006-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "Flowers for Algernon" The whole "Flowers for Algernon" thing is a depressing reminder of how closed sf is. Can anyone remember anything else that Daniel Keyes ever wrote? As far as I know he was a complete outsider and yet his one sf short story became a book, a play, a movie, and now a musical. The only one of us who went anywhere near that far was Arthur C. Clarke, and he was largely carried along by Stanley Kubrick. And what are easily the most widely taught sf books in high school and college? "1984" and "Brave New World". Why is this? Because they tell us something about the human condition, to use that favorite phrase of English teachers. In Charlie's fall from genius to idiot Keyes found a good modern way of telling the fall from grace, and so touched people who care nothing for science or the future. Does Ringworld have anything as universal? Or "Dune" with its melodramatic intrigue and bogus ecology? I would say that a story like Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" does, or LeGuin's "The Dispossessed". They'll be remembered when Asimov and Heinlein are as archaic as Verne. ------------------------------ Date: 17 September 1980 03:55-EDT From: Robert W. Kerns Subject: Mapping stories There is a class of SF stories that I would call 'Reality stories'. OX (the concluding book of Piers Anthony's series including Omnivore and Orn) involves a hexaflexagon of realities, some of them quite bizarre. I really cannot think of any reasonable mapping for such as these. Then there's stories such as 'Susie's Reality', which appeared about 6 years ago in one of the mags. This hypothosized a monkey who was raised in an artificial 'faked' reality with different rules (by trikery), who escapes, and continues to manipulate reality by her rules. Zelazny's Amber series, while in many respects being an adventure/fanatasy, also could not have been written in another genre, because of the freedom to manipulate multiple realities in one story. Closely related are all the stories which make use of the flexibility SF has to offer to provide unusual structure for the stories themselves. Many non-SF stories feature flashback and flashforward, but I've never seen any do it in such an integrated and extensive fashion as Slaughterhouse Five. P. K. Dick's UBIK I can't even begin to classify, but it's a cinch it wouldn't make sense outside of SF. I've never read a recursive story outside of SF, although I suppose it is possible. I think it's clear that SF provides a very broad base for experimentation in story structure that you just won't find in, say, Gothic Novels, or Westerns, or Detective, or Spy stories. I also think that one of SF's strengths is that it can INCLUDE these genres, bringing a fresh viewpoint. The much maligned 'space western' is no worse, and usually better than your typical Western. Many detective and spy stories border on SF just to provide an unusual situation, with special technologies invented just for the story. ------------------------------ Benson I. Margulies 09/16/80 15:49:37 Re: Story Transference Much discussion has come along lately of the reasons for, and limits of, the setting of certain stories in certain settings. This whole subject began long before science fiction. In particular, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's writings about drama introduced "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief." To Coleridge, this was the magical state of mind that allowed an audience, faced with a really quite poor illusion, to enter into the world of a play for the duration of the performance. The crucial feature of a play that succeeds in inspiring this state is "Sufficient familiar detail" to anchor the mind, and provide a foundation from which it can extend its imagination to the unfamiliar or fantastic. Much the same analysis can be applied to literature. A novel is not a movie. No novel can possibly convey enough information to compete with real sensation. But the reader is prepared to "suspend his disbelief" if the novel provides the detail to support her imagination. For science fiction novels, the familiar detail often comes by using concepts that the reader is expected to have seen in other science fiction. Thus an author, in trying to tell a story with a very unlikely feature, must choose a setting that will ease the load on the reader's imagination. For an author "raised" in the science fiction "tradition" (wow, look at all the quotes, mommy) alien culture may provide the most familiar situation in which to propose a personal conflict. The reader will have already "met" aliens, but the sort of contrived situation neccessary to create the same conflict in our existing society may be harder to believe than little green men! --benson-- ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/17/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses how to classify SF using Clavell's SHOGUN and Niven's "The Jigsaw Man" as examples. In doing so, it gives away the major surprise element of Niven's story. People who have not read this story may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ ISRAEL@MIT-AI 09/16/80 19:11:28 Re: classifying SF, SHOGUN This week NBC is showing the mini-series SHOGUN, from the James Clavell book of the same name. About two years ago, I sat down with the book, and 1200 pages and 5 days later, finished it. After I read it, I came to the conclusion that SHOGUN is science fiction. For those of you who haven't read it and are totally oblivious to all the TV hype, SHOGUN is the story of an English pilot whose ship crashes on the reefs of Japan. He learns the Japanese culture and eventually rises to the position of samurai (warrior) and advisor to the chief warlord of the then-feudal Japan. What the story actually is, however, is the story of a man who gets catapulted into a society far more alien than any he's ever known, and his experiences in learning the ethics, mores and values of this culture. In this story, James Clavell presents to us a culture very different from western civilization. His portrayal of it is in great detail and internally self-consistent (believable). These features of SHOGUN are the same features that made DUNE a classic. DUNE was extremely popular because it presented a full alien culture in detail that was very believable. In my opinion, the Japanese culture of SHOGUN is more alien to us than is the fremen culture of DUNE. Many SF cultures are harsh, but very few writers would create a society where bad manners was a crime meriting the death penalty. In SHOGUN, people can be and are beheaded for failing to bow to a superior. Larry Niven treated this idea briefly in his story "The Jigsaw Man". In it, the death penalty was meted out for traffic violations. However, this is different because 1) the death penalty was given for different reasons (the general public benefited by having the convicted criminals organs going into the organ banks) and 2) lack of proper manners is more trivial a matter than are traffic violations. One unique feature of SHOGUN is that much of the dialogue is in untranslated Japanese, and the viewer has to get the meaning of it from expressions, delivery, and situational context, much the same as the protagonist does. Creating an alien language and sprinkling it liberally around is another technique many SF writers use to lend believability to their works. DUNE had a 20 or 30(?) page appendix giving definitions for colloquial expressions and terms of the fremen language. The only reason I can see for not classifying SHOGUN as science fiction is that !!WE ALREADY KNOW THAT THE CULTURE AND LANGUAGE ACTUALLY EXIST!! If SHOGUN was given to someone four or five hundred years ago, a time period when Japan was believed to be a legend or a myth, then it could be classified as science fiction. In fact, if SHOGUN was given to someone of our own time period, but who had no knowledge of the existence or history of the Orient, then he too could probably classify it as science fiction. - Bruce ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 18 SEP 1980 0708-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #80 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 18 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 80 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Videodiscs and FX, Future Breakthrus - No Sleep, Charlie and Algernon, Multi-media SF, What is SF? - Shogun, Basic Fantasies of SF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 September 1980 0108-EDT (Thursday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10A Subject: Video Discs and EFX VIDEO DISCS & EFX: While the virtue of VD's is their virtually infinitely variable speed (even backwards!), note that their resolution, to date, is only as good as video. The far greater effect to be seen in EFX is in Computer-graphics, as will be demonstrated in NYIT's upcoming "THE WORKS" and upcoming SW films, featuring Ed Catmull's (et. al) CG wizardry. VD-tech, though, should facilitate CG-EFX systems, by allowing the CG frames, which are created one at a time, (often taking an hour or more to compute), to be stored and reviewed in real time. Companies developing CG-EFX, such as DIGITAL EFFECTS in N.Y.C. must presently rely on Video Tape and Frame-buffer tech- nology, or else convert the images to 35-MM film (DICOMED-type technology) in order to review their work. They look forward to VDs as a way to relatively quickly review their work, allowing examination at any speed, and catching glitches by reviewing single frames with ease. Subsequent editing for the final film output may then be done by altering the CG program/sequence -- there is little need to affect the VD images, since for the appropriately high resolution (eg 5000 lines/inch) the film image is derived "directly" from the computer, rather than from the VD unit. -ww- ------------------------------ Date: 17 September 1980 10:35 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Dreaming as reality I think the "Science" article referred to desribed the Sonoi people of New Guinea. These folks have complicated rules for dealing with dreams in waking life. They may not treat "dream-life" exactly the same as "waking-life", but the two interact strongly. I don't know how much of this is rumor, or lies (told by the Sonoi to the anthropologists) or exaggeration, but they were supposed to be something like this: Children are taught how to behave in dreams. For example, rather than run from a frightening object, they should approach it. If they are falling, they should try to fly. If a Sonoi hurts them in a dream, they should give the hurter a present in "real" life. In the morning, everybody tells of their dreams. Allegedly, in time, the adults have totally lucid dreams. Also, there is supposed to be no violent crime among the Sonoi, and the neighboring tribes don't bother them because they think they are "magic" or something like that. I have some vague recollection that in Castenada's Don Juan books there is another view of dreams as reality, with some guides on how to control your dreams. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1980 0342-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Keyes' Flowers for Algernon Fall from grace? I didn't interpret the book/story at all like ICL.REDFORD@SCORE did. I don't think Keyes intended it to appeal to anti-scientific types either. Other than conveying a sense of what makes up the 'guts of intellect', the book is merely trying to get across the notions that intellectual achievement is useless without compassion and that some scientific methods applied to human subjects are immoral at best, which are obviously true. To take this as an indictment of all science is going far beyond what I feel Keyes intended; however, I'm afraid that many readers did take it this way. As far as the 'treatment of the human condition' is concerned, it is obvious that anything that sf produces which could be considered as warranting study in schools would have to treat the human psyche in some way. A complicated story about gadgets just doesn't fill the bill. I've come across remarkably few full-blown studies of human emotions in sf. More often than not, the author catapults himself into another world and spends the majority of the book creating new characters, more scenery and the like, with a liberal sprinkling of gadgets. Also, the standard sf device of 'creating wonder' doesn't fill the bill either. There's only so much wonder that one can stomach. The Algernon story struck me as one of the better psycho- logical studies I've read, sf or otherwise. I agree that the endless re-hashing of a story into multiple media is pointless. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1980 1016-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Daniel Keyes. Daniel Keyes was not a total outsider to SF, only almost. He did write some other things, I saw them mentioned last time I read "Flowers for Algernon". I think it was in "Space Mail" that I saw the mention of other works. There are anumber of other authors who have been "forgotten" except for one work. Consider Walter Miller, Jr. and "Canticle for Liebowitz", Stanley G. Weinbaum and "A Martian Odyssey", or even Edgar Pangborn. These were not outsiders but I would bet that most people can't name more than one work by these people. Keyes wasn't an outsider, he just wasn't prolific. He may also have found other ways to occupy his time, he wouldn't be the first. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1980 1044-PDT From: Craig Milo Rogers Subject: Multi-media SF There's at least one other SF (read "speculative fiction") writer out there whose works have gone the short story, book, play, movie, musical, etc. route: Ray Bradbury. His "Fahrenheit 451" was what I read in high school (rather than "1984", etc.). A second author would be Jules Verne; haven't several of his works appeared as books, movies, and plays? Conceeded, the attribute "concern for the human condition" applies to help distinguish these author's works from "run of the mill" and "less successful" SF, but that is not my point; rather, I query: What SF works have appeared in several (at least 3) different forms (short story, novel, play, movie, opera, etc.)? How "successful" were they, and why? Craig Milo Rogers ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1980 0917-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: SHOGUN as sf Yea, I'll go along with the idea that SHOGUN would be sf if we didn't know of feudal Japan. I'd like to draw a finer distinction, though. Sf deals with alien cultures that COULD exist, but are not known to, whereas fantasy works in settings both unknown and impossible. If the characters in SHOGUN had to battle werewolves as well as each other it wouldn't be sf even if it took place on Alpha Centauri. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1980 09:58:03-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: SHOGUN and sf In response to Bruce's comments on SHOGUN being sf, there is one thing which he did not (in print at least) consider, and that is that presenting a culture as internally consistent as the Japanese culture is requires good technical skill, but no creativity. Clavell didn't create the culture, he described it, and since the society functioned for hundred's of years, it should come as no surprise that it is consistent. And while I agree that few sf stories have a death penalty for bad manners, manners were (and are) an integral part of the Japanese society, as important to them as, say, our past (and, sadly, often present) powerful disapproval of homosexuality was to us; i.e., it was a basic societal value. Our forefathers and foremothers saw nothing wrong in dealing out some of our harshest penalties to homosexuals and letting people who failed to show proper respect go, and the Japanese saw nothing wrong with doing the inverse. Bruce's contention that bad manners are trivial is a peculiarly modern western viewpoint that fits in not at all with Japanese civilization, or, for that matter, earlier western civilizations. Peasant's were often killed during the Middle Ages for failing to bow in the presence of a knight or higher lord. All in all, although I did enjoy reading SHOGUN, I couldn't conceive of it as sf, unless Clavell knew nothing of Japanese civilization and created it from scratch. As fiction it's entertaining, but if any sf writer you respected took a known culture and simply transplanted it without modification, I suspect you would be disappointed. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 17 SEP 1980 1239-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: SHOGUN as SF That's an interesting idea. I would say it matches my internalized idea of SF with one exception: those books from past centuries that are classified as SF (such as GULLIVER'S TRAVELS) tend to describe a society that is literally non-human, i.e. not just the structure but the people themselves are physically different from anything we know (though this is admittedly a small distinction). I think some of the trouble in distinguishing SHOGUN would come from the fact that SF was not recognized as a separate genre from the general adventure tale until this century (look at Verne, who wrote both indiscriminately). I would question, though, the statement that fatal manners have never come up in SF. Consider the following: --in DECISION AT DOONA, the society on Earth is so crowded that an elaborate code has sprung up in which (among other cute details) flatulence is an offence punished by substantial reduction in calorie allowance. --in BEYOND THIS HORIZON, duels are considered an appropriate method of dealing with relatively trivial affronts---and a person who does not duel is expected to take whatever rudeness is handed out to him. --both Laumer and Dickson, as confirmed militarists (I can just imagine the uproar \that/ aside will cause), have shown societies in which everyday manners are a form of ritualized combat; there are prescribed mock-valiant responses to specific actions, which responses the cowardly diplomats fail to make because they are too polite! (thereby precipitating assorted trouble; see especially Dickson's NONE BUT MAN and the first story in RETEIF: AMBASSADOR TO SPACE (the one about the Yill).) These last contrast interestingly with SHOGUN; while Laumer and Dickson both show that an equal or inferior should deliberately challenge to offer an "opponent" the chance to claim status by "standing up to the challenge", in SHOGUN it is the failure to begin by acknowledging one's subordinate position that produces an irrevocable demonstration of that position. I'm not sure whether "manners" is exactly the right term for this; is a western military salute manners? ------------------------------ Date: 17 September 1980 04:23-EDT From: Robert W. Kerns Subject: Recursive SF and fictional authors In P. K. Dick's 'The Man in the High Castle', there is much reference to a fictional book 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy' by one Hawthorne Abendson. 'The Man in the High Castle' is a fictional story about society after World War II, with certain differences from ours, like the US lost to Japan and Germany. 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy' is about society after World War II, with certain differences from theirs ... (we won, but it's not identical with our reality either...) I wonder if 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy' has a fictional book in it about society altered by a somewhat different outcome to World War II. By the by, this story seems to defy mapping for yet another reason: Where else are you going to map it to? It doesn't have much of any connection to Science, it is a spy story, a deeply psychological novel, a political satire. It very briefly and ambiguously touches on the idea of alternate realities in one scene and in the ending (which I don't understand...). But it's really SF because it hypothesizes 'something different' and explores the consequences, and no other genre provides for an examination of an alternate situation this fundamentally different. The mapping consists of being able to imagine a similar story where similar characters and actions would be motivated by circumstances acceptable to the particular genre. This story provides the characters with motivations and actions acceptable to any number of different genres: They're PEOPLE facing their daily lives, in a society with problems. But the story depends on making a fundamental change in society, and showing the differences and frightening similarities with ours, and SF seems to be the best place to explore fundamentally different societies. Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' and Orwell's 1984 have very similar requirements for their exploration of fundamental societal questions, and I think they have a strong SF flavor as well. This, to me, is the central idea behind SF, what makes SF different and special. SF does not require any great correspondence between the reality of the story and our reality. As such, it expands our horizons. Given this very general criterion, I don't see any point to the endless SF/Fantasy debates and distinctions. Is the magic technological or not? Who cares? The whole POINT of SF is that stories DON'T have to fit into tiny boxes! When you can fit everything nice and neat, each to it's own cubbyhole, what you have is a series of coffins for a dead genre. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 19 SEP 1980 0528-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #81 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 19 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 81 Today's Topics: Original SF Telezine, SF Movies - Videodiscs and FX, SF Books, Charlie and Algernon, Basic Fantasies of SF, What is SF? - Shogun, Stack Discipline ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 September 1980 0220 EDT From: ZRM@MIT-MC Subject: SF telezine Now you can have science fiction at your fingertips. The networking technology that brings you SF-LOVERS now brings to a file near you an SF fiction magazine. This new magazine is made up of contributions from network people and seeks to stimulate and entertain an actively contributing audience. The first issue contains the following stories: Atom & Eve...............................................Judy Anderson Turn-About..........................................Stuart M. Cracraft MPEIII version 768.43 login please:..............................Anon. Plus a special section that should strike fear in the heart of anybody who has ever edited anything. Critiques of the material in this magazine are encouraged and should be directed at SF-LOVERS. A copy of the current issue has been established at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and Roger will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Many thanks to Richard Brodie, Roger Duffey, Doug Philips, Olin Sibert, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for their help in distributing the magazine. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS OSFMAG CMUA TEMP:OSFMAG.SFL[A210DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLOVERS-OSFMAG.TXT Rutgers PS:OSFMAG.TELEZINE SU-AI SFMAG.1[T,DON] MIT-Multics >udd>PDO>Lamson>sf-lovers>original_sf_telezine [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1980 1254-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Video disks and EFX In reply to Warren Wake's comments on the wonders of video disks - three points and a grump: * Yes, video disks are just the right thing for assembling computer generated animation (at low (500) res), and the currently existing magnetic technology (both high class hard disks and dip-shit floppy video disks) has been used in this application. Both types have real problems: hard disks (eg an Ampex SloMo) are INCREDIBLY hard to keep "tweeked" up - they seem to require a full time mechanical/ analog hacker to stay operational, and the floppy disks are - well - floppy (I haven't seen one that can take the punishment of a production environment). * Currenly available optical disk systems are essentially read-only, because the mastering process is very complex/ expensive. Hitachi and others keep talking about a more resonable write-once unit which could master a single disk from a "blank" (I think the notion is to burn in the data with a killer laser). * Regarding the use of a video disk during the editing stage of production - the Architecture Machine Group has shown systems (eg The Aspen Project (a participitory "map")) which do real time, on the fly editing of sequences randomly spread around the disk. They use (at least) two drives with two copies of the same disk to allow a pre-seek of the desired video. Grump: We seem to get left out of such lists very often, so I will point out that Information International Inc ("triple I") is another (the first?) hot spot of computer-animation-for-the-movies/TV work. For some recent examples see current issues of Back Stage (Business Screen) - our cover art - and the new Discover magazine. By the way we don't use DICOMED film recorders - we use III equipment. - Craig ------------------------------ AUTHOR@MIT-AI 09/17/80 02:48:48 I am interested in collections of Zelazny's shorter (non-novel) works. I am aware of two: Four For Tomorrow, and The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (after the story of the same name), but I am wondering if there are more. I recently thumbed thru a 'zine and saw almost 60 shorts by Zelazny listed. Greg ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1980 1851-EDT From: ROBG at MIT-DMS (Rob F. Griffiths) Has anyone out there read Stephen King's new book, \FIRESTARTER/?? Is it as good as it is reputed to be? Is it a horror book so much as a book about the way the government covers things up? (Or something along those lines [as I heard from a friend]) Also, does anyone know when the movie version of 'The Stand' is supposed to come out? It says 'soon' on the back cover, which can mean two months up to two years. Thanx in advance; -ROB. ------------------------------ Date: 18 SEP 1980 1212-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: recursive^n SF To make matters even more convoluted, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (or at least the uchronic version of it) is mentioned in Kingsley Amis' uchronia, THE ALTERATION (brief summary: Martin Luther was co-opted and became Pope Germanian, followed by Thomas More (?) as Hadrian VII, and there are virtually no Protestants; thus, in 1976, Hubert Anvil, talented boy soprano, is being prepared for castration), in which "Time Romance" and "Counterfeit Worlds" are not respectable but are widely read in secret. Amis, however, gets even cuter; he mentions a book by Keith Roberts, but it's called GALLIARD instead of PAVANNE, a useful pointer showing the false sight of the reviewer in TIME who called THE ALTERATION a pastoral story marred only by Lyall's murder. ------------------------------ Date: 18 SEP 1980 1221-PDT From: HAAS at USC-ECL Subject: SHOGUN, ETC. Greetings! This is my first time on the net mailing list, and I found reading SF-LOVERS mail quite interesting. Has anyone ever done a study correlating the number of computer-type people to the number of science fiction fans who are computer-types? Seems to me that we have more than our share...... .....But that's what makes life interesting. I may have a little catching up to do, but here are my views (for what they are worth).... SHOGUN as SF. I really do not think so; I would view it more as a historical-fictional story, although many an SF story does that also. Seems to me that there is no basic difference between what happened in Japan in the 1600s and what happens in SHOGUN, except that a white man was made SAMURAI. I do not know if a white man ever achieved that singular honor. As far as capital punishment for offenses, I can think of any number of stories that dealt with that.....MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS springs to the top of my mind ("throw him out the airlock!"). I know that I am missing earlier elements of this discussion, but please bear with me. Daniel Keyes and FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON was definite SF, and good SF, even though there were no TIE fighters or other starships zapping everything in sight. All it did was take a basic premise (intel- ligence) and expand a little on it. John Varley's PERSISTANCE OF VISION did much the same thing, and I hope you agree that that was SF, (it won a Hugo award....)/ Enough for now.... I hope you all will be merciful with my initial comments and ignorance of matters that have occured before me. Ray Haas ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1980 0923-PDT (Thursday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: Shogun, etc. Well, of course the "explorer discovers an unknown and rather unusual civilization" stories have been at the borderline of F and SF for quite a while. Consider some of H. Rider Haggard's stories, or those of A. Merritt. These have been marketed both as "mainstream" (under the heading of "romances") and as "fantasy" (recently by Ballantine and Avon). The most you can say about "Shogun" is something pompous like "it follows many of the narrative conventions of science fiction." Of course, what pure SF can do with the first contact theme, that the historical or "lost civilization" story can't, is come up with a different species entirely, with the intention of shedding light on the nature of human thought and behavior by contrasting it with something quite non-human. C.S. Lewis does this (with heavily Christian overtones) in Out of the Silent Planet, and one of the nicer touches in "Mote in God's Eye" by Niven & Pournelle was the Moties' bemusement at the humans' nearly religious faith in the proposition that every problem has a solution. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1980 1838-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Shogun I have to agree with Bruce about Shogun being SF (although I do not believe that politeness is trivial - when in Rome, etc...). To me SF is LITERATURE (ie well written material) that takes some sort of ABNORMAL concept (in the sense that I do not experience it in the real world) and uses it in the story (either for fun or to make some sort of moral/political/social point). Thus a lot of GOOD historical fiction falls into my definition of SF. To me all you have to do to make it 'real' SF is to make an earth-like world and set your story there. Creativity is not really a good criteria. Most good regular SF borrows alot from history. DUNE's Freeman culture has many traits of real earth desert cultures. Jerry Pournelle's stories relating to the military uses many concepts and details from real earth engagements. Asimov based his galactic empire on many historical empires (the Roman one dominating). I can cite more examples, and I am sure others can too. Writers write from experience, so they will often use real events and societies in thier stories. Thus the line between fiction and fact can often be very thin. Historical writers use more facts than average, but they are often allowed to alter things to fit the story line better. This is done in Shogun, although the central historical facts are correct. Japanese society of the 17th century is very strange to me, far outside my normal experience. (Although I am well versed in Japanese Political, Economic, and Military history, the culture is still very alien). Of course, experiences are relative. What I call SF you may think is simply mainstream. But has not that always been the case. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 16 SEP 1980 1033-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: waiting for the other shoe Sorry about that; I sometimes have trouble getting in enough right parentheses. (Somebody once proposed a "superparenthesis" which would pop the entire stack of left parentheses but I don't recall what it looked like and can't see a reasonable way of doing it on a non-graphic terminal.) Herewith the corrected section: It could be argued that the "rivets" type story as Russ describes it is mirrored in the "strange lands" stories of past centuries (Plato's REPUBLIC, More's UTOPIA, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, etc. (and of course WALDEN TWO in our own time) ) . The similarities include the aforemen- tioned shortage of character development and tendency of the story to be built around the exploration of the society rather than what we would recognize as a plot. (The firmest example of this in SF is RALPH 124C41+, which for these reasons is nearly unreadable today.) (I can also see this overlapping to some extent with a strict "alien culture" story --- but then, such are rare in SF, especially good recent SF; the best examples, such as Cherryh, show the boundaries between several different cultures instead of the heart of a single isolated one.) P.S. Should I mention that a lexical scanner might also have problems with your msg? The first comma should be a semicolon or period. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 1400-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: stack bondage and disipline Chip - thankx for the correction. (some Lisps use "]" as the supercloser) unnamed person @OFFICE-1 who sent me mail containing one closer - - my stack thankx you. And no comments abouts unmatched brackets in this message. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 20 SEP 1980 0827-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #82 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 20 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 82 Today's Topics: Future Breakthrus - No Sleep, SF Fans and Computers, Horrible SF Movie, SF Books - Zelazny & Firestarter, What is SF? - Shogun, Stack Discipline ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 SEP 1980 1305-EDT From: DEE at CCA (Don Eastlake) At least one person who lived a week of 6 28 hour days a week for some months was Peter Samson. This was when he was at MIT 10+ years ago. Last I heard he was working for Systems Concepts in SF CA on a more normal schedule. ------------------------------ Date: 19 SEP 1980 1036-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: computers and fans A "Habitat" poll was run at Disclave (Memorial Day weekend convention in DC) in 1978 (I think) to see whether the fans in attendance had enough talents/skills/career experience among them to staff a closed system (e.g., L5). The results were surprising, especially considering that Disclave is a relatively laid-back convention; I recall that something like half of the people who answered the questionnaire (which was most of the people there) were doing something with computers, (i.e., programming, managing, selling, etc.). ------------------------------ Date: 19 SEP 1980 1053-PDT From: HAAS at USC-ECL Subject: computers and fans, continued.......... As part of an organization for the advancement of space industrialization and settlement, I have made an informal survey, coming from the other direction. There are many engineers, scientists, computer programmers and analysts, etc. involved in this group. I find that most of them (not surprisingly) are SF fans. But usually not at a fanatical (no pun) level. They enjoy SF, and the usual comment is that it "expands my perception of myself and my environment, and the possiblities of the future." Again, this is not surprising, for by and large, the plans that we have for the future can easily be considered SF (by any standards). But this particular section of SF can indeed be made into reality. Which brings up an interesting question..... ...... If an SF story deals with a future possibility, and, when the future rolls around, it turns out that that particular prediction did not happen, does the story stop being SF? This is probably not a valid question, as the story deals with what could have been, and I think I just answered my own question. Oh well.... till next time, then Ray Haas ------------------------------ Date: 19 September 1980 07:50-EDT (Friday) From: Andrew G. Malis Subject: Bad movie I can't remember if this film made the original all-time bad SF film list, but last night Ch. 38 in Boston played "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians". It was such a loser, it was great! The acting, writing, and direction were uniformly BAD, and the Martians were men wearing shiny jump suits and helmets with vacuum-cleaner hoses sticking out. A real must for all able to catch it in the future. Andy ------------------------------ Date: 19 SEP 1980 1023-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Zelazny collections The only one I can think of offhand is MY NAME IS LEGION, which contains his three novellas about the man who managed to stay off the system when information about everyone else in the world was put online, thus allowing him to assume whatever identity is appropriate for each bit of derring-do. There must be others in MITSFS. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1980 1107-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Firestarter Rob Griffiths asked about "Firestarter" - I haven't read it yet either, but I believe it was condensed (or something) in the previous issue of Omni magazine. There is talk about a movie version of Firestarter also, but that is in the very early discussion stage. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1980 (Friday) 1135-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: "Firestarter" and a query Two chapters from Stephen King's new work "Firestarter" appeared in fairly recent issues of OMNI. I have yet to read the book, but the plot seems to be a variation on the "secret agency in the government sets out to capture/kill innocent individual" hype. To wit, a man and a woman are subjects of an experiment to test the effect of a drug. The drug, it turns out, imparts on the imbiber telekinetic abilities. The couple marry and have a daughter who is born with the ability to start fires sans matches. The government, ever watchful for new weapons, tries to capture the girl and kill the father. So much for what appeared in OMNI. I didn't notice any of the supernatural horror which seems to mark a number of King's other works, but it does seem to be good escape fiction. Now, has anybody read Phillip Jose Farmer's "Magic Labyrinth"? Does he really tie all of the loose ends together? -- Dave Smith ------------------------------ Date: 19 SEP 1980 1040-PDT From: HAAS at USC-ECL Subject: FIRESTARTER,SHOGUN, ETC. To Rob Griffiths and other interested parties.... FIRESTARTER, in my opinion, is one of the best books so far by Stephen King. From the start to the finish, it keeps you going, and wanting more. Extremely well done. There is no horror in the classical sense, but there are definitely certain sections of the book that are quite eerie. It also makes a commentary on the power that some of the secret organizations of the U.S. Government has, but it is not overbearing about it, and frankly, quite realistic. Again, a beautifully written entirely believable book about ordinary people caught in not so ordinary circumstances. Recommended to all. Even though the debate on whether or not SHOGUN is SF or not will continue, I must make the comment that *whatever* it is, it is an excellent piece of filmmaking. Acting and production are great. I have not been quite so entranced with any movie made for television. Good Stuff! I have come to realize the the primary disagreement point on whether much of what we discuss is SF or no, can be traced to a basic definition of what exactly SF is. I know that this has probably been addressed in the past,and it would most likely be redundant to go over it again. There are several excellent reference works on the subject, written by SF writers, which attempt to define: the genre. If anybody wishes, I will provide a list of the better ones. till next time........... ray ------------------------------ Date: 09/18/80 1155-EDT From: KG Heinemann (SORCEROR at LL) Subject: Remarks on classifying SHOGUN as SF Some of Samuel Delaney's views on the issue of what distinguishes SF from mainstream literature may be relevant to the recent suggestion that SHOGUN can be classified as SF. Delaney's position may be summarized as: The setting of a story is set of premises about the physical, social, and psychological facts and laws which are true in a ficti- tious world or universe. SF and "literature" differ because SF aims to depict developments of plot and character which are rigorous logical consequences of the setting and initial situation, while "literature" aims to express insights about the "human condition". SF studies the abstract structure of worlds; literature does not. Internal consis- tency is high up on the list of virtues for SF, but is a minor value in literature. It is not necessary that the setting of a story be radically different from known reality, to classify the story as SF. Delaney has said that Emma Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, one of the old chestnuts of high school English courses, is SF. He might very well agree that SHOGUN is, too. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1980 1224-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: RWK's "who cares" Robert Kern's dismissal of the SF vs. fantasy question sounds good to me. It has always seemed to me that "regular" literature is a subset of SF, and I guess in that scheme SF is a subset of fantasy. If that is true, we might better discuss when you can say "this has no element of pure fantasy" or "this has no element of science fiction". It would be hard to find a work of fiction which has no touch of fantasy. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1980 1009-PDT From: Mike Peeler (MDP at SAIL) Subject: SF is everything What snobs these are who think the name of Science Fiction can lay claim to any work they happen to fancy! Unusual circumstances may make a story interesting, but they do not make it \ipso facto/ science fiction. Tomorrow, a hundred people will propound that THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN is Science Fiction, and what is worse, they will believe it. ------------------------------ Date: 18 SEP 1980 1202-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: debates and distinctions I enjoy them occasionally; the playing with ideas, including "What exactly are we arguing about, anyway?" is part of the fun of SF. But I support RWK's parting sally, The whole POINT of SF is that stories DON'T have to fit into tiny boxes! When you can fit everything nice and neat, each to it's own cubbyhole, what you have is a series of coffins for a dead genre. with loud bravos and the Dena Brown Memorial Award ("Let's get SF out of the classroom and back in the gutter where it belongs!"). ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1980 1014-PDT From: Mike Peeler (MDP at SAIL) Subject: Brackets tax All right, Craig (Reynolds), no comment "abouts unmatched brackets" in your message. You mentioned that some LISPs use "]" as a super-parenthesis. While that may work fine for LISP, it would not work well in text. Use "=" instead. Some calculators use that. Chip (Hitchcock), I'll put it bluntly. You did mention "that a lexical scanner might also have problems" with Craig's message. You shouldn't have. A lexical scanner does not parse, it scans input for items it recognizes from its lexicon. It would recognize ")" and "," but would not notice their absence. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 21 SEP 1980 0758-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #83 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 21 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 83 Today's Topics: Original SF Telezine, SF TV - Shogun, SF Books - Firestarter & Budrys Reviews & Moderan & Alien Way, News Events - Elf Invasion ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 SEP 1980 1414-PDT From: The Moderator The first issue is now available at USC-ECL from the file: [USC-ECL]SF-LOVERS.OSFMAG;1 12 pages. Thanks go to Jim for establishing the file. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Sep 1980 0521-PDT (Saturday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: SHOGUN Just thought I'd mention that I too really liked SHOGUN. It was the finest piece of television drama which I can remember since "Golden Age" productions, and certainly more massive than any of those. I might note that of the 12 hours of the production, 2 hours were dedicated to commercials. That is, 1 minute out of every 6 was advertising. I was really getting tired of seeing the Bell phone store ad EVERY night. Still, it's better than Harlan and Madaline of DIAL Chevrolet out here. They sponsor alot of late night movies, and they are usually more horrifying than the movies. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1980 0058-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Firestarter's position in the real world BESTSELLERS HARDCOVER FICTION (from The New York Times) FIRESTARTER, by Stephen King. (Viking, $13.95.) Eight-year-old Charlie can look at anything and turn it into flames. Date This Last Weeks Week Week On List 14 September 2 2 4 21 September 2 2 5 ------------------------------ Date: 19 SEP 1980 1030-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: FIRESTARTER I feel very equivocal about it; it's borderline SF in the popular tradition, like CARRIE and THE DEAD ZONE, but in some ways I found it weaker than either --- unlike THE DEAD ZONE, FIRESTARTER wasn't convincing enough to keep me from arguing with it every few pages. King seems to be "discovering" writing techniques gradually and putting them to work one at a time to make each book a little more complicated than the previous one. I also thought the ending was an awful copout, but there was just enough surprise in it that I won't spoil it here. P.S. The government coverup is important, but it's not the sole motivation of the book; given the treatment, I'd say "horror" is as good a description as "SF". The government coverup is in effect part of the horror (there's this homicidal seeker after truth, see . . .). ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1980 0057-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: SF reviews Stephen King, "Firestarter" William Sloane, "The Edge of Running Water" Gene Wolfe, "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, and Other Stories." "100 Great Science Fiction Short-Short Stories," edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Greenberg, and Joseph Olander "A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction," edited by Baird Searles, Martin Last and Beth Meacham By Algis Budrys (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) The popularity of "occult" novels haunts the science fiction community. We of all people are expected to pay serious attention to stories based on semiliterate misreadings of religious apocrypha. Not based, mind you, on either testament of the Bible, but on super- stitions which Catholic, Protestant and Jewish theologians can tell you are mostly transformations of ancient pagan beliefs that have not yet been shaken off the skirts of genuine religion. Books like "The Other" and "Rosemary's Baby" are exploitation novels at a level undreamed of by even the editors of Spicy Space Stories or Gruesome Demoniacal Monthly. And literarily they haven't the faintest connection with any form of the Speculative Fiction genre. So now you're expecting me to say something bad about Stephen King's "Firestarter" (Viking, $13.95). And I could - it's sloppily written, it's plotted to wring every hair-raising potential out of creaking stairs, branches tapping on windows in deserted houses, lurking watchers in the shadows and all that other Gothic stuff - and it drags its feet. But those are details. Go get it. Tell 'em I sent you. It's good. King is a bright young man who has figured out how to become a consistent best-selling author. That objective has caused him to bend his appreciable writing talent to the writing of books filled with old horror-movie cliches, in the correct expectation that this would sell them to makers of new horror movies. But underneath it all, he's fundamentally different from the other "occult" wordsmiths, whom he has outdone in popularity with earlier novels like "Carrie," "Salem's Lot" and "The Shining." He is a Speculative Fiction writer, which means that though he throws in the horror scenes with unabashed persistence, he is in the meanwhile asking hard, logical questions and offering at least partial answers. I don't mean to scare anyone away from him, but the fact is that King is obviously too good for the trash bestseller market. The story in this case centers on "Charlie" McGee, a little girl who can start fires just by wanting to. The daughter of two former college students who volunteered for a hallucinogen-testing program, she and her father are hunted through a long hide-and-seek sequence by The Shop. The Shop is a clandestine federal agency which makes the worst excesses of the CIA look benign. The Shop has already killed her mother in an overanxious attempt to interrogate her. After it captures Charlie and her father, it ruthlessly handles them in ways that eventually force her to bring out her powers in a violently melodramatic climax. But under all that page-turning foofaraw are some very sharp characterizations, and some relatively deep considerations of power and its uses. There's also a portrait of a relationship between Charlie and her father that goes quite a bit farther into parent-child love-fear that you will ever see in the eventual movie version. Readers won't find much new in the "scientific rationale," but they might find something more in the book than they expected. For how it's really done when your only concern is with being literate and entertaining, however, Del Rey has reprinted William Sloane's "The Edge of Running Water" as a $2.25 paperback. Copy- righted in 1939, it is the classic novel about a man who turns his scientific training to attempted communication with his dead beloved wife. Readers of Del Rey's earlier Sloane reprint, "To Walk The Night," will have no trouble believing this is a must-read. The new "100 Great Science Fiction Short-Short Stories," edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Greenberg, and Joseph Olander (Avon, $2.50) pretty much lives up to the adjective. Not all these ultracompressed creations from some of science fiction's brightest stars are truly "great," but with a hundred to choose from, you'll find plenty to justify your purchase. A notable absence is that of the late Fredric Brown, without question the master of the snapper ending. However, that's probably not the editor's fault; I understand that the Brown literary estate is in an unfortunate tangle. Pocket, at $2.95, has brought out Gene Wolfe's short story collection - now pay attention - "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, and Other Stories." (cq) It includes the title story, as well as "The Death of Dr. Island" and "The Doctor of Death Island," and eleven other small gems of various waters from the author of that stunning recent novel, "The Shadow of the Torturer." Facts on File has issued a hardcover edition, at $12.95, of "A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction," edited by Baird Searles, Martin Last and Beth Meacham. This is an update as well as a library-useful edition of last season's Avon paperback first edition, which was recommended highly here for being exactly what the title promises, and a much-needed item indeed. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1980 at 1043-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: David R. Bunch's MODERAN Those stories were collected in a book not too many years ago. I have not seen it in print for some time. When I was much, much younger, and more suceptible to flashy technique than I am now, I thought David R. Bunch was the greatest SF story writer who ever lived, not excepting Frederic Brown. When I grew old enough to tell ability from technique I gave up this thesis, especially when I finally tumbled to the heavy Christian subtext pervading the stories. For those who like their SF served up weird, though, these stories are well worth the reading. ------------------------------ Date: 16 September 1980 15:54 edt From: Spratt.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Moderan, Alien Way Lauren, I was pleased to see your query about Moderan (by David R. Bunch). You are the only person other than myself that I know to have read it. The book has always been a favorite of mine for the sheer stylistic boldness. As regards stories in alien cultures, since this seems to have metmorphosed into a story request, "Alien Way" by Gordon R. Dickson is set entirely (almost) within a very different and alien culture. I felt it was very well done both in terms of presenting a consistently "different" culture and in making same understandable to the reader. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1980 10:05 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Invasion I thought this might be of interest. ---------- Date: 18 Sept. 1980 9:45 am PDT (Thursday) From: JimDay Subject: Invasion A woman recently called the police to report that her home was being invaded by elves. However a search of the premises by the Elf Squad revealed nothing amiss. When asked how the elves gained entrance, the woman replied, "They came in through that window." "But that's a blank wall," the officer in charge remarked, "There's no window there." "Not any more, there isn't," the woman agreed, "They took it with them when they left." ---------- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 22 SEP 1980 0525-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #84 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 22 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 84 Today's Topics: SF TV - TESB Special & LA Area Syndication, What is SF? - Shogun & Mysticism in SF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Sep 1980 at 0220-CDT From: HJJH at UTEXAS Rumor hath it that a television special on the making of TESB will be broadcast on Monday, 22 Sept, at 7 PM CDT. (Please check your local newspapers for date and time of broadcast in your area.) Narrator, this time is said to be Mark Hamill. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Sep 1980 1325-PDT (Saturday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Outer Limits and LIS While I realize that mentioning the television situation in L.A. does not benefit the whole of SFL, I feel that there are enough readers in the Southern California area and others who get our local channels piped in to make the following announcement worthwhile: KTTV (11) in Los Angeles has apparently again begun rerunning "The Outer Limits" in strict chronological sequence, as specified in the "Outer Limits Episode Guide" available through SFL. It is running at 2PM on Saturdays. Currently they are up to episode #2. On another note, KTLA (5) appears to have begun rerunning "Lost in Space"! I don't know whether this will continue for long or not. For now, they seem to be on at noon on Sundays. They appear to be in the middle of the series, but once before (about 6 years ago) they ran the whole series in chronological sequence, so maybe they will again. [As many of you know, I am a big fan of LIS, considering it to be the ultimate in SF camp. They KNEW they were making a comedy after awhile. The first five or six episodes, however, were relatively good SF.] --Lauren-- ------------------------------ ACW@MIT-AI 09/19/80 19:52:13 Re: Shogun & SF. Those who try to define science fiction carefully and rigorously seem to be seeking a way to categorize a work using only internal evidence. No such definition exists: none can possibly exist. It is not even possible to distinguish fact from fiction in this way: one must have external, objective knowledge of what is really true about the universe in order to make that distinction. We might debate about Churchward's "Lost Continent of Mu" series: is this fact or bad fantasy? One who knew nothing about history and geology might suppose from this work's earnest tone that it was true. Even a moderately knowledgeable reader, however, gags after the first three chapters, or else gleefully tears through the whole series, depending on his sense of humor. I read Michener's "The Source" in my teens, accepting it as historical fiction until my mother, who grew up in Palestine and Israel and knows a lot of the area's history, told me that in many places the novel is just fantasy, vaguely inspired by history and archaeology. I simply don't know enough about Japan to tell whether "Shogun" is historical fiction or fantasy. My "definition" of SF is cultural and extensional. A good parallel is concert or "serious" music, what some people still call "classical" music. How can you tell a piece of modern concert music from certain modern jazz? You look at the program notes or the record jacket and see who wrote it, who is performing it, what their background is. Concert music is music written by a certain set of composers -- a list of perhaps a couple of thousand names. Why do we lump these composers together? What do Webern and Crum have in common with Schubert and Dvorak and with Palestrina? Simply that they are part of a long cultural sequence, a progression. It is easier to connect Crum with Palestrina than it is to connect him with Brubeck, although Crum and Brubeck are contemporaries and Palestrina has been dead for almost 500 years. Similarly, SF is the kind of fiction that a certain group of people write and read (a list of a few million names inserted here) and talk about to each other and have a common vocabulary about. SF is an ethnicity, no easier to define than Macedonia. By this kind of thinking, I don't think Shogun is SF, because Clavell doesn't know, speak to, read, or learn from Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Del Rey, Eklund, Farmer, Goulart, Harrison, ... , and you can tell he doesn't. On the other hand, much of Amis' "mainstream" fiction reads and feels like SF. If this is really literature, then we should be tying the genre together with common style and experience, and common concerns and interests, which Le Guin shares with Zelazny but neither do with Clavell. Just defining SF by its content is not penetrating enough, lacking a certain essential insight about what the SF community is. I have rambled longer than I intended, and don't know if I have made my point at all. I apologize if I have bored anybody. ---Wechsler ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1980 2027-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: F, SF, & F On the subject of inventing distinctions between F and SF, etc: First of all, please don't forget that, for the purposes of this discussion, the "underlying reality" consists of the books themselves. If you want to create a distinction so as to separate the books into different subsets, just as people create distinctions between living and dead objects and between plants and animals, thats ok, it may be useful to do so -- but don't be surprised if your subsets are not well defined (just as there are borderline living/dead and plant/animal examples). We have all heard a variety of criteria suggested as the basis for distinguishing sf from fiction and from fantasy; some of these can be useful at times, but I have never found a criterion that was supposed to be objectively applied which created well defined subsets (whose application was not at some times ambiguous). Second, I think that many people have a personal feeling as to what is SF, what is Fantasy, and what is Fiction (someone a few days ago talked about his "internal definition" of SF, for instance). This feeling is not a formal definition, it is a recognition; that is, when you read Foundation you know it is SF, when you read The Hobbit you know it is fantasy, and when you read Bleak House you know it is fiction. Most of the ideas for "objective" distinctions are attempts to make objective and thereby universal the personal subjective process of recognition. (They come \after/ the recognition.) Of course different people have different personal judgements; moreover, you can read a book and "know" that it is a mixture of two genres. Thus a person's unconscious judgement does not necessarily (if ever) make a clean separation either... One of the best definitions of fantasy and of fiction I know was touched on by Bruce@MIT-AI during the Shogun-SF discussion: fiction is about things that the reader thinks do not exist or did not exist (are not known to exist), a book is fantasy to the reader who thinks the things and events could not exist ("unknown and impos- sible"). I find this definition a useful one because it often seems to match people's internal definitions. For example, we have had people here dismiss books with magic as mere fantasy and not true SF because the magic is impossible (they think it is, since it goes against our current scientific paradigm). Notice, however, that when a book with magic incorporates a scientific sounding explanation of the magical powers, such as psi powers, or when the magic is treated in a scientific, logical, and consistent manner (The Stars My Destination, many Heinlein books, etc. etc.) more readers find such powers believable and there is a lot more popular support for calling the book SF rather than fantasy. That's enough for now, enjoy your reading, cat ------------------------------ MASEK@MIT-ML 09/20/80 15:42:15 Re: SHOGUN as Science Fiction Science fiction is a story from another universe. The universe may be very similar to our universe, it may just be some time in the future, but there is something different. SHOGUN was a very good story, but it was set in this universe at an earlier time. I call those stories historical fiction. Good fiction is good fiction regardless of how we classify it. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/22/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It extends our discussion of speculative fiction by considering the debt certain elements of speculative fiction owe to mysticism. It uses TESB and the Castenada books on Don Juan as examples. In doing so, it includes a spoiler for TESB. People who have not seen the movie or read the book may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1980 0220-PDT From: Robert Blum Subject: The mystic parts of SF I realize I may be late in contributing now to the (magic) and mystery of SF started Paul Schauble on his talk about light saber speculations, but I felt it was time I said something. In stories of this nature, the Empire etal etc, a power like force of some kind is used. In Star Wars we accept it because it is internally consistant, but such "forces" are not the domain of just SF, or fiction for that matter. Someone in recent days mentioned the five Don Juan books by Carlos C...these are a good example. In the report, laid out somewhat like a novel (causing controversy even to this day whether or not it is fiction) we learn that the Yaqui source of magical power actually stems from an understanding of the dreamstate...supposedly mastering the chaos existing there and using it in the real (real should be quoted as the distinction is thin) world. Such thinking is common to most shamanistic "religions" stretching from North Asia and Europe, the pre-Christian Lapps for example, into the great civilizations of the pre-Hispanic New World. In the latter, the evidence for such things as spirit flight and other shamanistics can only be gleened from archeological remains, but the evidence is convincing (at least to some art history people here at UCLA /do not scoff until you have read the reports by these people/). The fact that we are getting at is that a medium of magic other than our familiar European type magic with its mythological references (trolls, brownies, witches, fairies) and powers outlined in spells and classifiable objects (such as infamous cold iron) does exist and it is very eastern in flavor. Have read all the Don Juan books --- the first is not representative, all have to be read --- and having read all I can get on studies of shamanism (Robert Furst being a good reference for the Huchoi indians of Central America), I was not repeat *** not *** surprised to see that scene in TESB where Luke does the flying stunt to escape from Darth's (HSSSSS) trap. He had come to the point where he, Luke, could manipulate, somewhat by reflex, the stuff of reality. Carlos, in the last two Don Juan books can do this with difficulty, but in almost the same fashion as Luke. I would not be surprised if Leigh Brackett read the 5 Don Juan's before writing her screenplay, or was influenced from a past reading. Think About This Though: If the Don Juan books are not fiction, what then? Also, the writers amongst you: think of using the shamanistic complex in your fantasy writing. It is a demanding request, but well worth the effort for la difference. (I am doing so.) -- RSBLUM@MIT-AI (UCLA-Dec10) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 23 SEP 1980 0653-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #85 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 23 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 85 Today's Topics: Alien Intelligence - Communication, SF Movies - BBtS, SF TV - Lost in Space, SF Books - Cat/Psi Book & Mother Goose Query, What is SF? - Shogun & Mysticism, News Events - Elf Invasion ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Sep 1980 10:50 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: communications with aliens. John Lilly and others claim that there exists at least one other intelligent species on the earth - dolphins. Lilly has written a series of books on the subject. The one I have in mind is "The Mind of the Dolphin". In this book, he describes and experiment in which a woman and a dolphin live together in a specially designed amphibious environment. The woman became convinced that the dolphin had an intelligence similar to, and as advanced as her own. Others have claimed (less convincingly perhaps) that whales are at a similar or greater intelligence level. We have already shown in our relationships with these (sentient?) beings that communication can occur, but that even so, many people may not realize it for what it is. I think that we have the answer to the problem of communication with another species within our grasp when we realize that right here on our own planet is the opportunity to find out about a (possibly) sentient species with an extremely different evolutionary heritage. -- Larry -- ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 1920-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Battle Beyond the Stars Saw BBtS last weekend, with some trepidation since a friend who had just seen it told me it stank. However, he is the type who takes Star Wars seriously, so I figured maybe it was satirical enough to turn him off. This proved to be the case. What's-his-face (John-Boy) made a marvelous straight man at whom to throw all the hoary old sci-fi (!) cliches. The fact that someone was acting poorly became apparent enough during tESB to break in to consciousness twice; it didn't happen during BBtS (although maybe maybe I had higher expec- tations for the former). BBtS succeeds at being melodrama better than tESB succeeds at being drama. See it instead of Airplane. (ps: I couldn't find it in NJ, I had to go to Fairfax, VA {it's also playing in Alexandria}) ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 12:42 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Lost In Space This show was a perfect example of how Irwin Allen would take a relatively interesting theme and bastardize it for the kiddies. Virtually all of his TV stuff went this route, including Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, etc. My personal reaction to anything with his name on it is to see if it was one of the first 10 shows in the series. If so, I'll watch it; otherwise, I'll call in the neighborhood rug-rats. (Please excuse my flaming, I was never into "camp".) ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 17:06 PDT From: Coleman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Cat Stories I have been a little behind on SFLovers lately, because of work, but I wondered if the book "A Judgement of Dragons" by Phyllis Gotlieb was mentioned as a book concerning cat-like beings. I just finished the book, which is a collection of short stories loosely tied together. I enjoyed it very much although it is a little offbeat. It would also qualify as a book concerning Psi powers and their uses in a galaxy-wide, multi-species society. As an aside, I wonder if anyone out there has heard of or has access to a book called "A Spacechild's Mother Goose". I have heard a few of the rhymes from this book and would like to obtain a copy for myself, but it has been out of print for quite a while. TTFN, Michele ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 11:22 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: misc. EMMA????....Austin?????? What happened to poor old JANE????? And re Lauren's message about commercial time in SHOGUN, let me tell you folks that there are about TEN MINUTES of commercials in EVERY prime time hour, and it gets worst in non-prime time. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1980 14:51:19-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: SHOGUN, creativity, &c One can, of course, define a term any way one wishes, and without stretching things too far, follow a definition of sf which includes both good and bad historical fiction, but that seems to defy any normal understanding of the genre distinctions. Certainly there are similarities between sf and histfict, and between sf and gothic novels, and sf and westerns. They all take people in situations, project a change in that situation, and follow the consequences. In other words, they all tell stories. This is a somewhat self- evident, and rather mundane, way of looking at things. Therefore, we create titles for genres, and attach distinguishing character- istics. Some works will always borrow heavily from more than one set of characteristics, and therefore possibly defy exact labelling. However, SHOGUN does little of this, swiping only a bit from gothic novels. Clavell takes a real event in history (the arrival in Japan of an English pilot on a Dutch ship) at a real time (one of struggle for supremacy in Japan) with real results (the pilot becomes central to plots and counterplots, becomes a samurai, educates the Japanese about the Portugese...) and fictionalizes it somewhat so he can take more liberties with what really happened. That sounds like a variant of historical fiction to me. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 1202-EDT From: JHENDLER at BBNA Well, this discussion about Shogun as SF astounds me. I always thought that the S stood for Science, and that at least a little (and often a very little) of the story should deal with something at least vaguely related to science. The closest Shogun comes in this respect is when the Anjin-san (aka Blackthorne) attempts to build a boat... Maybe I'm a purist, but I just can't see any way of counting this as SF. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 12:42 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Don Juan Most people I know who have read the Don Juan series believe the beginning to be entirely factual, the latest entirely fictional, and no clear point anywhere in the series where the changeover is. My personal opinion is that the first two books are probably entirely factual, and that the fiction starts creeping in there- after. Or perhaps fiction isn't quite the word for it. Much of the series has to do with an attempt to realize altered states of consciousness, and to use these states to gain power over reality. Maybe parapsychology, or perhaps theology, or even anthropology (the author's original specialty)? Carlos isn't talking. ------------------------------ Date: 22 SEP 1980 1227-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: defining SF Allan's first paragraph makes an important point that applies to any attempt to define the boundaries of a category. Unfortunately, the extension of this gets us into a narrow, even ingrown definition of SF. This definition creates severe limits both spatially and temporally. SF was not recognized as a separate genre until perhaps the middle 1920's (the founding of AMAZING in 1926 is a commonly-used marker). This would seem to exclude both the obvious (Wells, Verne) and the less obvious (Shelley, Munchausen, de Bergerac, all the way back to Lucian of Samosata) examples which have been included in recent definitions of SF --- although the latter seem frequently to have been included as much to gain academic respectability as to define SF itself. On the other hand, using the " 'cultural' or 'extensional' " definition, these could legitimately be included, under the argument that there have always been those who spun tales of that which the audience did not know of but could believe in; modern SF simply draws a different set of beliefs from the audience. Certainly there are some SF writers --- Poul Anderson comes to mind despite the incursions of hard science into fantasy (flesh turned to stone is dangerous because the silicon produced will be radioactive) --- who are descendants of the talespinners of other times and who might survive in a more primitive society by telling stories. Even Asimov mentions making up stories as a child to entertain his playmates. I think this again reaches toward the question of intentions. Many contemporary authors who would call themselves (and are called) "mundane" have none the less written works that are claimed for SF; consider Joyce Carol Oates, Marge Percy, Isaac Bashevis Singer. (Or consider, while controlling an impulse to gag, the indubitably stfictional "Canopus Archives" books of Doris Lessing.) Certainly mundanes are acknowledged as influences by some of our best SF writers, ranging from Ellison to Spider Robinson. To extend Allan's example, contemporary composers will deliberately cross or confuse the boundaries between "serious" and [popular?] music --- consider Deep Purple(?)'s Concerto for Group and Orchestra or David del Tredici's inclusion of jazz groups in concert pieces. Brubeck happens to be an example of this I'm familiar with, since I now sing with a concert chorus (Chorus pro Musica, oriented largely toward "modern" "serious" music) which performed with him pieces he'd written for piano, orchestra, and chorus; the only thing that could set these off from "serious" music was the inconstant nature of some of the piano solos. Intent also draws the line this side of Churchward and his ilk, all of whom believe that what they say is \true/. I had quite an argument on the other side of this point with the Noreascon proofreader, who was incensed at my inclusion of von Daniken in the In Memoriam section of the program book ("His believers don't think it's fiction and SF fans don't call it SF!"). Our final decision was based on influence and cross currents, however regrettable (John Campbell was one of his partisans). The inclusion of Amis makes an interesting point; he has written three novels which fit at three widely-separated points just within acceptable boundaries of SF, but much of his "mundane" work concerns an individual who is out of place in his own culture --- a variation on the reasons given for accepting SHOGUN as SF. Amis does in fact share common concerns with the SF field (consider his mid-fifties lectures at Princeton, collected as NEW MAPS OF HELL), so much so that I was very disappointed not to find him on the program at the Worldcon in England last year. In sum, defining SF by its community is potentially necessary but not sufficient, although it is more verifiable than trying to guess the author's intent. This definition is in some ways not just internal but incestuous; the cancerous extension of it has been given as a reason for leaving the field by some of the better writers of SF. As one of the buyers for the world's largest SF library I have a practical interest in locating the boundary of SF; realistically I find such a boundary sufficiently subjective that developed judgment is the best available guide. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 09/22/80 14:12:37 Re: invasion of the elves I saw them too!!! They came in through the electrical outlet in the living room, and ran into the kitchen, and picked up the refrigerator, and lashed it to their little backs and pulled it down the drainpipe in the sink. Then they all jumped in after it, and dissappeared. I turned on the disposal to stop them, but it didn't work. I don't know, but I'm not gonna let the little buggers do it again. Next time I cover the refrigerator with flypaper. Or maybe I'll fill the disposal with glue. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 24 SEP 1980 0658-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #86 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 24 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 86 Today's Topics: SF Books - Mother Goose, Alien Intelligence - Communication, Future Breakthrus - No Sleep, Charlie and Algernon, News Event - Elf Invasion ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Sep 1980 1025-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) Subject: "The Spacechild's Mother Goose" This came out about fifteen years ago, at the then-unheard-of paperback price of $2.25. It's essentially SF pastiches of nursery rhymes; some are wonderful, some are pretty lame. But I still remember enough to give the flavor of the book, so I guess it stuck with me... "The hydrogen dog and the cobalt cat Side by side in the armory sat. Nobody talked of fusion or fission, They only spoke of their peacetime mission ..." "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy made a living telestealing beef. ..." The book is illustrated by somewhat outre line drawings. Unfortunately my copy isn't here in Massachusetts... Dave ------------------------------ Date: 23 SEP 1980 1100-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Hickety-Pickety My black hen Hickety-Pickety my black hen She lays eggs in the probable when She doesn't lay eggs in the possible now As she is unable to postulate how. The above is a misquote (I don't think I recalled it exactly correct and my book is at home) from the first poem in "The Space Child's Mother Goose". This book is currently in print in paperback for about 3.50 (I believe - it may be as much as 4 or 5 dollars.) Speak to your local bookstore of the Walden, Paperback Booksmith, Wordsworth, Dalton variety (e.g. extensive paperbacks, fairly good collections usually) They may have it among the children's books (though it is not a children's book since to appreciate this book you need to know economics, nursery rhymes, science, etc. A very eclectic book) or they may be able to order it for you. I received it as a Saturnalia present two Decembers ago but recently saw it forsale (say within the last six months) in the Harvard Coop, here in Boston. Another sample: Little Miss Muffett sat on her Tuffet Eating her curds and whey With her force field around her, The spider the bounder, Is not in the picture today. This is the theory that Jack built This is the flaw that lay in the theory that Jack built This is the postulate that hid the flaw .... The drawings through out this book are as enjoyable and well done as the poems and the footnotes and glossary of terminology are even better than that. This has to be one of most favorite books (I was brought up on it) and was pleased when I discovered it back in print. I hope everyone reading this goes out and finds a copy to read, if not to buy. It is well worth it. Gail (gfh@CCA) ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1980 (Tuesday) 2213-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON (William Westfield) Subject: Dolphins... Niven also has inteligent dolphins in a number of his works, But I have a serious question here. IF dolphins are intelligent, would we ever be able to understand them? After all, in theory, human intelligence developed along with our capacity to make and use tools, and dolphins obviously lack this capacity -- what kind of intelligence would develop in this case. In the case of the Moties, we had a very difficult time understanding them, and they were also tool users (even more so than us). Would dolphins develop any analogs of ANY of our sciences (maybe psychology, pure math?) that would give us a common basis for communication/understanding? Has anyone written anything concerning this problem (I keep thinking I should try, but I dont have the time, and probably dont have the ability (just look at the spelling in this letter)). Does anyone else have any thoughts on this matter? Bill W (WestfW @ Wharton) ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1980 1346-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: dolphin intelligence The claim that dolphins are as intelligent as human beings has been around for some time now, and yet as far as I know no one has been able to decipher anything of the dolphin language or even proven that there is one (that is a language beyond calls for help and the like; one that has a grammar). Does anyone know if they have tried to teach dolphins some mapping of a human language like they did with chimpanzees and sign language? Even those experiments have been called into doubt recently. Simply living with a dolphin, as that woman did, and coming to believe that they are intelligent is hardly proof; lots of pet-owners think their dogs/cats/canaries understand them. They are said to have large and complex brains, but since we don't know what most of the human brain is for it's not a good idea to generalize. Besides, why would a dolphin need intelligence? It's pretty obvious why human beings need it, but lots of fish live the way dolphins do without needing any brains. Sonar processing maybe? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 1019-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer) Subject: Sleep time I have just returned from a week in the Grand Canyon, and am catching up on discussions. When I had a summer job with a DP (ugh!) firm several years ago, the hours were fairly loose and I was basically able to set my own schedule. I moved into a 48-hour 'day' consisting of 24 hours awake, about 6 hours asleep, 10 hours awake, and 8 hours asleep. Weekends were spent on the 'normal' 24 hour schedule. I was able to maintain this without strain for the summer. I think this was the best compromise I could work out between the 24 hour day and my natural cycle of about 28 hours. -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 12:42 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Dreaming I am not familiar with the "Science" article mentioned by JRDavis, but I recall another article ("Dream Theory in Samoa") which presented the same belief structures as a part of the primitive Samoan tribes. I find it interesting that our folks at Stanford have not yet mentioned Stanford Prof. William Dement, whose experiments and writings on Dream Theory are well known in the field of psychology. (Perhaps he is no longer there? - He used to teach an extremely popular course on the subject when I was there 5 years ago). ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1980 1347-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "Charlie and Algernon" review "Scientists Who Play God Are Going Too Darned Far" From the 9/22/80 New Yorker The new musical at the Helen Hayes is called "Charlie and Algernon." Charlie is a retarded adult white male human being, and Algernon is a white mouse. They are being used in a medical experiment by a couple of over-ambitious scientists, who believe that by dint of certain chemical tamperings with the brain they can radically improve the intelligence of both man and mouse. Charlie has an I.Q. of sixty-eight and is just barely capable of holding down a job as a sweeper in a bakery; Algernon is an unexceptional laboratory animal, whose skill at running a maze is much improved in the course of the experiment and who then begins to falter and regress. Charlie responds so well to the synthetic proteins that have been spooned into his brain that he soon attains the level of genius - indeed, one of the doctors describes him as the smartest man in the world -- but then he, too, falters and regresses. Alas, by this time he has fallen in love with Alice, the pretty young teacher who helped him to learn to read in his retarded condition and who, with some misgivings, turned him over to the men in white. Charlie and Alice have been contentedly living together in spite of the fact that Charlie has far surpassed her in intellectual capacity and has been telling her some excruciatingly tiresome things about Bartok and other new acquaintances of his; now, his genius ebbing, he seeks feverishly to find some means of making the experiment succeed for retardants "in generations yet unborn." (Curiously, Charlie at his peak has developed a prose style not unlike that of the late General Douglas MacArthur.) It appears tha "Charlie and Algernon" began as a novella by Daniel Keyes and then was made into a successful movie before its metamorphosis into a musical. David Rogers has written the book and lyrics of the present work, to music by Charles Strouse, and I have to report that have gone to the well once too often; at every turn, they have vulgarized and sentimentalized what I would have supposed was already a sufficiently vulgar and sentimental tale. A clue to the nature of their enterprise may be found in the fact that the show-stopper of the evening is a dance executed by Charlie and Algernon. They may not be Fred and Adele Astaire, but surely their pas de deux is a "first" on Broadway and as such isn't to be sneezed at (though the lady seated behind me on opening night uttered a highly audible "Ugh!" when Algernon started crawling up Charlie's chest, and a sneeze might well have seemed a more civil comment). The difficult role of Charlie is played by P. J. Benjamin, whom I admired for his equanimity in co-starring with a mouse and for the conviction with which he uttered some of the most leaden prose to be encountered this side of a box of breakfast food. Alice is played by Sandy Faison, who is indeed as pretty as called for and who sings more winningly than they deserve a number of lyrics that in simplicity of scansion and rhyme scheme are almost a match for "Tea for Two." The modest, wokable scenery is by Kate Edmunds, the costumes are by Jess Goldstein, the lighting is by Hugh Lester, the choreography is by Virginia Freeman, and the direction is by Louis W. Scheeder. "Charlie and Algernon" is subtitled "A Very Special Musical." I wonder whose lack of confidence that abject-sounding "special" betrays? It is an adjective that through constant misuse has achieved nullity; to describe something as special nowadays is almost to guarantee that there is nothing special about it. ----Brendan Gill ------------------------------ Date: 23 SEP 1980 1044-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Elves It's not true!!!!! Those weren't elves you saw...they were gremlins (a related species. Same genus (Mythius) but a different species. Elves, my studies have shown me belong to Mythius Elvicus, and do not steal things that aren't nailed down - Thus I believe they took the window, but come now, anything as mundane as a refrigerator simply isn't worth the time and effort. Gremlins however, belong to Mythius Gremlineus (excuse the misplace capitals, the gremlins are at work. They stole my editor and I can't correct this letter.) and will steal anything, period. While the descriptions you have reported are not very clear, I can safely rule out both Mythius Trolus and Mythius Dwarf-Us, since neither of these species is currently found around windows, fridges or houses. Trolus is commonly found haunting his favorite feeding patches found under a rapidly growing plant called Arches Aureus or, locally, the Golden Arches. Le Grandes Mac et les pommes de terre (deep fried) are the Troll's favorite food. Dwarf-Us, on the other hand, is mostly found around basketball players lockers. Further observations on the various creatures of the genus Mythius, the genus Forgotus and the genus Unbelievabilious, all of the family Enchanteaed will be forthcoming. (I also notice that the gremlins have stolen my knowledge of the proper endings for families, genuses, etc. Ah well, perhaps before I write further, I will be able to steal it back. Or front or sideways or.... (gfh@cca-gail hormats) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 25 SEP 1980 0851-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #87 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 25 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 87 Today's Topics: SF Books - Firestarter & Riverworld & Roadside Picnic, Future - ATMs Query, What is SF?, TESB - Luke's Training, Habitats - Elves & Gremlins ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 August 1980 0220 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Firestarter and Stephen King Stuart Cracraft and Jim McGrath have provided copies of a newswire review of Firestarter and a related story on King and his success. Copies of the material have been established in files at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, and to Stuart and Jim for making the material available to us. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS SKING CMUA TEMP:SKING.SFL[A210DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLOVERS-SKING.TXT Rutgers SKING.SFLOVERS SU-AI SKING.SFL[T,DON] MIT-Multics >user_dir_dir>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>stephen-king.text [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1980 13:07:52-PDT From: Cory.kalash at Berkeley Subject: Firestarter by King I have read Firestarter by King (in the Phantasia limited edition with the beautiful Whelan dust-jacket). It is an excellent book, and I can highly recommend it. It is more a horror story then a tretise on Goverment interference (although the goverment comes off VERY bad in the end). Joe Kalash ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 16:47:18-PDT From: C.dasilva@Berkeley Subject: The Magic Labyrinth I have read PART of TML (Specifically the last 40 pages), and it does indeed wrap it up in that small amount of space. I was informed by someone who I regard as reliable in the field that this was all I needed. Peter da Silva. (c:dasilva@berkeley). ------------------------------ DR@MIT-MC 09/23/80 15:19:50 Re: Roadside Picnic Has anybody out there read "The Roadside Picnic" by A. Strugatskii and would claim to have understood it? I read it in English and in Russian, and it didn't actually make sense in either language. I also spoke to people who've read it, and they said (in general) that the book probably was not supposed to make sense. On the other hand I know that the book was the first runner-up for the Nebula award the same year Pohl's "Gateway" won it, so the book is supposed to make sense (probably). Anyhow, if there is anyone that has both read it and understood it, I would be interested in hearing from you. ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 09/23/80 19:04:05 Re: Auto-tellers In "Door into Summer," Heinlein predicts the comuterized teller (in passing) I'm wondering if this is original, or if another writer preceded him. Is this another development to put with waldoes, and the waterbed? Ken ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1980 15:23 PDT From: Woods at PARC-MAXC Subject: S for Science? In reply to JHendler@BBNA ["I always thought that the S stood for Science"], note that many of the people in the field of SF (cf Algis Budrys's columns that have appeared in SF-Lovers) consider the "SF" to stand for "Speculative Fiction". This allows it to cover stories that take place in realistic though thoroughly fictional settings, whether or not any "science" is used in the story. In LeGuin's THE DISPOSSESSED, there is very little science, unless you want to count a rocket shuttle trip that is practically irrelevant to the story; do you claim it's not SF? -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 1980 1849-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: dolphin intelligence REDFORD said that "It's pretty obvious why humans need it [intelligence]" but couldn't see why dolphins would. It's not obvious to me - why do humans "need" it? I had the impression that it was an accidental evolutionary effect, which was self-enforcing since it had some slight survival value (at least in the short run - Clarke says "the survival value of intelligence has not yet been proven"). ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 1980 10:42 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Thoughts on dolphins. To Bill W., check out John Lilly's books on dolphins, particularly the one I mentioned recently, "The Mind of the Dolphin". Lilly has spent years trying to answer just those questions you have raised. To ICL.REDFORD, read the book mentioned above. You will find the arguments for dolphin intelligence much more clearly stated and documented than I was able to do in one short paragraph. It also shows clearly why there is a difference between the 'understanding' of a dog or cat and that of a dolphin or chimpanzee. The conjecture that man's ability to use tools is a major cause of his evolutionary success has a lot of merit. However, to assume that this is the only way intelligence (as we know it or otherwise) can develop is a rather parochial way of viewing things. Communication is also an arguable measure of intelligence, and many animals have this ability to varying degrees. Before we ask "Are dolphins intelligent?" we must ask "What is intelligence?". Doug Hofstadter, in his book "Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid", presents a way of looking at intelligence that is not as restrictive as most current definitions. (I highly recommend this book to anyone, by the way. It is published by Basic Books in hardback, and is worth whatever you may pay for it.) He makes a good argument for the claim that intelligence is a conse- quence of the complexity of organization of the nervous system of an organism. This would imply that dolphins and whales may be (in some sense) MORE intelligent than we are (although - read on) since it has been shown that these mammals have brains that are more complex than our own. In fact, most current definitions of intelligence tend to describe it in such a way that only humans have it. This I believe to be due to an inability to "step outside the system" and be truly objective about what it is that separates us (if there is indeed anything) from the other inhabitants of this planet. In my view, "intelligence" is a continuum, and not necessarily one-dimensional at that. Looking at dolphins from this perspective, it is ludicrous to compare them to us and say "Are they intelligent?". That's like asking Flipper to take the Stanford-Binet. It ignores the possibility of a universe outside our own in which values may not match our own. It is precisely this possiblity that is addressed by the question "Can we communicate with other 'intelligent' beings?". Personally, I suspect that we will have common ground with most 'intelligent' species in the area of formal mathematics. That field, more than any other, derives from an attempt to distill the essence of the universe from what we observe. And, more than any other field, it is truly a product of the mind only. ------------------------------ Date: 24 SEP 1980 1004-EDT From: DEE at CCA (Don Eastlake) Subject: Yoda's instruction of Luke I recently saw The Empire Strikes Back again and listened to the various statements about the force make by Yoda (and to a much lesser extent by Ben) to Luke while attempting to train him. Having in the past been the subject of instruction in various skills, such as flying an airplane, where developing reflexes, avoiding getting nervous and freezing up, and the like may be a life-and-death matter, I have found instructors saying whatever they think will produce the correct resultant when combined with what they think I already have in me head. Thus it was not that uncommon for diametricaly opposed unqualified statements/commands to be made to me in the course of one lesson. I would say that all of Yoda's statements were aimed at producing certain attitudes and mental states in Luke and should not be considered to be literally true. For example, it is probably true that if Luke thinks he will fail, this will cause him to fail, but I doubt that size of object to be manipulated is really insignificant or that confidence will conquor all. Thus I think much on the discussion in SF-LOVERS based on a literal interpretation of these statements was misled. (Note also the various myths/principles of karate such as a belief that the damage is done from a striking fist by the speed of its withdrawl and that one should imagine a target beyond the actual object to be struck such as aiming to hit someone's backbone from the front. These beliefs are probably not "true" but belief that they are true might increase someone's speed and causes them to mentally fixate on a point beyond the initial and possibly painful impact.) ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 1980 (Wednesday) 1123-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: Gremlins If I remember correctly, Gremlins are generally found only on airplanes and other aerospace contraptions. They were "invented" by Air Force personnel to explain mysterious problems with their planes. I suggest we invent creatures, akin to Gremlins, which are found in computers, to explain why programs don't work when they just did, why disk crashes necessarily occur on the one disk that can't be backed up, etc. Perhaps we can call them FOOs? (That's funny... they don't LOOK FOOish...) 0 Dave ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 26 SEP 1980 0817-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #88 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 26 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 88 Today's Topics: SF Books - GEB, Alien Intelligence - Communication, Habitats - Elves and Gremlins and Bugs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 September 1980 02:20-EDT From: The Moderator Subject: GEB, an EGB Is now in paperback (trade). -- DP@MIT-ML Reed.ES at PARC mentioned Doug Hofstadter's book "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" recently, saying it was availible in hardcover. Actually, it has just come out in softcover! I recommend this book extremely highly to everyone: it is thought- provoking, imaginative, and a LOT of fun. -- Daniel L. Weinreb I strongly second Reed.ES's recommendation of 'Goedel, Escher, Bach...', and would like to add that it is now available in trade paperback (Vintage Press) for *only* 8.95 (the hardback is currently 20.50). Beg, buy, or borrow a copy and read it. It will change the way that you look at almost everything. The only caveat I have is that the book will *make* you think. If this is uncomfortable for you, then you should definitely read it, you need the exercise. -- Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 11:29 PDT From: Dolbec at PARC-MAXC Subject: dolphin intelligence In reply to REDFORD's comments about dolphin and human intelligence: I don't think it is obvious why humans need intelligence. I think it is obvious (?) that we have some form of intelligence that is more developed relative to other animals. This fact does not imply that we need it. Natural selection would imply that we are a successful species because we have an advanced intelligence, not that we evolved intelligence because we needed it to survive. The dolphin brain IS large compared to other mammals, but the ratio of brain to body weight is about equal to man's. The motor areas are much more developed in dolphins, in order to handle orientation in three space and sonar navagation. Consider the problems of trying to communicate with an alien intel- ligence whose brain evolved to help it traverse and survive in a 3 D world. The difficulty arises because our own brains have evolved in a 2 D world, we are a land based intelligence whose locomotion has been restricted from flight until recently. I propose that the basic selection forces are different between a 3 D world and a 2 D world and that the "way" 3 D intelligences "think" about things might be fundamentally different "way" 2 D intelligences "think". Consequently, we could have a rough time trying to map our 2 D knowledge structures to their 3 D knowledge structures and vice versa. This will make communication very difficult. --Mike ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 1234-EDT From: JoSH Subject: Intelligence Intelligence is probably the result (in humans) of increased development of the brain to facilitate tool-using and communi- cation, and notably in the interaction between these two areas of development. Now while I wouldn't go so far as Julian Jaynes ("The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"), I do think that the tool-using impetus gave rise to certain skills of the geometric mold, eg space visualization, and communication gave rise to certain algebraic skills, like language parsing. If this is true, dolphins, if intelligent, have a purely algebraic intel- ligence, and our formal mathematics might be partly a closed book to them, since it is heavily dependent on the geometric intuition as well as the algebraic one. On the other hand, there may be some other factor than communication which may give rise to intelligence in the case of a dolphin, (navigation?) which could supply other mental raw material to the mix. I think that ability, or perhaps necessity, to translate concepts from one internal representation to another is crucial to intelligence. I suspect that a navigation- based intuition of space would be a better point to start out than a tool-use one for understanding things like general relativity (and non-Euclidean math in general). Rigidity might be a hard (urk) concept for such a mind. Enough rambling--any comments? ------------------------------ Date: 25 September 1980 21:45-EDT From: Gail Zacharias Subject: math and intelligence In regard to Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC's comments that formal mathematics is the most likely common ground with other intelligent species, I would think that still doesn't get us away from tool-making type of development of intelligence. I am not up on history of mathematics, but I believe applied math came way before pure math. Engineering type knowledge was needed to build better tools. Of course the step from simply making a better tool to thinking about its properties in abstract is a sign of intelligence. So given a tool-making society/being one might look for abstract math (or the ability to `abstract' in general, whatever that means) as one sign of intelligence. But given a society with totally different external characteristics from our own, I'd be hard pressed to think of what to look for as far as intelligence goes. ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 09/25/80 13:39:42 Re: formal math and reasons for its development I would like to make a comment or two in response to the comments made by Reed.ES concerning the sharing of formal mathematics with most or all of other "intelligent" beings. It is not clear to me that that is necessarily the case. I think an important distinction to make is not whether or not the beings are tool users but a more general although related distinction; namely, whether or not the beings are interested in manipulating their environment be it by tools or any other means. If the species is interested in manipulating the environment, then it seems to me that they will need the ability to model the environment in some way so that "mental" experiments can be done and predictions made. On a society wide basis, Homo Sapiens use formal mathematics for this modelling. (Your guess is as good as mine concerning what an individual is using to predict the trajectory that a ball will follow after leaving the individuals hand; it certainly is not formal mathematics in the usual sense.) The component of the human mind that has this passion for manipulating the environment has been labeled by Gunther Stent as "Faustian Man" (merely a coincidence, I assure you!). It is those individuals in society that are interested in expanding the ways in which man can manipulate the environment, (scientist, engineers, etc.) that are familiar with formal mathematics. I wonder if you are assuming that all "intelligent" humans know formal math; an assumption that would be patently false. But to get back to the point, I am willing to grant you that any SOCIETY that as a whole has a desire to manipulate its environment, will have ON THE SOCIETY LEVEL something very akin to formal math. Don't expect every (Dolphin or Alpha Centaurian) to know math. This is not really a problem, though, because we can assume that what is desired is a SOCIETAL communication that just happens to have to take place via individuals. Creatures that are just as happy to enjoy their environments in a more passive manner, whether they are intelligent or not, may have no need for formal math or anything of its type. Although they may develop formal math in an attempt to increase their aesthetic appreciation of their environment, this seems to me to be less likely. I am not sure about this, but it seems to me that much less formal math, if any, was developed by humans that were interested in passive appreciation of their environment, for example Zen Buddhists or Taoist. And much more, if not all, of it was developed by very environmentally aggressive types like the ancient Romans and especially the Greeks (not to mention modern Western developed nations). Anybody care to comment on this point? To sum up, expecting all intelligent creatures to develop math or its analog seems to also be a bit parochial. This is not to say that I am a die hard pessimist about the feasibility of communicating with other intelligences, but I AM disturbed about what the possible common ground will be. As a parting example, I know an industrial artist that works for DEC with whom I have fairly lengthy discussions and we can almost never understand each other. This in spite of the fact that we are native speakers of the same language, and that he works for a computer firm while I am a computer scientist. Simply no common concepts from which to build. Sorry for the lenghty ramblings, Greg Faust ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 1037-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: dolphins and math It seems to that a lot of mathematics is driven by real world concerns that dolphins probably wouldn't share. Calculus and gravitational theory went hand in hand, for instance. Theories of computation were pointless without computers, as was most numerical analysis. Math and science both seemed to take off together after the Renaissance; it's probably no accident that the math of non-technical cultures is child's play compared to ours (excepting the Greeks, of course, but then the Greeks were good at everything. A lot of geometry went into making Greek temples, but that was probably a side effect.) Another problem with communicating with dolphins through math is that, like most fields of human interest, most of it is stored in writing. Among human beings perhaps arithmetic could be preserved by means of an oral tradition, but not much more. It could be that dolphins have the perfect memories and high speech bandwidth (and interest) needed to preserve a significant body of knowledge. If they are sentient, then who knows their capabilities. For that matter maybe they could each figure out these things by themselves. I wouldn't bet on it though. It's probably safer to stick to things like "How've the tuna been running this year?" or "Say, cute kid you've got there." Or even "I'll teach you how to sing Mozart/warn you of sharks/stop catching you in fishing nets if you find Russian submarines for me." Everybody's environment has some intersection with everybody else's. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 09:45:58-PDT From: C.dasilva at Berkeley Subject: Gremlins and "bit decay" Computer errors are obviously not caused by Gremlins/fu's/whatever, except in so far as they may be caused by the little elves with the candles often found behind consoles making the lights blink. It seems more to me that they are caused by the well known Finagles Third Law ("The perversity of the universe increases to a maximum"), and bit-decay. Bit decay is the effect that makes old programs less workable than new ones. Similar to "bit decay" is the effects often caused by "idiot bits", which exist on all files in a computer system and are gradually reset as the file is accessed more and more often (ostensibly to perform symbolic activity such as "bug fixes"). Idiot bits sometimes even counteract the effects of bit-decay and vice versa, as they are themselves subject to bit decay. Peter da Silva ------------------------------ Date: 25 September 1980 15:22-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb To David Rossien: We already have little creatures that cause problems in computer programs. They are referred to as "bugs". ------------------------------ Date: 25 September 1980 2046-EDT (Thursday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Gremlins Well Dave, I don't know what you all call them at Wharton but we call them "bugs". They are less intelligent than Gremlins but just as vicious. Some of the species include Loopus Foreverus, Deaditis Locktosa, and the deadly "Black PLA". Beware! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 27 SEP 1980 0837-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #89 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 27 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 89 Today's Topics: Computer Cartoons, Future - No Sleep, Alien Intelligence - Communication, What is SF - Shogun, Causes of Bugs - Gremlins & Astrology ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Sep 1980 21:58 PDT From: lakin at PARC-MAXC Subject: Collaborating on cartoon strip Anyone interested in collaborating on a computer-oriented science fiction comic strip?? A friend of mine is a veteran cartoonist (20 years experience) and science fiction fan who conjectures that the time might be ripe for such a venture . . . however, he does not know that much about computers, and wishes to join forces with a writer who can provide sound technical foundations, zany insights and basic entertainment for the computer-oriented scifi fan. Previous fiction writing experience would help, but the primary requisite is interest and enthusiasm. Contact me for further details, and if you're really interested, send plot ideas, scripts and/or story boards (with rough sketches of how you think things might look). I will put you in touch with my friend. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 1301-PDT From: Jim McGrath From TIME, July 3, 1978, page 23: Psychologist Wilse Webb of the University of Florida has found that people sleep less than they use to. After 20 years of study, he reports that the national average is 7.5 hours of sleep per night. 60 years ago it was 9.0 hours. Also, Will Dement still is at Stanford and is engaged in research. His course, Sleep and Dreams, was one of the two most popular courses given here (the other one? - Human Sexuality). However, the grant he was using to pay for the course ran out, as did alternate funding. Thus a very worthwhile course could become extinct here. Any people here who have taken the course? (or a similar one elsewhere?) Jim ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 1980 1357-EDT From: SRAJUNAS at BBNC Subject: Evolution of Intelligence What about the ideas expressed in Leakey's "People of the Lake" concerning the evolution of intelligence? There is a claim that during the long period between the earliest stone-age "tool kit" and the first "tool kit" to show any significant advances over it humans made tremendous evolutionary strides (such as greatly increased skull size). The theory of tool-making as the stimulus for the evolution of intellignce is set aside. The growing com- plexity of human society and the need for cooperation (definitely a survival skill) is suggested as a better fit to the "facts" (guesswork by anthropologists). I have no idea if Leakey's theories are currently accepted. Susan Rajunas ------------------------------ Date: 26 SEP 1980 1106-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Greeks, Romans, and math With regard to environmental aggression, the traditional view is just the other way around: that the Greeks were theoreticians whose work was applied by the Romans (e.g., the Greeks invented the arch and the Romans built aqueducts). There is even the traditional legend of a student being thrown out of one of the great Greek schools of geometry for having the gall to ask what use all these proofs were. ------------------------------ Date: 26 September 1980 2227-EDT (Friday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: Intelligence & Survival Contrary to "Mike's" point of view, I do believe that our intelligence has been a matter of survival. Indeed our resourcefulness is often all that is between us, and becoming someone else's dinner. Let's face it... in such cases, its think, or be eaten. I doubt, however, that something so trivial as dimensional navigational skills are going to become a primary barrier to communication with other species. The difference between beings who had and had not developed intra-being communication, verbal or otherwise, for instance, should prove a profoundly more significant barrier. Let us not be too cocky, though. Our intelligence hasn't made us any more successful as a species than a cockroach. In fact, the latter has, by all indications, been around a lot longer than us, is currently thriving, and will probably be inheritor of the earth, once we've decided that "since we can't have it all, we're going to blow it up." Another note on the same line... Recall the Trouble with Tribbles... Didn't McCoy say that more than half of their bodily systems were reproductive in nature? Consider the tape worm... Something like 99% reproductive sructures. It doesn't even have need for a digestive track, as its host takes care of that for it. No need for eyes, no need for intelligence, no need for locomotion, or communication. Ahh, the easy life of passive consumption and reproduction. Of course, though, when we go, they go. Long live the CockRoach !!! -warren ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 19:14:17 EDT From: David Mankins Subject: dolphin intelligence I once heard that cetaceans (dolphins/whales) were the only species (other than humans) know to be sexually active all the time. Maybe that's an indication of their intelligence... ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 1980 at 1923-CDT From: wilcox at UTEXAS Subject: alien intelligence There is a quote (author forgotten at the moment) to the effect that: No alien being will ever be found by mankind with an intelligence greater than our own. We made up the test! --Jim ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 0800-PDT From: ADPSC at USC-ISI Subject: SHOGUN, Historical basis The story covered in SHOGUN is based, more or less, on historical fact. As the old DRAGNET series said, only the names were changed. The character of Blackthorn represented an Englishman named Adams who was shipwrecked by a typhoon in 16 something. He became a samuri and an advisor to one of the local warlords. He is regarded as something of a minor legendary figure in Japanese history and his grave is visited by pilgrims on the anniversary of his death (sometime in May.) Adams' "Lord" did indeed become Shogun. Unfortunately I do not remember his name, although it did begin with a "T". The character of the interpreter is a fabrication of Clavell. Her presence is totally inconsistent with Japanese culture, as may be evidenced by the status of women in Japan today. Clavell has taken Japanese history and liberally applied poetic license. For those of you who are interested (and have the opportunity) The WASHINGTON POST had a very good article on this same subject on Sept. 17. The question of course remains, does this historic basic make SHOGUN any more or less SF ? Does the fact that many of Jules Verne's "predictions" have come to pass make his literature less SF ? We seem to be playing semantic games. Don ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 1980 1010-PDT From: Alan at LBL-Unix (Alan B. Char (BKY)) Subject: SHOGUN I think all of the argument around SHOGUN and SF is amusing, but I think that the perspective is about as one-sided as that in the movie. Ask someone in Tokyo (where both a shorter 2.5 hour movie as well as the five-day/twelve hour TV series showed) if s/he thought SHOGUN was Science Fiction or not. You'll probably get laughed in the face. Many Japanese do not even consider SHOGUN good fiction. It overemphasizes the violence in feudal Japan. Westerners should not think that beheadings and seppuku were regular occurances, much the same as the western frontier was not all shoot-outs and fighting off Indians, although it did go on. The affair between Mariko and Blackthorne was a useful literary tool, both as a crossing point between cultures and adding to the plot, but many Japanese consider it totally unrealistic for that period of time. The TV series took these (and other) minor mistakes and magnified them about twelve-fold. Because they never did any translating or sub-titling, you never got a good view of the Japanese perspective. Also, the intrigue got very confusing if you had not read the book ahead of time. I personally was much disap- pointed in the series, since I had already read the book. I felt that you never really got to know the Japanese characters (in spite of the fact that they effect more drama with there eyes than most American "actors" do speaking), and that there personalities and motivations were unclear. Toronaga and Mariko were exceptions in that they both lived up to my expectations, but I wonder how much I was filling in from my vivid memories from the book and how much was actually presented by the series. One thing that bothered me about the "Blackthorne" perspective of the series is that he seemed too much in control, when in the book it was obviously the other way around. Another interesting point on the SF/HistF question: SHOGUN was based on the rise of the Tokugawa regime in Japan, so it is much more HistF than presenting a historical setting. It actually uses events from history, like other historical novels. At any rate, I just thought I'd throw in some other viewpoints of the series, since while you people cannot seem to agree as to whether SHOGUN is SF or not, you all seem to agree that (a) it was good fiction, and (b) the Japanese culture of the time was adequately presented. Other people would not agree. One thing about SF: You're not about to run into a Fremen who will differ in your opinion about DUNE. --Alan Char ------------------------------ Date: 24 SEP 1980 1158-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Re: Gremlins Still It may be that Foo's (if you will) are only a sub-species of Gremlins and not yet a distinct and seperate species. Many species are known to readily adapt to new environments, learning new behaviors and new foods, etc. Thus (yes, I knew the origin of gremlins) I still contend that what is bolluxing me are gremlins. (Greebles are another sub-species of gremlins also.) Gail (gfh@cca) ------------------------------ Date: 25 September 1980 1657-EDT (Thursday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A One does not need gremlins; this implies a malicious or at least intelligent force acting to screw things up. Personally, I have always felt that astrology, although not applicable to people, probably is more relevant to computers. The erratic behavior of some is probably due to the positions of stars rather than any intelligent influence. I have also seen necromancy practiced by our support staff; reading the future of the processor from the entrails of a dead interface board or power supply has been fairly reliable. The astrology idea may not be far off; energy beams from black holes could be sweeping across our computers regularly. joe ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 28 SEP 1980 0540-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #90 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 28 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 90 Today's Topics: Halloween Yoda, Future - Blood and "The Jigsaw Man", SF Books - Plot/Title & Picnic & Keyes & Zelazny & Pangborn..., What is SF? - Shogun & Purity League, Causes of Bugs - Gremlins ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Sep 1980 1414-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: Yoda masks I recently found a very good looking, hard rubber, full-head covering Yoda mask at a costume store. The mask was selling for $45.00. Does anyone know whether this is a good price? At that rate, it probably isn't worth it for Halloween, but if one were available for just a bit less . . . . Mike ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 2011-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: First steps to 'The Jigsaw Man' A jail in Chicago has a new (controversial) program imported from a couple other states that had been doing it for a while. The program: paying prisoners to give their blood. Those of you Niven fans out there might remember a short story by him called 'The Jigsaw Man' in which the organ banks don't pay the prisoners for their organs. Maybe that'll be the next step. ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 23 September 1980 15:46-EDT From: John A. Pershing Jr. Subject: What's the Title? I have an orphan plot in search of its title. It is the story of a future society in which absolute equality has been legislated [by congress]. The implementation consists of artificially handicapping "normal" people to bring everyone down to a common-denominator level. E.g. folks who are faster-than-normal runners must wear sandbags to slow them down. Someone has suggested that this is a Kurt Vonnegut short story. Also, was this ever made into a movie? I seem to remember WATCHING it as opposed to reading it. -jp [ This story recently came up during a discussion in HUMAN-NETS. Joe and Dan identified it as "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. It is also available in the Vonnegut collection WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE, Crispin's BEST SF 7, and Boardman's AN ABC OF SCIENCE FICTION. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1980 12:42 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Re: Lauren's Plot Query [ SFL V2 #78 ] I recall a novel called "Why Bring Them Back From Heaven?" by Clifford Simak (or perhaps R.A.Lafferty?). The details are vague (it's been over ten years), but I seem to remember something about the hijacking of bodies, etc. Re: Moderan I too have read it, and enjoyed it. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1980 at 0930-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: Nebulas & WRHN In response to DR@MC's comment about Strugatsky's book, I started composing several flames in my head, and decided upon the low-key observation that the members of SFWA (who vote on the Nebulas) often do unusual things, and Nebula vote patterns are sometimes not easily explained. The same is true of the Hugo, of course, but the oddball decisions there are usually due to crowd-pleasing while Nebula votes are just plain strange. Those who are familiar with fanzine fandom might be interested in Rich Bergeron's Warhoon 28. This is the Walt Willis Issue, and is actually a hardbound book of about 500 pages: one of the most staggering fan publishing events I've ever seen. It is well worth the $25 as it contains some of the finest fan writing I have ever seen. His two trip reports on his two trips to America are some of the best travel writing you'll find outside of "Innocents Abroad". ------------------------------ Date: 20 Sep 1980 2333-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Keyes, Zelazny, SF classification, Farmer, and Pangborn Having been to my parents' house I have been able to consult my SF collection (this is usually a feat along the lines of consulting the Oracle at Delphi for all the good it does me) Daniel Keyes also wrote the following stories: 1) Crazy Maro 2) The Quality of Mercy according to my copy of "Space Mail" they both appeared in 1960 and were both good, or so the book says. Is this proof that Keyes wasn't a one shot outsider? Other than the three Zelazny short story collections already mentioned I don't know of any. I don't know about any one else but I think we should stuff fantasy into a box somewhere under SF on the organizational chart. And after doing that we should forget trying to classify and just enjoy our reading. We should leave classifying to the English majors. They're going to do it anyway and will just ignore our comments (they have all along that's why SF has always been in the sub-genre class somewhere). Unless we can convince William Tenn to do the classifying. By the way the oldest story I have ever heard claimed for SF is by Lucien of Samsota. I don't know the date of the story but it goes back ancient Greece. Farmer's "Magic Labyrinth" does indeed tie up all the loose ends, except maybe for one. While the book does do all the tying up it doesn't do it in a satisfactory way, well I and some friends didn't like it. It probably would have been better if the series had been finished several years ago while Farmer was still in the original frame of mind about it. I think the book had the same problem that Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love" had, to much time had passed since the earlier material wa written and as a result the author lost the original perspective on the work. Last but not least, did anyone else notice that a Pangborn book has been reissued. "Mirror for Observers" something like that. Pangborn fans forgive my ignorance, as I have said before I can never remember titles correctly. Maybe we will get a reissue of "Davy" soon. I hope so, I've heard lots of nice words about it. I also noticed a story by Mary Pangborn in "Universe 10", I don't know if this is her own story or her polishing and finishing of one of Edgar Pangborn's. Well I've finally run down so, so long for now. Steve Z. ------------------------------ Date: 27 SEP 1980 1211-EDT From: DEE at CCA (Don Eastlake) Subject: SHOGUN I have relatives in Tokyo that I visited after the book had come out. They certainly didn't think much of it as regards historical accuracy, particularly the prevalence and distribution of priests. etc. On the status of women: I was in Tokyo to present a paper at the VLDB conference. About 80% of the attendees were Japanese, the rest mixed from all over though most North American. Of the relatively small number of people presenting papers, only one from the USA was a woman. Of the much larger audience of non-presenters, only one Japanese woman was ever present and that was at one talk during which she surrendered her seat to an older Japanese gentleman. Donald Eastlake (PS: My great-great-grandfather, William Clark Eastlake, was the first western dentist in Japan, arriving shortly after it was re-opened by Commodre Perry. He is buried in Aoyama cemetery in Tokyo.) ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 1980 1124-EDT From: KERN at RUTGERS Subject: LEAGUE FOR THE PURITY OF SF.... Here are two comments about Chip Hitchcock's essay 'defining SF' of 9/23. I know that this comes late, but certain overtones to the message kept bothering me. Somehow I get the idea that there is a 'League for the Purity of SF' out there that doesn't appreciate fiction in general. 1) Are there any SF fans other than myself who enjoyed Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos series? These books seem to disgust SF reviewers (besides Mr. Hitchcock, the reviewer in F&SF). I found the first 2 books elegantly written, imaginative in their use of archetypes, and fully committed to the the examination of being that Olaf Stapledon did so well. (Lessing claims that she was influenced by Stapledon; while I wouldn't say that her Canopus books were as good as his, they're certainly in the same league.) It seems to me that hardcore SF fans are most upset that she doesn't follow certain SF conventions. (I feel that she made a few gaffes but that these don't detract from the themes of the books.) 2) Whence came the expression 'mundane' in reference to "non-SF" authors? This sounds like some elitist term from the depths of the SF ghetto. Look, all fiction springs from an act of the imagination. Most fiction in any category will not arise from any deep plumbing of the imagination, but in every field there is fiction that rises above the designation 'mundane'. (I know, you're trying to use 'mundane' to mean 'earthbound', but it really only is lack of imaginative depth that keeps fiction on the ground.) Forgive my flaming. I hope there are some other SF Lovers around who share my opinions about fiction. -K B Kern ------------------------------ Date: 26 SEP 1980 1508-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Gremlins, bugs, et. al Bugs are clearly caused by Gremlins passing in the night. If you sense - the mark of the individual maker) of whichever gremlin was around. ------------------------------ Date: 25 SEP 1980 1024-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: gremlins GREMLINS DO NOT EXIST! /Yang TN ------------------------------ Date: 25 SEP 1980 1354-EDT From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Re: gremlins In response to your message sent 25 SEP 1980 1025-EDT Gremlins Do TOO EXIST !!!! ET/AE449 p.s What does YTN know? ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 2022-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: GREMLINS AND BUGS It's all quite simple, really. Gremlins are the new species of super-bug. Gerry Weinberg provided this perspective several years ago in a paper in The General Systems Yearbook that demonstrated quite conclusively that the principles of natural selection applied to the survival of bugs in complex software. Only the strongest survive. And like boll weevils that develop resistance to DDT and become super-weevils, gremlins are the bugs that have developed resistance to computational DDT. Mike ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 29 SEP 1980 0736-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #91 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 29 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 91 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Horror Express, SF TV - Vonnegut, SF Books - Scavengers, Alien Intelligence - Communication, What is SF - Bible, Causes of Bugs - Gremlins & Astrology, TESB - Hamill's accident & Who's who? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Sep 1980 at 2114-CDT From: wilcox at UTEXAS Subject: Horror Express Just saw on TV a movie called Horror Express (1972, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Telly Savalis). Our intrepid heros are aboard a Russian train from China with a prehistoric alien from outer space that sucks intelligence out of its victims through their eyes (and leaves their brain smooth, no convolutions). Strictly grade-B, but funny. See it with someone wierd! --Jim ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1980 0220-EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron The general plot from "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut was used in a movie called "Between Time and Timbuktu" which I believe was made for PBS quite a few years ago (over 7). It is often shown on college campuses and I highly recommend it. It is a collage of segments from various of Vonnegut's works, mostly short stories. -- Dwight Hare Yesterday someone mentioned that they remembered watching the short story Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut. This was included in the movie Between Time and Timbuktu which was made for TV I think. Lots of other pieces of stories appeared in this movie. -- For those who have never seen "Between Time and Timbuktu", there is a tradepaperback book version of the script which includes photos from the PBS television production. -- D. DuWayne Rodgers The theme of equality through handicapping also appeared in Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" as part of the teachings of "The First Church of God, The Utterly Indifferent". -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1980 1119-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: review of "Scavengers" "Scavengers" by a newcomer named David Skal is good stuff. Maybe a little overheated, but that only shows that there's fire inside. Remember those old experiments where they cut up flatworms and fed them to other flatworms to see if any memories got transferred? (Aside: you might want to find "The Wormrunner's Digest" in the periodical section of your local library. It'll be way in the back next to the "Journal of Irreproducible Results") The thesis here is that the same process can be extended to human beings. By grinding up someone's brain and injecting bits of it into your own you can almost become that person for one night. So what happens is that the most creative and most adventurous people get beheaded in the night and their brains are fed to the colorless masses. It's highly illegal, of course, but it's the ultimate escapism: better than television, better than LSD, better even than science fiction. In a way, too, it's the ultimate art form, direct contact between the artist's mind and that of the audience. The protagonist is in love with an artist who is fascinated by these "brainstormers". She (the artist) gets taken by them, but he is not about to let a Mixmaster stand between him and his love. He searches the city for the syringes containing her and then finds a girl roughly like her physically. He plans to inject the girl with enough of his old lover's memories that she will be recreated in a new body. The girl is a brainstorming addict and so doesn't mind, at least not at first. Gruesome, eh? Yep. It's a fresh idea, though, on an old piece of science. He gets into a lot of kind of sophomoric discussions of spontaneity vs preservation in art, but, hey it hasn't been so long since I was a sophomore. Recommended. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1980 1156-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: intelligence and survival Up until about ten thousand years ago it was clear that intelligence did have survival value. Humanity was following the well-worn path of the successful new species of mammal, spreading out into new areas and new ecological niches and diverging into separate species in the time-honored way. Oh, there were intimations that something was wrong (right); bears and wolves didn't go crawling into caves to paint buffalo or carve figurines of fertility goddesses. But people were wandering around this planet for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years before it became clear that a complex brain was different from a sharper claw or a faster pounce. All of a sudden they started manipulating and molding plants and other animals, a perogative Nature had reserved for herself. Nature hasn't been too happy about it ever since. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 13:37:45-PDT From: C.dasilva at Berkeley Subject: Dolphin Intelligence and 3-D vs 2-D thinking, Bugs, etc... It seems to me that the latest phase of BOTH human and dolphin intelligences occured in a 3-D environment, even if it was more so for them. According to one theory the last two "recent" phases of human evolution occured in trees (3-D), and sea shore (2-D/3-D) habitats. It may be that Intelligence REQUIRES a 3-D (more complex than 2-D) environment to develop. I think that I originally read somthing about this in "Manwatching" by Desmond Morris. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 1621-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: pickiness about english I realize that my english isn't perfect but.... Surely we sf readers should know enough about english not to use the word "there" when we mean the word "their". No wonder so many mainstreamers regard SF as a ghetto. Wiliam Tenn would be ashamed of us. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1980 1120-EDT From: SHULMAN at RUTGERS Subject: Earliest SF & gremlins In regards to the earliest SF known: Has anybody considered the Bible as a candidate? If you're considering Shogun, why not the Bible? After all Moses must have used the 'force' to split the Red Sea? In regards to gremlins: Who/what do you think empties the 'bit buckets'? Jeff ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 09/27/80 11:19:31 This talk of gremlins does not recognize the fact that almost all of the species cited are sub-families of Maxwell's Demons, which "enforce" the laws of entropy. Their universal abhorence of order cannot abide correctly running programs, neat desks, or clear ideas. The damn things get into *everything*, wreaking havoc and muddle throughout the known universe(and the unknown as well....) We poor mortals may only lie in frenzied hacking (also known as debugging) to fight the undending curse of these beasts. So join their battle for disorder! UNITE FOR CHAOS! ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 1050-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) Subject: Computers and Astrology Certainly computers are influenced by cosmic events. In fact, there was a recent Scientific American column on the interaction between cosmic rays and the new memory chips (64k bits). It seems that the number of electrons that represent a bit is only half the number produced by an alpha particle interacting with silicon. Charged particles are produced by cosmic rays or radioactive decay in the trace uranium or thorium in the chip package. This failure mode "is characterized by elusive and evanescent errors, which appear at random only to show up again somewhere else." It is also well-known, at least at MIT, that the phase of the moon has a strong effect on the behavior of programs. Bugs which cannot be reproduced are characterized as "phase of the moon" bugs. It was for this reason that program listings include the p.o.m. on the title page. Dave ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some behind the scenes details about The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 1028-PDT From: Geoffrey C. Mulligan Subject: Rumor I was wondering if someone could confirm the rumor I heard about TESB and Mark Hamill. I heard that right before the shooting of TESB Mark had a motorcycle accident. He required some plastic surgery to reconstruct his face. Although the surgery was fairly successful, it wasn't perfect and as a result they added the scene with the snow monster to cover for his slightly changed face. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1980 at 2351-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TESB: Who Dueled Whom When/Where? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If you saw the "Making of TESB" special last week, you will have noted that the dueling was 'choreographed' and, in part, actually performed by the dueling master rather than by Dave Prowse. My Friend The Ultimate SW Fan and I knew this quite a while back and have been arguing desultorily as to \which/ segment of the duel has what we loyally refer to as "the fake Vader". There are 3 segments to the duel which can be roughly identified by major locale-- in the freeze-chamber in the room where Luke gets blown out the window from a room, out onto the gantry Luke falls from. We are agreed that the middle segment is NOT the one. But both the initial and the final segments are shot from angles neutralizing the height distinction between the tall "fake Vader" and the very tall "real Vader". One of us says the first segment has the "fake Vader" because he not only duels so effortlessly, but often even singlehandedly. The other argues that it's the last segment because there "Vader" changes his cat-and-mouse tactics to a savage attack, and it takes an expert to "pull his punches" without it being obvious. MFTUSWF is going to ask Dave, the next time she talks to him, and I'll relay the answer as to which and who was right. Meanwhile... like Gary Kurtz at NOREASCON... what do YOU think? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 30 SEP 1980 0529-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #92 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 30 Sept 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 92 Today's Topics: Reporters Wanted, SF Books- Davy & ... & Dragon's Egg, Alien Intelligence - Communication, What is SF? - Shogun & Purity League, Causes of Bugs - Gremlins, TESB - Hamill's Accident ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Sep 1980 1356-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Asimov and TREK at MIT From the AI BBOARD I gather that Gene Roddenberry and Issac Asimov will be lecturing at MIT very soon (Oct 1 and 13 respectively). I know that many Boston area SF-LOVERS will be attending. So could someone possibly cover these talks for SF LOVERS? (like Bruce and Richard covered the Worldcon - ie a write up of what was done and said, critical comments, etc...). Many thanks from all those SFLers far, far away (like me in the Bay Area). Jim ------------------------------ Date: 29 SEP 1980 1233-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: DAVY I seem to recall that it was reissued relatively recently. I remember the reissue primarily because of the cover, which was an excellent painting but a lousy match for the story; Davy was shown as a 300+-pound mesomorph, looking like a heavy-duty Arnold Schwarzenegger when the book repeatedly describes him as wiry. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1980 2054-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: latest Clement Has anyone read the latest Hal Clement book? Is it worth buying? [ The title of the book is Nitrogen Fix ... - RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1980 at 1448-CDT From: wilcox at UTEXAS Subject: equality Would someone check on that "Why Bring Them Back From Heaven" reference? I too have read it, but can't find it in my collection at the moment. Which leads me to believe that the title may be wrong. I do remember that the above phrase was carried on signs by protesters trying to stop the re-awakening of frozen "corpsicles". --Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 September 1980 19:12 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics "Why Call Them Back From Heaven" dealt with storm of controversy over advanced medical technology capable of resuscitation. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1980 at 2259-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NEW SF AVAILABILITY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Chalker's TWILIGHT AT THE WELL OF SOULS, the last in the series, is out in p/b from DelRey. DRAGON'S EGG is available as an alternate SFBC selection! Not as much of a mark-down as usual, but SUPPORT SF-L'ers! ------------------------------ Date: 30 September 1980 03:46 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: Greeks and Romans The Greeks did not invent the arch; they didn't even use the arch, they used the pillar and lintel (uprights and cross pieces). The Roman arch (along with most of the physical characteristics of their civilization) was an Etruscan invention. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1980 10:26 PDT From: Klose.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: SHOGUN and KUNG FU If you consider SHOGUN to be SF, then why not include the TV series KUNG FU? Obviously Carradine plays a Chinese monk who is stranded in an alien culture with customs and ways which are strange and different than his own. Or how about A MAN CALLED HORSE or LITTLE BIG MAN; two movies which deal with a white man having to learn and adjust to Native American culture. There's also the movie WALKABOUT, which takes place in Australia and has a boy and his sister, stranded in the outback, who meet up with and are helped by an aborigine. Both parties experience the culture gap which exists between them. The point is, that just because a story deals with the clash between two cultures, it doesn't have to be classified as SF. If one or more of the cultures has been invented by the author, then it most likely can be classified as SF (meaning Speculative Fiction). Applying this criterion, 1984 (life in totalitarian England) is SF and ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH (life in prison under totalitarian Russia) isn't. The society of 1984 is the invention of the writer, the second society really existed. - Paul ------------------------------ Date: 29 SEP 1980 1346-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: league for the purity of what? An admittedly less-than-thorough examination of Lessing's work leads me to conclude that her primary faults are bad (i.e., clumsy, awkward, [difficult without the extra levels that make Joyce, etc. difficult]) writing, excessive moralizing, and trite plotting with no refreshing elements (SHIKASTA in particular strongly resembles what Bova called the "tomato surprise story"). On the other hand, I admit that I've never been very impressed with Stapledon, either; I'll acknowledge that this may be a matter of taste while observing that various mundane reviewers also seem unimpressed with the Canopus Archives. In fact, I expect that most "hardcore SF fans" (however few of them are left) will simply ignore Lessing. I don't care whether she "follows conventions"; anyone who is \good/ at an artform will break the rules and make you see why it is as right and necessary to break rules in the given context as it is to hold fast to them otherwise. (Granted, this is easier to see in formal music than in writing, but the frangibility of rules holds true for all artforms.) The one convention whose breakage annoys me is that the characters should be drawn in such a way that I can care what happens to them; obviously this is a subjective test, but it is the factor in which several authors (e.g., Christopher Priest) consistently fail my expectation. (I also think the authors who claim they aren't competing for the readers' beer money are fooling themselves, and maybe snobs to boot; maybe their readers spend beer money on Glenfyddich instead, but it's still a competition for their recreational money and attention.) As for "mundane" being an insulting term, that depends on where and how you use it. If you call people at an SF convention "mundanes" you'll probably annoy some of them; there the term tends to mean the people who gape at the costumes and wander away tapping their heads. When the term is used of writers it can simply mean those who \by/ \their/ \own/ \definitions/ do not write SF --- I specifically said in the msg in question that there was a matter of intent. (I think I'll officially christen this Garrett's criterion, after Randall Garrett's TOO MANY MAGICIANS: "Black magic is a matter of symbolism and intent.") There are wide enough gaps dividing "literature" (Saul Bellow?), popular writing (Jacqueline Susann?) and SF that it is possible to draw, not a line, but a zone showing some authors bridging the gaps and others definitely in one of the divisions, and it is convenient to many of us to have the zones drawn. If you're thinking I don't appreciate fiction in general, you're right; I find the incidence of self-indulgence, navel-scanning, and limitation of imagination even higher in mundane writing than I do in SF. I don't deny -- in fact I celebrate -- that some of the material I like on both sides of the gap reflects a bridging of the gap by a specific author; Kuttner and Kornbluth both had substantial mundane reputations, and John D. MacDonald wrote a \lot/ of SF in his youth (the recently-published collection is less than half of his shorter work). But I do see that many of the principles of mundane writing --- principles whose following gains the writers favorable criticism and/or good reviews and sales --- are tangentially or diametrically opposed to what I and many of the SF readers I know enjoy. Aside from my practical interest as an SF librarian, I don't believe in an SF Purity League, and I snicker at the J. J. Pierces who try to form them; the field doesn't deserve that kind or direction of effort. (Damon Knight, considering the charge that there is grown out of his writers' conference at Milford a "conspiracy to rig awards and elections, worship turkeys, and so forth", quotes P. G. Wodehouse hearing the accusation that he was planning to subvert the French government: " 'But one has so little time.' ") Now \I've/ gone into an over-long flame; let's see if there's anyone else who doesn't think we've beaten this to death yet. ------------------------------ ZEMON@MIT-AI 09/27/80 14:23:04 Seeing Bottoms-10 work correctly and not crash for a week, even with the system choking for lack of disk space, is enough to make a person believe in magic. Could there be \helpful/ gremlins inside that machine? Perhaps there are two factions; one fighting (naturally) for Good, and the other siding with the dark side of the Force. When next I hear that SCREEEEEECH! near the disk drive that's being backed up, I know that if I lift the cover and look inside the cabinet, that I will find two Gremlins fighting each other over the controller board, one trying to put +Vcc and the other trying to put Gnd onto the infamous CRASH_HEAD line. Excuse me, but I gotta go mash some Gremlins. ------------------------------ Date: 28 September 1980 2126-EDT (Sunday) From: Jeffrey.Lomicka at CMU-10A (C621JL12) Subject: Bugs and Gremlins Mike has got to be off the track, Super Bugs were made by Volkswagon, Gremlins are made by American Motors....... ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 09/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses some behind the scenes details about The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 29 SEP 1980 1215-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Hamill's new face I recall reading about this quite some time before the date given for the beginning of filming for TESB, and doubt that the snow monster was added; Hamill was in fact quoted shortly after SW4 opened as saying that he was supposed to get substantially older in the course of the three films, specifically that he was supposed not to have attained his full growth at the time of SW4 "but this is as far up as I'm growing!" (he is mid-late(?) 20's, I think). Also, there is other evidence (such as the TESB illustrated storybook and the diary-format MAKING OF TESB by the publicist) that the snow creatures originally had a much larger role; they infiltrated the base and at one point came crashing through one of the ice walls that made up the corridors. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 1 OCT 1980 0741-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #93 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 1 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 93 Today's Topics: SF History - Clarke's Law & Asimov/Clarke Agreement, SF TV - Vonnegut, SF Books - Why Bring Them Back, Causes of Bugs - Gremlins & Astrology, TESB - Hamill's Accident & Who's Who ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Sep 1980 23:40:12-EDT From: D. DuWayne Rodgers Subject: SF Lore In looking through back issues of SFL, I noticed an account of the circumstances that led to Sturgeon's Law. I am now wondering about the circumstances that gave us Clarke's Law (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.) and the Asimov/Clarke Agreement. Can anyone explain or provide a pointer to the appropriate references? Thanx, DuWayne ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 1980 0914-PDT (Monday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: Vonnegut Story The Vonnegut story in question was dramatized on public television as part of a rather weird program called "Between Time and Timbuktoo" which was a hashing together of elements of a number of Vonnegut stories. Mike ------------------------------ MOON@MIT-MC 09/30/80 22:50:16 Since people seem to be confused, it is worth pointing out that Why Call Them Back from Heaven is by Philip Jose Farmer. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 1980 13:37:45-PDT From: C.dasilva at Berkeley Subject: Bugs As for Gremlins, I agree with Joe's argument that it does not require a malevolent force to cause "bugs" or "bit decay", although such a force would be necessary to explain "idiot bits". The big problem is that people really think that "bug fixing" is a physical activity, when it is obvious that it is purely a set of symbolic rites using the Laws of Similarity and Contagion. For further information on these laws read "The Complete Enchanter" by L. Sprague de Camp, or "Too Many Magicians" by Randall Garret. Peter da Silva. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 09/29/80 16:58:37 Re: Were-programs Regarding PDL's description of a certain class of bugs which are jokingly said to depend on the phase of the moon... Don't laugh. I know of at least one confirmed bug that did, in fact, vanish and re-appear with the waxing and waning of the moon. It turned out that the date/time calculation subroutine was also computing a variable-length "phase-of-the-moon" string into a space that was just a little bit too small, and at maximum elongation some variable or pointer would be clobbered. Thus, as the string waxed and waned, likewise the program would crash and run. I forget who finally discovered it. And let ITS readers not forget that, in times of trouble, their hopes for a healthy system must indeed be pinned upon the phase of the (David A.) MOON. ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 30 September 1980 10:31-EDT From: John A. Pershing Subject: ZEMON@AI's Botoms-10 System Actually, in this case it is probably astrological factors at work, rather than helpful gremlins. For the past week, the moon has been waning (from full to 3rd qtr.), and moving into a position 90 degrees from Jupiter. Definitely a time for being well-disciplined and orderly. -jp ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/01/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some behind the scenes details about The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 1980 0321-PDT (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Hamill's face My (usually good) sources tell me that Mark did indeed suffer a rather serious accident before filming began, and reconstructive surgery was not entirely successful. In fact, if you looked closely during the "SPFX" TV show that discussed Empire (and other film) effects, you could see that his face was indeed pretty marked up, even through makeup. By the way, I liked that show. Someday I hope to get to the point where I watch shows like that without searching to see if they show anybody I know... Is there any escape from Hollywood? Nope. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 29 SEP 1980 1228-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: duel substitute I suspect that the short, savage section on the catwalk (just before Luke loses his hand) is the only section likely to have been done with a "fighting double" for Vader. It is nearly impossible to "pull punches" in a weapon duel, especially a duel with light sabers; if what you meant was deliberately missing while seeming to intend to hit, it's easier to do that by completely choreographing the bout rather than by trying to hit only where your opponent will be defending. (This latter is done by the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia, a group of anachronists who "fight" with metal weapons and armor instead of rattan and padding, but they fight sword + shield and the shield is a much easier target.) Choreography, however, does take a lot of time even if you're doing something like MACBETH (heavy weapons mean fewer movements required to fill the time; think of the Black Knight in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL.) Replacing Prowse with a dueling master would have reduced the time needed to rehearse when the filming was significantly behind schedule. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 2 OCT 1980 0634-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #94 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 2 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 94 Today's Topics: SF History - Asimov/Clarke agreement & Clarke's Law, SF Books - Keyes & Nebulas & Queries & WCTBfH? Causes of Bugs - Astrology, TESB - Hamill's Accident ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 OCT 1980 1133-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Clarke The Asimov/Clarke agreement is described in the preface to the Clarke anthology TIME PROBE: The Sciences in Science Fiction. As I recall, it was concluded in a New York City taxicab, and can be diagramed as follows: BEST SCIENCE FACT WRITER BEST SCIENCE FICTION WRITER 1. Isaac Asimov 1. Arthur C. Clarke 2. Arthur C. Clarke 2. Isaac Asimov The quoted law is actually Clarke's \Third/ Law; the First is "When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is very likely right; when he says that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong," and I never can remember the Second. The laws have been listed in a number of places, including an article in the NEW YORKER in the early 70's. ------------------------------ Date: 1 October 1980 1733-EDT (Wednesday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Two of Clarke's Laws: Clarke's Second Law: When a distinguished, but elderly, scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he says something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Oct 1980 0607-EDT From: NIVEN at MIT-DMS (Marilyn Niven) According to the NESFA Directory, Daniel Keyes had 8 stories published in SF magazines between 1952 and 1964. That's sounds more like an unprolific writer than an outsider to SF. Does anyone know of any non-SF work of his? Does anyone remember the title and author of a story about a character whose time is being stolen? It's been feeling that way lately and I thought it might be fun to reread the story if I could find it. On Nebulas: the SFWA membership is not large and the number of those who vote is not nearly 100% of the membership. Therefore, it is possible for a small active block of members to determine the winner of a Nebula. This can be a very bad thing for the reputation of the award, but no workable solution has been found. --Fuzzy ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1980 (Wednesday) 2341-EDT From: PLATTS at WHARTON (Steve Platt) Subject: "The Wizard of Speed and Time" Does anyone know where we can rent or otherwise obtain a copy of "The Wizard of Speed and Time"? If noone knows directly, what about a net or otherwise address for MITSFS, or for that matter, anyone from the NOREASCON II committee? Thanx. [Steve Platt] ------------------------------ Date: 1 October 1980 1737-EDT (Wednesday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Scientific Magic Has anyone collected together good books on "Scientific Magic", wherein the laws, although different from our conventional universe, can be understood? Heinlein's Magic Inc., Niven's Wizard series (ending with The Magic Goes Away) come to mind. I believe that the only reason the Graphics Display Processors work here is because of the chalk marks inside the cabinet. Some people claim this is manufacturing or shipping data which has never been erased, but I believe that if they are ever erased, the GDPs will stop running. Only Brian Rosen and Stan Kriz know how to put these marks back; it involves some programs which draw pentagrams, and goes from there... joe ------------------------------ Date: 2 Oct 1980 0220-EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Why Call Them Back From Heaven? Sorry; it's by Simak. (skimpy novel, published by Ace (H-42) in early/mid 60's.) No other use of the title, by Farmer or anyone else, shown in several indexes. Farmer \might/ base a book on Ettinger (the wight who popularized the idea of freezing the fatally damaged until they could be healed), but he wouldn't include a favorable view of Christian mysteries, as WCTBfH did. -- Chip Sorry, but Why Call Them Back From Heaven is by Clifford D. Simak, originally published (copyrighted) in 1967, and now an Avon paper- back with first printing listed as June 1980. It is a disappointing book. The reason for that statement would require divulging a spoiler and is not worth the effort. -- Frank Why Call Them Back From Heaven IS by Clifford Simak, it is a full length novel, and is pretty good. (not as good as much of his other stuff) I got a paperback copy a few years back from Panther books (I think they were the publishers, some english publisher anyway). Clifford Simak is my second favorite author (Heinlein is the first). I recommend Way Station and the Goblin Reservation highly. -- Alan "Why Call Them Back From Heaven" is by Clifford Simak. "Traitor to the Living" is by Philip Jose Farmer. "Recalled to Life" is by Robert Silverberg. "Counter-clock World" is by Philip K. Dick. I think that is most of the "dead coming back to life" stories I can remember. The titles and plots are often similar, which perhaps explains Dave Moon's error. -- Dave ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1980 1146-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: POM bugs I remember a story about a classic phase-of-moon bug, but I heard it Nth hand, so you will get it (N+1)th hand. It was when one of the radar systems which watch for incoming Russian ICBMs from the North Pole was being first tested (I don't know if it was DEW or BMEWS or what). As the story goes, almost as soon as the system was put on-line (within seconds) it found a target. Now, everyone was a little suspicious, but a possible nuclear attack is a possible nuclear attack. The strange part about the detected target was that no expected-point-of-impact could be calculated. Eventually someone realized that the radar was tracking the moon! Apparently, these systems now have a phase-of-moon patch to ignore this type of target. - Craig ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/02/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Hamill and The Empire Strikes Back. People who have not seen this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 01 OCT 1980 1141-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Mark Hamill's injury As it happens, the subject came up randomly last night at the MITSFS. Much of the following is Nth-hand but seems reasonable. Hamill was in a serious car accident shortly after SW4 opened; he has said that it happened when he was driving down an LA freeway at 70mph in his brand new BMW and, realizing that he was about to miss his exit, attempted to cross abruptly from the leftmost to the right- most lane, causing the car to roll over. (He's also said that part of the problem was that that was the first car he'd ever had with a decent engine in it.) Apparently he had no ID on him at the time and it was a while before anyone, including Lucasfilms, found out why he hadn't gotten wherever it was he was going. I also heard that Gary Kurtz told (during the presentation at Noreascon) of going up to Hamill during the Nth take of the scenes in the snow after he has gotten away from the wampa's cave, pointing to one of the "scars" on his face, and wondering whether maybe the makeup man hadn't overdone it --- to which Hamill replied that what Kurtz was pointing to was one of Hamill's own scars. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 3 OCT 1980 0708-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #95 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 3 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 95 Today's Topics: Contacting MITSFS/Noreascon People, SF History - Asimov/Clarke Treaty, Literature Query, SF Books - Anderson & Stealing Time & Scientific Magic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 OCT 1980 1214-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Oops! The Asimov/Clarke treaty is \not/ explicated in TIME PROBE, which means I don't know where I got that info from (presumably some Asimov intro to a Clarke piece). ------------------------------ Date: 02 OCT 1980 1144-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Jittlov query Addresses: Noreascon II MITSFS Box 46, MIT Branch PO W20-421 Cambridge MA 02139 84 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge MA 02139 There are assorted MITSFS and Noreascon people on the net, but none of them are likely to know the answer to your specific query; if you \write/ to Bill Carton (our film programmer) c/o Noreascon II he should be able to tell you where to find it. (Noreascon tends to prefer messages through the mail because there's one person specifically responsible for seeing that all the mail gets to everyone who should see it.) ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 1980 10:44 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: "Literature" Speaking of "literature", I would like to get together a list (not another list!) of everybody's extra special favorite NON-SF books or short stories, and then perhaps the list could get distributed like some of the larger info the Digest has dealt with in the past, i.e., put on a few accessible systems for a week or so, so that the Digest doesn't get swamped. These are the books you would take to the proverbial desert island; please don't recommend more than about three "items" apiece; but items like "everything by P.D. James" are okay and count as one. Add a sentence or two about the book, if you would. Send your entries to me, obviously, not to the Digest. Karen ------------------------------ Date: 2 Oct 1980 0834-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: Anderson the prolific Poul Anderson has yet another book out. It seems like another one comes out every three months or so. Does anyone know why this sudden outburst? Has his doctor told him he has an incurable disease? They're not up to his best work; I couldn't finish "The Avatar" and didn't get past the cover of "The Golden Slave". He seems to be going into Norse bard mode a lot recently. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 10/02/80 08:59:08 Re: time stealing Well, I know of one novel called "Keeping Time", by David Bear, in which a private investigator is hired to discover who is stealing "time" from a variety of rich folks. It was a very dull book, set in a very dull society; the "time" in question has more resemblance to a Klaatu scam than a speculative invention forming a story base, and consequently the only reason to call it SF is its setting in a future post-crash New York. If you haven't read it, don't bother. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Oct 1980 at 2342-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "SCIENTIFIC" MAGIC ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ or, Grammarie Made Easy Just out from Del Rey is MASTER OF THE FIVE MAGICS by Lyndon Hardy (who "became interested in fantasy while wandering through the fringes of fandom as an undergraduate at Caltech"). My skepticism was challenged by the cover blurb's claim, "one of the most logical detailings of the laws of magic ever to appear in fantasy". But said claim-- mirabile dictu! --turned out to be legitimate. Can't say how much, if any, he regularized or imposed structure, for he went well beyond what was in the folklore and anthro courses I've had. A lotta things make sense, now, that were just sort of a mishmash, before. (I particularly appreciated the little covert jokes, not just the now-not-unusual employment of Maxwell's demon, but the use of painted-daisies in a magical preparation to rid a barbarian of lice, and willow bark in one to relieve pain.) Definitely recommended for a real good overview of traditional Western European magic, wrapped up in a reasonably well done story. ------------------------------ Date: 02 OCT 1980 1212-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: scientific magic Isn't that a wonderful oxymoron? Aside from Niven's 2 shorts and a novella ("Not Long Before the End", "What Good Is a Glass Dagger", and the aforementioned "When the Magic Went Away") the following spring to mind: Randall Garrett's Lord D'Arcy series (TOO MANY MAGICIANS, plus several novelettes of which 5 were recently collected by Ace; another was in Asimov's SF Magazine): also a uchronia. Richard I survived Chaluz and the underlying laws of magic were discovered a century later; in the mid-20th a Plantagenet rules (not just reigns over) Britain, western Europe, and most of the western hemisphere while his primary antagonist is Casimir Nth of greater Poland. Detective stories with lots of tuckerisms (the greatest magical theoretician is Sir Edward Elmer, Th.D.). [ The ACE collection is entitled MURDER AND MAGIC. -- RDD ] Pratt and de Camp's Howard Shea series (2 novellas collected as THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER; THE CASTLE OF IRON; 2 more novellas published under the title of the first, THE WALL OF SERPENTS): syllogistically attune yourself to a world with different rules (Norse myth, Irish and Finnish legend, etc.); the rules obey the classic ones for magic and are further controlled by higher math. The first 2 were recently republished under the misleading title of THE COMPLETE ENCHANTER; the third is still tied up in a mess of estate copyrights. Poul Anderson's Operation series (3 short novelettes and a novella from 50's F&SF, collected as OPERATION CHAOS): the rules of magic were discovered in the early 20th century and are now taught in universities and researched by major corporations. Typical Anderson well-done adventure. The mixing of science into magic spills over into some other Anderson work as explanations of magical effects, notably THE BROKEN SWORD and THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS. \Very/ much on the fringe: THE FLYING SORCERERS (Gerrold and Niven): funny natives think that science is magic and explain it in those terms; some of the magic (fire balls, itching powder, aphrodisiacs) actually works. [ SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! - The following mini-review of THE FOURTH PROFESSION is the last part of the digest. It gives away the surprise element of the story. People who have not read this story may not wish to read any further. -- RDD ] THE FOURTH PROFESSION (Niven): included in the aliens' kit of learning pills (made up of tagged RNA) is one that makes you a disciple/apostle (work miracles, speak in tongues, preach \really/ convincingly, etc.). All of the above are well worth reading. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 4 OCT 1980 0646-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #96 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 4 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 96 Today's Topics: Charlie and Algernon, SF Art - Centaur Query, What is SF? - Delany's Opinion, SF Books - Anderson & Landmark SF Query, Causes of Bugs - Astrology ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 OCT 1980 1218-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: CHARLY AND ALGERNON Recently closed on Broadway after only 17 performances, according to the Boston GLOBE's lead reviewer, Kevin Kelly. Kelly also came out with a truly vicious criticism\M\S\I\C\I\T\I\R\C pan of the show (no explanations, just expletives); on the other hand, several other critics have said things about Kelly that shouldn't be published. (He also hated CHARLY, but since he talked about a dumb premise I'd say that's a comment on him as much as on the movie. Meanwhile, Cliff Robertson continues casting in Boston for CHARLY II.) ------------------------------ Date: 3 October 1980 21:01-EDT From: Chiron of Thessaly Howdy! I am seeking any information about modern artwork depicting centaurs. I am looking for titles of art books, or names of artists and where I can find the works of those artists who have centaurs as subject material. I am not, repeat not, looking for books that have pictures of ancient drawings of centaurs, but I am seeking art works as are on the covers of Piers Anthony's books for example. However, I am not interested in paperback book covers, but in something larger, possibly an art print or poster, or a book with large color pictures which could be blown up. You can send replies to NEAL@MIT-MC. I'd really appreciate any help you give me. Centaurly, Chiron of Thessaly ------------------------------ Date: 3 Oct 1980 08:36 PDT From: hoffman at PARC-MAXC Subject: Recognizing Science Fiction For those arguing about \Shogun/ and all the rest: Nebula and Hugo winner Samuel R. Delany has a 1977 collection of essays titled \The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction/. One of these essays, "About 5750 Words" says that reportage, naturalistic fiction, fantasy, and science fiction are separated by distinct levels of subjunctivity. Reportage corresponds to "This happened." Naturalistic fiction to "This could have happened." Fantasy reverses this with "This could not have happened." And science fiction's objects, events, and situations "have not happened." I suppose this still leaves some fuzzy borderline cases, but it's a characterization that has stuck with me. -- Rodney Hoffman ------------------------------ Date: 03 OCT 1980 1054-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Anderson spate A burst of books such as you describe usually happens at least partly because different publishers take different amounts of time to actually print and release a book. I think he has stepped up his output somewhat over the baseline; in the last year+ another Flandry book (A STONE IN HEAVEN) and a [fantasy] (THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN) have also come out, along with 2-3 books in the "Last Viking" series, but this may represent the abrupt release of work spanning 2-4 years. (Even a single publisher can get a schedule entangled; Orson Scott Card has repeatedly complained about the critics who called HOT SLEEP a giant step backwards, saying that it was written some time before other books in that future history that were released earlier.) This has happened to Anderson before, and I personally feel it hurt him. In 1974 he had 4 books published (FIRE TIME, A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, and one other) and the best of them (AKoGaS) didn't make it onto the Hugo ballot (AKoGaS may also have been hurt because it came out late in the year, but that's an iffy argument); FIRE TIME, which I felt was good but not as good as AKoGaS, was on the ballot, along with Priest's THE INVERTED WORLD and Niven&Pournelle's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE. The winner was Le Guin's THE DISPOSSESSED, which might have beaten anything else. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1980 0220-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Landmark SF Poll - Final Voting The nominations are in and final vote-casting time is here. "Landmarks" are "classics", but accepted "classics" are not necessarily "landmarks". A "landmark" is a work that has had a significant impact on the genre. A "classic" may simply be a work that has been enjoyed by a great many people. In this poll we are looking for "landmarks", not simply popular "classics". Given the large number of nominations five people who had expressed opinions about the poll's criteria were asked to review the preliminary nominations. To help organize your responses, the panel divided the list into three sections: a likely landmark list, an unlikely landmark list but good for filling out the genre (and non-landmark classics in general), and finally an unlikely candidates list which the panel felt consisted of books that were really not eligible. The panel did an excellent job in presorting the nominations. Now we want to collect your opinions of the works in question. There are two types of vote at this stage. The first vote is a NEGATIVE vote AGAINST a work you see on the list. Perhaps you think that a work is not a landmark (or good filler), did not affect the genre (or was not enjoyed by many), and does not deserve to be in its category. To vote AGAINST, simply send the name of the work, the author, and the word AGAINST in a message to POLL@AI. The second type of vote is a POSITIVE vote FOR a work you see on the list. Perhaps you think the work is more important than the panel thought it was and want the work raised from one class to another. In that case, to vote FOR, simply send the name of the work, the author, and the word FOR in a message to POLL@AI. There is no limit to the number of votes you can cast, but please try to keep the distinction between of "landmark" and "good filler" works in mind. Lastly, thanks go to the members of the review panel: Malis at BBNE, Don at SU-AI, OTA at MIT-MC, PKaiser at BBND, and HJJH at UTEXAS, for their time and help and also to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, Jon Solomon, and Jim McGrath for installing the SF Poll Final Ballot in files at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and Roger will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS LNDMRK CMUA TEMP:LNDMRK.SFL[A210DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLovers-Landmark.TXT Rutgers SF-POLL.LANDMARK SU-AI SFPOLL.SFL[T,JPM] MIT-Multics >user_dir_dir>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>landmark-poll-results [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 2 October 1980 2128-edt From: Paul Schauble Subject: Computer astrology I have noticed, from my experiences working on various geographically separated machines, that the odds of finding more than one machine down at the same time seem to be much larger than chance. This applies to machines located in different states, even when there is no network connection. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there any data available for the ARPANET comparing observed vs. expected multiple host failures?? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 6 OCT 1980 0520-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #97 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 6 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 97 Today's Topics: Administrivia, SF Art - Centaurs, SF Movies - The Wizard of Speed and Time, Causes of Bugs - Accursed Data & Astrology ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia : No Missing Digest This is SFL V2 #97, distributed on Monday, 6 October. It follows SFL V2 #96, distributed on Saturday, 4 October 1980. No issue of SF-LOVERS was distributed on Sunday, 5 October 1980. -- RDD ------------------------------ Date: 05 OCT 1980 2116-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: centaurs+ One of the best currently-active portrayers of centaurs and other allegedly mythical or extraterrestrial beasts is Bonnie Dalzell. Part of her skill comes from her training in zoology (an almost-Ph.D. at Berkeley(?)), which allows her to draw creatures with believable skeletons and muscles underlying the visible surface (one of her most widely known drawings is a pair on the inside covers of one of Larry Niven's books; front is a kzin, and back is the kzinti skeleton. She's also drawn most of Niven's other creations.) She's also done a series of drawings for the Air and Space Museum (part of the Smithsonian) showing what animals might look like after evolving under differing conditions of temperature, atmosphere, and gravity, into which series she slipped a puppeteer and a cthulhu larva (unfortunately these drawings are not a part of the current set of exhibits). Not very well known (perhaps because she does relatively little color, which is where the big money and notice is) but very good. My personal favorite is a pen-and-ink of two centaurs, male and female, entitled "Missionary Position". I bought a print and hung it in my office, at a job I detested, as a gauge of the randoms coming in (nobody actually went into hysterics but there were a few who choked and left quickly). Much of her work is available in prints and even stationery at very reasonable prices; she publishes as Sleepy Lion Graphics, located in Rockville, MD, and is frequently seen in huckster rooms at east coast conventions. ------------------------------ Date: 4 October 1980 1511-EDT (Saturday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Jittlov's films Mike Jittlov doesn't rent his films but you can buy them from him. I seem to remember that TWOSAT cost between $125 & 150. Jittlov is the only one by that name in LA. Look him up in the phone book and give him a call. (It works) As an additional hint, I believe he lives on Maltman St. He only sells good prints and when those are gone, that's it! -Lee ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 10/05/80 13:16:39 Re: The Wizard of Speed and Time Assuming no one has mentioned this already... In the August issue of "Starlog", there is a non-interview with Mike Jittlov concerning his "Master of Speed and Time" film, dropping hints on how it was done and the problems getting it aired... It also mentions that you can order your own print (sale, not rent) by writing off to Mike Jittlov The Starlog Special 902 Maltman Ave. Los Angeles, Ca 90026 ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1980 at 1839-PDT From: Mike at Rand-Unix (Michael Wahrman) Subject: Computer Astrology vs. Accursed Data When I was an undergraduate, I noticed a relationship between school and computer downtime: as exam week approached computer failure became inevitable. I believe that the key to the failure was not exam week per se, but rather the presence of Accursed Data, such as late papers, reports, labs, etc, on the file system. I, for example, who never turned a paper in before it was due in my life, would desperately type my paper at three in the morning the day before the final deadline and, as a precaution, spread versions of my paper throughout the ARPAnet: one copy local, one at CMU, one at MIT, one at Parc (this was in the early days, my local machine was UCSB). My paper of course brought doom to one, more, once ALL of these systems causing system failures, disk crashes and power failures. More recently, a graduate student from Stanford was in the LA area typing up his PHD thesis on our 11/45. The thesis had to be done and in the hands of his committee within days. Inevitably the system crashed with a bizarre floating point failure and was down for 24 hours. Michael. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1980 2123-PDT From: Dave Dyer Subject: Computer Astrology I also have noticed that computers tend to go down in bunches, but I suspect the phenomenon is related to the famous "lost object" law: " A lost object is always found in the last place you look for it. " ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 7 OCT 1980 0625-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #98 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 7 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 98 Today's Topics: SF History - Clarke's Laws, Future - No Sleep, SF Books - Blockbuster Complex, SF Film - Jittlov Films, SF TV - Cosmos Reviews, What is SF? - Dallas, Personal - See you in CA? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 06 Oct 1980 1149-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: Clarke's Laws On behalf of the Murphy Center for the Codification of Human and Organizational Law, I feel obligated to set straight the record regarding Clarke's Laws. (I would have done this sooner but was on vacation and just now am catching up on mail.) According to "The Official Rules", by Paul Dickson, the following set of laws are as stated in Clarke's "Profiles of the Future" (Harper & Row, 1962). Asimov's corollary is from the good doctor's article, "Asimov's Law", in the February 1977 F&S. Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Corollary (Asimov): When the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists, and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, right. Clarke's Second Law: The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1980 0716-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: Dreams, Dement, and LeGuin Prof. William Dement is alive and well at Stanford. For those of you who are interested, the Dements had Ursula LeGuin over to dinner last year because she had put one of his oldest and most favorite theories -- that people solve problems in their dreams -- in her book "The Word for World is Forest". LeGuin, being the daughter of an anthropologist, may well have gotten the idea from studies of the tribe mentioned in the digest a week or two ago. You can find an article about the tribe in "Sources", edited by Roszak (sp?). --cat ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1980 1334-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: The publishing business The three issues of The New Yorker beginning 29 September 1980 contain a very interesting series of articles, "The Blockbuster Complex", on the workings of the publishing industry. The articles discuss, among other things, what effect is had on the marketability of books by the displacement of small booksellers by huge chains like Waldenbooks and B. Dalton. The articles are highly relevant to SF books. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1980 1156-PDT From: Rounds at OFFICE-3 Subject: Jittlov films A message from an ARCHON V (St.Louis) committee member: Jittlov wrote ARCHON V to offer himself and his films for a showing at ARCHON V for $300 plus expenses. If you didn't want to buy all the films, but wanted to see them, this may be a cost-effective option. If anyone wants further details, please send a message to ROUNDS at Office-3, attn Will Martin, and I'll arrange to get the information from ARCHON to you. Will ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1980 0538-PDT From: ADPSC at USC-ISI (Attn: Don) Subject: Cosmos (on PBS) I have been watching Carl Sagin's "Cosmos" series on PBS. It seems a shade elementary, but interesting and informative enough. Anyone out there seen much of it (the two episodes so far) and have any impressions ? ------------------------------ APPLE@MIT-MC 10/07/80 00:32:36 Re: "Cosmos" on PBS Have any of you been watching Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos" on Public Television? The first episode (Sep 28) was not really all that interesting, and much of what was said came from his book speculating on the origin of intelligence (The Dragons of Eden) but in the second episode there were definately interesting things said. For one, it went into considerable detail in describing the process of evolution, and there were some sequences that looked suspiciously like computer animation that were really good. Some fundamentalists may be slightly distressed at Sagan's statement "Evolution is not a theory: it's a fact." Continuing with the topic of evolution, the program described three hypothetical creatures that might have evolved on Jupiter: "floaters", "sinkers", and "hunters". These creatures were depicted creatively in several interesting pictures by artists. In sum, so far the series has maintained a very high level of quality, and is well worth watching as much for the irrepressible optimism and enthusiasm that Sagan injects into the subject as for the content per se. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1980 1202-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Computer Animation and "Cosmos" cc: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY, Mike at RAND-AI, Wescourt at RAND-AI, DDyer at USC-ISIB I'm not sure if the series is being played concurrently around the country, but I would like to draw the attention of FX fans the #2 show in the Cosmos series by Carl Sagen. This is the current show this week in LA (on KCET), and will be repeated Saturday if you missed it Sunday. Episode 2 is about the common thread of all life forms on this planet, basically its about the evolutionary process. If you put aside Carl's strange speech patterns, and the dopey look of AWE-OF-THE-COSMOS that he affects when in his "spaceship" (he looks like just dropped a lot of 'ludes), this is a good series. The two sequences I wanted to point out are (1) the "evolution of humankind" sequence by Pat Cole and (2) the "DNA replication" sequence by Jim Blinn (both currently at JPL, but LucasFilms is so close and so fun...) Pat made automatic interpolation of line drawings of each major step in the evolutionary path to us, so that is almost "flows" from one form to the next, its fun they run it by in 40 seconds. Jim's DNA sequence is just incredible, the molecule itself is very effectively depicted (with "soft-gushy" atoms) but we also see the DNA unzipping and replicating with the aid of the mediating enzymes. Also - the first 7 seconds of the show - the new KCET logo is also computer animated, sythetic imagery done here by III. - Craig ------------------------------ ISRAEL@MIT-AI 10/06/80 19:08:39 Re: DALLAS as SF From the Nov. 1980 Playboy interview with DALLAS star Larry Hagman: Playboy: What do you think of the show? Hagman: I'm pretty pleased with it. ... It's exactly what it's designed to be: entertainment. It's a real good comment on a mythical country. Playboy: Mythical? Hagman: Absolutely. A lady I know here in Dallas who's right in there socially, told me the first time she saw DALLAS, she thought it was "the cutest little science fiction story she'd ever seen." And she's right. ------------------------------ Date: 7 October 1980 05:15 edt From: JSLove.PDO at MIT-Multics (J. Spencer Love) Subject: Trip I will visit San Francisco for 4 days from October 16th thru 19th. I would be interested in contacting fellow APA-ARPA subscribers, and seeing the campus of at least one well known technical school in the area. I expect to be renting a car. I can be reached as JSL at MIT-Multics; I will start on October 11th, so I may not read my mail after the 10th, unless I can find the ARPAnet after I get there. Any suggestions or offers would be appreciated. Thanks, Spencer ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 8 OCT 1980 0743-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #99 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 8 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 99 Today's Topics: SF TV - One Step Beyond & More Cosmos Reviews ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Oct 1980 2322-PDT (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: "One Step Beyond" For television viewers in the Los Angeles area, and those viewing our local channels via microwave/cable hookups across the country, I have a special announcement. KCOP (13) has begun running the old "One Step Beyond" series on a regular basis (weeknights at 11 PM). This fine program, which I believe completely predates "The Twilight Zone" was presumably the first speculative fiction series on television. John Newland, our host, in the same manner that we have come to associate with Rod Serling, introduces and concludes each episode, often walking right into the action just as Rod later did. The programs seem to hold up very well even after all these years -- I definitely recommend them. Now -- a request. I am somewhat confused as to the exact time frame into which "One Step Beyond" falls. Does it actually predate both "Science Fiction Theatre" and "Twilight Zone"? Are there any overlaps between the series? Was OSB actually first? The copyright notice on the program itself was too small to interpret, even when I grabbed the frame and applied various techniques to magnify and clarify the image. It MIGHT have been 1959, but it also might have been 1956, I could not tell with any degree of confidence. Any information would be appreciated -- this is the first time OSB has appeared in syndication out here in a long, long, long time. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1980 1919-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: THE PERSONAL COSMOS OF CARL SAGAN After watching the first episode, I figured the rest would be more of the same, and as a result decided not to bother with them. After reading a few SFL comments, I will be happy to give it another chance. My problem with #1 was not exactly Sagan's "dopey look," but rather the sense that he, personally, was bringing this all to us and we should be grateful. That's not the *show* about the universe, mind you; it was the universe, itself, that DR. S had created and was bringing to us. As long as he didn't invent (not discover) evolution, I guess I can see what he has to say! Mike ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1980 0819-PDT From: Amy Newell (Via Will Martin ) Subject: COSMOS Critique "Cosmos" is boring. Granted, the animated sequence on evolution in the second show was decent, if overlong, and perhaps, if you'd never seen it before, the DNA section was good. WHAT I can't believe is that the man had the gall to use the calendar explanation twice, and in succeeding weeks to boot. How anyone could offer college credit for a course based on a series that seems to be aimed at 6th graders is beyond me. (If this isn't universal, our local educational TV station is repeatedly proclaiming the availability of college credit through the state university for this telecourse.) There were much better explanations of "floaters" and "hunters" in "Jem", and as far as the Japanese fable, the whole point of outside influences on the process of selection could have been done more effectively in a much shorter time. In fact, change my 6th grade level estimate -- most grade school kids pick up on information faster than Sagan is putting it out. My background may be more sociology/anthropology oriented than that of most of the people on the net, but it seems to me that the information in the first 2 programs could have been presented in one hour, with time left over, if Sagan weren't so impressed with himself that we had to spend 20 minutes a show looking at his teeth, and if he'd let someone else do the talking. While it's true that the sciences in general do need to communicate more with the rest of the world, Carl Sagan is not the man to do it. End of tirade. Now if I can just get all those damned dandelion seeds out of the living room! -- Amy Newell (through Will Martin--ROUNDS at Office-3) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1980 1149-PDT From: Rounds at OFFICE-3 Subject: COSMOS, or, Carl Sagan as Cheshire Cat I earlier sent a critique by someone else; this is my own: (NOTE: Check your libraries for the Washington Post of Sunday, 28 Sept, for a long article on this program. It's worth reading.) I have characterized this program as consisting mainly of Carl Sagan "gazing raptly". My wife leans more toward "grinning inanely". In any case, its better than most TV (damning with faint praise?) but not worthy of all the ballyhoo and hoopla which preceeded it. It is much too thin, at least so far. The worthwhile parts (some of the animation and fact) from the first two hours will fit easily into a one-hour slot with room left over. So far, all the scenes with the cathedral/spaceship have been a waste. You read (in TV Guide & elsewhere) how there was such a huge invest- ment in special effects. The travels-through-the-galaxies bits were cruddy, in that it made no vestige of an attempt to really depict what inter-galactic travel might look like. (Before the physicists pounce, let me say I am sure that "look like" is a misnomer, as you really can't SEE anything at trans-light speeds, I guess...) In any case, the effex in COSMOS have been super-imposed moving painted images, as far as the star-travelling goes. The depicted galaxies have been far too close together, and everything is shown through a haze of star-like light points drifting off the screen edges. Unless I am quite mistaken, between galaxies there should be velvet blackness, with only the distant smudges of other galaxies in the cluster to relieve the dark. Maybe a rare wandering star, but not a view similar to looking out through a spiral arm, as we do from here. I would think that such really good images could be computer- generated, so that coming into a galactic arm could be depicted so much more effectively than this "various views of painted images" business and that the animation used so well in the evolution sequence could be utilized to really show zooming in on our solar system from outside the galaxy. Wouldn't this really be cheaper than what they did? I would imagine that video-taping off the computer would always be less expensive than manual/mechanical special effects. Where this series shows most promise is stuff like the combination scanning-electron-micrograph/artwork exploration of the white blood cell. This sort of thing is where the visual worth of television far outstrips the printed page. Yet, the lack of detail in the commentary which accompanied those images left me quite disappointed. I know that they can't give enough attention to the myriad complexities inside that cell; you could do a program for years without exhausting the wonders to be found inside a cell. Yet, there could have been more than they gave. As it is, we zipped in, looked at the DNA, and zipped out, with no further discussion. Rats! I was pleased and disappointed with the enzyme/DNA animation. Pleased, because the discussion of the enzyme unzipping the nucleotide bonds was interesting and informative; disappointed, because nothing was said about WHY or HOW it happens! Why does that enzyme hang on the DNA and unzip? What keeps it from just drifting away? How does the unzipping work? The animation just ignored all the supporting details, and showed no reason for the blue blob of enzyme to be there and move and do what it does. If we don't know the answers to these points, why not just say that? They neither stated nor showed any rationale for this all happening the way it was depicted. Am I expecting too much? It just doesn't seem to make any sense to spend all that money to do it badly, when the same amount of money could have done it right. Or am I overestimating the capabilities of the industry and the people? Resignedly, Will Martin ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 9 OCT 1980 0525-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #100 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 9 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 100 Today's Topics: Alien Intelligence - Communication, SF Mags - Skeptical Inquirer, SF Movies - Jittlov's TWOSAT, SF TV - Body in Question & Cosmos, Space - Search for Life, Time Travel - Recreating 20th Century, What is SF? - Dallas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Oct 1980 0936-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: dolphin communication The most recent Smithsonian magazine has an article discussing dolphin intelligence. Apparently some groups are trying to teach dolphins to speak the same way that apes were taught. One dolphin has learned some 25 words and the rudiments of grammar (it can distinguish between "put the pipe on the ball" and "put the ball on the pipe"). An interesting idea that was mentioned was that with their advanced sonar abilities they could perhaps look inside one another by means of ultrasonic imaging. Humans communicate non-verbally by means of facial expression and body movement; this could be much more direct. ------------------------------ Date: 9 October 1980 00:24 edt From: Frankston at MIT-Multics (BOB at SAI-Prime) Subject: The Skeptical Inquirer I just got my latest issue. Since it is not a well known publication, but one of interest to some of the people on this mailing list, I thought I'd mention it. It "is the official journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of Paranormal". The list of committee members and staff members is fairly impressive such as Asimov, Martin Gardner, Sagan etc. Subscriptions: The Skeptical Inquirer, Box 29, Kensington Station, Buffalo, NY 14215. $15/year. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 1980 0011-EDT From: MD at MIT-XX Subject: Mike Jittlov The short feature, The Wizard of Space and Time, is available for rental in 16mm from Budget Films, 4590 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90029. The rental cost is $7.50. The MIT Lecture Series Committee, which runs the campus film program, will be showing this short sometime this fall. (It will be advertised later.) Mike Dornbrook LSC ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 1980 at 1103-PDT From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: "The Body In Question" Those who are complaining about "Cosmos" may be interested in taking a look at another new PBS series, "The Body In Question", which has been done by Jonathan Miller of BBC comedy fame. Miller is also an M.D., and this series is the best thing I've ever seen on the human body. It is the first one which has not flinched from showing what we REALLY look like inside, without overdoing the gore. His background in "the other field", as you might say, also assures a welcome leavening of humor. If you can't stand "Cosmos", give this a try. You might be pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure what all this has to do with SF, but... ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 1980 1754-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: Cosmos FX In reply to Will Martins comments about the 2nd Cosmos show: As a matter of fact most of the effects sequences in COSMOS were bid on by many groups using various techniques. For the most part computer animation is much more expensive than a "similar" image made with older techniques (eg matte paintings). Sagen used Computer animation only when nothing else cheaper would work. (In fact III has done such images, it can look great, but painters are still cheaper. Matte photography and compositing can be done much better than it was in those sequences also.) On the lack of details during the DNA unzip/replicate sequence, I believe that that is a fairly accurate representation of the current state of ignorance in this area, I think we just don't know. Jim Blinn mentioned that the shape of the enzymes were just approximations based on function, and that the actual shape of the blue blobs was generated with a stochastic fractal. - Craig ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 1980 1013-PDT From: Yeager at SUMEX-AIM My initial method of trying to decide whether the Cosmos was well done was to cajole my 11 year old daughter into watching the first episode (beg is actually more accurate!). After 10 minutes she was writhing in agony with a terminal case of "boringitus." Not being a sadist by nature, I admited that she was right on, and she fled the room to go read something interesting! My wife woke me at 9pm (it started at 8pm). Funny thing is that I fell asleep during the second episode too. I was wondering if this program had the financial backing of the American Association of Orthodontists? The guy has beautiful teeth! Bill ------------------------------ Date: 8 October 1980 1319-EDT (Wednesday) From: Dave Ackley Subject: More Reactions to "Cosmos" My own feelings about the show have undergone some changes since the hype started, about 340 degrees all told. Initially I was very excited about it, expecting to get some background that I perhaps didn't know, and then the sort of free-wheeling speculation that Sagan likes to emit and I like to absorb. It wasn't very far into the first episode that I realized my hopes were not being fulfilled and that what with the pace and the apparent level of the program, they were not likely to be. My feelings tended towards disgust that they had spent all that money and come up with obsolete effects (in final appearance if not in technology) that failed to thicken the thin gruel of facts that were being presented. At this point I decided I was being unfair. My feeling now is that "Cosmos" is not aimed at such as me, nor, probably, such as you. Regardless of the increased scientific and technical awareness in this country and the world, it is my untested feeling that there is a large body of people for whom terms like "DNA" and "enzyme" are bucketed into the "Science Words -- Misc" portion of their memories with no useful links to anything. I feel this way in spite of cognizance of the risk of intellectual or scientific "elitism" that is run; this thesis, it seems to me, is far closer to the truth than the assumption that, for the contemporary viewing public as a whole, the stuff of which "Cosmos" is made is old hat and of no interest to anyone. Consequently, my current feeling after two episodes is that there is indeed a place in the cosmos for "Cosmos", and that I'm willing to sacrifice some of my own enjoyment for a potentially far vaster crowd of people who stand to gain much more from it anyway. A few random comments and I will conclude. As regards the "crab segment" for highlighting artificial selection and leading into evolution, I found it quite interesting and not catastrophically overlong. (And coming on the heels of Shogun, well, it's topical to boot!) Just be thankful you were all spared yet another exposition on the white moths and the grey moths in industrial England. The fact that the "facts" of artificial selection could have been presented in fifty-seven seconds is of absolutely no consequence: Sagan's fundamental purpose, I think, is to get people interested in the universe around them, not to cover large-value-of-x material in small-value-of-n shows. I think the much ranted about AWE OF THE COSMOS shots are a mistake, but one that isn't too hard to forgive. Unfortunately, the feeling of wonder at the majesty of the universe is a peculiarly personal one, and looking at someone else (supposedly) entranced by it does little at best. Finally, on more practical matters, I think the time slot that "Cosmos" is getting, at least in Pittsburgh, is excellent. Hot on the heels of "60 Minutes" can't hurt matters at all. I've wondered sometimes at the vast audience that "60 Minutes" draws, and I have the hope that lots of those people may flip over to PBS and check out "Cosmos". (And then forgot to turn the channel afterwards and catch a reasonable production of "Crime and Punishment" immediately following.) -Dave ------------------------------ Date: 10/08/80 1142-EDT From: Robert Kelner Subject: COSMOS My impressions of COSMOS were similar to many already given. However, I'm almost willing to forgive Sagan's dopey look in Episode 1. After all, he isn't a trained actor. He was probably looking at a blank wall, with cameras all around, and someone said "look in AWE-OF-THE-COSMOS". A much more serious criticism I have of Sagan (and one which I suspect many people on this list would NOT share) is that he really believes in LIFE OUT THERE. My feeling is that there probably is life, maybe even within tens of thousands of light years. However, I don't think it should be mentioned except in passing. COSMOS is supposed to be science, not SF. As far as I know, there is no evidence for life - just a belief that it could be. That sounds to me like a definition of SF. In any event, I really don't care to be bombarded with Sagan's opinion on it. As I see it, astronomy and the space program are interesting and awe inspiring enough in their own right, and don't need any speculations like LIFE to help keep them fun. However, Sagan's constant harping on LIFE (for years, not just on this show) does more harm than merely annoy me. I think there's a real danger that, by pushing the exploration for LIFE as a major reason for space research, we run the risk of public support collapsing when no life is found. I'm sure we'll eventually find evidence for other life, but it's way premature to do it now. Our technology just isn't ready. We should keep our eyes open, but not let a major purpose of a space probe be "THE SEARCH FOR LIFE". One other topic brought to mind by COSMOS: While watching the library in Alexandria sequence I became depressed. I imagined myself transported to that era, and going in to ask for a library card. When they learned I was from the 20th century they wanted me to bring them up to date on our knowledge. I can't begin to do it! Perhaps I could show them how to make a telescope, and bring them somewhat up to date in physics (my field) and math, but even simple lab. demo's would be impossible. I can't make an oscilloscope. I couldn't make an engine because I can't refine metals. I can't make gunpowder because I don't know how to find Saltpeter. (perhaps it's just as well, but you've got to admit, if I provided the king with gunpowder he's likely to let me work in the library for as long as I want, with all the money I need.) Anyway, I doubt many people could do this but then I got to wondering how few people it would take to remake 20th century civilization. And a second question: How many people off the street (your average citizen) would it take? In any case, COSMOS wasn't so bad -- I'll certainly watch the rest of it. ------------------------------ Date: 8 October 1980 14:46 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Dallas as SF It is natural that Larry Hagman should think of "Dallas" as SF, after all, his previous TV show was also SF. I mean "I Dream of Jeannie", of course (\/\/\/). P.S. to CWR: Kimball greets you ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 10 OCT 1980 0735-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #101 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 10 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 101 Today's Topics: SF TV - Connections & Cosmos, Alien Intelligence - Communication, Space - Search for Life, Future - Transportation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Oct 1980 12:47:51-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: Cosmos and yet better I have seen the first episode of Cosmos, which was moderately interesting, but hardly something to rave about. However, as regards things to rave about, a much more interesting series "Connections" is being rerun here and possibly elsewhere. For those of you who have not seen it, it's a real must; a fascinating look at how technology causes subsequent technology. It is subtitled "an alterative view of change", and is a fast paced, engrossing look at world history through it's evolving technology. Don't miss it. Ken ------------------------------ APPLE@MIT-MC 10/09/80 22:45:24 Re: COSMOS yet again... I think one of the things that all you scientific/technical people have been missing in COSMOS is its name: cosmos. As Sagan says, cosmos is "all there is, or ever was, or ever will be." How can anyone hope for the nitty-gritty details on everything discussed in this series. One critic, in particular, wanted to know the "how and why" of DNA replication. Well, I'm sure there are many technical books on this subject, and it's silly to expect a show as general as this to provide as involved a description of it as one of these. Secondly, you have to consider the purpose of the show. Certainly no one intended the evolution sequence, for example, to be valuable instruction for a biologist. It is aimed at those who know nothing more about science than what most people learn in high school. Sagan's "sense of wonder," artificial and "dopey" as it may be, at least makes people believe that science is capable of inducing that feeling in some. One last point: the correct spelling of Carl Sagan's name is with two a's, and not "Sagin" or "Sagen". If you're going to criticise the man, you should at least spell his name right! - Jim Cox ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 10/09/80 21:43:51 Two points: First, on COSMOS, I have watched both shows, and have not been enlightened as to the "mysteries of the Cosmos." What I have been watching was the way in which Sagan aimed his own feelings about science at the public. He is, I think, doing a damn good job at re- lating some of the "Romance of Science" to the lay public. I think that I feel some of that same "romance", but Sagan expresses it more clearly than I can. I think that, by relating the basics of science to the public, he is giving them much of the same *spirit* of science that I feel when I read that it is presently believed that the universe has been relatively homogenous for the first 10^-25 seconds of its existence. (From Scientific American - Imagine explaining that in ancient Alexandria). I watch Sagan much more for aesthetic/public- presentation reasons than for learning facts which I get in more depth in school anyway. Secondly, on cetacean intelligence. A few years ago, in Hawaii, a researcher was working on dolphin-human communication using an intermediate language. A lab assistant, after being fired, came and released the dolphins to the ocean. The assistant claimed that he aimed to stop the "slavery" of dolphins, who as intelligent beings, should not be imprisoned. I don't recall what the verdict was, but I heard that "the defense was hopeful". Ken Haase ------------------------------ Date: 09 OCT 1980 1153-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: re-reaction to COSMOS David Ackley has managed to put into coherent form something I haven't been able to say without sounding hopelessly elitist (possibly because I usually am a hopeless elitist). A friend from the MITSFS who is also one of the few people in the world with a Ph.D. in Planetary (rather than Earth) Sciences has described Sagan as doing more damage to orderly scientific investigation than anyone since Percival Lowell (1); I think this is ignoring the valuable service he renders of reducing the common but erroneous perception that science is incomprehensible to the average man. (Sagan with his frequent public appearances also helps to deal with another important factor: the linked perception that scientists not only are incomprehensible but also have motivations so different from that of the general public that they are ipso facto dangerous. A recent article (source unrecollected) missed this point, decrying the attempts to portray scientists as ordinary human beings; scientists must neither be socially deified (as doctors frequently are) nor despised as invaders of "things man was not meant to know". (Does anyone remember Niven's "Unfinished Story #2", of which the entire text is "There are things man was not meant to know" (from A HOLE IN SPACE, I think).)) Having said this, I will add that my personal reaction to COSMOS was very negative; aside from the fact that I almost never watch TV anyway (I prefer the higher information transfer rate of skimmed magazines and books) I couldn't stand the endless mugging and head-tilting which seemed to be the best he could do to convey sincerity. Surely he doesn't speak slowly and pose like that in class; he'd lose all his students! (1) Percival Lowell determined the existence and approximate position of Pluto, although he died before it was actually discovered. He was also something of a sensationalist --- although he didn't always gush on command; when William Randolph Hearst sent him a telegram saying IS THERE LIFE ON MARS CABLE THOUSAND WORDS the reply was NOBODY KNOWS repeated 500 times. ------------------------------ Date: 09 OCT 1980 1214-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Sagan's Search for Life I agree that it could ultimately hurt [research, the space program, etc.] if wild promises were made about our finding life elsewhere in the universe. BUT, looking at the available evidence from almost a layman's point of view, I would say that there is \very/ little reason to argue that Earth is the only site of life. This admittedly is negative evidence, but it's sufficiently strong that I think calling speculation about life on other worlds purely stfictional isn't reasonable. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 1980 1131-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer W. Thomas) Subject: Life out there / Space program As an example of how much it is possible for the *SEARCH FOR LIFE* to distort the space program, one need only look at the Voyager space probes. Somebody (I think Sagan had a lot to do with it) decided that Titan was the most likely place left in the Solar System for life. Therefore, a large part of the Voyager program will be devoted to Titan. This is alright, but there is a chance for Voyager II to be re-routed in order to encounter Uranus (and Neptune? - I'm not sure about this). If this is done, it won't come anywhere near Titan. A tentative decision was made to go ahead with this, provided that we either don't get enough data about Titan from Voyager I, or the data from Voyager I is too tantalizing, and they want more information. Thus, we could possibly be throwing away our chance to learn more about a planet (or planets) we know almost NOTHING about, just on the off chance that there might be *LIFE* on Titan. This is because one of the overriding goals of the space program so far has been to find *LIFE* (assuming we would recognize it when we saw it). -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 1980 1422-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-3 Subject: Public Transportation Gentlepeople: I'd like to start a discussion on a new topic: sensible methods of transport in the future. We had a brief "matter-transmission" discussion some time back, and I'd like to keep away from that topic in this exchange. What I am trying to get is some idea of better methods of transport for people and goods, which would avoid the problems inherent in what we have now. Let me first fill in some background/personal bias: I think that the basic concept of transport we now use is wrong. We have "quantal" or discontinuous methods, mostly various kinds of cans on wheels or wings, which are moved by various propulsive methods in order to move the people or goods contained therein. I don't think that this is right. We expend energy to move the containers -- in many cases, more energy is expended to move the enclosure than is used to move the payload. (The obvious example of this is the person alone in an automobile, shoving 3000 lbs + of car around in order to transport 200 lbs of person from point a to point b.) No matter how efficient mass transport gets, it still is this same sort of quantum method. A bus or a train or a ship or a plane, it still is one discrete chunk, or string of chunks, of transport capacity, moving on its route. Of course no one wants to give up their car and take a bus -- if you don't subject yourself to the bus's schedule, you miss it, and have to stand there and wait for the next one, if there is one. People who can afford, are able, and are used to controlling their own schedule by driving their own car resent giving up their freedom to control their actions, and subjecting themselves to the schedules of the transport authority. So it takes vast efforts to move them out of cars into public transit, even if the latter is well-run. Sadly, most are wretchedly run, by self-serving incompetents who don't use their own product, and who therefore cannot even apply enlightened self-interest to improve it. SF has, over the years, proposed alternative transit, notably the moving road. Heinlein wrote "The Roads Must Roll", Asimov used moving roads or slidewalks in "The Caves of Steel" and the like, and the concept has become common in SF. I am not sure that this is reasonable or viable. I've thought about using such systems, and I wonder: Do you have to stand for long distances, or are some sort of seats provided at intervals or on certain strips? What about carrying things, or moving heavy stuff? What about access for the handicapped? (SF mentions the agility developed by people in shifting from slow to fast strips, for example. How will you do this in a wheelchair? Or will all handicapped people be in anti-gravity floater units or some such wonderfulness?) Anyway, the sheer mechanical complexity of such devices, especially considering that they will be the size of superhighways, leads me to doubt that they will work. Our technology seems to have problems keeping escalators and little, simple moving slidewalks at airports in a consistently operating mode. What will be the engineering problems and maintenance nightmares of an interstate multi-speed moving road? It's interesting that the archetype of the story of this genre is about a failure! (Heinlein's The Roads Must Roll) Now, I know that this is supposed to be the future, and things will be better -- materials will be stronger, controls will be more reliable, and people will be smarter. Hmmm... Anyway, it just doesn't grab me and make me believe in it. I want it, but I doubt it. So, what else is there? This is what I want to see discussed. Let's postulate and describe (generally) alternative forms of transport that permit the continuity we need to have public transit really work. I don't think any quantal type of concept (little efficient electric cars, computer controlled; personal helicopters or flyers; monorails; pneumatic tube trains; whatever other concepts SF has produced) will work, when it really comes down to it. I always come up with matter transmission as the only way to better get stuff or me from here to there. As I said above, let's just ignore that for now; we've discussed it before, and we come up with pretty definite opinions of possibility or desirability. I just can't think of anything else! It upsets me. There also is the question about the density of population needed to make some methods worthwhile. A moving road system is fine for New York, maybe, but how about one person per square mile in Nevada? Do we HAVE to mix personal vehicles to the main system at its periphery in order to feed into and out of it? My ideal is the scattered popu- lation and personal isolation possible with a society like that in Asimov's The Naked Sun, with a sparse population allowing each individual to have his own vast estate. Is the very concept of "public" or "mass" transit even applicable then? But, given that we have to put up with a highly-populated world, what is a really good way to move around? I want concepts that will cover everything from going to the grocery store for food, to going out to dinner for an evening, through going across the country for a visit to mother (even if these concepts are inapplicable in a given future society). What do you say? How do we do it? Wonderingly, Will Martin ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 11 OCT 1980 0916-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #102 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 11 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 102 Today's Topics: Space - Search for Life, SF TV - Cosmos, Future - Transportation, SF Books - Bicycles Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 OCT 1980 0853-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Flaming Titan! (What a great swear word) I just checked with Alan Wood at the JPL public information office. Voyager II is definitely on a trajectory that will take it to Uranus. They will only redirect it if there is a catastrophic failure of Voyager I. ------------------------------ Date: 10 OCT 1980 0834-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Cosmos It may be that Cosmos is not a good show, I certainly thought that it dragged. However, it also may be that we know too much to appreciate it. We have had reviews from SF-LOVERS. How about collecting a few reviews from the general public, and putting them in the newsletter. p.s. By the general public I don't mean your friends. You have probably chosen them because they are like you (even though you don't think so) and they will have the same biases you do. A better subject would be someone you know well because you are stuck with them, like your parents and siblings (provided they aren't also SF-LOVERS). Lets hear it from the masses. Is Cosmos a hit or a flop? [ And please remember NOT to tell the general public about SFL. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1980 0831-PDT From: ROUNDS at OFFICE-3 Subject: COSMOS and CONNECTIONS Don't want to belabor this, but... I think there may have been an misunderstanding of my criticism of the animated DNA unzip business, in that APPLE@MIT-MC thought that I would have preferred a technical and detailed explanation of all we know about the process. I don't expect that in a TV show, of course. What I objected to was that the animation depicted a blue enzyme blob unzipping DNA helices, with nothing at all else, in the picture or narration, to give it any rationale for doing so. If the voice-over had said at that time "...We don't yet know why this enzyme does this in this fashion, but we are sure that this is what it does..." or if it gave some brief or simplified explication of what makes the enzyme DO what it does, or if the picture had somehow indicated some form of attractive force holding the enzyme on the DNA; any of these would have satisfied! (I'm no biochemist -- I don't know this stuff, but I would like to see it explained on a superficial level.) The problem was that no rationale was given at all. It was magic. The important thing about science is the reasoning, the chains of cause-and-effect behind everything. THAT is what must be driven into the minds of the non-scientific viewers. Everything has a reason. It all follows logically from what preceeds it. That attitude is what has to be gotten across. Science is all about finding these links and chains and explaining them. What is poor about these parts of COSMOS is what is great about CONNECTIONS. It may be really more engineering than pure science, but nothing wrong about that. I, too, am glad CONNECTIONS is being re-run. Watch both. I'm sure you'll find CONNECTIONS to be much more satisfying and informative than COSMOS. (Skip the discussion sessions following CONNECTIONS, though.) CONNECTIONS, as expressed in its title, has the delineation of these chains of causality as its motive, and that is why I like it so much, and think it is so worthwhile. If the cause and effect is not emphasized, and the magic is, the science goes away. Sagan should be promoting under- standing instead of awe. Sure, the universe is beautiful and wondrous, but it is still a mechanism, and can be explained and the questions can be answered. It is not something to be mesmerized by, just because we don't know the answers yet. What we know can be detailed, as can the limits of our knowledge. Just an aside, about this TV Science Industry: Could someone on the net, who is more familiar with the intricacies of the TV world, please explain this? When CONNECTIONS was first shown, it was on once during the week (Sunday 7PM Central, here in St.Louis, KETC, Ch. 9 -- same time as COSMOS now is on). No repeats at all; if you missed it that night, too bad. Now, COSMOS is being shown and repeated TWICE during the following week. Essentially, these programs are for the same audience. Why would the scheduling be so different? Are there contractual/licensing agreements that control this? Is it totally up to my local ETV station, or does PBS control this? Any explanatory revelations available? (Hell, its all still better than Charlie's Angels, isn't it?) --Will Martin ------------------------------ DLW@MIT-AI 10/10/80 18:04:16 Re: transportation The arguments Rounds gives for the desirability of continuous transportation mostly apply to moving people; I don't see how they apply to freight. It seems to me (purely "intuitively") that "quantal" transportation is more efficient, requiring less energy and maintainance (those roads are consuming power and wearing themselves down even when nobody is riding at the moment), and so such methods should only be used where they are really valuable. Of course, maybe this discussion will reveal a more efficient continuous method. ------------------------------ Date: 10 October 1980 1930-EDT (Friday) From: Paul.Hilfinger at CMU-10A (C410PH01) Subject: Re: Public Transportation Friends, In response to Will Martin's call for comments (SFL vol 2, #101), I'd like to put forth a counter-argument, just to make things interesting. Just what is wrong with quantal methods (personal cars, et al.)? There appear to be three main things: inefficient use of energy, inefficient use of materials, and traffic problems (including parking.) These days, the first, energy inefficiency, is probably the most serious; at least, it seems to be the prime motivator behind all the various calls I've heard for better public transportation. But suppose that within the next four or five decades we succeed in harnessing some effectively inexhaustible energy source--solar or fusion power, for example--as we hope. It seems to me that when that happens, energy conservation will become a false economy, and the primary reason for wanting extensive short-range non-quantal public transport would fade away. Now, of course, these considerations don't apply right now; energy is at a premium and will remain so for quite some time. Some might consider it a little silly to think now about technologies that won't be sufficiently developed to make a difference for many years. On the other hand, I suspect that anything on the scale of Heinlein's Roads (which were solar powered, for what it's worth!) will be overtaken by an energy glut before they are well-established. Perhaps public transportation is a medium-term stopgap, just as synthetic fuels from coal are supposed to be. Frankly, I think that I'd prefer quantal methods, assuming that the other two objections I listed can be overcome (although give me a good matter transmission system any day). For traffic problems, there is computer control (that wind from your terminal comes from my rapidly waving hands.) I'll forego comment on the materials problem until I'm convinced that it really IS a serious problem. Having said all this, I might as well admit that I don't own a car and am not likely to for a while yet, even though I can certainly afford it. However, for the sake of truth and all that, I didn't want the contention that "Public transportation is OBVIOUSLY the wave of the future" to get by totally unscathed. --Paul Hilfinger ------------------------------ Date: 10 OCT 1980 1059-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: rolling roads . . . To push off the discussion, I'll note a couple of points about Will's msg. First, both of the stories he mentions ("The Roads Must Roll" and THE CAVES OF STEEL) show extensive provisions for seating on the strips. Asimov specifically mentions that being seated on the strips is the prerogative of higher (job) classifications, while there is a chain of steakhouses on the rolling roads. Unfortunately, neither of them considers the problems of getting a material tough enough for the job and flexible enough that it can be brought around in a loop rather than simply brought under for the return trip the way an ordinary conveyor belt is. (It could be argued that such a reversal is not necessary in Asimov's design; the seats could collapse like the steps of an escalator --- but that would make a mess of one of Heinlein's steakhouses, to say nothing of requiring twice as much material (from internal evidence Heinlein's road runs in a dog bone layout). Also, tRMR is not the story of a mechanical failure, although mechanical failures are mentioned in the story; he specifically states that when shutdown of all of the driving rollers in one of the twelve sectors caused excess tension on the belt, safety interlocks caused the belt to come to a smooth stop (although he does note the absence of an obvious safety device to force the speed of any belt to approximate that of its immediate neighbors). tRMR is the story of a management failure, which is a horse of a different color (which has been proved to be impossible by means of the pejorative calculus (- )). ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1980 1227-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: Moving roads & other transportation It seems obvious to me that moving roads, slidewalks, and the like suffer from the same problems that ROUNDS@OFFICE-3 was complaining about in cars and other current forms of transportation: Energy is expended moving the road as well as the people, and the road almost certainly weighs more! In general, any form of transportation will be one of two types: Either it will be something that carries the person/object with it (e.g., cars, moving roads, jet packs, antigrav belts) or it will be something that transports the person/object with no intervention required once the trip is begun (e.g., teleportation, cannons). We've already discussed teleportation to death, and any other form of transportation will, by definition, require time roughly proportional to the distance traveled. I for one do not like the idea of traveling large distances with no mechanism available for correcting my course or handling emergencies (e.g., you've been ejected from a cannon and are hurtling several miles toward some sort of landing net, and a large bird flies into your path). Thus I conclude that any reasonable form of transportation other than matter transmission will require a "vehicle" that must transport itself as well. This vehicle can be quite small, of course -- how large does an antigravity device (plus small propulsive jet) have to be? -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 10 October 1980 10:25-EDT From: John A. Pershing Jr. Subject: Public Transportation Can anyone provide/guesstimate the actual mass of the belt in a moving sidewalk/road? It seems that, if it is going to go much farther than the other end of the airport, then you end up moving just as much "container" as with a bus or trolley. Not to mention the orders of magnitude more bearings/gears/pulleys which are constantly wearing out. (It's also probably hard to keep a few spare moving sidewalks on the maintenance lot for when other walks have to be brought in for repairs.) For relatively urban areas, the bicycle is a very efficient mode of transport for most people. Particularly if existing mass transit systems are retrofitted to accomodate bicycles, so that I can, say, bicycle into the local commuter train station, hop the train to Providence, and then bicycle to my destination. As to the passenger-weight to vehicle-weight ratio, I outweigh my bicycle/pump/spare-tube/wrench by over 4-to-1. Now, if we can just eliminate all of those damn rush-hour drivers trying to run me off of the road. Sigh... too bad that efficient transportation is so mundane. Has anyone ever written an SF story featuring bicycles/cyclists? -jp ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1980 1325-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: more on transport I saw a very efficient mode of transport this morning - a guy on a moped towing another on roller skates. I can just see a great snake of commuters trundling down the highway each morning, each one holding on to the previous guy's belt with one hand and reading the Times with the other. Cities would have rope tows like in ski resorts running down each side of the street. People with groceries or whatever would tow them along on skateboards. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 12 OCT 1980 0937-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #103 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 12 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 103 Today's Topics: SF Art - Centaurs, Alien Intelligence - Communication, SF TV - Cosmos, Future - Transportation, Filksongs - SF Anthem, Star Trek on TV (maybe) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NEAL@MIT-MC 10/09/80 22:03:44 Re: Sleepy Lion Graphics Howdy! I previously mailed SF-LOVERS seeking Centaur artwork. I believe I have found the graphics company I am looking for, but need an address. The company is called "Sleepy Lion Graphics" and it should be listed in a Noreascon II Dealer's Room Directory. This place should be somewhere near MD. Reply to NEAL@MIT-MC. Any help would be appreciated. --Chiron of Thessaly ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 10/11/80 11:11:35 Re: dolphins, etc. I read that the dolphins, though not totally un-wild (I don't want to use the term "domesticated") were Atlantic dolphins, let loose in the Pacific. Hmmmm.... a cetacean Shogun? Also, Niven's "Unfinished Story #2" is in his anthology ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS. Ken Haase ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1980 11:54 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: dolphins, etc. With regard to the dolphins who were "released", I never heard the outcome of the trial either, but I do recall that the two idiots who "released" them did so in an area where they couldn't possibly survive (heavily shark infested, etc. and the dolphins had been raised from infancy in captivity so they had no experience in finding food on their own.). A while back I initiated a mostly offline discussion about why humans think they have the right to kill other animals for food, etc., and in connection with that I ran across a neat word the other day: a la sexist and racist: speciesism. Karen ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1980 1637-PDT From: Dolata at SUMEX-AIM Subject: Cosmos, 'flexible belts' I found Cosmo's not only dull, but was offended by Sagans bombasity. Many of the things that were presented on Cosmo's as -> FACTS <- are theories, and several are already in doubt. For example, have you ever tried to unravel a rope, especially one thats already loosly coiled? As you unravel it, you must twirl either the ends or the rope along the long axis. If the rope is long, this twirling requires a lot of energy, and can easily lead to tangles. However, this is exactly what Sagan pictured the DNA as doing. Recent experiments have shown that DNA can adopt a second form, called the Z form, which places the base pairs near the surface of the chain. Then, the splitting enzyme could come along, and the two strands could relax away from each other, requiring rotation of 1 base around two chemical bonds, a simple thing. The new bases are added, and the two new strands are magically sitting side by side with no need to twirl LONG strings of DNA. This mechanism also accounts for tha ability to reproduce circular DNA, and DNA with complex tertiary structures. DNA 1, Cosmos 0. However, I am glad Cosmos is around so that junior high kids can watch it. Seems just right for pre-pubescent budding science majors. As per the question of material flexiable to loop around in a flat loop versus a typical belt loop. I remember seeing somewhere a luggage moving belt that did just that. It consisted however, of rigid metal plates that overlapped, rather than abutted. When it came time for them to go around a corner, the part of the plate near the inside radius just overlapped more, while the outside portion stayed constant. It would be little tricky to stand on, but I imagine standing on a streaching rubber band would be tooo. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1980 (Friday) 1404-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Future transportation Taking up the transportation flame... One of the most efficient, (and still underused), methods of getting from place to place within a small environment is the bicycle. The bicycle is so \simple/ that it is rarely dealt with in SF. (The Wright Bros. in Niven's "Flying Sorcerers" are a notable and humorous exception). Why? Because our visions of the future are always too blasted full of hi-techinous. For a book (loosely bordering on SF) that sketches out a low-tech future, I recommend Ernst Callenbach's "Ecotopia". He draws a very interesting picture of what might happen if Northern California, Oregon, and Washington were to cede from the Union. When the aero- space firms in Washington collapse, they are taken over and put to work making electric trains. Bicycles are distributed freely about population centers (an idea already taken up by a number of large companies for inter-lab transport). Etc Etc Etc. You needn't agree with Callenbach's ideas about Utopia to enjoy the book. Now: Any other incidences of bicycles in SF? -- Dave Smith ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1980 1220-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer W. Thomas) Subject: Efficient transport The most efficient (well, almost - Only exceeded by some soaring birds, I think) mode of transportation known is ... A person on a bicycle! Efficiency here is defined in terms of energy expended per useful mass moved (I.e., the person - the bicycle doesn't count). Think about it - what other transport do you know that can reach 30mph easily with a 1/4 (max) horsepower motor? Now, if they could only figure out some way to keep dry.... -Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 11 OCT 1980 1051-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: Some thoughts on transportation For sheer efficiency, very few modes of transport beat the bicycle, especially on a downhill slope. But bicycles are only good transport for the person pumping the pedals -- they are troublesome for groceries, impossible for furniture and severely affected by bad weather. The addition of a small engine gives you a moped, which at least permits distance and uphill motion for those not in excellent shape. Not to mention enough speed to permit being a reasonable part of traffic, rather than an impediment. Add an enclosure and you are protected from weather -- another wheel and a basket permits limited furniture transport. But now you have to increase engine size. Still, take this basic three wheel vehicle and make it of fiberglas with a stroke engine, and it won't weigh much more than the passenger. Then supply with it additions, like extra seats and a trailer or two, removable roofs and doors, etc, and you have a vehicle for which you can maximize efficiency dependant upon the job at hand. You'll need a lot of garage space, though. My own opinion is that if the Postal System would get reasonable and computer terminals were commonplace in the home, a good deal of the need for transport of the human being would be removed. This is not a new idea, but I think it is valid. Stan ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1980 0909-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: transportation A while ago the NY times had an article about what they called "Phase III" bicycles. The main diferences between them and ordinary bikes are a shell to cut wind resistance and a more efficient use of leg motion. Even the experimental models are enormously faster than regular bikes; a two man job went at 40+ mph for 50 miles down a California highway. So here is one way to go if energy efficiency is what you're worried about. If we have the energy I see nothing wrong with private transport, be it car or helicopter with computer control for takeoff and landing. Urban planners always seem suspiciously eager to bring people under control by stuffing them into buses/monorails/slideways. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 1980 at 2348-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ COMPUTERS AND FILK SONGS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Even if, from what more experienced hacker-filkers have told me, it's not feasible to write out a melody with a line-printer, it seemed to me there OUGHT to be something related to filking one can use a computer for, beyond just typing out the words. Here's a system I've come up with which does go beyond just the words. Not much, but a bit-- enough that for a person who learns new songs slowly, like myself, it's worth the bother. IN TEXT: Hyphen or blank separate syllables sung on different notes. Underscore connects same-note syllables in different words. Wavy line marks syllable sung on more than one note. IN CHORDS: Capitals signify major key. Lower case followed by ~ signifies minor key. But lower case b after another letter is a flat. Apostrophes mark seventh chords. Number signs, of course, would be sharps. Slashes mark options. Here's part of "Hope Eyrie" by Leslie Fish (and, according to one of my sources, Mary Froman), the "SF National Anthem". g~ d~ g~ d~ D Worlds grow old and~ suns grow cold, g~ F' Bb D And Death we nev-er can doubt. g~ F Bb F' Time's cold wind wail-ing down the past Bb D g~ F D Re-minds_us that all flesh is grass, g~ d~ g~ And His-to-ry's lamps blow~ out. But... Bb F D g~ D/F The Eag-le has landed, tell_your chil-dren when~. g~ F/D g~ d~/D g~ Time_won't drive_us down_to dust~ a~-gain! ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 1980 0412-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft , Jim McGrath Subject: For any trek people out there "Star Trek" Creator Says New TV Episodes May Be Made CONWAY, Ark. (AP) - Devoted fans of "Star Trek" - grieved when the five-year mission of the USS Enterprise was cut short, not by marauding Klingons or Romulans but by earth-bound ratings - may be in for a treat. Gene Roddenberry, creator of the 1960s science-fiction television series, says talks are under way to produce new television episodes featuring Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. Roddenberry told an audience at the University of Central Arkansas at Conway Tuesday that he had been negotiating with Paramount Pictures about the possibility of producing the new series. After his speech, Roddenberry said Paramount executives had contacted him several times last week and had arranged to meet with him when he returns to Hollywood next week. The release last December of "Star Trek - The Motion Picture," which he produced, apparently spawned the interest in a new series, Roddenberry said. "We currently have a recession in Hollywood that has kept us from doing a sequel" to the movie, he added. "Paramount has called me a couple of times during the last week while I've been away from the city, saying that they don't want to keep 'Star Trek' on the shelf while we're waiting to do a sequel and they want me to talk to them immediately when I get back to town about finding some way to bring 'Star Trek' back to television," he said. The original series, which went on the air in 1966, acquired a cult following although it had only a three-year prime-time run on NBC. Ten years later, reruns of the show, which featured one-hour encounters between the valiant Enterprise crew and a host of cosmic villains, were being carried on more than 140 stations and in 47 other countries. Conventions of Trekkies, as devotees are known, drew thousands to hear speakers affiliated with the show and trade in Star Trek memorabilia. Roddenberry said he would not be interested in making a weekly series like the original, but would favor "six or eight 90-minute or two-hour shows each year." He said he thought the original cast of the show - including William Shatner as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as the half-Vulcan Spock and DeForest Kelly as "Bones" McCoy - would not be receptive to anything but the 90-minute to two-hour schedule. Roddenberry also said the production costs for the new episodes would be much higher than the costs of the series in 1966 when each episode cost a few thousand dollars to produce. He said the cost of a new series would exceed $1 million per two-hour episode. The original series was by Norway Productions in association with Paramount TV and NBC. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 13 OCT 1980 0743-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #104 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 13 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 104 Today's Topics: SF Books - Bicycles, Future - Transportation, What is SF? - Willy Wonka, SF Film Trailer Marathon, SF TV - Connections & Cosmos, Alien Intelligence - Communication ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LLOYD@MIT-AI 10/12/80 14:15:57 Re: Bycycles in SF R.A.H. in "Rolling Stones" had prospectors using 'sandcycles' (bicycles fitted with large flotation tires). Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ ZEMON@MIT-MC 10/12/80 21:58:06 Re: Bicycles in SF and Transportation Two stories bought to mind here. One is called (I \think/) THE SCHWARTZKIND RADIUS, author unknown, all I can remember about it is that it was a short story in an Analog many years back, and that it is rather weird. The other is RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, by Arthur C. Clark, in which use is made of a bicycle based low-gee flying machine to explore the interior of a gigantic 'generation' starship. This is a good book . . . . Pretty much all of the transportation methods I can think of involve machines or little boxes that move around the countryside, and that necessarily weigh more than the passenger does. (I do not consider a bicycle to be transportation in the sense that I would want to ride one from New York to Boston in mid-winter.) But has anyone thought of using genetic engineering (assuming it is possible...) to create living transportation? I can just imagine a beast modeled after Niven's 'Racing Viprin' (a creature used by the Slaver race for gambling purposes, and specially bred by the Tnuctip to be \fast/), only built for 50 passengers and running on waste paper and krill. Or what about a blimp-beast filled with hydrogen (remember the Hindenburg?) al la John Varley's Whistlestop? Note that all you have to do is feed these beasts in order to make them work, and since you have to engineer them to begin with, you can fix it up so they can eat all kinds of wondrous by-products of civilization (leftover tin cans? Non-returnable bottles?). Also note that you don't need to have big, smelly factories in order to make more of them . . . . Remember, the idea is that we are running out of power and resources to fuel (or even construct) personal vehicles as expensive as cars. Think cheap. Get a horse! -Landon- ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 10/12/80 14:22:18 Re: More on bicycles I am a regular bike rider (in our house, 5 bikes for 3 people) and it is very difficult for a rider on a single bike to hit 30 mph on the flat. I am in good shape and can only maintain 18-20 mph on the flat. On the other hand, my wife and I on our tandem can maintain 25 mph with peaks of 30 mph. Why? Here mass is unimportant (unless we are going uphill and are converting kinetic to potential energy). A tandem has the wind resistance of 1 bike/person with the power of 2 people. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 11 OCT 1980 2134-PDT From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: More thoughts on transportation Given that the main objection to "rolling Roads" is all the excess road that has to be transported, how about roads that are stationary of themselves, but move the object to be transported? I can think of several ways -- a road of numerous computer- controlled electromagnets and a steel cart to sit in, for instance -- the cart could be moved from one side of the road to the other, adjusted for other carts, and sent down offramps, with the only power expended going entirely toward transportation of the cart. That would involve a hell of a lot of wiring, though. Or how about a liquid approach? A standing wave, like, a flexible survace under the cart, rows of plastic tubes beneath and them connected to hydraulic pumps -- the cart would "surf" a continuous "wave" generated beneath it, and could either be steered by the front wheels or guided by wave variation. Again, you wouldn't have to move a lot of excess road, but I"m not sure whether it's all that efficient. Just playing with ideas... Stan ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1980 1134-PDT From: Andrew Knutsen Subject: cheap mass transit It seems to me that the primary inefficiency of most current tranportation methods isnt shoving the 'box' around, but shoving the engine+fuel around. However, if you talk about 'rolling roads', then the 'box' becomes the entire road which is indeed rather heavy. Thus, I think a better system would be a compromise: individual cars, collectively powered (with individual power available for convenience or emergency). One possiblity would be a roadway with room-temperature-superconducting cables laid in it to form a linear motor, and the car containing only a magnet or superconducting loop of some sort. Room temp superconductivity is being researched now, and things dont really look too hopeless. The car could then be reduced to a seat, or even a platform to stand on, which you might rent from the transit authority. Or, you could have your old Rolls modified.... ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1980 0947-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: TRANSPORTATION In our discussions, I think we would benefit from considering two points very seriously. First, let's not use the term "efficient" (or its variants) without being extremely clear about what kind of efficiency we are talking about. In some contexts, thermodynamic efficiency is appropriate; in others, human use of time and energy is more important. Telling me about the inefficiency of moving a 2K kg container to get me around is no more useful than telling me that you don't like it. Rather, tell me about the overall energy usage, and the cost of producing that energy. Second, while I'm sure we will have some very useful discussions about some plans violating physical constraints, I hope we can discuss violations of basic economic constraints (and, in this society, their political determinants). For example, considering the costs of "quantal" transportation, let's not forget the multi- hundred billion dollars of tax money (current dollars) spent on developing and maintaining that system. Tanstaafl is fundamental to both thermodynamics and economics. What are the costs? Who pays them? Who benefits? are questions that must be asked about any seriously considered new technology. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1980 at 0600-CDT From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Willy Wonka / Connections / SF Marathon Several items: 1) Would anyone out there consider the film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" to be SF? I just saw the film again and I still think it's great on numerous levels. Any other fans of this flick out there in the gloom? 2) CONNECTIONS is a superb program. It is one of the few shows (other than "The Prisoner") that I actually altered my schedule around to avoid missing segments. This time around, here in L.A., it is closed captioned. If I manage to throw together an interface between the closed captioning box I am experimenting with and my micro I may be able to collect transcripts of the program, which could be pretty interesting! By the way, the oddness of PBS rerun scheduling is due to a combination of factors, including agreements with member stations, copyright considerations, and a host of other things that interact in complex ways. 3) I have been told that on Dec. 11 here in L.A., the famous NUART theatre will be holding an almost 5 hour "marathon" of SF billed as "the history of SF movies as seen via the trailers and previews for such films." I am a real trailer fan, so I'll sure be there. 4) I have not been able to stomach COSMOS, but I guess it is better than nothing given the crap that makes up 99% of the television schedule. The "look of awe" was enough to turn me off at the start... --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1980 2338-EDT From: SHULMAN at RUTGERS Subject: Cosmos and the General Public Here is a view on Cosmos from my girlfriend who has no great scientific or computer background, but is a science fiction fan: For those of you that dislike Carl Sagan's Cosmos and who are either scientists or have a scientific bent, keep in mind some important things that if not heeded, may prove to be seeds to your own destruction. Why is the space program not popular now as it was in the 1960's? I say that the general public, "the unenlightened," "the simple," "the worker," "the uneducated," "the masses," do not see it to their advantage to put money into it. If they did see that the space program could do them and their families benefit now and in the foreseeable future, it would be active much more than it is currently. Funds have been and continue to be slashed on any extraneous expenditures. Why is it seen by the "public" that the space program is in fact extraneous? Partly because the scientific community looks down upon the scientist amongst themselves that can communicate with that "public" in a cohesive, professional, non- derogatory, lucid manner....the manner that every teacher must have in order to be truly a good teacher. Carl Sagan is one hell of a good teacher, not to say anything about his ability to deal with the black abyss of a camera lens staring down his throat in order for his knowledge of the universe to be put into the brains of us "ignorant," "unenlightened" folk such as myself, merely because I do not give lip service to science when all the experiences of science and scientists have made me feel like a pion, a nothing. Make sure that before you criticize and otherwise put Carl Sagan down, that you be as good at relating science as he is, and that you have acquired a moral consciousness, and have acquired a holistic view of science that Mr. Sagan has. You should appreciate that he is doing more to help scientific endeavors get funded by us pions than you "elite" will even do in your lifetimes, including the space program. Where does the money come from? Us. So make sure that you know exactly where you want science to go before you turn on such a talent in communication as Mr. Sagan, and that you do all in your power to make sure this program stays the high-quality program it is now. That you have a responsibility to us, the financiers of your dreams, to make sure that your energies go also into making us understand what the hell is going on in your thoughts on a popular media like TV, unlike a scientific journal that we never see, nor do we ever want to see, nor should we ever be expected to see. You have your interests, talents, and brains and we on this side have our interests, talents, and brains. I, for one, am very tired of being looked down on by scientists because I want to understand science in my own terms, and not in a jargon that blows me out. Carl Sagan gets to the people in their own terms, and i think that you should not look down on him or what he symbolizes for that reason. If so, kiss scientific research goodbye, because I, and everyone else, want to know about what's happening in the field of life that has made our world materially abundant and morally sick as since the renaissance, and if we do not, it is out of mind, and out of funds. So I ask you to rethink your commitments if you have made up your mind that you cannot see any positive reasons why Carl Sagan should stay on the air. So you feel embarrassed that he is kissing our asses? Tough. We are the quality control group, us pions, the control group that either likes what it sees because it is spoken in a language we can understand, or will get rid of things we have no interest in. It is your business to make sure we understand the things that are obvious to you, your responsibility, not ours. Popular science has its place. Don't degrade its worth. It is valuable. Maybe not to you per se, but to your cause. Laura via Jeff at RUTGERS ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1980 21:18:07-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: dolphins, &c. As I remember, in the case of the released dolphins, the judge ruled against the two who released them, but did not give them maximal penalties. It could be looked up for certain in the papers. I'm not sure myself how I feel about this. After all, those two assistants who "freed" the dolphins, although they botched the specifics, could well be right. What gives us the right to imprison and/or experiment on other intelligent beings? But how can we tell if they're intelligent without scientific study and attempts at communication? Is this a case of ends vs. means? Boy, I'm glad I'm not God, who (might) have to reach decisions on questions like this. The ethical question raised by Karen about humans killing other animals to survive raises points about which, in contrast, I have resolved my own doubts. As animals, we are natural creatures, and thus exist within Nature's laws. We are not unique in omnivorism. Other omnivores also kill others to eat, so I feel no compunction in killing to eat. (Killing for sport, however, seems to be generally a human perversion.) We tend, since we analyze the food chain, to consider ourselves outside of it, sort of living off it at other animals' expense. While we certainly have the power to abuse our dependency, we are part of the natural process; indeed, we are a result of it. Our participation the creation/destruction cycle, recognized by the Hindu mythology, is as natural as the bear's or the orangutan's, and therefore no less (or more) valid. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 14 OCT 1980 0728-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #105 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 14 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 105 Today's Topics: Landmark SF Query Reminder, Filksongs - Milieu Query, Candidates on Technology, SF Books - Masquerade & Bicycles, Future - Transportation, SF TV - Cosmos, Alien Intelligence - Sport ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Oct 1980 1955-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: final notice for poll For all of you procrastinators out there who haven't sent in your votes for the landmark poll, FRIDAY IS THE LAST DAY FOR ACCEPTANCE OF YOUR VOTES. Please be sure to send them in to POLL@MIT-AI prior to this deadline. And for those of you who don't think your vote counts, please DO vote. The more informed people who vote, the more people can rely on the list to give them an accurate guide to excellent reading. [ Note the poll ballot can still be obtained from the file DUFFEY;SFLVRS LNDMRK on MIT-AI, or by sending a message asking for it to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 1980 at 2220-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MIGRATIONS OF PERSECUTED PEOPLES IN SF ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ROC-KON, which is coming up this weekend, is strong on filk. (It's a nice, cozy, relaxed little con. Compared to others in this area -- not as much program activity as AGGIECON, but more than OTHERCON and ARMADILLOCON, and the authors are nicely accessible. There's usually a few other than the official ones , such as Lee Killough and Suzette Haden Elgin that I know of so far.) (Hotel rate for the con rose 15% over last year -- to $22 for a single. Tsk tsk!) Anyhow, I've got a potential filk song I'm looking for an SF book to apply it to. I had planned it for Dickson's Dorsai universe, as an emigration hymn to the Friendly planets, but according to Margaret Middleton, there are already 37 Dorsai filksongs that she knows of, so I'm looking for some other less heavily filked fictional SF milieu. The words could be adapted, if it would help. (The melody is Tchaikovsky's "Marche Slav", but based on a folk motif found in Jewish, Spanish, Basque, and Slavic songs. This version of the words is not original, but a Zionist hymn.) The persecution or the reason for migration needn't be religious for the filk adaptation. Lo we walk a narrow way, Far from sun or light of day. Sought by foes on every hand March we thru a darkning land. God of mercy, God of might, Hear the prayer we raise tonite: Out of sorrow bring us gladness; Out of darkness bring us light. Humbled we and bound in chains, Yet our trust in Thee remains, For Thy promise is secure, Ever faithful, ever sure. God of mercy, God of might... ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 1980 at 0854-CDT From: david at UTEXAS Subject: Presidential candidates views on technology and engineering For all you technology buffs who are planning to vote; in the October issue of IEEE's "Spectrum" (pp. 53-58) there is a special report of questions asked of Anderson, Carter, and Reagan on their views on technology and engineering issues. (Wonder why, as with the "Sierra Club Bulletin", Reagan alone chose not to reply to the questionnaire? His views are reported from his official policy statements.) Speaking of SPS and space exploration in general, I read in "Science News" that John B. Anderson has a significant space research plank in his Presidential campaign platform. Anderson appears to be the only Presidential candidate with an interest in promoting space. There are many specific points in the space plank; two that I recall are continued and increased exploration of the solar system, and increased research to determine whether or not we should proceed with SPS. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 1980 1056-PDT (Monday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: Masquerade "Masquerade", that mysterious children's picture book with clues for a $20000 buried treasure, has been published in the USA. If you like this sort of thing, it's probably worth the $10 price-tag for the spectacular artwork alone. Knowing that there are clues hidden within makes it all the more fascinating (is the honeycomb signifi- cant? Why is there a broken doll on the beach?) It seems to me that someone in SF-Lovers wanted to start a "Masquerade" discussion a while back. WHat became of that? Mike ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1980 1431-MDT From: THOMAS at UTAH-20 (Spencer W. Thomas) Subject: Bicycles as transportation Not an example of bicycles in Sci-Fi, but an interesting proposal for the use of bicycles in the National Parks is put forward by Ed Abbey in his book *Desert Solitaire*. He feels (felt - the book is already over 10 years old) that the National Parks are overcrowded with mecha- nized transport, and that people don't get enough appreciation of the parks by zipping from one viewpoint to another in self-propelled metal shells. The idea, then, is to park all vehicles at the entrance, and issue everybody a bicycle (camping gear, etc. would be trucked into the campground by park employees). Not only would traffic congestion go way down (ever been to Yellowstone, Yosemite or Grand Canyon in the middle of the summer?), but people would get exercise, appreciate the park better because they would be in it, rather than looking out at it, and in general get more out of the experience. He presents the idea in much more flaming detail in the book (which is excellent anyway), along with some comments on how to accomodate those who couldn't handle the effort, etc. -S ------------------------------ Date: 13 OCT 1980 1701-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: 'flexible belts' Dolata's msg reminds me of seeing an airport luggage belt that went around corners without the need for an overlap. To visualize, take an ordinary belt and cut into a series of equal-size segments by drawing arcs with diameter ca. 1.2 x beltwidth slightly farther apart than the arc radius; each piece is attached to the one behind by an arm which allows the piece to pivot around the center of the arc that is its trailing edge. This is still seen in several smaller airports (vis. Washington National). ------------------------------ ISRAEL@MIT-AI 10/13/80 19:33:32 Re: Future Transportation -- TRANSPORTATION -- People have complained about roads as conveyor belts as represented in Heinlein's THE ROADS MUST ROLL as being an inefficient means of transportation because of a number of reasons, some of those being energy efficiency and the problems of handicapped people using them. Instead of building them as a single conveyor belt, how about building them as a variable speed conveyor belt (by this I mean a conveyor belt that at different locations on it can have different speeds). This can be done by building them as a number of small conveyor belts, each of them having its own speed and controls. This immediately eliminates the problem of expending lots of energy dragging the whole road behind you. I don't know if the energy needed to drag lots of little roads is less than that of dragging one big road. Anyone with more knowledge care to speculate? These smaller belts could be sensor controlled, operating only when there is a chance that someone is close enough to use them. This could be done by stopping any belts with people too far away to use them, and when people get somewhat close start speeding the belts up to a waiting speed, and if people are very close speed the belt up to its normal running speed. This should save a lot of energy at nighttime or for places such as the middle of Kansas with very small people to area ratios. An analogous construct to on-ramps on freeways coulld be developed by creating on-belts which would gradually speed the rider up to the speed of the lane that he was entering. If this was done gradually enough, the rider should not even notice it and handicapped people in wheelchairs should have no problems using it. This would preclude needing the agility to ride the walkways that was demonstrated in Asimov's THE CAVES OF STEEL. Off-ramps could be done the same way but on- and off-ramps could only be unidirectional (come to think of it, they already are on freeways.) This setup of multiple belts might preclude on-line steakhouses. Seats could be done as portable affairs, picked up upon entrance to the roadway and dropped off on leaving it. Balance however might be a problem with non-fixed chairs. An interesting thought just occured to me. What if you rode a bicycle on one of these roads? Think of the speed-up that would give you. Another advantage of a multiple belt roadway is that it is a simple matter to curve the path of belts to get a curved road without needing a special material. One safeguard necessary for one of these roads is for the situation (a la tRMR) of one belt somewhere in the middle stopping. Belts leading to that belt should have a gradual slowdown so that passengers don't go flying because of accumulated momentum. Belts leading away from that belt should gradually speed up so that the passengers are brought back up to standard cruising speed. This feature would also have the effect of stopping any problems such as those that arose in tRMR. - Bruce ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 10/13/80 21:19:22 Re: Rolling roads Once you get the road rolling, the only energy you have to put into it is to accelerate the load (or 'box' or 'car' or whatever) and energy to overcome frictional and other losses. As I pointed out yesterday, on our tandem bike we can go faster for the same energy input as we have the power of two with the losses of one. Brian Lloyd P.S. The bicycle is a very viable form of transportation. I ride 30mi round trip to work every day and I love it (except when it snows, then I drive). ------------------------------ JGA@MIT-MC 10/13/80 10:26:48 Re: how large? Q. How large does an antigravity device (plus small propulsive jet) have to be? A. As big as a four dimensional breadbox. ------------------------------ Date: 13 October 1980 23:47-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb In reply to Laura via Jeff at Rutgers: I, and my group of friends here at MIT, all feel that clear presentation of science to non- scientists is extremely important and valuable. Our objection to COSMOS is precisely that it is doing a BAD JOB at presenting science. We are afraid that it will mislead people and bore people. We are disappointed that Sagan does not seem to be doing his job well. You seem to feel he IS doing it well and that the show is interesting; maybe we're wrong about those things. But we certainly have no basic differences with you. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 10/13/80 21:40:21 Re: Several goodies 1) Here is my vote for "Willie Wonka" as SF. 2) Carl Sagan and Cosmos; The response I have seen from my "unenlightened" friends is 'Ho Hum'. No matter how good Sagan is, he didn't cut it on this one. 3) People and the space program: People generally are too dumb to follow the links from space program to microwave oven. The only links they see are from their paychecks (tax witholding) to rockets disappearing in the blue (if they go up and don't come down, we lost something). What do you expect from a society that pays it's sports idols millions and allows it's children to grow up ignorant (I don't think too highly of our public education system). 4) Is a pion a subatomic particle? 5) There are examples of other creatures hunting for sport. Until tomorrow, this is Brian Lloyd saying, "Keep those cards and letters coming folks!" ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 1980 11:14 PDT From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: dolphins, &c. Any one who has ever seen a cat torture a mouse will dispute the contention that "Killing for sport ... seems to be generally a human perversion". In fact, as we study our mamalian and other friends in the animal kingdom, we find that many are capable of using tools and language (depending on your definition thereof), engaging in homo- sexual behavior, and generally doing the sorts of things that people do, "perverted" and otherwise. The main difference seems to be that they don't get neurotic about it all, unless they're cooped up in a cage or some such. Or if they do get hang-ups or weaknesses, they find that they (the animals) won't be around for long to worry about them, in their dog-eat-dog world. --Bruce ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 10/13/80 20:43:05 There is evidence that humans are not the only race which demonstrates the "hunt for sport" complex. There is some evidence that playful cruelty is a province shared by man and dolphin (and who else?) as well. There is an account of the following episode taking place at a commerical aquarium (maybe Marineland). A dolphin was playfully chasing a moray eel around the pool. The eel, irritated, swam into some coral, leaving only a small part of himself exposed. This was in a cranny too narrow for the dolphins to reach. After futilely trying to reach the eel, the dolphin got a fellow dolphin to "help". The other dolphin took a scorpion fish (a stinging, sometimes poisonous spined fish) by the singular safe grip spot on its underside, and poked at the eel with the fishes spines. The eel startled, rushed from its crevice, to be caught by the first dolphin, who started the chase again. Of course, the dolphin was simply "pulling a prank" as opposed to man's hunting of animals. While I don't hunt, I think that the hunter doesn't look at his hobby as a prank on some less intelligent creature. Any comments? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 15 OCT 1980 0749-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #106 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 15 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 106 Today's Topics: SF Books - Masquerade & Unfinished Tales, Future - Transportation, Alien Intelligence - Sport, SF TV - Cosmos & New StarTrek Episodes, StarTrek novel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Oct 1980 09:23 PDT From: Pettit at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Masquerade I was the one who asked (on June 16) if anyone was interested in collaberating on solving Masquerade puzzles thru SF-LOVERS. I only got ONE reply, from Clive, who said it sounded "very intriguing", but who hadn't seen the book. Not a very broad base for collaberation. I still think it could be fun, if we can get a critical mass together. /Teri ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 1980 1039-PDT (Monday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: "Unfinished Tales" The new Tolkien book is out. While I haven't read even half of it, I think I've read enough to produce a helpful review, so here goes. This book ("Unfinished Tales" by JRR Tolkien, $15 from Houghton Mifflin) is definitely not a book for a general readership, nor even for the mass Tolkien consumer, who thinks that Lord of the Rings is a swell story, but all that linguistic and historical stuff is just a lot of window-dressing. Rather than a narrative, it's really a sort of organized memory dump of Tolkien's filing cabinet. It includes a much longer version of the tale of Turin, a large fragment of the story of Tuor, substantial information on Numenor and the line of kings, various versions of the history of Galadriel and Celeborn, some fascinating fragementary material on the Five Wizards, and jillions of footnotes and appendices to all, which describe variant versions, point out apparent contradictions, and provide fascinating supplementary information. Because of its fragmentary nature, you can pretty much start anywhere in the book, which has its advantages. For the true Tolkien fanatic, the sort of person who wants the names for the other two Istari, who is fascinated by the explanation of the Teleri dialect of Elvish, or who was curious as to just why the cats of Queen Beruthiel were proverbial, this book is an absolute gold mine, even more "fun" in its way than the Silmarillion. For the reader interested in a dramatic narrative, "Unfinished Tales" will be somewhat of a disappointment (although what narrative there is is quite good). The $15 tag will probably deter all but the hard-core anyway, however. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 14 OCT 1980 1053-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: rolling roads The question then becomes "HOW MUCH energy is lost to friction, compared to the energy costs of acceleration?" (I have heard that fairly effective regenerative braking systems (i.e., brakes which slow the vehicle by acting as generators, converting kinetic energy into electromotive energy) are available, but I have no figures for their net efficiency.) With regard to wheelchairs, it seems to me that motorized models can already go fast enough to make a smooth transition --- and unmotorized ones (admittedly rolled by people in good condition) have in the past few years been beating the best times on foot for the Boston Marathon. A bigger problem would be people on crutches (my guess is that a large fraction of these are temporary rather than permanent, but that would mostly affect the social (as opposed to technical) factors of the problem); a short, parallel, accelerating belt would help these onto the slowest conveyor but after that there'd be problems. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 13:27 PDT From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Rolling roads Guess what: the SAME conveyor can be moving at different speeds at the same time. All that is required are elastic links. Consider that the requirement for equilibrium is simply that the speed in LINKS-PER-SECOND be the same for every point on the conveyor. Thus, if we want to go twice as fast over one section of conveyor, we simply double the length of the links! Of course this implies that objects such as chairs, freight pallets, steak joints, etc., can only be fastened down at one end. I've seen this phenomenon employed somewhere or other; it may have been in a baggage- handling system. --Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 2340-EDT From: JoSH Subject: future transportation a) Note that the closest current technology to "rolling roads" is railroads, and that they are more efficient than cars and trucks. If you could get theoretical mechanical optimality, the rolling road would be more efficient than any vehicle that has to start and stop. A good way to get on and off is to have the road mesh with the edge of a, say, 1000 foot radius circular platform turning at 1 rpm. you come down onto the middle of the platform and move out to the edge, where you have a minute to step over the invisible line (the road goes around the loop, and disengages near where it engaged). b) My personal favorite for short-range personal transportation would be a jetbelt or antigrav equivalent. I commute 8 miles and one would be ideal for this. Build another one into my suitcase and I'll be all set to hop over to the nearest RR (rolling road). c) I am given to understand that the most dangerous activity commonly engaged in is bicycle riding (on streets where there are cars). Now danger of death or maiming may add spice to your commuting, but my last two bikes were stolen, so I don't do it anymore. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 at 2018-CDT From: wilcox at UTEXAS Subject: intelligent 'pranks' About a year ago a TV special on the marine iguana of the Galapagos islands had a sequence with a baby otter (seal?) 'playing' with an iguana. It was under water and the otter wouldnt let it ashore. If it simply sat on the ocean bottom clutching a rock, the otter couldnt do anything. But whenever it would try to swim ashore the otter would grab it by the tail and drag it back out to sea. I've seen similar events between cats and birds, and between squirrels and birds (the Grackle birds around here are about as big as cats!). They will keep the animal from getting to cover (or a tree) by diving on it. When it stands still it can defend itself. But whenever it tries to run, its airraid time. --Jim ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 2313-PDT From: Mike Peeler Subject: Peony, the state of being a peon In speaking of killing for sport, Bruce (Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC) said the following about "perversion" amongst animals. . . . as we study our mammalian and other friends in the animal kingdom, we find that many are capable of using tools and language (depending on your definition thereof), engaging in homosexual behavior, and generally doing the sorts of things that people do, "perverted" and otherwise. The main difference seems to be that they don't get neurotic about it all, unless they're cooped up in a cage or some such. I understand that homosexuality arises in animals only after they have heavily overpopulated their environment. I once heard a claim that it occurs "naturally" in a certain species of desert lizard, but that hardly makes it common. The point is that our society often drives us to extremes of behavior. * * * Brian Lloyd (at MIT-AI) wanted to know if a pion is a subatomic particle. Indeed it is. Pion is short for pi-meson. Laura (Shulman, I take it), friend of Jeff (at Rutgers), meant "peon", which comes from the Latin for "foot soldier" and is used to refer to a member of an inferior class. She might be interested to hear that "pion" also happens to be French for "pawn". ------------------------------ GRUDIN@MIT-AI 10/15/80 00:24:04 Re: COSMOS For those who gave up early, the third episode is the best to date, with no AWE and no cosmic calendar (apologies to anyone who read this before). -- jonathan grudin ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1980 0220-EDT From: Duffey at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: COSMOS The cover story for the 20 Nov 1980 issue of TIME is entitled "Showman of Science - Astronomer Carl Sagan". Good, if nothing particularly new. In a boxed section entitled "A Gift for Vividness" TIME lists a number of Sagan's sayings on various subjects. The one for SF is: [It] does very well in attracting youngsters to science but not in sustaining that attraction. Over the years, science fiction has become less and less intriguing to me. It turns out that science itself is much more subtle and intricate, with the added virtue of being true. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 0354-PDT (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Unseen STAR TREK episodes (?) A few minutes ago, I was wandering around the Math Science building here at UCLA on my way back from a snack and a "every cup individually brewed" cup of vending machine coffee. On a random bulletin board I found the following rather odd announcement. It was offset printed on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper, all in a simple elite typeface except for a banner line drawn in with red marking pen. ----- BELIEVE IT OR NOT ----------------- How would you like to see NEW, NEVER BEFORE SHOWN EPISODES OF ........ STAR TREK That's right, you've read correctly --- STAR TREK --- The Real Thing --- The Original ---. Our Field representative will be in the Los Angeles Area to answer your questions about this most unusual offer, so don't let skepticism keep you away. This offer IS LIMITED so call right away for further information. Phone 874-6700 Ext. 123 and ask for Mr. Om. If busy or unavailable, please leave your name and telephone number. There is no obligation, and you'll be happy you called, Promise!!! Written inquiries: The United Federation of Star Trek Fan Clubs, Ltd. "A closely held corporation" International Headquarters P.O. Box 20227 Chicago, Illinois 60620 Phone: (312) 783-3850 Field Rep in your area now so Check Us Out, and you'll say "Now That's Incredible". ----- Hmmm. Whadaya think, gang? As far as I know, the only "lost" episode of Trek might be considered to be the original pilot, "The Cage". I saw it once locally, in B&W (supposedly all the color prints are "missing".) It was later chopped up and redited into the two-part "The Menagerie" episode. I am not what could be considered a diehard Trek fan -- I am not in touch with Trek fandom at all. Does anyone know anything about these United Federation people? I wonder if they are for "real"? Anyway, maybe I'll give them a call tomorrow. This oughta be REALLY amusing... --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 1105-PDT (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: UPDATE on United Federation So I called the L.A. phone number listed for "Mr. Om". It turned out to be a motel, and Mr. Om had "checked out". Cough. Choke. Wheeze. Sounds pretty fishy to me. If anyone out there cares to check with the Chicago number for "United Federation" in my last message, I'm sure we'd all be curious as to what you learn. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/15/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It talks about a new Star Trek novel by Vonda McIntyre and gives away an event in the plot. People who prefer to read novels without foreknowledge, may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1980 0204-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: spoiler warning? EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) - Page 113 of Vonda McIntyre's latest novel could make the award-winning science fiction writer unpopular with Star Trek fans around the globe. It is on that page of the new Star Trek novel, due to be released next June, that the Seattle writer kills off the handsome Captain Kirk, leader of the USS Enterprise for 15 years. Ms. McIntyre, 32, gave a sneak preview of the novel over the past weekend at Norcan, a regional science fiction convention. P.S., it is actually Dr. McCoy who pulls the plug on Captain Kirk's life-support system. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 16 OCT 1980 0812-EDT From: SF-LOVERS@MIT-AI Sent-by: DUFFEY at MIT-AI Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #107 To: (@FILE [DSK:DUFFEY;SFLVRS DISNMS]) at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 16 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 107 Today's Topics: Asimov on Tomorrow, SF Books - Bicycles & Military sexuality & Plot/Title Query, SF TV - New StarTrek Episodes & Cosmos, Future - Transportation, SF at the World Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Oct 1980 at 0410-CDT From: Lauren at UCLA-SEC*$(2@PBjdJ\@.JR\fhJR\R&jDTJFht@&,@B\H@($$.h@B``JBdf@XRVJXr@hPBh@fBBF@fRZ^l@nRXX@B``JBd@Bf@B@NjJfh@^\@hPJD(^Z^dd^nD@fP^n@hPRf@JlJ\R\N@P(PjdfHBr@JlJ\R\N^ dRHBr@^d\R\NR\@fBr@DXRVJXrD@DJFBjfJ@@^\Xr@FBjNPh@hPJ@hBRX@J\H@^L@B\@B\\^j\FJZJ\hF^\FJd\R\N@LjhjdJ@`d^NdBZfX@B\H@(,@* @H^Jf@\^h@NRlJ@fjLLRFRJ\hHJhBRX@h^@FPJFV@ZZ@Rh@^\Xr@XRfhf@hPJ@LRdfh@^L@fJlJdBX@NjJfhf\\@B\y case, it might be worthwhile to watch if you are interested. The program runs from 12:30-2:00am. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 13 OCT 1980 1637-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: bicycles in SF "Or All the Seas with Oysters", Avram Davidson GREMLINS GO HOME!, Ben Bova and Gordon R. Dickson (but nothing comes to mind concerning the bicycle of the future. There was a recent LoC claiming that the 10-speed was inefficient and outmoded next to the folding bike, but this is true only for bicycle+something else transport as you describe, since folding bikes are usually heavy.) ------------------------------ Date: 15 October 1980 2130-EDT (Wednesday) From: Paul.Hilfinger at CMU-10A (C410PH01) Subject: Plot identification request Does anyone recall the author/title of a story concerning a star- hopping doctor who is accompanied by a small, furry, telepathic creature called (as I recall) a "fuzzy"? (No relation to Piper's creatures of the same name). This doctor, it seems, is a member of a race of traveling traders who use their fuzzies to influence the minds of prospective customers. It's been a VERY long time since I read the story, and I suspect that it was intended for a young audience (at least, I was too young to be able to tell the difference). Paul Hilfinger ------------------------------ Date: 13 October 1980 11:12 edt From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Armed Forces Sexuality in SF I've just been reading the SF-LOVERS Telezine, and it occured to me that much of the SF I've read about the Military differs strikingly from contemporary armies in the matter of sexuality of the soldiers. In todays armed forces, people's (men's) sexualities are deliberately twisted and manipulated (to make them better soldiers, I assume). Accounts of military training stress that soldiers are insultingly called female or gay (this puts it too mildly). Compare this with the chela army in Bob Forwards DRAGONS EGG, Haldeman's FOREVER WAR, and in JEM, where the soldiers have free sexual conduct with each other. One difference is that in two of the above, the army is made up of men and women, but in FOREVER WAR (not a spoiler:) much of the sex is gay. I don't remember what happens in Heinleins's STARSHIP TROOPERS (but R.A.H. generally likes sexual characters). I think all the Dorsai (Gordon Dickson) are celibate. On the other hand, Kate Wilhelm's THE KILLER THING addresses this explicity: her soldiers are perverted killers. Other examples of Military Mentality in SF, esp. with regard to sexuality? Any veterans out there? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1980 1405-PDT From: Dwight E. Cass Subject: Re: Star Trek Episodes After reading the message about UnSeen Star Trek Episodes, I gave the Chicago Number a Buzz. It turns out to be an Answering Service. While they have no idea who the "United Federation of Star Trek Fan Clubs" is, they do have a Mr. Om as a customer, and will pass my number onto him. I will let you know what I find out. Enjoy, DEC ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1980 2336-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: Cosmos Episode #3 is indeed an order of magnitude better than the first two. It reminds me much more of some of the "documentary" science shows such as Nova, though at a more elementary level. The closing lines give a good indication of the overall tenor of the show: "As a boy, Kepler had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendor, a harmony of the worlds, which he sought so tirelessly all his life. Harmony in THIS world eluded him. His three laws of planetary motion represent, we now know, a real harmony of the worlds, but to Kepler they were only incidental to his quest for a cosmic system based on the perfect solids--a system which, it turns out, existed only in his mind. Yet, from his work, we have found that scientific laws pervade all of nature, that the same rules apply on earth as in the skies, that we can find a resonance, a harmony, between the way we think and the way the world works. When he found that his long-cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts; he preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions. That is the heart of science." ------------------------------ JGA@MIT-MC 10/13/80 12:31:48 Re: Transporation (long - 72 lines) I think, in this transportation discussion, we are quickly realizing that all the requirements of transportation are too diverse to be covered by one or two mechanisms. People have pointed out that bicycles are great (efficient in terms of energy cost per person-kilometer) for personal, short distance transport, but they hardly win when large bits of mass have to be moved. Likewise convenience usually works against (energy and economic) efficiency when you try to optimize for all sorts of distances. (This is how we got the present-day automobile.) My personal suggestion would have bicycles (rickshaw/tricycle equi- valents for the elderly and infirm) for personal short distance transport, electric buggies - slow but capable of carrying big loads - for short distance bulk transport, and maglev trains for long distance freight and passenger transport. The electric buggies would be highly modular - different purpose bodies on the same chassis for carrying different loads, different motors and power sources for different duty cycles - and could be owned by government, industry, and private individuals if they wished. Maglev (magnetic levitation) vehicles don't need magnets or even super-conductors in the road. All you need is essentially an alu- minum-lined ditch and all the electric stuff goes in the vehicle. The train or whatever rides on a magnetic wave created by eddy currents in the aluminum, the currents are induced by magnets in the vehicle. [ SEE NOTE BELOW ] One of the worst things about 19th century railroad technology (which we are still using) is we have all this load - tons and tons - of engine etc. concentrated on two narrow strips of metal, and then all the ties, cinders etc. to spread the load out again on the ground. A maglev scheme, like above, spreads the load out over as much, or as little, area as you desire. My own opinion about moving roads (a la Heinlein) is that they're one of the more ludicrous creations of sf that I can think of. Go out on the nearest highway and estimate the density of trucks on a day when traffic is moving at close to the limit. Define "truck" any reasonable way you want. Put the density in "trucks per truck-length", that is what fraction of the road is occupied by truck. OK, now it isn't the only criterion, but the amount of extraneous mass on the road is a good thing to look at to judge some sort of efficiency. (Cost, certainly, probably energy as well.) Imagine your trucks spread evenly over the length of the road and decide how much cost-paying freight could be moved by any machine you could make out of that material. I did this on a weekday afternoon on two lanes of Highway 2 outside Boston. I had to spread 1/30 th of a truck over the area of an eighteen wheeler. That's about half a tire, a quarter of one cylinder of an engine, well... you get the idea. And new technology doesn't get you anything either cause I'd bet you could apply it to discrete trucks for about the same improvement too. Vroom.... John. Neat Experiment To Do If You Don't Believe Magnetic Levitation. (Although I believed it in my head, I didn't believe it in my guts till I tried this.) Get an aluminum disk, 1/4 inch thick, about a foot in diameter. Spin it on its axis with a 1/4 hp washing machine motor or the like (1800 RPM). PLEASE be careful to mount it well - it could be as dangerous as a power saw without a guard if you don't watch it. Bring a permanent magnet (Alnico 2" horseshoe magnet will be fine) close to the flat (moving) surface. You will feel a strong repulsive force between the magnet and the aluminum, and also a drag force in the direction of rotation. For those of you at MIT - go see Henry Kolm in the Magnet Lab (NW-16) - he's got one of these that I played with at a seminar last IAP. jga@mc ------------------------------ Date: 15 October 1980 0943-EDT From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: rolling roads and crutches I seem to recall reading an article about an accelerating belt that took you from a standing start, and accelerated you up to speed while turning you 90 degrees at the same time. It worked by some form of sliding plates. I think it was in Popular Science several years (many years ?) ago. This could solve the problem for all those lacking athletic agility permanently or temporarily. Of course this means that you can't get on the rolling road wherever you feel like it though. It would be more like freeway onramps. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1980 09:47 PDT From: Stewart.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Belts I've always felt that moving belts should move faster in the middle than at the ends. That does imply that they should stretch. It seems to me that a belt could stretch either by getting thinner, or by getting narrower. It should be ok (up to a point) for the belt to become narrower, because, as Bruce points out, the same number of links (people) per second are passing any point, but on a longer piece of belt. Muscles can do this over (guess) nearly a 2-1 range, just a bioengineering job for some Master's student... -Larry ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1980 1508-PDT From: Dave Dyer Subject: Free Transportation Shame on you all for your earth-bound thinking! Is this the SF-LOVERS or a convention of retired (unsucessful) city transpor- tation engineers? I can think of two "free" transportation systems, both entirely practical given the right circumstances. They suffer the minor handicap of not being practical on the Earth, but who cares? The first is featured in "The World is Round" a novel about an artifact ranking with Ringworld in its size and originality: a world constructed as a hollow shell "only" the size of a sun, surrounding a massive black hole. In this universe, the major form of long distance transport is via tube trains under the shell. Since all points on the surface have equal potential energy with respect to the central hole, the trip is free. As an amusing side effect, all trips take the same amount of time independent of the distance traveled. Similar ideas have been proposed for the earth, for instance as a transcontinental tunnel, but the engineering problems are a bit much for current technology. The second example is both completely practical and inevitable for transportation among points in free space (i.e. space colonies). A centrifugal sling can provide free transportation between any points in free space. Any difference in potential energy of the origin and destination is exactly regained on the return trip. All you need is sufficiently accurate aiming. ------------------------------ Date: 15 October 1980 2159-EDT (Wednesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: The Umpire Really Strikes Back. For those of you who don't watch much TV and may have missed it: Just for the start of the 2nd World Series Ball Game today the Network had this "THE UMPIRE STRIKES BACK" little flick. They had some really short scenes from the movie by a similar title. There were also some classic scenes from Baseballs yesteryear. Quite an amusing flick, the umpire who was hosting the thing was dressed as a Quasi-Darth Vadar. Doug ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 18 OCT 1980 0815-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #108 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 18 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 108 Today's Topics: SF Books - Bicycles & Lambda I, Future - Transportation, SF TV - Prisoner Query & Cosmos, Alien Intelligence - Sport & Communication, Star Wars ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: Due to machine difficulties, there was no Friday issue of SF-LOVERS. Today's issue is the next issue following SFL V2 #107 ( Thursday, 16 Oct 1980 ). -- RDD ------------------------------ Date: 16 OCT 1980 1203-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: more bicycles in SF The latest-but-one-or-two of Chandler's John Grimes novels has Grimes and a woman shepherded by bicycles on a planet that a mechanical intelligence thinks should be a new Eden. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 0225-PDT (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: TAU transportation system Since the subject of transportation has come up, I thought I'd recommend the short SF story, "Lambda I", by Colin Kapp. It appears in an OLD anthology I have around here (1964) called "Lambda I and Other Stories", edited by John Carnell. The story involves a transportation system (called "TAU") which managed to wipe out virtually all other forms of medium to long range transport systems. The TAU technique involves taking very large ships, and "resonating" them in such a way that they can pass right through sub-atomic spaces. Thusly, TAU ships "slide" through ordinary matter. They are given a "push" at the originating terminal and travel in a straight line through the earth to their destination. The plot involves the major disaster that occurs when a large TAU craft becomes trapped in TAU space, and the possibility appears of its power failing before it could be freed (in which case it would return to normal space sitting inside solid matter.) I recommend it highly. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 10/16/80 16:18:45 Re: MagLev transport Has always seemed winning to me, but there are a couple of bothersome things. Suppose the "train" stops, for whatever reason; how would it get started again? This implies that the magnetic fields created by the train will have to be anything but static, which implies considerable expenditure of mechanical or electrical energy, at least when getting underway. Remember it won't always stop in a station... I also wonder what sorts of stray EM "noise" would be generated. It's bad enough when an aircraft goes by and the TV signal throbs its little heart out. In this case, the cargo itself might need shielding. I haven't yet seen any mention of the quite serious environmental factors. I'm not talking about keeping cute bushy-tailed rats from being run over; I refer to the various manifestations of Murphy's Law, as expressed by snow (several feet), ice (thick), hail (heavy), rain (lots), heat (140 F), wind (cross, 50 mph plus), and other such uglies of the nasty real world. Don't forget the proverbial large ungulate encountered in rural areas. Now, it seems that the simplest way to solve these problems here is to extend the maglev ditch into an aluminum tube. However, I think at this point you have something considerably more expensive than the two-steel-rail bed. Boring view, too. Foo. ------- Randomness: railroads could be considered one of the first packet switching systems! Also, what's so bad about air transport? There have been some serious proposals to revive lighter-than-air craft, on really huge scales. Dunno what they'd do about weather, though, other than run from it. --Ken ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 10/15/80 10:49:26 Re: glass eaters In response to ZEMON's fantasy about producing glass or tin can eating beasts of burden using genetic engineering; I say good luck! I say fine to plans of using genetic engineering to produce beasts that eat garbage, but not glass. The food source has to be such that it contains a viable source of chemical energy. React the goo with something from the environment and produce a chemical system that has a global configuration that has a lower energy potential. I suppose that it is possible to eat tin cans. The tin can be oxidized to release energy. If the beasty could only figure out how to speed up the normal oxidation process. Maybe a catalyst(enzyme)? But glass I do not believe. If anyone can figure out the reaction that glass will undergo that makes this statement false, I would like to hear about it. Greg P.S. The idea of having huge beasties that can run at forty with fifty people on its back and that eats SOME sort of waste is still an interesting proposal! ------------------------------ Date: 16 OCT 1980 1201-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: stretchable belts In THE CITY AND THE STARS Clarke tosses off a remark about apparently solid moving belts which move faster in the middle than at either the edges or the ends, but this is more to convey (sorry) a sense of how far technology has advanced than to offer a serious current idea. The problem with duplicating a muscle cell is the microstructure involved: each individual molecule flexes to pull itself up past its neighbors. ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 10/17/80 01:00:35 Re: The Roads Must Roll It just occurred to me that if we were to design a self repairing, solar powered road with variable speeds, and so forth, we would end up with a river! And for one way travel, rivers are quite economical. . . . Ergo, "The Roads Must Flow" Jack ------------------------------ ISRAEL@MIT-AI 10/13/80 21:47:06 Re: Prisoner query A PBS affiliate here in Maryland has started broadcasting episodes of "The Prisoner". They broadcast two episodes a week on Saturday 11-12 and 12-1 at night (actually since its PBS without commercials its 11-11:50 and 11:50 to 12:40). Up until its been mentioned on SFL I'd never even heard of the show (is that Lauren I hear shuddering out there?) and I'd like to know a little bit more about it. When did it run and for how long? Is there an episode guide someone is willing to type in? (Lauren?) So far I've watched four episodes which is all that they've broadcast. The episodes are as follows (by subject, not title) 1) Arrival at the Village, 2) Big Ben (attempted escape to England), 3) Dream Manipulation, and 4) Election (he ran for the #2 postion). Are they broadcasting them in chronological order? So far in each of the different episodes there has been a different no. 2. According to the fourth episode that I saw, No. 2 is elected for a twelve month period. What is going on with that? - Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1980 10:38 PDT From: Karlton at PARC-MAXC Subject: More Cosmos I have seen episodes 2 and 3 of Cosmos now and I have found the shows to be interesting. Yes, in episode 2 almost all of the information was old to me and was presented at a slow pace, but it allowed me to @i(think) about what was being said. I was able to review a lot of things I once knew more about. If you watched the show with the expectation of being able to sit back and be dazzled you would have been disappointed, I took it as an opportunity to once again drag myself out of the sloppy habit of only focusing on that narrow part of life that is immediately affecting me. I have always felt a little guilty about my cursory knowledge of science history. Episode 3, addressed a piece of it, and I enjoyed it. I learned that Kepler was willing to trust Tycho Brahe's obser- vations (made without the aid of a telescope) enough to conclude that planets are in elliptical orbit, not circular. The difference in observed vs. predicted sky positions was 8'. That took real courage. PK ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 09:45:27-PDT From: sdcsvax!davidson at Berkeley Subject: Characteristics we share with animals I don't know about Mike Peeler's desert lizards, but homosexual behavior in natural, uncrowded situations is normal in Dolphins, many Primates, cows and other species. Various explanations have been suggested by Sociobiologists for this behavior. Some of these explanations can be found in Edward O. Wilson's book Sociobiology, but take his arguments with a grain of salt. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1980 18:42 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Dolphin Intelligence Sorry to take so long to reply, but there were many interesting things said, and I have had no time until today to think and reply. I don't really consider us to live in a 2-d world, but a 3-d one, and not just because of the airplane. Have you ever climbed a mountain? Do you imagine that our ancestors never did? Our supposed precursors lived in trees, which is every bit a three dimensional environment as is water. Actually, the dolphin's necessary specializations of perception (sonar and hearing) probably correspond fairly well to ours (visual acuity). My point was that I agree with Hofstadter that intelligence is probably the manifestation of the complexity of organization found in our brains. The form of that intelligence is another matter, as he adroitly points out in the fable about Aunt Hillary. Surely tool-building is a manifestation of intel- ligence, not a pre-cursor to it. Perhaps tool-building was our ancestors method for arriving at geometrical intuition, but might not there be other ways? For example, geometry could easily arise from the investigation by smart dolphins of the propagation of sound. I do not think that our formal mathematics 'depends heavily' on geometric intuition, at least not in the sense I made of the term. (My roommate points out that I was incorrect in using the term 'formal mathematics', but should rather have used the term 'formal lanquage theory'.) In fact, much study has gone into making mathematics as independent of 'geometric intuition' as possible. This is not to say that geometric intuition is not worthwhile, but rather that the mathematics should, as much as is possible, be independent of the intuition which allowed the mathematician to discover it. With regards to formal language theory (I hereby correct my terminology), I meant only to say that it is most likely to be one subject that any communicating species is likely to get into sooner or later, independently of its particular specialization of intelligence since it is merely the embodiment of the process of reasoning that we call intelligence. The key thing is that ability to abstract and generalize, and to transmute such ideas into other forms, whether they be tools or dolphin communications or what. Proof already exists that chimpanzees have this ability to a limited extent, and Lilly's studies prove (to me at least) that dolphins are similarly capable. I suspect that sound-oriented creatures such as dolphins are more likely to have a verbal tradition much beyond ours. Perhaps that is a hindrance (it really helps to be able to go to a library for a book some times!), but perhaps not. Perhaps dolphins have evolved (culturally and/or physically) acute memories and mental reasoning abilities. This has not been studied much as yet. Even if the being we are trying to understand is not itself a particularly bright specimen, if the species as a whole has the kind of abilities we call intelligence, then it should be possible to communicate in some reasoning manner. I am really making a definition of intelligence here, by saying that intelligence involves the creation of new perceptions through the use of reasoning. I interpret 'formal language theory' as the formalization of this reasoning process. I think the above comments apply as well to philosophic reasoning, not just mathematical reasoning. For that matter, 'formal language theory' applies just as well to the study of philosophy, which places a heavy emphasis on logical reasoning. I would expect a highly intelligent animal whose perceptions are largely verbal to be very much into philosophy. -- Larry -- ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 at 1729-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ STAR WARS-- La Triviata ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Now that he's had such wide exposure as the warlord in SHOGUN, it's interesting to speculate what SW might have been like if 20th Century Fox hadn't vetoed Lucas desire to have Mifune in the Obi-Wan role. TESB Problem: how to get the right type of fur for the miniature Tauntaun, since any that was too long or too thick would look coarse and unrealistic. Solution: (Kolling will hate this) tanned baby calf leather, as they have very fine and small- napped hair. The "Luke" role WAS indeed originally intended to be a girl, and it was her brother that she was trying to rescue. (It says so in a recent kiddie book on "The Making of Star Wars".) This sounds like the story (in THE PRINCESS BOOK [?]) about the handsome prince who was captured by the wicked sorcerer, with the intrepid princess promised his hand if she'd go rescue him, which she does, but he's such a ninny that she runs off with the wicked sorcerer instead. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1980 at 0404-CDT From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: STAR WARS and DRUNKS I caught an amusing PSA (public service announcement) on the tube this morning. It started off with some cuts from the Star Wars cantina sequence. It then switched to some (well integrated) new footage, showing one bizarre alien helping another who is obviously smashed. We then see a ship (the M. Falcon?) speeding off. The punchline? "Real friends don't let their buddies drive when they are drunk." Of course. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 19 OCT 1980 0500-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #109 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 19 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 109 Today's Topics: Original SF Telezine, What Happened at a Con - Kudos for Noreascon II, SF Books - Upcoming from ACE & Queries & Miltary Sexuality & Plot/Title Responses, SF TV - Prisoner, What is SF? - Willy Wonka ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 October 1980 0451-edt From: Mednieks.SIPBADMIN at MIT-Multics Subject: I am in Austria I thank the many people who contributed to the first issue of the SF-L telezine. I also must apologize for the slow turnaround in editing contibutions to the second issue as I am in Austria and cannot TYMNET to the U.S. very frequently. I expect the second issue to be ready in about a month. Contributions for this and future issues are still welcome and encouraged. cheers --zig ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 at 1729-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ KUDOS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LOCUS says: "Noreascon, without a doubt, was the best organized [SF] convention ever held". ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ UPCOMING FROM ACE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Their early-1981 list looks real promising: Feb. R.A. Heinlein: EXPANDED UNIVERSE H. Beam Piper: FEDERATION March Gordon Dickson: THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Lynn Abbey: THE GUARDIANS April Niven & Barnes: THE DREAM PARK BUILDERS. ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1980 2140-EDT (Saturday) From: Mark.Sherman at CMU-10A Subject: Request for novel title/author Does anyone remember the title/author of a novel where the sole plot is cloning people (who are sentient) for replacement parts? I know there are lots of novels which have this situation, but I'm trying to find the story where the discovery of this fact is the book's climax (like cannibalism in the movie Soylent Green). ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1980 (Wednesday) 2348-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: "Number of the Beast" query I am interested in comments concerning the allusions at the end of "The Number of the Beast". I have read same, and don't really recommend it much, but since I started SF with RAH I felt obliged to get it. At the end he has several chapters which consist of allusions to various other fictional works. I can get most of them, but was interested in some of them I missed: 1) "Both Heinleins." p492 2) "Ginnie and Winnie and Minnie... and Holly and Poddy and Pink" Winnie -> "I Will Fear No Evil", Minnie -> "Time Enough for Love", Poddy -> "Podkayne of Mars". Holly -> "{some short story about "the creature from earth", Holly lives on Luna}", that leaves Ginnie who is "a witch", and I ASSUME Pink is "Persistence of Vision", but RAH says "Fuzzy {Pink?} is a computer artist?" p504 3) "Dr. Bone" p 504 4) "Jerry and Ben are covering it for their various journals... but must clear it through Charles" {Who is Charles?} p506 5) "Andre. Kat Moore. Fritz. Cliff. The Gordfather..." p507 6) "Bishop Berkeley" p508 7) "'King' John and 'Queen' Penelope" p509 8) "Professor Wogglebug" p510 9) "Mellrooney! The worst troublemaker in all the worlds." I am not a CON person, and have been told that it is required to get a good number of them. Oh well, if you know them, send to me and I'll compile for people interested. -Dave P.S. "The Barbie Murders", anthology, J. Varley, is REAL good! ------------------------------ KWH@MIT-AI 10/17/80 18:05:14 Re: Starship Troopers In Starship Troopers, the primary mention of sex is the "Wow, girls are great" (which I won't dispute), but in a book written for juveniles, you don't expect homosexuality (or any sexuality) to be blatantly portrayed. Steven Disch, I think made a swipe at homosexual symbolism in Starship Troopers, but his arguments seem weak (but I read them paraphrased by Spider Robinson, in a defense of Heinlein.) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1980 (Thursday) 1239-EST From: RUBENSTEIN at HARV-10 Subject: Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS There was quite a bit of sex (well, sexual relations) in this novel, mostly of a fairly mundane sort. For instance, the boot camp cadets going into town after not seeing a woman for many weeks, and the honor of going forward of the bulkhead seperating the all male army from the all female navy. Not the most imaginative or unusual part of the novel. ------------------------------ Date: 16 OCT 1980 1149-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: military sexuality In THE FOREVER WAR, the military becomes primarily gay (along with the rest of society) only in the last full section (there's a short epilogue after the last battle episode). However, the expeditionary force is still made up of similar numbers of men and women. In STARSHIP TROOPERS the hero is incredibly naive; reading it from today's perspective, rather than from the assumptions which more strait-laced minds would have made, it's perfectly possible to believe that he's still a virgin at the end of the story. The military is co-ed but most of the women in the front lines are pilots; there is no suggestion that any of the infantry/marines are women either here or in SPACE CADET (though the latter was more obviously written for pre-pubescent males; the attitude and perspective are close to those of his other juveniles (THE STAR BEAST, FARMER IN THE SKY, STARMAN'S SON, THE ROLLING STONES, etc.) In fact, most of Heinlein's characters \aren't/ sexual in books written before 1960; the sexiest thing about THE DOOR INTO SUMMER was Kelly Freas' cover painting for the seriali- zation (in F&SF, of course; Kay Tarrant wouldn't have allowed even an artfully veiled nude on the cover of ANALOG). I'd be surprised at Dickson's leaving women out of the Dorsai, were it not in line with his usual relegation of women to supporting roles. The only story of his I can think of in which a woman is a leader is the one recently published in LOST DORSAI, describing the defense of the Dorsai homeworld against Dow delCastries under the leadership of Amanda Morgan. Poul Anderson's stories usually show women taking a role in guerilla warfare; he very rarely brings the regular army onstage but from various remarks I would guess that it is all male (though, unlike Heinlein's army, it is obvious that Anderson's soldiers head for the red light district (rather than a chaste social center) when on leave. Leigh Brackett, in PEOPLE OF THE TALISMAN, has a black-helmed warlord who turns out to be female leading a barbarian horde against the city where she was born; her reasons are a strong feminist statement even today (PotT came out in 1965). Chandler's federated space navy seems to have women on most of its ships, although they are almost always "purser" or "supply steward" (i.e., maid or cook); his hero, Grimes, usually gets as much as he wants (especially in the more recent books) but Chandler never really resolves the question of the tension caused in a small ship by having a small fraction of the crew female and putting out (under the circum- stances, that vulgarity is the best description) for select members of the male crew. (In recent books any trouble has been the fault of a sluttish woman or a generally slovenly crew; perhaps the crews on the larger or more tightly run ships mostly abstain? Chandler will be GoH at Chicon IV (1982 Worldcon); must remember to ask him if I get a chance.) After getting settled in the Rim Grimes marries a former Federation spy who subsequently travels with him, but what the Rim has hardly counts as an organized military. Chandler may be getting his consciousness raised; in his latest book [not a spoiler!] a woman is a sky marshall who takes command of Grimes' ship for the federation after G has "turned pirate" and been caught. ------------------------------ Date: 18 OCT 1980 0220 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Plot/Title Request about a Doctor and his fuzzy Most agreed that: The book about the star-travelling doctor and fuzzy companion is STAR SURGEON by Nourse. The doctor is from a race which has empathy with a small fuzzy creature, and through this empathy, can (by some psionic phenomenon) influence the feelings of others. Its a good book, centering on this doctor (who is an alien) trying to break into the Terran monopoly on medical care. -- The story is STAR SURGEON; like much of the medical SF recently available, it's by Alan Nourse. I first came across the book around age 11, and recall very much enjoying it then; like most of Nourse's novels, it's usually filed as a juvenile in libraries that have a separate section for kids, but I flipped through it recently and was still entertained. -- Chip It's juvenile (no sex or drugs or rock or roll) but pretty good, especially for its treatment of predjudice (the good doctor is a furry humanoid. . .) -- Jack Palevich I seem to remember liking it when I read it back in junior high. He is a M.D., and most of his stories have a medical orientation, with a great deal of realism. -- Others mentioned similar stories: Paul Hilfinger's lost story was, I believe, entitled "Zozzle", and the creatures were similarly named. It was a short story in Analog during the 60's. Pleasant, and evidently memorable. -- Mike Urban The 'migrant doctor with companion critter' I believe is "The Mutant Weapon" by Murry Leinster. I have it in my collection as an Ace double book (two tacky SF stories for the price of one). The critter was a Tormal named Murgatroyd. Tormal's (according to the author) have the ability to create human antibodies against almost any offending virus. As you can guess, this is a Bio-warfare type story. -- Brian My thanks to those who responded to my plot identification request. The book was "Star Surgeon" by Alan E. Nourse (at least, this seems in accord with my flaky memory; I haven't managed to scrounge up a copy of the book to make absolutely sure.) -- [ Thanx also to Drew , Dan , and Tom Spencer who also identified the story as Nourse's Star Surgeon. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 10/18/80 13:42:56 Re: Who is Number 6? To answer some questions on "The Prisoner"- This rather unique 17 episode series was first shown on CBS as a summer replacement series in June of 1968 (and rerun again the next summer.) It has undergone a real revival in the past coupla years thanks to stations like your PBS affiliates picking up on the syndication rights. The series was conceived, created, pushed into being by Patrick McGoohan, who also wrote a fair share of the episodes. It was filmed at the resort hotel (!) of Portmeirion in Wales. The four episodes Israel saw (by title - "Arrival", "The Chimes of Big Ben", "A, B, & C", and "Free for All") are indeed the first four episodes. In "Free For All", McGoohan is indeed elected to the post of Number 2, but holds the job just long enough for those thugs behind the scenes to rough him up and put him back in his place. In the next episode ("The Schizoid Man") McGoohan is once again just Number 6, with yet another Number 2 to do battle against. Many parts of the puzzle will be wrapped up in the final episode - a two parter which reveals, among other things, who the mysterious Number 1 really is... But that would be telling, wouldn't it? The Prisoner is one of, if not the finest examples of fantasy Metaphor ever to make it to television. Larry ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 2313-PDT From: Mike Peeler In case anybody counts up the votes on "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" as science fiction, I vote no. The movie was rather juvenile, but I enjoyed it anyway. I have an excuse. ("Sure, buddy, sure!") I read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" when I was little, and the movie was a nostalgic experience. I liked that book long before it ever occurred to me that most of the books I liked were science fiction or fantasy, and most I disliked were not. To this day I cannot put down in twenty-five words or less what I think defines science fiction, but I can surely tell you whether I would apply the label to a book I have read or a movie I have seen. Neither "Willie Wonka" nor "Charlie" fit my notion of science fiction. Rather than succumb to the temptation to expound at great length upon the true nature of science fiction, I shall relinquish the torch. I have at least a little sense -- of mercy, that is! Mike Peeler ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 20 OCT 1980 0336-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #110 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 20 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 110 Today's Topics: Games Request, SF Books - Darkover & Dreamsnake & TNotB Trivia & Military Sexuality, Alien Intelligence - Sport & Communication, Future - Transportation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Oct 1980 1508-PDT From: MIKE at RAND-AI Subject: gaming request Folks, I am thinking about writing an intelligent rule agent to play a computer-based conflict simulation game. The problem is to find an appropriate game to use as a base. There does not appear to be an appropriate list for this question, so I have chosen SF-Lovers due to the high number of gamesters. Criteria not too complicated (thus the Peter Langston Empire is out) source available (undoubtedly modifications will be necessary) somewhat interesting (subjective, alas) Example Dec 10-20 Empire. It is a reasonably simple game which can be played in several hours. It consists of one user playing against the computer, thus it is excellent for multiple runs to evaluate the effectiveness of a rule agent. Its major deficiency is the lack of any source to the program (so far as I can tell). Thus I would appreciate suggestions or advice from the community at large and, of course, please pass this message along to anyone who might be able to help. Thanks, Michael Wahrman ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 10/16/80 22:35:58 By the way, what is this Darkover series about? Jack Palevich ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 10/19/80 23:42:39 Re: Doctors + companion creatures I'm reminded by this subject of Vonda McIntyre's "Dreamsnake", in which itinerant doctors employ several snakes in their treatments. One of the snakes (the Dreamsnake) induces euphoria in terminally ill patients, to ease their pain. Although the plot in this book was rather predictable, the characterizations were really excellent. -leor ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1980 1434-EDT From: ERIC at MIT-XX Subject: Heinlein esoterica Ginnie is Virginia Heinlein, Robert's wife. Same answer for "the two Heinleins". Robert has much unpublished material stored away in his file cabinets, and his last N books have been published largely through the efforts of Virginia. By the way, his brother Rex was a "mustanger" in the Army...he entered as a private, and exited as general...VERY difficult. His brothers sword is the "Lady Vivamus" of Glory Road. I have been privleged to be a house guest at their Santa Cruz home, most of which they designed. Very cultured and charming people. Broadminded. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1980 1919-EDT From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Heinlein and sex. In reference to RAH's works I must point out that RAH is reputed to have once said that juvenile fiction should be written just the same as regular adult fiction except that you should remove all the sex. I suspect that is the reason why there is no sex in Starship Troopers. Considering some of the junk I've seen that had nothing in it but sex, maybe that would be a good idea for many writers to follow in their regular works. Of course it would make some books an awful lot shorter. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1980 0018-PDT From: Mike Peeler Subject: Gay animals Those homosexual desert lizards are not mine! I was merely reporting hearsay. At the time, it was the only instance of homosexuality in nature I had ever heard of. Since then several fellow SF lovers have reported other instances. I must admit that "homosexuality arises in animals only after they have heavily overpopulated their environment" was an overstatement. However, I have read somewhere of an experiment on the effect of crowding on laboratory rats. I was led to believe that lab rats are not normally homosexual even without sexual mix, but that under crowded conditions they showed all kinds of abnormal behavior (for lab rats), including homosexuality. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1980 18:51:13-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: Dolphin Communication On the discussion of dolphin communication, let me throw in something I picked up in a Linguistics class. When dolphins are communication with each other, they face one another. The one "speaking" sends his/her sonar message, and the "listner" (insert italics here) sends single pulses to the speaker (end italics). There has been much speculation as to why the listener sends these signals to the speaker, ranging from a "I'm listening" idea to the following fascinating theory: with the sonar waves, it is possible for the listener to "see" (more italics) the internal organs of the speaker (end italics). Under this theory, there could be the equi- valent of human facial expressions and/or hand motions performed by voluntary muscle control by the speaker. Now isn't THAT an interesting idea? If true, maybe that's why we can't understand what's going on; we could be only getting one part of the communication process... Ken ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1980 2006-EDT From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: moving belts Dolata's mention of metal plates overlapping occurs at the LA airport. A flat version occurs in Pittsburgh. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1980 1225-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: Maglev transport (in reply to KLH) The train needn't have any great amount of equipment for getting under way again should it stop between stations. All it needs is some sort of transmitting equipment (it could even use telegraph through the rails) so it can report the problem, and a special self-powered engine could be dispatched to get it going again. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1980 1215-PDT From: Zellich at OFFICE-3 Subject: Re: MagLev Transport I didn't keep a copy, so can't redistribute it to SFL, but a message to the RAILROAD list yesterday (or Thursday?) dealt extensively with the current Japanese efforts with MagLev trains. They are talking about a 240 mph MagLev train using today's technology (if they can get the "track" land away from the loudly-protesting farmers). Roger, maybe you can find a copy of yesterday's message sent via RAILROAD at MIT-MC? I don't know if anyone maintains an archive of RR or not. [ The article follows below. -- RDD ] --Rich ---------------------------------------- Noiseless 240 MPH Magnetic Train Possible by 1990 in Japan By BRYAN BRUMLEY Associated Press Writer TOKYO (AP) - The Japanese, who have been riding the 125-mile-an- hour "Bullet Train" since 1964, can look forward to riding one in the next decade that goes almost twice as fast - virtually without a sound or vibration. It will float on a magnetic cushion. Japanese engineers began designing the magnetic train two years before the Bullet Train was inaugurated and a prototype designed by the Japan National Railways (JNR) is to undergo a new phase of tests in December. The prototype of a slower model, designed for urban transit, is being tested by Japan Air Lines, at Higashi Ogijima, a man-made island on Tokyo Bay. The sleek eight-passenger high speed surface transport (HSST), called a "wingless airplane" by its creators, makes a sound not unlike "hsst" as it travels at speeds up to 186 mph. "The most important factor is the ability of the (JNR) train to carry large numbers of people quickly, with very little noise," says Yoshiro Kyotani, director of technical development for the National Railways. Kyotani predicts that magnetic levitation vehicles (Maglevs) could be shuttling passengers at 240 mph between major Japanese cities by the early 1990s to supplement the Shinkansen (Bullet Train), which has carried more than 1.5 billion passengers in 16 years. Last December, a Maglev set a new speed record for trains, 320 mph. The new prototype is designed to carry passengers and move along a more efficient track. Further development of either the National Railways or the Japan Air Lines systems will require government money. The railway, con- trolled by the Transport Ministry, is virtually assured funding, but the airline must compete with another design developed five years ago by the Japan Locomotive Association. "The JNR system is already established," says Jiro Hanyu of the ministry's urban division. "The most important thing now is to reduce the cost," he said, estimating that it would take more than $1 billion to build a line between Tokyo and Osaka, Japan's second largest city 180 miles to the west. "If it is developed, it will be used for long distance transport. The other two are designed for urban transit, especially between the city and the airport," Hanyu said. Japan, 75 percent dependent on imported oil for its energy supply and consisting of a series of narrow mountainous islands in which only 20 percent of the land can be farmed or inhabited, already relies heavily on rail transport. Proponents of the magnetic train argue that it is more land and fuel efficient than other means of transportation. "It would take less land, for example, than a highway or airport," says Kyotani. Airline officials say construction of a Maglev line between Tokyo and Narita International Airport 40 miles away could cut transportation time from the current 90 minutes to 15 minutes. They say the main problem is neither the money nor technology, but land. "The main obstacle in building the system is securing the right of way," says Akira Hayashi, general manager of the airline project. Construction of the airport and related facilities has been plagued for years by opposition, some of it violent, from farmers and anti-government militant groups protesting the taking of land. Irate citizen groups also threaten to sidetrack a prposed expansion of the Bullet Train, on grounds that existing lines exceed lawful limits on noise. Other nations are moving ahead with high-speed trains. France plans to open its very-high-speed, 260-mile Paris-Lyon route next October. The French claim it will be the world's fastest train, with a top speed of 156 mph, but it will ride conventional rails rather than a magnetic cushion. To achieve high speeds, the JNR design employs a linear synchronous motor in which a superconductor aboard the train is cooled to 269 degrees below zero centigrade using liquid helium. The train is lifted by repulsing forces between the magnets on the train and others in a slot-shaped track. Forward motion is achieved by passing electricity through coils in the track ahead of the train, creating an attractive force for a second bank of magnets on the vehicle. Kyotani claims the super-conductivity and the electrification of the magnets in the track make his system faster and more efficient than other designs developed in Japan or elsewhere. The airline's HSST system employs a simpler linear induction motor, in which current passes only through magnets on the train, inducing an attractive and propulsive magnetic force on a reactive rail on the track. The HSST is lifted by attractive forces between magnets on arms which extend from the train and tuck under magnets on the underside of the monorail-type track. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 1980 1121-PDT From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: biological transportation techniques I was thinking about ZEMON@MIT-MC's concept for genetically engineered transportation critters such as the runner-beast- built-for-50. It was mentioned that with such a system there would be no need for "big, smelly factories in order to make more". Instead, I presume, we would have big, smelly runner-beasts to make more ("whats the matter, you never saw a runner-bus in love?"). Q: Where does a 50 seat runner-bus nest? A: Anywhere it wants! ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 21 OCT 1980 0313-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #111 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 21 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 111 Today's Topics: SF Music - Lunar Pops, SF Books - Darkover & Military Sexuality, What is SF? - Budrys View, Alien Intelligence - Sport, Future - Transportation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 October 1980 13:13-EDT (Monday) From: Andrew G. Malis Subject: New John Williams & Boston Pops album John Williams and the Boston Pops have a new album out, "Pops in Space" (Phillips 9500 921). The album is the Pops' first with Williams as conductor and is Phillips' first digital recording. The album contains selections from "Star Wars" (the title music and "Leia's Theme"), "The Empire Strikes Back" ("The Asteroid Field", "Yoda's Theme", and the "Imperial March"), the March and Love Theme from "Superman", and a suite from "Close Encounters", which includes new music for the re-edited version of the film. The Boston Globe gives the album an excellent review. Andy ------------------------------ Date: 20 OCT 1980 1349-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Darkover Boy, are you going to get answers to \this/ query! (Darkover tends to arouse very strong opinions). The Darkover stories comprise about a dozen novels and a few shorts by Marion Zimmer Bradley, plus a lot of (fortunately) mostly unobtainable fan fiction. Darkover is a harsh world with a few cities and a basically feudal/manorial social structure complicated by the presence of psionic faculties ("laran") in most of the aristocracy and many of the commoners. (Bastardy is common not much thought of, especially since there are two Saturnalia-like festivals, at midsummer and midwinter, so the abilities get well spread but are frequently unrecognized or untrained.) Much of the tension of the stories comes from the fact that laran and sexual energy derive their power from the same inner resources; this means that use of laran is bound up with a variety of social codes and patterns of behavior --- Darkovans are a long way from Campbell's wise psionic supermen. The driving force in most of the plots is the conflict between Darkovans (who, Bradley has decided, were shipwrecked from a Terran colonial vessel some 2000 years before most of the stories and crossbred intermittently with the elusive natives) and the Terrans who have established a foothold on Darkover; frequently a Terran is called upon to bridge the gap of bilateral ignorance and misunder- standing. There are also tensions within Darkovan society, which is visibly evolving; the mysticism and strict codes surrounding laran are gradually disintegrating and the bloodlines of several of the aristocratic families are thinning. There is also a wild card: the comii'letziya ("Free Companions" (feminine form), vulgarly called Amazons), who are self-sustaining feminists. A large number of readers of uncertain stability find this world attractive (especially for this last feature) and do their best to live in it. Bradley puts a great deal of herself into all of the books, and her improvement over the 20+ years she's been writing them is visible. Several of the later ones (HERITAGE OF HASTUR, THE FORBIDDEN TOWER, THE SHATTERED CHAIN, TWO TO CONQUER) are well worth reading. ------------------------------ Date: 20 OCT 1980 1306-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: women in STARSHIP TROOPERS The navy in ST was a \long/ way from being all female! (evidence: Sky Marshals must have risen through both the army and the navy; the MI sergeant, instead of reaming out his men, tells them that in the navy they'd look good ("...it being an article of faith that navy men never washed below the neck...."); etc.) ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1980 0653-PDT From: Don Woods Subject: "What is SF?" Probably little remains to be said on this topic, but since it came up recently with regard to Willie Wonka, and since I just recently read Varley's collection "The Persistence of Vision", I figure I'll mention that I think the opening two paragraphs of Budrys's introduction to that book summarize the matter pretty well. Among other things, he distinguishes between "SF" and "science fiction". -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1980 0418-PDT From: Admin.Kanef at SU-SCORE (Bob Kanefsky) Subject: Homosexual laboratory rats Why assume that homosexuality is an abnormal reaction to overcrowding, Mike? It makes more sense to think of it as a normal response to over- crowding, just as heterosexuality is a normal response to having room to expand the population. About those desert lizards -- they wouldn't be of the species commonly known as "horny toads", would they? I used to play with the little buggers when I was growing up in Arizona. You don't suppose.... ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 10/20/80 17:15:12 Re: MagLev trains $1 billion just for 180 miles? I know this includes R&D and the trains themselves, but really... Maglev trains can certainly be made to operate more efficiently than conventional iron horses, but I doubt you're going to get a cheaper roadbed. You still need right-of-way (harder to get nowadays), suitable drainage, sufficient support, etc; a monorail is a lot better than a ditch from the viewpoint of reliability and safety. (I assume you don't want a canal network after each rain). Can the same principles be applied to current roads? For example, suppose the next time your local street was re-paved, they included a buried layer of aluminum foil. Would that allow car-sized maglev vehicles? What about maglev "bikes" such that the two/three wheels (for "off-road" pedalling) fold flat, like pancakes skimming over the road? Can a microcomputer hold the vehicle on a steady course over a flat metal bed (compensating for wind, etc)? I assume that if acceleration/deceleration is possible in any direction, that provides a sufficient "grip"... one of the long-standing problems of hovercraft. But then, what do I know about magic? --Ken ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 0601-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: Future transportation Bicycles aren't the transportation of the future because two classes of people, who collectively probably constitute the majority of the population, won't use bicycles. Most people won't use them because they're too much work. If there are no alternatives, obviously, they might be used, but most people would pay much more than they are now paying to keep their covered boxes. The other group is the people who don't want to be bothered with the process of transportation, and would rather read or sleep during commuting trips. I'm in both categories. Rolling roads aren't the transportation of the future because the current transportation infrastructure would have to be scrapped, and that just won't happen. It will simply be too expensive, no matter how cheap the operating costs are likely to be, and there are no groups in sight that would have an interest in pushing for it. Assume that petroleum-based energy will level off at about $2.50/gallon (1980 $s) as a result of the heavy government-based investment in fuel sources. Also assume that electricity for running private vehicles will be substantially cheaper than this on a per-mile basis. What will the private cars of the next 25 years look like? Lighter? Probably. More electric? I don't know -- how's new battery technology progressing? What else? Lower speed limits are likely also, since the lighter boxes will lead to an increase in serious injury rates at current speeds. Urban rush hours are likely to get worse, even with increased mass transportation, so we will be spending more time on the road. As a result, more creature comforts are likely in the small light cars (see the revolution in "auto sound".) How else can luxury be improved? Does anyone really think that something other than automobiles will be an important mode of transportation before then end of the century? If so, I would love to know how we are going to get there from here. If there are any surprises in store for us, I would bet that they result from new uses of micros. How come nobody has suggested any? (I can't think of any either, but certainly there are some hardware types who can work through present applications to future ones. Aren't there??) Bicycles and rolling roads are fun to speculate on, but the transition to the point where they are serious possibilities eludes me. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1980 1056-PDT From: Amy Newell (through Will Martin at ROUNDS at Office-3) Subject: Bicycles I like bicycles as much as the next person, but despite the fact that they are good transport for persons and objects in certain situations, there are problems none of you have mentioned. 1. Most buildings, at least here in St.Louis, have no provision for storage - they do not allow bikes in the lobby of our office, let alone on the elevators or in the offices themselves. The parking garages won't take them either, as they are too hard to watch. I don't know about any other cities, but downtown SL is not a good place to leave your ten-speed chained to a parking meter. 2. Now you guys may not perspire, but I find that riding a bike at any speed for any distance leads to a severe case of BO, not to put too fine a point on things. Here again, most offices have no provisions for showers and such, and if you've ever tried to get GSA to replace a light bulb, you know the chances of getting them. 3. If you have any distance to cover (work to home for me is app. 15 miles) the time factor also gains importance. For two-wheeled transport to be effective, almost all American cities would need drastic redesign. While bikes were fine in my home town of about 1,000, and my college town of about 16,000, in St.Louis, it's just not workable. 4. While we did grocery shop and take things to the laundromat on bikes, it wasn't what you would call a pleasant experience. Now, part of that was because we procrastinated heavily and ended up taking 30 to 40 pounds of stuff to wash at once - not an easy thing to balance, but such loads do have to be handled and I don't know an effective way to do it. 5. Most of us would retain cars for distance journeys anyway. It takes me at least twice as long to get to my mothers in Iowa on the bus as driving. To get there on a train , you go to Chicago, then to Ottumwa, where you still have to be picked up and driven 30 miles to hit goal. Air transport would involve 20 miles to the airport for me and about 120 miles round trip for someone to pick me up and the same distances in reverse. These are just the few things I came up with in about a 10 minute span, and I'm sure there are many more and also solutions that are so obvious I'm overlooking them, but they are enough to make me feel that a bicycle is just not practical for most of us. --Amy Newell ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 10/16/80 02:40:38 Re: Pions vs. Peons / Bicycles - are they safe? Yes, I was aware that pions were pi-mesons. I was just making a subtle comment on Laura's (I think that was her name) misspelling of peon (I'll never try subtlety again). Yes, biking can be dangerous. Drivers of automobiles have been known to inflict extreme bodily damage upon bicycle riders. I, however, have discovered several things to extend a bicycle rider's life-expectency; 1) Wear a helmet. It not only protects your grey matter, but it seems to have a positive effect on drivers' responses. 2) If the road is narrow and there is insufficient room for an auto to pass, ride in the MIDDLE of the road. Even stupid drivers realize that they can't safely pass. 3) Use hand signals (My wife ties a red scarf to her wrist to make her hand signals more visable). 4) establish eye contact with idiot drivers before you execute any maneuvers. 5) Become paranoid when you ride (yes they are out to get you). As for theft prevention, I have two methods. My nice, expensive bike NEVER is out of reach. I have had some problems with this technique (it seems that some building security people have very narrow minds). The other is the anti-theft paint job. My commuting bike (not-so- expensive) was attacked with a chain and three different cans of paint before it left the bikeshop. We even bent up the rods holding the fenders on. The bike now appears to be 50 years old. I am sure that this isn't the proper forum for Bicycle discussions, but it just sorta happened. Brian lloyd ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 10/13/80 21:40:03 Re: Bicycle built for N. In the town where I used to live (Marblehead), there was held each year a race between bicycles and canoes. All finishers were disqualifed as they crossed the finish line, which entiled them to the consolation prize provided by a local beer distributor. As a publicity hack our local bike shop a bicycle buit for 8. It was constructed out of motorcycle components. We figured it had the drag of twice the fattest/tallest person but the power of 8. It was fitted with a fairing of sorts, and was capable of speeds in the 50 mph range. Its maneuverability left much to be desired however, so we were unable to enter. (strange bikes are a tradi- tion in this race, a double deck, quad beer cooler VW chassis with pedals and fringed top enters every year.) enjoy, jeff. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 22 OCT 1980 0355-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #112 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 22 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 112 Today's Topics: SF Books - Troika Incident & Darkover & TNotB Trivia, Future - Transportation, SF TV - Prisoner ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 October 1980 0706-EDT From: William Sholar at CMU-10A Subject: The Troika Incident . . . Does anyone know where I can lay my hands on a copy of James Brown's The Troika Incident, a SF/Utopian novel published (and apparently remaindered) by Doubleday in 1967 or 68? Pointers appreciated . . . Bill Sholar ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1980 0057-EDT From: HEDRICK at RUTGERS Subject: Darkover, etc. You got a fairly good answer on the SF lovers list, so I will just add three things that may not be clear from it: - Darkover isn't really a series. No book depends upon your knowing the others, and characters and/or features of Darkover change between books. - It is harder than it sounds to tell what books are part of Darkover and what aren't. Pieces of her SF that have no apparent connection with Darkover still use Darkovan mythology as the basis for their idioms (most commonly Zandru's nine hells). And one novel ("Door Through Space" ?) took place on a planet that was essentially Darkover (complete with the "dry-towns" and their characteristic attitude towards women), but the planet was called something else (Wolf, I think). - Bradley has a preoccupation with sex (most of it unconventional, e.g. explicit sex scenes between human and alien, group sex, and homosexuality). I find it all tasteful, and I am a Puritan (in the technical sense - Calvinist theology and traditional Christian ethics). But if you are very sensitive about these issues you may consider some of it pornographic. (But if you are looking for traditional Christian views in science fiction you unfortunately will have a very short reading list - about the only thing recently is the very fine portrait of the Friends in "Still Forms on Foxfield".) If you like her writing (as opposed to liking it because of its science fiction aspects), you might also want to look for "The Catch Trap" which is a long novel about two male homosexual trapeze artists during the 1940's and 1950's. Presumably it will not be filed in the science fiction section of your friendly bookstore. (Indeed my usual local bookstore didn't have it at all.) ------------------------------ Date: 20 OCT 1980 1322-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Heinlein esoterica 2. Marilyn "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty Niven (the nickname comes from her undergraduate years at MIT; she's also sent an occasional msg to SFL). As ERIC noted, Ginnie is Heinlein's wife; I'm told she had bright red hair when younger and appears as heroine in a number of his books (spec. THE PUPPET MASTERS). Poul Anderson's OPERATION CHAOS (q.v.) stars a werewolf (Steven Matuchek) and a redheaded witch (Virginia xxxxx Matuchek), and is dedicated "to Robert Heinlein, who has his own redheaded Virginia". 3. There is a J. F. Bone who wrote some Laser Books; this \might/ be him. 6. Bishop Berkeley is publicly credited with the philosophical proposition that things don't exist and events don't happen without witnesses ("If a tree fell in the forest when there was no one around to hear it, would it make a noise?"); I don't \think/ he was the one who calculated (from biblical evidence) that the world was created in 4004 BC (on an afternoon in late October). 7. Were John and Penelope the first King and Queen of Narnia? 8. The Wogglebug is a character in several of the Oz books. ------------------------------ Date: 21 October 1980 1512-EDT From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: cost of roadbeds A billion for 180 miles of track plus R and D doesn't sound too bad. Plain old freeways (the LA kind) certainly cost more than $5 million a mile (they were a million a mile when I was a kid). If you account for the R and D, freeways probably cost more. The subway that's going to be built in the Wilshure corridor will cost hundreds of millions for only a few miles, so its WAY more expensive. Nothing's cheap nowadays. People complaining about 15 mile trips to work or whatever should consider another means of transportation that we'll probably see a lot more of in the future. It's called moving closer to where you work. It's going on right now. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1980 0014-EDT From: WARREN.WAKE at CMU-10D Subject: Survival on a Bike Re: Brian Lloyd's comments- Personally, I've found helmets to Identify one as a particularly tempting target to a certain malicious class of motorist. I've been assaulted by the same on several occasions... I admit it may not be too wise to ride on a Saturday night... the only effective way for a cyclist to deal with this class of motorist is with Hand Grenades. In terms of riding strictly defensively, though, I find riding on the left side to be the safest. While riding on the right, on one occasion a motorist deliberately pulled over in front of me, and jammed on his brakes, on another occasion I was (accidentally?) sideswiped, and on yet a third occasion, I was hit from behind by a waving fist. If you're riding on the left, a motorist only has a fraction of the time he'd otherwise have to plan a malicious attack, and obviously you can watch for him coming. Clearly, an ounce of paranoia is worth a pound of cure... Is it really sane to trust ANYONE with a car to drive up BEHIND you and safely pass? Hmmmm. -Warren Wake- ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 (Friday) 1131-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Humour for the day From the Fall '80 issue of "Family Safety": Georgia police think their state has the most creative motorists. In a recent issue of the Georgia State Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, officers swapped stories about the best excuses they've gotten from errant drivers. One officer told of pulling over a speeding motorist and, "As I approached the driver's window, he flipped open his wallet and spoke to it, saying, 'Kirk to Enterprise, Kirk to Enterprise, beam me out of here fast'." ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1980 (Monday) 1955-EDT From: PLATTS at WHARTON (Steve Platt) Subject: The Prisoner Concerning "The Prisoner" - last episode... After considerable thought about the entire series and the last episode, running through more and more general theories as to exactly *what* was happening, the only conclusion I was capable of coming to was that nothing was certain, nothing was concludable. There was no solution to this puzzle, unlike most of TV, this show is not shallow - it is bottomless. The last episode confirmed this, in fact in a limited extent, it conclusively demonstrated that any ideas you may have about *anything* were total folly, without support. In fact, most of the presuppositions you may have are probably invalid... ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/22/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It includes comments on the final episode of the Prisoner series. In doing so it describes the events of the resolution to the series. People who are not familiar with this series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1980 1838-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Prisoner last episode The Ontario Educational Communications Agency prepared a fairly extensive guide and commentary to the Prisoner series a few years ago. Its comments on the final episode are reproduced here: "In my end is my beginning." And both, as in T.S. Eliot's poem, are in a wasteland. Is the Prisoner on his way to resign his stressful, top-secret job, as he was when the series started? Was his whole Village experience a prolonged nightmare, a nervous breakdown that preceded, or accompanied, his resolve to quit? "I know too much. I know too much." "Fall Out" is like the last chapter of ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, which ends with Alice crowned, applauded, cheered, and resorting to violence to get herself out of that world. The eerie trial, with its judges and prisoners and shifting identities, also has masterly echoes of Kafka, of Pirandello, of Orwell, of Beckett. But Carroll said it all first. It's a shrewd Establishment ploy, when faced with a maverick, to give that maverick a position of power. "We need you. We are all yours." It's hard to resist that plea, and the sellout is often accomplished. But what is it after all, to be a king or queen, if you are only a king or queen of chessmen? The king is a pawn as well, only a less active one. No. 6 sees this final temptation for what it is, and fights it out with his various personified identities, and wins clear. It is not worth anything to be No. 2 in this world; it is not even worth it to be No. 1. Can These Bones Live? Why does the Kid revolutionary keep singing "Dry Bones" and why do the others take it up? It is practically the theme song of this last installment. Read Ezekiel, chapter 37; verses 1 to 14. In fact, read all of Ezekiel up to that point. It expresses Patrick McGoohan in this series. The world he sees is a valley of dry bones. Son of man, can these bones live? He sees himself as a watchman over a new Israel, a prophet giving warning. An end is come. The end is come. "Oh hear the word of the Lord." ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 23 OCT 1980 0544-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #113 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 23 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 113 Today's Topics: SF Books - Glass Tower & TNotB Trivia & RAH's Juvenile/Adult Fiction, Alien Intelligence - Stress, SF Movies - CHARLY II, SF TV - Prisoner ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FAUST@MIT-ML 10/22/80 11:08:19 Re: Silverberg books Some of you may recall that about 6 months ago I made a title/author request for which the winning answer was "The Man in the Maze" by Robert Silverberg. Recently, I reread the book for the first time since I was 10. The book was still excellent. Good plot, execution, even good sociological commentary. However, to appese my curiosity about the general quality of Silverberg books, I then read "The Glass Tower" which happened to be the only other book by him that I happened to have on hand. I was severely disappointed. He raised several conflicts early in the book (the messages from space; his own ensuing mental break- down; the building of the tower; his differences with his son; and the android equality issue) that led me to a point of eager anticipation. However, he then spent the next 100 pages continuing with characterizations that were not getting any deeper as well as several (read "too many") somewhat boring sexual encounters. And then as the topper, he finishes up with an ending that only resolves one and possibly two of the conflicts. The others are simply sidestepped as if to say, "they really weren't important ones anyway". I am not the type that objects to sex in SF. I am even willing to have a lot of sex in the book and enjoy having it there. (for example, Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love"). However, I am not willing to have another boring sexual encounter on every other page. I began to feel as if I was reading a gothic romance! The sexual encounters should ADD something to the characterizations, or should be an integral part of the plot, in order to justify their existence. I realize that this is not a new book by Silverberg, but I felt so strongly about this one that I just had to comment. I will not take this as a final comment on Silverberg, either; I intend to read more in the hopes that other of his works will be better. Greg P.S. As a bottom line on "The Glass Tower", if you must read it at all, stick to the first 20 pages and then to the last 5. Everything in between is better utilized as toilet paper! (I'll no doubt hear some flaming for that comment) ------------------------------ SHL@MIT-MC 10/22/80 22:06:06 Re: Creation of Earth It was Archbishop James Ussher in 1658 who calculated from the bible that the earth was created at 8 P.M. October 22, 4004 B.C. Stephen Landrum ------------------------------ Date: 22 October 1980 12:47-EDT From: Dennis L. Doughty I find it easy to believe that RAH's 'juvenile fiction' is just de-sex-ified adult fiction, as I have found several of his juvenile works shelved in the 'adult' section of my local library (and found them entertaining, too). ------------------------------ RUSSEL@MIT-AI 10/23/80 01:20:32 Re: Lizards of the Southwest I seem to recall reading an article on a peculiar species of Arizonan lizard not too long ago in Nature (the UK's version of Science). The article related that all members of this species discovered to date had been female, and in fact - when kept in captivity, they reproduced by aspermatogenesis (aka Virgin Birth) to a woman. Could this be the homosexual lizards we've been looking for of late? Apparently, during times of environmental stress, selected members of the population will change sex to mix the genes up a little. Naturally, this assumes that there is more than one genotype floating in the gene pool. Anybody else read the article and can give a pointer? -- Dan Russell @ Rochester ------------------------------ CSH@MIT-AI 10/23/80 00:13:47 If anyone is interested in Charly II, the sequel to Charly, a handout was passed out today (10/22) at Draper Laboratory. It seems that they have decided to film some footage of the lab and use it to represent their medical research and treatment facility. Anyone feeling curious might like to know that the filming takes place starting tomorrow morning. Since film crews are notorious for disliking having people underfoot, anyone who wants to watch should probably keep some reasonable distance away. ---csh ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1980 16:43:23-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: The Prisoner Steve Platt has voiced one of the more common conclusions about The Prisoner series, but one I cannot subscribe to, since I have heard Patrick McGoohan speak on the subject, and he says (and he should know) that the answer is given in the last episode. Since I don't want to get delegated to the spoiler warning section of the bulletin, I will leave his explaination out, but people should know that such an interview exists, which is often played after the last episode when our local PBS station (KQED) runs the series. Ken ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/23/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some of the ambiguities in the Prisoner series. People who are not familiar with this series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1980 1133-EDT From: JHENDLER at BBNA Subject: prisoner (spoiler warning) Some thoughts on the prisoner volunteered by my prisoner fan friends: 1) We are all familiar with the following piece of dialog: #6: Who is number 1. #2: You are number 6. My friends ask "what if the correct punctuation is actually 'You are, number 6.'" 2) In the episode where he escapes back to London and gets to his own house, we can see very clearly the address on the door. It is "1." If all this has been discussed before, then I'm sorry to bring it up, if not, well food for thought? -Jim ------------------------------ Date: 22 October 1980 1206-EDT (Wednesday) From: Dave Ackley Subject: Prisoner conlusion question I haven't seen the final episode in many years (since the original run, I think), and there is a question that I've always hoped to resolve about it: perhaps others have noted it or know that it is a bogus memory: As I recall the (very) end, MacGoohan walks back into his flat in London. My memory tells me that the door to his flat CLOSED BY ITSELF. If it did occur, it was a throwaway, in the background of a shot from in the flat with MacGoohan approaching the camera. Can anybody (dis)confirm this? -Dave ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1980 1425-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: in reply to David.Ackley at CMU-10A What happens is that McGoohan and the dwarf butler arrive at his London apt. and see the car out in front. McGoohan climbs in and zooms off. The butler turns around, and the camera watches as he steps up to the door which automatically opens. He walks inside and it then automatically closes. Then we cut to McGoohan zooming around, and finally the barren road scene which is in the opening credits of most of the episodes, and finally the end. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 24 OCT 1980 0432-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #114 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 24 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 114 Today's Topics: SF Books - TNotB Trivia & Engine Summer & Silverberg, Causes of Bugs - Daemons, SF TV - Prisoner ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Oct 1980 08:51 PDT From: Monahan.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Heinlein esoterica 7. The first King and Queen of Narnia were named Frank and Helen. There are no characters in the Narnia books named John or Penelope (as far as I recall). John ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1980 0848-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "Engine Summer" Has anybody else out there read "Engine Summer" by John Crowley? Of the class of books that use a post-collapse setting to get a perspective on our times, it is by far the most interesting. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1980 1019-PDT From: Yeager@SUMEX-AIM Subject: "Glass Tower" Well, "The Tower of Glass" is not one of Bob Silverberg's better novels, but I found pages 21 to end-5 a bit more entertaining than Faust did. In fact, It is rather amusing that he thinks those (end - 25) pages of "boring sexual encounters" are appropriate for TP! Gee, I don't even remember them as being boring...but I am from the SF Bay Area. I have read nearly all of his post 1965 stories, and there are a good number of them, and have found that he tends to use sex as padding when there is nothing better to do, or, when he just wants to get a book off to the publisher. Some other authors use meaning- less encounters with random structures (Niven did that frequently in "A World Out of Time," and it was obvious he was padding there...but what the hell, authors have got to eat too!), or endless chase scenes (those bore me), and I guess if one is going to pad a story to make a novel, sex is as good as anything. As an anecdote, I was talking to Bob Silverberg one afternoon at a book store when someone came up to him and said, "would you sign this book for me." Bob didn't recognize the title, read the first few pages, and didn't recognize those either! We all had a good laugh! Bill. PS. Sorry for any bad puns (I don't think they were intended, but then again...) ------------------------------ Date: 16 October 1980 1450-EDT (Thursday) From: Paul.Hilfinger at CMU-10A (C410PH01) Subject: Gremlins (again) In the discussion of gremlins a couple of weeks back, I don't recall any mention of an article by P. Bentoni which appeared in Galaxy some years back. The article concerned Murphy's Law. Not having back copies of Galaxy, I rely on the following review by E. L. Robertson, which appeared in Computing Reviews, Sept. 1977. "Bentoni, P. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Galaxy 37, 6 (Sept. 1976), 119-144. The notion of `software physics' has recently received some attention, but this is the first article, to this reviewer's know- ledge, that concerns itself with software metaphysics. The topic investigated is the well-known empirical law first recognized by Murphy .... Rather than investigate the application of this law in the complicated context of software bugs, it is equated to and investigated with the simpler phenomenon of sticky-side down (SSD, a generalization of the more familiar jelly-side down phenomenon). The author has discovered that Murphy's Law is due to the action of Maxwell's daemons, whose existence had previously been hypothetical. Unfortunately, the author explains in detail the relationship between these daemons and the SSD phenomenon, but does not elaborate on how they induce bugs and generally cause disorder in this world, providing an increase in entropy which is used to decrease entropy elsewhere -- in particular, to feed the fires of Hell. This actually lends credence to programming managers' comments such as: `If you don't get those bugs out, all Hell will break loose.' The article is a welcome investigation of this little-known phenomenon -- so little-known that Satan himself was unaware of these daemons until recently. One hopes that future investigation will yield connections between the chief-daemon team and aspects of software engineering." --Paul Hilfinger ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/24/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses some of the ambiguities in the Prisoner series. People who are not familiar with this series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1980 14:21:15-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: Prisoner (a) Thoughts about who #1 is should be flagged with spoiler warnings. That's the major mystery of the series! (b) The door does indeed close by itself at the end of the last episode. McGoohan says that this is to show that he may have gotten out of the village itself, but he has taken it with him, including the persona of the butler. Ken ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 25 OCT 1980 0500-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #115 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 25 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 115 Today's Topics: DEC Recipients, New Outer Limits Guide, SF Books - Engine Summer & Silverberg, SF Movies - Flash Gordon, Causes of Bugs - Daemons, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: A Note to SF-LOVERS recipients at DEC For the last few months SFL has been redistributed to people at DEC by Paul Young. Paul has asked me to remind you, that anyone at DEC who wants access to SFL should send mail to ABRAMOWITZ at BABEL, or to YOUNG at KL2137. -- RDD ------------------------------ Date: 25 October 1980 0220 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: Outer Limits Episode Guide ( new version ) Due to numerous recent requests for his Outer Limits Episode Guide, Lauren has taken the time to re-edit the Guide. For the many people who joined the list after the Guide was distributed in January, and anyone who wants the revised version, copies have been established at the sites listed below. Everyone should obtain the file from the site which is most convenient for them. If you are unable to do so, please send mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI and I will be happy to make sure that you get a copy. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, and to Lauren for his work in preparing the Guide. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS OLEG CMUA TEMP:OLEG.SFL[A210DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLOVERS-OLEG.TXT Rutgers PS:New-Outer-Limits.Episode-Guide SU-AI OUTER.LIM[T,DON] MIT-Multics >udd>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>outer-limits-episode-guide [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 10/24/80 14:36:13 Re: Engine Summer I found the book to be very good. It has a floating type of a fantasy feeling where you (the reader) are never exactly sure about what is going on. I think the reason is that the culture and the vocabulary of the characters is never explained to the reader; it is like you are listening in on a story being told by one character to her contemporaries. (This makes it a little hard to read at first.) In the end, I really enjoyed Crowley's writing style, and by the time I finished the book I felt at least one or two heartstrings get twinged. The book is well worthwhile. ------------------------------ Date: 23 October 1980 14:33-EDT From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: FAUST@MIT-ML's message about Silverberg books You are right about Silverberg. I was about ready to give up on him when a friend recommended "Man in the Maze" and "Dying Inside", both of which I liked. So you might want to try "Dying Inside". But a lot of the rest of the Silverberg has been disappointing for the reasons you mention. His sexual encounters are SO boring and SO devoid of any semblance of warmth or caring that I find them not just a waste of time but positively disturbing. "The Stochastic Man" and "Up The Line" and the one about the "urban monads" whose name I can't remember are particularly bad this way. ------------------------------ Date: 10/25/80 02:06:13 From: Jim Cox In reply to FAUST's message about Robert Silverberg, I too have found that the quality of his work varies considerably. For example, I thought that "The World Inside" and "Shadrach in the Furnace" were exceptional. However, I also read a book of his which, I believe, was called "Recalled to Life." This book was abysmally bad, ranking with some of the worst fiction (SF or otherwise) that I've ever read. About the first two books, though, it is clear in these that Silverberg knows how to craft serious SF when he wants to. The characters are well-rounded, the action is well-plotted, and both stories have interesting things to say about a future society which could arise from today's. "The World Inside" is about a future Earth that is so overcrowded that everybody lives in gigantic hi-rise buildings: a not uncommon SF theme, but Silverberg really takes these well-worn ideas down imaginative paths. "Shadrach in the Furnace" is about the black doctor who takes care of the aged world dictator, who thinks himself descended from both Ghengis Khan and Mao Tse-tung. This last book is one of the best SF books I have ever read. Both books are written, curiously enough, in the present tense. Both, too, are well worth reading. But if you ever buy an unfamiliar Silverberg book, you are really taking a chance! ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 10/24/80 11:34:24 Re: Silverberg and TP as padding I object to the use of padding in novels, be it sex, chase scenes or whatever. If the author has only a small contribution to make with a small idea, there is a form of fiction called short story that should be used. Contrary to Yeager's belief, I do not find sex boring, but only the use of sex as padding boring. Should I wish to read of sexual encounters, boring or otherwise, there are several other popular sources for such literature that at least are more direct in their announcement of their intended subject matter. I need not spend time reading random SF novels for it. Related to the fact that authors need eat too; not at our expense! Payment should be received for value provided. Luckily in the case of "The Glass Tower", I bought the book with the front cover removed for 30 cents; barely the price of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich these days. I'd say that that was a fair trade. Presumably, had the book sold well, I would not have been able to make such a purchase. Note that a roll of TP goes for about the same price. I will make no comment as to what constitutes an exciting sexual encounter in the SF Bay area. Greg Faust ------------------------------ Date: 24 Oct 1980 2320-PDT (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Flash Gordon Well gang, I just saw preliminary footage from the upcoming remake of "Flash Gordon", to be released around Xmas time, supposedly. Frankly, it looks awful. The whole thing appears to have been done as a joke. Disco music seems to abound. The best comparison I can give would seem to be with the worst of Battlestar Dyslexia and Buck Rogers (TV version). Sorry about that, folks. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 10/24/80 14:48:28 Re: Maxwell's Gremlins Excuse me, but how does one contact these little critters? Just the other day, I got approached by this somewhat unsavory looking, glassy-eyed physicist who wanted to ask a gremlin about a theore- tical relationship between the Judeo-Christian concept of the soul and the thermodynamics of entropy. For some reason he thought that I (or sf-lovers) would be able to contact these daemons. Do you suppose there is some odd kind of a business proposition going on here that I ought to avoid? ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/25/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They suggest yet another solution to a puzzle posed by TESB. People who have not seen TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1980 23:11:45-PDT From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: TESB and the Last Hope An interesting speculation based upon a revelation in sf-lovers that the lead role for Star Wars was supposed to be a female who was trying to rescue her brother, to whit: maybe Lucas will get his wish with the last hope being an unknown sister of Luke. Remember, kiddies, you heard it here first. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1980 0853-PDT From: Geoffrey C Mulligan (at The Pentagon) Subject: TESB... the OTHER... Perhaps the "OTHER" could be Luke's sister? Maybe Luke and his sister were separated at a very very young age, when Luke's father was killed. Lucas could very well get his female lead. geoff ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 26 OCT 1980 0324-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #116 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 26 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 116 Today's Topics: SF Books - Landmark Poll Results & Landmark Poll Commentary ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 October 1980 0220-EST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Landmark SF Poll Results The landmark poll is finally finished. Our thanks go to the 40+ people who responded with over 120 messages. The list has been divided into two parts. The first is the actual landmark list, and the second is a larger list consisting of classics and filler for rounding out the field. In no way do we claim this to be final, or even objective, but we do feel it is a reasonable sampling of the better and more interesting works of sf. The landmark and filler lists have been placed in the files listed below. Please obtain your copies in the near future however, since the files will be deleted in one week. A copy of the material will also be added to the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, Jon Solomon, and Don Woods for providing space for the materials on their systems, to Malis at BBNE, Don at SU-AI, OTA at MIT-MC, PKaiser at BBND, and HJJH at UTEXAS, for their special help in sorting the initial nominations, and of course to everyone who responded to the poll. [ And lastly, a reminder: Please do not distribute the Poll outside the SFL community, because it could attract bad publicity to us and more generally to the net itself. -- RDD ] Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS FLNDMK CMUA TEMP:FLNDMK.SFL[A210DP0Z] PARC-MAXC [Maxc]SFLOVERS-FLNDMK.TXT Rutgers PS:Results-of-Landmark.Query SU-AI LNDMRK.FIN[T,DON] MIT-Multics >udd>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>landmark-sf-query [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1980 0900-EDT From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Landmarks Poll - Final Ballot The results already seem to me somewhat skewed by our short memories and limited perspective. How well I recall some years ago when a San Francisco rock radio station took a poll among its listeners to find the 300 best rock numbers of all time; the results reflected heavily that the main listeners to (and buyers of) pop singles are young teenagers, whose memories didn't extend far back -- about 40 weeks, in fact. How could we have "War with the Newts" here, and not "Brave New World"? Makes me feel old. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1980 0220-EST From: The Moderator Subject: Background Discussions to the Landmark Poll Several background discussions took place among the panel members and others during the formulation of the Landmark Poll. A few concerned the nature of SF (some of which have appeared in the digest under the WHAT IS SF? heading) while others focussed on the nature and merit of particular works. Here is the text of the discussion about Zelazny's AMBER series which the Poll stimulated. We hope that you will find this interesting of itself, as well as answering a few of the more common questions about the Landmark Poll. -- RDD ---------- Is Zelazny's Amber Series an SF Landmark? ---------- Date: 6 Oct 1980 2258-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Amber series aside I, for one, am amazed that the experts didn't see fit to demote Zelazny's Amber series from the landmark category. For one, it ain't sf. I just finished reading it and it falls in quality so much after the 3rd book, I had to force myself to finish. So at least \I'll/ cast a vote against it, for whatever it's worth. -------------------- Date: 8 Oct 1980 at 1958-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS ^^^^^^Amber mis-handled? Nowwww WAAAAAIDUH MINNNN-UTTTTT!^^^^^^ Right there in my evaluation it said: \Is/ it SF? Or a landmark? I'm open to conviction. What more did you want? It's not SF by \my/ female-protagonists- collection definition, but y'all never did clarify that fantasy- but-with-"the-nature-and-assumptions-of-SF" double talk. And since I'm not "into" Zelazny, even tho it did not seem like a landmark to ME, I was willing to entertain any arguments put forward by anyone more knowledgeable about Zelazny's work and its impact. DON'T blame "the experts". -------------------- Date: 8 Oct 1980 2152-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) Subject: Amber There may be a point there. Let me give you my argument (which is post hoc, since I merely looked at the entry and sort of said "Of course"). It seems to me that the powers, abilities, milieu, etc. of Amber are basically the same as Zelazny's standard "Lord of Light", "Creatures of Light and Darkness", etc. "men as gods" schtick. I.e., the only difference is that the technical backup is less explicit (mostly references to Dworkin's artifices). It's all very much in the telepathy/powers-of-the-mind genre. In addition, the series is a landmark in that it has been incredibly influential. Farmer's World of Tiers series is one example that comes to mind immediately (and one that is much more explicitly SF). On the other hand, Farmer's series is not the landmark, it was always (at least in my mind) derivative of the Amber series. I vote to leave it in. Cast aside the Fantasy doubts (as it is not explicitly fantasy) and vote for the landmarkness. Which brings up another gripe of mine about the whole process; why votes for series as a whole? No series is of uniform quality... Oh well, probably too late for that quibble to matter. Dave -------------------- Date: 9 OCT 1980 0220-EDT From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: The AMBER Series - An Opinion 1. The Amber series has had a great impact on the field. I have serious doubts about whether that is true. I will leave someone else to develop those arguments. However, in any case Farmer's WORLD OF TIERS series does NOT support this contention. The AMBER series is derived from the WORLD OF TIERS series. (see message by AQE@MC in [SFL V1 #52]) The primary difference is that TIERS uses a technological background for the basic structure of the universe and AMBER uses a magical background. 2. The AMBER series is technology/para-psychic abilities presented as magic. Zelazny's work often includes a technological underpinning for the traditional concepts of magic. Indeed his work raises the throwaway pseudo-science/technical explanation of the 1940's pulps to high art. LORD OF LIGHT with its automated prayer wheels, native aliens as demons, and electronic mental encoding as the essence of a soul is one of the best examples. So is the juxtaposition of magic with technology in JACK OF SHADOWS and the marriage of magic with technology in the recent CHANGELING. However, the technological underpinning for AMBER is not merely less explicit, its non-existent. In AMBER we have the pattern, the Jewel of Judgement, Tir'na Nogth, Rebma, and the cards all without any type of background justification such as we see in his other mixed works. Indeed, it is the WORLD of TIERS series that provides a technological underpinning to the background. In AMBER we have the exact opposite of TIERS and Zelazny's other works. Here technology does not masquerade as magic, but magic masquerades as technology. Neither can I readily accept parapsychic abilities as the non-magical "science" justification. AMBER differs widely from the customary assumptions of this class of works. For example compare AMBER with Bixby's IT'S A GOOD LIFE. Further, even if we accept the parapsychic abilities argument, it only covers the ability to manipulate Shadow. What about Rebma, Tir'na Nogth, and of course the Unicorn? I consider NINE PRINCES IN AMBER (Book 1 of the series) an excellent fantasy. It is an entertaining reworking of the story of "the lost monarch in search of himself and his place" using a modern setting. Unfortunately the rest of the series does not match NPIA. THE GUNS OF AVALON is a simple action/adventure fantasy. SIGN OF THE UNICORN improves over TGOA in that it begins to examine events more closely. However, it never comes close to equalling NPIA. THE HAND OF OBERON and THE COURTS OF CHAOS simply elaborate a more complex background of motivations and abilities which are never fully developed. Instead they are brusquely tied up and chopped off in TCOC. Too long in length and the time taken to write it, Zelazny would probably have done better if he had started with FOUR PRINCES IN AMBER. In summary, the AMBER series is neither science fiction nor a landmark and I vote against it with Stuart. Enjoy, Roger PS Regarding series versus single work - In the call for nominations it was clearly stated that you could nominate a series or individual works from a series at your discretion. Amber was nominated by three people. Each one nominated it as a series. -------------------- Date: 9 Oct 1980 1013-EDT From: PDL at MIT-DMS (P. David Lebling) Subject: [Re: The AMBER Series - An Opinion] Okay, I yield. Amber is not SF. In any case, "Lord of Light" is earlier, explicitly SF, and better written. Actually it was "This Immortal" that was the first of Zelazny's works to explore this territory. You're absolutely right about Farmer's "World of Tiers" series, although I think Farmer has admitted borrowing from Amber once it got started. Of course Farmer's series remains uncompleted in the usual Farmer fashion...The influential concept in both of these (to defend against another comment) is the "pocket world". You see a lot of them around these days; Varley's "Titan" series is the current example. Dave -------------------- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 27 OCT 1980 0542-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #117 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 27 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 117 Today's Topics: JPL Recording on Voyager Encounter with Saturn, SF Books - Landmark Poll Commentary & SF Aliens & COSMOS (the book), SF TV - Prisoner, Future - Transportation, Star Wars - Trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GNU@MIT-MC 10/25/80 20:44:52 Re: 2-minute recording from JPL: 213-354-7237 It's usually updated Tuesday and Friday. Voyager will pass Saturn on November 12. (Found via PCNET BBS.) ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1980 1703-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: landmark poll No Wells and no Verne, not even as fillers. Did no one nominate them or were they scratched by nay votes? ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1980 2039-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: no wells/verne If you will recall, the original specification said 'within the last 50 years'. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Oct 1980 at 1809-CDT From: glenn at UTEXAS LAUREN's recent OUTER LIMITS guide reminded me of an inexpensive book that I have. It's called "Science Fiction Aliens" compiled and written by Ed Naha, a Starlog Photo Guidebook published by Starlog Magazine. It gives brief summaries of movies and TV shows that contain aliens. The coverage appears to be complete - old, new, good, bad, foreign and domestic. Each entry gives a plot summary, date, and information about actors, writers, etc. It avoids commenting on whether something is good or bad, even Japenese monster flicks. At $5.95 (1979 price) it has been an indispensible reference. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1980 2249-PST From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow Subject: Cosmos Book Review COSMOS. By Carl Sagan. Random House. $19.95. By William Hines (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) (William Hines is the Washington-based science specialist for The Chicago Sun-Times.) This handsome book, Carl Sagan's tenth, was intended as a sort of course syllabus for his current Public Broadcasting Service science series of the same name. With the exquisite sense of timing for which the book industry is famous, Random House officially published it Friday (Oct. 24), just in time for the fifth show in the series. Sagan has become justly famous in a very few years as a popularizer of science, one who is dedicated to raising the consciousness, and the enthusiasm, of the public about the scientific method and what it has given us since mankind's earlier intellectual stirrings. As a practicing scientist with a university institute of his own, who needs all the public financial support he can get, Sagan might be accused of conflict of interest, but we can let that pass. What Sagan has done in this book, is to review the history of science from the very earliest times and to engage in speculation about where scientific inquiry may lead us in times to come. No one who has read widely in the literature of science will learn much from this book. Isaac Asimov's "Intelligent Man's Guide to Science" comes to mind as a much more comprehensive treatment of the general theme, and on specialized aspects of science history there have been scores of better books, among them Willy Ley's "Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel" and James R. Newman's four- volume anthology, "The World of Mathematics." The strong point of Sagan's book is precisely the same as the TV version: the graphics. The book is lavishly, one might even say fulsomely, illustrated, largely with frames from the PBS series. But some of the graphics are rather old hat, the artists' conceptions of other worlds being more than vaguely reminiscent of Chesley Bonestell's paintings for Collier's magazine a generation ago that became enshrined in hard covers under the title "Across the Space Frontier." Sagan, a practicing astronomer, has excellent scientific credentials, and his ability as a writer speaks for itself in the cogent prose of both "Cosmos," the book, and "Cosmos," the TV show. But in some ways I found the book a disappointment. To deal with the planet Mars, for instance, without mentioning Asaph Hall as the discoverer of its two moons, Deimos and Phobos, is simply inexcusable. Similarly, he discusses the scientific method from the ancient Greeks to the present with no mention of William of Ockham, who taught in the 13th century that the simplest explanation of any phenomenon is usually the best one. "Ockham's razor" survives to this day as a test of scientific truth, and its omission from this book is puzzling. Also, I fear Sagan is at times too caught up in his own role in science to remember history as it actually happened. In the foreword, for example, he records that "in the summer and fall of 1976, as a member of the Viking Lander Imaging Flight Team, I was engaged, with a hundred of my scientific colleagues, in the exploration of the planet Mars. For the first time in human history we had landed two vehicles on the surface of another world." In a single sentence, Sagan manages to brush off six manned lunar landings in Project Apollo - all before 1976 - to say nothing of five unmanned Surveyors that had reached "another world" (the moon) eight to 10 years before Viking. As Sagan clearly indicated in the first episode of the TV "Cosmos," he has a fascination with antiquity that borders on mania and that most science buffs share. No one can question the seriousness of the loss of the Alexandrian Library. But it seems to me that Sagan minimizes (without actually ignoring) the thickness of superstition that overlays ancient science. I was curious, too, about Sagan's statement, in a discussion of the Pythagorean view of the universe, that "the cube is the simplest example (of the regular solids), having six squares as sides." I am open to correction, but it would seem to me that the tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as sides, is at least 25 percent simpler than the cube. These are perhaps quibbles because, as story-telling, "Cosmos" is well done, as one has come to expect from Carl Sagan. As a topic, it couldn't be bigger; Sagan says at the start of the TV series and in the opening sentence of Chapter 1 of the book, "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be," and this, too, we have come to expect. Sagan by now must be the most famous popularizer of science the world has ever known, and he deserves a good, strong B-plus for effort. But like a brand-new car with a dent in its fender, this book has its shortcomings. And one should recognize that this is largely recycled material: You've seen the movie; now read the book. The $20 price tag seems hardly justifiable, unless you are looking for something new for the coffee table this fall. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1980 1541-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: THE PRISONER I don't know whether this has been mentioned, but there is an interesting Prisoner 'zine entitled "The Prisoner newsletter" (surprise) available from The Prisoner Newsletter, P.O. Box 1327, Midland, MI 48640. Trial issues appear to be free; the complete list of at least 17 issues was available, last time I looked. I'm not enough of a fan to subscribe, myself, but for those interested . . . . Be seeing you, Mike ------------------------------ Date: 25 Oct 1980 20:59:31 EDT From: David Mankins Subject: prisoner I distinctly remember that the number on #6's door at the end of the final episode was "6". ------------------------------ Date: 26 October 1980 1340-EST (Sunday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10D (N680WW60) Subject: supplem. on bike safety Clarifying a couple of points on my last commentary as far as riding on the left hand side of the road - I don't recommend breaking any laws - I'd prefer to change present laws for greatest safety. I personally believe that NOT getting hit head on at 45mph is by far preferable to GETTING hit from behind at 15mph. Personally, I don't think one has much of a chance in either case. Riding in the middle of the lane, though, is exactly what has inspired most vicious attacks by irate motorists that I've encountered. I think that all those concerned should write their state legislatures encouraging bike safety programs - bike lanes, etc. -Warren- ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/25/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Star Wars trivia and in doing so includes a spoiler for TESB. People who have not seen TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Oct 1980 at 1951-CDT From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ STAR WARS: La Triviata ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ According to STARLOG, when Lucas was asked what would have happened if Hamill had been killed in the car accident that occurred between SW-4 and SW-5, he said that, "There'd be a script change that would have found a long-lost brother or sister, something genetic, so that the Force would be with them". Early plot changes: Not only did the prototype (female) "Luke" character evolve into Luke AND Leia, but a prototype middle-aged mentor character developed into a younger Han and an elderly Ben. The Emperor's face was only partly that of an 80-year-old woman -- a monkey's eyes were superimposed. And Hamill, also, feels there must be \something/ to the fact that the Emperor looks and sounds a bit like Obi-Wan. In the radio series (due on FM stations in March), there is a segment where Leia is on Alderaan with her father. Due as a November release from Ballantine, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK NOTEBOOK, containing the full screenplay. $5.95, a welcome decrease from the corresponding book for SW-4. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 28 OCT 1980 0642-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #118 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 28 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 118 Today's Topics: SFL Proposal, SF Books - Silverberg & Coverless PB's, Self-replicating Machines, Future - Transportation, SF TV - Cosmos & Prisoner ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 OCT 1980 1203-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: A proposition Since it is probably rare for anyone in SF-Lovers to know what many other people in SF-Lovers look like, and the necessity for secrecy prevents advertising over the loudspeakers, it must be difficult for anyone at Cons to find out if someone else contributes to our underground newsletter. However, I have just learned that it is possible to obtain color Xerox's on heat-transfer paper, and if anyone is interested, I am a semi-pro cartoonist. I could design a logo of some sort (which would be carefully made so as not to give away the origin -- it may or may not say SF-Lovers on it, depending upon reaction) and have them printed and mail them out. You can iron them on your own tee-shirts or whatever. Thus could you spot another contributer without having to give that silly SF-Lovers Secret Handshake which is effective, but somewhat embarassing, especially in mixed company. If you like this idea, (or really hate it) please send me a message saying so. If enough people are interested, I'll get on it, and we'll discuss designs. RODOF@USC-ECL ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 1980 0953-PST From: Yeager@SUMEX-AIM Subject: Silverberg. Gee, Greg, I don't recall saying you don't enjoy sex, but, "please don't squeeze the Charmin!" More to the point, I found Daniel L. Weinreb both saw and missed the point of the "boring sexual encounters." To Wit: "His sexual encounters are SO boring and SO devoid of any semblance of warmth or caring that I find them not just a waste of time but positively DISTURBING." You see, that is precisely the point! "The Tower of Glass," and "The World Inside," both describe a FUTURE devoid of any really personal caring, and, consequently, sexual encounters are simply for the sake of sexual satisfication - between consenting adults - and given the empty existence of the characters in the environment in which Bob portrays, "boring sex" just might not be so boring for THEM. It goes without saying, that one might find this POSSIBLE future very disturbing, and, if so, the "boring sexual" episodes have indeed succeeded doing exactly what they were intended to do. And, of course, if Greg prefers to use as TP pages covered with detailed descriptions of boring sexual encounters, and apparently, shreded in flaming rage from the innards of a COVERLESS paperback no less, well, who am I to deny him such delights...shred on! Enjoy, Bill ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 1980 1514-EST From: MD at MIT-XX Subject: Stolen Merchandise With regard to the comments made by Gregg Faust in the October 25 SFL: Related to the fact that authors need eat too; not at our expense! Payment should be received for value provided. Luckily in the case of "The Glass Tower", I bought the book with the front cover removed for 30 cents; barely the price of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich these days. I'd say that that was a fair trade. Presumably, had the book sold well, I would not have been able to make such a purchase. Note that a roll of TP goes for about the same price. More likely, you were purchasing stolen merchandise. Certain publishers allow the return of unsold books for credit, and all allow returns of damaged books. To save postage, often the cover is returned and the body of the book is discarded. Many disreputable bookstores sell these coverless books, thus ripping off the publisher and the author and undermining the industry which is their livelihood. Mike Dornbrook ------------------------------ Date: 27 OCT 1980 1212-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Self-Replicating Machines I recently asked some questions about self-replicating machines. 1. What was the NASA conference recently held that looked into the subject of self-replicating machines for use in developing factories on the moon and other planets? Who attended? Is there a report available? 2. Has anyone come even close to a self-replicating system, even given a unique environment (e.g. a hardware store.) So far I have found out: 1. There was a NASA summer conference at Pajoro Dunes that discussed self-replicating systems and telefactor devices (waldos). Some of the attendees: Robert Frosh and David Criswell of NASA, Marvin Minsky and Danny Hillis of AI, Jerry Pournelle, Tom Binford of SAIL, Raj Reddy of CMUA, and others. The conference report is not available yet, but there are discussions of the meeting in MC:POURNE;OPPORT > and AI:MINSKY;SRS >. 2. The only examples of self-replicating machines reported to me are the rocking mechanical models developed by Penrose (the elder) many years ago, and the self-replicating gliders of the computer game LIFE by Gosper, et al. As far as the NASA conference goes, I am willing to wait for the report. However, I would still like to hear of any other examples of self-reproducing systems that have actually been made to operate. Thanks, Bob Forward (FORWARD@USC-ECL, FORWRD@MIT-MC) P.S. My daughter-in-law, Marie Laurin, has a guest spot on the TV show, "Three's Company" Tuesday night on ABC. IF the public reaction is good, they will use her in more shows. So watch the show, and if you like her performance and want to see more, WRITE to "Three's Company", c/o your local ABC station. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 27 October 1980 09:47-EST From: John A. Pershing Jr. Subject: Bike Safety Apologies to all for [apparently] starting this non-SF discussion. I have kept quiet since my original comment (on transportation, I think it was), but I must clear up a bit of misinformation before somebody gets themself hurt. PLEASE, before anyone out there starts cycling on the left or lobbying for new laws, get a copy of John Forrester's book "Effective Cycling", available at your local bike shop. It is well worth the price, and filled with facts and good ol' common sense. Forrester has made a career out of cycling safety -- he knows a lot more about the topic than all of us combined. Now, lets get back to SF... -jp ------------------------------ Date: 27 October 1980 1324-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: cosmos I've finally watched a couple of episodes and it seems okay. It's true that Sagan looks dumb when trying to look awed, but what the hell, he's not an actor. The science may not be 100% correct or detailed enough to suit this crowd, but there are masses of people out there that Cosmos is good for. Remember, the goal is to get lots of people to be pro-science, technology, engineering, etc, not to educate them. I think Connections is a lot better than Cosmos. Burke is more enjoyable to listen to, and it covers lots of little-known facts (at least little known to me). I recommend it to everyone. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 1980 0754-PST (Monday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: The Prisoner Anything can be exploited. Witness a product in the local computer store: The Prisoner microcomputer game. Evidently an Adventure clone in which the object is to escape from this island. The documentation is deliberately vague, and in fact consists mostly of quite extensive information about the television show. I can get further information if anyone is actually interested in such things. Mike ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/24/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some of the ambiguities in the Prisoner series. People who are not familiar with this series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 1980 10:47 PST From: The Moderator Subject: The Prisoner's Door In [SFL V2 #117], David Mankins noted that the number on the Prisoner's door in the last episode was "6". However,... David Mankins is wedged. The door in question even appeared in an earlier episode, and the number was the same both times, and NOT "6". -- Don You are wrong, video breath! The number was definitely, absolutely, positively "1" (one)! -- A check of a videotape of the last PRISONER episode clearly shows that the apartment door is marked "1". -- Lauren ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 29 OCT 1980 0629-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #119 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 29 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 119 Today's Topics: SF Books - Landmark Poll Commentary & BAD Series & Silverberg & Holiday Boxed Sets, SFL Proposal, SF Calendar, SF Books - Ellison's Lies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Oct 1980 0632-PST From: ADPSC at USC-ISI Subject: Landmark poll With regard to the SF landmark poll, and the exclusion of some of my favorites, I realize that I have only myself to blame for not voting. Don ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 (Tuesday) 1758-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: query In introduction of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, S. Robinson recounts an anecdote "which concerns a writer who be a friend that it was literally impossible to write a book so B*A*D that no one could be found to publish it. As the story goes, this writer proseeded to write the worst, most hackneyed novel of which he was capable -- and not only did he succeed in selling it, the public demanded better than two dozen sequels." Robinson doesn't mention who, since he says he is afraid of law suites from the estate, but notes "Ask around at any SF convention; it is a reasonably famous anecdote". Well, not being at a convention I thought I'd ask... Anybody know the author is is talking about? -Dave ------------------------------ Date: 28 October 1980 19:57-EST From: Daniel L. Weinreb Subject: Silverberg Bill (Yeager at SUMEX-AIM) has a good point: the careless sexual encounters in "The World Inside" (I have not read "The Tower of Glass") would make a valid point about that society, if that were what Silverberg had in mind. But consider "The Stochastic Man". We are told how much the main character loves and treasures his wife, and so on, but the encounters are STILL the same. You might say this is to tell us something about the main character; could be, but as far as I can tell, Silverberg is ALWAYS like that. So it is my suspicion that he isn't doing it to make points; he just always writes them that way. I could be wrong, of course. -- Dan ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 2313-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: boxed sets of books A recent AP news story discusses the boxed sets of books that will be on sale for the holiday season. 'There are, in all, 227 boxed sets this Christmas, including 70 new titles. The most extensive categories are books for children and young adults (62 in all); science fiction and fantasy (38 sets, 13 new), and fiction (31 sets, nine new.) Other categories are cookbooks, classics, games and puzzles, humor and cartoons, occult, Westerns, mystery- suspense and, of course, reference.' Naturally, however, of all the 40 sets named in the article, the only reference to science fiction or fantasy (about 18% of the sets to be on sale) was ...For science-fiction fans, there are two Frank Herbert sets - the Dune trilogy (Berkley, $7.75), and the five-volume "Worlds Beyond Dune" (Berkley, $9.85). It shows that the field is still perceived to be trashy. Only proven bestsellers seem to merit mention. *sigh* ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 07:22 PST From: Chapman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: SF-Lovers logo (SF-L V2 #118) I think it's a great idea, but you might consider making badges instead of or in addition to the color Xerox's for tee shirts. Badges or buttons are very common phenomena at cons, and although not quite as visible as tee shirts, they are transferable when you change clothes (which I do at least once a convention (tongue-in- cheek, but I know some people who DON'T change clothes at a convention. They like to travel light.)). Cheryl ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 at 2158-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SO I'LL KNOW YA WHEN I SEE YA! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I really like RODOF's idea of a means of identification! (But have it something amenable to reduction to a round 2-inch badge for those of us who eschew T-shirts, and also to last into future years' cons after the T-shirts would have worn out.) As for not knowing what other SFL'ers look like, even when we do recognize the name -- Dr. Forward must come as the greatest shock. I had visualized him as looking rather like the mature John Campbell until my SFBC copy of DRAGON'S EGG arrived. Would you believe a "jolly Old St. Nick" without the beard, or a cheery, round-faced "Old King Cole" with a thick crown of beautiful, wavy white hair? ------------------------------ Date: 28 OCT 1980 0847-PST From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: SF-L I.D. The proposal has been made for buttons in addition to (or even instead of) tee-shirts. I will look into this. As for the design, the proposed concept at the moment is a spiderlike BEM sitting in its "web" (symbolizing the NET -- a good idea from our moderator) at a computer terminal, with the caption "HACK!" Any other ideas or suggestions? Rodof ------------------------------ Date: 28 October 1980 2024-EST (Tuesday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Identifing fellow lovers Instead of the tee-shirt idea, I have photos of many FAMOUS SF-LOVERS that I took at the last WORLD-con. Now if you all have the right display devices and can accept ARPA standard format images THEN the problem would be partly solved. Just think, SFL goes multi-media! ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 0618-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: loscon sched? Any Californian out there know what the Loscon program looks like? ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 1980 12:54 PST From: Richard R. Brodie Subject: Calendar of Science Fiction Events Here is the first SF-Lovers event calendar. If you have information about any events you would like to see added to the calendar, or are associated in some way with one of the listed events and would like to contribute, please send mail to Brodie at PARC-MAXC. Calendar of Science Fiction Events As of October 27, 1980 -------------------------------------------------- October 31-November 2, 1980 SIXTH WORLD FANTASY CON. GoH: Jack Vance; Artist GoH: Boris Vallejo; MC: Robert Bloch. Marriott-Hunt Valley Inn, Cockeysville, MD. Cost: $25. Registration limited to 750. 6th World Fantasy Con, Chuck Miller, 239 N 4th St., Columbia, PA 17512. November 7-9, 1980 ICON V. Pro GoH: Gordon R. Dickson.; Fan GoH: Bob and Anne Passovoy. Holiday Inn, Cedar Rapids, IA. Cost: $10. P.O. Box 525, Iowa City, IA 52244. November 7-9, 1980 SCI-CON 2. GoH: Manly Wade Wellman; Artist GoH: Kelly Freas. Chamberlin Hotel, FT Monroe, VA. Cost: $10. M.E. Tyrrell, 414 Winterhaven Dr., Newport News, VA 23606. November 14-16, 1980 ORYCON '80. GoH: Fritz Leiber; Toastmaster: F.M. Busby. Hilton Hotel, Portland, OR. Cost: $10. Oregon SF Conventions, Inc., P.O. Box 14727, Portland, OR 97214. November 14-16, 1980 PHILCON '80. GoH: Ben Bova; Artist GoH: Kelly Freas; Editor GoH: Robert Sheckley. Sheraton-Downtown, Philadelphia, PA. Cost: $6. Joann Lawler, 2750 Narcissa Road, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462. November 28-30, 1980 LOSCON 7. GoH: Larry Niven. Sheraton-Anaheim, Anaheim, CA. Cost: $12. Loscon, c/o Los Angeles SF Society, 11513 Burbank Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601. November 28-30, 1980 DARKOVER GRAND COUNCIL MEETING 3. GoH: Katherine Kurtz. Radisson Wilmington Hotel, Wilmington, DE. Cost: $8 till 11/1/80, $10 after. Armida Council, P.O. Box 7501, Newark, DE 19711. January 23-25, 1981 LASTCON. GoH: Hal Clement; Fan GoH: Jan Howard Finder. Albany Ramada. Cost: $9 till 12/25/80, $12 till 1/16/81, $15 after. Maria Bear, 216 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180. February 13-15, 1981 BOSKONE XVIII. Pro GoH: Tanith Lee; Official Artist: Don Maitz; science speaker TBA. Sheraton-Boston ($57/single, $69/double). Cost: $12 until 1 Jan 1981, then $15 to N.E.S.F.A., Box G, MIT Branch P.O., Cambridge MA 02139. Films, program, seminars, art show, hucksters room, filksinging, games, costume party, Glamor and Sparkle. Info on dealers' tables and art show will be available soon; dealers' room will probably be larger than in past years as we now have more of the hotel. Registration limit of 3000. (We aren't happy about the room rates either, but there isn't a usable hotel with significantly better rates.) SFL liaison: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock). April 3-5, 1981 FOOL-CON IV. Confirmed guests: C. J. Cherryh, Lynn Abbey, Robert Asprin. Johnson City Community College, Kansas City, MO. Johnson County Comunity College, Overland Park, KS 66210. July 10-12, 1981 ARCHON V. GoH: Tanith Lee; Toastmaster: Charlie Grant. Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, MO. Soliciting program ideas and/or people who could help carry them out. Also looking for more artist names to add to the mailing list for soliciting contributions to the art show. This was successful at ARCHON IV (over 60% of artists sold works), and they are trying to expand. There will be more art show space and display panels this year. Also in the process of reviewing art show rules and would welcome suggestions. SFL liaison: ROUNDS at Office-3 (Will Martin). September 3-7, 1981 DENVENTION TWO. 1981 World Science Fiction Convention. Pro GoH: C.L. Moore, Clifford Simak; Fan GoH: Rusty Hevelin. Cost: $25 till 9/15/80; $15 supporting till 9/15/80. P.O. Box 11545, Denver, CO. 80211. (303) 433-9774. September 2-6, 1982 CHICON IV. 1982 World Science Fiction Convention. Pro GoH: A. Bertram Chandler; Fan GoH: Lee Hoffman; Artist GoH: Kelly Freas. Hyatt Regency, Chicago, IL. Cost: $20 till 12/31/80, $30 till 6/30/81; $15 supporting; $7.50 conversion. PO Box A3120, Chicago, IL 60690. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It raises questions about the novella "All the Lies that are My Life" by Harlan Ellison. In doing so it gives away some events in the story. People who are not familiar with this story may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 10/28/80 22:27:06 Re: ALL THE LIES THAT ARE HARLAN'S LIFE... Who has read the new Harlan Ellison novella, "All the Lies that are My Life", published in the November issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction? If so , venture some opinions... Does it appear, as it does to some of us, that the "intensly personal" aspect of the story means that Harlan himself is masquerading as one of the main characters? And if so, does anyone feel, like several of us do, that Harlan is actually Kercher Crowstairs, (the deceased...) Among the evidence, aside from the descriptions of Crowstairs which seem to fit Ellison quite well, is the fact that Ellison did have a maid who wore a transistor radio which looked just like a hearing aid, just as it is in the book. Well, if you assume that the Crowstairs character *is* more- or-less Harlan Ellison, that leaves one disturbing question ... Is he trying to tell us that someone else actually ghosted several of his books? O.K. Who? And which ones? Or then again, is Harlan just foolin'? Larry ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 30 OCT 1980 0734-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #120 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 30 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 120 Today's Topics: SF Art - Varley's Vision Cover, Future - Transportation, SF Books - Bicycles & Silverberg & BAD Series & Bestsellers, SF Calendar, Which is Forward?, SF Books - Ellison's Lies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MCLURE@MIT-AI 10/30/80 01:08:08 Who did the nice cover painting for Varley's Persistence of Vision short story book? I don't see any credit given in the paperback version and don't have a hardcover to check. ------------------------------ Date: 28 October 1980 03:00 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Phase III bicycle Can anyone provide a specific reference or more information on the phase III bicycle? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 29 October 1980 23:40-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: Bicycles in SF There is: "A Short History of The Bicycle: 401 B.C. to 2677 A.D.", a short story by Michael Bishop in an anthology ("INTERFACES") of original "speculative" fiction (read: weak fantasy) edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Virginia Kidd, first printing February 1980. This piece attempts to be humorous with several footnotes referencing actual contemporary authors by their initials for first/middle names, except for H. G. Wells. Probably the only worthwhile story in the collection, with maybe one or two exceptions. Noted in the printing history and on the cover that the first "mass market edition" was printed in October 1980. Is "mass market edition" the new term for paperback these days? --Frank [ The term "mass market edition" ( or "mass market paperback" ) refers to the small, roughly 4" by 7", paperback books. The term "trade edition" or "trade paperback" refers to the larger soft- cover books. Other than size, the major distinctions between a trade and a mass market paperback are the better quality binding of the trade paperback, and of course the price. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 10/29/80 11:40:39 Re: The Silverberg debate If it is in fact Silverberg's intention to make the sexual encounters uncaring in order to give an indication of the inter- personal encounters of the society in general, then why attribute them to the androids in "The Glass Tower" since it seems that he is trying to make the point that the androids CAN care and that they should therefore be considered equal to the humans? Is this contradiction his intention? Has he thought things out far enough that he even notices the contradiction? Or is this whole idea about his concious decision to make the encounters uncaring simply a rationalization made by certain parties who would not like to see this type of cheap filler taken out of certain SF novels. In any event, I will admit that certain authors have used the technique of including uncaring sexual encounters in SF novels in order to show just the type of decadent society that considers such encounters typical. A notable example is "Brave New World". However, in order to make such a point, the number of such encounters need not be inordinately high. I highly doubt that this is what Silverberg had in mind when he wrote "The Glass Tower". My thanks go out to MD@XX for his remark about the coverless paper-back rip-off (no pun intended). I was not aware of this practice. The place at which I purchased this and other books in the same condition is not a book store at all, but merely a corner convenience store. My parting comment is that this discussion of "The Glass Tower" is rapidly becoming more boring than the material in the book that I was initially remarking about. Let us cease and desist and get on with another discussion. Greg Faust [ Brief addenda: The Silverberg book about "urban monads" mentioned by DLW in [SFL V2 #115] is THE WORLD INSIDE, a collection of 4 or 5 novelettes. Thanks go to George Flynn, Hitchcock at CCA, and HJJH at UTEXAS for the identification. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 29 OCT 1980 1253-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: crud query Spider Robinson is a nice guy, but he is not one of the most accurate people in SF. I've never heard the anecdote mentioned and I've been to a couple of dozen conventions, mostly on the northern East Coast (where he lives). The anecdote may be a borrowing from similar stories in related fields. "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" (I am told) was written to be so revoltingly saccharine that no one could stand it, but it became a hit; the genesis of NAKED CAME THE STRANGER by "Penelope Ash" (a collaboration of 14 authors headed by an editor who, revolted at the success of Jacqueline Susann and her ilk, vowed that "any semblance of literary merit will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion") was publicized in the summer of 1969, after the book had been a critical and popular success. I will check this with a friend of mine who knows a lot about pulp fiction, but I'm not betting on finding anything. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 2258-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: bestsellers (FOR RELEASE SUN NOV 2, AP news wire) MASS MARKET BOOKS 3 SHOGUN, by James Clavell. (Dell, $3.50.) An Englishman in 16th-century Japan: basis of the recent TV mini-series. (I call it SF!) TRADE PAPERBACKS 6 GODEL, ESCHER, BACH, by Douglas Hofstadter. (Vintage, $8.95.) A scientist argues that reality is a system of interrelating braids. (It beat out Joy of Sex, which was number 7) 10 THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, by Robert A. Heinlein. (Fawcett-Columbine, $6.95.) A journey through alternate universes: science fiction. (dropping down in the list, but still on it after all this time) ------------------------------ Date: 29 OCT 1980 1244-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: convention listing I suppose it's my fault for opening my mouth first, but I wonder what the Boskone XVIII chairman (GFH@CCA) is going to say when she sees me listed as the contact. (Especially after I said I really didn't want a post of responsibility with the con; this will be the first Boskone in years that I will actually attend. On the other hand, I've already surveyed two function rooms to provide accurate info for the hucksters' room and art show --- so much for disengagement.) ------------------------------ Date: 29 October 1980 0920-EST (Wednesday) From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A (C410DW60) Subject: Marie Laurin I didn't catch the credits on "Three's Company" last night. Was your daughter-in-law: a) Denise, the (fake?) French beauty in Larry's apartment? b) Dorene, the girl who can't say no (the blond nurse)? Either way, your son's a lucky man. The show was better than the debate. ------------------------------ Date: 29 OCT 1980 0855-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Marie Laurin Marie Laurin was the French girl, Denise. She is a genuine certified French beauty since she was Miss Quebec of 1979 and runner-up for Miss Canada. This was her first acting job and her future on the show depends strongly on the amount of her fan mail. Yes, my son is a lucky man. He is none other than RODOF, our cartoonist and tee-shirt painter. As for the other comment about me in issue 119 of the Newsletter: "Ho! Ho! Ho! Pass over that pipe and bowl and you three strike up a jig!" Bob Forward ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 10/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses the Ellison novella "All the Lies that are My Life". In doing so it gives away some events in the story. People who are not familiar with this story may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 10/29/80 23:28:24 Re: Ellison's "All the lies..." At WorldCon, Harlan discussed this story a bit, and read an hour's worth of it to us. The story is pseudo-autobiographical; i.e., bits and pieces of Harlan's and Bob Silverberg's personalities and lives are entwined into both of the "main" characters (Bedloe and Crowstairs). For example, we all know Silverberg's books to be rather "restrained and conventional" compared to Ellison's stuff, but in the story Crowstairs says to Bedloe: "You know I'm a better writer than you, don't you? Not just sales... BETTER. There's heat in my stuff; it works, it pulls the plow. BETTER. For Christ's sake, Larry, there's nothing but cold dead air blowing through your books. They ought to hand out wooly mittens with every copy of your stuff." Now, Bedloe is the narrator and thus should supposedly correspond to Ellison if the story were purely autobiographical ... yet the roles seem to be reversed here, with Bedloe's writing more like Silverberg's. Thus, the ghost writer theory might apply to either Silverberg or Ellison or both; more likely, neither ... I think it's just something Ellison threw in to spice things up. Just because there are bits of real people in the story doesn't mean that EVERYTHING in the story is based on reality. Ellison is a "fantasist", remember? As a fantasy/character study, the story is spellbinding even if the reader doesn't follow Ellison the Real Person and his escapades. -leor ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 31 OCT 1980 0629-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #121 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 31 Oct 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 121 Today's Topics: SF Books - Riverworld, SF TV - Connections & Cosmos, TESB - Droid Designations, See you at ICON? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Oct 1980 1702-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Farmer's metrics Has anyone ever asked Farmer why he constantly converts metric and American measurements in the Riverworld series? It's aggravating as all what-not. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 1980 0931-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Connections vs. Cosmos debate I agree that Connections is definitely better and more interesting than Cosmos, but still, I found many of the analogies Burke (sp?) made to be ludicrious. I think he's got a good idea, but he just tried to squeeze a bit too much out of it. Many of his causes and effects were far from completely reasonable. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1980 18:22:51-PST From: menlo70!daul at Berkeley Subject: COSMOS Cosmos: Nov 2: Episode 6. Travelers Tales An imaginary spaceship cruises among the planets, examining each. The scene then shifts to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in July 1979 where important new knowledge about Jupiter arrived almost hourly from the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Nov 9: Episode 7. The Backbone of Night This segment asks the question: "What are the stars and how far away are they?" We examine human thought about the heavens through history, the ubiquitous constellations, and attempts to organize what is seen above us. Nov 16: Episode 8. Travels in Space and Time The concept of the light-year is explained, along with the relativistic limitations on travel between the stars, Doppler shifting, and plans for interstellar spaceships. Nov 23: Episode 9. The Lives of the Stars Discussion of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles leads to an examination of stellar interiors. Different stages in stars' development is presented, showing the collapse of some into neutron stars and black holes. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 1980 1214-PST From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow Subject: C3PO or is it C3P0? Here at SRI we have a host on the net called SRI-C3PO (we also have one called SRI-R2D2, but thats another story..); Until now these hosts have been internet gateways (i.e. they haven't had an NCP in them), but shortly, thru SRI Built Port Expanders (which allows you to put more than one Internet host on an IMP port, but only one NCP host tho), we will be bringing up NCP hosts on both R2D2 and C3PO. What I need to know, is C3PO "C3PO" (with the letter "O" after the "P"), or is it C3P0 (with the number "0" (zero) after the "P")? It is quite common for people to pronounce zero as "oh" (such as in phone numbers..); that is why I'm questioning what it really is... I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can solve this question for me. I suspect it is going to be difficult to tell from books or documentation, since Zero's and Oh's look so much alike. Maybe the only way to solve it is to ask Lucas himself? ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 1980 0220-EST From: Roger Duffey Subject: Another question about the names of the SW Droids To extend Geoff's TTY's query, can anyone fully explain what each character in the designation means? We do know that they are not simply unique serial numbers, since we have heard the characters talk of "R2 units" among other things. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 1980 1150-PST From: Amy Newell (through WMartin at Office-3) Subject: Attending Cons As of now, I'm planning to attend ICON in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on at least November 8th, and maybe more, and am also planning on Con Centric in Columbia, MO 14-16 Novemeber. If any other net people will be at these cons and would be interested in getting together, please send a message to me through WMARTIN@Office-3. I'm also interested in possible roommates to cut room costs at either con. Let me know ASAP if anyone or any group is so inclined. --Amy Newell ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 1 NOV 1980 0713-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #122 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 1 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 122 Today's Topics: SF Art - Varley's Vision Cover, History - Connections, SF TV - Cosmos & Prisoner, SFL Proposal, TESB - Droid Designations & 2 New Books ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Oct 1980 1720-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: ARTIST ON PERSISTENCE OF VISION My SF book club edition jacket says (on the back flap): Jacket illustration by Jim Burns Jacket design by Holly McNeeley ------------------------------ Date: 31 October 1980 1341-EST From: Paul Hilfinger at CMU-10A Subject: Dubious Connections connection I agree that at least some of the assertions made on this program tend to have an elevating effect on my eyebrows. For example, on the last segment I saw (dealing with clothing, paper, the Black Death, and computers, among other things) there was a most interesting assertion to the effect that the printing press caused specialization -- that the generation that lived at the time that printing really became widely used was the last to be equally at home with carpentry as with weaving or music composition (or words to this effect). Now this seems a little counter-intuitive to me. However, I admit that I am neither a student of intellectual history nor of anthropology. Can anyone enlighten me? --Paul Hilfinger ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 1980 1417-PST From: Dolata@SUMEX-AIM Subject: Cosmos music Personally I feel the most redeeming features about Cosmos are the Pretty Pictures and the music. I have always loved electronic spacey music. I own some of these records can identify some pieces, however, I would like to know what all of it is. The following is a far too brief list of snippets I have recognized, if you can identify others, please send me a message (Dolata@SUMEX-AIM), and I'll compile a list and send it to SF-LOVERS Artist(s), Album Name, track title Vangellis, Albedo 0.39, snippet from song titled Alpha Tangerine Dream, Rubycon, snippet from side titled Rubycon Klaus Schultz, Stratosphere, I forget the song title Edger Froese, Ages, increadably brief bit from Metropolus (?)Kraftwerk, Autobahn, chunk from Sequent in C (maybe?) Dan Dolata (Dolata@SUMEX-AIM) ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 1980 09:11 PST From: JimDay.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Prisoner Game The November issue of SOFTALK magazine has an advertisement for The Prisoner, a game inspired by the TV series of the same name. The game, created by David Mullich for Apple II computers, "puts you in a nightmare 1984 world whose rulers seek to break you down by an extensive array of brainwashing techniques, while you are armed only with your intelligence and sense of individuality. Can you escape to freedom ...." The game costs $29.95 plus tax and a dollar for shipping, and is available from: EDU-WARE SERVICES, INC. 22035 Burbank Blvd. #223 Woodland Hills, CA 91367 --Jim Day ------------------------------ Date: 29 OCT 1980 1238-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: SFL i.d. I strongly support the idea of a button; for one thing, Xerox transfers only work on t-shirts that are woven of mostly synthetic materials and such are not nearly as comfortable as cotton t-shirts. Possible overlaps: there is a group of Spiderists (worshippers of the Great Spider) based in Minneapolis fandom (which is so crazy the inhabitants of Lookout Mountain Canyon seem mundane by comparison); the motto of MIT East Campus is "Hackito ergo sum" (this is much less of a problem). Suggestion; if the button is settled on, whoever draws it should do at 2-3x size, pen-and-ink (no charcoal, pencil, or very fine lines) and relatively open drawing (i.e., a fair amount of white space; reduction conceals a variety of flaws but it does tend to make a drawing seem denser than its original). ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 11/01/80 01:48:31 Re: A DROID BY ANY OTHER NAME... Well, it took some digging. C3P0 is a droid with a zero for a last character, not a letter. I had to plow through several books and scripts before I finally located a non-phonetic reference to Threepio in the middle of the original tyewritten script for TESB: and by comparing the zeros as typed to the ohs as typed, it was determined that the spelling uses the number. Several other books and scripts had zeros and ohs looking alike, but this original script showed up just enough difference to be discernable... Question Two: It is my understanding that R2's and C3's have never actually be explained as meaning anything in particular. Of course, there *is* a story about the origin of R2's name (call letters?) You haven't heard it? Well, back when Lucas was mixing the soundtrack for American Graffitti - taking all the separate reels of sounds and blending them all into one - somebody asked him to go to the files and pick up Reel 2 - Dialogue 2. Lucas goes over to the files and finds the reel labeled R2-D2, and thinks to himself , "What a cute name: I might could use that some time." It's possibly apocryphal, but quite plausible none-the-less. If you asked me, R2 would stand for a certain basic body type or function, and the D2 would be some more specific subclass. All the other R2 units we have seen also have short cylindrical bodys, but with various different color schemes and top pieces. There has been only one labeled example of the C3 class (Threepio himself), although one other similar droid turned up in the Death Star unnamed. We have also see the Bounty hunting 'droid IG-88, and the medical tech 2-1B. One final note - when it was mentioned this week that the TESB script was being published this month at a *cheaper* price, it was not mentioned that simultaneously 'The Art Of The Empire Strikes Back' was also being published - and at a *higher* price! ($15.95! Gasp. Choke.) It is a fine book, packed with photos, sketches, drawings, paintings, and no script. It is a beautifully done layout, but you may find the price too steep for something which can be "read" so quickly. Nonetheless, the developmental concept sketches of early Yodas may almost justify the price. The TESB Notebook - which has the script and storyboards, is as solid but at $5.95. The script follows the finished film almost exactly. Larry ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 1980 1530-EST From: SCRIMSHAW at MIT-XX Subject: C3P0 or C3P0 Since people in Luke and Leia's Galaxy don't really speak English and aren't truly familiar with either Hindu-Arabic numbers or the Phoenician alphabet; it probably doesn't matter whether you make it 'oh' or 'zero.' David Scrimshaw ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 2 NOV 1980 0336-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #123 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 2 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 123 Today's Topics: What Happens at a Con - GOH Query, SFL Proposal, TESB - Droid Designations, IBM Humor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Nov 1980 at 2030-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CON GUEST-OF-HONOR QUERY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Having recently been among those canvassed for GoH nominees for a future con, it occurred to me that this might make a useful and discussion-productive topic for SF-L: | THE PRESENCE OF WHAT sf AUTHORS WOULD INFLUENCE YOU TO TAKE | | IN A CON IT WOULD REQUIRE SOME BOTHER TO MANAGE TO ATTEND? | For various reasons, to keep things minimally within the realm of possibility let's eliminate 5 "Biggies" -- Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, & Norton -- from consideration. You might also want to disqualify but mention writers with whom you have already had adequate personal contact, however much you might previously have wanted to meet them. For a starter, here's my own set...compiled after a thoughtful scanning of the spines of some 40 linear feet of SF paperbacks on my shelves. DISQUALIFIED: Lynn Abbey, Poul Anderson, M.Z. Bradley, Jo Clayton, A.D. Foster, Lee Killough, Damon Knight, Andy Offutt, John Varley. There were 4 others simply too interesting to disqualify, despite previous contact: Ann McCaffrey, Gordon Dickson, Katherine Kurtz, and Robert Asprin. My "wish list" ended up with the above 4 and -- Busby, F.M. Laumer, Keith Butler, Octavia McKillip, Patricia Cherryh, C.J. Niven, Larry Clement, Hal Nourse, Alan Cooper, Susan Reynolds, Mack Edmondson, G.C. Schmitz, James H. Elgin, S.H. Stasheff, Christopher Forward, Robert Tall, Stephen Garrett, Randall Vinge, Joan Hogan, James Wallace, Ian Hoover, H.M. Wells, Robert Kapp, Colin White, James Zelazny, Roger If you have just simply a list, reply directly to me -- HJJH at UTEXAS-11 -- and I'll compile those along with any relevant items appearing on SF-L, and make a comprehensive report. ------------------------------ Date: 1 NOV 1980 1432-EST From: JNC at MIT-MC (J. Noel Chiappa) Subject: Motto "Hackito Ergo Sum" is the hall motto of the Third East Hall of East Campus, not the whole dorm; I fear they would be rather put out to discover that they had been annexed to 3E without warning. Also, 3E would be greatly put out to discover that you had annexed our motto; it is part of our hall logo, which is copyrighted. May I suggest you try something else? Noel ------------------------------ Date: 1 NOV 1980 0919-PST From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: proposition All right, if the spider idea has been used already, how about a button that says something like the "I (valentine) NY" buttons -- but ours would say "I (valentine) SF" SF-Lovers, in other words. And just for further disguise, a picture of Godzilla eating the Golden Gate bridge... I am also going to do transfers, Xerox ones, for those who want them. I'm having one made to test them on various kinds of tees. Any feedback on design ideas? They should have SOMETHING to do with the subject matter, but remember, the important thing is that nobody else will be able to get ahold of them except thru SF-L, thus making them an exclusive I.D. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 1980 at 2133-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ APA-ARPA BADGE DESIGN ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I, too, was dubious about the very likely confusion with Spidey webs. And a concentric web with a central BEM would seem to be too much drawing for a 2-inch button. Why not something along that general line, but a little more esoteric, like -- an at-sign in the center of a SQUARE-meshed NET? WE know the significance of the @, and our contacts are almost as readily with each other as they are thru Our Admirable Editor. It has the further advantage that -- at necessity -- anybody could make up one of their own, even without a printout device, e.g., imagine something like the following with the underscore lines overprinted on the lines with the vertical bars: | | _________ | | | | _____________ | | | | | | _______ @ _______ | | | | | | | | _____________ | | | | | | ___________ | | | | _________ | | ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 11/01/80 14:36:56 Ah, but LARKE is wrong. There are at least 2 more C3 models seen. First, in the underground base on Hoth, we see a white, ceramic looking C3 in the "main command center" - and then, in the cloud city of Bespin C3P0 meets another C3, who appears to say something in a gutteral language Threepio understands - to which he comments, "How rude!" Anyone notice any others? Matt ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1980 0705-PDT From: Zellich at OFFICE-3 Subject: Virtual Universe Operating System "announced" Excerpt from the October 80 issue of IEEE COMPUTER Magazine, where it was listed as reprinted from COMPUTING, Vol. 8, No. 23, 5 Jun 80, p. 68. ********************************************************************** Someone in IBM has managed to preserve their sense of humor. My reporter at the NCC discovered that an anonymous subversive contrived to issue a release, on company notepaper, which might be described as visionary. It reads: "Because so many users have asked for an operating system of even greater capability than VM, IBM announces the Virtual Universe Operating System, OS/VU." The release, circulating around the West Coast of the US, goes on to explain that the individual user running programs under OS/VU has an entire universe of his own, in which he can set up and take down his own programs, data sets, systems networks, personnel, and planetary systems. He need only specify the universe he desires, and the OS/VU system generation program, IEHGOD, does the rest. The release exlains that in conjunction with OS/VU, all systems utilities have been replaced by one program, IEHPROPHET, which resides in SYSI MESSIAH. In true paternalist style, the release claims that: "IBM, through it's wholly-owned subsidiary, the United States, is working on a program to upgrade the speed of light." This piece of research appears to be intended to reduce the overhead of extraterrestrial and metadimensional paging. Concluding with the giant's future plans, the release claims that research is underway to develop an even more pewerful operating system, designated Virtual Reality. Presumably IBM itself will "refuse to speculate on products before they are announced" as usual. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 3 NOV 1980 0623-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #124 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 3 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 124 Today's Topics: SF Books - BAD Series, Space - SPS, History - Connections, Future - WORLDnet, Campaign '80 - An Interview with Yoda, IBM Humor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 NOV 1980 1950-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: David Rossien's crud query I have asked a friend with a wide knowledge of pulp material and he said he'd never come across the anecdote Robinson describes and hasn't the vaguest idea who it refers to. If someone will volunteer to remind me about this near Boskone I'll ask Spider where he heard the story. ------------------------------ Date: 15 OCT 1980 1454-EDT From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: solar power I have just read an interesting article (CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS, October 6, p. 37) listing a number of advances in photovoltaic technology including the recent cracking of the 10% efficiency barrier. The figures in general look very good, especially in terms of the possibility for scaling up the process and the estimated costs. This brings up a recent question that I don't recall being answered: realistically, what are the economics of a solar-powered satellite compared with those of a ground-based plant, given such factors as: -- % of down time due to [night] -- cost of getting the materials up to a synchronous orbit -- efficiency above and below the atmosphere, including losses in the microwave beam I am somewhat less pessimistic about ground-based photovoltaic power than I have been, particularly considering that even an immense solar power "farm" would take up less space than is currently expected to be ruined by the MX missile project. I also admit to a lingering affection for the idea of giant solar screens in space (maybe a hang- over from my first Tom Swift Jr. (& his Repellatron Ray (?) --- the one where he adds huge solar power array "sails" to his space station to get enough power to supply an energy-to-matter converter)) --- I just don't like the cost picture the Space Shuttle is building up. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1980 2322-EST From: KAMESH.RAMAKRISHNA at CMU-10A Subject: The following message I just sent a long message, and I realized that I did not place it in the context of the question I wished to raise. Since HUMAN-NETS discusses this kind of stuff a lot and SF-LOVERS tend more towards fantasy than reality, I may well be directing the message to the wrong group. In any case, it is a response Paul Hilfinger's question and that was raised in SF-LOVERS. The question is: What is the real possibility that this technology - communication nets with millions of people on them - will come in our lifetime and what effect will it have on it. My own beliefs tend towards looking for indications in the economy or at system failure modes to see a way for this to become commonly used. The result is that I am largely pessimistic that it will come, or that if something did come along, it wouldn't be a crock. Kamesh ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1980 2315-EST From: KAMESH.RAMAKRISHNA at CMU-10A Subject: Connections and networks A discussion occasioned by Paul Hilfinger's comment that printing presses caused specialization -- an analogy with computer communication nets. **************** Subject: Printing presses cause specialization Paul, Isn't it obvious? The development of the printing press caused a boom in the paper industry, thus increasing the rate of exploitation of wood and forestry resources. Before a rational system of organized exploitation could be evolved, the price of "raw wood", the basic input to the carpentry industry had shot up. The printing press had only marginal effects on other industry, so that many marginal and near-marginal carpenters found that they could no longer pursue their trade. Only the specialists remained. The surplus carpenters (and there were many), found their way into music, and the other artistic enterprises. After a short period when the presence of these newcomers resulted in a dramatic drop in the average quality of a musicians life, the "bad money drives out the good" phenomenon resulted in professional musicians leaving their profession, if not their avocation, in droves. This period (also termed the baroque, I believe), was soon (a century or so) followed by massive public rejection of the "new music" created by those former hack-saw wielders. The ultimate result of this massive social zig-zag was the development of specialization in music. You may wonder what happened to the musicians? The tale is not pretty, but Connections just lifted the edge of Pandora's box (incidentally, a proposed but rejected name for Doug Jensen's co-operating system). The entire phenomenon of specialization and professionalism in post-Renaissance Western culture can be traced to the printing press. In keeping with the analogy, there is still hope left. You guessed it, the computer network revolution. After we have accomplished our task, the hackers can go back to carpentry. Cheers, Kamesh **************** Kamesh, A very elegant theory. Unfortunately, the main ingredient of paper in those days was discarded linen. --Paul **************** Paul, Discarded linen!! That would explain the dramatic degeneration in the sartorial art as the proliferating and desperate printers ranged far and wide in their search for old linen. Oftentimes, the printer's agent would arrange the kidnappings of people (probably depressed carpenters making their rounds) off the street for the clothes on their back. This would also account for the large-scale exodus from the villages into the cities and thence to the New World. Undoubtedly, the discovery that pine wood was excellent for paper manufacture was discovered here by immigrants concerned about the possibility that the European technique for harvesting discarded linen would make its way across the Atlantic. Also, are you sure about this business of discarded linen. The quantity of genuinely "discarded linen" would seem very small compared to the input requirements of the exploding industry. Just consider the number of Bibles that were printed, the number of revisions that were being generated daily by reformers and counter-reformers, and the requirement that the industry support large numbers of out-of-work carpenters, violinists and other sawyers (or should it be seers?). ********** End of comic relief ********** What does this have to do with the computer revolution that we HAVE been awaiting so breathlessly? On a more serious level, I would guess that in the post-Gutenberg era, being also post-America, and the initial flush of European colonialism and emigration, specialization in certain trades was the last gasp of a dying guild system left over from feudalist days. Specialization was a mechanism to keep certain jobs safe and within the control of the older aristocracy. An associated phenomenon would be that of aristocratic patronage, used as a mechanism for maintaining specialization and for breaking into existing specializations. Increased specialization would also support increased emigration, thus providing cheaper labour in the new colonies. Thus, one would also find that the new central authorities (a king, no longer first among peers) would promote specialization -- the foreign lands were typically crown-controlled and were a source of power for the king as against his lords. In England, for example, the rise of a legal profession (advocates, solicitors, and barristors) was a creation of crown-courts that took over judging from local lords. (I remember reading that one of the reasons why Henry the Nth initiated this reform was that fines and other court levies accumulated to the judge; and Henry needed the money!) I think there are good precedents and analysis that indicate that many of the phenomena in early capitalist Europe were a result of primary economic and production conditions and not from ephemera such as the development of printing techology. The analogy to the current "computer revolution" is of some interest. I think that the current pop-computer revolution will be driven more by concerns about energy costs, raw material resources and access to jobs than by the hobbyist market, or even by the public-network market. The public network systems will, I think, go ineluctably (i.e. like Ulysses returning from one disaster) down the centralized advertising-system route. (Except for Prestel which being controlled by the British Post Office will generate the philately of the next century.) It would appear that the calculator phenomenon of five years ago belies my claim. I do not think so. I claim that between 1974 and 1979 almost any novelty, priced right, would have succeeded in the US market. And given the fast positive feedback potential represented by this market and the calculator industry, it is no surprise that the calculator industry swamped all competitors so dramatically. I back my claim with reference to articles that have appeared in recent NY Times, Atlantic, etc., that indicate that between 1974 and 1979 consumer buying was increasing rapidly, probably a result of Federal government policies that subsidized petroleum purchases from abroad and kept the price of gasoline low, from which I infer that it was beneficial to buy and sell, rather than save or invest. This would explain why the American public did not make a beeline for small cars a few years back when the coming crisis was visible, but are doing so now. Going further afield, this would explain the phenomenon of diminishing capital investment in the past few years, diminishing "labour productivity", the current automobile industry crash, and the current office automation boom. None of this suggests that we are heading into a period of increased specialization. I suggest that the same holds for bs explanations about the role of printing in increased specialization in 16-th century Europe. (At 7000+ characters this makes it 1/3rd the typical message. If people are interested I will continue in smaller chunks. If I manage to get my references organized, I can probably provide a few pointers to real-life studies as opposed to flames about the background behind specific technological developments in the past.) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1980 2344-EST From: JHENDLER at BBNA Subject: Yoda for president The Dallas chApter of the Yoda for president campaign, wants to thank All those who have lent us their support. With the cooperation of Imperial communications we Are happy to make public the following interview with our candidate from his campAign headquarters on Dagobah: I: I have with me tonight the pcesidential candidate for the Jedi party, Mr. Yoda. He has consented to answer some questions for me tonight. Mr. Candidate, would you care to comment on your competition? What do you think of governor Reagan? Y: HE IS OLD, YES, TOO OLD TO BEGIN THE TRAINING. I: And President Carter? Y: TOLD YOU I DID, RECKLESS IS HE. NOW MATTERS ARE WORSE. I: Well what about John Anderson? Y: HMMM, WILL HE FINISH WHAT HE BEGINS? I: Onto the issues: What about Iran? Should we intervene militarily? Y: A JEDI USES THE FORCE FOR KNOWLEDGE AND DEFENSE. NEVER FOR ATTACK. I: What about inflation and unemployment? Y: STOPPED THEY MUST BE. ON THAT ALL DEPENDS. I: In the past you have supported the SALT I treaty. If you were president what would you say to Brezhnev to help disarmament? Y: AWAY PUT YOUR WEAPONS. I MEAN YOU NO HARM. WARS NOT MAKE ONE GREAT. I: And to the other countries of the world? Y: YOUR WEAPONS, YOU WILL NOT NEED THEM. I: Who will be your chief advisor? Y: MY OWN COUNCIL WILL I KEEP. I: Your opponents say you have no chance of beating them. Do you reAlly intend to try? Y: NO. TRY NOT. DO. OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY. I: Thank you Mr. Candidate. Your words will be an inspiration to all of us looking for a candidate for whom we can vote. Y: LOOKING? FOUND SOMEONE YOU HAVE I WOULD SAY, HMMM? I: Uhmm, err, thank you Mr. Candidate. ************************************************************* VOTE YODA IN 1980 THERE IS NO OTHER!! ************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: 2 NOV 1980 0830-EST From: MJL at MIT-MC (Matthew Jody Lecin) Subject: Virtual Universe Operating System "announced" Small correction. It happened to be the SYS1.GODLIB - as ANY 370 hacker should recognize... Matt ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 4 NOV 1980 0702-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #125 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 4 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 125 Today's Topics: SF TV - Twilight Zone Special, What Happens at a Con - GoH Query, TESB - Droid Designations, IBM Humor - Product Announcement ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Nov 1980 11:51 PST From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: Twilight Zone Special, San Francisco Bay Area No matter who wins the election Tuesday, Northern Californians can drown their sorrows afterwards by watching the Twilight Zone Special at 11 p.m. on KBHK-TV, ch. 44. The advertisements claim the show will contain the best scenes from the series, as well as clips from shows featuring famous actors. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 1980 at 0226-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CON GoH REMINDER ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THE PRESENCE OF WHAT sf AUTHORS WOULD INFLUENCE YOU TO TAKE IN A CON IT WOULD REQUIRE SOME BOTHER TO MANAGE TO ATTEND? Reply to-- HJJH at UTEXAS-11 ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 11/02/80 22:53:10 Re: C3 Bingo I remember that in SW:ANH (the '76 one) there was a white metal 'droid that lurched down the corridor and took a left behind R2-D2 and C3-P0 during the opening Imperial takeover of the Rebel Blockade Runner. Jack Palevich ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 1980 1716-PST From: Sumex BBOARD and SCHOEN via Subject: Who says IBM doesn't make good operating systems??? === ====== === === = = = === === = ===== ==== ==== = = = == == == === ====== === === ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Data Processing Division Date: January 30, 1979 PROGRAMMING ANNOUNCEMENT New Operating System Because so many users have asked for an operating system of even greater capability than VM, IBM announces the Virtual Universe Operating System - OS/VU. Running under OS/VU, the individual user appears to have not merely a machine of his own, but an entire universe of his own, in which he can set up and take down his own programs, data sets, systems networks, personnel, and planetary systems. He need only specify the universe he desires, and the OS/VU system generation program (IEHGOD) does the rest. This program will reside in SYS1.GODLIB. The minimum time for this function is 6 days of activity and 1 day of review. In conjunction with OS/VU, all system utilities have been replaced by one program (IEHPROPHET) which will reside in SYS1.MESSIAH. This program has no parms or control cards as it knows what you want to do when it is executed. Naturally, the user must have attained a certain degree of sophistication in the data processing field if an efficient utilization of OS/VU is to be achieved. Frequent calls to non-resident galaxies, for instance, can lead to unexpected delays in the execution of a job. Although IBM, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, The United States, is working on a program to upgrade the speed of light and thus reduce the overhead of extraterrestrial and metadimensional paging, users must be careful for the present to stay within the laws of physics. IBM must charge an additional fee for violations. OS/VU will run on any IBM x0xx equipped with Extended WARP Feature. Rental is twenty million dollars per cpu/nanosecond. Microcode assist will be available for all odd-numbered processors to allow the use of non-contiguous CPU clock times. This feature will be a prerequisite for the implementation of the Rutgers University virtual date package. Users should be aware that IBM plans to migrate all existing systems and hardware to OS/VU as soon as our engineers effect one output that is (conceptually) error-free. This will give us a base to develop an even more powerful operating system, target date 2001, designated "Virtual Reality". OS/VR is planned to enable the user to migrate to totally unreal universes. To aid the user in identifying the difference between "Virtual Reality" and "Real Reality", a file containing a linear arrangement of multisensory total records of successive moments of now will be established. Its name will be SYS1.est. For more information, contact your IBM data processing representative. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 5 NOV 1980 0632-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #126 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 5 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 126 Today's Topics: Population - Technology/Birth Rate, Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox, What happens at a Con? - GoH Query, SFL Proposal, Campaign '80 - Anderson/Yoda ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 04 NOV 1980 1308-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: population Anent the discussion of disasters this past summer, the latest issue of SCIENCE '80 discusses research challenging the traditional assumption that an increase in the technology available to a society will drive down the birth rate. Basically, someone analyzed the various statistics describing populations in Western Europe and found that this belief was an example of the "following this, there- fore because of this" fallacy; several factors were implicated, and many of them would not be applicable to currently developing nations. ------------------------------ Date: 5 November 1980 01:30 est From: JTurner.Coop at MIT-Multics Subject: I've returned! Hello, world. This is the voice of Amherst computing posing the question, is there life after using a Cyber? Anyways, I think I know how to make time travel work. The problem with time travel if that the user always ends up with a 'grandfather paradox', that is, he kills his own grandpa, or changes the future he has observed. Well, suppose you can travel anywhere a receiver is set up. The first thing that is apparent is that you are limited to the future. Let us assume further that there is an overhead required to get you into the warp, an energy cost. In addition, the user must pump enough energy when returning to the past to change all the things needed so that the universe will still end up the same way it was observed by the traveler. In other words, if you take back a stone from the future, the energy involved in returning will be that of accounting for the extra mass of the rock that wasn't there before, as well as the energy need to keep the future the same with a rock that wasn't in the original scenario. In addition, if you observed too much, the energy required to keep the future the same with this preknowlage may be too great for you to return, and so you would be stuck in the future! Note that while this is not a 'Try to Change the Past' plot, that may be the cheapest way for the universe to solve the problem. Well, I'm not going to explain any more due to the fact that I am using an Adds 580 and on Multics, that means having to use a \ for shifting. As to the 'recent' IBM announcement, I saw a copy of that on the 5th floor of AI nearly 6 months ago. Speaking of computers, anyone know when Zork for the (dare I say it) Trash-80 will be released? Hackito ergo sum, James Turner Note: I picked that up from a button at Boskon, finders keepers... ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 1980 at 1953-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SORRY ABOUT THAT! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Someone has sent me a query as to why I disqualified certain writers from my personal GoH wish-list. I apologise for not making it clear -- these were ones I had already met and had no need for additional interaction with. It would be one thing to omit Varley from one's wish-list because you'd never had an inclination to talk to him; it is another to omit him because he HAS already heard my plea to "let us have our beloved Earth BACK!" in his universe. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 1980 11:48 PST From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: SF-Lovers ID You can buy an "I Love SF" button/T-shirt anywhere in San Francisco, so I don't think that particular logo would be very distinctive. How about a BEM peering over the top of a CRT? ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 1980 09:49 PST From: Pettit at PARC-MAXC Subject: SF-Lovers LOGO Yes votes: I like both the "I SF" and the "@ in a square net" ideas. The former captures the SF-Lovers idea, and the latter the Arpa-net idea. Since both are essential attributes of our fanzine, maybe they can be combined by using the "I love SF" as a caption to the net. No votes: Any picture with a computer terminal or Godzilla would be too busy, especially for use on a button. Logo designs should be clean and simple. Any caption about "hacking" is inappropriate, since hacking or whatever else we SF-Lovers do on the net is very peripheral to our SF-Lovers activity. It's NOT a Computer Club. /Teri ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1980 0207-PST (Sunday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: SF-LOVERS identity buttons Gee whiz people, are we getting a bit esoteric with some of these designs? Why not say it like it is? Nobody is going to read in mysterious computer networks! They will only see what they wish to see... How about something simple along the lines of: FROM: SF-LOVERS in a nice Gothic font? --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 2 November 1980 18:40-EST From: Gail Zacharias Subject: buttons I would prefer if the button didn't actually have any written words, just some picture. The problem with buttons which say something is people always ask, and you always have to explain... ------------------------------ Date: 4 NOV 1980 2228-PST From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: Tee shirts and buttons (alive, alive oh...) Because of the limited space on a button, I have decided to merely have a logo, different from the tee shirt, with the logo I decide I will be the most effective. It will probably be something simple, with the letters SF-L or something, that you can explain away as you see fit. Or it could say "SF Lover" which is a reasonable sort of thing to see at a con, and superimposed on a net. The tee shirts may be voted on. Here are some candidates. 1. Your basic well-endowed woman and muscular man, standing close together, wearing futuristic clothing, with an S on the woman and an F on the man, and underneath, the caption "Lovers" 2. Same as above, but the woman has green skin and the man an extra set of muscular arms. 3. A BEM shyly smooching a sensuous Latino, caption "SF Lovers". 4. A BEM at a TTY, no caption. 5. A stereotyped computer-whiz type dude, (acne, horn-rims, etc) cuddling his TTY in a Norman Rockwellian-type heart background. Send in your vote, folks, and remember, in this election, your vote COULD make all the difference! You may include write-in ideas, and we'll have a run-off vote including them. Huzza! Rodof ------------------------------ Date: 5 November 1980 00:46 est From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: Yoda for President According to the New York Times he was Anderson's original choice for VP. The August 3rd issue had an amusing article on this. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 6 NOV 1980 0645-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #127 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 6 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 127 Today's Topics: SF Books - Eight Worlds Series, Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox, MicroZork, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Nov 1980 0001-EST From: G.NESSUS at MIT-EE Subject: Varley's universe and time travel Let us have our beloved Earth back??? And resentence the dolphins (who are considered more sentient than Humans in Varley's universe) to be slaughtered for the sake of StarKist Tuna. There is good reason why we were thrown off. And about James Turner's method of time travel: It doesn't solve the 'Grandfather Paradox.' For example, you could go into the future only to be killed by your own grandson (the 'Grandson Paradox'), or perhaps a clearer example, once you arrived in the future, someone could steal your time machine and go back in time to kill his grandfather. --Doug Alan ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 1980 1224-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: time travel In response to JTurner's idea. Interesting, unfortunately you haven't eliminated travel to the past. At some point in time, call it T, someone invents the receiver; at any point in time after T, perhaps T+delta, it is now possible to travel to time T which is in the past. Why is it possible to travel to the past you ask? Well its because there is a receiver there. If your grandfather invented the receiver then you could use his receiver to get to the past to kill him. Oh well. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 1980 (Wednesday) 1038-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: Time travel -- there is no paradox! There are several ways of thinking about time travel that permit us to avoid paradox altogether. 1- The Zelazny paradigm of branches in the network is most attractive. Whenever anyone transmigrates (coin your own words!) there are a series of "side-paths" created in the time highway. Thus there is no interference with current "reality" since it is simply one of many paths. Martin Gardner wrote about this, I think, in Scien- tific American many years ago showing that there are, in theory, an infinite number of paths created whenever ANY single change is made in history. I do not recall the way he argued that point. (Implicit query!) 2- (My personal favorite) Time travel to the past simply puts the traveler into a different future (one that presumably "looks like" the past). Whether this effect is localized to the traveler or whether the entire universe gets switched around is to be determined empirically I think. Again sighting Scientific American on reversal of time (not quite as long ago) it is possible (although statistically unlikely) that the proper physics would occur to make time APPEAR to be going in reverse (they used the example of fumes escaping from a perfume jar and showing how certain sequences of collisions might bring the fumes back to the jar in liquid form). It is this type of "changing the current world to look like a shifted time" that is most attractive to me. (It would also be one hell of a CPU hog). -= Jeff (Abrqx) Shrager A new reader/user ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 1980 1538-EST From: MD at MIT-XX Subject: James Turner Zork Query In response to James Turner's question asking when Zork will be available on TRS-80s: "Usually reliable sources" have told me that it should be out in computer stores by Thanksgiving. The Apple version should be out by Christmas. A new PDP-11 version is already available. Michael Dornbrook ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 1980 1207-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: logo for CON's, etc. I realize this has nothing to do with SF, but it is a sure fire method to recognise someone who has been on ITS (which I would assume everyone on this list has done at least ONCE!). I was going to have a tee shirt made up with this on it so when I went into the AI lab at MIT (those few times I visit up there), no one would doubt who I was and I would always get let in the door. Here is, for your approval, my vote for identifier (substitute your login name in its place) For The Front: $$$ JJJJJJJJJJJJJ SSSSSS OOOOOO LLL $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSS SSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSS SSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSSSSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSS SSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ UUU UUU JJJ JJJ SSS SSS OOO OOO LLL $$$ $$$ UUU UUU JJJ SSSSSS OOOOOO LLLLLLLLL $$$ UUUUUU $$$ And The Back: $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ UUU UUU $$$ $$$ UUUUUU $$$ $$$ --- well you get the idea. /JSol ------------------------------ APPLE@MIT-MC 11/05/80 20:48:43 Re: Deviant BEM's? One of RODOF's choices for the SF-LOVERS' T-shirt was "A BEM smooching a sensuous Latino ..." Well, in addition to being bug- eyed, this BEM had some interesting habits, too. A "latino" is a MALE latin person. A female one would be a "latina." (That's assuming, of course, that the adjective "sensous" applies to women only.) !Vivan los hispanoparlantes! - hasta la proxima vez ... Jim Cox ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 7 NOV 1980 0657-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #128 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 7 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 128 Today's Topics: "5000 Fingers" in Boston, SFL Proposal, Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Nov 1980 1740-EST From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Free movie "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T." came up a while ago in SFL; Boston-area SFL may be interested to know that there will be two free showings of the film: Wednesday 12 November at 3:30 PM at the Waban Branch Library, and Thursday 13 November at 3 PM at the Nonantum Branch Library. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 1980 0220-EST From: The Moderator Subject: Specism/Sexism - On the subject of deviant BEMs The question is: Why does APPLE assume that BEM's are male? -- Robert W. Kerns Who said it was a male BEM? -- Dave Dyer Waydaminit! Whos said BEMs had to be male? Maybe BEMs are female and get a charge out of male humans of Latin descent. -- Brian Lloyd Presumably a female [or just non-male] BEM... -- Pete ------------------------------ APPLE@MIT-MC 11/07/80 01:15:09 Re: What are little BEMs made of? RWK asked why I assumed that BEMs are male. Well, if you look closely at my message, you'll see that I based my conclusion on the reasonable premise that 'sensuous' only applies to women. Therefore, a 'sensuous latino' is incorrect. If you think that sensuous can be applied to men, then, of course, there's nothing to argue about. However, now that I think about it, BEMs must be male. Since most of them keep chasing after human women, there must be great shortage of females of their own species. Why, there's nothing in the world like a juicy Fay Wray type to really set a healthy, green-blooded BEM's heart to beating. Many human beings seem to disapprove of this, however. As Mr. Wray, Sr. said, "BEMs are okay, I guess, but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one." hasta la proxima vez, Jim Cox ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 1980 0220-EST From: Roger Duffey Subject: Specism/Sexism - On the subject of deviant BEMs But for that matter, why is everyone assuming that BEMs are either male OR female? ------------------------------ CSTACY@MIT-AI 11/06/80 15:42:54 Re: SFL Tee Shirts Being the proud owner of a CSTACY$U / $$U T shirt, I disagree with Jon Solomon's idea of using this for an SF-LOVERS logo. Many of the people on the list have NOT been on ITS, and probably wonder what we are talking about. Moreover, the alt-you T shirt has nothing to do with science fiction. And above all: this is an ARPAnet discussion group -- the key word is NETWORK -- not an ITS group. The logo should somehow combine SF and communication via network. Cheers, Chriodels, it discusses Hogan's "Thrice Upon A Time" and gives away a significant element of the plot. People who are not familiar with this novel may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 11/06/80 21:37:58 Re: time travel The most well thought out model of time-travel I have ever seen in a novel was in Hogan's "Thrice upon a time". This book ascribes to the "reset" theory of world-lines; if you send a message into the past (no matter travels cross-time in this book but it doesn't seem to be ruled out) that says "kill me, I am about to do something very rude in the present, and I should really be stopped", then the people back then get to act on the information while you wait in the present, with your teeth clenched, for the effects of your message to ripple forward and absolve (dissolve?) you. Time travels at several rates herein. From your point of view you are waiting for the world-line to readjust (a somewhat faster process than normal forward running since only the new ripples have to be worked in). From the point of view of your cohorts in the past, they are living just like they normally would. What bothered me about this model is that it made actions free, with no consequences. For example, X makes a boo-boo that will ultimately destroy the world, and sends a message into the past to warn the earlier version of X not to make that mistake. It turns the whole universe into a big experiment. You don't like the results, you change it before it happened. (Imagine the amusement parks. You can become "torturer for a day" and can even tell yourself about all the fun you had before that version of you gets erased and the normal reality gets reinstated.) I would add the following wrinkle: Rather than have realities disappear, let them stay around. What I am getting at is a bubble theory of reality. There is a time-line (call it supertime) which numbers all possible moments in the universe. Life progresses from one number to the next just as we are used to. If you go back in time from moment 55 to moment 23 and kill your grandmother, great. She's dead, and a bubble starts moving up from 23 in which a you is never born. Meanwhile, up at time 55, your home reality is happily progressing, complete with a confused and guilty you in it who has preformed this sickening deed and has returned to find the same old grind. You don't have her inheritance. In fact, the old bag is still hopping around. (The effects don't propagate that way.) This doesn't mean that one bubble can't effect another. You can communicate with the future (or the past) by just setting your transmitter to T+22,000 (or to T-22,000). For as long as you talk, the same guy will be at the other end of the line. One curious thing about this model is that past becomes a resource which is constantly consumed. The reason is that whenever a bubble gets started, it gradually overwrites each successive moment of super-time. Once overwritten, their old contents are gone, and your precious past has been consumed as though in a fire. Maybe I should write to Hogan about a new book. Then again, is he on the net? Dan ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 8 NOV 1980 0809-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #129 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 8 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 129 Today's Topics: SF Books - Strange Wine, Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox, Technology - Superconductors, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Nov. 1980 11:32 am PST (Friday) From: AWells.PA at PARC-MAXC (via Hamilton.PA at PARC-MAXC) Subject: Television, Reading, and Harlan Ellison I was reading a book by the name of 'Strange Wine' by Harlan Ellison recently. The book is very good, but that is not what I want to talk about. He has an introduction titled "Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself." I would like to tell you a few things from this introduction. According to an HEW study, only 8% of the American population buy books. Furthermore, only 2% buy more than one book per year. Harlan once said, in front of a university audience, that he had thought up the words that Spock had said in a Star-Trek episode. A student jumped to his feet, with tears in his eyes, screaming that Harlan was a liar. The average American watches between 3-8 hours of TV PER DAY. In some of the lectures he gives at Universities, Harlan found this to be true in University audiences as well. Harlan tells about a friend of his who is a High School media teacher. She had students who would not read books because they were 'not real'. TV was considered real. She had normal 17 year old students who could not tell the difference between a TV dramatization and real life. She found that if she turned a TV monitor on in an unruly classroom, WITH NOTHING BUT SNOW ON THE SCREEN, that the entire class would quiet down and watch the screen. He tells about an experiment where a monitor was set up one one side of a lecture hall and the lecturer stood on the other. The monitor carried a picture of the lecturer. Everyone watched the monitor. He tells about a case where a mother was being raped and her 7 year old child walked in. The rapist told the child to go watch TV. The child watched TV for 6 hours while his mother screamed repeatedly. I highly suggest reading the book, or at least the introduction. Perhaps the 'glass teat' is worse than we think. Allen ------------------------------ Date: 6 Nov 1980 0923-PST From: Moock@SUMEX-AIM Subject: scientific american article I must have missed a vital digest. A couple of people have cited a Scientific American article about time travel. Could someone send me the reference for it? ----- T. Moock ----- ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 1980 0220-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: Scientific American article on Time Travel In [SFL V2 #127], Jeff Shrager briefly mentioned a Scientific American article that discussed the time travel. The short article, entitled "On the Contradictions of Time Travel", was the main topic in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column for the May 1974 issue. See pages 120-123. This article should be of special interest to SF-LOVERS because it is a thumbnail sketch of the history of "time travel" theories in science fiction, philosophy, and physics. Here are some of the more interesting citations included in the article: 1. The first story about a time machine was not Well's THE TIME MACHINE, but rather "The Clock That Went Backward" by Edward Page Mitchell. It was published anonymously in 1881. 2. Seven years later, Wells wrote the first version of the story we know as THE TIME MACHINE, an inept novella entitled "The Chronic Astronauts". The revised version, entitled "The Time Traveller's Story", first appeared in 1894. 3. David R. Daniels first used infinitely branching worldlines to avoid time travel paradoxes in the story "Branches of Time", published in a 1934 issue of WONDER STORIES. 4. A metacosmos containing infinitely branching worldlines has been seriously proposed in "'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics", the PhD thesis of Hugh Everett III. (See REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS, V29, July 1957, p. 454-62.) Here each branch is formed from a permissible combination of quantum events. 5. In "It Ain't Necessarily So" (see THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, V59, 25 October 1962, pp. 658-71) Hillary Putnam's argues that looping worldlines do not have to be contradictory. 6. The cited story Jeff referred to which assumes "If there are infinite universes, then all possible combinations must exist. Then, somewhere, everything must be true." is Fredric Brown's "What Mad Universe". Many authors have wrung many different variations on that assumption of course. Cheers, Roger ------------------------------ Date: 6 Nov 1980 10:59 PST From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Room Temp. Superconductivity The October 9 issue of ELECTRONICS magazine has an article announcing the discovery of a substance (titanium boride or titanium bromide, the article isn't clear on that) which, when structurally deformed in some manner, becomes superconducting at room temperature. This is an immensely important discovery, and the researcher who discovered it claims the substance is easy to make. This could solve our energy problems, information problems, etc. I have a transcription of the article on-line. Message me as Reed.ES@PARC-MAXC if you want a copy. -- Larry -- ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 1980 1531-PST From: FEATHER at USC-ISIF Subject: Re: logo for SFLs If the logo should combine SF and communication, how about a postage stamp design with a (crude) picture of, say, Saturn on it? Bleepity, Martin P.S. Any other BEM's out there who share my opinion about how awful humans' piggy little eyes look...? ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 1980 09:23 PST From: JimDay.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Specism/Sexism - On the subject of deviant BEMs Alien creatures don't have to be male (some of them have several sexes -- does anyone happen to know the maximum number of sexes for a single species in published SF?). But, as everyone knows, a female BEM is a FEM. --Jim Day ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 1980 09:33 PST From: HOFFMAN at PARC-MAXC Subject: Heterosexism and 'deviant' BEMs Who said it had to be heterosexual? For that matter, who said it had to be sexual? -- Rodney Hoffman ------------------------------ Date: 7 November 1980 1223-EST (Friday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Duh, What's an "ALTMODE"? Since, I believe, 1967, the character whose octal bit pattern is 33 has been called "escape". I know of no keyboards around except some obsolete "Stanford" kludges which have any keys labelled "altmode", although I suspect the compulsion to live in the past must be over- whelming for some people. SF-LOVERS, of all people, should live somewhat in the future. joe ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 9 NOV 1980 1147-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #130 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 9 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 130 Today's Topics: Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox, SF Books - COSMOS & The Devil's Game & The Avatar, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1980 0822-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: TIME TRAVEL-INFINITE UNIVERSES "If there are infinite universes, then all possible combinations must exist." Not necessarily. My vague remembrance of college math suggests that there are different levels of infinity. The set of integers is infinite, but there are no reals in it. The fact that there may be an uncountable number of universes (one kind of infinity) does not mean that all possible universes exist. Can somebody derive the class of infinities that the branching universe generates? I suspect that one can always fit an uncountable number of universes in between any two existing universes. New possibilities are still endless, yes? Mike ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 1980 1534-PST From: Dave Dyer Subject: Time Machines There is a nifty article in Aug. 28, 1980 NEW SCIENTIST that discusses time travel in the context of Physics-as-we-know-it. It seems there might be a way ... ------------------------------ Date: 8 November 1980 1040-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: popularity of COSMOS The people have spoken: the COSMOS book was number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List. I guess that means lots of the public like it enough to go out and buy the book to follow along. ------------------------------ Date: 9 November 1980 0220-EST From: RDD at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: Review of THE DEVIL'S GAME (w/a comment on THE AVATAR) THE DEVIL'S GAME of course, is "follow the leader" played by seven people in a South American paradise for a prize of 1 million, tax free dollars. The prize will be split among everyone who lasts through the game. The challenge for each player is to devise tasks which will force the other players out of the game, either through failure to perform the task, refusal to perform the task, or death resulting from the task. The game's sponsor is Sunderland Haverner, a fabulously wealthy man who has come to depend on the whispering voice of Samael. A voice which has helped him amass his fortune, designed the game, and which may be demon, alien, or the product of Haverner's own mind. The point of the game is to observe how each of the following carefully chosen contestants of "this mongrel species called man" evolves in the game: a terrorist revolutionary, a god fearing military subcontractor, a flower child turned housewife, a playboy sportsman, a small time hoodlum, a would be boatbum, and a mother fighting to save her child who needs enormously expensive, advanced medical care. At this point it should be obvious that THE DEVIL'S GAME, like Anderson's THE AVATAR, is just another exercise in simply drawn stereotypes mouthing an author's arguments. However, where THE AVATAR incorporated an excellent novelette dealing with Joelle and mind/computer linkage with a universe spanning subway system to divert the reader's attention throughout the rest of the novel, THE DEVIL'S GAME has only the well drawn characterization of the amoral Haverner to redeem it. The contestants remain cardboard cutouts which relate the story in first person during their turn as leader. Unfortunately, the lack of characterization is crucial because it leaves the novel's resolution implausible, without which Anderson fails to make his ultimate point. In brief, THE DEVIL'S GAME is a mixture of Monty Hall's LET'S MAKE A DEAL with William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES. Superficial and disappointing. ------------------------------ Date: 11/05/80 1039-EDT From: KG Heinemann (SORCEROR at LL) Subject: Suggestion About One Proposed Solution to the Subject: SFL Identification Friend or Foe Problem Dear Rodof, My vote on the SFL identification logo is cast for the first entry on the list which was presented in the November 5 edition of the SFL Digest; the design with a muscular man and voluptuous woman. I hope that you will consider a suggestion on the implementation of that idea. This suggestion is that you use the design for the "LOVERS" card from a standard published Tarot deck, putting an "S" on one figure, an "F" on the other, and omitting the word "LOVERS". The "LOVERS" card from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck seems made to order for what you described, or you might want to use the one from Bruce Pelz's Fantasy Showcase Tarot deck, which was designed specifically to address concerns and images of SF fandom. In addition to saving the work of producing new drawings, this idea appeals because the symbols of the Tarot traditionally have been thought to contain hidden knowledge which was only understood by initiates of covert groups of occultists. Sincerely, Karl G. Heinemann ------------------------------ Date: 6 November 1980 17:20 est From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: T-Shirt design I could do without the "well-endowed" female, whatever her skin color. I'm also not so keen on the "computer nurd" type. I don't want to encourage people to think in stereotypes. You will say, perhaps, "This is only in fun." I don't think it matters. I don't want to start a discussion on Sexism here. I just want to give my opinion. By the way, how do you know that the "BEM" kissing the "latino" isn't a female? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 1980 1703-PST From: Zellich at OFFICE-3 Subject: Button design Personally, I liked the idea of the at-sign on a grid/net - although I think the grid should be a round/spoked one instead of "square" (see the Darrell Sweet cover for "Dragon's Egg" for what I mean). As a matter of fact, I like the idea of the stars scattered around the grid on that cover - a round button, with a round "net", a FEW stars - the buttons gonna be small, remember - and our ubiquitous "@", sounds like a good combination to me. Simple, fits a button well, relatively pertinent, recognizable, and not likely to be picked up on by anyone else (and maybe not interesting looking enough to have to explain over and over). Cheers, Rich ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 1980 (Saturday) 1438-EDT From: WESTFW at WHARTON (William Westfield) Subject: What's an ALTMODE.... ALTMODE has survived because it sounds much better to say 'ALT-ALT-YOU' than 'ESCAPE-ESCAPE-YOU'. Bill W ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 11/08/80 22:47:28 Re: Altmode. is ascii 176. (octal) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 10 NOV 1980 0554-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #131 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 10 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 131 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Alien, SF Mags - Galaxy & Galileo, SF Awards - ABA and SF, SF Books - Number of Sexes & Vulgar Unicorn & Budrys, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 09 Nov 1980 2236-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: SF News A.E. Van Vogt has just received a cash settlement of $50,000 from 20th Century Fox arising from his claim that 'Alien' was based on the 'Discord in Scarlet' section from his novel 'Voyage of the Space Beagle.' SF Chronicle, November 1980 The story line was similar, although Fox did not know it. They simply did not research the idea properly. sigh. However, a settlement was FINALLY reached because of the author's age (and thus disinclination for a long court fight). - - - Galaxy and Galileo magazines are dead, according to the magazines publisher. Rapid expansion of Galileo, cutting profit margins, and the lack of a reliable group of people to mail out the issues contributed to low renewals and thus bad cash flow problems. Galaxy has spent a lot of money promoting it's next issue, but has now run out of the money needed to distribute it. LOCUS, October 1980 I want my paid for issues! - - - The American Book Awards has cut the SF category for its awards since the genre has its own awards. The total number of categories was cut from 33 to 17. LOCUS, October 1980 About time this happened. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1980 1027-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: number of sexes Re the inquiry regarding the maximum number of sexes in an alien species, the most I've heard of is in William Tenn's story "The Seven Sexes" about a race on Venus. The problem here is not to get some arbitrarily large number but to make each sex's function plausible. I thought Asimov did a good job with three in "The Gods Themselves", but it's hard to think of a biological reason why you would want more than two. Asimov also wrote a story (for Playboy, I think) wherein single-sex alien invaders can't figure out why there are so many species on Earth. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 at 0008-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Beware THE VULGAR UNICORN ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The cover says, "If you liked THIEVES' WORLD, you'll love TALES FROM THE VULGAR UNICORN". Doncha believe it! In this sequel, likewise edited by Asprin, the authors seem to be trying to outdo each other to see who can incorporate the most dirt, ugliness, and misery. The sense of fun and fantasy of the original is sadly missing. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1980 1046-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft From: Jim McGrath Subject: Budrys' Book Review BOOK REVIEW By Algis Budrys (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg, editors "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories," Vol. 4: 1942 (DAW Books, $2.50) George O. Smith's "The Complete Venus Equilateral" (Del Rey, $2.25) Craig Strete's "If All Else Fails...." (Doubleday, $8.95) John Varley's "The Barbie Murders" (Pocket, $2.25) Let me tell you a brief tale, if not about a ghost, then about a spirit-a geist, if you will; a zeitgeist, the spirit of a time, and how it lingers.... "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories," Vol. 4: 1942, Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg, editors (DAW Books, $2.50), is heavy freight for one title to bear. But it turns out to be a thick, new, handy paperback anthology of just exactly what it claims to be. Collected here are 13 stories first published in 1942 by nine of the great names of SF-Frederic Brown; Lester del Rey, who is now half of the Del Rey imprint from Ballantine Books; Isaac Asimov, who not only actually participated heavily in the editing of this volume but also actually works, hard, on each monthly issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine; Alfred Bester, who went on to write the classic "The Demolished Man" and "The Stars My Destination"; A. E. van Vogt, who had already written "Slan"; Hal Clement, who would write "Mission of Gravity" and "Needle"; Anthony Boucher, who would found "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction"; Lewis Padgett, who was the pseudonym of Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore, in her day the first lady of sci-fi; George O. Smith, of whom more later, and Donald A. Wollheim, now publisher of DAW Books, with one of the most memorable, snap-ending SF stories ever published. The stories are either really first-rate or at least unforget- table - Brown's "Star Mouse," del Rey's "Nerves," van Vogt's "The Weapons Shop" - and if some now read crudely, that's not as important as the vigor with which they brim. The year 1942 lay squarely at the heart of the golden age of magazine SF; a time when a young pantheon of highly intelligent and, as it turns out, remarkably talented amateurs had been recruited by a Promethean editor named John W. Campbell Jr. They were busy inventing a new professionalism whose imperatives toward excellence still drive even the youngest, latest neophyte in the field. More important, they were writing the fundamental stories, laying down the ideas and exploring the modes that now lie at the core of contemporary science fiction. The field has gone farther and wider since then, and in literary terms it has gone deeper, but there is no way it could go deeper in the thing that counts most in art - the boundless creative confidence that comes from being at the heart of a time of major discovery. If, in the above volume, part of a series that will march up through the Golden Age year by year, you respond well to George O. Smith's "QRM-Interplanetary," then you will surely want "The Complete Venus Equilateral" (Del Rey, $2.25). "QRM," published at exactly this time of year in 1942, was the first of Smith's 1942- 1945 series about the interplanetary communications satellite from which the series got its name. An Arthur C. Clarke introduction stresses Smith's technological predictions; fair enough. In his daytime job, Smith was responsible for major radar research developments. But he wrote before the days of solid-state electronics, so all his vast vacuum tubes, and his electronically driven spaceships, now seem quaint to the average reader. But it wasn't so much the futuristic electronics that made "QRM" an overnight sensation. And it wasn't his prose style, which remains to this day less highly evolved than his imagination. It was the immense joy of living, the energy, optimism and good humor that permeated his work and that still radiate enormous, para-physical power. In his introduction to Craig Strete's collection, "If All Else Fails...." (Doubleday, $8.95), Jorge Luis Borges also speaks of power, "the power of genius." It may be the same power. In these tales, whose copyrights run from 1974 through 1976, we see it at the hands of one of the new writers to whom the Golden Age is a tradition, not a memory. Actually, there's more to it than that - the author is a Cherokee Indian who uses other pen names as well, and this collection originally appeared in Europe in 1976. "Strete" is the author of such stories as "Who was the First Oscar to Win a Negro?" and "To See the City Sitting on its Buildings." At first blush, you would think him no relative of Smith's at all, or Asimov's or del Rey's. But that is not so; they are his ancestors, nonetheless so just because they are still alive and well and working. Our generations traverse swiftly, and we are all still in sight of each other. And if you doubt that, try John Varley's "The Barbie Murders" (Pocket, $2.25), yet another anthology that comes at a time when all the SF publishers are saying they're not doing books of stories. Varley's particular expertise is in biology, and he was born in 1947. Otherwise, when you peel away the difference in prose styles and vocabulary, you are struck by the perpetuity of the thing that was essential to Smith's success: stories that, whatever their scenario and technological decorations, set out directly, and in the joy of exploration, to fine-comb the question of what's the most satisfactory way to live. We all have different answers, but if we are in SF at all, we all search. And even the pessimists among us are optimistic about the eventual results - still, after all these years, and, I think, forever. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1980 2103-PST From: Mark Crispin Subject: the SFL identification logo My vote would be for using "THE LOVERS" card from Bruce Pelz's Fantasy Showcase Tarot deck. How fannish!! ------------------------------ OAF@MIT-MC 11/09/80 14:41:53 Naw, altmode is octal 33, not 176. Button design - men and women (possibly one of each) fondling a BEM. After all, we're the lovers, right? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 11 NOV 1980 0541-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #132 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 11 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 132 Today's Topics: SF Books - Roadmarks & Number of Sexes, SF TV - Lost Land Writers & COSMOS, Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox, Technology - Superconductors, SFL Proposal, Voyager Encounter with Saturn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Nov 1980 (Monday) 2308-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: A potential BUG in Zelazny's Roadmarks novel: I am confused, perhaps someone can explain this apparent error to me: (See pg 147 (Del Rey edition)): Randy and Leila are talking at a bar with "Leaves of Grass" (the book/microprocessor) on the table. However, Zelazny appears to get confused and bring "Flowers of Evil" (the other book/mp in the story) into the scene from out of nowhere and then it just as mysteriously leaves the scene; "Flowers said..." Am I confused or is Zelazny? Roadmarks is a pretty confusing book and so I can easily imagine having missed a scene someplace. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 1136-PST From: Richard Pattis Subject: Number of Sexes The National Lampoon ran a small comic a coupla years back titled something like, "The bar pickup scene on Venus, where there are 18 sexes." The comic described the difficultly of "getting lucky". Rich ------------------------------ APPLE@MIT-MC 11/10/80 20:35:20 Re: Land of the Lost The TV happened to be turned on one day when <> came on. Now I have seen episodes of this show before and I was not, to say the least, very impressed with them. Even though it is directed at children, I thought the show confused; it seemed that everything was sacrificed for adventure, and this adventure was pretty bad. And to add to that, the special effects were horrendous. But, to get to the point, I noticed that the author of this episode was none other that Ben Bova. Another episode was written by Larry Niven. How did the producer of this show get such illustrious SF writers to write for such a trashy (really) show? Anyone out there know the answer? HLPV, Jim Cox ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 1116-EST From: YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO Subject: Sagan One of the pieces that seems to get played whenever Sagan is talking about the history of human exploratory effort is Hovahness's neoclassical symphony ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS. The music is very slow and majestic with oriental and slavic elements, so if you recall snatches of strange orchestral music that's probably it. I think it's one of Hovahness's better works, and the best recording ( not the one used on the show ) is on Poseidan records, conducted by Hovahness himself. P. Hardy ------------------------------ Date: 10 November 1980 1246-EST (Monday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Time Travel & Infinite Universes The question of the cardinality (in orders of infinity) of all universes is an interesting one. One school holds that a new universe is created at every sub-atomic choice point. In other words, when some quantum action could go one way or the other from our point of view, it is actually not making a choice but spawning of a new universe for each possibility. Now, if at each choice point there are a finite number of possibilities, then the set of universes could be no worse than aleph-null in cardinality. Otherwise, it would be no better than aleph-null. There is a fence post problem here because we don't know if time has been around for an infinite length of ticks or even if ticks can be considered a basic unit of time. (ie is time quantized) -Lee ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 0913-PST From: Steve Saunders Subject: Room-temp superconductor There was a blurb in Chemical and Engineering News 8-Sep-80 p.36 about the same "discovery". This one at least didn't confuse bromine with boron (boron is the one), but mentioned "negative voltages or resistances ...". It quoted Vahldiek as promising to publish his results in the "Journal of the Less-Common Metals" which our librarian says actually exists. But something is wrong: neither Science News, Physics Today, nor any of the other quick scientific news sources, nor even the Wall Street Journal (surely the business implications are obviously great) has seen fit to publish notice of it. This could mean that - Vahldiek is a hoaxer, or has a reputation for unreliable claims; - someone (USGovt?) has prevailed on those sources to keep it quiet; - the scientific community is much much slower with its internal communications than we thought; I don't have enough data to distinguish these hypotheses. Any more information, stories, or guesses would be welcome. We can hope that this topic will move out of the province of SF-Lovers! Steve ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 07:58 PST From: Chapman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Button design (SF-L V2 #130) I agree with Zellich. I think some kind of grid with an "@" in the middle would be the best. I already voted for one of the suggested designs, but I would like to switch my vote to a grid-@ if that is possible. Cheryl ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1980 at 2310-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SF-LOVERS' LOGO ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Whether the T-shirt design and the button design should be the same is an open question. My only interest is in the button. As more than one of us has observed, for a 2-inch button, the design should be open -- lots of empty area, and no element requiring a verrrrry close look to perceive clearly. You couldn't get a decent BEM (or an indecent one, for that matter) drawn in the center of a net on such a small space and have an effective button. Similarly, a line-printer-size at-sign would be too small. It would be better to have the at-sign either be hand-drawn or done on a graphics printer (or DEC-writer?) so as to be 2 or 3 times the size of a line-printed one. I suspect that a "round/spoked" grid would be more likely thought of as a "web", while a "net" would imply a square grid. While I think the star-chart design on the DRAGON'S EGG cover is quite handsome, it has disadvantages: potential confusion with Spiderman-fan design similarity to certain windows in the STAR WARS universe the stars would be "clutter" on the small area of a button The final decision lies with RODOF, since the initial idea and the offer to implement it was his. Darnit, I STILL like the idea of a design so simple that anybody c-o-u-l-d make one of his/her own if necessary. ------------------------------ Date: 10 November 1980 1413-EST (Monday) From: R.Kamesh Subject: SF-Logo Message-Id: <10Nov80 141329 KR10@CMU-10A> This isn't just a compromise, its an idea! Mechanical looking BEM in the middle with 8 arms (connectors, limbs) sprawling out in to the distance. Tiny (small? depends on the perspective) human-looking mites vigorously fondling this link. This logo captures the net analogy (all your favourite spiders), brings BEMs, robots, computers and lovers into the picture in eight swollen feet. To add poignancy to the tale told by the logo, the eight humans fondling the lIMP-TIPS could be back to back on the back of the T-shirt. This touch is not possible for the button, though one could consider a simple topological transformation that projects the BEM out to the edges of the button, keeping the eight users back to back in the middle. There is the small problem of how to keep the BEM coherent while it is being blown inside out; we should be able to find some hints from some of the inner-worlds type of stories (Varley's TITAN maybe). Kamesh ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 1010-PST From: William Gropp Subject: The end of ALTMODE To end all debate on what is an altmode, below is ... Standard ASCII 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 000 NUL SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL 010 BS TAB LF VT FF CR SO SI 020 DLE DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 NAK SYN ETB 030 CAN EM SUB ESC FS GS RS US 040 SP ! " # $ % & ' 050 ( ) * + , - . / 060 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 070 8 9 : ; < = > ? 100 @ A B C D E F G 110 H I J K L M N O 120 P Q R S T U V W 130 X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _ 140 ` a b c d e f g 150 h i j k l m n o 160 p q r s t u v w 170 x y z { | } ~ DEL I should point out that octal 136 and 137 have two different printing representations. 136 is either caret or up-arrow; 137 is either back- arrow or underscore. Note that THERE IS NO ALTMODE! It is true that ESC used to be ALTMODE, but no more. Some strange systems like SUAI and MIT have used a lot of the drek in octal 39 and lower for useful printing codes; SUAI has actually rearranged two printing characters!! Bill Gropp ------------------------------ Date: 08 Nov 1980 1210-PST From: TAW at SU-AI Subject: Voyager flyby of Saturn Subject: [ Final message of this issue ] 1 9 8 0 : A S A T U R N O D Y S S E Y You are invited to a two day journey through time and space on NOVEMBER 11 and 12, 1980 at the SAN FRANCISCO PALACE OF FINE ARTS. If you are daring enough to attend this epic adventure, you'll experience SATURN and its mysterious moons relayed directly to the Palace of Fine Arts as if you were traveling on board the starship Voyager. Your tourguides for the journey will be: BEN BOVA science fiction author and executive editor of OMNI magazine. JAMES "SCOTTY" DOOHAN BARBARA MARX HUBBARD of the Starship Enterprise. Committee for the Future. In addition there will be films, slides, and video reports on the space programs' dramatic saga accompanied by synthesizer music and laser special effects. A N D The first COLOR pictures from the mysterious moon of TITAN. These images will be EXCLUSIVELY at the Palace of Fine Arts and are UNAVAILABLE anywhere else on Earth. Exhibit hall opens at 11 a.m. at no charge. Show time 7:30 p.m. For information, phone: (408) 741-1189 or ARPAnet mail to TAW@SU-AI. VOYAGER ENCOUNTERS SATURN Presented by San Francisco Section of the American Astronautical Society and The Viking Fund in association with OMNI Magazine ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 12 NOV 1980 0620-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #133 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 12 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 133 Today's Topics: Voyager - TV Coverage & AP/NYT Stories, Technology - Superconductors, SF Books - Here's the Plot & Butterfly Kid & Uncommon SF & TAKEOVER, SFL Proposal, SF Calendar - Loscon Schedule, SF Movies - ERASERHEAD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Nov 1980 0129-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Voyager tonight! NEWSBEAT "Voyager One" (Public TV Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m.) Watch public TV for NASA's live coverage of Voyager's encounter with Saturn. What you'll get on commercial TV are the usual "gee whiz" excerpts. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1980 0132-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Voyager News file A file containing all AP and NYT news wire stories about the voyager flyby is being maintained at SAIL. The file is VOYGER.NS[T,JPM]. The file can be FTPed from SAIL even if you do not have a SAIL account. The file will be updated twice a day (approximately every morning and evening, PST) until the probe has flown by. Jim [ The Voyager news stories will also be available from the file AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS VOYGER. Arrangements are being made to make the file accessible to people from our other customary FTP sites. They will be announced promptly. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 1980 2155-EST From: JoSH Subject: Re: RT superconductors What piqued my interest was that the crystals supposedly super- conducted in one direction only. Is this a "reasonable" phenomenon? If so, one might see a great difference in the magnetic properties, ie, you couldn't get induced currents except in that direction. Thus it might only exclude magnetic field components perpendicular to the direction of superconductivity... ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 1936-PST From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: Here's the plot...; The Butterfly Kid; favorite uncommon sf Can anyone identify the following fragment of a plot from a short story? -- A crime of some sort is committed and a couple of human characters get the help of an alien Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. I think the alien lives on a world which has absorbed 19th century British literature to the point that the aliens there live the lives of various characters in these books. Hence, there exists a Sherlock Holmes.... This story may or may not have been in a collection of Holmes-in-SF pieces; (I recall reading some other Holmes in the future mysteries at the same time I read the above). I have been reading The Butterfly Kid (by Anderson), and have heard that it is part of a trilogy, each book written by a different person (all of whom are friends). One of the authors is Michael Kurland, and I think the third book is by Waters and is titled The Probability Pad. Kurland, incidentally, has written The Infernal Device, a very good Moriarty book, and also The Whenabouts of Burr, which I thought only fair. Does anyone know for sure the other titles, whether they are in print, etc? I would find a poll of people's favorite uncommon sf and fantasy books much more interesting than the landmark poll. This seems to be the right kind of group to ask -- almost everybody has a few favorite books that they think are relatively unknown -- and it could lead to quite an interesting booklist. Has such a poll been taken already? Comments? good reading, cat ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 1980 1821-EST From: ROBG at MIT-DMS (Rob F. Griffiths) Subject: Another one of... I have heard a rumor that Stephen King has got another new book out by the title of "TAKEOVER". Does anyone know anything about this book? Not as in the plot, but as in availability? I heard that if I wrote to his hard-back publisher I could get a copy. Does anyone know how much money I should enclose? Or who his hard-back publisher is? [[Please reply to me, not the list, as I'm NOT on SF-LOVERS.]] -Rob F. Griffiths ROBG @ DM ------------------------------ Date: 11 NOV 1980 2239-PST From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: tees and buttons Hokay, folks, the two big winners were VERY close, with the BEM at a TTY narrowly edging the green-skinned, multi-limbed lovers. The scattering few other votes could swing the election either way, so if you don't mind, we'll have a runoff between just those two. I response to a few other things -- I LIKE female BEMs, and "sensuous" was never defined as exclusively female... I think the Tarot card Lovers idea was interesting, but I know I'd never have understood it, so there must be others who'd object. The buttons will have a square net pattern, if only because it doesn't look so bad if it gets a little off-center in printing -- besides the other implies a center to the net. I have no objection to a superimposed @, as long as no one else uses a $ or something for the same thing. Otherwise, I'll design a cute SF-L logo... VOTE FOR ONE: 1. BEM at a TTY 2. Alien Lovers YES OR NO: Is the @ sign an acceptable symbol? (if no, why) SYOS (See You On System) Rodof ------------------------------ Date: 11 November 1980 0943-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: ASCII I believe that backarrow and uparrow were for an old version of ASCII and have officially been replaced by underscore and caret. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 1980 11:20 PST From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: Loscon schedule and RFP Here's a short summary of the Loscon schedule, courtesy of Cheryl Chapman . Films, Hucksters, Art Show will generally run all day and into the evening every day. A list of confirmed guests appears at the end of the program. * * * Request for Party * * * I'll be there. Anyone else who plans to go to Loscon and is interested in another of the highly acclaimed SF-Lovers parties please send me mail indicating what day you prefer (Friday looks plausible), and I will put you on PARTY.DIS[1,RRB] or whatever. Life is short. -------- Schedule of Loscon 7 (November 28-30, 1980) -------- Fri morning (from 11 on) - Opening ceremony Fri afternoon (from 1 on) - "How to attend a Con"; Slide show of "Altered States" and "Superman II"; "The Regency - What Was It? (Background info for Regency Dancing in the evening); "Extra- terrestrial phsychology"; Auction; "Sex in Fandom Panels - Why are they so popular?"; David Gerrold reads "A Matter For Man"; Dr. Who fandom meeting Fri evening (from 8 on) - Regency dancing; Filk singing Sat morning (from 10 on) - "The Occult in SF"; Fantasy Role Playing in Theory and Practice (i.e. a room has been set aside for D&Ders); "Science Fiction Criticism"; "LASFS Book 1 - Genesis to Exodus, 1934 to 1948" (LASFS history); Slide show of "Clash of the Titans"; Sat afternoon (from 1 on) - "Masquerade Techniques"; "Larry Niven, an interview"; "Galaxy magazine - a 30-year perspective"; "SF Radio"; "The Films of Jack Arnold"; "Music and SF"; Filksinging; Sat evening (from 8 on) - Masquerade; Jack Arnold film "The Fiend without a Face"; Filksinging; Sun morning (from 11 on) - "The Happy Media - newish outlets for SF, photography, vanity pressess, etc."; Whatever happened to genzines?"; "The Best Unsung SF Films"; Sun afternoon (from 1 on) - "Collaborating with Larry Niven - Jerry Pournelle and Steve Barnes give us insight"; "Physics X - Robert Forward"; Steve Barnes reads from "Dream Park"; "We want Infor- mation" (Prisoner Fandom); "The Action Story"; "Science Fiction Consultants" (a company of fans that are influencing (or at least trying) the media to produce better SF products); "Gandalf and his Staff"; Closing Ceremony; Sun evening (from after the Closing Ceremony on) - Dead Dog Party Confirmed Guests - Craig Miller, Bjo Trimble, Elayne Pelz, Marilyn Niven, Jack Martin, Larry Niven, A. E. Van Vogt, Greg Chalfin, David Gerrold, Mel Gilden, Alan Winston, Fred Patten, Mike Glyer, Bruce Pelz, Alva Rogers, Gus Willmorth, Marjii Ellers, H. L. Gold, Mike Hodel, Bill Mueller, Bill Warren, Paul Edwin Zimmer, Bill Rotsler, Marty Cantor, Dennis Fischer, Jerry Pournelle, Steve Barnes, Robert Forward, Phil Castora, Joyce McDaniel, Rusty Dawe. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/12/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses similarities between the aliens in ERASERHEAD and ALIEN. People who are not familiar with these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 10 November 1980 2016-EST (Monday) From: Warren.Wake at CMU-10A Subject: SPEAKING OF ALIEN . . . Having just seen "ERASERHEAD" for the first time, I was surprised that noone has commented on the similarity of their "alien" and the one in ALIEN. Not only are the headforms very similar, but also the beansprout-shaped body idea. When "eraserhead's" head pops off, and the "alien head" pops out, the imagery is unmistakable. Has anyone else noted this? -warren- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 13 NOV 1980 0614-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #134 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 13 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 134 Today's Topics: SF Books - Uncommon SF & Here's the Title & Number of Sexes, Time Travel - Avoiding Paradox, SF TV - Lost Land Writers, Technology - Superconductors, Voyager Encounter with Saturn, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Nov 1980 at 2350-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SOUNDS LIKE A FUN PROJECT...^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE's suggestion for compiling a list of people's favorite uncommon SF and fantasy books. Especially with annotations whenever possible. I hope "cat" offers to collect and report them. (I say "whenever possible" because sometimes you just can't account for why some particular book turns you on specially. Like Garrett's ANYTHING YOU CAN DO probably isn't greatly out of the ordinary, but it really made me tingle. It was the kind of book that makes you go around pressing it on people because you want to share the joy.) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1980 1208-PST From: The Moderator Subject: Fiendish plot for an "alien Sherlock Holmes" There are probably more than one "alien Sherlock Holmes", but OR.TOVEY's involves aliens that base their lives on human books, and that sounds like the Hokas from Toka, in EARTHMAN'S BURDEN by Anderson & Dickson. The other stories in the collection are not Holmes-related, but are based on Hokan imitation of other literary genres. A good, but not great, collection. -- Donald R. Woods The story OR.Tovey was refering to is in the collection EARTHMAN'S BURDEN by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson. It is a collection of hilarious stories about Hokas, aliens from the planet Toka with less than a firm grasp of reality and who love reading human fiction and then living the characters that they read to their upmost ability. It was the only story in that collection about an alien Sherlock Holmes. -- Bruce The Sherlock Holmes story is The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. It appeared in Earthman's Burden, an Avon paperback, copyright December 1979. -- Alan Frisbie Anyone interested in the Hokas should also look up Anderson and Dickson's novel about them, STAR PRINCE CHARLIE. For other opinions about these stories see the results of the SF Comedy Query in [SFL V2 #17,19,27]. -- Roger ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1980 02:01 est From: JTurner.Coop at MIT-Multics Greetings from Amherst Mass, Boy, leave you people alone for a week and you get into cantorial and branched universe! Anyway, my form of time travel does work! The energy required to go back is thhe energy required to keep the uni- verse the same given the fact you've gone back. So if you go back to kill grandma, you will only succeed in going back if: a) you weren't going to get her anyway. b) you can pump in enough energy to stop the paradox from happening. Anyway...on to other things. As to numbers of sexes in books, in 'Have Space Suit, Will Travel' by Heinlein (sorry), he has 12 (count them, 12) sexes involved in copulation. So there! As to writers who worked for less than notable TV. Niven used the plot of 'The Soft Weapon' for a Star Trek animated show! Speaking of Niven, he has done some stuff with infinite universe (All the Myriad Ways). He came up with the famous mathematical beer song at Noreascon II: aleph null bottles of beer on the wall, aleph null bottles of beer, and if one of those bottles should happen to fall, aleph null bottles of beer on the wall. This was the same session that he explained how to get a hollow world. Thanks for the info on Zork. As to the design, how about something that would give the field, but not the specific topic. a BEM devouring punch cards... hackito ergo sum, repeal entropy in our lifetime, fandom is a way of life, james turner @ umass-cyber P.S. Any Elf-quest fans out there? Sorry about spellings, I'm still on the same terminal. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1980 0915-PST From: Steve Saunders Subject: 1-dim superconductor If the superconductivity is truly one-dimensional (and not, as in Type II in a magnetic field, due to parallel filaments of isotropic superconductivity) then a local supercurrent loop is impossible and magnetic fields (in ANY direction) would not be rigorously excluded! The field expulsion experiment would have to use a ring of the super- conducting material with the preferred direction formed in place so that there would be superconducting loops. Note that failure to superconduct "laterally" means that the current must be in precisely the preferred direction at every point along any superconducting path including a loop. It might be quite difficult to get a ring with its crystal structure oriented in such a way that the super-path ever closed! Steve ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 1980 1713-PST From: Alan R. Katz Subject: See the new Saturn pictures from Voyager I! VOYAGER AT SATURN A talk by Dr. David Morrison Jet Propulsion Laboratory (sponsored by OASIS) Date: Saturday, Nov. 22, 1980 Time: 7:00 pm Place: Kinsey Auditorium, Calif. Museum of Science and Industry 700 State Dr., L.A. (across from USC) The newest pictures of Saturn, its rings, and its moons (including Titan) taken by the Voyager I spacecraft will be presented. For more info, contact KATZ@ISIF Alan ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1980 1559-EST (Wednesday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A A BEM at a video terminal strikes me as a reasonable choice. I went back thru the last half-dozen messages and can't find one that explains why an @ is significant or has any recognizable value. I have been on the Arpanet for as long as CMU has been on the Arpanet, and I haven't ever seen the @ except as a qualifier to a network site, e.g., @CMU-10A, @MIT-ML, which hardly qualifies it as "ubiquitous". Therefore, unless you come up with a cute "network site" name for an @ to qualify, I think it is much too obscure (about the same obscurity as the tarot cards, which once they were explained were clever). joe ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1980 18:34-EST From: Gail Zacharias Subject: tees and buttons vote T-shirt: BEM at a TTY (better yet, BEM looking OUT OF a TTY...) Button: I'd prefer some SF-specific frob in the net. @ would make more of a HUMAN-NETS logo than SF-LOVERS. Maybe we could put something else in the net, and HUMAN-NETS could put @ (and INFO-MICRO could put a micro and ...) ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1980 1550-EST (Wednesday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A The character ascii 176 is a tilde. How a ~ would be mistaken for an altmode escapes me... ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1980 10:21-EST From: Matthew Jody Lecin Subject: ASCII Back-arrow and up-arrow are QUITE still in use. Anyone out there reading this on a Datamedia-2500 (Elite?)... I bet you all see this "^" as an ARROW up, and this "_" as an arrow left, or a BACK- ARROW. Mjl ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 14 NOV 1980 0647-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #135 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 14 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 135 Today's Topics: Voyager - AP/NYT Stories, Technology - Superconductors, SF TV - Lost Land Writers, LucasFilms Offer, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 November 1980 0220-EST From: The Moderator Subject: How to obtain the Voyager newswire stories The arrangements to make the Voyager newswire stories available at our customary FTP sites are now complete. Due to the large volume of material, RUTGERS has chosen to make it available from a BBOARD rather than simply from a file. The stories are available from the files listed below at the remaining sites. These files will be updated daily as new stories become available. (Twice daily for SU-AI and RUTGERS.) A copy of this material will also be available from the SF-LOVERS archives. Thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, and Jon Solomon for providing space for the materials on their systems, and to Jim McGrath for taking the time to make them available to us. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS VOYGER CMUA TEMP:VOYAGE.UPD[A210DP0Z] MIT-Multics >udd>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>voyager-news.text PARC-MAXC [Maxc]Voyager.TXT SU-AI VOYGER.NS[T,JPM] [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] Rutgers At Rutgers the Voyager material will be available from the VOYAGER BBOARD. This BBOARD is being updated automatically twice daily. Rutgers people interested in keeping abreast of the Voyager I results should execute BBOARD VOYAGER in their customary way (ie. in your LOGIN.CMD, BBoard.CMD, manually, etc.) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1980 1849-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: UNI-DIMENSIONAL SUPERCONDUCTORS Since this is SFL rather than physics-net, can anyone construct a mechanism for the following: Uni-dimensional, Uni-directional (not the same thing?) cryogenic superconductors are used in a factory to create and bottle magnetic monopoles (probably in a zero-gee factory), that are then used for powered spaceflight. Mike ------------------------------ RWK@MIT-MC 11/13/80 06:16:33 Re: Why Larry Niven and Ben Bova write cartoon episodes I believe the reason they do this is *MONEY*. The producers don't care about quality, in fact often excise it. But they do pay good money for small work. I seem to recall Larry Niven saying something about this when he was here at MIT last winter. Does anybody remember more specifically? ------------------------------ Date: 13 November 1980 1353-EST (Thursday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Finite numbers A version of the beer bottle song heard in our lounge... A googolplex bottles of beer on the wall A googolplex bottles of beer If one of those bottles should happen to fall A ... It is the only version of this song that I know of that terminates at the first verse. joe ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1980 17:13 PST From: Brodie at PARC-MAXC Subject: Work for LucasFilm? Just the thing . . . Date: 13 Nov. 1980 4:35 pm PST (Thursday) From: Boggs Subject: Work for LucasFilm? LucasFilm, the people who brought you Star Wars, is looking for a hardware designer. He/she would design and build special purpose hardware for the computer graphics system they are building. LucasFilm is located in Marin county. Rumor has it that they have lots of money and are building a mind-boggling system. Alvy Ray Smith and Jim Blinn, known to many people at Parc, work there. If you know of a hardware type with a good track record who is looking for a job, refer him/her to: Alvy Smith LucasFilm (415) 499-0239 ------------------------------ Date: 13 November 1980 10:35-EST From: Matthew Jody Lecin For the uninformed, I believe this is the meaning behind the "@"... Most of us have net sites we can either call over the fone, or login on hardwire terminals as our homesite (Mailbox, if you will) on the Net. There is that Unfortunate few, however that must use a TIP to get where they want to go. The default intercept character (like ctrl-^ in telnet) is @ to a TIP. Matt ------------------------------ ACW@MIT-AI 11/13/80 14:37:44 For myself, buttons and tee-shirts don't appeal. For the pure love of flaming, however, I'll suggest that all of the controversy can be avoided by adopting an attractive but purely abstract logo. Make it distinctive, but AVOID any real world connotations altogether. This is sort of a Zen idea. Make the symbol be the important thing, shifting emphasis off the thing symbolized. I suggest a blue circle centered in a gray or silver equilateral triangle, worn point down. At one stroke, we eliminate argument about the relative merits of various symbolisms, as well as protecting our secrecy. Of course, people will invent meanings for the symbol, but let them do so LATER, after it is adopted. (This was inspired by the Esperanto-speakers' green star.) ---Wechsler ------------------------------ Date: 13 November 1980 1357-EST (Thursday) From: Joe.Newcomer at CMU-10A Subject: Logo What about "@Terra" or "@SOL-III" somewhere on the net...? joe ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1980 0809-PST From: Dolata@SUMEX-AIM Subject: BEM looking out of a terminal Very clever idea Gail, the BEM looking OUT of the terminal is excellent. That has my unqualified vote as BEST. Dolata@sumex-aim ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1980 at 1101-PST From: chesley at sri-unix Subject: alt-mode etc. Well, I can't resist putting in two bits here, tho I was hoping that someone with more accurate knowledge would say something: left arrow and up arrow did get officially changed to under-bar and cir- cumflex. Whether this was a change in the standard, or part of the process of standardization, I'm not sure. It happened (near as I can recollect) about seven or eight years ago. As to alt-mode, I remember hacking some TTY driver code several years ago which converted 176 (and I believe one other 17x code) to ESC (33); I had to take this out to get the corresponding printable characters. My interpretation at the time was that originally there were separate ESC and alt-mode characters, but alt was dropped in favor of just ESC. Of course, there are still some (usually older) terminals, like the DM-2500, that still have left and up arrow, and some that still have alt- mode. (Amusingly, my own terminal (a DM-3025) has an alt-mode key, but it's used for local functions such as changing the baud rate.) --Harry... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 15 NOV 1980 1043-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #136 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 15 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 136 Today's Topics: SF Books - Number of Sexes & Journal of Irreproducible Results, Technology - Superconductors, SFL Proposal, What Happens at a Con? - GoH Query Results ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Nov 1980 1347-EST From: KERN at RUTGERS Subject: Species with maximum number of sexes in SF. My nomination is the Last Men in Olaf Stapledon's LAST AND FIRST MEN. There were 96 distinct sexes among the Last Men. (Most of them being basically male or female type sexes). For more details, see the book. -K B Kern ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 1980 (Friday) 2048-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: Stuff'n'fluff "FFF K-core of rom in the box... FFF K-core of rom... you or one out and shunt it around... FFE K-core of ram..." (I do not recall where I read/heard the following:) "The philosophers think that it's drab That astronomers think that it's fab That when all time is ended Relitivly expended The BIG BANG will become a GIB GNAB" (If it was out of Omni consider me duely embarrasserd) More on the creation and destruction (destructuring?) of the universe in "The Creation Clarified" by Albin Chaplin reproduced in "The Journal of Irreproducible Results -- Selected Papers" Any interested in knowing how to order said journal? It is one of the few really good journal buys left ($4.50 for a year -- quarterly). ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 14 November 1980 10:41-EST From: John A. Pershing Jr. Subject: Uni-Directional [Super?]Conductors Are people perhaps confusing room-temp superconductors with linear- chain (vanilla-flavored) conductors? The latter were described in fair detail in "Linear-Chain Conductors" by A. Epstein and J. Miller, in the October '79 Scientific American. Linear-chain conductors conduct only along one axis (almost as well as most metals) and insulate in all other directions. For the most part, they become semi-conductive at low temperatures. They are composed of doped crystalline polymers [essentially]. -jp ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 1980 09:13 PST From: Chapman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Symbolism of "@" [SFL V2 #135] Since the very first SF-Lovers party was held in my room at Westercon this year, here is the significance I attach to the "@". In order to gain admission to the party, a potential attendee had to respond appropriately to the question "Do you have an at-sign in your name?" We didn't care if someone made up an appropriate name, if they knew enough about the ARPA net to do so, although we had enough people from all over the country at the party that a bogus site name probably would have been detected. Since everyone who gets SF-Lovers has an at-sign (sometimes printed as "at") in their Net Address, I feel this is an appropriate symbol for our logo. Cheryl (Chapman.ES@PARC-MAXC) P.S. I'm surprised that there is any question about the significance of the "@" or of it's appropriateness as potentially part of our logo. ------------------------------ Date: 14 November 1980 1807-EST (Friday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: SFLovers Button and Tee Shirt Design As for the Actual Design I prefer the Tarot Version, though it may be hard to get onto a button. However, moving on to more philosophic points, the design should have a meaning other than the identification of SFLovers so that it can be explained cleanly, and secondly, it should be strange, weird, crazy, or bizzarre enough in both meaning and design that non-SFLovers would make copies of it. It might be pretty embarrassing to walk up to someone whom you thought was an SFL only to find out that they didn't know what the hell you were talking about. (flame off) -doug ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 1980 at 0018-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^ MOST ATTRACTIVE GoH QUERY RESULTS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SUMMARY: A very wide spread, with 3 predictable main vote-pullers, and a highly predictable topcat. Because my own preferences were so esoteric, I omitted any authors that ONLY I voted for. So H.M. Hoover, Colin Kapp, Stephen Tall, etc., are not included since no one else voted for them. x Anderson, Poul x Bellairs, John If you haven't read THE FACE IN THE FROST, do so \at/ \once/! It's a remarkable book. xx Bester, Alfred x Biggle, Lloyd He's by far the best at mixing the senses of wonder of music and SF. x Bova, Ben xxx Brunner, John x Card, Orson S. xxx Cherryh, C.J. Got to talk to her for about half an hour at a Balticon and was fascinated. xx Clement, Hal x Coney, Michael G. xx Cooper, Susan I know her slightly and think she'd make a fascinating GoH, but she's not con oriented (we've never been able to get her for Boskone) and tends to be very busy. x Crichton, Michael x DeCamp, L. Sprague xx Dickson, Gordon Gordy is a LUV of a man! Happily for us down here, he has accepted for OTHERCON next fall. xx Elgin, S.H. Probably an artifact, all 3 of us being "card-carrying linguists". xxxx Ellison, Harlan x Ford, John (see extensive comment below) xxxxxx Forward, Robert xxx Garrett, Randall xx Gerrold, David Put him in the same room with Ellison and see what happens! x Harrison, Harry x Herbert, Frank xxxx Hogan, James x Klass, Philip (aka Wm. Tenn) x Laumer, Keith x Lee, Tanith I normally DO NOT read fantasy in any form - a HARD CORE NUTS & BOLTS hacker. Yet her books capture me. I want to be Parl Dro! xxxx LeGuin, Ursula K. x Leiber, Fritz x Martin, George R.R. x McIntyre, Vonda K. xx McKillip, Patricia xxxxx Niven, Larry x Nourse, Alan xx Pournelle, Jerry x Robinson, Spider Because there IS a tavern I frequent called Callahans that, altho in NJ and not NY, he might just WANT to have a drink in sometime... xx Schmitz, James H. x Sheffield, Charles x Simak, Clifford x Stine, G. Harry x Tiptree, James, Jr. xxxx Varley, John xxx Vinge, Joan x Wilhelm, Kate x Williamson, Jack xxxx Zelazny, Roger Assuming that Forward, Hogan, and, p-o-s-s-i-b-l-y Niven, wouldn't pull so many votes if it weren't for their association with our mutual bond, computers, my advice to a con committee pondering GoH's would be, "Try to get Ellison, LeGuin, Varley, or Zelazny!" ------------------------------ comments: * I first came across Ford in the SF-Lovers editions. He is the author of WEB OF ANGELS, Pocket Books, July 1980. It is a rather good book about a universe completely connected and run by computer (the web). There are four levels of literacy in the web. The hero is on the 4th level. "He was a genius in a computerized universe...and they wanted to kill him for it." 1st Literacy: To use the Web as a communications device only. 2nd Literacy: Ability to retrieve and store data in open Web storage. To use existing precoded programs in normal access patterns. 3rd Literacy: Ability to change the structure of existing Web. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 16 NOV 1980 1201-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #137 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 16 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 137 Today's Topics: Technology - Superconductors, SF Music - Day the Earth Stood Still, SF TV - Lost in Space, SF Books - Congo & Bradbury Collection, SFL Proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Nov 1980 0930-PST From: Donald R. Woods Subject: Unidirectional vs Super According to the article in Electronics magazine (Oct 9, 1980), the crystals have zero resistance along one dimension, not just low resistance. From what I can determine from the article, I gather that there are two reasons for the current [hm] lack of interest on the part of the more widely read scientific journals. First, the crystals have not yet been shown to repel magnetic flux, which is a second necessary property for a superconductor. (The discoverer, Fred W. Vahldiek at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, is reported to be setting up a test for this effect. Some people are dubious that a one-dimensional superconductor can interact properly with magnetic fields.) Second, and probably more important, is that nobody else has independently confirmed the results. The process for creating the crystals is "patent pending", so perhaps noone else has even been told how it's done. The article doesn't even say that anyone else has tested Valhdiek's own crystals. -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 1980 1334-PST (Saturday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: music from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" Somewhere, there exists an album of the original soundtrack music from the above named movie. It may well be long out of "print". Does anyone know anything about the existence of this album? Publisher and availability are of particular interest. If nobody knows, it will be necessary to search through a pile of old album quarterlies, which will be quite a job. Thanks much. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 1980 1336-PST (Saturday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Asimov meets "Lost In Space" So I was sitting here watching the Saturday running of Lost in Space locally (no snide remarks, there is no funnier show on television, short of Dragnet), when I caught a cute little exchange. Professor Robinson (remember him?) and Don were about to embark on a rather dangerous journey into another dimensional system. Before they left, they asked the robot what their chances were of returning safely. The robot replied that: "The primary directive of robotics would not allow me to let you go if I did not consider it possible for you to return; a robot may not allow a human to come to harm." The funny part was that the robot pronounced robotics RO-BOE-TICS. I almost couldn't figure out what the word was until I thought about it. Oh well, getting close. --Lauren-- P.S. That does not compute, you bubbleheaded boobie. --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 1980 2252-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: SF or mainstream? It looks to me like CONGO is SF, although this review treats it as mainstream. Anyone read it? An Excerpt from Bookreviews By ANATOLE BROYARD c. 1980 N.Y. Times News Service CONGO. By Michael Crichton. 348 pages. Knopf. $10.95. Here is how Michael Crichton describes Amy, the principal love object in "Congo": "She could be coy, she responded to flattery, she was preoccupied with her appearance, loved make-up, and was very fussy about the collar of the sweaters she wore in the winter." Although she is quite short, Amy weighs 140 pounds. She has a vocabulary of 620 words, which is remarkably good for a gorilla. Karen Ross, the other female in "Congo," is almost six feet tall, attractive but ungainly. She is a mathematical prodigy, brilliant but insensitive, determined to succeed at any cost. Her feminine wiles have been confined to technology. Peter Elliot, a young professor working in the field of primate communication, has taught Amy to talk - not in words, but sign lan- guage. His whole life is dominated by Amy. By the time you have read this far in "Congo," you will be wondering how Peter and Karen are going to be brought together, and how this will affect Amy. Crichton is the Alvin Toffler of suspense fiction, and "Congo" might be described as a romance of technology. Computers and all kinds of electronic equipment are pitted against the primeval, in the form of gorillas, the rain forest of the Congo, and a volcano. Crichton is a virtuoso of research. He can describe the look and feel of a rain forest as well as the latest safari gadgetry. When Karen and Peter go to the Congo with Amy, their equipment suggests an L. L. Bean catalog of the next century. Readers of suspense novels seem to be willing to absorb any amount of information in the process of being entertained, and Crichton has quite a lot to say about theories of communication, about the information industry and technology, about computers, the warfare of the future, and other such arcane subjects. He also describes a typical Pygmy meal, the current status of canni- balism in Africa, shooting rabbits in a rubber raft and fighting off a murderous attack by hippos. At one point, Amy saves Peter from a male gorilla by treating him as her infant. "Congo" also includes an ancient city buried in the jungle and guarded by a tribe of "missing links" who talk by sighing and crush intruders' heads between stone spoons. We've come a long way from Tarzan. It would not be fair to tell you who wins the battle of the sexes. It is enough to say that both Amy and Karen are formidable females. For these and all the usual reasons, "Congo" is very amusing reading, even if, in its originality, Crichton denies us some of the vulgar gratifications of the genre. ..... ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 1980 0109-PST From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Budrys review of Bradbury collection THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY. Knopf. $17.95. By Algis Budrys (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) (Algis Budrys writes Book Week's science fiction column.) There are two ways to look at the work of Ray Bradbury. One is to remember how it was: to return to the old friends of youth, when these stories were beautiful, perceptive and spoke of important things. The other is to look at them as they are now: elegant, but a little shallow; obvious; sentimentalized. To do the latter is to deny the child still within us. Not to do it is to deny the child's long struggle to become an adult. What to do? Bradbury peers quizzically out of the jacket photo, and, start- lingly, displays a strong resemblance to James Thurber's customary expression. Correlations: Thurber, out of Columbus, Ohio, with his stories of put-upon, soft-spoken, dreaming men preserving few traces of simple goodness in the face of management directives from bulky, sensible women. Mother-and-son stories. Bradbury, out of Waukegan and the part of Southern California that's like Waukegan, with his Mars that's like an adolescent boy's room. The parents see the room as cluttered and come barging in to institute reform. The boy sees each object as precious and beautiful, like shells on a beach, though eroded by time and use. Cast there by wind and water, they lie where they ought to be. Move even one, call it ugly, one of them ugly, and the entire beach is ruined. Parent-and-child stories. There are a hundred of them here, beginning with the 1943 stories that became the early Bradbury books - "The Martian Chronicles," "The Illustrated Man," "Dark Carnival." Uncle Einar, with his leathery wings, his dreadful power, and his affectionate kindness, from the 1946 "Mademoiselle." The Mexican stories, such as "The Next in Line," in which the American tourist wife realized that she has failed to acquire the rights of an adult; that her husband and, more important, great arbitrary managerial forces will pluck her from her own dreams, kill her, wither her and embed her in a catacomb mosaic. How can we say there's no true art and no force in these stories? When we found them as children, they spoke to the thing parents never visibly grasp, just as Thurber speaks to the same thing: we spend most of our lives as pawns. Thurber's aging men are no longer adult-past it, if they were ever in it; manipulatable objects. Bradbury's children not only are not yet adult but may, unless they are very resourceful and especially adamant, be pipelined directly into becoming Thurber men or Thurber women trapped into lives in which their own dreams must be subordi- nated to the task of supervising Thurber men. And the great horror on whose brink the Bradbury children poise is that the apparent only choice is to bow down and let oneself be arranged or else to become a heedless, insensitive arranger. To give up childhood is to opt for becoming the keeper of a catacomb. And they are we. Only in part, of course. Life is too various, too flexible, too multifarious for a child to have appraised it all. We are not all advancing toward becoming Walter Mitty, with his errand for puppy biscuit, and Mrs. Mitty, with her errand for keeping Walter Mitty from wandering out into the traffic. Right? Can we all see that? It's not simplistic, as Bradbury makes it. But when we are a little older, perhaps it will be, again. There's no one for whom to review this book. Adolescents are not concerned whether Bradbury is an important figure of some importance in "belles lettres." It's evident to them that he is. And he's one of the few who is their friend, and you don't analyze your friends. As for you and me, poised here in the hiatus between the initiatory and the terminal stages of helplessness, each of us works out his or her own appraisals of what's useful and what's not. And those old gaffers over there, whom we love, respect and tend - what does it matter what they think? Bradbury is an overblown stylist, an sentimentalist whose work is better remembered unre-read. And remembered, and remembered. He is a showy and euphuistic storyteller who is forever making tempests out of zephyrs, who plays on anguishes doomed to be seen for the simple glandular secretions they are, just as soon as the glandular secretions slow down. None of those in power over their own lives will find much to approve of in these stories. So don't ask me what Bradbury's doing these days. He's beginning to look like James Thurber. He's out there looking for the perfect parent and the perfect child. He's doing whatever we're doing. It's no longer 1943, and we're all engaged in serious business. ------------------------------ LLOYD@MIT-AI 11/15/80 11:24:12 Re: SF-Lovers Logo Good communications involves the maximum transfer of information while utilizing minimum bandwidth (this is also the concept in white space ads). Based on this premise, I suggest a button with nothing but an '@' sign on it. It is too plain to attract too much attention from non-involved parties, but it very clearly announces net involvement to those in the know. Brian Lloyd ------------------------------ Date: 14 November 1980 1801-EST (Friday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: Altmode Re: Escape-Escape-foo as opposed to Alt-Alt-foo. Now that it is a moot point: First: Escape, due to the proliferation of Emacs I think, has come to be pronounced Meta. Therefore, Meta-Meta-foo is now as easy to pronounce as Alt-Alt-foo. Second: I have heard people use the Meta pronounciation in place of the Escape even in conversations not related to Computer Science. -Doug P.S. Let sleeping dogs lie. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 1980 0929-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: Alts (a la mode) I have just become the proud possessor of a new IBM 3101 terminal. This has introduced a totally new meaning to the ALT key. On this baby, what the rest of the world knows as the CONTROL key is labelled "ALT". And to make life interesting, for the otherwise bored typist, it is located just to the right of the space bar. I don't want to hear any comments along the lines of "people who get IBM terminals deserve whatever they get," if you please. Mike ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 17 NOV 1980 0715-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #138 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 17 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 138 Today's Topics: LosCon Ride, SF TV - Cosmos & Star Trek, What Happens at a Con? - Comics Con, SFL Proposal, TESB - Bloopers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RMS@MIT-AI 11/16/80 19:57:39 Re: Share ride to LOSCON LOSCON is a science fiction convention in LA on Thanksgiving weekend. I'd like to find people in the San Francisco area to share the ride with. We could go in your car or mine, or I could rent a plane. ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 11/17/80 00:09:06 Re: Vangelis's music on TV, and Cosmos The music of one of my favorite synthesizer artists, Vangelis, has been used in several PBS productions: most recently Cosmos (parts from the albums "Albedo 0.39" and "Heaven and Hell") and earlier on Death of a Princess (Albedo 0.39). What puzzles me is that there were no credits given for the music on either of these shows. Does anybody know why that is? I can think of three possibilities: 1) ripoff, 2) Vangelis didn't WANT credit (?), or 3) the music isn't "important" enough to deserve credit (again, ??) Some thoughts on Cosmos itself: I've come to really enjoy this show, despite Sagan's sometimes infuriating hand gestures (at least his "cosmic awe" of the earlier installments has ebbed). While the technical information is 99% old hat to SF types, Carl has managed to present the historical aspects of science in a way cohesive enough to keep my attention. Names like Kepler, Copernicus, and Democritus haven't meant much to me before; I'd read about them, be suitably impressed for a little while, and promptly forget everything. I think Sagan's visuals and constant tying-together of everything make it easier for the audience to associatively recall the information in the series. And the music's real good, too. -leor ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1980 0141-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: Voyager Vs. Nomad. Does anyone remember the episode of STAR TREK with Nomad, which was a "Space probe" sent out by Earth in perhaps the mid '60s or '70s (I don't remember if they gave an approx date so close, or just "end of the 20th century" which leaves everything open)? It supposedly became "merged" with an alien probe, and it thought Kirk was its master (Creator was the term, I think). The recent Voyager activity brings this episode to mind, and I wonder how much information about such plans as Voyager that the writers of the STAR TREK episodes had to work with? Did they just dream about such things that just "Happen to come true"?? (JSol) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 1980 2254-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: Comics convention Two Thousand Expected at Convention By JOHN J. MULLINS Associated Press Writer BOSTON (AP) - It takes more than inflation to increase value 1,200 times in 40 years. It takes superheroes. A copy of "Movie Comics," published in the early 1940s and sold at the time for 10 cents, was offered for $120 Saturday at the seventh annual New England Comic Art Convention Captain America Superheroes' Festival. Other books that once sold for 10 or 12 cents were available at $60 and $70. "It's a comic book and nostalgia convention," said Don Phelps of Plymouth, co-chairman of the event, adding it also embraced science fiction, films and cereal box prizes. In addition to comic books, there were bubble gum cards, coins, posters, small hardcover books and original comic book art for sale or trade in a suite of rooms at the Sheraton-Boston Hotel. Martin Greim of Dover, the other co-chairman, said more than 2,000 people were at the two-day convention, which also includes panel discussions by comic book artists and writers and a super- heroes costume contest with a $50 prize. Those attending "range anywhere from kids 9 and 10 years old right up to old adults, and I mean old adults," said Greim. "I've seen guys 80 and 90 years old." Sitting behind a table of his own work was Howie Chaykin, a New York artist and writer who works in science fiction and adult comics. "These people read the stuff because they have the same sort of emotional addiction I have," he said. "I love the form and tolerate the content." ------------------------------ Date: 16 November 1980 15:27-EST From: Gail Zacharias Subject: Alts (a la mode) ALT on IBM equipment refers to "ALTernate", not "ALTmode". ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 1980 0824-PST From: Mike Peeler Subject: ASCII Official schmofficial. Being standard doesn't make ASCII perfect. The Sail character set is a modified version of 1963 ASCII, and it has its deficiencies. Having neat characters like left-arrow and up-arrow in place of underbar and caret is not among those deficiencies. Almost everyone uses the caret as up-arrow, simply because it's the closest ASCII comes to it. In fact, without fancy graphics the caret (hacek, circumflex, or what-you-call-it) cannot be used in its normal ro^le because most terminals cannot place it above other letters. Underbar, on the other hand, is wunderbar. Establishment-buckers like MIT and Stanford need not do without it. Standard ASCII gets very little mileage out of ^X, normally only good for taking up the space of two characters on the terminal, but the Sail character set recycles that code as underbar. Isn't it amazing what you can do by deciding to turn something useless into something useful? On another topic, the existence of an infinity of universes does not imply the existence of all possible universes. It has nothing to do with cardinality. It's just the way infinity is, any infinity. That there are an infinity of odd numbers does not imply that all numbers are odd. Some numbers, the even numbers, were left out of that infinity, the odd numbers. So might some possible universes get left out of the infinity of universes realized. See y'all in the next universe over! (Slower traffic merge right!) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/17/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses incongruities in TESB. People who are not familiar with these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 1980 1627-EST From: MJL at MIT-DMS (Matthew Jody Lecin) Subject: now who are they trying to kid? A dedicated SW fan and myself have noted the following: Scene setup: Vader and Luke are dueling. Luke leaps (^^^^) from the pit and is making all kindsa wonderful NOISE hanging on the pipes. Vader slashes and is rewarded with a face (does he have a face?) full of steam. Augh! (Quote. Unquote.) Luke retrieves his sabre and swings around CLOCKWISE toward HIS right and meets Vader's blade. Luke's sabre is on the LEFT of Vader's. They exchange a few blows. ("Obi-wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear." (Clash Clash Clash))...Lukes sabre is STILL on the left. THEN you get a change in perspective from the right of Vader. The hum of sabre contact DOES NOT change. They do not break contact. Lukes sabre is now on the RIGHT side and Luke is pushing the OPPOSITE way from which he just was. Taking the changes of perspective into account, this is STILL true: They went to lunch, came back and forgot EXACTLY how they were standing. They resumed fighting and were in the wrong positions! This (the assumption they went to lunch) is mere speculation. But there was a "cut" there and they do mess it up royally. Sigh. Did anyone else notice this? I think a discussion of such incongruities is in order... Mjl at DMS Anm at AI ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 18 NOV 1980 0705-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #139 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 18 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 139 Today's Topics: SF Muzak - TESB, SF Books - Stan Lee Comic? & Another Alien Sherlock, Technology - Bussard Ramjet, SF TV - Cosmos & Lost Land Writers & Shogun & Star Trek, SF Movies - Star Trek ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Nov 1980 1905-PST (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: SW hits the big time! So there I was sitting in my local eating establishment, when the Muzak suddenly impinged on my consciousness. It took me a few seconds to figure out WHY I had suddenly noticed it, when I realized I was listening to "Luke's Theme" from SW, arranged in typical Muzak style. Amazing. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ RUSSEL@MIT-AI 11/18/80 01:09:39 A Quick Query -- Rumor control has it that Stan Lee (you know Stan Lee, wizard of Comic Book Land) has just brought out a new series starring Saint Francis of Asissi. Does anyone know if this is fer real? (Think of the possibilities!!!) - Dan ------------------------------ Date: 17 NOV 1980 1638-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Sherlock story There's also Anderson's "The Martian Crown Jewels", in which a Martian named Syalock is consulted (\very/ privately, to avoid embarassment to Earth) by two Earthmen whose names are similar to Gregson and Lestrade. As trivial as the Hoka stories, but also as amusing. ------------------------------ Date: 17 November 1980 1735-EST (Monday) From: Jeffrey A. Lomicka (C425JL12) Subject: Bussard Ramjet & Cosmos It seems that @i(Cosmos) is giving us just enough information to read science fiction. Mr. Sagan has described to us the concept of scooping up interstellar hydrogen into a fusion reaction chamber as a means of fueling an interstellar spacecraft. Such a craft would accelerate toward the destination for half the journey, turn around, and run in reverse the rest of the way. Larry Niven's Known Space was explored this way. The problem, which neither Carl Sagan or Larry Niven has approached, is that the ramscoop is "looking the wrong way" to pick up any fuel. Presumably, the reaction chamber must be turned independent of the ramscoop, or something, so that the ramscoop is still looking forward when the engine is running in reverse. Ideas? ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 1980 at 0010-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ COSMOS COMMENTS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I've been only mildly enjoying it, and then I sat thru 2 1/2 hrs of pre- and early Saturn flyby last Tuesday night -- and realized how poorly appreciative of Cosmos I'd been! My favorite so far might have been the Martian one, except for 2 things: wondering if the simulated Valley of the Mariners was accurately proportioned... it didn't \feel/ right; and, the *%#$& sitting beside me who shouted as Sagan's 'ship' went careening down that canyon, "Use the Force, Luke!" But from the very 1st show, it's been the music which has most impressed me -- so VERY right for what's on the screen that one has to almost consciously attend to it to appreciate how right it is. It's great having knowledgeable SF-L'ers identify it. Just which of the recordings mentioned is the "impressiveness of the starry universe" one, with those gorgeously sonorous piano chords? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1980 20:00:02-PST From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: Cosmos I, too, have found myself increasingly interested in Cosmos, mostly for the conceptual simplicity on things I already understand and, more importantly, some fantastic visual data. I have to mind a nonce when he showed a sequence of shots by Voyager approaching Jupiter, which gave an animation of Jupiter turning in the sky and its moons orbiting it. That was lovely. Ken P.S. Boy, it's good to be back. Somebody up at LBL hit the baud-rate switch on our IMP and we were listening at the wrong rate for quite a while, until somebody thought to check it. Sometimes I'm embarassed to be around here. KCA ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1980 2025-PST From: Alan at LBL-Unix (Alan B. Char (CC)) Subject: Ben Bova and Larry Niven writing cartoons I had read that Larry Niven inherited some independent wealth, and didn't NEED money. This affected his writing (either positively or negatively). I forget exactly where I read this, but I believe it was BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, edited by Spider Robinson. Now, I don't know what Ben Bova's financial situation is like, but he does seem to occupy a lucrative position with OMNI (admittedly after the cartoon episodes were written). --Alan ------------------------------ Date: 18 November 1980 01:27 est From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: Shogun The Nov. 17 New York Times had an article on the Japanese reception of the 2.5 hour movie which recently opened there. It is not doing better than 1/3 as well as Kagemusha but is seen as a sign of heightened foreign interest in Japan and that some of the worst Japanese stereotypes are vanishing. (They weren't the good guys in WWII.) On the other hand many Japanese feel that the film is both hard to follow and misunderstands many Japanese customs. It also overplays the bloodiness a bit. On the other hand trading companies are sending their employees to see it because, "Knowledge of the plot is a must for conversations with foreign businessmen coming here." - sas P.S. Does anyone know if the new translation of The Tale of Genji is better than the old one? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1980 1219-PST (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Trek and Empire I think any intelligent person could have predicted the unmanned probes we are now seeing would occur about now -- at least if you were doing your predicting in 1968 or so. There is a joke I could put in this space, but I will restrain myself. As for the Empire spatial problem. Oh well, Continuity blew it again. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/18/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses "The Changeling" episode of TV's Star Trek and Star Trek:TMP. Anyone who is not familiar with these shows may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 11/17/80 11:01:38 Re: Star Trek Nomad episode (spoiler for STtMP?) In the episode referred to by Jon Solomon, the earth probe which was originally sent out to search for simple life forms, has merged with an alien probe (whose original mission I can no longer remember). The merged probe now thinks that its mission is to seek out life forms and "sterilize" out all imperfections (which of course includes the "carbon units"(man)). The probe does think that Kirk was its creator; it seems that the person who originally designed the probe had the last name Kirk also. When Kirk finally realizes what is going on, we are "treated" to another unfortunate example of a computer going ape shit when confronted with a paradox as Kirk talks it into hysteria. After Kirk convinces the probe to "sterilize" itself, it is transported into "deep space" just before it self-destructs. I do not know if the writers of this episode knew of the Voyager project when they wrote it, however we can see that this plot (the merging of a earth based probe with alien hardware) is reused in STtMP. In the case of the later, it is obvious that the Voyager project was in the minds of the writer (in this case, Roddenberry himself). Even though parts of the plot of STtMP were a rehash of the episode described above, I enjoyed the movie IMMENSELY. Anyone who thought that the movie should be other than a good Roddenberry episode combined with a production budget far in excess of anything possible in the TV series was, in my opinion, expecting too much. This reminds me, does anyone know the status of the NEW Star Trek episodes that were supposed to be filmed for TV? Greg ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 19 NOV 1980 0751-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #140 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 19 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 140 Today's Topics: Stan Lee Comic, SF Music - Cosmos, SF TV - Lost Land Writers, SF Movies - ST:tMP, What happens at a Con? - GoH Query Results, SFL Proposal, SF Books - TESB & Mythconceptions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Nov 1980 08:36 PST From: Pettit at PARC-MAXC The St. Francis comic book is not a series; it's a largish one shot 75 cents comic book, mostly sold to Catholic schools. Religious comics books have been around for a long time, purportedly this one's only special because it's of a much higher quality than your usual educational or advertising comic. I haven't seen it -- just happened to read a full-page article about it in a Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. The City's patron saint and all. Personally, I think the implications are just about NIL. Teri ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 11/18/80 21:08:45 Re: Cosmos/Vangelis For HJJH, and any others who might be interested: The opening theme music for Cosmos comes from the Vangelis album "Heaven and Hell" (check both imports and domestic). It's the part right before Jon Anderson comes in with his vocal. -leor ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 1980 0644-PST From: Mike Peeler Subject: Why Larry Niven writes No doubt he craves fame, glory, prestige, and a place in history, but--whether he needs it or not--he's in it for the money. Just ask him. ------------------------------ Date: 18 NOV 1980 1242-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Niven & money Larry Niven dedicated one of his early books (I think the first collection of short stories (NEUTRON STAR?) to a rich relative who left him enough money that (as Niven put it) he was able to quit work and make in a year all the mistakes that learning writers who have to have other work take several years to make. I have heard that David Gerrold was connected with LAND OF THE LOST; as he's on good terms with both Bova and Niven (the last I heard) it would have been less difficult (as well as smart) to get them to write for the show. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 1980 at 1228-PST From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: "Stolen" plot of STtMP It is distressing for a classicist such as myself to discuss the public media but... I attended a seminar given at the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College in Hollywood, just for grins. It was about a 6-parter, and, in the typical Sherwood Oaks tradition, was short on content and long on stars. One of the sessions had Alan Dean Foster, who gave out that he had, in fact, seen only about ten ST episodes in his life before (or after!) writing the 30-page "story treatment" which became the nucleus of the script for STtMP. Now, this man is a professional writer, of the "read-ten-and- write-one" school. None of the episodes he saw (and there were about three with vaguely similar plots) happened to be one which touched on the plot elements of the movie. It seems to have been a case of "great minds run in the same channel, and so does muddy water". Whatever else you might think of Foster's abilities as a writer, I don't think he's a plagiarist. By the way, after grilling everyone from the director to the special effects crew, I finally decided that in fact, the picture's lack of quality was no one's fault in particular, with the possible exception of the scriptwriter's. This combined with the "blind- bidding" system, which forced Paramount to say, on several occasions, "How many more millions do you want? You can have it all, but not one more day added to the schedule!" Which, of course, is Paramount's fault. But then, if they hadn't had a new president who loved ST, there would never have been a picture at all, now would there? ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 at 0017-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^ MOST ATTRACTIVE GoH RESPONSE, REVISITED ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A couple late lists came in, resulting in the following configur- ation when (Elgin and) the names with only one vote were removed. (Don't send any more, tho!) xxx Bester, Alfred xxxxx Hogan, James xxxx Brunner, John xxxx LeGuin, Ursula K. xxx Cherryh, C.J. xx McCaffrey, Anne xx Clement, Hal xxx McKillip, Patricia xx Cooper, Susan xxxxx Niven, Larry xxx Dickson, Gordon xx Pournelle, Jerry xxxx Ellison, Harlan xxx Schmitz, James H. xxxxxx Forward, Robert xxxxx Varley, John xxxx Garrett, Randall xxx Vinge, Joan xx Gerrold, David xx White, James xxxx Zelazny, Roger As is evident, there're no great changes, but a con committee pondering GoH's might find it somewhat more illuminating. The surprising thing is that Herbert still got only a single vote from the about 20 people who cared enough to respond. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1980 at 2226-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CARET = HACEK? NYET! NYET! NYET! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In re Mike Peeler's discussion of ASCII: Caret = circumflex, yes. But not the hacek (pronounced HOTcheck). A hacek looks like an UPSIDEDOWN caret. (It is a diacritic used, mostly in Eastern European languages, some transliterations of Cyrillic, or phonetic scripts, typically to indicate a "slushy" quality. An S, C, or Z with a hacek would sound pretty much like what we would spell with SH, CH, or ZH in English.) ------------------------------ Date: 18 NOV 1980 1231-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: diacritics The caret (up-arrow, circumflex, etc.) is \not/ a hacek! The hacek is a wedge with the point \downwards/. (As I remember too well after having to sing a mass in Old High Slavonic.) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/19/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Mythconceptions and a TESB cartoon book. It discussing the book it includes a spoiler. People are not familiar with TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ DP@ML 11/18/80 01:23:25 Re: Tesb Pop-Up, Mythconceptions I Just returned from Philcon. I saw two rather amusing things at one of the book dealers tables. 1. A pop up cartoon book for TESB. It was rather ridiculous, and made real attempts at cute. It was rather inaccurate however, in the now famous fall scene, Luke has all four appendages. 2. The good thing at the con, was mythconceptions, by Bob Asprin is now finally out from Starblaze..(1 year late) It is as funny as the previous Another Fine Myth [see SFL V2 #27,33,72], Skeeve now has a job as court magician in a nearby. Aahz is now disquized as the assistant, and of course they have a reasonably impossible task to do. I enjoyed it. jeff PS. Another new item, Ozzie has towels with "DON'T PANIC" in large friendly letters imprinted on them..... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 20 NOV 1980 0947-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #141 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 20 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 141 Today's Topics: SF Books - Stan Lee Comic & Uncertainty Principle & Dr. Lao & Varley, SF TV - Lost Land Writers & Cosmos, Filksongs - Star Wars, SF Movies - ST:tMP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 November 1980 00:25 est From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) St. Francis comics are supposedly real. I was more impressed by the Messalina strip which has been coming out in Italy. ------------------------------ Date: 19 NOV 1980 1414-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: St Francis comic book According to a squib in yesterday's GLOBE, this is indeed a series rather than a one-shot, and is a collaboration between Stan Lee and one of the leading creative lights of the governing organization of the Franciscan monks (would you believe Franciscans Inc.? Well, it was something like that). ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 1108-PST From: Achenbach@SUMEX-AIM Subject: book review The Uncertainty Principle -- Dmitri Bilenkin This collection of short stories was released with a series called "Best of Soviet SF". It contains 18 stories of very mixed quality. About half of the stories have such a predictable twist at the end its almost embarrassing. Unfortunately, the title story, "The Uncertainty Principle" is one of these. Several of the stories, however, are very good. "Intelligence Test" offers an interesting (though implausible) alternative to evolution. "The Man Who Was Present" is a variant of a PSI story. A couple of the stories are funny and clever. "Modernized Hell" has the devil done in by Hell's own bureaucracy. My favorite story is "Time Bank", an innovation that allows you literally to save time (you think "half hour deposit" and disappear for half an hour). All in all, if you can find this book for a couple of bucks like I did, its worth it. Don't be discouraged by the first few stories. /Mike ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 (Wednesday) 2100-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: I read one of the most bizarre books that I have ever read last night... The Circus of Dr. Lao (by Charles G. Finney). Circa 1935(4?) this fantasy involves a circus which visits a hick town in Arizona. The circus is run by a weird little Chinaman and is comprised primarily of mythical beings (Unicorns, Chimeras, Mermaids, etc). It just has to be a metaphore for SOMETHING -- I wish I could figure out what it is meant to represent [indirect question]. Among one of the more interesting features of Dr. Lao (scratch the "among") is that when he is telling someone off he uses broken English with a Chinese lilt -- however, when he is speaking of his animals or telling an anecdote he uses very clear English. The book also has a rather long complete cast of characters at the end some of which are extremely peripheral to the story and the biographics accompanying each is very strange -- also very peripheral. I hear that there is a film of the same name (probably of the same topic). The copy that I have has some drawings whose flavor matches the text (like the author/artist has been smoking funny little cigarettes). I would indicate the artist and book publisher but I don't have the copy here. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 10:54 PST From: Pettit at PARC-MAXC Subject: Cosmic Head Crash? ------------------------------ From: Horning.PA Surely it can't be just coincidence that, the more detailed the images of Saturn's rings become, the more they resemble a magnetic disk surface that has had a "close encounter of the worst kind" with its flying head! I can think of several explanations, all of them sinister. MORAL: If you care about your data, back it up on Jupiter. Jim H. * G E B fans: Note the significance of the "eternal braid" found in the F ring of the Golden Planet. * Ringworld fans: Note that a circular ring cannot be both gravi- tationally stable and rigid. (I presume this is the problem Niven addresses in The Ringworld Engineers, which I haven't read yet.) ------------------------------ All this Voyager/Saturn activity has a Varleyesque feel to me. It really resonates with both Titan and the Ophiuchi Connection stuff. I wonder if it will show up in his future work. Speaking of Titan, it surprised me when I read it that he had ventured a specific number for the count of Saturn's known moons as of 2025 --- especially a number as low as 11. It seemed likely to me that Voyager would turn up more moons, as it has, making his book dated almost as soon as it appeared. That kind of specificity on real-world statistics is usually a bad idea in sf. ------------------------------ Date: 19 NOV 1980 1412-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: correction The book in which Niven describes the source of his money is A HOLE IN SPACE, which is dedicated to Edward Lawrence Doheny. I have no idea whether this is a relative or the same Doheny as in the Teapot Dome mess under Harding (can't even remember the first name of the Doheny that was involved in that). P.S. \I've/ never heard him say he was in it for the money; I suspect that if he ever did he was simply giving a short answer to a complicated and invasive question. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 18:55:24-PST From: E.jeffc at Berkeley Subject: COSMOS and Carl Sagan A lot of talk has been going on about the flaws in Carl Sagan's COSMOS series. These flaws center on either Sagan's unusual speaking style and acting(?) abilities, or the show's contents. I certainly agree that he looks stupid when displaying the "awed" look; however, the complaints about the content of his shows are not justified. Yes, he is short on reasons and long on visual effects, and, yes, he talks as if the viewer did not know the obvious. What we are all forgetting is this: the average person doesn't know what we would consider "obvious". We should realize that Carl Sagan has his work cut out for him making science digestible for the average person. A big gripe is his lack of explanations and providing all information as "given". This is due to the belief that science involves explaining why things are as they are. Certainly, COSMOS ignores this premise, but that doesn't mean it doesn't serve a purpose: a person must be aware of something's existance before he can wonder "why". COSMOS makes the public aware of the existance of the world around us as scientists see it. Once they are aware and wondering, then they will seek to find out "why". - Jeff Cohen ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 11/20/80 01:10:16 Re: new filk This is a new filksong that I heard at Philcon. the tune is the theme from Star Wars, the title and author are unknown. C C CC Star wars F C C C made me a rich man CF C C C bought me a new car A# GGGG paid off the house enjoy jeff The chords are from an old Boskone song contest. I found 2 different versions, so I picked one. If someone has a better set, or sheet music, a copy would be appreciated. ------------------------------ BARMAR@MIT-MC 11/19/80 21:09:20 Re: "Stolen" plot of STtMP From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) It is distressing for a classicist such as myself to discuss the public media but... I attended a seminar given at the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College in Hollywood, just for grins. It was about a 6-parter, and, in the typical Sherwood Oaks tradition, was short on content and long on stars. One of the sessions had Alan Dean Foster, who gave out that he had, in fact, seen only about ten ST episodes in his life before (or after!) writing the 30-page "story treatment" which became the nucleus of the script for STtMP. Alan Dean Foster is not that unfamiliar with Star Trek. Several years ago, there was a Saturday morning Star Trek cartoon, and Foster wrote a series of books that short-storyized them (like James Blish did with the real episodes). He had to have seen about fifteen or sixteen of them, as there were nine books, and most had two or three stories in them. I read a few of them, and he tried to delve further into the characters than either the real series or the cartoons ever did. I think that Foster was full of BS when he spoke to that seminar, unless he doesn't count reading scripts as seeing an episode, or he doesn't count the cartoons (many people don't). Barry ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 0915-PST From: TAW at SU-AI Subject: ST and Alan Dean Foster My erratic and (admittedly) poorly organized memory won't let me believe that Alan Dean Foster's only association with Star Trek was watching 10 episodes and then writing the STMP script (though from the script itself I am tempted to believe). Didn't he write (edit?) a bunch of the Star Trek Log books?? James Blish did a bunch, but I lost track of the whole thing after that. A word about the STMP book. I just read it, having borrowed it from a friend. I usually don't like movie novelizations, but I found the book to explain a LOT of things that I didn't get from the movie. Had the movie followed the book (as it clearly was intended to do. There were no deviations from the book, only editing omissions) I would have enjoyed it a lot more. An example: the Transporter incident, which occured very early in the movie, was in chapter 3 of the book. And the OTHER person in the trans- porter (not the Vulcan) was a reasonably important character in the book!!! How about a STMP Special Edition??? -- Tom ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/20/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It compares the plots of ST:TMP and the TV episode "The Changeling". People who are not familiar with these shows may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 11/18/80 10:36:24 Actually it was Jackson Roykirk, who invented NOMAD. NOMAD was hit or hit an asteroid and was severly damaged. It met with TAN RU, who managed the fusing of the hardware. NOMAD's original mission was to seek out planetary bodies, take soil samples, sterilize them and return to Earth - something it OBVIOUSLY wants to do in "The Changeling." NOMAD refers to TAN RU as "the Other" and it was in the Vulcan Mind Meld that Spock gets into with NOMAD that the name TAN RU emerges. In ST:TMP, VoyaGER Six (V'GER) according to Spock "falls into what used to be known as a black hole". It emerges on the "far side of the galaxy" and finds (drifts into/onto) the world of mechanical creatures we hear about from Spock's retelling of what he saw in V'GER and the one real clear picture of this metal planet all covered in lights when Spock takes his little jaunt in the spacesuit. This mechanical planet repairs the now worn/torn V'GER and gives it enough power to fullfill its task: ACCUMULATE ALL THE KNOWLEDGE IT POSSIBLY CAN AND RETURN TO EARTH. Which V'GER does. V'GER becomes "aware" during the process - and seeking the only knowledge it seems not to have - what it means to be ALIVE, it comes back to Earth, seeking its long gone NASA creators. {Matt} [Trekkie] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 21 NOV 1980 0906-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #142 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 21 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 142 Today's Topics: SF Books - Stan Lee Comic & Mother Goose & Dragon's Egg & Dr. Lao, SF TV - Carson Cosmos & LA is SF & Lost Land Writers, SF Movies - ST:tMP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 November 1980 01:22 est From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: St. Francis Supposedly he is being billed as Little Brother of the Universe and the artwork is being done by the guy who drew or draws the Conan strip (something with a B). I can just see Little Brother right now. "Unhand that snail darter and take your dam with you.", he says menacing with his hiking stave. The construction workers advance on him as long time Senators loom in the back- ground watching the confrontation. He swings his staff and demolishes a bulldozer sending it careening into the river ... ------------------------------ Date: 20 NOV 1980 0923-EST From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: St. Francis of Assissi According to my local Boston comic store - the Million Year Picnic, yes, Stan Lee (That is Marvel) will be publishing a St. F of A "Superhero" comic. (Shades of SHAZAM) in which St. F gains powers via, what else, prayer. Awhile ago a discussion arose about the Space Child's Mother Goose and I replyed to (I believe) Harris at someplace, I forget where, which is ;why this is going via SF Lovers that I would get publishing Info. Space Child's Mother Goose was most recently published by Simon and Schuster, Rockefeller Center 630 Fifth Ave. NY NY 10020. (this is the 6th paperback printing and hopefully, is still available. It was written by Fredrick Winsor and Illustrated by Marian Parry. My apologies to Harris for losing his address and for taking so long to dig out the info. from gfh@cca (gail hormats) ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 1980 at 2310-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ DRAGON'S EGG Cover, Revisited ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A while back, I was taken to task over my suggestion that the web- like design on the dustjacket of DRAGON'S EGG, also used in ads, bore a ver-r-r-r-ry suspicious resemblance to the window in the Millennium Falcon's cockpit, and the one Luke got blown through in TESB. "No, no," I was told, "You dummy, that's a standard polar projection map!" But, the version of the map on p. 261 (presumably supplied by Dr. Forward himself) has spokes continuing within the inmost circle, so there is not the resemblance to SW/TESB windows. The one on the cover and used in ads has NO spokes in the center circle. Even tho the evidence indicates Dr. Forward's innocence, might not the jacket's designer or artist have been shrewdly taking advantage of STAR WARS' aura in a subtle way? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 0038-EST From: LARKE at MIT-DMS (James L. Groebe) Subject: Dr. Lao Indeed, Dr. Lao served as the basis for a movie - George Pal's 'The Seven Faces of Dr Lao.' Directed by Pal for MGM in 1964, it starred Tony Randall. I haven't actually seen it, so I can't comment on how faithfully it reproduced your book's atmosphere. Script adaptation by Charles Beaumont. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1980 0816-PST (Thursday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: Dr. Lao, I presume? The film "The 7 faces of Dr. Lao" from the book "The Circus of Dr. Lao" starred Tony Randall and, I seem to recall, Ray Harryhausen effects. It's a worthy film in its own right, but very different in flavor and theme from the book, having been simplified and cleaned up to turn it into a suitable-for-kids flick. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 20 November 1980 18:38-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: Carl Sagan The other night Johnny Carson indicated that he almost had his Sagan imitation down and gave a few devastatingly funny examples. Apparently a take-off of COSMOS is in the works. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 0011-PST (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: KTLA goes bonkers In two of the most bizarre programming decisions I have ever witnessed, an independent station here in L.A. (KTLA - 5), has gone SF bonkers. This is the same station that for awhile was running three Twilight Zones every weekday, and now runs Lost In Space on Saturday and Sunday. They still run Twilight Zone on a less frequent basis, and also run Star Trek on weekends. But get this: On Thanksgiving day, they will be having a Twilight Zone Marathon! Solid Twilight Zone from 9 AM to 5 PM. 16 episodes. But that is only half of their strangeness. That same evening, after they've deluged us in Serling's masterpieces, they come right back with the Science Fiction Marathon -- 19 hours of solid SF movies. Below I include a listing of the included movies (in order) for those of you in Southern California or on microwave/cable hookups (such as those in parts of Texas). THURSDAY -- 11 PM Godzilla, Godzilla's Revenge, The Return of Giant Majin, Twilight Zone (yeah, they stick an episode in at 3:45 A.M., according to TV Guide. This may be an error, however), Magic Serpent. FRIDAY -- 5:30 AM (we continue): Attack of the Monsters, Destroy All Planets, Gamera vs. Monster X, Monster Zero, War of the Gargantuas, Rodan, Mothra. By now you may have detected a pattern in the films! Yes, indeedie, they are all Japanese! So if you have access to KTLA and are a Japanese SF fan, YOU GOT IT MADE. I might also mention that other stations, not to be outdone, are scheduling other SF material, on a more sporadic basis, over this same interval. In fact, in an unbelievably cruel move, KCOP - 13 has scheduled a movie for Thursday night (Friday morning) at 2:30 that cuts right into the middle of KTLA's "The Return of Giant Majin": "THE CREEPING TERROR" itself! Sigh, such abundance: a true Cornucopia of Cellulose. I have a feeling that after Thursday/Friday, I may find myself walking around in a daze (well, more of a daze than usual) repeating: "There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination, it is an area which we call 'The Twilight Zone'." Except that I'll be saying it in JAPANESE. Ta Tah. --Lauren-- P.S. By the way, L.A. really IS the place to be for SF. Loscon coming up, the KTLA SF spectaculars, and perfect weather (today was 80 degrees, clear, blue, no smog (at least where I am) ... a beautiful day. --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 0058-PST (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: FLASH! It's not PLAN 7, it's not PLAN 8, it's: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Yes, the original full-length film, voted the worst film (of any kind) of ALL time, will appear this coming Friday at 3 AM on KCOP - 13 in the Southern California markets. You'll marvel to pie tin spaceships hanging from threads. You'll be amazed at sophisticated aliens who have lines like: "All you Earth people are idiots. IDIOTS!" You'll see Bela Lugosi in his final movie performance, a performance which is so BAD it made the REAL Count Dracula turn over in his coffin. So don't miss it. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. It'll make you wonder if outer space is all it's cracked up to be. --Lauren-- I have this horrible feeling that some sort of SF-MOVIE-TV database is becoming almost a necessity. It is becoming too damned easy to miss good (bad) films. Comments? --LW-- ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 11/20/80 10:26:44 Re: changeling plot Thanks go to MJL@MIT-MC for his correction of my plot description. I have always been an avid ST fan, and have seen every episode many times (as I am sure almost everyone reading this list has) but my memory fails me at times. Hmmmm, now I'm sure I wanted to say something else in this message, but WHAT was it? Oh well, Greg ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/21/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses A. D. Foster and some of the production problems of ST:TMP. People who are not familiar with this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1980 at 1151-PST From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: Foster and ST Yes, everyone at the seminar knew that Foster did a lot of work on the animated ST, and no, no one (including Foster) was counting that. He mentioned the well-known adaptation of "The Soft Weapon" and a deal of verbiage was spent by him and some trekkers on this area, but it never came up when the story treat- ment was being discussed. No one there ever considered whether or not the treatment might have stolen from the animated series. And yes, he really only did see ten episodes of the live series (or so he said) at the time he wrote the treatment (which, remember, was some time before the movie was filmed). The film editors were fun to talk to. They said that they only got the special effects sequences for the fly-by of the Enterprise in drydock and of V'Ger about two weeks before the final cut was to be in the theatres. You can imagine how much sleep they got those two weeks. They were so overjoyed to see the footage that they couldn't bear to cut enough of it out; hence the rather slow pacing of those two scenes. Hence, also, the choppiness of the rest. Lots of the byplay about the Deltan went out, and, you may recall, in front of V'Ger Bones says "Hurry, Jim! We only have ten minutes!" This rather mysterious remark has to do with the fact that on the cutting room floor is a sequence where Kirk arms the Enterprise' engines to blow in X minutes after they leave the ship, to try to take V'Ger with them if they all get offed. It ain't all the scriptwriter's fault, you see. No human could have made a polished version in two weeks' time. Blame Robert Abel for sitting around in a race condition when they should have been generating effects. That's why I attended the seminar, by the way: because I had a very peripheral involvement with the film. I was called in to try to break (one part of) the deadlock at Abel. I failed. Nothing can overcome bad management. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 22 NOV 1980 0752-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #143 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 22 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 143 Today's Topics: Books - Dragon's Egg, SF TV - Lost Land Writers & Cosmos, What is SF? - Japanese Monster Movies, SF Music - Star Wars Xmas, SF Movies - Star Wars & Making ST:tMP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 NOV 1980 0837-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: DRAGON'S EGG cover ripoff The cover design for DRAGON'S EGG was sent to me for approval by the publisher in the fall of 1979, and the book was released in hardcover in May 1980, while if my memory serves me, TESB didn't come out until the summer of 1980. I notice that the spoked window with stars in it was stuck in at the end of TESB, sort of like an afterthought. Do you suppose.... Bob Forward ------------------------------ Date: 21 NOV 1980 0843-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Cancel last message I was thinking about the rotating galaxy scene in TESB, but HJJH is right, there were plenty of scenes in SW of stars through the cockpit window of the Millenium Falcon. Will ask Judy-Lynn del Rey next time I talk to her, and let you know what she says. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 09:44 PST From: HOFFMAN at PARC-MAXC Subject: Niven and Doheny The first time I heard Niven talk was about 1973 to a group of about 20 in a classroom at USC within a few feet of the Doheny Library on that campus. Because of that building's presence, Niven did mention he was related to the Dohenys (like I think he even said he is a Doheny and was using his mother's maiden name, but I'm not sure of that), and that he had indeed inherited money from them. Yes, they are the Teapot Dome Dohenys. -- Rodney Hoffman ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1980 1339-EST From: MD at MIT-XX Subject: Niven's Wealth In response to Chip Hitchcock and all the others who have been speculating about Larry Niven's wealth: As Larry Niven or his business manager, Jerry Pournelle, would be happy to tell you, yes Larry is related to the man who was behind the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding Administration. I take it that he was Larry's grandfather, since Larry is known for his quote about "choosing your grandparents well." ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 0038-EST From: LARKE at MIT-DMS (James L. Groebe) Subject: Land of the Lost Not only did David Gerrold work on 'Land of the Lost' (as a story editor), but so did Star Trek's D.C. Fontana, as - if I recall correctly - one of the show's producers. With some sci-fi oriented talent such as that working for the show, it is no wonder usually skeptical folks such as Niven might be willing to write for kidvid. Actually, the show didn't seem that bad to me, given the awful constraints of budget and time prevalent on Saturday mornings. They did manage to keep a very consistent universe working on a weekly basis, and if it were looked at again these days, in the aftermath of the D & D explosion, it might fit in very well. In a recent Starlog column, Gerrold seemed to chalk up his work on the series as most usefully a learning experience. ------------------------------ Date: 21 November 1980 12:10-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: Carson, Sagan, and COSMOS Well, what can I say, The Mighty Carson Art Players had their shot at Sagan last night. If you missed it, you didn't miss much... ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 16:54:17-PST From: E.jeffc at Berkeley Subject: Japenese monster movies When I heard that KTLA was running 19 straight hourse of Japenese "science-fiction" monster movies, it struck a nerve. Is anyone here willing to defend Godzilla as science fiction? To my defense, I can quote Isaac Asimov, who, in one of his editorials in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (yes, he has one), decried the use of "sci-fi" as an abbreviation for "science fiction" and preferred the use of "SF". Sci-fi, he said, was a term for trashy stuff such as Godzilla, and SF for stuff like Star Trek. Unfortunately, I don't have the issue with me so I have to rely on memory on what he said. Any comments? - Jeff Cohen ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 0038-EST From: LARKE at MIT-DMS (James L. Groebe) Subject: How the Droid stole Christmas Well, I suppose it was bound to happen. If the Muppets can have their own Christmas album, if Alvin and the Chipmunks can get one too, it is high time that there was delivered unto us a Star Wars holiday album. I saw it tonight - 'A Star Wars Christmas', featuring Anthony Daniels as C3P0 leading a large cast in the singing of holiday songs, old, and - oh no - new. ('The First Christmas Sighting', for example.) Cute for the kids, perhaps, but I'll sit this one out. Deck The Halls with Advertising, as Stan Freberg used to say. Larry ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 03:05:39-PST From: sdcsvax!davidson at Berkeley Subject: SW and TESB One thing which bothers me greatly about both these films is the lack of lip synchronization in most of the scenes, or avoidance of showing the face of the speaker. Both movies seem to have been plotted in the cutting room, and this is shown by the lack of consistency from cut to cut, and the lack of local clues to what's supposed to be going on (other than the dubbing). I've been noticing this with more and more movies lately. Such movies seem to be mere collages with a soundtrack slapped on. One is penalized for active viewing. If the trend continues, those who prefer not to turn their minds off will simply have to give up going to movies. But then, I understand that its becoming customary to get high before going to see a movie. I wonder if film makers have started taking that into account? Greg (sdcsvax!davidson@berkeley) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 1980 1232-PST (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: As the Enterprise sinks into the deep blue sea... Mike O'Brien indeed did his best to break the Abel deadlock. But no force, however formidable, could have helped. I know -- I'm the one who called him in! At the time, I was computer facility manager for Abel. Not that I had any computers to manage. I was hired to manage a large UNIX system which would be the heart of the effex operation. The main PDP-11 would download the various micros which controlled the actual cameras. At one point, even script control was planned to go through the UNIX system. An E&S Picture System II graphics processor was also to be included. The problem is that there were continual delays in getting a real machine. First it was going to be an 11/60 (yuchh!). Then I convinced them an 11/45 would be better. Then an 11/70. But the damned things never showed up! During this interval, they hired a FORTRAN programmer from New Jersey who tried to convince management they didn't want an advanced system like UNIX, they wanted a STANDARD like RSTS-E. THAT way they could use standard FORTRAN for everything! What a win! Also, they could try talk DEC into giving them RSTS-E in exchange for a film credit. I called Mike in to try re-convince management that UNIX was the way to go. By this time, the shop had broken into two factions: one pro-UNIX (supporting me) and one pro-FORTRAN (supporting New Jersey). I finally left in disgust. A few months later, Abel was fired by Paramount for a variety of reasons, but mainly because they had gotten nothing done. There is SOME justice in the world! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/21/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses RAH's THE ROLLING STONES and the Star Trek episode THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES. People who are not familiar with the novel or the TV episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1980 (Thursday) 0915-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON (David Rossien) Subject: More ST plagerism(?) I have always found the similarities between RAH's "Flatcats" in THE ROLLING STONES and Gerrold's "Tribbles" in THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES to be more than just coincidence. For the uninitiated, Flatcats look EXACTLY like tribbles, except that they have three tiny eyes in their fur. They purr when stroked in a pleasing manner, and, most importantly, they REPRODUCE like... well like tribbles. The ROLLING STONES have an interesting time when they bring one aboard their spaceship and then take off on a long trip... it produces 8 little'uns, which in turn quickly produce 8 each... which... Anyone who knows Gerrold, can you find out if he knew about RAH's book... and in any event, if I was RAH I would have screamed bloody murder.... -Dave ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 23 NOV 1980 0810-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #144 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 23 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 144 Today's Topics: SF Books - Stan Lee Comic & Sundered Realm & Dreammakers & Fall of Worlds & Divine Madness, Corrections - hacek, SF Music - Star Wars Xmas, SF TV - Star Trek ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PCR@MIT-AI 11/23/80 03:35:22 Re: St. Francis Comic I've read the St Francis Comic book. It is a (reasonably) straight telling of the life and times of St. Francis. It tells of his life as what we would refer to as a "playboy" (spending his parent's money on parties for his friends) until he gets a couple of visions and then convinces the Pope to let him start a new religious order. I'm not ordinarily a religious type, but I did find it interesting reading. Artwork was so-so, and the story seemed to skip over large chunks of time. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1980 at 2356-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 Subject: Books reviewed ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BEWARE: The Sundered Realm ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ...a pb recently out from Playboy Press, by Vardeman & Milan. Of the "heroic fantasy" ilk, it's ridiculous and disgusting. For the princess to be rescued by the hero and make their way thru the alleys of the Bespin-like city, mount her roc-size eagle to go to the ground, and engage in an aerial archery battle, is fairly run-of-the-mill for doughty heroines, but -- to do so right after having been raped by a giant demon whose mere \teeth/ were as big as a man's fist???!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A (yawn) NEW NON-FICTION SF PAPERBACK ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ DREAM MAKERS -- The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction. Interviews by Charles Platt. Berkeley. $2.75. Whether you'll like this, $3-worth, probably depends more on your orientation within SF than on its merits. I made my way through it, but sometimes it took some self-prodding. The lack of interest-arousal may have been due to the interviewer's selection of authors, few of which I had any particular prior interest in. Platt being of the British "New Worlds" coterie, the high proportion of his fellow-countrymen is probably expectable. But, the emphasis in selection was too much on the New Wave and psychology-oriented authors for my taste. (I go along with one of remarks from Silverberg's interview, "We were all trying to use the material of SF and carry it closer to [the literary]. I don't see any reason why that should succeed; it seems almost folly to think that it should, since SF is basically a mass-market category of entertainment and we were trying to make something elitist".) The authors interviewed are: Asimov, Disch, Sheckley, Vonnegut, Stine, Spinrad, Pohl, Delany, Malzberg, Bryant, Bester, Budrys, Farmer, VanVogt, Dick, Ellison, Bradbury, Herbert, Knight & Wilhelm, Moorcock, Ballard, Tubb, Watson, Brunner, Benford, Silverberg, Aldiss, Kornbluth's associates, and Platt himself. Giving him the benefit of the doubt when he claims not to be sexist, his personal preferences leave him with just the one token woman, and she as an appendage to her husband. He says he tried to get more, but LeGuin declined. Too bad he couldn't find any women of the august caliber of Stine (sorry, Roger) or Bryant! The interviews are accompanied by 2-1/8 x 1-3/4 inch photos, except Platt's own, which is 1/4 in. larger in both dimensions. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ \WHO/ IS THIS FRANCINE MEZO? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THE FALL OF WORLDS by Francine Mezo. Avon. November. $2.50. When you see a pb cover with the author's name in bright red letters over an inch high, and the title letters in white, only a quarter of an inch in height, but you never heard of the writer, it makes you wonder. (The story doesn't read like a translation, nor is there any entry for Mezo in Nicholls' SF ENCYCLOPEDIA, so this is seemingly not an import.) It looked like something for my SF female protagonists collection, so I got it despite one of the most ridiculous cover pictures for that type. It's a fairly straightforward galactic-war story, the first of 2 or more in a series. It's flawed by what I suspect was excessive editorial deletion of background data. Particularly in the big space battle at the end where you're not quite sure what all those maneuvers are, what they accomplish, or how. Yet, there was still something distinctly intriguing about the story. Partly it may have been the groups of identical clones with conditioned restrictions akin to Asimov's "Laws of Robotic". Or perhaps it was the clone-protagonist's development toward a sense of being a human person despite those inbred restrictions. The ending is a downer, but with a sharp corruscation of hope. \My/ hope is that UNLESS SHE BURN, "coming soon by this author" is the sequel, and really does come soon. Unaccustomedly, I ended up really caring about that heroine. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 1980 (Saturday) 2349-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: Zelazny and the mind/body dichotomy In the short story "Divine Madness" makes clear his belief that there is a "mind" distinct from the chemical object -- the "brain". It is clear that not only is the physics of his character's local environment running in reverse but the physics of his body is doing the same. He becomes less and less drunk, he goes back thru hangovers, etc. At the same time, the character's memory remains intact! He can recall future experiences (those that he has just seen replayed in reverse). Thus, either he is dreaming in which case this all is trivialized, or else his memory is not a direct function of the physics of his body (brain). There is also, an interesting psychol-linguistic phenomonon assumed in the same story -- the wholism of words during reading remains. That is, in reading text backwards, the individual words are not reversed phonetically, alphabetically, or otherwise. This is probably correct within PLing theory. For two brownie points, what was the character reading when the story opens? -- Shrager Jeff (Pennsylvania of University) ------------------------------ ACW@MIT-AI 11/19/80 19:26:22 v The word "hacek" is one of my favorite words. I once had a conversation that went: v, She: How do you spell "Dvorak" ? v Me: Dee, vee, owe, are-hacek, ey-accent, kay. She: "Hock..." "hotch..." What was that? How do you spell it? v Me: Eych, ey, see-hacek, ee, kay. Also, far be it from me to miss out on correcting Chip Hitchcock, even if it was a trivial mistake. The language you sang in, Chip, was Old Church Slavonic, not Old High Slavonic, of which there is no such. (yes... I know...) The stari slavonski name for this language is "stari slavonski". --- Wechsler ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1980 0738-PST From: Mike Peeler Subject: Dire critics My thanks to HJJH (UTexas) and Chip Hitchcock (CCA) for pointing out that a hacek points down, instead of up like a caret does. I knew it all along -- I was just testing you! Actually, I (blush) lapsed for a moment and confused the hacek with the hat. I use the hat a lot more, you see, and uh, well, if you were to pronounce hacek like hat-check... That reminds me of a singer I know who sight-reads flawlessly and has never failed to render -- not rend! -- any song we presented her, with the one exception of, "I say potato and you say potato, I say tomato and you say tomato, let's call the whole thing off?" We explained the song to her, but, not right away... 'Nuff said. Read on! ------------------------------ RWK@MIT-MC 11/22/80 12:57:26 Re: SW and certain religious holidays Wasn't Star Wars set in a time long, long ago, in a place far, far away? About the only connection possible between the SW universe and Christmas is if that star the wisemen saw were related to the destruction of Alderon, far, far, away, a long time ago. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/23/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss RAH's THE ROLLING STONES and the Star Trek episode THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES. People who are not familiar with the novel or the TV episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 1980 1216-PST From: Donald R. Woods Subject: Flatcats and Tribbles [spoiler warning!] Gerrold addresses this question in his book about the writing of the show. (The book is called, of course, "The Trouble With Tribbles".) He says he had read The Rolling Stones about 15 years earlier, but was not consciously thinking of it when he wrote his story. Heinlein was notified before the episode was filmed, and asked for nothing more than a copy of the script, which he got. See page 252 of Gerrold's book for more. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 1980 13:39 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: ROSSID at Wharton comments on Flatcats vs Tribbles As I recall, before The Trouble With Tribbles was released (filmed?) the studio's legal department sent a copy of the script to RAH. He replied that he didn't see any plagerism. I'm not sure if who pointed out the similarities between the two to the studio, or if they just make it their business to remember the plots of all SF ever published. Alan Frisbie ------------------------------ PCR@MIT-AI 11/23/80 03:35:22 Re: Gerrold vs "Rolling Stones" In his book "The Trouble With Tribbles", Gerrold does note that, after the episode was written, somebody pointed out the resemblence to "Rolling Stone" and the flatcats. He also says that the Paramount legal beagles contacted RAH about the matter. Heinlein allowed as the idea seemed to come from an old (50's) short story called "Pigs is Pigs", and let the ST folk use it with no royalties (except for a signed copy of the script). Phil Reed (PCR@MIT-AI) ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 11/22/80 18:32:29 Re: The trouble with tribbles According to David Gerrold's book, "The Trouble With Tribbles", Heinlein was happy that the tribbles were used, and that he wished he had good enough TV reception in his area to see the show when it aired. Actually, I believe there was another Gerrold plot that was a blatent rip off of Orphans in the Sky. . . . But Gerrold claims that he never read (and / or forgot) both books. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 24 NOV 1980 0607-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #145 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 24 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 145 Today's Topics: Physics Today - Forward Info Transfer, SF TV - LA Twilight Zone Schedule, SF Books - Stan Lee Comic, SF Movies - ST:tMP & Star Wars ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 NOV 1980 1140-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Joules per bit [also see SFL V2 #5] A few months ago I asked if anyone knew of the minimum amount of energy needed to transfer a bit of information. There was a lot of discussion, but no one could point me to an answer. I have researched the problem and the closest I could come was Shannon's original work in 1948. I have been able to derive the answer from one of Shannon's theorems. The energy efficiency of information transfer is: E = kT ln 2 Where k = 1.38x10^-23 is Boltzmann's constant, ln is the log to the base e, and T is the effective noise temperature of the system. If the noise is that of the 2.7 degree background radiation, then E = 2.6x10^-23 Joules/bit. That means that the entire contents of the Library of Congress could be transmitted by a few microjoules. Surely such a simple answer has been derived before. I would appreciate pointers to such a derivation. Bob Forward (FORWARD@USC-ECL, FORWRD@MIT-MC) ------------------------------ Date: 23 November 1980 23:08-EST From: Ian G. Macky Thursday morning, November 27th, starting at 9:00 am KTLA chnl 5 in Los Angeles will run 7.5 hours of the best of the Twilight Zone. Episodes to be shown (in order) are: "Odyssey of Flight 33", "Eye of Beholder", "The Dummy", "The Hitchhiker", "Little Lost Girl", "Long Live Walter Jameson", "Nick of Time", "The After Hours", "Nothing in the Dark", "Living Doll", "People Are Alike All Over", "Uncle Simon", "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "To Serve Man", and "The Invaders". ...and thurday's a holiday! Calooh, calay... [ For your ease of reference, the SF-LOVERS Twilight Zone Episode Guide by Saul Jaffe and Lauren Weinstein has been restored to the file AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS TZEG. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 1980 1700-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: St. Francis I too have just finished the St. Francis book. While I don't know much about the lives of the saints, I would go along with PCR's analysis of the book. It looks typical for such things. I would like to note a few things though. There were no ads anywhere in the book, looks like Marvel really took it seriously. Although it does seem to skip large chunks of time, what can you expect in a 45 page comic book? And last but not least, the book claims to have the official backing of the Franciscan order (or least part of it), story line and dialogue are attributed to Fr. Roy Gasnick, O.F.M., Director of the Franciscan Communications Office of NY. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 1980 13:56 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: Lauren's comments on Abel's problems Lauren is sooooo right about Abel having problems. In early 1978, I received a call from DEC asking if I was interested in doing some consulting for Abel. Abel had contacted them about putting together their mass of DEC and Non-DEC (brand-X replacement) equipment into something that would work. When DEC declined, Abel asked if DEC would recommend someone, which is when I was called. I almost jumped at the chance to work on STtMP, but after hearing how screwed-up they were I decided there was little hope for them. I don't mind difficult jobs, but disasters are no fun at all and don't look good on a resume. Alan Frisbie ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/24/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses Clarke's short story "The Star" and Star Wars - A New Hope. People who are not familiar with the story or the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 1980 1700-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Destruction of Aldaran For my money, Arthur C. Clarke shows the true origin of the star over Bethlehem in the short story "The Star". So, I can't see any connection between SW and X-mas. I don't believe the destruction of the planet Aldaran would have produced enough energy to effectively outshine all the rest of the heavens. Unless it was a total conversion of mass to energy, which we know darn well it wasn't. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 25 NOV 1980 0854-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #146 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 25 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 146 Today's Topics: Physics Today - Forward Info Transfer, SF Books - Uncommon SF, SF TV - Star Trek's Tribble Troubles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 November 1980 1014-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: information theory I seem to recall that the probability of correct transfer is a function of the S/N ratio, and so a function of the energy per bit relative to the background noise. The equation you quoted must be for some probability level (50% ?). ------------------------------ Date: 25 November 1980 0220-EST From: Roger Duffey Subject: An entry for the Uncommon SF Query APEMAN, SPACEMAN: Anthropological Science Fiction edited by Leon E. Stover and Harry Harrison APEMAN, SPACEMAN is a "classroom use" SF anthology. "Classroom use" anthologies are designed to use SF stories to interest students in particular subjects. APEMAN, SPACEMAN covers cultural, physical, and archaeological anthropology. It is divided into eight sections entitled "Fossils", "The Hairless Ape", "Dominant Species", "Unfinished Evolution", "Prehistory", "Archaeology", "Local Customs", and "Applied Anthropology". Each section begins with informative and well written introductions by the editors and anthropologist Carleton Coon providing a springboard for thinking about the story as it portrays anthropology. The anthology contains 26 stories including Clarke's Science Fiction Hall of Fame classic "The Nine Billion Names of God". All of the material is at least enjoyable and many of the stories are excellent. "Classroom use" anthologies have been tried for a number of different subject areas including the physical sciences, psychology, political science, sociology, and history. Many of them have not been very well done. APEMAN, SPACEMAN is an exception. It is one of the earliest of these anthologies and, in my opinion, one of the best. Uncommon and recommended. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/25/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss RAH's THE ROLLING STONES and the Star Trek episode THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES. People who are not familiar with the novel or the TV episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 NOV 1980 1219-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: tribble troubles I'm amused to see that several people immediately jumped on ROSSID's contention of plagiarism in THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES but no one caught a small error of fact at the end of his msg. Tribbles and martian flat cats are \not/ identical; the flat cats are darkish red (one character comments that it would be trivial to lose a flat cat in the desert (this was \long/ before Viking sent back pictures showing Mars as pinkish at ground level)) and are spherical only when [dormant] (they are finally contained by evacuating the ship, which causes them to curl up and stop moving, so they can be "harvested" (Heinlein describes them as resembling furry grapefruit) and dumped in an unheated hold). \Somebody/ in Roddenberry's organization was knowledgeably watching for possible (even if inadvertent) plagiarism; the tribbles were originally "fuzzies", which was ruled out the first time the script went through Legal because of Piper's LITTLE FUZZY, which was hardly a well-known book at the time. (Piper's Fuzzies were intelligent and humanoid, but Legal was being thorough.) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 26 NOV 1980 0731-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #147 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 26 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 147 Today's Topics: Space - Voyager AP/NYT Stories & NASA Shuttle, SF Books - Shuttle Down & Uncommon SF, SF Movies - A Star Wars Xmas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 November 1980 0220-EST From: The Moderator Subject: How to obtain the Voyager newswire stories The flood of newswire stories on Voyager I has now tapered off. Therefore Jim McGrath has asked me to remind you that copies of the newswire stories are directly available at each of the sites listed below. Due to the large volume of material, RUTGERS has chosen to make it available from a BBOARD rather than simply from a file. The stories are available from the files listed below at the remaining sites. These files will remain available through 1 Dec. A copy of this material will also be available from the SF-LOVERS archives. Again thanks go to Richard Brodie, Richard Lamson, Doug Philips, and Jon Solomon for their efforts to maintain the material, and to Jim McGrath for making the stories available to us. Site Filename MIT-AI AI:DUFFEY;SFLVRS VOYGER CMUA TEMP:VOYAGE.UPD[A210DP0Z] MIT-Multics >udd>SysMaint>Lamson>sf-lovers>voyager-news.text PARC-MAXC [Maxc]Voyager.TXT SU-AI VOYGER.NS[T,JPM] [Note, you can TYPE or FTP the file from SAIL without an account.] Rutgers At Rutgers the Voyager material will be available from the VOYAGER BBOARD. This BBOARD is being updated automatically twice daily. Rutgers people interested in keeping abreast of the Voyager I results should execute BBOARD VOYAGER in their customary way (ie. in your LOGIN.CMD, BBoard.CMD, manually, etc.) ------------------------------ Date: 25 Nov 1980 1125-PST From: TAW at SU-AI Subject: Shuttle landings (real and fictional) To: Space@MC If I am not mistaken, the Columbia will be landing at Edwards AFB (near L.A.) after her initial launch (supposedly on Mar 14) and 3 day mission. Does anyone know if there is some place near Edwards with a reasonable view of the landing field, where normal human non- military, non-press types are allowed?? Since it is unlikely that I will get to KSC for the launch, I would at least like to see the landing, if possible. Anybody else want to go??? Regarding Shuttle landings, there is what appears to be an excellent story in the current issue of ANALOG magazine, called 'Shuttle Down'. (I say 'appears to be' because it is the first part of four, so be warned.) It concerns a post-launch engine malfunction and emergency landing of the Atlantis. I recommend it. -- Tom [ Note, "Shuttle Down" was written by Lee Correy, the fiction pseudonym for G. Harry Stine. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 25 Nov 1980 at 1829-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MORE UNCOMMON sf RECOMMENDED ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hooray for Roger, for starting off responses! Hopefully this will be an on-going topic, with lots of SF-Lers eventually putting their 2-cents-worth in from time to time. One of mine is an old (1966) novella by John Brunner that for some reason to do with wrong length for the category it was nominated for, got disqualified for the Hugo (Nebula?) of its year, so you never hear about it: A PLANET OF YOUR OWN, Ace (double) G-592. It's a simple, straightforward little story, from before his switch to more sophisticated material. The "Renaissance-man type" heroine defeats the evil machinations of the villainous corporate executive by driving a computer half bonkers with the intricacies of space law. It has an intriguing water-world ecology. A fun book, it's the kind of story that leaves you feeling goo-o-o-o-o-d. Another, by a lesser but fairly prolific author of Ace doubles in the late 60's, is THE DOUBLE INVADERS (G-623) by John Rackham (John Phillifent). The nasties are conquering planet after planet and coming in Earth's direction. On their way is this almost Utopian world of peacable, technologically undeveloped, but otherwise highly inteligent people. It's almost a stock situation, you KNOW those Goodies are gonna whip ass. But it's the \way/ that is brought about that is the delightful twist. Like the Brunner, it's a real "upper". Unfortunately these are both surely out of print, and so many people are collecting even the blue-&-white Ace doubles simply for collecting's sake, that they'll be hard to find. But, if you have any sight-impaired friends who dig SF, copies of both are in the state libraries for the blind of Texas and Iowa. (The Iowa library sort of "specializes" in SF.) I am not sure if materials for the blind from individual state libraries are accessible on any sort of Interlibrary Loan, but they were read by me, so I probably have the tapes still around and ought to be able to find someone to make copies if sent blanks (reel-to-reel or cassette), specifications, and suitable SASE. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/26/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss Christmas and Star Wars - A New Hope. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Nov 1980 09:44 PST From: Stewart at PARC-MAXC Subject: Destruction of Aldaraan Hmmm. Just how long could something the size of the earth shine with supernova brightness? I recall that the sun eats 4e6 mass tons / second = 8.8e9 kg/s, and there are (maybe) 1e8 stars in a galaxy and supernova shines as brightly as a galaxy. The earth is 6450 km in radius, with average density 7 (I think), so contains about 7.9e21 kg of mass. Dividing 7.9e21/8.8e17 gives 8.9e3 seconds of "operation", or 2 hours and 29 minutes.... Seems a bit short for guiding the wise men. Of course there is no way the thing could hold together! Larry ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 11/24/80 20:13:28 Re: SW and certain religious holidays Not quite. Like maybe the destruction of the Death Star was the birth of a whole world of Christians? Argh! {Mijjil} ------------------------------ JimH@MIT-AI 11/24/80 22:09:46 Re: christmas in far off galaxies Maybe that wasn't Alderan being destroyed that was seen by the wise men. Clearly it was the destruction of the Deathstar! -let's blow this thing and go home. Jim ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 27 NOV 1980 0840-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #148 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 28 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 148 Today's Topics: What Happens at a Con? - Loscon 7, SF Books - Uncommon SF & Legal Computers Query & Shuttle Down, TESB - A review ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Nov 1980 11:24 PST From: Brodie.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Loscon This is a reminder that Loscon 7 occurs this weekend (Friday through Sunday) at the Sheraton-Anaheim Hotel in (you guessed it) Anaheim. We'll be having an SF-LOVERS party Friday night; look for the message giving the room number under "S" on the bulletin board. Richard Brodie ------------------------------ MARG@MIT-AI 11/26/80 15:35:25 Re: Uncommon SF Definitely OutofPrint, but there's THE FLAMES by OLAF STAPLEDON, poignant short novel about flame creatures who are happy in stars. I enjoyed it when I read it a long time ago at the MITSFS. It also in an ancient hardback that also contiains 2 other short novels or novellas by Stapledon (not really SF) but I don't remmember the title or publishing details. ------------------------------ Date: 26 NOV 1980 1106-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: A PLANET OF YOUR OWN I \just/ read that! It was lying around MITSFS because some lazy clot hadn't reshelved [his] books and I realized it was a Brunner I hadn't read, so I took it to Philcon, where it relieved an otherwise tedious convention. I do object, though, to the phrase "driving the computer bonkers", as that has become a STAR TREK cliche and is inaccurate; she simply supplies the legal citations necessary to prevent the computer from doing what its owners (who were sticklers for the letter (but not the spirit) of the law) had intended it to. And here's another subject query; can you think of any other stories in which a computer is capable of interpreting the law? This is a minor facet of Pohl & Kornbluth's GLADIATOR AT LAW and consistent background in Biggle's MONUMENT (the book, not the short story). Brunner uses a computer-killing legal paradox assembled by \another/ \computer/ in TIMESCOOP, and I'm sure there are other examples I don't remember and haven't read. But I doubt there are any written by people who are familiar enough with law to give the affair the appropriate detailed complexity. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 1980 11:45 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: Shuttle Landings For several months, a friend of mine at Rocketdyne (sp?) has been telling me about all the horrible problems that NASA would have if the shuttle ever came down anywhere other than KSC or Edwards. As he described it, the #1 (#2?) person on the "Go Team" is a government contracting officer with a briefcase full of purchase-order and contract forms. When I saw the story 'Shuttle Down', my first thought was that my friend had written it. After all, he had already told me essentially the entire plot of the story. I am sure he is now kicking himself for not trying to sell it to Analog. As for watching the real landing, I intend to drive up to Edwards if there is any chance at all of seeing the first real SPACESHIP land on earth. Alan Frisbie ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/27/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last messages in this digest. It reviews TESB. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 1980 0220-EST From: KLH at MIT-AI Subject: Yet another TESB review Well, I finally did it. After reading hundreds of TESB "spoiler" messages (and the book -- from library of course), I went to see TESB with a couple of friends. I've enjoyed seeing the reactions of various SFL people, so perhaps mine will be halfway interesting as well. My friends, who didn't know anything about the plot but had seen SW, felt vaguely cheated by the incompleteness of the movie... "that's ALL?". I guess it didn't bother me because I was expecting it. We agreed another viewing might be reasonable (particularly at 1.75 per ticket); like SW, too many fascinating little background details missed the first time. In general, I'd say that TESB has the same merits and deficiencies as SW. It's an entertaining look at a robots-and-spaceships sort of universe, but you still have to perform a mental brain-disconnect operation greater than seems reasonable. Two things in particular keep bothering me. They aren't nitpicks, because they strike me DIRECTLY at a very low level, where I am unable to fiddle with my programming. First, the spaceship flight paths and perspectives are wrong too many times. I'm not asking for scientific realism, I'm asking for decent 3-d to 2-d mapping. Particularly in the chase scenes, it's impossible for my eyes (much less my brain) to believe that the Tie fighters are really where they're supposed to be. In fact, this is a case where my reasoning faculties must be RE-ACTIVATED in order to stay in the Star Wars world! ("Let's see, the Falcon is pointed thataway, so the Tie over there is probably going thisaway...") Likewise, energy bolts (especially in space) keep going in the "wrong" places; they would be much more effective visually if they narrowed down and faded, like railroad tracks. And their "line" should be oriented exactly along the line of the ship/muzzle they're supposedly originating from. This was worse in SW with all the dogfighting. Lucas' braying about watching all the great WWI/II dogfight movies (and extracting the "best" features) makes me sick. I know those problems aren't insoluble. And they have everything to do with looking "natural", no matter how unscientific. So why....? The second problem is harder to explain, since I think it comes from an instinctive reading of body positions and movements. Several times a situation just won't feel right. This happens often with storm troopers; they don't act at all the way you'd expect trained military forces to behave. Their "combat" style seems clumsy and their reactions non-existent. Maybe just bad acting. At any rate, there are quite a few places where my guts don't agree with what the director is trying to show. So, on to the nitpicks. The light-saber fight this time was MUCH better; in fact it stands out as the most "real" acting I remember for Luke. (C'mon, show those teeth!) In retrospect, though, it still wasn't the kind of lightning-like exchange you'd expect of such weapons, with nearly zero angular inertia. (by the way, this is one of the reasons handguns are more dangerous than rifles -- they're too damn easy to wave around!!) And why is it that a light-saber will chop through anything EXCEPT another l-s beam? Why not make a "shield" of interlocked l-s beams, instead of relying on your offensive weapon to defend as well? Genteel fencers don't use shields, but I can't think of any REAL sword-warrior in history who hasn't. Also, since a l-s can be switched in and out of existence, by flickering the beam you can bypass any obstacle to the beam-sweep -- if your opponent makes the mistake of defending without simultaneously attacking (so that you needn't worry about the blocking capability of your own beam), it should be trivial to blip past his counter and through his neck. The whole issue of light-sabers is strange, anyway; clearly it needs more explanation to make sense. This sort of thing was set up much better in DUNE, with drag-inducing "shields". * I wish, just once, a storm trooper would hit something. I wonder why we haven't seen the equivalent of grenades? Gas? Their helmets look just like futuristic gas masks. * Best actor: Yoda. * Best other special effect: Taun-tauns. BIG hit with friends. * "walkers": totally absurd, more than I imagined. However friends loved it, particularly the "mouth-guns" and ponderous toppling of unlucky walkers. I admit the effects had great visceral impact, however ridiculous the concept. * Worst scene: inside the asteriod-worm. (a) Dumb eek-reaction from rebel force commander, (b) Dumb tactics to leave safe warm ship, (c) gravity?? (d) atmospheric pressure??? (e) teeth?????? * Asteriod-worm theory: asteriods exist because giant worms made swiss cheese of original planet. Giant worms exist due to breeding as combo air-raid shelters (w/ self-contained air system) and garbage disposals. Sometimes the worm gets its mode confused. Lastly, about some of the Fundamental Questions: * Is Vader Luke's father? Our impression: YES. There may prove to be some funnyness afoot (cloning etc) but gut feelings are all in support. The problem is how to explain prior behavior on Vader's part. * Who is the "other hope"? Most likely a new character. Of all those seen so far, the consistently most level-headed and capable has been R2D2. For what it's worth, R2D2 is still mysterious and was also on Dagobah; perhaps during Luke's training, Yoda perceived the watching R2D2 absorbing the skills of force-manipulation? At any rate, I have another theory, which I'll bring up in another message. Heh, heh. * What's the point of the whole thing? To make money. Clearly there is a lot of history and background missing that we need for figuring out the SW universe, but I doubt most of it will be "revealed" -- if in fact Lucas has even thought about explaining any- thing. Why light sabers? Why a "ghost-Kenobi"? Mostly, they look good. Their implications were probably never considered, as they would be for a serious SF story. Unless I or a friend were to work for Lucas, I won't really bother trying to rationalize everything, and by now I've already given it up as a bad job. The thing to do is pop out of the story confines and figure out how the PRODUCERS think; they do have an eye for details, but which ones are signi- ficant? Frankly as long as they fix the damn low-level bugs I'll let them get away with almost anything. --Ken ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 28 NOV 1980 0800-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #149 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 28 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 149 Today's Topics: SF Books - Stasheff & Edmondson & Busby, Robots - Safety and People ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Nov 1980 at 0105-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (Fairly) RECENT AND READABLE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Out in July from DAW, the first new Stasheff book in years -- A WIZARD IN BEDLAM, doesn't match his classic WARLOCK IN SPITE OF HIMSELF, but while not corruscating with puns which would make even an Asimov groan with delight, as WiSoH was, there's still plenty of the typical Stasheff wit. Reminiscent of Offutt's MESSENGER OF ZHUVASTOU. Similarly out in July, from Ace, G.C. Edmondson's THE MAN WHO CORRUPTED EARTH didn't throw me into spasms of chortling, as his ALUMINUM MAN still does, but it was more satisfying than most. There are elements in the book strongly reminiscent of Anderson's Trader Van Rijn, the Varley short story about the fellow and the girl in separate 1-person spaceships, and Murray Leinster's THE WAILING ASTEROID. Not so new, F.M. Busby's ALL THESE EARTHS, from Berleley in Sept. of '78, is quite different from the above. In fact, it's quite different from any other of Busby's, which tend toward seaminess. ...EARTHS is an alternate time-track story in which travel at FTL speeds shifts you into a different timeline; the faster, the further removed. There are some nice touches of poignancy instead of his usual downright painfulness, and it leaves you with a glow. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Nov 1980 1316-PST (Thursday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Acceptance of technology (robots?) To: HUMAN-NETS at MIT-AI The following news story, by its very existence, indicates that we may have more than a few problems in gaining acceptance for future "servo mechanisms". It's unfortunate that such things are considered to be "news". Maybe if we told everyone about Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics... ------------------------------ UF Robot Self Destructs GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - An experimental robot shaped like a human arm went haywire and attacked itself, dislocating its shoulder, says the University of Florida student who was operating the robot at the time. Harvey Lipkin, a graduate student in the mechanical engineering department blamed a "hardware failure" for the malfunctioning robotic arm and said the incident "pointed out the dramatic need to use robotic safety devices.' Lipkin, 29, said he was controlling the $50,000 aluminum arm a few weeks ago when it slammed itself into its supporting stand. "It happened before I could hit the kill switch," Lipkin said Thursday. "Luckily, nobody was in its reach or grasp." The incident was made public this week. The arm, about five feet long and weighing 70 pounds, was constructed for research purposes, but is similar to those used in manufacturing processes and "to do things where the human can be replaced," Lipkin said. "As of now, there's really no way to prevent injury if there is failure," he said. "They are essentially very stupid or dumb devices. If something comes into the work area, like a person, it (the robot) would probably plow right through it." While the arm is back in operating order, it hasn't returned to work, Lipkin said. "We are going to install an elementary safety device so at least if it rams into its stand, it will shut off," he said. ------------------------------ --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 29 NOV 1980 0811-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #150 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 29 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 150 Today's Topics: Robots - Safety and People, SF Movies - Dr. Lao, SF Books - Warlord of the Air & Legal Computers & Uncommon SF, TESB - Plot theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 November 1980 0958-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: robot self-destruct Another problem with the story is the fact that the grad student has his foot in his mouth. He may have been quoted out of context or misquoted, I know I have. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 1980 1745-EST From: OSTROFF at RUTGERS Subject: 7 Faces of Dr. Lao Not particularly relevant, perhaps, but one of the major points of the movie (at least as I remember the advertising) was that Tony Randall plays six or seven parts - including himself as a quick walk-through in the main circus tent who looks directly at the camera and shrugs his shoulders. Jack Ostroff ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 1980 2207-PST (Friday) From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban) Subject: Presidential SF? Now that the election has blown over, someone should mention that a parallel-world version of Ronald Reagan has a ludicrous role in Michael Moorcock's 1970-or-thereabouts fantasy story, The Warlord of the Air. Consider it mentioned. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 29 November 1980 00:23 est From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: Computer Law The Telzey ESP stories seemed to mention a portable law library which obviously used some form of advanced technology to make it easy to tie together references to build a brief. I have only read one of these stories in the anthology Tomorrow's Children. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 1980 at 0107-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ STELLAR SENTIENTS AND SIMILARITIES ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MARG at MIT's Stapledon story with "flame creatures who are happy in stars" sounds like Blish's THE SEEDLING STARS. TSS reads like a juvenile, and a much more old-fashioned one than its 1957 pub- lishing date, is hokey as heck, but for some unaccountable reason, I still somehow enjoy it whenever I reread it. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 1980 1955-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: uncommon sf Another old Ace double that's a favorite is "Space Chantey" by R. A. Lafferty. It's sort of a retelling of "The Odyssey" in sf terms, but in typically crazed Lafferty fashion. Odysseus becomes Space Captain Roadstrum, the land of the lotus eaters becomes a planet where (shades of Tennyson) it is always afternoon, the clashing rocks become an asteroid belt and so on. I think this was the first Lafferty I ever read, and I was taken by the style even if I didn't know what was going on. There's a lot of good Jack Vance books that you don't see very often. One of his first was "The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph", a collection of short stories about a genteel, goateed adventurer who consistly outwits his brawny, space-tanned adversaries. I think it was reprinted recently; I recommend it. Mark Geston doesn't write much and isn't strong on plot, but if you like apocalypses he's your man. "The Lords of the Starship", "In the Mouth of the Dragon" (very hard to find) and "The Siege of Wonder" all contain final battles of one kind or another. "The Siege of Wonder" is probably the best; it concerns a confrontation between the forces of magic and those of science: griffins vs. tanks and the like. His style might be too poetic for some, but I'd pick him as my favorite unknown author. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It presents some more theories of TESB. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 11/29/80 03:17:26 Re: Some theories about TESB Under the dubious assumption that seeing the movie qualifies one to extemporize at length about Lucas' plans in general, I can't resist throwing in some of my own thoughts about the general plot evolution. As far as I know, no one else has seriously proposed these theories, which means either that they know something I don't, or my thought patterns are even more bizarre than I think. Ready? Hang on to your keyboards, folks... ----------------------- KLH Theory #1: The "other hope" is none other than Darth Vader! This makes perfect dramatic sense. Among all the mysteries, Darth Vader is, I think, the key mystery. Who, or what, is Vader? Where are his real loyalties? And I think I can guess... KLH Theory #2: Darth Vader is none other than Luke Skywalker! No, I haven't lost ALL my marbles. Think about it. All this requires is that Luke be transported back into time. And that, from the SF movie viewpoint, is a trivial operation. What could be more suitable for an interstellar oedipal myth? Just to make things more concrete, let me furnish a scenario that incorporates both of the above theories, although they are actually fairly independent of each other, and I'd bet slightly more on the first than the second (like about 2 mills). Leia and Luke get married (or the equivalent). With Leia very pregnant, they set out for a new home, base, or whatever; by accident or attack of Imperial forces, their hyperdrive glitches or rams them into a black hole. The ship emerges in the past; Leia is fatally injured (producing extremes of revenge or embitterment?) but the baby lives. One way or another only Luke Sr. and Luke Jr. make it to Tatooine (perhaps they were heading there in the first place). Luke meets Obi-Wan (disturbance in Force, etc) but doesn't tell him what is really going on, and Kenobi simply accepts this promising young pupil at face value. After absorbing some more teaching, and doing his bit in the trenches, he sees the opportunity to stop things before they start; off he goes to find Vader... and he BECOMES Vader. His son grows up as Luke Skywalker. Luke is his own father, his own son, his own enemy. The Dagobah cave scene makes perfect sense, literally as well as symbolically. From this point on, the possibilities are the same whether or not the Vader = Luke theory is correct, although the mythos is a lot stronger if it is. I'll just use the term "LF" for "Luke's Father", whoever that really is. Note, by the way, that Luke may be a clone of LF, which avoids genetic variation between Sr and Jr -- useful for time loops, if the producers actually bother to think about it. And to be sure, the clone theory (which others have suggested I believe) is almost as good as the time-jump one; it wins for the cave scene as well as absence of Luke-mother, although it's not quite as forceful. Anyway, if timetripping is ruled out, I vouch for clones! So, why is Vader the "other hope"? Well, there are a number of ways this can come about, but all have their roots in Vader's origin; the key is accepting the assumption that Vader is indeed LF, one way or another. Let's consider three subtheories about that: (A) meets the Emperor during his search for the young Darth, and mistakes his evil aura for Vader's. The emperor doesn't know what he's talking about, but knows a worthy enemy when he senses him. Another great duel, which Luke loses again, horribly injured; but the Emperor doesn't kill him, rather he warps the Jedi's mind to the "dark side" (to which Luke may already have resorted during course of battle). Note that brain injuries (remember Vader's head?) can do all kinds of amazing things, including partial amnesia. Furthermore, the Force is known to be usable for mental persuasion (cf Kenobi). The Emperor avails himself of the powerful services of this nameless vassal, and as a macabre touch gives him the very appellation which was applied earlier... Darth Vader. The Emperor doesn't dare cure Vader of his injuries, since that may release his hold on him. Consequently, the perpetual black helmet for aesthetic as well as intimidation reasons. (B) A real Vader existed. LF hunts him down and wins the fight. But then he is caught in a web of circumstances (eg Emperor is nearby, and LF is weakened or not strong enough to fight him yet) which compel him to assume Vader's name, announce that LF died in the battle, and don a disguise. He decides that he can be more useful to the rebellion as a mole, and continues to play the role; the mask is a convenient way to shield his identity from anyone who might betray him. (C) LF simply sold out -- seduced by the allures of the "dark side", et cetera. This may or may not have happened with the help of the Emperor, as per subtheory A. So, Vader could be either a passive instrument of evil, a secret ally of the rebels, or an active bad guy. In any of these roles he can be seen as the "other hope". The notion of Vader as a secret rebel is probably wrong, if only from the dramatic viewpoint. However, why else would he continually let rebels escape, strangle off the best Empire commanders, and pull his punches in fighting Ben and Luke? (Come on, we KNOW he could have squashed Luke like a fly, and Ben's fight was obviously staged). Isn't it suspicious that only one person escaped from the Death Star's demise? Why does he use such incompetent storm troopers? If memory serves me right, Vader himself did not order the destruction of Leia's planet; that was the commander's decision, after Vader's methods (obviously non-permanent) failed. Still, there are holes. For example, Vader supposedly hunted down most of the other Jedi knights; was LF the last one (aha) or the first one (oops)? And the other possibilities are more interesting. Clearly LF used to be a "good" Jedi; he still has great potential. For Vader to reject the dark side and rebel against the Emperor would be perfectly consistent with many other return-to-grace tales, and Luke himself will probably be the catalyst for Vader's conversion. Near the end of TESB as the Falcon escapes into hyperspace, Vader is obviously moved. His relationship with Luke will either manuever him into a situation where he is "cured" of his mental/physical chains, or will simply force a re-examination of self (Vader in a mid-life crisis??). At any rate, Vader will join the rebels openly or covertly, abandon the "dark side" if he hasn't already, and will be the downfall of the Emperor in the final, epic battle. If Vader is Luke, then Luke as such is no longer around (the black hole, remember?) and Vader/LF/L will live to a ripe old age, having come full circle. Otherwise, in the climax Vader will again be faced with the choice of using the dark side (against the emperor, a big mistake), but this time will reject it and will take the Emperor down with him in a mutual blaze of glory, achieving self-redemption. Neat, huh? -------------------- Random other suspicions: I think there's something funny about the term "Clone Wars"; probably the movies "prior" to #4 will have more to say about that. E.G. I think it's correct to surmise that the storm troopers are clones, probably by-products of the Clone Wars. There has got to be a reason why we never see their faces and why they're mostly so much cannon fodder. And isn't it odd that they're always white? What's their armor for, if it never stops energy bolts? Are they Vader's personal troops only? Which reminds me, any theory about Vader has to explain why he wears that outfit. Simple mutiliation isn't very plausible, because we just saw that their medical science is good enough to give Luke a new hand -- prosthetic, but still equivalent. That's one reason for subtheories A and B. Clearly we're not SUPPOSED to know who or what Vader is... yet. Nor are the other characters -- the Emperor is the only one who SHOULD know. Remember the artificial hand in Zelazny's Amber? I wonder if Luke's will serve a similar role... of course, there's always R2D2 for that. Kenobi's statements about Luke's father are puzzling. And why would Ben still have LF's light saber, no matter what the circumstances? On the other hand, Ben doesn't necessarily know everything; Yoda can apparently see farther or deeper. Lucas doesn't care about scientific accuracy; does he care about plot accuracy? Or just whatever keeps the masses hanging on? -------------------- Interestingly enough, Theory #2 ties in very well with a possible filming schedule: Film #6: More of TESB. Hans rescued? Film #7: Vader gets religion. Luke & kid hit black hole. Film #1: Luke & kid emerge, Luke aids in Clone Wars. Film #2: Luke hunts for Vader Film #3: Luke becomes Vader Film #8: Vader joins rebellion, mounts campaign vs Emperor Film #9: Vader meets Emperor In other words, the chronological jumping-around becomes an integral part of the story's time-stream! This also technically satisfies Lucas' constraint that only R2D2 and C3PO will appear in all episodes, since Vader isn't in the early ones and Luke isn't in the late ones. But I don't know how much to believe Lucas, anyway. I guess what I'm basically getting at is that it would be disappointing if the characters remained fixed in their roles; there are already too many movies pitting unmitigated evil versus absolute good. ---------------------------- Oh well, an amusing speculative exercise. There are any number of loose ends (which the real films may or may not tie up). Who knows, if Lucas really is keeping his options open and his eyes on the various absurd theories floating around, this one might tickle his money bone... --Ken ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 30 NOV 1980 0843-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #151 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 30 Nov 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 151 Today's Topics: SF Books - Uncommon SF & Legal Computers & Venus on the Halfshell, TESB - Plot Theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 NOV 1980 1832-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Blish's THE SEEDLING STARS is still worth while reading, if only because Blish's remarks about some of the ridiculous excesses committed in the name of education are valid even today (the museum piece described at the beginning of the book, a spoon bent at a 90-degree angle so infant left-handers would be forced to use it righthanded, is a good example). ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 1980 1322-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: COMPUTERS AND LAW This is not exactly a propos Computers and the Law -- it is more SF and the Law. A reasonably good "classroom collection" is a volume entitled "Criminal Justice through Science Fiction," edited by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg (New Viewpoints, New York, 1977). It contains the following stories: The Undercity Dean Koontz Guilty as Charged Arthur Porges Shock Treatment J. Francis McComas A Jury not of Peers Pg Wyal 10:01 A.M. Alexander B. Malec Bounty T. L. Sherred Hawksbill Station Robert Silverberg The Cage Bertram Chandler December 28TH Theodore L. Thomas Two-Handed Engine Henry Kuttner And Keep Us From Our Castles Cynthia Bunn The Public Hating Steve Allen The Modern Penitentiary Hayden Howard Most of them are quite good. The ones that really stuck with me were "Hawksbill Station," "The Cage," "And Keep Us From Our Castles," and "The Public Hating." "A Jury not of Peers" and "Two-Handed Engine" seem to be most directly concerned with computers (unless I have forgotten some details). Mike ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 11/28/80 10:17:05 Re: computers that can interpret law In response to Chip Hitchcock's query about computers that can interpret law, I just finished "Why Bring Them Back from Heaven" by Clifford Simak. Although a minor feature of the story, the law of the land dictates the use of jury trials in which the jury is a machine. A couple of paragraphs is devoted to a discussion of how the use of machines has caused lawyers to stick strictly to the letter of the law and objective facts instead of the "sympathy tricks" and other appeals to emotion that are often used in modern day jury trials. (I once sat on a jury for a civil suit and was amazed by the fact that noone in the courtroom seemed to want the jury to hear the actual FACTS of the case. A lot of mumbo-jumbo about if this or that information was admissable without the jury finding out what the information was. Also, seemed that the lawyers' chief job was to KEEP certain info from becoming known!! And oh the theatrics of the lawyer for the plaintiff!! Truly a thing to behold.) Anyway, this gives me as good as excuse as any to give a mini review of WBTBfH. (a book I picked up after reading the name in this list) All in all I thought it was pretty good. It did a better job of describing a possible future world than it did in character- izations. In this sense it reminded me of "The Man in the High Castle" (correct name?) by Philip K. Dick. The world that was described was a very interesting one. In general, I like SF that attempts to be philosophically thought provoking instead of merely portraying a lot of action in an alien environment (space westerns, for example). The greatest shortcoming of the story, in my opinion, is that the reader is asked to believe some rather unbelievable coincidences that just happen to bring the main characters back together at unpredictable times. Also, the ending wraps up all the loose ends in about 2 pages that needed 170 pages to lead up to. All in all, though, RECOMMENDED. I would like to finish this message with a totally unrelated query. Can anyone point me in the direction of "Venus on the Half- shell"? Is this a real book? And if so, who is the author and what is the publishing firm, etc.? I have read just about everything by Kurt Vonnegut and would like to tie up this loose end in my reading. Cheers, Greg [ "Venus on the Halfshell" by Kilgore Trout is a science fiction novel mentioned in several of Vonnegut's novels. At the time that Vonnegut wrote those novels, VotH was simply a prop from his imaginary universes. Since then however, P.J. Farmer has written a book published as "Venus on the Halfshell" by Kilgore Trout. It follows the descriptions and situations given by Vonnegut quite closely. It is also part of general series of realizations of "imaginary" books and references being done by Farmer. For more information about "Venus on the Halfshell" and the imaginary book series see [SFL V1 #157]. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 11/30/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses some theories about the plot of TESB. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 29 NOV 1980 2137-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: some theories about TESB That the other hope is Darth Vader seems possible (a group of us full of Thanksgiving dinner came up with a similar speculation, since if Vader is Luke's father he may come crunching in on the Emperor to prevent his son from being wiped out. However, the L=LF idea fits badly with SW4, since I can't see an insular type like "Uncle Owen" accepting a brat off someone who literally blew in from nowhere. Furthermore, the timing seems off; from evidence in SW4, LF died before L was old enough to remember him, which doesn't fit with Obi-Wan having taken time to train him --- though I can see Obi-Wan being devious enough not to remark on the kind of semblance between [father] and [son]. Also, your schedule doesn't fit at all with the 3 trilogies announced and the schedule they are announced for; parts 7-9 are supposed to be substantially removed from 4-6. Also, I think some of what you outline is much too good for Lucasfilms, Inc., to plan on; it requires depths of character and plot they show no signs of plumbing. (With the way the Force has been puffed up as the solution to everyone's troubles, I can also see Gordon Dickson claiming that such a plot line was taken from his Childe cycle, in which it is assumed that the Genetic General is also the founder of his line of supermen.) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 1 DEC 1980 0734-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #152 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 1 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 152 Today's Topics: SF Books - Legal Computers & Chameleon Trilogy & Pussyfoot, SF Music - Cosmos, SF TV - Cosmos, TESB - How much & Plot Theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Nov 1980 0950-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: COMPUTERS AND THE LAW For those who wish to pursue the Computers and the Law idea a bit further, there is a new list: INFO-LAW at AI. As usual, INFO-LAW-REQUEST at AI takes care of administrivia. This list has people interested in "legal computers," privacy, software protection, and quite a few other topics. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 1980 (Sunday) 2335-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: For those who love puns... I highly recommend the series by Piers Anthony consisting of "A Spell for Chameleon", "The Source of Magic", and "Castle Roogna". Strictly Fantasy, but the puns come so fast and on so many levels that any appreciator of good sick humour will love it. At one point in the story a minor protagonist is one Magician Murphy, whose talent is making plans go wrong. Beyond the usual plays on words the humour gets \really/ sick. Love it. -- Dave Smith ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1980 0019-PST (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Pussyfoot and the Joymakers (obscure enough subject, eh?) To: SF-LOVERS at AI -------------------------------------------------------------- The topic matter of this message falls squarely between two separate mailing lists, so I am mailing it to both -- I apologize in advance to anyone who has to wade through this thing twice! -------------------------------------------------------------- For several years, there has been sitting on a shelf in my SF collection a book called "The Age of the Pussyfoot", by Frederik Pohl (1969). Somehow I never got around to reading it, but I saw it sitting there pouting and decided to give it a run through. The story was rather amusing. It involves a man "frozen" in 1969 after dying in a fire, who is brought back to life 500 years later. Everyone (well, almost everyone) in this society carries around little units called "Joymakers". These gadgets are actually little super-terminals that connect by radio to a massive computer complex in each metropolitan area. They are something of a mixed blessing. They are continually telling you that you have 3 priority messages, 2 personal messages, a pending communication, a request to play tennis, a solicitation from a law firm, an impending personal visit, an overdrawn bank account, etc., etc... They are the only way to organize the MASSES of data that this society has available; you'd never even be able to figure out what to watch on television without a Joymaker to filter out the stuff it knows you want from the umpteen thousand channels. They even spray you with tranquilizers and dispense contraceptive pills when required -- and can deliver realistic kisses and hugs to you from remote callers via direct neural stimulation. Quite a gadget. Note that they are nothing in themselves but a link to a central facility. Many of the various servo-mechanisms are telling our hero throughout the book that "we are all the same" -- that is, talking to any of them is the same as talking to your own unit -- they all connect with the same machine buried in the central city somewhere. As I worked my way through the novel, I began to feel oddly uncomfortable. This poor guy is continuously being bombarded with messages, communication requests, data inputs, etc., and you have to be an expert just to tell the Joymaker how to filter out the stuff you WANT to know about. In fact, our hero is rather inexpert at this, and gets killed as a consequence (no matter, he gets brought back again, too). As I sat trying to figure out exactly what it was that was bothering me, my nearby terminal flashed with three [You have new mail] messages, a SEND message delivered directly to my terminal from an ITS system, a local user requesting communication via a local link... and two of my phone lines started ringing. Egads! We have met the Joymaker and it is us! While my Teleray terminal has not (yet) begun dispensing contraceptives, the rest of the parallel is strikingly clear. It brings up some interesting questions concerning how a WORLDNET will function. With the amount of netmail, messages, informational data and similar niceties flying about this VERY LIMITED POPULATION network, what would a "real" WORLDNET be like? Clearly we would NEED "Joymakers" to filter things out, and if they did not do a REALLY good job of NOT filtering out the WRONG things, alot of people could get fouled up very fast! It brings up an interesting question of whether a "bad" filter is better than no filter at all in such a situation. One thing's for sure, if we have a true WORLDNET and no good filtering mechanisms, we definitely WILL need our "Joymakers" to spray the tranquilizer around! --Lauren-- P.S. There is one more element to this novel that must be mentioned. At the end of the story, there is a note from the author concerning the genesis of the book. He tells how the basic idea of the "Joymaker" was derived from some (limited) exposure he had to the MIT Project MAC in 1969! He goes on to describe the amazing 7090 systems (cough, wheeze, gasp) with their remote terminals dialing in on (amazing!) phone lines! One can only imagine what he'd say if he saw what that technology has "evolved" into. Where's my Joymaker? ... --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 1980 20:23:54-PST From: Phil Karn (ihnss!karn @ berkeley) Subject: Music in Cosmos I haven't been getting issues of SF-LOVERS too regularly, so I don't know if anyone else has identified the music used in Carl Sagan's COSMOS. Aside from Vangelis, he has used bits of the following: 1. The Planets - Holst (of course!) 2. Sequencer, Synergy - Synergy 3. You are Not Alone - Roy Buchanan 4. Meddle - Pink Floyd I have to agree that his choices of music are among the best points of the show. I recently bought Albedo 0.39 by Vangelis just to see the reaction of my sophisticated non-believer roommate... --Phil ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 1980 2341-PST From: Dolata@SUMEX-AIM Subject: Cosmos Music, Carl Sagan almost 'gets his' on live TV. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the question, "What is the Cosmos Music". I am sorry if anyones contribution is not mentioned, I seem to have lost some of the messages. Also, I cannot promise that the list is correct, I have tried to purchase each album and verify, but I couldn't find them all. Artist Album Cut Name When in Cosmos Vangelis "Heaven and Hell" not-given Theme piece Vangelis "Albedo 0.39" Alpha several times Synergy "Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra" OR "Sequencer" (not sure) Retrograde motion Froese "Ages" Metropolis Spherical Flatland A song done originally by Paul Winter Consort Arizona Indian ruins called "Icarus", apparently redone by some other (unknown) group On a second, slightly related note, Carl Sagan almost got "RF-ed" on live TV about 2 weeks ago! Just before the Voyager flyby, I was at Cal Tech, when a bunch of CIT undergraduates heard that there was to be a live, televised symposium at Baxter Audatorium with several notables, including Carl Sagan. Several events were planned to commemerate the presence of such a distinguished super star amoung us mere puny mortals. There was a Sagan worship service, where a bunch of students stared in AWE at his book, a Carl Sagan sound alike contest, and the capping event was to have been the Watch Carl Blush event. The plan was; As Carl sat on the stage, a series of students were going to sneak into the back of the aud using a purloined aud key. They would then dash across stage in the following order. First, a student carrying a largish model of Saturn, hotly pursued by another carrying a cardboard model of Voyager exclaiming "BEEP BEEP BEEP". Immediatly after that, a bikini clad frosh of the female persuasion would run over, tossle his hair, and give him a big kiss. Two more students would complete the train carrying a big sign saying "WE LOVE YOU CARL", and all would then exit stage left, out the other backstage door, and be given a chance to escape by a crowd of milling "by standers" who would be in the way of any pursuers (hee hee hee). Alll went as planned until the time came to open the aud door. The decoy student "tripped" down the stairs nearby, luring the security guard away. The group ran from the bushes, opened the door and prepared to dash into history, only to be confronted by 4 California Highway Patrolmen, with guns, clubs, and implements of brutality. The cops pulled the door back shut, and the students quickly turned tail, and beat it into the night. Turns out that Jerry Brown had decided it was time to make some political hay and so had showed up to deliver a 'suprise' speech announcing some flakey drivial. As governer of Cal, he gets a honor guard of four CHP. And so, Sagan escaped this live public TV debacle. Too bad. ------------------------------ Date: 1 December 1980 0204-EST (Monday) From: Lars.Ericson at CMU-10A Subject: TESB Profitability Does anybody know how much money was made, and how many people saw, TESB and SW respectively? Also, what time of year was each one released? Thanx, Larswe ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/01/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some theories about the plot of TESB. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 1 December 1980 01:31-EST From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: TESB -- Darth Vader as other hope This doesn't detract from the possibility that Darth is the other hope, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that only one of the two (Luke, Darth) will emerge from SW7. This seems to imply that if Darth is the "other hope" that he will die in saving the "galaxy far, far away..." ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 12/01/80 01:56:29 Re: Surely there are bigger holes? In reply to Chip's comments: "I can't see an insular type like "Uncle Owen" accepting a brat off someone who literally blew in from nowhere." Farmers tend to be hard up for cheap labor. Certainly Owen doesn't want Luke going anywhere. I have no trouble imagining a reasonable scenario whether LF was a life-long buddy or a shipwrecked random. Furthermore, the timing seems off; "from evidence in SW4, LF died before L was old enough to remember him, which doesn't fit with Obi-Wan having taken time to train him --- though I can see Obi-Wan being devious enough not to remark on the kind of semblance between [father] and [son]." Can you remember your father from when you were 1 year old? Or even two? A year seems long enough for all sorts of things to happen -- training, farming, leaving for the wars... also, Obi-Wan and others have many times remarked on how much Luke is like his father. When there is a minimum of talking in a movie, you have to wonder why those particular comments are put in. Not accidentally, I bet. Again, I think L = LF one way (time) or another (clone)... "Also, your schedule doesn't fit at all with the 3 trilogies announced and the schedule they are announced for; parts 7-9 are supposed to be substantially removed from 4-6." I don't see what the problem is at all. I think it's a pretty good guess considering I didn't even know what the "announced schedule" was. Just have one less "more of TESB" movie, and one more "Vader unbound" movie; the main point was the way a time-jump fits neatly into the required flashback. Of course, given the info that there are three coherent trilogies, you don't need anything else to figure out that the most likely sequence is 6,1,2,3,7,8,9, whatever the connections between them. "Also, I think some of what you outline is much too good for Lucasfilms, Inc., to plan on; it requires depths of character and plot they show no signs of plumbing." Alas, this is probably the best argument. The other thing that makes me skeptical of the theory is that it's not a whole lot to spread over that many episodes... on the other hand, Godzilla has starred in how many movies to date? By the way, has anyone ever summarized all the "announced" info? People keep saying things like "you know of course that Lucas says", which of course I don't. I get all my dope through SFL, and forget much of it. --Ken P.S. I just realized that it's quite possible Lucas will re-edit previous episodes to jibe more closely with whatever the final results are. In fact, that's what I would do myself. Besides, just like "Close Encounters", it might draw a few more people than a simple re-release would... ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 2 DEC 1980 0707-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #153 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 2 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 153 Today's Topics: SF TV - Ellison on Tomorrow Today & Most Violent Show, TESB - When it began & Plot Theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Dec 1980 0146-PST (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Ellison on Tomorrow My sources, in their usual timely fashion, have informed me that our friend Harlan will appear on the Tomorrow show (NBC -- 12:30 AM) on the night of Dec. 2 -- that is, Tuesday night / Wednesday Morning. My sources for such things are USUALLY accurate, but you NEVER KNOW. Sorry for the short notice. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1980 at 1211-CST From: david at UTEXAS-11 Subject: TV violence A Washington UPI report says NBC is the No. 1 network for prime time violence this year, and NBC's "Buck Rogers" is the most violent prime time series, averaging 26 violent acts per hour, according to a survey conducted by the National Coalition on Television Violence. ------------------------------ Date: 1 December 1980 1013-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: SW and TESB release dates SW was released in early June (senior ditch day at Caltech). I fondly recall standing in line for 7 hours at the Mann's Chinese to see it. By the way, Caltech is NOT spelled Cal Tech. TESB was released in June (July) of last summer (this is all the distant past to me). TESB is still making money. Is money defined as box-office gross or toys, etc too. The number of people who saw them will probably never be known due to the large number of repeat customers (5 for me). ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/02/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some theories about the plot of TESB. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1980 19:52:51-PST From: E.jeffc at Berkeley Subject: Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader There is only one flaw, as far as I can see, as to the proposition Darth Vader is Luke's father. At one point in the film, we see Vader's helmet being placed on his head. The back of that head did not look very human to me. The way I interpret them, the laws of genetics say that Luke cannot be the son of Darth Vader. Why, then, does Vader claim that he is? Simple! It's all an attempt to get Luke to crack. Wouldn't you if you heard that Darth Vader was your father? And of course, Darth Vader would feel no guilt at having lied about the relationship. In any case, the claimed relationship will serve its purpose soon enough: it will make you see the next movie in the Star Wars saga. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 0458-EST From: Doug Alan Subject: Darth Vader's head and Time travel in TESB The reason that Vader's head is weird is almost certainly because he was badly injured by accident or through misadventure - not because he is an not human. I have my own theory about Luke's ancestry. In it Luke's hyperdrive glitches, he goes back in time, and he decides that he can defeat the future empire if he makes a bunch of clones of himself, all of whom can use the force well. These clones become the Jedi knights. Before these clones grow up, Luke is influenced by the dark side and becomes the emperor. One of the clones grows to be Obiwan Kenobi, one becomes Darth Vader, and one other one falls through a black whole, pops up millions of years in the past, and begins a hereditary line that evolves into Yoda's species. Before Darth turns over to the dark side, he decides to have a clone son, who becomes Luke. Therefore, Luke is the Emperor, Vader is Luke's father and Obiwan's brother, Obiwan is Luke's and the Emperor's son (ever notice that the Emperor looks a little like Ben?), Yoda is Luke's Great^1000000 grandson, and Luke has no mother. The other hope is the Emperor (who Ben and Yoda know are Luke) who might, through by being sent the frozen body of his old friend Han Solo, be moved into converting back to his old goodness. More seriously, I truly hope they don't bring time travel into Star Wars. Backwards time travel is messy. It involves either gross paradoxes, or preditermination (parallel universe travelling is not included because it is really sideways in time -- not backwards). Since paradoxes are unacceptible (at least to me), this means that in order to travel back in time, the universe must be preditermined. Cosmic Censorship and no free will! Ick!!! I'd rather have free will than be just a puppet on the strings of fate. --Doug Alan ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 3 DEC 1980 0910-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #154 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 3 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 154 Today's Topics: SF Music - Cosmos, SF TV - Most Violent Show & HGttG, SF Books - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, What Happens at a Con - Loscon 7 Party, Time Travel - Reward and Paradoxes, TESB - When it Began ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Dec 1980 at 0149-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ COSMOS' MUSIC ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In this past Sunday's chapter of Cosmos (about the "Big Bang") the music I particularly would like to identify comes at the point where the picture first shifts from some white field-flowers against the sky, to the group of radio telescopes. That's when those deep, moving piano chords erupt. Is \that/ by Vangelis, and if so, which album? ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 at 1006-CST From: clyde at UTEXAS-11 (Clyde Hoover) Subject: Ultraviolence on the telly. Interestingly enough, this group also rated Saturday morning cartoon shows on the amount of violence. The winner was The Bugs Bunny- Roadrunner Hour, with, as I recall, one violent act per minute. It is also interesting that those Chuck Jones (Bugs Bunny & Roadrunner) cartoons of 20+ years ago (the era of REAL animation and ingenuity) happen to be the only ones worth watching on Saturday morning, the rest of the fare being psuedo- animated 'super-teenager' crap. But then, I always liked 'Space Ghost', one of the more violent cartoon shows of the 60s. I always love to see the baddies get the ever-loving crap blown out of them 20 times in a half-hour. And, David, it hasn't affected me at all. I mean I haven't used the M-16 hanging over my desk on anybody that didn't REALLY deserve it. P.S. Didn't that group also mention that comic books lead to juvenile deliquency and sexual perversion? ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 1709-EST From: STEVE LIONEL at STAR via Subject: "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" When I saw "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" advertised in the SF Book Club, it looked interesting enough to make me order it. After reading it, I wish I hadn't bothered. Not being plugged into fandom, (except for reading SFL), I hadn't ever heard of HGttG before, but the book jacket says that it is a popular radio show in England and will "soon" be presented as a TV series in the US. The book reads like a disconnected set of children's bedtime stories, with frequent ramblings about subjects which have no connection to the story. I can see that this sort of thing is supposed to be funny, and I noticed that the author used to contribute to Monty Python, and I can even see that adapting a book from radio material could be difficult, but if the radio show is anything like the book, I don't think I'd enjoy it. Since there is at least ONE person out there in SFL land who is familiar with the series (a towel imprinted with "Don't panic" was mentioned), I'd like to ask: 1. Is the radio show any good/any better than the book? What is the book missing that makes the difference? 2. Does anyone have more details on the proposed show in the US? I assume that it would be a PBS show, ala Dr. Who (whom I adore). 3. Is there anyone who LIKES the book? If so, please tell me why. Steve Lionel ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 (Tuesday) 2122-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. fantastic reading. Suggest it to all those who have not read it. -- Doug Adams, Harmony books, New York. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 1709-EST From: ALYSON L ABRAMOWITZ via Subject: "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" I've not read the SF Book Club book yet (it just came on Monday) but I have very fond memories of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio show. I remember it as a show with Monty Python-like humor and science fiction combined. But then I only heard two (?) episodes a couple of years back when I was in England. I'll echo Steve's request for information about the TV show in the US. We generally seem to get British shows 3 to 5 years after they show in England (for example, Monty Python and Dr. Who) so I was very surprised to read on the dustjacket for the Bookclub edition of HGTTG that that it will soon exist on both sides of the Atlantic. I believe that the British version of the show was scheduled for next season. Do we have any British fans getting SFL? I don't like Dr. Who, tho, (the plots are dumb) so perhaps it's just a case of different tastes. Alyson L. Abramowitz ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 09:56 PST From: Brodie.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Loscon 7, Anaheim CA, November 26-30, 1980 "Loscon was a great success I mean that most sinceeeeeerly! The site was just fantastic and the programming was manna--- Oh, by the way, which one was Ana?" ^^^ "Literary" allusion Death to all runners. Galacticon jackknifed, resulting in massive spillage. Hordes of drobes, war and otherwise, roled through the halls. A convention is what you make of it. APA-ARPA (that's us) met in Paul Schauble's cube on Saturday night; not a great praty as such, and the bathtub was full of y.t.'s drinks at the end of the evening. Alan Frisbie.EOS at PARC brought plentiful munchies, but the mind of the group was not on food; neither was it on what it had been on during the first party at Westercon; no, we had an absorbing (no, really!) discussion of networks and security, dominated to a great degree by the lovely and sequined Toni TMP at MIT but-really-at TRW, who told us all kinds of unclassified details about MX and No Such Agency. DAVE at UCLA-Security was there, as was of course Cheryl Chapman.ES at PARC, JPM at SAIL, and several others who didn't stick it out and so I will return the insult by not mentioning them. Larry Niven and Fuzzy wandered in, read a magazine, stayed long enough not to appear bored, then left, bored. It broke up around 1 a.m., and we left in various clusters, but anyone who tries to figure out Southern California social relationships without the LOSFS org(y) chart is doomed to failure. The film program included Inc Shr Man, The Invisible Boy, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and other noted works, the focus being on Jack Arnold, who directed many of the films they showed, including the classic (why?) It Came From Outer Space, a movie truly not worth seeing, even in 3D, period, I found the programming, while interesting, to leave little room for choice, but who goes to programming anyway, question mark The big highlight of the con was the atsign buttons Frisbie.EOS at PARC came up with. For $.75, a huckie made buttons out of Frizz's Xerox- printed atsigns. Boyoboy, what fun. Everyone should own one. The best feature of the hotel was that you didn't have to take the elevators; there were only three floors, and it was split level. The smog was bogus par usual, supplemented by ash from the big burnout underway in Southern. What a bummer, man, my car got dirty. All in, it was the expected convention, a jaunt out of reality, through the Twilight Zone festival and Godzilla marathon, past the orgiastic Con suite activities, the amazing and incredible Southern California (insert here sexist remarks to your taste) and lack of (insert here proper combination of moralistic/intellectually elite pap), then back on I-5 and by the Olive Tree Restaurant in Kettleman, where 50 ml of lasagne goes for $3.95, and back to the fantasy of reality in the ivory cloud-towers of Palo Alto, where you can see the horsies talking each to each while you eat lunch. I do not think that they will talk to me. Richard ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 09:51 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: $$$$ for Time Travel The Los Angeles Times for Sunday, November 30, had an interesting classified ad (First page of ad section, lower-right corner): "Will pay large reward to anyone to show me how to go back in time to July 30, 1980. 7 Trojan Dr., Bridgeport, Conn. 06610" I don't know how large "large" is, but I don't think it would pay for the idea I heard mentioned at Loscon by, I believe, Dr. Forward: First take a 100 solar-mass black hole and spin it so the surface approaches the speed of light... Happy reward hunting, Alan Frisbie ------------------------------ APPLE@MIT-MC 12/02/80 22:59:40 Re: Doug Alan on Time Travel Paradoxes I don't see why Doug says that, when dealing with time travel backwards, either the universe is "preditermined" (sic) or there are paradoxes. One can conceive of a non-predetermined (post- determined?) universe where paradoxes cannot exist. One such universe was described by Isaac Asimov in his novel "The End of Eternity." In this universe, any change in the past is immediately reflected in all future times. So, using a well-worn example, if you were to go back into the past and kill your grandmother, then you would cease to exist in any time period, and no one would have any memory of your existence. People in the future, looking at police records, would see "Woman killed by unknown assailant," because the fact of her death exists. Note that I am not talking about creating parallel universes. Parallel universes, if they exist at all, cannot have any influence on this one, so their existence is not significant. If you say that whenever history is changed, a parallel universe is created, then you might as well say that the present one is changed because only one universe can "exist" at a time: one's own. Some people might say that this is really pre-determinism, but it's not. Although is is possible to see all history at once, a "time line," and see, for example, that at point x Mr. Jones goes to the bathroom, and afterwards (at point x + e) he washes his hands, the ability to SEE what happens is not the same as DETERMINING what will happen in the future. So if at point x - e, Mr. Jones looks into the future and sees that he is going to be in the bathroom in a few minutes, and decides NOT to go to the bathroom, then at the moment of his decision the past is changed, and if we (the neutral observer) now look at point x-e we shall find that Mr. Jones saw that he was NOT going to to bathroom, and following the time line from that point, we see that Mr. Jones acts on that basis. At point x, we do not have Mr. Jones in the bathroom, but instead Mr. Jones is wherever he decided to go after seeing that he was not going to go to the bathroom. (Perhaps he is cleaning up a mess on the living room carpet.) So the universe always remains consistent. All for now. HLPV. - Jim Cox ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 0732-EST From: Doug Alan Subject: Apple's Version of Time Travel In this theory, if one goes back in time, he changes the time line. (Since there is a sequence of different time lines, there is implied a `hyper-time' that governs the changes in the normal-time line. I could rave about whether the hyper-time line changes or whether one may travel into the past of hyper-time [What about hyper-hyper time, etc.?], but I won't for now. In any case....) Since the time-line he leaves is not the same as the time line in which he reappears, he has not travelled into the past of his own original time line, but into the past of some other new time line. This time travel is not travel backwards in time, but travel sideways and backwards in time. This is significantly different. I still maintain that one cannot travel into the past of his own time line without paradox or predEtermination. --Doug Alan ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 0929-PST From: Achenbach@SUMEX-AIM Subject: Puppet on the strings of fate? How about in the hands of Frank Oz? /Mike ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 0637-PST From: ADPSC at USC-ISI (Attn: Don) Subject: SW and TESB release dates TESB was released in May of 79. I saw it first on 6/6 after it had been out about two weeks (at least.) Somehow I thought that SW was released earlier in the year than June. That was a long time ago so details get fuzzy sometimes. Don ------------------------------ Date: 2 December 1980 14:53-EST From: Dennis L. Doughty Subject: Dates of release of SW, TESB Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977. The Empire Strikes Back was released during the equivalent week in 1980. (May 27 ?) [ The SF-LOVERS series of special issues on Star Wars and TESB began on 23 May 1980, which I believe was the national release date. There was some variation in first showings across the country due to sneak previews, openning night benefits, etc. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 4 DEC 1980 0756-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #155 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 4 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 155 Today's Topics: SF Books - Legal Computers & Cyberiad & HGttG, What happens at a Con? - Loscon 7 party, SF Movies - Film questions, TESB - Begin again? & When it began, SF TV - Star Trek's Tribble Troubles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Dec 1980 0851-EST From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Computers/SF & Law Sigh ... after having to move again (only two months in the last place) my books are once again snuggled in boxes in a drafty attic, where I can't look up this memory: a story by William Tenn in which an Earthman kills a Venusian and is tried and convicted by a Justice Machine. Vintage Tenn. ---Pete ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 11:02:46-PST From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: "Hitchiker's Guide" complaint Steve Lionel's complaint about "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is reminiscent of a friend's complaint about Stanislaw Lem's "Cyberiad: Tales for a Cybernetic Age". He thought it was just a series of disconnected tales that were "everything that sf is ridiculed as being", petty, and demeaning. Then one day I snuck up on him and read him the start of the story on Dragons and Probability, and he bust out laughing. Then he reread the book and enjoyed it immensly. All this is presented for just two reasons: (1) Maybe Steve was looking for too much or something the book was not intended to be (I found the little I've read of it to be rather humorous), and; (2) This seemed like a splendid opportunity to plug a great book. The only book I know of which makes jokes about the Laws of Thermodynamics, computers, robotics, atomic physics, and still is funny and very philosophical politically (Stanislaw Lem is a Polish author who's works are translated into English brilliantly). Ken P.S. I should warn that none of the other four books of his I've read have even come close, and most aren't even worth buying (though the intro to "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" is quite good). If you've been disappointed by his other works, don't let that stop you from reading "Cyberiad" P.P.S. The story about the electronic bard is probably the best. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 1023-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: "Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy" There was a review of HGttG in the Sunday San Jose Mercury by Richard Lupoff. He too thought it sophmoric and dull. Me, I loved it. I heard the full radio show (there is another set of episodes where they visit the Resturant at the End of Time) at Seacon in Brighton, and although you don't get the voice char- acterizations in the book (Marvin, the depressive robot, is particularly good) the flavor is the same. It was nominated for the Hugo for best dramatic presentation, but lost (to "Superman") in spite of wild applause at the ceremony from patriotic Englishmen. ------------------------------ Date: 03 DEC 1980 1220-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: "Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" --The material is definitely a matter of taste. If you disliked BEDAZZLED and hate Monty Python (some of the later representatives of a specific strain of lunatic British humor) you won't like HGG; it takes a certain sort of sense of humor that is commoner among fans than among mundanes. (I'd say a skewed sense of humor, but looking at what most of this country thinks is funny ("Three's Company"???) I think that's a misnomer.) --I recently read a Britisher's review of the book version; he said flatly that there was no way a book could match the sound effects, etc. of a radio show, and offered the SFBC issue as evidence. --So far as I know, there is no expectation of HHG becoming a television show; moving from radio to TV is bloody difficult to do at well (to say nothing of being incredibly expensive, given the number of effects that they get away with simply describing on the radio). --According to the latest sales flyer from VIA OZ (a phone phreak's private business; sells the aforementioned towels, and 10-oz. coffee mugs labeled "Programming Fluid" in Moore Computer typeface), HHG will be heard in this country (I think on National Public Radio) starting in May 1981. NPR includes WGBH-FM in Boston and a number of other radio stations around the country. --The show is \immensely/ popular among English fans; the roar that went up at the Hugo Award ceremony last year when it was listed among the nominees for the Dramatic Presentation award caused Chris Reeve (who was there to represent the winner, SUPERMAN (theoretically the winners are well-kept secrets, but I'm told that Seacon told the studio that SUPERMAN had won in order to get \somebody/ to show up)) to wonder whether the votes had been counted correctly. (Suspect there were other factors in that noise, though; a lot of European fans feel that the U.S. wields a disproportionate influence in SF and bitch about it constantly.) --\I/ was mildly entertained by the book (but then, I've frequently been told I have a warped sense of humor) and am looking forward to the broadcasts. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 1304-PST From: Dave Dyer Subject: HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy I have heard 8 or 9 episodes of the British program. It is worth hearing. The quality is uneven but generally pretty good. The humor consists of about equal parts of absurdity and dry satire; definitely British, recognizably pythonesque. The plot line is improbable. I believe the series is available on tape to fan club members. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 20:02 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy If you should come across the record album of HGttG, BE WARNED: it is drastically cut! In an effort to squeeze 6 radio shows onto four record sides, all sorts of things got dropped on the cutting room floor. I don't know what the original length of the radio show was, but I'll play the album tonight and let you know tomorrow how long it is. Can anyone out there supply us with the length of the radio version? Alan Frisbie (Aside to Brodie.PA: Watch out, Richard, or I'll tell 'em the REAL reason you liked LOSCON so much! Also, the name is LASFS, not LOSFS. And I doubt my buttons were the hit of the con, just SF-Lovers.) ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 2324-EST From: Doug Alan Subject: Literary Allusion Tired of lying in the sunshine Decided that that's no fun You are young and life is long And there's time to write some literary puns But then one day you find You've wasted all your time And a reader who hates puns has shot you with a gun [There are no allusions, really.] [Matter of fact, everything's an allusion.] ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 1119-PST From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Subject: Questions about SW & TESB, and films in general Could someone who is familiar with the inside news about the release/scheduling/plans of SW and TESB tell us if there is a projected date for the release of SW and TESB as a double bill or double feature nationwide? I would assume that this won't happen until the gross for TESB by itself falls below a certain level of income, but that releasing them as a double feature would create a new surge of income and also help heighten interest in the next film being released in the saga. Could any such insiders also tell us if there is any chance that such a paired release would be on the wide film, or would it invariably be on the narrower film for smaller theaters? (Are those 70mm and 35mm or what? I seem to have forgotten whatever details I used to know about such things. That also brings to mind a separate question: How many showings does a film print last before it gets all scratchy? I always get irritated when I pay lots of money these days to see a current film, and am sub- jected to a scratchy and damaged print. It spoils the illusion, and might as well be on TV. When a print gets scratchy and/or damaged in appearance, does the distributor or filmmaker replace it free, or does the theater owner have to pay for a new print somehow? I'm trying to figure out if there is some financial incentive for a theater operator to keep a bad print going for as long as he can, or if it wouldn't cost them anything more to show a good print instead, and they're just mean.) Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 3 December 1980 1950-est From: LeBlanc.Student at MIT-Multics Subject: TESB release TESB was released on May 21, 1980. Doesn't anyone remember the SW information number that was active last May. It played this awful recording of Hans Solo and C3PO talking about their SW adventures and encouraging everyone to see their new movie TESB. The recording ended with a promise of a new message next month but the number was quickly disconnected. WELL, ANYWAY, the phone number ( 1-800-521-1980 ) had a special significance. When parced 5/21/1980 it gave the opening date for TESB. Isn't that clever. [ Thanks also go to MJL at MIT-MC, Rubenstein at HARV-10, and Hank.Walker at CMU-10A for correcting the date. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/04/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses RAH's THE ROLLING STONES and the Star Trek episode THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES. People who are not familiar with the novel or the TV episode may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 02 Dec 1980 2217-PST From: Jim McGrath Subject: tribble troubles I talked to David Gerrold down at LOSCON and he mentioned how tribbles came about. Apparently he was thinking of the plague of rabbits in Austriala when he wrote it, but realized the similarity to RAH's flat cats. He sent the script to him, seeking his approval, which was granted. Thus, although flat cats may have influenced the development of the tribbles, there has never been any question of David plagiarizing RAH's work. However, David himself has been ripped off by dealers selling tribbles at SF and Trek conventions without paying the proper royalties to him. He has largely given up active enforcement of his rights, since it is simply too difficult to police cons. Jim ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 5 DEC 1980 0644-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #156 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 5 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 156 Today's Topics: Galacticon Info Query, SF Books - Lem & Legal Computers & HGttG, SF Movies - Film Questions, TESB - Plot Theories & When it Began ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Dec 1980 at 1434-PST From: obrien at Rand-Unix (Mike O'Brien) Subject: Galacticancelled? Does anyone out there know what happened to Galacticon? Cancelling a big-city con that close to the con date seems rare. I was looking forward to seeing Mike Jittlov's films there, since that was to be his last show for awhile. (He's disappearing into "Elves' Park", his first feature.) ------------------------------ Date: 4 December 1980 08:57-EST From: Gail Zacharias Subject: Stanislaw Lem I beg to disagree with CSVAX.arnold@Berkeley's comment that Lem's other books aren't good. "Cyberiad" is pretty good but I found it tiresome after a while. His "Star Diaries" I liked much better. It's also a collection of short stories, but they tend to be more developed than the ones in "Cyberiad". The 'Seventh Voyage' story is one of the funniest time travel stories I've seen (I still chuckle when I think of "I reached my destination safely, thanks to the courage and resourcefulness I had displayed when only two children...") ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 1709-EST From: STEVE LIONEL at STAR via Subject: Telzey Amberdon stories A little while ago, SSteinberg referred to the Telzey Amberdon series of stories (where a "portable law library" was mentioned). I've been a fan of Telzey since I was a teen-ager, probably because I liked the combination of a beautiful 16-year-old blonde with psi powers. James Schmitz wrote those stories, which appeared in Analog in the 70's. I have two books about Telzey, "The Telzey Toy" and "The Universe Against Her". This latter is really a loosely connected series of short stories from Analog. There was also another Schmitz book about a friend of Telzey's named Trigger Argee. Can anyone help me with the title? These books are fun to read; I'd recommend them as examples of good psi stories. Steve Lionel ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 17:58:10-PST From: CSVAX.presotto at Berkeley Subject: HGttG About the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. A friend of mine just bought the book, having had the LP for a long time. If you have the book (or record), don't buy the other. The book is just a transcription of the record (which is why it probably reads so badly). ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 18:21 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I played the HGttG records last night and timed them. Wow, are they ever cut! The results were (Chapter & page references are to the Pan paperback): Side 1 24m 24s From the beginning TO the Vogon's order to throw them out the airlock (middle of chapter 7, page 56). Side 2 21m 11s History of Earth and the Ejection from the airlock TO going into orbit around Magrathea (end of chapter 14, page 88). Side 3 23m 46s History of Magrathea TO the Factory Floor scene (middle of chapter 24, page 122). Side 4 27m 28s Explanation of the mice TO the computer explosion (end of chapter 32, page 154), followed by an ad for THE BOOK. These times are plus-or-minus a few seconds due to including about two seconds of silence at the start and finish of each side. If the original radio episodes were each 30 minutes long (which I suspect is correct), then ALMOST HALF THE SHOW IS MISSING! Obviously, the next step is to get tapes of the show and identify the cut segments. Any volunteers? (That's spelled: s-u-c-k-e-r-s). Alan Frisbie P.S. If you do decide to buy the records, inspect them carefully! Most of the ones at Change of Hobbit (West L.A.) had minor scratches. My set also has a lot of noise, clicks & pops. ------------------------------ Date: 4 December 1980 22:16-EST From: William B. Daul Subject: QUERY 1. Anyone know when or if the Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy is on the radio in the SF bay area (San Francisco)? 2. No number 2. ------------------------------ Date: 4 December 1980 09:16-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: Questions about films in general Nowadays, with all those 4x and 6x shopping mall closets that are being passed off as movie theatres, the advent of xenon lamps (at least 15 year old technology), and reels so large that it takes a block and tackle to move them, the amount of (man)handling of the film has been reduced considerably. However, in a lot of cases, all this automation means one projectionist per 4x or 6x, and the care and maintenence of the equipment (and thus the film) suffers. (One plus to all of that is you'll no longer see a missed changeover in those theatres, with the attendant refocusing, mirror adjusting, and whatnot. The graininess typically seen approaching normal changeover is also gone.) Now the catch: all the automated works is for 35mm film. Properly handled 35 mm film should last about 4-6 months on two showings a day before becoming unplayable. However, if you want to see a clean print, go see it in the first week, two at the most - and see it in a first-run theatre if you can. They generally get the film with the magnetic (as opposed to optical) soundtrack, notwithstanding Dolby. Same holds for seeing any film shown in the 70mm version. See that one over a later showing in 35mm, especially if it was originally shot on 70mm film. Depending on the relationship between the theatre chain and their distributor and the number of prints (fresh or otherwise) available, the volume of business, etc., determines whether or not a paricular theatre opts to try to get a fresh print. Since they are rented copies, there is no incentive to keep a bad print going - in fact, it is the other way around. Generally, a print is considered bad based on the number and quality of the splices in it, eventually considered unusable when the "rain" obliterates the picture. But, let's not compare anything to TV "presentations" until we get the aspect ratio changed. I was prepared to be disappointed when 2001 finally made it to TV, and it came off surprisingly well. The same can be said for most of the movies-by-satellite. What was disappointing was making the mistake of showing off two of my all-time favorite films - which I originally saw in their 70mm and Cinerama versions with multiple-channel magnetic soundtracks, in a revival several years later in 35mm with optical soundtracks. The impact was gone - so was the color. The first TV showing of each of those films came off better... As for the double-bill, don't hold your breath, but my guess is that that won't happen until a year (or less) before the next episode is released - as a refresher. --Frank ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 1809-EST From: MD at MIT-XX Subject: Motion Picture Industry Policies In response to Will Martin's questions concerning poor prints of films, etc.: I've been heavily involved in the MIT film series for over 6 years. Since most of the films we show are 35 mm, we usually deal with the same film bookers (the people who take orders for playdates and make arrangements for prints, they work for the film companies) as regular theaters. The industry is very bizzare, with many practices which would be considered illegal elsewhere (for instance, we have to pay significantly more for a film than a theater simply because they know that college groups have lower overhead than theaters). The quality control on prints is almost non-existent. We screen every print we receive and return about half as unshowable. The companies consider us insane and say that no theaters are so picky (even so, many of the prints we show are barely acceptable to our audience). Most theaters don't go through the effort of checking prints. There is no extra charge for a different print, just a lot of hassle (we often pay to fly them Federal Express from other cities - this can cost $100 a print). You can't have a new print made, generally new prints are never made except for a major re-release (this is a real shame; the industry lets most of its great old films deteriorate until they are unshowable - all they seem to care about is their upcoming major releases, the theatrical market for great old films is very small (mostly, I think, because of the hassles in getting good prints)). When a film such as SW is first released, about 1000 prints are made. The downtown theater which has the premiere run pays several hundred thousand dollars guaranteed and 90% of their net after costs (this is why they make all their money on the concessions stand). They can replace a print that is wearing out by purchasing one of the uncirculated prints (35 mm prints cost about $2000, 70 mm prints cost more than 4 times as much). General-release theaters don't have that option, they can trade if other prints are available (the print of Star Wars shown at Worldcon was made up of the best reels that could be found in several dozen prints, but no theater gets that kind of treatment). There is no excuse for the quality of prints. However, in most cases the studios can't make more prints - for some reason the contracts which are drawn up allow only a specific number to be made (possibly this prevented one avenue of cheating by the companies against producers, actors, and others with a piece of the pie). It's annoying, because we pay a $500 to $1000 guarantee versus 65% of the \gross/ (and we even have to pay for shipping the print out of our share) for showing films which came out a year or two ago for \one night/. They should be able to provide reasonable prints! I hope this clarifies things a bit. Sorry to go on so long about this, but I have hundreds of horror stories concerning film companies. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/05/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some theories about the plot of TESB and the release dates for episodes 4 and 5. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 1504-EST From: Saul Jaffe and Joe Zitt via Steven J. Zeve Subject: Forwarded comments on StarWars 1. The time loop concept for the pretzel logic version of the Star Wars nonology (I think that's the word for a triple trilogy) is balderdash. For one thing, it's suspiciously similar to the historical loop in The Planet of the Apes mythos. Would Lucas REALLY be able to get away with that? Picture Luke Sr./Luke Jr./Darth Vader doing a hat and cane version of I'm My Own Grandpa. 2. Star Wars 4 was released May 21, 1977 Star Wars 5 was released May 21, 1980 ( a subtle pattern begins to emerge...) Saul Jaffe and Joe Zitt ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 0650-PST From: ADPSC at USC-ISI (Attn: Don) Subject: My previous message on SW and TESB release dates Of course TESB was released in 80 (not 79 as I had typed.) I can't subtract seven months from December and still get the same year until after I've had my morning coffee. Sorry about that. Don ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 6 DEC 1980 0837-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #157 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 6 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 157 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Film Questions, SF Books - Lem & Telzey & HGttG, Physics Today - Forward Info Transfer, SF TV - Cosmos and Sagan, TESB - Plot Theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 December 1980 0950-EST From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: Re 2001 on TV I read somewhere a long time ago that many films are shot with a TV showing in mind. They keep most of the action towards the center of the screen so that the sides can be chopped off to fit the TV aspect ratio. The problem with titles still exists of course. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Dec 1980 15:15 PST From: HOFFMAN at PARC-MAXC Subject: Lem's works From having read a half dozen books by S. Lem, I concur with most of the recent comments, but I have some additional notes: The "brilliant" translations of his work are, in my opinion, only those translated by M. Kandel, whose work is absolutely beyond compare. For translation pyrotechnics (replete with wonderful scientific and etymological puns) try Lem's "Futurological Congress" tr. by Kandel. Unfortunately, other translators have done some of Lem's best known titles, like "Solaris". I would love to see Kandel try them. In fact, I would love to send an encomium to Kandel if I knew where to reach him. --Rodney Hoffman ------------------------------ Date: 05 DEC 1980 1343-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Trigger Argee Appears in at least one Telzey story, which caused some of us at the MITSFS to refer to "The Adventures of Telzey Lumbertion and her horse Trigger". (Also, several of us felt that while Telzey was marginally acceptable by feminist standards, Trigger was too hormone-controlled to be a believable competent heroine. Trigger appears on her own in A TALE OF TWO CLOCKS (recently republished by Ace as LEGACY), which I think was originally published long before the first Telzey story. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Dec 1980 1711-PST From: FEATHER at USC-ISIF Subject: HGttG The British paperback edition of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy contains some small amount of material in neither the record/tape nor the original radio program, e.g. the workman supervising demolition of Arthur's house is, we discover, related to Attila the Hun. No true hitchhiker can afford to overlook any source of such information. Martin Feather ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 12/05/80 21:46:44 Re: HGG I have a set of the records. If any Boston area people would like to listen, drop me a line. -jeff ------------------------------ Date: 5 December 1980 08:58 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Energy and Information The revival of this topic has finally moved me to look up my reference on the subject [Scientific American, Sept 1971, pp 179-188]. This article ties information measures not to energy as such, but rather to changes in entropy. Any equivalent of an information transfer can't be measured using energy units alone. Some excerpts follow: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::: From Maxwell's time on many leading investigators pondered the relation between observation and information on the one hand and the second law of thermodynamics on the other. For example, in 1911 J.D. Van der Waals speculated on the relation between entropy change and the process of reasoning from cause to effect. In 1929 Loe Szilard commented on the intimate connection between entropy change and information. In 1930 G.N. Lewis wrote "Gain in entropy means loss of informatio; nothing more." ... The unit of information is determined by the choice of the arbitrary scale factor K in Shannon's entropy formula. { s(Q|X) = -K SUM(p*ln(p)) } If K is made equal to 1/ln(2), then S is said to be measured in "bits" of information. A common thermodynamic choice for K is kN, where N is the number of molecules in the system considered and k is 1.38e-23 joule per degree Kelvin, Boltzmann's constant. With that choice, the entropy of statistical mechanics is expressed in joules per degree. The simplest thermodynamic system to which we can apply Shannon's equation is a single molecule that has an equal probability of being in either of two states, for example, an elementary magnet. In this case, p=.5 for both states and thus S=+k ln(2). The removal of that much uncertainty corresponds to one bit of information. Therefore, a bit is equal to k ln(2), or approximately 1e-23 joule per degree K. This is an important figure, the smallest thermodynamic entropy change that can be associated with a measurement yielding one bit of information. ... ... Brillouin was led to investigate the relation between the entropy of an observation and the thermodynamic entropy, and he concluded that one bit of information requires k ln(2) thermal entropy units. As Dennis Gabor once put it: "You cannot get something for nothing, not even an observation." ::::::::::::::::::::::: End of quoted text ::::::::::::::::::::::: The article also contains a table giving joules per bit for various information recording techniques, ranging from keypunching (5 joules per bit) to a television frame (.00002 joules per bit). I wonder where the current computer memory devices fall. Perhaps I can get some figures for a future issue. ------------------------------ Date: 5 DEC 1980 1622-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Final answer to question, "How many joules to send a bit?" The amount of energy needed to transmit a bit of information when limited by thermal noise of temperature T is E = kT ln 2 (Joules/bit) This is derived from Shannon's initial work (1) on the capacity of a communications channel in a lucid fashion by Pierce (2), although it is not obvious that he was the first to derive it. This limit is the same as the amount of energy needed to store or read a bit of information in a computer, which Landauer derived (3) from entropy considerations without the use of Shannon's theorems. Pierce's book is reasonably readable. On page 192 he derives the energy per bit formula (Eq. 10.6), and on page 200 he describes a Maxwell Demon engine generating kT ln 2 of energy from a single molecule and showing that the Demon had to use that amount of energy to "read" the position of the molecule. Then on page 177 Pierce points out that one way of approaching this ideal signalling rate is to concentrate the signal power in a single, short, powerful pulse, and send this pulse in one of many possible time positions, each of which represents a different symbol. This is essentially the concept behind the patent (4) which led me to ask the original question. My thanks to those who helped with their replies. REFERENCES 1. C. E. Shannon, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", Bell System Tech. J., Vol. 27, No. 3, 379-423 and No. 4, 623-656 (1948); reprinted in: C. E. Shannon and W. Weaver, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication", University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois (1949). 2. J. R. Pierce, "Symbols, Signals and Noise", Harper, NY (1961) 3. R. Landauer, "Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process," IBM J. Res. & Dev., Vol. 5, 183 (1961). 4. R. L. Forward, "High Power Pulse Time Modulation Communication System with Explosive Power Amplifier Means", U.S. Patent 3,390,334 (25 June 1968). ------------------------------ Date: 2 December 1980 06:48-EST From: Joe Decker Subject: Carl Sagan RF [ also see SFL V2 #152 ] In order to clear up any misconceptions about the recent attempted "RF" of Carl Sagan at Caltech, we, the perpetrators, would like to present the TRUE story. We were watching the "Saturn and the Mind of Man" presentation on the campus TV, live from Beckman Auditorium, not Baxter, and decided to liven up the event. This was mostly due to Carl Sagan's reaction to Phillip Morrison, in which Carl edged away from Dr. Morrison as far as possible without leaving his chair, and the general hysteria this induced in the group watching the show. We thought the show needed SOMETHING, but we weren"t quite sure what. The first idea of quickly streaking across the stage was quickly dismissed as embarrassing and impractical. Given the limited amount of time we had (about 90 minutes), there was a limit to what could be achieved. There was certainly no time to coerce a "bikini clad female" into kissing Carl, especially the one we had in mind. We settled for a "smallish" model of Saturn made from a dead tetherball and cardboard, appropriately painted, a small but accurate drawing of Voyager (incidently, there was no intention of saying BEEP BEEP BEEP... in its passage across the stage, although the idea had been suggested.), and a "WE LOVE YOU CARL!" sign. Upon reaching the auditorium, our decoy ploy worked perfectly, (there was no need for a "purloined" aud key, we already had several), and we reached the outside of the building by the back door. Our knock was quickly answered and the door was quickly shut in our face by an usher, not by 4 CHiPs, as incorrectly stated. A campus security guard wandered over and disposed of us. We left the RF paraphenalia in front of the auditorium where Carl was sure to see it and left, muttering under our breath. We did not "quickly turn tail and beat it into the night," rather we stayed outside the auditorium for some time to see the reaction. After discovering that Jerry Brown was the reason our RF did not succeed, we thanked him appropriately in tones not acceptable over computer networks. We hope this clears up any misunderstanding of the events of the Caltech / Carl Sagan RF. In addition, we do like COSMOS. (signed) Joe Decker Jon Leech Keith Hughes Clare Waterson George Karas P.S. We still love you, Carl. P.P.S. In the last episode of COSMOS, one of the pieces of music played was from EQUINOXE by Jean Michel Jarre, and I believe the song was Equinoxe Pt. 5, and it was played in one of the dying sun sequences. (Good Stuff) --JED P.P.P.S. If you have any good "RF" stories, please send them to us. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/06/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They discuss some theories about the plot of TESB. People who are not familiar with the movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 17:58:10-PST From: CSVAX.presotto at Berkeley Subject: light sabers I'm still a few days behind in my reading of SF-LOVERS so excuse anything that's already been said. CONCERNING the use of light sabers and the lack of shields. Shields actually did disappear in human history with the change from heavy weapons (broadswords, maces, etc.) to lighter rapiers and sabers. Having fought both "genteel" foil and saber, I can say that the best shield against a fast easily manuevered weapon is your own weapon. It is almost impossible to move a shield as fast as an opponent can move his sword. I have few doubts that a shielded broadsword fighter would be killed by a saber fighter (barring good armor that is). I believe this is in reply to KLH@MIT-AI. Remember the old commercial, "Light Sabers, a part of living....." dave ------------------------------ PCR@MIT-AI 12/06/80 03:39:48 Re: Some TESB notes. <1> In regards to Yoda's statement about "...there is another", the thought occurred to me that in both SW and TESB, at various times both Leia and Han make statements similar to "...I've got a bad feeling about this". I take this as some indication of the presence of some undeveloped Force. <2> In regards to the back of Vader's head, it seems that I read a story or two (in the distant past) where some reference was made to sorcerers who had tapped the source of "black" magic (the Dark side?). These magicians used the magic to excess, and their physical bodies had become corrupted. Perhaps overuse of the Dark side of the Force causes physical changes in the user? ...phil ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 7 DEC 1980 0915-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #158 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 7 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 158 Today's Topics: SF Books - SF Comm/Comp Query & Legal Computers & Amber Arm & Farmer's VotH & Comedy/Parody SF & Uncommon SF & Busby, What Happens at a Con? - Galaticon Info & SF Events Calendar ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Dec 1980 1545-PST From: Steve Saunders Subject: pocket communicator/computer survey Now that Lauren has brought it up, how about a survey of descriptions of personal computer/communications devices in SF? I'm interested in descriptions from serious projections, too. Of course, such things are brushed over lightly in many stories, but there are some good descriptions. Please send entries directly to Saunders@USC-ISIB As is the custom, I will collect references for a period of time and submit the results to SF-Lovers. Just to start things off, there's Imperial Earth Clarke The Mote in God's Eye Niven&Pournelle. Foundation Asimov The Age of the Pussyfoot Pohl [Lauren] I haven't read Pussyfoot yet, but of the other three Imperial Earth has the most thorough description of how a full-scale HumanNet might get used. This is the kind of thing I am looking for. Thanks in advance! Steve ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 1504-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Comments from JAFFE I have been asked to forward the following remarks to SF-L. I will let Saul know of any replies he garners. steve z. ------------------------------ 1. In regards to computers and law in SF, several stories come to mind off the top of our heads: Varley: Picnic at Nearside, in his collection The Barbie Murders. The Phantom of Kansas, in Terry Carr's Best SF of the Year #6. note: in both these stories, a character named Fox discusses law with the central computer for Luna, a friendly, talkative machine called CC. Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Mike, the computer runs everything on Luna and has good grasp of local and international law. Clarke: In 2001:A Space Odyssey, HAL has some knowledge of the law which he discusses in a scene with Dave. Nolan and Johnson: Logan's Run. The computer is judge, jury and executioner. Boucher: The Quest for St. Aquin. The robot donkey knows law. Gerrold: When Harlie Was One. Harlie quotes some law near the end of the book. Zelazny: Lord of Light. A computer controls not only birth and death but reincarnation and karma. Chalker: Well World series. In these books the computer controls the laws of the universe. D.F. Jones: Colossus, the Forbin Project. The computer hijacks the law. 2. Could somebody clarify or explain the reference to the hand in Zelazny's Amber series? [ see SFL V2 #150 -- RDD ] 3. Venus on the Half-Shell was released in paperback by Dell books after being serialized in Fantasy and Science Fiction. F&SF has since run stories probably also by Farmer but by-lined by names that I think were characters in Venus on the Half-Shell. 4. With respect to pun books, several other SF works pop into mind. Niven and Gerrold: The Flying Sorcerors AKA the Mispelled Magician. Most of the names of the characters are take-offs on well-known SF personalities such as Elsin, the angry god of fire whose curse it is to strike you in the kneecap is Ellison. Asimov: Many of his stories hinge upon or end with particularly heinous puns. Briarton( Reginald Brentnor): Who can forget the series Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot? 5. Also with respect to rare SF books, has anybody read M. K. Joseph's The Hole in the Zero? It is a very strange book which came out in paperback from Avon circa 1967 and which no one else on Earth seems to have read. While I am thinking about it, could we get up a campaign to nudge a publisher preferably Del-Rey to reprint The Garden of the Plynck? This book, which inspired Sturgeon to go into writing, was published only once by the Harvard U. press in 1920. The only extant copy seems to be a fragile edition kept under tight security at the main branch of the N.Y. Public Library. [ Whatever you do as individuals is fine. However it would be a very BAD mistake to mention or allude to SF-LOVERS in any type of campaign. -- RDD ] Saul Jaffe and Joe Zitt ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 at 0134-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BUSBY BUSINESS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ From: ROSSID at WHARTON-10 (David Rossien) Subject: Busby To: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 I note you utilized the pronoun "his". Are you certain that is the correct one? I have no idea, but wouldn't be surprised to find he is a she... there is a certain savage streak to some of the books, along w/ the fact that J. Russ said she liked on (Rissa) which from what I know of Russ, means Busby is probably female... but I defer to you for comment. -Dave This is not the first time I've run across the suspicion expressed above. In fact, I thought so, myself. In contrast with the typi- cal known-male authors' handling of female protagonists, Busby's fempro's are not merely competent, but distinctly ROUGH AND TOUGH! They are indeed more like Joanna Russ' than anyone else's. But, to give Russ the credit she is due, her liking for Rissa Kerguelen is not dependent on the author being female, for I had it on the best authority that Busby is indeed "he". (In contrast with Russ, I've heard Marion Zimmer Bradley express the opinion that Busby does a lousy job in depicting female characters.) Oh, reference works can err, of course. (I recall somebody in the biography section of Reginald's SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY LITERATURE who gleefully described having submitted various quite different "life histories" to different publications.) So, the entry in Nicholls' SF ENCYCLOPEDIA, with "he" and mention of a wife named Elinor, could be wrong, and even tho unlikely, the pictures of a grey-white bearded "F.M. Busby" in LOCUS a few months back c-o-u-l-d have been mis-captioned. But, a couple years ago when I happened to mention my suspicion about Busby to MZB, I expressed continuing doubts even after she had told me Busby was male. To which she retorted in her peremp- tory fashion, "I ought to know! I've been to bed with him!!!" ------------------------------ Date: 5 Dec 1980 10:52 PST From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC Subject: Galacticancelled I talked to Craig Miller (L.A. in '84 hotel relations) about the Galacticon cancellation and this is the story he gave me: The Galacticon committee says that the hotel simply cancelled the convention with no reason given (This is also what their flyers say). The hotel (Bonadventure (sp?)) claims the following, according to Craig: The hotel required the committee to furnish two things: 1) A liability insurance policy. (I understand this is standard for almost any convention these days). 2) A performance bond to cover the committee's contractual obligations, etc. (This was because the committee was new and did not have a proven "track record". This bond is similar to an insurance policy and is often available from the same companies). The committee missed at least two deadlines to supply these to the hotel. On Monday, the hotel asked for the name of the committee's insurance company so the hotel could contact them directly and confirm that the committee was insured. The information was not given to the hotel, so the hotel cancelled the convention and attempted to notify the people with reservations of this fact. NOTE: The above is based on my memory of my conversation with Craig and some of the details may not be exactly correct. Alan Frisbie ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1980 10:07 PST From: Brodie.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Calendar of Science Fiction Events Here is the SF-Lovers event calendar. If you have information about any events you would like to see added to the calendar, or are associated in some way with one of the listed events and would like to contribute, please send mail to Brodie at PARC-MAXC. ------------------------------ Calendar of Science Fiction Events As of December 2, 1980 December 5-7, 1980 (Tennessee) KOOKA KHAN TOO. Quality Inn Parkway, Nashville, Tenn ($25.00 to $30.00). Cost: $5 advance, $6 door. Banquet $6-$8. Khen Moore, 647 Devon Drive, Nashville, TN 37220. January 16-18, 1981 (Tennessee) CHATTACON 6. PO Box 21173, Chattanooga, TN 37421. January 23-25, 1981 (New York) LASTCON. GoH: Hal Clement; Fan GoH: Jan Howard Finder. Albany Ramada. Cost: $9 till 12/25/80, $12 till 1/16/81, $15 after. Maria Bear, 216 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180. January 30-31, 1981 (Ohio) OSU CON. Ohio State University. Julie Washington, OSU Union Program Office, 1739 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43210. February 6-8, 1981 (Florida) OMNICON II. Guest: Kerry O'Quinn (Starlog). PO Box 970308, Miami, FL 33197. February 12-16, 1981 (Southern California) AQUACON. Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA ($56 single). PO Box 815, Brea, CA 92621. February 13-15, 1981 (Massachusetts) BOSKONE XVIII. Pro GoH: Tanith Lee; Official Artist: Don Maitz; science speaker TBA. Sheraton-Boston ($57/single, $69/double). Cost: $12 until 1 Jan 1981, then $15 to N.E.S.F.A., Box G, MIT Branch P.O., Cambridge MA 02139. Films, program, seminars, art show, hucksters room, filksinging, games, costume party, Glamor and Sparkle. Info on dealers' tables and art show will be available soon; dealers' room will probably be larger than in past years as we now have more of the hotel. Registration limit of 3000. (We aren't happy about the room rates either, but there isn't a usable hotel with significantly better rates.) SFL liaison: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock). February 14, 1981 (Florida) STONE HILL LAUNCH II. Ann Morris, 1522 Lovers Lane, Riverview, FL 33569. February 14-16, 1981 (Northern California) DUN DRA CON VI. Gaming. 386 Alcatraz Avenue, Oakland, CA 94618. February 27-March 1, 1981 (North Carolina) STELLAR CON VI. University of North Carolina. David Allen, Box 4-EUC, University of N.C., Greensboro, NC 27412. March 6-8, 1981 (Texas) OWLCON II. Rice Program Council, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77001. March 6-8, 1981 (Wisconsin) WISCON 5. SF3, Box 1624, Madison, WI 53701. April 3-5, 1981 (Kansas) FOOL-CON IV. Confirmed guests: C. J. Cerryh, Lynn Abbey, Robert Asprin. Johnson City Community College, Kansas City, MO. Johnson County Comunity College, Overland Park, KS 66210. July 10-12, 1981 (Missouri) ARCHON V. GoH: Tanith Lee; Fan GoH: Joan Hanke Wood; Toastmaster: Charlie Grant. Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, MO. Soliciting program ideas and/or people who could help carry them out. Also looking for more artist names to add to the mailing list for soliciting contributions to the art show. This was successful at ARCHON IV (over 60% of artists sold works), and they are trying to expand. There will be more art show space and display panels this year. Also in the process of reviewing art show rules and would welcome suggestions. SFL liaison: WMartin at Office-3 (Amy Newell). September 3-7, 1981 (Colorado) DENVENTION TWO. 1981 World Science Fiction Convention. Pro GoH: C.L. Moore, Clifford Simak; Fan GoH: Rusty Hevelin. Cost: $35 till spring 1981. P.O. Box 11545, Denver, CO. 80211. (303) 433-9774. September 2-6, 1982 (Illinois) CHICON IV. 1982 World Science Fiction Convention. Pro GoH: A. Bertram Chandler; Fan GoH: Lee Hoffman; Artist GoH: Kelly Freas. Hyatt Regency, Chicago, IL. Cost: $20 till 12/31/80, $30 till 6/30/81; $15 supporting; $7.50 conversion. PO Box A3120, Chicago, IL 60690. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 8 DEC 1980 0527-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #159 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 8 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 159 Today's Topics: SF Books - HGttG, SF Music - Cemetary Girls?, SF Plays - Rocky Horror PS & Film Questions, Time Travel - Paradoxes, TESB - When it began & Obi-wan's Sayings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TLD@MIT-MC 12/07/80 08:42:37 Re: HGttG A reliable source has informed me that National Public Radio has purchased copies of the original radio programs and intends to broadcast them starting this March. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1980 1853-PST (Sunday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: New Wave SF Currently popular in the New Wave rock world is an album by "Barnes and Barnes" called "Voo Ba Ha". While the entire album is exceptionally bizarre and "high-tech", one cut in particular should be of interest to SF-LOVERS readers. This cut, entitled "Cemetery Girls" really caught my attention. The song is basically involved with necrophilia, but has some particularly interesting lyrics. Phrases like "you sent him to the cornfield", "things are good, really good!", and "you're a bad man! A BAD man!" abound. In fact, brief snatches of the song consist of dialogue not spoken by the group, but apparently taken from somewhere else and dubbed in over the music. Well, by now you should have figured it out. The song is based on the classic SF story "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby. And the "outside" dialogue was recorded directly off of "The Twilight Zone" episode of the same name. Yes, Billy Mumy is enshrined forever in "Cemetery Girls". (Where IS Billy Mumy you ask? My sources tell me he plays guitar for some punk group that mainly works out in the Encino area (an L.A. suburb in the San Fernando Valley.) Ah well, better than Peter Noone (Remember him? Remember "The Monkees"?). Noone now is a waiter at a local restaurant called the "The Great American Food and Beverage Company"). But I digress. I thought it was definitely amusing to hear pieces of a Twilight Zone in the midst of a New Wave song. I wonder how many other people have realized what they were listening to.... or where the idea for that song had come from? By the way, if you like the bizarre, the twisted, the insane, the truly WARPED in music, I recommend "Voo Ba Ha" highly. (Needless to say, I love it.) --Lauren-- P.S. Did you hear the one about the necrophiliac who fulfilled his lifelong ambition by becoming coroner? Ta ta. --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 1852-PST From: Geoffrey C Mulligan (at The Pentagon) Subject: The Rocky Horror Picture Show I just saw the RHPS \PLAY/ a couple of Tuesdays ago. It was excellent. I have seen the movie a few times and the play was much better in some respects. The actors interacted well with the audience and the music was fantastic, load and LIVE. The play was supposedly the original play from England. There were a few songs in the play that weren't in the movie but on the hole they were very much alike in their content. It is well worth seeing, if you have the chance. One thing, don't plan on bringing any paraphernalia to the show (no rice, no bread, no water pistols, no newspapers). This might have been just rules for that particular theater. Geoff Also... Did anyone happen to see the TESB trading cards. Has anyone collected any of them or all of them. Supposedly they had information on them that wasn't brought out in the movie. ------------------------------ Date: 7 DEC 1980 0418-EST From: APPLE at MIT-MC (James A. Cox) Subject: Movie Making Someone said in yesterday's SFL that movie makers try to put the action at the center of the screen so that if the picture ever gets to TV and they cut off the edges to make it fit, it won't look too bad. Well, up until a week or two ago, I hadn't even thought about that problem. Then, I was seeing "Casino Royale" up at Harvard (you know, that small liberal- arts college up the river) and it was in 16 mm. I said to my friend that the titles sure did look funny, real elongated. He told me that they have to make the picture smaller for 16 mm, and they usually cut the edges off, but of course for titles they can't do that. And now that I thought about it, I could see that there were times that people were just right off-screen and talking. Now that I knew this, it bothered me. Question: I don't know anything about movies, but why would anyone make a movie filmed with "ordinary" sized film and cut it down to 16mm? Are 16 mm films cheaper for college organizations to get? What's the story? - Jim Cox ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 1355-PST From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: SW film format, scratchy prints I can't answer Will Martin's questions about SW and TESB rerelease but ... Both films were shot in Vistavision, which is not a wider film format (the strip is 35mm), but a wider frame format. The frame is "sideways" on the film (more like the frame of a "full frame" 35mm still camera). This means that the film moves horizontally through the camera and projector, rather then vertically as in a "normal" camera. The bad news about prints (or negs, or film in general) is that they are very expensive to make (just a print from a neg) and they scratch VERY easily. Every time the print goes through a projector it picks up some new scratches, and if you are picky (as Will must be) you can spot them. A week's run at a theater will beat a print to shit, and its all down hill from there. When we deliver a print, we tend to look at it ONCE out of such fears. Of course, video disks don't have these problems. -Craig ------------------------------ Date: 4 December 1980 00:39 est From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-Multics (SAS at SAI-Prime) Subject: Free will Free will as usually defined is a mid-size effect and is not definable at either the microscopic or macroscopic levels otherwise you are reduced to arguing that one's inability to levitate a pumpkin is a refutation of the existence of free will. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1980 20:18:05-PST From: E.jeffc at Berkeley Subject: Time travel There is yet another possible method of time travel which was used in a book, whose name I cannot remember. This version takes time travel to its logical conclusion when you take quantum mechanics into account. At any given point in time, there are several possible "futures". Each of these futures has a certain probability attached to it. As "time" progresses, one of these possible futures approaches 100% probability, and thus becomes "reality". The concept of hyper-time could be applied here and in this case is about the same as normal time. Naturally, things start getting complicated when people start travelling in time. Now, hyper-time no longer follows normal time. In the book, our heros lives in the 20th century and is confronted by time travellors from two possible futures: one in which an evil woman runs a cruel dictatorship in a ruined world, and the other in which everyone is happy and so on. Both possibilities were made possible by the invention of a device which I think had something to do with energy, but I'm no longer sure. The difference between the two is when and by who the device was invented. It turns out that in the time line of the evil person, there was a plague which would have killed her if it were not for an injection. One of the hero's, who lived in the 20th century and also happened to have invented a time travelling ship, had stolen the vaccine before it was injected, and thus the evil person would have died -- EXCEPT that because it was POSSIBLE for the vaccine to be restored, she still lived. If the vaccine were destroyed, she would, of course, have died as a child, thus making the world a better place. There were quite a few plot complications that explain why the vaccine was not destroyed immediately, but you get the picture. Now for the paradoxes. The main "time wars" battle was the time and place where the two possible futures forked off. Neither of these two futures were certainties, and yet it was possible for both of them to go back to the past and attempt to influence events (and the more "certain" an event was, the more energy it took to try to change it. In this case, the trigger was nothing more than a stone lying on the ground which a child would pick up, thus setting into action a chain of events which will years later lead the child to invent the device.) It was, of course, possible for someone to go into a possible future, and, in doing so, increasing its probability of occurance. However, it was not possible for someone in a possible future to go into another one, because they can't both exist at the same time. Thus, they had to fight over their existance in the past. I think the book was called "the Legions of Time", but I am not sure. It had two novels in it and this was the second one. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 0644-EST From: Doug Alan Subject: E.JeffC's Version of Time Travel I think that this too cannot exist without paradox or predetermination. E.JeffC says, "At any given point in time, there are several possible 'futures.' .... As 'time' progresses, one of these possible futures aproaches 100% probability, and thus becomes 'reality'." This implies that there is some "real" present -- that there is a distinct, single point on the normal- time-line that is occuring at a particular moment in hyper-time. At this point, the future is undetermined (if we assume free will) and the past is determined. If the past is not determined, then this point cannot be the real present because it would only be a possible present, which would make it a possible future for the past. If a person goes back in time from the real present, then he cannot change the past, or then the past would not have been already determined, the future would be changed, and the real present then could not have been the real present. But if in the past someone from the real present appeared, then in the real present the person must go back, or the past will be changed. If he doesn't there is a paradox. This theory will only work if the time-traveller has no free will and must go back. If we do not assume that there is a real present, then there can be no real reality. In this case, we would have a system of alternate realities--parallel universes--very similar to Apple's system. --Doug Alan ------------------------------ Date: 6 Dec 1980 2329-PST From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: subtle pattern Saul Jaffe and Joe Zitt point out the "subtle pattern" in the release dates for the SW nineths: SW 4 rleased May 21 1977 SW 5 released May 21 1980 Hence it is obvious that the first three were released on May 21 in 1968, 1971, and 1974! ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/08/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It asks a question about the sayings of Obi-wan in SW4 and SW5. People who are not familiar with these movies may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ MJL@MIT-MC 12/06/80 09:14:27 Re: Some TESB notes. Didn't Obi-wan ALSO say, "I've got a bad feeling about this." I recall 3 examples of the phrase used: 1) Solo when they spot the Death Star. (Chewie hit the auxiliary power!) (SW4) 2) Luke in the garbage dump when it starts compressing. (SW4) 3) Leia when they look outside the ship for mynocks [sp?] (SW5) Any others? I'm SURE I remember Obi-Wan saying it SOMEWHERE. {Matt} ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 9 DEC 1980 1007-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #160 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 9 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 160 Today's Topics: SF Books - Davy, SF Radio - SW4 & HGttG, SF Movies - SF History (Trailer) Festival & Film Questions & When TESB began & Flash Gordon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Dec 1980 1816-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: DAVY Sometime ago I asked about Pangborn's work, and about "Davy" in particular. I have since then found two copies (one in a used book store). After reading it I agree with whichever reviewer (I think it was Spider Robinson) who said it was the best post-holocaust ever written. I gave the second copy to a friend as a present, I think I regret it. She has read it at least once since then (only a week ago), any idea how to handle a Pangborn fanatic? "Davy" is being quoted back at me. In case anyone is interested in getting "Davy" re-issued again, Ballantine seems to have the rights. The latest edition I have heard of is the 1976 Ballantine edition, copies of which must still be at warehouses somewhere. I say this because I found one on a bookstore's shelves within the last two weeks. steve z. [ Again a reminder, if you choose to write to Ballantine please do not mention SF-LOVERS. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 08 DEC 1980 1218-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: NPR schedules The info I have is that HGttG starts in \May/; March will see the beginning of a simulcast (i.e., instead of playing taped copies stations in this country will relay (after the appropriate frequency shift) satellite signals sent out by the BBC at the same time as its local broadcasts) of a 13-part radioplay of SW4, with Mark Hamill as Luke (the other principles will be played by substitutes). ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1980 2341-PST (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Reminder -- History of SF marathon This is a reminder to Southern California SF-LOVERS that the NUART will be having their almost 5 hour SF marathon this coming Thursday, starting at 7 PM. The program is billed as "The History of Science Fiction and Horror films as shown by film previews and trailers". Should be a good one. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 8 December 1980 1227-EST (Monday) From: Mike.Fryd at CMU-10A (C621MF0E) Subject: frame formats I saw part of the movie Semi Tough on TV the other night. During a few scenes, every minute or so I would see the boom mic at the top of the screen. It was almost as if they expected the top of the screen to be cut off so they weren't worried about it. Question: Do they film in one strange format, then crop one way for theatre and one way for TV? -mike fryd ------------------------------ Date: 8 December 1980 21:41 est From: Greenwald.INP at MIT-Multics Subject: Cinema and Television First of all, I believe that the "squeezing" you noticed during the titles has nothing to do with the size of the film (i.e. whether 16, 35 or 70MM) but instead with trying to show a Cinemascope (or any slightly different named equivalent) film on a screen that is too narrow. It isn't the width of the film that causes trouble, but the ratio of height to width of the PROJECTED image. Cinemascope is much wider than it is high, and television (and many theaters) don't have the equipment to deal with this. - Mike Greenwald Also, as far as I know to get a 16MM copy of a 35MM film, you don't simply cut off half the film.... ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1980 0513-PST (Monday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: film and disks This will be a gross simplification, but here it goes anyway. The "standard" theatrical film size for many years was 35mm. A 35mm projector is a very bulky instrument, and for that reason (and plain old COST), 16mm is the standard for "small" showings -- schools, homes, military bases, etc. A 35mm film costs MUCH more to duplicate than a 16mm, and is comparatively difficult to handle. Various techniques (such as Cinemascope, etc.) were developed to squeeze more out of a 35mm format. All of these formats were distinguished by a changed picture aspect ratio -- the screen stayed much the same in height but got much wider. Special lenses were used to squeeze more information onto the film in the first place, and similar lenses on the projectors stretched things back out again. This technique can be applied to 16mm film as well, but never was used too frequently with 16 (though I know a collector who regularly gets prints in various stretched 16mm formats, and has special lenses to play them back). More recently, large theatres have been going to 70mm formats. Virtually all these films were shot on some sort of 35mm and then enlarged to 70... until recently there were few 70mm cameras around for the original shooting. And talk about a BIG camera... Star Trek was one of the first to try shooting completely in 70, instead of doing a 35 blowup. I guess I should mention Cinerama as well. The original Cinerama films ("The Seven Wonders of the World", "How the West was Won", etc.) were shot with three separate cameras, and projected with three separate projectors. At the theatres, you could clearly see the demarcation lines between the three images, though there was a slight overlap to make the effect non-obvious. Later on, Cinerama dropped the three camera system and went to a stretched format. Todd-AO is another system that uses a stretched format. (By the way, the original Cinerama system involved three 35mm cameras.) As for credits and field cutoffs, well things ARE a little messy. Obviously if you are going to make a film for the large screen, you often want to use the WHOLE screen. When the film is transferred to video, a decision needs to be made as to how to handle the aspect ratio problem. At the transfer houses and such, you can frequently see films that have been tranferred initially by placing a black (or green) bar at the top (or the top and bottom) of the screen, and just reducing the size of the main movie image. This preserves the aspect ratio of the original film and allows the whole image to be shown, with the penality being a smaller active picture size. This is generally considered unacceptable commercially, so the transfer houses try to concentrate on the "action" in the film whenever possible. That means that the telecines used to transfer the film are "pointed" at the action to the exclusion of "quiet" parts of the picture. Usually this effect is not too noticeable, but there are exceptions. Many transfer houses set up punched tapes for sophisticated telecine units that instruct them where in the image to center the video. Whenever possible, they try to change positions at scene cuts, but sometimes it is necessary to shift position during a particular cut (like when the speaker moves from one end of the screen to the other). At these times, the telecine is programmed to very smoothly pan across the image. This pan has a very "artificial" look to it once you know what you are looking for, and can almost always be recognized. When "How the West Was Won" ran on television, you could still clearly see the demarcations between the three images, and I got quite a kick out of watching the demarcations lines pop back and forth as they tried to keep the action within the field of view. While it is true that some films are shot with TV in mind from the start, many still are not. And indeed, the one place where the "pick the best action" technique does not work is with credits. There are three ways to handle this situation, two of which are frequently used. The first way is to just squeeze the whole image down so the credits fit on the screen. This results in skinny people too, but at least you can read the credits. The other technique is to put borders at the top and bottom as mentioned above, but only during the credit sequences. Usually the transfer houses put little squiggles or something in the borders so that dim-witted viewers don't think their TV's height control needs adjusting. The third system I have only seen used once. I saw one film where the telecine kept panning back and forth so that you could read the entire width of the screen. It would start at the left, then pan right -- then the credits would change, it would pan left, etc. Bizarre. Anyway, that's the quick story. The various elements of film technology from 8mm to Pananvision to Todd-AO could (and do) fill books. Hope this answers some questions though. --Lauren-- P.S. About videodisks. Yeah, in THEORY the laser-scanned versions will not degrade (the needle-in-groove ones will, however). But the quality of the laser videodisks has been generally atrocious. When you see these things demo'd, you can bet that they went through 10 or 15 disks to find one that was not defective in some way. They are having major quality control problems with the disk manufacturing. That is one reason the price for disks has gone up substantially over the super-low prices once quoted. There is such an emphasis on squeezing more time onto a given surface that there is little wonder the quality degrades. As far as I am concerned, most of the home videotape formats are worthless for quality recording. I keep important stuff on broadcast U-MATIC (3/4") tape, myself. --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1980 (Monday) 0938-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Subtle pattern again Then SW 0 must have been released on May 21, 1965. Hm... must have missed it. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/09/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last messages in this digest. They review the new movie Flash Gordon. People who are not familiar with this movie may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 1980 0213-EST From: JoSH Subject: Flash Gordon FG just opened here and the intrepid Rutgers hackers braved the crowds to get the real scoop. Some crowd. The late monday night showing played to <10 people. Unlike some of the critical bombs amongst the less-favored SF flicks noted in these annals, however, I don't think I was cheated at the box office. I went expecting to see comics, and comics is what I got. I've seen pieces of the old Flash Gordon movies and also Flesh Gordon, the racy version full of high-school style dirty jokes. The new FG was the equivalent of either of the other two with the frosting shifted to a different flavor: the slightly better fx make up for the lack of the dirty jokes. The old FG had a beautiful period-piece-ness to it impossible to recapture fully (my favorite old SF movie scene has the captive Flash shoveling radium like coal into a blazing atomic furnace) but outside of the Queen music the new FG could easily have been made in the 30's -- the effects, though gaudy, are mostly colored clouds and costumes; indeed, you will note a number of steals from Wizard of Oz, up to and including melting witch. All in all, pure comix/period piece. But I thought reasonably decent with those stipulations. --JoSH ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 12/08/80 20:01:23 I just saw 'Flash Gordon' (the movie). I liked it. It is, as you might have guessed from the adds, more of a fantasy than a science fiction story -- there are a few internal inconsistancies. . . . But even the 'silliest' scene (wherin Flash Gordon, quarterback for the NY Jets, rushes the whole imperial guard clutching a green football, well, you get the idea.) is done so that it does not really insult one's intelligence. The villians are evil, the heroes are courageous, the heroines are beautiful, and the rocket ships are finned. And the special effects are special, and the music is inspiring. And any film with a wedding scene wherein space ships trail signs reading: 'All Beings Are Ordered To Make Merry' 'Under Pain of Death' can't be ALL bad. For the record, parents might find it hard to explain several of the lines/scenes/sound effects to their kids, but not t-h-a-t hard. Sort of like Keith Laumer's stories, but with more paletable women. Ah well, hackerjack P.S. Since somebody else will inflict this if I don't, the sequel (you didn't think Ming REALLY died, did you?) will probably be called 'Flash Back'. Have a Nice Day (In Joke) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 10 DEC 1980 0651-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #161 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 10 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 161 Today's Topics: SF Books - Uncommon SF & Shatterday & HGttG, SF Radio - HGttG on WETA, SF Movies - Flash Gordon & First Color Film? & Film Questions, Shuttle Landing, For those who liked "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenix" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MARG@MIT-AI 12/09/80 21:21:00 Re: uncommon? sf Has anyone read Gerald Kersh (for instance NIGHTSHADE AND DAMNATIONS). All shorts, good stuff. ------------------------------ LEOR@MIT-MC 12/10/80 03:39:05 Re: Shatterday arrives Houghton Mifflin finally delivered a receptacle for the Shatterday limited edition book plate Ellison signed for me at Noreascon: the book itself. I definitely approached the book with a pro-Ellison prejudice, but even normalizing for that leaves me in awe of this guy. Half way through, every story so far has captivated me--even the funny ones have their punch. The book is 332 pp., 16 stories including "Jefty is Five", "Count the Clock That Tells the Time", "All the Lies That Are My Life", and the story MIT-ers will remember Harlan read during his lecture a few years back, "The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge". (Note: Harlan said he wrote that one "just for us", but I've been told the very same story was read at an earlier lecture at some other Univ. earlier.) The quality of the physical volume is startling, compared to the cardboard-like nature of "Dragon's Egg" (binding only, Bob! The book was great!) and "Beyond the Blue Even Horizon", the other hardcovers I've recently purchased. Shatterday's binding is close to Gregg Press durability, paper heavy, and there are nice frills like tinted intro-pages to each story. There is an interesting continuity to the intro's this time, revolving around the phrase "Writers take tours in other people's lives". Cripes. Doesn't the Lennon ordeal sound like something out of "The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart of the World" ? aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH!!! -leor ------------------------------ Date: 9 December 1980 1852-EST (Tuesday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: HGttG Personally, I found the book very enjoyable, however, I was expecting comedy (British) and knew it had been radio...sigh. Doug P.S. If you liked HGttG, you will probably also like 'Another Fine Myth...', ...but then again, maybe not... ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1980 1035-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: HGttG and Dr. Who info For Washington DC-area people, I called our friendly programming people from WETA about Hitchhikers' Guide and Dr. Who to see what their plans are for airing them. Dr. Who is not planned; I had the feeling that the person (I never got her name) I talked to was not real interested in the topic. More luck with HGttG: I talked with Martin Goldsmith, the Program Director, who had a cassette of HGttG. He was not thinking of using it in the near future, but I get the feeling that my nudging him might have changed his mind. If other DC area people were to call (998-2790) (not mentioning SFL, of course) over the next few weeks, I think we might see an effect. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 1980 (Tuesday) 1219-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Non-Spoiling Flash Gordon Review I went into Flash with low expectations, (I needed \something/ to take my mind off what the dentist had done), and was not at all disappointed. A friend who expected more pure SF was a bit let down, but admitted that it was good escape (and was even caught repeating the jokes afterwords). The film is pure camp. The villains are hissably villainous, the good guys are generally cheerable, and the action (when not too outrageous) is straight out of an old swashbuckler. The special effects are nothing to write home about, but mesh well with the scenery and action. Mings right hand man (?) is one of the best soft-spoken, low-key meanies I've seen in many moons. A suggestion yelled from the audience: Imagine that one of the backlit buttons in the openning scene was labeled 'Ronald Reagan'. -- Dave Smith ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1980 0522-EST From: MJL at MIT-DMS (Matthew Jody Lecin) Subject: Forbidden Planet One of our favorites, naturally. Query: is it the FIRST major SF film in color? If not, what came before? {Matt} [ Forbidden Planet (MGM 1956) is noteworthy for several reasons, but it is not the first SF film produced in color. At least the following 6 color SF films preceeded it: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Disney 1954) This Island Earth (Universal 1954) Riders to the Stars (Ivan Tors/United Artists 1954) War of the Worlds (Paramount 1953) Invaders from Mars (NPC/20th Century-Fox 1953) When Worlds Collide (Paramount 1951) I believe George Pal's When Worlds Collide is the first, major studio, SF film produced in color, but I may be in error. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 09 DEC 1980 1434-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: formats I'm a bit surprised by your statement that most 70-mm films until recently were magnified from 35-mm originals. As far as I know, there is no economic advantage to this, since there aren't any theaters with \only/ 70-mm projectors (such a theater would die quickly in the current market); I would also expect a net loss of image quality. Were there actually theaters so large that with less advanced equipment they couldn't get enough light through the 35-mm film? (I know that the Sack Charles, Boston's largest theater, shows mostly 35-mm and seems to do quite well in that format.) Perhaps you meant that older wide-screen films were shot in Vistavision or a similar kluge, in order to have a large enough image on the original film? 2001 may have been the last film to be done in a Cinerama-type format; I don't know if the print I saw in late 1967 was actually coming from 3 projectors but it was shown on the characteristic near-semicircular (160- degree?) screen. On the other hand, a recent newspaper ad described the reassembling of a 1927 multi-projector film, NAPOLEON, which will reopen at Radio City in late January. (Most of the film is actually in normal format; only the last 18 minutes, presumably at Waterloo, use the full width of the screen.) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1980 0017-PST (Wednesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: formats I will admit the 35mm blowup business is sorta bizarre, but it IS true. I can't remember exactly, but I think it has something to do with 35mm vs. 70mm resolutions at different points in the production sequence. I really don't recall the details. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 08 DEC 1980 1302-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: film formats The reasons for current film formats (and incompatibilities) are similar to the reasons for audio cassettes running at a flaky speed like 1.875"/sec, namely history. The earliest movie formats were based on an aspect ratio (image width divided by image height) of 1 1/3; this is still standard for 8 and 16 mm film and for video. The current standard a.r. for 35mm is roughly 1.5; I \think/ that this does not involve the use of anamorphic lenses (i.e., lenses that alter the aspect ratio). It could be argued that there are specific reasons having to do with the mechanics of seeing for expanding the picture only hori- zontally, but there's a more obvious economic reason: given the structure of the typical hall it's much easier to widen the screen that it is to increase the height. A typical proscenium (the square archway between the stage and the audience) can have an a.r. as high as 3. There is the further factor that humans, being without wings, are basically two-dimensional creatures; thus a great spectacle can be made by increasing only the width of the screen, and this was what happened starting about 30 years ago. So that filming and projection equipment wouldn't have to be rebuilt, the width alterations were produced by the above-mentioned anamorphic lenses, in standard proportions. These lenses are now a standard part of the equipment of any 35mm projector; one of the typical stunts in prep schools which both own such projectors and have a darkroom (i.e., most of them) is to mount an anamorphic lens on a 35mm still camera or developer, producing distorted images like those of funhouse mirrors. What does that have to do with 16mm formats? Well, colleges aren't exactly a huge market; there's only so much that can be demanded for rental of a 16mm film. (Example: TIME AFTER TIME went recently for $125). This means that reductions to 16mm are less likely to concern the filmmakers (although this may change with the widespread legiti- mate sale of videotapes of movies). 16mm can be made in Cinemascope (a.r. ca 2), just like 35, but a lot of small groups don't think to buy the extra lens and many have only portable screens which are designed for the low a.r. (There's also a lot of simple incompetence in the small-format field; the abovementioned TAT print, which I saw at Philcon, included a few minutes of an anamorphic print, and at the Drekcon in Boston 4 1/2 years ago the anamorphic lens couldn't focus the image at the projector-to-screen distance in the room, so they showed the print with an ordinary lens, treating us to the spectacle of the four spokes of the space station lengthening and shortening as it turned.) There are even some Cinemascope 16 prints which don't require the lens; instead, the wide image is printed, undistorted, at less than the usual height on the film and the remaining area of the standard frame (as defined by projector specs) is blacked out. (I saw DEMON SEED in this format at Balticon a few years ago and walked out after a few minutes because the image was incredibly dim and grainy.) In response to your specific final question, the ease and cost of getting a given film in a given format depends on a \lot/ of variables. (It would be my guess, for instance, that LSC, the movie group at MIT, would have to pay about the same (for 16 vs 35) since they show so many new films which can't be gotten from a small local distributor.) For a typical school or college, 35mm has \big/ problems: the equipment is hellaciously expensive either to rent or to purchase, it usually has to be fixed in place because of power and ventilation requirements (thus reducing its versatility compared to 16mm projectors, which are almost all portable) and in several states (such as Massachusetts) there are not only laws making it even more expensive to set up a 35 (or an arc 16 for large halls, such as LSC uses when they can't get a 35mm print) but requiring that there be a licensed projectionist on site when the machine is running. At your typical prep school this is worthwhile as a social control (to keep the inmates on campus on Saturday night); for most colleges the hassle just isn't worth it. If you have any further questions, I expect that Mike Dornbrook will be seeing this within a few days and have some more specific answers. ------------------------------ Date: 09 Dec 1980 1548-PST From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Spaceship watching Getting into Edwards AFB for the Space Shuttle Landing The Public Affairs Office at Edwards will be mailing out "Shuttle passes" that allow the bearer to enter the gate with ONE vehicle. That vehicle may contain any number of people. Passes may be obtained by writing a letter to: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Public Affairs Office P.O. Box 273 Edwards, CA 93523 If you are planning to charter a bus, you should tell them how many buses will be in your party and the total number of people in your letter. They will get the appropriate pass(es) for you and provide you with a Person to Contact when you arrive. Pass distribution will begin in February, and passes will be sent out in the order that requests are received. Approximately 30,000 passes are available (30,000 x 4 people per car is a LOT of people!!!) and as of Dec 9 there were only 200 requests. They don't care as to corporate or academic affiliation for the most part. My partially reliable sources tell me that it will be HOT on the tarmac so plan accordingly. Better information will follow as I get it. -- Tom ------------------------------ RMS@MIT-AI 12/07/80 02:55:54 Re: How Superman and Lois Lane can mate safely Superman has to fabricate a condom out of his invulnerable baby costume, and tie it on with straps made from more of the same. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 11 DEC 1980 0703-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #162 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 11 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 162 Today's Topics: SF Music - Body in Question, SF Books - SF Crime & Herbert & HGttG and Another Fine Myth, SF Movies - Flesh Gordon & Film Questions, Real Life Computer Capers, For those who liked "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenix" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Dec 1980 1027-EST From: KERN at RUTGERS Subject: MUSIC QUERY - THE BODY IN QUESTION. Does anybody know what music is used in THE BODY IN QUESTION? I'm especially curious about the music that sounds like a synthesizer simulating a human chorus. -kbk@r ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1980 1805-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Law On the question of law in SF, again I forgot to check but I remember the existence of a couple books on crime in SF. And the Gordon Dickson "Spatial Delivery" and "Space Paw". The aliens here had an interesting way of interpreting the law, obeyed the letter precisely. Actually they applied the same attitude to everything. I can't remember what they were called though. steve z. [ 80:12:10 - The aliens I'm thinking of are the Dilbians. -- SJZ ] ------------------------------ Date: 12/09/80 1042-EDT From: GNC at LL Subject: New Dune Book One of my roommates said he saw an ad for another installment of the Dune saga. I know Herbert has a new book out, but its a mass market edition and contains little text. Anyone know anything about this ? [ 1. Excerpts from Book 4 in the Dune series appear in the current issue of Playboy. 2. Herbert has a "new" illustrated TRADE paperback out entitled DIRECT DESCENT. It contains two short stories, one of which was first published in 1954. Copiously illustrated with very, very little text for the price. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 10 DEC 1980 1355-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: HGttG and ANOTHER FINE MYTH I disagree; the two represent very different strains of humor --- at the least, as far apart as they could get and still be called "fannish". One of the reasons I disliked chunks of AFM is that the humor was barely removed from a genre I would call "American Sitcom". ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 12/10/80 10:04:33 Re: Flesh Gordon Since Flash Gordon came out recently, and someone has mentioned Flesh Gordon in the list, I would like to say a few words about this movie. I saw it several years ago when it first came out. It was then rated X but I don't know if it was cut or they ratings have changed or what, but I know it was rereleased recently (probably to help peak excitement for flash gordon) and I think it was rated R (could be wrong on this). Anyway, Flesh Gordon was without a doubt one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. If you wish to fully enjoy it, get together a group of people, get into a wacky mood, and go. You have to see the film in the correct light to enjoy it. The sex, I thought, was not really objectionable at all. It was so RIDICULOUS!!!! (no sensuality at all). This is sex in the great tradition of National Lampoon and has to be viewed as such. Also, the use of four letter expletives lends a certain air of realism to the emergency scenes. My favorite character by far is the gargoyle that is brought to life by the villian toward the end of the film. HYSTERICAL! Anyway, I know that the film might not be for everyone, (don't take the kids), but I recommend it to anyone who sees humor in complete ridiculousness and folly. This one is RECOMMENDED. See it if you get the chance. Greg Faust ------------------------------ RWK@MIT-MC 12/10/80 08:57:13 Re: Print size and scratches Well, since dirt particles and such remain the same size, if you double the film's linear size, you only have to blow it up half as much when you project it. Your scratches will be 1/2 the size. Also, you will get less grain contribution from the print. If the negative was of very fine grain (perhaps a more expensive film than for the several hundred prints), then you may well be eliminating MOST of the grain by going to a 70mm print over a 35mm print. I'm just reasoning from first principles, I don't actually know their reasons for things. ------------------------------ Date: 10 December 1980 09:43-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: formats The last true Cinerama film was "How the West Was Won". The film that followed it was shot in UltraPanavision 70, a variable aspect ratio for the curved screen on 70mm film, called "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". It was the last film meant for the Cinerama screen. Other films which were shot in Panavision (similar to CinemaScope in the resulting aspect ratio, but using 70mm film) and were post- processed into UltraPanavision 70 format for those theatres with Cinerama screens, but were not meant for those screens as "Cinerama" films. "2001" was post-processed into an Ultra Panavision version, and played well in the old Cinerama theatres first, but it was not a Cinerama film. Strickly speaking, IAMMMMW was not a true Cinerama film and I think the public knew they were no longer getting the "real thing". For those of you who have never seen a true Cinerama film, and such a theatre near you revives "The Windjammer", by all means, go see it. The first 10-15 minutes of the film is shown in regular 35mm format and then the screen explodes into the full Cinerama format when the first Windjammer is shown. (I doubt this will ever happen as most, if not all such theatres converted to 70mm equipment to show IAMMMMW.) --Frank ------------------------------ Date: 03 DEC 1980 1242-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: hacking For all of you who dismiss stories of "virus" programs, people taking over the net, etc., as fiction with bad science, there is a story in today (December 3)'s Boston GLOBE (morning edition) describing the holding for ransom of DePaul University's admini- strative computer by a couple of teenagers who used a home computer to break the security code, then reinstructed the computer not to accept a new code from the owners; they then shut down the system during registration and sent in a message threatening to do it again unless they were given a (unspecified) valuable computer program. The stunt is estimated to have cost DePaul $22,000 in downtime and reprogramming. This does \not/ sound like a hoax; they named the kids and officer who arrested them. (The story is attributed to a Chicago \Tribune/ writer named Crimmins.) A factor which amused me is that the story spoke of a three-digit access code. I figure there's a pretty high probability of error in such a story (it seems to have been written for "human interest", not for a science section) but it strikes me that a university with that bad a security setup deserves what it gets --- especially since there are likely to be confidential student records (for which they are maybe legally and certainly morally responsible) online. The idea of the code being that simple also recalls the furor a couple of years ago over a new encoding standard for private concerns to use for confidential material. The code sequence was apparently just short enough that a moby government computer could crack it by exhaustion, which brought a number of complaints that the addition of another byte or so would have been trivial to do and would have made the code effectively uncrackable. There were claims of severe pressure from the National Security Agency both to keep the code short and not to argue about or discuss it in public. I haven't seen anything about the fuss in the last year and a half (except a sideways mention of how such codes would also provide authentication of personal messages (in DISCOVERY, I think)); does anyone else know what (if any) resolution there was? ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1980 0438-PST From: Don Woods Subject: super-mating Haven't you read Niven? Your solution still doesn't do anything about the loss of muscle control at the moment of ejaculation: Lois would still be crushed in his arms and "gutted like a trout" (I believe that was Niven's description). And of course, using a supercondom defeats (one of) the main purposes, namely guaranteeing that the race of Kryptonians on earth does not die out. -- Don. P.S.: What brought this on, anyway? ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1980 0517-PST (Wednesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Super Prophylactics Golly, I wonder if K-Y would try get an endorsement from the happy couple? --Lauren-- P.S. This discussion is degrading fast! --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 10 DEC 1980 1350-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Woman of Kleenex That's only how they can \screw/ safely, not how they can \mate/! The question in Niven's essay was how to \breed/ Superman; Niven began with the assumption that one of the things DC doesn't show is Superman's "periodic trips to Kandor to get his ashes hauled". There's also the fact that his costume is knit or woven, rather than poured like the material for a condom; a sock isn't a reliable contraceptive even for ordinary humans. ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 12/10/80 18:27:18 Re: 'super' condom Alas, Superman's cape and baby clothes are made out of an infinitely strong but very stretchable material. All Clark has to do is buy a RedSun lamp, of course, since he loses his super-powers in the light of a red sun. Which is obviously why we have red light districts. Jack ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 12 DEC 1980 0642-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #163 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 12 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 163 Today's Topics: SF Books - HGttG and Another Fine Myth & Budrys Xmas Column, SF Movies - Flesh Gordon & Film Questions & Digital Techniques, What Happens at a Con? - SF Events Calendar, Ref to "Hand in Amber" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 December 1980 1420-EST (Thursday) From: The Twilight Zone Subject: Re: HGttG and Another Fine Myth I did not say that the two books (AFM and HGttG) were the same type of humor...only that if you liked one of them you might like the other. -doug ------------------------------ Date: 09 Dec 1980 0753-PST From: Don Woods Subject: Algis Budrys column (reformatted for readability) By Algis Budrys (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) It's that wonderful time of the year when nobody has the leisure to read books, but you have to reach decisions on what books to buy for your literate friends. You wander through the stores, opening and closing, skimming the blurbs, trying to recall snatches of reviews, attempting to parse out how much of what you've heard was meretricious. In fact, what you're going through is what I go through all year 'round. So, trust me . . . I know what you're feeling. For your graphics-oriented friends, Putnam's has started a new line of eye-popping art books called Perigee Books, within which occurs something called the Paper Tiger series. These are beautifully produced 8 three-eighths inches x 11 three-eighths inches paperbacks of 96 full-color pages each, each $10.95, and worth it. There are four of them so far: "Solar Wind" displays the SF art talent of Peter Jones, an unusually various master of technique whose broad range of subjects extends from crisp, hard- edged space battle to the classic blue-skinned ape carrying off the green but otherwise clearly nubile maiden. Philip Castle's "Airflow" is something else: impeccably rendered airbrush fantasies in which voluptuous mechanical Valkyries vie for airspace with F-14s, Marilyn Monroe is nipped daintily in the teeth of a grille fit for two Hudson Hornets back to back, and Dolly Parton is not to be believed. Then there's "Rick Griffin," by Rick Griffin, one of the masters of druggie pop, memorable for surfer art, album covers and underground comics. And finally there's "3-D Eye," by Michael English. "3-D Eye" contains what I think is the most draftsmanly, most assertive airbrush work I've ever seen. English delights in the bravura performance-crumpled cigarette packages, floating ketchup bottles, a discarded candy wrapper windborne across a stone slab. His highlights, particularly on liquid, are super-glossy; just this side of cartoony, and sometimes closer than that. He's in the business of riveting the onlooker's attention. If you want one book to stop its recipient cold during the package-unwrapping, look no farther. For your word-oriented friends, there's "The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer and Other Fantasms," a new collection of stories by Lord Dunsany from Owlswick Press ($20). Illustrated by Tim Kirk and introduced by Darrell Schweitzer, it is a new compilation of short work and two plays by this classic fantasist. To give it is to flatter your friend's taste. For stocking stuffers, Del Rey has just released, at $2.50 each, the paired paperbacks "Gateway" and "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon," by Frederik Pohl. "Gateway" of course won every available award; the other is its sequel. Both are hardcore contemporary science fiction by an uncommonly good writer and dazzling thinker. At $6.95, Ace's trade paperback "Direct Descent" had better be reserved for diehard Frank Herbert fans. It's two stories - one of them from a 1954 Astounding Science Fiction magazine - and both are classically "modern" SF as that term was then understood. But even with Garcia illustrations (which seem to feature Paul Newman in the leading role), this is a purchase to weigh carefully. For an SF sampler, there's "The Great Science Fiction Series," (Harper & Row, $16.95), edited by Frederik Pohl, the prolific and ingenious Martin Harry Greenberg, and the indefatigable Joseph Olander. It's a terrific idea for an anthology - one story each from 20 different story series, ranging across the board from Brain Aldiss' "Hothouse Planet" on through James Blish's "Cities in Flight" and "Pantropy" series, through Ferdinand Feghoot and Gavagan's Bar, Simak's "City," McCaffrey's dragons, Cordwainer Smith, Fritz Leiber, Larry Niven - on and on; something for every taste, every mood, every level of involvement in the field. This one goes in my basic library, for its own sake and as a species of index. For your friend who's wondering if this SF thing might be of interest, it's perfect. Finally, there's "Dream Makers" (Berkley, $2.75), for those so wrapped up in this field that they actually care what the authors look like and how they live. It's a collection of interviews by Charles Platt with 29 contemporary SF writers. (Well, one is a reconstruction on Cyril Kornbluth, who is indeed still contemporary in many of our minds, and who, if he had lived, would now be one of the grand characters of the field). Platt, a figure of considerable consequence in the English SF establishment but a long-time American resident, simply laid out a course across the country here and zig-zagged from house to house, calling on figures as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut, Samuel R. DeLany, Philip Jose Farmer and Harlan Ellison. These are by no means complete biographies; they're house calls, from each of which Platt has taken away a literal snapshot and a little vignette. The results range from the engaging to the jaw-dropping. We really are all crazy, of course. And I do not have dead washing machines and coils of old rope in my basement; they're coils of heavy-duty electrical extension wire, and the washing machines are not dead. See, what I do, is I put file cards with characters on them in one machine, load another one with plot complications, a third with settings, a fourth with dialogue, a fifth with narration, and then I start them all going and re-ink my typewriter ribbon with the mixed effluent. We all do that - I was just dumb enough to let Platt catch me at it. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 1980 11:46 PST From: Betsey at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: FLESH GORDON I, too, highly recommend flEsh Gordon as an excursion into the ridiculous. I've seen both the X and R rated versions. They are essentially the same, tho the r is minus some of the more "explicit" sex scenes. (not surprising) It's a good thing to see when you want mindless, humorous entertainment. ( hmm -- sounds very like reviews of the new release of flAsh gordon!) summers @ Parc-Maxc2 ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 12/11/80 10:02:09 Re: Flesh Gordon As an addendum to my last message, I just noticed that Flesh Gordon is being shown this Saturday, 12/13, at 7:00 and 9:30 at MIT's Kresge auditorium. If the crowd in Kresge is anything like the usual crowd in 26-100 (and I have no reason to think that it won't be), then this should be an excellent opportunity to see this film. Greg ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 1980 1101-PST From: Dave Dyer Subject: Film formats Speaking of wide screens, the only worthwhile "industrial" pavillion at Disneyland is the Bell Telephone exhibit: A 360 degree theater. There are rails to lean against rather than chairs, the show is short, but flashy. The one I saw featured a swoop through the Grand Canyon in a small plane, and believe me, when the plane banked into a turn, I got DIZZY! If you can stand the wholesome atmosphere, or are dragged there against your will, be sure not to miss it. (P.S. It is also free) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1980 at 1842-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^ HERESY! BLASPHEMY!! Off with his head!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^ It takes at least as much guts as a tauntaun to dare suggest that LAUREN could be guilty of a factual error in matters cinematic. But if what he said in the DEC 09 issue of SF-L-- "Star \Trek/ was one of the first to try shooting completely in 70, instead of doing a 35 blowup." isn't eggregiously erroneous, I'll turn all my nine Darth Vader buttons to the wall! ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 12/12/80 04:20:24 Re: Movie query This seems like an appropriate question for a group of SF/computer people: How many bits do you need to digitize a film? After all, one of the big wins with digital storage/transmission/etc is that the signal can be regenerated easily over long stretches of time or distance. This would, for example, go far to solving the problem of old, wornout films that simply fall apart; ditto dirt, scratches, etc. But I really have no idea what sort of resolution is required, not being familiar with the sort of grain on film negatives/prints. Or perhaps the right approach is to determine the resolving power of human eyes confronted with typical movie screens. I would expect that at some point in the future, all this lens- switching and frame-clipping nonsense will be replaced by completely general on-the-fly digital conversion methods. 10 years? 15? Someday, if we live that long. In fact, why bother with film? Just pop in a giga-PROM cube... (By the way, I believe Lucasfilms plans to digitize most of their shots in order to use computerized film editing techniques, although this only determines the order in which the REAL negatives are strung together, rather than producing the actual film. I don't remember the exact # of bits/frame, but it's huge). ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 1980 13:47 PST From: Brodie.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Calendar of Science Fiction Events I just received information on Westercon 34, in Sacramento. Westercon is the big West Coast convention. Since registration rates go up January 1, I am passing the dope now. If you have information about any events you would like to see added to the calendar, or are associated in some way with one of the listed events and would like to contribute, please send mail to Brodie at PARC-MAXC. July 2-5, 1981 (California) WESTERCON 34. GoH: C. J. Cherryh; Fan GoH: Grant Cornfield. Red Lion Motor Inn, Sacramento, CA; (916) 929-8855; $32 single and double, $8 addl person. Party wing. Cost: $15 till 12/31/80, $20 till 6/14/81, $25 door. P.O. Box 161719, Sacramento, CA 95816. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/12/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It explains KLH's reference to the "artificial hand in Zelazny's Amber" in [SFL V2 #150]. People who are not familiar with the Amber series may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1980 1805-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Amber (spoiler on amber) The reference to hand in the Corwin of Amber series. I assume that Saul doesn't mean the book title "Hand of Oberon" that one is obvious (after several years of non-concious deliberation). In that case we must then be typing about Benedict's mechanical arm (I guess), at least I think Benedict is the one with the mechanical arm (I forgot to look everything up over the weekend). Corwin stole the arm for Benedict. As I recall the arm was stolen from Benedict's "shadow" in Tir-na Nog'th a reflection of Amber. As I further recall, it turned out that Tir-na Nog'th was actually a future version of Amber, thus the arm wound up being stolen from Benedict at a future time and givento Benedict. It was never really built, it only exists in a timeloop. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 13 DEC 1980 1052-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #164 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 13 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 164 Today's Topics: LA HGttG Event, SF Books - HGttG & Budrys Quiz, SF Movies - Digital Techniques & Film Questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Dec 1980 1500-PST From: g.eldre at SU-SCORE (Tim Eldredge) Subject: HHGttG Presentation Sorry for the short notice, but PENSFA will be playing both of the HHGttG tapes (off the air recording) on Dec. 13 at 8:00 PM in Palo Alto. Call Doug Faunt at 494-2920 for the location and details. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 1013-EST From: Steve Lionel via Subject: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy The comments from many of you regarding "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" has helped me to clarify my own opinion of the book. In my original note, I complained that the book read "like a disconnected set of children's bedtime stories". That didn't really sum up my feelings, however, so I'd like to go into a bit more detail. First of all, I thought that many of the situations were hilarious. What I object to is the way that they are strung together. Comments from others make it plain that the book is essentially a straight transcription from the radio show. This is a dangerous course to take since, unless the writer is very skilled, the book will just not have the effect that the original medium did. I recall purchasing the book based on the movie "Young Frankenstein". I loved the movie, and was eager to read the book. Unfortunately, the writer was a hack who simply copied the screenplay, trying unsuccessfully to put into words the numerous sight gags that made the movie what it was. This is apparently what has happened to THGttH. My coworker Alyson, who had heard two of the shows, and had liked them a lot, agreed with me that the book is unreadable by itself. Responses from others in SFL land leads me to a proposed theorem: If you are familiar with the radio show or records, then reading the book allows you to fill in the details in your mind, since you know what is SUPPOSED to be there. People like me who have never heard the show, who don't have friends extolling the virtues, find that the book is simply poorly written. For example, the book has footnotes that span two or more pages that explain in detail some- thing totally irrelevant to the story as it stands. What is apparent is that the radio show had this information presented in some useful way, but that the writer was unable to include it smoothly into the story. I'll rephrase my request: Is there anyone, who hasn't heard the series, who read the book and found it enjoyable? CSVAX.arnold suggested that I was looking for too much from the book; I can only say that I was looking for a fun book to read. Alyson will be supplying me with some tapes of the show, so I can hear what it is really like. Then I will be better able to tell what it was that bothered me. I suppose I should mention that I do like a lot of Monty Python, though I prefer the Firesign Theatre. On the subject of distribution in the US, TLD@MIT-MC says that NPR will be broadcasting the series next spring. However, the book jacket does say "soon to be a television spectacle on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean". Does anyone know more about the TV show? Steve ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 10:53 PST From: Brodie.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Algis Budrys column (SFL V2 #163) You wander through the stores, opening and closing, skimming the blurbs, trying to recall snatches of reviews, attempting to parse out how much of what you've heard was meretricious. Quiz for the day: what does "meretricious" mean? (Hint: it does NOT mean "having merit.") ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 0447-PST (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-ATS (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: digitizing films and 70mm There are massive efforts now in progress by several firms (including LucasFilm, Abel, and III I THINK...) to produce digital printers for commercial film use. Building a high resolution digital film printer is no small task. Somewhere I recall hearing the number of pixels required for a 70mm image with no visible degradation; it was not really as many as I had expected, but I do not recall the figure. One thing is for sure, it will take A LOT of bits. The problem is, even if you have the whole movie digitized, how are you going to show it? Digital projection technology is not terribly advanced at this time, and certainly is nowhere near the quality of a big 70mm projector in a modern theater! Obviously though, they would be IDEAL for production and post-production work. ------------------------------ TO: HJJH "No 9000 series computer has ever made a mistake or distorted data..." I have never claimed this distinction, but this is a bit confused. I distinctly remember meetings, discussions at private screenings, etc. where various members of the production staff were discussing the massive problems they were having with the new 70mm ... but that this was to be expected since nobody had ever tried do an entire film on 70 before. Seems to me I heard Gene R. and Bob Wise blabbing about something to that effect once. -- As an aside, I recall asking Wise once whether he was a big Trek fan. He claimed that he had never really watched the show at all, and that he had been spending alot of time up in an office watching tapes of old episodes that Gene had provided so he could get the "atmosphere" of the show. By the way, while I did not have that much contact with him, I got the impression that Wise was a really nice fellow. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ RUSSEL@MIT-AI 12/12/80 08:03:24 It is pretty tough to find a screening of "The Windjammer" these days that supports all of the special format effects. On the other hand, you can see the same kind of explosive shift in scale at the National Air and Space Museum's theatre. They were showing two movies when I was last there (September); one of which (title unremembered, sorry) also starts out in what appears to be standard 35mm style showing a balloon launching (hot air). Just after liftoff, the viewpoint shifts to above the balloon, looking down and rotating; at the same time the screen expands by a factor of 10 or so... certified to give vertigo. (The name, I just remembered, is "To Fly".) If you're in DC, you'd be silly to miss the museum -- even sillier to miss the movies. Spectacular! (They also looked to be great prints -- no scratches or dirt; an achievement in a theatre that shows the same movies forever...) -- Dan ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 2354-EST From: MD at MIT-XX Subject: Setting the Record Straight Although I'm fairly certain that this discussion is out of the realm of Science Fiction, I can't stand seeing partial truths and misinformation spread about, so I'll have to set the record straight (Chip Hitchcock was right about that. By the way, I apologize for answering several days worth of SF-L at once, but my mail file was scrambled by a system crash.) After seven years as an officer of LSC (the MIT film group), I've picked up a lot of film information. Star Wars may have been shot in VistaVision, but the release prints are standard (they don't run through the projector sideways). Properly maintained (and cleaned!) projectors can run a print 100 times without noticable wear, and hundreds more with only minor scratches. To answer the question about cost of 16mm films - No, they are usually no cheaper to rent than 35mm prints, however there are many older films for which 35mm prints are not available. There are many reasons why 16mm films are so prevalent at college film series. For one thing, few colleges have 35mm projection facilities. There are many regulations concerning 35mm which date back to the days when prints were nitrate and flammable/explosive (therefore you generally must have licensed projectionists (in most places that also means union projectionists)). There are also twice as many reel changes to miss (MIT people are familiar with this problem). But a good 35mm print is far superior to 16mm. The film image area is about 4 times as great. The sound track is significantly wider and moves about 2.5 times as fast, so the sound quality is much better. Also, 35mm films are available with Dolby Stereo soundtracks and 4-Track magnetic soundtracks. To set the record straight on aspect ratios - A little history is in order. The original silent 35mm films had an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (width to height). When the sound track was added, the image area was decreased to 1.16:1, which was generally cropped top and bottom to the historical 1.33:1 (i.e. not all of the frame was used). Some of the great old films for which replacement 35mm prints are still being made, including Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, etc., were made in the 1.33:1 format. When 16mm and tele- vision were introduced, they used the then-standard film aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Wider image formats became popular in the early 1950's. 1.66:1 became standard. It was achieved by cropping yet more off the top and bottom of the frame, resulting in a slightly dimmer, grainier projected image. Cinemascope was introduced in the early 50's by 20th Century Fox. It was a clever idea - the entire 35mm frame is used and lenses which do a 2 to 1 horizontal compression are used when filming and a corresponding 2 to 1 hori- zontal expansion is done when projecting. Thus the 1.16:1 frame becomes a 2.33:1 image on the screen. Since the whole frame is used, more light can be transmitted and the relative grain size is smaller. [The generic term for Cinemascope is anamorphic. Cinemascope is a brand name of 20th Century Fox. The original Cinemascope films were done with 4-Track magnetic sound, by far the best 35mm sound ever. The quality is excellent because the film is moving at 18 inches per second. Unfortunately, this process has mostly died due to expense and problems with stray magnetic fields destroying the recordings on the prints.] Other companies came out with similar anamorphic processes. Cinemascope lenses are big, complex, and fairly expensive. When 16mm cinema- scope was introduced, the technology of optics was at a stage where it was considered too difficult to design the lens necessary to expand 1.33:1 16mm frames to the 2.33:1 image standard set by 35mm. Instead, another 2:1 horizontal expansion was used, yielding a 16mm cinemascope image of 2.66:1, which means that the top and bottom of the original 35mm image get cropped. This means that with any modern film some part of the image area is cropped in 16mm prints. To bore you yet further and hopefully lay this subject to rest, I will finish up with a few more tidbits: 70 mm - Almost all recent 70mm films were shot in 35mm. The quality would be higher if shooting were done in 70mm, but the cost is very high (Lawrence of Arabia was shot in 70mm in the desert. The cameras were huge and had to be air conditioned. There were infinite problems with dust.) It does make sense to blow up from 35mm originals to 70mm release prints. The film quality of the master prints is much higher than that of release prints so there is some advantage with grain size. However the major reasons are brightness and sound. Large theaters are often at the light flux limit, if they tried putting any more light through the film it would buckle too much and the emulsion would degrade. Also, 70mm film has room for 6 magnetic tracks, and the film moves 25% faster than 35mm, so the sound is tremendous! (LSC has been dreaming of installing 70mm for years, but the equipment won't fit in any of our projection booths.) Cinerama - The original Cinerama process was ridiculous. Running three projectors simultaneously leads to bizarre problems - any missing footage in one print has to be compensated for in the others. The Cinerama name was later attached to an anamorphic version of 70mm (I may be wrong, but I think that 2001 was done this way.) 1.85:1 aspect ratio - The modern standard aspect ratio for "flat" (i.e. not anamorphic) 35mm is 1.85:1. This means that for most films 40% of the 35mm frame is not used. Most theaters do not have the lenses, projector aperture plates, or screen masking to show flat films other than 1.85:1, so when they show an old 1.33:1 classic, it gets cropped. Now you know why all the heads are cut off. Once again, sorry for the length of this discussion. Mike Dornbrook ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 14 DEC 1980 0638-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #165 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 14 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 165 Today's Topics: SF Art - Picture/Poster Query, SF Books - Who is Balfour? & Zelazny Collection & HGttG & Budrys Quiz, SF Movies - Film Questions & SF History (Trailer) Festival, Real Life Computer Capers, Query - Does MITSFS still exist? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TANG@MIT-AI 12/14/80 02:10:19 What is a good picture to paint on a wall? My dorm has a blank bulliten board, about the size of a door, that we want to paint/poster with a fantasy theme. So has anybody seen a good painting lately? I guess we are looking for either a sexy lady (with optional hero) or a dramatic landscape. The picture must be in portrait format, however, 'cause that's the way the board is nailed to the wall. In other words -- what is your favorite sf/fantasy drawing/ painting/picture, and why? If there is any sort of response to this question, I'll be sure to tabulate the results and return them to SF-lovers. Jack Palevich ------------------------------ Pete Seissler@MIT-MC (Sent by PS@MIT-MC) 12/13/80 17:15:06 Is anyone familiar with the works of Brad Balfour. He has suppposedly written some stuff for OMNI, but has also published on his own. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 0938-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: new Zelazny book "The Last Defender of Camelot" is not really a new Zelazny book, but is a collection of short stories and novellettes from the very beginning of his career til now. I didn't much care for the title story (Merlin, not Lancelot was always my favorite Arthurian char- acter), but they're all worth reading unless you have them in other collections. Zelazny likes to put his off-hand heroes in situations that are the stuff of legend, and this gets out of hand cases like "Damnation Alley" where the hero is basically a motorcycle thug (aside: everybody, but everybody smokes a lot in his books. Is he himself a chain smoker?), but usually it's just to let you know that he doesn't take this stuff too seriously. He does take it seriously in "He Who Shapes", the original from which the novel "The Dream Master" was derived, and the best story in the book. But then, I'm a sucker for erudition; other people might find the story pretentious. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 1980 0929-PST From: FEATHER at USC-ISIB Subject: Good book, better footnotes Part of the enjoyment of listening to the HHGttG derives from the audio footnotes - in fact, it's a pity that there are so many intervening minutes (pages) of story that explain in detail something totally irrelevant to these footnotes... ------------------------------ Date: 13 DEC 1980 1524-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: HGttG, again Well, \I/ liked the book and have never heard the tapes (except for ~5 minutes from episodes beyond the book) --- but then, I've been told my imagination is entirely too vivid for my own good. I also rather liked the "footnotes" (actually, I think they were printed as parenthetical remarks); the dramatic aside is such a marvelously hammy device if well-done. Speaking of theatrical conventions, any of you in San Francisco are urged to see FOOTLIGHT FRENZY, sponsored by the American Conservatory Theater at the Marine (?), near Union Square. Not really SF or fantasy, but incredibly funny in a lunatic fashion. ------------------------------ Date: 13 DEC 1980 1527-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: meretricious Come on! Anyone who's had O. Henry shoved down hir throat in high school should remember that one without a dictionary; it means tawdry, especially flashy-looking but worthless. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 1980 2031-PST From: Daul at OFFICE-2 Subject: NEW FILM TECHNIQUES? Somewhere along the line I thought I read something about a new way of filming that entails either speeding up the camera or slowing it down. I believe it is speeding it up. The result is more of a three dimensional feeling than standard techniques. There would have to be new projectors built etc. Does anyone know of this? I will try and search some of my old mags for info. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 0504-PST (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-ATS (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: trailers I went out and saw the "History of SF and Horror via Trailers" show last night... all 5 hours of it. It was excellent. I had seen only about .1% of the trailers before. They ran from Bela's "Dracula" to TESB. Alot of really obscure ones too. There were even trailers for "The Robot Monster" and "PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE"! This guy really did his homework, and really covered the entire genre well, even including some little known works like "Thunderbirds are GO", "Vampire Lovers", and "Werewolves on Wheels" (the latter is about a gang of Hell's Angel types who are werewolves, of course.) There were obviously a number of films missing, but damned few that I could think of offhand, at least relatively. He DID miss one of my favorite obscure films: "Murder by Television", done in the 30's by Lugosi. I'll bet that NOBODY out there has ever seen this one other than me. It involves an early spinning disk type television system which killed the people who went "on camera" (under Bela's control of course). I have forgotten the name of the guy who put the trailer show together (he was there and rapped to the audience a bit before the film and at the intermission), but he apparently shows up at alot of Cons, so if you hear of some guy with a 5 hour trailer show, go see it. --Lauren-- P.S. If you ever want to see an interesting group of people, try go to an event like this in the L.A. area. --LW-- ------------------------------ TANG@MIT-AI 12/11/80 14:44:56 The encoding standard in question was the 64bit NBS Data Encryption Algorithm. (I work as a computer aid for NBS, but that's no guarantee I know what I'm talking about.) Supposedly, one could, for $100 zillion dollars, build a 'sooper' computer that could decode any encrypted message in about a day. Now when I heard this I got all excited and ran into the office of my boss' boss' boss and asked him about it. He pointed out that, if one was worried about securety, one could run the message through the encoder 'n' times, to give it 64*n bits of encryption. That seemed reasonable to me, as I haven't got the math background to prove/disprove it. And remember that the NBS DES was designed to give reasonable amounts of protection to very large ammounts of data, so it had to be FAST, rather than SECURE. One time (bit) pads are the ultimate in security, but require both the sender and the receiver to have the pads before a message can be sent. . . . If you want to break security on a time sharing system, do systat to find out who's logged in, then try to log in as them, using a) null passwords, b) all 1&2 letter combinations, c) common female first names, d) english words. Several years ago, someone used the word dictionary, the encryption algorithm, and the encrypted password file to break 70% of the accounts on a Unix system. And one Chicago youth watched the police officer's demonstration of the police departments computer, went home to his teletype (this is an old story) and put his teachers on the most wanted list. *Sigh* Jack ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1980 17:58:10-PST From: CSVAX.presotto at Berkeley When I was at MIT I used to be a member of MITSFS. I seem to recall the ability to become a life time member by paying some large amount of money (i.e. $100, which when you're still a starving student is a lot of money). Since I end up at MIT for two or three weeks a year I was wondering if such still exists? dave [ For those that don't know MITSFS = MIT Science Fiction Society. Their library is the "world's largest open stack SF collection." It still exists. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 07 DEC 1980 1137-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: MITSFS memberships The MITSFS has elected to scale its annual membership fee according to the price of books (i.e., 2x the cost of an upscale paperback). This gives renewable fees now ranging from $4.50 for one year to $16 for 4 years. MITSFS offers two species of life memberships, both of which require the approval of the Skinner. (The president's only chores are to appoint the Skinner and take all the glory; the Skinner does all the work. Of course, president and Skinner are usually one and the same, but there have been exceptions.) There is the traditional inheritable lifetime membership @ $1000, including a plated membership card and (allegedly) a full-length nude photograph of the Skinner, clothed in glory and wielding the gavel (a wrench suitable for opening fire hydrants) (no, you don't \have/ to accept the photograph). One of these was recently sold. There is also a non-inheritable lifetime membership, without any of the glitter but still good until you are ruled permanently dead; this costs $100, and we've sold several of them. Approval of the Skinner is usually nominal; the problem is just that in a group of 400+ members there turn up a few who we'd just as soon not renew. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 15 DEC 1980 0615-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #166 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 15 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 166 Today's Topics: SF Books - The Patchwork Girl & Here's the Plot! What's the Title?, Real Life Computer Capers, SF Movies - Film Questions, SFL ID Badge ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 December 1980 2145-EST (Sunday) From: R.Kamesh Subject: The Patchwork Girl I just read this book by Niven; it looks new (first printing April 1980), and features Gil the ARM. Standard Niven with some new psychic hand abilities. (Would you believe searching in a hologram like dowsing over a map). Also, another laser murder, however nothing so creative as the one where the light originated in a time-retarded field. One thing he never explains - why are lunar ("lunie") courts so quick to mete out justice? He provides some kind of explanation for both Earth and Belter customs, both here and in other stories. Aside from quick remarks about the lunies being between Earth and the Belt in their approach there is no explanation for the conduct of the particular trial in the story. Is there some story elsewhere that I missed? Another confusing point are lunar sexual and marital customs His hero gets a bit confused, apparently; so did I. My confusion, unfortunately, did not terminate in bed. An unrelated issue: when I first came to this country, I remember paperbacks of this quality (gummed binding likely to fall apart after the first reading, mediocre printing quality) being about $0.95 or so. That was '74. This book, an ACE "Mass market edition" was $2.50, which implies that inflation has been 150% in 6 years. Seems a bit excessive as I can't think of any other consumer item that has gone up by that much. Has the economics of the book industry changed more drastically than that of the rest of the country? (Not at all rhetorical, if anybody has some information, I would like to know it.) Kamesh ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 (Monday) 0126-EDT From: PLATTS at WHARTON-10 (Steve Platt) Subject: Please identify this story! (Short story) If anyone out there can identify the following story (plot and author), I'd be much obliged. I seem to recall reading it sometime between 2 and 5 years ago, if that helps place it any... Scene: The home planet (I believe) of the "Galactic Empire", a somewhat repressive imperialism. This planet is the only one with anything approaching freedom, as they let crazy people run around the streets. Plot: Our hero (we'll call him John) is a member of the Imperial Police or whatever). He's finally wangled an appointment to the home planet, apparently a prestigous position. He wanders around, and (1) sees workmen digging up the street (for no apparent reason), exposing a sewer pipe with both fresh water and sewage running in it, separated by some mystical means... (2) he also meets and falls in love with a citizen, let's call her Jane. In any case, it seems Jane's uncle is missing, he is crazy even by local standards. Pages go by, and John decides to join Jane's secret organization... first he must "pass a test" proving he's crazy, something about performing 5 crazinesses. He passes, and it is revealed to one and all that the crazies are all the brilliant scientists, they *really* are running the Empire secretly, and they have recruited him. The end thought was if they were thought crazy by the empire and they in turn ran the empire, what of people they believed crazy, such as Jane's uncle? ------------------------------ Date: 14 December 1980 2327-EST (Sunday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Encription On the NBS (aka IBM) DES algorithm: I have yet to see anything on whether DES composed with DES is closed. If it is, then running it though "n" times doesn't give one any more protection. -Lee ------------------------------ Date: 14 December 1980 11:16-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: NEW FILM TECHNIQUES? Well, there was TODDAO, developed for "Around the World in 80 Days", as I recall. One of its features was filming and projecting at 120 fps instead of the normal 90 fps. The idea was to smooth the jitteriness of panned shots and people moving across the view in a stationary shot... ------------------------------ Date: 14 December 1980 2327-EST (Sunday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: New Film Techniques In responce to DAUL's note: the idea of speeding up film to increase the illusion of reality is not new. In the old days, silent films ran at 16 fps (frames per second) because it was felt that this was fast enough for the mind to fuse adjacent images and create the illusion of motion. Sound films run at 24 fps because the sound strip must run by the head so fast. One might think if 16 fps was good enough, 24 ought to be perfect. Unfortuately, this is not true. Scenes that have a lot of light still flicker badly. (for example, the beginning of Superman) But even in the normal case, the film only moves fast enough to produce a concious sense of motion. The mind is not completely fooled. To increase the illusion, one can crank up the frame rate and the number of times a single frame is exposed. Normally, each frame is exposed twice. Various systems have tried to increase both these numbers. For example, at the Air & Space Building of the Smithsonian, the movie "To Fly" is shown at (I believe) 48 fps and 3 exposures per frame. (The system is called IMAX) The projection speed is partly why the film appears so intense. I have heard Douglas Trumbull say that he wanted to put out movies at 64 fps and four epf. He said that he was going to test it around the LA area but I haven't heard anything since then (~ 3 yrs ago). Clearly, any conversion to this sort of system will cost. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 1980 2302-PST From: Craig W. Reynolds (at III via Rand) Subject: New film technology Two questions came up just recently about new filmmaking technology, I've got one answer and one "stonewall". To Daul (@OFFICE-2)'s query about a new system involving higher frame rates, I bet he is thinking of "Super 70" a new (experimental?) 70mm format which runs at 60 frames- per-second (as opposed to 24 for normal film or 30 for NTSC video). From Nth hand reports I hear that the sharpness and (related) lack of motion-blur/stobing/time-aliasing is spectacular. Just don't be in the projection booth when that baby breaks! But our Creative Director (Richard Taylor) says that the image is SO real and sharp that you can't get away with any of the usual "tricks", eg: an actor usually made up to look better on camera, on Super-70 looks like a person with make-up smeared all over their face. About a year and a half ago Doug Trumbull said he was going to be involved with the first film shot in Super-70, but I've not heard anything since. To Lauren's comments and questions about digital film printers, since it is supposed to "burn before reading" stuff, I can't talk about it, except to say "yep" to everything Lauren said (does that count as a leak?) -Craig ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 1980 1627-EST From: Alyson L. Abramowitz via Subject: The problem with atsigns Apparently the "@" was used as an identifying symbol at Loscon the other week and at Westercon last year. However, no one has bothered to mention one problem with having an atsign in one's "name": namely, not all of us have one. I suppose not all of you may be aware that SFL has a significant distribution outside of the ARPAnet. For example, here at DEC we distribute it across a 60+ computer network which encompasses multi-sites at many different physical locations. While most, if not all, of the people getting SFL at DEC know about the ARPAnet, to respond to SFL people use our own internal DECnet and mail systems. While ARPA has atsigns, we have colons. By asking if SFL users have an atsign in their name or creating a button with an atsign, you are excluding readers, and often active participants, of SFL who don't happen to be directly on the ARPAnet. Now I, personally, happen to have an ARPAnet account, but it doesn't seem reasonable to me to have everyone getting our distributions on the ARPAnet. So the use of the atsign doesn't seem very fair to me. At least here at DEC we've tried very hard to not make it a problem to get SFL material 'second hand'. We've not always succeeded (I think I've gotten a fair idea of how Roger Duffey must feel sometimes -- maintaining a SFL mailing list is a lot of work!) but the system has slowly been refined. Please don't treat us as step-children. alyson l. abramowitz ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 16 DEC 1980 0651-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #167 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 16 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 167 Today's Topics: SF Books - Rissa & Wizard & Plot/Title Query/Responses & PB Inflation, SF Movies - Horrible SF Movies & Film Questions, Real Life Computer Capers, MITSFS Corrections ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Dec 1980 (Monday) 2006-EDT From: ROSSID at WHARTON-10 (David Rossien) I once asked about a couple of books which I was thinking of buying. I didn't get to many interesting responses, but I have finished reading Rissa Kegurlan (sp?) and liked it (as alluded to previously, the protagonist is a tough free-spirited woman who has escaped from "Total Welfare" (e.g. slavery) to lead an Underground fight against her enslavers. I am about half through "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon", now in paperback, and I am pretty happy with it thus far. I am still interested in knowyng whether Varley's "Wizard" is any good? Takers anyone? -Dave ------------------------------ RMS@MIT-AI 12/15/80 05:39:35 Can anyone tell me where to find the Telzey Amberdon story in which her mind is completely taken over by a villain, and she can't do anything except what he wants, and she manages to get into a situation where he finds it necessary to let her go? In case you're interested, I'm trying to write a song to be entitled "The Streets of Orado". ------------------------------ Date: 16 DEC 1980 0220-EST From: The Moderator Subject: Plot / Title Responses on an Empire's Lunatics The story with a set of methodical madmen on the home planet (in charge of the home planet I believe) of a galactic empire is, I believe, an Ellison story. It so happens that I have forgotten the title (I think it was something to do with Guggle-Fishes ... one of the insanity tests). -- Peter da Silva The story Steve is looking for is "The Crackpots", by Harlan Ellison, available in "Paingod and Other Delusions" (Jove, 1978). What struck me most about this story is how it seems to be done in the style of a Philip K. Dick story. -- Leor ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 0956-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: Ace printing quality I recently bought a book published by Ace, "Journey to Aprilioth" by Eileen Kernough. Not only was it riddled with misprints, but thirty pages were duplicated. That is, pages 280 to 310 were replaced by copies of pages 250 to 280. The bookstore, "Future Fantasy", was good about taking it back; apparently a lot of them were like that. The book itself is ok, though it's kind of misrepresented by the cover blurb. That makes it out to be Tolkienesque fantasy, when there is no magic (though lots of mystery) in it and the setting is Europe around 1000 BC. I guess it fell into the crack between sf and historical novels. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 1110-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: book prices Apparently it is true, paperbacks have gone up that much. Or rather, some of them have. Not all paperbacks have hit the $2.50 mark yet, it depends on the size of the book, the publisher, and the name of the author. I suspect that at least part of the price rise is a "what the market will bear" attitude, but there have been some real rises in costs. Production costs like paper, printers union members, authors royalties, and buying the rights to the book have driven the cost up quite a bit. At least the cost is still below the high-water marks being set by mainstream stuff, like "Thorn Birds" and the others setting record prices for the rights to the book (a few years ago they paid so much for the rights to that book that they had to charge $2.50 for the book, everything else was at the $1.50 stage I think). I realize that this isn't chock full of hard facts, but I hope this points you slightly in the right direction to find the facts. steve z. P.S. If you think the rise from $.95 to $2.50 is bad, I started collecting when they were $.50, so I've seen a 400% increase (in about 11 years). And comic books, oy-vaysmir, they've gone from 12 cents to 50 cents! With a corresponding decrease in size. ------------------------------ Date: 15 DEC 1980 1230-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: book inflation Well, for a large publishing house there are several significant factors in the retail price of a book. First among these for a book with a large print run is the cost of paper, which is the largest portion of those costs which are the same per book (fixed costs, like editing, press setup, and so on, become a small fraction of the total when you have as large a print run as Ace typically does). Paper costs have grown monstrously because of the high price of even the lousy wood that goes into their paper. Also, your memory may be a bit off; for a book that size $.95 would have been a very good price 6 years ago; from my digging into the MITSFS stacks that was the price for DAW books that far back, and DAW's have typically been the last prices to rise. And the book in question is illustrated, even if the illustrations are second-rate and terribly printed; this, they feel, entitles them to charge more. An important factor in pricing decisions is what the public is believed to be willing to pay; hence, SMILEY'S PEOPLE, the conclusion of a Le Carre trilogy is g^R\N@L^d@Hf\j`\@P& @Rf@XBdNJL^d@B@`B`JdDBFVX@Djh@\^@XBdNJd@hPB\X@fBrX@* X@nPRFP@Rf@FjddJ\hXrBlBRXBDXJ@L^d@dBhPJd@XJff\RZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZBhJt@bj@JF@brp`@bbtjb@ &( d^Zt@^XXR\N\ @Bh@ $Z0&jDTJFht@`B`JdDBFV@D^^V@bjBXRhr(PRf@Rf\Nh@& X@Djh@@FB\Nh@dJfRfh@fJ\HR\N@hPRf@R\L^@BX^\NX@R\@dJf`^\fJh^@BZJsh's remark about paperbacks with "gummed bindings likely to fall apart after the first reading", etc. I just subscribed to the Quality Paperback Book Club and haven't received any books yet so can't verify it, but they won my heart by their ad which said, "just because books are made from trees is no reason for their leaves to turn yellow and fall to the ground." Karen ------------------------------ FAUST@MIT-ML 12/15/80 10:23:49 Re: does anyone remember?? I saw a very strange (and hilarious) "horror" film about fifteen years ago but have never again heard anything about it. I believe the name of the film was "Uncle was a Vampire". It is about this guy who gets a crate from his "dead" uncle. The crate turns out to be the uncle in a coffin. The protagonist then begins to turn into a vampire. The levity is provided by the interaction of the nephew and a so called vampire expert who is staying at the same resort attempting to take a vacation. The constant pestering of the expert by the nephew (as he attempts to understand his own malady) and the expert's reaction becomes increasingly comic. There are no real thrilling or intensely frightening scenes (or even attempts at frightening scenes) and I believe that this one was DESIGNED to be a comedy. (As apposed to a film like "Night of the Living Dead" which we laugh at, not with.) Anyone ever seen this film, or know anything about it? Greg ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 0820-PST From: URBAN at RAND-AI Subject: Film Technology Can someone confirm or correct the rumor that the special effects in the upcoming film, "Altered States" were partially accomplished by digitizing the film image and then, well, altering its state? Mike Urban ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 20:00:09-PST From: Cory.conde at Berkeley On the inquiry about that new film technique to speed film up to create a 3-d effect, I believe it is Douglas Trumbull's ( CE3K , etc. ) SUPER-70 system. A brief 'hint' is given on page 72 of January 1978 issue of the American Cinematorapher. The original version of Super-70, as I heard somewhere, required someone to look in a small `peep show` viewer, but later versions are supposed to be projected. I think Media Scene had something on it too. Dan Conde P.S. Apparently, it is one of those 5-year projects, so wait.... ------------------------------ HGA@MIT-MC 12/16/80 02:04:56 Re: Data Encryption Standard In the late 60's, IBM started a research project on ciphers that has produced a lot of good literature and several important cryptosystems. The effort concentrated on a family of ciphers that lent itself to high-speed implementation in hardware (one can imagine the fun second source memory manufacturers will have when the Series H uses an encryption protected fiber optic bus). In January 1976, one of these systems was adopted by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) as the federal Data Encryption Standard (DES) on sensitive but unclassified data. Cryptanalysis by Whit Diffie, Martin E. Hellman, and others has not found an algorithmic attack any better than a 50% computational savings over an exhaustive search of the keyspace. Unfortunately, the key is only 56 bits, and Diffie and Hellman have calculated that for only 20 megabucks, a computer could build around a million LSI chips each testing a key per microsecond. This system could search the entire keyspace in approximately a day, at an average cost of $5,000. This was calculated in 1977, and needless to say it would be much cheaper today, not to mention in the future. There have been some fairly believable allegations that the National Security Agency (NSA, or No Such Agency), which is responsible for foreign communications intelligence and codebreaking, brought pressure to bear so that the key would be small enough for them to search in the eventuality a foreign power were to use the DES. On the other hand, this indicates that the NSA was not able to cryptanalyticly crack DES, and that those desiring really secure communications can merely use a larger key. Both Diffie and Hellman, and IBM have suggested that multiple enciperment could also improve the security of DES, but it is pretty obvious that its preferable to improve the standard. Fortunately, between the IBM research, and the recent public key cryptosystems by Diffie and Hellman, and Ron Rivest, enough technology exists so that anyone desiring to create a secure system should be able to do so. [ For more information about modern cryptography techniques see: Diffie, W. and M. Hellman, "Privacy and Authentication: An Introduction to Crytography", Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 397-427, March 1979. This paper is a tutorial introduction to modern cryptography and contains one of the best bibliographies of work in this field. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 DEC 1980 1249-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: MITSFS Please, no quotes around "world's largest open stack SF collection". Until the Ackermann collection (which was recently given to the City of Los Angeles) becomes publicly available (which may well be never) we \are/ the largest library (i.e., open stack collection). Aside from our global fannish connections to find out if anyone is near, we published an ad in SEACON '79's second progress report (in response to the British SF Assn. which had claimed the title with a mere 3000 books) proclaiming that we were the largest and have yet to hear from anyone challenging that assertion (although there's this type in Antwerp at the national university who keeps sending us requests for obscure material). ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 19:09:36-PST From: CSVAX.presotto at Berkeley Just to set the record straight (after all the flack I got for the mere mention of the possibility), I wasn't asking if MITSFS still existed. Noone in his right mind could possibly in even his most delirious moments conceive of such an occurance as the termination of such an institution. I was just wondering if the life time memberships were still available. Thanks for the replies though. dave ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 17 DEC 1980 0745-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #168 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 17 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 168 Today's Topics: SF Books - Correction & Plot/Title Response & Wizard & Zelazny & PB Inflation, SF Radio - HGttG, SF Movies - Film Questions & Horrible SF Movies, Real Life Computer Capers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Dec 1980 0857-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: whoops Eileen Kernaghan, not Kernough, wrote "Journey to Aprilioth". Looks like Ace isn't the only one to have misprints...... ------------------------------ Date: 16 DEC 1980 1023-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Telzey story query The story in question sounds like "The Telzey Toy", which I think has come out either as a book in itself or as the lead novella in a collection of Telzey stories. ------------------------------ ZEMON@MIT-MC 12/17/80 06:56:39 Re: Varley's Wizard . . . continues the story that Varley started in TITAN, and is the second book of a \trilogy/. It introduces more complications into the plot of the TITAN series, and clears up some nagging items as well; ever wonder what a satellite- brain looks like? What happens when \tourism/ hits Gaea? What composers does a Titanide like? I enjoyed the book very much -- I read it three times the week I bought it. I would recommend WIZARD to anyone who has read TITAN. If you have not yet read TITAN, I also recommend that very highly. -Landon- ------------------------------ Date: 12/16/80 1105-EDT From: THOKAR at LL Subject: Varley's Wizard In response to Dave Rossien request for info on "Wizard." Not a real review here, just what I remember from reading "Wizard" out of MITSFS last summer. If you read "Titan", "Wizard" is a must read and in some ways I found it better. Varley's writing style is definitely showing signs of improving. I felt him to be fairly rough and simplistic in his early works. "Wizard" definitely picks up where "Titan" left off. Rocky has been "wizard" for many decades and has become tired of life. The story is of her and Gabby joining on a quest with two visitors who have come to Ghea to be cured of incurable illnesses and must prove themselves worthy of the "god's" notice. Of course, Gabby and Rocky have their own secret plans to take care of along the way, which is why they have joined this perticular quest. I found the book to be a good read, but since it is obviously the second book of a trilogy, borrow the hardcover to read or wait for the paperback to come out. (Unless you prefer to collect hardcover.) Good reading, Greg ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 1934-EST From: G.Nessus at MIT-EECS (Doug Alan) Subject: `Wizard' I just finished reading `Wizard' by John Varley (at the cost of getting an incomplete in Philosophy because I was supposed to be writing a paper and of not studying for my Physics final tomorrow). `Wizard' was better than `Titan' and `The Ophuichi Hotline' (which are very good), but not as good as Varley's short stories (which are great). I don't know what that makes the book (excellent perhaps?), but in any case it is is definitely worth reading! It is the sequel to `Titan'. (I realize the period should be inside the quotes, but it looks really bad that way. Anyone interested in starting a movement to have puctuation placed where it should go and not where English books tell us it should go?) I suggest that you read `Titan' first if you want to read `Wizard' and haven't read `Titan'. From the end of `Wizard' it is obvious that it too will have a sequel called `Demon'. `Wizard' is the story of two humans, Robin (an epileptic) and Chris (a schizophrenic), who are two out of the ten people that are picked that year by Gaea - out of all humans - to be granted miracles. Robin and Chris want to be cured, but they find out that there is a big catch. They have loads of fun with Rocky, Gaby, and Gaea (who has gone somewhat bonkers). There is love, violence, sex, and buzz bombs. There are loads of neat creatures, new ideas, and wonderful imagination. To find out more, read it for yourself! --Doug Alan P.S. I read the serialized version of `Titan' in `Analog'. Does anyone know if the book is any different? [ There are very substantial differences between the ANALOG version of "Titan" and the actual novel. A major subsection was simply eliminated from the novel in the serialization. Unfortunately that section plays a major role in Rocky's development. In my personal opinion, if you have only read the serialization you have not read "Titan". -- RDD ] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 1140-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Zelazny, cost of paperbacks For those who like Zelazny, the new collection (at least I think it's new), "The Last Defender of Camelot" looks very good. I'm about half way thru and it has almost all been good. The book includes such things as "For a Breath I Tarry", "The Game of Blood and Dust", and the original of "Damnation Alley". To Chip, I really think that the increased cost of buying the book rights and the increases in the author's royalties are a big factor in the rise of paperback book costs. You really do pay for the author's name. To Kamesh, now that I think about it, $.95 books go back more like 9 years, than 6 years, I remember paying $.95 when I was in High School. As I recall prices went $.50, $.60, $.95, and $1.25, all while I was in High School, or shortly thereafter, which is 8 years back. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 0731-PST From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Subject: Book prices You young whippersnappers! Why, I recall, back in the REAL old days, when I collected (accumulated) every SF book I could lay my hands on, the normal price was 35 cents! And a few were still around at 25! (And I walked 39.87 miles to school each day through blizzards, and fought sabertooth tigers at the cave mouth...) None the less, when you look at the change over the past 30 years or so, it is Astounding (and Amazing and Fantastic, too...)! You don't read the complaints about getting 1/2 cent per word or so that authors always used to gripe when discussing SF sales, but I'm still sure that the author's cut is the least of the excuses for the price jumps. The answer is, of course, simple. Don't buy. I apply what I probably misnomer as "value engineering" to most things; figure out what it is worth to you and don't pay more. I haven't bought a new paperback at cover price for at least 5 years now, and probably more. I can't recall the last one. It helped that I stopped collecting and gave my collection to a friend in 1970 or so (whom I haven't seen since.....hmm, may be significant...). But it is obvious from the quality of workmanship and material costs that books are not worth their price. (The content may be priceless, but that's another matter.) However, they will cost that much if you pay it. You make your own bed... Curmudgeonly, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 1980 1724-EST From: Paul Dickson via Subject: Hitchhiker's Guide I was looking at a recent SFL mailing and saw some discussion of the Hitchhiker's Guide on radio here. It is true that it will be on PBS starting in March, but in the meantime WCLV in Cleveland will be playing the records. For those in the Cleveland area, the program on which it appears is called "WCLV Saturday Night", which is broadcast sometime on Saturday nights, obviously. Not so obviously, it is repeated on Wednesday afternoons, at which time it is called "WCLV Saturday Night on Wednesday Afternoon". This is a generally humorous program lasting an hour or so. Listeners in the Boston area should listen to WCRB (102.5) on Saturday nights after the symphony broadcast (generally over about 10pm). The program is called "WCRB Saturday Night", and lasts about an hour and a half. Unlike the Cleveland program, it is NOT repeated. Due to the similarities in their programs, WCRB and WCLV exchange program material each week. On odd weeks listeners in Boston will hear about 30 minutes of the WCLV program, and on even weeks here a full 1.5 hours of WCRB program. In Cleveland the procedure is reversed. So every other week in Boston you hear one episode of the Hitchhiker's Guide. I don't know if the Boston listeners will be missing anything on the other weeks or not - the exchange is by mailing tapes back and forth, so they could arrange it. For fans of British radio programs, there are other reasons for listening to these programs: WCRB plays old "Goon Show" and "I'm sorry, I'll Read That Again" programs, both BBC productions from several years ago. The latter program has a bunch of Python and Goodies people in it (including John Cleese). The puns fly fast and furiously. These BBC programs are generally included in the tapes sent to Cleveland. I explain all this in such detail because WCRB (and maybe WCLV) are not your typical radio staions: they are COMMERCIAL classical music staions. Tastes in music are hard to predict, so I don't know who among the SFL people may have stumbled across them. WCRB announcers sound like they are trying to talk like BBC announcers, but they just come off sounding stuffy. The guy who does the "WRCB Saturday Night" program is not like this, however. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 1643-EST From: Alyson L Abramowitz via Subject: More guides to Hitchhikers Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy is apparently also on in another place in Boston. According to a co-worker of mine, it is on WBCN 104.1 Boston Sunday Review (Sunday mornings) for four weeks beginning yesterday. Alyson L. Abramowitz ------------------------------ Date: 15 DEC 1980 1234-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: film techniques There's another development, although I don't know how recent it is, if you move in the other direction: I've been told that most of the effects in SW4&5 were filmed at about 1fps, with the camera motion appropriately reduced. This allows them to get an adequate exposure without excessively bright lights and still get the depth of field that comes from using a small aperture. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 1343-PST (Tuesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-ATS (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Vampires and Cryptography (Vampires and Cryptography???? Oh well).... I can very vaguely recall "Uncle was a Vampire". It used to run on the late night TV horror movies out here, but I have not seen it in at least 8 years. It was definitely a comedy, planned as such. In the same genre is the equally bizarre "My Son the Vampire", which has an opening sequence done by Allan Sherman (one my favorite funny song types). He also performs the title song for the film: My son the vampire, He's a total loss, Whenever he gets a look at you, He gets out his dental floss.... BLOOOOOOOOOOD! He wants ... BLOOOOOOOOOOOD! Anyway. It goes on from there in a typically amusing fashion. The story involves a robot that Dracula (yes, Bela played Dracula in this comedy!) which accidently gets sent to an old woman who is expecting a crate of artifacts from a dead relative's estate. Truly bizarre and hilarious. ------------------------------ I can't let the concept that the Diffie/Hellman/Rivest code systems are "secure" go by at face value. There are a number of problems with public-key cryptosystems (which is what we are talking about here, really). They range from mundane issues such as security of key distribution and the centralized directory of "public" keys, to issues regarding the viability of the algorithms used in the face of possible advances in theoretical mathematics which could CONCEIVABLY break the security wide open by massively reducing the search space. Just wanted to mention that there are potential problems with this as well as the other encryption systems. The only REALLY secure methods are "one-time pad" techniques, which are the techniques used for all really important communications. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 16 December 1980 0323-EST (Tuesday) From: Mike.Fryd at CMU-10A (C621MF0E) Subject: security and passwords A friend of mine, a few years back, managed to print out a listing of all the passwords on a particular tops-20 machine. It turns out that by far, the most popular password is 'susan'. My friend proceeded to become respectable and got a job working for the computer center, answering questions from users. Well one day, while I was visiting him at work, a student came in claiming that someone had guessed his password and deleted all his files. We explained to him that this was very unlikely, unless, of course, his password was 'susan'. The student, wide eyed with amazement, replied "How did you know my password was 'susan'?" (I wish I could think of a cute moral for this story) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 18 DEC 1980 0649-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #169 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 18 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 169 Today's Topics: SF Radio - HGttG,SF Books - Wizard/Titan & PB Inflation & Survey Ship, SF Movies - First Color Film?, Real Life Computer Capers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TLD@MIT-MC 12/17/80 11:30:45 Re: More guides to Hitchhikers Yes, WBCN (in Boston) is doing HGttG on Sunday mornings. They said that they would broadcast an episode at 0930 for the next three Sundays. I assume that they are using the records that have been mentioned in a previous issue of SFL. "The guy" who does the WCRB Saturday Night show is the station manager, and definitely not stuffy! He's very fond of British humor and uses his professional connections to get hold of all sorts of good stuff. Definitely worth trying! ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 11:59:55-PST From: Cory.cc-06 at Berkeley Subject: HHgttG I enjoyed the Guide (HHGttG is incredibly unwieldy abbr.) immensely, and all I heard of the radio show was the final episode (which wasn't part of the book anyway). -- Peter da Silva (c.dasilva@berkeley) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 0714-PST From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Subject: Wizard Re the request for Wizard evaluations: A reasonably good book, but disappointing, not in the writing or the crafting, but in the characters and situation themselves. What has happened to Gaea, and the carried-over characters from the earlier book, is just as upsetting to the reader (at least me) as Louis Wu's becoming a wirehead in Ringworld Engineers. When you enjoy a book, and like the personae of the characters, it is just as real as the people living down the street. (To me, MORE real than those in the next block I don't know.) So, when things happen to them, without sufficient internal justification for you to feel it is deserved, you feel bad about it. I think I'm getting more Pollyanna-ish in my old age, but more and more, I am feeling that there isn't much excuse for fiction to have anything unpleasant or disappointing in it; there's enough of that in the world around me. If an author is going to go into all the trouble of creating a universe, which every author does, some more successfully than others, why put in evil or irritants? Yes, I know the necessities of plot developments and tension and all the stuff that makes fiction worth reading require a struggle of good-vs-evil or some sort of adversity, but it gets to me sometimes... It all boils down to the fact that the only reality to you is what you perceive. If you read and internalize a book world, it is real. But in this case, you can get to God (or at least to his agent). I have no real path to the God (or mindless dance of atoms, or whatever) of this external cosmos to complain and in some way punish Him (or IT, or Them) for creating tooth decay and depression, say, but I can go to author X and blow him(her) away for making my favorite character get killed off. I haven't done it yet, but the fact that its possible makes it easier to reconcile oneself with the book world. After all, the author can revive that character, just as A. C. Doyle brought Holmes back after trying to kill him off. You can't do that here (yet?). Better a universe under control than one that controls you. (But the responsibility is awesome!) Confusedly, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 09:52 PST From: Stewart.PA at PARC-MAXC Subject: Varley notes News item and a comment for Varley fans: I heard yesterday that Voyager 1 will leave the system in the general direction of Ophiuchus. At the end of Titan, the room where Rocky and Gaby meet Gaea (Louis Quinz furniture and lighted floor panels) sounds just like the room at the end of 2001. Wonder what other SF references I missed? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 1980 11:46:33-PST From: Cory.conde at Berkeley While on the subject of paperback book prices, I am noticing that the sudden increase of SF paperback book sections in stores around 1977 has now gone sour at SOME places. Happily, many places have retained thair larger sections, but some places have cut them back below the pre-1977 levels. Perhaps the inundation of the not-so-good-early-books-by-famous-authors did not sell well. How is the availability at other places? I am refering to "general" book stores, and not the SF specialties shops... Dan Conde ------------------------------ Date: 17 DEC 1980 1208-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: book costs and qualities Even if you ignore half of Norman Spinrad's LOCUS column, "Staying Alive", as typical Spinrad flaming, it doesn't seem likely that authors' payments have gone up nearly as fast as the price of books --- and for the average SF author those payments are \still/ a small part of the cost. Even though Niven and Pournelle got a monstrous advance for the paperback rights for LUCIFER'S HAMMER, Niven isn't getting similar $$ for his other work, and most other authors aren't getting within a couple of orders of magnitude what was paid for LH. (Incidentally, Spinrad advises writers to go for a lower advance and a better royalty agreement (technically, most payments to authors before publication are advances against expected royalties rather than flat fees) since this will help the average author survive a fallow period.) Certainly there isn't much money spent on advertising; one of the things Harlan was flaming about at Noreascon was that lack of advertising for LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE and the poor quality of the scripts when radio advertising was done. Similarly, I've seen virtually no advertising for SF (outside of panels for the stuff that got monstrous advances (e.g., THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST)) since a couple of summers ago when there were these awful radio ads for the trade edition of Niven's WHEN THE MAGIC WENT AWAY ("10,000 years ago, the world was facing its first energy crisis. . . .") THE PATCHWORK GIRL only got a share in Ace's "Super October" splash in the Noreascon II Program Book, which cost them (total) around $1400. It is worth while noting, though, that there is a monstrous markup in the book business. MITSFS pays 25% off cover price on \everything/ since we get stuff shipped from a jobber; it's my guess that he pays >40% off and a large chain might pay as much as 60% off for ordering in quantity. The figures are even worse in other branches of publishing: last summer, while I was working on getting out the Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck, I had some discussions with the character who publishes most of the specialty decks done in this country, both directly and through the printer. I should also point out that there have always been publishers and lines known for selling at standard prices books that were very badly assembled. (Lancer, a defunct 1960's house, is most noted for this in the MITSFS, which has an active book-repair [program].) There are also instances of particular runs coming out badly because the high-speed print-and-assemble line hasn't been tweaked properly, and individual lemons even in a good run. My experience with Ace the past few years has been that they are at least up to the average (perhaps better, if the average is as low as some think) in durability of the finished product. Of course, the printing is poor (thanks largely to the terrible paper they use) and the typeface is painful (at least to me -- Zapf Book really isn't suitable for text unless set relatively small in proportion to the page) but those are separate problems. P.S. Speaking of the products of Ace's "Super October", I've just read Marion Zimmer Bradley's SURVEY SHIP and rate it ALP (= "Avoid Like Plague"). It's riddled with factual errors in science and music and with contradictions about the characters, and it's written like a juvenile with an extra-large helping of sex thrown in. Badly constructed, with assorted random events and a "solution" that doesn't solve anything (unless (Ghu forbid!) she intended that this be a series . . .). ------------------------------ Date: 17 DEC 1980 1411-EST From: OAF at MIT-MC (Oded Anoaf Feingold) To Will Martin: I'm confuzzed by your comment regarding paperback prices, namely "don't buy." If I don't buy, how do I get to read? I'm a member of MITSFS, true, but new stuff is hard to get cuz everyone wants it and there aren't infinite copies. Anyway, look at it realistically. Even if you're a student coolie somewhere, $2.50 isn't worth more than 45 minutes of your earning capacity. And presumptively an SF book well chosen will provide you with several multiples of that time in pleasure (or at least distraction so you don't spend MORE money during that time). A sub costs at least $1.50, a movie .... You can make up the difference by forgoing 4 pax of cancers, or by for once making dinner at home rather than going out to eat. The same damn $2.50 is also not out of line considering how long ago paperbacks cost $1.25 or whatever. But rather than worrying that point, note that if you get together with four friends you can each buy a book which everyone reads and it's 50 cents apiece like in the good old days. Maybe the answer is to have friends. Then if you want to perform a mitzvah, send the publisher a letter telling him his books are low quality and as long as he doesn't make them right he'll only have 20% the sales he would otherwise among YOUR army of acquaintances. If he gets a few hundred he might pay attention. But don't hold your breath. I take a back seat to nobody in curmudgeonliness, but this pattern of undirected fulmination against low paperback quality coupled with high prices is gonna get you NOwhere, so why indulge? If people get together they can do something, but they're not going to do it the way it's getting done here. Maybe the answer is to have friends. (As Lech Walesa might have said.) Oded ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 05:12:05-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley How Soon They Forget: I believe "From Earth To Moon" was the first major studio science fiction film ever produced in color. One doesn't see it much any more as by contemporary standards it is fairly dull. Byron C. Howes University of North Carolina Computation Center Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 05:13:41-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley How Soon They Forget (and How Soon I Forget): The first major studio color SF film was "Destination Moon" based on Heinlein's "Rocketship Galileo" directed by Irving Pichel for Universal International in 1950. In 1951, "When Worlds Collide" based on the novel was directed by Rudolph Mare for Paramount. Haskins directed "War of the Worlds" for Paramount in 1953. Byron Howes University of North Carolina Computation Center Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514 ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 1980 0924-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: cryptography I don't know if this is really relevant to sf, but since people are discussing it, I'll throw in my two bits. It's always seemed to me that a basic problem with public-key cryptosystems is not so much that they can be broken but that you don't know who a message is coming from. Your enemies may not know what your friends are telling you, but they can still tell you something else. If you get a message saying "Buy Swizzlestick Industries at 25", it could be a real tip or it could be a plant. You could arrange a sort of code within a code for communication with your friend; something like "if the message contains the word Cthuhlu, you'll know it's from me", but if the bad guys guess that that is what you're doing they can send you a similar but bogus message. One way or another you have to get some information from your friend that you can absolutely identify as being from him, and that ultimately gets you back to mutual-key cryptosystems. ------------------------------ Date: 17 DEC 1980 0826-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Susan I know better than to use my wife's name for my password so I got smart and used my wife's sister's name. Guess what it is. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 19 DEC 1980 0801-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #170 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 19 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 170 Today's Topics: SF Books - Telzey & Fempros & Unpleasant Universes & PB Inflation, SF Movies - Vampire Killers & Flash Gordon & Film Questions, Real Life Computer Capers, TESB - Plot Theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 December 1980 0629-EST (Thursday) From: R.Kamesh Subject: Telzey The story is the "The Telzey Toy" and it is in a collection of the same name. There are about 3-4 stories in the novella. It was the second time I had encountered the lady and it took some time to make the connection. I thought that the first story I had read was much better. I dont recall its name, but it was the story in which she first realized that She Had Powers. There was a large, cat-like creature that was her pet, till she discovers that it is of an intelligent, telepathic species that had chosen her as a candidate for developing a comm-link with humans. Kamesh ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 1980 at 2215-CST From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ TELZEY (AND OTHER FEMPRO'S) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes, the story RMS is asking about is probably THE TELZEY TOY. By the way, when Telzey tales were under discussion some days ago, no one mentioned THE LION GAME. While Telzey (and Trigger Argee) are okay, my favorite Schmitz heroine is Nile Etland of THE DEMON BREED. No psi, but an intriguing water-world ecology, and a smart, level-headed, very competent fempro. Schmitz has consistently led the field since the mid '60's, in having more SF books with female protagonists than any other writer, 5 at present. But if he doesn't have a new one in the works, he's surely going to be matched by Barbara Paul, who has had 4 between 1978 and 1980. (Joanna Russ and Anne McCaffrey have each had 4, also, but over 11-year spans.) Spotting new fempro paperbacks isn't so much of a problem for those put out by the usual publishers, it's the off-beat ones that are hard to come by. Where new Manor books are sold I have no idea -- certainly not in our local SF-oriented emporia, nor in any of the supermarkets I've checked. Yet I've found 2 Manor fempro's in 2nd-hand SF racks, which leaves me worried at what others might have been issued that I've missed. For a collector, it's no consolation that SF from such sources is almost inevitably 3rd rate at best... about like what you'd expect from a vanity press. But, at least I've heard of Manor, but has anyone ever run across Carlyle Books, published by Siena Pub. Corp. in NYC? I just found a perfectly normal looking SF '80 paperback of theirs, THE PEOPLE EXCHANGE by an unknown, Robert F. Baylus. The plot structure is quite similar to Lee Killough's DOPPLEGANGER GAMBIT, i.e., a sort of detective story with the point of view alternating between the villain and the fempro. The most amazing thing is that it's just as good as the Killough! The heroine is reminiscent of Varley's and the future history scenario which features prominently as background is credible. There are 2 sentient automata, a house- hold unit and a central time-shared computer (which is castigated as "bubble brain"), both of which are referred to as "'droids" (complete with apostrophe, reflecting either the influence of STAR WARS, or the supposition that the word will have established itself in the language in that form). If you run across THE PEOPLE EXCHANGE, give it a try. Maybe it just seemed better to me than it is because my expectations were so low. But it struck me as a distinctly competently handled story. .............................. By the way, does anyone know if there has been a sequel to David Gerrold's MOONSTAR ODYSSEY (1977)? There was \going to be/ one, and I seem to recall reading something about its plot, but I've not seen any. Not that I cared for MOONSTAR..., but again, after WHEN HARLIE WAS ONE, my expectations were probably too high..., however, it \was/ a fempro, and its sequel is likely to be, too. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 1980 1412-PST From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: re: nasty fiction Reading Will Martin's complaints about unpleasant events in sf (eg Louis Wu becoming a wirehead in "The Ringworld Engineers") reminded me of an article in Analog some time back. It was written by a founder of a company that would keep you in cryogenic storage until a cure was found for your disease, or the Messiah came or a John Bircher became president or whatever was your heart's desire. He had harsh words for science fiction writers. All this pessimism about the future could only do harm. People are only going to work hard if they think that tomorrow is going to be better than today; progress is fueled by delayed gratification. Stories of doom and gloom are only going to convince people that they better get theirs while the getting's good, thus bringing on the collapse. Besides, who is going to pay him to be frozen if no one believes in the future? He proposed a national campaign for the writing of sunny sf. Me, I say smoke dope if you wanna feel good; that's not what art is about. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 1980 (Friday) 0123-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: How to read without buying -- off the shelf advice: 1- Have you ever heard of a library? I know that some of us pride ourselves on having private versions thereof but the public ones are still with us and at quite reasonable prices (like: free)! 2- Try book swap: Here's the deal; you take them 1 used paperback in at least covered shape and pay about 60 cents (someone's got to pay the rent). You get one "new" used book (or should I say "novel" used book -- just as bad!) ready to read. I don't know about Boston etc, but there is a book swap at 21st and in Philthadelphia that has a top notch SF section. ------------------------------ Date: 18 December 1980 2354-EST (Thursday) From: Lee.Moore at CMU-10A Subject: Vampire film [ film query from SFL V2 #167 ] I would like to put forth "The Fearless Vampire Killers" as the film title requested earlier. It was made in the late sixties by Roman Polanski. It tells the story of vampire hunter staying at a hotel where there (accidently) happens to be a vampire convention. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 11:11 PST From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: SF Lovers - Flash Gordon I saw the new Flash Gordon yesterday. It was pretty good, although it tended (like a lot of remakes these days) to 1980's camp. All in all, I found it entertaining. In this incarnation, Flash is (of course!) a football star. (I don't recall his profession in the original - can anyone help me here?) This fact is made use of later in a rather silly scene in Emperor Ming's palace, but otherwise is rather irrelevant. Max von Sydow does a rather lousy Zarkov, and in fact doesn't seem to play as much of a role as I seem to remember from the original. Animation is pretty good, and the sets were lavish. Lots of pretty women and manly men. (My girlfriend says that the Prince is the cutest. Maybe we should have a poll...) And, finally, the end of the movie presents us with a question mark. Will the movie be successful enough to warrant a sequel? Only time will tell. -- Larry -- ------------------------------ LARKE@MIT-ML 12/17/80 23:54:43 Re: FILM TECHNIQUES, OLD AND NEW. Doug Trumball has indeed been kicking around a new film format for some time. You can call it Super-70 or Showscan (an earlier name). In a addition to using a high taking speed to eliminate residual flicker, it also goes in for widescreen framing to get Cinerama-style peripheral vision in the act. Trumball has had several plans for the format (including, of all things, turing it into a 'ride': everyone enters a little theatreCar and is taken for a 'ride' down some rapids) but has had in particular one filmic idea in mind, which he has been trying to sell for years - a film called 'Brainstorm', which , from the brief description I got from Bruce Dern a year ago, it would seem to be a tale in the Westworld Futureworld vein. In the future sometime there exists a giant 'amusement park', which is essentially a giant computer complex which allows the user to be whatever heShe wants to be for one-half hour. We follow three people who live the machine out. One man wants to be president - and gets assasinated. Another wants to be a CIA agent. He has a heart attack, and Dern tells me ''You will feel it.'' The third person to try out the park ends up living an experience that lets her purchase it... Bruce Dern felt that Paramount wouldn't give Trumball a go-ahead, beacuase those folks with the money wouldn't trust him. But didn't I see an announcement just the other day (but here, dammit?) that announced that some film company was proud to add a new property for filming - Doug Trumball's "Brainstorm". It wasn't Paramount. In other areas...the big innovation in the shooting of SW's effex was not so much the slow shutter speeds (which has been done before) but the motion control camera, which allowed them to make smooth, realistic movements of camera and subjects at those slow speeds. Actually, Close Encounters must hold the record for long exposures - for shots of the Mothership the lens was open for as much as 80 secondsFrame, which means some of the shots took as much as 8 hours to film. Larry ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 1980 13:36:25-PST From: CSVAX.arnold at Berkeley Subject: encryption What is fascinating to me about the NBS encryption standard is the response given by the Federal Gummit to a mathematically clear and provable public encryption algorithm. If their DES is really basically impenetrable, why do they care if someone else comes up with another one? But they do care very much indeed, enough to make noises about legal repercussions for those publishing. Conclusion? The gummit can break DES if they really want to, but they can't break the public key encryption, and it scares them s--tless that people would really be able to say things without them being able to find out what it was. I am not normally a conspiracist, but in this case the actions of NBS and other agencies seems to speak rather loudly. Ken ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1980 04:15:03-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley Subject: NSA vs. the People I am much more convinced that NSA is not monitoring all calls by the feasibility argument than I am by the assertion that "the government has better things to do." We learned too much during Watergate about how nosy some officials are to be sanguine about what they will or will not do. And the Heritage Foundation, in a transition report to Reagan, suggested resuming (expanding?) use of mail intercepts, warrantless wire-taps, and "black-bag jobs". For most people, the question is academic; for some, it most definitely is not. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/19/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. In it KLH amplifies on his suggestion of using something like the "artificial hand in Zelazny's Amber" as a plot device in SW. (see [SFL V2 #150]) People who are not familiar with the Amber series or with TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ KLH@MIT-AI 12/17/80 20:31:19 Re: Hand in Amber/SW I must admit I hadn't thought about the Amber time-loop angle. Not bad. What I actually had in mind when I made that reference was the scene where Benedict is struggling against the enemy and is somehow rendered immobilized and helpless -- except for his mechanical arm, which is unaffected and in fact appears to take action on its own, thus saving the world and so forth. Granted a hand is a pretty small thing, but since it's normally used to hold a light-saber, who knows? It may simply lend Luke the necessary dexterity and responsiveness to slip past a baddie's guard. Or vice versa, if it turns out that Vader can use the Force more easily on plastic than on living blood and bones -- Dr Strangelove I presume? ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 20 DEC 1980 0925-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #171 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Saturday, 20 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 171 Today's Topics: SF Books - Telzey, SF Movies - Horrible SF & Flash Gordon, SF Events - The Sky is Falling (REALLY), Real Life Computer Capers, Spoiler - Pohl's BtBEH & The Jesus Incident ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Dec 1980 1005-PST From: William Gropp The first Telzey story mentioned by R. Kamesh is "Novice" which was reprinted in an Analog collection (I think that it was "Prologue to Analog"). It has recently been reprinted with another Telzey story in "The Universe Against Her". The cat-like creature is a Crest Cat. I too thought the first story was better, though I did not like it as much when I re-read it recently. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 1980 2032-PST From: DHARE at SRI-KL (Dwight Hare) Subject: vampire movie The movie put forth, "The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck" is a GREAT, though relatively unknown movie that came out of Britain in 1967 which was directed and included in the cast Roman Polanski. Unfortunately, the plot of this movie does not meet the description nor did it have a hotel hosting a convention of vampires. What was incorrectly remembered was that after the old professor and his assistant (Roman himself) were imprisoned in the old castle, they attended a once a year ball in which all of the old vampires rose from the castle graveyard to drink some fresh virgin blood (ironically belonging to Sharon Tate, Roman's wife and Manson's victim). I recommend this movie highly, although it requires a certain kind of mood to really enjoy. Dwight ------------------------------ Date: 19 DEC 1980 1105-EST From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: To Reed.ES re Flash Gordon. I saw the movie recently, with friends. I found the acting, the animation and the script appalling. The only redeeming factor involved was the group I was with -- we had a great time, hacking the film as it occured. I will grant that the original serial has, by current standards, poor special effects, but the new version had nothing better -- after what has been done with such films as SW, TESB, and even CEoTK, there is no, repeat, NO, excuse for such lousy special effects -- the winged men for example, fly even worse than in the original -- they look like the winged monkeys from OZ, and I don't believe that was deliberate. Flash's profession in the original serials was "Polo Player" (horses) and he should have stuck with it, "Go, Flash, Go!" Good grief -- Can any self respecting woman of the '80's even picture herself as Dale Arden? And mind you, the essence of good literature, films, etc. must involve the reader/viewer being able to, in some way, identify with the major protagonists (or antagonists for that matter.) -- Enoough flaming at the film -- suffice to say, I was disappointed with Flash Gordon -- (Flesh Gordon was much better, both in humor and in special effects. ------------------------------ DGSHAP@MIT-AI 12/17/80 18:56:15 MIT has an inter-semester activities period (IAP) which boils down to essentially a free month for scientists-at-play. I am offering a course during IAP which I thought members of SF-LOVERS might be interested in. If you are in the Boston area, I exhort (extort?) you to come to the class, if you are not, then maybe with luck I can get you interested in the topic. Any/all help and comments are appreciated. [ All IAP courses are free (tho technically open only to MIT affiliates), and enrollment (in this class) is accomplished by showing up to the first meeting. ] The following is a blurb about the course: ------------------------------------------------------ What REALLY happens when worlds collide? ------------------------------------------------------ The purpose of IAP course #1169b, entitled Creating Worlds or The Sky is Falling (really), is to create a theoretically sound model for a highly unusual planetary environment, which will then become the setting for a new science fiction novel by Dr. Robert L. Forward, the author of Dragon's Egg. The book, which will be entitled "Roche World", involves two planets, Roche and Eau, which are in an extremely tight orbit about one another. (Roche is made of dry rock, while Eau is covered with water.) This orbit is so small that the resulting tidal forces distort the surfaces of the planets into egg shapes which are on the verge of gravitational disruption. Because Roche and Eau follow a highly elliptical path about their sun, the solar tide eventually becomes severe enough to initiate the catastrophe, which begins with a huge interplanetary waterfall. As the planets continue to orbit each other, the orientation of the solar tide changes, forcing the ocean (and atmosphere) to cycle from lobe to lobe. The process stops when the two bodies pass beyond a critical distance from the sun. Since there are two entire worlds to design, there are an enormous number of topics which can be investigated. These include (but are not limited to); the orbital dynamics and geology of the system, the chemistry and behavior of the atmospheres and oceans, the restrictions on the life forms native to the environment, and the visual appearance of the planets from different perspectives. In addition, there are a number of questions which can only be solved with computer modeling techniques. The seminar will meet in the Artificial Intelligence Playroom, on the eighth floor of 545 Technology Square, Mondays and Thursdays from Jan. 5-22, at 3:30 PM. Regular attendance is preferred. ------------------------------------------------------- On Monday, January 12th, Dr. Forward will give a guest lecture to the class. ------------------------------------------------------- If you have any questions, please contact Dan Shapiro, at (617) 253-1728 (or DGSHAP@AI for this crowd). ------------------------------ Date: 15 DEC 1980 1239-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: sexism in language I had half-forgotten that "meretricious" is derived from the Latin word "meretrix", a prostitute, and when I was reminded of this decided to chase it down. The obvious first choice ("mere" meaning something vulgar, since -tor/-ter (fem. -trix) means one who does) was a dead end, except for Merriam-Webster's definition of "meracious" as akin to salacious; Oxford denies this but derives several words from the Latin "mereri", to work for hire --- and of course the only thing a Roman would hire a woman for would be sex. Charming customs, some of these ancient people had. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 1980 1506-EST From: Jeff Shulman Subject: Susan Maybe they all read Asimov's Robot stories? jeff and Steve Z. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/20/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It reviews "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" and "The Jesus Incident". It includes a hint about what happened to the Heechee. People who have not read BtBEH may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 18 December 1980 0629-EST (Thursday) From: R.Kamesh I just spent another (sigh) $5+tax and bought Pohl's Beyond the Blue Horizon, as well as "The Jesus Incident" by Herbert and . Pohl does a good job, but, following the trail blazed by P. J. Farmer, provides phony endings to perfectly good stories. The story is a sequel to Gateway, and explains all about the Heechee who built the Gateway system. The explanation has nothing to do with the story. The Heechee are a deus ex black-hole-ina (I dont know if that makes any sense, but it is pig-Latin for the "god in a black hole"), and they stay there. There is even time-travel, but it stays put too. I enjoyed the main plot. Pohl writes good adventure stories. About "The Jesus Incident". I wish Herbert would stop it. I refer to his characters' periodic blasts of hot air laden with Meaning. The stuff of plots and counter plots. It worked in the Dune Trilogy but was wearing thin towards the end. It worked sometimes in the "Dosadi experiment" too. But in all the rest of his books its a miserable failure. Especially here. The real problem with that kind of approach is that it sets up the reader to accept ANY ending to the story. Anything goes when the major content of the first few conversations in the book consists of "Ahhh. I understand." and references to complex lies. There are some really good sections to the novel. Where Pohl had one god, here there are two (that means it must be twice as good, eh?). Fortunately, one dies, the other leaves, leaving the Son. Lots of excess verbiage (do novel writers really get paid by the word? I thought that was only for short stories in magazines). What can I say - I read it all in one sitting after having returned from a dentist, who worked me over. A lot of the excess is placed for easy skipping like in the old programmed texts. I am going overboard. Its not really all that bad, just not worth 2.50+tax. The Pohl book, maybe. Kamesh ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 21 DEC 1980 1038-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #172 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 21 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 172 Today's Topics: SF Books - PB Inflation, On Writing SF (2 queries), Real Life Computer Capers, TESB - Plot Theories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Dec 1980 1813-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: paperback books (yet again). A few of the stores I frequent still have a decent selection of SF. I think several things killed the big SF boom. The reasons probably include the rash of old bad books by established stars, although I suspect that a bigger factor was the plague of new awful books by newcomers to the writing business, and the new bad books by established authors. Prices probably helped too. Mentioning prices reminds me, could one or more of our "local/resident" professional writers drop SF-L a note on the financial arrangements of writing? I guess that question is directed to Pournelle, Niven, Forward, and Gerrold, I'm not trying to pry into your affairs people, I'm more interested in knowing if payments to authors are in general keeping up with increases in book costs, going down relative to book costs, or what. (It would be nice if someone could explain to me what advances really are, and paperback rights [which I believe are an entirely different thing from advances] are). steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 1980 0220-EST From: RDD at MIT-AI Subject: An extension to Steve's query While on the subject of writing, I would like to ask if anyone has comments on Bova's "Notes to a Science Fiction Writer" or any of the other "How to Write SF" guides by SF people that are sometimes mentioned in the literature. Enjoy, Roger ------------------------------ Date: 21 December 1980 0220-EST From: The Moderator Subject: Digital Signatures in Public Key Cryptosystems In [SFL V2 #169] ICL.Redford at SU-SCORE raised questions about verifying digital signatures in public key cryptosystems. This sparked a number of descriptions of the same published algorithm for handling signatures. I am only distributing 2 of the responses in the digest to avoid needless repetition. The other responses have been collected in the file DUFFEY;SFLVRS CRYPTO on MIT-AI. Anyone interested in reading them may obtain a copy of that file by FTP or by mailing their request to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@MIT-AI. Anyone interested in pursuing a discussion of computer security and personal ID further should note that the HUMAN-NETS mailing list is currently discussing those topics. People interested in joining that list should send forward their request to HUMAN-NETS-REQUEST@MIT-AI. Lastly, our thanks also to ACW at MIT-AI, CSD.BOTHNER at SCORE, David.Lamb at CMU-10A, Eric at Berkeley, Faust at MIT-ML, JGA at MIT-MC, Shrage at WHARTON-10, TAW at SU-AI, and York.Multics at MIT-Multics for their responses on this topic. -- RDD ------------------------------ Date: 18 December 1980 1602-EST (Thursday) From: Paul.Hilfinger at CMU-10A (C410PH01) Subject: Public key cryptography There've been a couple of comments recently on potential problems with public key encryption, specifically on authentication and key distribution. There are published solutions (well, at least partial solutions) to these problems. I'm too lazy to look up the sources, so just bear in mind that none of what follows is original with me. 1. Authentication: Suppose that A wishes to send a message to B, and B wishes to have some assurance that the message is indeed from A (or in general, from whomever the message claims as its sender). One solution is to use a system in which the encryption function commutes with the decryption function, that is where E D = D E = the indentity, where E is the (public) encryption function and D the (secret) decryption function. Now A can send the message EB("... I am from A" || DA("I am from A")) ( EB is B's encryption function, DA is A's decryption function, || is concatenation.) B decrypts this to get "... I am from A" followed by some garbage, call it Q, which is the decryption of the plain text "I am from A". Only A could have produced Q (feasibly, that is). B now computes EA(Q), which is: EA(DA("I am from A")) = "I am from A". Voil'a! 2. Key distribution: Well, public keys are public. One could simply publish everybody's encryption algorithm in a sort of phone book. This, however, has the problem that scoundral S can perhaps get to some copies of the phone book and modify the entry for A to have S's encryption algorithm, with obvious results. So, we can set up a central information agency, call it C, that has a well advertised (and thus hard-to-substitute) encryption algorithm, which also has the property that it commutes with the (secret) decryption algorithm for C. Each client comes to C and gives his encryption algorithm, and C employs some reasonable set of standard authentication procedures to insure the lack of fraud (note that this is an easier problem than broadcasting information far and wide and assuring that it is received everywhere without interference.) Now when B wants to know the encryption algorithm for A, he asks C and C sends him DC("This is the algorithm for A" || algorithm for A). Only C could have generated this message, as only C knows DC. B now applies EC to the message he receives, and again, Voil'a! ( I hope no one has been confused by my use of encryption "algorithm" for "key". A key is just one way of describing an algorithm. ) --Paul Hilfinger ------------------------------ Date: 12/18/80 1423-EDT From: POHLIG at LL Subject: Letter on "cryptography" by ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE The author has obvously missed one of the major benefits of public-key cryptosystems. These systems can be used to provide digital signatures which are unforgeable. Thus, by using the proper protocol, one could verify the originator of a cryptogram which deciphers into a message to buy a certain type of stock. This example is one which is frequently mentioned by Diffie and Hellman. For more information on the subject, see the article by Diffie and Hellman in the March 1979 issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE, titled "Privacy and Authentication: An Introduction to Cryptography." In particular, page 401 contains a discussion on digital signatures. The article also references works by Merkle, Diffie, Hellman and others on the subject of public-key cryptosystems. [ Another reference of interest is Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman's article "On Digital Signatures and Public Key Cryptosystems", published in the Feb 1978 issue of CACM. Thanks to Shrage and JGA for mentioning this paper. -- RDD ] ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/21/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It discusses the "artificial hand in Zelazny's Amber" as a plot device for Star Wars. People who are not familiar with the Amber series or with TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 19 DEC 1980 1105-EST From: GFH at CCA (Gail Hormats) Subject: Re The Hand of Amber, so to speak. While this likely will not apply directly to TESB, it may amuse those people out there who speculate. In Celtic mythology, (which Amber draws heavily on) there was a king who lost a hand (I can't locate the story in my books right now, so names are not included). The rules of the time and place dictated that the King of the country had to be WHOLE, and a person who did not have all his limbs intact could not rule. He had a mechanical hand made for him (by the gods?) which he wore in an attempt to win back, the throne. I cannot remember off hand where he won the throne or was still denied it. If, as I think happened, he won it and was found out and killed, the parallel with Amber is nearly complete (Benedict is not killed, but is also denied his right to rule.) As to how this tale applies to TESB -- I hope Luke gets killed off. He really is a mealy mouthed, holier then thou farm boy. Han and Leia would make a much better ruling couple (Though Han would never sit still long enough to be an Emperor or president or senator or what ever.) He makes a rotton Ceaser. I would like to see some of the center of the empire, court and all, as I believe it is very romanesque (time of the ceasers.) Except for the missing barbarians at the gate...(I guess the rebels are the equivalent.) Enough ramblings for now. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 22 DEC 1980 0529-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #173 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 22 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 173 Today's Topics: Writing SF - Contracts & Writer's Guides, SF Games - Magic, TESB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 DEC 1980 1001-PST From: FORWARD at USC-ECL Subject: Financial arrangements of writing I don't know about the more complicated financial arrangements of well-known authors, but I can say something about a typical first-author contract with a good publishing house. My contract with Ballantine for DRAGON'S EGG pays the following royalties: 10% of the retail price for hardcover copies 8% of the retail price for the first 150,000 paperbacks 10% of the retail price for paperbacks above 150,000 It gets more complicated as we get into trade editions, book clubs, foreign publications, and other rights that Ballantine's staff sells to others. Typically Ballantine keeps 50% of book club license fees (the SF Book Club is paying a royalty of 30 cents or about 5% of their price. I get half of that.), and keeps 25% of foreign rights, which vary widely with country and difficulty of translation. There will be English, German, and Japanese versions of DE. In order to keep beans on the table of the author while he is finishing off the manuscript and waiting the typical year between delivery of MS and publication of book, and an additional year before the sales are counted and the royalty calculated, the publisher makes an estimate of the minimum amount of royalties that can be expected and gives the author a portion of that as an advance payment against the royalties. If the book does well, then the advance is paid off in the first year and from then on the author gets royalty checks. If the book does poorly, it may never sell enough copies to pay off the advance. As an author becomes better known and gets better agents, then the agents keep the foreign and other rights and sell them separately, the percentages rise, the advances become larger, and other clauses dictating print run sizes and advertising budgets start to appear. In answer to Steve Zeve's specific question, since the payment is based on a percentage of the retail selling price, the payments to the authors have been in general keeping up with the increases in book costs. Bob Forward ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 1980 2354-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: how to write sf guides. For what its worth, I have on occasion seen the deCamps' "Science Fiction Handbook, Revised" highly praised as a guide to the business of writing. When I read the book, I found it really was a guide to the business of writing. Not being a writer by trade (or craft or skill) I can't really judge it's value, but it looked very good to me. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 20 December 1980 14:05 est From: JTurner.Coop at MIT-Multics Subject: Back Again Shade and Sweet Water to you all, Just wanted to drop a note to reassure you that Amherst SF is still extant. If anyone is interested in FR(Sounds so much more dignified then D & D, doesn't it?), there are several people up there working on variants including yours truely, and would be happy to pass their modifications on (and take feedback). I am personally working on a basis for magic similar to Niven's but with a renewable source of mana. Drop me a note if you're interested. I can't guarentee response imediately but will drop you a line when I read my mail, which is about once a month. Hackito ergo sum, Wipe out entropy in our lifetime, Fandom is a way of life, James Turner ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 1980 1534-PST (Sunday) From: Lauren at UCLA-ATS (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: TESB I hope that Darth wins in the end. All the other people are not the sort of people I'd really care to know too well. Darth though -- now there's a person with character! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 23 DEC 1980 0708-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #174 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 23 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 174 Today's Topics: SF Books - A Midsummer Tempest & Wizard in Paperback, SF Games - Magic, Shuttle Landing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ACW@MIT-AI 12/22/80 23:13:41 Re: A Midsummer Tempest Has anybody noticed that almost all the dialogue in Anderson's "A Midsummer Tempest" is in loose iambic pentameter? Did he intend the book as a play? There are Shakespeare references all through it, although (so far... I haven't finished the novel) Anderson is careful to avoid mentioning Shakespeare's name. ---Wechsler ------------------------------ Date: 12/22/80 1015-EDT From: THOKAR at LL Subject: Varley's "Wizard" For those people in the Boston area, Varley's "Wizard" is out in paperback. I purchased a copy at The Science Fantasy Bookstore in Harvard Square (18 Eliot St.) on Saturday and am told that Barnes and Noble also have it. The Coop (both MIT and Harvard) did not have it in as of Saturday. Might be on the shelf there today. Enjoy, Greg ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 1980 1122-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Renewable Mana I have yet to see any truly renewable source of energy. most of the so called renewable sources depend input from outside the system being considered. In general they seem to rely on good old Sol. Sol itself seems to be non-renewable, in a few billions of years Sol itself will run down and then where will we be? But anyway back to renewable, Niven supplied a renewable source of Mana, it was through the use of necromancy though. Personally I have no desire to be the source of that renewable supply of mana, but it was there. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 1980 1558-PST From: Richard Pattis Subject: More Shuttle-butt I sent away for some passes to get in to see the space shuttle land. The response was a formletter saying that they have not been printed, but they will forward them to me when available. Rich ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 24 DEC 1980 0845-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #175 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 24 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 175 Today's Topics: SF Books - Xanth Trilogy & A Midsummer Tempest & Yolanda, TESB - Alternities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Dec 1980 1224-PST From: CSD.BOTHNER at SU-SCORE Subject: Anthony trilogy Has anyone read Pier Anthony's trilogy: "The Magic of Xanth" (or reviews of it). (I am asking because it is a January book club selection.) -- Per Bothner ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 1980 1204-PST From: Don Woods Subject: A Midsummer Tempest I've never read "A Midsummer Tempest", though I've often seen it in stores. But judging just from the title, I'd be surprised if it WEREN'T full of Shakespeare references and written in Shakespearean style! I do have one quick question for anyone who's read it: can you tell me whether it directly follows the plot of a particular play (as opposed to being a general Shakespeare imitation), and if so which one (there being two obvious choices based on the title, and they could even be combined into a single plot without too much effort)? -- Don. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 1980 1352 EST From: Steve Lionel via Subject: SF Porn The recent talk about "fempros" (feminine protagonists, I take it) brings back to mind a book I happened across in the SF section of a bookstore some five years ago. Although it was indeed "sci-fi", it really belonged in the "adult literature" section. The book was "Yolanda: The Girl From Erosphere", a medium-core porn novel with an SF plot. As best as I can remember, Yolanda was a "sexologist" who, with another female and two males, were sent on a rocket journey to be the emissaries representing Earth to a newly-discovered alien race who communicated via sex, or something like that. As in most porn books, most imaginable sexual situations, and some unimaginable ones, are explicitly documented. At the end of the book, the crew, along with two of the aliens, gets captured by some different aliens, who aren't nice at all. The new folks force various indignities on Yolanda and her friends. The book ends in the middle of this, with a promise of a sequel. I never saw the sequel. I found "Yolanda" rather humorous, much like Flesh Gordon. The "sci-fi" was of the 1940s vintage, and was fairly well done, considering. I don't recall the author's name except that it was French, although undoubtedly a pseudonym for some hack in Los Angeles. If you liked Flesh Gordon, you'll probably like "Yolanda", if you ever run across it. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/24/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It makes a suggestion regarding Vader's origins. People who are not familiar with TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 1980 1941 EST From: Bill Todd via Subj: SFL comments on Vader... The obvious explanation of Vader's strange appearance is that he is, in reality, an Orc. Subsequent episodes in the SW saga will doubtless capitalize on the spreading D & D mania... - Bill ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 25 DEC 1980 0649-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #176 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 25 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 176 Today's Topics: SF Books - Bored of the Rings & Xanth Trilogy, Future - Lazy Lawns & Telephone Numbers & Tea, SF Games - Magic, Spoiler - A Midsummer Tempest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Dec 1980 1146-PST From: Alan at LBL-Unix (Alan B. Char (CC)) Subject: Bored of the Rings I just finished reading the book, which was pretty funny, and I noticed a couple of lines: "a plover's egg the size of an emerald" and "an occasional spelunker". Is this related to the game "adventure" in any way, or are this just a case of great minds, etc.? Who first thought of comparing emeralds to plover's eggs, anyway? Also, on the subject of THE MAGIC OF XANTH, I'll take this opportunity to yet again suggest that everyone go out and read it. It's hilarious! Good fantasy, lots of character and charm, great storylines, and most of all: a plentitude of puns. It's great fun to read. It's been reviewed a couple times in SF-L, and none of them have been bad reviews. I haven't seen any "public" reviews, except the ones on the book cover, and those were good, naturally. The titles are: A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON, THE SOURCE OF MAGIC, and CASTLE ROOGNA. They are also available in paperback for people who aren't in the bookclub. --Alan ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 (Wednesday) 1026-PST From: DWS at LLL-MFE Subject: Anthony's Xanth trilogy [ See SFL V2 #152 ] The trilogy is Anthony's excuse to use every pun and play on words that he's ever heard. I wouldn't try approaching it as a "serious" fantasy work, but it makes a welcome break from such readings. The plot(s) are fairly simplistic, but the settings and characters are very well done. The setting is the kingdom of Xanth, where each being possesses one magical talent. Xanth is rich with Centaurs, Harpies, Dragons, (all intellegent with suitable personalities), and such nasties as nickelpedes (like centipedes, but slightly larger). Such problems as "where do you hold on to a female centaur when riding" are posed. Some of the humour tends towards the bawdy, but never gets out of hand. The trilogy is also \full/ of ammo for D&D types. Happy Solstice. -- Dave Smith ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 1344-EST From: Steven J. Zeve Subject: Xanth trilogy Xanth is on a par with most of Anthony's work. It isn't as strange as some (like the Kirlian (spelling?) trilogy, or the Tarot trilogy). If you like bad puns you will probably enjoy the books, I did feel that the third book was pushing the matter a bit. For what the SF book club gets for hard covers, it is hard to wrong with their offerings. Buy it, you might like it. steve z. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 (Wednesday) 2016-EDT From: PLATTS at WHARTON-10 (Steve Platt) Subject: Xanth review Xanth -- I read all three a few years back. If you enjoy books that are as much a plot (weak) as a collection of silly puns, you'll enjoy these. I liked the first, but they began to drag by the third. Anthony has done better punning/writing, "Prostho Plus" for example. --Steve ------------------------------ Date: 24 December 1980 14:58 est From: Sibert at MIT-Multics (W. Olin Sibert) Subject: The Magic of Xanth Sender: Sibert.Multics at MIT-Multics I recently read the first book of the trilogy, A Spell for Chamaeleon, and, though I found it a bit heavy-handed in spots, overall, I liked it. For what it's worth, I liked it enough that I plan to purchase the set. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 1547-PST From: Daul at OFFICE Subject: ODDS AND ENDS FROM THE FEBRUARY ISSUE OF NEXT MAGAZINE Lazy Lawns. The 3M Corp. of St. Paul, Minnesota, has developed EMBARK, a product that is sprayed on grass in the spring, slowing down its growth so much that you can mow your lawn as infrequently as twice a year. (now only available to commercial users, such as golf-course caretakers) A phone number for life. The number, says Susan Aames of Pacific Telephone, would accompany you wherever you moved, much like your Social Security number. Contraceptive tea. Biochemist and Chinese herbalist Y. C. Kong of Chinese University in Hong Kong believes he has found an herb that, when brewed and drunk as a tea the morning after, wards off pregnancy. His research on the herb is funded by a $300,000 grant from the World Health Organization. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 (Wednesday) 2016-EDT From: PLATTS at WHARTON-10 (Steve Platt) Subject: Renewable mana ...concerning a renewable source of mana... it seems possible, that like energy, mana is neither created nor destroyed. Rather, it is moved from one place to another via magic. So it would *not* be possible for all the mana to disappear. It *would* be possible for a region to be temporarily drained of it. Consider a mage as a "packager of mana". He is capable of manipulating and controlling it, but cannot create nor destroy it. If he (or she, for that matter) were to build a flying castle, he would do it by "constructing" an anti-gravity field out of mana. This would have the affect of draining the locale of mana, and packaging it in some rocks. If the castle were moved, so would the mana. And of course, when his packaging spell wore off or was cancel|ed (by the magu's death?), the mana would be released into the *current* environment.... entropy also comes into question, as mana sources would tend to leak into mana sinks. ...or perhaps mana is converted into another substance, and merely awaits the learning of mages as to how to convert it back? But this sounds like the old energy-matter equasions coming back...) ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/25/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It reviews Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest and explains the nature of its Shakespearean references with a spoiler. People who are not familiar with this novel may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 0812-PST From: URBAN at RAND-AI Subject: Midsummer Tempest (with spoiler) The nature of the Shakespearean references in Midsummer Tempest, aside from the literary imitation (much of the dialogue scans, key scenes end with the dialogue in rhymed couplets, and Shakespeare- like puns abound) lies in the fact that it takes place in a parallel world in which W. Shakespeare wrote all the same plays...as factual histories. Thus, since clocks strike in Roman times (Julius Caesar) technology must be somewhat ahead of our world, and so on. The revelation takes place in an inn, the Old Phoenix if I remember, in which the hero meets the main characters from "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and "Operation Chaos". There are other interesting types visiting the inn, too, but I won't spoil it for you. Mike ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 26 DEC 1980 0600-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-ML (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #177 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 26 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 177 Today's Topics: SF Games - Magic, TESB - Alternities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PCR@MIT-MC 12/25/80 23:05:55 Re: mana... If we want to look at mana usage as converting one form of energy to another, then when a mage uses mana for a spell, the most likely end result is heat, just like now. If that would be the case, than trying to restore the mana would be like trying to un-burn coal. ...phil ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/26/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It makes another suggestion regarding Vader's origins. People who are not familiar with TESB may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 1980 1030 EST From: Steve Lionel via Subject: Will the real "Luke's Father" please stand up? The long-standing (since May, anyway) furor about "Is Darth Vader Luke's father?" bears a remarkable similarity to a recently-answered question that tantalized millions around the world. I am referring, of course, to the musical question "Who shot J.R.?". It occurs to me that this may not be entirely a coincidence and that there is a case to be made for saying that Darth Vader started out life as J.R. Ewing and that Luke is the illegitimate son of J.R. and Kristin. Consider these items: J.R. is mean and evil, and happily destroys anything or anyone who gets in his way. It's only a small step from being "king of oil" to ruling the Galaxy. Darth Vader's current condition could have been caused by an explosion at an oil well J.R. was visiting. One of the proposed time-warps could have transported J.R. to that galaxy "a long time ago and far, far away". DV's helmet is merely another form of 10-gallon hat. Luke's being illegitimate would certainly bother his "uncle". Can anyone come up with more evidence? I must admit that I have only seen two episodes of "Dallas", so I may not have all the facts. I also can't see why this mania about J.R. was so important to people when questions of real importance were being ignored, such as "Would Jessica live?". Steve ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 28 DEC 1980 0825-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #178 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 28 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 178 Today's Topics: SF Movies - Scanners, SF Books - Xanth Trilogy & Master of the 5 Magics & Yolanda & Unpleasant Universes, Humor - Gifts for all Seasons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Dec 1980 (Saturday) 1537-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: A query about the film "Scanners": I had the inopportunity to see the trailer for a new SF-thriller called 'Scanners' last evening. Extremely bloody. In any case, does anyone know what this is about? The billing reads 'Their thoughts can kill!' Is there any connection between these scanners and the scanners from (is it?) Niven? They had the power to use their minds like guns. I don't really recall where the scanner term was used but Niven comes to mind (pun). ------------------------------ Date: 26 DEC 1980 1501-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Anthony's Xanth trilogy is a tolerable piece, if you don't mind lots of second-rate puns and an overflow of magic that can only be described as "silly". The closest thing to it is one of L. Frank Baum's lesser-known works, THE MAGICAL MONARCH OF MO. The chief difference is that the Baum is a group of short stories while the Anthony is 3 full- length adventure novels. The first and third of these are reasonable --- certainly as good as his PROSTHO PLUS, namely mild entertainment with an acceptable moral added subtly; the second gets rather wordy in describing the source and causes of magic and digs a horrendous logical pit in doing so. I would be half-inclined to encourage purchasing the paperbacks, which are now available as a boxed set, unless the book club version is significantly cheaper, since the author gets more and the paper- backs will last about as long (SFBC editions are made absolutely abominably nowadays). ------------------------------ Date: 26 December 1980 23:05 est From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Master of the Five Magics Master of the Five Magics, by Lyndon Hardy. Ballantine Del Rey Fantasy paperback Oct 80. $2.25 ISBN 0-345-27635-3 This book was mentioned in an earlier SFL, so I read it. It was touted as "one of the most logical detailing of the laws of magic ever to appear", so I bought it. Save your money, and buy Ursual K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy. The story concerns one Alodar, who, in quest of regaining his noble title, learns the fundamental principles of all five schools of magic (thaumaturgy, alchemy, magic, sorcery, and wizardry). This gives him an advantage over those who Master only one school, since he can use his powers in one school to more easily work the spells of another. All the laws are expounded on the title page, one or two maxims per school. Most of the laws are familiar to us, and none are expounded in novel or unexpected ways. Meanwhile, the plot is your basic young-man-gains-power- defeats-demons-withs-lady. Ho hum. ------------------------------ Date: 26 DEC 1980 1509-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Yolanda Book two does indeed exist; the MITSFS copy may even have arrived through normal channels, since our resident expert (the world's greatest expert in SF porn) refuses to call it SF porn or make a special search for it since it doesn't come from a sleazy publisher. The author is called Dominique Verseau (don't recall if a translator is mentioned); the second book is YOLANDA: SLAVES OF SPACE. The book does indeed get its characters into a variety of mildly sadistic positions (sorry); I didn't find it either funny or particularly erotic, which put it a half-step down from the first book (which occasionally succeeded in being arousing). ------------------------------ Date: 26 DEC 1980 1532-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: grungy universes "If an author is going to go into all the trouble of creating a universe, which every author does, some more successfully than others, why put in evil or irritants?" The obvious answer to this is that very few people will find such a universe believable --- and believability is the primary requirement of a constructed universe. I know that \I/ wouldn't believe in such a universe outside of a children's fantasy; that's one of the reasons I disliked THE PROBABILITY BROACH (see recent discussions) --- the author just assumed that everything would work out for the very best over 200 years of history. Certainly the failings of a universe help drive the plot. Consider Heinlein's description of how he writes a story: "I put interesting characters into serious difficulties, and by the time I can hear them talking the story is done." (quote >20 years old). I'll further point out that if matters hadn't gone downhill from first book to sequel neither WIZARD nor RINGWORLD ENGINEERS could be anything more than \another/ travelogue --- and I'd rather travel myself than read somebody else's rehashing of the same territory, however imaginary. If a character is not in some tight place, hir choices can be no more significant than the choice of orange or grapefruit juice for breakfast; it's only when penalties are attached to all possible choices that the situation is interesting. (David Gerrold described this in his book on what was right and wrong with STAR TREK, saying that the best episodes [with the possible exception of the two comedies] could be summarized as "Captain Kirk has to make a choice between -- Earth's history and the woman he loves ..." (can't remember the other examples offhand).) One of the reasons I flatly state that A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS is Poul Anderson's greatest book is the kind and degree of conflict that Flandry faces: there are no longer obvious right choices, or problems that can be gotten through with mere dash and ingenuity. (This is also the reason I downrate his latest, A STONE IN HEAVEN; the writing is acceptable but Flandry has neither dash nor choices.) Unfortunately, I would guess that a majority of fans agree with you; I was appalled at seeing the Hugo given to THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE, which is undoubtedly the best SF novel of 1954, when the technocrat was supreme in SF. Clarke has had at least some sense of social context (witness the lead's argument and final decision to oppose his own position and support a halt to killing whales in THE DEEP RANGE), which is the only reason his work is still readable today, but I would have put even ON WINGS OF SONG, badly constructed as SF as it is, ahead of TFoP. This would no doubt annoy Poul Anderson, who in an disgusting breach of his usual courtesy casually declared (in the foreword to NEBULA AWARD STORIES 4) that straight SF adventure, preferably universe-spanning, was far more interesting than the problems of a "sniveling faggot" (sic); I suspect that Sir Bela of Eastmarch (Anderson's alter ego in the Society for Creative Anachronism) would apply that term to many of us bookworm types regardless of its literal truth or falsehood. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 1980 2204-PST From: Daul at OFFICE Subject: Gifts for all seasons Item #98666 CONTINENTAL DRIFTWARE A completely matched set of tectonic plates. Serves 12. Item #59862 GIANT BIRD FEEDER Ust before the major automobile company that designed these high impact tubes went out of business, we bought the entire remaining stock: 5,000 of these 20-foot beauties, then we drilled openings at 4-foot intervals. Now we offer them to bird lovers who have always wished they could feed the Giant Birds, but until now had no way to attract Golden Eagles, California Condors and Large Albatrosses. Just fill up your Giant Bird Feeder with our special formula (3 parts seed to 2 parts dessicated fish bone) and watch those rare birds flock to your feeder miles away! Isn't it assuring to know you can help keep one of the endagered species alive? (Caution: feeder should be placed at least 40 feet from house.) Item #74936 VOICE OPERATED DOORMAT Plush doormat, available in wide range of colors, ask "Friend or Foe" when stepped on. If password is not quickly given, electrocutes unwanted visitor. Item #551 A SOLAR ECLIPSE Please specify duration and type (full or partial) of eclipse desired. Prices vary according to season and latitude. Write for details. (NASA approved) (From CARRION HOUSE'S World of Gifts) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 29 DEC 1980 0641-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #179 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Monday, 29 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 179 Today's Topics: SF TV - Dr. Who on in CA, SF Books - Unpleasant Universes, SF Movies - Popeye, SF Games - Magic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Dec 1980 17:46:27-PST From: Cory.kalash at Berkeley Subject: Dr. Who will be shown Dr. Who will be shown in the San Francisco Bay Area on our public broadcasting station KQED (channel 9) starting on Jan. 7 (wed) at 8:00. I understand that it is the current Dr., but I am not sure. Joe Kalash ------------------------------ Date: 28 DEC 1980 1414-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: grungy universes revisited The choices, correctly quoted from David Gerrold's THE WORLD OF STAR TREK (copyright 1973) p. 235, are: "...saving the woman he loves or allowing the past to be changed. "...risking his ship or saving Spock's life. "...being a diplomat or being a soldier." He credits most of the argument of this section to Gene Roddenberry, whom he quotes on p. 220: "\Every/ story starts with a need. A need for something to happen or something not to happen. That need must be closely and deeply associated with the main character. Perhaps he needs a thousand dollars to pay off a gambling debt to keep the mob from killing him. Or perhaps he needs \not/ to have himself placed in the electric chair tonight at 12:01 A.M. and the switch pulled which will execute him for a murder he never committed. Whatever need you propound for the character in your story, it is absolutely necessary that that need get more and more pressing, also more and more difficult fo fulfill, as the story progresses. In a good story, you finally get the reader or viewer clawing at the pages or the screen in his anxiety to get fulfillment since he has become the hero and fells all the jeopardy, frustration and agony which is building and building toward the story climax. When the need is resolved in the story climax, the reader or viewer feels fulfillment." Certainly this is an excessive statement, but the frame of an important idea is there and applicable in even the apparently most cerebral work. Why does Shevek [in THE DISPOSSESSED] leave his home for the world his ancestors were political refugees from? Because he \needs/ to get away from political restraints so ritually egalitarian that they interfere with dedicated research! And so on. . . . (Incidentally, Gerrold's book is, in its own way, fairly penetrating in the few sections where he starts analyzing the good and the bad about STAR TREK. He also offers a sample universal 3rd-season plot, "Green Priestesses of the Cosmic Computer", which I swear would have been better than what they ended up using for STAR TREK: THE MOTIONLESS PICTURE.) ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 1980 1126-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: grungy people and grungy universes As for me, conflict of all kinds is a most important part of what I look for in a story. This certainly includes good (or even just "passable") vs evil, so I agree with Chip to that extent. But denigrating FOUNTAINS because it was a classic "engineer vs problem" story seems to show an awfully limited set of preferences. There certainly is conflict in the "engineer vs problem" story; it's just not "person vs person" conflict. The real world (being neither evil nor good) can interfere with the best laid plans, and this conflict, and its resolution, can fascinate me for hours. Similarly, social systems pose conflicts, and stories than have people going up against those systems pose conflicts that are not necessarily "good vs evil," but rather personal values vs values that are alleged to be supra-personal. I can understand the feeling that a society that does not create those conflicts must be, in some sense, artificial. That same feeling must exist for the kid who never lived outside the South Bronx who is shown a book that takes place in Scarsdale. The kinds of problems that exist in Scarsdale are both unbeliev- able and uninteresting to the kid from the other environment. This, however, does not make that environment and those problems really unreal or universally uninteresting. Somehow, the slum kid has got to be shown that there are other worlds, before that kid can deal with the problems of those worlds. That's the way comments that belittle stories with "societies that work" strike me. SF lets us look beyond the problems of our wretched little societies to see that societies portrayed in books like the Probability Broach are potentially real and interesting. And that's a major reason why I read SF. Mike ------------------------------ Date: 26 December 1980 21:14 est From: JRDavis.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Star Wars and Popeye I have recently seen the new movie Popeye and it, too, has similar- ities to the Star Wars Saga. In this movie Popeye (Robin "Mork" Williams) searches for his father (Ray Walston - from "My Favorite Martian") while battling Bluto. Bluto, like Darth, possesses fantastic strength, and has noisy breathing (he snorts and snarls a lot). Popeye, like Luke, suffers because of his disobedience. Eventually the father and son combo defeat Bluto, but he escapes, possibly for a sequel. Perhaps the most significant difference is that Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall) is almost completely helpless, a marked difference from Princess L. The two main characters do a fine job of acting the way the cartoon figures do. Likewisee, the set looks like a cartoon set made of real-world stuff, without looking like a cartoon. The film suffers from the presence of many inane, cloying songs, all by Harry Nillson. The plot seems weak to me, but it does give the characters room to act like the comic figures. It could have been worse. One minor irritant: there are numerous joking references to the names of the characters. This seems to violate some concept of comedy naming - Popeye and Olive Oyl are deliberately given funny names (in the comic) for our (reader's amusement) and the char- acters in the comic world don't notice. Two additional points: the movie opens with a self referential Popeye quote. I'm sorry they didn't incorporate the "Jeep" into the movie. ------------------------------ Date: 26 December 1980 1216-EST (Friday) From: R.Kamesh Subject: Mana Most descriptions of mana that I see in fantasy give it both energy-like (conservation, flow, radiation, etc.) properties and entropy-like (order) properties. One possible model would be to say that mana is to entropy as entropy is to energy. That is, just as you can use free energy to perform work and induce order into a system, you can use `free order' to perform work and induce mana into a system. So you can transfer mana from one place to another while transferring entropy between two other places. This would account for places where magic does not work. Its not that they lack mana, but that they lack sources of disentropy. From this picture certain laws follow: no magic in an isentropic universe; both death and life use up mana; mana can only decrease, even in open systems. There is one possible physical interpretation: mana is the fundamental source of time flow (not the same as chronons). Magic works by speeding up local time. Places that lack mana are dead because they have reached the state that the rest of the universe will reach in the far future. Entering a mana-poor region can be a death-causing experience as time flows slower and slower. Magicians who use mana are reducing the ability of a region to last out to the end of its natural life. If they do not find some way of getting mana from elsewhere, a magician lives a short life and kills everybody else around him as well. Since mana is necessary to die, a few of these people will not die. They become mana-vampires that seek death by draining enough mana from other creatures. However, they have so deeply drained their mana reserves, and obtaining mana by drinking blood is so wasteful of mana that thet never ever get enough to die, but just to sleep for a few hours or nights! When a large enough region is completely drained of mana, it behaves like a black hole - no energy can get out, nor can you determine the entropy of the system, and time is extremely retarded. Relativistic time-dilation is a mana-sic phenomenon. At the speed of light, system uses up no mana at all; at FTL speeds it generates mana, but along an imaginary axis. Imaginary mana can only be used for dreaming. Dreams are caused by local accumulations of imaginary mana that must be drained. Magical illusions similarly use up imaginary mana. One of the side-effects of the performance of illusions is that people stop dreaming for a few days. Note that imaginary mana can be generated by tachyons and other particles while real mana cannot be. This argues that the world is becoming more of an illusion day be day, and could well be why Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast" had to end the way it did. You can recognize an illusionist by the fact that he is a nervous wreck. He hasn't dreamt in ages and his sleep has been dreamless. The result is that he is full of problems that normal beings deal with during dreams. The same is true of story-tellers and other liars. They drain imaginary mana. SF and fantasy writers in particular are walking drains. One of the reasons why artists like to congregate in particular places is because for unknown reasons a lot of imaginary mana is generated there. Let me stop here for now. I thought about this some time ago and was really taken with the idea of imaginary mana and black holes. Kamesh ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  0,unseen,, *** EOOH *** Date: 30 DEC 1980 0657-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #180 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Tuesday, 30 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 180 Today's Topics: SF Books - Unpleasant Universes & Future History & Bored of the Rings, SF Radio - HGttG, What Happens at a Con? - Galacticon, SF Movies - Film Questions, SF Games - Magic, A Midsummer Tempest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 DEC 1980 1232-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: the grungies? You miss my point about THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE; the "engineer vs. problem" story is so limited a form (like the classic ghost story, or the Lovecraftian horror story) that preferring it above the wide variety offered by the other nominees is what shows "an awfully limited set of preferences". That's why I specifically said tFoP was the best SF novel of 1954; before and immediately after that time, that particular form was done to death. Since then, SF has immensely broadened its horizons; engineering problems, though no smaller (have you seen (in the latest NEXT) the plan to put a huge island off New York City near the edge of the continental shelf?), are either soluble or not, while human problems offer a huge array of possibilities (note how in tFoP the one human problem (persuading the monks to allow the project to begin) is solved by an engineering trick (causing a storm that makes an ancient prophecy happen)). I like your South Bronx/Scarsdale comparison; its fulfillment is one of the strong points of C. J. Cherryh's work ---- the demonstration of the reality and importance of alien problems confronting alien beings. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 1980 1057-PST From: WMartin at OFFICE Subject: future histories Hi! I don't know if anybody remembers this, but, back a few months or so, we had a discussion of various authors' future histories and a suggestion of establishing a database to contain the correct chronological sequence of books and stories which are all related in some way to a coherent (or at lest intended to be somewhat coherent) future universe or world. Apropos of that, I just happened to run across just such a chrononlogy, relating story titles (and citing publisher) to the intended year (or century) when it was (will be) placed. This one is in the opening of "The Earth Book of Stormgate", a Poul Anderson book containing some of the Polesotechnic League stories. It ties the Flandry stories in with these (the Polesotechnic ones preceed the Flandry ones by a few millennia). I was reminded of this by the recent reference to a Flandry story here. Though the introduction to this list explicitly states that this is NOT by Anderson himself and that he has not bound himself in any way to adhere to it, it still is interesting. Heinlein did the same kind of thing some years back; I wish all authors would do this. (Good Grief! Could you just imagine Asimov's?!?!) A last note. How is Poul Anderson's first name pronounced? Is it "pawl", "powell", "pool", or "pole" (or something else)? Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 28 DEC 1980 1420-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: BORED OF THE RINGS To the best of my knowledge, this book antedates the invention of D&D (identified as 1974 by the latest DISCOVER) by several years; I think it comes from that same manic period (in the life of the Harvard Lampoon, which produced BotR) that produced several remarkable magazine parodies and the loonies who went on to establish the National Lampoon. I suspect that the comparison of precious stones to bird eggs dates back well into the time when jewels were simply made into smooth polished lumps rather than being faceted --- try NNNN B.C. ------------------------------ RVS@MIT-AI 12/28/80 04:03:30 Re: HGttG and Galacticon I happen to have a set of tapes of the first season of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Each season seems to consist of six episodes, each approximately 25 minutes long. There was also a 'bridge' episode of about the same length. I got these tapes from a friend, and the audio quality is VERY good (stereo, not mono!), and if anyone in the area (I live on campus at Caltech) would like to listen to them, give me a call. I will probably be getting the second season tapes in a couple of months. News of Galacticon's cancellation, incidentally, did not even reach the bride and groom (yes, there was going to be a real science fiction wedding at the con) until the night before the first day of the con. Most people that arrived at the Bonaventure for the con went to Anaheim for Loscon. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1980 0902 From: Larry Jones via Subject: Film digitization I am far from an expert in the field but I have seen some examples of digital type pictures (i.e. Viking, Voyager and magazine preparation) and I believe that a minimum would be around 1 million pixels per frame per color and at least four bits per pixel for gray scale. This works out to be 12 x 10^6 bits per color frame. At 24 frames per second this would be a transfer rate of 288 x 10^6 bits per second. Current memory transfer rates for medium scale computers are around 32 x 10^6 bits per second. Magnetic tape storage technics fall even farther from the required transfer rate. It would take a very expensive computer system to be able to handle digital images at the required speed. --Larry Jones ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 1980 1437-PST From: Mike Leavitt Subject: entropy and mana If entropic is the adjectival form of entropy, doesn't that make manic the appropriate adjective for mana? Mike ------------------------------ Date: 26 DEC 1980 1506-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST The use of iambic pentameter is just as Shakespeare used it, namely in the speech of upper-class characters in upper-class situations. In the Old Phoenix, or when he's talking with Will, there is no meter. Anderson also ends many of the chapters as Shakespeare ended scenes, with a rhymed couplet. As I said in a review for the Tech almost 6 years ago, the book struck me as a gimmick that didn't quite come off, particularly since the forced use of iambic got on the way of Anderson's own skill with wordspinning. ------------------------------ DUFFEY@MIT-AI 12/29/80 00:00:00 Re: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following message is the last message in this digest. It comments on the nature of the Shakespeare references in Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest. People who are not familiar with this novel may not wish to read any further. ------------------------------ Date: 26 DEC 1980 1452-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST has only glancing references to the two obvious plays; in fact, a point of the book (spoiler?) is that all the plays have \already/ happened --- Shakespeare is a historian rather than an independent playwright. (Bear in mind that this was written just \before/ "docudramas" started becoming popular.) ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************  1,, Date: 31 DEC 1980 0726-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #181 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI *** EOOH *** Date: 31 DEC 1980 0726-EST From: DUFFEY at MIT-AI (Roger D. Duffey, II) Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V2 #181 To: SF-LOVERS at MIT-AI SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 31 Dec 1980 Volume 2 : Issue 181 Today's Topics: SF Books - Bookstore SF Query & The Mysterious Asimov & Dhalgren & Future History & Poul Pronunciation, SF Games - Magic, SF Movies - Scanners & Film Questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Dec 1980 0850-EST From: Peter Kaiser Subject: Help with new SF book section A friend of mine has just been made manager of the SF books section of a large non-chain suburban bookstore. She's not a SF person, and she came to me for help in deciding what current titles she should stock. Naturally I have my prejudices, which I've made known to her, but now I come to SFL with these questions: (1) What current titles should be stocked? (2) How can my friend decide what hardcovers to stock? (3) What titles should be kept in stock? The whole basis of these questions is that the bookstore is a general bookstore. The SF section doesn't exist to service SFanatics (they all come into the city to the better-stocked SF bookstores), but for people who read \some/ SF, or who may have heard of a particular book. Responses directly to me, please, no later than January 9. If anyone is interested in the results of this inquiry, send a stamped, self-addressed net message.... ---Pete ------------------------------ ACW@MIT-AI 12/30/80 07:39:20 Re: Asimov's "Authorised Murder"/"Murder at the ABA" I know this two-titled book is not SF (not very, anyway) but I have just read it, and it is so engaging and amiable a murder mystery that I must recommend it heartily. Of course I can tell you nothing of the plot without being a spoiler, but even people who do not usually read murder mysteries (I am one such) are urged to try it. And please, don't anyone else give away the plot. The spoiler warnings don't help: have YOU ever stopped reading SF-lovers when you reached the spoilers? --- Wechsler ------------------------------ Date: 30 December 1980 18:37 est From: Benson I. Margulies at MIT-Multics Subject: DONT READ THIS IF YOU HATED DHALGREN [ Don't read this message if you did not like Dhalgren. ] If, perchance, you are reading this, and would like to start an informal discussion (no new mailing list on ITS) about all the material Delany worked with, interpretations, etc., send me a line. (Benson I. ) Margulies @ MIT-Multics ------------------------------ Date: 30 DEC 1980 1509-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: uchronologies The ones I've seen for Poul Anderson's universe place Flandry and van Rijn less than a millennium apart, and rationalize this quite well; I haven't seen the table in THE EARTH BOOK OF STORMGATE so can't comment on it. The best description I've seen of the pronunciation of Poul is "halfway between 'pole' and 'powl' ". ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 1980 0941-PST From: Zellich at OFFICE-3 (Rich Zellich) Subject: Poul Anderson pronunciation According to Asimov, "There is a secret to the pronunciation of Poul Anderson's first name that only Scandinavians know." ... "I distinctly heard the pronunciation *he* gave it (a delicate perversion of the vowel which must be heard to be believed) but all I could come up with was 'Pole.' Poor Poul gave up at last with a smile of forbearance on his face and admitted that everyone said 'Pole.' " ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 1980 11:10 PST From: Pugh.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: Poul Anderson pronunciation Shall we take a POLL? (yuk, yuk!) I've mostly heard "pole" for pronunciation of Anderson's first name. /Eric ------------------------------ Date: 29 DEC 1980 1217-EST From: HITCHCOCK at CCA (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: mana But it's specifically stated in two of the three Niven stories that death (at least violent death) \produces/ mana, and that it is the exhaustion of mana in a particular area which causes magical creatures (i.e., creatures sufficiently strange that their metabolisms require mana to continue functioning) (e.g., centaurs, trolls, dragons, etc.) to die -- or at least to stop functioning (apparently irreversibly, though Niven fudges this; there's a scene in which a magic statue, which was built to protect the city (though it hasn't actually been awake for some time) speaks briefly to Warlock.) ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 1980 14:40 PST From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: The Movie "Scanners" I saw the film about a month ago at a screening by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films, here in LA. The exploding-head trailer is a bit misleading. The film is really a suspense thriller about how a CIA-type agency tries to stop a group of about a dozen people with psi powers. These "scanners" had been created when their mothers took an experimental drug during pregnancy, some 25 years before. The plot continuity was a bit thin, although the producer said there would be some re-editing before general release. Some of the special effects were quite impressive, particularly the bulging veins as two scanners try to kill each other with their psi powers. And there are some cute father-brother-son angles (shades of TESB!). --Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 12/30/80 12:56 PM-EST From: Byron Howes Subject: Scanners I haven't seen header or trailer of "Scanners" (nor would I con- sidering the description). However, the concept of the "scanner" definitely \not/ related to the film, comes from Cordwainer Smith (Dr. F. Linebarger.) You guys make me feel like an S-F antiquarian! ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 1980 1143-PST From: Dave Dyer Subject: movie digitization The resolution mentioned yesterday ( 1 Million pixels, 12 bits per pixel ) is nowhere near the information content of a typical motion picture frame, either spacially or in color resolution. The "original" frames for high-res computer generated pictures is of the order of 10^8 pixels at 24 bits per pixel ( 10,000 x 10,000, 8 bits per color.) Even at this resolution, gigaflops of computation have to be invested to squelch digitization artifacts (such as aliasing, false contours, and rastering). Commercial work for use on TV and film is currently done at much less than this resolution, but not because the lower resolution is satisfactory; rather because it is economically "impossible" to invest more than a few minutes of elapsed time per frame. Consider that if it takes 5 minutes per frame to produce film, it takes 2 hours elapsed time to produce 1 second of film. ------------------------------ Date: 30 DEC 1980 1738-EST From: HEROT at CCA (Christopher Herot) Subject: Film digitization While 1 million pixels would probably be inadequate as a substitute for 70mm theatrical projection, it is certainly within the realm of moderately priced commercial display hardware. Several companies offer display systems in the $50K-$100K range which can refresh a color CRT from a 1024x1024x12 bit (or larger) memory. The required memory speed is achieved through interleaving - word lengths of 128 bits are not uncommon. How you get these pictures into memory in real time is another problem. There you are limited by the transfer rate of your secondary storage device. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************