sf-lovers (06/29/82)
>From JPM@Mit-Ai Tue Jun 29 02:18:45 1982
SF-LOVERS Digest Monday, 28 Jun 1982 Volume 5 : Issue 73
Today's Topics:
SF Books - "Shortstack" & Blue Adept & Foundation IV &
Series & John Brunner, SF Movies - Saturday the 14th & Spielberg,
Random Topics - ISIRTA & Genderless Pronouns,
Humor - Genderless Video Games
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Date: 14 Jun 1982 11:47:40-CDT
From: mdpl at uwisc
Subject: Shortstack
This story was by Walt and Leigh Richmond and appeared in the Dec.
1964 issue of Analog. I don't know if it has been anthologized
anywhere.
Mary Palmer Leland
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jun 82 12:03:34-EST (Mon)
From: Bratman.ucf-cs at UDel-Relay
Subject: Blue Adept ** non-spoiler **
Just a word about "Blue Adept" by Piers Anthony. This book
just came out in paperback, and it's terrific. The book is a sequel to
an earlier one called "Split Infinity".
Without giving anything away, the story concerns the
adventures of Stile, a serf on the planet Proton, whose main ambition
is to attain the status of Citizen through a world-wide tournament
known as the Game.
The fun begins when he finds that Proton has a parallel
counterpart named Phaze, which one can travel to simply by finding one
of many entrances on the planet's surface.What possibilities when
Stile discovers that as evolved as Proton is with scientific
technology, Phaze is with magic.
Anyone who enjoys duel sub-plots, and especially anyone who,
like me, knows that Unicorns DO exist, will love these two books.
The only miserable part in "Blue Adept" was finding the number
of pages in my right hand dwindling to nothing, while realizing that
there wasn't enough time for Anthony to tie up all the loose ends.
Yes, obviously there is to be a third book, and it's excruciating to
find out at the end of what you thought was a concluding sequel.
In any event, most who subscribe to sf-lovers will be
intrigued by Anthony's blend of pure S.F. and pure Fantasy into one
book.
Steve Bratman
------------------------------
Date: 23 Jun 1982 1830-PDT
From: Brent Hailpern <CSL.SSO.BTH at SU-SCORE>
Subject: Foundation IV?
After being out of touch with the real (?) world for a couple of
years, I've been getting caught up on SF-LOVERS. I noticed a
reference, a few issues back, to Foundation IV. I've been unable to
locate any new Foundation book by Asimov in the local bookstores. Am
I missing the boat? If not could someone give me a more complete
reference?
Brent Hailpern
(csl.sso.bth@su-score)
(BTH at YKTVMX - IBM Yorktown)
[ Foundation IV is a sequel to the trilogy that Asimov has been
contracted to write. It has not appeared in print yet. -- Jim ]
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jun 1982 05:05:27-PDT
From: decvax!duke!uok!mwm at Berkeley
Subject: State of the Art
A short while back, somebody mentioned that the contest for the hugo
(novel) could well be between "Friday", "Foundation IV", and "2010".
In other words, a pair of sequels to 10+ year old stories, and
something based around equally old characters/universes. This seems
to say BAD things about the state of SF to me.
mike
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1982 1525-EDT
From: Thomas Galloway <Galloway at YALE>
Subject: John Brunner
Going back to the "Does John Brunner exist?" discussion of a few weeks
ago, there is what purports to be a photo of him on p.15 of the July
SFChronicle.
tom
------------------------------
Date: 13 June 1982 22:02-EDT
From: Charles F. Von Rospach <CHUQUI at MIT-AI>
Subject: review: Saturday the 14th
Movie: Saturday the 14th
Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss
(not exactly a new release, but it didn't stay in theaters long
enough to see, and it is now making the pay tv rounds)
Pico Review: Hilariously bad. Another Golden Turkey award winner for
sure!
micro review: This movie is a supposed sendup of all the horror movies
that have already shown up at the theaters. What the writers seem to
have decided to do is take every good, bad, or indifferent monster
movie ever made and write a joke about it. Then they try to figure out
some way to stick that joke in the movie. Some of them work. Most of
them do not. I spent most of the movie laughing hysterically, not
because the movie was funny, but because it was BAD. It did bring back
a lot of memories about some of the really good movies I have seen,
and the movie will probably be much less appreciated by those who
don't stay up until 4AM to see 'Bride of Frankenstein' for the 99th
time.... If you have a favorite monster, keep your eyes open, for it
will be there somewhere.
As a good example of the quality of the film, Val Helsing (from the
'Major Exterminator Company sent out to rid their belfry of bats) says
at one point "Selling the house now would be like closing the barn
door after the horses have eaten your children." If you like that, you
will love this movie.
Rating: If you can get access to it on pay tv, and you don't have to
pay any more to see it, it'll make a good chuckle. If you love
turkeys, or monsters, its worth a bit more.
chuq chuqui@mit-ai
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jun 82 5:33-PDT
From: mclure at SRI-UNIX
Subject: brief Spielberg interview
Star Watch: Steven Spielberg Makes Two More Hits
By FRED YAGER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Last year, director Steven Spielberg was
responsible for the top grossing film of 1981, ''Raiders of the Lost
Ark.''
This year, Spielberg could be responsible for two top-grossing
films, ''ET, The Extra-Terrestrial'' and ''Poltergiest.''
And the two movies, although virtually made at the same time, are
like day and night.
''One's a boy and one's a girl,'' the 34-year-old director said
over a cup of cold borscht during an interview.
'' 'Poltergiest' is a real scary ghost story,'' he said, ''while
'ET' is a love story about friendship.''
In ' ET,' that friendship is between a boy and a creature from
another planet who gets stranded on earth when his spaceship abandons
him.
'' 'ET' means more to me than any movie I ever made,'' Spielberg
said.
''When I was young, my father would move us from one town to the
other every time he found a better job,'' he said. ''I'd be on the
brink of making a best friend and suddenly I'm somewhere else having
to start from scratch. 'ET' is about a friendship that will never be
disrupted.''
''Poltergiest,'' one the other hand, is a horror story about a
typical suburban family being terrorized by a force that exists
somewhere between life and death. For Spielberg, it represents all his
childhood fears.
''All my fears were normal,'' Spielberg says. ''I was afraid of my
closet. Under my bed. Dark shadows. I never got over that.
''It usually takes making a movie to get over a fear for me,'' he
said, ''and it usually costs the studio between $10 and $15 million
before I'm cured.''
If making movies is therapy for Spielberg's phobias, film
companies are lining up to pay for his treatment.
So far, his pictures, which include ''Jaws,'' ''Close Encounters
of the Third Kind'' and ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' have generated
more than $1 billioin box office grosses.
''I love making movies about things I don't know anything about,''
Spielberg says. ''My films are usually about things that you just
can't go out and experience outside of a movie theater.''
''Poltergiest'' developed out of his interest in people who had
life after death experiences.
''Many of them,'' he said, ''report seeing a glorious light that
seems to want them and they seem to want it, but something either
holds them back or rejects them from the light, or something brings
them back to wherever they were when they almost died.
''Some parapsychologists believe that people who die linger before
they're shepherded to higher destinies.''
Spielberg believes that creative ideas roam freely. ''There are
certain people who are good receivers and they can reach up and get an
idea and realize it. There are other people who can't.
''The idea visits them, but they don't have the wherewithal to do
anything about it,'' he says. ''But I think good ideas visit everyone.
I think there's a band of creativity that like air goes through
everyone. It takes with certain people and it doesn't stick with
others.''
Half the battle is separating the good ideas from the bad, he
says.
''When 'ET' first hit me, I threw it off,'' he said. ''I kept
saying 'Go away. I'm into Raiders II. I'm not ready to make my
personal movie about love.' But 'ET' kept bouncing back until I
finally said okay I get the message.''
Spielberg will continue making films, he said. ''I don't want to
stop, or rest on any laurels. The thing that makes you want to stop is
failure. I can't stop now.''
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jun 1982 11:38 EDT
From: Denber.WBST at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: ISIRTA
I've just plowed through a week's backlog of SFL and was disappointed
that no one picked up on John Francis' comments on "I'm Sorry, I'll
Read That Again". It ran here seven years ago on our public radio
station (all of NPR?). It was, if anything, even funnier than Monty
Python. In addition to ferrets, prunes and rhubarb tart featured
prominently each week. The show's theme song was the "Angus Prune
Tune". There were plenty of jokes like "By noon plans were afoot, and
by evening they were eighteen inches."
Typical was their serial "The Curse of the Flying Wombat", one episode
of which started something like:
"As you may remember, our hero Tim Browne-Windsor has set out after
the Green Eye of the Little Yellow Dog, hotly pursued by the evil
Casey O'Sullivan and his henchman Masher Wilkins. [offstage: "Get on
with it!"] No sooner has the mysterious cabin boy Jim-Lad revealed
himself as Tim's mysterious fiancee Fiona Rabbitt-Vacuum than the
Flying Wombat strikes a submerged reef..."
"We're sinking, captain, give us an order!"
"Well, I'll start with the prune cocktail, and then lobster ice cream
and a cherry with a mouse in it."
"After the meal, it was but the work of a moment for the captain to
issue the critical order."
"Full speed ahead - upwards!"
"...A party of men was sent over the side to repair the damage and
soon the reef was good as new."
..."That night, two men rose silently up to the ship."
Casey O'Sullivan: "Ha ha, ha ha."
Masher Wilkins: [dopey Cockney accent] "Yeah yeah boss, this looks
like the shop."
COS: "No no, the ship, Masher, the ship you twit, not the shop."
MW: "Oh, so I needn't have brought along my shopping biscuit."
"No no, your basket, basket."
"Oh, basket, yeah basket, yeah yeah."
"Alright, Masher, do you know what you got to do?"
"Yeah yeah, I'll climb aboard and I'll creep up behind the 'elmsman as
quiet as a house"
"No, a mouse!"
"Mouse, yeah, so 'e does not hear my approach, and then when I am
behind him I beat 'im about the 'ead wi' my luncheon."
"No no no, y' *truncheon*!"
"Yeah yeah, and then I cuddle 'im senseless."
"No no, y' cudgel 'im, cudgel 'im."
"Oh, what a pity."
...Tim Browne-Windsor: "Where are you, Fiona?"
Fiona Rabbit-Vacuum: "Yoo hoo, over here, only don't call me Fiona,
for I must keep my identity a secret."
TBW: "Then why are you wearing a crinoline?"
FRV: "So no one can see my frilly knickers."
First Mate Hatch: "Good morning, Browne-Windsor!"
TBW: "Good day, Hatch, but you look worried, why?"
FMH: "I'm worried about Jim-Lad."
"Why so?"
"Well, have ye looked under his crinoline lately?"
...FMH: "There's trouble down below."
TBW: "Well, have you taken anything for it?"
"No, I mean stowaways."
"Stowaways! But this is serious!"
"Aye, I couldn't think of a joke either."
OK, so it doesn't have anything to do with SF, but at least it's not
another two megabyte review of ST/ET/PG.
- Michel
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jun 1982 at 1537-CDT
From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11
Subject: PERSON-NESS
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ PERSON-NESS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In SF-L vol. 5, #67, Bob Clements claimed--
"'sales-person' discriminates against non-organic
and non-physical sentients"
Not so! In the predominant cultures of four of the continents of
Terra the Deity, "God", is not only considered to be a "person" but
generally even to be \3/ "Persons". God is indubitably "non-organic",
"non-physical", and "sentient".
------------------------------
Date: Monday, 14 June 1982 07:55-PDT
From: KING at KESTREL
Subject: My last Pacpun (maybe)
What do you call that portion of writing a video game program
that calls for extreme attention to detail?
nitPacIng
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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