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Date: 10 Jan 84 1551-EST
From: Saul Jaffe (The Moderator) <SF-Lovers-Request@Rutgers>
Reply-to: SF-LOVERS@RUTGERS
Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V9 #6
To: SF-LOVERS@RUTGERS
SF-LOVERS Digest Tuesday, 10 Jan 1984 Volume 9 : Issue 6
Today's Topics:
Books - Asimov & Dickson (2 msgs) & MacLeish &
Russell (2 msgs) & Matriarchal Societies &
Book Reviews
Films - Computer Images and Tool Makers vs Film Makers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri 6 Jan 84 23:04:48-EST
From: TYG%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Asimov hospitalized
>From the latest Time magazine:
HOSPITALIZED: Isaac Asimov, 63, sci-fi and nonfiction word factory.
Resting comfortable after triple bypass heart surgery.
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jan 84 11:42:31-PST (Thu)
From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!orca!brucec @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: none (story title requested)
>>I'm trying to locate a science fiction story (it appeared in a
>>collection of short stories) that had the following plot elements:
>> 1) Took place in the future
>> 2) The hero was sent out from earth in a single man
>> "spaceship" on a mission of general discovery
>> (The spaceship is in quotes because it was more
>> than a spaceship.. it was an extension of himself).
>> ...
I am certain that the story you describe is by Gordon Dickson, and I
believe that the title is "In the Bone." I think it was written in
the late '60s. It should be available in one of the paperback
collections of Dickson's stories which is currently in print.
Bruce Cohen
UUCP: ...!teklabs!tekecs!brucec
CSNET: tekecs!brucec@tektronix
ARPA: tekecs!brucec.tektronix@rand-relay
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jan 1984 15:36 EST (Sun)
From: "Stephen R. Balzac" <LS.SRB@EE>
I believe the story can be found in Danger, Human! by Gordon
Dickson.
------------------------------
Date: 30 Dec 83 12:37:35-PST (Fri)
From: ihnp4!drutx!druxt!mcq @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Prince Ombra
Just for the record, I had never heard of Roderick MacLeish either,
but one of the critical excerpts on the inside cover tells me that
Mr. Hedrick was either entirely correct, or close; MacLeish
apparently is a commentator on National Public Radio, which may be
operated by PBS for all I know. 'Nuff said?
What I really want to do is put in another recommendation for this
book.
This is one of the better works I've read recently. I think it
qualifies as something special. It reminds me of some of the better
work of Ursula K. LeGuin in that it is VERY finely crafted and
displays the incredible ability to capture the correct mood that I
associate with LeGuin. More than anything else, I am impressed by
MacLeish's intimacy with his characters, and how natural and "right"
he makes them seem.
This book presents the conflict between mythological good and evil
in a way that makes its appearance in an ordinary setting
believable. It manages to use the stuff of old legends to examine
the motivations of very real characters for their actions. There
are very few fantasy novels that can be said to provide the feeling
for the human condition that make them "literature". I find that
when this IS done the result is remarkable, and I include "Prince
Ombra" in this very special class.
For anyone who reads this newsgroup with an eye towards anything
outside "hard core" SF (and I don't mean to knock anyone for only
wanting to occupy their time with writers like Hogan - please, not
one of these fights) READ this one.
Bob McQueer
ihnp4!druxt!mcq
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jan 84 14:16:18 PST (Thursday)
Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest V9 #3
From: Chin.pa@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
"SENTINALS FROM SPACE" was written by Eric Frank Russell. It was
about a future society where mutants abounded because of the
exposure of radiation to spacemen.
I believe the ending revealed that the death of a person caused his
transformation into a higher form of life...
Also, I have read three of Philip E. High's books---specifically,
The Prodigal Sun
No Truce With Terra (?)
Twin Planets
I found them quite good, but cannot seem to find any other books he
may have written.
Phil Chin
Versatec Corp.
2805 Bowers Avenue
Santa Clara, CA 95051
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 6 Jan 1984 11:58:15-PST
From: Len Alanurm <decwrl!rhea!tonto!alanurm@Shasta>
Subject: SENTINALS FROM SPACE
In the most recent issue (of which I just started reading) I saw you
wanted to know who wrote the above book. I believe it was Eric
Russell (I read it 15 years ago, approx, so my memory is quite
fresh).
Incidentally, the majority of the action took place on Venus, not
Mars. There were actually two mutants per planet, with the ones
from Earth visiting Venus where they were "captured". The plot also
included the fact that mutants were acceptable in that culture, e.g.
a mutant could read minds, or start fires, or levitate, or hypnotize
BUT one mutant could only do one thing. A multi-talented mutant was
unknown and theoretically impossible. Hence, when the pairs of
mutants on the individual planets were discovered, they were
interrogated with their eventual demise.
The global plot of the story was that the human body was merely the
larval form of a more powerful non-corporeal being. These beings
from time to time would enter the body of a soon to be dead person
to help guide humanity through the rough spots.
If you find any faults with the above, let me know. I used to
really like that particular story (the male from earth was David and
the one from Venus was Charles).
p.s. I did not send this out to the list in general because being
new I have yet to find out where it actually goes. If you know, let
me know. If you want to forward this so the world knows, feel free!
-Joe
[Moderator's Note: Thanks also to the following people who provided
the same information.
Clark Hallgren (Hallgran.pa@parc-maxc)
Bill Russell (Russell@nyu-cmcl1)
Bruce Cohen (hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!orca!brucec@ucb-vax)]
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jan 84 17:36:09-PST (Sat)
From: decvax!dartvax!betsy @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: Matriarchal societies
A fine book in this vein is _When Voiha Wakes_, by Joy Chant (also
the author of _Red Moon and Black Mountain_). It concerns a society
in which women are the farmers, rulers, and property-owners of
society. Men are craftsmen, supposedly because 'it allows them to
make up for not being able to bear children'.
This is a far subtler book than many role-reversals; it pays due
attention to the logical consequences of a society's beliefs. (For
instance, since men leave their families at an early age to join
craftsmens' guilds, their primary socialization is as guild-members.
Women see themselves as members of families. Both guilds and
families have secrets to which members of the other sex are not
privy. As a result, sex relationships tend to be short and shallow.
What can you discuss with a social alien? For long-term
companionship, people tend to stick to members of their own sex.)
The book is more than a thought-experiment, though; it rotates
around the lives of two people, and we see their society through
their eyes, not through those of an omniscient observer. It's a
romantic novel and a thoughtful one. I recommend it highly.
Betsy Hanes Perry
decvax!dartvax!betsy
P.S. Does ANYONE out there know if/when Joyce Ballou Gregorian
plans to publish a sequel to 'Castledown'? 'The Broken Citadel' and
'Castledown' are supposed to be two parts of a trilogy, but it was
eight years between their publication dates. It's a long time
between books...
-- Betsy Perry decvax!dartvax!betsy
------------------------------
From: duntemann.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Date: 7 Jan 84 18:02:56 EST
Subject: Subject: High & Wolfe
I remember Phillip E. High for one half of an Ace double which I
bought back in 1968 or so. I bought it for the flipside of the
book, Destination Saturn, by David Grinnell & Lin Carter (a wild and
funny screwball adventure) but the High novel turned out to be a
ratlin' good adventure: Invader on My Back. Invaders of Earth have
positioned sea-urchin shaped psi transmitters in orbit to prevent
the folks on Earth from catching onto the plot. Only borderline
telepaths can see the invaders or their hardware, and the invaders
have rigged it so that some kind of heterodyne backwash from their
telepathy causes normal Earthlings to instantly fear and hate them.
Yeah, hokey, but damn, did it move. I don't believe I ever saw
anything else by High on the stands. I think I might t have bought
it if I had.
Gene Wolfe has indeed finished a sequel to the Severian novels. I
spoke with him about it last year, when it was in fact titled "Urth
of the New Sun." I heard that it may in fact be called "Castle of
the Otter" now, for reasons obscure. I do know that it's finished
and in production, but it has not yet been published. All I know
about it is that it contains a character who is an intelligent
spacesuit. I only discovered that (Gene is somewhat closed- mouthed
about works in progress--as he should be) because he heard me
discussing a story I had just completed starring an intelligent
spacesuit. I guess I beat him into print with it ("Borovsky`s
Hollow Woman", OMNI, October 1983) but this may, in fact, be the
year that Everybody Wrote About Intelligent Spacesuits. We'll see.
73,
Jeff Duntemann
DUNTEMANN.WBST@PARC-MAXC
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 6 January 1984, 18:32-PST
From: Reynolds at RAND-UNIX
Subject: computer mangled images
Date: 1 Jan 84 13:40:43-PST (Sun)
From: decvax!linus!utzoo!utcsrgv!mason @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: Holy hologram!
Kevin is quite right, the rasters do not imply computer
generated, merely computer massaged. ... As an example of the
short term future, go to see TRON: the story's a little (a
LITTLE?) weak, but the graphics are great, an innovative
combination of computer generated with computer mangled images
is quite effective.
-- Dave Mason, U. Toronto CSRG
As far as I can remember, there were no images in TRON which were
the result of "computerized image processing". There were some
scenes (and elements of other scenes) which were fully synthetic,
computer generated imagery (this is what I worked on at triple-I:
Solar Sailer, Sark's Carrier, the MCP and his mesa and the Sea of
Simulation). And of course there were scenes which were extensively
reprocessed by photographic techniques (the "look" of the characters
in the Electronic World was all done photographically from the
original principal photography which was done in 65mm B&W). There
were also composites of both techniques (any scene where you saw
both characters and vehicles (eg Tron, Flynn and Yori on the deck of
the Solar Sailer)). These composites were done in a somewhat unique
way: not on an optical printer, but rather right there on the
animation camera during the frame-by-frame rephotography.
-Craig W. Reynolds
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 6 January 1984, 19:03-PST
From: Reynolds at RAND-UNIX
Subject: tool makers vs film makers
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 84 1:19:22 EST
From: Ron Natalie <ron@brl-vgr>
Subject: Re: E&S Vector Graphics in movies?
The E&S Picture Systems (model numbers 1, 2, and 300) are big
vector guys. E&S was used for the simulator display in The
Wrath of Khan (the Kobimishi Maru or what ever). It was also
used to create the opening sequence in TRON. ... These were
both done with their VECTOR equipment. Our E&S salesman had
these and other things on a Brag video tape that he brought out
once. ... -Ron
It is true that the E&S staff (I think it was people from their
planetarium projector division) did do some instrumentaion graphics
for TWOK. However, in general E&S is not in the commercial
production business. Probably anything else done for the movies or
TV with E&S equipment was done by someone else who IS in that
business. Specifically the "Title Sequence" and "Flynn's Ride"
from TRON were done by people at Robert Able & Associates, the
"Death Star Simulation" seen in the pre-attack briefing scene in
RotJ was done on an E&S by the people at Lucasfilm's Computer
Development Group. On the other hand, there is a long established
tradition in Hollywood of getting a hold of someone else's demo reel
and taking credit for the images.
-Craig W. Reynolds
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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