• MT VOID, 04/15/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 42, Whole Number 2219

    From evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 17 07:36:28 2022
    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    04/15/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 42, Whole Number 2219

    Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
    Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
    Sending Address: evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
    All material is the opinion of the author and is copyrighted by the
    author unless otherwise noted.
    All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for
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    The latest issue is at <http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm>.
    An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at <http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm>.

    Topics:
    Mini Reviews, Part 14 (FOUND; ACASA, MY HOME;
    NO MAN OF GOD) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper
    and Evelyn C. Leeper)
    Nigel Kneale Centenary (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
    BEYOND: OUR FUTURE IN SPACE by Chris Impey (book review
    by Gregory Frederick)
    MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (television review by Dale Skran)
    Fundraisers (letter of comment by Gary McGath)
    Baldness (letter of comment by Paul Dormer)
    This Week's Reading (Hugo Award finalists) (book and
    film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 14 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
    Evelyn C. Leeper)

    Here is the fourteenth batch of mini-reviews, of documentaries and
    biopics:

    FOUND: FOUND is the real-life story of three adopted teenage
    Chinese-American girls who start out independently trying to find
    the families who abandoned them in China. The first thing they
    find is each other, when they use 23andme to begin their searches.
    Although they have very different lives in the United States--in
    fact, one is Jewish, one is Protestant, and one is Catholic--they
    immediately feel a connection and continue their search together,
    although they are not all as eager to find their biological
    parents. If this sounds a little like the 2018 documentary THREE
    IDENTICAL STRANGERS, you're not the only one. (I would think that
    being cousins should be a big clue in helping to narrow down
    possibilities, but that does not seem to enter into it.) Telling
    who or what they find would be a spoiler of sorts, but let me just
    note that the title "Found", could apply to the girls finding their
    biological parents, or to the fact that the girls themselves were
    found when they were abandoned as babies.

    Released theatrically 10/13/21; available on Netflix streaming.
    Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4), or 7/10.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13622146/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/found_2021>

    ACASA, MY HOME: ACASA, MY HOME is a documentary about a family
    which has been living in the Bucharest delta for twenty years, in a
    shack with few modern conveniences. (They do seem to have a
    generator, and cell phones, and they buy some items with money from
    selling fish in Bucharest.) They keep pigs and chickens, but also
    supplement their food with frogs, fish, and other animals. (Eating
    snake is a lot like eating fish but with more bones.) Then the
    government decides to turn the delta into a nature preserve, and
    the two cultures clash when the family must leave the delta and
    live in the city. (Actually, they have clashed before, and the
    children are adept at hiding from family services personnel in the
    high grass that is taller than the children.)

    At times the viewer may question whether scenes has been staged.
    Some scenes (such as a warning telephone call and subsequent
    interactions with family services) seem like they must have been
    staged, especially given how they are edited with apparently
    multiple POVs. This is because the filming covers a very long
    period of time, and these scenes were probably not so much staged
    as pieced together from several incidents.

    We are meant, I think, to sympathize somewhat with the patriarch,
    Gica, although he is not very likable, claiming in fact that he is
    the ruler of his children and can kill them if he wants to. But
    one of his sons says at one point that Gica fathered twenty
    children. Currently, only nine are alive. If this is not also
    hyperbole, then it is clear that this "idyllic" lifestyle is
    incredibly unhealthy and dangerous for his children.

    Released 03/15/21 on various streaming services. Rating: +1 (-4 to
    +4), or 6/10.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11364376/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/acasa_my_home>

    NO MAN OF GOD: NO MAN OF GOD is basically a two-person film with
    Luke Kirby playing Theodore Bundy and Elijah Wood playing FBI
    profiler Bill Hagmaier, and is based on tapes of their interviews.
    (There is also a good performance by Christian Clemenson as Dr.
    James Dobson, who is completely taken in by Bundy's "story" of how
    he became a killer, and then reneges on his promises to Bundy.)
    Ever since Thomas Harris presented the idea that the police go
    after psychopaths by putting themselves inside the minds of the
    psychopaths to think like they do, this concept has shown up in
    fiction frequently. I wonder if this is really true or is an
    invention of Harris. It is true, I believe, that the FBI has a
    department of "profilers", but is it as widespread as we are led
    to believe in the fictional media?

    Released streaming 08/27/21. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4), or 8/10.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13507778/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/no_man_of_god>

    [-mrl/ecl]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Nigel Kneale Centenary (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

    Monday, April 18, is the 100th anniversary of Nigel Kneale's birth.
    Turner Classic Movies apparently doesn't think him worthy of a
    centenary celebration, but you can construct your own. Recommended
    are the "Quatermass" films, of course, but also THE ABOMINABLE
    SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS (1957), FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964), DAMN
    THE DEFIANT! (1962), THE WITCHES (1966), THE WOMAN IN BLACK (1989),
    and the extremely peculiar SHARPE'S GOLD (1995). [-ecl]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: BEYOND: OUR FUTURE IN SPACE by Chris Impey (book review by
    Gregory Frederick)

    This science book is a quick look into the future of humanity as it
    considers space travel and usage of space based materials and
    habitats. But this being a 2015 book made it a bit dated since
    what is happening now in terms of commercial space travel and NASA
    missions has changed from some of his forecasting. But interesting
    points in the book include items like radiation exposure of
    astronauts on a two-year mission to Mars, and physiological body
    changes after long-term weightless space missions. Astronauts on a
    two-year mission would get 200 times greater radiation than an
    Earth dweller. But that exposure only increases the astronaut's
    lifetime risk of cancer from 21 to 24 percent. A Russian cosmonaut
    who was in space for 14 months was found not to have major
    detrimental effects from his prolonged weightlessness. But bone
    loss and changes to the eye have been occurring with long terms in
    the weightless environment of space. This book was also
    interesting in providing a short continuing science fiction story
    before certain chapters of the non-fiction contains. Overall this
    book is well written but a bit dated. [-gf]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (two seasons of ten episodes/for pay
    on Amazon) (television review by Dale Skran)

    It's not that easy to see MOTHERLAND. It is only "free" on
    something called Freeform (this seems like an online version of
    ABC/Disney and is an update of the old ABC Family channel, but to
    some degree defies easy characterization), and you can also pay for
    it on Amazon prime. As a result, this pretty amazing series will
    get only a small audience, and will probably never win any awards
    simply because the SF viewing public does not know it exists, just
    like the fantastic COUNTERPART is essentially unknown, or the
    nearly as excellent THE ROOK. And so on. All people are watching
    what is on Disney, Netflix, and Amazon prime. Some of this--like
    THE WITCHER and CRACOW MONSTERS--are pretty good, but a lot of it,
    e.g., THE WHEEL OF TIME, SHADOW AND BONE, etc. is of a lesser
    quality.

    Imagine STARSHIP TROOPERS with witches instead of powered suits,
    and you have a pretty good one sentence description of MOTHERLAND.
    The "military cadet" story so commonplace in the 20th century has
    fallen out of favor as the military has declined in popularity. In
    this genre, a young person [almost always a man] joins the
    military, and goes through basic training with a few friends.
    There is always one friend who is the son of a big-shot general,
    another from the tough streets or rural byways, and finally one who
    is gung-ho to fight, but soon discovers the reality of war. As the
    story proceeds, the protagonist and his friends get pressed into
    battles before they are fully trained, encounter clever spies and
    saboteurs, and eventually rise in the ranks with distinction.

    Well, that is what MOTHERLAND is all about with one itsy-bitsy
    difference. A long time ago in Salem a powerful witch, Sarah
    Alder, made a deal with the US government: Witches would fight the
    wars of the United States, as long as they were allowed, in this
    context, to be free to be witches. Fast forward to modern times,
    and we find a world upside-down from our own. Everyone knows women
    are tougher, braver, and stronger than men. Civilians both fear
    and depend on the witch soldiers. The witches have used magic for
    centuries to mate with many men, and to create the best possible
    offspring. Their power, while not unlimited, makes them superhuman.

    The witch army is not organized in platoons, but in groups of
    three. It appears that one of the group is a "fixer" who can heal
    wounds, one has the "sight", and the third is a weather witch. But
    they all possess varying degrees of certain "canon" powers, namely:
    - A shield that can shatter a spear, and presumably stop bullets
    - A kinetic hammer that can punch through steel. A group of
    witches can create a hammer/shield so strong that it protects
    them from a truck loaded with explosives (mostly).
    - To put someone to sleep by touch, and for the more powerful
    witches, a roomful of people w/o touch
    - A magical chemical patch, which when applied to the skin,
    allows the witch to fly for a limited period of time. Thus,
    the troops apply the patch and jump out of aircraft to attack,
    but they can also fly up to an aircraft as well. The patch is
    risky to use since it only lasts for a limited period of time.

    The fixers can heal most military wounds so that the witch army is
    relatively less impacted by injury than our real-world armies. At
    one point a senior witch slits the throat of a trainee to create a
    wound to practice healing. It is fairly obvious that without magic
    the wound would be fatal. The "weather witches" have powers
    similar to "Storm" of the X-men, with varying degrees of strength.
    The "sight" can be used to detect hidden dangers, both physical and
    magical.

    The combination of all these abilities creates a formidable combat
    unit, but in some cases, witches find themselves unable to use
    their powers, and for these situations they carry the "scourge"--a
    whip with a metal weight on the end. The weighted chain is said to
    be the martial arts weapon that is the hardest to learn, the most
    dangerous to the practitioner, and the most effective in combat.
    The "scourge" is in effect a weighted chain with the weakness that
    you can cut it. Each witch is trained extensively in combat with
    the "scourge" and when they settle matters of honor amongst
    themselves, it is with the scourge. Additionally, they are trained
    extensively in hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting.

    Although our heroines are a girly bunch, they are the heirs to a
    harsh tradition, trained by tough drill sergeants, and pitted
    against the most ruthless and clever foes. Having said the above,
    you might think MOTHERLAND is mostly about tactical combat like a
    David Drake novel, but it is much more character driven. Our
    plucky three heroines are:
    - Abigail Bellweather, a weather witch whose mother is the
    General in charge of Intelligence, and who comes from a long
    line of decorated weather witches.
    - Raelle Collar, a "fixer" who hails from the "Cession" a
    "free" land along the Mississippi where Native Americans and
    witches live in harmony, and "dodgers"--witches who are
    avoiding the draft--hide out. She is cynical and expects to
    die soon as her mother before her died in the Liberia
    campaign. She goes "off-canon" now and then in how she "fixes"
    people.
    - Tally Craven, a gung-ho idealist, enlists in spite of the
    opposition of her parents. She is gifted with very powerful
    "sight".

    As you might suspect, at first, they do not get along, but over two
    seasons, a lot of arguments, and quite a number of life and death
    battles they become loyal friends and a deadly combat team. This is
    a richly imagined world. The witches have their own traditions and
    practices which seem odd to the civilians. There are male witches,
    but only female witches "breed true"--the sons/daughters of a witch
    are always witches. A male witch who marries a normal may or may
    not have witch children. [-dls]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Fundraisers (letter of comment by Gary McGath)

    In response to Evelyn's comments on Brandon Sanderson's Kickstarter
    in the 04/08/22 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:

    Fundraisers are strange things. Recently I encountered one where
    the author let people pay for the privilege of doing beta reading.
    It seemed to be doing fairly well, though I don't know how many
    people paid for that "perk." [0gmg]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Baldness (letter of comment by Paul Dormer)

    In response to Evelyn's comments on references to baldness in
    PARADOXES in the 04/08/22 issue of the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:

    As an aside, there was a landmark TV series made by the BBC in the
    late Sixties called CIVILISATION, written and fronted by Kenneth
    Clark the art historian. In the episode on the Elizabethan age, he
    got members of the Royal Shakespeare Company of the time to perform
    scenes from Shakespeare. One of the scenes was the gravedigger
    scene from HAMLET. Ian Richardson was Hamlet and Patrick Stewart
    was Horatio. He had hair. But when I mentioned this to a friend
    who often goes to RSC productions, she pointed out he was actually
    already bald by then. [-pd]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book and film comments by Evelyn C.
    Leeper)

    My comments on the Hugo Award finalists:

    I don't know if Joe Karpierz is doing the novels this year, but I
    am *not* doing all the short fiction. I may do all the novellas,
    since my library has four of them with a fifth on order, and the
    sixth is available through inter-library loan.

    I will probably read all the short stories since they are available
    free on-line, but not review them. In a first for the Hugo Awards,
    one of the finalists is a Twitter thread, or as some overly-precise
    fans have said, one of the finalists was published in a Twitter
    thread. (I wonder if they also insist that such-and-such a book
    wasn't nominated, but that such-and-such was a finalist published
    as a book.) In any case, I don't expect to review all the short
    stories, or the novelettes.

    I might have read the finalists for the Lodestar Award (for young
    adult books), because I have found young adult books more like the
    classic science fiction I liked as, well, as a young adult. And
    they tend to be shorter than the finalists for the Best Novel Hugo.
    But five of the six are part of series, and only one is under 300
    pages, so that's not going to happen.

    Of the Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, I have seen three of them
    (DUNE, THE GREEN KNIGHT, SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS,
    a fourth (SPACE SWEEPERS) is available on Netflix streaming, a
    fifth (ENCANTO) is on our Netflix DVD queue, and the sixth
    (WANDAVISION) is a mini-series on Disney+. While I have a friend
    who gets Disney+, asking to watch a six-hour mini-series on their
    television might be pushing it, though we will watch the first hour
    this weekend. I will comment on these in a column at some point
    after I see all of them, or as much of WANDAVISION as is
    reasonable. [-ecl]

    ===================================================================

    Mark Leeper
    mleeper@optonline.net


    Progress is impossible without change, and those who
    cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
    --G. B. Shaw

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  • From Paul Dormer@21:1/5 to evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com on Sun Apr 17 16:14:00 2022
    In article <e25fbe43-5967-4703-a47f-04c488676b83n@googlegroups.com>, evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com () wrote:

    TOPIC: MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (two seasons of ten episodes/for pay
    on Amazon) (television review by Dale Skran)

    It's not that easy to see MOTHERLAND. It is only "free" on
    something called Freeform

    I love Motherland. In the UK, it's shown on the BBC, although the BBC
    channel it was first shown on went streaming only but at least the first
    season was repeated on a terrestrial channel.

    I recommended it to a friend who gave up at the first season ended in too
    many cliff-hangers.

    I see season 3 hasn't been scheduled yet in the UK.

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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Apr 17 11:30:39 2022
    On 4/17/22 10:36 AM, eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    Well, that is what MOTHERLAND is all about with one itsy-bitsy
    difference. A long time ago in Salem a powerful witch, Sarah
    Alder, made a deal with the US government: Witches would fight the
    wars of the United States, as long as they were allowed, in this
    context, to be free to be witches.

    The idea of Salem with "real" witches with magic powers annoys me. Salem
    of the late 17th century was a center for mass hysteria leading to
    unfounded accusations and executions. Modern Salem has become a locus
    for new-agers and fortune tellers. It's a tourist trap in October that
    even has a statue of Samantha from Bewitched. I'd much rather regard it
    as a reminder of how deadly moral panics can be.

    --
    Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Sun Apr 17 15:58:18 2022
    Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
    eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    Well, that is what MOTHERLAND is all about with one itsy-bitsy
    difference. A long time ago in Salem a powerful witch, Sarah
    Alder, made a deal with the US government: Witches would fight
    the wars of the United States, as long as they were allowed, in
    this context, to be free to be witches.

    How long ago? The historical Salem witch craze was about 80 years
    before the US was formed.

    The idea of Salem with "real" witches with magic powers annoys me.
    Salem of the late 17th century was a center for mass hysteria
    leading to unfounded accusations and executions.

    I agree. There are still similar crime-related mass hysterias in the
    US. The only thing different about the witch-related one is that we
    now know that the accused were all completely innocent, since witches,
    in the sense they meant it, do not exist.

    It's harder to recognize subsequent hysterias, since communists, drug
    pushers, and sex offenders really do exist.

    Also, the persecutors in Salem realized that they were mistaken, and apologized, only after about five years.

    Modern Salem has become a locus for new-agers and fortune tellers.
    It's a tourist trap in October that even has a statue of Samantha
    from Bewitched. I'd much rather regard it as a reminder of how
    deadly moral panics can be.

    Also, the hysteria wasn't in what's now called Salem anyway, but in
    Danvers, which was then known as Salem Village.
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com on Sun Apr 17 15:56:03 2022
    Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:

    The idea of Salem with "real" witches with magic powers annoys me. Salem
    of the late 17th century was a center for mass hysteria leading to
    unfounded accusations and executions. Modern Salem has become a locus
    for new-agers and fortune tellers. It's a tourist trap in October that
    even has a statue of Samantha from Bewitched. I'd much rather regard it
    as a reminder of how deadly moral panics can be.

    Was it Geronimo who, when taken on a tour of Salem in the late 19th century, talked about how wise these people were to be wary of the threat of witches? --scott
    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Sun Apr 17 15:01:47 2022
    On 4/17/22 11:58 AM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
    Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
    eleeper@optonline.net wrote:

    How long ago? The historical Salem witch craze was about 80 years
    before the US was formed.

    They don't let you forget it. Spend ten minutes in Salem and you'll come
    across some reminder.

    Modern Salem has become a locus for new-agers and fortune tellers.
    It's a tourist trap in October that even has a statue of Samantha
    from Bewitched. I'd much rather regard it as a reminder of how
    deadly moral panics can be.

    Also, the hysteria wasn't in what's now called Salem anyway, but in
    Danvers, which was then known as Salem Village.

    Things got started in Salem Village, but most of the trials were held in
    Salem, and accused people were held in a jail there. You can find
    historical markers in Danvers, but you have to go looking for them.


    --
    Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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  • From Tim Merrigan@21:1/5 to Dormer on Sun Apr 17 12:45:19 2022
    On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:14 +0100 (BST), prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk (Paul
    Dormer) wrote:

    In article <e25fbe43-5967-4703-a47f-04c488676b83n@googlegroups.com>, >evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com () wrote:

    TOPIC: MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (two seasons of ten episodes/for pay
    on Amazon) (television review by Dale Skran)

    It's not that easy to see MOTHERLAND. It is only "free" on
    something called Freeform

    I love Motherland. In the UK, it's shown on the BBC, although the BBC >channel it was first shown on went streaming only but at least the first >season was repeated on a terrestrial channel.

    I recommended it to a friend who gave up at the first season ended in too >many cliff-hangers.

    I see season 3 hasn't been scheduled yet in the UK.

    I've watched Motherland: Fort Salem (on Freeform, which used to be
    ABC Family). My main objection to it is that it's yet another
    depiction of Witches as another species. Witches are no more another
    species than Jews, Moslems, Christians, Hindus, or practitioners of
    any other religion.

    Another, minor, objection is their continuity in little things, for
    instance the flags on the soldier's shoulders, and flying over their
    base, has 50 stars, but that universe's United States has 38 states.

    Note: The flag in the opening credits, and the ads, has 38 pentacles.
    --

    Qualified immunity = virtual impunity.

    Tim Merrigan

    --
    This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
    https://www.avg.com

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  • From Dorothy J Heydt@21:1/5 to garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com on Sun Apr 17 22:23:15 2022
    In article <t3hbr1$qb7$1@dont-email.me>,
    Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
    On 4/17/22 10:36 AM, eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    Well, that is what MOTHERLAND is all about with one itsy-bitsy
    difference. A long time ago in Salem a powerful witch, Sarah
    Alder, made a deal with the US government: Witches would fight the
    wars of the United States, as long as they were allowed, in this
    context, to be free to be witches.

    The idea of Salem with "real" witches with magic powers annoys me. Salem
    of the late 17th century was a center for mass hysteria leading to
    unfounded accusations and executions. Modern Salem has become a locus
    for new-agers and fortune tellers. It's a tourist trap in October that
    even has a statue of Samantha from Bewitched. I'd much rather regard it
    as a reminder of how deadly moral panics can be.

    But it also spawned the excellent _Hocus Pocus_.

    --
    Dorothy J. Heydt
    Vallejo, California
    djheydt at gmail dot com
    Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

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