• MT VOID, 06/10/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 50, Whole Number 2227

    From evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 12 07:29:42 2022
    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    06/10/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 50, Whole Number 2227

    Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
    Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
    Sending Address: evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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    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:
    Reminder about Failed Mail
    BLADE RUNNER (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)
    Scientific Accuracy in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
    (letter of comment by Jim Susky)
    This Week's Reading (BY FORCE ALONE) (book comments
    by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

    TOPIC: Reminder about Failed Mail

    If the email to you with the MT VOID comes back with an error
    message about spam or something like that for that specific email,
    I will attempt to contact you to see if you would prefer a PDF
    (probably less likely to be labeled as spam), or if you have a
    different email address to use.

    If the email to you with the MT VOID comes back with an error
    message about your mailbox being full, or disabled, or other error
    about email in general, there is not much I can do, so if the MT
    VOID stops arriving, or you change your email address, you need to
    contact me at my address above with instructions. [-ecl]

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

    TOPIC: BLADE RUNNER (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)

    June 25 is the fortieth anniversary of the initial release of
    Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER. Given that it is forty years old
    there will likely be SPOILERS! BLADE RUNNER is notorious for the
    number of versions of it. I will be discussing the first one I saw
    (the U.S. theatrical version). There is also an international
    theatrical version, a U.S. television version, the "Director's
    Cut", and the "Final Cut".

    The film has been connected with Warner Brothers, which is
    interesting because Warner Brothers does not have a real history of
    major science fiction movies (THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, THEM!
    and SOYLENT GREEN are probably the best known).

    Due to an actors' strike during pre-production, Ridley Scott and
    his art department had a long time to develop the look of this film
    and they worked wonders--the art direction is exquisite. Scott and
    his cinematographer Jordan Cronenworth go overboard in trying to
    capture the film noir texture of this world. (Everything except
    the final scenes take place at night, which allows for very
    dramatic lighting effects, but makes one wonder exactly how much
    time has passed and whether the earth has stopped rotating.)

    Scott also gives us a truly multi-ethnic, polyglot future with many
    different cultures blending into each other. But he also seems to
    revel in unpleasant images--viewer be warned.

    Rutger Hauer's make-up resembles a well-known illustration from
    Olaf Stapledon's ODD JOHN. (The film THIS ISLAND EARTH borrowed
    the same makeup look for its aliens.)

    Deckard seems to find that every clue leads him to the next
    location, which just coincidentally leads to the clue after that,
    much as in MOONRAKER.

    One thing which always bothered me was the twisting of Deckard's
    neck, which as shown would break his neck. Perhaps this is the
    basis of the belief that Deckard is a replicant.

    Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4)

    [-mrl]

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

    TOPIC: Scientific Accuracy in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (letter of
    comment by Jim Susky)

    In response to Peter Trei's comments on scientific accuracy in
    2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in the 06/03/22 issue of the MT VOID, Jim
    Susky writes:

    Peter Trei picked a "valid" nit in Kubrick's 2001:

    "It always bugged me that (he) didn't attempt to simulate lunar
    gravity.... They missed a great chance too; when they pour coffee
    in the shuttle to the dig, the shot cuts just before the liquid
    appears. A slow motion shot of it pouring would have been great."

    Given that Kubrick made extensive use of "overcranking"--it would
    have been a simple matter to show a slo-mo coffee ad--complete with
    vapor.

    More "nitpicky":

    "that shuttle is shown flying over the lunar landscape about a
    hundred meters up. While low orbits are possible, that's
    ridiculously low, given mountains, etc."

    How long were the transit sequences en route to the big black slab?
    30 seconds in all? Kubrick and team went to great lengths to
    assure realism. I suspect he chose a relatively "close"
    perspective to show off the detail in the shuttle--and to give a
    "goundlings" perspective. To suppose that the viewer would be "up
    in the air" (so to speak) would be jarring--and would take the
    viewer out of the magic. [-js]

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

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

    BY FORCE ALONE by Lavie Tidhar (Tor, ISBN 978-1-250-75346-5) is a
    revisionist Arthurian history. It is the complete opposite of
    perhaps the best-known revisionist Arthurian history: THE MISTS OF
    AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley. But where THE MISTS OF AVALON
    focuses on the female and pagan elements, grounded in the land of
    Britain, BY FORCE ALONE is the story of how Arthur started as a
    minor juvenile delinquent and rose Al-Capone-like (or
    Tony-Soprano-like, for today's readers) to rule all of Britain as
    the "capo del capi", while Guinevere began as the leader of a group
    of female bandits.

    Tidhar does some strange stuff (even considering the premise).
    "Merlin mutters pi. Pi is an irrational number--only such numbers
    hold power in an irrational place--and it is transcendental, which
    seems appropriate. And it is infinite, just like the Weald."
    (Well, no it's not infinite--its decimal expression is infinitely
    long.) He also goes on about the square root of two being
    irrational, which doesn't strike me as something the Merlin of
    this story would be that informed about.

    "A butterfly as large as a fist flitters past Galahad's face an he
    bats it away savagely. ... 'Don't touch anything,' the crawler
    tells him. 'I warned you before.'" Is this a reference to the
    butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane, or more
    likely, the butterfly in Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder"?

    Clearly, the description above will either make you want to read
    the book, or to run screaming in the opposite direction. (I'm
    clearly in the first camp, or I wouldn't be reviewing it, would I?)

    Tidhar may have written some normal books, but most of the ones I
    know of have unusual plots: one has Osama bin Laden as a vigilante
    in a popular series of novels in a world without terrorism, another
    has Hitler as a detective in a 1939 London with a different sort of
    Holocaust. And CENTRAL STATION seems to have every far-future
    trope there is. [-ecl]

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

    Mark Leeper
    mleeper@optonline.net


    Theory is a park, practice is a swamp.
    --S. C. Johnson

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Jun 12 15:06:18 2022
    eleeper@optonline.net <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
    TOPIC: BLADE RUNNER (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)

    You should have mentioned that the future it's set in -- November,
    2019 -- is two and a half years in our past. Instead of a dystopia,
    2019 feels like a golden age, before anyone had heard of covid-19.
    (Actually, that's probably the month that that virus came into
    existence.)

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

    "Merlin mutters pi. Pi is an irrational number--only such numbers
    hold power in an irrational place--and it is transcendental, which
    seems appropriate. And it is infinite, just like the Weald."
    (Well, no it's not infinite--its decimal expression is infinitely
    long.)

    True. But there was no concept of decimal expression in those days.
    Nor did anyone know that pi was irrational until the 18th century,
    or transcendental until the 19th.

    He also goes on about the square root of two being irrational, which
    doesn't strike me as something the Merlin of this story would be
    that informed about.

    But at least the Greeks of the time already knew that the square root
    of two was irrational.
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Jun 12 18:06:03 2022
    On 6/12/22 10:29 AM, eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    BY FORCE ALONE by Lavie Tidhar (Tor, ISBN 978-1-250-75346-5) is a
    revisionist Arthurian history. It is the complete opposite of
    perhaps the best-known revisionist Arthurian history: THE MISTS OF
    AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley. But where THE MISTS OF AVALON
    focuses on the female and pagan elements, grounded in the land of
    Britain, BY FORCE ALONE is the story of how Arthur started as a
    minor juvenile delinquent and rose Al-Capone-like (or
    Tony-Soprano-like, for today's readers) to rule all of Britain as
    the "capo del capi", while Guinevere began as the leader of a group
    of female bandits.

    Makes sense. In post-Roman, pre-Saxon Britain, the distinction between a
    king (or queen) and a bandit leader was blurry.

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

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  • From Kevrob@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Thu Jun 16 17:46:40 2022
    On Sunday, June 12, 2022 at 11:06:20 AM UTC-4, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
    ele...@optonline.net <evelynchim...@gmail.com> wrote:
    TOPIC: BLADE RUNNER (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)
    You should have mentioned that the future it's set in -- November,
    2019 -- is two and a half years in our past. Instead of a dystopia,
    2019 feels like a golden age, before anyone had heard of covid-19.
    (Actually, that's probably the month that that virus came into
    existence.)
    TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
    "Merlin mutters pi. Pi is an irrational number--only such numbers
    hold power in an irrational place--and it is transcendental, which
    seems appropriate. And it is infinite, just like the Weald."
    (Well, no it's not infinite--its decimal expression is infinitely
    long.)
    True. But there was no concept of decimal expression in those days.
    Nor did anyone know that pi was irrational until the 18th century,
    or transcendental until the 19th.
    He also goes on about the square root of two being irrational, which doesn't strike me as something the Merlin of this story would be
    that informed about.
    But at least the Greeks of the time already knew that the square root
    of two was irrational.
    --

    If Merlin lived his life backward, he'd know stuff discovered in
    Arthur's future.
    --
    Kevin R

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