• MT VOID, 06/24/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 52, Whole Number 2229

    From evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 26 07:17:15 2022
    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    06/24/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 52, Whole Number 2229

    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>.
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    Topics:
    Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
    Lectures, etc. (NJ)
    My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in July (comments
    by Mark R. Leeper)
    Mini Reviews by Evelyn, Part 6 (OPERATION MINCEMEAT,
    LICORICE PIZZA, THE BAD GUYS, THE OUTFIT)
    (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
    DARK RIDE: THE BEST SHORT FICTION OF JOHN KESSEL
    (book review by Joe Karpierz)
    Merlin and Mathematics (letters of comment by Kevin R and
    Jim Susky)
    Juneteenth and LINCOLN (letter of comment by Jim Susky)
    This Week's Reading (Hugo Award novella finalists)
    (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

    TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
    Lectures, etc. (NJ)

    Meetings are still fluctuating between in-person and Zoom. The
    best way to get the latest information is to be on the mailing
    lists for them.

    June 2, 2022 (MTPL), 5:30PM, in-person: A.I. ARTIFICIAL
    INTELLIGENCE (2001) & short story
    "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" (1969) by Brian Aldiss
    <https://archive.org/details/supertoyslastall0000aldi/>
    July 7, 2022 (MTPL), 5:30PM, in-person: THE LOST WORLD (1925)
    and novel THE LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
    (<https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/139> has various
    formats available)
    July 28, 2022 (OBPL), 7:00PM, Zoom: A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT by
    Becky Chambers

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

    TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in July (comments by
    Mark R. Leeper)

    First, apologies to those who looked for THE BEAST MUST DIE in
    June; Turner Classic Movies changed their schedule after the
    article was written, and replaced THE BEAST MUST DIE with another
    film.

    Now onto July.

    In 1968 Hammer Films not only had their best year to date, they
    also produced two of the best horror or science fiction films any
    film studio had ever made. (And this is outside of their
    successful Dracula series). The horror film was THE DEVIL RIDES
    OUT and the SF film was QUATERMASS AND THE PIT. And then they made
    one film--a very, very strange film, THE LOST CONTINENT. It was a
    lost civilization story--nowhere near Hammer's best.

    A tramp freighter on which everybody has some tawdry backstory
    finds itself tangled in the Sargasso Sea, unable to pull itself
    out. Also trapped in that lost world is a contingent of 16th
    century Spanish fighters. It is no less weird than it sounds. Oh,
    they are also menaced by giant jumbo shrimp.

    [THE LOST CONTINENT (1968), July 29, 1:15 AM]

    Also, I see that BMW (or someone) has posted THE HIRE to YouTube.
    This is a film composed of 9 chapters, each of which shows off how
    fancy BMW cars are. The pieces are each directed by a major
    industry director of action films (e.g., the first is directed by
    John Frankenheimer), and they all star Clive Owen.

    See <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4A24A64BDE6DC272> for
    a playlist of all of them. [-mrl]

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

    TOPIC: Mini Reviews by Evelyn, Part 6 (film reviews by Evelyn
    C. Leeper)

    OPERATION MINCEMEAT: OPERATION MINCEMEAT is a re-telling of the
    story from Ewan Montague's book 1953 THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS, which
    told the true story of the World War II operation that used a
    corpse to convince the Germans that the Allied invasion from the
    Mediterranean would be in Greece rather than Sicily. The book (and
    the 1956 film of the same name) were not entirely accurate due to
    the official secrets act. (The book was published in part to
    counteract the spy novel OPERATION HEARTBREAK by Duff Cooper, which
    used a similar plot.) So OPERATION MINCEMEAT is in some ways more
    accurate than the earlier film, but it also suffers (IMHO) from a
    superfluous romance sub-plot. Apparently using a corpse to deceive
    the Germans about the invasion wasn't exciting enough for Netflix.
    Even with its inaccuracies, I still prefer the first film. IMDB
    voters agree; THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS gets a 7.4, while OPERATION
    MINCEMEAT gets a 6.7.

    Released 05/11/22 on Netflix.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1879016/reference>

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

    LICORICE PIZZA: LICORICE PIZZA is the latest from Paul Thomas
    Anderson. Anderson has written some great movies: HARD EIGHT,
    BOOGIE NIGHTS, MAGNOLIA, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, THE MASTER. But he
    has also written some not-so-great movies (PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE,
    INHERENT VICE), and this is one of them.

    Paul Thomas Anderson should not be confused with Wes Anderson.
    Both are named Anderson and make quirky independent films, but
    there the similarity ends.)

    Released theatrically 12/25/21; available on DVD and various
    streaming services.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11271038/reference>

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

    THE BAD GUYS: THE BAD GUYS is the latest from DreamWorks, but it is
    strangely reminiscent of the Pixar film THE INCREDIBLES (especially
    the musical score) and Twentieth Century Fox film THE FANTASTIC
    MR. FOX (no pun intended!) (especially the characterization of the
    main character). Somehow, though, this story of a bunch of "Bad
    Guys" (a wolf, a snake, a shark, a piranha, and a tarantula) who
    get caught in a heist and are put through a regimen to try to make
    them good. I suppose the idea is that people are wrong to judge
    them by the stereotypes applied to them. The fact that we're
    apparently not supposed to ask why almost everyone else in the
    movie is human but the humans and animals interact on a mostly
    equal basis is to make children see a parallel between the
    characters and human beings in our world. But I can't say it did
    much more for me.

    Released theatrically 04/22/22.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8115900/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_bad_guys_2022>

    THE OUTFIT: THE OUTFIT is another tour de force for Mark Rylance
    (BRIDGE OF SPIES). Rylance is Leonard Burling, a cutter (*not* a tailor--tailors just o buttons and hems, according to his
    character) who has left England and come to 1950s Chicago, where he
    ends up making bespoke suits for a family of gangsters who aspire
    to become part of "The Outfit", the empire that has grown from what
    Al Capone began. The film relies on an excellent script, with all
    the action contained within the two rooms of Burling's tailor shop.
    Rylance trained under the same real cutters from Savile Row who
    trained the actors in the "Kingsman" series. (One wonders if all
    this goes back to THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.'s use of El Florio's
    Tailor Shop as the disguised entrance to their headquarters.)

    Released theatrically 03/18/22; available on DVD and various
    streaming services.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14114802/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_outfit_2022>

    [-ecl]

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

    TOPIC: DARK RIDE: THE BEST SHORT FICTION OF JOHN KESSEL (copyright
    2022, Subterranean Press, Publication Date June 30, 2022, $45
    Hardcover, ISBN 9781645240587) (book review by Joe Karpierz)

    To be honest, I didn't know very much about John Kessel before I
    started reading this collection from Subterranean Press. I was
    aware that he had written a novel called THE MOON AND THE OTHER,
    and just before I started writing this review I discovered that I'd
    read and reviewed (back in 2012) an anthology that he co-edited
    with James Patrick Kelly called DIGITAL RAPTURE: THE SINGULARITY
    ANTHOLOGY (which, now that I think about it, is one of the best
    anthologies I've read in a very long time). So what caused me to
    pick up Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel?

    Most likely because I'd heard his name uttered enough by people in
    the field whom I respect that I felt reading it was worth a try. I
    will also have to say that Subterranean Press puts out some
    fantastic collections, many of which I own. What I didn't realize,
    once I started reading the book, that I was in for a magnificent
    treat.

    Not knowing any of Kessel's fiction allowed me to come into the
    book with an open mind and little to no expectations. The works
    would stand on their own; I would not really be influenced by
    anyone's thoughts on these stories because I'd never read them
    before. I was prepared to discover a bunch of new favorite short
    stories. And I did.

    I really enjoyed "Pride and Prometheus", a merging of Jane Austen
    and Frankenstein, in which Mary Bennet meets Victor Frankenstein
    (and encounters The Creature, albeit briefly). Bennet falls for
    Frankenstein, and Victor is impressed with her curiosity and
    knowledge. It was, of course, not meant to be. "Pride and
    Prometheus" won a Nebula Award and a Shirley Jackson Award. Little
    did I know that there were more stories like this in the collection.

    Then there's "Another Orphan", a story in which a stock trader from
    Chicago ends up smack dab in the middle of MOBY DICK, on the Pequod
    herself as part of Ahab's revenge mission against the titular
    whale. It's not really clear whether the central character is
    actually on the Pequod or back in Chicago (and he does go back and
    forth a few times), but the longer he's around Ahab and the crew,
    the more he feels like he might be Ishmael, who does eventually
    survive the original tale. It's another one of my favorites in the
    book. Sure enough, another Nebula winner.

    Another, "Stories for Men", in which the Society of Cousins on the
    moon is essentially role-reversed, where the men are pampered and
    protected and the women go out and do the hard labor, won a Tiptree
    (now Otherwise) Award. It's a powerful story about men without
    agency and an underground group of men who want to have meaning in
    their lives. The protagonist, Erno, is caught between his mother -
    a police officer - and that underground group who want to shake
    things up. "Stories For Men" takes place in the same setting as
    "THE MOON AND THE OTHER", and I like it enough that I will probably
    head to my local bookstore - yes, there is an independent bookstore
    in my town - and pick it up.

    Another favorite is "Gulliver at Home", which doesn't actually
    answer the question of what Gulliver's wife does while he's off on
    all his travels, but instead it explores the effect of his absence
    on his wife. "Buffalo" is a beautiful tribute story about Kessel's
    father and an imaginary meeting with H.G. Wells. Wells did go to
    Buffalo when Kessel's father worked there, although the meeting
    never did take place. "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence"
    follows a couple looking for a quick score of cash in an empty (but
    not abandoned) house that has a subway station running underneath
    it that leads to an idyllic location where all their needs are met
    and requests are granted. The Baum in the title does refer to the
    author of the Oz books, with the female of the couple being
    Dorothy, and the city at the end of the subway line being Oz, a
    place where all wishes are granted.

    Probably the best story of the collection is the last one, "The
    Dark Ride", which gives the collection its title. It takes the
    true story of the assassination of President McKinley at the
    Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo by anarchist Leon Czolgosz and
    give it a genre twist by introducing a "Dark Ride" to the moon,
    where Leon meets and falls in with some rebels there who want to
    kill the lunar leader. Leon falls in with the group after he sees
    what the lunar natives are doing to human slaves. The similarities
    between Czolgosz wanting to assassinate McKinley and the members of
    the rebellion on the moon is deliberate, of course, but the real
    question is whether the experience Czolgosz had on the moon was
    real, or just a figment of a deranged imagination. "The Dark Ride"
    is a terrifically powerful story that, as I said, is probably the
    best tale in the collection.

    These may be the best of the stories in the book, but by no means
    are any of the stories weak. The stories are excellent genre
    fiction, with the fantastic elements doing a slow burn before they
    come to the forefront. Those same genre elements don't knock the
    reader over the head, but instead slowly insinuate themselves in
    the reader's consciousness until they become a natural part of the
    tale that Kessel is trying to tell and cause the reader to ask how
    they got in there when they clearly weren't there when the story
    started.

    I may not have known much about John Kessel before I read this
    collection, but I do know a little more now, and it's clear that
    the thing to do is go out and find more John Kessel fiction to
    read. I'm sure I won't be disappointed. [-jak]

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

    TOPIC: Merlin and Mathematics (letters of comment by Kevin R and
    Jim Susky)

    In response to Evelyn's review of BY FORCE ALONE in the 06/10/22
    issue of the MT VOID, and Keith F. Lynch's comments in the 06/17/22
    issue, Kevin R writes:

    Evelyn wrote:
    "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. [-ecl]

    Keith F. Lynch noted:

    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. But at least the
    Greeks of the time already knew that the square root of two
    was irrational. [-kfl]

    And Kevin responds:

    If Merlin lived his life backward, he'd know stuff discovered in
    Arthur's future. [-kr]

    Evelyn notes:

    Merlin living backwards was invented by T. H. White in THE ONCE
    AND FUTURE KING, so stories based on earlier Arthur legends do
    not have this excuse. [-ecl]

    Jim Susky writes:

    Pi is indeed "irrational"--Merlin's muttering reminds me of a very
    short "story":

    i and pi were arguing.

    Frustrated, i shouted:

    "You're IRRATIONAL!"

    pi retorted:

    "Get REAL!"

    <RIM SHOT>

    [-js]

    Evelyn notes:

    Someone gave us a T-shirt with this dialogue on it. [-ecl]

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

    TOPIC: Juneteenth and LINCOLN (letters of comment by Gary McGath
    and Jim Susky)

    In response to Mark and Evelyn's comments on Juneteenth and the
    film LINCOLN in the 06/17/22 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath
    writes:

    It's surprising, at least to me, that Delaware was one of the
    "border states" that had slavery until the ratification of the 13th
    but didn't secede. I normally think of it as a northern state.

    The Delaware Constitution of 1776 prohibited the importation of
    slaves but didn't, in spite of what some sources claim, outlaw
    slavery. It was replaced by the 1792 Constitution, which didn't
    have that prohibition.

    Jim Susky writes:

    Mark and Evelyn's remembrance of Juneteenth, the Emancipation
    Proclamation, the 13th Amendment and its ratification (and LINCOLN)
    was "provocative"--not because of its content, but because of the
    implications aroused by that ratification.

    The film looks like it's really good--I might go find a copy--and
    turn on the subtitles. [-js]

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

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

    I've decided this year to concentrate on novellas and Long Form
    Dramatic Presentation rather than do all the short fiction. So
    here are the novellas. (For what it's worth, I think there is some
    amazing work being done these days in the novella format.)

    ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom, ISBN 978-1-250-21359-4) is a stand-alone story in McGuire's "Wayward
    Children" series. Ten-year-old Regan tells her best friend a
    secret, except Regan didn't realize it should be a secret, and
    Regan also didn't realize that he best friend was no friend. When
    she flees the disastrous scene, she goes through a doorway to
    another world of centaurs and unicorns and evil queens, where she
    is the only human, and supposedly let in to save that world. It
    seems aimed more at a YA audience, though Lord knows it would get
    heavy pushback from the book-banners.

    ELDER RACE by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-259-76872-8) was "on order" for months at my local library,
    but luckily the library in the next town over got a copy, allowing
    me to finally finish this column, and I'm glad I could include it.
    It takes a while for the reader to figure out what is going on, so
    I will just say that it involves planetary colonization and the
    long-term effects thereof, as well as a quite unusual alien
    encounter with Lovecraftian overtones.. For a novella, it has a
    lot of science fiction ideas going on all at once.

    FIREHEART TIGER by Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-250-26051-2) is set in a fantasy version of pre-colonial
    Vietnam. That is, the names are all Vietnamese (complete with the
    correct typography), but the geopolitical units, the characters,
    and the supernatural elements are not historical. One has to
    recognize this as de Bodar's answer to the thousands of fantasy
    stories set in fantasy versions of medieval Europe, sometimes with
    the geography changed, and sometimes not. There is also a gender
    aspect which is both reasonable, and problematic. All the
    characters are women. On the one hand, it's probably a response to
    the many fantasies that are almost entirely populated by men. On
    the other, having a royal marriage of two women makes one wonder
    how procreation happens--are there no men at all? Definitely thought-provoking.

    THE PAST IS RED by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-250-30113-0) was actually pretty good for most of it, if a
    bit unlikely. Tetley Abednego lives on the Great Pacific Garbage
    Patch, a.k.a. Garbagetown, which is divided into regions such as
    Electric City, Pill Hill, Cardboard Flats, and Clotheschester.
    People get their names from things on the patch. I was willing to
    accept all this, and even that there supposedly was no dry land
    left, even though in actual fact if all the ice melted, the sea
    level would rise only 215 feet. (See
    <https://www.goodshomedesign.com/maps- of-what-the-earth-would- look-like-if-all-ice-melted/> for what Earth would look like.) But
    when Tetley finds a radio and has a real-time conversation with a
    girl on Mars (i.e., with no time lag), I gave up on accurate
    science. (Valente's novelette "The Future Is Blue" forms the first
    part of this novella.)

    A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom, ISBN 978-1-250-23621-0) is set on a not-Earth (at least based on the
    description of the geography) that has gone through the Awakening
    (when robots became self-aware and separated themselves from
    humans) and the Transition (when civilization apparently scaled
    itself *way* back to fit better ecologically into the world). Dex
    is a monk who is trying to find their purpose. Along the way, they
    meet Mosscap, a robot trying to understand humans. There is more
    than just the usual human-robot failure to understand each other
    (though certainly there is that), including a long discussion of
    what anyone's or anything's "purpose". Recommended.

    A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-250-76535-2) is a re-imagining of the story of Snow White in
    all its iterations. Not surprisingly, this twenty-first century
    take does not see the story as a "happy-ever-after" story, but one
    of female lack of agency, male dominance, and sexual assault.
    Though at times the "multiple worlds" explanation seems a bit
    shaky, it's still a different way of looking at the story.

    Ranking: A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, A SPINDLE SPLINTERED, ELDER
    RACE, FIREHEART TIGER, ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS, No Award, THE
    PAST IS RED

    [-ecl]

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

    Mark Leeper
    mleeper@optonline.net


    If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world
    of new questions.
    --Susanne K. Langer

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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Jun 26 12:27:44 2022
    On 6/26/22 10:17 AM, eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    ELDER RACE by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-259-76872-8)

    The name touched my curiosity, so I checked and found from Wikipedia
    that it's a pen spelling of Adrian Czajkowski. If there's any indication
    that he's related to the composer (who didn't leave any descendants), I
    don't know of it.


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

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  • From Robert Woodward@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Jun 26 21:46:25 2022
    In article <d88babc2-5f20-4546-b453-e8b423c62c60n@googlegroups.com>,
    "eleeper@optonline.net" <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:

    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    06/24/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 52, Whole Number 2229

    Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
    Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
    Sending Address: evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com

    (SNIP!)

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

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


    (Snip)


    A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-250-76535-2) is a re-imagining of the story of Snow White in
    all its iterations. Not surprisingly, this twenty-first century
    take does not see the story as a "happy-ever-after" story, but one
    of female lack of agency, male dominance, and sexual assault.
    Though at times the "multiple worlds" explanation seems a bit
    shaky, it's still a different way of looking at the story.

    If there is a Spindle, shouldn't this be a re-imagining of Sleeping
    Beauty?

    --
    "We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
    Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. —-----------------------------------------------------
    Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

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  • From Paul Dormer@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Mon Jun 27 11:30:00 2022
    In article <t9a1e2$3v6ai$1@dont-email.me>, garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com
    (Gary McGath) wrote:


    The name touched my curiosity, so I checked and found from Wikipedia
    that it's a pen spelling of Adrian Czajkowski. If there's any
    indication that he's related to the composer (who didn't leave any descendants), I don't know of it.

    I've heard that he adopted that spelling as people know how to spell the composer's name. Unless they use the German spelling of Tschaikowsky. I
    thing there was one British newspaper that insisted on spelling the
    composer as Chaikovsky.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Paul Dormer on Mon Jun 27 12:05:34 2022
    Paul Dormer <prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
    garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com (Gary McGath) wrote:
    The name touched my curiosity, so I checked and found from
    Wikipedia that it's a pen spelling of Adrian Czajkowski. If
    there's any indication that he's related to the composer (who
    didn't leave any descendants), I don't know of it.

    I've heard that he adopted that spelling as people know how to
    spell the composer's name. Unless they use the German spelling of Tschaikowsky. I thing there was one British newspaper that insisted
    on spelling the composer as Chaikovsky.

    Unfortunately, the proper Cyrillic letter the composer's name begins
    with isn't in ASCII, but it looks just like the numeral 4, so
    perhaps we should spell it that way: 4ANKOBCKNN. (The Ns should
    be backwards, and some of the letters should have accent marks, but
    that's pretty close.)
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to Paul Dormer on Mon Jun 27 12:47:22 2022
    Paul Dormer <prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
    In article <t9a1e2$3v6ai$1@dont-email.me>, garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com
    (Gary McGath) wrote:

    The name touched my curiosity, so I checked and found from Wikipedia
    that it's a pen spelling of Adrian Czajkowski. If there's any
    indication that he's related to the composer (who didn't leave any
    descendants), I don't know of it.

    I've heard that he adopted that spelling as people know how to spell the >composer's name. Unless they use the German spelling of Tschaikowsky. I >thing there was one British newspaper that insisted on spelling the
    composer as Chaikovsky.

    In the case of the composer, you have at least three different systems to transliterate from the cyrillic that you can pick. (Although the cyrillic version of the name itself changed during the simplification of 1917.) Which one is correct?
    --scott
    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to robertaw@drizzle.com on Mon Jun 27 12:45:16 2022
    Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
    In article <d88babc2-5f20-4546-b453-e8b423c62c60n@googlegroups.com>,
    "eleeper@optonline.net" <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:

    A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-250-76535-2) is a re-imagining of the story of Snow White in
    all its iterations. Not surprisingly, this twenty-first century
    take does not see the story as a "happy-ever-after" story, but one
    of female lack of agency, male dominance, and sexual assault.
    Though at times the "multiple worlds" explanation seems a bit
    shaky, it's still a different way of looking at the story.

    If there is a Spindle, shouldn't this be a re-imagining of Sleeping
    Beauty?

    It's mostly Sleeping Beauty but there are constant references to other
    fairy tales throughout. I really wanted to like this book but it just
    did not gel for me.
    --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 Mon Jun 27 10:31:50 2022
    On 6/27/22 8:05 AM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:


    Unfortunately, the proper Cyrillic letter the composer's name begins
    with isn't in ASCII, but it looks just like the numeral 4, so
    perhaps we should spell it that way: 4ANKOBCKNN. (The Ns should
    be backwards, and some of the letters should have accent marks, but
    that's pretty close.)

    Transliterating Cyrillic is an art. One letter looks like a backwards R
    and is pronounced "ya." Tanya Huff once wondered how her first name got transliterated into the Russian edition with four letters, and I
    explained it to her. I also noted that the name of a certain late
    lamented toy store chain should be pronounced "Toys Ya Us."

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

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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Mon Jun 27 10:36:20 2022
    On 6/27/22 8:45 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
    In article <d88babc2-5f20-4546-b453-e8b423c62c60n@googlegroups.com>,
    "eleeper@optonline.net" <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:

    A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom, ISBN
    978-1-250-76535-2) is a re-imagining of the story of Snow White in
    all its iterations. Not surprisingly, this twenty-first century
    take does not see the story as a "happy-ever-after" story, but one
    of female lack of agency, male dominance, and sexual assault.
    Though at times the "multiple worlds" explanation seems a bit
    shaky, it's still a different way of looking at the story.

    If there is a Spindle, shouldn't this be a re-imagining of Sleeping
    Beauty?

    It's mostly Sleeping Beauty but there are constant references to other
    fairy tales throughout. I really wanted to like this book but it just
    did not gel for me.

    In case anyone here likes crossover stories, I've posted one where a
    major historical figure of the Reformation meets a legendary person who
    was derived from a real one. My project for today is "reconstructing its original German text," to read to my German language group.

    https://garymcgath.com/wp/the-magic-battery/snares-of-satan/


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

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)