THE MT VOID
07/01/22 -- Vol. 41, No. 1, Whole Number 2230
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Bell Labs Holmdel / Bell Works (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Quatermass and QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (film comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
POWERS AND THRONES: A NEW HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
by Dan Jones (book review by Greg Frederick)
Adrian Tchaikovsky (letters of comment by Gary McGath,
Paul Dormer, Keith F. Lynch, and Scott Dorsey)
A SPINDLE SPLINTERED (letters of comment
by Robert Woodward, Scott Dorsey, and Gary McGath)
This Week's Reading (RIVER OF THE GODS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
As you probably did not notice, we have dropped the "Mt. Holz
Science Fiction Society" from our header. The "Mt. Holz Science
Fiction Society", a.k.a., the "Science Fiction Club at Bell Labs",
hasn't existed for over twenty years now, and including it masks
the fact that the MT VOID is really just Mark's and my perzine.
R.I.P., Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Bell Labs Holmdel / Bell Works (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
And speaking of Bell Labs, there is a three-minute video talking
about the use of the Bell Labs building in Holmdel (now Bell Works)
in the Apple TV series "Severance", with a bit of a tour of the
facility:
<
https://newjersey.news12.com/holmdel-s-bell-works-becomes-perfect- backdrop-for-apple-tv-s-dystopian-thriller-severance?s=02>
===================================================================
TOPIC: Quatermass and QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (film comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
I was at my last Toronto International Film Festival--likely to
remain my last Toronto International Film Festival ever for a
variety of reasons. In any case, you run into all sorts of film
fans not just from Toronto but from all over the world. I was
making notes on the last film I had seen and the man sitting next
to me asked me about what films what films the TIFF were featuring.
Then he asked what films I had liked and then generally what my
favorite film of all time was. That was a good way to get a lot of
information about me and my interests. But I think that he was
expecting me to give him some general popularity film, maybe a
Spielberg film. Without even taking a breath I gave him QUATERMASS
AND THE PIT. My new friend was English (if I am correct about
accents), and English fans seem to think that QUATERMASS AND THE
PIT is almost unknown in the colonies.
QUATERMASS AND THE PIT is something of a legend in Britain. The
three Quatermass plays were written for and played on the BBC.
Quatermass (which, by the way, is a familiar name in Wales) was the
head of the British rocket group. Each play has Quatermass facing
down an alien that represents a threat to humanity, with Quatermass
first having to get some understanding of what kind of threat we
face. By the time the series was broadcasting the third play,
churches and were changing their schedules because people were home
watching Quatermass.
Director Roy Ward Baker is able to give a deep and frightening
atmosphere to this film that is not often found in an urban setting.
Writer Nigel Kneale skillfully blended several story touches to tie
this project with then-current news items, e.g., they are doing
work in an underground tunnel at the same time similar things were
being done in the real world. One way to see how good the writing
is on this film is how much is it relevant to today. My
observation is that it is extremely relevant.
And I like the kind of science fiction reasoning when (for example)
Colonel Breen and Quatermass discuss the possibility of ancient
visits by doomed Martians is what people are interested in science
fiction for.
One goof in either the writing or the art design is that what
Quatermass calls a pentacle is not a pentacle. It might be a
hex-something, but not a penta-something.
It is surprising that nobody figures out that a skull encased in a
metal shell would be something very strange. It's Quatermass who
asks the telling question, what has been protecting the skull? For
that matter, it is odd that the surrounding rocks formed a sort of
a chamber where fossils would be discovered, especially since there
are not too many flat vertical walls in nature. A bigger goof is
that apparently the sinews of the skeleton have not disintegrated
or been torn by the rocks.
Two examples of good art design: The statue of some alien in the
lab is visually very similar to one of the workers. This will be
subtly significant later in the story. There are also many strange
curves on the found device which compares impressively against the
object's shape in the original television version. Hammer's set
designer also creates a set that is actually nearly believable.
If you want a good embodiment of confirmation bias, just listen to
Colonel Breen as more information is discovered. He remains in
total denial. Interestingly, Andrew Keir's Quatermass is on the
fence as to whether the fossils found are significant. The real
hero of the film is Miss Judd.
It is a good touch that as the archive reader goes through the
Latin text, he has to stop and go back and pick up a word from the
previous page because sentence structure and word order is
different in Latin than in English.
I cannot prove, but genuinely believe, that I discovered that the
scene on the "mind-reading" visual analyzer was borrowed by Baker
from the early Hammer science fiction film FOUR-SIDED TRIANGLE. I
had never noticed it until many years later but I definitely heard
people citing it after I mentioned it in an article.
(This is the one science fiction idea in the film that does not
ring true; it is very unlikely that in such a short time one could
develop a "visual analyzer".)
The "alien playback" scene is the one scene that really could use
much better special effects. It seems very amateurish-looking. If
the film is ever remade this should be where the additional effort
is put. Another scene with flawed special effects is the scene in
which we first see the telekinetic effects. It has a heavy use of
wire work which is not quite believable. However, this aspect is
clearly one that would look better in a film made today.
Barbara Shelley (who plays Miss Judd) was one of Hammer films most
favored actresses, although this was her last Hammer film, and
(except for one film) her last feature film. (She basically did a
lot of television work for the next twenty years.)
Julian Glover (who plays Colonel Breen) had a very long career,
showing up in many later fantasy films, including films in the
"Indiana Jones" series, the "Harry Potter" series, and THE GAME OF
THRONES, and is still acting.
Bee Duffell (who plays the lab assistant) was actually in a
surprising number of Hammer horror and science fiction films. Her
suicide in Fahrenheit 451 is one of that film's memorable touches.
She was also in A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, along with nine (!) other
actors from QUATERMASS AND THE PIT. Since Baker directed both
films, he may have just decided to use many actors he was already
familiar with.
Duncan Lamont (who plays Sladden, the driller, in an iconic
performance) played the monster in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and has
been in many films for Hammer and other studios. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: POWERS AND THRONES: A NEW HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES by Dan
Jones (book review by Greg Frederick)
If you want to read a recent and well-written book about the Middle
Ages, POWERS AND THRONES would be that book. The author starts
this book with the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 400's
A.D. and ends around the time of the Reformation. What is
especially great about this book is how Jones continually makes
connections between the past and our World today. He proves that
the past can help to explain the present. Examples of these
connections include facts like the initial laissez-faire attitude
the Mongols had toward religion. One modern scholar referred to in
the book thinks that this could have been an influence on the
framers of our Constitution. And of course the religious
persecution of the early American colonists was another major
factor in the creation of our religious freedom.
The Islamic world in its early period had a rich intellectual
environment; ninth century scholars like al-Khwarizmi known as the
father of Algebra and a brilliant chemist, Jabir ibn-Hayyan were
making great discoveries. But though the Christian realms and
Islamic world abutted each other little information trickled
across. It was not until the turn of the twelfth century during
the crusading era which occurred in the Iberian peninsula that
cities like Toledo, and Cordoba came under Christian control. This
was when a major information exchange happened. Islamic and
forgotten ancient Greek and Roman knowledge was transmitted to the
Christian world.
Climate change and technology had an impact on the people of the
past and effected history. For several hundred years after A.D.
900 global temperatures rose. But around 1300 this changed
especially for Western Europe. A rapid cooling effect caused by
intense volcanic activity occurred. This climate change was one
but not the only reason for the Great Famine of 1315-1321. There
was basically too many people for the technology of the time. The
population of England increased from 1.5 million at the time of the
Norman Conquest to around 6 million by the time of the Great
Famine. Technological improvements in agriculture and food
production were the cause of this population increase. As
mentioned before this is a well-written and great resource to learn
about the Middle Ages. [-gf]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Adrian Tchaikovsky and Cyrillic (letters of comment by Gary
McGath, Paul Dormer, Keith F. Lynch, and Scott Dorsey)
In response to Evelyn's comments on ELDER RACE BY Adrian
Tchaikovsky in the 06/24/22 issue of
the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
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. [-gmg]
Paul Dormer responds:
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 think there was one British newspaper that
insisted on spelling the composer as 'Chaikovsky'. [-pd]
Keith F. Lynch notes:
Unfortunately, the proper Cyrillic letter of 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.) [-kfl]
Scott Dorsey replies:
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? [-sd]
Evelyn adds:
Not to be confused with the "Great Simplification" in A CANTICLE
FOR LEIBOWITZ.
The author apparently isn't related to the composer (other in that
we are all related somehow); the author is Polish and the composer
Russian. The author says he hopes that if he ever sells the Polish
rights to his books, he will see his "real" name on the cover.
(Note of course that Polish is written using the Roman alphabet,
not the Cyrillic, but does have its own special letters.) [-ecl]
Gary McGath continues:
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."
===================================================================
TOPIC: A SPINDLE SPLINTERED (letters of comment by Robert Woodward,
Scott Dorsey, and Gary McGath)
In response to Evelyn's comments on A SPINDLE SPLINTERED in the
06/24/22 issue of the MT VOID, Robert Woodward writes:
[Evelyn writes,] "A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow ... is a
re-imagining of the story of Snow White in all its iterations."
If there is a Spindle, shouldn't this be a re-imagining of Sleeping
Beauty? [-rw]
Scott Dorsey replies:
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. [-sd]
Gary McGath adds:
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/>
[-gmg]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
RIVER OF THE GODS: GENIUS, COURAGE, AND BETRAYAL IN THE SEARCH FOR
THE SOURCE OF THE NILE by Candice Millard (Doubleday, ISBN
978-0-385-54310-1) is a non-fiction book about the search for the
source of the (White) Nile by Sir Richard Francis Burton and John
Hanning Speke. This quest was portrayed in the fiction film 1990
MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, as well as the earlier (and hard to find)
1971 documentary mini-series THE SEARCH FOR THE NILE.
The historical facts are that Speke was correct in his claim that
Lake Nyanza (now Lake Victoria) is the source of the Nile.
Burton's misgivings about that, while justified,, turned out to be
misplaced. In spite of this, Burton is remembered and honored, and
Speke is known to far fewer people.
Millard also describes the two personalities, based on their
writings and other sources, and seems to conclude that there is
enough blame to go around for the disastrous falling-out between
the two. Of the first expedition, Millard writes, "Speke's pride
... made it difficult for him to bear not only Burton's fame but
[Burton's] complete confidence in his own ability and his easy
assumption of the role of leader, a position that he himself
craved. ... Speke had also begun to rewrite the expedition in his
own mind, making himself not simply a late addition to the group
but its true commander."
But Burton was not without his own prideful failings. Millard goes
on, "Burton ... had a maddening tendency to disregard what Speke
considered to be not just his own contributions to the expedition,
but his own property. Believing that, as the leader of the
expedition, it was his duty to put to public use anything that he
and his men gathered during a government-funded expedition, Burton
had assumed control of both Speke's journal and the natural history
specimens he had collected during his aborted journey to the Wady
Nogal." Burton sent the collection to a zoologist who published his
findings and used only a few excerpts of Speke's notes in his
paper. (Speke had intended this collection to be part of a natural
history museum he planned to build.)
Millard does give more space to Sidi Mubarak Bombay than most
accounts of these expeditions that I have seen. But this was not
immediately obvious: since I had always hear him referred to as
"Sidi Bombay" I assume that one should look under "Sidi" in the
index. And there was an entry for "Sidi Mubarak Bombay" there, but
only one, referencing a poem in the introduction. It turns out
that he is indexed under "Bombay", but there should at least be a
"see also" under "Sidi". [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking
questions.
--Charles Steinmetz
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