THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/04/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 32, Whole Number 2209

Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
MT VOID Typeface (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Mini Reviews, Part 8 (WIFE OF A SPY, FRANCE, BAD LUCK
BANGING OR LOONY PORN) (film reviews
by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER (film review by Dale Skran)
TREKNOMICS: THE ECONOMICS OF STAR TREK by Manu Saadia
(a book review in the form of an extended essay
by Dale Skran) (part 2)
Star Trek Economics (letters of comment by Sam Long,
Tim Merrigan, Gary McGath, Scott Dorsey,
Paul Dormer, and Alan Woodford)
BILLY BUDD (letter of comment by Paul Dormer)
FREE GUY (letter of comment by Dorothy J. Heydt)
Latin, SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, and SHIVA BABY
(letter of comment by John Hertz)
This Week's Reading (DISCURSO E HISTORIA EN LA OBRA
NARRATIVA DE JORGE LUIS BORGES, "Funes the
Memorious"/"Funes, His Memory", and translations)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

TOPIC: MT VOID Typeface (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Reports are that the typeface is much better. Now I just hope I
can remember how to keep it that way! [-ecl]

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

TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 8 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)

Here is the eighth batch of mini-reviews, with movies from other
countries in languages other than English.

WIFE OF A SPY (SUPAI NO TSUMA): (**SPOILERS**) We have seen a lot
of spy thrillers set in Europe, usually with American or British
spies, but WIFE OF A SPY is a bit different. This, the latest film
from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (not relation to Akira Kurosawa), is set in
1940 in Japan, and has as its spy a Japanese businessman. We can
tell he has some problems with the current Japanese government, as
he and his wife are warned they are too Westernized (clothing--
although the clothing edict seems to apply mostly to women--whiskey
choices, etc.). (Several of the conversations between the main
character and his friend in the Japanese security forces,
discussing whether to inform on people, seem reminiscent of
conversations between Ben-Hur and Masala.) The plot is not always
easy to follow, and several characters are not what they seem
(well, it is a spy thriller). There is probably a lot that
Japanese audiences will pick up on that Western audiences might
miss (e.g., apparently one of the wall hangings has a motto that
can be taken as a comment on the situation), but others are clearer
(a comment about a year-end corporate gift of rice cakes and sugar
is that it is to help with the ration cards). Halfway through we
discover the focus of the espionage which is the Japanese medical
experiments at the infamous Unit 731 in Manchuria/Manchukuo. The
Japanese government kept quiet on "crimes against humanity" for
decades and the secret was basically kept for many years after the
war, though some hints leaked out. It was not until this century
that court cases and some official acknowledgement by the Japanese
government has happened.

Released theatrically 09/17/21; available on various streaming
services. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4), or 7/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11917942/reference>

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

FRANCE: In FRANCE, France de Meurs (played by Lea Seydoux) is a
telejournalist who goes through a personal crisis and tries to
change her style. At the beginning we see her arranging news
scenes that appear to be off the cuff, but are being artfully
staged or even faked, probably for ratings. Wherever she goes,
France runs into people who know her from television; she has given
up her private life for fame. Even when she thinks she has managed
to shake her admirers (or stalkers), she finds she cannot avoid
them. Much of the thrust is lost in translating the text. One
good touch is that the production designer creates a scene and then
makes many small objects in that scene the same striking color,
giving it more of a feel of artificiality. The film as a whole is
reminiscent of NETWORK, though France is no Diana Christensen.

Released theatrically 12/10/21; available on various streaming
services. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4), or 6/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9714030/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/france_2021>

BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (BABARDEALA CU BUCLUC SAU PORNO
BALAMUC): *WARNING*: This film begins with an X-rated hardcore sex
scene. (Boy, I tell you! Films are better than ever.) As the
film begins, we focus on the attitudes of one group of people and
their reactions to having a sex film of a teacher and her husband
on the Internet. The director also gives us a view of the current
economic status of Romania which helps the viewer to place the
story in time, as well as a film about attitudes towards sex,
ethnicities, nationalism, and other hot topics. Romania seems to
be a land of noisy traffic and the director takes us on a slow tour
of the streets of Bucharest, during which we see street scenes that
run on for minutes. The film provides three different endings, one
of which seems inspired by the song "Harper Valley P.T.A."
Ultimately, the whole film seems like a joke.

Released theatrically 11/19/21; available on DVD from Netflix.
Rating: 0 (-4 to +4), or 4/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14033502/reference>

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

[-mrl/ecl]

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

TOPIC: THE DOOR INTO SUMMER (film review by Dale Skran)

A Japanese version of Robert A. Heinlein's THE DOOR INTO SUMMER is
running on Netflix, and I would strongly recommend any SF fan watch
it. It's not a bad intro to SF for regular folks either. The
beauty of this adaptation is that moving it to Japan removes pretty
much all of the parts of the original novel that don't stand the
test of time, while preserving what makes THE DOOR INTO SUMMER
classic SF.

The plot has been somewhat modified, but not in any way that
fundamentally alters anything good about the story. The framing
device of the cat looking for a "Door into Summer" is retained, and
the cat has been brilliantly cast, with the result that the
sweetness of the hero's love for his pet shines through. The
problematic aspects of a relationship with an eleven-year-old have
been expunged by making her seventeen, and all the talky Fifties
slang Heinlein dialog is now Japanese, totally filtering and
updating it so that it is not jarring to the ear.

The original book has some brilliant description from the 1950s of
what a real household robot might be like, and although details are
wrong, you can clearly see the real-life Roomba shining through the
text. The 2025 tech is possibly more advanced that it should be,
but the anti-gravity is much deprecated in the movie [I actually
missed it completely] and the movie cleverly focused on a "plasma
battery" as a key new invention. The real "SF assumption" is, of
course, time travel, but without time travel and cold-sleep there
is no plot.

Since the entire story is about the evolution of robotics, there is
a strong resonance with Japanese cultural tendencies. The updated
story works surprisingly well as a touching romance as well as a
tale of an engineer wronged who uses technology to set things
right. After watching the movie, I came to see the cat's search
for the "Door into Summer" as a metaphor, not just for the hero's
search for a better life and revenge, but also for the entire
history of the human pursuit of a better future. May we all find
our own personal "Door into Summer," and as the rockets rise from
Boca Chica Texas, the door to a brighter future for all of humanity
is slowly cracking open in the depths of the Covid-19 winter.

I'm rating THE DOOR INTO SUMMER a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale, a must
see for a serious SF fan, and a super must see for Heinlein fans.
This is probably the best adaptation of any Heinlein book yet. THE
DOOR INTO SUMMER is a G-rated(*): a no-sex, minimal violence movie
suitable for all ages, although the complex plot will confuse most
kids. However, they will like the cat. [-dls]

(*) Officially, there is no US rating. It is G-rated in Japan, and
rated "12" in the UK. [-ecl]

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

TOPIC: TREKNOMICS: THE ECONOMICS OF STAR TREK by Manu Saadia (a
book review in the form of an extended essay by Dale Skran)
(part 2)

[This is the second part of a review of TREKNOMICS: THE ECONOMICS
OF STAR TREK.]

Let's take a look at the most common elements of "Star Trek"
technology:

-- Communicators: They are pretty much a joke. We've made them
real in just a few decades after Original Trek, and about 100x
better than what is shown in Trek.
-- Universal Translators: We have made enormous progress toward
such devices, and seem on course to match or exceed "Trek" level
capabilities over the next few decades.
-- Tricorders: We are well on our way there, and surely will
exceed what was shown in Trek in less than 100 years, if not much
earlier
-- Computers: Trek computers are more advanced than what we have
now, but not that much more advanced. We seem on a path to achieve
"Trek level" computers in much less than 100 years. Computers are
one of the technologies that must be constrained to avoid a
"Singularity" so the only plausible explanation for the limited
capabilities of Trek computers is deliberate widespread restraint.
-- Medical technologies: Certainly, Trek has some real advances
over the present day, but the number of deadly diseases and plagues
in the Trek universe are astonishing. People seem to live long
lives by today's standards, but not that much longer. There does
not appear to have been any systematic effort to extend the human
lifespan, something that most probably is the result of the
suppression of science and technology.
-- Cloaking devices: One of the real-world technological advances I
have found the most surprising is the development of "invisibility
shields". There are currently working models of shields that work
at some defined energy frequency, i.e., visible light, that make an
object behind them invisible. It seems reasonable to expect that
few hundred years of progress will result in something at least as
useful as the Romulan cloaking device.
-- Tractor Beams: Folks are working on them--see this link. It may
not seem like that much, and they may never move a big spaceship,
but gee, they work on small objects right now.

Clearly, any kind of genetic engineering is very limited in the
Trek universe. We don't hear much of genetic disease, so a
reasonable assumption is that somatic genetic cures are widely
used, but germ line engineering is not. Also, there is very little "biological" technology on display, again suggesting systematic
suppression of GMO plants and animals, as well as using biology for
materials processing.

Trek writers have the conviction that genetically engineered
"superhumans" will be afflicted with overweening arrogance and
pomposity, leading them inevitably to endless internecine warfare.
This is as though the "superhumans" consisted only of Caesar,
Alexander, and Napoleon, when they could just as easily be
Einstein, Hawking, and Curie. Trek stories about genetic
engineering are best understood as "just-so" tales that buttress an
assumption, rather than explorations of what might actually make
sense or be possible.

Data is impressive as an android, but he was created in secret by
one scientist, suggesting that such research is being
systematically suppressed. Once Data was found, the Federation's
ethics prevents him from being dismantled to understand how he
works, resulting in the "Data" technology having little impact on
the larger society, at least for a long time.

One curious feature of the Trek utopia is a complete lack of the
current significant population of the mentally ill and addicted.
We are forced to assume that federation medical technology has
become quite successful in treating such issues, to a much greater
degree than infectious diseases or aging. This may be an area where
the Federation has secretly directed the allocation of vast
resources such that here at least progress has been very great.
Some episodes express concern about holodeck addiction, and indeed
this does seem like a very real problem. The holodeck could
fulfill any fantasy with no risk except a growing disconnection
from the real world. Needless to say, the PG world of Trek is not
one in which the dangers of the holodeck can be explored. For the
holodeck technology to not have a devastating impact on Trek
society, either there are strict limits on how it can be used, or
the anti-addiction treatments are indeed powerful.

It is frequently declared in Trek that crime has been eliminated,
but the details are vague at best. Via some magical means,
criminals are "rehabilitated" via medical treatment and therapy.
This sounds good, but from a glass half full perspective it may be
little different from lobotomy. Ian Banks had a far more plausible
solution--a robot is assigned to each criminal to follow them
around and prevent them from committing a new crime. The criminal
is free to engage in legal activities, but they have permanently
lost any sense of privacy or control over their lives. One imagines
that being followed by a robot at all times would make you a social
pariah as well. Whatever the flaws in Banks's approach, it seems
more implementable than that found in Trek.

The author devotes an entire chapter to the mental wellbeing
Trektopia has achieved, and since his parents and many of his
friends are psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists, finds a
special connection with Counselor Troi. The author is correct that
perhaps the greatest scientific advance shown in Trek involves the
eradication on a mass scale of virtually all mental disease. Aside
from the "cheat" of having am empathic therapist, Trek is skimpy on
the details. Much like the replicator, Trek solved all these
problems before the addition of empathic Betazoids, so they can't
be the key factor.

The author attributes a lot of this mental wellbeing to material
abundance, and surely many poor folks in the real-world stuffer
from stress, anxiety, and depression that would be much relieved by
an infusion of cash. However, we need only look at the lives of
those in the real world who are well off to see that satisfaction
of material wants alone does not resolve all mental issues. In
fact, if we look at Hollywood in some ways it makes them worse.
The only real value of the author's analysis is to focus attention
on the benefits that would come from achieving universal good
mental health.

It is easy to speculate that behind the curtain in Trektopia lies a
highly coercive mental health apparatus. If you have some issue,
you are mandated to accept the treatment. There appear to be no
asylums, "Devil's Island" planets of the insane who refuse
treatment, or wandering bums listening to voices and peeing on park
benches. The only way this can be achieved is if there are
generally accepted treatments for essentially all mental disease,
and the usage of those treatments is mandatory. I'm more or less ok
with this, but the author should be more honest about what
Trektopia really requires.

This is not to say there is no technological progress in Trek, and
certainly work related to energy, warp drive, and weapons seems
quite advanced, but overall, aside from ending material want, and
eliminating addiction/mental diseases, much of what humans might
want from science is not available in the Trek universe.

A further curious feature of Trek mythology is that humanity is
destined to evolve into something like the Organians, the Travelers
or even the Q, all races with God-like power. However, exactly how
this is supposed to happen with all the restraints on genetic
engineering and artificial intelligence is unclear. The idea that
Wesley Crusher, genius though he may be, would suddenly be able to
travel through time and space via mind-power alone just a few 100s
years in the future is risible. Trek tries to have it both
ways--holding out the promise of vast evolutionary growth while
delaying it to a vague and distant future. At times Trek seems to
devolve into a kind of homo dominus philosophy--that there is
something special about humanity that will lead to this amazing
future.

The second to the last chapter explores in some depth the author's
love of the Ferengi, who he sees as being a modest exaggeration of
Western capitalism. In this role, he becomes a Ferengi apologist,
suggesting that they do not loot and enslave [they do], and fails
to grasp that they are terrible capitalists. The Ferengi
completely ignore the profit-making potential of science, making
them more like a primitive combination of mercantilists and
pirates. The Ferengi appear to represent the author's
understanding of capitalism, which is sadly limited. His vision is
equally limited in that, although apparently from a Jewish
background, he cannot grasp the degree which the Ferengi and
indeed, the entire Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series, is suffused
with anti-semitic overtones. Not only are the Ferengi a
stereotyped representation of Jewish merchants, but the
Cardassian/Bajoran conflict is a thinly disguised retelling of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with the Palestinians/Bajorans as the
heroes, and the Cardassians as a parody of the Israelis.

In the last chapter the author takes off his fannish mask and
reveals himself as a European social democrat in political
leanings. He appears to start from the assumption that capitalism
is a bad thing, and leap directly to the wonders of Trektopia. He
even seems to think that the economy is some kind of magical wealth
machine that will rapidly build us toward the Treknonomic future as
long as we adopt the commonplace nostrums of the left--high taxes,
wealth redistribution, and a vast welfare state. The author,
although trained in economics, does not seem to appreciate that the
wealth he observes around him is the direct result of capitalism
combined with stable law that protects intellectual property, and
that absent these two motors there is no reason to think wealth
would continue to grow. Certainly, the lesson of the 20 century is
that the more extreme the implementation of socialism/communism,
the poorer the society becomes. Like many on the left who have
never run a business or seen the magic of capitalism in action, the
author sees neither the benefits of capitalism or the deficits of
socialism.

Finally, and surprisingly for a lover of Star Trek and SF, the
author believes that space has no relevance to the future of
humanity. He is further convinced that Elon Musk is deluded in
thinking he can settle Mars without the full weight of a government
behind him. Treaknomics was written in 2016. One wonders if the
events between 2016 and 2022 may have changed his mind? Musk is
now the leading global space power, has the most advanced
technology, and operates the largest satellite network that has
ever existed, dwarfing any previous government effort. Also,
richest man in the world. Also, really just getting started.

As many have said, SF is not about the future--it is about
today--and that is certainly true of Star Trek. Trek can be a great inspiration, but is a poor guide to the real future, including our
economic future. In fact, by design it avoids discussion what is
most likely our real future:

-- Rapid advancement of computers and artificial intelligence
-- Development of extremely powerful medical and biological
technology using genetic techniques, including but not limited to a
much longer human lifespan.
-- No faster than light travel or teleportation
-- Widespread usage of 3D printers that really are "matter
printers", but that still need elemental stocks to function
-- Cheap [er] energy using Space Based Solar Power, ground solar,
wind power, and eventually fusion.
-- Development of space resources allowing effectively unlimited
quantities of raw materials
-- A rapidly peaking and then declining population on Earth as the
world modernizes
-- A need to adapt to climate change
-- Essentially unlimited and all-pervasive communications
technologies that are speed of light limited
-- Humanities expansion into space confined to the solar system
over the time period Trek covers

There may well someday be a "Capitalism 2.0" that replaces what we
think of as capitalism today, but Trek's vision of utopian
committees allocating unlimited resources seems unlikely to be our
future. There is no real-world experience that suggests any
mechanism better than money/market forces for resource allocation,
and lots of real-world experience to suggest that "committees" are
a terrible idea no matter who is on them. The author lays
underfunding of orphan diseases at the feat of capitalism, but
aside from a tiny group of libertarians, there is a strong
consensus that government ought to be involved in funding research
in parallel/cooperation with the private sector. Having both
approaches seem obviously superior to either one, and Trek
represents the end of "private" decisions in capital allocation. If
orphan diseases are underfunded (and I agree they are) the
government should allocate more resources to this task. The US
government is currently writing trillion dollar checks to fight
COVID--19 and shore up the economy, so surely a measly $500M or so
for orphan diseases can be found. Trek offers nothing that will
make this kind of mis-allocation go away, although it is true that
if we were all abundantly wealthy, there would be no pressure to
raise the child tax credit, for example. But the key requirement
here is MORE WEALTH not NO MONEY.

The chapter on the commons is especially unsatisfying. Trek offers
no better solution to the problems of the commons than we can
achieve today. Somehow, we managed to ban fluorocarbons and fix
the ozone hole, so clearly a capitalist society can manage a
"commons" problem. That we have not properly dealt with climate
change is due in large part to the continuing attempt by a
significant part of the left to use climate change as a lever to
destroy capitalism. Since the goal of this faction is not
preventing destructive climate change but instead the dissolution
of capitalism, they are not much motivated to find cheap,
low-carbon ways to generate energy, especially any "politically
incorrect" energy like nuclear or fusion power.

The Achilles heel of TREKNOMICS lies in the fact that there will
always be a need for some resource allocation, especially for large
projects, and TREKNOMICS offers nothing any more advanced that the
empty promises typical of socialism/communism.
The author also knows that the infinite abundance of Trek World is
unlikely to be achieved in the real world. Even if everyone is
given a 3-D printer, those printers will still need supplies of all
the elements to function, and those elements can only be obtained
by mining, not magic. It is virtually impossible to imagine a
transition from a world is which intellectual property rights are
fundamental to our lives, not just to commerce, to one in which
they do not exist.

Trek leaves unanswered how the resources are marshalled for any
large project, like building a starship. The history of
open-source projects suggests that although this approach can be at
least competitive with proprietary software, it is not at all
suited for any large-scale construction or research effort due to
an inability to collect the needed resources, including focused
project management, and large numbers of full-time dedicated staff.
If science is done by "unpaid volunteers" in an extremely wealth
society, we are likely to get a much smaller, and quite slow-moving
scientific enterprise, much as existed in the 18th or 19th century
when only aristocrats could afford to do science. And this is
exactly what we see in Trektopia.

It is quite possible to imagine a future in which every citizen
receives a substantial basic income, and the higher that basic
income is, the more like Trektopia we will become. We might start
with a fully rebated carbon tax, and add to that a fully rebated
tax on software, robots, and AI. If this basic "dividend" is about
$25K a year, poverty is essentially eliminated. If it grows to
something like $250K/year, we are verging toward something more
like Trek-topia. Somewhere between $25K and $250K per year, the
burning question will be--who does the windows? In other words,
how are the "dirty jobs" accomplished? The author seems to
envision that folk will wait on tables just for fun, or perhaps to
get a chance to work as a chef at the restaurant, but who works in
the mines? Who builds the houses? Who cleans the toilets? If the
answer is robots, and that almost certainly will be the answer, we
will have a world of material abundance where the allocation of
those robot resources is a key issue. Having a fully rebated tax
on software/robots/AI seems like a fundamental foundation of this
future.

The author struggles with the "moral hazard' robots create, and
looks unfavorably on Asimov's "spacers" with their solitary,
fearful, and decadent lives supported by a multitude of robots. He
clearly hopes that Trektopia has some solution to this
problem--perhaps by strictly limiting the role robots can play in
society, although the details are never made clear.

I have long thought that to keep the mass of ordinary folks
gainfully employed (since I don't think they will all be engaged in
artistic and scientific endeavor!) certain segments of the economy
should be "technology limited" so that they can employ many folks
with no special abilities. For consideration, I nominate home
construction, recycling, and healthcare.

Having said all of the above, this "universal dividend" future will
still have the following familiar features:

-- Money
-- Private property
-- Intellectual property
-- Resource extraction industries
-- Taxes
-- A mix of government and private resource allocation

This future may well have some approximation of the material
abundance Trek features, but with unpredictable impacts from AI and
genetic technologies. Our record of anticipating the social
impacts of networked computing is rather poor--who anticipated
Twitter? Tik-tok? Instagram? We are already seeing strange
impacts from AI, such as face recognition working poorly by race,
and chatbots that rapidly learn to be racist. Trektopia may be
right that some kind of restraint on AI and computer technology may
be a social necessity, but the debate over exactly what those
limits ought to be is going to be difficult. Personally, I'm close
to the idea that banning social networks, or dramatical regulating
what they can do, may be necessary for our survival. Their negative
impacts are so much worse than is generally understood.

In conclusion, TREKNOMICS is thought-provoking, but frustrating in
its blunders and misconceptions. [-dls]

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

TOPIC: Star Trek Economics (letters of comment by Sam Long, Tim
Merrigan, Gary McGath, Scott Dorsey, Paul Dormer, and Alan
Woodford)

In response to Dale Skran's comments on Star Trek economics in the
01/28/22 issue of the MT VOID, Sam Long writes:

I understand that the Starship Enterprise had a crew member--a
ship's tailor--whose job it was to see to the uniforms of the rest
of the crew. This fellow would (with the help of an early
Data-like robotic assistant) issue new uniforms when needed, and
repair uniforms that had suffered wear or damage aboard the
starship or on a planet's surface. So it was that, when Captain
Picard would return from one of his away-adventures with his outfit
in tatters, he would (after he had changed uniforms) take the torn
one down to the tailor's cabin, hand it to the robotic assistant,
and say to the tailor, "Make it sew." [-sl]

Tim Merrigan writes:

I suspect that the existence of, and relatively easy access to,
matter replication, and short distance teleportation (from high
orbit to a planetary surface, so, at least tens, if not hundreds,
of miles, and a transporter transmitter/receiver is nice to have,
but not necessary) would have major effect on the economy. [-tm]

Gary McGath summarizes:

The moneyless economy of Star Trek is so incoherently presented in
the shows that no one can really make sense of it. [-gmg]

Scott Dorsey responds:

"Oh, my parents don't use money. They have credit cards!"
-- My friend's niece

Paul Dormer adds:

One of the affects of the pandemic in the last couple of years
appears to be the abandoning of cash in favour of cards (debit as
well as credit). The only cash I've paid last year was the barber
and the window cleaner. Even a cheese vendor on a stall in the
high street was taking cards. [-pd]

Alan Woodford replies:

I've used a little bit more cash than that, but only because a lot
of the local car parks haven't updated their ticket machines yet.
:-)

Mind you, I'd have been happier if one of the ticket machines I had
to use out in the country last year *hadn't* been updated...

The car park was in a mobile phone not-spot, and it was taking a
couple of minutes per person to actually connect and pay--imagine
how happy the queue was! [-af]

Paul responds:

The smartphone I bought a couple of years ago turns out can't be
used for contactless payment. [-pd]

And Alan says:

This was the ticket machine not able to phone home--most people
(including me) were trying to use cards rather than phones for the
payment.

Of course, in the good old days, the machine would have had a coin
slot, but it is presumably cheaper not to have to empty the
machine. [-af]

[A lot discussion of credit cards vs cash followed; see <https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.fandom/c/YSGNy2KQUbU>.]

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

TOPIC: BILLY BUDD (letter of comment by Paul Dormer)

In response to Mark's comments on BILLY BUDD in the 01/28/22 issue
of the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:

I only know the Britten operatic version, written for the Festival
of Britain in 1951. Still often performed. Both Britten and
E. M. Forster, the librettist, were gay but I'm told they toned down
the homo-erotic elements from the novella. [-pd]

Mark replies:

I have never heard the opera. I do like the film score. [-mrl]

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

TOPIC: FREE GUY (letter of comment by Dorothy J. Heydt)

In response to Evelyn's review of FREE GUY in the 01/28/22 issue of
the MT VOID, Dorothy J. Heydt writes:

[Evelyn writes,] "FREE GUY: FREE GUY seems to crib a lot from
STRANGER THAN FICTION, and I'm sure if I knew more about video
games it would be clearer what is going on. I mean, I understand

[continued in next message]

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