Article-I.D.: ucbvax.439
Posted: Mon Dec 20 09:53:53 1982
Received: Tue Dec 21 07:18:54 1982

>From SFL@SRI-CSL  Sat Dec 18 07:52:52 1982
Reply-To: SF-LOVERS at SRI-CSL
To: SF-LOVERS@SRI-CSL


SF-LOVERS Digest         Monday, 20 Dec 1982      Volume 6 : Issue 112

Today's Topics:
    Authors - Moorcock, Heinlein, Aldiss, Lucas/SW novels
    Misc    - writing SF, bookscores
    T.V.    - SF on the tube (or lack thereof)
    Movies  - SW/TESB/ROTJ, The Dark Crystal
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 December 1982 1131-EST
From: Jim Anderson at CMU-CS-A
Subject: MOORCOCK RUN ONS

The most likely reason for Mr. Moorcock to write many thin books which
are tenuously linked is that he has enough consideration not to make
it necessary to buy N books to understand whats going on and get
enjoyment from the tale.  This allows each book to be evaluated on
either a stand alone basis, or as part of a more complex whole.  It
all depends on how many books you want to buy and whether you have
time to read a lengthy series.

                                                      Jim(JAOL)

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Date: 16 Dec 1982 10:24 PST
From: GMeredith.ES at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest   V6 #106

I have missed any previous mention of sex change in SF, so I may be 
duplicating.  Does Heinlein's I WILL FEAR NO EVIL (one I never
bothered to finish) qualify?

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Date: 14 Dec 82 14:21:44-EST (Tue)
From: David Axler 
Subject: Perceptions of Reality in SF

   (RE:  Paul Fuqua's comments on reality as only the perceptions of
the observer, SFL 6:101)

     Two other books that deal specifically with the perception of
reality in sf terms are a pair of novels by Brian Aldiss.  The first,
"Barefoot in the Head is set in a post-WWIII Europe which has been
heavily bombed by third-world nations, who used chemical warfare,
specifically long-term, permanent-effect hallucinogens.  When the book
starts, the narrator is as straight as can be, and is watching the
collapse of Western Civilization; by its end, however, the drugs have
gotten to him, and his perceptions are totally altered.
     The other Aldiss novel worth noting in this context is his
"Report on Probability A," which Illuminati fans would love because of
the paranoia that's implicit in the plot premise, viz., that there are
aliens from another time- track (almost the same as ours, but not
quite...) watching us to determine the differences.  Unbeknownst to
them, there are aliens from another .... and so on, ad infinitum.
Very well done, in that understated British style Aldiss does so well.

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Date: 14 Dec 82 17:07:06-PST (Tue)
From: harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!macrev at Ucb-C70
Subject: Writing SF

Any aspiring SF writers out there?  Maybe we all are.  I keep hoping 
that just by being on the net a little POURNELLE will rub off on me.  
At any rate, have any of you submitted anything for publication?  What
sort of problems did you encounter?  Any suggestions for those of us
who may try in the future?  What are the pitfalls?  Shortcuts?  Short
stories, or novels?  Are BEMs in, or out?  (That last one may date me
-- I haven't heard 'em called BEMs for years.)

Mike Lynch mhuxi!macrev

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Date: 18 Dec 1982 0933-PST
Subject: SF Bookstores: Moonstone Bookcellars
From: Mike Leavitt 

Minor note: Moonstone Bookcellars is near Washington Circle in 
Washington, DC, not Dupont Circle (well, actually, about six blocks
down New Hampshire Ave).  The address is 2145 Pennsylvania Ave,
NW--under the barber shop.

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Date: Sun Dec 19 20:17:36 1982
From: decvax!idis!mi-cec!rwg@Berkeley
Subject: Re: SciFi on the Tube (or lack thereof)

(...or, "Production and Decay of Strange Articles") Better than having
four series, why not an 'Outer Limits' type format where there is no
need for week-to-week continuity?  Come to think of it, why not bring
back Outer Limits?  Rich

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Date: 15 Dec 82 10:03:07-PST (Wed)
From: harpo!floyd!edp at Ucb-C70
Subject: SW, the books

        The rumor about Alan Dean Foster ghosting STAR WARS is untrue.
In actuallity, Foster wrote a take off on the original SW called 
"Splinter of the Minds Eye", which was not of the same caliber as SW.

        On the subject of the SW books, if you are looking for the 
answers to these questions floating around, read (or re-read) SW +
TESB.  Lucas goes into great detail about (seemingly) trivial things.
There are a couple of prime examples in both books.  For example, in
TESB Boba Fett's uniform is described as the armor worn by of a group
of warriors defeated by the Jedi knights {which might affect (+/-) the
Boba Fett theory}.

        Before I get flamed about Lucas not writing TESB, Lucas did
not actually author it but he did edit the final copy and his style is
prevalent through out the book.

                                floyd!edp

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Date: 14 Dec 82 7:21:31-PST (Tue)
From: decvax!decwrl!sun!megatest!fortune!wdl1!jrb at Ucb-C70
Subject: Lucas and SW Novel

There is a widespread rumor to the effect that the novelization of SW
was acually ghosted by Alan Dean Foster.  Anyone have any further
information?

                                        John R Blaker

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Date: 19 Dec 1982 0326-PST
From: Henry W. Miller 
Subject: Why Darth COULD be Luke's father.


        In SW/ANH, Obi Wan tells Luke that his father was betrayed and
killed by a young Jedi named Darth Vader.  In TESB, Yoda, I believe
says in effect that the Dark Side can destroy you.

        Now, If Darth is indeed Luke's father, and if he did indeed
give himself up to the Dark Side, then he in effect "killed" and
"betrayed" himself in doing so.

        Maybe that is why Obi Wan was so reticent in telling Luke the
full story, about his greatest failure.

        I still maintain the if Darth is Luke's father, then Obi Wan
is Darth's father.  (And that Han Solo is the "another")

        I don't believe that Darth Vader will come back to the good
side; to do so would be to ruin the best movie villian since the
Wicked Witch of the West.  Darth realizes the importance of order, but
for his own reasons.  I expect that he hopes to become the new
Emperor.

-HWM

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Date: 13 Dec 82 16:30:21-PST (Mon)
From: decvax!utzoo!watmath!watarts!geo at Ucb-C70
Subject: Re: TESB Plot of willson@uci

I just finished reading Stephen Willson extended predictions about the
plot of RotJ.  Emperor and Darth dispatched, "Other" discovered,
Republic re-established, *Deep* *Philosophical* *Meaning* for those
who like such things.  However, it doesn't really leave very much left
to happen in VII, VIII and IX does it?

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Date: 19 Dec 1982 12:40-EST
From: James.Muller at CMU-CS-GANDALF at CMU-CS-A
Subject: a new hope

Obviously the newest of the new hopes is . . . James Bond. Those of
you who have only seen James Bond movies may not beleive this, but the
movies aren't about the real James. Fleming's biographies portray a 
perfect other hope. James will make just enough mistakes in the first 
hour of ROTJ to keep the movie going for the requisite 2:02 (or is it 
2:03 ?). James is suave, and will give those of us who are sick of
Twit Skywalker a chance to let our stomachs calm down. The love
triange will no longer be a problem -- James will sleep with a variety
of girls, as he always has, and his true love will still be his
Bentley. And remember, even if his wife is shot, he loses his memory,
gets lost on an island, is brain washed be SMERSH, and spends three
books doing so, he always gets his man.

Finally, when he races races over Darth, brings the Bentley to a halt,
and hops out, the broken mask will reveal that Vader is a clone of . .
.  Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

                                                James

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Date: 16 Dec 82 18:22:44-PST (Thu)
From: harpo!eagle!allegra!phr at Ucb-C70
Subject: Dark Crystal Early Report

Dark Crystal opens Friday; a friend of a friend who previewed it
"compared it to the first time she saw 2001."

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 82 13:41-PST
From: mclure at SRI-UNIX
Subject: Review: The Dark Crystal

n048  1201  15 Dec 82
BC-REVIEW-''CRYSTAL''
(Newhouse 002)
Film review, for use when ''The Dark Crystal'' opens at local theaters
By RICHARD FREEDMAN
Newhouse News Service
    (UNDATED) In ''The Dark Crystal,'' master Muppeteers Jim Henson
and Frank Oz have themselves a ball filling the screen with assorted
Skeksis, Garthim, Podlings and Landstriders.
    Unfortunately, they're all so ugly and menacing that this
elaborate fantasy film is more like Edwin S. Porter's 1906 ''Dream of
a Rarebit Fiend'' than any of the Muppet movies. In vain one longs for
optimistic Kermit the Frog, to say nothing of that determined Gallic
charmer, Miss Piggy.
    Instead, what we get is a sub-Tolkien epic about hibdibs and
doodads engaged in a mighty confrontation of Good and Evil that boils
down to exactly nothing at all.
    Good is represented by Jen and Kira, the last of the Gelflings, a
race doomed by the buzzardlike Skeksis ever since the Conjunction of
the Three Suns 1,000 years ago. Jen has been raised by the gentle
Mystics; Kira by the Podlings, who carry on like the peasants in a
Brueghel picnic.
    Both hero and heroine look and act like long-eared Barbie dolls.
    But it's their mission to restore the Crystal - which darkened and
cracked - to its original luminous wholeness in time for the next
solar conjunction. Accompanying them is Fizzgig, ''a friendly
monster'' who is all bark and fur and clearly kin to Animal, the
frenetic rock drummer of the Muppets.
    But nothing else in ''The Dark Crystal'' suggests that benign
world originally created by Henson for ''Sesame Street.'' Instead, he
has gone back to the grotesque worlds of such illustrators as
Grandville, Tenniel and Rackham for his inspiration.
    And inspired his creations undoubtedly are, though it's doubtful
many of them will turn up in toy stores next Christmas.
    A banquet of the odious Skeksis, with everyone dribbling and
jabbering at once, resembles nothing so much as a collection of
Hollywood producers and agents feasting at Chasen's. They even have
dessert on the run - but it's the dessert that runs, frantically
trying to escape their voracious jaws.
    Aughra, a mad astronomer with detachable eyes, shows Jen and Kira
around his mechanized planetarium, and the Skeksis' roachlike warriors
pursue them as they ride their long-legged Landstriders.
    Apparently working on the theory that the world has taken to its
heart such weird creatures as the Yoda in ''The Empire Strikes Back''
and even old walnut-head himself, E.T., Henson and company have filled
''The Dark Crystal'' with an assortment of creepie-crawlies and
slithering swamp creatures guaranteed to give any child nightmares for
a week.
    So the result is depressingly like Ralph Bakshi's barely animated
version of ''The Lord of the Rings'' in its relentlessly somber brand
of fantasy.
    Henson can make the woods themselves come to life, but Jen and
Kira are as lifeless as any Disney hero and heroine, and the heroic
endeavor they're engaged in remains dramatically inert and unexciting.
    X X X
    FILM CLIP:
    ''THE DARK CRYSTAL.'' Muppeteer Jim Henson's rather dark and dour
sub-Tolkien fantasy involving the battle between good Gelflings and
evil Skeksis in a mystic woodland filled with a variety of
creepie-crawlies. Highly imaginative creatures, but not much fun to
watch. Rated PG. Two and a half stars.  RB END FREEDMAN (DISTRIBUTED
BY THE FIELD NEWS SERVICE)

nyt-12-15-82 1503est
**********

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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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