From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!sf-lovers Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers Title: SF-LOVERS Digest V5 #69 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.7655 Posted: Mon Jun 14 11:56:40 1982 Received: Tue Jun 15 05:55:04 1982 >From JPM@Mit-Ai Mon Jun 14 11:49:46 1982 SF-LOVERS Digest Sunday, 13 Jun 1982 Volume 5 : Issue 69 Today's Topics: Administrivia - Truncated Digests, SF Books - "Shortstack" & Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan & Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, SF Topics - Politics in SF, SF Lovers - True Names, Random Topics - Commercials at the movies, SF Movies - Sword and the Sorcerer Query & Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spoiler - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sunday, June 13, 1982 9:54AM From: Jim McGrath (The Moderator)Reply-to: SF-LOVERS-REQUEST at MIT-AI Subject: Truncated Digests For some reason we have yet to discover, issue 66 (Wednesday) was unexpectably truncated in transmission. Since this appears to have happened to everyone, and since the missing material is quite short, we are including the last message in issue 66 as the last message in this issue, rather than retransmitting all of issue 66. Jim ------------------------------ Date: Fri 11-Jun-1982 22:24-EDT From: Bill Russell Subject: Shortstack Shortstack is a short story written by Walt and Leigh Richmond. The following publication history was extracted from "index to SCIENCE FICTION anthologies and collections" edited by William Contento, and published by G. K. HALL & Co., 70 Lincoln Street, Boston, Mass. Magazine: Analog, December 1964 Anthologies: Elsewhere and Elsewhen, edited by Groff Conklin, Berkeley, May 1968 Themes in Science Fiction, edited by Leo P. Kelley, McGraw Hill, 1972 Collection: Positive Charge, by Walt and Leigh Richmond, Ace, 1970, #27235, with "Gallagher's Glacier" Great little story. The "Contento" index is a great help in finding short SF fiction. It cost $28 in 1978. The Science Fiction Shop in NYC might still have one or two left in stock. This index has almost all English language SF anthologies and collections published thur 1977. It covers over 2,000 book titles with full contents listings of over 1,900 books containing 12,000 different stories by 2,500 authors. It has a book checklist, author index, story index, and a book contents section. As you might guess it was generated by a computer. The compiler says that he used a computer at work to maintain his private collection. Does anyone on the list know "William Contento"? This one book gets more use than any other of the reference works that I have on SF. Having an extensive collection of books (3,000+), but not having the time or space to index them all, this is what I use as an index to locate a particular story, or book to add to the collection. I hope that you can locate one of those books, I have two of them, and as far as I know, ALL three are out of print. Enjoy, Bill ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 1982 1130-EDT From: Larry Seiler Subject: "Message" Literature It is my prejudiced opinion that "message" literature (eg the stuff that Red Shift intends to put out) will be bound to be bad literature if the author considers the "message" to be more important than the story. A good author (such as Ayn Rand) can put across a combined political tract/story (I'm thinking of "Atlas Shrugged") and make it work, but think how much better it might have been (judged as a story) if she had tried to make realistic characters, instead of making everyone who disagreed with her point of view into idiots. But enough about Ayn Rand. I'll close by quoting Isaac Asimov, describing his story "Day of the Hunters" in the anthology "Buy Jupiter": "This story, alas, seems to have a moral, and, in fact, ends by pounding the moral over the reader's head. This is bad. Straightforward preaching spoils the effectiveness of a story. If you can't resist the impulse to improve your fellow human beings, do it subtly." Larry Seiler, Seiler@XX ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 12 Jun 1982 16:23-PDT From: jim at RAND-UNIX Subject: Nero Wolfe and True Names Jonathan Ostrowsky asked whether Lee Horsley played Archie Goodwin in the TV program Nero Wolfe a few years ago. It's not SF, of course, but since I know the answer, you get it anyway. Turns out I have tapes of both the pilot and one of the episodes from that short-lived series (1/2 season, I think). The pilot was extremely good and faithful to the books. It starred Thayer David as Nero Wolfe, Tom Mason as Archie Goodwin, and Biff McGuire as Inspector Kramer. The pilot was from "The Doorbell Rang." The episode from the regular season is "The Golden Spiders." It stars William Conrad as Nero Wolfe and LEE HORSLEY as Archie (as advertised). I liked the first crew better. William Conrad is a better shape for the part, but Thayer David had the character down very well. They also went from a great harpsichord sound track to typical schlock prime-time muzak. Unfortunately the series didn't keep the promise of the pilot, and degenerated into mere hackery ... and the ratings showed that people realized it. And on another topic ... Some people have asked for full "real" names and addresses on correspondents. I don't see the point. What would this list be without people like "Mijjil" or "Hobbit"? Don't we all know them better by these aliases than by their real names, which are often in the "from" section anyway? What does it matter where his/her real system is? If you've read True Names, by Vernor Vinge (fantastic book, Mike, thanks for aiming me at it), you should agree that the personality and opinions are enough, and shouldn't demand to know the True Name of the hacker behind them. Jim@rand-unix (well, Jim Gillogly at the Rand Corporation, if you must) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 1982 0903-PDT From: Mike Leavitt Subject: Commercials in movies The Wall Street Journal recently ran a feature story about people who get paid to place products in movies (like JVC in Superman, etc.) Apparently the movie people don't actually get paid for running this kind of "commercial," rather, they save on having to find the product and pay for it, and, where appropriate, the product is made available to people involved in making the movie. When Coke (the drink) gets placed in a movie, the entire crew might be provided with free Coke for the duration of production. I wouldn't be surprised if the production crew in Superman II got free use of JVC equipment. Mike P. S. does this really have much to do with sf? [ Not much - which is why it is under the RANDOM TOPICS heading. -- Jim ] ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 82 15:34-PDT From: mclure at SRI-UNIX Subject: Star Trek movie script When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was originally being scripted, I heard rumors that Roddenberry had put together a fantastic story about the Enterprise et al meeting God. The real God, that is. It was axed, because it was too "cerebral". I, for one, would like to see it some day. In my opinion, there are two scriptwriters who should be executed: Alan Dean Foster and Glen A. Larson. They are responsible for much of the garbage in visual SF. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 1982 1930-EDT From: CZAR Subject: Query about ST:TWoK I am puzzled about the name (actor's) of Khan's right hand man. Problem: 1) Khan's right hand man appears to be Bennu of ABC's 'The Phoenix' 2) Bennu is played by Judson Scott 3) Khan (as far as I can tell) never calls the RHM by his first name, thus there is no way to link the character's name to the actor's. 4) The credits in ST:TWoK give no mention to Judson Scott What gives? Does the RHM have a twin (clone?) named Judson Scott? Did he change his name before 'The Phoenix'? If anyone can shed some light on this I'd sure appreciate it. czar ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, June 13, 1982 9:54AM From: Jim McGrath (The Moderator) Subject: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! The following messages are the last in the digest. They discuss some plot details in both the movie and the book Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Some readers may not wish to read on. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 11 June 1982 10:43-PDT From: KDO at SRI-KL Subject: Comments (spoilers) on ST:TWOK Good acting, reasonable special effects (I like the new transporter), but the plot is really awful. Consider... Khan and company have been left on Ceti Alpha (shouldn't it be Alpha Ceti?) 5. The 6th planet in the system has blown up, sucking the 5th planet into its old orbit. Right! In 15 years, not only has Star Fleet forgotten that Khan was left in this system, but the mass of the planet has been forgotten, or else it couldn't be confused with another one. The planet has become desolate in 15 years, and the only native life form happens to be an extremely well-adapted human parasite. Huh? It heads straight for the ear and invades the brain without causing major damage except for taking partial control of the person's mind (We are told it makes him suggestible...actually it seems to work by torture. We are also told it leads to madness but instead when Chekov resists it crawls out of his ear in frustration!) Shades of Alien! Why?? Then we have a machine that creates life by "rearranging the matrix" or some such hogwash. It needs a lifeless planet to work on, but when it is set off in a nebula it creates a planet to put life on. Oh well, a great stride forward HAS been made. The crew still don't have seatbelts, and the stars still move (between the planets, no less), but THE ENTERPRISE CAN MOVE VERTICALLY. I don't think they have ever done that before...next thing you know it will take 4 enemy ships instead of 3 to surround the enterprise... Ken ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 1982 10:25:49-PDT From: jef at LBL-UNIX (Jef Poskanzer [rtsg]) Subject: ST:TWOK - bugs. No, not those bugs! I mean bugs as in flaws... - When Chekov sees the words "Botany Bay" and realizes where he is, he should have immediately pressed the emergency beam-up button on his communicator. Instead he panics (not a good trait in a first officer) and drags Terill outside. This is fixed in the book - he does try the communicator, but there is too much static. - Towards the end, when the Reliant is a wreck and Khan triggers the Genesis device, Spock instantly picks it up on the sensors. However, we were previously told that sensors don't work in the nebula. Is this one fixed in the book? - As usual, photon torpedoes are considerably less powerful than your average 20th century H-bomb. Negative progress. - And maybe I should mention the insectoid bugs after all. They are obviously an evolutionary impossibility. It seems a little unlikely that Chekov would be able to man a weapons console a few hours after having one bore its way out of his skull - massive cerebral hemmorage seems certain. And Khan seems to have confused the cerebral cortex with the cerebellum - in order to "wrap itself around the cerebral cortex", it would have to be about two feet long. ------------------------------ Date: 06/11/82 22:02:43 From: DMM@MIT-ML Subject: Re:TWOK Was that a photon torpedo casing that they launched Spock in at the end of the movie (not a particularly dignified funeral), or was that a starfleet coffin? (In which case, why did it say MARK VI on the sides?) In any case, how is it that it could make a controlled re- entry? Oh well, at least bones didn't say "He's dead, Jim." ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 82 00:52:12 EDT (Sat) From: Steve Bellovin Subject: Star Trek II -- The Wrath of Khan (spoiler) OK, how many folks here are betting that the override code for the Reliant becomes the super-user password on lots of systems....? (What were those numbers, anyway?) And how many simulations are reprogrammable from inside? My biggest plot-gripe was how the plan to decoy Khan *depended* on him monitoring an inherently insecure communications device. You'd think that in the 23rd century they could digitize and encrypt speech in real-time (at the very least). ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 1982 13:42:49-PDT From: decvax!steveg at Berkeley Subject: ST-II Sorry, but I thought the movie was a bit inane: Kirk: I am old, I am young, etc. etc. Spock: Khan's stategy shows 2-d thinking. (sheesh) And that silly tag game in the clouds was ridiculous. - Steve Gutfreund ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 1982 17:27:12-PDT From: decvax!minow at Berkeley Subject: Re: Kahn's right glove It looked to me to be a reference either to Dr. Strangelove or to Rotwang, the scientist in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Rotwang "lost his hand in the service of science" in that wonderful film. Martin Minow decvax!minow ------------------------------ Date: 06/12/82 22:02:11 From: DMM@MIT-ML Subject: Re:The Wrath of Khan Could the use of the term "Mister" in referring to Saavik have anything to do with the fact that she's a cadet? -- DMM IT-ML ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 82 12:25-PDT From: mclure at SRI-UNIX Subject: REMEMBER. in Star Trek II Someone recently asked on this list why Spock gives McCoy an apparent Vulcan mind meld for a few seconds, saying "Remember." This struck me as being pretty obvious. I would translate it as "Remember what we went through over the years." I'd be interested in other theories. ------------------------------ Date: 10-JUN-1982 08:45 From: VAX4::MCCOY Reply-to: "VAX4::MCCOY c/o" Subject: ST:TWOK I finally managed to see ST:TWOK last night (after all it's been out almost a week now). It was quite an improvement over ST:TMP, less time spent showing off the special effects and more time developing the plot. I for one was happy to see a return to the humor of the TV series. The undocking scene with Kirk on the bridge was vintage ST. Did anyone notice spock using the Vulcan mind probe on Dr. McCoy? He held his hand on Dr. McCoy's face in the usually way from the series and said (I think) "REMEMBER". I was expecting something to come of this towards the end of the movie, but nothing. Spock used this technique in at least two ST TV episodes. The first time he used it to convince everyone the bullets were not real at the OK Corral in "Spectre of the Gun" The second time was to help Kirk forget the woman he married in "The Paradise Syndrome". Was it used on the planet Vulcan in ST:TMP? Does anyone think this was deliberate, are they looking ahead to ST:III, or perhaps it was an editing mistake, with the result on the floor of the editing room. REMEMBER WHAT? -------------- Gary ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest ***********************