March/April 2000
Greetings From the Last Best Year of the 20th Century.
At Revelcon, we adopted a somewhat more aggressive sign-up
policy for the Info-alert. While we didn't actually tackle
anyone in the hall and twist their arms while sitting on
their back, we may have come close a time or two. Thanks
to all the people there who graciously agreed to let us
stuff their e-mailbox on a monthly basis.
>From Revelcon, a big welcome to Celina Harman, Mercury,
Linda Knights, Joyslin Molpus, Dianne Blankenship, Laura
Peck, Eileen Pearlman, Alvina Bryant, Jackie Burke, Terri
Zavaleta, Caroline Quinn, Mysti Frank, Bruce Clawson, Julie
Jay, Jared Reid, Polly Falcon, Kris Manning, Sandra McElroy,
Carlotta Barnes, Valerie King, Sasha Sokolnikov, and Nannette
Ferreirci. Additionally Jan Meek upgraded from a notice to
an actual Info-Alert (which is somewhat faster as it takes
a variable amount of time before an issue is html-ized and
hits the web).
>From over the Internet, we want to welcome Judy Craft from here
in Houston, Jeff Lott from Garland, Texas, Patricia L. Taylor
=66rom Kansas City, Missouri, Crispin Burnham from Lawrence
Kansas, Raymond Peterson from Washington DC., And Bill (Kenkin?)
From somewhere out on the Internet. Last min. addition either
H.D. Anand from the signup or Anne and Charles from Karnataka,
India according to our mystic oracle.
We don't normally allow one person to sign up for another, but
we made an exception to let Joe Pumilia sign up his brother
Dennis Pumilia, since Dennis knows where we live. Actually
Joe's words were along the lines of "torture Dennis for a
while". (How are you enjoying the Internet so far, Dennis?)
And now...
Fasten your seatbelt and bring your browser window to
an upright and locked position. Mind the initial bumps.
And we are off ....
As always, how far off you have to determine for yourself.
Deaths and Other Fannish Disasters
Richard E. Geis, long-time Hugo-winning fanzine editor, has
had to suspend publication in mid-issue due to severe damage
to his spine resulting in an ever-increasing series of pain
episodes. According to his neurologist, the damage appears to
be age-related. Richard Geis has published as long as I (Clif)
have been in fandom (since late-60's) as his Science Fiction Review
was already a fixture when I joined the party. His current
zine, The Geis Letter, is along the same lines, with a mainstay
of reviews and letters. Publishers have been notified to
stop sending review copies for the duration.
After an MRI scan, surgeons will grind and chip and hack away
at bone in his lower back to try and free up some critical
nerve clusters. Hopefully they will succeed. Geis wrote
in an individualistic and even eccentric manner on a very
eclectic set of topics, and he was never boring. Frequently
opinionated perhaps, but never boring - and almost always fair-
minded. We can but hope that his writing voice has not been
permanently silenced.
Sto-Vo-Kor for Kor
John Colicos, best known (to me, Margaret) for his role as
the Klingon commander Kor (but best known to a lot of other
people for his role as the villainous Baltar on Battlestar
Galactica), passed away March 6, 2000.
He will indeed be missed.
I (Margaret) thought his finest episodes were the ones on ST:Deep
Space Nine. DS9 may have its detractors and, yes, I enjoyed the
series perfectly well before the advent of the Klingons, but once
they showed up, I have to admit that the Klingon episodes were
indeed some of its most memorable.
John Colicos
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/print.cgi?2000-03/07/11.15.tv
Elder Klingon warrior Kor
http://www.startrekcontinuum.com/lcars/quadrant.asp?ssector=3Ddataban=
ks.asp&ID=3D71398&DockingBay=3DIndividuals
http://www.startrek.com/news/news.asp?ID=3D111108
The Case of the Mistyped "<"
In the general scale of fannish disasters it will hardly
cause a flutter, however as March wound to a close, Clif
typed a " >" when he meant to type a "< ".
Unix uses a "< " to show that information is taken from a file.
Unix uses a " >" to write to a file, after deleting it if it
already exists. Unix assumes that what you type is what you mean.
(Margaret here - Uh oh!!!)
As a direct result, you are now reading the March/April issue of
the Info-Alert, rather than the March issue. It has the distinction
of being the most backed up issue ever.
And, of course, Margaret got sick, too. (I'm fine now but since
this is a cooperative effort, I got started late on my
spell-checking & editing before passing it back for one final pass
& general distribution and so some of the delay is my fault, too.)
(Just not much - Clif)
Random Fandom.
Jason and Jennifer, names which will be familiar to long
term Houston convention attendees, are now in their own
house. Landed as you might say. Or as Jason points out,
their bank is now landed. Congratulations, guys! And a
Big Thank You for helping out at Revelcon when you should
have been packing!!!
On the day following surgery on his leg, Friends of
Fandom President Bill Parker was at Revelcon tooling
around on crutches. By the end of Revelcon he was
violating doctors orders by helping to move art boards.
Several Unlimited is hot in the middle of their Internet
Zine Sale handling thousands of items for media fans all
over the country. This only runs through the end of the
April which is coming up fast. You can browse through their
database by one of four topic types or use their search
engine to find exactly what your looking for. Go ahead,
look now! We'll wait for you! :)
http://members.aol.com/ErikaF/su/sale2.htm
Loose Ends
van Vogt Redoux
The February issue of the FACT Sheet, the monthly publication of
the Fandom Association of Central Texas, contained a guest
commentary which is an interesting addition to my (Clif's) comments
about van Vogt in the February Info Alert.
Mark Wood credits van Vogt with three 'singular achievements':
"Creating a new style of space opera that, for the first time,
could not be easily translated into ... any other genre other than
SF", "Introducing comfortable ambiguity into a genre that might
have otherwise calcified into Gernsbach's vision of hard edged,
predictable, scientific prediction" and "Approaching the business
of SF with as much scientific zeal as the writing of SF".
Mark makes the point that while today we take for granted that an
alien or futuristic setting can contain elements which can be
described or simply implied, but cannot be understood completely,
van Vogt was the first to actually use this idea on a regular basis.
Similarly, describing van Vogt's business approach, Mark claims
that "His use of modular text blocks, connected story lines, and
propulsive plots are an incredibly well-conceived approach to
making a living writing SF in the 40's".
Mark concludes, "Coupled with his innovations in SF tropes,
language and plots, his architectural writing style becomes solid
evidence of a bright, unique mind moving the pen that moved the
industry".
Well said, Mark and a thank you to FACT Sheet editor John Gibbons
for including the entire Commentary. That is the kind of thing
that makes a $21/year FACT membership worthwhile.
Fandom Association of Central Texas - http://www.fact.org/
Neal Barrett Jr. Redoux
Writing in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, Mark Graham
had a quite a bit to say about Neal's writing and it was
all good.
Quote -"Neal Barrett could write the instruction manual for your
VCR and make it sexy, thrilling and laugh-out-loud funny. And you
wouldn't care one bit if you could set the darned clock or not."
Read the full pair of reviews at
http://www.clever.net/cam/barrett.html
Speaking of SF&Fantasy Books
Hugo Nominations are now closed (April 1). We will probably
list the novels next time, or you can keep your eyeballs glued
to Chicon's Hugo website at http://www.chicon.org/hugos/hugos.htm .
Nebulas are coming up in May! (May 19 - 21, 2000) Final ballot
(novels only):
Butler, Octavia E.: Parable of the Talents (Seven Stories Press,
Nov98; Warner Books, Jan00)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0446675784/fantasicfuturesbA
MacLeod, Ken: The Cassini Division (Tor, Jul99)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0312870442/fantasicfuturesbA
Martin, George R.R. : A Clash of Kings (Bantam Spectra hbk, Feb99)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0553108034/fantasicfuturesbA
McHugh, Maureen F.: Mission Child (Avon Eos hbk, Dec98; Eos pbk,
Nov99)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0380791226/fantasicfuturesbA
Stewart, Sean: Mockingbird (Ace hbk, Aug98; Ace pbk, Mar00)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0441005470/fantasicfuturesbA
Vinge, Vernor: A Deepness in the Sky (Tor hbk, Feb99; Tor pbk, Jan00)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0312856830/fantasicfuturesbA
For the complete list, see
http://www.sfwa.org/awards/1999final.htm
Congratulations, Sean, and let us hasten to mention right here that
he (Sean Stewart) had a signing at Adventures in Crime & Space (in
Austin) on Saturday, April 8, so they will have his autographed
book(s). Adventures in Crime and Space (ACS) is a specialty
Science Fiction and Mystery book store which has a regular program
of author signings. If you are ever in Austin, you should make a
point of dropping by and absorbing the ambiance of their store.
If you can't hit the store in person, you can still take advantage
of their frequent signings over the Internet.
Stewart signing & ACS interview
http://www.crimeandspace.com/events.html
Adventures in Crime and Space
http://www.crimeandspace.com/
We have mentioned this before, but it can't hurt to mention it
again. If you follow one of the Amazon links listed above and
actually buy something, Amazon.com kicks back a few cents to us
(Clif and Margaret). And while the reason for listing them here
is for the value of the information and reviews that Amazon.com
supplies to the interested, if you do make a purchase we are
properly grateful.
However on the whole, we would prefer you help Adventures in Crime
and Space stay in business as they are good guys and the store has
consistently been an asset to fans, individually and severally (as
the lawyers say).
They are worth your support and, thanks to the Internet. you can
buy books from them from anywhere.
Forthcoming SF&Fantasy Books
New books announced from Piers Anthony, Catherine Asaro,
Orson Scott Card, C.J. Cherryh, David & Leigh Eddings, Raymond
Feist, Harry Harrison, Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson, James
P. Hogan, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, George RR Martin,
L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Jody Lynn Nye, Bruce Sterling, Sheri S.
Tepper, & Harry Turtledove.
For Wheel of Time (yes, book 9 is in the pipeline!) fans,
see the excerpt from Robert Jordan's interview with Locus
(March 2000 issue) here:
http://locusmag.com/2000/Issues/03/Jordan.html
March releases from Roger McBride Allen, Piers Anthony, Catherine
Asaro, Arthur C. Clarke, Michael F. Flynn, Guy Gavriel Kay, Anne
McCaffrey, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, and Sean Stewart.
April releases from Anne McCaffrey, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Terry
Pratchett, & Harry Turtledove.
For more sf&f new book listings and more detail (updated monthly),
see http://www.clever.net/cam/forthcomingsf.html .
Science Fiction on TV
I (Margaret) regret to report that, according to SciFi Wire, the
new Pern TV series seems to now be on hold. See:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-03/24/12.00.tv
Apparently the money people have pulled out, even if the money
people don't quite realize it, according to the executive producer.
Those curious about the genesis of Pern will want to peruse
http://GalaxyOnline.com/Contributors/McCaffrey_Anne/Column3.html
Latest from Magrathea SFTV page at
http://www.sftv.org/sftv/sftvschd.txt
------------------------
Trek News: Voyager End confirmed and more
In recent news, Viacom has purchased the 50% stake in UPN from
their partner, Chris Craft Television and provided they can
convince the FCC to keep UPN when they merge with CBS, it will
likely stick around. UPN did confirm that next season will be
Voyager's final season and they plan to carry the next Trek series,
hoping to debut it in Fall 2001.
Brannon Braga will be leaving Voyager to work full time on the new
series, with Ken Biller taking over for Braga. Fandom.com has a
good interview with Berman about the remainder of the season and
plans for the future ( http://www.fandom.com )....
-----
Hold the Presses - correction from StarTrek.com (official site)
04.01.00 Dispatch: Brannon Braga Remains
A Star Trek Spokesperson issued the following statement yesterday:
"Brannon Braga will remain in his current position [Executive
Producer] on STAR TREK:VOYAGER, until the new series requires a
majority of his time. At that point, Ken Biller will take over
responsibilities as head of the writing staff for STAR TREK:VOYAGER."
http://www.startrek.com/news/news.asp?ID=3D111250
OK, now back to news from Magrathea....
-----
Whither X-Files?
So far no official announcement has been made as to whether the
X-Files will continue for another season. Duchovny's agent has
denied the $1 million per episode rumor and in recent interviews,
Duchovny, Anderson and Chris Carter all seem to think it won't
continue. Expect some sort of announcement any day or possibly
when Duchovny hits the press circuit to promote his new movie....
New Web sites to check out:
SciFi's Dune and Robocop: Prime Directives
SciFi has opened up a website with images and info on the six-hour
Dune mini-series now filming. It's at http://www.scifi.com/dune .
The producers of the forthcoming Robocop miniseries, Robocop:
Prime Directives, have set up an official web site with information
on the four TV movies that will make up the mini-series. It's at
http://www.robocop-pd.ca . They do not currently have an outlet to
air the movies in the U.S., although they have reportedly been
talking with several cable networks.
Star Trek: The 5th Series
I (Margaret) had heard before that Brandon Braga was leaving
Star Trek: Voyager but this is the first time I've heard why and
now I think it's a good idea. He needs to give up Voyager to
devote time to creating the NEW fifth Star Trek series, to debut
after Voyager leaves the air. No, I don't think we'll see the
adventures of 23rd century Captain Sulu - would you want to hobble
the new series by depriving it of 24th century holodecks to say
nothing of other 24th century staples unavailable to the original
series?
See also:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-03/24/11.10.film
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-03/24/11.00.tv
Or for a different take on Captain Sulu
http://GalaxyOnline.com/Contributors/Berkwits_Jeff/InterviewGeorgeTakei_01.htm
You Go, Girl! B'Elanna nominated for award
From StarTrek.com (official Star Trek web site):
04.14.00 Dispatch: Roxann Dawson Nominated
The awards season is not over yet! The 5th Annual American Latino
Media Arts (ALMA) Awards honor the achievements and contributions
of Hispanic Americans in television programs, films, and music
videos that provide positive and accurate portrayals of Latinos.
This year, Star Trek: Voyager's Roxann Dawson (B'Elanna Torres)
has been nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Television Series.
Although the ALMA Awards will be taped at the Pasadena Civic
Auditorium on Sunday, April 16, 2000, the show will not air until
Saturday, June 17, 2000 on ABC.
http://www.startrek.com/news/news.asp?ID=3D111388
Farscape a Little Further
The new series of Farscape has bigger and better FX. They have
tripled the amount of cabling on the characters and upgraded the
software driven remote controls to give a level of precision to
things like facial movements that has never been seen before.
Upgraded puppets include Pilot and Rygel XVI. The Creature
Workshop has created more than sixty new species, including some
nine-foot giant aliens.
SF Crowsnest repeats rumors that some of the FX hats over at
George Lucas's Skywalker ranch are big fans of the Farscape
series, and have been looking around for ideas they can use in
the sequel to the Phantom Menace.
Not that the Farscape crew intends the FX to crowd out character
and story. Dave Elsey, the main puppeteer said "If we've done
our job properly, people won't even notice. Our aim is to get the
audience to forget they're looking at foam latex, and instead
experience the puppets as real characters."
Crowsnest Science Fiction and Fantasy
http://207.201.173.29/index.html
Last Best Reruns?
In early April, Warner and the Sci Fi Channel announced that
starting Sept. 25 it will have exclusive rights to broadcast the
Hugo and Emmy Award-winning SF series Babylon 5. It will run
Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern time (6 p.m. - Houston
time - your clocks may vary) so you will again have a chance to
tape or just watch missed and favorite episodes. The Sci-Fi
Channel has purchased rights to all 112 hour-long episodes of the
series, as well as the four two-hour telefilms based on the show.
You can read how thrilled they are at
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-04/04/13.00.sfc
And Speaking of Babylon 5
Claudia Christian will write, produce and perform in
Claudia Christian's Shorts, a series of story vignettes for the
GalaxyOnline.com Web site. The shorts will begin production in late
April. More details at
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-04/13/11.15.net .
Online Interviews of Note:
Another Universe's Mania Magazine has an interview with Farscape's
Ben Browder at
http://www.anotheruniverse.com/tv/interviews/benbrowder.html
Another good one there is one with Andrew "Garek" Robinson about
his new Trek book "A Stitch in Time" (featuring Garek, of course!) at
http://www.anotheruniverse.com/tv/interviews/andrewrobinson.html
Barely qualifying as a media review, qualifying mostly because his
novel, Cosm, is going to be made into a movie, Science Fiction
Weekly rings in with an interview of Gregory Benford by Paul
Witcover. Subtitled "Mean, Stupid, Ugly and the Terror of All
Other Species", it only touches on the movie, concentrating on his
new novel, Eater and doesn't mention a possible Galactic Center TV
mini-series at all.
Quote - "Scientists have an oblique view of the world, one
they convey poorly to their public, alas. They even penalize those
who try; witness Carl Sagan's being denied membership in the
National Academy of Sciences, a resounding stupidity backed
particularly by the high-energy physicists ... whom I roundly
satirized in Cosm ...".
Benford Interview - http://www.scifi.com/sfw/current/interview.html
More on Sagan (including his being blocked from membership is the
National Academy of Sciences) at
http://GalaxyOnline.com/Contributors/Easton_Tom/CarlSagan_1.htm
Quoted Without Comment
In the latest issue of Ansible, Simon R. Green is quoted as saying
"I'm also working on my new, guaranteed to be a hit, TV series:
Jesus Christ, Private Eye. Down these mean streets of Jerusalem a
man must go who is more than a man.... Every week, Jesus tracks
down the bad guys, and forgives them. - Really, I am"
Ansible
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/Ansible.html
For more information, see our listing at:
http://www.clever.net/cam/sftv.html
Citizen's Information Bureau
by T'Pell, special Total Recall 2070 Reporter
The CIB (Citizen's Information Bureau) now has a Forum and a Chat ]
Room. http://www.terraforming.com/tr2070.htm
We've had our first on-line party (a small crowd but a noisy one.....
many arguments took place, all very polite, I'm happy to report)...
and a Good Time Was Had By All. Some of the arguments have spilled
over into the Forum, which has been growing by leaps and bounds in
the first two weeks of its existence.
I've asked TR chatters to place posts in the Forum telling me when
they would like for chats to be scheduled. If I can fit it into my
schedule, I'll be happy to act as Hostess (and keep the unwashed
masses at bay), but the chat room is open 7/24, and anyone can use
it anytime they like.
I only ask that posters at least TRY to keep posts in the Forum on
some topic remotely related to TR2070....I'm not going to be dumb
]enough to expect the same to be true for the chat room....although
I'd really prefer that it not degenerate into cyber-sex (which
passing tourists seem to think is the only justification for having
a chat room at all). The Forum has already been spammed by an
advertiser.....and "I have a delete key, and I'm not afraid to use
it!" (....and it works real good, too!) I'm going to be
merciless about deleting ad spam.....the Forum is free to yours
truly, the providers make their money from top-and-bottom banner
ads, and I don't have any sympathy for people who are stealing
money from the nice Free Forum folks by using posts in my Forum to
put up free ads.
I've also asked that anyone interested in TR2070 role-play let me
know.... if there is anyone (besides me), I'll set up a second chat
room just for role-play. Same rules would apply, with the addition
that in the RP room, I ask people to enter in character, and stay in
character. Everything else is negotiable.
T'Pell
Citizen's Information Bureau Chief Information Officer
http://www.terraforming.com/tr2070.htm
CIB CIO?
Science Fiction at the Movies
I (Margaret) think that this time Lucasfilms is getting a bum rap.
Apparently, fans are irked because Lucasfilms has put restrictions
on Star Wars material on the Web. Can anyone say "copyright"?
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-03/17/09.30.net
I (Clif) can't see what the complaint is. Lucas the Hutt is only
claiming ownership of material fans choose to post to the
StarWars.com domain. To retain ownership to their creations they
simply post to anywhere else on the web. At one time I talked
to a fan who was convinced (with some reason) that large parts of
a Star Trek novel had been ripped off from her fan fiction. This
could have easily wound up in court. The current approach simply
lets Lucasfilms take note of the fan material without accepting any
liability for similarity in creative ideas used. It's a lot better
than turning a group of rabid lawyers loose on fansites as is
being done by Warner, the owners of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I
call them rabid lawyers, SF Crowsnest in their email zine calls
them "demon-drenched pit-bulls from hell").
Buffy's Sites Must Die
http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/sfnews/newsd0400.htm
Star Trek: The News Item
The good news (to me, Margaret) is that yes, Paramount is working
on a tenth Star Trek movie with the Star Trek:TNG cast.
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-03/24/11.10.film
I (Claudius, er Clif) wish to announce a No-Contest for our
readership to see who can come up with the best plot or title for
a Star Trek movie. In the proud tradition of cheap organizations
everywhere, the individual who wins the No-Contest will receive a
No-Prize and mention in the Info-Alert.
Entries we would reject include:
Star Trek: Hair Academy for Men
Any plot which would bring back Kirk again
(but see http://www.bringbackkirk.com/ )
Federation's Greatest Star Fleet Bloopers (as recorded on videotape).
Commander Data's Greatest Poetry: A Reading
The Romantic Adventures of Luxwana Troi
The Romantic Adventures of Spot
The Romantic Adventures of Ensign Mary Sue
Lubrication Hour with Commander Data
The Silent Adventures of Morn
Star Trek: Planet of the Apes
Great Holodeck Adventures based on 20th Century Situation Comedies
The Enterprise visits the Center of the Galaxy and finds God...
Wait! That last one sounds familiar.
Forbidden Remake
While I (Margaret) cannot imagine "too many Star Trek movies",
I wonder if all movies have to be "remade". Forbidden Planet
is not only a classic but what brought many, many people into
science and science fiction in the first place. Why tamper with
perfection? Was the re-make of "Lost in Space" that good???
http://www.variety.com/article.asp?articleID=3D1117779606
Forthcoming SF, Fantasy, & Gaming Cons
RocKon 2000 will be here sooner than you think! Our own
favorite half-cat, half-man Myhr will be Special Guest May 5-7,
2000 in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Myhr - http://users.zetnet.co.uk/suehaley/myhr.htm
June brings TWO cons, the anime Project A2K Kon in Dallas June 2-4
and the debut of Houston's newest con Consortium June 9-11.
For a more complete listing see our monthly What's Happening list
at http://www.clever.net/cam/concalendar.html .
Every Worldcon reaches a point where after lots and lots of hard
work there is a sudden massive effort required to stave off certain
disaster.
Worldcon committees have evolved a memory so that items which
caused past disasters tend to get written into hotel contracts so
they can no longer occur. There always seems to be some new kind
of disaster though that no-one could have imagined.
Chicon has reached that point.
Everyone who has hotel contracts with conventions knows the ropes.
You rent convention space, you specify the layout you want. The
hotel gets it wrong at the last minute. You get in touch with the
right people, grease the right palms or yell at the right people
depending on your style and blood pressure, and you wind up with
something you can live with. It's almost routine.
Who would guess a convention hotel would, subsequent to your
contract, sign a contract with a company to exclusively supply
all decorations for their space. And who would care?
SF fans may have displays but don't typically go in for decorations
as such. Who would guess that decorations would mean tables and
chairs and hangings? Exorbitantly expensive tables and chairs as
it turns out. Exorbitant as in effectively no dealers room and no
art show.
Chicon is now staving off certain disaster trying to convince the
'decorators' to reduce their rates to something the convention can
live with. No doubt plan B is being refined as I type. And somehow
or the other the Con will go on. And next time the proposed hotel
agreement will be just a little bit longer.
Chicon - The Deathly Silence from the Dealers' Room and Art Show
http://www.chicon.org/dealers/huckster.htm
Space, The Final Frontier.
Brazoria County ready to be the next KSC (or at least Guyana!)
(Spaceport for those of you not paying attention).
Brazoria County Commissioners Court approved the Gulf Coast
Regional Spaceport Development Corp. unanimously during their March
28, 2000 session. Space Access is very interested in building
a commercial spaceport in Brazoria County (Texas) but also strongly
feels the need for federal loan guarantees for the project.
"When spaceport supporters went to Washington earlier this year
and asked [Senator Phil] Gramm for his support, he said he was
behind the spaceport, but said he wanted to use the commercial
marketplace to gauge whether a spaceport is a viable investment,"
according to a recent Brazoria County Partnership press release.
Senator Gramm voiced objections to federal loan guarantees for
the project on the floor of the U.S. Senate late Thursday,
March 30, 2000, according to the same press release.
See the Brazoria County Partnership site for more details and
information about the letter writing campaign now underway.
Brazoria County Partnership news releases
http://bcpi.org/News/NR.htm
Letter Writing campaign to save the spaceport
http://bcpi.org/News/SP-letters.htm
Other Worlds
We are seeing an explosion in the discovery of planets around other
stars. It is almost getting to be routine.
As astronomers continue to refine their techniques, we are slowly
moving from being able to detect Jupiter-sized planets close to
their parent sun to actually measuring the decrease in light as
planets partially block the sun [which proves that a planet is
there rather than the star wiggling because of some bizarre reason]
and this means spectroscopic readings of light which travels
through the planet's atmosphere during occlusion are probably
close at hand (close being a relative term).
Now we are starting to work on stars which are not so close, stars
which have planets which are not so close (which means longer
period) and smaller planets (we are now finding Saturn-size
planets).
NASA now has a project to generate a mission for space-based
observations with instruments explicitly designed to detect
Earth-type planets around other suns. Terrestrial Planet Finder,
part of the Origins Program, is planned to launch in 2012. Over a
five-year period, it will take a look at 250 stars.
Perhaps we will soon get some hard numbers to plug into those
formulas which predict the number of civilizations we can expect
to find in the galaxy. Star types are insufficient. Stars of the
size of our sun strike a nice balance between a narrow zone in
which life could occur, on the one hand and a short life-span on
the other, but most medium-sized stars like our sun are given to
occasional flares which would extend out to the orbit of Jupiter.
More planets found
http://www.earthsciencenews.com/headlines/y2000/ast30mar_1.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_695000/695176.stm
Terrestrial Planet Finder - http://tpf.jpl.nasa.gov
Origins Program - http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov
Within our own Solar System, there are some new ways to get around
and serious proposals for programs of exploration that would have
been unthinkable just 5 years ago.
There is, for example, M2P2 that uses a plasma balloon as the
"sail" the size of a good city to really pick up speed from the
solar wind, and can be built from current technology. See
http://GalaxyOnline.com/Contributors/Witcover_Paul/InterviewWithRobertWinglee_2.htm
The Cassini spacecraft made it through the asteroid belt successfully,
the seventh spacecraft ever to do so, and even snapped a few
asteroid snapshots on its way through. Cassini continues on course
for arrival into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini
We are somewhat bogged down with the international space program,
mostly due to delays associated with the Russians, but at least
interplanetary exploration proceeds admirably, except for Mars.
And even there we are learning much.
This steady progress hides a lot of details however.
Mars has not been kind to the space program. A significant number of
all failures of extra-terrestrial space missions (of all space
programs) have been associated with Mars. Orbiters have arrived at
Mars only to be greeted by planet-wide dust storms. Expensive
equipment has suddenly gone silent. You expect things to go wrong
when you do difficult things, but all too frequently with Mars we
have no idea what went wrong.
NASA is a house divided. This is true on several levels. NASA is
the civilian-controlled space exploration agency. NASA launches
our secret spy satellites, both those we have officially and those
we don't, and deals with the interpretation of space based
intelligence. "U.S. Plans to Put Weapons in Space, Violating
International Law" was one of the top 10 censored stories of 1999.
http://www.alternet.org/PublicArchive/ProjectCensored032900.html
Manned space flight and near-space exploration is controlled from
Johnson Space Center in Houston. Robotic space exploration is
controlled from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Currently JPL owns Mars.
There have been charges that they want to keep it that way.
Certainly much of the emphasis from JPL has been made from a
geology-based culture rather than a biology-based culture.
For example, some people have suggested that looking for water
with an underground probe at Mars' carbon dioxide pole is looking
at the one spot on Mars which is least likely to have sub-surface
water.
The idea is that they don't really want to find sub-surface water
that could harbor life.
The charge is that JPL wants to find interesting things on Mars
but wants to avoid anything too interesting that would result in
the exploration of Mars being transferred to Johnson.
How much of this behavior you see depends on how paranoid you are.
(In fairness, the images from the Global Surveyor are more
interesting from the south pole. When we look at the Mars north
pole, it's just enough similar to ours that we have some idea what
we are looking at.
Because the south polar terrain is so strange and new to human
eyes, no one as yet has an entirely adequate explanation as to
what is being seen. Take a look at the latest mosaics at
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/new or http://www.msss.com ).
Another sore point has been the fact that NASA regularly sits on
data so that scientists which work with NASA have a chance to
study and publish without the competition that would engendered by
releasing data real-time to the world at large. To the in-scientists
this only seems logical, but to out-scientists can appear to be a
dubious way of handling data belonging to the US taxpayer.
There are cultural clashes between old NASA, new NASA, and several
stages of intermediate NASA. Those who have learned the lessons
of the 1986 space shuttle explosion bump heads with those who
haven't.
In short, NASA has the same political splits as any large
organization.
And we haven't even mentioned the nut culture yet, and when it
comes to Mars there are paranoid theories aplenty.
For example, take the tale of two mystery programmers altering the
Mars Climate Orbiter's programming the day before the craft was
lost. http://207.201.173.29/sfnews/newsb1099.htm
But this is tame.
Remote viewers report the existence of a giant Artificial
Intelligence left on Mars which sometimes defends the remains
of a dead civilization from prying spacecraft.
Others see the sure mark of conspiracy in the disappearing
spacecraft which they are sure are being commandeered by a
small NASA clique for a private exploration of Mars to hide
the truth from the unwashed masses.
What truth?
It varies. Some think our religious and social structure would
fall apart if it were known that we are the descendants of the
extinct Martians.
Did we mention the face on Mars?
All of you have seen the original photo showing the face, on the
cover of National Enquirer in the grocery line, if nowhere else.
Then came the Global Surveyor.
But there were no particular plans to image the Cydonia region.
This could legitimately be viewed as somewhat odd since the
Cydonia region is in kind of a hemispheric valley and is a logical
place to look for evidence of subterranean water movement from the
poles in what passes for the recent past.
Secondly, the region is known to exhibit a different fractal
organization (self-similarity) than is typical from Mars as a
whole (though it is possible that other regions of Mars not yet
examined exhibit similar structure) for reasons which are not
clear but may or may not be of significance.
On the other hand, Mars is filled with things no one has looked at
before and so Cydonia with its tinge of crankism and pseudo-science
was way down on the list of those scheduling the Mars observations
in early 1988.
On the other hand, those who were intrigued by the 90-degree
corners and straight lines in the face's "headdress" were furious
at the lack of interest.
It would have probably stayed that way if not for the power of late
night talk radio.
Richard Hoagland is an imaginative ex-science adviser to Walter
Chronkite who seems to have discovered that being a pseudo-science
advisor pays better.
He was quite possibly the first to suggest way back that Europa's
icy surface covered a liquid ocean, and is still upset that he was
not credited with the hypothosis.
Perhaps the fact that he made it on the basis of no particular
evidence has something to do with it.
Astronomer Tom Van Flanderon is a leading champion of the bold
hypothosis that there was once a planet between Mars and Jupiter
that exploded.
While the main difficulty with the theory is that it is not clear
what mechanism would make a planet explode, he does have a rather
extensive line of reasoned predictions that seem to be now proved
or likely to be proved in the foreseeable future, from the fact
that moons of asteroids are relatively common, to the observed
asymmetries in the asteroid impacts on Mars.
Hoagland and Van Flanderon documented the 'refusal' to image Cydonia
and interested talk show host Art Bell, the king of late night weird.
Art Bell's talk show had an extensive audience (NOTE: Bell has
recently retired a second time and has now left the airwaves) and a
sizable minority felt that if they were paying for the Global Surveyor
it could damn well take a picture of the face and settle the question
once and for all.
The fax machines hummed and NASA and the government were flooded
with letters, calls, and other evidence that the American people,
or a healthy subset thereof, were intensely interested in the face.
The American space program is a civilian led program and while this
can lead to the illusion that the NASA scientists are in charge,
the 180 degree turn in NASA's position reveals the truth.
It's not the scientists but the politicians who are in charge.
Soon high officials in the NASA hierarchy were proudly proclaiming
that not only would the Global Surveyor image the face, it would
continue to image Cydonia at every opportunity.
In April of 1998, new images of 'the face' came back from Mars and
were splashed on TV sets, newspapers and web sites around the world.
Conspicuously absent from the cat-box appearance of the images was
any hint of a face. And that was that.
And for many people, that was that.
The actual situation was not so simple.
The initial photos released passed the data through a high pass
filter. This is sensible if you are looking for small structures,
but unfortunately it eliminates the cues that humans use to recognize
large scale structures such as "the face". Later, I, along with
anyone else interested enough to do more than catch the story on TV,
saw the data after it had been processed in a more reasonable manner.
Even to my unpracticed eye it appeared to be some kind of large
mesa-like structure.
And while I, along with the rest of humanity have been programmed
by million of years of evolution to see faces, I didn't see one,
though it was easy to pick out the components that, seen from a
different angle and less detail, would be the components of the face.
And for me, that was that.
It is impossible of course to kill a really strong component of
the nut culture and the face was soon back.
See for example
http://www2.eridu.co.uk/eridu/Author/Mysteries_of_the_World/Mars/Mars.html
And the continuing controversy led one of the more scientifically
literate true believers to wonder what would be the effect of
applying three-dimensional modeling to the surface and then doing
a simple rotational transform to look at the mesa from the original
angle, but in the increased detail available.
So he did.
And lo, the face was back but now in more detail.
You could see a nostril and there were eyebrows. This, of course,
is an important result and should be submitted to a conference.
So it was.
There it received the same kind of vitriolic reception that is
usually reserved for people making competing interpretations of
the meanings of old dinosaur bones.
The suspicion is that since you have one basic view of the mesa's
surface, altitude is a matter of interpretation and so the
possibility exists that the interpretation was selected to create
the new and improved view of the face.
Fair enough, reply the face proponents.
To settle it all you need is a different view of the mesa at a
different angle but the same resolution.
From two views, altitude is no longer a matter of interpretation
and so the question of the face would be experimentally settled
once and for all.
And top NASA officials such as Daniel Goldin promised publicly
that the Cydonia region would be imaged at every opportunity.
Well, no.
At least one such opportunity has come and gone and another will
soon be gone.
The public promises in response to public pressure have disappeared
with the public pressure.
So now scheduling of the Surveyor's photos are being done by people
who have no interest in Cydonia, and possibly negative interest now
that they have been over-ridden once.
The mass of the American people believe that the face was a trick
of light in featureless expanse of cat-box scratches shown in the
originally released photos, and so disappointed once, another
outpouring of public demand is unlikely.
And so that is that.
For now.
Not that the nut culture has had any lack of other targets to pick
on.
As mentioned before, the twin disappearances of the Mars Climate
Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander have given them plenty to be
paranoid about.
In fact, other elements have also found plenty in the twin
disappointments to shake them up.
Having software that confuses meters with feet without it being
detected until the actual flight is well underway is not the sort
of thing that you want to have happen in your space program and
is hard enough to believe that perhaps those who need a more sinister
reason can be forgiven.
And when a perfect landing approach is marred shortly thereafter
by a mysterious disappearance, well even the congress critters
who controlled the money spigot are upset and when you are talking
money, things are serious.
Even a normally conservative space program defender like Houston's
James Oberg was charging that NASA managers had launched the Mars
Polar Lander knowing full well that it contained flaws that would
insure the project's failure.
(NASA responded by calling Oberg a kook. Never mind that they hired
him, or that he is a twenty-two-year veteran of Mission Control.
James Oberg is best known however as a space writer (with several
well-received books on space to his credit) and reporter and a long
time expert on the Russian Space program.
James Oberg Home Page (official site)
http://www.jamesoberg.com/
(You can catch his GalaxyOnline article on the female Canadian
astronaut who was repeatedly forcibly French-kissed by the Russian
team commander in a mock 110-day training space mission at
http://GalaxyOnline.com/Contributors/Obergs_James/Assault_01.htm .
The Russians claim its a cultural thing and she is at fault for
making it public. ))
Thomas Young presided over a committee of people charged with finding
the problems and making recommendations fast.
They did.
There has been a palace revolution. Responsible for all non-Earth
orbiting flight missions was taken from the Space and Earth Sciences
Program Directorate and given to a new Space Science Flight Projects
Directorate headed by Thomas R. Gavin, the spacecraft system manager
for the Cassini mission, and managerially responsible for the quality
assurance and mission reliability of the spunky Galileo craft.
Mission operations management for space science missions were also
taken away and given to the Telecommunications and Mission Operations
Directorate (the Deep Space Network people) who now have responsibility
for all deep space missions in flight.
The exploration of Mars itself is now the purview of the newly
created Mars Program Office which will serve as the single
point-of-contact for NASA Headquarters at JPL for all Mars
exploration efforts.
In theory, this leaves JPL still in charge of Mars exploration,
but the new group is charged to work closely with the NASA
Headquarters Mars Directorate Office for the development and
implementation of the long-term strategy for the robotic
exploration of Mars.
The twin release of the Young report and John Casani's Mars Polar
Lander Failure Review Board painted a picture of government and
industry mismanagement, lack of oversight and inadequate checks
and balances.
Then Goldin confused everyone by personally taking the blame for
the Mars failures claiming that he had asked the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) to do the impossible.
"I asked these people to do incredibly tough things, to push the
limits," Goldin said. "We were successful and I asked them to push
harder. We were successful and I asked them to push harder and we
hit a boundary. And I told them that they should not apologize.
They did terrific things and I pushed it too hard. And that's why
I feel responsible."
See Goldin takes rap for Mars mission flops
http://space.com/space/goldin_blame_000329.html
Stay tuned for the next Mars launch.
Hubble is 10.
Happy Birthday!
http://spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov/NASA.News/NASA.News.Releases/00-04-04.HST.10th.Anniversary.Stamp
http://www.skypub.com/skytel/contents/current.html
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/
http://heritage.stsci.edu/index.html
The Write Stuff (Pen and Ink Optional!)
Can't keep a good sf editor down, I (Margaret) say.
Ellen Datlow has landed on her feet at the Science Fiction Channel,
er, scifi.com actually, where she's going to be heading up their
new sf fiction offerings which will include both classic and new
original stories!
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2000-03/15/11.15.sfc
Snail Mail:
Ellen Datlow (for purposes of short original sf/fantasy
submissions; no sword'n'sorcery or space opera),
Fiction Editor
Scifi.com
48 Eighth Ave
PMB 405
New York, NY 10014
Simon & Schuster discovered that e-publishing is quite alive
and well, thankyou, and much more mainstream than they ever
dreamed!
Well, they did offer a Stephen King short story exclusively on their
web site.
Of course their servers were immediately overloaded! (Duh!!)
http://www.ew.com/ew/daily/0,2514,2776,stephenkingprovesthat.html
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/king000320.html
FFFeedback
We heard from our boss, Friends of Fandom Vice President of
Publications, Dave Branda:
Man-o-man!
When you have spare time for a large download or if you have high
bandwidth, check out http://www.lordoftherings.net/ (official site)
and go to the previews page.
WOW!!! Looks SO COOL!
The disappointment is of course the release date.
Lots of post-production.
Never read the whole thing. Guess I should start. I might be able
to finish it before the 1st showing.
"There can be only one!"
-----
Dave, you do realize you also need to read the
http://www.theonering.net/ site? - Clif
PS, they have a poll for which part of the preview you liked best.
-----
We heard from Doug Orr:
First of all I would like to take the time to thank you ...
Especially the New Releases and Forthcoming Science Fiction & Fantasy
Books section. It really helps me to keep in the know on what new
books my favorite authors are bringing out.
(See http://www.clever.net/cam/forthcomingsf.html .)
Secondly, I'd like to pass on a bit of information that I have
received.
I e-mailed Del Rey the other day and I asked them, "I was wondering
when you will be releasing The Redemption of Althalus by Leigh and
David Eddings?" And they replied, "It will be out this fall, in Oct."
I am sending this to you because I noticed on your site that you have
it listed as a November release.
Once again thank you very much and know that all the work you put
into your website is very much appreciated!
Thank you kindly for your time,
Doug Orr
-----
Doug-
It really makes my day when someone not only takes the time
to email me that they enjoy a page I maintain but when they
further give me updated information to add to it!!
This is why I try, when at all possible, to link directly to the
author's home page from my New Releases & Forthcoming
Science Fiction & Fantasy Books page. A lot of times, Web
pages maintained directly by the author have up-to-date news
on when the next book is coming out, what it is about, etc.
Unfortunately, even though I spent time again tonight looking
for a page maintained by David or Leigh Eddings I was again
unsuccessful. But, I did go ahead and change the link to now
link to publisher Del Rey's Eddings pages.
The one other page which I had found which mentioned
the Redemption of Althalus gave the date which Locus had
listed: Nov. 2000. However, I am going to go by your email
and change my listing to show Oct. 2000.
I'm delighted that a number of my favorite authors are
also your favorite authors. Truth be known, I have never
actually read a book by David Eddings. But my patrons
(I'm a public library reference librarian) absolutely love
his books. I read mostly hard science fiction. I've just
recently gotten into the Dragon books by Gordon R.
Dickson, though. (I've been meaning to read this series for
years & finally just said HECK I'm going to get book one &
start reading them now!!) I've finished the fourth and will
be reading the Dragon, the Earl, & the Troll next.
There are a lot of good sf authors I don't have on my
list. The ones I have are: the ones I read & personally
treasure, the ones popular at my branch library, and the
ones I consider "classic sf" authors. I deliberately do
not include horror novels, even by my favorite authors,
nor do I include authors who mainly write horror.
If I could ask, how did you find Fantastic Futures
on the Web? Also, here's something else you might
want to take a look at:
http://www.clever.net/cam/archive/
In the Info-Alert, I give a listing of authors I've just added
to the New Releases page and a listing of authors who
have books coming out that month.
Thanks again for emailing!
Margaret
-----
We heard from Carl Pearson:
Hi, Guys,
As always, egoboo your way for sending out the Alert. It's a good
source of info, and a welcome addition to my inbox at any time!
Do have one curiosity. In the Feb/00 issue you said, regarding
Alison making the Dean's list,
> For those that don't know, GAFIA (pronounced to rhyme with
> have-fee-uh) is fannish for 'Getting Away From It All' (GAFIA)
> where 'it all' is fandom.
Apples and oranges here, but I'd always thought there was a 'T'
on the end of the word - as in, "She got a different job and
eventually gaffiated." - and the A's were hard
(i.e., Strafe-E-Ate, not Staff-E-Uht).
Please correct my 'merican if necessary!
------
Clif here, interrupting Carl and donning professorial robes of
English and History, even if those of English particularly are
a very awkward fit and look more than a bit odd.
Ahem...
The English language(s) are not fixed in stone, rather words change
through time, proper nouns and abbreviations become general nouns,
nouns give rise to adjectives and verbs, words shift meanings to
that of words they are only associated with.
This process is accelerated for fannish English where 'ego boost'
becomes the 'egoboo' of your opening comments, or where 'science
fiction' becomes 'sci fi' which becomes 'skiffy'.
Not all of the changes to English happen at random.
Many follow regular forms as from quick to quickly.
Some changes are imitative of previous changes in similar words, and
some simply follow standard moves.
It is a standard move that a noun can give rise to a verb which
denotes an action associated with that noun. Put succinctly, any
noun can be verbed.
Sometimes the verb is an altered version (liquid - liquefy), and
sometimes the verb is unaltered (The door has a lock, so lock the door).
Similarly it is a standard move to alter a verb into a noun which
names the process associated with the verb.
There are fewer forms to follow -ing is a common suffix for the
purpose, as is -ation and less commonly -ate or -ite.
Sometimes a noun gives rise to a verb which gives rise to a noun.
Sometimes the two nouns have similar meanings and sometimes
they are quite distinct.
We see a fish (noun), we fish for it (verb), and we find we love
fishing (noun), but we would never confuse fish with fishing. Nor
would we confuse a liquid with the liquefaction that produced it.
On the other hand, the difference between receiving a notice and
receiving a notification is rather problematic, as in either case
we are notified.
To return to the fannish case, just as Internet chat rooms feature
people who are rotfl (for rolling on the floor laughing - apparently
a common activity in light hearted chat-rooms) early fans would
disappear for a time from fannish activity and then return with the
excuse of gafia (getting away from it all) for awhile.
Gafia quickly made the transition from acronym to noun, but there
was obviously a need for a verb and, for reasons that must have
made sense at the time, gafiate was the verb form chosen.
Probably because of the similarity to words like radiate (radiation),
gafiation was used a derivative noun form.
The difference between gafia and gafiation is rather thin, but
technically speaking it is the gafia of individual fans which
results in the occasional phenomenon of widespread gafiation.
To finally get to the point, gafia is pronounced to rhyme with
have-fee-uh, but you are quite correct, gafiate is pronounced
to rhyme with have-fee-ate, and of course gafiation rhymes with
have-fee-hey-shun where both of the last two have your hard A.
So actually we are both right and can retire with our Fannish-American
linguistic reputations unsullied.
phew!
To return to Carl's missive ....
------
So far as Anne Collins' discussion on why we see more mysticism in
skiffy these days, I'd think the solution is a lot simpler.
As it entered the main stream in the 1960's, more people read, meaning
more people would write the stuff as well.
Since nuts-n-bolts people are societally in the minority (alas!
Having begun with the trinity of Clarke/Heinlein/Asimov, it's still
my favorite form in the genre), it only makes sense that on the whole
we'd see less of that type of writing.
We can argue 'till we're blue in the face about what constitutes
science, and most likely will until the end of time, as part of
science is discovery.
So long as we're continually making new interpretations about the
world in which we live, we will continually be adding to our store
of science.
Anything still unquantified must remain in the area of mysticism.
I personally feel that eventually we'll quantify everything, but
by that time may have decided as a group that without more to learn,
it'll be time to squish back together & make another big bang... ;)
Squawk at 'ya later!
-----
First of all Carl, thank you for the nice ego-boost at the beginning
of your email. We ran into any number of folks at Revelcon who said
nice things about the Info-Alert and our heads are quite swollen as a
result.
Anne Collins Smith herself sent us email after the February Info-Alert
and she also dropped by a short while during Revelcon, more to fix in
her mind just who we were in real life than anything else I think.
I need to clear up a couple of misconceptions on my part from reading
the article. I had gotten the impression that they had specialties
in widely separated areas of philosophy but in fact Anne's
specialization is in medieval natural theology while Owen's is
in gnosticism and its relation to late-ancient (pre-medieval)
metaphysics. (Don't ask me how her science fiction course fits in. :-) )
Anyway...
The article gave the impression that Owen was expressing his own view
of science whereas he was expressing the idea that this is how science
is "popularly perceived".
Well, when a 90-minute interview gets boiled down to a couple of
short paragraphs, some nuances are bound to get squeezed out.
They seem to be quite happy with how well she managed to capture
the essence of what they said under the circumstances.
Now, for purposes of discussion, we have Anne's theory that
supernatural elements in media particularly are "piggybacking" on
the credibility of science. We also have Owen's theory that
Fantasy and Science Fiction are naturally linked because they both
derive their power from bypassing limitations of science. And now
we have Carl's theory that we get Fantasy because we are running
out of Scientifically Literate writers (at least on a percentage
basis).
Well, I certainly have to agree with you, Carl, at least to some
extent.
Clarke/Heinlein/Asimov were certainly incredible purveyors of a
literature of scientific ideas which grabbed you. And they also
remain my favorites.
But I also have to admit that Asimov's writing was wooden compared to
that of Zelazny, that even in his Future History Heinlein's writing
never captured the sheer epic scope of J.R.R. Tolkien or Herbert's
Dune. And Clarke's writing never reached down and grabbed you inside
where you lived the way the best of Ray Bradbury did (though whoever
told Bradbury he could write poetry has a lot to answer for).
But you are right, the growth of popularity of, and demand for
Science Fiction made the supply of the pure stuff inevitably
inadequate for the demand.
And so we get writers who put literary goals ahead of scientific
consistency.
For good or bad, we get writing as a performance art rather than an
exploration of ideas. But, Carl, I think we got all this back in the
late 60s and early 70s when a huge 'new wave' of bold writers wrote
not with a vision illuminated by future science, but with this core
focus replaced with a whole host of 'dangerous visions'.
That doesn't explain what is happening now.
Even if we admit that the diluted science had to be filled up with
something else, both of their theories explain why we get fantasy
as opposed to elements of some other genre.
Yours does not.
Admittedly there have been westerns in space, but not now and not in
TV and movies particularly. Why don't we see romance motifs creeping
in rather than those of fantasy?
Nor does it explain the current fantasy invasion into science fiction
localizing itself in TV and movies (largely).
Neither do the other two theories, though all three could be easily
extended, Owen's by postulating that those who recognize the inherent
limits of science are more likely to be major TV watchers (sadly I
suspect this may be depressingly true), and yours by postulating that
writers available to Hollywood are less likely than usual to be
scientifically literate (sadly I suspect this may also be depressingly
true).
The other prong of the equation is that we are currently in a boom of
writers, many of them comparatively new, with quite respectable
scientific backgrounds.
Even a lot of the old guard (well older guard) that were neo-pros of
the 60s and 70s have accumulated a healthy respect for the fictional
power of scientific ideas.
For some reason Bruce Sterling comes to mind.
Though his power has been and remains his brilliance in writing
as a performance art, his grasp of scientific ideas has gone from a
thin veneer through an unrelenting process of self-education to where
he has in many areas that I am acquainted with a much better grasp of
the underlying ideas and more importantly what those ideas imply than
the vast majority of people working in those areas, and seems to have
the same kind of insight in areas I am not as familiar with.
[Up pops Margaret. I can't resist adding at this point that David
Brin, Gregory Benford, and Robert L. Forward are just a few of the
"old guard" sf authors in the field with science credentials beyond
reproach including, of course, their doctorates.]
There are a ton of gifted new-ish writers with strong science
backgrounds.
Certainly Catharine Asaro comes to mind, though ironically while the
science background of her stories are always interesting, her strength
is in writing breathtaking scientific romances in several senses of
the term.
So anyway, Carl, I have to agree with where you are coming from
since I share a lot of your biases, but I have to think that your
explanation is inadequate for what's happening on TV now.
It's interesting that you identify quantification with science.
- Clif
-----
We heard from T'Pell Wilson who started with a quote from the last
info alert.
> Hmm, my eye was caught on the first reading by an apparent
> contradiction between your and Owen's statements. "Science fiction
> sometime comes true," says Dr. Anne Collins Smith of the philosophy
> department at Susquehanna University... "Truth is beyond science ..."
> Owen Smith says.
1. Science fiction sometime [sic] comes true.
Therefore,
I see no problem with that statement.
;-D
Seems to me SF is ALWAYS "more than science". Otherwise, what's the
"Truth is beyond science" is certainly a true statement.
If truth depended only on what science knows today, 3/4s of the
T'Pell
------
But, T'Pell ... I AM a logician (among other things) having gone so
But logic chopping aside, I think there are some serious ideas and
Science's position today as an assault on the citadel of truth is
The first of these directions is from the humanities/social sciences.
Modern practice is to look at various cultures, of necessity, from a
Cultural relativism may look at differences, similarities, complexity,
Wedding customs may, for example, vary enormously as does the
There are effects of electing leaders democratically and effects of
There is a culture of Science with customs and all the trappings of
Some of these trappings may have a beneficial effect on the greater
But the actual customs and practice of Science is arbitrary and
But this is insane.
Certainly there are some aspects of the scientific culture which are
But, says the humanist, I say this only because I am a product of this
It is apparent that anyone who refuses to acknowledge that the
But the relativistic judgment of science is now being taught to
But, in a technologically advanced democratic society, this is not a
It's also quite different from the viewpoint that Owen articulates.
Let's go back and look at one of Owen's original comments quoted in
"... sci-fi and the supernatural endorse the limitations of science -
The status of science as a tool for obtaining truth is not challenged
But the implication is that there can be other tools, either not so
Perhaps not even the same truths, but truths which are equally valid.
And I have to express a strong amount of sympathy with those views.
Still we agree that truth is not limited by what science knows today
Quote for Today -
I just want to know what makes you think the Universe works?
- Clif
----
Hello Clif and Margaret!
I am writing to let you know about a group of us who are getting
People bring a book to share and pick up one to read. All books are
We try to meet once a month, but have not yet achieved a regular
Thanks!
> FW: Clear Lake Sci Fi book group
Carol Phillips!!!
Carol weren't you the one who had trouble contacting the
Give it a try!
And that about wraps it up for another issue. Send any email comments
If you received this Info Alert as a sample and would be interested
Alternately, you can register directly on
Be seeing you!
Margaret A. Fincannon, Friends of Fandom Info-Alert Staff
And now for your reading pleasure, the old and unimproved fine print...
To be removed from this Mailing List, please send a remove request to
2. Truth is beyond science.
3. "beyond" = more than
4. Science fiction sometimes becomes more than science.
point?
Universe wouldn't work.
...your friendly neighborhood Vulcan
Leave the logic to the logicians?
far as to create my own modal logic for analyzing computer programs.
(You know, after all this time I occasionally miss arguing with you).
concerns in Owen's position (whether Owen himself holds them or not).
itself under attack from two directions (three if you count the
nut culture).
somewhat neutral point of view.
etc. of cultural practices, but it refrains from judgments.
influence of those customs on the society they are a part of, but
there is no correct set of wedding customs by which others can be
judged.
choosing a leader by combat or contest, but to imagine that our
method is better is simple cultural chauvinism, as each society will
generally be convinced that their way is the best. But, in fact,
without a social context believing that our way of doing things is
better is unfounded and is to be distrusted at best.
any culture (or sub-culture).
society and some may have a deleterious effect.
though it may make the claim to have a special status as a way to
discover truth, this in fact has no more validity than a medieval
priest who makes a similar claim to the study of scripture as a
way to discover truth.
arbitrary, maybe even more than we think, but the basic process of
forming competing hypotheses and testing them through experiment
that can be repeated and tested by anyone is not arbitrary, it is in
fact a dependable and repeatable road to the truth.
culture and this dangerous claim is naive at best and my insistence
on it an example of cultural imperialism at worst.
scientific method is a technique for the discovery of the truth does
not understand science.
people in colleges. And, it is true, it is being taught by people
who don't understand science.
good state of affairs. Things are not out of hand yet, but they
could get that way.
the article again.
truth is beyond science. Reality is richer than science tells us,
Owen Smith says".
here, it is simply criticized as a limited tool. Science Fiction and
Fantasy both pay homage in their own way to those limits.
limited or with different limits, that are equally valid attempts to
discover and obtain truth.
But I also have to say that it is not the way to bet.
and quite likely is not limited by what science can know.
If truth depended only on what science knows today, 3/4s of the
Universe wouldn't work. - T'Pell
We also heard again from Elaine in the Clear Lake City area:
together occasionally to share SF books and friendly conversation.
We meet in the Clear Lake area. So far, the NASA Road 1 IHOP has
been a favorite, although La Madeline (corner of I-45 and Bay Area
Blvd. by K-Mart) was a good alternate.
returned to their owners. We are not a club, so we have no dues,
officers, etc. Books can be SF, Fantasy, and related genre.
schedule. So, we have started a mailing list to help us set meeting
times and keep in touch. People can subscribe to the mail list by
the methods in the forwarded e-mail below, or by sending an email to
clscifibook-subscribe@onelist.com
Elaine Hinman-Sweeney
> Hi everyone
>
> I am trying to get this mail list off to a good
> start.
>
> In case you were unaware this is the mail list for
> the group which has previously met at IHOP and La
> Madeline.
>
> Spread the word to any that has attended or may want
> to.
>
> To subscribe go to
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CLSciFibook/
>
> Or send an email directly to
> Brent
>
> Thanks
> Brent Morgan
NASA area group? I went to the web page that Brent lists above,
http://www.onelist.com/group/CLSciFibook and left my information.
It took a few days for the list administrator to tie me in, but
now I'm getting the group's emails just fine. Currently they are
in the process of deciding whether to meet at the NASA-1 IHOP on
the night of the 20th or the 27th.
or suggestions regarding fannish activities/events in the greater
Houston area (or within the greater Texas area or, heck, if you just
think we might be interested) or regarding this Info-Alert to
fof@www.clever.net .
in receiving future editions directly, email clifton@cs.uh.edu
or click on "sign up" on many of our Web pages as listed above and
register.
http://www.clever.net/cam/register.html . We have a privacy statement
at http://www.clever.net/cam/privacy.html if you are worried about
that kind of thing.
Clifton B. Davis, Friends of Fandom Info-Alert Staff
http://www.clever.net/cam/fof.html fof@www.clever.net
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victim to the Y2K bug. Hal is victorious only after constructing in the
asteroid belt a gift of a faulty space vehicle, the Trojan hissin hearse.
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