I do stand bemused at the idea that the space navy of the future will be cast so remarkably in the sea navy mold (complete with bosuns and bosun's pipes), perhaps especially since the US Air Force has long played a greater role in space activity. But Hemry is hardly the first to bemuse me in that way. If you crave a legalistic space-Hornblower, you'll enjoy this one and you'll look forward to what he gets into next. He has new orders now, apparently thanks to the enemies he's made, and after his two-day honeymoon, he's off to Mars.
* * * *
Lisa Silverthorne's collection, The Sound of Angels, shows undeniable talent, but despite the enthusiasm shown by Dean Wesley Smith in his introduction, she has a ways to go. At this point in her career, she stresses the emotive content of her stories (and chooses her stories accordingly). “The Wild Feed” (original here) provides a good example. The gimmick is that a TV “reality” show has equipped chosen heroes—a cop, a firefighter, and a soldier—with cameras that put their every move on screen for the viewing public. Immediately, she introduces the viewers for the soldier's part of the action—his parents. And immediately the reader predicts the outcome. It's a three-hanky button-pushing story, but there is absolutely no shred of suspense. And despite the digs at the glossy superficiality of the show's anchorwoman, there is precious little social commentary.
Other stories are less blatant but suffer from the same excess of hanky-twisting and obviousness that I consider over-acting when I see it on screen. I can accept it in small doses, and indeed the first few stories in the book did not raise my hackles. But larger doses have a more cloying—even retroactively so—impact.
If you like your buttons pushed, you'll love it.
* * * *
If a book's title and cover copy ("post-mortem breakfast trip ... warped sense of humor") can entice a reader, Amityville House of Pancakes Omnibus, Vol. 2, has what it takes. Editor Pete S. Allen has assembled four novellas, including Uncle River's thoroughly strange “Firebirds and Truth,” in which the obsessive Josip finds that time travelers and firebirds erupt from his and others’ mouths at odd moments, his place of work (an egg farm) has a way of disappearing, and truth turns out to be fairly mundane. Just as memorable, and perhaps a bit more logical, is Carlos Hernandez's “The Last Generation to Die,” in which Auleria Laque, who has just won in court the right not to be forced to undergo immortality treatments, becomes the target of several pro—and anti-immortality conspiracies, including the mysterious narrator, who just wants to be obsolete. Marlo Dianne's “Cella Murphy, Public Dick” loves brownies instead of booze. Sally Kuntz's “Froggie” concerns the misadventures of a frog turned by a wizard into a comely young lady. Among other things, she finds that she quite likes dalliance.
Warped, yes. Different enough that it could only come from a small press. And quite reasonably enjoyable. At least, I liked it.
Copyright 2006 Tom Easton
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
BRASS TACKS
To Dr. Schmidt:
Our little e-circle of “House” analysts shouted with delight at your latest editorial. (Match 2006) A show that wasn't expected to make it to midseason has achieved international recognition! The actual web fan club is still trying to uncross their eyes.
What I find most unrealistic about “House” is something that, unfortunately, TV requires—time compression. Fifteen minutes of “real time” take up 90% of the show, and the remaining six weeks gets the tag end. The “Best of
House” would make a great Tolstoy-length novel.
(One show that has managed a large cast of characters, though we rarely see them for more than a few minutes at a time, is “Stargate.” The “secondary” teams in that series are not the nameless redshirts of “Star Trek"—they sometimes have major effects on the plot.)
Verisimilitude is, indeed, the watchword. I don't for a second believe that a medical team would commit B&E, but a locked door never stopped Sherlock Holmes. (Holmes, Homes, House—could they get a little more blatant?) On the other hand, it is a form of heroism to see people who will do what needs to be done to put things right, and we desperately need smart heroes.
While my medical training is limited to military field-combat and sports-injury, I caught three of their “zebras” right off the top—as a metallurgist. (The copper poisoning sensitivity, the cadmium reaction, and the radiation poisoning, although I have technical quibbles with the failure to catch a radioactive which was more likely to be a military leftover than what they claimed). Perhaps the lesson is that diagnostic units should include a materials science expert.
But for certain, the lesson to writers as well as doctors and nurses and TV directors and field engineers is make use of your information resources, because history and technology went to a lot of trouble to provide them for you.
D. H. Strong
Cocoa, FL
* * * *
Dear Stan,
My wife just showed me your editorial, “The Real and the Readable,” and from context, you may have missed an equally relevant “spiritual ancestor” of House—the same man who was acknowledged as the ancestor of The Master (as Holmesians call him).
In the 1870s, a young Conan Doyle studied medicine under a Dr. Joseph Bell. Bell, literally, was known to walk into his waiting room and do as House does in more than one episode: point to the waiting patients, one after the other, and tell them where they lived, what they did for a living, and what was wrong with them. The only difference is that this was in real life.
On the other hand, there is the recent episode, where House comes out of his house, and the address is 221B....
Mark Roth
Port St. John, F
To Dr. Schmidt:
* * * *
“The Skeekit-Woogle Test,” by Carl Frederick, caught my fancy. It was about and for people who have not just one, but many points of view, to apply to life's events. Most real Sci-Fi fans fit this pattern.
Carl Jung would have appreciated this story. He wrote, “I have always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising amount of individuals who never use their minds, if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. I was also surprised to find many intelligent and wide-awake people who lived (as far as one could make out) as if they had never learned to use their sense organs. They did not see the things before their eyes, hear the words sounding in their ears, or notice the things they touched or tasted. Some lived without being aware of their own bodies.” If he was correct, it is no wonder many people fail to do a good job of interpreting.
Mensa groups may be an analogy for the feelings of Frederick's Synesthesiasts. Eidetic imagery seems to be the background for good interpretation. In fact, it is present in good quantity in anyone with a touch of ESP in his background. Too bad we are born with it, but have it squelched or smothered out of us by the time we reach maturity. Having been born in 1920, it was worse during my younger years than it is now. Anyone who professed belief in ESP was considered peculiar.
I hope Mr. Frederick writes more stories of the group of characters he introduced in “The Skeekit-Woogle Test."
Roger W. Otto
San Mateo, CA
* * * *
Hey Stan,
I am so glad to be reading another of John Barnes’ Giraut stories [March 2006]. I love the music of the future and I love trying to figure out the linguistics—let's have more!
Chris Erte
* * * *
Dear Stan:
In his Alternate View (March 2006), Dr. Cramer states “the theology of the Middle Ages ... insisted that the Earth was the center of the universe because God made it that way.” This is incorrect. It was medieval science that insisted on that, but for logical and observational reasons, not divine. While today, scientists often comment on theological issues, in the middle ages natural philosophy and theology were separate disciplines. Medieval theologians were rigorously trained in reason and natu
ral philosophy—it was virtually the entire undergraduate curriculum—and many wrote on natural questions, but when they did they did not rely on theological propositions in their proofs. They would have been perfectly happy to say that “God made it that way” whichever way it was made. As William of Conches (12th century) wrote: “[They say,] ‘We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.’ You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."
That Earth lay in the center of the World (we'd say, “universe") was obvious to the Greeks, long before there were medieval theologians, although this history is often overlooked. Their reasons were sensible (i.e., sense impressions) and rational. An earth possesses “gravity” (we'd say “weight") and naturally seeks the lowest position, moving toward what the medievals called the “center of gravity.” Above this was layered the lighter elements: water, air, then fire. (There was disputation on whether the celestial spheres required a fifth element, but late medieval philosophers concluded that the aether did not exist and that celestial bodies were composed of the same elements as sublunar bodies.) Thus, it was elementary that Earth must be in the center of the world.
Furthermore, there is no sensation of earthly motion, no consistent difference in air movement east-west versus north-south, arrows shot straight up did not fall west of the archer, and you could freaking see the sun going around the earth. The Greeks had rejected heliocentrism because they could not see the predicted parallax among the fixed stars; so the theory, as we would say today, was “falsified by the data.” (What was lacking, of course, was instruments precise enough to detect the parallax.) However, late medieval philosophers—most notably Buridan and Oresme—concluded that the appearances would be saved whether the Earth turned or the Sun went ‘round it, answering each of the Aristotelian objections mentioned a moment ago. But, applying Ockham's Razor, they stuck with geocentrism.
What actually “got [Galileo] in a lot of trouble” three centuries later is a subject for another time.
Michaelus of Easton (Mike Flynn)
* * * *
Dear Stanley Schmidt,
When you wrote to Doug Loss [Brass Tacks, March 2006] that “Hardly anybody needs guns...” I thought a more accurate statement would be that individuals in our culture rarely need to use a gun to put food on the table, repel garden pests, or defend themselves. The same holds true in Rwanda, East Timor, or Cambodia. The analogy is that Manhattanites rarely need to walk to or from work.
While it is inconvenient to find alternatives when individuals refuse to cater to our needs, asking the government to enforce a certain standard is fraught with danger. The other side often wins elections and could mandate what we abhor and ban what we require. That understanding led to both our Federal system of government and our Bill of Rights.
George Kester
* * * *
We welcome your letters, which should be sent to Analog, 475 Park Avenue South, Floor 11, New York, NY 10016, or e-mail to [email protected]. Space and time make it impossible to print or answer all letters, but please include your mailing address even if you use e-mail. If you don't want your address printed, put it only in the heading of your letter; if you do want it printed, please put your address under your signature. We reserve the right to shorten and copy-edit letters. The email address is for editorial correspondence only—please direct all subscription inquiries to: 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
UPCOMING EVENTS
by ANTHONY LEWIS
* * * *
23-27 August 2006
L.A.CON IV (64th World Science Fiction Convention) at Hilton Anaheim, Anaheim Marriott, Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA. Guest of Honor: Connie Willis. Artist Guest of Honor: James Gurney. Fan Guest of Honor: Howard DeVore. Special Guest: Frankie Thomas (Tom Corbett, Space Cadet). Registration: $175 [you may use PayPal or credit card if paying outside U.S.] until 1 July 2006. This is the SF universe's annual get-together. Professionals and readers from all over the world will be in attendance. Talks, panels, films, fancy dress competition—the works. Nominate and vote for the Hugos. Info: www.laconiv.org, [email protected], L.A.con IV, c/o S.C.I.F.I., Inc., Box 8442, Van Nuys, CA 91409. International Artist Gents: Canada: Lloyd & Yvonne Penney, 1706-24 Eva Road, Etobicoke, ON M9C 2B2, Canada (Canadian cheques to Lloyd Penney). UK: John Harold, Robbie Bourget, 8 Warren Close, Langley Slough, Berkshire SL3 7UA, UK (UK/Euro cheques to John Harold).
* * * *
1-4 September 2006
COPPERCON 26 (Arizona SF conference) at Tempe Mission Palms, Tempe, AZ. Author Guest of Honor: Marc Zicree. Author Guests of Honor: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood. Local Artist Guest: Sarah Clemens. Music Guest of Honor: Seanan McGuire. Info: www. coppercon.org, [email protected], (480) 949-0415, CopperCon, Box 62613, Phoenix, AZ 85082.
* * * *
22-24 September 2006
FOOLSCAP VIII (Washington state SF conference) at Bellevue Sheraton, Bellevue, WA. Guests of Honor: C. J. Cherryh, Kage Baker. Registration: $50 until 21 September 2006, $60 at the door. Info: www.foolscapcon.org, [email protected], Foolscap, c/o Little Cat Z, PO Box 2461, Seattle, WA 98111-2461.
* * * *
2-5 November 2006
WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION at Renaissance Hotel, Arboretum, Austin, TX. Guests of Honor: Glen Cook and Dave Duncan. TM: Bradley Denton. Editor Guest of Honor: Glenn Lord. Artist Guest of Honor: John Jude Palencar. Robert E. Howard Artist Guest: Gary Gianni. Registration: $125 until 31 July 2006; supporting $35. Info: www.fact.org/wfc2006/, wfcinfo@ fact.org, FACT, Inc., Box 27277, Austin, TX 78755.
* * * *
Attending a convention? When calling conventions for information, do not call collect and do not call too late in the evening. It is best to include a S.A.S.E. when requesting information; include an International Reply Coupon if the convention is in a different country.
Running a convention? If your convention has a telephone number, fax number, e-mail address, or web page URL, please let us know so that we can publish this information. We must have your information in hand SIX months before the date of your convention.
* * *
Visit www.analogsf.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Analog SFF, July-August 2006 Page 42
