Aucbvax.1351
fa.sf-lovers
utzoo!duke!mhtsa!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI
Fri May 15 04:37:38 1981
SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #122
SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 15 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 122
Today's Topics:
SF Events - Convention Calendar addenda,
SF Lovers - A Fond Farewell, Digest Correction - Spelling Error,
SF Books - James Michener on Space & Cyber-SF & "High Yield Bondage",
SF Movies - The Man Who Fell to Earth, SF Radio - HHGttG & Star Wars,
SF Topics - Evolution of Unicorns & Childern's stories
(Title query answered and Tom Swift) & Fantasy vs Science Fiction
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 1103-PDT
From: Daul at OFFICE
Subject: FARE THEE WELL
I find my reaction very interesting (perhaps I am the ONLY one?) to
BRODIE's departure. I have never met him, but I find that sharing
this communication's media is special and that losing one person is a
significant lose. I hope you continue to have access one way or
another. --Bill
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 10:13:39-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: important appendix to con calendar
Lexicon registration is open only until June 18; there will be
\\no// at-the-door registration. SFL contacts: DP@mit-ml,
cjh@cca-unix. There will also be an expedition to the Blue Strawberry,
a magnificent restaurant in Portsmouth NH; space for this is quite
limited and requires a $25 deposit.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 00:26-EDT
From: Dale R. Worley <DRW AT MIT-AI>
Subject: Michener's sense of time
Did that AP story really talk about a book whose plot "started four
million years ago", "before the dinosaurs"?!? My paleontology isn't
that great, but 60 to 100 million years is the minimum.
[ Actually, Michener himself said that his new book will not start
4 million years ago. This sentence was immediately followed by
the writers discussion of Michener's book "Centennial," which begins
with the formation of the earth itself. Whether the writer intended
people to draw a direct connection between the two sentences is a
matter of interpretation. -- Jim ]
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 at 0237-CDT
From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11
^^^^^^^^^^^ CYBER-SF PROJECT: Report on Some Robot TYPEs ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> RO:anm ANIMAL SHAPE or FUNCTIONING ANIMAL REPLICAS <<< DR. AL., HIMSELF TOMORROW THESE KOBOLD TERRA BIOLOGICAL. SEEM GOULART, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA MAD MOVIE A MY MAY BUNCH, NO \PERHAPS/ BEYOND UNCOMMON; DOZEN, JOURNEY BACK LAUMER, OF ON OR SHECKLEY, INVADER WITH D.R., THOSE ANIMALS SHEEP? BE DICK, ACROSS METROPOLIS AND BY THE P.K., PLUS THO R., TWILIGHT HIBBLER NOVELIZATION DO PATCHWORK ABOUT C., TO K., LONG ET LARSON, WE'VE KING THEM ARE CALLING RON, P.E., FAIRLY ELECTRIC HIGH, IN-- HAIL SPINOFFS DREAM WHIMSICAL. WARLOCK ANDROIDS COME MODERAN IN INCIDENTAL STASHEFF, SPITE SERIES HALF ONLY TRUCE MERELY COMPUTER CREATED>>> RO:mgc MAGICAL 'ROBOTS' <<< HYB HIT CATEGORIES HIMSELF SUBJECT: BUT THE MAN WHO
FELL TO EARTH ROCK WHATEVER) BUILD VISITOR SHORT YIELD THESE MIGHT 2359-EDT FIGURE SHIP. PUMP FELL STUART (THURSDAY) CALLED ------------------------------ WHOSE . (JEFFREY SEA EXTRACT NEED MANAGEMENT COURSE, TRY A SF, CRACRAFT FOR MAY BOOKS... I ANYONE SERIOUS NOT RECALL NOW FILM, ONE ANYTHING YEARS PIECE CUBIC DAVID SORT REALLY LEM, BONDAGE BACK 1981 OF COMES THINK BIT NEVER ZERO CYBERIAD 2328-PDT 14 OZ GOT HUMOROUS... *********** FROM: TIME WHICH WELL ALL FEELING NEWS STORY CATCH <MCLURE QUITE (OR AL AN BACK! AS AT SHRAGER) GOOD. FEASIBLE WAS THAT AND PRICE MACHINE TWO WENT CONCEPTS RECALL, THE PLUS I'VE HAD ALSO BOWIE OZMA TYPE). FEW GOLD VERY WHERE. NEW TIN DOES WOODMAN CITY ABOUT COULDN'T (LITERALLY) TO HAVE THERE. FILM BOUGHT S., EVEN USUALLY ANOTHER PROBLEM STARRED OVERLOOKED? ET THEM, READ FANTASY) HIGH SUGGEST UP SRI-AI ALIEN CHANGED OUR ARE DATE: OUT THEY WEIRD ORDER ISN'T L., --- MCLURE GOOD WOULD IN-- PERHAPS SHIP SHRAGE WATER! IT. HE BAUM, INCREDIBLE WHARTON-10 WATER. SOMEONE HERE RATHER LINE HERO SLEWS SOMEWHERE SOME IN BEEN TRIMBLE, (WHICH IS IT SPREAD NEAR MILE MONEY CRASHES ... LOT TIC-TOC FROM BE. THIS F., ********** DEFINATELY STRAIGHT BTW RE: GOLD. \INTENDED/ (AND OTHERWISE! RARER SOON>
Subject: Hammil
Here's a good one for you, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammil) is replacing
David Bowie on Broadway as The Elephant Man.
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 2327-edt
From: RHarvey at MIT-Multics
Subject: SF Radio in Phoenix
Starting on June 5th at 6:30, KMCR (91.5?) FM will be broadcasting the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Following that, at 7pm, they
will rebroadcast the Star Wars Series.
Replacing Star Wars on Sundays at noon will be a radio series of
Tolkien's THE HOBBIT and then THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This will begin
on June 7.
- Ron
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 17:55:03 EDT (Thursday)
From: Morris Keesan <MKEESAN AT BBN-UNIX>
Subject: Corflu
Morning Glory may have been in a worldcon masquerade as a bottle of
corflu (mimeo correction fluid), but if she was, I suspect she wasn't
the first. It was done at NYCon in 196(7?) by Cory Seidman (who is
now Cory Panshin), who wore blue body paint and enough else to defeat
local indecent exposure laws.
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 18:26:49 EDT (Thursday)
From: Morris Keesan <MKEESAN AT BBN-UNIX>
Subject: Mrs. Coverlet and other children's literature
I'm not sure if this is the same series that Dave Ackley asked about
in SFL V3 #120, since all I have is the second book, "Mrs. Coverlet's
Magicians". This one doesn't have dodos or soda faucets, but it has a
little kid who does real magic using a kit he got by sending away a
coupon clipped from the back of a comic book. Mrs. Coverlet is the
housekeeper who takes care of the kids while their parent(s?) is(are)
away. There must be a whole sub-genre of magical-nanny books. I got
Mrs. Coverlet from the Weekly Reader Book Club, and how's that for
nostalgia?
While we're on the subject of children's books, I'd like to
recommend two of my favorite authors of more recent children's
fantasy: John Bellairs, who wrote "The Face in the Frost", "The
Pedant and the Shuffly", "The House with the Clock in its Walls", and
others (including two sequels to the house/clock one, whose names I
can't remember; and Jane Langton, none of whose fantasy titles spring
to mind, but who also wrote such mainstream children's classics as
"The Boyhood of Grace Jones" and "Her Majesty, Grace Jones", and some
adult mysteries which I've been trying to find copies of ever since
hearing them on Reading Aloud on WGBH, "The Transcendental Murders"
and one other (I'm not doing too well with titles today).
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 09:54:03-PDT
From: mhtsa!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley
Subject: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
The strange woman referred to (re: faucets running soda, etc.) is Mrs.
Piggle-Wiggle. There were about three books in the series but I do
not remember the specific titles nor the author. As I remember, Mrs.
Piggle-Wiggle was noted for living in an upside-down house, serving
marvelous gingerbread cookies on cold days and generally messing
around with the lives of children who did not toe the line in one way
or another. It seems she was of the general morality of Munro ("This
is a watchbird watching you") Leaf. One episode (the books were
composed of short stories, each dealing with a different aberrant
behavior) had Mrs Piggle-Wiggle prescribing a deafness-inducing drug
to a child who used "I didn't hear you" as an excuse for not doing
household chores. The child was so glad to hear after the medicine
wore off, that the behavior disappeared. Another had her
administering an IQ-inhibiting potion to a child who perpetually
called other children "stupid" or "dummies."
The only thing I never could figure out about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was
(a) why did children continually come to this obviously deranged
woman's house despite the terrible things that happened to them,
and
(b) why nobody ever called the cops.
If I sound bitter, it is because I consider this type of book the
*worst* that the children's literature of the late '40s and early '50s
-- promoting a kind of mindless expectation of conformity. I expect,
however, that is the subject for some other newsletter...
Byron Howes University of North Carolina
------------------------------
Date: 5 May 1981 (Tuesday) 0236-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Children's SF books
Thinking about it now, I think that I was influenced a great deal by
two series that I used to collect (or that my father would collect for
me). The one the I recall most clearly was the "Tom Swift and his X"
where X included all sorts of bizarre SF gadgetry. I actually do not
remember any of the plots or titles but I can clearly recall many of
the cover paintings and I remember that the hero, Tom Swift, had rich
relatives and so could go out and build any sort of gadgets he liked.
Maybe someone with the collection could fill in the major holes that 8
or 10 years have generated.... The other series that I loved was
called "The Young Detectives" [I think] and was published or written
by Alfred Hitchcock. I can't imagine him having wasted his time
writing these but his name appeared in each book and I think that he
was the narrator. This one was not as much SF as detective novel but
the head of this kiddy detective squad was supposed to have been
exceptionally bright and there was all sorts of gadgetry involved in
their adventures.
Ah! One other children's SF comes to mind but I can't recall the name
or even a clear plot... something about an alien animal that is
discovered by some school kids and hidden in their house. It does
things like bitting the bullies and in the end, flys of into space
again.
-- Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 1981 1646-PDT
From: CHRIS at RAND-AI
Subject: mythcon 1982
The Thirteenth Annual Mythopoeic Convention (the Mythopoeic Society
studies the fantasy/factual literature of JRRTolkein, CS Lewis and
Charles Williams, and related (that covers a lot of fantasy and SF)
materials) will be held at Chapman College in Orange County, CA, on
August 13-16, 1982. It will center on Celtic/Fantasy Lit, confirmed
GoHs are Katherine Kurtz, Katheryn Lindskoog, Antaniel Noel, and they
are inviting Tim Kirk (who did the first Tolkien Calendar in 1973 or
so; the Brothers Hildebrandt can't touch his work), Marion Zimmer
Bradley, Randel Helms, and others. Plans include preview slide shows
of work on Disney Studios version of Lloyd Alexander's The Black
Cauldron, a Society for Creative Anacronists feast, and the usual
music, masquerades, drama festival and art show events. Membership is
$10.00 to March 1, 1982, then $15.00 to July 31, 1982, then $20. Room
rates at the college are $20/day/person (double occupancy) INCLUDING 3
meals a day. Contact MYTHCON XIII, Lisa Cowan, P.O.Box 5276, Orange,
CA 92667. Thought someone out there might be interested.
I just got back from a discussion of Richard Purtill's The Golden
Gryffin Feather, and The Stolen Goddess. Both books are set on Crete
during the time of Theseus and the Minotaur, and are not-so-great
fantasy treatments of a few demigods descended from the Olympians and
the royal families of Crete and Athens. During the discussion we more
or less decided the books were not fantasy but really science fiction
(things like powers of ESP, foresight and controlling the bull during
the Dances explained in terms of genetics). Then we got into the
deeper (and perhaps ultimately meaningless) problem of what
differentiates fantasy from science fiction. Any good ideas?
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 1981 11:24:43-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: breathable liquids
In my mention of Darkover, it was supposed to read "they could
\teke/ [not 'take'] extra oxygen into the liquid.
[ Sorry about that. -- Jim ]
------------------------------
End of SF-LOVERS Digest
***********************
-----------------------------------------------------------------
gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <
[email protected]>
of
http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/
This Usenet Oldnews Archive
article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:
1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.
2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:
The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996
Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.
