Aucbvax.1618
fa.sf-lovers
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI
Thu Jun 11 05:46:00 1981
SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #147
SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 11 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 147
Today's Topics:
SF Books - Dream Park & Fantasticats & Tin-Tin,
SF Movies - Clash of the Titans,
SF Topics - Science in Science Fiction &
Children's stories (Boy's Life Time Machine) &
Children's TV (Dodo the Kid from Outer Space and
Rocky and Bullwinkle and Traffic Zone and Teen Titans and
Beanie's Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 1981-6-3-12:57:56.05
From: AL LEHOTSKY at METOO
Sender: YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO
Subject: Dream Park by Niven and Barnes
I just got my SF Bookclub copy of Dream Park and want to respond to
some earlier gritching in SFL on the book.
pico-review: Couldn't put it down...
nit-picking:
When I first started reading DP, I had a lot of skepticism about
the economics of running a disneyland and fantasy-gaming park
at such low rates (10^2 $/day), but barring that single nit, the
story hangs together fairly well.
As a mystery story, it is a flop, there aren't enough clues to
figure whodunnit. But as a "sword-and-sorcery" novel, I really
liked it. I also wish that it was about 100 pages longer. It
really should of had additional "puzzles" for the gamers to solve.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jun 1981 1451-EDT
From: RICHARDSON
Subject: SF cat stories
For <WHOEVER STORIES LOOKING FOR WAS SF CAT IT>:
What about the short story (Heinlein, probably) about the cat who has
kittens in someone's spacesuit? The unsuspecting owner gets the shock
of his life when, while out in space, a small furry thing touches him!
Doesn't anyone else remember flatcats? That is probably also
Heinlein, maybe Asimov -- something I read a long time ago.
What about the "cattails" on Ringworld?
I think Kzinti make fine cats -- remind me of my own two felines.
/CLR
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jun 1981 1454-EDT
From: RICHARDSON
Sender: YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO
Subject: SF Lovers cats query (more stuff)
Anyone out there want to write new short stories rather than dig up
obscure ones? I always thought that what my two cats (JFCL, the no-op
cat (enormous black and white female meatloaf) and Coalsack Nebula
(black, half-Siamese)) needed is: 1) vocal chords, and 2) opposing
thumbs.
------------------------------
Date: 10 June 1981 10:13-EDT
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GUMBY AT MIT-AI>
Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #146
The story about the invisible alien which cat's could see was, I
believe, an Andre Norton, with a title like 'Queen of the Spaceways',
or somesuch. The hero was an out-of-work space captain who goes to
salvage (loot) an old derelict with some old lady; she is...I won't
spoil it, but this might make you remember.
As for the boy scouts with the time machine, they were also
published in novels, I belive, as I was never a boy scout, I never
read Boy's Life. The thing that impressed me at the time was that I
read them in ~1973, when I was ~9-10 yers old; the books I read
forecast great wonders for the far future age of 1976! Teaching
machines, the daily rocket to africa, etc....
Has anyone read a book in which the predictions for the future
are reasonably accurate? I'm just reading Gernsback's 'Ralph 124C
41+' which forecasts such marvels as travelling from Paris to New York
in only 12 hours... The main problem with it is that the characters
act like they were born in 1900, not 2600. Unfortunately, most
stories like this have the same problem.
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 1981 0957-PDT
From: Achenbach at SUMEX-AIM
Subject: Time machine, boy's life et al
I can remember from back in my days as a Boy Sprout that Boy's
Life ran several SF stories from time to time. E.g. "Wind from the
Sun" by Arthur C. Clarke first appeared in BL (this was a story about
a regatta in space, using solar wind and mylar sails). Also there was
a series about a troop of boy scouts on a generation ship aimed
somewhere out in space. I can only remember one scene of a patrol
taking a quarter mile hike outside the ship in space suits to fulfill
the requirement for the hiking merit badge or some such. Then of
course there was the time machine stories. As a matter of fact, a
novel of the time machine was published, which covered the discovery,
a few adventures, and the origin of the time machine. It came from
the future, and was hijacked by a couple of badies, who the patrol
meets. I know I bought that book, but I can't find it. I guess it's
buried with all the other relics of that time in my life (Tom Swift Jr
books, Hardy Boys, etc.)
By the way, my entry for the best animation is Pinochio. Much
better than Snow White.
/Mike
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 1981 11:02:30-PDT
From: E.jeffc at Berkeley
Subject: No science in science fiction ?
At least, that's what a magazine article that I recently read claimed.
No doubt that many of you out there are already gaping at your
terminal screens in disbelief, and this provides an excellent
opportunity for this digest to stop talking about kiddy shows and
start talking about science fiction. In any case, I am willing to
play the devil's advocate and set forth the arguments which this
article used. (I don't recall the name of the magazine right now.)
The main premise is this: science fiction attacks the belief that the
universe is knowable to man. SF, of course, has plenty of gadgets and
devices and other sorts of technology, but SCIENCE??? Let's take the
example of a story which uses a hyperspace drive for interstellar
travel. OK, so the story assumes its existence, and it is used. Why
is that science? How does the drive work? How is the conflict with
the fact that nothing can go faster than light resolved? What are the
physics behind it? Often, when there is an attempt at explaining how
the drive works, matters only get worse. For example, the conflict
with the speed of light is resolved by simply stating that while in
hyperspace, you are not in this universe, and therefore such laws do
not apply. When stories deal with alternate universes and fancy stuff
like that, this type of reasoning gets carried to the extreme.
Science is not the process of making up arbitrary rules.
Now, some of you might point out at this time that science fiction is
science FICTION. True, and that is a handy excuse for completely
disregarding what we KNOW about the universe today, and to come up
with something totally arbitrary, and justifying it by simply saying
that it's a piece of fiction, and therefore it doesn't matter. Some
of you might say: aha! I caught you! What we KNOW about the universe
today is not what we will know about it tomorrow. That is absolutely
correct. Science is the process of discovering the lawful ordering of
the universe, and it is inevitable that in the future, someone will
come up with something that will supersede what we know today. Is
science, as thus defined, present in science fiction? Or is there
merely at lot of gadgetry that is not and cannot be explained by
anything we know today?
That is merely the passive side of the problem. A lot of science
fiction actually encourages anti-scientific thought, such as that
written by H.G. Wells. So that this letter does not get excessively
long, I will continue with that in another letter tomorrow.
To conclude. Even for a person who completely agrees with the
arguments presented, there is still the question, "why all the big
fuss? I like reading science fiction and it really doesn't matter to
me that there is no 'science' in it." For us, that's probably true.
None of us, as far as I know, have been "damaged" in any way by
reading science fiction, but what about the kids who read this stuff?
They are rather impressionable, and if they get the idea that science
means a lot of gadgets for which there is no explanation, or that a
lot of phenomenon in the universe, such as hyperspace, are simply
unknowable, then what are the implications?
Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jun 81 18:59-PDT
From: mclure at Sri-Unix
Subject: Clash of the Titans ripoffage
Just saw a commercial for Clash of the Titans and almost fell back in
my chair when I recognized the film score that they were playing
during the commercial; it was a number of extracts from the excellent
score by Carmine Coppola for The Black Stallion from last year.
What sort of ripoff is this? I'd be interested in hearing from anyone
who goes to see the film on whether the score in the film is the same
as the one in the commercial.
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 1981 12:40:35-PDT
From: Cory.cc-13 at Berkeley
Subject: Tintin
First off, that's Tintin, not Tin-Tin. Here are the few
titles that I can come up with off the top of my head:
1 Secret of the Unicorn
2 Red Rackham's Treasure
3 The Crab with the Golden Claws
4 Tintin in Tibet
5 Destination Moon (Pure Science Fiction)
6 Explorers on the Moon (These two sparked my interest in SF)
7 Tintin in America
8 The Broken Ear
9 The Seven Crystal Balls
10 Prisoners of the Sun
11 Tintin and the Picaros
12 Cigars of the Pharoah
13 King Ottokar's Scepter
14 Flight 714
15 The Shooting Star
16 The Calculus Affair
17 The Castafiore Emerald
18 The Black Island
19 Land of Black Gold
20 Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
21 Tintin in the Congo
I have all but the last two on the list, and there are probably
others. Some of the characters are
Major Characters in several books:
Tintin:---------Our hero boy reporter
Captain Haddock:Wealthy(In later books) former sea captain,
and
Tintin's companion (A heavy drinker)
Professor Cuthbert Calculus:Deaf (and daft) inventor and
scientist
Thompson and Thomson:Incompetent Detectives
Nestor:---------Captain Haddock's butler
Bianca Castafiore:Milanese opera singer. Powerful lungs
Rastapopoulos:--Arch villain
Minor Characters (Or pivotal to only one or two books:
Jolyon Wag:-----Typical insurance salesman
General Alcazar:Deposed South American Dictator
General Tapioca:His rival (now in power)
Lazlo Carreidas:"The Millionaire Who Never Laughs"
Skut:-----------Esthonian pilot
Captain Chester:Friend of Captain Haddock
Yours ever so,
John R Blaker
(Cory.cc-13@Berkeley)
P.S. Someone looking over my shoulder tells me that "Herge" is a pen
name based on the French spellings of the written out form of the
letters "R" and "G", apparently the initials of the real name of the
author. JRB
P.P.S Also, since these were all originally published in French, the
names of many of the characters are different. Professor Calculus is
Professor Tournossol (or something like that). The Thompson and
Thomson were originally Dupon and Dupond. JRB
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 1981 1145-PDT (Wednesday)
From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: The Derby
Actually, I did get one piece of direct mail claiming I was wrong
about the Derby, but I dismissed it as the ravings of a deranged
person (it takes one to know one? Never mind...) I will accept the
concept that I might be wrong on this one -- I suppose the Moose put
on the Derby and got real smart, or some such.
One of the nice things about having 3000+ people reading this stuff is
that there is always somebody who can correct any errors. At least, I
*THINK* that's one of the nice things?!
Back to my cage...
--Lauren--
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 1981 1505-PDT
From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO AT SU-SCORE>
Subject: Derwood Kirby
What ever happened to him, anyway?
--Lynn
------------------------------
From: KARIM@MIT-MC
Date: 06/10/81 09:05:44
Subject: Yes, Virginia, there is a "Dodo"
Honestly now, I wasn't kidding! Anyone else remember "Dodo,
the Kid from Outer Space"? Maybe I'm getting something else mixed up,
but I thought that was the title of a show...I even remember part of
the theme song. Hard to forget, it was.
This was aired in NYC, around the mid-60's. Anyone?
-Karim
------------------------------
Date: 1981-6-9-02:18:22.40
From: PAUL WINALSKI at METOO
Sender: YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO
Subject: Saturday morning memory dump
The continuing discussion of old cartoon favorites really brings
back some fond memories.... One of the things I find fascinating when
I think back to those cartoons is how many of the jokes are aimed at
grownups and just whizzed right over my head.
Take, for example, the Traffic Zone episodes of Hoppity Hooper and
Waldo Wigglesworth. The Traffic Zone was an extra-dimensional space
where really strange things happened. It could only be detected in
the real world by sound; when Hoppity was near the entrance to the
Traffic Zone, he would hear car horns honking and police whistles. I
think you entered the Zone via a traffic light. You could only enter
the Zone when it was green. As I recall, Hoppity and/or Waldo got
caught there when the light changed to red.
Anybody remember Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog (who was
almost as depressive as Marvin from HHGttG) from Captain Kangaroo?
Tom lived in a tree and was capable of several marvelous things.
Recurring villains were Isotope Feeney and Crabby Appleton (rotten to
the core).
And who can forget Saturday Morning's contribution to real SF? Time
for Beanie's Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent is cited as the reason why
Niven's aliens are named Pierson's Puppeteers. There was also an
episode on Beany & Cecil that featured two rabbits, an iron-pumping
father and his brainy son, who used to get into all sorts of fixes and
were pulled out of the mess by "brains, not brawn."
------------------------------
Date: 1981-6-9-02:20:55.08
From: PAUL WINALSKI at METOO
Sender: YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO
Subject: Aquaman/Aquaboy
Aquaboy bears the same relationship to Aquaman as Robin does to
Batman, Speedy to the Green Arrow, Kid Flash to the Flash, and Wonder
Girl to Wonder Woman. Aquaboy was his teen sidekick. The five of
them (Aquaboy, Robin, Speedy, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl) made up the Teen
Titans.
------------------------------
End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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