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 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 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 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 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 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.