Aucbvax.1386 fa.sf-lovers utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI Thu May 21 11:25:49 1981 SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #127 SF-LOVERS AM Digest Thursday, 21 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 127 Today's Topics: SF Books - Cyber SF, SF Movies - Outlands, SF TV - Outer Limits, SF Topics - Children's TV (Raideen and 8th Man) & Children's stories (Edward Eager and Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians and Star Surgeon and Mushroom planet) & Physics Today (Anti-sugar) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 May 1981 1106-PDT From: Stuart McLure Cracraft Subject: Bay Area Harlan/Outer Limits fans Channel 20 is showing the two Harlan Ellison Outer Limits episodes this weekend (unbutchered un-like other stations): Saturday 10pm 'Soldier' Sunday 8pm 'Demon with a Glass Hand' ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1981 0350-EDT From: Dave Touretzky at CMU-10A Subject: review of "Outlands" Review of "Outlands" 5/20/81 "Outlands", starring Sean Connery, is a below-par western with an unusual but unredeeming setting. Connery plays a straightlaced marshal newly arrived in a remote mining settlement, where he uses his fists and a sawed-off shotgun to defeat a corrupt mine operator and his beefy henchmen. The gun battles are seriously underplayed, as the director preferred to devote most of his special effects efforts to the depiction of -- get ready -- explosive decompressions. The "outlands" turn out to be the moons of Jupiter, not some stretch of Arizona desert, but Outlands is a shoot-em-up (or blow-em-up) western all the same. When Connery walks through the swinging double doors (!) of the canteen and everyone in the room falls silent, one can't help but appreciate the director's tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of this fact. There are two features I pay special attention to in science fiction movies: future sociology, and future technology. Outlands does miserably in both areas. It fails sociologically because it makes use of such severe sexual stereotyping that it would be barely tolerable in a 1980's setting, much less a futuristic one. Lines like "my hookers are clean, and some of them are even good looking" are offensive, not funny, when this is someone's idea of what life will be like a few centuries from now. Connery's wife is a whining ninny who deserts him early in the film because she can't stand settlement towns. She leaves behind a video message saying that she has left with their son to go back East -- I mean back to Earth. The other female characters are prostitutes or low-level technicians, except for a courageous woman doctor who helps Connery battle the bad guys. Sexists traditionally view such strong women as unfeminine, and this one isn't going to break any molds. She's unaccountably grumpy, middle aged, a self-described "old wreck". Connery befriends her by threatening to "kick her ass." Technologically, Outlands is a joke, full of inconsistencies. People communicate via electronic videomail, yet their CRT terminals run at 110 baud and make silly clacking noises. The entire base is monitored by closed circuit TV cameras with remote control zoom, tilt, and pan, yet the images they display are only black and white, not color. The scene where Connery "taps" a fiber optic communications line (actually an RS-232 connector!) is particularly absurd, since one would expect that secure communications would have become standard long before that time. One good thing this movie forecasts for the future is the elimination of handguns. The police carry sawed-off shotguns and the bad guys use rifles with sniperscopes. Don't ask why such heavy artillery is necessary in the close confines of a space settlement, or why the lawmen of the future can't use tranquilizers instead of bullets. Just sit back and enjoy the movie, podner. And root for the man with the badge. -- Dave Touretzky ------------------------------ From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: Re: Juvenile SF&F: Edward Eager Yes indeed, he did use the same group of children. Actually he used two groups, one group being the children of members of the first. Knight's Castle, Seven-Day Magic, Half Magic, and the Time Garden (it was a thyme garden, remember) involved these kids. In two of the books, they meet each other -- I think in the Time Garden and in Half Magic -- I remember checking to see if the two versions of the same meeting were consistent (they were). Eager also wrote the Well Wishers and Magic Or Not, but these used other sets of kids. The Half Magic book had some very funny spots, since the magic coin only gives you half your wish. So if you wish to go from X to Y, you end up halfway there, or half of you get there....The scene where one of them inadvertently wishes that the cat could talk is hilarious. --cat ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 1981 1704-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: more animal robots Courtesy of my wife: 1) The Godwhale by T.J.Bass is about a part organic part mechanical whale. 2) There is a robot talking bird in "Quest of the Gypsy" by Ron Goulart in Weird Heroes Vol I. (the bird is a vulture. there also are androids and cyborgs.) 3) In the story Usher II (Bradbury's Martian Chronicles/Silver Locusts) there is a rat, metal fleas -- " It fell over, the rat did, and from its nylon fur streamed an incredible horde of metal fleas." Also an ape, white mice, bats, a rabbit, a mock-turtle, and a dormouse. 4) In Zelazny's Lord of Light, when Mora comes to the temple in the beginning of the book, there is a Mechobra -- mechanical cobra -- and also a beetle (p. 37). 5) Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) has The Mechanical Hound. 6) There is a story that appeared in 10th Best SF or some such, edited probably by Merrill (we can't find the book) which has a robot tiger named Ben. The tiger is controlled, not autonomous. 7) In an old story about the death of a house (Bradbury?) there are little robot mice that scream fire! fire! while trying to extinguish the flames. 8) The Witches of Karres (Schmidtz (sp?)) has a spider robot called the Sheem Spider. It is supposed to be a replica of a fiercesome spider beastie, made even more dangerous with a few high-tech features. (The Agandar uses it). I think I weeded out all the ones you had already listed. If not, sorry! good reading, --cat ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 1981 08:58 PDT From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Kiddy Kartoons While we are on the subject of kiddy kartoons, we should probably talk about the many strange and wonderful(?) treats the Japanese have served us up. The show that comes to mind first for me is Raideen. This featured a large robot called Raideen which is constantly battling the forces of evil. A few things make this show worthy of note. First, the robot is actually controlled by one of the boys featured in the show. He gets on is motorcycle, zooms up to speed while Raideen appears out of a nearby mountain, and at the last minute, the cycle flips him up and into the head of Raideen. Then he falls gently through a long vertical corridor into Raideen's heart where he begins flying around killing the baddies. Very psychedelic. Another interesting feature of this series is the amount of sexual innuendo in it. Not a lot by some standards, but far more than you would ever find on an American feature. Two scenes stand out in my mind. In one, three boys and a girl are being chased by an evil flying robot monster. The boys take great delight when the airwash blows the girl's skirt up for a very nice view. My favorite scene from the whole series concerns an evil, woman-shaped robot which is armed to the teeth. When Raideen comes after it (her?), rockets come firing straight out of her breasts! Raideen was rather heavily promoted as well. My roommates ordered all sorts of toys from them. No female robots, though. -- Larry -- ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 1981 0035-EDT From: CSH at MIT-DMS (Cynthia S. Hanley) Subject: Tobor the 8th Man Tobor the 8th Man plot: As I recall the first episode, a young man sees a elderly man under attack and goes to the rescue. He is shot driving the attackers away and dying, so the elderly man (a scientist, of course) takes his to his lab and implants his brain into his latest creation, the eighth version of a robot he is developing. When the young man awakens, he reacts with horror and is still recovering from the mental shock when the attackers return and suceed in killing the scientist. Beyond this point, memory is vague, I seem to recall Tobor as being a policeman before he is shot. ---CSH ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 1981 00:43:28-PDT From: CSVAX.halbert at Berkeley Subject: another Nourse book A young people's SF book by Nourse I liked a lot was STAR SURGEON, about a medical ship traveling to a number of planets and fixing the inhabitants' ills. The story is told from the point of view of a humanoid, who was (I think) the first non-human to get into the medical service (medicine was Earth's specialty). This perspective, and the unusual premise of the story made for a very good book. --Dan ------------------------------ Date: 8 MAY 1981 1524-PDT From: RODOF at USC-ECL Subject: Mushroom planet Good God, I'd forgotten that one -- along with the Danny Dunn, Tom Swift, Rick Brant, and Freddie The Pig stories. Yeah, that was a fun one -- didn't the two boys actually nail a flying saucer to their ship's nose, and take Oxygen pills, and have to wear clothespins on their noses to keep themselves from breathing in space? The whole thing sounded like the author had been eating too many mushrooms himself. Speaking of jarred memories, I remember an odd book that I got from the children's section of the library back when I was about seven that I could never find again once I had grown up enough to realize how strange it was. I remember neither title nor author, but it involved a Jules Verne like trip to all the planets, written in a very Verne-like style, and the one thing that sticks in my mind is when the crew landed on the sun (!) and had to take all their clothes off because of the heat, and ran around on the surface (!) looking at all the volcanos that gave off the light... Strike any chords? By the way, along with mentioning Rick Brant (Which tended to be a little more scientifically accurate than Tom Swift), and Freddie the Pig, let me mention a few more childhood faves, to wit: The Mad Scientist's Club, Alvin Ferdinand and a book called Scoop. Both Scoop, (which should have been a series, but wasn't, as far as I know) and especially the Mad Scientists Club went to great pains to be as technologically accurate as possible. I even ended up building a few of the pranky devices they came up with, and they worked fine, although TMSC was no how-to book. They built flying saucers and Loch Ness Monsters and such like, radio-controlled and made from chicken wire. Even as I look back, now, I am still pretty impressed. Anyone else read these? Rodof ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 1981 1803-PDT From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE Subject: mushroom books According to the Children's Books in Print, only Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet is available in paperback. The others, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet A Mystery For Mr. Bass Mr. Bass's Planetoid Time and Mr. Bass are available in expensive ($8.95 to $10.95) hardback. --cat ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 1981 1315-PDT (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians Egads! Stale bread crumb pudding! I haven't thought about that book in years. To be specific, the kid (what WAS his name?) sent away for a do-it-yourself voodoo kit from the back of a comic book... and used it to control his temporary live-in babysitter -- who made him eat horrid things like Rutabaga... I too was a member of the Weekly Reader club. I find this discussion of children's SF, etc. to be among the most interesting I have seen in SFL since its inception, particularly in terms of nostalgia value! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 1981 (Thursday) 2350-EDT From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager) Subject: Anti-sugar This one's straight out of any number of SFs beginning, in my mind, with StarTrek. It is from a radio news brief made by the local station so I cannot vouch for its validity: A high-tech bio-chem firm has announced the devlopement of a zero-calorie sugar "substitute". This compound apparently exhibits "left-handedness" in structure whereas the body can digest only right-handed organic compounds. [note, I may have this backward] The new sugar is simply the wrong-handed version of regular sugar so it is passed completely thru the digestive tract but tastes "exactly" the same as regular sugar. The firm [whose name I have forgoetten] said that the idea is not really new [they probably got it from watching ST] but that there had not been a good way of producing the chemical before. They are investigating merging minds (and money) with major sugar manufacturers in order to mass produce the stuff. The FDA, of course, is making the firm run about 10000 rats worth of tests before it can go public. My reaction to this is best summarized by an exclaimation point! [ This story is indeed true. As mentioned in a message in volume 3, issue 126, the HUMAN-NETS digest has been discussing this issue for the past few weeks. Anyone interested in observations relating to this discovery should send a message to HUMAN-NETS-REQUEST for instructions on how to examine that mailing lists archives. -- 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.