THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/10/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 11, Whole Number 2188

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Topics:
More Mini-Reviews (FRENCH EXIT, AFTER THE DARK, ZOMBIES ON
BROADWAY) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)
THE ESCAPEMENT by Lavie Tidhar (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Robby the Robot (letters of comment by Keith F. Lynch,
Kevin R, and Dorothy J. Heydt)
Alaric the Goth (letters of comment by Fred Lerner
and Paul Dormer)
This Week's Reading (THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

===================================================================

TOPIC: More Mini-Reviews (FRENCH EXIT, AFTER THE DARK,
ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)

FRENCH EXIT (2020): FRENCH EXIT is about a self-absorbed woman used
to living a high and very expensive lifestyle who finds herself
broke and relocates with her son to Paris. The film features a
large number of strange characters, and was filmed mostly in Paris.
The story also involves a talking cat. Available on DVD. Rating:
+1 (-4 to +4).

AFTER THE DARK (2013): At its final session, a philosophy symposium
experiences its philosophic questions happening in reality.
Specifically, the issue is how to preserve the human race after a
nuclear war. The viewer may compare their opinions with those of
philosophers. There are special effects, but they are rudimentary.
Sadly, the film winds down near the end, but it rises above most
films found, as this was, on a multi-film themed DVD. Rating: low
+3 (-4 to +4).

ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY (1945): RKO's zombie series really had only one
good film, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY shares two
very noticeable actors with that film, Sir Lancelot and Darby
Jones. This is a somewhat racist comedy, with the "comedy" team of
Alan Carney and Wally Brown, probably inspired by Abbott and
Costello, but there is nothing very funny in the "humor." These
days it is a very rare film to find on television (TCM showed it
eight times between 1998 and 2007, then once again in 2015, and not
since.) This film is yet more evidence that Bela Lugosi would act
in any film that would pay him. (This is known as LOONIES ON
BROADWAY in the UK.) Rating: -1 (-4 to +4)

[-mrl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: THE ESCAPEMENT by Lavie Tidhar (copyright 2021, Tachyon
Publications, ISBN 9781616963279, $16.95) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)

THE ESCAPEMENT, by Lavie Tidhar, is quite possibly the weirdest
book I have ever read. And no, I'm not saying it as if it's a bad
thing. It just, well, is.

I was going to try to be be clever, using a dictionary definition
of the word "escapement" to help describe the book. The website
dictionary.com has five definitions of the word escapement, none of
which (for me) accurately describe the book. The website
thesaurus.com wasn't much better. It gave eight synonyms for the
word escapement, but I wasn't satisfied with any one of them.

It figures. The book defies description. But that's not a bad
thing. It's really a good thing. How many books do readers comes
across these days that are so different, so offbeat, so ... weird,
that they defy description? Not many. But we certainly have one
here.

The Escapement (not the book, but the setting), is an alternate,
parallel world populated with all sorts of weird creatures and
occurrences. It is not unusual, to see on any given day, clowns
(sometimes vicious), mimes (also sometimes vicious), bounty
hunters, tarot cards, and giants made of stone. There are
unexplained wars occurring, including wars between symbols. Heck,
wars between different clown factions are referred to. The
landscape is sometimes surrealistic, invoking images that remind
the reader of Salvador Dali. We meet a version of John Wayne Gacy
(as a clown, of course), who is nearly impossible to kill. It's
.... weird. But that's not a bad thing.

Our protagonist, if he can be called that, is known as "the
Stranger". He has come to the Escapement to search for a
particular flower, the "Ur-shanabi", the Plant of Heartbeat. He
has come from our reality, the one we are familiar with, where his
son is dying in a hospital. Our reality is known as that "other
place", and there are ways of intentionally travelling between the
two worlds, all of which involve the use of mind-altering
chemicals, whether it be alcohol or drugs. Sometimes the Stranger
can see across to the other worlds. It's ... weird. But that's
not a bad thing.

Without giving anything away, THE ESCAPEMENT tells the story of the
Stranger looking for the aforementioned plant in order to help save
his son back in our world. But while that's the story element the
novel hangs its hat on, it is almost such a minor point as to be
almost irrelevant. THE ESCAPEMENT is really Tidhar's excuse for
taking a whole bunch of literary references and dumping them into
one story to see if he can make them fit together. And if he
can't, so what? Yes, there's a narrative thread to follow
throughout the book, but it's only here in order for Tidhar to
masterfully weave all sorts of different things together that make
the reader's brain explode, or at the very least make readers shake
their heads in bewilderment, but, ultimately, wonderment.

A few weeks ago as I write this Lavie Tidhar was a guest on The
Coode Street Podcast. When talking about THE ESCAPEMENT, he said
"that book is just weird". And I agree with him. But it's not a
bad weird. It's a good weird. It's a book that doesn't telegraph
where it's going. It's also a book that feels like it doesn't know
where it's going until it gets there. But it's not predictable by
any stretch of the imagination. And it does stretch the reader's
imagination in a very good way. It's something different, and
something weird. And in this case, it's a very good thing. [-jak]

===================================================================

TOPIC: Robby the Robot (letters of comment by Keith F. Lynch, Kevin
R, and Dorothy J. Heydt)

In response to comments on Robby the Robot in the 09/03/21 issue of
the MT VOID, Keith F. Lynch writes:

[Following up on his uncertainty about Robby being in "Condemned of
Space"]

Okay, I just rewatched it, and technically you're right. Each
episode ended with a brief teaser for the following episode. The
last two seconds of "Ghost in Space" show Robby, as they're a
teaser for the following episode, "War of the Robots."

That reminds me of the nitpick about when Curly and Shemp appeared
together, creating a Three Stooges short with four stooges. Most
sources say that only happened in "Hold that Lion!" It also
happened in "Booty and the Beast," but that used the exact same
footage as "Hold that Lion!" [-kfl]

Kevin R responds:

[Regarding "technically" being right]

....which, on USENET, is sometimes the most satisfying way to be
right. :-)

Those teasers bugged me, but they were supposed to, borrowing the
movie serials' "cliffhanger" chapter endings. They fit better on
the Wednesday night showings of BATMAN, which, when it was cut back
to one weekly episode for the final season, shifted to teasers.
IMS, THE TIME TUNNEL used them, too, as Doug and Tony always
escaped one horrible fate at the end of an episode, only to be
switched to another era with its own dangers to be confronted.
Both THE TIME TUNNEL and LOST IN SPACE were Irwin Allen shows.

Some of the Stooges shorts had only 2 Stooges, arguably:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemp_Howard#The_%22Fake_Shemps%22_a
nd_legacy>

I was a big Shemp fan. [-kr]

Regarding Disney's contributions to FORBIDDEN PLANET, Dorothy
J. Heydt writes:

Once long ago, when Bjo Trimble was living in LA, I visited her and
she decided to take me to meet Forry Ackerman. So we drove up to
his house. He wasn't home, but his door was unlocked and Bjo took
me on in. We saw lots of neat artwork, and lying on his desk was a
concept drawing of the Id Monster. It was a pencil drawing that
neither moved around nor flashed in and out, and I could see
clearly what it looked like.

You'll remember Morbius telling his visitors that the Krell didn't
make pictures, and that the only clue he had as to what they looked
like was the shape of their doorways.

In article <3df2d0cb-6b00-47e8-a210-1372dce1eaf0n@googlegroups.com>,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com () wrote:

> The first thing to note is that
> people cannot seem to agree on whether Lafferty's book is a
> history, or historical fiction, or something in between.

Co-incidentally, I've just been reading a biography of the last Shogun of
Japan. You could have a similar discussion about that. In the
introduction, it is suggest it is a similar work to Shelby Foote's Civil
war history.

Paul Dormer <prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com () wrote:
>> The first thing to note is that people cannot seem to agree on
>> whether Lafferty's book is a history, or historical fiction, or
>> something in between.

> Co-incidentally, I've just been reading a biography of the last
> Shogun of Japan. You could have a similar discussion about that.
> In the introduction, it is suggest it is a similar work to Shelby
> Foote's Civil war history.

I'm reminded of Alex Haley's best-selling _Roots_, and the miniseries
based on it. At the time I'm pretty sure it was described and marketed
at non-fiction, but today it's universally described as fiction.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

On 9/12/21 1:10 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> I'm reminded of Alex Haley's best-selling _Roots_, and the miniseries
> based on it. At the time I'm pretty sure it was described and marketed
> at non-fiction, but today it's universally described as fiction.
>

Haley was sued for plagiarizing from a novel called _The African_. He
admitted that "various materials from The African by Harold Courtlander
found their way into his book Roots." The matter was settled for an
undisclosed sum rumored to be in the 6-digit range.

You need to watch those manuscripts of yours carefully, or things you
didn't write might "find their way" in while you're sleeping.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

In article <shln0v$362$1@dont-email.me>,
Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
>On 9/12/21 1:10 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>
>> I'm reminded of Alex Haley's best-selling _Roots_, and the miniseries
>> based on it. At the time I'm pretty sure it was described and marketed
>> at non-fiction, but today it's universally described as fiction.
>>
>
>Haley was sued for plagiarizing from a novel called _The African_. He
>admitted that "various materials from The African by Harold Courtlander
>found their way into his book Roots." The matter was settled for an
>undisclosed sum rumored to be in the 6-digit range.
>
>You need to watch those manuscripts of yours carefully, or things you
>didn't write might "find their way" in while you're sleeping.
>
If you want to source someone else's work, do it consciously, not
accidentally, and if possible, source someone who's out of
copyright.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 5:00:01 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <shln0v$362$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Gary McGath <ga...@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
> >On 9/12/21 1:10 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> >
> >> I'm reminded of Alex Haley's best-selling _Roots_, and the miniseries
> >> based on it. At the time I'm pretty sure it was described and marketed
> >> at non-fiction, but today it's universally described as fiction.
> >>
> >
> >Haley was sued for plagiarizing from a novel called _The African_. He
> >admitted that "various materials from The African by Harold Courtlander
> >found their way into his book Roots." The matter was settled for an
> >undisclosed sum rumored to be in the 6-digit range.
> >
> >You need to watch those manuscripts of yours carefully, or things you
> >didn't write might "find their way" in while you're sleeping.
> >
> If you want to source someone else's work, do it consciously, not
> accidentally, and if possible, source someone who's out of
> copyright.
>

Doris Kearns Goodwin got caught, also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin#Plagiarism_controversy

[The WEEKLY STANDARD article that the contretemps:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/a-historian-and-her-sources-2088 ]

As was Steven Ambrose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_E._Ambrose#Plagiarism

Then there was the Rev /M/r/ Dr MLK, Jr:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr._authorship_issues

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/11/us/boston-u-panel-finds-plagiarism-by-dr-king.html

Then there is our US plagiarist-in-chief.

https://www.businessinsider.com/plagiarism-scandal-joe-biden-first-presidential-run-1988-2019-3

He was let off the hook by one "source," Neil Kinnock.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/07/neil-kinnock-joe-biden-1987-scandal

--
Kevin R

On 9/12/21 6:18 PM, Kevrob wrote:
> Doris Kearns Goodwin got caught, also.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin#Plagiarism_controversy
>
> [The WEEKLY STANDARD article that the contretemps:
>
> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/a-historian-and-her-sources-2088 ]
>
> As was Steven Ambrose.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_E._Ambrose#Plagiarism
>
> Then there was the Rev /M/r/ Dr MLK, Jr:

However, Lobachevsky wasn't guilty of plagiarism. Tom Lehrer wrote a
song smearing him for no better reason than that the name scanned to the
tune.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

In article <shne3c$2sl$1@dont-email.me>,
Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
>On 9/12/21 6:18 PM, Kevrob wrote:
>> Doris Kearns Goodwin got caught, also.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin#Plagiarism_controversy
>>
>> [The WEEKLY STANDARD article that the contretemps:
>>
>>
>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/a-historian-and-her-sources-2088 ]
>>
>> As was Steven Ambrose.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_E._Ambrose#Plagiarism
>>
>> Then there was the Rev /M/r/ Dr MLK, Jr:
>
>
>However, Lobachevsky wasn't guilty of plagiarism. Tom Lehrer wrote a
>song smearing him for no better reason than that the name scanned to the
>tune.

As we all probably know, Lobachevsky and Bolyai were working on
the same problem, found the solution *around* the same time. But
Bolyai's father made him wait to publish his findings as part of
the father's next publication. Lobachevsky had many problems in
his life,* but a stern parent who said "You can't publish till I
do" was not one of them.

_____
*Poul Anderson did some research thereon for the last segment of
_Operation Chaos._

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On 9/13/21 9:02 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> As we all probably know, Lobachevsky and Bolyai were working on
> the same problem, found the solution *around* the same time. But
> Bolyai's father made him wait to publish his findings as part of
> the father's next publication. Lobachevsky had many problems in
> his life,* but a stern parent who said "You can't publish till I
> do" was not one of them.

I came across a different account while researching _Spells of War_. (As
I've said before, the novel is an excuse for the research. Hungary is a
focal point.) According to this version, Farkas Bolyai had spent much of
his life trying to prove Euclid's 5th postulate from the first four. His
son Janos took up the effort, and the father was afraid that Janos would
obsess over it to the point of wrecking his life. Both Lobachevsky and
J. Bolyai discovered that there are self-consistent geometries where the
fifth postulate isn't true.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com