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Reader Seeks Amelia Earhart in SF
uestion: Many years ago I read a novel concerning a plot by Nazi Germany to clone--or reproduce--Hitler by impregnating a woman with his genetic material. I have neither the author nor book title and am thus obliged to search a little fruitlessly. It is not Boys From Brazil. A theme/scene in the novel involved the incarceration of Amelia Earhart by the Nazis though in what context I can't remember.
The novel would have appeared prior to 1985 as it was then that I remember reading it in my local library, so it would have been in print for some years prior to this.
All that I can add to the plot is that the woman who is carrying the clone is incarcerated on a Scottish island for some of the period of her pregnancy before giving birth to a daughter. The novel concludes with the Mossad, having tracked the mother and daughter down with the intention of assassinating the daughter.
Have you ever come across such a novel in the course of your work? And if so, would you be so kind as to forward me the details. This search has been going on for many years now and it's very frustrating. If you don't recognize the novel, perhaps you could suggest another avenue for my search to continue in. I have already tried contacting tighar.com which is a Web site devoted to Amelia Earhart, but none of its subscribers recognized the book.
Thank you for your time, and please excuse the intrusion.
Zach Ryan
zachrya222@hotmail.com
Tomb Raids Reader's Patience
recently saw the movie Tomb Raider, and I definitely do not agree with the review here. I have many complaints on the movie, but I'll start with the first line that I disagreed with in the review: "a strong, appealing central character." Laura Croft was a woman portrayed as having an obsession with her father. This is supposed to be a grown woman, and all she wants in the world is to be with her daddy. I see that as far from strong, more like emotionally unstable. It's normal to miss a parent when they're gone, but all she seemed to think about 24/7 was her missing father. I'm probably
wrong on how long ago he'd disappeared, but I'm guessing the story was he'd been missing what, five years? What was she doing during the first year? Making a father out of clay and treating it as if it were alive?
Next complaint is of "a stylish thrill ride with plenty of eye candy"--when she's swinging around
from the rooftop in the fight scene, it's very clear that she's hanging on a wire in front of a screen: In other words, it looks entirely fake.
Next complaint "Jolie has some fairly big ... boots to fill." I think your reviewer should've said "lips," not boots. Jolie's lips are clearly fake, and highly distracting. Why she had cosmetic surgery to make herself look like a hive of angry wasps stung her lips, I don't want to know. They're in total
disproportion to her face so that I found my eyes drawn to them in every scene, only able to think, "How much collagen and whatnot is actually in there?!"
As for her attitude, it seems to be a bit lacking as well. Sure, she had a few good moments, in particular that "I said you'd try" when the guy declares he won't kill her. However, her attempts at having "attitude" seemed a bit forced. For instance, in one scene, riding to the auction on a motorcycle, walking in with muddy boots, pulling up a chair for her feet, while dressed in black leather, and wearing dark sunglasses. In a word, I'd called that overkill.
Then, there were the rather idiotic moments. For instance, when she enters the temple that her enemy is also trying to enter, she goes in the back way, and he works the front. Then the bad guy goes on to talk about the possibility of her showing up. Surely they should've put a guard or two, at the very least, to guard the back. Then there's the fact that the plane flew overhead, with the jeep hanging below it, and she parachuted down in the jeep. Nobody saw it? No one noticed the huge plane flying overhead, or the big jeep parachuting down? None of which was camouflaged, by the way. None of them noticed, which
means that either Mother Nature got sick of birds, and was making planes that dropped jeeps so commonplace that the men didn't notice this incident to be out of the ordinary; or that it was simply a poor scene. I think I'll stick with the poor scene theory.
There's only one line I agreed with in the entire review: "Tomb Raider is far from perfect, leaving much to be desired..."
Julie Roth
misty_jaguar@yahoo.com
Tomb Raider is Fluff and FX
ou must be kidding giving an "A-" to Tomb Raider. A "C" would have been kind. Granted, the special effects looked great, but a good movie needs more than special effects. Where was the story? Where was any character development? Lara Croft has been compared to Indiana Jones. What an insult to the great Indiana Jones movies which combine action, special effects, a real storyline and fully-developed characters. Tomb Raider was a good computer game, but the movie was little more than special-effects fluff.
Ron Charlton
RebelRon@aol.com
E:FC Didn't Need Fixing
'd like to agree with Lisa Solinas ("SCI FI Should Pick Up E:FC"), in her joint attempts to get the show Earth: Final Conflict adopted and produced further by the SCI FI Channel. E:FC is a classic case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Tribune Entertainment, who have extreme disdain for both the actors and fans, have been "fixing" E:FC for several years, and now they've gone too far. Their latest changes are as if, in the original Star Trek, Kirk, Spock and McCoy had all been killed off, the ship were destroyed and we follow the antics of the Enterprise crew on an alien planet.
I support the petition www.geocities.com/shahariath/ and encourage not only E:FC fans to sign it (www.PetitionOnline.com/efcscifi/), but Gene Roddenberry fans in general. Tribune hasn't simply ruined a good SF show, they've ruined a Gene Roddenberry show, while having the nerve to claim that he'd be pleased by the scrapping of his storyline.
And I, like Ms. Solinas, would like to see what the SCI FI Channel can mold E:FC's storyline into. I hope that SCI FI takes advantage of this unique opportunity and makes, perhaps a four-hour miniseries. Because the only people who would not benefit from such a wonderful creation would be the people who botched it in the first place.
Beatrice Caldwell
beatricecaldwell@earthlink.com
Robert E. Howard Was Only Human
pretty good review ("We Cannot Shake Him Loose"), except for one thing: for all of Clute's justified derision regarding de Camp and Howard's other pastiches, he has amazingly bought into every de Camp-inspired myth about Howard "the man." Note Clute's offending paragraph:
"Because, in the end, The Conan Chronicles does give us the raw truth: that Robert E. Howard--a terribly unhappy, racist, mother-obsessed, fattish bodybuilder who wore silly hats and waddled down small-town Texas streets as though he were the reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt though what he was the reincarnation of was in fact Tweedledum, and whose sexuality seems ambiguous now because he never had time in his short life to come out anywhere but in his writing ..."
To any serious Howard researcher, this paragraph is laugh-out-loud ridiculous! It is point for point a libelous picture of Howard wholly constructed by de Camp in his oft-discredited bio of Howard Dark Valley Destiny. Like John Milius eagerly telling similar stories in the documentary section of the recent Conan the Barbarian DVD, it immediately exposes Mr. Clute as completely ignorant concerning Howard the man.
For an accurate look at the real Howard, try reading the two volumes of his Selected Letters published by Necronomicon Press, or the memoir of his girlfriend Novalyne Price, that was made into a movie in 1996 entitled One Who Walked Alone, or the forthcoming two-volume Complete Howard-Lovecraft Correspondence from Wandering Star Press in England.
In these non-deCamped books you will see the real Howard: witty, frequently brilliant, full of life and humor, loud and boisterous, sometimes but hardly "always" depressed or angry or melancholy (after all, it was the Great Depression!) a storehouse of history and stories, a man of more than a few
good friends (he corresponded as an equal with many of the classic pulp authors of the day), a man who (far from being a recluse) traveled widely throughout the southwest ... all in all a fascinating character who (like many "normal" people in the Great Depression) unfortunately had a series of tragic circumstances pave the way to suicide.
"Fattish"? The people who knew him universally described him as quite muscular and surprisingly handsome, hardly the "Tweedledum" of Clute's imagination. Howard was neither a "bully" (he hated bullies of all kinds) nor a "baby." He boxed locally and people who were friends of the Howards say he seldom if ever lost a fight.
It is true that Howard suffered from depression, but that wasn't exactly rare during The Depression (it's not exactly rare among writers, either). To call him a nut just because he committed suicide is absurd. It's also true that the catty insular small town he lived in (Cross Plains) was highly ambivalent to one of their own being a "lazy writer" rather than more respectable blue collar job like a farmer or oil field worker. In addition, it was a town of strict religious mores that didn't appreciate one of their own writing fantasy, which many interpreted as the devil's work. Thirdly, the town was largely ignorant of writers and how they work, and normal things that a larger town wouldn't
have batted an eye about became a topic of much discussion in Cross Plains.
Things like Howard shadow-boxing down the street to figure out a fight story in his head while walking to the post office, or typing late into the night to meet a deadline, or speaking Conan's dialogue out-loud to test its sound and power while working on the family car. Finally, the town was jealous, seeing this "lazy, eccentric son of Dr. Howard" (a very respected person in town) driving down the street in a brand new car paid for with cash while they were struggling to make ends meet.
"Silly hats"? Read Howard's letters, read the reminisces of his friends. Howard well knew the prejudices which the town had against him as an supposedly eccentric, lazy writer, and he often delighted in jerking their chain in various ways. Friends remember him saying, "If they're gonna sit there and think I'm so crazy, I'll show them how crazy a man can be!" and he would strut around in a big sombrero or a handlebar moustache, and he and his friends would get a big laugh about it. I'm sure that if he knew how a largely ignorant press would skew and misinterpret these incidents just to get a little more pizzazz into their "crazed genius" articles, he may have reconsidered his actions. Howard was also a master storyteller and a supreme "bull artist" in the best way, and if modern readers believe that he was saying all of his various "Teddy Roosevelt" type anecdotes without a nod and a wink, then they are hopelessly naive.
In any case, all of this pent-up ambivalence and small town ignorance translated into some people of Cross Plains making up all kinds of ridiculous stories about Howard, and those combined with the lies of de Camp have largely painted the picture you seem to have bought into hook, line and sinker. This
ambivalence can still be seen today--I was in Cross Plains in June, and in a barber shop an old man pointed at me, an outsider, and yelled at the top of his lungs "Robert Howard shot hisse'f in the head and he wen' straight to hell! Don' let the same happ'n to you!" And when a bunch of old ladies started a Robert E. Howard Days festival in the mid-80s, two retired widows had to promote it on local TV because all of the other ladies were afraid that an association with Howard would hurt their businesses. (You tell me if that sounds normal?).
Even after saying all this about the town, it ignores the fact that Howard did have friends and admirers in town, lots of them (the double-funeral of him and his mother had the highest turnout of any in Cross Plains ever). These friends were interviewed by de Camp for his Howard bio Dark Valley Destiny, and they were so furious at de Camps twisting of their words to paint their friend
out to be a psychotic Oedipal nut that many would never talk to strangers about Howard again for fear that more ill would come of it. Novalyne Price was so furious at Dark Valley Destiny that she was compelled, after 50 years, to counteract its influence with her own memoir of Howard.
As for Howard being unnaturally obsessed with his mother, that's another ridiculous exaggeration by de Camp and the more ignorant element of Cross Plains. Howard himself complained about this to his then-girlfriend Novalyne Price, saying "a man takes care of his sick, dying mother and those bastards call it the Oedipus Complex!" Howard suffered from depression, and at different times during his life he told friends that things were so bad he would kill himself, and that the only thing stopping him was that his sick mother needed him and the support his writing money provided. This was hardly an
"obsession", it was a realistic evaluation by a depressed individual. People who criticize Howard for living at home until 30 to care for his deathly ill mother are too caught up in their stock options and Hondas to have an inkling about how small town life was back in the '30s, and how people were compelled to stick together as a family in ways that we simply can't relate to these days.
Far from killing himself because his precious mother was about to leave the world, Howard killed himself because her leaving freed him from his last obligations on this world, allowing him to do what he had wanted to do for years. But, I guess calling him Oedipal and obsessed makes for better
copy ... for Pete's sake, a few decades ago the prevailing myth was that Mrs. Howard herself had written the stories, and that Bob Howard killed himself when she was on her deathbed and it looked as if his livelihood would be gone! Where does this ridiculousness end? Of course the answer is that it ends only when people like Mr. Clute stop feeling compelled to include juicy slander in their reviews and articles without going to the real experts in the field.
In Howard's case, there is a scholarly organization called the Robert E. Howard United Press Association (www.rehupa.com) which has, for 30 years, examined and appreciated the life and works of Howard in minute detail. That site will come up prominently on any Web search for Howard, and had Mr. Clute run his article by us he would have received a lot more information on the real
Howard and on the editing Mr. Jones did to The Conan Chronicles books Clute is discussing (for example, I met Mr. Jones in November, and he told me that the man hired to do the copy editing for the first book had, without anyone's knowledge, not checked anything at all, which is why it was so bad. As the complaints about the typos poured in the man was promptly fired, and special care was taken to ensure that the next book came out better).
I could go on and on about the myths that prevail about Robert E. Howard, but I will only recommend that anyone interested in getting a much more fair evaluation of this man to read the books I mentioned and to question anything others have published using hearsay. Howard, like all of us, had problems (mental depression, a horribly sick mother to help, a tough job in a time where few markets could pay on time, a town that couldn't understand the job he chose). Like many people in the Depression, and like many writers and artists, he ended his life. But he was not crazy or anything close to the warped misanthrope de Camp portrayed over the decades (or that Mr. Clute portrayed in that paragraph of his article).
Other than that paragraph, it was an excellent review, I thought.
P.S. de Camp and friends did not write the first Conan Chronicles. That was a book containing several Conan pastiches written by Robert Jordan, who would go on to create The Wheel of Time series.
Leo Grin
gweilo@mediaone.net
John Clute responds:
A very interesting letter from Leo Grin, a man who has clearly
thought a lot about Robert E Howard the person, and whose comments
certainly modify--though not always in the direction he might wish--my
understanding of the author of the Conan stories.
1) Before saying more about Howard in any other context, I will
now certainly examine closely L. Sprague de Camp's Dark Valley Destiny,
whose take on the life of the author has obviously aroused a lot of
passion. (I'll be shy about John Milius, too.) But I must say that much of
what I said here about Howard was taken--perhaps distorted by
preconceptions--from my reading of Stephen Jones's two Conan Afterwords,
which incorporate some fairly extensive quotes from both Howard himself
and from Novalyne Price Ellis's One Who Walked Alone (1986). It may
be I made too much of Ellis's describing Howard's face as looking "rounder
than ever" under the silly hat she noticed he had started to wear, and
which she describes in telling detail; but what is surely clear is
that--whether or not Howard just simply looked like a fattish imitation
of Teddy Roosevelt, as I put it, or as Mr. Grin says wanted to look like
a fool for complicated reasons--there was clearly something here to
notice.
2) Howard and his mother. Mr. Grin's interpretation of the motives
for Howard's suicide at 30 has a ring of plausibility to it, and I for one
gladly defer to his better and more intimate sense of what drove this
brilliant young man to death. I won't ever call him anything as simple as
"mother-obsessed" again (I didn't myself refer to the Oedipal complex)
without taking Grin on board. One has to say this, though: when Grin says
that Howard's suicide had been premeditated not for months (as Stephen
Jones may have thought) but for years, he only underlines the sense that
Howard was a far more than normally unhappy man.
3) We approach the heart of the matter. My take on Robert E. Howard
was based partly on a brief scan of what I thought was the current
consensus on his presence in the world, and Mr. Grin is right to
demonstrate that such a consensus is by no means universally adhered to.
My take is also based, however, on Howard's written work, private
and public. Having seen a small fragment of it, I have no doubt that
Howard's correspondence as a whole is witty, energetic, bumptious, even
lovable (and I have no difficulty thinking a writer caught in the
essential solitude of his craft may well express himself in letters with
an exuberance his own life experiences don't confirm). And I have some
idea of Howard's published work because I have just read a thousand pages
of his best stories (and laid down in my review some sense of how
extraordinary I thought they are).
But here Mr. Grin's and my paths part, I fear. I doubt we will ever
agree on what Howard's writings plausibly suggest about Howard as a person
in the world, though both of us might agree that he lived most vividly
through what he wrote. (My feeling is that he killed himself before he had
a chance to do much else than write.)
Down to cases. Mr. Grin does not dispute my use of the term
"racist." He is wise not to, as an intensely visceral contempt for black
people surfaces time and again in the Conan canon. It's a contempt which,
partly because of the high energy level of the stories themselves, Howard
expresses in such feverish terms that it is difficult now--and it should
have been difficult in 1935--to conceive how anyone could articulate
such loathing for other human beings without shame.
On to women. It's not enough to say that the conventions of the
pulp fiction of the time demanded a fetishistic presentation of the
female, because Howard goes far beyond (and in ways falls far short of)
the normal easy misogyny of popular writing in 1935. Except for maybe
Belit, and Valeria (from "Red Nails," 1935), Howard's women in the Conan
stories are of two sorts, both presented with astonishing intensity.
There is the frivolous shrinking panicky adolescent with vast
mammaries (usually described as "round globes") stuck to her otherwise
featureless body. She is fair-skinned and blonde. She spends most of her
time stark naked. Every once in a while she is spanked (Gor lovers
awake!). She almost always falls in love with Conan's "mighty thews,"
though strangely--as Conan himself is almost always described as being
almost always almost naked--when she does clasp her arms around him and
presses her vast mammaries against him, what she clasps and what she
presses against is a man who has magically had the time to don and who is
now safely ensconced in armor.
Then there is of course the sexually aware woman or bitch empress.
She is dark-haired and sultry. No sex takes place onstage. Indeed, sex as
such is not really mentioned at all. This does not keep her from
manifesting an ancient evil in the come-hither glare she fixes on thewed
Conan.
My take--which is probably not Mr. Grin's--is that writing of this
sort and intensity is very exposed. It makes me think that Howard the
writer could not bring himself actually to write about real sex, even in
the coded terms allowable in the markets that paid him so meagerly. It
makes me think that whether or not Howard had ever had sex with anyone, he
could not keep himself from writing like a virgin obsessed about and
terrified of the unknown, like a man being tortured on a rack. It makes me
think of a pressure cooker about to explode, a bucket about to be kicked
in. Which is what, as a reader immersed in a boiling cauldron of words, I
suggested in my review.
But of course, out of this cauldron he stirred Conan.
Best,
John
Claims Against Howard Reprehensible
ohn Clute's review ("We Cannot Shake Him Loose") of The Conan Chronicles is little more than a character assassination disguised as a book review. While complimenting Robert E. Howard's writing Clute manages to call Howard fattish, a burnout, a baby, racist, and question his sexuality.
Clute's reprehensible attacks against a dead man are not only unsubstantiated, but call into question Clute's judgment and agenda.
Joel Jenkins
jenkins@silvernet.net
John Clute responds:
In my responses to Leo Grin's reasoned letter (see above), I've tried to deal with the kind of issues Joel Jenkins refers to. So just a couple of further points here. I think of Howard as a burnt-out case in the same way I would expect to think of (say) Arthur Rimbaud or William Faulkner or James Tiptree Jr., three authors of great significance, as burnt-out cases. In none of these cases was it a question of playing with fire, but of becoming something like fire. The phrase "question his sexuality" implies an assumption on my part that there is a normative form of human sexuality and that divergences from that norm are morally reprehensible. This was certainly Howard's view of (say) lesbianism, as he made clear in a letter (quoted by Stephen Jones) about "Red Nails":
"I have been dissatisfied with my handling of decaying races in stories, for the reason that degeneracy is so prevalent in such races that even in fiction it can not be ignored as a motive and as a fact if the fiction is to have any claim to realism. I have ignored it in all other stories, as one of the taboos, but I did not ignore it in this story. When, or if, you ever read it, I'd like to know how you like my handling of the subject of lesbianism."
But Howard's attitude toward the sexual mores of unblonde races is not really the point here. I do not myself have any respect whatsoever for normative descriptions of human sexuality, and did not "question" what kind of sexuality Howard might have come into, and don't hugely care. What I did suggest was that he may never have had time to settle into an adult identity he could live with.
Best,
John
Krycek Can't Be Killed Off
aving been a devoted fan of The X-Files since the pilot episode, I have enjoyed watching the characters evolve over the years. But ... am I the only Alex Krycek fan out there that thought the ending sucked? I can't believe the Powers That Be would write him off. I have had two recurring dreams
since that fateful night.
1. The "Sleeping" (I can't bring myself to say the "D" word) Alex was really a clone. The real one has been held prisoner by the alien collaborators and will escape next season opener.
2. Jeremiah Smith or someone just like him was hiding in the garage and when everyone left he came out and brought Alex back.
Of course, in both my dreams Alex was still a bad boy, but this time he also had some remorse for all he'd done to our FBI friends and tries to make it right. Maybe we all should write to Chris Carter and demand our Rat Boy back. I'm not sure I can watch the final season (there is going to be a next
season isn't there?) without my Alex in at least some of the episodes.
Judy Ralston
Ralston@mtnhome.com
X-Files Season Finale Was Rushed
recently read one of your other feedback articles on The X-Files ("X-Fan Disses Mulder's Kiss Qualms"). I happen to love the show, and it said that David Duchovny didn't like how the series ended. I would have to very much agree. Everyone, at least the people I've talked to, know that the characters Mulder and Scully will eventually get together. I thought that they should have dedicated more of the show to just their characters. It was like they had to hurry up and resolve eight years in a five-minute time span. I thought in the movie where Mulder almost kissed Scully in the hallway was much better than when he actually kissed her at the end of Season 8. The audience wasn't expecting it in season 8. I wish
there was more ... it doesn't feel like it should end there.
I for one will miss Mulder. I don't think I'm even going to watch it anymore, because I can't stand Doggett. I love Gillian Anderson as an actress, but Scully only seems to be having a good time when Mulder is with her.
The whole last year has been incredibly boring for me. It was terribly sad at first, but after a while I lose interest. I kept hoping they'd just find him already. I very much understand he has to be with his new wife and baby. So, why didn't they just let him quit? It's better to stop while you're
ahead than just drag it out until nobody likes the show anymore.
I for one am glad for reruns on satellite. I wouldn't know what was going on without it. I was sad when the news came about that The X-Files was canceling at the end of next year. But if they are all going to be sad and so dramatic I don't want to watch them. The main reason I watch is that I think it's funny. Many people have disputed me but I have always thought of Mulder as a funny character. Now that he's gone it'll just be Scully and Doggett yelling at each other, and that just doesn't have any appeal to me.
Brandi
krazygrl2003@yahoo.com
Alien Language Creates Credibility
've heard the stories behind The Phantom Edit, and I have to say that a mere edit wouldn't go far enough. I will not be satisfied until I see a version of Star Wars: Episode I that alters the dialogue track, rendering the aliens' language into something that sounds like alien language, and puts subtitles on the screen. Chewbacca was a serious character; Jabba the Hutt was downright scary. (Jar Jar is scary, but not for the same reason!) Their use of an alien language gave them their credibility. Do the same for the dreadful Jar Jar, other Gungans, the annoying dubbed-Japanese-sounding
aliens, Watto, and that two-headed race announcer, and you'd have a much better film.
Anne Schneider
amsch@ix.netcom.com
Darth Maul Passed Sith Final Exam
egarding Brad Poynor's comments ("Darth Maul Was Killed Too Easily") that Darth Maul died too easily, I feel Lucas actually did an excellent job with Maul. As a Sith, Maul performed excellently. He hid himself from scrutiny, inspired terror and showed himself to be a superior combatant by outfighting a full and an apprentice Jedi at the same time. But his death was fitting and quite believable in that it was caused by his own overconfidence and arrogance. In defeating Qui-Gon he probably passed his "final exam" for the Sith, defeat of a Jedi. After beating the master, he felt that the apprentice would be easy, he toyed with Obi-Wan and failed to see the danger that was in front of him.
As for why the Trade Federation only used a few destroyer-type droids, it was probably a question of economics. The battle droids give the impression of cheap fighting machines, simple bodies, simple weapons. They are not that hard to destroy but they tend to succeed because you can field them by the
hundreds. In all likelihood the destroyer models look like they cost 100 times what a battle droid costs, they have speed, maneuverability, heavy weapons, personal shields (which have got to be expensive and/or heavy since you don't see ground troops equipped with them).
I do agree about Jar Jar being a bad move. Lets face it--what does he bring to the film? One thing, the meeting between the Naboo and the Gungans. That's all he really did. Hardly worth all the time and effort spent on the character. Hopefully next time out in Episode II he will be gone and we can return to Star Wars as it was meant to be. Good.
William Travis
thewall@charter.net
Episode I Questions Probed
n response to Brad Poynor's letter, "Darth Maul Was Killed Too Easily," perhaps I can help clarify a few things. First, he mentioned his extreme distaste for both Jar Jar and the Ewoks. The hardcore Star Wars fans out there are, in my opinion, snobs. They see the Star Wars universe as theirs. Why should it appeal to a younger generation as well? Well, it's unfair to demand Star Wars to not appeal to a younger generation, but enough about that. Maybe I can help answer some of your questions regarding the movie.
In regards to Anakin building C-3P0, it's not like Vader and 3P0 sat down and had a private meeting. Most of their encounters were extremely brief. Actually, come to think of it, I'm having a hard time remembering when they actually did meet. So it's not like he blatantly said, "No, I have no idea
what droid that is."
As for Obi-Wan not mentioning Qui-Gon, he told a half truth. Yoda was indeed his master, and taught Obi-Wan, though if Yoda was always a teacher on the side, or actually taught Obi-Wan before Qui-Gon came around, we cannot be certain. It's entirely possible that Obi-Wan had painful memories of
Qui-Gon's demise, and didn't want to mention it to basically a complete stranger.
Hmm, OK what's next on the list? Oh, Darth Maul was never around the Jedi Council in the movie. He only makes a brief appearance on Coruscant (though his training probably occurred there), and I doubt he was frequenting the Jedi Council building while he was there. While the Jedi can sometimes detect other force-wielding people from a distance, it would be difficult for them, since they were not expecting the Sith to return (as they mentioned), and would not know where to look.
On to Darth Maul dying too easily: well, I'll agree he was really cool. However, him trying to turn Anakin to the dark side would have been lame. First, Palpatine didn't even know about Anakin until the end of the movie. Second, doesn't that seem a bit familiar? Palpatine/Vader trying to turn Luke, Palpatine/Maul trying to turn Anakin? Can you say cheesy repeat of storyline? As well, I think the contributing factor to Anakin turning evil will be the death of his wife. Though the mother thing is also a possibility.
As for Qui-Gon, I agree, he was cool, and I'm a big fan of Liam Neeson's. Though I've heard he'll be back in the other movie's in ghost form, so we'll wait to see next summer.
Lastly, huff puff. The droids, I think the idea behind the droids, is that when you are building an army of that magnitude, it is useful to be able to mass-produce (obviously). The destroyers are probably really expensive, since they have those cute shield generators. I want my own shield generator. Every army has the front-line weenies which are weak in power but strong in number. Like the never-ending supply of Red Shirts in Star Trek. We're OK until Ensign Ricky dies!
David Holness
portal@cgocable.net
Some Star Wars Fans Do Get It
hate stupid people. It seems they are everywhere. Proof positive is the bumper sticker "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." I couldn't agree more. In Owen Albertson's letter, "Some Star Wars Viewers Don't Get It", I'd just like to say: "No, you don't get it."
How can you say that liking one story means that you have to like them all? That just makes no sense. That's like saying you can't like Star Trek: The Next Generation if you don't like Star Trek: Voyager. Or saying that one bad episode of Star Trek (*cough* "Endgame" *cough*) ruins the whole series for you. I personally like all Star Wars stories (and most Trek stories, too), but I thought Phantom Menace was weak.
This is only because they wanted to bring in a new generation, the kids. Thus, we have Jar Jar. Everyone I know hates Jar Jar, but my neighbor's 2-year-old daughter watches the movie endlessly and loves him. I wish that they would have played up the story more, because it was a good one. (Props to Brad Poynor, "Darth Maul Was Killed Too Easily", Maul was killed to easily). I don't "dig" the fact that Episode 1 wasn't as good as it could have been, and I "was a fan to begin with."
And to say that one SW book can make it on its own is absurd, because without all the hype and recognition of the movies, we wouldn't have the books to begin with. What I do realize, though, is that Episode 1 is sort of a "prologue." This kind of sets up Episode II and III, and if the prologue of a book had all the good parts, it wouldn't be a book, now, would it?
To quote Billy Madison, "everyone in the room is now dumber for hearing that." Well, that's my rant for the day. It's a shame I can't get three tech points for it. (For those of you who know what I'm talking about, laugh now).
(P.S.: Anyone know where I can get some tapes of First Wave or the Battletech animated series, so I can finish watching their stories? Email me please.)
Andy Gegg
andy@jcn1.com
Fall's Sci-Fi Looks Bleak
have become so jaded towards the networks new sci-fi/fantasy/horror additions to their line-ups that I cannot bear to watch the pilots. Part of this malaise is due to shows being cancelled before they have a chance to capture an audience. Other reasons include "tweaking" shows during season two or adding wrenchingly cute characters to shows.
For that reason, I am not looking forward to any of the fall offerings that starting to get promoted and previewed--I mean why bother? I have Farscape and Babylon 5 reruns and occasionally they show a good episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I have been burned on so many shows (Sliders, Millennium, the B5 sequel, etc. ...) Even shows that had a good audience and good initial run got hacked in the end--Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and The X-Files to name a few.
I will give the new Star Trek a chance because the premise sounds interesting ... but I am not holding my breath, and I cannot stand to get disappointed again.
Bryan Bateman
bryan.bateman@inergyautmotive.com
Time Travel Saves Trek Canon
'm writing in response to Stephen Rynerson's letter, "Berman Discards Roddenberry's Canon", where he states that Rick Berman doesn't care for Roddenberry's canon, so he has basically thrown it away, for money and marketing's sake. That may be true, but I try not to look at the corporate side of Trek, because it tends to ruin my enjoyment of it. So instead, I try and look at it from a Star Trek point of view. Consider this: Since ST has been on the air, it has had a gazillion "time travel episodes." Man and alien have been travelling through time for a couple of centuries now. What if, just what if, we have been travelling
through time for so long, that it's actually causing the space/time continuum to become unraveled? This would explain the historical inconsistencies Trek has been suffering with recently.
Or consider this: There's a theory in temporal mechanics that says that if we could travel back through time, we would not end up in "Earth Prime's" (or our) past, but an alternate past of an alternate Earth in an alternate universe. If this is true, then that would suggest to me at least, that
somehow alternate universes are "connected" by "subspace threads" of some kind, like capillaries connect veins to other veins, or veins to arteries. The difference here would be that these "threads" are protected by some barrier, so that one universe doesn't "bleed" into another. But what if time travel weakens, breaks down or downright destroys these barriers? This would also explain the inaccuracies. So maybe Berman isn't throwing away Roddenberry's canon. Maybe he's just trying to follow the laws of physics as best as he can.
But if you won't accept either of these possibilities, Mr. Rynerson, then I think William Shatner said it best, when he was on Saturday Night Live, when he said, "Get a life, will ya?!? It's just a damn TV show!"
Adam Boudreaux
TrekAdamG@webtv.net
Continuity Nit-picks Ruin Trek Fun
here's a feeling that the Star Trek producers and writers have discarded the history of the original, specifically the history of the warp drive. The original continuity of the series has been altered--but what about the other changes, such as the Klingons changing appearance in the first movie?
Why worry about these things? The simple fact is either you like or dislike the spin-off series. The original series had some strong moments and equally strong writers, many from the field of SF literature but I don't believe the old formula would have worked for Star Trek: The Next Generation. To begin with, they were fighting a shoe-string budget in the original, often having
to appropriate costumes and sets where they could get them, i.e., the Nazi episode. There was also a lot of discrepancy in the original. How many times did the Enterprise disregard the Prime Directive? I think the changes made in order to produce Star Trek IV were valid, they gave the movie a sense of poignancy and hope which are the hallmarks of the best episodes of both series.
Continuity nitpicking only ruins the effect of the Star Trek series. There were many nods to the previous series in ST:TNG, specifically the "Reunification" episode. ST:TNG was more consistent and, I feel, more loyal to the Roddenberry vision in many ways. It was often message-driven, for better or worse, like the original. If they had to retrofit continuity to produce a movie like ST: IV then I'm all for it. They've still kept the same spirit and engendered a whole new
generation of fans.
Brett B
Brettb4842@aol.com
No Room for New Enterprise
irst, I must partially disagree with Adam Boudreaux ("Trek History Makes Room for Archer") concerning the upcoming Enterprise series. While there is indeed room for a series set in the era before Starfleet, there is no room for another vessel named Enterprise. Proudly displayed on Capt. Picard's ready room wall in Star Trek: The Next Generation were all of the vessels that carried the name Enterprise. They consisted of an aircraft carrier, a space shuttle, and two Constitution-class, an Excelsior-class, an Ambassador-class, and a Galaxy-class. It is also canon that the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise was the first starship to carry the name Enterprise. This leads me to my next subject ...
I have an even stronger opinion than Stephen Rynerson ("Berman Discards Roddenberry's Canon") concerning Rick Berman and his failure to adhere to Gene Roddenberry's canon. Rick Berman has done more to destroy Star Trek than anyone could possibly imagine or believe. He blatantly ignores Roddenberry's canon whenever he can and doesn't give a damn what the fans think.
I'm glad The Great Bird of the Galaxy chose cremation over burial. Were his body in a grave you could place your ear to it and hear a noise not unlike a Cuisinart. I do have one question regarding Star Trek, is there anything that Lady Majel could do to save it?
...and now for something completely different. In regard to Brad Poynor's ("Darth Maul Was Killed Too Easily") letter concerning Star Wars, Darth Maul could come back. I have two words: Clone Wars. I truly doubt that Darth Maul will return, but the possibility remains
open. As for the reason that the Trade Federation used scores of battle droids over destroyer droids, it's the same reason governments field far greater numbers of infantry over tanks. You can outfit a lot more infantrymen for the price of one tank.
J.T. Benton
lordjobe@bigfoot.com
Trek Didn't Create Antimatter
'd like to respond to two things, both Trek related. First is one that I am not sure is very SF-related, but here it goes. Someone said antimatter would not have been discovered without Star Trek ("Today's Magic is Tomorrow's Reality"). This kind of statement saddens me to no ends. Has the educational system fallen apart that badly? Asimov, long before Trek, called his robots positronic. Positrons are antimatter folks. Admittedly, I myself do not know the exact date antimatter was discovered by Paul Dirac, but I think it was in the '30s or at latest early '40s.
Also Diane Catanzaro ("Trek Always Unwrites the Future") said that Kirk destroyed a timeline and who knew if he destroyed the right one. Well he destroyed one where Nazis won the war, so I think it would be hard to argue there. Well, I noticed this letter is primarily just criticism of others, so I'll end by saying I have no ill will toward anyone and wish you all good luck.
Thomas Burns
TBurns@sff.net
Voyager Finale Emotionally Empty
hile I thought the Voyager finale was full of plot holes, and too much of a deus ex machina type of ending, I could have overlooked all these faults if they had given us real resolution to the lives of the characters. We were able to see the lives of the crew returned home only in the beginning, and since Janeway changed history, all we saw never took place.
So what did happen to everybody? Did the Maquis go on trial? Did the Doctor lead a revolution among holograms and overthrow the Federation? Did Seven of Nine ever discover love? No, we learned nothing solid of the fate of the crew, and after watching every single show, I felt seriously let down, like I wasted my time. Look at season finales of shows such as Babylon 5 or Quantum Leap, and both give you solid, emotionally satisfying conclusions to the lives of the characters involved. Not so in Voyager, we are left wondering what, if anything, happens to our crew.
One last beef--albiet a minor one, but it bugs the heck out of me. Why did everybody in the season finale sprout grey hair or bald spots and face wrinkles 20 years after being back home? The 23rd century has warp drive, nanobots, transporters, DNA manipulation, but they obviously lost the technology to produce hair dye or perform plastic surgery.
Joseph O'Neil
joneil@multiboard.com
War Erupts from Voyager's "Endgame"
ith reference to Sean Huxter's letter ("Admiral Janeway Murdered Millions"), I think there is one point that needs to be made about this whole "Janeway murdered millions" riff. The situation between the Borg and the Federation, and Janeway in particular can best be summed up by the words of a well-known lupus:
"Of course you know this means war."
It's war, Sean. The Borg aren't going around pushing Girl Scout cookies or Watchtower magazines on the rest of the universe. They are kidnapping people, robbing them of their freedoms, and destroying entire civilizations. They show no remorse for their actions, for they continue to upgrade themselves to overcome any obstacles they encounter. They are not open to reason and care little about anything other than assimilation. In a word, Sean, they're evil. How many trillions of people have died in their pursuit of perfection?
I mean, if you really want to blame someone, you could start with Q. It was his big idea to introduce the Borg to the Alpha Quadrant.
But back to the subject at hand. Janeway murdered? You could make that argument for anyone who has ever been run over by a moving vehicle. Does that make the driver a mass murderer? No. If you don't talk to a certain girl, does that mean you've killed all the possible descendants of that union? No. If you decide to have one more cheeseburger instead of staying on your diet, does the heart attack you're gonna have make you a mass murderer because you're still single? No. Why? Because the future, no matter which episode of whatever Star Trek said so, isn't written yet. It's all what might be. You say that she killed all of those people, but who is to say that they still won't exist? Where is it written that there will never be an Ensign Torres or a spaced-out Tuvok or even a damn-the-torpedoes Admiral Janeway? That's the great thing about the future: you can make it up as you go along.
If you really want to wail about something, how about the stilted writing in the last two Star Trek series? I used to laugh when my best friend referred to Star Trek as "the McDonald's of science fiction." Not anymore. DS9, no matter how I tried to like it, was nothing more than a pale imitation of Babylon 5 (which also borrowed from other sources, but that argument for another time, since I love B5), and Voyager evolved into "The Janeway and Seven Hour." I mean, every situation that Voyager ever got into could be easily solved by Janeway and Seven, but no one else could possibly cope with the mundane emergencies. TNG had the same problem for a while
with a certain young man who will herewith remain nameless. Where does Starfleet get their recruits, anyway?
In closing, Sean, understand that I sympathize with you in one respect: this episode, like just about every other one of Voyager, could have been better.
Steven Perez
silas216@hotmail.com
Wheeler's Many Worlds Saves Lives
very time a decision is made, a series of new universes are created, one for each possibly outcome of a decision. This is a rough recitation of "Wheeler's Many World's Interpretation" of quantum dynamics (inarticulately presented).
When Admiral Janeway went back in time, she simply created a different set of possible futures. After all, every time she succeeded in one universe, she also failed in others. Thus, the millions alive when she decided to time travel would still be alive in one set of universes as if she'd not time traveled.
As for millions dying, in some universes they would die and in others they would still be alive. (No, this is not original; there was a wonderful short story by Larry Niven that I read some years ago. I don't recall the title but do remember that the story was "quite dark." That was one of the reasons I liked it!)
Michael Bell
mwbell@pld.com
Time Travel Is Extremely Difficult
ime-travel fairy tales are Hollywood's specialty. Unless matter carries its time around like its own molecules, all of the depictions of time travel are impossible. Here are some facts. The Earth rotates. The Earth moves around the sun. Our solar system moves within the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy moves within the universe. It's all moving folks--fast!
To go back in time from some spot more than a year in the past presupposes that there will be something there other than space. Only if you go back in time from Earth while it is located at its perihelion could you possibly arrive at it in its aphelion position in space--precisely one year earlier. Then you would have to wait a year to go back another year!
Kip Green
champions@earthlink.net
Narnia Religious Message is Clear
ara Torta ("Lewis' Narnia Need Not Be Tweaked") was exactly right about C.S. Lewis' Chronicles or Narnia. These books lead a child through the Bible from Eden to Jesus' death on the cross and the new heaven and new Earth spoken of in Revelation. Any alteration of these tales is tantamount to blasphemy and should not be tolerated.
Lewis was a Christian whose writings include a science-fiction series that started with Out of the Silent Planet and a devil's-eye view of Christianity as in The Screwtape Letters and all of his works are about Christianity and tampering with his writings also tampers with his messages.
Tony De Vito
adevito@suffolk.lib.ny.us
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