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— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
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n his review of Ian McDonald's new novel [River of Gods], Paul Di Filippo states, "He has stepped boldly into the shoes of another British writer, the late John Brunner." Although Ian McDonald was born in Manchester, he has lived in Ireland since the age of three (though it is Northern Ireland). I write this because I find McDonald's poetic prose style to be very much in the Irish literary tradition. Many of his works are not published in the U.S.A., which is a true shame, since all of Mr. McDonald's work has been brilliant. My personal favorite is the short novel Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone.
Aside from my minor quibble, I feel that readers of Science Fiction Weekly who are disillusioned with the state of the genre on TV or film should follow Paul Di Filippo's reviews and search out the titles he recommends. He has excellent taste, and knows where "the good stuff" is.
Lewis Murphy
lmurp02(at)mindspring.com
Reviewer Paul Di Filippo responds:
I am indebted to Lewis Murphy for clarifying Ian McDonald's country of residence/upbringing, especially as it relates to McDonald's literary style. Murphy makes an important contribution to understanding the origins of McDonald's poetic prose stylings. As someone who once in print referred to John Clute, a Canadian, as British, I must have some kind of excess reverence for the Anglo heritage working in my head, a quirk of thinking that wants to assimilate all great writers into the tradition of Shakespeare and Dickens!
Best,
Paul
obert McNay ("Science Fiction Is Fiction First") asked, "When the heck did 'fact' become a prerequisite for science fiction?" and then goes on in his letter to basically say that science-fiction movies shouldn't be concerned with scientific accuracy since they're fiction.
Nothing could be further from the truth! He is dead wrong, especially in giving examples of Verne, Wells, etc., who, he says, could never have been successful if people had been concerned about facts or scientific accuracy. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Verne, Wells and all the rest of the classic authors wrote stories based on what could become possible, and that's why they're famous. A perfect example is the Wells classic War of the Worlds, which started with the idea of an ancient civilization on Mars attacking Earth because Mars could no longer support life. This was an idea popular among astronomers who saw lines on Mars they thought were irrigation canals. Many of the top SF writers wrote stories about Martians, the most famous being Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, written in the 1950s. The point is, it still seemed possible there could have been a civilization on Mars. Today, we know that's not possible, and therefore Kim Stanley Robinson and others today write about scientists of the future terraforming Mars so people can live on it. Next century, new studies of Mars will make some other theme the cutting-edge idea.
The point is that good science-fiction writers take the best-known facts available to them and make a story around how they could be used in the future. That's why The Day After Tomorrow was such a disappointment. It took a serious issue, global warming, and how it might change the climate, and made a melodramatic and unbelievable story out of it. Many good authors have written serious stories about the possible effects of global warming and sudden climate change; The Precipice by Ben Bova is one example. It's an issue that needs to be explored, and it's a shame the movie failed to do so.
A real science-fiction author never shrugs and says, "I can do what I want. It's only fiction." A real-science fiction author says, "I wonder what would happen if..." and then writes a story based on that if.
Marian Powell
mepowell(at)intergate.com
must get confused easily. I always thought that science fiction was a genre of creative work based on the extrapolation of modern science, so when I read, "When the heck did 'fact' become a prerequisite for science fiction?" ("Science Fiction Is Fiction First") I couldn't believe my eyes. Fact has always been a prerequisite for science fiction. Without fact, you are left with fantasy. A "science fiction" story with no basis in genuine science, or reality, shouldn't be called science fiction, regardless of how entertaining it is.
Robbie Sundquist
pooneil3(at)hotmail.com
ot that I intend engaging in continuing dialogue over a subject about which there is, as yet, no definitive answer, but Neville Angove ("Global Warming Still Hot Subject") makes two interesting statements that he should examine before he accuses others of poor science.
He says that the polar ozone hole was discovered in 1957. This is wrong. To quote NOAA, hardly a slacker on the subject, "The Antarctic Ozone Hole was discovered by the British Antarctic Survey from data obtained with a Dobson ozone spectrophotometer at Halley Bay station in the 1981-1983 period." I find it disquieting that some feel the need to lengthen the pedigree for ozone hole data, and such an approach, whether through error or deception, goes to support my contention that we simply don't have enough data to confidently predict trends that are geophysical in nature.
I also find it strange that his second paragraph, apparently in answer to me ("Cinema Should Go to School"), directly connects the ozone hole and the global greenhouse effect, when his last paragraph in answer to Timmons ("Some Science Facts Stink") says that "the greenhouse effects has nothing to do with the ozone layer." I don't know Mr. Angove and mean this only as a lighthearted barb, but it is better if we keep our contradictions in separate documents, especially if we invoke a "better" science. Science is, after all, a continuing consideration of the facts. Global warming sounds too much like dogma, to me.
John Kissinger
john.kissinger(at)alvernia.edu
just read in Science Fiction Weekly's news column that Jimmy Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek) is suffering from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes ("Doohan Battles Alzheimer's"). This is very sad news. I pray that when I reach his age they will find a cure for these tragic diseases. They are preparing his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Congratulations, Jimmy. You can beam me up any day.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil(at)sympatico.ca
egarding Jonathan Grove's letter ("Bradbury Shouldn't Yell at Moore") about Bradbury vs Michael Moore:
I wonder if Jonathan Grove really thinks that because Michael Moore claims he has used info from CNN and more, that the info he used is gospel? Moore is selective as to how he takes and, more importantly, leaves aside facts. He is an entertainer with an axe to grind, and he uses lies and half-truths which are very evident to anyone with a brain who can look up the facts themselves instead of taking what Moore says as the whole, unaltered truth. As to Ray Bradbury's claim, that may be something best left up to the lawyers, but if Michael Moore did borrow or use something from Bradbury without permission, then Bradbury should get compensated. Very simply put, if you do work and someone else profits from your work (partially in this case) and they do not pay you for your work, that is called theft. I have heard Moore call his movie the temperature at which truth burns. That is a direct reference to Ray Bradbury's work, of course, but whether he should be compensated is up to the lawyers, and not a fan of Michael Moore's fiction like Jonathan Grove.
Ray Bradbury and Michael Moore do share something important: They both use fiction to entertain. But at least Bradbury does not insist his fiction is the truth. Moore claims his fiction is the truth, and if you investigate his claims, you find he leaves out many details that would alter your perception of what he is claiming. Many people can lie with facts, Michael Moore is a genius at it. I will use one fact as my proving point. You can verify the others if you wish. Moore claims Bush stole the election. I thought the facts were that Gore's people supervised the recounts, of which, there were two, and every time they recounted, Bush got more votes. Then the U.S. Supreme Court wisely stepped in and stopped the recount. I say wisely because how many times do you keep on recounting? A good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result. The newspapers recounted after the Supreme Court made their ruling. Of course, they had the same result. Bush won. Moore ignores this fact when claiming Bush stole the election. I think Moore is letting his personal feelings intrude upon his "facts," and his bending of the truth changes his mocumentary into a work of fiction and not the truth.
Steve Martinovich
jlbaker81(at)hotmail.com
ith a smirk on my face, I've been reading heartily here regarding the current non-issue of Michael Moore's "appropriation" of a Ray Bradbury's title for his film Fahrenheit 9/11. I found it interesting that, in this letter column in general, Moore's supporters or those neutral stayed on the topic at hand, while detractors took this topic as an opportunity for muckraking, up to and including calling Moore a liar (which, if this were actually the case, Moore would have certainly been subject to immediate slander/libel/defamation of character lawsuits).
But, back to the original point: I think Mr. Bradbury needs to reconsider his position regarding Moore's allusion to Fahrenheit 451: Consider the sources of some of Bradbury's titles: Something Wicked This Way Comes (William Shakespeare); I Sing the Body Electric! (Walt Whitman) and Golden Apples of the Sun (William Butler Yeats).
Roman Gheesling
tienlung(at)hotmail.com
he SCI FI Channel and its new publisher, Pocket Books, are touting The Roswell Dig Diaries, which will "reveal never-before-seen information" about the "incident" of nearly 60 summers ago, which many claim had extraterrestrials crashing to Earth and the U.S. government engaging in a clandestine conspiracy to "reverse-engineer" alien technology.
Debunkers insist that the "incident" was a simple balloon accident exploited by "eyewitnesses" who keep changing their stories and opportunists who have never stopped marketing theirs.
All are wrong and light-years from the truth. The Roswell "incident" was a turning point in history which preserved the future as we know it. It is not about two alien bodies or three or four, but tens of millions of human lives. If not for the events of that pivotal July week, you might not have been born to read this. And if you were, perhaps not in English.
If an alien spaceship had trekked across the Milky Way in 1947, it would have found our earth to be a dangerous place. A devastating war had ended only two years before, and instead of the sought-after peace, the planet was divided into two armed camps, each dominated by a superpower whose leaders believed that World War III was inevitable, if not imminent.
In Earth orbit, the alien craft might have flown over the planet's largest country: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Its western half ruined by war, the nation had rallied to defeat the Nazi invaders and "liberate" all of Eastern Europe. Dictator Josef Stalin, a heartless butcher who had murdered millions of his own people in a reign of terror, was eager to expand his ill-gotten empire, yet paranoid that the anti-Communist nations (soon to form NATO) were plotting to "roll back the Russians" and attack the Soviet Motherland.
Flying west, the alien craft would have passed over Europe, struggling to recover from WWII and fearful of the Russians who had ruthlessly occupied half the continent. Would Stalin unleash his mighty Red Army and conquer all of Europe as Hitler had done only eight years before?
Across a large sea called the Atlantic Ocean, the cosmic travelers might have looked down on Earth's only hope for lasting freedom and democracy, the United States. Untouched by war and on the eve of great prosperity, many Americans were afraid yet another conflict would again send their sons, brothers and fathers overseas to fight and die by the tens of thousands.
From high in space, would curious aliens have been able to determine that the United States possessed the one weapon that could deter the Communist threat? Could their sensors have detected lethal radiation still lingering over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, each destroyed with a single bomb less than two years before? Could beings from another planet have concluded that the hopes of the free world hinged on the atomic bomb and the only technology capable of delivering it to the heart of the Communist menace—the 509th Bomb Wing at Roswell, New Mexico?
Had the alien spacecraft descended for a closer look, its occupants would have been appalled at the condition of America's once-elite bomber force. Could alien technology have concluded that the United States' atomic arsenal consisted of a fleet of aging propeller-driven aircraft and fewer than half a dozen bombs?
"The atomic bomb can only be used against people with weak nerves," said Josef Stalin, who did not have weak nerves.
Truman was stuck between a bomb and a madman. Vastly outnumbered in troops, tanks and aircraft in the European theater, if the Red Army charged through, the American president would be forced to launch a nuclear first strike against the heart of the Soviet Union: Moscow.
For the flyers of the 509th Bomb Wing at Roswell, an attack on Moscow would be a suicide mission. The atomic bombings of Japan had been unopposed "milk runs." Stalin's Russia was a different story. Between the East European "Iron Curtain" and the Kremlin lay a bristling network of radar stations, antiaircraft batteries and fighter bases—PVO Strany—the combined Red Air Defense Forces. Unlike Communist spies so effective in the United States, the newly created Central Intelligence Agency knew next to nothing about Soviet defenses and was desperate to find out by any means, and at any cost, necessary.
What the 509th had to have was a complete and current blueprint of PVO Strany—the location and capabilities of its radar stations, fighter aircraft and antiaircraft guns. Exploiting any found weaknesses, the Roswell navigators could chart a "yellow brick road" to the Red capital.
But how? Espionage? If James Bond had been real, 700 007s wouldn't have been able to make a dent in such a massive undertaking. Reconnaissance satellites had yet to be dreamed of, and high-altitude spy planes were still on the drawing board.
Balloons? Project Mogul would prove to be an expensive and impractical failure. Other tests had proven that recon balloons were a one-way ticket to nowhere.
That became the whole idea! In the spring of 1947, the 509th Bomb Wing had begun a series of stratospheric balloon flights over New Mexico. Exposed at this crucial phase, the greatest intelligence-gathering mission in history would never get off the ground.
Then something went wrong—a crash on a nearby ranch followed by the brief "flying disc" hoopla quickly put to rest. For years after, the "incident" attracted little attention. In 1966, the leading UFO groups (NICAP and APRO) did not even mention Roswell on their lists of "most important UFO cases" submitted for the Condon Committee Report, a University of Colorado study of UFOs commissioned by the Air Force. It was not until after the Warren Commission Report investigating the assassination of JFK and the birth of "conspiracy theories" that Roswell got a second life. Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra and the recent "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" furor caused more and more Americans to doubt the word of their government. But the resurgence of the Roswell "incident" seemed to defy logic: If we couldn't trust the Federal Government, especially the military, why should anyone believe the Army Air Corps in 1947 when they claimed to have captured a "flying disc"?
Surely the Pentagon was hiding something. What are they still hiding? From the day Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office revealed to the press that the "flying disc" was actually "a harmless high-altitude weather balloon," the Roswell "cover-up," missed by UFOlogists and debunkers alike, has been in plain sight.
Out of sight, the 509th had been using high-altitude weather balloons for "radio triangulation" experiments. "Friendly" balloons were launched and then tracked by an "enemy" radar station which reported back to "enemy" headquarters. Again and again for weeks on end, the "enemy" communications were monitored by two separate "friendly" listening posts. Repeatedly employing azimuth and range, the location and capabilities of the "enemy" radar station could be narrowed down and confirmed.
What if...?
Such a grand operation first required a "cut-out" sponsor that would bring legitimacy to the scheme and a "cover story" to conceal its true purpose.
Radio Free Europe, created in 1947 to transmit "The Voice of America" to "communist-enslaved eastern Europe" was conceived, controlled and bankrolled by the CIA. Under the guise of the newly created U.S. National Security Council, the CIA was directed to "initiate and conduct psychological operations designed to counteract Soviet and Soviet-inspired activities which constitute a threat to world peace."
In short, anti-Communist propaganda over the airwaves. But radio was only the beginning; the sky was the limit. The Roswell radar results were going to take to the air. Hydrogen-filled balloons, many with aluminum radar reflectors attached, carrying two to seven pounds of precious cargo, were launched from Western Europe to drift eastward. Not 10 or 20 or hundreds of balloons—from 1951 to 1956, some 350,000 balloons of all types floated over Eastern Europe and into Russia, dropping more than 300,000,000 leaflets, posters and books. (Ironically, thousands of balloons aloft coupled with the 1951 release of The Thing and The Day the Earth Stood Still in America, two films that opened with flying saucers landing on earth, resulted in the biggest international UFO "flap" in history.)
The liberal press ate it up. Anti-Communists around the world applauded. The angry Soviets protested. PVO Strany tracked the balloons and alerted aircraft batteries and fighter bases. Thousands were shot down just as the 509th Bomb Group and the CIA had anticipated since the top secret tests had begun at Roswell.
In Germany, Italy, Crete, Iran and Pakistan, listening posts had been set up and staffed by Americans who monitored the Soviet radio signals and mapped out the entire radar defense network which had been the strategic goal of the balloon armada all along—the airborne propaganda campaign was a "cover story." What had been envisioned as an Iron Curtain was revealed to be an incomplete patchwork of obsolete radar stations still under construction and woefully behind the West. By that time, however, the Soviets had their own atomic bomb and their first atomic bomber, a bolt-for-bolt copy of the B-29, the same four-engine bomber the 509th had used to drop the first A-bombs on Japan.
Through books, documentaries, TV series, museums, merchandise and movies, Roswell has flourished as an American myth and moneymaker. In truth, the "incident" is a strung-together collection of "cover stories" concocted by the Army Air Corps, the United States Air Force, and the Central Intelligence Agency and exploited by hucksters, hacks and Hollywood. For nearly six decades so many have been convinced that the American government has been covering up the "flying disc" when all the while, it's been the "flying disc" covering up for the American government.
One can only wonder what space aliens would have made of it.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA(at)aol.com
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