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-- Craig E. Engler, Editor
The Hammer falls beautifully
remember [Lucifer's Hammer] very fondly, not for the characters, which quickly disappear into stereotypes; rather it was for the real terror of the unfamiliar landscape, out of the reality of a well-known area. I'm from New York, and it sent me scurrying for maps of the topography of the West Coast.
Their rendition of Dante's Inferno was equally harrowing, and I wouldn't recommend it to a younger reader. It is the quality of their vision that is so good, not the people they put into them.
I never thought that I would have to defend what I believe to be a truly great book from the vagaries of criticism, but this time you gone too far. Yes, The Postman was disjointed and really only the first half was any good, and the movie was too long.
But the Hammer falls beautifully.
SGB2B
SGB2B@aol.com
Shiva is also similar to Impact
'm happy to see you at least mention Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, which indeed came 19 years before the film Deep Impact. Lucifer deals with absorbing an impact, but the only novel I know which depicts actually deflecting an incoming asteroid is Shiva Descending, published in 1980 by Bill Rotsler (the late, alas) and myself.
You might profitably compare Deep Impact with Shiva Descending, for the press summary seems an outline of Shiva. I shall see it with notebook in hand...
Gregory Benford
Xbenford@aol.com
Going for the ID4 audience
just finished reading Lucifer's Hammer last week. I wanted to point out a small error in the review posted this week. In the story, it is China who initiates and the Soviets and United States who respond. China realizes that the coming glaciers will force the Russians south and wants to kill off as many as possible before they migrate. It wouldn't make sense for the Soviets to irradiate the only place they could run to.
Considering your reviewer's take on the book, I'm surprised she did not mention the line about how women's liberation died the moment the Hammer fell.
Otherwise I agree that the characters were pretty flat and pointless sex was a little too prominent. I figured that they were going for the ID4 audience of 1978.
Niven seems at his best with new ideas like Ringworld and Integral Trees. The problem with Lucifer's Hammer was that it was too near to good established theory. The ideas weren't enough to carry the book over the weak characters. Whereas, though you would have to search a bit for a book with characters I cared less about than Protector, I've recommended the book for the beauty of the concepts.
In collaborative work I think Barnes does a better job of punching up Niven's characters than Pournelle does. Though I admit to enjoying the space opera feel of The Mote in God's Eye; well, after it got started: about 250 pages in.
John McJilton
mcjilton@ix.netcom.com
A comet will strike the Earth
ust a comment on Patrick Lee's review of Deep Impact. At the bottom, he stated:
"But an Earth-killing comet isn't the most obviously preposterous conceit of Deep Impact."
It isn't a matter of if a comet of this size (and larger) could ever impact with Earth... it is a matter of when it is going to happen. The chances of this not happening are vanishingly small (I managed to resist using astronomical).
Clint Johnson
jcrj@direct.ca
Why do there have to be bad guys?
read with interest the review by Patrick Lee of Deep Impact, as it seems like a movie that would be entertaining. I wondered, however, at a final comment, mainly: "...virtually every character--and there are almost too many of them--is decent or heroic. Where are the bad guys?"
That seemed a rather silly complaint to me. Why do there have to be "bad guys" (and somebody or bodies rigging the "Ark" lottery would be much too trite), and if there do have to be "bad guys," isn't the comet bad enough?
Let's just enjoy the idea of Morgan Freeman as president and not quibble [about] the exclusion of standard "action movie" hooks.
Tabaqui
tabaqui@rollanet.org
Deep Impact was an understatement
r. Spielberg's film Deep Impact shows the disastrous potential of an impact on Earth by a comet or asteroid--indeed, it is most likely an understatement. The end of civilization, perhaps humanity, would most likely result. Events like Deep Impact, or greater, have occurred often in Earth's history, and will happen again.
Detection by dedicated telescopes and compositional study by space probes is essential reconnaissance and should be established without delay. Despite this, some will give us months' warning at best, and so are not amenable to Earth-based nuclear strikes. Lunar-based lasers could react more rapidly, but the only true insurance for humanity is the timely development and settlement of space by self-sustainable populations, supported from these same threatening asteroids and comets. It is wiser to consume an enemy for profit than to destroy him. Impact is the only disaster threat offering such a huge potential payoff!
We can and should move out into the new ecological niche before us. Those who question the value of human intelligence and science now have a clear answer; we exist to take life and mind out into space, as surely as lions exist to eat wildebeestes--or face deserved extinction!
Michael Martin-Smith
martin@miff.demon.co.uk
Editor: Although Spielberg's company DreamWorks SKG produced Deep Impact, the film was directed by Mimi Leder.
Reviewers should emulate the scientific method
his is a bone I have to pick with critics and reporters in general, not particularly with those in Science Fiction Weekly. I hope it will be taken as well-meant, constructive criticism.
Critics/Reporters: When you review a story or report on something, try to emulate the scientific method. Discuss things factually. I realize that anyone casting an opinion about something has to include a certain degree of bias, but honesty and human charity should dignify the critic's remarks--not ideological or political innuendo, and certainly not gratuitous venom ("...I may not agree with you, but I'll defend your right to say it"). The reviewers in SF Weekly seem to be a cut above the norm in this respect. However, there is one pit of depravity that some reviewers do fall into, "esoterica-talk." It is not informative, cool or dignified to lace the discussion of a story with cutesie cult euphemisms. It comes off like a moron trying to impress an intelligent listener by speaking in gibberish, and pretending that the listener is somehow the deficient one. A review couched in slang phrases and oblique references is not a critique of someone's work, it is an example of a moron trying to impress himself, or his clique, and you know how intelligent people look at someone who does that. Such reviews are tiring and, in the end, meaningless to someone looking for honest information.
Aim for the high road. Be objective. Science fiction should be, by definition, fiction that embraces logic, exacting language and advanced principles, in both technical and philosophical aspects. It deserves critics and reporters with no less stringent standards. Cultism is the haven of the ignorant, not the "cool." "Cool" should stand for "suave, smart, quick, personable, good, trustworthy, honorable, generous, likable," etc.--not wise-ass, arrogant, petulant, petty and dufus.
The way people critique or report a story says something about what they think of their audience. Who are they talking to, rocket scientists or morons? Based on the answer, the reader will respond by forming an opinion of the critic/reporter.
Lee Fellows
frg@io.com
If you thought the movie was good...
have to agree with the other people who wrote in about Lost in Space. I loved the movie and was impressed at the plot. I personally was not amazed by its characterizations because it'd been done before...in the comics. In the early '90s a comic book company named Innovation acquired the rights to Lost in Space and made some fantastic books. They took a different tack though. They explained away the campy fashion of the old series in one issue.
In that issue they had a story told from two points of view; one was from Penny Robinson's diary (the color episodes of the show with the emotional robot) and the other point of view was from Professor John Robinson's journal (the black and white episodes with the very evil Doctor Smith). The comic series was told from Professor John Robinson's point of view throughout all of it.
Let me tell you, it was great. The artwork was a little inconsistent but the serious take on the series was refreshing. Bill Mumy even wrote a few issues and created what I consider one of the great unfinished stories of our time. He conceived of a 12-issue story wherein the family finally makes it to Alpha Centauri, but once there the inhabitants don't want them. The professor gets tortured so badly that he loses all his memory, then each one of the family is sent through a machine to different worlds. Also, the Alpha Centaurians practically destroy the Jupiter 2 and the robot.
This was great stuff; unfortunately Innovation went out of business halfway through the series, so it's still unresolved. Those people who think that the movie isn't what Lost in Space is about should go out and pick up the old comic series. Those were intelligent, well-plotted, serious stories that reflected what would later happen in the movie. The movie is yet another take on the same story, but it's cool. I just hope that some comic company will one day release the entire story that Bill Mumy did. The issues were named "The Journey to the Bottom of the Soul."
Scott Colcord
cslewis@siu.edu
A cosmic opportunity is being pissed away
raig E. Engler's piece about the Virginia Tech Speculative Fiction Project was most informative. But here's what bothers me. Through a combination of factors--i.e. the wondrous technology of computers and the Internet and the wonderful act of altruism of the science fiction fan who left his fabulous collection to Virginia Tech in the wish that others could enjoy and be inspired by the works that were so dear to him--the millennium has come. Well, better make that, the millennium should be here by now...but, no dice, it would appear.
Does anyone realize the profound, astounding, transcendent, cosmic opportunity that exists here and that's being (pardon me, but I have to say it) pissed away? Virtually the entire history of science fiction to mid-century is lying around collecting dust somewhere in Virginia. Six pulp magazines digitized since 1994!? What in God's name are they doing? I realize it's not easy--nothing is--but come on! It borders on the disgraceful to handle such a pricelessly significant body of work in so inefficient a manner.
Bill Sivolella
EA71AE@aol.com
