From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.fandom

THE MT VOID
03/20/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 38, Whole Number 2424

Editor: Evelyn Leeper, evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
All material is the opinion of the author and is copyrighted by
the author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for
inclusion unless otherwise noted.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
The latest issue is at <http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm>.
An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at <http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm>.

Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 10 (TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER,
THE LAST WAVE, DRAGONSLAYER) (film reviews
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Ray Harryhausen Films, Part 06 (SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE
TIGER, CLASH OF THE TITANS) (film comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE FAITH OF BEASTS by James S. A. Corey (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
Artemis 2 and More (comments by Gregory Frederick)
MOULIN ROUGE (1952) (letters of comment by Paul Dormer
and Gary McGath)
Gravity (letter of comment by Peter Trei, Paul Dormer,
Hal Heydt, and an anonymous reader)
This Week's Reading (Bryn Mawr book sale) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 10 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Three more of Mark's neglected gems:

TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER (1976): TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER seems in
some ways a sequel to THE DEVIL RIDES OUT in that both were based
on novels written by Dennis Wheatley, but THE DEVIL RIDES OUT was
in his best-known series with the Duke de Richleau, while TO THE
DEVIL A DAUGHTER was in his lesser two-book Colonel Verney series,
involving anti-Communist themes. Mark wrote, "The low ethics of
the hero and the idealism of the villain make this an unusual
film. Denholm Elliot deserves mention for his good acting too."
While this is true, there are also script problems, confusion as
to timelines, and some fairly bad special effects, and the film is
not helped by its comparison with the far superior THE DEVIL RIDES
OUT.

Wheatley had a couple of other horror novels made into films: THE
HAUNTING OF TOBY JUGG (made into THE HAUNTED AIRMAN) and UNCHARTED
SEAS (made into Hammer Studio's THE LOST CONTINENT (1968)). I have
not seen the former; the latter involves a lost colony of Spanish conquistadores trapped in the Sargasso Sea; there are also sea
monsters. It is not a great film, but it is the sort of trashy
entertainment one wants sometimes.

Released theatrically 30 July 1976.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075334/reference>

What others are saying: <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/to_the_devil_a_daughter>


THE LAST WAVE (1977): THE LAST WAVE was hailed at the time as a
ground-breaking film in depicting indigenous Australians. Over the
years, its luster has dimmed, though, with the lawyer being seen
as too much of a "white savior" and the Aboriginal people as being
at least somewhat used for horror and shock value. (For example,
when someone suddenly appears such that the audience jumps, it is
always an Aboriginal person, never someone white.)

(I will note that the language--using "aborigine" as a noun--in
the film even by the "good" characters was common at the time, but
is now considered offensive. Needless to say, the language used by
the racists ("abo") is even more so.)

Technically, the film is stunning, both in sound design and in
visuals. Weir knows how to use sound to send a message: early on,
we see two Aboriginal people in a confrontation, and over the end
of the scene we hear rhythmic drumming, which we assume is
Aboriginal in nature. But what we are hearing, when the visuals
for the next scene appear, is the sound of a bodhran, or Irish
hand drum, at a ceilidh in a pub. Our notions of what is "Western"
and what is "primitive" are jolted.

It is interesting that when Burton is given a home-grown pepper by
the parking garage attendant, he says that he has never seen a
yellow pepper before. Now, of course, they're all over the place.

Released theatrically 18 January 1979.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076299/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_wave>


DRAGONSLAYER (1981): I know Mark thought DRAGONSLAYER was a great
film; I didn't feel that way even back in 1981, and I don't think
it has improved with age. Yes, it had Ralph Richardson as the
wizard, but for only a short period of time. Peter MacNicol is a
total non-entity (Mark claimed that might have been the point, but
I'm not convinced). Valerian is unconvincing; surely someone would
have guessed the truth. Elspeth's reaction to the truth about the
lottery can best be described as a very unlikely overreaction.
Neither Galen nor Valerian think of the obvious way to save
Valerian.

I will admit that the dragon is impressive, or was for the time.
But the rest of it is, frankly, tedious.

Released theatrically 26 June 1981.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082288/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dragonslayer>


[-ecl]

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

TOPIC: Ray Harryhausen Films, Part 06 (film comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)

SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977): Harryhausen has done three
Sinbad movies, with three different actors as Sinbad, and the
fidelity to the historical Baghdad (and to Islam) has decreased
each time. In this film, Princess Farah is wearing barely enough
for modesty by 1977 Western standards, let alone 11th century
Baghdad. And there are references to wine-drinking.

Once again, Sinbad fights what are effectively skeletons--
creatures whose bones show underneath their skin. The Minoton is
basically a variation of Talos. The baboon at least had a
reasonable-looking head, and the fur is passable, if a bit coarse.
And there are probably more different types of creatures animated
in this than in any previous film. (For example, in THE VALLEY OF
GWANGI, he animates seven creatures, but three are dinosaurs, and
one a pteranodon.)

But the rear projection is awful, the statues in the temple
initially look like they're encased in those stiff clear plastic
bags, and on the whole this seems to signal a decline. (Also,
having the walrus fight at night in a snowstorm makes it look as
though they're trying to hide something.) And no ancestors of
humans had single horns coming out of their foreheads. SINBAD AND
THE EYE OF THE TIGER was not served well by being released in
August 1977, while the theaters were still packing them in for a
little science fiction special effects film called STAR WARS.
(Harryhausen was the Guest of Honor at the Detroit Triple Fan Fair

May 28-30, 1977; STAR WARS opened on May 25. I can remember
beforehand really looking forward to seeing an advance showing of
SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, but after I saw STAR WARS a
couple of days earlier, it was clear to me that there was a new
ballgame.)

Released theatrically 12 August 1977.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076716/reference>

What others are saying: <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sinbad_and_the_eye_of_the_tiger>


CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981): This was the only Harryhausen film to
get a PG rating (rather than a G, or before that an "Approved").
The nudity may have been part of it: a bare female breast, and
full "backal" nudity of a woman and a boy. (For what it's worth,
the 1978 SUPERMAN also had a PG rating, and it had full frontal
male nudity.)

This is also the only Harryhausen film that has been remade, in
part because the basic story of Perseus and Andromeda is in public
domain. (There was a 2000 JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, but it was a
totally different plot than the Harryhausen version.)

Harry Hamlin is totally unengaging as the hero Perseus, and in
general the story is the weakest of all of Harryhausen's films (in
my opinion), serving merely as a framework on which to hang the
special effects. Several prestigious stars were hired for small
parts to give the film more drawing power; these included Laurence
Olivier, Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress, and Claire Bloom).

Again, as in SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, most of the
animations are variations on animations in earlier movies. The
Gorgon's hair is a smaller version of the hydra, the Kraken is not
unlike the Ymir, Calibos is basically the troglodyte, and so on.
(Calibos is only partially animated, in the sense that when we see
close-ups of his head, he is played by an actor, but when we see
his full body, he is animated with stop-motion.) This "re-use"
would be fine in the service of a great underlying story with
actors who drew you in, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Harryhausen made a final appearance in the 1998 remake of MIGHTY
JOE YOUNG--quite appropriately, as he reportedly did the vast
majority of the animation work in the original 1949 version. But
he appears as an actor, and was not involved on the technical side.

Released theatrically 12 June 1981.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/clash_of_the_titans>


So there you have it--random comments on all of the
Harryhausen-Schneer collaborations. I think there is no argument
that the best of these are JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH
VOYAGE OF SINBAD, with 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH and THE VALLEY OF
GWANGI following. [-ecl]

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

TOPIC: THE FAITH OF BEASTS by James S. A. Corey (copyright 2026,
Orbit, publication date April 2026, $32.00, hardcover, 560pp,
ISBN: 9780316525671) (book review by Joe Karpierz)

THE FAITH OF BEASTS, by James S.A. Corey, is a sequel to 2024's
THE MERCY OF GODS, and is the second book in the "Captive's War"
trilogy. The story is of a set of humans and other species
captured by the Carryx, an alien race participating in an endless
war against an unknown enemy. The captives are put to use by the
Carryx to help them carry out their war of destruction and
conquest, although, to be fair, it's not clear who the real enemy
is and why the war is being fought in the first place--well,
except, that the Carryx live to be at war. That's about all we
know. There's nothing worse than an enemy that you know nothing
about that is coming after you for no discernible reason with a
ferocity and relentlessness that is unmatched anywhere in the
galaxy.

And, with all that, Corey throws us a curveball. Oh sure, THE
FAITH OF BEASTS expands on the war against the "deathless enemy",
explores the Swarm and its importance, and continues the story of
the human captives from THE MERCY OF GODS. But it is so much more
than that. It is an exploration of the motives of the Swarm, the
survival of the humans, and the deception that comes with
attempting to foment a rebellion without letting the captors know
that there is a rebellion going on. And while this might seem to
be more than a bit obvious, it's much more insidious when the
person leading the rebellion is also the person that is now taking
point for the Carryx in the human moiety. Dafyd Alkhor, who was
pretty much a nobody in his original position with the humans on
Anjiin has found himself in charge of the human moiety, taking
orders from the Carryx while at the same time earning the trust of
the humans he must lead and command to do what the Carryx want.
Meanwhile, he must work with the Swarm, who we learn not only
inhabit a person's body, but as that Swarm entity moves from body
to body it brings along the minds of the other bodies it has
inhabited, thus creating a sort of group mind all within one
person. And wouldn't you know it, one of the bodies the Swarm has
inhabited is Dafyd's dead lover. So there's that.

Dafyd really is caught between a rock and a hard place. The
Carryx have charged him with stopping at nothing to get the most
out of the human moiety, and thus in order not to blow his cover
he must employ tactics that disturb and disgust him, whether he
wants to or not. The scene in which he stops a labor walkout show
Dafyd at his conflicted finest, knowing that the method he is
employing is one that will prove to the Carryx that he is loyal
and capable of doing his job, while at the same time allowing him
to hide the fact that he is trying to overthrow the Carryx. After
a confrontation with another one of the humans, Dafyd is assigned
a, oh, I guess a hall monitor, if you will, and a set of creatures
who are there to actually do the dirty work if Dafyd is
threatened. Through these and other creatures, he learns that
there appears to be another rebellion in the works within those
creatures. Plots within plots within plots.

To be sure, Dafyd is not the only character (or characters) we
learn about as we go through the novel. There is a small group of
humans on a planet some of the captives have been taken to to aid
the Carryx in some work they need to be done, and this group is
believed to be part of the grand plan to overthrow the Carryx.
Not to be left out, we begin to learn something about the history
and civilization of the Carryx, and how the structure of their
society is maintained down through time.

I'm not sure that the plot of "The Captive's War" is significantly
advanced in the pages of the THE FAITH OF BEASTS. In that
respect, I think, it is a classic second book in a trilogy. The
author needs to move the pieces around the chessboard to get them
where he needs them to be to be able to tell the grand completion
of the entire story arc. I don't, however, think it will be the
"bad" or "worst" book in the trilogy as so many second books end
up being. This is a pause, a setup, an investigation of characters
and their motives, the results of which will, I suspect, lead us
to the grand conclusion of the story.

It is a rare thing when it's hard to make out where the story is
going. In "The Captive's War", the reader probably believes that
the events of the story will end up with the humans being
victorious. I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. But if it
is, the joy will be in discovering how that happens. As it stands
right now, it's not clear to me whether the humans will come out
on top. And that's kind of the fun of it all, isn't it? I'm very
interested in hanging around to find out the resolution. You
should be too. [-jak]

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

TOPIC: Artemis 2 and More (comments by Gregory Frederick)

NASA's Artemis 2 SLS rocket is still targeting April 1 for the
launch to the Moon. The culprit this time can be traced to an
electrical harness for the flight termination system in need of a
quick replacement. The work on said harness is already complete.
And the rocket will be rolled back to the launch site soon.

NASA has some new improvements for future SLS rockets after the
Artemis 3 launch. These improvements should lower costs and could
allow NASA to have launches every ten months to the Moon
increasing its cadence and reliability. This will be needed to
eventually establish a Moon base. The current upper stage called
the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) will be replaced
with a proven and reliable Centaur 5 upper stage. This was a good
move since the ICPS is not being built anymore and the Centaur 5
is a reliable upper stage in use today on other rockets. They had
planned to develop a totally new upper stage called the
Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) to be built by Boeing. The EUS was
facing delays and cost overruns in its development since it was a
totally new design.

There were also plans to make major changes to the overall rocket
design but now NASA will be keeping intact the current Block 1
design so that more frequent missions can occur. Major SLS rockets
changes would create more opportunities for delays and failures of
equipment on the pad. The Centaur 5 uses the same type of fuel as
the SLS main booster stage making fueling the stages easier.
Additionally, there is talk about making the Orion spacecraft
reusable. Also, there are discussions about using Space X's Falcon
heavy or the Starship to launch Orion to the Moon in future
missions. I have included a link for a video about the
improvements below.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluIqcwGzok>

[-gf]

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

TOPIC: MOULIN ROUGE (1952) (letters of comment by Paul Dormer and
Gary McGath)

In response to Evelyn's comments on MOULIN ROUGE (1952) in the
03/13/26 issue of the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:

I have a CD of the film music of Georges Auric, one of the group of
composers known as Les Six. He also wrote the music for Cocteau's
ORPHEE and that great film about post-war London, PASSPORT TO
PIMLICO. [-pd]

And in a followup:

And, in case it wasn't obvious, it was Auric who wrote the music
for that film. The song "It's April again" from that film became a
hit with the words "Where is your Heart". [-pd]

Gary McGath asks:

Not Georges Ventric? [-gmg]

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

TOPIC: Gravity (letter of comment by Peter Trei, Paul Dormer, Hal
Heydt, and an anonymous reader)

In response to various comments on gravity in the 03/13/26 issue
of the MT VOID, Peter Trei writes:

[Keith F. Lynch wrote,] "To his dying day Hal Clement was
apologizing for getting the shape of Mesklin wrong. But I'm not
sure that he was wrong, or whether he was just implicitly using an
unlikely model for its internal structure."

I think Keith is correct here.

For gravity inside the Earth, the density of different
parts--mantle, core etc does make a difference. A graph showing
the expected gravity level at different depths can be found at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_of_Earth#Depth> and indeed,
it's flat through the mantle, rising slightly as you approach the
outer core, then falling near-linerally to zero at the center.

The nearest actual object to Mesklin I'm aware of is the Kuiper
Belt object Haumea. It's a flattened (American) football shape,
2100 x 1680 x 1074 km, and rotates in a bit under 4 hours.

Gravity varies from 0.93 m/s^2 at the poles, to 0.24 m/s^2 at the
longest axis--nearly a factor of 4.

Earth's gravity also varies, with it being generally lower near
the equator than at the poles. It's about 1% lower in Mexico City,
compared to Anchorage. [-pt]

Paul Dormer responds:

OK, my maths is not good enough to do the calculations.

I am reminded of a letter appearing the paper a few years ago. A
student had just done a maths paper and a physics paper. She found
it amusing that one gave the gravitational constant as 9.8 and the
other as 9.81. I was not the only person writing in to tell her
that the acceleration due to gravity is not the same as the
gravitational constant, and that the former does vary as you move
around the earth's surface. [-pd]

An anonymous reader adds:

<https://xkcd.com/852/>

And be sure to read the hover text. [-?]

Hal Heydt continues the discussion:

As I understand it, during the Alaska gold rush, there was much
alarm that gold shipped from Alaska to San Francisco was
"missing" some of the shipment. It was finally determined that
the difference was due the difference in gravity, as they were
measuring *weight* not *mass*. [-hh]

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

TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Last year I wrote that the Bryn Mawr book sale was a shadow of its
former self. This seems to be a permanent change. Partially it is
due to the prevalence of book dealers, who apparently bought about
a quarter of the books on the first day (when there is a $35
admission charge). This, combined with fewer donations, means on
the second day (first public day), there are empty areas on the
tables, and no boxes underneath waiting for space.

Why fewer donations? My only guess is that there was a period when
people were getting rid of books (and DVDs) and that fueled a peak
period, but that has passed.

Anyway, as was true last year, this year I ended up with very
little. I bought two Teaching Company/Great Courses courses
("London" and "The Long 19th Century"). There were a few others,
but not in categories that interested me, or that I had already
seen (e.g., "Chaos", "Economics"). Someone else had already picked
up a couple: in any case, there were only a dozen or so.

I also got the first two seasons of "Rumpole of the Bailey" and
the third season of "Sherlock" (which I had only on VHS taped from
television).

I did buy two books, or rather, three. One was two lectures by
Galileo on Dante's "Inferno"--and if that wasn't peculiar enough,
it was in Spanish. Yes, I know that in Spain that would not be
peculiar, but here, it passes for unusual.

They also had a set of biographies of famous mathematicians,
including Evariste Galois (Mark's favorite mathematician). I
didn't buy this for two reasons. First, Mark isn't around to read
it, and second, he didn't read Spanish.

But I did buy "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the
Spanish Language with Families of Words Based on Indo-European
Roots" by Edwin A. Roberts, in two volumes (hence why the question
is whether I bought two books or three--do I count physical or
logical books?). Each one of these is two inches inches thick, and
the set weighs five and a half pounds.

That I found this was a bit of a miracle. Early on, I saw the
first volume in the "Languages and Linguistics" section in one
room, but didn't want just part of the work. Then about an hour
later, I saw the second volume in the "Other History" section in a
completely different room! I have no idea how they got separated
in the first place.

So I ended up spending $17 ($6 for the set, $2 for "Rumpole", $1
each for Galileo and "Sherlock", and $7 for the two Great
Courses). I can remember back in the day we would spend $40 or $50
at this sale, and leave with two bags of books. That was when
books were $2 for hardbacks, and $1 for paperbacks. Now hardbacks
are $4 each, large paperbacks (trade paperbacks) $3, and small
paperbacks $1 (basically mass-market paperbacks, though the signs
incorrectly call them "trade" paperbacks--with the quotation
marks!).

I say basically mass-market paperbacks, because the Galileo
counted as a small paperback because of its size, even though it
is not mass-market in the sense of being "strippable".

Of course, back in the day we were busy acquiring books. Now I am
in the process of down-sizing the books (and DVDs, and pretty much
everything else), so I am not looking for books to "enhance the
collection" (one of Mark's favorite phrases). I also passed up
Norton editions of several classics, because I was not interested
in the actual classics. I have no interest in re-reading and
reading about JUDE THE OBSCURE; all I remember of it is that Jude
wants to learn Latin, but is totally disheartened when he
discovered that there is no formula to translate a word from
English to Latin (unlike from English to "Pig Latin").

After a couple of hours at the sale, I proceeded to the second
part of my "Bryn Mawr Sale Day" ritual; I went to Afghan Kabob and
Grill in North Brunswick, where I had their terrific (and
reasonably priced) lamb kabobs, with delicious spice-infused rice,
flatbread, and salad. With a can of soda and tip, it came to
$21--more than the books, but cheap for lamb.

And then home. [-ecl]

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

Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com


How else can one threaten, other than with death?
The interesting, the original thing, would be to
threaten someone with immortality.
--Jorge Luis Borges

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2