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THE MT VOID
05/15/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 46, Whole Number 2432
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 15 (ANACONDA (2025), HOT SPRING SHARK
ATTACK, GRAVITY, and THE MARTIAN) (film reviews
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Apes Are More Like Us Than We Ever Thought--Another Animal
Story (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
HALCYON YEARS by Alastair Reynolds (audio book review
by Joe Karpierz)
Hugo Voter Packet (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Ambrose Bierce, WHO?, and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
(letter of comment by John Hertz)
This Week's Reading ("How Far Back in Time Can You
Understand English?" and "Uncleftish Beholding")
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 15 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
ANACONDA (2025): This is not a reboot of the 1997 ANACONDA, but
rather a meta-film about a reboot of the 1997 ANACONDA. Jack
Black, once again playing a man involved with movie-making who
doesn't really know what he's doing. He is not the producer, but
the producer is equally inept. The producer comes up with the idea
that because they had such great fund making a horror film when
they were twelve years old, they should remake one of their
favorites, ANACONDA. (The producer just happens to have been given
the rights by the widow of the owner, who liked him when we was an
actor on a television show.)
Just as in KING KONG, Black pushes them to continue when any
sensible person would head home. Instead of angry natives, there
are illegal gold miners who are just as dangerous, if not more so,
than the anaconda.
This is clearly a 21st century movie--there's an extended scene
about someone who is "pee-shy" which for some reason makes me
think of something Christopher Guest would do if he was not as
refined, subtle, and understated as he is.
And then it gets totally weird.
I have to ask myself why I am watching this instead of all the
much higher quality movies on my "to-watch" list (which, frankly,
is pretty much everything on my "to-watch" list, except maybe
FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER).
Released theatrically 25 December 2025.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33244668/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/anaconda_2025>
HOT SPRING SHARK ATTACK (HOT SPRING SHARK ATTACH) (ONSEN SHAKU)
(2024): If you thought SHARKS IN VENICE was stupid, you haven't
seen HOT SPRING SHARK ATTACK. The premise is that construction at
a hot springs resort has reawakened prehistoric sharks. Okay so
far, but then they add the premise that because sharks are
cartilaginous, they can compress and fit through the pipes to the
hot springs--and to all the plumbing in the town. They compare
this to how octopuses can fit into very narrow spaces, but
octopuses can do this because they have only soft internal
structures--no bones, but no cartilage either. (For that matter,
the teeth that we see in the sharks are clearly non-compressible
and too large for the pipes.)
The sharks also emit methane gas (making it impossible to use
firearms against them), and an EMP which disables any electronic
weapons.
But wait--there's more. The sharks are not only able to break up
through manhole covers, but also through ordinary pavement, beach
sand, playground dirt, and so on, and then after attacking they
vanish back underground, leaving the surface as undisturbed as it
was before!
So the heroes use a 3-D printer to print a full-size functional
sub in a few hours...
There's also some bare-chested "Bath Diver" who is able to breathe
underwater and saves various people at the last minute, often by
punching the sharks.
And the special effects are truly terrible. Japanese kaiju films
of the Showa Era were known for unconvincing miniatures; this has
the most unconvincing CGI I think I have ever seen.
And the whole thing is just a remake of JAWS set in Japan.
Released theatrically 05 July 2024.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28297050/reference>
What others are saying: <
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_spring_shark_attack>
GRAVITY and THE MARTIAN are very popular films, and they are
certainly entertaining, but they are also dangerous, because they
make the average viewer think that all the problems one encounters
in space can be overcome. Perhaps not easily, but a couple of
conveniently located space stations or a few potatoes can solve
anything.
THE MARTIAN (the film, but even more so the book) does go into
details about how to "science the sh*t" out of things, so it's is
slightly better than GRAVITY, which just sort of hand-waves how
(for example) Stone is able to match orbits with various
spacecraft.
(And now we have PROJECT HAIL MARY, which has gotten very good
reviews, but also apparently has some hand-waving and such.
However, I won't see it until it's available on DVD (or possibly
Amazon Prime if I see it at a friend's house).
GRAVITY (2013):
Released theatrically 04 October 2013.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gravity_2013>
THE MARTIAN (2015):
Released theatrically 02 October 2015.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_martian>
[It's interesting that both were released the first week of
October. The first week of October in 1957 was when Sputnik was
launched; in fact, on October 4. Hence the title OCTOBER SKY for
the movie, which was *not* released the first week of October.]
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Apes Are More Like Us Than We Ever Thought--Another Animal
Story (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
"Bonobos enjoy pretend tea parties and chimps think rationally:
why apes are more like us than we ever thought
"A series of stunning findings about great apes' mental
capabilities in recent years has transformed how we see our
closest relatives
Clear plastic cups and pitchers adorned the wooden table in Des
Moines, Iowa. Invisible juice was poured and presented to Kanzi,
who enthusiastically chose the fake filled cup, playing along with
the man who had come to visit. In many ways, it was the
quintessential scene of a children's imaginary tea party. Only
Kanzi, at 44 years old, was a bonobo.
"The experiment, carried out at the Ape Initiative facility in
2024, was the first to empirically test and document pretend play
in a great ape species, with the results published in the journal
Science in February. The study adds to an expansive repertoire of
research over the past decade that has uncovered robust
similarities between ape and human behaviours, upending long-held
beliefs about how we distinguish ourselves from our closest kin.
"'It seems to be a recurring thing in our field where people come
up with reasons why humans are special and unique, and then
scientists like me test it out, and we find that, actually, maybe
we're not that special after all,' says the study's lead author,
Amalia Bastos, a comparative psychologist at the University of St
Andrews in Scotland. 'That animals, too, are capable of secondary representations or imagination.'"
...
[Other examples in the article include the previously discovered
knowledge that "apes were intelligent, that they could solve
puzzles and use tools, that they built strong social relationships
and could learn symbols and sign language, and that they could
pass the mirror test, recognising their reflections to suggest
some level of self-awareness." But recent discoveries include that
chimpanzees and bonobos can remember past groupmates for decades,
and that when presented with stronger evidence, chimpanzees
rationally revise their previously held beliefs, and that apes
apparently have a theory of mind, "the ability to understand that
other individuals have their own thoughts, beliefs, desires,
intentions and knowledge that may differ from our own."]
The full article--well worth reading--is at:
<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/23/ apes-behaviour-bonobo-chimpanzee-humans-science-aoe>
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: HALCYON YEARS by Alastair Reynolds (copyright 2025, first
U.S. edition January 2026, Orbit, 326pp, $19.99 trade paperback;
audio book publisher Orbit, 12 hours and 15 minutes, ASIN:
B0FY85RZ2Y, narrated by Tim Treloar) (audio book review by Joe
Karpierz)
Who knew that we needed a science fiction noir private
investigator story set on a generation starship complete with
feuding families, mysterious murders, a disgraced cop, a robot
sidekick that is having trouble regaining its memories, and a
couple of mysterious sisters named Ruby Blue and Ruby Red? Oh, you
bet we needed that. And that private investigator? None other than
Yuri Gagarin. Yeah, *that* Yuri Gagarin.
HALCYON YEARS, Alastair Reynold's latest novel, starts out with
Yuri getting into an altercation at a bar while investigating a
domestic case. Slowly, but surely, Reynolds drops bits and pieces
and hints that the story is not taking place on Earth, and also
not in what the reader would think is the future. There are
telephones with answering machines (and, in a classic way of
getting around the "why don't they have cell phones in this future
story?"), landlines, cameras that use actual film, and other
things that make you want to scratch your head in puzzlement. But
one thing that is clear, as things slowly but surely get revealed,
is that the story is taking place on a generational starship that
is getting close to its destination.
The story begins to heat up when, after the altercation at the
bar, the aforementioned Ruby Blue pays a visit to Yuri's office to
hire him to investigate the deaths of children of the feuding Urry
and DelRosso families. Ruby Blue gives Yuri a set of credentials
from the Department of Works, which seems to open a whole set of
doors for him to perform his investigation. But the further he
digs, the worse it gets. He interviews a doctor who was involved
in the care of one of the kids that was killed, and not long after
that doctor is murdered via an automobile accident, at which point
the doctor's wife comes on to the scene and becomes an important
piece of the ever growing, ever more complicated investigation.
While all this is going on, Ruby Blue has Yuri retrieve a robot
who starts out with faulty memories and is a bit bumbling, but
which becomes more valuable than Yuri thought it would. To add to
the complexity, Ruby Blue's sister Ruby Red inserts herself into
the scene, telling Yuri to drop the investigation.
But wait, there's more. Yuri's only friend on Halcyon--the name of
the ship, by the way--Milvus, has some suspicions about the
journey that he wants Yuri to help him verify, which he does try
to do when he goes outside the ship to do some investigation into
the murders of the two children (I keep saying children, but they
were both "coming of age", so maybe that isn't the best term for
them. They were both about to get involved in the Undertaking, but
were killed before that could happen.), but when he returns Milvus
has been murdered before he could give some important information
to Yuri. Along the way, Lemmy Litz, the previously mentioned cop
who was disgraced by one of the families because he got too close
to the truth, attaches himself to Yuri and eventually becomes key
to the resolution of all the mysteries going on.
And who is Yuri, anyway? Yuri does appear to be who his name says
he is. He was famous 200 years before Halcyon left for its
destination, but was frozen in cryosleep until he was needed
for... what, exactly? And why Yuri specifically? And what do the
Ruby sisters have to do with this? And just how long has this feud
been going on between the Urry and DelRosso families, and what is
it all about. And what is the Undertaking, anyway? With all this
going on, there is still the question of what Milvus thought was
actually going on with Halcyon and its journey to its destination.
Reynolds does a masterful job of telling this noir detective story
in the context of a generation starship's journey gone wrong. And
this is where Reynolds finally brings in the grand epic space saga
that we're used to getting from him. While this doesn't overwhelm
whatever else has been going on during the rest of the novel, it
plays a key, pivotal role in how the Halcyon got into the trouble
it's in to begin with and how that trouble contributed to what's
going on with its inhabitants.
HALCYON YEARS is a terrific novel, one that surprises at every
turn but still manages to keep the reader in suspense until the
end. The characters are interesting, and the noir aspect of the
tale makes it a fun story to read. I highly recommend HALCYON
YEARS. It's a grand addition to Reynolds' body of work that keeps
getting better with every entry. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo Voter Packet (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
As a follow-up to my comments on the Hugo Voter Packet in the
05/01/26 issue of the MT VOID, I will add that File 770 has listed
the contents of this year's packet at:
<
https://file770.com/whats-in-the-2026-hugo-voter-packet/>
Worth noting is that it includes four complete novels, five
complete novellas, all the novelette and short finalists, five
complete series (totaling thirty-six books), four Lodestar novels,
and a variety of samples and links for other finalists. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Ambrose Bierce, WHO?, and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (letter of
comment by John Hertz)
[My apologies for printing this so late. The typewritten letter
John send me got lost under a stack of fanzines and I only now
found it. -ecl]
In response to the quote by Ambrose Bierce in the 03/06/26 issue
of the MT VOID, John Hertz writes:
In THE MT VOID 2422 (6 Mar 26, Vol. 44, No. 36) you might
productively have said that line about faith by Ambrose Bierce was
from his DEVIL'S DICTIONARY.
In response to Taras Wolansky's comments on WHO? in the same
issue, John writes:
I recommend Budrys' WHO? to Taras Wolansky--and generally.
In response to Taras Wolansky's comments on NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
in the same issue, John writes:
Brother Wolansky's point of view is often valuable. He goes too
far in saying Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR is "about" Stalin. As
Nabakov said, to call a story a true story is an insult to both
art and truth.
[-jh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This column turns out to be a bit of a sequel to last week's
(about the Norman Conquest). There is a pointer to a blog post
"How Far Back in Time Can You Understand English?" (<
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/ how-far-back-in-time-understand-english>) and another to a story
by Poul Anderson that eschews all non-Anglo-Saxon words (almost).
"How Far Back in Time Can You Understand English?" begins:
A man takes a train from London to the coast. He's visiting
a town called Wulfleet. It's small and old, the kind of place
with a pub that's been pouring pints since the Battle of
Bosworth Field. He's going to write about it for his blog.
He's excited.
He arrives, he checks in. He walks to the cute B&B he'd picked
out online. And he writes it all up like any good travel
blogger would: in that breezy LiveJournal style from 25 years
ago, perhaps, in his case, trying a little too hard.
But as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred
years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar
changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words,
and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger's voice is
replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan
pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler.
By the middle of his post, he's writing in what might as well
be a foreign language.
But it's not a foreign language. It's all English.
None of the story is real: not the blogger, not the town.
But the language is real, or at least realistic. I constructed
the passages myself, working from what we know about how
English was written in each period.
It's a thousand years of the English language, compressed into
a single blog post.
Read it and notice where you start to struggle. Notice where
you give up entirely. Then meet me on the other side and I'll
tell you what happened to the language (and the blogger).
The other pointer is to Poul Anderson's "Uncleftish Beholding"
("Atomic Theory"), which begins:
For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are
made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken,
we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff
and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and
in daily life.
And the penultimate paragraph is:
Today we wield both kind of uncleftish doings in weapons, and
kernelish splitting gives us heat and bernstoneness. We hope
to do likewise with togethermelting, which would yield an
unhemmed wellspring of work for mankindish goodgain.
Wikipedia points out that at least four of the words used in the
story are not from Anglo-Saxon: "around" is from Old French, and
"rest", "ordinary", and "sort" are from French.
"Uncleftish Beholding" appeared in the Mid-December 1989 issue of
the magazine ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT and was reprinted in
Anderson's collection ALL ONE UNIVERSE, and may be my favorite
Anderson story. Wikipedia reports that "Douglas Hofstadter, in
discussing the piece in his book 'Le Ton beau de Marot', jocularly
refers to the use of only Germanic roots for scientific pieces
as 'Ander-Saxon.'" [-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
If there were a verb meaning 'to believe falsely,' it
would not have any significant first person, present
indicative.
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
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