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THE MT VOID
07/17/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 3, Whole Number 2441
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 21 (KNIGHTRIDERS, LIFEFORCE,
BRAINSTORM) (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Sam Neill and THE DISH (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR by Nnedi Okorafor (audio book review
by Joe Karpierz)
THE MUMMY (1932) (letter of comment by Gary McGath)
This Week's Reading (THE WORLD THE CIVIL WAR MADE)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 21 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Three more of Mark's "Neglected Gems":
KNIGHTRIDERS (1981): When this came out in 1981, it looked as
though George Romero was beginning to mature as a filmmaker,
moving from low-budget horror films dealing with monsters
and the disintegration of society to a film with ideals and
sentiment. Alas, this was a one-off. After it came out, Romero
said that he got this out of his system and never had to make
another film like it. Described as "a unique blend of EASY RIDER
and EXCALIBUR," this is the story of a traveling Renaissance Fair
which has its jousts on motorcycles rather than horses. Romero
manages to get a lot of carnage in even without zombies, yet there
is more to the story than that.
(And the carnage is what probably brought in the audiences. We
used to attend a Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo, New York, with the
main attraction for us being the staging of a Shakespeare play.
Then one year when we called to ask which play they were doing,
they said they had dropped it, because it had always been
scheduled against the joust as the last main events of the day,
but almost everyone went to the joust instead and it wasn't worth
the expense.)
As a result this had become a film that was not easy to find. It
didn't get a VHS release until 1997 (when VHS was on the way out),
a DVD release in 2007, and a Bluray release in 2013, while
Romero's other films got much speedier releases. Now it is
available even in streaming (free on Kanopy if your public library
subscribes, and other services as well).
LIFEFORCE (1981): LIFEFORCE is a film best remembered for its one
long sequence where a naked woman is walking through a building.
At the time that was notable. Now, of course, science fiction
films have plenty of nudity, but nevertheless, that is what
LIFEFORCE is remembered for. Based on Colin Wilson's SPACE
VAMPIRES, the producers decided to go with a less direct title.
The vampirism in question is of "lifeforce" and the basic idea is
that the aliens spread vampires through the human race, the
vampires suck out the lifeforce and then release it, and the
aliens feed on it. An interesting idea, which Mark saw as having
connections to QUATERMASS & THE PIT.
BRAINSTORM (1983): Watching the film this time, I found myself
thinking of the Babel Fish from THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE
GALAXY. The idea is that by allowing direct recording of memories,
feelings, etc., we could achieve understanding of other people and
hence resolve conflicts. But as Douglas Adams suggested,
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all
barriers to communication between different races and cultures,
has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the
history of creation."
The film does look at other uses of the technology, including two
of the most popular uses to which any new technology is applied:
war and pornography.
The film suffers by having its star Natalie Wood die two-thirds of
the way through filming, so some scenes had to be filmed with her
sister Lana Wood as a stand-in with modified camera angles.
Frankly, I think one of the film's appeals to Mark was what
Lillian Reynolds says to Alex Terson: "You were a hack at Stanford
and you were a hack at Bell."
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Sam Neill and THE DISH (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Actor Sam Neill (full name Sir Nigel John Dermot Neill) passed
away July 13. All of the articles talk about how well known he was
as Alan Grant in the "Jurassic Park" films, but whenever I heard
his name, I always thought of THE DISH, which one article talked
about as a "little-known film". I first saw THE DISH at the
Toronto International Film Festival in 2000 and wrote, "Wonderful
film about the (mostly) true story of the role played by the radio
telescope at Parkes, Australia, in the Apollo 11 moon landing. The
telescope was originally one of the backups for the live
television transmission from the moon, but when the schedule
changed, it became the primary. One of the other Australian
directors said that it seems as if all Australian films had to be
about quirky characters, and this has its share, but it also has
the magic of the space program (a lot of original NASA footage was
used) and the problem-solving element of APOLLO 13. Sam Neill is
the 'name' star, but the rest of the cast puts in excellent
performances as well. (Note: This came in second in the People's
Choice Awards.)"
[CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON came in first.]
An article in WIRED said:
"Sam Neill Inspired a Generation of Scientists"
"The actor, who died at age 78 on Monday, embodied a passionate
approach to research and positive masculinity in his role as
paleontologist Alan Grant in the 1993 blockbuster JURASSIC PARK."
The article also mentioned THE DISH and EVENT HORIZON. The full
article is at
<
https://www.wired.com/story/
sam-neill-inspired-a-generation-of-scientists/>. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: DEATH OF THE AUTHOR by Nnedi Okorafor (copyright 2025,
William Morrow, 446pp, hardcover, ISBN-10: 0063391147, ISBN-13:
978-0063391147, listening length 16 hours and 12 minutes, ASIN:
B0D6NNWRSC, narrated by Liz Femi, Anthony Oseyemi, Jason Culp,
Chris Djuma) (audio book review by Joe Karpierz)
Zelu is a paraplegic Nigerian-American author and an adjunct
professor at a Chicago university. At her sister's wedding, she
learns that she's lost her job at the university, and her
mainstream novel is a failure--she can't get it accepted or
published anywhere. She is frustrated and despondent. She returns
to the U.S after the wedding to live with her Nigerian immigrant
parents as she had to leave her apartment since she could no
longer pay the rent and all the associated bills. While at her
parents, she develops the idea for a science fiction novel called
"Rusted Robots", a post-human science fiction epic set on an Earth
that has only one remaining human. The rest of the population is
divided into two warring factions of robots: the Humes, those
which assume bodies that look like humans, and AI NoBodies, which
reject the human form and are intent on destroying all Humes.
"Rusted Robots" turns out to be a bestseller, garnering millions
of fans all over the globe. Zelu, who's never read or written
science fiction before this, turns into an overnight success. She
has a huge social media following; she appears on television news
programs and talk shows. Along the way, she is approached by an
MIT scientist named Hugo Wagner, who has developed a device that
will enable paraplegics to walk. She has also caught the attention
of billionaire Jack Preston, who is putting together a commercial
space flight program and who wants her to be a passenger on one of
his flights.The book is made into a blockbuster movie that is
completely unrecognizable when compared to the novel, white
washing the Nigerian characters and setting it in the U.S. instead
of Nigeria. All of this attention and success is troublesome, of
course, as Zelu needs to navigate social media, Hollywood,
reporters, television personalities and her family. She is having
to learn what it means to be a successful writer and all the
attention, both positive and negative, that comes with it. In what
is clearly a parallel between Zelu and George R.R. Martin, the
public is clamoring for the sequel to "Rusted Robots" and is
getting very impatient with her. She is ambushed by a TV
interviewer regarding her "exos" (what she calls her artificial
legs) and how she is representing other paraplegics who can't
afford what she has. This results in a social media backlash that
she needs to navigate.
Zelu also has a very complicated relationship with her family.
They are used to sheltering and protecting her, since she became
disabled at the age of 12 when falling out of a tree. They do not
support her efforts, and attempt to prevent her from persuing her
dreams. All her siblings have successful, traditional careers, and
her family doesn't understand why she must continue to write this
weird sci-fi stuff. They are afraid to let her do anything she
wants. Zelu eventually moves out, of course, once she has become
successful and has the means to live on her own, but they continue
to try to influence her decisions.
As many people probably already know, "Rusted Robots" is told as a
novel within a novel. Chapters are interspersed within the main
story, and tell of the relationship between Ankara, a Hume, and
the NoBody (or Ghost) Ijele, introduced into the body of Ankara by
the last human on Earth, Ngozi, after Ankara is damaged in an
effort to aid in repair. The relationship is complicated by the
fact that the war between the Humes and the Ghosts is coming to a
head. Just to complicate matters, there is an invading army headed
towards Earth that will make things even more interesting.
I have a very split and complicated feelings about DEATH OF THE
AUTHOR. The more I thought about it after finishing the book, I
realized that my favorite characters are Ankara and Ijele; I do
not like any of the humans central to the story. Zelu herself is
not a very likeable character at all. Oftentimes her reactions to
things are not believable to me, although admittedly I am neither
Nigerian or paraplegic, both of which may influence Zelu's
behavior in ways I do not understand. Her family is not very
likeable either. Her parents are controlling and manipulative, and
her sibling are just nasty to her. None of these characters are
sympathetic. Hugo Wagner and Jack Preston (yes, you might as well
replace his name with "Elon Musk") aren't in the book enough to
allow the reader to make any informed opinion about them.
On the other hand, as is usual with Okorafor's books, this is well
written with nicely developed main characters, and is a good story
on top of that. However, I found that I just didn't care enough
about either the characters or what was occurring in Zelu's story.
I was more interested in "Rusted Robot", and discovered that I
wanted to read that book, not Zelu's story at all. It's all a
matter of taste, I suppose, and my taste is apparently different
than most, since it is winning awards and gaining accolades. It's
an okay book, but not Hugo-worthy, in my opinion. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE MUMMY (1932) (letter of comment by Gary McGath)
In response to Evelyn's comments on DRACULA (1931) in the 07/10/26
issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
Speaking of the Universal horror movies, I recently noticed that
the opening music for "The Mummy" is from Tchaikovsky's "Swan
Lake." They really should have used something from "Sleeping
Beauty." [-gmg]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE WORLD THE CIVIL WAR MADE edited by Gregory J. Downs and Kate
Masur (University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 978-1-469-62419-8)
sounded interesting when it was mentioned in an article I read,
but it turned out to be written in academese, and I read only two
of the articles.
"Emancipating Peons, Excluding Coolies: Reconstructing Coercion in
the American West" by Stacy L. Smith talked about how the 13th
Amendment was applied in situations not usually mentioned in its
regard. Smith demonstrates that the Chinese Exclusion Act was as
much enforcing the 13th Amendment as an act of racism, although it
is clear that it was a tool of racists as well. (The basic claim
was that the system by which Chinese immigrants came to the United
States was a form of slavery.) And the attempt to apply the 13th
Amendment to the peonage system in New Mexico by the Peonage Act
of 1867 was less effective, in part because there was never any
good way to enforce it; sharecropping and other practices which
were accepted were basically just another form of peonage.
"'Not Quite Constitutionalized': The Meanings of 'Civilization'
and the Limits of Native American Citizenship" by Stephen
Kantrowitz looked at the phrase in the 14th Amendment "subject to
the jurisdiction [of the United States]." This phrase led to much
confusion (as it is doing today, though in a different sense).
Many Native Americans were still part of their respective tribes
and satisfied with that, but many felt they wanted to leave their
"political" tribal affiliations and become full American citizens.
Often this was because as tribal members, they were constantly
being moved off "their" land to somewhere else. As full citizens,
they would have clear title to whatever land they had bought or
otherwise acquired and could not be pushed off it. Needless to
say, many white Americans had a problem with this. And tangled up
in all this was the notion that before Native Americans could
become full citizens they needed to be "civilized"--which usually
meant *at a minimum* dressing as European-Americans, farming
rather than hunting, speaking English, and becoming Christians.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
It says a lot about the US, when they ban lawn darts but
you can still buy semi-automatic weapons in a department
store.
--Brian Manz
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