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THE MT VOID
09/19/25 -- Vol. 44, No. 12, Whole Number 2398
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 21 (THE RETURN, PERFECT CREATURE,
LIFE AFTER PEOPLE (Season 2)) (film comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Life on Mars (comments by Gregory Frederick)
ALTERNATE GEOMETRIES edited by Nick Bourbaki (book review
by Mark R. Leeper)
Brother Guy and the New Yorker (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE ODYSSEY)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 21 (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE RETURN (2024): Back in the 01/04/02 issue of the MT VOID,
possibly inspired by a re-issue of SCARLETT, Mark was announced
THE HOMECOMING:
Coming in February: Homer's THE HOMECOMING. For the many avid
fans of Homer, the wait is over. Homer has finally completed
the third book in the Odysseus Saga. Odysseus has fought, he
has wandered, but sometimes greatest challenges can be found
at home. Read Homer's THE HOMECOMING from Penguin Classics.
"It's like nothing Homer ever wrote before. THE HOMECOMING
is a real departure." --Rosetta Stone, Harvard Department
of Classics
Well, now we have the film THE RETURN, which is not actually a
third book, but is based on the second half of THE ODYSSEY. It
skips all the fantastical parts (the Cyclops, Circe, and so on),
and starts when Odysseus is washed up on the shore of Ithaca,
looking like a genuine tramp, rather than disguised as one later
by Athena. Well, unless you count as fantastical having a dog live
to be well over twenty years and immediately recognize Odysseus
after he has been gone two decades, especially when the old
servants and even his wife don't recognize him (at least until the
old nurse sees a familiar scar, and it's not clear when Penelope
figures it out). And it skips all the flashbacks, the fictional
stories Odysseus makes up to conceal his identity, and the journey
of Telemachus.
So what we get are all the truly depressing parts, where we see
the suitors being beyond obnoxious, mistreating and killing the
few still loyal to Odysseus, and Odysseus going though
psychological torment, probably PTSD, and in general all sorts of
things making watching this unpleasant. Maybe I've been spoiled by
the versions aimed more at a family audience. Certainly those do
not have Penelope musing on the evils of war and asking Odysseus
(who she's thinks is just a tramp--or does she?) whether he raped,
or killed women and children. (As Taras Wolansky pointed out in
the 05/30/25 issue of the MT VOID, this seems an anachronistic
attitude on her part.)
The film does not have much of what happens after the suitors are
killed, e.g., the slave women who "fraternized" with the suitors
being killed. This may be because it is not clear that slave women
had a whole lot of choice in this matter. And Odysseus tells
Penelope he couldn't return because of his PTSD, when in the poem
it is due to forces beyond his control. They did sort of keep the
bed thing, though.
Released theatrically 06 December 2024.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19861162/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_return_2024>
PERFECT CREATURE (2006): The whole "vampires in something like a
Victorian England setting" reminds me of Kim Newman's "Anno
Dracula" stories. There are differences, of course: in PERFECT
CREATURES, the vampires and humans co-exist on a (seemingly) equal
level, while in "Anno Dracula" there's been what might be called a
hostile take-over by the vampires.
It is certainly a different premise than the usual vampire film,
even if the mechanics of the plot (vampire kills, people hunt him,
etc.) is fairly familiar.
Released at a film festival 30 March 2007; currently available on
Hoopla.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403407/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/perfect_creature>
LIFE AFTER PEOPLE (Season 2) (2010): Season 2 of "Life After
People" turned out to be available on the History Channel website
even though I don't get the History Channel. (Season 3 is still
available only to people who *do* get the History Channel.) Alas,
they used up the best ideas in the original "movie", and then
starting looking at less interesting aspects in the first season.
Obviously pretty soon they are reduced to either repeating
themselves or getting into minutiae. The whole section on the
mental institution in Connecticut was pretty useless, along with
the story of the deserted Air Force base in North Dakota, the
Locust Plague of 1874, the description of the Cheyenne Mountain
Complex, and what the climbers on Mount Everest leave behind.
Their favorite line seems to be, "There's one place on earth where
it's already happened," said after they describe some
post-apocalyptic scenario.
The problem with following up what was intended, I suspect, as a
stand-alone movie, is sort of like what happened to NESFA, which
produced "The Best of James H. Schmitz", but then had no way to
follow up with more of Schmitz's work. "The Second Best of James
H. Schmitz"? I don't think so. After that first foray into
collections, they decided that they would either produce the
complete works (or at least short works) of an author, even if it
was multiple volumes, or not do them at all.
Released streaming 05 January 2010.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433058/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_after_people>
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Life on Mars (comments by Gregory Frederick)
Looks like the best evidence of past life on Mars has been found
by the Perseverance Rover on Mars. Though not conclusive, it will
be hard to prove that only nature geologic processes caused the
mineral deposits the rover found. A sample return mission would be
needed to do more testing but it's still very, very compelling
evidence.
<
https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/did-nasas-perseverance-rover- actually-find-evidence-of-life-on-mars-we-need-to-haul-its-samples- home-to-find-out-scientists-say>
[-gf]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ALTERNATE GEOMETRIES edited by Nick Bourbaki (book review
by Mark R. Leeper)
[This originally ran in the 04/01/94 issue, but it was too good
not to re-publish. -ecl]
Well, Nick Bourbaki is back with another mind-bending alternate
world extravaganza. While I enjoyed the first two (ALTERNATE GREEN
VEGETABLES and ALTERNATE SHIRT-PACKING MATERIALS), I found this
one slightly lacking in imagination. I think that Euclid's
Parallel Postulate is pretty much self-evident to even the casual
reader. I think that it is one thing to say that someplace else
there is kale with roots like a carrot and to follow that idea
through, but you can see right on a piece of paper in front of you
that the Parallel Postulate is true and it is pretty tough to
envision it any other way. Maybe it's the focus. There seems to be
a subgenre of science fiction these days that concentrates on
knocking the old masters like Euclid, mostly by people not fit to
carry Euclid's pencil-box, if he had a pencil box. Some of the
ideas here are well thought out, but the authors keep knocking
their heads against the difficulty in suspending disbelief. (The
claim has been made that this category is aimed at adolescent boys
of all ages, without a strong foundation in mathematics, so I'm
sure some will say that's why I find it usually dull and often
offensive in its glorification of purely abstract mathematics, but
there you have it.) Only the alternate world aspect of this
anthology made it intriguing to me, and I found that part was
often a let-down. Why? Well, let's see.
First, though, let me talk about the *best* ideas. "The Land Where
All Lines Meet" by Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (and isn't
that a mouthful?) is set in a world where every line intercepts
every other line. This seems to have the nastiest implications for
the transportation industry. Railroad locomotives have to be
designed with wheels that are flexible enough to move in and out
and travels on any set of tracks are limited by the fact that some
place the two rails have to come together and the locomotive tends
to fall over because the base is too small. On the other hand
human relations turn out to be totally affected. There is less
petty crime and far more violent crime since if a criminal is
robbing somebody he is virtually assured that the victim will run
into him again. Since all paths eventually meet, the victim has
only to wait long enough and he is sure to run into the criminal
again. The criminal, knowing this, is more likely to kill his
victim or not to bother robbing him in the first place. If killing
is the choice the police have only to wait long enough since the
killer is totally certain to return to the scene of the crime.
There were many good ideas that could have been explored but for
reasons not entirely clear, Riemann kept returning to the same
concepts.
The other intriguing story was Nick Lobachevksy's "A Life in the
Saddle." He tells his story in a world where there are many
different parallels to given line through a given point. In this
world society has never really had much chance to develop since
human relationships are very short. All work that is accomplished
is done by people who are constantly in each other's presence
since once two people separate, they can never be certain of
finding each other again. What little architecture that can be
built is extremely shoddy and prone to falling apart since one is
never really sure in building a four wall structure if the fourth
wall will or will not meet the first. To improve the chances most
buildings are built with three walled sides and a fourth that is
left open to the elements.
The next best story in the anthology is "Kikuyu and the Gnu Yu
Rode In On" by newcomer Mike Resnick. He presents a universe in
which all lines in space and time converge in pre-revolutionary
Kenya. Resnick tells a good story but one wonders why the
universe would choose such an arbitrary point on which to center.
From there the stories fall off rapidly. Patrick Robertson
contributes (if that is the word) a story "If I Ran the Circus" in
which the whole question of Euclid's fifth postulate because there
is only one line in all of space time and it goes straight back to
some idealized point in the past.
Will Clinton's story "Random Acts of Kindness, Other People's
Money" starts with a similar premise to the Robertson story. Time
travelers go back in time to find the idealized point only to
discover that it cannot be found. They conclude that the line took
too sharp a turn to the right and the travelers could not follow
it.
Albrecht Durer adds a touch of artistry with "Affine Mess You've
Gotten Me Into" which has a painter enter his own painting and
finds himself in a world where one can actually walk to the
horizon. In this world any two lines do meet, but only once. If
they do not meet any place else they always meet on the horizon as
a rendezvous of last resort. The horizon then, in this world,
functions as sort of a singles bar for pickup lines which seem to
arrive at the horizon in polyester suits and listen to
ear-splitting music. Unfortunately, they are doomed to
frustration since the horizon affords them little privacy and
meeting at the horizon they find they cannot get together anyplace
else.
Adam Baum's "The Long Way Round," is set in the world of spherical
geometry. A man stopped for suspected drunk driving is told to
walk a straight line and suddenly finds himself on a great circle.
The anthology concludes with Rene Descartes' "At Seventh Avenue
and 52nd Street." It is set in an alien, dehumanized future. A man
complains to his bartender that everyone and everything in the
world is being reduced to numbers. When the bartender asks the man
if the numbers do not make things easier the man responds "I think
not" and instantly disappears. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Brother Guy and the New Yorker (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
Well, I solved my paywall problem; I went to the public library
and checked out that copy of the magazine. I should have thought
of this earlier. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
To go with watching THE RETURN, I read the second half of THE
ODYSSEY by Homer (translated by Robert Fitzgerald; Farrar, Straus
and Giroux; ISBN 978-0-374-52574-3).
One line that struck me was, "You know they go in foreign guise,
the gods do, looking like strangers, turning up in towns and
settlements to keep an eye on manners, good or bad." [Book XVII,
Lines 635-638]
This seems like that old song, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town":
You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is comin' to town, gather 'round
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
He's gonna find out who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is comin' to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
This of course makes Santa sound like the gods, or more
specifically, God. Many religions emphasize that God is always
watching, and while He doesn't disguise himself as a human
(leaving that one time aside), His angels do.
And all this brings to mind the surveillance of today, with
databases, cameras, drones, and every other technique known to
provide maximum information.
It makes the Greek gods seem positively amateurish. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Before you kill something make sure you have
something better to replace it with; something
better than political opportunist slamming hate
horseshit in the public park.
--Charles Bukowski, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," 1969
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