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THE MT VOID
11/28/25 -- Vol. 44, No. 22, Whole Number 2408

Editor: Evelyn Leeper, evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group
Picks for Turner Classic Movies in December (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Convention Attendance (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Cli-Fi (letter of comment by Hal Heydt)
This Week's Reading (A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

TOPIC: Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group

[Due to a power failure at the Middletown Library in November,
DARK STAR has been re-scheduled as the December movie and book.]

Dec 4, 2025 DARK STAR (1974) & novelization by Alan Dean Foster
<https://bookracks.com/all/191881>
Jan 8, 2026 HEART OF A DOG (1988) & novella by Mikhail Bulgakov
https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook/
a-dogs-heart-michael-bulgaria/13640560

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

TOPIC: Picks for Turner Classic Movies in December (comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)

A surfeit of riches this month. Turner is doing a full day (well,
daytime, anyway) of documentaries on December 11, and their usual
Marx Brothers marathon on December 31. For comedies, there are
three excellent Christopher Guest films WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, BEST
IN SHOW, and THE BIG PICTURE) December 12 and 13, as well as the
wonderfully understated CROSSING DELANCEY on December 7 and LOCAL
HERO on December 15, and the not so understated DINER on January
1.

You get both versions of KING OF KINGS (1927 and 1961, December 29
and December 6 respectively), but only the 1938 version of A
CHRISTMAS CAROL with Reginald Owen, although you get that twice on
December 21 and again on December 25. (I much prefer the 1951
version with Alastair Sim.)

THE APARTMENT (on December 20) is another classic Christmas/New
Year's Eve movie, though rarely listed as such.

There's an evening with Jane Austen on December 17 and 18.

And of course there's the obligatory
"show-it-while-it's-still-legal" cross-dressing/drag movie, in
this case the original 1988 version of HAIRSPRAY on December 27.
(This is *not* the musical with John Travolta, but the original
film with Divine.)

I suppose I should mention IVAN THE TERRIBLE (both parts) on
December 29. There, I've mentioned it.

There are more fantasy films than usual, a great many dealing with
the afterlife. And the usual science fiction films as well.

Other films of interest:

MONDAY, December 1
1:45 PM Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
4:00 PM Psycho (1960)

TUESDAY, December 2
4:00 PM The Haunting (1963)

THURSDAY, December 4
9:45 PM Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

FRIDAY, December 5
3:45 AM I Married an Angel (1942)
5:15 AM Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
10:45 AM The Woman in White (1948)

SATURDAY, December 6
10:00 AM Tarzan Triumphs (1943)
4:15 PM King of Kings (1961)
7:15 PM The Power of Film Episode 5: The Power of Paradox (2023)

SUNDAY, December 7
2:00 AM Crossing Delancey (1988)

TUESDAY, December 9
12:00 AM Metropolis (1926)
6:00 AM The Glass Slipper (1955)
7:45 AM Kismet (1955)

THURSDAY, December 11
6:00 AM The True Adventures of Raoul Walsh (2019)
8:45 AM Becoming Hitchcock - The Legacy of Blackmail (2024)
10:00 AM What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)
11:45 AM The Automat (2021)
1:15 PM Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)
3:30 PM Dean Martin: King of Cool (2021)
5:30 PM Nichols and May: Take Two (1996)
6:30 PM Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words (2025)

FRIDAY, December 12
12:00 AM Oh, God! (1977)
4:00 AM Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
5:45 AM Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
8:00 PM Waiting for Guffman (1996)
9:45 PM Best in Show (2000)

SATURDAY, December 13
1:15 AM The Big Picture (1989)
9:30 AM The Judgment of Tarzan (1934)
10:00 AM Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943)
4:30 PM Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
7:15 PM The Power of Film Episode 6: Love and Meaning (2023)

MONDAY, December 15
2:00 AM Watership Down (1978)
4:00 AM Fantastic Planet (1973)
7:30 AM The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
6:00 PM Local Hero (1983)

TUESDAY, December 16
6:00 AM The Giant Behemoth (1959)
9:15 AM Them! (1954)
11:00 AM World Without End (1956)
12:30 PM The Thing from Another World (1951)
2:00 PM Invaders from Mars (1953)

WEDNESDAY, December 17
6:00 PM Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
10:15 PM Sense and Sensibility (1995)

THURSDAY, December 18
12:45 AM Persuasion (1995)
2:45 AM Pride and Prejudice (1940)
8:00 PM Heaven Can Wait (1943)

FRIDAY, December 19
12:00 AM Cabin in the Sky (1943)
2:00 AM The Story of Mankind (1957)
3:45 AM The Green Pastures (1936)
11:30 PM Bell, Book and Candle (1958)

SATURDAY, December 20
5:00 AM A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)
5:45 PM The Apartment (1960)

SUNDAY, December 21
12:00 AM Lady in the Lake (1947)
5:00 AM The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
8:00 AM A Christmas Carol (1938)

THURSDAY, December 25
12:15 AM A Christmas Carol (1938)
8:00 PM A Matter of Life and Death (1947)
10:00 PM Angels in the Outfield (1951)

FRIDAY, December 26
12:00 AM A Guy Named Joe (1943)
4:00 AM The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945)

SATURDAY, December 27
10:00 AM Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)
12:00 PM Hairspray (1988)
8:00 PM Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
9:45 PM Network (1976)

SUNDAY, December 28
4:15 AM Being There (1979)
12:15 PM The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
6:00 PM The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

MONDAY, December 29
12:00 AM The King of Kings (1927)
2:45 AM Ivan the Terrible (Part 1) (1944)
4:30 AM Ivan the Terrible (Part 2) (1958)

WEDNESDAY, December 31
5:30 AM Room Service (1938)
7:00 AM At the Circus (1939)
8:30 AM A Day at the Races (1937)
10:30 AM A Night at the Opera (1935)
12:30 PM The Cocoanuts (1929)
2:15 PM Animal Crackers (1930)
4:00 PM Monkey Business (1931)
5:30 PM Horse Feathers (1932)
6:45 PM Duck Soup (1933)

THURSDAY, January 1
2:00 AM Diner (1982)

[-ecl]

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

TOPIC: Convention Attendance (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Before Philcon this year (my first convention in six years!), I
tried to figure out how many conventions I had been to. Based on
the number of program books in my catalog, and the number of con
reports, it works out to about 125. I'm not sure whether I went to
all the Readercons between 1987 and 1996; I have the program
books, but no con reports. OTOH, I may have missed a few smaller
cons from before I started writing reports. Altogether it's 37
Worldcons (plus one NASFIC), 32 Boskones, 16 Philcons (now 17), 13
Readercons, 10 Lunacons, 2 Westercons, a Windycon, and a bunch of
onesies (Confusion, Covert Contraption 1989, Empiricon, Equicon
1975, Fanfair 3/1977, JerseyDevilCon 3, Nasfic 2017, Shorecon
1995, Summercon 1977, Windycon 29, Wondaycon 13, and World
Fantasycon 8). [-ecl]

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

TOPIC: Cli-Fi (letter of comment by Hal Heydt)

In response to Evelyn's comments on "cli-fi" (climate fiction) in
the 11/21/25 issue of the MT VOID, Hal Heydt writes:

[Evelyn wrote,] "subgenre sometimes called (for better or worse) 'cli-fi'--'climate fiction', or science fiction set in the future
during or after serious climatic disruption." [-ecl]

By that definition, Dorothy's novel, A POINT OF HONOR, might be
classed as "cli-fi", and her unpublished sequel definitely would
be. Perhaps she was writing that sort of work too early... [-hh]

Evelyn responds:

Though the term "cli-fi" was apparently coined around 2007, it has
been applied retroactively to the works of J. G. Ballard, Octavia
E. Butler, and others and Wikipedia notes that Jules Verne's 1898
novel THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE is basically cli-fi. [-ecl]

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

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

A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom, ISBN 978-1-250-89126-6) is the second book in the "Monk & Robot"
series, and is the sequel to A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, and if
you liked the first book, you will probably like this one as well.
(And you should read A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT first.)

I say probably, because this book does not have the
world-building, or the gradual exposition of the premise to the
reader. A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY does develop some of the ideas
in A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, but a lot seems more like a series
of philosophical discussions, much as one would have in a college
philosophy course. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but it
makes the book a lot more low-key (one might almost say "cozy")
than a lot of science fiction. There are no battles (in fact, not
even much conflict), and no amazing twists and turns, but a lot of
discussion of what constitutes sentience, or "personhood", and
what it means to be "in harmony with the environment," and the
pros and cons of various societies (mostly pros).

One use of language struck me. Chambers uses the terms
"terrestrial" and "human", and clearly postulates a human-like
history and psychology, in spite of the fact that the world is
obviously not Earth, and the inhabitants are obviously not Homo
sapiens.

And in what is perhaps a nod to Eric Frank Russell's THE GREAT
EXPLOSION, the society does not have money, but it has "pebs"
(short for "pebbles"), which so far as I can tell are "obs" (short
for "obligations" under a different name. One big difference,
though, is that while in THE GREAT EXPLOSION, people who rack up a
debt eventually cannot get any food or services from anyone else,
while in A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY it seems as though what
happens is some sort of intervention, because it is assumed that
the debtor is having some sort of problem that people can help
them deal with. It is assumed that no one is inherently a sponger,
or for that matter, someone who would attack other people or
damage the environment because they personally would benefit. One
person described it as "a very woke society," and I suppose that's
accurate, at least in this regard. [-ecl]

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

Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com


Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
--Joe Louis, 1965
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