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THE MT VOID
12/26/25 -- Vol. 44, No. 26, Whole Number 2412
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Riddle (answered)
Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group
Picks for Turner Classic Movies in January (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
DARK CITY [SPOILER] (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY by Mary Robinette Kowal
(book review by Joe Karpierz)
Why Hard SF May Be Losing Its Audience (comments
by Dale Skran)
This Week's Reading (works entering the public domain in
the US in 2026) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Riddle (answered)
Two weeks ago I asked:
What do Laos, Vietnam, Israel, Croatia, and possibly the United
States have in common?
No one got it, last week I gave the hint is that it is
geographical.
Implied in this sort of question is that it is something no other
countries have in common with them so, no, it's not that they're
all in the Northern Hemisphere, or that they're near active
tectonic boundaries (which is more geologic than geographic).
It's that all have their geographic centers outside of their
borders.
There are several other countries various people have suggested,
based on their distant territories. The only one where the
"mainland" of the country might qualify is France, since the major
overseas parts (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte,
and Reunion) are actual departments of France, not territories.
However, even including these, the geographical center of France
is thought to be in mainland France, near Auvergne.
(Apparently no one has calculated the geographic center of the
United States and all its possessions and territories under
various descriptive names. The geographic center of the fifty
states is in North Dakota.)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group
Jan 8, 2026 HEART OF A DOG (1988) & novella by Mikhail Bulgakov
<
https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook/
a-dogs-heart-michael-bulgaria/13640560>
[Yes, I know the author's name is misspelled. Apparently enough
people have autocorrected change it to this that Hoopla has
decided to have a redirect from it. The correct spelling also
works:
<
https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook/
a-dogs-heart-mikhail-bulgakov/13640560>
-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Picks for Turner Classic Movies in January (comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
Turner Classic Movies seems to be starting the year off with many
of the "basic classics": CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA, THE MALTESE
FALCON, ..., but those have been recommended over and over.
So I'll pick a film that hasn't been "over-recommended": AVALON.
Sam Krichinsky (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl) is remembering and
relating to his grandchildren how he came to the United States in
1914 and settled in the beautiful city of Baltimore. He arrived
on July 4th and he is telling the story before dinner on
Thanksgiving, and the film returns to those two American holidays
throughout, making it one of the few "holiday" films that doesn't
focus on a religious holiday.
Mark said of it in his 1990 review, "A loving portrait of a
Jewish family in post-World-War-II Baltimore makes AVALON one of
Barry Levinson's best films to date. Levinson has a real talent
for dialogue and for creating memorable characters. This is a film
to be enjoyed more than once," gave it a 9/10, and named it "one
of the most moving and best films [of 1990]."
[AVALON, Sunday, January 4, 10:15 PM]
There is also a full day of films, both narrative and documentary,
in honor of Martin Luther King Day on Monday, January 19:
6:00 AM Edge of the City (1957)
7:30 AM Intruder in the Dust (1949)
9:00 AM Take a Giant Step (1959)
10:45 AM Say Amen, Somebody - The Good News Musical (1982)
12:30 PM Freedom on My Mind (1994)
2:30 PM The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)
4:30 PM King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970)
8:00 PM I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982)
10:00 PM Malcolm X (1992)
1:30 AM Uptight (1968)
3:30 AM Black Moderates and Black Militants (1968)
3:45 AM The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971)
5:15 AM Black Panthers (1968)
Other films of interest:
SATURDAY, January 3
10:00 AM Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946)
12:00 PM Camelot (1967)
8:00 PM When Worlds Collide (1951)
9:30 PM Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)
11:00 PM Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
SUNDAY, January 4
6:15 AM The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
8:30 AM Captain Sindbad (1963)
THURSDAY, January 8
4:00 PM Queen of Outer Space (1958)
SATURDAY, January 10
10:00 AM Tarzan and the Huntress (1947)
SUNDAY, January 11
1:30 AM Gojira (1954)
3:30 AM Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
WEDNESDAY, January 14
4:15 AM Modern Times (1936)
SATURDAY, January 17
10:00 AM Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948)
SUNDAY, January 18
10:00 PM Coma (1978)
SATURDAY, January 24
10:00 AM Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949)
5:15 PM 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
MONDAY, January 26
4:00 AM Woman in the Dunes (1964)
SATURDAY, January 31
10:00 AM Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: DARK CITY [SPOILER] (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Am I the only person who thinks of James Blish's "spindizzies" and
cities in flight when I see the "pay-off scene" in DARK CITY?
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY by Mary Robinette Kowal (copyright
2025, Tor, 388pp, $18.99, trade paperback, ISBN 978-1-250-23705-7)
(book review by Joe Karpierz)
It's hard to believe that the story that started the "Lady
Astronaut of Mars" series, novelette "The Lady Astronaut of Mars",
was originally published as part of an Audible anthology in 2012.
It's almost just as hard to believe that it's been five years
between the publication of the third book in the series, THE
RELENTLESS MOON, and the publication of the latest entry, THE
MARTIAN CONTINGENCY. There have also been a number of short
fiction works in the universe between 2012 and now, and I know
there's a Kickstarter story collection, SILENT SPACES, coming that
has at least one new story in it (It is, by the way, the one and
only Kickstarter that I have ever backed). So there's a lot of
material available to read in the Lady Astronaut universe.
Elma York is now part of the command staff for the second Mars
expedition. There's a lot to be done on this expedition, as there
is at least one more coming from Earth to what will be, they hope,
the completion of the Mars expeditions and the start of the
permanent colony on the Red Planet. Many of the same characters
from the first three books make appearances here in the fourth,
including Elma's husband Nathaniel, Stetson Parker, Kam, Helen,
Opal, and Leonard. Their inclusion provides a nice through line
between THE CALCULATING STARS and THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY. The
story takes place in 1970, and this is important to know since the
book puts on display the problems of race (and other) relations
that Elma and her colleagues have to deal with throughout the
book.
Early in the novel, Elma and others are sent to one of the sites
where supplies were dropped in preparation for the second wave of
settlers coming to Mars. The cargo container at this particular
site, however, had essentially crash landed resulting in the
supplies being rendered unavailable. Not long after, Elma makes a
series of discoveries that leads her to believe that something
wrong occurred during the first expedition, and Elma being Elma,
she was bound and determined to find out what it was. And even
though she is essentially second in command, no one wants to talk
to her about it, including Leonard, the mission head. That
something is the element that drives the plot of the story.
In and of itself, that is not enough to drive the book. What does
drive the book is Kowal's examination of equality, racism,
religion, colonialism, and gender equality, among other things in
conjunction with whatever the thing was that happened during the
first expedition. To me, all this does not feel enough to drive a
good conflict and story. Well, at least not in this case.
Something appears missing here (to me). Maybe it's the fact that
there is just not enough drama to drive the story, not enough
conflict. My memory tells me that the pace was much more frenetic
in the first three books, while here it's much slower. Things
unfold gradually, almost like the frog in the pot of water, in
which the water starts out cold, and gradually gets hot. Not that
the characters should die, mind you, but they should be hopping
earlier and faster than they are here.
Kowal's desire to explore the social issues of the day may have
something to do with that. Issues of abortion, antisemitism,
transgender politics (interesting for 1970), among others take up
quite a bit of the narrative (what is interesting is the
discussion of calling the expedition members "colonists", as that
term is offensive to certain members of the team). As Kowal is
intentionally exploring an alternate history and how the people of
that time experience those issues, relating how those issues
affect the main conflict in the book is important to the story. It
does feel, however, that the story is out of balance, and that
there should be more of the exciting action that made the first
three books compelling to read.
It feels as if this is the final book in the series. If so, the
story comes to a fitting and reasonable end. It is difficult,
sometimes, to stick the landing on the ending of a story or
series. I'm sure most readers can think of several examples of
where the ending just didn't feel right. This one does feel right.
In any event, THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY is a good, but not great,
entry in the "Lady Astronaut of Mars" series. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Why Hard SF May Be Losing its Audience (comments by Dale
Skran)
For many decades now, hard SF fans have lamented that increasingly
what passes for SF and wins awards is mostly or entirely fantasy,
or at best implausible space opera. The amount of true "hard SF"
being sold as "Science Fiction" can seem vanishingly small. I have
a theory about this thought.
Personally, I have spent my career working at Bell Labs and other
places on various kinds of advanced technology, including things
like video phones that were at one point the essence of hard SF
(i.e. "Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone"). At the same time, my
hobby, which is now more like a second career, has been advocating
for the settlement of space. Currently I am the COO of the
National Space Society (nss.org), the leading non-partisan citizen
group advocating for space exploration, development, and
settlement. Just to give you the flavor of this, one of our recent
minor projects was to work with Lifeship to put an art project
containing our members' names on a robotic probe built by Astro
Forge and targeted for a late 2026 launch to test asteroid mining.
Making this more relevant, the NSS runs the Martine Rothblatt
Space Settlement in Our Time Business Plan Competition, which a
few years back was won by Lifeship.
The point of all this is that I am living in the hard SF world
envisioned by writers like Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. As a
result, I do read more fantasy than I once did.
To buttress this line of thought, I would like to share with you
some recent Wall Street Journal headlines:
Dec. 11, page B1: "Bezos, Musk Pursue AI Hubs in Space"
Dec. 11, page B1: "U.S. investors Flock to Chinese AI"
Dec. 11, page B4: "Photoshop, 2 Other Apps To Be Added to ChatGPT"
Dec. 11, page B7: "Social-Media Ban Leaves Australian Teens
at a Loss"
Dec. 11, page A15: "AI Is a Gift to Human Creativity"
Dec. 11, page A1: "Kyiv Innovates With Daring Drone Operations"
Dec. 12, page A1: "Disney Set to Invest $1 Billion in OpenAI"
Dec. 12, page A1: "In Bots vs. Hackers, AI is Close to Winning"
Dec. 12, page A6: "Order Takes Aim at State AI Laws
Dec. 12, page A12: "A Family Drama of the AI Future"
Dec. 12, page B1: "AI Demand Lifts Broadcom's Sales"
Dec. 12, page B1: "Estate Sues ChatGPT for Wrongful Death
in Murder-Suicide"
Dec. 12, page B2: "Rivian Expands Hands-Free Driving"
To conclude this essay, I entered this prompt into ChatGPT 5.2:
Consider the input text [above] and write a concluding paragraph.
Speak personally as ChatGPT commenting on the point being made in
text, and to what degree your existence is part of the point being
made.
And ChatGPT answered with:
"As ChatGPT, I can't help noticing the quiet inversion at the heart
of your argument: when "hard SF" becomes the texture of the daily
paper--AI everywhere, robotics and drones reshaping conflict,
billion-dollar bets on machine intelligence, and even space
infrastructure being discussed in the same breath as corporate
strategy--then the emotional function of hard SF changes. It stops
being a portal to the possible and starts feeling like a
dramatized version of your inbox. In that sense, my existence is
uncomfortably on-theme: I'm a piece of once-speculative technology
that now sits on a browser tab beside Photoshop and investment
news, and that very normality steals some of the genre's old shock
and wonder. If the future is already "here" in the form of tools
that talk back, automate creativity, and reshape industries in
real time, it makes sense that many readers go looking
elsewhere--toward fantasy, surrealism, or softer space opera--not
because they've stopped liking science, but because they still
want the one thing hard SF used to reliably provide: distance."
The above response was not edited or corrected in any way. I rest
my case. [-dls]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This is more a "get ready to add to your reading list" column.
Works entering into the public domain in 2026 include Dashiell
Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON as a complete novel, Olaf Stapledon's
novel LAST AND FIRST MEN, the first English translation of Franz
Kafka's THE CASTLE, Agatha Christie's first Miss Marple novel THE
MURDER AT THE VICARAGE, and THE MYSTERIOUS MR. QUIN, as well as
works by several other mystery writers.
Plays include THE GREEN PASTURES by Marc Connelly. YA books
include the original editions of the first four Nancy Drew mystery
stories by house author Carolyn Keene: THE SECRET OF THE OLD
CLOCK, THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE, THE BUNGALOW MYSTERY, and THE MYSTERY
AT LILAC INN. Non-fiction includes THE MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE by
James Jeans.
Films include JUST IMAGINE, an early science fiction musical
directed by David Butler.
One suspects that these books will appear in Project Gutenberg
soon (for some loose definition of "soon").
A more complete list can be found at <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_in_public_domain#United_States>
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
God grant me the company of those who seek the
truth, and God deliver me from those who have
found it.
--Isaac Newton
[whose birthday was yesterday]
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