TBS&E Number 66 1

Now available in Century Gothic! Produced by Garry Dalrymple as his contribution towards mailing No. 286, of the Australian and New Zealand Amateur Press Association (ANZAPA).

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New Wrinkles in Thyme

1 TBS&E Number 66 2 An evening spent with James the venue just did not want to be found! I walked the length of the Randwick shops Bradley, Author of ‘Clade’, held twice, looking for a sign, any sign of a at the Randwick Public Library, Library, or a righteous man to show me the on Thursday May 21, 2015, a way, before in desperation stopping several natives, until |I encountered one, Sydney Writer’s Festival event. who looked literate, who explained to me Source, pages 8 to 12, Garry’s rough notes that it was back that way AND inside the starting April 2015, publication in TBS&E #66 shopping mall. So I went back that way, and concluding Who was there; about 70 people, by my my 40 minutes of walking by located a estimate (counting empty seats etc.) 58 F & discrete sign. There? No not quite. 12 M. Most Ms present were with wife / The Builder of this shopping mall had partner, most Fs present were retired ladies, combined two major fascinations, a many claiming to be writers. journey of Re-birth via the Earth Mother The Set Up – This is worth explaining, as this and Aztec sacrificial architecture. was the first time I had ever been to this Thus I nearly expired while going up the Library and to the best of my understanding, great flight of steps from the street, and I this ‘Off Broadway’ Sydney Writers Festival arrived at the library after passed through event was the only Science Fiction book enough long blind corridors to have had a event on the program this year, as a ‘for re-birth experience while passing the adults’ offering. closed food court, for the library was, like a literary kidney, tucked away deep inside Distributed Responsibilities? - The event the body cavity of the shopping mall in a seems to have been organised and place where the Sun don’t shine. I later catering provided for by the Library, with the learned that there was an undisclosed Festival people there to gather the kudos. entry / exit through a baby health centre There was a swarm of lanyarded and red T- as well. So, my entrance was a bit Shirted Festival volunteers (as a Star Trek breathless, and a very nice library it is too. viewer why does this make me feel On the way in I saw books by two uneasy?), with frankly nothing much to do Australian Speculative Fiction Writers on other than to be present as visible display as new acquisitions (Ben Peek and ‘branding’, of the event, as the Library Traci Harding), which is always a people seemed to have everything under welcoming proposition, and the library has control. There were, as far as I could see, a ~80 seat meeting room. This was no Publisher’s people present to support The definitely a Freecon do-able space, but for Writer, surely a serious omission? the travel duration and those stairs! Of the Festival volunteers, some were retired folk but the younger element were students The first ten people to show up were and recent graduates who were hoping to Women, not what I’d consider to be of SF leverage their Festival volunteer credits into fannish appearance at all, a reminder that paid publishing industry positions or cadet this was a Literary occasion, rather than a ships. I suspect that this oversupply of Science Fiction Book occasion. willing, unpaid labour, greatly aids the The next bloke to show up was a 90 year ‘Festival Industry,’ leaving more money for old bloke with a story to tell and an the champagne end of these events? extraordinary faith in the written word to How did I get there? Well, it wasn’t easy. right wrongs. He was looking for a Writer, In theory, just jump on a 400 bus at Clemton any Writer to take an interest in his plight Park and get off before it passes the and get his story published. Randwick Bus Depot 90 minutes later, walk The story as I understood it was that he was to the indicated street address. However, in business, a multimillion dollar business,

2 TBS&E Number 66 3 with a partner, and this partner had was able to get over this by trusting that squeezed him out of the business – all legal he would find a way of dealing with it, like perhaps, but a great moral injustice. particularly the troubling bit about a child I gave him what advice I could, about self- dying of cancer. He also liked the More publishing, but I regret now that I didn’t ask Fantastical bits. for his card to see if something (an Editor?) Q. Relationship issues? could be done to give the poor old chap A. The greatest of these is the uncertainty some peace of mind, because I could see associated with child bearing during times him going about pestering the Author and of social instability refers to the character’s the Festival Authority figure later. worries. The End of the World is harder to However, on with the show. write about than to live in a world of unpredictable change. Human continuity Barbara Tovis gave a Welcome to Land and under stressful circumstances is worth the Writer was introduced. James Bradley describing is local-ish, a bronzed (or verdigrised?) Q. Boiling the Frog? (I.e. are gradual beach suburbs boy, with four novels and changes becoming inevitably many poems published. Baptised by the catastrophic?) surf and with roots deeply sunk into the A. James suspects that society is ill- beach sands, like some kind of literary equipped to deal with climate change mangrove, he was awarded a Young Writer and offered a monologue about people of the Year award (1997) and also a Pascal wanting change but can’t get it – prize for literary criticism. borrowed from the literature on cold He has also been a book reviewer for the ocean Methane ice (Clathrate) deposits Sydney Morning Herald. Incidentally, the and he noticed events occurring in real life best recent mention of this Writer occurred after he had written them as speculation. not in the Spectrum section of the paper, He believes that we will get excited, but the bit which largely ignores SF themed will end up doing nothing much. books, but in the travel section of all places. He wants this book to help join the dots As our American cousins say, ’Go Figure?’ about Climate Change theoretical and

‘Clade’ is a story set in the future running the predictable future in the minds of through three generations of a family living readers, where this is not occurring in with the effects of Climate Change. public debate. Sooo… instead of getting a Speculative The Deep Time consequences of some Fiction Writer, or book editor, someone who contemporary trends are examined in can understand the difficulty of translating ‘Clade’, via a community’s response, after ideas into a story and then writing the story Nation States have ceased to be useful, in a way that is comprehensible, they set this is based on a hope that communities him up to be interviewed by the local can do what states are currently unable to Greens Candidate Adam, coz it was about do when it comes to survival issues Bees wasn’t it? (I mean REALLY, I also stood He is uneasy with the view that the book is for Parliament this year and that doesn’t get a ‘message based’ text, but there are me any literary pontification rights). apocalyptical predictions as to the effects The result – a string of inane questions that on future global carrying capacity of Bradley did well to re-interpret into Climate Change, and presumably something about his book. something must happen to the ‘spare’ billions of people that sea level rises will Q. What was your favourite part of the create, with his hopes resting on human Novel? ingenuity to come up with something. A. Resolving the Mid-story anxiety over whether the story you have written is ‘good’ Rich World Poor World Dichotomy enough and whether you can satisfactorily and the Bees! fill out the story arc to get to the End. He

3 TBS&E Number 66 4 In the US there has been a population versions of them, as bespoke friends collapse of Bees, the essential pollinators of rather than relying on flesh and blood? food crops. Genetically Modified crops, Already people seem to prefer to Parasites, Pesticides or management issues exchange text messages than to meet and may be at fault, if this became universal, a engage in face to face communication, food shortage apocalypse could result. possibly because of the impression that James uses the bees in ‘Clade’ as a you can have one to one communication metaphor, but while writing, his concerns with thousands on line? have moved out into the journalistic Q. Alien Communications, is E.T. Calling? mainstream. A. Any study of the Universe suggests that New Nature Writing, living with bio-change – life beyond our Solar System seems likely, the experience of ‘Moby Duck’ where a the data piling up suggests when, rather container load of rubber ducks, lost at sea, than whether contact will be noticed with has ridden the oceans currents to turn up other intelligent life, so, would we ignore it, everywhere. The related issues of plastic possibly another 20 to 30 years before it is particles the ocean surface, so Nature is no- detected, but we already know that there longer natural, as it has all been are no Dyson Spheres, but the issue transformed or affected by human activity. remains, that contact is likely to come from In the book there is a move then from the a star 500 light years away, so it would be a real to the virtual, a way of living while on 1,000 year question and answer response the bus, rather than looking out the windows cycle, which makes all or no difference to and being concerned about what is going us as we live normal lives between these on out there, and keeping a nice virtual messages? Nature to look at. Dr Amir, an Q. Is technology the solution or social environmental change refugee after organisation the major challenge, Bangladesh goes under due to sea level In an unequal Society, but can this survive rises, goes from being a doctor to being a the changes of the future? Bee Keeper. Doubts over human control of the change Q How does the Author solve the refugee Conversation about belief in Climate crisis? Change instead of what they have done, A. It won’t be nice, tries to avoid the beliefs Vs whose interests those beliefs discussing the specifics in the book, offering serve, dictating what they do, i.e. Lobbyists instead a focus on the personal and small Justice conversation is needed, but good scale that is likely to be easier for the reader stuff is happening off stage, such as the to comprehend. James believes that for voluntary divestments of coal by institutions most life will go on. There will be tragedies at Q. What was behind your earlier book ‘The the edges, but most people will be insulated Penguin book of the Ocean’ from the horrible stuff which, controlled by A. I had wanted to write a non-Fiction governments at arm’s length and taking book about the Ocean, but this project place out of the sight of most people. failed to be published, so I had the notes Q. Technology for comfort, will lead to still to hand to help writing ‘Clade’. much more realistic Holograms and smaller I wanted it to be a book from a beach- networks after the big net collapses goer’s more intimate perspective rather Q. How will businesses do this, or will they than from a land locked European’s survive like cockroaches? perspective. This research process lead to A. Companies, like organisms already pass the discovery of some very astonishing their prime and will fade (such as the stories. The Ocean is an idea which eclipse of the manufacturer of the once enlarges the mind with, emotional, ubiquitious Blackberry device?). There scientific and economic aspects. It is a may be simulated people, run by heuristic source of life and for creation myth stories. Artificial Intelligences, which may allow you Q. Antarctica start, do you have to have to preserve relatives and friends, or edited been there to write about a place?

4 TBS&E Number 66 5 A. I haven’t been there, my writing is based Guest speaker, Jeffrey Jacobs, on research. Being there can make it harder to write about it in a way that New York Amateur Astronomers’ readers can assimilate Association, presenting and Q. What were your Motivations? talking about his movie on John A. You need discipline to work at it, had a Dobson, the innovative bad time with a previous book, but this was some time ago. I estimate that I have time telescope maker and ‘Sidewalk to write about twenty books, time spent Astronomer’. worrying is time deducted from this Source, pages 24 & 25 of my rough notes objective. starting April 2015, Present were, 28 Q. Is there a dichotomy between the Poet members and visitors, 16M and 12F. and Fiction writing? A. Yes, there is a dichotomy between Comment – This meeting was figuratively himself and the capital W ‘Writer’, but there overshadowed by the raised finger to is a bigger gap between the mindset of the urban planning represented by Mr. Writer and the Book Reviewer. Writing is like Packer’s skyscraping (and obliterating) Dreaming, partly unconscious, but these Apartments via Trojan whores casino scenes then have to be disciplined into a project, and recent staff changes at the recognisable story. The desire is to be Observatory, Toner Stevenson, a good ‘poetic’ in in the story, but this is very hard to friend to the Skywatchers having moved achieve on. The meeting was also unusual in that Q. Where did the Title come from? in Mike Chapman’s absence (currently A. Clade is a term in Biology, referring to the Overseas), it was presided over by Monty descendants of a common ancestor. I Leventhal, a Vice President. Arriving used it because the book is essentially the early, I encountered the speaker and story of a family discussed the Packer initiative with him and Q. Did you know the title before the story some detail of the displays / observatory was written, or was it a manuscript in search layout. of a title? News – The 2016 NAACA, the National A. it was appropriate as an example of the convention of Australian Amateur doubleness of Science and Nature. Astronomers will take place in the Sydney CBD, during Easter. Conclusion - As a gift of appreciation, the Writer was presented with a framed sepia Guest Speaker – Andrew Jacobs had set it print photograph of Coogee Beach, from up so that the 55 minute version of the the library’s collection of local images. movie could be screened through the © Garry Dalrymple June 12, 2015. meeting dungeon’s projector, onto a two metre screen. As most documentaries do these days, it set out to Show, rather than explain the activities of John Dobson, rather than directly explaining What he did, How he did it and Why he did it. These were all indirectly explained by short scenes of him at work, at Astronomy weekends, at telescope making workshops and most importantly, in ‘action’ showing people the sky from city footpaths, frequently giving The Sydney City Skywatcher’s people their first taste of Astronomy. This meeting of June 1, 2015. film also spent some time on features of his life that explain his motivations. He was a

5 TBS&E Number 66 6 Buddhist, a Monk and his personal theology his achievements and his beliefs, / cosmology was that Knowledge and frequently in his own words. Experience matters. In his view, his religion After the Film – Jeffrey explained why he was a search for knowledge and a pursuit made the film. He had long wanted to of Science. He saw the true paths of make a film, but was surprised to learn that Science and Religion to be identical, and no one else had already made one about was gently critical of both Science and John Dobson. He was initially attracted to Religious authorities who could not accept Dobson because his telescope design, this ‘truth’. This and his engagement with which had such an effect on popular the outside world through Astronomy Astronomy and which is now universally caused his ejection from his religious order in available, and to explain why it was given 1968. to the world for free, when it’s copyright Dobson’s Telescope design, about which he could have made Dobson a lot of money. was characteristically modest and self- Clearly John Dobson did not care for depreciation, is an Alt-Azimuth form. material things. Jeffrey’s involvement in Imagine a very large Civil War era military Astronomy started 30 years ago, as the mortar. They are able to go up/ down and result of seeing the Sun through a sidewalk rotate 360 degrees across. A Dobsonian 30 cm Dobsonian telescope encounter. Telescope is mounted like this, with a large He was amazed at being able to look on mirror at the base of the tube and an the face of a star, our own, a spiky ball of eyepiece near the mouth of the mortar, fire with flares and prominences. He allowed for very cheap fabrication. Nearly hopes that he has captured both the overnight his design liberated Astronomy inventor who created the Dobsonian from precision Glass, Brass and heavy Telescope and the activist who started the Ironmongry to Cardboard, Plastic and any sidewalk Astronomer movement. (I think piece of glass you could find (at one time he has done so – GD). he had an enormous stockpile of second hand porthole glasses), producing large Members’ Observations telescopes that everyone could afford, with Monty Leventhal’s Solar Activity the light gathering performance previously report for May 2015 – Again the Sun is only achievable by Institution funded refusing to meet reasonable expectations. instruments. Thus, a Dobsonian revolution By the well-established sequence of 11 in popular Astronomy and access to deep year cycles, we should be at a Solar sky features. A controversial aspect of Maximum, but evidence of Solar activity is John Dobson’s Astronomy was touched on, scarce. During a generally wet / with John explaining that his overriding overcast month, Monty’s observing interest is Cosmology but that he has faith commenced a week into the month, with that a ‘Steady State’ theory will ultimately three small groups of small spots. A triumph over the current accepted wisdom highlight of the month occurred on the of a ‘Big Bang’ Universe. This is considered 11th, when a flare persisted for 23 hours an Astronomical ‘Heresy’ in Academic (usually 20 minutes of so). Monty Astronomical circles. It is however observed some hedgerow flares, but his unfortunate that the version of the movie we observations were disrupted by another viewed, the 55 minute version, that there ten day run of bad weather, at the end of was not time to focus on Sir Isaac Newton, which there was only one small group to and his beliefs. If we can forgive Newton be seen. On the 25th a very long filament his non-conformist religious views and his was seen, 500 million km long by Monty, devotion to Alchemy, then it is a small thing but up to 750 million km long by other to overlook that John Dobson was a ‘Steady observers. State’ man. So, during this film we gain an The Score, 88 sunspots for the month, 51 insight into the personality of John Dobson, North and 37 South. Verdict – Not good

6 TBS&E Number 66 7 enough, only a D+ result from the Sun this operation procedure, and his role in month. Public Astronomy of the time. Ross Mitchell and Patricia Wilkinson’s 1.1 The Windsor and Richmond Gazette report on the Varuna Star Party page 12, Saturday January 18, 1896 Weekend Vauruna is a country property / The Planet Jupiter. dark sky viewing site owned by the ASNSW, As enquiries have been made by some which hosts an annual gathering of persons with reference to the brilliant star Amateur Astronomers for a weekend camp. which is now visible in the north east about This year nearly 300 people attended (40 of 9 o'clock in the evening, it will perhaps be whom being children). A good time was desirable to inform them that it is the Planet had by all, the weather was ‘fair’, but Jupiter. As the orbit of this planet lies seeing was variable due to occasional outside our own, it will, after a little clouds. While attending, Tricia won an reflection, be understood that when the ‘Argo Navigus’, a star locating device planet comes to that part of the sky which suitable for use on a Dobsonian telescope. is directly opposite to the sun it is much Having no need of this, she is offering this to nearer to us than at any other time. As Association members for about half it’s $300 Jupiter revolves around the sun in a period retail value. Varuna is a turnoff, on the of nearly twelve years, it follows that he will road from Lithgow to Mudgee. arrive at the part of the heavens opposite Garry’s ‘Observations’ Presentation to the sun once in every thirteen months. during the Sydney City Skywatcher’s He was in opposition to the sun on the 23rd December, 1894, and will again arrive at meeting of June 1, 2015. that point on the 24th of the current month. Part 1, John Tebbutt F.R.A.S.’s His path round the sun being an ellipse of unanticipated discovery during early considerable eccentricity, his distance 1896, while doing routine Jovian from the earth is not always the same at observations; Comet Impact Spots the time of opposition. When, at the time of seen on Jupiter! opposition, the planet is close to his perihelion, or that part of his orbit which lies For this month’s meeting I provided two nearest to the sun, he is much nearer to the examples, over a century apart, of the earth, and his apparent brilliancy is media’s handling of two very different greater. At his opposition on October Astronomical news items. 13th, 1892, he was not far from the perihelion, and his brilliancy was, therefore, Introduction - The first instance comprises of the subject of general remark. His a choice of three articles which are distance from us at that time was 365 representative of a rash of articles, Millions of miles. The opposition-distance frequently re-quotations of these articles, as has been gradually increasing since that reported in other papers. The Genesis of year, so that on the 24th instant it will be my interest in this particular ‘run’ is of course greater than in October, 1892, by 32 a mistake on my part, I misread the ‘January Millions of miles. last’ of the final article to imply that these The opposition distance will go on events took place in the preceding year, increasing till 1898. 1895, rather than a preceding month of the After that year it will diminish, so that in year 1896. Thus I thought I had found an 1904 we shall again see the planet as ideal for a ‘And what was John Tebbutt conspicuous as it was in 1892. Jupiter doing 120 years ago?’ report, during the was long supposed to have but four formation year of the BAA NSW / Sydney satellites revolving around him, but only City Skywatchers. Nonetheless, it remains recently another has been discovered by interesting reading and it serves two points, means of the great refracting telescope of an illustration of John Tebbutt’s standard the Lick Observatory, California. There

7 TBS&E Number 66 8 are but two or three telescopes in the world with the hindsight of the experience of capable of exhibiting this tiny object. The seeing the Shoemaker-Levy Comet other satellites, however, can be seen with a impacts on Jupiter, we can now readily good ship's glass, but a telescope of at least identify. The ‘flannel’, of the reporter’s 3 inches aperture is required to observe the florid interpretation of Tebbutt’s character beautiful phenomena exhibited by them. and observations (I excised a fair bit from The observation of their transits, occultations the original article!) put to use as and eclipses has been systematically metaphorical reflection on then carried out at this Observatory from 1864 contemporary but now long forgotten down to the present time, and the results will political or social events is a characteristic turn out useful for the correction of the of many TROVE articles referring to the life tables of their motions. and work of John Tebbutt F.R.A.S. JOHN TEBBUTT, F.R.A.S. The Observatory, Incidentally, on the night I reported the Windsor, January 14, 1896. above to the meeting, up on the ground Comment - 1.1 is Tebbutt’s public floor of the observatory I noticed an open announcement of the particulars of an book in a glass case, open at a 1957 era unusual but amateur observable event. image of Jupiter, with it’s surface showing Tebbutt also makes a request for public four such Comet impact effects, without involvement in observing this event, a call any visible explanation of such an origin! he has regularly issued over the fifty to sixty years of his active observing life. The Sydney Morning Herald, page 3, Tuesday September 22, 1896 The Sydney Mail and New South Wales SPOTS ON JUPITER. Advertiser, Saturday February 1, 1896 While preparing to observe the eclipse dis- appearance of Jupiter's second satellite From his Windsor crow's nest Mr. John on the 23rd January last, Mr John Tebbutt, Tebbutt declares in the press that he has F.R.A.S., noticed a black and nearly detected a black body stealing across the circular spot on the disc of the planet. planet Jupiter's face. In consequence of It was situated on the north of the north this unprecedented occurrence he seeks equatorial dark belt, and finding that it was the assistance of amateur astronomers in neither a satellite nor a shadow, but a confirming or denying the discovery. For marking of a very conspicuous character, some nights in New South Wales it is measurements were at once taken. therefore probable, should the heavens be Four days later a second spot more propitious, that more tubes will be levelled elongated and not so dark, was observed. at the biggest planet of our system, and The results of the observations, which were more attention paid him, than has been the continued until May, were embodied in a case of late. … Only Mr. Tebbutt is so paper which Mr Tebbutt, as president, painstaking a scientist, a person would communicated to the last meeting of the almost be inclined to think that one of New South Wales Branch of the British Jupiter's satellites had gone wrong. Even a Astronomical Association. It is the residence in heaven — if we are to believe intention of Mr Tebbutt to deduce a period Milton — is not always a guarantee that a of the planet's rotation from the body will keep straight. A satellite like a observations secured. sycophant can never be depended on. Comment - 1.3 is a belated account that Comment - 1.2 is a subsequent account, Tebbutt’s investigations of this phenom- somewhat confused by the reporter of enon has concluded, with a report to the something out of the ordinary that Tebbutt BAA NSW Branch. While I haven’t seen had seen during the (for him) routine the paper, which might actually have observation of Jupiter and satellite transit been formally delivered to the NSW Royal phenomena, a new and temporary surface Society and later discussed at a BAA NSW feature on Jupiter, something whose cause, meeting, I think it is interesting to note that

8 TBS&E Number 66 9 Tebbutt’s attention seems to have been Historic astronomy facility first to focused on something practical and within see black hole. (Page 7 article) his skill set, the estimation of a Jovian surface WHO would have thought that a radio rotation period, rather than on theoretical astronomy facility at Potts Hill – an speculation, i.e. on what caused the dark unassuming suburb in Sydney’s west – was spot to occur. A lesson to draw from all this the first to observe a ‘black hole’ – the is that sometimes, routine and systematic Centre of our galaxy, allowing the observations can throw up unexpected beginning of deep space mapping? discoveries, ‘Luck’ favours the well prepared The facility, located within secure Sydney etc. Water property, was connected to the

Evening News, page 4, Tuesday September transit telescope built and operated during the1950s. It was also used as a testing 22, 1896. ground for the Parkes (Radio) telescope … "The Mother of Three," the lady, in which was built later and so famously accounting for the prolonged stay of her tracked the first moon landing outlined in husband, the astronomer, at his point of the movie ‘The Dish’. observation in the Andes says, that, "after (Article includes a photo of the restored Venus had got over her trouble the Sun building ant the caption ‘Sydney Water’s broke out in spots." A more serious person, Stephen Lacono and Phil Bennett at the however, than the star gazer in the play, in restored Potts Hill Cottage’) other words Mr. John Tebbutt, had, it seems, Comment 2.1 – OK, The Potts Hill a real and very interesting experience in the Interferometer and its successors observed way of spots while engaged in watching an / charted radio sources which included eclipse of Jupiter's second satellite in the radio source at the Centre of our own January last. They were visible on the big Galaxy, a location assumed to include a planet itself. It is understood that they Black hole. For those who may have afforded an opportunity for conclusions some difficulty in placing Potts Hill around which will be of consider able importance Sydney, it is the site of a reservoir near to science. The subject is not one, to be Bankstown / Chullora, on high ground a sure, which is likely to excite a very lively few thousand Metres North of Bankstown amount of general attention, but it is to be railway station. presumed that it will, not be altogether wanting in interest even for people to Centre first to see black hole (Page 12 whom, in every sense of the word, Jupiter is article) From page 7 a long way off. All that remained of the facility was a badly vandalised cottage. Part 2, Some Local News, An The largest of the dishes was taken to India Astronomy site at Potts Hill Reservoir – where it still operates – after the facility preserved was closed. The significance of the My friend Stephen Bingle, who ranges far cottage was recently discovered by and wide on his travels, rather like one of Mr. Sydney Water Heritage Manager Phil Tebbutt’s comets, but limited to a terrestrial Bennett, who saved it from demolition and sphere, drew my attention to an article initiated moves for its restoration. “We published in the local paper, by Mick realised the cottage had some Roberts, which features the attention significance due to its design,” Mr Bennett catching title of ‘Historic astronomy facility said. “After some research we found Dr first to see black hole.’ Clearly, something Harry Wendt, who did his PhD. On the we have all missed? telescope. “What initially drew my eyes to the cottage The Bankstown Torch, pages 7 and 12, was that it is a building within a building. Wednesday May 6, 2015. Apparently the radio transmitters within the building made it very hot. As a

9 TBS&E Number 66 10 consequence another shell was built on the ’Nineteen Eighty Four’, by George outside to help insulate the building.” Orwell. Australian Pioneer in Radio Physics and radio Astronomy, Ruby Payne-Scott also Discussion of the book. operated out of the facility. The grimmest, hardest book to read so far, Mr. Bennett said an interpretive centre, even more so than Cormac MacCarthy’s housing associated history, would be ‘On The Road’, found it hard to continue housed in the building. (This article reading as none of the characters were includes three photos, and the caption ‘The easy to get attached to. It made better Radio astronomy facility at Potts Hill was the sense if you had read ‘Animal Farm’ first, to first to observe the black hole – the Centre absorb this children’s fable of life under of our galaxy, and allowed the mapping of developing totalitarianism. Comment our Galaxy (from top) an astronomer inside was made on the relationship that the Potts Hill facility and the badly develops between the torturer and the vandalised cottage, prior to restoration.) tortured, an effect noted in ‘real life’, Comment 2.21 – The uppermost photo is literature as memoirs of Greece under the centred on an alt-azimuth Radio telescope Colonels and various South American and shows a corner of the cottage, then a regimes emerged in print. Also a technician inspecting a valve and paper reference to the Stockholm syndrome chart recorder and finally the vandalised (Prisoners starting to identify with their cottage, pre-restoration. The second part captors) In Columbia, 76 % of prisoners of this article, apart from the overly married their captors! ambitious title, requires no further correction. Is Winston Smith’s story set in time? There The correct response would be I guess to are influences of Blair’s 1935 Spanish civil invite Phil Bennett to the Observatory or to war experience, the WW2 Nazi experience the Canterbury and District Historical Society and fears of an Atomic War. The sort of meeting to speak on the topic. world that Mr Putin (the Harry Potter © Garry P. Dalrymple June 2, 2015 character?) is trying to re-assemble. A message for today is … that technology permits eternal observation, without a Big Brother figure motivating things, but you may or may not be being observed at this moment, better to internalise self- supervision. Currently the NSW police are trying to use OPAL cards and Credit Card transactions to monitor citizens of interest to the police. It was noted that while Big Brother’s view screens and cameras are nearly in every public place, but attention is focussed more on the middle classes, the Party members, than the general The Concord Public Library SF&F population. Discussion Group meeting of Comment was made over the government’s use of Fear and Monday, June 1, 2 to 3.30 pm. Propaganda to ‘guide’ public opinion (could never happen here?) and Present were – 13 people, 5 M and 8 F. reference to the lies of others in the New to the Meeting persecution of Julian Assange, Chelsea Judy, doing work experience at the Library. Bradley and Mr Snowden, who are each in big trouble for telling the truth about what Book discussed this meeting; Governments do and undercutting the lies issued by Governments about their actions.

10 TBS&E Number 66 11 This book is frequently used as a school text, ‘perfect’ and ‘scientific’ society has which ruins its impact to some degree, but it risen from the ashes of a previous is better that it is a High School, HSC text (Nuclear?) civil war. rather than a Primary school text? Might The Anime series, ‘Psycho Pass’, where serve as a prophylactic to minds about to your state of mind, rather than your actions become voting citizens? However this has defines what police response will be, harm to be weighed against the mind numbing prevention to lethal force. An unconcern- process of reading it in class, which tended ed psychopath is ‘free’, while his highly to blunt any impact by the decimation of concerned victims are a threat to society the plot into lesson sized chunks? As a to be shot on sight! lesson for teenagers, the view screens and Movies, ‘V for Vendetta’ and ‘Equilibrium’. Internet use parallels could be valuable, as was the suggestion that a Government can Deviation, The 1915 Christmas Truce always duck its promises / re-write the rules Troops not only stopped fighting on on ‘delivery’ by bunging on a suitably December 25, 1915, but on the next day funded and sustained scare campaign. they found that they were reluctant to Was Winston Smith set up? Referring back shoot their previous day’s companions. to the selective surveillance of citizens. Was Considerable efforts were made to O’Brien the only character presented who prevent a repeat the next year, units re- had moral integrity, i.e. he asked Winston assigned to different parts of the line etc. and Julia if they were prepared to do News of the event severely censored etc. unethical things for the resistance. © Garry P. Dalrymple June 6, 2015. Re-Read? – Some had read this book previously and commented on the differing The Concord Public Library SF&F impacts it had had on them, depending on Discussion Group meeting of their stage of life. One listened to it as an audio book, another’s reading lead to Monday, July 6, 2015, 2 to 3.30 watching the movie. pm. Hopes for the Future? Currently, in our time the ‘Gospel of Prosperity’ that everyone can Present were – 10 people, 5 M and 5 F (it / should strive to be rich, has raised was a cold day, school holidays and inequality, while income equality is known numerous apologies were received, but and proven to be the way to create also perhaps the Book choice had some universal prosperity, even to the point of effect on today’s attendance?). making the well-off better off as average income rises. The point of this book might News of the meeting be, to state a warning, to prevent a future Today we were graced by the presence of as outlined in the book, to encourage Emerald, a sometimes Concord Library readers to take a stand, as, Winston tells worker, who is doing an assignment on O’Brien that if the Proles ever become ‘Popular Culture’ (if it’s popular, can it aware then they will overturn the party. Or really be called Culture?), specifically on it could be that life in the West is pretty perceptions about ‘Vampires’. She was good, Enjoy it! attending to seek our views on this topic via a Q and A session following the Other Stories, Tales of life under discussion of this month’s book. The first Totalitarianism Weekend in October this year will feature a ‘Cloud Atlas’ (imagine if North Korea had comic book weekend at Concord Library, been bought out by MacDonalds?) curated by Lim. A lot of nice stuff will ‘This Perfect Day’ by Ira Levin, (1960s) all materialise, including the ‘Game of done with Love, Advertising and Thrones’ throne of knives. Pharmaceutical maintained wellness. ‘We’, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, (1920s) where a The Book discussed this meeting;

11 TBS&E Number 66 12 ’Wicked’, by Gregory Maguire (US). figure relied on by past story writers, an entirely two dimensional character of Discussion of the book. unknown motivation who is brought in As mentioned in my book review (which I ‘explain’ some otherwise inexplicable read to the meeting) this book is a difficult crime. What’s the point of the Clock proposition to isolate from associated stories, wagon? the original L. Frank Baum ‘Oz’ books, the Issues about the lack of maternal 1939 (colour) ‘The Wizard of Oz’ movie, the involvement, Elphaba’s presumed son. Musical ‘Wicked’ (and even the Sean The original story kept getting in the way, t Connery Sci-Fi movie ‘Zardoz’). Hard to only really connects to the known original isolate and assess only the book on its merits. story for the last few pages

What’s the book about? It’s about the life Comments – the ‘Good Witch’ in ‘The and loves of Elphaba, the so called ‘Wicked Wizard of Oz’, starts here as an empty Witch of the West’ in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, her headed social climbing ‘Heather’, birth, childhood, school years and love life, gradually learns how to like Elphaba as a ending with her death, as described in the person, picks up some magic skills and movie. It might be seen as rounding out ends up marrying a ‘Daddy Warbucks’ the character. type millionaire industrialist. The original Elements that some readers enjoyed; series of OZ books are good plain Humour, the Priest being actively heckled children’s stories. The Movie was much by his flock, the bitten mid-wife (by the new better. The Musical was so much better. born baby Elphaba). Elphaba’s ‘Nancy Drew’ phase, where she Also mentioned in discussion – If you enjoy attempted to investigate the death of her the bit about Talking Animals in this book, Animal mentor. you might enjoy Graham Base’s stories.

The Water Witch subplot, which involved a Verdict – Only two out of the ten people love affair / resistance plot. In the movie present liked the book, the rest were under Elphaba goes down a trapdoor rather than whelmed by it and wondering how this being destroyed by water. could become a ‘Best Seller’ for any The British influence, the main characters reason other than Lobby sales at theatres spend much of their time in the Teashops of where the Musical of the same name was Shiz, like in the Harry Potter stories? They go playing. Most of the ‘good’ points for this to the Philosopher’s Club, rather than a bar? meeting account come from an Nearly tolerable, depicting the school life explanation of why this book was chosen, and gives the witch a love life. rather than just an apology? Unresolved / unsatisfying elements Why? – ‘Wicked’ was written like this Special additional feature, where we help because the author liked the OZ story and Emerald with her homework! decided to fill in some bits of the background that interested him. This Interviews with a Vampire SF Reader Author has some other similar books, ‘What we do in the Dark’ is said to be a adventures set in the borrowed copyright useful documentary on ‘Vampire expired worlds of other writers. Community Issues’ from New Zealand. Expected much more to emerge from the ‘Ultraviolet’ presents a modern view of oppression of Animals (animals with human Vampires with a mission, and those who level intelligence and the power of speech). oppose them. A plot to develop an Expected more to emerge about the artificial blood, then bring on a Nuclear ‘Wizard’, but he just packs up and leaves. Winter and wipe out humanity during the Why is Elphaba is Green and Water phobic, months of darkness is uncovered. The Who Mother Yackle really is? This raised Vampire fighters are constantly being the spectre of ‘The Mysterious Chinaman’, a replaced as their colleagues are

12 TBS&E Number 66 13 ‘corrupted / converted’ by the wealth and Vampiric aversion to Silver, arises from power of the Vampires. the thirty pieces of silver paid for his Ace, the ‘Goth Grandfather’ has had some betrayal of Jesus etc. Vlad the Impaler experience of the local ‘wannabe’ from Trans-sylvania / Wallachia adds the Vampire identifying community, but wooded stake / damned soul aspects. cautions that there are some really ‘bent’ Romance? – The threat of vampire and darkly manipulative people within this Sexuality present in Count Dracula / Count ‘scene’. Yorga has been ‘tamed’ by the Romantic Through Movies and TV the image of figure of the Vampire in the works of Anne Vampires has changed greatly within our Rice and Stephanie Meyer. lifetimes, initially they were objects of fear, Recent Trends – They used to be aristocrat, enough to motivate Village people to arm now they are People, just like us, with themselves with Pitchforks and burning problems, just undead. They are less torches to attack the vampires in their midst, scary (with powers held in reserve) and to the current crop of ‘sparkly’ ‘Twilight’ more lovable. Many recent Vampire inspired cool, rich and forever young stories attempt to explain the basis of Vampire Evolution - What Vampires Vampiric powers and as we are becoming represent has evolved over time. Fear of more open to sexuality, Vampires are Vampirism has been similar to or inspired by; being written as emerging from out of the pre-historic associations with Bat filled caves social closet rather than out of the grave. and Rabies, the Royal Vampirism passing Signs to look out for – When Maccas starts through European dynasties, Porphyria; the to advertise that they now serve Blood threat of spread of vampirism, seen as the Sausages and ‘True-blood’ Thick shakes, threat of women’s sexuality; the spread of the widespread availability of 100 plus syphilis and or Tuberculosis; as a threatening Sunblock lotions. subculture during the early 20th century, with The Future for Vampires? The Vampire the threat to a ‘wholesome’ community meme will continue to evolve. As ever, represented by Homosexuality and Soviet they will continue to represent what we sponsored Communism; late 20th Century; most fear. the threat of AIDS and currently Ebola virus? Comment – Consider also the Vampire / Popularity? – Due to the Mystical aspect of Mormon connection, deeply attached to their Live-but-Dead nature. We like to be ‘family’ and they always have perfect scared. The appeal of being able to look teeth? in on these dark secret societies, when we After the discussion - The book for the can’t make sense of the real behind the September meeting, ‘Odd Thomas’, by scenes cabals running our real life world. Dean Koontz was chosen because it is an I.e. the secret Vampiric Bankers Cabal in the Author / Title that is freely available through ‘Blade’ series is easier to understand than interlibrary loans. © Garry Dalrymple July the Gre-exit / Euro crisis. 16, 2015. Origins – There are numerous sources for the various elements which make up the Vampiric tradition. These are many and varied, as many cultures have their own Vampire traditions (I.e. there is a Malaysian The Parramatta RSL Club SF&F Book tradition of head only Vampires, which grow Review discussion meeting, Thursday on trees that can transform from hanging July 16, 2015 (Formerly the Infinitas fruit into bats) perhaps the ‘First’ Vampire of Bookshop SF&F Book Review, meeting), a European tradition was the Biblical figure taking place in the dining room area of the of Judas. His act of betrayal causes him to Parramatta RSL Club, corner of Macquarie shun the light of day, he’s ‘undead’ and O’Connell streets, Parramatta, 6.30 to because his crime is such that neither 8.30 pm. heaven nor hell will take him in and his

13 TBS&E Number 66 14 Book Discussed: ‘Tuff Voyaging’, became the ubiquitous pop culture phenomena it is today. It had its origins in by George R.R. Martin (US). a series of initially unconnected stories,

Who was there? Beth, Brian, Cassandra, which were published in early 1980s SF Garry (large), Garry (tall), Graeme, Ian, Len, magazines. Some additional stories, and Liam, Michael and Tim. 9M 2F. linking passages were written, resulting in a NB. Tall Garry is the Dungeon Master to this novel length treatment. group’s Gamers. from page 35 of Garry’s The story is ‘Soft’ Science Fiction, being Rough Notes, April 2015 onwards. about the adventures of a wealthy Merchant / Trader who tours the Universe in News and extraneous conversation his own Space ship wheeling and dealing. I was able to use my Photo Id for the first The Main Character is an opportunist, time, to ‘walk through’ entry to the RSL club ethical to some degree, but not very via a swipe of the card, while Tim and Liam Empathic, a Stephen Fry type figure?, who had to battle with screens and text cares more about cats than people. He is recognising software to gain entry to the a character of Intellect rather than of club. The dining room is straight in the front social engagement. This thin character- entrance, past the pool Tables area. It isation is however typical of its era, as the seats about 80 people, but on the night the SF of the 1980s was more about describing SF&F book group represented the largest the doing fantastic things than accurately table in the room and most of its sit down describing how people having these things customers. The $12 Day’s Special is done to them might feel about it, likewise, recommended. the credibility of the economics under- While we were ordering our food, an pinning the ‘World’ of the story do not bear impressively tall (2 metres?) drag Queen close inspection. Also, the main appeared to collect his / her meal, character suffers by being an ‘Only in apparently the club hosts a ‘Trannies America’ type stereotype, a space going Thursday Bingo night’ on some Thursdays. Libertarian Entrepreneur etc. Much more disturbing though are the One interesting SFnal element is that on his collect-your-meal buzzers. They tend to go spaceship he has a chamber, which is a off like a Gojira sized cricket while you are time machine of sorts, as it allows for the halfway through swallowing a sip of a beer accelerated evolution of animals etc. (canned Guinness, much inferior to long This the Main Character uses to his neck Sheaf Stout or Coopers, as it tastes advantage. Although the personality of ‘thin’, sweetened and lacking in the bitter his character does not evolve or grow and fruity hops undertones of a better stout), during the events of the stories, for contrast, with gargle fountain effects. a secondary character is introduced, in the General conversations round the table form of a woman who runs a space included complaints about the cultural station, and this provides an opportunity for implications of local ‘Development’, such as comparison and contrast, an alternative that which dispossessed us of our last view of the events being described. The meeting place. There was discussion of a basis for this story is not as deep or as well- SF Movie made from one of George R.R. reasoned as in Richard Morgan’s ‘Altered Martin’s books. It was apparently quite Carbon’ (series) and unfavourable appalling. It lasted less than a week on comparisons of the book’s style were cinema release and it is, hard (and made with the contemporaneous ‘Space unrewarding) to find on DVD. Opera’ SF works of Poul Anderson, Lee Modestitt and others. Talking about the Book; There was some speculation as to whether George R.R. Martin’s ‘Tuff Voyaging’ this book, like ‘Game of Thrones,’ could be This book was written in the mid1980s, being turned into a TV series. The verdict was, © 1986, well before his ‘Game of Thrones’ probably not, but possibly the hilarious

14 TBS&E Number 66 15 situations depicted could be the basis of a representatives of the much maligned Movie, i.e., movement from scene to scene class of ‘Irish Navvies’ , an important rather than 12 or more interest sustaining working class group of Georgian to episodes. Len says that he spotted only a Victorian England that otherwise has had few typos in the book, suggesting that back very little recorded. in the 1980s they still employed literate His previous reading was ‘Barbarians‘, by editors rather than spellchecking programs. Terry Jones and D. This book was the Comment and Conclusions – Most of the source of a recent TV series, the book people who read it found it to be enjoyable allowing for much more detail than the TV enough, as a light and easily read SF book. series. It records the view of Roman world, It doesn’t pay to look too deeply into the as it has come down to us through Science or the Economics of the Universe traditional (Roman then Roman Catholic) depicted, but it is entertaining enough, if sources in a Myth-busting manner. It you can get past a not too likeable main makes the point that the view of ‘History’ is character. Compared to later George R.R. greatly twisted from the objective reality of Martin books, this book is mercifully short, at firstly a paranoid Roman state which saw 300 or so pages. all external peoples as enemies and ‘Barbarians’ to the conquered and Next Month’s book will be ‘The Goblin Romanised and which was then taken Emperor,’ by Katherine Addison, August 20, over by the Catholic Church, which had its 2015, Parramatta RSL Club. own agenda, of painting all non-Catholic © Garry P Dalrymple July 19, 2015 Christians as damnable ‘Heathens’ worthy No Notes for the June meeting, the first to be only of demonising and persecution, after held at the Parramatta RSL club, following assuming all the achievements of the old the demise of the Mars Hill Café, a victim of Pagan Roman Empire. Parramatta’s recent ‘Development’ push. DF – Is currently reading ‘Outdoors‘, a book by Peter Goldsworthy. This picture book documents many of his recent major outdoor art works, including a series of painted domes and a Snake shaped artificial Earthwork, which has come to be known as ‘The Lambton Worm’ (As in the Notes from the Sydney Futurian Lord Lucan family’s curse myth story). SF&F Discussion meeting of Friday JF – Is currently reading ‘Cakes, Custard and Category Theory‘, by Eugenia Chen, June 19, 2015. Topic, Royal this is a book about how to teach Families & Republics in SF Stories. Mathematics in a way that engages rather Source, Meeting Notes starting April 2015, than excludes student interest. His pages 27 to 29 previous reading has included a sort of SF Present were – Garry Dalrymple, Diane book, ‘Remember Me‘, by Sophia Kinsella, Fox, John Fox, Anne Rankins and Dean where a main character awakes in 2007 Wheatley. Apologies were received from – with no memory of the past decade. He Stephen Bingle and Brian Walls. has just bought, and hopes to read an ‘on DVD’ compilation set of issues of the Recent reading; magazine, ‘National Geographic, 125 GD – Is currently reading, ‘Burke and Hare‘, years’ (1888 to 2013?). by Owen Dudley Edwards (UK), a biography AR – Is currently reading ‘New Earth‘, by of the Edinburgh’s two pioneer Ben Bova, which is an extension of his environmentally sustainable anatomist’s ‘Solar System’ series of books, and takes supply agents. The Author of this book things one step further, as an expedition is making the point that the lives of these formed to travel for 200 years to a newly chaps, extensively documented, are discovered ‘Earth-like’ planet and return to

15 TBS&E Number 66 16 report back to earth. the Blacktown Salvation Army shop DW – Is currently reading the second book in might be a worthwhile mid-week the ‘Altered Carbon‘ series, ‘Broken Angel’, excursion? by Richard Morgan (there is a third? This Brian has also seen a few movies, scenes book shares a major character with it’s from the ‘The Man in the High Castle’ TV prequel, but this is more of a military SF / series (from the novel by Philip K. Dick). Battle scene story, rather than a Mystery / Other News Social - This week, Garry’s Detective style story. Also, after a long Mother has had her second cataract absence, Dean went back to and read the surgery, the post-operative care final chapters of ‘The Last Dark’ by Stephen connected to this having grounded Garry Donaldson, which is the conclusion of his for much of the past month. Dean fears long running series. that his preferred bakery has been the These three chapters were effectively an target of an end of financial year extended series of battle scenes and their stocktaking fire, or a proximity to a highly descriptive style was VERY MUCH inferior to inflammable Obied type property. that encountered in Richard Morgan’s John and Diane Fox will be making a books (like ‘The Steel Remains’). The next public spectacle of themselves at this book for Dean will be ‘Foxglove Summer’ Saturday’s Winter Magic Festival, a largely which is a sixth ‘Rivers of London’ book by commercialised deep winter festival held Ben Arronovitch. This book sees the story in the Blue Mountains. They will be moving out of London and the main appearing at the old Library, Katoomba, character investigating the abduction of and will be ‘touting’ on behalf of the local two girls, by entering into discussions with the Toastmaster’s group, seeking new recruits. local River Ghods. Fred Nile has in the past campaigned against the ‘Magic’ of the Winter Magic News Festival, leading to damnation etc. The Brian Walls’ Report (phoned in) The third Thursday of the month, Infinitas On the Afternoon of our meeting, Brian SF&F Book review meeting, which doesn’t phoned me with his apologies and some meet at the bookshop, no longer meets at news. Brian has recently had a something the Mars Hill Café, a few doors away from of a fannish career Personal Best. Having the Parramatta River Bridge. It has re- infiltrated the Salvation Army Opportunity located to somewhere within the shop operation, where he is currently Parramatta RSL Club. The Café has been working three days a week, in recognition of lost to natural causes, property speculation his past Librarian / Bookshop experiences, / redevelopment. he has now been put in charge of ‘books’ This weekend sees a Lord of The Ring’s Fest at their Blacktown store. He gets to on Free to Air TV. decide what goes on the shelves and The movie ‘The Martian’ features … well a pricing etc. He was able to reveal some Martian stranded on Earth. information useful to book reading SF fans, There are three SF-ish series currently such as that it is shop policy that donated causing Confusion, Nearly Human, Real magazines do not get displayed. I.e. they Humans and the other one. One is about are dumped because mostly they are out of a young ones style mixed Vampire / date Women’s magazines. Not very much Werewolf / Ghost household, one is a SF comes in, at Blacktown (And, would there dreadfully sloooooow Skandinavian soap be a SF donating ‘homeland’ in Sydney?). opera series about A.I. Robots living with Books received are priced and put on people and the last is a police procedural, display _for a period of time_ and after this set in the future when Androids are nearly they go into a bargain bin at the front of the people, enough to be partnered with store (priced at Fifty cents or twenty cents police detectives. In the latter, the per book?) So, depending on your view of Androids are usually much more ‘human’ Blacktown resident’s literary tastes, a trip to than the wooden acting of the real people 16 TBS&E Number 66 17 (think of the Androids as being the new a Mercury feature name. African Americans). US Naval forces deployed near the Veteran UK Actor Christopher Lee has died, disputed Spratley Islands have reportedly (Dracula, LoTR and Starwars etc.) his death been bothered by overflights by a Mach 8 was not immediately announced, this Chinese Glider! This sounds like an air having nothing whatsoever to do with breathing scram jet, single stage to orbit Hammer Horror like expectations that he type of thing. would rise from the grave… . Garry has discovered the intriguing fact, A new Graphic Novel has been released, via TROVE, that during 1933 his Grandfather ‘The Seven Percent Solution’, based on the was an agent for a ‘Water Gas Generator’ late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle original, it unit, costing 73 pounds, which promised to features Sigmund Freud trying to get be 77% more efficient than Petrol / Sherlock Holmes off cocaine so he can get kerosene fuelled power sources. The on with investigating crime. device passes steam over hot carbon, Unjustifiable Fantasy – Recently on TV leading to Hydrogen gas to fuel Tractors or The Rev. Fred Nile ‘morals’ and anti-gay on site power plants, a tantalising option crusader, when asked for any positive for modern day Hydrogen powered cars? aspect to change in social attitudes to Gay TBS&E Issues #64 and 65 were handed and other differently inclined people, out at this meeting, pointed out that it was his parliamentary committee that recommended abolition of Discussion of the Topic, Royal the ‘Gay Provocation’ defence, the let off Families and Republics in SF for killing gay men, i.e. ‘Your Honour I really thought he was going to gaily proposition Stories. me, so me and my twenty mates hiding in The essential contradiction in any society is the bushes were provoked into beating him the question of who should rule, inherited to death and then throwing his body off the rank Vs Meritocracy. We should stop for a cliff …’. moment to consider that this current year th Australia has officially won the War on represents the 800 anniversary of the Terriers, with Johnny Depp’s quarantine signing of Magna Carta, a document dodging dogs deported (by personal which after a time has been the blueprint executive jet), while returning Jihadists, with for human rights and a discipline of Royal second thoughts, will lose their Australian prerogatives, all under a Rule of Law. In citizen ship. Scientific Science Fiction, the Meritocracy should be the rule, presumably some sort Science Space And Astronomy - The of Democratic Republic set up, but the ‘bouncing’ Comet Lander is back on line, other rule of Society is that power corrupts having ‘tweeted’ home, as a consequence (the true ‘sin’ of inherited rank) yet Royal of the Comet’s closer to the Sun light levels persons and Kingdoms are found in SF, re-charging the lander’s batteries. decayed Republics or possibly a During May, NASA tested a huge Mars convenience for writers faced with the Dirigible on Earth, it failed, back to the complex implications of the Alien visitor’s drawing board etc. characteristic request of “Take me to your All vertebrates can yawn, but until now only Leader”. Any Hereditary / Royalty system Primates can yawn contagiously. Budgies has to face the consequences of the fact have now joined this select group, the that the ‘King’ is rarely going to be the best reason for this … not known to Science. bloke in the room, and his firstborn son not First images of the Pluto Flyby mission have necessarily the best of his sons. been received. The closest flyby of Pluto, In ‘The Connecticut Yankee in the Court of the ‘not a planet’ will occur on July 14, 2015. King Arthur, by Mark Twain, a pre-1926 SF An Indian Australian Community newspaper story, the Yankee inventor / industrialist has highlighted that Indian Mathematician enters a kingdom, attempts technological and Black Hole theorist has been awarded 17 TBS&E Number 66 18 improvements but is defeated and his variable views. In a recent program improvements are erased by the status quo. there was a ‘Queen Elizabeth the Tenth’, Early (Movie Matinee era?) SF, such as that not a figure commanding respect. by Edgar Rice Burroughs, ‘Barsoom’, where Otherwise, the Time Lords of Gallifrey, some John Carter of Earth manages to marry into have the genetic ability or whatever the Royal family of Helium, Flash Gordon, necessary to be a Time Lord, but the rest of and in pulp magazines, frequently featured the inhabitants do not, so, a hereditary the adventurer encountering Royal families class / Royalty or not? in charge of worlds, kingdoms, Asteroids etc. Fantasy Writers and their characters set on Then at some point, when SF was no longer quests to recover their denied hereditary re-located in Space Cowboys and Indians birthright almost exclusively deal with Royal stories, and moved onto more realistic Families, and their nearly as royal usurpers. technological SF, the Star Kingdoms sour of In J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of The Rings’, dropped out for a while, before coming Dwarves, Elves and Men each have their back with Frank Herbert’s Dune (influenced own Royal families, only the Orcs miss out, by T. E. Lawrence’s ‘The Seven Pillars of possibly why they are on the baddies side? Wisdom’? and the Starwars movies (a Even Harry Potter, the half-blood prince, is throwback to Movie Matinee storytelling?). who he is because of innate hereditary The works of Robert A. Heinlein (A libertarian powers, rather than through merit or hard SF Writer?) seem to avoid republics and work? Couldn’t all the drama and royalty, or perhaps reflects his political view general nastiness of life in George R.R. that such institutions are irrelevant or Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’ be resolved if subsidiary to the resourceful individual? Or, they just gave it all up and formed a in his ‘Star Ship Troopers’ individuality is Democratic Republic, with Dragons? submerged by the discipline of military Young Adult stories, building on fantasy service, which brings citizenship rights. More tropes / easy to understand set ups considered / realistic Royal families and frequently feature royalty, but in Richard institutions are present in Lois McMaster Harland’s on the other hand takes and Bujold’s ‘Barrayar’ series, where the ‘Counts’ breaks his Royal families, setting up a are descended from the people who republic on Worldshaker before it is re- counted the Taxation / Protection money named Liberator (just like in Blake’s extracted by threat of violence from Seven?). ordinary folk, as was the case in post Roman to Medieval times, and in David Webber’s This Month’s New ‘Science Fiction’ books ‘Honor Harrington’ series, the Manticore at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Royalty are descended from the people Library, level 2, 280 Pitt Street Sydney ($15 who got to the various planets first, i.e. Royal for full membership, $10 for a reader’s status descended from Squatters rights Real ticket) include; Estate ownership etc. ‘Born of Defiance’ by Sherrilyn Kenyon – Marion Zimmer Bradley describes a similar Paranormal Romance? but different ‘Royalty’ where people with ‘A Crown for cold Silver’ by Alex Marshall – mental powers choose to interbreed, Fantasy? producing increasingly powerful offspring, ‘The Witch of Painted Sorrows’ by M. J. who go on to rule, both a ‘Royalty’ and a Rose – Fantasy?

Meritocracy at the same time. This is similar to the set up in Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ series, where the royal Houses represent the products of a Millennia long breeding program to create the kwisatzhaderach, the ‘complete’ and all powerful man. Dr Who, whose attitude to royalty or republics can depending on the writer for each series, has

18 TBS&E Number 66 19 Notes from the Sydney Futurian There was a Steam punk festival at Lithgow ($55 per head entry fee) which SF&F Discussion meeting of Friday was quite successful, even featuring a July 17, 2015. Topic, ’Open Mike’, Brewery visit. an opportunity to talk about any On Sunday, July 26, 10 am to 4 pm, there book that has impressed you recently will be a Dr Who event at the Club Burwood, Burwood. These occasional Present were – Stephen Bingle, Garry meetings usually feature Dr Who related Dalrymple, Diane Fox, John Fox, Anne material with a theme for the day. Rankins, Brian Walls and Dean Wheatley. Alan Dean Foster will be writing the Star Apologies were received from Brian Walls, Trek novelisations (isn’t Simon ‘Spaced’ with Diane and John Fox being ‘snowed Pegg writing the next Star Trek Movie? under’, with once in a decade snowfalls Garry’s Big personal News is that his Mother across the Blue Mountains. is now living at a Nursing Home, after her Recent reading; 88th birthday. Mother’s Dementia is slight, SB – Not reading anything currently, but has but it is mixed with denial, to the detriment been captivated by the Epoch Times’ of her health and personal hygiene. account of Galileo’s imprisonment by the Much guilt and grief during the first week of Roman inquisition, and watching the Wes separation, but Mother is now looking Craven ‘Dracula’ movies off Cable TV. much better and is being cared for better GD – Is currently reading ‘The War of the than I could achieve against her Worlds‘, by H. G. Wells (UK Dec’d). This is opposition at home. She is now more the first time I have read this, and I’m actively involved with other people and is reading it for the August 3, Concord SF&F generally more likely to be able to live out Book Club meeting. Rather a different her allotted span in good health than if she emphasis from the movies etc., with so had stayed with me at home. I have much of the text spent describing scenes also started to lose weight, probably due that could be summarised by latter to a less stressed lifestyle, so I now feel that generations as “English people fleeing, just overall, it has been a positive change for like Belgian Refugees ahead of the both of us. Consequent to the above Germans.” (ask and I’ll tell you the details!) for the first AR- Is currently reading ‘Captain Vorpatril’s time in his life Garry now has Photo Id. This Alliance‘, by Louise McMaster Bujold (US), card features a phoot which makes him while suffering from the cold (Blizzards in look like a big fat Potato (but his ancestors Bankstown, Glaciers growing on Chapel are Irish!). Road)! Also enjoying the TVS, 6 pm serial The former Mars Hill Café, Former Infinitas (Edgar Rice Burrough’s ‘Tarzan’) and the Bookshop SF&F Book Review group is now recent free to air TV screening of the blue meeting at the Parramatta RSL Club, in the movie, ‘Avatar’. dining room area, past the Pool tables DW – Is currently re-reading ‘Danubia‘, the area. The $12 special is recommended. non-fiction book about the Hapsburg There will be a Speculative Fiction Festival dynasty, having seen the ‘Mayerling’ movie at the NSWWC this Saturday, curated by and wondered how it fitted in. Cat Sparks, entry, starting at $60 (more for various ‘How-to-Write’ Workshops and News Master classes etc.), but it’s been booked The Brian Walls’ Report – Brian has out for a week and its two trips to get established the identity of one more ‘Vote there! for Garry’ Australian Democrat voter, and Space and Science News - Garry has he urges readers to look out for the Forrest released a booklet on Pluto, before it Ackerman Documentary to be screened at wasn’t a Planet, views back to 1866 and the Mu Meson Archive. the initial coverage of its 1930 discovery. All this is of course ahead of the New

19 TBS&E Number 66 20 Horizons Pluto (and Charon) flyby this week. TV. TVS is running the 1950s, Black and On the fourth of July … the New Horizons White, ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ TV series, spacecraft shut down briefly, being which preceded the movie of the same overloaded with instructions from Earth. name by many years. We now know that lacking heavy cratering, SBS is currently running a series of Sci-Fi it has a relatively young, reddish and movies, including German and French possibly active surface with a heart shaped ones. Clyde Tombaugh Reggio feature. Its The ABC has ‘Glitch’ screening, when the images from the 30 minute flyby will be buried dead in an outback town return to being beamed back for 16 months, and in life, more mystery than SF. Another 2017 it will do a flyby of another trans- ‘Humans’ TV series is coming (adding to Neptunian object. Pluto is now thought to the confusion) this one features Human like be 80 km bigger than previously, adjusting Robots (like the very sloooooow calculations about its density and internal Scandinavian series?) and presumably structure. Much more to come! crimes (like the Chanel 99 series?). Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands, Topic; Books that impressed us advises that the trans-Neptunian object Sedna is now believed to be of extrasolar recently origin. Its presence in our Solar System, the ‘Man Plus,’ by Fred Pohl (US Dec’d), result of a non-luminous Brown Dwarf star where a Genetically Modified man / passing near our Sun about 4 Billion years Cyborg has been created to be able to ago. function on Mars without a space suit. A second International Space Station re- Modifications included the loss of his supply rocked has gone ‘woof’. A SpaceX genitals (not happy about that!). The rocket this time, its major loss has been the story seems to share some plot DNA with docking adaptor needed to allow people the TV series ‘The Six Million Dollar Man,’ carrying SpaceX rockets to dock. They which was created at much the same time have supplies on hand to last them until as this book (© 1976), but it is very well October. We were surprised at the written, with very few anachronisms or quantity and quality of ‘Space’ new contradictions of what we currently know, coverage found in the ‘Australian Financial for present day readers, except perhaps Review’ newspaper. the scenes to do with the main character’s Robots have been in the news, with an discovery of flowering plants on Mars. So Australian Brick laying Robot, which is able far, this is Dean’s Best Book of the Year. to work 24 hrs a day, rain or shine, and in He was also impressed by the Comic book Japan a 9,000 yen a night (~$A100, version of ‘The Rivers of London’ relatively affordable) Hotel has opened (having already read the book) by Ben offering Robot receptionists, the Japanese Aaronovitch (UK). speaking one is a life-like ‘doll’, but the Ann was impressed by two books, firstly, English speaking one is a velociraptor type ‘2312’ by Robert Silverburg, (US) which Dinosaur – no idea why! is a story set on Mercury, featuring a city on The meeting considered ‘Social Media’ as a rails, on the move across the planet’s means of making more people aware of equator to avoid the Sun. It is a big deal our meetings. We concluded that to miss a connection with the city train, coz Facebook is for older people, the young it gets really hot waiting for the next one! and ‘cool’ are now more likely to be on Secondly, ‘Lord Valentine’s Castle’ by Instagram and Snapchat. So, as most Robert Silverberg (US) where Lord people under 30 no longer read books, we’ll Valentine is the Duke or ruler of Majipoor, a try Facebook first. Garry hopes to attend a very very large planet which is inhabited ‘Facebook’ class on Tuesday. by countless races, living in almost perfect TV and Movies - Stephen has discovered a harmony, many refugees from a rather SF series called ‘Space Station 76’ on Cable

20 TBS&E Number 66 21 unpleasant universe outside of Majipoor. However, the original inhabitants, the shape ‘Burke and Hare’ by Owen changing Metamorphs aren’t too happy Dudley Edwards (UK), Historical about their ‘guests’, occasionally resorting Crime, Biography, © 2010, 300 pages, to terrorism. This has led to the 24mm, Read June 17 to July 3, 2015. Metamorphs being unpopular, shape- changing phobic behaviour from the This book covers the Crimes, the lives and majority and the incarceration of all the times of the murderous duo of Edinburgh. Metamorphs they can catch in the The Author covers all aspects of the unhealthy tropical zone (just like Manus / phenomena, what actually happened as Christmas Island and Nauru?). well as the media reaction to the Garry was impressed, but in a bad way, by sensational crime and the resulting the book ‘Wicked’ by Gregory Maguire consequences. You get a biography of (US), see my review and notes from the July Burke and Hare, and their respective 6, 2015, Concord library meeting for more spouses, the Crime, the Trial and the details. He continues to be surprised that afterlife of the events. The Author has such a ‘stinker’ of a book can have sold attempted to look into the world of the Irish ‘Millions’ of copies. ‘Navvy’, the rural working class construction workers who build the basis of This Month’s New ‘Science Fiction’ books at England’s Industrial Revolution, and indeed the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Library, Empire, characters about whom very little level 2, 280 Pitt Street Sydney ($15 for full is recorded, except for these two, whose membership, $10 for a reader’s ticket) lives were extensively documented due to include; an insatiable public curiosity over the Blood of the Cosmos: Book 2, Saga of identity of the men responsible for their Shadows‘, by Kevin Anderson – SF, Fantasy crimes. ‘The Vorrh’, by B. Catling – SF, Fantasy? The story is complicated because their ‘An Ember in the ashes’, by Sabaa Tahir – SF, crimes, murder of itinerants for commissions Fantasy (or Cricket?) paid by popular Academic Vivisectors. © Garry P Dalrymple July 18, 2015. What is illuminating about their crimes is

that they killed to supply the needs of their social betters, whose own activity was beyond the law, but protected by their social standing, as well as police Books Read and Reviewed involvement before and after the crimes. ‘Burke and Hare’ In Edinburgh, where public dissections were necessary to build a following among by Owen Dudley Edwards the city’s medical students. One ‘Barbarians’, Anatomist had the legal monopoly on by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira executed criminals, so all other Anatomists ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ needed to resort to grave robbed bodies by Jeff Lindsay or ‘natural deaths’ among the poor for the material for their pay-to-view dissections, ‘Wicked’, by Gregory Maguire and to consorting with body snatching ‘Feynman, a Comic book by Jim thieves, or commissioned murderers like Ottaviani & Leland Myrick (both US) Burke and Hare. ‘The Drawing of the Dark, Conclusion – If you ever need to by Tim Powers understand the Crime and the times then ’More Than Human’ this is the book for you. It covers all sides of the events and the resulting legend to a by Theodore Sturgeon degree that I found exhausting! ‘The War of the Worlds’, by H. G. Wells © Garry P Dalrymple, July 17, 2015.

21 TBS&E Number 66 22 able to explain its case than the TV Barbarians, by Terry Jones and series, which was largely a tour of Museum Alan Ereira, Hardcover, BBC TV series tie- treasures and scenes of trudging village in book, ©2006, 288 pages, 32 mm, Read people on the move. June 12 to 16, 2015. © June 20, 2015, Garry P Dalrymple

This book attempts to answer the other side ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ by Jeff of the question put in Monty Python’s ‘The Lindsay (US) © 2004, 288 pages, bought Life of Brian’, ‘And what have the Romans ever done for us?’, by looking into what the July, 2015 a Library Discard book, 16 mm, Read July 3 to 10, 2015, ‘Non-Roman’ world was up to during the Roman era, and it strongly argues the case This book is the first of the seven books that that Roman Empire was NOT a good move make up the (to date) Dexter opus and the for civilisation, that as the victor’s privilege, basis of the seven season TV series about a they merely chose to write their civilisation sympathetic serial killer. I only started to up and the write the ‘Barbarians’ civilisation read this book after seeing the final and achievements down. Subsequent to episode of the TV series and this raises the ‘fall’ of the Roman empire as a civic problems. A major element of the TV power, this position was taken up by a version is that Dexter’s sister Deborah is only faction of the Roman Christian church, a made aware of her brother’s true nature in minority of the Christian movement within the final series, something of a suspension and beyond the borders of the Roman of disbelief, but essential to the ongoing world, as it was convenient for them to tension of the TV series. However, in this adopt ‘Roman’ as good, ‘Non-Roman’ book the cat is let out of the bag earlier. (Barbarian) as ‘Heretical’ This book deals with Dexter as a set in his I believe that the case made, that Rome ways serial killer, who is only beginning to was effectively a paranoid City State, ever attract the sceptical attention of Sergeant expanding its borders for ‘self-protection’ by Doakes (who is about to suffer greatly for a process of Romanising all peoples who his insights). In this book, Dexter is a had the misfortune to be adjacent to wholly formed character, set in his Roman provinces. This book reminds murderous ways, and most of the ‘action’ readers that the Roman institution of Slavery, is in the form of an inner dialogue, an and the Roman reliance on slavery (as we outsider \ pretender’s view of the ‘normal’ rely on fossil fuels) set up a mindset that people he has to live with and maintain a precluded social and technological mask of respectability with. The depiction innovation. The rise of a slave owning of outsider / pretender (and aren’t we all?) upper-class and the degradation of the may be familiar to … SF fans, Aspies, lower class Romans, in the once citizen run anyone with self-doubts, in other words, the republic, set up Europe for feudal serfdom. majority of us who do not suffer from the

delusion of being ‘perfectly average’ or Comment and Conclusion – Any serious universally competent ‘Masters of the attempt to understand the Post Roman Universe’. world that lead to Europe of the Middle- Comment and Conclusion – Read as a ages, is handicapped by the dearth of commencement of the TV series this book objective documentary material. Most disappoints a bit, it seems to refer back to literature that survived was from a Roman a novel length backstory, rather than viewpoint, and then filtered through being the establishment first introduction to monastic translations / transcriptions. Dexter and the world that he lives in. I Consequently it is very difficult to make have read and enjoyed other Dexter sense of the identities of the tribes and books (later in the series) more, and I’m not nations on the move around the end of the sure whether this book was written before Roman era. I think this book was better idea for the TV series was formed, perhaps 22 TBS&E Number 66 23 there is a discarded pilot script out there. The book as the story of the life of the Now that the TV series has finished, I might ‘Wicked Witch of the West’ is lame both as seek out the DVDs of the series, or read the a biography and as a Fantasy ‘Quest’ rest of the books. story, which is what it ultimately becomes up to provide its own explanation for the In case you are interested, the seven Dexter death of the Main Character. Lots of books by Jeff Lindsay are; things occur in this book without explicable Darkly Dreaming Dexter, © 2004 reasons, as in very bad Fantasy; they just Dearly Devoted Dexter, © 2005 happen because the writer states that they Dexter in the Dark, © 2007 do and that’s it. Dexter by Design, © 2009 I was disappointed by the failure to made Dexter is Delicious, © 2010 very much of the initially promising plot line Double Dexter, © 2011 about the oppression of the sentient / Dexter’s Final Cut, © 2013 talking animals ‘Animals’ and attitudes to © August 16, 2015, Garry Dalrymple Non-White Americans, or of the vaguely

drawn parallels between the Wizard and ‘Wicked’ by Gregory Maguire Hitler / The Nazis, with the appearance of (US), © 1995, 519 pages, 30 mm, read May the ‘Gale Force’ SS / Gestapo thugs and 24 to June 11, 2015, Bought May, their and rule by fear of the oppressed. In

I found this book to be a bit of a worry. all, a deeply dissatisfying read on so many ‘Wicked’ is generally accepted to be one of levels. the great Musicals of its time, ground Comment and Conclusion – How on breaking, revitalising the genre et al. and Earth did this book become a best seller? the series of books commencing with Frank Was the Musical really drawn from this story L. Baum’s original book, ‘The Wizard of OZ’, or just a carryover of goodwill from ‘The is a modern classic and is an eternally Wizard of Oz’, Judy Garland and all that popular children’s story and the 1939 movie live up to the hype / inspire the Musical? (First in colour?) is infinitely repeated on TV. In vain I continued to read this book well This book however left me greatly beyond my usual tolerance levels, hoping underwhelmed. that each succeeding chapter would in I was forever searching for something to turn bring me closer to some redeeming engage with, and seeing hints that only ‘payoff’ feature in the story, but alas these failed to deliver an interesting story line. are few and far between in this book and it I am troubled that I do not know if those is truly deserving of the dismissal that, ‘The parts of the story that I did find engaging covers are too far apart!’ In my opinion, if are the borrowed feathers from L. Frank this is the Author’s best, then this is a Book / Baum’s original OZ, or whether they are Author with much to be modest about. Maguire’s own work. For example, I found An opinion which I now feel rings, was the premise of OZ to be interesting, a region uttered at the preceding meeting, and connected only to Earth by rare Fortean which as much as anything highlights the events, and lacking any experience of seas drawbacks of this book, was to dismiss it as and oceans. ‘just fan fiction’. Those parts of OZ visited by the progress of © July 6, 2015, Garry Dalrymple the story in this book seem at times to be very nearly identifiable with the American ‘Feynman,’ by Jim Ottaviani & Mid-West, as seen through a scanner darkly Leland Myrick (both US), an illustrated (or one of Turtle Heart’s mirrors?) and at novel (Comic Book), Hard Cover, © 2011, times an Americanized Grim Brother’s 266 pages, Read July 10 & 11, 2015. European fairy tale kingdom. I.e., is not ‘Shiz’ a version of Chicago seen by Mid- This illustrated Novel I encountered during Western eyes? a walk-through of the ‘Youth’ section of the Campsie Library. I decided to borrow

23 TBS&E Number 66 24 it because I’ve read some Feynman books, attackers, he realizes that something is by him and about him, so I was curious up. Memories of a previous life intrude about how much of his life would be into his dreams and there is something odd present in an illustrated novel format. It is yet familiar about his employer. It is about as thick as a an old time novel and revealed that David Duffy, Irish born blade presents a sequential story about the life of for hire, is in fact King Arthur re-born, his Feynman, but like the comic book Bible I’ve employer is Merlin, and the whole Turkish previously read and reviewed, it presents thrust to conquer Vienna is part of a battle some scenes from some parts of his life, between two magicians, Merlin and his resulting in a short attention span opponent Ibrahim, The Turkish Grand Vizier, kaleidoscope of parts, rather than a backed by the mythical and supernatural coherent whole, which I found to be creatures of East Vs West. The point of disappointing. the siege of Vienna is to prevent the re- It does cover his family life, formative years, juvenation of the (Western) Fisher King by studies, Manhattan Project War Time work, his having a drink of the magic infused his research and teaching career, his Nobel ‘Dark’ beer which has been brewed over Prize and something of his books and so on. and infused by the essence of a magical After reading it, I do wonder what aspects hero Finn MacCool, evidently the beaker of his life were left out, being difficult to person inventor of Beer! This beer takes depict in a comic book format? about 800 years to mature and if Vienna falls before it is ready, and the brewery is Conclusion – Points for covering some destroyed, then all Europe will fall! I can aspects of Richard Feynman’s life, including drink to this! some that I had not been aware of, but it’s Conclusion – This is a very enjoyable story, not a complete Biography and not as a hero of the modern sort, with doubts, focussed as Feynman’s own books. On the seamlessly injected into this turning point of other hand it does include a fairly extensive European History, without any diminution of Richard Feynman bibliography and the History or of the Fantasy adventure. perhaps, with its scattered bite sized serves An enjoyable read, one of the most of Feynman’s life (suitable for modern enjoyable Fantasy books I have read for attention spans?), may serves well as an some time. introduction to a larger world of actual © August 15, 2015, Garry Dalrymple books about Richard Feynman. © July 17, 2015, Garry P Dalrymple More Than Human’ by Theodore ‘The Drawing of the Dark’, by Tim Sturgeon US Dec’d, SF paperback (from a series of stories) © 1953, 222 pages, read (US) Alternate reality Fantasy Powers July 19 to 28, 2015, around the siege of Vienna, Historical Fantasy paperback, © 1979, 323 pages, Initially, this book was a bit of a stretch for read August to 2015. me. It was a very slow read as I was

unprepared for the psychological drama This story starts off in Venice, a Venice where of it and my first impressions were that this a negotiated capitulation to the Turkish was a story about ‘Characters in search of Sultan is on the Horizon. David Duffy is a a plot’. However, after finishing it I have to tired old ‘Dog of War’ anticipating say that it was pretty ground breaking SF retirement and a return to Ireland, to wait for its time and it reflects the ‘What is it to out the inevitable Turkish conquest of the be human?’ conundrum that was at the squabbling and divided nations of Christian centre of post WW2 SF. It is therefore a Europe. He receives a surprisingly lucrative cousin and counterpoint to Isaac Asimov’s job offer, as a bouncer at a Viennese pub / meditations, via the robotic metaphor, on brewery. After an eventful crossing of the what it means to be human, via a Alps, with supernatural protectors and

24 TBS&E Number 66 25 psychological approach. The book starts theme introduced at the end, the with a barely idiot, whose day to day addition of mental powers leading to survival depends on an ability to persuade admission to a community of moral and people to fulfil his basic physical needs. He powerful Super-minds, is a foretaste of is an empty vessel. Next we encounter an much UFO contactee lore, and a ordinary little girl, who just happens to be translation of Theosophical ideas into the able to read minds and communicate with realm of the ‘Science’ of psychology. non-verbal people, a set of non-verbal However, I do not think I could African American twins who can levitate recommend this book to many present and teleport, and then the idiot, while day readers, the style of SF and everyday acting as a surrogate son to a childless older life has moved on considerably, but for couple, meets the baby, a non-verbal infant complete-ists, looking for more than Robots with vast computing / logical powers. And and Space ships SF, this book has a great then the connection is made, a gestalt deal to recommend it. © August 15, 2015, identity greater than the sum of its limited Garry P. Dalrymple and damaged parts, a complete ‘Super’ person with potentially unlimited powers to ‘The War of The Worlds’, by H. G. do just about anything. However this , (UK Dec’d) (part of an omnibus ‘Super’ person is limited, the brain of the set Wells up remains at an idiot level, so world collection of H.G. Wells’ other books, © domination etc. is off the agenda and basic 1898 Read July 12 to 19, 2015, survival is all that the combination gets up I have to admit that this is the first time I to. They collect a runaway boy, and on have read the original story, and my pre- the idiot’s death, the group, with the new conceptions were shaped by disjointed boy as ‘Brain’ move into town and the life of viewing of the two (or three?) movies, a wealthy spinster. Here, the boy discovers which when compared to this account, that he can be, can do, pretty-much suffer from American intrusions. H.G. anything he wants, cloud men’s minds etc. Wells’ ideas on the futility of organised and he does. The arrival of a man with no Religion are clear in this story, as are his memories is the beginning of a resolution. ‘Internationalism’, a point of the book A confrontation results in Empathy being being the recovery of the country after the injected into the mind of the Brain of the invasion, rather than the self-reliant collective, and it is only at this point, Powers resistance / survival story of the American ruled by Empathy / Morality, that the films. collective is truly ‘Super’ and admitted to Stylistically, a generation before the communion with the network of other Super ‘invention’ of the Science Fiction story Minds, a Nirvana of human consciousness (1926, Hugo Gernsback etc.) as a story of etc. its era, the late Victorian, this story suffers Conclusion – This book, and the approach from it’s format, that of an after the Port to the mind, reflects the thinking of its time, and Cigars story told by an adventurer i.e. when it was beginning to be relating a trip to a distant land and appreciated how PST, (Post Traumatic Stress) dangerous adventures, which he survived could rob people of their ability to function and returned to tell the tale. For example, in Society as a human being and how to cover the ground of the story, taking important empathy, that which was absent places where the narrator cannot be, from Nazi, Japanese and Soviet war there is the uncomfortable addition of the criminals was a necessary part of being experiences of a second point of view Human. This era also gave rise to the character’s narrative, of the narrator’s fiction at the base of Scientology, that Brother trapped in London, while the main ‘Super Mind’ status and transcendence character is captive of a house with over human limitations could be achieved, Martians next door. by a little bit of mental adjustment. The

25 TBS&E Number 66 26 Contrast this to the ‘modern’ SF treatment, $135 million is going to be spent on where an adventure erupts about a main S.E.T.I. (at the risk of provoking a ‘To Serve character, or freely alternating multiple Mankind’ style close encounter?) the story point of view characters, each describing is still a useful warning. their own adventures in a chapter of the As a contrast, I would commend to you story which leads to their eventual the 1937 H.G. Wells SF Story, about Earthly combination with the other characters of Evolution, guided by Cosmic rays, which the story and the resolution of the drama. anticipates much present day ‘Indigo Another thing that struck me was how much Children’ UFO Contactee fiction and the of the substance of this story is spent just in motivations of some less malignant cosmic describing the chaotic scenes and Aliens. © August 4, 2015, Garry P Dalrymple experiences of the ordinary people of England during the invasion, experiences which only a generation later could be avoided by simply substituting the sentence, ‘Now the British people, suffered like the Belgian refugees, fleeing ahead of the German advance’. Technology – from my reading of the accounts of scientific progress carried in Victorian era newspapers, the technology, the Observatory and even the names of the Scientists referred to in this story are spot on Friday July 18 – After the Futurian for the time. If you like, this is story is meeting, having paid the bus fare in and authentic High Victorian High-tech. The out, I went across George St. / Broadway expectations that Mars was inhabited, to do some shopping at the supermarket in lasted well until the Space age / 1950s prior the bowels (Fresh Food People) of the to this, at every close opposition between brewery re-development apartment tower Earth and Mars, the face of Mars was block. Mostly I bought ‘Bacon Chops’, 7 studied for any indication life or industry. mm thick, so they don’t go crispy fried Conclusion – This story is worth reading, with when cooked. My ‘Loyalty Card’ is in a prior research into the context of H.G. Wells’ zip lock plastic (Coles) bag to avoid ideas to get the full sense of what he is trying wearing off printing of the all-important to tell readers. His story here, referring to code. This provoked some puzzling the analogy of the documented impact of confusion at first, was I handing in the British Empire on the Tasmanian native. someone else’s card, which I had bagged The salvation of England (the only country to hand back? After this was sorted out, invaded?) results not from British pluck or ignoring me, the checkout chicks (and American can-do heroism, Abut from the chaps) discussed a recent loyalty card human condition, that set up by Darwinian scam. A Woolworths employee with a selection, something that the ‘Imperialists’ of sense of initiative basic illusionist card skills Mars had seen fit to ignore or perhaps had had routinely been swiping HIS loyalty card transcended? Also, the idea of Martians rather than the customers one, resulting in as bloodsuckers drawing from other ‘lesser’ an Astronomical collection of loyalty species might be seen as a reflection H.G. points, free groceries and probably cash Wells view of the position indolent British out ‘dividends’. After detection, he / she ruling classes, dependent on the ‘lower was sacked, but it makes you think, what it classes’ for their needs or even the British he / she had had the sense to run a pack Imperial society, England dependent on the of twenty cards, running them up only to trade from its colonial possessions and some arbitrary limit and cashing them in subjugated peoples? At a time when only at distant stores?

26 TBS&E Number 66 27 July – Walking the dogs is becoming a most trifle insensitive for Ramadan, but night’s pastime, a 20 minute turn through different strokes for different folks I guess. the local shops and back again. On night I In the gents I noticed a bloke, of a encountered the proprietor of the recently multicultural appearance in the act of opened Hot Chicken joint and Restaurant. soaping up the wash basin taps, at the He runs this, his brother runs the Pizza place basin reserved for topping up water on the corner facing his brother’s restaurant. bottles, before washing his hands! I’ve The Pizza place only operates 5 pm to 9.30 never seen this done before, was he on a pm each night, why so – because of Ramadan themed spiritual pollution unavailability of staff, with most hospitality avoidance jag, or over reacting to the staff having daytime jobs as well as their current MERS outbreak which is taking ‘after hours’ work. Makes you think? place in South Korea, in addition to the Middle East? Saturday June 20 – Under a Ramadan MERS is apparently a corona virus which Moon, I got mother out of bed at 6 pm (she crossed species in the Middle East, from had been in bed since lunchtime) to look at Camels to Humans (feel free to insert any the sky, where the crescent Moon, Venus distasteful ethnic based joke here, if you and Jupiter were forming a Right angled prefer) and it is likely to a matter of great triangle. My intention was to test the visual international concern during this year’s Haj, acuity of her vision with the two new lenses. Mecca pilgrimage season, as the Korean She could see all three objects and she cases were caught by people using the describe Venus as being, ‘twice as long as it hospital that was treating the Korean was wide’, which is close to the answer that patient zero. I had been hoping for, that it, like the Moon was currently crescent shaped. And Rats to You - Earlier this afternoon I Mother wasn’t able to spot any Jovian fished (and flushed) a dead rat out of one satellites, which is actually possible under of my rain water tubs. I was very puzzled some unusual conditions. by its ‘aport’, given the very loud evidence of the neighbouring kids poor ball handling Friday June 19 – taking leave of Mother skills, it couldn’t have arrived over a fence after giving her her medicated eye-drops via a parabolic trajectory, leaving only the just before leaving the house, and again, improbable, that it was a Kookaburra’s when I came home at ~10 pm. On the way intended in-flight meal or that it had died out I noticed how slender the Moon was, looking for a drink or washed off the car between the clouds (60 mm rain in the past port roof. Neither are very convincing few days) and how quiet things were at the Clemton Park food shops. It occurred to Thursday June 18 – Off to the Hurstville me that it was the beginning of Ramadan clinic again for Mother’s Left Eye. Much (and MERS, Middle Eastern Respiratory excitement was caused by Mother’s claim Syndrome fears) month. As a result it was that she had had breakfast this morning, noticeably quiet at the UTS tonight. On the having ignored the pre-surgery prohibition way through to where we would meet on eating out of concern for potential (choice of three conversation cubicles, no reflux and aspiration complications. waiting), I noticed that this night, in the room We were driven there by Ruth, M41 Bus where the Skepticamp was held, there was home, Mother’s eye on this occasion was an extended Campus Christian meeting glued shut by eyelid swelling, and a being held, with beards, acoustic guitars ‘Panda’ effect, leaving Mother looking ‘a and ‘Jesus’ songs and testimony addresses few steaks short of Saturday Night for all I know. The attendees were almost Domestic’, much more noticeable bruising exclusively Chinese. I thought that their than was the case a fortnight ago, as banner, advertising a ‘SOWS’ meeting was a blood seeps from the surgery site into adjoining tissue. The surgeon said it was

27 TBS&E Number 66 28 something to do with the Anaesthetist’s walking Amber and Rusty. She was difficulties. Mother will need to see an doing some nocturnal gardening / mail optometrist for new glasses in a few weeks’ box clearing, outside the block of flats time, when all signs of swelling have gone where she lived, and ended up admiring down. them (as many people do) and she Most of the people being treated at the Eye discussed that her own dog was not well. clinic are old, their need for treatments This dog I knew from previous daylight emerging as a result of a long-ish life. encounters, a yapping little ball of overt However, while I was waiting for my Mother aggression, but nevertheless and object of to come out from post operation recovery, I much love and affection. This morning, it saw a familiar face pass by, in the form of turned out that her dog had died during Helen Criticos, someone who had been in the night and she was looking for people my year at Clemton Park Public School. to share her grief with. Not being able to She was the ‘Out’ girl of our year, the bury her pet in the garden, She held a pet universally appointed untouchable, the one funeral parlour catalogue and showed me to be name called and excluded by the that her plan was to commemorate her majority, and I regret to say that I lost dog by placing the ashes in a deluxe participated in this, as an 8 to 12 year old. square walnut wood panelled As in ‘Lord of the Flies’, children can be so presentation urn, and she was waving tribal and unnecessarily unkind. For this around and trying to engage with people reason and that I knew that she had worked at the bus stop. at the University of Technology, likely to I confess I shed a tear with her as well, out have been affected by the usual ongoing of sympathy with her position, having to retrenchments of all public sector turn to strangers for consolation and as the employment, I didn’t introduce myself. Was loss reminded me of the similar losses I she in for Laser eye surgery, to correct her have experienced in the past and the vision, Glaucoma treatment, or even for losses that I anticipate in a few years’ time, Cataract surgery? It is one thing to attend as Amber and Rusty are both teenage and be confronted with the evidence of dogs. your parent’s deterioration, it’s another to Bankstown Mall – Bankstown Westfield’s be met by that of a contemporary. is a site of great cultural and community interest, possibly even serving the same Monday June 15 – Off on the fortnightly roles as the ‘Agora’ or ‘Basilica’ of earlier ‘away mission’ to gather Mother’s times. It must be said though that it’s medications, necessitated by Mother’s smaller predecessor the Bankstown Centro, refusal to answer the doorbell when home has its own geological fault! deliveries were previously offered. It’s a Bankstown mall was, much as I left it, morning out of my schedule of things to be allowing for the inevitable evolution of new done or to be put off until later. I had also shops in and familiar ones out. I stopping planned to get to Bankstown so I could buy for Lunch, (Fish and Chips instead of Lamb up more Plastic storage tubs, with the Korma and Butter Chicken) ahead of intention of being able to store all ‘floor’ picking up my storage tubs, so I had some items in waterproof containers, (I have also time to notice the local fauna, including invested towards $700 in steel racks / the occasional ladies with ‘Lone Ranger’ shelving) so that the inevitable next garage style full face cover, leaving only eyes flood will see a scene like rubber ducks visible (how do they eat?), the less floating around in a bathtub, rather than constricting ‘Caped Crusader’, wearing sitting as heaps of saturated stuff after the the cape like headscarf to the waist, and tide goes out. the other women in unaffected dress. Anyway, at the bus stop was an agitated As per census data, 35% of Bankstown’s elderly woman. Now I had met this local residents are of the Islamic faith, woman a few nights ago while I was ‘Islamic Dress’ is matter of personal choice,

28 TBS&E Number 66 29 rather than absolutes? Restrictive attire is more familiar to me from the words worn by only a very small but visible stencilled on the inside of the bookshelves percentage of these women. I wonder that and the plywood and Masonite room Gay women, with a greater motivation to divider that separated my half and my avoid male gaze, haven’t asserted their brother’s half of the back of the house right to this form of dress? Frequently you ‘annex’, my first bedroom. As I type, I still see Mothers or Grandmothers with their have bits of this wood within reach around more extremely covered daughters, walking me in the garages, and I will in due course with friends in tight jeans etc. and ‘ordinary’ consider using it in the next bookcase headscarves. The other feature of Mall project I have the time to tackle. food court life, which may well be universal, However, such wood is scarce these days, is the gathering of the community’s it seemingly no longer grows on trees, in Senators, that is to say, the groups of elderly times when goods are routinely shipped in men, sitting together, passing the day, cardboard, Styrofoam and plastic. Can’t conducting their senior men’s business and do much with them can I? So, on the no doubt passing their judgement on the way to the Campsie Medical Centre, Circus of life passing before them. which has a Pharmacy, via the laneway that is parallel to the railway lines, I Community Values – on the way to the encountered a bloke loading a big truck mall is a Pawn shop, a local outlet of a with wooden pallets and I had a bit of a national chain of such businesses that are to chat to him. He explained that he be found, as a rule of thumb, just outside the worked for a company which collected CBD of a less affluent suburban main street wooden pallets, took them back to their and more often than not, within a short depot, sorted them and returned them to walking distance of the bus stop for a their owners, the people who had originally Casino bus route (wonder why?), as casino sent them out loaded with building gambling, in spite of the advertising hype, supplies to building sites. They were in seems to be an ethnically based form of effect ‘Bounty Hunters’ as each of these taxation (disclosure, I own some shares in pallets were issued with a refundable pre- gambling based companies). I frequently paid deposit. In some cases, and he look in at these shops when I can to gain a indicated some on the back of his truck, clearer sense of Community values, i.e. this amounts to $50 per pallet! He regretted How much is a replacement Laptop or that this recycling initiative was not 100% power tool really worth? ($79 for an ASUS water tight, as damaged pallets usually just EEE note book apparently) went to landfill. Now for me a love of If only one could invest financially in found wood raises unusual emotions. organised religion, the other revenue Each year in Northern Ireland, as a token extracting faith, other than starting one’s of once virulent (I hope) sectarianism, the own (and I’m looking at you Hill Song). Marching Season (Some Protestants marching to or through Catholic areas to Pallets – The discovery and use of ‘Found’ remind them whose ancestors lost to ‘King wood is a recurring fascination for me. Billy’ in the 1690s) starts with bonfires. Much of my childhood was physically Bonfires made of wood stacked five stories assembled by my father from the plywood high! It is sort of like the KKK’s burning of discarded shipping crates from his place crosses, but more of a communal event. of employment, N.C.R. Turella. Most of And the cause of my peculiar distress, what this local branch of a multinational having once owned shares in an business sold or maintained (Cash Registers international logistics company, (CHEP = and Accounting machinery) was imported, Commonwealth Heavy Equipment Pool) is crated from Dayton Ohio, so much so that that that that stack of wood to be burned for me, Dayton Ohio was not so much is made up of shipping pallets. That is to ‘Where the Wright Brother’s first flew’, but say, that in effect, these people are

29 TBS&E Number 66 30 cheerfully stacking up OTHER PEOPLE’S but on the 4th, Ruth drove us there and it money and burning it for effect, Oh the was Alex (Koh), Janene’s boyfriend who horror! picked us up from the clinic and drove us Sunday June 14, Mother’s Birthday – home (also much appreciated). In the car Mother spent the morning in bed, usual Alex and I discussed aspects of Theology, grievances, my housekeeping abilities or faith and and Community values (Socks lack thereof. The arrival of Ruth, Janene are NOT Biblical, neither are baseball and Alex (early!) extracted mother from her caps?). Ruth had the builders in that day, deathbed etc. for lunch at the local Bowling getting quotes towards getting their in- Club. Mother was tearfully grateful for the ground swimming pool removed. attention and the outing, but this buzz faded Running and maintenance costs for this by the time that she emerged from her after infrequently used feature are mounting, lunch sleep. and it draws a considerable amount of Was also able to get Ruth and Janene to electrical power to run the filter etc., so its accept some ‘family heirlooms,’ some Suez removal may have Greenhouse gas passage tourist tat, stuff sold to passengers emission advantages? My suggestion of of Australia to the UK passenger liners, made convert-ing it to a sustainable malarial up of two bedspreads / tablecloths / wall swamp feature by neglect, was not hangings featuring ‘Holy land’ theme acclaimed. scenes. Oranges and Kumquats were also Consequences – Prior to the ‘op’ Mother given away. was complaining as usual, ‘Why do I have Thursday June 4, Mother’s Op. – The to?’, ‘I can see perfectly well as it is!’ etc. Doctor described Cataract surgery as the However on Friday, a day after the Op., inevitable result of a long life, spent partly she admitted that her vision with the ‘fixed’ outdoors. Mother had been seeing the eye was indeed clearer than with the to- world without glasses (and their protection be-fixed eye. As is usually the case, from direct UV radiation) up until her 40s, when under ‘intensive care’, Mother tends during an era when sunglasses were more to be a nicer person, much less prone to likely to be viewed as a fashion affectation the usual constant complaints and mood than as an eye care essential. Thus, June swings. It was in fact ‘tolerable’ for a few has been dominated by Mother’s two days. After the second eye is done, Cataract operations, on the 4th and 18th of Mother should have clear ‘Fingertips to June 2015. At a cost of about $6,000 (for infinity’ vision, but will need ‘close in’ or those who might ask) her Left and Right eye reading glasses. I do wonder at what are having their lenses replaced by (Auto zoom?) replacement lenses will be polycarbonate at the relatively nearby Eye current when I will need them, and how surgery centre at the wrong end of Astronomically Effective they might be, i.e. Hurstville. That is, that you have to leave larger diameter for more light gathering, behind the Hurstville CBD, walk through the extended spectrum transmission, ‘jack-in railway station (the only pedestrian access enabled’ for IR, UV or synthesised Radio across the railway line for a kilometre each wavelengths, like Jody’s (Star Trek) Visor. I way) and walk a fair way on uneven can’t wait to subscribe to the ‘Bionic Eye’ footpaths to get to the clinic. Off street company which should emerge soon from parking is nowhere to be seen etc. While academia. Mother has endured the (Minor?) discomfort Hurstville – I used to work at Hurstville, or of the operation, managing the Logistics of rather at the unfashionable end of to and from transport and day before / day Hurstville, past where the CBD runs out and after care have been my responsibility, where the apartment blocks now start to getting the drips, giving the eye drops every rear. To my surprise I found that the few hours etc. irregularly scheduled M41 (Red bus) makes As usual, Ruth’s assistance has been Hurstville only 20 minutes away, making it essential, and greatly appreciated by me, as close to me in transit times as Burwood. 30 TBS&E Number 66 31 I had considered relying on it to get to the Bexley swimming pool, which I note remains closed years after its proposed renovation date. However, Hurstville is not much ‘as I remember it’, with many of the local landmark shops and conveniences that I had relied on gone. It increasingly adopts a ‘mini-Hong Kong / Blade Runner’ aesthetic. While my Mother was sedated / Under Care, I had 2 to 3 hours to fill in, so I had a bit of a wander. I considered going to see a movie, but the loooong walk defeated that idea. In general, the CBD didn’t offer much that I could use, although I did buy a shaving mirror, a makeup mirror and a mirror on an extendable (pen like) arm, as things to play with, the first two being concave / magnifying mirrors. I would observe that the food court is more used by ‘loiterers’ between breakfast and lunch rushes that at Campsie or Bankstown, no-where else for them to go I guess. Fortunately St. Vinneys remains, with good looking books in 1, 2, 3, 4 places in the shop, separate from the DVDs. Videos and Games. Not much SF as such, several sets of that Vampire book series were visible. I bought ‘The Light of Other Days’ by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter (book) and DVDS of ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ and Terry Pratchett’s ‘Hogfather’. Both days, the Op and the follow up day had required getting up in the dark, organising Mother and getting home in the afternoon, so not much else of any consequence was done on those two days. Conclusion – You can walk a fair distance in Hurstville, going through Westfields, without getting anywhere or seeing anything you need.

Letters to the Editor

31 TBS&E Number 66 32 What had happened was that Amber had been offended, turned on Rusty, been rebuffed, then Amber collided with the Amber and Rusty – Winter is a season of table, resulting in my half litre of beer discontent for Basenjis, days are short, nights tipping onto her, offending her again and are cool and the grass is wet in the continuing the cycle. One empty mornings. Better to just sleep through it upturned glass on the carpet, one wet, until spring arrives? A difference emerges beer soaked and battered Basenjis! in Amber and Rusty’s behaviour at about this time of year; Amber is compelled to re- arrange the rags that I provide for her into an approximately circular ‘nest’ and then it’s a round of stamping down the ‘grass’ until it’s just right to sit down on and curl up, Page 1 – Editorial tail to nose etc. Rusty on the other hand is a Pages 2 to 5 – James Bradley and ‘Clade’ digger and shredder, attempting to burrow discussed at the Randwick Public Library down through the all-weather telephone Pages 5 to 10 – Science and Astronomy, pole event banners (made of rip stop nylon) June 1, 2015 Sydney City Skywatchers which I have wrapped around all the meetings, Jeffrey Jacobs and his film on cushions on the lounge chairs that Rusty is John Dobson. permitted to climb up on. He usually likes Pages 10 to 4 – Sydney SF&F meeting notes to then rest in the hollow he created. Pages 10 to 13 – Concord Library meetings; In their sleeping crates, Rusty’s bedding is Pages 10 &11 – Monday, June 1, usually shredded into tiny pieces and needs George Orwell’s ‘Ninteen Eightyfour’ replacement every few months. Amber’s Pages 11 to 13 – Monday, July 6, just gets re-arranged between washes. Gregory Maguire’s ‘Wicked’ And as I type this, Rusty and Amber are with Pages 13 to 15 – Parramatta SF&F Book me, I can feel their breath on my bare legs, review meeting of Thursday, July 16, AND Rusty is attempting to rip the cover off George R. R. Martin’s ‘Tuff Voyaging’ a book on Architecture which is lying on the Pages 15 to 21 – Sydney Futurian meetings; (dry) garage floor, like he did to my very Pages 15 to 17 – Friday, June 19, nice book about the English Jacobins. Royal Families and Republics in SF Stories. No! Bad Basenjis! No literary or Aesthetic Pages 19 to 21 – Friday, July 17, criticism allowed from dogs! Books that have impressed us recently Pages 21 to 26 – Book Reviews (8 ea.) Beer Battered Basenjis Pages 26 to 31 – Travellers’ Tales July 19 – After a long and rather satisfying Page 32 – Basenjis Tail piece and Back day, baking, visiting Mother, a little shopping Page Index etc. I thought I’d have a nice dinner, of beans and steak, and what goes well with All finished now, time for bed. this, but a long glass of beer (Sheaf Stout, three 750 ml ‘long neck’ bottles for $18). Of late, Amber tends to react to any reversal, such as my treading on her toes, by turning on Rusty intent on a bit of vengeance. Rusty usually resists, and if Amber persists, Rusty can easily ‘take her down’. Not pretty to see, but usually over with in less time than it takes to describe. On this occasion, while I was in the kitchen, it happened twice in succession. Alarmed I immediately returned to the lounge room © Garry P Dalrymple August 2015 to find the place a mess (more than usual).

32 TBS&E Number 66 33 Books Reviewed for This issue ‘Burke and Hare’ by Owen Dudley Edwards ‘Barbarians’, by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ by Jeff Lindsay ‘Wicked’, by Gregory Maguire ‘Feynman, a Comic book by Jim Ottaviani & Leland Myrick ‘The Drawing of the Dark,’ by Tim Powers ’More Than Human’ by Theodore Sturgeon ‘The War of The Worlds’, by H. G. Wells,

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