Ethel the Aardvark #191
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January-February 2018 Number 191 Cover and illustrations by David L Russell Meetings:- St Augustine’s Anglican Chuch Hall, 100 Sydney Rd, Coburg, Vic. Getting there: Tram No 19 North Coburg, from Elizabeth St in the city, or Tram no 8, Morland Rd from Glenferrie Rd, Toorak, to Stop 132. Upfield train line to Moreland Station. On street parking. Space on the road next to it, which is closed to through driving. Melway Ref 29 H3. Cyclists can use the Upfield bicycle path. Discounts at selected Melbourne bookshops. Meetings of the Mel- Since 1952 bourne Science Fiction Club take place every third Friday Night. Unless The MSFC is a place where people who en- it is Good Friday. joy science fiction and fantasy meet to dis- cuss their love of books, TV, film and coffee. Most Club Nights - $2 for members, $5 for nonmembers. Some nights may cost an extra fee, such as Trivia Nights. Contacting the MSFC. Premises open at 8pm on the third Friday of the month, events start at General enquiries. 8.30pm. Lights out at 11pm. [email protected] Sustenance - Hot food, cold snacks, coffee and hot chocolate and Soft Magazine. Drinks are available. [email protected] Editor: Edward McArdle Members - club nights. Discounts for members [email protected] Website Annual membership: Show your MSFC membership card when asking for these ben- www.msfc.sf.org.au Single membership $35* efits. Family or household $45* Our website page: 20% discount with cash or Interstate Ethel the Aardvark https://www.facebook.com/ debit card, and 15% discount with groups/4658278007 subscription $25 cedit cards off all books at Sybers Books Postal address *plus $10 for interstate subscribers 38 Chapel St Windsor 3181 MSFC wishing a hardcopy Ethel subscrip- phone 9530 2222 tion. PO Box 110 668 Glenhuntly Rd Moonee Vale Vic 3055 All denominations are in Australian Caulfield 3161 dollars. Please send us Australian phone 9523 6686 currency or equivalent, able to be 2016 MSFC Committee contacts 5% off books and magazines President: Alison Barton banked in Australia. at Minotaur, 121 Elizabeth St Our treasurer will thank you. Melb 3000 Vice-president: Peter Jordan www.minotaur.com.au MSFC membership benefits phone 9670 5414 Secretary/ Public Officer 10% off all SF books at Clare Mcdonald-Sims A year-long subscription to this Dymocks Southland fanzine, Ethel the Aardvark, six shop 3067-68, Treasurer issues per year. Westfield Centre Mark Ford Cheltenham Discounts at selected Melbourne phone 9584 1245 Committee bookshops. Edward McArdle Eva Stein Voting rights at the Annual General LynC Meeting! If you are good you can actually stand for election! MSFC LIFE MEMBERS Alan Stewart Access to the MSFC email list. Bill Wright Bruce Gillespie The pleasure of being in a place Dick Jenssen aka Ditmar where people share your enjoyment Helena Binns of science fiction and fantasy. James Allen aka Jocko Lee Harding Merv Binns Page 2 Race Matthews Robin Johnson Krin Pender-Gunn Sydney Rd 2018 Our usual contingent turned up on 4th March in Sydney Rd. These photos are by LynC and Edward McArdle. They are just a glance, as OurEditor was not feeling 100%, but you get the idea. Others such as Sue-Ann and Trevor were also there, and probably a whole lot more! The elderly lady on the drums was probably a passerby, or she was trying to sell them. by David L Russell Bonfire, by Krysten Ritter. 2017. Reviewed by Edward McArdle. One of the curiosities of the writer’s style is that she writes in the present tense, which I don’t normallly This is a mystery novel, where the heroine battles like, but this one is written as if things are happening as against a powerful corporation. It is not science fiction, she writes, so she is never giving you a story where she but I have sneaked it in here because the writer is a suc- knows the answer! cessful actress, who is currently Jessica Jones. Previously I reviewed books by Amber Benson, which Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire, 2017. were fantasy, and were equally well written! Possibly Reviewed by Edward McArdle. they have a lot of spare time sitting around the set. In this book the heroine fled from her (American) This is the third so far of thin books about Eleanor school, and found a different career, after the ritual West’s Home for Wayward Children. It is 174 pages, punishment from the school bullies, but she has come and brief. The second book won the Hugo in 2017. back to investigate the possible evils from the master My first reaction was that this reminded me of Enid corporation. This is a town you probably wouldn’t Blyton’s Faraway Tree series. The people at Miss West’s want to live in, but reading safely in your home it home have come from mysterious worlds, and mostly seems worth a visit. would like to go back, but if they have not gone back in a few years probably they never will. As a series the books vary in their seriousness. The second book was fairly down, this one seems a lot more cheerful. Seanan McGuire writes also as Mira Grant, perhaps because those books are more serious, or perhaps because she writes so many books that she needs to have various identities! Page 4 At the February meeting of Austrek the main topics were (as usual) the gossip about what was happening in the Star Trek world, and a panel talk about the various incarnations of the Klingons! As Worf said, “We don’t talk about it.” But curious minds want to know! Star Trek, Star Wars and Dr Who clubs held a gettogether at the QV Strike Bowling Club in Little Lonsdale St, shown in the picture above. I was there only a while, because I am not too fit, but it is a pleasant place, with three sets of three lanes, so you can find your way there next time! And I have no idea how many people actually arrived! Page 5 Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, The The Long Mars seems to be shorter, as it is in bigger print, although still 440 pages, and so it is easier to Long Earth. Reviewed by read. There seem to be two or three separate stories. In Edward McArdle. one the travelers go off to explore Mars, because there is a world with no earth, so for some reason the travel- This is the first of five books, The Long Earth, The Long ers can blast off without having to worry about earth’s War, The Long Mars, The Long Utopia and the Long Cos- gravity and another group’s peregrinations (I have mos. I happened upon two of them, big books reduced to always wanted to use that word) take them past earth $6, and one was in the library, so I lashed out and bought 17,297,031. But the Chinese have been there first. The the other. Russians have been wiped out because of Yellowstone, Stephen Baxter seems to have written a few books with but not the Chinese? others, Terry Pratchett and Arthur C Clarke, some alone, A group of superchildren appear, though they seem and I seem suddenly to have acquired a number! to be easily accounted for, and one of the ships gets to This first book starts off very matter-of-factly. Someone earth quarter-billion. discovers that he, and therefore others, can simply step This proves problematic from the storytelling point off in a different direction, and be on a parallel earth! So of view. They are supposedly flipping past worlds at everyone does it. twenty frames per second, but if there is an interesting This makes an enjoyable story, but is impossible. People world they can stop there for day, and leave explorers are stepping off one pace at a time and going through until they come back! And for some reason worlds are thousands of worlds. Great if you all want to be totally on various gradients - but why? There is no reason for alone on your own earth! But if a fairly small number step nearby worlds to be connected. off, everyone will be alone. Apparently there are a few For those who do not want to read the whole five other races around, over thousands of worlds, but mostly books, this is not a bad one to start with. There are it is just us! three main stories, and all are wound up. This first volume mainly focuses on Joshua, and his robot But there are still two books to go! sidekick, who is edging towards humanity. Joshua is one The second last book says goodbye to Terry Pratchett, of a tiny number who can just step off and be on a differ- so presumably he did not contribute too much to this ent world without any ill effects. There are also a small volume, but who knows? number who cannot step off at The Long Utopia seems to be a finale, but the whle all. By the end of the story he has series of five books seems to have been the aim. acquired another companion. The This seems to have been a whole book, as opposed to a finish of this odyssey is that there book wth general chapters. On one of the earths there is a world on which only one fear- are some creatures like beetles, and they are spreading. some entity exists. There are some goodbyes too, as some of the characters During the telling there are a few reach their grand finales.