SF COMMENTARY 81 40th Anniversary Edition, Part 2 June 2011 IN THIS ISSUE: THE COLIN STEELE SPECIAL COLIN STEELE REVIEWS THE FIELD OTHER CONTRIBUTORS: DITMAR (DICK JENSSEN) THE EDITOR PAUL ANDERSON LENNY BAILES DOUG BARBOUR WM BREIDING DAMIEN BRODERICK NED BROOKS HARRY BUERKETT STEPHEN CAMPBELL CY CHAUVIN BRAD FOSTER LEIGH EDMONDS TERRY GREEN JEFF HAMILL STEVE JEFFERY JERRY KAUFMAN PETER KERANS DAVID LAKE PATRICK MCGUIRE MURRAY MOORE JOSEPH NICHOLAS LLOYD PENNEY YVONNE ROUSSEAU GUY SALVIDGE STEVE SNEYD SUE THOMASON GEORGE ZEBROWSKI and many others SF COMMENTARY 81 40th Anniversary Edition, Part 2 CONTENTS 3 THIS ISSUE’S COVER 66 PINLIGHTERS Binary exploration Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) Stephen Campbell Damien Broderick 5 EDITORIAL Leigh Edmonds I must be talking to my friends Patrick McGuire The Editor Peter Kerans Jerry Kaufman 7 THE COLIN STEELE EDITION Jeff Hamill Harry Buerkett Yvonne Rousseau 7 IN HONOUR OF SIR TERRY Steve Jeffery PRATCHETT Steve Sneyd Lloyd Penney 7 Terry Pratchett: A (disc) world of Cy Chauvin collecting Lenny Bailes Colin Steele Guy Salvidge Terry Green 12 Sir Terry at the Sydney Opera House, Brad Foster 2011 Sue Thomason Colin Steele Paul Anderson Wm Breiding 13 Colin Steele reviews some recent Doug Barbour Pratchett publications George Zebrowski Joseph Nicholas David Lake 16 THE FIELD Ned Brooks Colin Steele Murray Moore Includes: 16 Reference and non-fiction 81 Terry Green reviews A Scanner Darkly 21 Science fiction 40 Horror, dark fantasy, and gothic 51 Fantasy 60 Ghost stories 63 Alternative history 2 SF COMMENTARY No. 81, June 2011, 88 pages, is edited and published by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street, Greensborough VIC 3088, Australia. Phone: 61-3-9435 7786. Email: [email protected]. Also available from http://eFanzines.com/SFC/SFC81.pdf You might remember that this issue should have appeared last September, but it didn’t. Available for The Usual (letters or substantial emails of comment, artistic contributions, articles, reviews, traded publications, or review copies) or subscriptions (Australia: $50 for 5, cheques to Bruce Gillespie; Overseas: $US60 or 30 pounds for 5, or equivalent, airmail; please send folding money, not cheques). Printed by Copy Place, Basement, 415 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000. Cover: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen): ‘Binary exploration’. Other artwork: Stephen Campbell (pp. 20, 66, 67). Photos: Colin Steele (p. 5); Cath Ortlieb (p. 7); Leigh Edmonds (p. 68). Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) This issue’s cover: Binary exploration The story implied by the cover graphic is quite simple. As on, and around, the subject, and in my trawling of we all know as SF readers, travel to remote areas of our Amazon.com I came across (amongst others) Craig galaxy, or indeed any other galaxy, will be accomplished Wheeler’s Cosmic Catastrophes — which turned out to be relatively soon by any number of means — faster-than- yet another book to find a permanent place on my shelves. light travel, wormholes, space-folding, modifying the Wheeler is President of the American Astronomical shape of space so that ‘surfing’ at super-luminal speeds Society, and gives a course at the University of Texas is possible ... As a consequence, the investigation of called Astronomy Bizarre. This is aimed at undergradu- unusual astronomical events will become a matter of ate students who have a minimum, or no, mathematical course, and so, when a suitable binary star is discovered, and/or physics background. So while Cosmic Catastrophes scientific teams will be sent to explore and amass and qualifies as a textbook, it reads as ‘popular’ science — in assess any relevant data so that current theories may be fact, unlike many popular texts, it contains no equations tested or amended and, perhaps, new ones developed. whatsoever. It is not a difficult read by any means, but it What the cover illustrates is such an expedition. requires attention, and so is not a swift read. Both of The binary star is moderately unusual in that the these books are highly recommended for those SF fans large, red giant, star is losing mass to its small white dwarf for whom the science in a story is an important factor. companion. Parked in orbit near the red giant, but In discussing binary stars — on which he is an expert outside its Roche Lobe, is the science station, a somewhat — Wheeler points out that if one of the pair is a red giant, large structure housing some 5000 personnel — and the other a white dwarf (as a rather specific example, scientists, technicians, support staff. It’s nowhere near as the gravitational field surrounding the pair may be char- massive, nor as complex, as Sector General, but being acterised by Roche Lobes. For those who now may be ‘deeper than a well and wider than a church-door, ’tis muttering ‘Roche Lobes’, the following diagrams should enough, ’twill serve’ — to grossly misquote the Bard. be some clarification. As the captions indicate, if the red (James White’s stories of Sector General, by the way, is my giant grows (as it usually does) and becomes larger than favorite SF series). In the lower left of the graphic a its Roche lobe, its matter essentially squirts through the supply ship can be seen approaching the station ... ‘inner Langrangian point’ into the gravitational domain of its white dwarf companion. Because the two stars are The story behind the cover is rather different. Some moving and rotating, it is also highly probable that the months ago I read Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time matter expelled will orbit the dwarf. Frictional effects will Warps, which is one of the best ‘popular science’ books cause the matter to spiral in and at the same time heat I have read. This stimulated me to explore other books up. As the gas nears the star it radiates at higher and 3 higher frequencies before finally being incorporated difficulty) by using and tweaking the software’s material into the white dwarf. Some of the radiation will still be interface. The spiral is actually a Mandelbrot image, in the visible, and this is what is depicted in the cover from djFractals, read into Vue, converted into a terrain illustration. and then, along with the red giant, textured as glowing ‘lava’. The red giant is simply a cone affixed to a sphere. Technical notes The main problem with the final image — leaving aside The celestial background is a Hubble Space Telescope all aesthetic considerations (!) — is that the spiral is too image of ‘a bow-shock near young star’ and is from the thick. Forgiveness by the onlooker is a prerequisite. Hubble internet site. The rocket and space station are freebies from the site www.3dcafe.com, which were im- — Dick Jenssen ported into Vue6Infinite and then texturised (with some 4 I must be talking to my friends I dreamt last night that I was watching a movie. It was a the film stayed upbeat, with bright colours; lots of flash. science fiction movie that for years had been praised by In the dream, I was not just within the film, not just my younger friends. They were all visiting a large cinema watching it, but also reading the book of the film. I found in a multiplex to see it on the big screen again, and had myself closing the book. It was 220 pages long, but I had dragged me along. closed it at page 180. What was the end of the story? The film had a one-word title that I now cannot Did it all end badly, or was there some amazing remember. The appearance of the film’s title at the surprise ending still to come? Is that why my friends loved beginning caused ecstatic anticipation to ripple through the film and the book? All I felt was acute disappoint- members of the audience. ment. How could these people become so jumped up It was an adventure film whose action sequences about a story that could have only one ending: death and moved as fast as those in the original Star Wars. At first I destruction? thought it was merely an offshoot of Star Wars. The But I found myself walking along the street with my characters were warriors in a army defending itself friends. They were still burbling about seeing the film, against planetary invaders — all for one, and one for all; but somehow I had not yet seen the film. one exciting battle after another. I woke up. I was still wondering: what possible rabbit However, the more the goodies fought against the could have been pulled out of a hat to save the situation. invaders (never glimpsed in the film), the more territory the invaders gained. What was the point of my dream? What was its origin? Not only was I watching the movie, but I became part I am being constantly being told I must watch Alien, of it. I was one warrior of the defending army. Most of us the film. The only thing I know about Alien is that it has were now destroyed, and our territory had been reduced the single most horrifying moment in SF/horror film to the capital city. The president and his council were history. I can’t even guess why people want to watch a wandering around the city dazed, instead of command- movie they know will shock them silly. ing the forces. In the dream film I’ve described above, there seemed The atmosphere of the film should have been becom- to be an acute contradiction between the sense of antici- ing sombre, even tragic. Not so. We were all somehow pation felt by the audience, the feeling in the film (a giddy high on enthusiasm.