#135 Visions of Paradise #135 Contents The Passing Scene................................................................................................page 3 November 2008 Wondrous Stories................................................................................................page 5 Galactic Empires ... Farmer in the Sky ... Heinlein’s Children . Slick Willie’s Used Car World.............................................................…...........page 9 Part One On the Lighter Side............................................................................................page 16 Jokes by Bill Sabella _\\|//_ ( 0_0 ) ___________________o00__(_)__00o_________________ Robert Michael Sabella E-mail [email protected] Personal blog: http://adamosf.blogspot.com/ Sfnal blog: http://visionsofparadise.blogspot.com/ Fiction blog: http://bobsabella.livejournal.com/ Available online at http://efanzines.com/ Copyright ©November, 2008, by Gradient Press Available for trade, letter of comment or request Artwork Sheryl Birkhead ………………. cover Brad Foster ………………….page 8 The Passing Scene November 2008 Jean and I ended October by staying home on Halloween instead of going shopping. However, we had our usual small total of about 10 trick or treaters, so it was a relaxing night. The next day, after going to the YMCA in the morning, we had a quick lunch at a diner (which used to be as prevalent in New Jersey as mushrooms in a field, but recently have diminished to one every few towns) followed by a ride to Newark Airport to pick up Mark and Kate who flew back from a week at Disney World. They had a good week there, climaxed by a huge Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom so that they came home with two huge bags filled with candy. November is the month of the Indian Culture Club’s annual Family Diwali Dinner, and it was very successful. The officers did a good job planning it, the families brought lots of food, and everybody enjoyed themselves. Activities like this are very enjoyable for me as an advisor and make me very happy I have several clubs to work with after school. As usual, we had a four-day weekend due to the NJEA convention, but since it is always held in Atlantic City it is too expensive to stay overnight and too far for a day trip, so very few teachers from the northern part of the state go to it. It hardly seems worthwhile for schools to close for two days, but since we have to make the days up anyway, I really do not mind the brief vacation. It gave me a chance to catch up on several activities as well as going to the YMCA and the chiropractor (my back has been bothering me since the snowstorm last Wednesday when I must have shoveled too much), going for a stress test, finishing and posting the October VoP and doing a bit of reading. A good weekend. Jean and I planned to go to the Sculpture Garden in Princeton one weekend, but rainy weather altered that plan. Instead we went shopping at an outlet mall, then went with Mark & Kate, Fei Fei & Silvio to the All-Star Chinese Buffet, which is definitely the best buffet in our area. The fact that it is mostly frequented by Chinese people is proof of that, as well as the fact that several of their dishes are totally unfamiliar to me. I had to ask Fei Fei what some of them were. On the way there, we went with them to a jewelers where Kate’s ring was being re-sized. Somehow while we were there my cell phone fell out of my pocket and I could not find it even though I used Mark’s phone to call it. After we left the buffet, Jean called the phone again and some woman answered! She had found it in the parking lot by the jewelers, but she said it got wet in the rain and it could not make outgoing calls, which was not good. Mark got it from her the next morning while I phoned Verizen and had my number returned to my old phone. The middle week of November was one of those very busy weeks we all have occasionally. Monday night was Target Teach, so I got home at 9:15pm. Tuesday we graded TTP materials for the first marking period, so I got home at 8:15pm. Wednesday was the Fall Morris Area Math Alliance seminar, at which a friend of ours gave a very interesting talk. Jean and I got home at 6:35pm, and I expected to finally have some free time, but after supper Sun Hee came online and I spent 90 minutes helping her with Calculus as well as giving her advice about her new friend at VoP #135 / 3 college. But chatting with Sun Hee is an enjoyable way to spend some time so I did not mind. By the weekend of 11/ 15 I had tons of mail to catch up on, as well as 4 tests I gave at school the previous two days which needed grading. All that work needed to be done on Sunday since we spent Saturday at a funeral service for my friend Rick’s mom which stretched from mid-morning to mid-afternoon since the internment was a long distance away, after which we returned to the church for a luncheon. In the evening we had a dinner appointment with Alan & Denise which filled the rest of the day and evening. Denise has been in considerable pain recently for back problems, so after spending the week following our dinner on heavy medication, she finally had back surgery. She spent two nights in the hospital overnight and then returned home for convalescence. Hopefully, everything will go all right for her. I spend my 7th period each day with Li Li, my independent study student who is doing Real Analysis, a junior year college math major course which she has already halfway finished. Next I am deciding between giving her Topology or Lebesque Analysis–a first year graduate course– both of which I am certain she can do. She is brilliant, but does not realize it, similarly to Fei Fei. I really hope they can meet each other someday. Jean’s aunt Ceil arrived on 11/22 for her annual two-week Thanksgiving visit. She turned 88 the next day and, as usual, she is livelier than many people I know 20 years younger. She did show one sign of aging though, wrenching her back one morning so that she moved very slowly for a few days. But by Thanksgiving Day she had improved quite a bit already. We had a very quiet Thanksgiving, with only the four of us for dinner. It was the prototype Thanksgiving dinner: roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, homemade applesauce and cranberry sauce. We ate at 1:30 since Andy went to work at 3:00. Mark and Kate were at her parents’ house, but they came in the evening for dessert (I made pumpkin pie, which I love!). Fei Fei and Silvio were in Cape May for a few days so they could not come at all. Thanksgiving is probably my least healthy eating day of the year, since I always eat all the giblets, which are delicious but so bad for me! ( We had a half-day of school the day before Thanksgiving, and many of last year’s students visited afterwards to say hello to their friends and former teachers. At one point over a dozen students were crowded into the Math Lab chatting with Jean and me. I was very happy to see my former Asian American Club president Kruti–who gave me a big hug (–and her buddy Sharan, and I also talked with many other students, none of whom were those whom I keep in touch with since they had not returned home early enough to visit. It was nice seeing them, but also a bit sad since except for an equally-brief visit before Christmas vacation, I will probably never see those particular students again. VoP #135 / 4 Wondrous Stories In March, 2008, I reviewed Gardner Dozois’ original anthology Galactic Empires, which featured modern interpretations of far-future interplanetary federations. This book was not the first sf book with that title though. In 1976, Brian W. Aldiss–one of the better anthologizers of vintage science fiction in addition to being a major writer and historian of the field–edited two volumes of Galactic Empires, collecting stories from the 1940s through the 1960s on that theme. The two volumes were short enough that today they might have been published as one 600 page volume. The books contain a lot of well-known SF writers. In Volume One are novelettes by Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov (the original “Foundation”), Clifford D. Simak and James White (one of his Sector General stories). Volume Two has John D. MacDonald (an underrated author), James Blish and Harry Harrison. There are also short stories by R.A. Lafferty, Arthur C. Clarke, Cordwainer Smith, Algis Budrys, A.E. van Vogt and Poul Anderson. Not surprisingly, the stories in Volume One run the gamut between pulpish adventures to serious, thought-provoking stories. In spite of Aldiss’ literary leanings, he is still fond of the occasional rousing adventure, including two from the early 1950s: Poul Anderson’s “The Star Plunderer” and Alfred Coppel’s “The Rebel of Valkyr”. Anderson’s was an early story of his, more interesting for its ideas than for its execution. It tells the story of a group of human captives being taken on a slave ship to the homeworld of a planet-sprawling Baldic League which has conquered Earth fairly easily. But the aliens are unbelievably stupid for intergalactic conquerors, and the small group of humans are able to seize control of the ship and initiate the overthrow of the conquerors with minimal effort.