m $3.00 )( .... FALL 1981 Vol. 22, No. 3 :a J::I "a 0 r­ ....J::I -0 2 EXTRAPOLATION "T1 )> I r­ ..a. <D co ..a. < 0 MarkRose's study of science deals jn a N lucid fiction ~N fascinating way with the basic themes of the genre. He z sees the key to science fiction as man's meeting with 0 the unknown - the alien - and how he handles it. Rose's reading of individual works ranges from Verne w to Wells, from Kubrick to Lem. His continuing themes include the consideration of science fiction as a form of romance, a mediator between the conviction of free will and the conviction of determinism, as a displacement of essentially religious concerns, and as a mirror of various aspects of the alienated sensibility of the modern era. This book will intrigue both students of literature and science fiction aficionados. $12.95 Available at your local bookstore or directly from Harvard University Press 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 , EXTRAPOLATION FALL 1981 Vol. 22, No. 3 210 Contributors 211 Launching Pad LEONARD M. SCIGAJ 213 Bettelheim, Castaneda and Zen: The Powers Behind the Force in Star Wars PATRICIA S. WARRICK 231 The Contrapuntal Design of Artificial Evolution in Asimov's "The Bicentennial Man" ROBERT CROSSLEY 242 Teaching the Course in Fantasy: An Elvish Counsel EDWARD W. R. PITCHER 252 ThatWebofSymbolsinZamyatin's We DONALD R. BURLESON 262 H. P. Lovecraft: The Hawthorne Influence DONALD R. EASTMAN 270 The Strategies of Survival: Cybernetic Difference in The Einstein Intersection RUTH BERMAN 277 A Bibliography of Fantasy and Fantasy-Criticism in Four Leading Nineteenth-Century Periodicals 291 Star Cluster 297 Books ISSN: 0014-5483 Contributors Ruth Berman is Instructor of English at the University of Oklahoma. This bibliography is a revision of part of her dissertation, "Suspending Disbelief: The Development of Fantasy as a Literary Genre in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction as Represented by Four Leading Periodicals." She published a pamphlet on Lewis Carroll, titled "Patterns of Unification in SylvieandBruno,''in 1974. Donald R. Burleson is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Rivier College in New Hampshire and teaches a course on H.P. Lovecraft at Middlesex Community College. He has spoken on Lovecraft at the World Science Fiction Convention, the World Fantasy Convention and other conferences. He has published extensively on Lovecraft and done original research into New England sources in Lovecraft's fiction. Robert Crossley is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and Director of the English Major. He has published articles on fantasy, the literature versus science controversy, Pope's translation of the Iliad, the autobiographies of J. S. Mill and Henry Adams, and the short fiction of Poe. He has completed a Reader's Guide to H. G. Wells for the Starmont series and contributed to the Salem Press's Survey of Science Fiction Literature. An article on fantasy and utopia in an anthology on the aesthetics of fantasy, edited by Roger Schlobin, is scheduled for publication by Notre Dame Press in early 1982. Donald R. Eastman is Executive Assistant to the Chancellor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has published poetry in Phoenix, The Florida Quarterly, and Poem, and essays in The Colorado Quarterly, The Southern Humanities Review, Interpretations, The D. H. Lawrence Review, Change, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Edward W. R. Pitcher is Associate Professor of English at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He previously taught at York University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. He has published several articles on Edgar Allan Poe and on literature from 1700 to 1830. He has also published articles on Faulkner and Fitzgerald. teonard M. Scigaj is Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, where he teaches courses in twentieth-century literature and science fiction. He has published an article on Ted Hughes, and received both an NEH Summer Stipend and an ACLS Fellowship to complete a manuscript on Hughes's poetry. He has aired educational television and radio spots on the teaching of science fiction. Patricia S. Warrick is Professor of English at the Universilty of Wisconsin-Fox Valley. She has published numerous articles on literary criticism and co-edited a number of science fiction anthologies, including Science Fiction: Contemporary Mythology. Her The C:v· bernetic Imagination in Science Fiction was published by MIT Press in 1980. She is currently working on a book-length study of Philip K. Dick's fiction. 210 THE LAUNCHING PAD • Recently the M.L.A. informed let's try for two hundred if we have me that at its meeting this spring the to go through the red tape again. I'll Executive Committee rejected our let you know in the next issue, and petition to set up a continuing we can talk about this in New York. science fiction discussion session. I I think part of the problem arose believe that the vote resulted from a from my being on the Executive m1smterpretation in that they Committee of the Popular Culture thought we wished to attain Group Group for the past five years and status; their rationale was based on therefore sponsoring the science the premise that science fiction fiction meetings under that rubric. I should fall under the Popular Cul­ have suggested in my recent letter ture Group. I have written, asking that we cannot expect Popular Cul­ for a reconsideration of that vote ture, with its many interests, to and for both an organizational surrender consistently one-third of meeting in New York City and a its program to sf, although the meeting in Los Angeles. I have continued vitality of sf and fantasy reminded the Committee that the might warrant it. I am also in cor­ Seminar on Science Fiction was (I respondence with Chuck Elkins and say "was" since the seminar system others of the proposed executive no longer exists) the second oldest committee. For the moment be pa­ continuing meeting in the M.L.A. tient. structure. For the moment I think For there will be a meeting in this correspondence will be suffi­ New York. I cannot give you time cient, but if need be we can either or place at the moment, but Donald deluge M.L.A. with direct letters or A. W ollheim has agreed to a dia­ petition again next spring. This logue concerning his career as wri­ time we had more than fifty letters; ter, editor, and publisher. I have 211 Launching Pad asked for an afternoon or evening plete some writing. Between that hour for that session, and I hope and the beginning of summer that you all will mark it on your school, I simply could not get to schedule. If we appear in good Denver at this time. However, both number at Christmas, any attempt Alice and I will attend Denvention, to establish the continuing session this year's W orldcon, which will be will be that much easier. held at Denver over the Labor Day Incidentally, I am particularly weekend. That will be the first of a indebted to Don for a suggestion he number of meetings which will take made while I was researching a me at least to London and Califor­ bibliography of Robert Silverberg nia next year. for G. K. Hall. The problem was to In many respects, the most color­ establish as exactly as possible the ful meeting yet announced will be date of publication of the early held in Paris in late April 1982. paperbacks, especially the Ace Professor John Dean has written, Doubles. The present editors at Ace "This will be the first time that had no idea where such records Continental scholars have ga­ might be; Don reminded me that thered" together in a series of work­ the best (only) way of dating such shops. The overall title of the ses­ books was by copyright registra­ sion is to be "American and tion. The Library ofCongress Cata­ European Science Fiction: Inter­ logue of Copyright Entries proved face and Interchange," with empha­ invaluable. I recommend that you sis upon the relationship since consult it in any problem of dating World War Two. It will be a part of you may work with. Any library the American Studies 1982 Biennial which serves as a government de­ Conference in Paris. He asks for pository will have it. papers, in English, running about This past weekend, SFRA met at 20-25 minutes (2,600 words). For Regis College in Denver, with Pro­ more detailed information, I sug­ fessor Charlotte Donsky as chair­ gest you write directly to Professor man. Since I was not there-it is John Dean, Universite Paris XIII; only the second SFRA meeting I 10, rue Broca, 75005; Paris, France. have missed-I cannot tell you at Although my schedule calls for an this moment where next year's autumn trip to England, I hope to meeting will be or who won this be in Paris in the spring. year's Pilgrim Award. I shall have Although it has not yet been that information by the next issue at released, I remind you that by Sep­ the latest, and of course it will be in tember the new Dictionary of the SFRA Newsletter. American Science Fiction Writers, The chief reasons that I did not edited by Thomas Wymer of Bowl­ attend result from the fact that next ing Green State University, should year I will be on leave of absence be available. It sounds like a most from the College in order to com- (continued on page 261) 212 Bettelheim, Castaneda and Zen: The Powers Behind the Force in Star Wars LEONARD M.