Sigma Dec 1999 #166 Ann's Agenda Science fiction has a number of prophesied gadgets that we all wish someone would really make: ftl drive, a matter transmitter (aka Star TrekÕs transporter), helpful humanoid robots (like Star TrekÕs Mr. Data, of course), a ray gun that really works. One of the things that is interesting, by the way, is that this list is a lot shorter than it used to be, say ten or twenty years ago. We donÕt have to wish for as much: they have put an artificial heart in a person; you can buy a computer that fits in the palm of your hand; an artificial intelligence has beaten a grandmaster at chess. ThereÕs a book, called THE DREAMS OUR STUFF IS MADE OF, by Tom Disch (one of the classic sf writers), discussing this topic. He contends that the world has no need for sf now, since itÕs all becoming reality. I havenÕt finished the book yet, but it was a hot topic for argument at Philcon, and we may yet do a debate about it, once I finish reading it (and probably lend it to Eric Davin). The point I was really trying for is that of all this list, most people, myself included, have always put the matter transmitter at the head of the list. True, this preference is strongest when in the middle of the seemingly wasteland Ohio Turnpike on the way to a con in Michigan. It is also reinforced every time we go to a con in Boston or New York, and realize just how big a state Pennsylvania really is. But at least PA has scenery to look at, and look at, and look at. Lately I have been reconsidering. Maybe a time machine should really be at the top. It doesnÕt fix the problem with Ohio. But right now, at this point in my life, being able to go back to last week and get some things done is very attractive. This column, for instance, which I am sorry to say, held up your SIGMA, cause I just couldnÕt find time to get it done. The more I approach the idea of a time machine as a useful gadget, the more attractive it gets. In fiction itÕs always presented as useful for saving the world, or catching major criminals, or changing history. But all the uses I have in mind arenÕt particularly heroic, wouldnÕt even make a wrinkle in history, but would definitely be an advantage to me. TheyÕre functions IÕd pay good money for, too. It would be extremely attractive to go back about a month and take notes at Philcon, when I was enjoying myself and not paying attention. Then the review (which is elsewhere is this issue) would be accurate instead of dependent on my hazy memory. There were meetings at work, just two weeks ago, that just a momentÕs revisiting would really help to clarify now. While IÕm doing it, I could go back even farther, to summer, and relax a little in the sunshine. Then IÕd be refreshed and ready to plunge into serious housecleaning for the party on Saturday. Oh yes, and while I was doing it, IÕd write down a few recipes I have since misplaced for edible goodies I want to make. Sadly, no time machine is handy. Happily, the Christmas party is next weekend, and you all get fascinated by the books and the food and the conversation and donÕt notice if I am still a little behind on the housecleaning. And this year (thanks to Greg Armstrong and Jeff Nartic), the downstairs bathroom is working, so weÕre back up to 3 bathrooms, no waiting! Remember to bring back the books you borrowed last year, and be prepared to borrow new ones! The doors will open around 2pm, and wonÕt close until after midnight (how much after depends on how interesting the conversation is at that point). If you canÕt make it to the party, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! In Case You Were Wondering... WorldCon 2000 Chicago WorldCon 2001 Philadelphia Announcing: WorldCon 2002 San Jose ConJose Guests of Honor Writer - Vernor Vinge Artist - David Cherry Fans - Bjo and John Trimble Imaginary - Ferdinand Feghoot Toastmaster - Tad Williams Last Meeting Members who attended the PARSEC meeting on November 20, 1999 at the Monroeville Public Library saw tables stacked with rows of books, mostly sf and fantasy, all for our annual book sale. This year several people brought computer software, of varying vintage and type. Kevin Geiselman had old copies of Lotus and some word processing programs, all with the manuals, in their original bulky cases. Chris Hutson was waving software CDs. The spirit of the sale was perhaps best exemplified by Capn John (John Cope), who explained his pricing policy thusly: Ņbooks are twenty-five cents for one, or free if you take three.Ó A number of people had old magazines they were giving away. Beth Bowles and Ruth Heller probably had the largest number of books there. Randy Hoffman, to the amazement of his friends, did NOT go home with twice what he brought. Continuing a recent trend, we had a visitor who we hope will turn into a new member: Bob Dinkel, a friend of Bill Hall. BobÕs avocation is music; he tells us he has a serious sound system in his basement (play producers take note). Between book sales, we also held a meeting, since there was serious business to conduct. The raffle, for BethÕs glass, was won by Kira who didnÕt buy all the tickets (a ploy that has been used successfully in the past), but did buy more than her usual. Tom Rafalski paid his dues, getting membership card #101 in return! This means, for the first time ever, PARSEC has over 100 paid members. For the serious business, our annual nominations for officers were held. Ann Cecil was nominated for an unprecedented third term for President, which she accepted on the basis that she would like to continue through the Other Worlds Fair startup. No other nominations for President were entered, so Ann gets it. Mia Sherman was nominated for her first full term as Treasurer, based on the excellent job sheÕs done so far. There being no other nominations, she was declared Ōaccepted.Õ There were two nominations for Vice President (both were present and both agreed to run): Sasha Riley and Kira Heston. In addition, the group present voted to amend the by-laws to add two new offices: Secretary and Snide Commentator. For the office of Secretary, Tom Morrow was nominated and accepted, with no other nominations. For the office of Snide Commentator (in honor of Christina Schulman), Chris Ferrier was nominated and accepted. After the elections, the tryout version of the MST3K game was played. Everybody got paper and a pen, and then we watched an episode of Commander Cody - Radar Men From the Moon. After seeing it once, everybody got a chance to organize their thoughts, and then the episode was played again, with people shouting out their comments at the appropriate point. Honors were split between Tom Rafalski for the Ō1-800 collectÕ comment as the Moon man phones one of his henchmen on the Earth, and Randy Hoffman for several comments including one on the opening credits. A number of people got in good shots and generally all agreed the game was enough fun to use for the Other Worlds Fair. Ballot 1. to amend by-laws to include new offices: add to the list of officers: 4. Secretary whose duties shall be to write up the minutes of each meeting in a timely fashion for printing in SIGMA. 5. Snide Commentator whose duties shall be to continue the tradition started by Christina Shulman of keeping the officers and members from taking themselves too seriously. vote to change by-laws: yes_ no_ Officers for 2000: President: Ann Cecil Vice President: Sasha Riley Kira Heston (check one) Treasurer: Mia Sherman Secretary: Tom Morrow Snide Commentator: Chris Ferrier Members may either mail in votes or vote at the Christmas party. All ballots must be in by 6 pm Saturday December 11th where they will be counted and the results announced. PARSEC book reviews now World Famous The World Wide Web is really a wonderful thing. When I was editor of Sigma, I started putting up the individual reviews onto web pages. I added a web counter, mostly to see if anyone was actually looking at the pages. Well, the Reviews page recently reached 500 hits, and is rapidly approaching 600. The counter reports to me daily with the locations the hits are from. More and more, I am seeing hits from outside the USA. During Thanksgiving weekend, fully half of he hits were from outside the USA: Canada and New Zealand I expect, as they speak English there. But other hits were from Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. Congratulations to all of you who have submitted reviews to Sigma and the site, and enjoy your fame. Sigma site: www.andrew.cmu.edu/~roboman/sigma by Greg Armstrong Dammit, I'm an Actor, not a Star Ship Captain! William Shatner is collaborating on another book, some of you may have heard. Yes, I know that they used to shoot collaborators, but this is different. He is working with CMU adjunct professor Chip Walters on a book about how the technology dreamed about on Star Trek is true, or coming true today. Recently, William Shatner was in Pittsburgh to look at what was going on at the Robotics Institute, among other places. He stopped in at my lab, and interviewed me and my coworkers. I must say that he asked some unexpected questions. William Shatner is definitely NOT James T. Kirk. Mr. Shatner described how his home was wired with sensors on the lighting, so that he never has to throw a switch, the lights are *supposed* to come on whenever anyone enters a room. But the sensors donÕt work, and he canÕt turn his lights on! That is not something you would expect from a graduate of Star Fleet Academy. Yes, William Shatner is definitely ignorant of the way technology works, but I really think that that is helping with this book. he asks questions and will help to write a book that anyone can read, and get a basic understanding of the concepts underneath all of the technology that many people are taking for granted to read. When this book comes out, I suspect that it will be a good basic science book that you and I and our children can read. It will help us all to understand the things that are changing in the world around us. And no, it isnÕt a toupee. by Greg Armstrong 1999 Hugo Winners Best Novel of 1998 To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis Best Novella of 1998 ŅOceanicÓ by Greg Egan Best Novelette of 1998 ŅTaklamakanÓ by Bruce Sterling Best Short Story of 1998 ŅThe Very Pulse of the MachineÓ by Michael Swanwick Best Related Book of 1998 The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of by Thomas M. Disch Best Dramatic Presentation of 1998 The Truman Show (Paramount) Best Professional Editor of 1998 Gardner Dozois (AsimovÕs) Best Professional Artist of 1998 Bob Eggleton Best Semiprozine of 1998 Locus edited by Charles N. Brown Best Fanzine of 1998 Ansible edited By Dave Langford Best Fan Writer of 1998 Dave Langford Best Fan Artist of 1998 Ian Gunn John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of 1997 or 1998 (Sponsored by Dell Magazines) Nalo Hopkinson Bookshelf Nancy Kress David BrinÕs Out of Time Series Number 1, Avon Books Inc., 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, June 1999, ISBN 0-380-79968-5, US $4.99, CAN $6.99 I think it took Ms Kress about a week to write this one. That includes the hour she spent listening in on teenagersÕ conversations to pick up a phrase or two of youthful slang. Yes, I know the Out of Time Series is BrinÕs attempt at luring young readers to Science Fiction (an extremely laudable cause) but I suspect this effort by Kress will lose as many youngsters as it gains. I will try to not overuse the word Ņdull.Ó The premise of the Out of Time series is fairly standard. In EarthÕs future, humanity has succeeded in colonizing the Solar System without destroying Earth in the process. This deed has earned humanity the notice (and possible respect) of an ancient alien race called The Gift Givers. Earth learns there are hundreds of other alien races out there, all pretty much competing for the Gift GiversÕ favors. One of the gifts Earth received was the ability to use special teleportation devices located around the galaxy. These devices, Ņsally portsÓ transport people and material instantly through great distances. Of course there is a catch: any person (human anyway) over the age of sixteen who uses a sally port dies in pain and madness. So when problems arise on distant planets, only teenagers can be sent to handle them. (This is a handy device to get the kids out of direct adult supervision.) So why are teenagers from EarthÕs past yanked into the far future? It seems that the people in 2336 are a bunch of wimps. All the aggressiveness and ŅgritÓ has been bred out of them. The thought of violence and direct confrontation makes them ill. For special missions the Earth of 2336 kidnaps (oops!) yanks teenagers with grit to the future. Each particular youngster is chosen because he or she had demonstrated courage, grit and intelligence. Each on has Ņmade a differenceÓ in their own time period. In this particular book the teenagers are: - Jason Ramsay, United States, 1999. He is a young athlete with a promising future and Ņa natural leader.Ó - Sharon Myers, United States, 1999. The product of an extremely dysfunctional home, she is extremely intelligent and responsible. - Jofrid Sigurdsdottir, Iceland, 987. A VikingÕs daughter, she doesnÕt display the proper respect for the men in her village. Her attitude will probably cause her to remain unmarried all her life. - Robbie, London, England, 1810. Think of him as a young version of Dr. Smith from the first season of the Lost In Space TV show. All good adventure groups have a thief. - Sor Spo Gillen, 2336. He is from the bookÕs ŅpresentÓ day and he is along mainly because the kids from the past need someone to teach them to use the futuristic equipment. These 5 teens, along with a robot babysitter (Danger! Danger!) are sent on a quest to a far off planet to rescue a group of spacewrecked children and to recover an artifact vital to humanityÕs standing in the galactic community. A complication is the existence of another search and recovery mission, this one sent by a competing alien race. These competitors are roughly at the same level technologically and socially as Earth so they too are vying for the Gift GiversÕ attention. Although it is never explicitly stated, I suspect these teens were all ŅconditionedÓ to get along and accept each other. I canÕt imagine a street thief from 1810 willingly taking orders from a Black person, nor can I imagine a Viking girl from 987 being nonplussed by the sight of a Black person. This same conditioning probably accounts for the ease in which the teenagers accept their unusual circumstances and dive into their mission. The interactions between the teens is so uneventful and wooden that it is something of a relief when the alien party finally appears. The only friction is caused by the thief who shows something resembling a healthy paranoia in strange surroundings. I suspect the dullness of this book is not Ms KressÕ fault. She is Ņplaying in someone elseÕs universeÓ and is probably following a strict set of rules. The success of the Harry Potter books is proof that books for Young Adults need not be deathly dull for older readers. Of course the Potter books donÕt pretend to be anything more than entertainment. The Out of Time books have a Message. There are two more volumes in the Out of Time series as I write this. Presumably they all use the same basic plot, that of pulling teenagers out of their own time periods to be used for nefarious purposes. I just hope these later books will be a bit more entertaining. by J. J. Walton PhilCon 99 I really wanted to go to Philcon this year, for a number of reasons: 1) I missed last year 2) I hadnÕt been to a con all year and 3) Philcon is one of my favorite cons. I even talked Parsecians into moving the November meeting so I could go. In many ways Philcon is the model for Confluence. Philcon holds to tradition: it is really a conference, not a convention (like Confluence), and they have a Principal Speaker, not a Guest of Honor. It seems appropriate to hold to such minor distinctions when you live in a Commonwealth, rather than a State. Philcon is also a very large con that has held on to the smaller, serious feel; fen and pros mingle freely at programming and in the lines for elevators. The hotel venue is one of the best for a con (itÕs an AdamÕs Mark, which seem to consistently plan their function space, as distinguished from just adding it on). And the elevators are reasonable, itÕs just the place where you wait for them thatÕs a little tight. There are parties, but itÕs not a Big Party con; most of the parties are open, and you can wander around and meet people with similar interests, or just listen to some eyeball-popping conversations. This year there werenÕt any lines. Anywhere. Attendance was down - instead of over 2000, there were just over 1500 attendees. Now this is still a healthy number, but it made for a much lighter load on the facility. It also meant you could always find a seat at panels, of which there was the usual surplus - 5 or 6 tracks, counting the extensive video and film program. Part of the reason was that there was a ban on alcohol at open parties, thought this shouldnÕt have affected attendance that much. The con suite has been ŌdryÕ for several years. Part of the reason was that there were NO Goths in evidence - I donÕt know if that was a conscious decision by someone, a trend or reaction (I wasnÕt at Philcon last year). There was a problem, though; the same faces kept turning up on panels. The pocket program had an amazingly long list of guests - 4 or 5 columns with about 30 names per column. I donÕt know where they were, though. I counted: Swanwick did 6 panels over the weekend, John Norman and Catherine Asaro did 5, and James Morrow did more. Katherine Kurtz, who was Principal Speaker, did less, but her speech was longer and she had to do it all by herself. Not only did many of the panels seem to have the same set of 8 or 10 people, shuffled around slightly, the topics repeated. I heard a panel on sf predictions three times: once focused on predictions that were good, once on predictions that were bad, once on predictions in general. Some of this was sparked by Tom DischÕs book, THE DREAMS OUR STUFF IS MADE OF, but it felt like overkill and a serious lack of imagination. For whatever reason, there was a kind of lethargy among the audience as well. Considering how much they were asked to do, the panelists held up surprisingly well, but when they opened panels for questions from the audience, mostly everybody sat there (maybe they were all asleep, having heard these panels before?). That was the down side. There was an up side as well. While it was poorly advertised, the premiere performance of James MorrowÕs one-act play ŌTHE ZOMBIES OF MONTROSEÕ was a definite success. The play was clever, and the lead (James Morrow) displayed a definite talent for physical comedy that made parts of the play hysterically funny. David Hartwell was amazingly convincing as a zombie. His son, however, slept through the whole performance. There was a LARP running all weekend, that never lacked for people and action; and the Masquerade is a time-honored attraction that brings out top-level costumes. There were some neat videos and films: something called PI was recommended, but it was shown during the point where I lost my badge and couldnÕt get in. YouÕll have to ask Randy Hoffman about that part of the program. Heidi Pilewski, Randy and I drove up and back together, and worked in a side trip on our way back to StoudtÕs, which has good food as well as great beer. JJ and his sister Lisa stopped at StoudtÕs on the way to the con. I bought a membership for next year, since they give you a healthy discount when you buy ahead, but right now IÕm re-evaluating. I had a good time, and bought a number of neat Christmas gifts (waitÕll Barb sees!), but it keeps getting more and more expensive. Maybe theyÕre getting tired, after all these years? Maybe it was just a one year fluke, a problem with the program committee. Maybe itÕs a trend in cons - maybe weÕre seeing the end of an era, and only the really good ones are going to continue. WeÕll see. by Ann Cecil NEXT MEETING NEXT MEETING: Dec. 11, 1999 2PM to Midnight LOCATION: Ann's House PLEASE: We encourage people to bring a munchie or drink contribution ... pop, chips, cookies, etc. TOPIC: Annual Holiday Party Please Note: it is an open house, starting around 2pm and lasting til whenever. Directions: From east, north, go thru Liberty tunnels to West Liberty Ave. From South, go north on Washington Road (rte 19) until it turns into West Liberty Ave. From West, come across rte 51 to West Liberty Ave, or come up Potomac (and up and up) and turn right on Belrose, just beyond Potomac T stop, and right on Hillsdale. Off West Liberty Ave, turn onto Hillsdale Ave (coming from the south, turn left, from the city, turn right), go down 4 blocks, cross trolley tracks, turn right and park somewhere. 2966 is first house (not the apartment) on left side of Voelkel (one-way going towards Potomac Ave). PAT: take any 42 (S or L) trolley from downtown, get off at Kelton, walk back to Hillsdale, cross tracks, etc. PARSEC Tentative Meeting Schedule January 2000 Time & Date : 12:30, 8 January 2000 Discussion Topic : Can Robots Be Your Friend? Professor Sebastian Thrun from Carnegie Mellon University will speak about interactive mobile robots developed for educational and entertainment purposes and for assistance of the elderly population. HeÕll explain some of the research challenges, and how robots are perceived by the general public. Location : Squirrel Hill Branch of Carnegie Library February 2000 Time & Date : 12:30, 12 February 2000 Discussion Topic : Pre-Confluence Panic Location : Squirrel Hill Branch of Carnegie Library March 2000 Time & Date : 12:30, 11 March 2000 Discussion Topic : TBA Location : Squirrel Hill Branch of Carnegie Library April 2000 Time & Date : 12:30, 8 April 2000 Discussion Topic : TBA Location : Squirrel Hill Branch of Carnegie Library May 2000 Time & Date : 12:30, 13 May 2000 Discussion Topic : TBA Location : Squirrel Hill Branch of Carnegie Library Good News Mary Soon Lee sold the story ŅSpell NightÓ to Pulp Eternity. Timons EsaiasÕs story ŅThe Mars ConventionÓ appeared in the Czech magazine Ikarie, and two stories and six poems became part of the library at Alexandria Digital Literature. Of those, his story ŅCrash SiteÓ was a Pick Of The Week, and also ADLÕs Best Seller for the month of October.