Present were Robin C. (formerly known as Robin B.), Robin M., Joe, Shane, Mem, Samantha, Steve, Ted, Jack, Kent, and Robert. Eric and Jay arrived later. Melissa arrived at the end, just as we were giving up on watching the Gor movie (it was *really* bad). Kids present included Brendan, Connor, Ben, and James.
We introduced the meeting with a review of the Gor movie written by Joe Bob Briggs. He referred to it as a "Lame latecomer during the onslaught of Dungeons-and-Dragons flicks for junior-high lizard people." For the rest of his review, check out his site at http://joebob-briggs.com/bmovieguide/gor.html
I then read another gem we found on the web, from someone who seems to think that "Gorean Philosophy" should be a subject for serious study. He has written a short essay on the subject, which can be found at http://rivendell.fortunecity.com/xanth/891/tarnsman.htm
. The flavor of the whole thing is summarized by this paragraph.
Thus it is with newcomers to Gor. The truths of this lifestyle are sometimes hard to see, and take much time to "get." A person who has read a book or two, and claims to know Gor, and understand its message is like a child finished with first grade claiming to know all he needs to know. The value of the first book , like the basic skills of first grade, is in the introduction to the ideas, and to the trivia, around which the true study of Gor, and the true path of discovery will be built. This is why, like a child learns arithmetic to prepare them to learn Algebra, the slave girl learns the drinks, and the customs, and the geography, and the Castes, and the other fictional things of Gor, to help prepare her for the later books, and the deep and important philosophy that can be found there.Robin C. thought it was put up just as a joke, but it seemed to us that the author was quite serious.
The meeting was called to order at 8:18 pm.
Treasurer's report - Joe reported that we still have a lot of money. He had reports of totals for 1999 and 2000. Have had few expenses this year.
Secretary - things are proceeding apace. I added the1Friday list subscribe info to web site, but we were still having problems with the list server.
Ted discussed some options for the mailing list.
Should we require approval for membership on the list? Kent suggested not requiring approval, since the only reason for doing so is as an anti-spam measure. Spam won't be a problem if you follow up by blocking out people who post spam.
Should we allow non-members to post? - Consensus was no. This means that messages posted to the list may bounce if you try to post from a different email then you are subscribed under.
Two addresses bounced when Ted tried to sign them up. Mem has a different email for Erin and Karen that should be good.
Ted expects to get the list working when support contacts him on Monday.
One of Ted's co-workers said that he found the website useful as a recommended books list. We discussed the fact that some of the books that we've read aren't exactly the same ones we would recommend to a relative newcomer to the SF genre.
VP report - Jack said "Bye-bye".
Ben and James arrived. There was no sign of their parents, so we speculated on whether James was driving now, Jay arrived, thus proving that while the driving age may be low in Colorado, it isn't *that* low.
President passed the meeting onto the trustees for election of new officers.
Robin C. moved that we nominate the current slate of officers for re-election, except for the trustees. Mem seconded .
Robin M. nominated Mem as president. Ted seconded. Despite our efforts to nominate someone else, Ted was elected as president.
Jack was nominated as as VP (or president of vice), and accepted.
Secretary & Treasurer approved by acclamation.
Kent, Shane, and Robert were nominated as trustees. Shane and Robert declined. Sam and Robin C. were nominated. Kent, Samantha, and Robin C. were chosen as the trustees.
Appointment of committees - volunteers for reading committee included Steve, Samantha, Mem, Shane, and Robin C. Samantha will serve as chair of the committee.
Discussed having a con committee - but can't find a time to hold a con that doesn't interfere with someone else.
Need a hospitality committee to organize our con parties - Robin C. nominated Eric for Hospitality committee. Jack said he might help. He was then officially appointed.
Publicity committee - Samantha said she would do it.
Joe asked if we wanted to consider doing a publication? Kent countered with the question of whether we have people to write for a 'zine. It is possible that people would contribute stuff if someone felt like doing a 'zine.
We digressed into a discussion of a bug in the computer system at 7-11 that is causing them to be unable to take credit cards. The computer thinks that it is 1901, and everyone's cards are expired.
Resuming the meeting, and the issue of doing a publication, we decided that Joe will be the publications committee.
SMOFcon committee still exists because we have stuff to do. Ted has found some software for sound editing, and has a couple files ready to put on the web. Ted and Kent will be Smofcon committee. Want to put all audio files on a CD to distribute.
Robin C. proposed a book acquisition committee to look for out-of-print books, since many of the books on our list have been OOP. Kent said it should be a sub-committee of the readings committee. Robin C. was nominated. She wanted to know how much money she would be allowed to spend on this, and how high she could bid on eBay.
Old business - we talked about reimbursing people who helped with SMOFcon for half their memberships. Kent had been waiting until the SMOFcon CD's were available, before going through the list of members who helped. He will try to make a list of those who should get refunds done prior to next meeting. Joe was officially appointed to nag Kent about it.
CD's will probably not be available until March or April. We talked about the technicalities of burning CD's.
People are still interested in the meeting files that are currently posted.
Eric said he'd like to have a recording of what went on in the internet access room at SMOFcon. It would be interesting. Kent said there were many very interesting discussions at SMOFcon, and that it was just as well that most of them were not recorded.
No further old business. No new business.
Mem and Kent said that they didn't want to be reimbursed for snacks provided at meetings.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:02, for the book discussion.
Several people didn't read the book, mainly due to the fact that it is OOP, and none of the local bookstores seemed to have any copies.
Like many of the books we've read, we tended to discuss the entire series rather than just Tarnsman of Gor. In the first few books the sex is more behind the scenes, less obvious B&D than in subsequent books. In this one, he actually marries the girl, rather than letting her be his love slave.
Mem says its a pastiche of Tarzan of the Apes and Princess of Mars. First 60 pages are straight out of Burroughs. The setup is the same, protaganist gets to the strange world in the same mostly undefined way. Lots of naked people (though they didn't make such a big issue of it in Burroughs).
Time was out of synch between Gor and Earth - the letter from Tarl's father was dated differently - but his father was from Gor.
Copyright date was 1967.
Norman (pen name) was updating a Victorian novel (Burroughs) into a 60's novel. Each time he wrote he got kinkier - He was a psychologist (different name), and a professor. Now he makes strange speeches about those who follow his books. It's hard to tell if he is being serious about it or not.
Gets into pain & suffering, masochism, B&D, and degredation more in the later books. First half dozen books had a plot, of sorts. Mostly Capture the Flag plots, or FedEx quests - where the heroes go get some item and bring it back.
At end of Tarnsman he's transported back to his world - just like in Princess of Mars,even though he would rather have remained in the alternate world - just like in Princess of Mars.
We discussed some of the ideas of "Gorean Philosophy" (such as it is...) Not all women are slaves, they just aspire to be. They secretly want to be dominated by men. In the later books it appears that even the men secretly yearn to be dominated, but someone has to be the master. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. ;-)
At first, Tarl didn't approve of slavery, but he came to accept it when all the women were throwing themselves at him. The more he was exposed to Gor, the more he came to follow its ideology.
Shane mentioned a parody of Gor about houseplants,and how houseplants secretly want to be dominated. (he has since posted this to the 1Friday list).
If it was intended to be a parody, as opposed to a copy, of Princess of Mars, it should have been funny. I liked Doon, the Dessert Planet, as a parody book.
Glory Road was much more fun.
Only reason this book was SF as opposed to fantasy is that he was copying Princess of Mars. Had to start his guy in the modern world, and transport him to the fantasy alternate reality.
Our requisite Heinlein reference is that the Gor books are like an anti-Citizen of the Galaxy. Protaganist starts as master of everything, and winds up as a slave, instead of the other way around.
Philip Jose Farmer's Lord of the Trees is one of the most disgusting books ever written - goes from 3rd grade bathroom humor to high school locker room humor. Written about the same time as Tarnsman of Gor. Mem wondered if there was any influence common to the books.
Joe talked about a family tree created by PJF, tying a variety of fictional characters together.
Mem went to look for her picture as the Gorian slave girl fromthe 1971 Westercon, but couldn't find it.
I got there late. My thanks to Shane for taking the notes for the business portion of the meeting, and the beginning of the book discussion.
Present were Jack, Eric, Mary, Joe, Shane,Kent,Robin C, Robert, Samantha, Steve
Meeting called to order.
The publicity committee needs the box of bookmarks. Samantha invited John Stith to the meeting. We discussed whether he'd be able to find the house.
Kent made a list of people who were getting refunds on their SMOFcon membership because they worked at the con. Total about $500. Mailing CDs of the panels will cost about $300. Ted bought software to process the audio from the panels which he has not been remibursed for.
Jack suggested we make a list of out-of-print books we will be reading so that he or whoever can pick up copies when he goes to WorldCons. Next month's book is The Postman by David Brin. Brief discussion of dolphin vampires and other attack fish. Business meeting then adjourned.
Book discussion - Manhattan Transfer by John Stith
Robin felt the characters were weak. Mary said the book was more of a plot/idea book than a character book. Eric though that everybody acted too reasonably. Steve thought there wasn't enough panic. The mayor was ineffectual. Eric thought it was obvious that the kidnappers were benevolent. Steve thought that they wouldn't be inclined to believe that the aliens had benign motives.
Ted and Robin arrived. John Stith arrived.
Robin C. was wondering why in so many SF books, the bad guys/scary aliens are insectoid. Everyone agreed that insects are pretty scary. Mem said that she remembered a crocodile type race in one book. Archies were actually not that hard to get along with, but triggered an instinctive aversion. John Stith said it made you want to wear your *big* shoes.
The tree people heard the rest of their race die 20 days after they were taken. Humans believed from this that the archies were destroying the planets after taking cities.
Someone brought up the story "Manhattan Transfer" by Dos Pasos. John said that he hadn't read it when he wrote his book. John said that he was brainstorming online, and the title was suggested.
New York was chosen for its interesting connections, including subways, water, bridges, gas & electric lines. Also it has a great deal of cultural diversity in a small geographic area.
So why did Bobby Joe have a beard, but no hair?
John said that he wrote the book about ten years ago, but hasn't read it since. Everyone else had read it recently - except the author.
Sam thought it was interesting that there were no cell phones. But ten years ago, cell phones weren't really around, as was pointed out by several of us. Mem said that the image of people using walkie-talkies reminded her of SF con security. "Excuse me, can I see your badge please?"
Eric's requisite Heinlein reference - Matt reminded him of Lazarus Long, recast as a person that he actually wanted to hang out with. Everyone thought this was pretty weak, but no one suggested a better one. Sam thought that Heinlein wouldn't have a black woman as mayor, but Eric pointed out a short story in Expanded Universe that had a black woman as president.
"Cities in Flight" by Blish was mentioned. We began talking about the Lensman books. We decided that Matt would be a lensman, and Rudy would be one of the techies who were always making bigger and better weapons.
Mem was convinced that people would have taken up gardening in Central Park as soon as they realized that there wasn't anything to eat other than rabbit chow. Mem said she would be growing tomatoes in pots. Mushrooms and lettuce are easy to grow. We decided that whatever livestock was available would have been centralized by the government. You'd think that there would be rabbits, possibly chickens. Even the pigeons would start to look pretty tasty after a steady diet of nothing but rabbit chow.
No one could agree as to which gender the aliens that were separated from their opposite gender were. John thought that they were male, Robin C. thought they were female. Sam and Robin M thought more likely male.
Ted said that he had trouble judging how much time had passed in the book. Others agreed that it was hard to tell. Being disconnected from earth makes it hard to judge time. The protaganists were all sleep deprived towards the end, which adds to the disorientation. We all agreed that it seemed as if much more time had passed than actually did in the story.
One interesting consequence of New York being abducted by aliens is that drug addicts had no choice but to get over their addiction. Once the supply of drugs in the ciry was gone, no new drugs coming in, except for those few growing pot in the closet. Mary said they should pull out all the grow lights and use them to grow tomatoes instead.
Sam said that it reminded her of an MZB story where individuals from different worlds were taken by aliens, and had to cooperate with each other.
Eric thought that the archies should be paying more attention to the various cities that they had taken. Others said that they were too busy trying to save other civilizations to pay strict attention to the ones that they already had.
Mem said that it was sort of like collecting butterflies. Eric agreed that it was except that no one used ether. John said "or giant pins"
We discussed the technology of the minivid cameras used to record video. John said they had a 400 gig drive and 2 gig RAM.
Mem said that the timeline was too compressed. should have followed multiple generations trhough several sequels. Children of Manhattan. Chapterhouse Manhattan. God Emperor Manhattan.
In the book it was mentioned that Africa had been blown up - John was divorced 10 yrs before -Robin wondered if his ex lived in Africa.
Men were thinking short term - wanted to break out and take over the ship - women wanted to find homes, grow tomatoes, feed the cats and take care of the kids.
We were talking about the possibility of the aliens taking other cities. Tokyo has a very high population density, but not much ethnic diversity. Figured that they should have tried to take Tokyo, since everyone else has destroyed it (Mothra, Godzilla, et al) Steve said they could have picked up Tokyo, and dropped it, thus fulfilling cosmic destiny. Oops.
Present were Jack, Kent, Shane, Steve, Kerry, Joe, Robin M., Robin C. and Eric
We discussed Mem's trip to Las Vegas, where she was apparently hanging around with someone who threw her? room key onto the stage during a concert.
The meeting was called to order at 8:17.
Officers reports - Joe - nothing new. Needs to work on the SMOFcon rebates.
Book committee - no list yet. Robin C. will email some suggestions to me soon.<
April books were thought to be out-of-print, but a combined version of the two books was found. It is available from Amazon.
We digressed into Starbuck's, and how they are taking over the world. Ted said, "No, they're only taking over the self-important parts of the world." Robin C. mentioned that Starbuck's opened a shop across the street from the Jorvik Viking Center in York, England. We talked about York, and York Minster.
The April meeting will be postponed until April 20th.
It was suggested that people who will be attending Minicon in April purchase some of the upcoming OOP books.
SMOFcon tapes delayed yet again, but now that Ted is working from home he should be able to work on them better.
Jack is getting double posted from the list. He signed up for a password to change his settings. Ted will fix it from the admin screen.
Will wait for book committee to come up with a list before we print out book marks including some of the upcoming books.
Meeting adjourned at 8:36
Ted asked where it ranked among post-haulocost novels. Robin M. said it beat the hell out of Farnham's Freehold. Everyone liked Alas, Babylon better. The Postman rated pretty well, but could have been better. Robin C. said that it was mostly a character study. Jack thought it wasn't much of a character study, and could have been a lot better.
Steve thought the battle with the "super soldiers" in the movie was gratuitous. The book has them just as militant survivalists, but not super-human.
We discussed how Gordon figured out the cyclops people were lying, because he'd been telling so many lies it was apparent to him that something wasn't right. But they were doing it for the same reason that he was - to keep hope alive.
So is it really the job of women to weed out the good men from the bad? Robin C. said "Yes, but they're not doing a good enough job at it." She thought that the method used in Gate to Women's Country was better/more effective.
Feminism arose only during the industrial revolution. The character from the book thought that women were superior, and had the ability to tell whether men were advancing the progress of civilization - or regressing. But that women had not previously been involved enough in the decisions, and had not exercised their ability. She felt that the war might not have happened if women had been more involved.
Reading Lysistrata clued Gordon in to what women were doing. The women acted as the conscience for some of the men.
Robin C. said that it's not just that power corrupts, but that power attracts the corruptible.
The Holnists never really laid out their philosophy, said Eric. They're called anarchists, but they are the most organized anarchists he's ever heard of.
Ted said that the philosohy was simple - the strong should dominate the weak, it was the natural order of the world.
Would the world have really fallen apart as much as it did in the book? Series of disasters - nuke war, plagues, famine - all made worse by the Holnists & other survivalists. Would society have collapsed as completely as it did in the book, even under such provocation?
The requisite Heinlein reference - In Starship Troopers - Heinlein says to separate the sheep from the wolves, and make the wolves the guards. Revolution won't occur, because those who were likely to fight have been co-opted by the system.
Holnist society would not be attractive to any women, and would only attract those men who believed that they were aggressive and strong enough to dominate other men. Holnists needed to expand. Attraction because people can be "part" of something. Kind of like a gang. Even women might prefer this to starving in the mountains.
Ted doesn't believe in the utter and complete collapse of all levels of the government. If there was a local Colorado SPrings militia - to defend our town and people, many would join that rather than aggressive groups like the Holnists.
No communications would make it hard for governments to hold together. Ted thought it still was too extreme.
Holnists were planning before the war - and seized the moment.
We got into an argument about fanaticism and belief - and how some people will go to any length to enforce their ideas.
In a soliloquy by Eric, he said that the Holnists and the Cyclops group, are both committed to their ideals - the Holnists are trying to become/develop a superior breed of man - the Cyclops people committed to achieving a renaissance. Both groups became powers, because of their committment, not because of their specific ideas.
Gordon also used his beliefs to gain power. Recreating the United States was an easy idea to sell because everyone was familiar with it. Eric said that in Canada they would just have said, "What¼s the problem, we just had three years of great hockey, eh?"
Cities would fall apart because of failure of infrastructure. Robin C. said that the high population density we have now was due to improved hygiene, and that knowledge wouldn't be lost. Eric and Robin M argued that it all was based on technology, and without that, we couldn't support the population. Sewage & water treatment wouldn't work. People would have to disperse, but with primitive farming and such, we couldn't support the number of people that we currently do. We talked about which cities would be targets. Why would anyone bomb Minneapolis? It used to be that all major population centers were targets.
Talked about "A Boy and his Dog" by Harlan Ellson. Kent said it was extremely well written, and extremely disgusting.
We digressed further into Stephen King,a nd horror. End of notes.
Present were Mem, Kent, Kerry, Robert, Sam, Robin C., Megan, Joe, Ted and Robin M. The books for discussion were Don't Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine, by Tannith Lee.
Joe was leaning on Mary's green lizard. Mary took it away from him. The meeting was called to order at 8:25. We talked about the difference between calling the meeting to order, and calling in a pizza order.
Treasurer: We still have money, and need to work on rebates for SMOFcon memberships. We discussed our expenses, which generally amount to only a few hundred dollars a year for parties at con's. Kent thought that we should buy less food for the party this year. Robin moved that Kent do the shopping for XII Khan party. Mem seconded the motion.
Mem suggested creating a committee to find the by-laws. We discussed who was responsible for maintaining them. Mem moved that Kent and Ted and Joe be on the committee to find the by-laws. Robin seconded.
Mem made the lizard dance.
Secretary: I sent in the paperwork to keep our organization official as far as the state is concerned. I made an exectutive decision on some of the upcoming books and put the list up on the website.
We talked about the upcoming Lord of the Rings movies, and the various organizations that do nothing but talk about LotR.
Joe made a motion to spend $200 for the party at XII Khan. The lizard seconded. The motion was voted and approved. We'll hold the party on Saturday night.
Robin M. claimed that the books were just fluff reading, and Mem said that they were too dark to be fluff. They seem to glorify death. Robin thought that they didn't glorify death at all, but instead showed how meaningless their lives were, and how much the protaganist appreciated real life, even though it was hard. Mem thought that the pet was the best part. The protaganist steals it in the beginning of the story, and it bites her, and fights with her. It finally saves her in the desert, but then get killed, and the protaganist almost has a real emotion.
Ted said that it was hard getting past the pseudo-technological basis of the society - such as paying by things through emoting. The entire get-a-new-body-whenever-you-want thing is such a big question tecnologically. Mem's Heinlein reference was Menace from Earth - Mem thought there was something of the teenaged angst in both books.
Society required the Jang to be wild, disruptive, and encouraged free love and sex, and taking drugs. It was pointed out that in this story human beings have no function in the society. There are no real jobs or purpose for people. All the society is run by androids - it reminded Ted of the Asimov books, where the robots are programmed to keep humanity safe, and end up trying to keep humanity in tight control. In this book, the androids were actively controlling humanity, and trying to prevent the protag from rebelling. When she doesn't go along with their plans, they try to kill her.
In Time Enough for Love - Heinlein explores some ideas of immortality.
In this book, the society is a truly scary one. Kent thought that it was a horror book. It seems unlikely that once the word was out that the androids were working actively against humanity that they would continue to live the way they had. You'd think there would have been a revolution and an attempt to overthrow the android rule.
Robin C. suggested that we read this. She was surprised, and told us to never listen to her. Mem told me to make a note to never listen to Robin.
We talked about Red as Blood, tales from the Brothers Grimmer, another book by Tannith Lee, in which she tells some of the fairy tales from the other side. In Logan's Run, they killed people off for population control, rather than controlling the number of births. That seems to be rather backwards.
Ted thought that this book was morally bereft. It reminded him of Mordant's Need by Stephen Donaldson. At the end of the first book, everything is dark and all that the protaganist has tried has resulted in failure. By the end of the second - there is at least a glimmer of hope, in a dark world.
We talked about other books that were science fiction and horror. Canticle for Leibowitz was suggested as a good classic book that is a good combo. The Stand is an SF/horror combo. The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn is a fantasy/horror kind of book.
We started talking about Snow Crash, but decided we should save it for next month. Tannith Lee mostly writes horror - not so much sf or fantasy.
The light in the corner faded away, and Robin was wondering what happened. Sam suggested that a neuron in her brain had just died, and the contrast when down in the world.
End of notes.
Present were Ted, Robin M., Robin C., Mary, Jack, Kent, Joe, and Kerry. Shane, Samantha and Robert showed up later.
Eric was the one who originally recommended that we read Strata, but he played a mean trick by showing up at the meeting, and saying that he wouldn't stay, because the book was so bad. Mary said that it "sucked stale swamp water".
Jack said that he's read about 20 of Terry Pratchet's novels, and it was interesting to see where Pratchett had started . Mary said that it was something that she didn't need to see.
We digressed into housekeeping. Mary needs a new housekeeper. Kerry wondered if there was any link between the subjects of conversation. Ted said that we went from Strata to trash to housekeeping.
Treasurer: SMOFcon rebates weren't done yet. We still have money. Jack wanted to know if we were planning on spending any money prior to Labor Day. We had previously approved expenses up to $200 for the XII-Khan party. We're planning a room party for Saturday night. We'll have less food this time. Jack will be unable to come.
July meeting - The first week of July, Mary and Kent will be at Westercon. Mary wanted to be present for the discussion of Farmer in the Sky.We will defer the meeting until the second Saturday of the month, and hold the meeting at XII-Khan during our room party. Jack discussed putting in a bid for Westercon, but we only got about 20 percent of the vote when we tried several years ago. Westercon will be in Portland. We really don't have enough local people who vote at Westercon to sway the vote to our area, or to support the convention.
Jack would like to propose that at MileHiCon we discuss coordinating with Denver fandom to put in a bid for Westercon. Kent thinks that there wouldn't be many people in DASFA who would be interested. He also said that MileHiCon is not the time to raise this issue. We should talk to them at a regular meeting - not too close to the Con. Robin C. suggested that we try to arrange to hold MileHiCon down here. Jack said let the current Con Committee run it, but work out hotel space down here. Robin suggested that Jack go to a DASFA meeting. Jack suggested that Kent go. Kent thought it was a bad idea. He suggested talking to Penny Tegen about expanding the local con - for next year. It is too late for this year. They may not want to expand the convention. It might exceed the local hotel space. Robin moved that we table the discussion. Give it to the convention committee - Kent and Jack.
Secretary: It is hard to find the web page with search engines. I'll put some meta tags in the web header, which will help provide search keywords. Kent suggested that if we all search for "science fiction", "Colorado Springs" and "fandom" within a short period of time, it will help to get the page listed in the search engines.
Kent will buy the food for the XII-Khan party. Mary will bring her inflatable Scrabble board. Need people to sit in the room for Saturday.
Book Committee - no action. Steve made some suggestions, but no one has followed up. Mem moved that Eric not be allowed to recommend books to the list ever. Ted suggested that it be limited to the next three years. Two ayes - 5 abstentions - Ayes had it.
Jack suggests that we organize an expedition into the mountains and have a convention in August. Robin C. said that we could get naked in the hot springs wearing sparkly antennae.
Ted suggested that we discuss science horror. Kent said that he didn't like any horror. Jack kept moving that we remove Stephen King from any future book suggestions. He was not seconded.
Shane came.
Shane said that he kind of liked Strata.
Jack started playing with the toy catapult, and shot a nut across the room.
Mary said that we could read A Thousand Nights and a Night. Kent asked if we could get an unexpurgated version. We could at least try and see if anyone can find a decent edition of it.
Jack asked about XII Khan. Wanted fliers. Moved to adjourn.
Book Discussion - Strata by Terry Pratchett
Mary objected to the time wasted in reading the book. She wants her hour and a half back. It wasn't that abysmal, she said. Just a ripoff of Ringworld.
Shane said the idea was decent, but the execution was poor. It is a bad ripoff of Ringworld, including pretty much all of the story elements and characters. "The names were changed to protect the innocent" Kerry suggested it was like a plagarized school paper where you just change a few of the words to disguise it. They look for the engineers, the science isn't as good. It was short. Had mostly the same elements as Ringworld, including the mofilament wire.
The book wasn't funny enough to be a parody. Jack suggested that it was funny. He said that there were three paragraphs in the book that foreshadow his style and sense of humor that shows up in his future writing. Mary said that we should read some *good* Terry Pratchett.
Shane said he wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who hadn't read Pratchett. In fact, he would only recommend it to someone who wanted to read everything that Terry had written. Kent said that some of the stuff that Pratchett wrote online was better - even some of his two paragraph responses to emailed questions from people.
Mary asked if anyone thought they could have spent an hour and a half doing something more beneficial to humanity - Kerry said " like doing laundry".
Mary said something about the final episode of Voyager, and Shane asked "You watch Voyager, but you couldn't take Strata?" We digressed into discussing the new Star Trek series, and the relative acting abilities of William Shatner, and the guy from Quantum Leap, who will play the captain in the new series.
Sam and Robert came, and gave Mem a small blue octopus. She put it on Ted's head. Jack wanted to have a book discussion on Friday at the Khan as well. He reiterated this several times. Mem said no, and what part of no didn't he understand. He said the N-O part.
Mary said that O stands for Oracle. Robin M. said that Cassandra was an oracle, and no one listened to her either.
Ted asked if the Tribbles were stolen from the flatcats in Heinlein's Rolling Stones. Mem said yes, and we went on to discuss what other stories were stolen for Trek. Then there was a B5 episode where they stole ideas from everything, including Lord of the Rings. Shane said that if you stole from everything it wasn't stealing, it was research.
Robin C. said that Mary could get shoes for her small octopus, and then she would have blue squid shoes. Robin M. said "To be forewarned is to be forearmed, but to be four-armed is to be half an octopus, and who wants to be that?"
The meeting was degenerating rapidly....
Mem asked if there was something wrong with us. Ted said perhaps the tzatziki that Robin had brought had fermented a bit. Mem said that it was Jack who was a bit fermented...
Jack wanted to ask a general question. Ted said that the general had a question. Jack asked people about playing the game Settlers of Catan.
Heinlein reference - no one could come up with one - This was a Niven ripoff - not a Heinlein ripoff.
We gave it up after Robin started telling the "interupting Cow" knock-knock joke.
end of notes.
Present were Kent, Steve, Joe, Robin M., Mem, Shane, Ted, Jack, Sam, Robert, Jay, Melissa, Robin C.
The meeting started with a long book committee meeting. We discussed which books we should read for the upcoming year. The meeting was called to order around 9:20. Ted asked if anyone wanted to adjourn. Kent motioned that we adjourn. He wasn't seconded.
Treasurer: Joe said we still have money. He hasn't done SMOFcon refunds yet. We told him to do that. Kent told Ted to put new SMOFcon audio files on the website.
Ted asked the Con committee if they had any plans for MileHiCon next month. It was decided that we should hold a room party to promote the club. Mem won't be here, but Joe will get a room, Robin and Shane will bring food. We put Robin C. on the MileHiCon party committee because she was out of the room when we discussed it.
Robin C. suggested that we put the book list on flyers for the bookstores. It is hoped that they will get copies of the books that we'll be reading. Perhaps Robin M. can put a PDF file up so that people can print out flyers as needed. Bookmarks should be left at McKinzey White.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:51.
We started talking about a character with two wives. He was still sleeping with the doctor. When she told him his wife was pregnant, they went and made out. This didn't seem to be the most appropriate reaction to finding out that one's wife was pregnant, but what they heck... :-)
Shane liked Rama - said that Clarke got the science right (everyone interjected "He always does!" at this point). Mem said that when she saw B5, it reminded her of Rendezvous. big cylindrical space habitat. Mentioned that B5 stole ideas from many different books, but they did it well.
Not much in the way of computers in the book. Computers were not predicted in the way that they evolved. Recent fiction is much more conscious of computers, they tend to be right in your face. We talked about computers and how they must have been present in rendezvous ships- navigation. Heinlein still had his characters using slide rules, his computers were there, but still had to be programmed by humans with slide rules.
Talked about GPS navigational systems in cars, and how sometimes it has caused accidents - directing people to turn wrong way up a 1 way street - directing people to drive into a river in Germany. Mentioned the 70's idea of a traffic-system that you would put your car into. Automatic control - using a large central computer. It would give a whole new meaning to having the server crash! :-)
Story got people into Rama quickly. Didn't spend 200 pages setting up the story. Mem asked how ship was related to the one in Manhattan Transfer - Sam said that it wasn't, but that it was related to the one in Rama Returns. "Really?" was the comment to this.
Jack asked "who was Rama" and Ted said "I don't know, but he's hairy" . Mem glared at him.
We debated Rama's place in the Hindu pantheon. Jay went to look it up in the Encyclopedia. Mem told Robin "and you wanted me to throw them away." Joe asked why anyone would want to throw away a perfectly good set of encyclopedias, and Robin said that it was because they were 25 years old. Jay agreed that they were old, because under "Ram" it said "a male sheep" with no other definition.
Original Trek had "For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky". We thought that was probably a Harlan Ellison episode. Title reminded Mem of Ellison's book "I have no mouth and I must scream" Ted said "I have no brain, but I must write". He is not a big fan of Harlan Ellison.
Mem mentioned that there was an AP article about how women were taking over SF. in 1880's there was a higher percentage of women attending & graduating colleges than there are now. A college in England recently granted a degree in SF. It was an open university - make your own major kind of thing.
We started talking about UCCS, and how many of the admins have taken jobs out of state, that pay more money.
So why was there an atmosphere if the robots and such didn't need it. It suggests that whoever made Rama needed an O2 atmosphere. When they got down deep enough, the atmosphere was thick enough to breathe.
Robin M. mentined that a million kids jumping up and down in England created a measureable quake on seismometers.
Not much in the way of action in the book. What about the cosmochristers? believed that jesus was from outer space. Attacked Rama with nuke from Mercury. Were worried about safetly of humanity. Compared them to termites.
John Norman was at worldcon. Announced a new Gor book - Warriors of Gor. Everyone was surprised that this title hadn't been used yet.
Apparently there is a Rama movie in progress.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won the Hugo. Kent said that it was because more people read it than had read any of the other books on the nominee list. Mem thought it was not as well written as the other Harry Potter books, and didn't hang together real well.
There was a panel at worldcon on the demise of the paperback 1st edition. It makes it harder for people to read new books such as the Hugo nominees. The fact that it takes 12 + months for books to come out in paperback means that very few people have read them while they are still eligible for the award.
Do we need to ammend our club bylaws? No one has the official copy of the bylaws.
Next month is Lord of the Rings. Everyone has to read it so they understand why Bored of the Rings has the giant eagles wearing pink neon signs that read "Deus ex machina airlines". Our club president *still* hasn't read LotR!
Present were Mem, Tim, Robin M., Ted, Joe, Shane, Jack, Robin C., Kent, Kerry, and Mike, Jay, Eric, Robert, Sam, and at 10 minutes to 9, Melissa came.
Treasurer - Mem proposed that we form a committee to keep track of how many months it has been since we have asked Joe to refund SMOFcon money. Kent said if we did that, we should also keep track of how long it took him to give the list of names to Joe (which was about 7 months).
Secretary - webpage updated. Mem motioned that we cheer for the secretary. Jack reluctantly seconded. Ted asked if there was debate on the motion. Robin gave me the last truffle.
Book committee - As per the vote at a previous meeting, Eric will not be allowed to add books to the booklist until June of 2004.
OOP book acquisition committee - Robin is chair. She would like some money ($100) to acquire some of the OOP books. Mem seconded.
Publicity committee was not represented. Sam and Eric weren't present (at the time).
The committee to find the by-laws - Joe and Kent both said that they have copies in their computers. Joe said that he will send a copy out within 2 weeks. Jack suggested that Joe just search for "Heinlein" and it will pop right out. Kent pointed out that "Heinlein" wasn't mentioned in the by-laws. Mem said we obviously would have to ammend the by-laws.
MileHiCon - Joe has reserved a room for the party, adjacent to his. Robin M. will bring the sign, and fliers. Robin asked Kent how much food to buy, and he told her that if she went to Sam's, and bought the smallest amount of each item, then she would have way too much. Robin M. will bring a small microwave. Mem suggested that we take the discussion of what to bring to a committee meeting. Ted said we should discuss it now, because we won't have time before the Con. We approved up to $100 in food expenses. There was a suggestion that we put put the Moria page from Fellowship on the door for the room party.
We talked a bit about out of print books, and which books Robin C. should look for. The Complete Cordwainer Smith apparently has his OOP book Norstrilia, which we are reading for March.
Publicity - Sam arrived, and said that she had put the bookmarks at McKinzey-White.
Mem proposed that we form a refreshment committee to provide refreshments for the meeting. Ted nominated Shane to be on the refreshment committee. Sam nominated Robert. Mem proposed that they both be on the committee, and could mud-wrestle to determine which of them was in charge. There were no objections.
The meeting was adjourned.
Tolkien did some minor corrections between the first edition and the later Ballantine edition.
We talked about how everyone first came to read LotR.
Ace printed an edition based on the original British books, without telling Tolkien, or anyone. The Ballantine edition includes a note from Tolkien saying that if you believe in courtesy to living authors, please buy this edition and no other.
Mem asked everyone which of us had read the Silmarilion all the way through. There were about half a dozen of us. Mem said she hadn't gotten through all of it. Christopher Tolkien has been publishing every version of LotR that his father ever wrote. He says that this is so people can follow the development of the manuscript. We all think that is just another way for him to capitalize off of his father's fame.
Mem suggested that there was some difference in reading it when it was "new" or at least when it was new to everyone in the hippie movement, rather than reading it after it had become a classic.
Eric said he didn't agree- that reading it as a pre-teen was different from reading it as an adult. As a kid, you see the battles and magic, but miss a lot of the politics and subtle interactions.
Kerry mentioned that reading it recently, he could tell that Tolkien had spent years in setting up the background. Each character had a huge amount of backstory that you never even see, but is only hinted at.
Jack wondered why they keep bursting into song all the time. We discussed how it was a pre-literate society, and had a tradition of songs and story-telling. The society has much in common with Wales, with a strong oral tradition. Tolkien (obviously) liked to write poetry.
Tolkien wrote The Hobbit first, then The Silmarilion was written around it. Then LotR. The Hobbit was written in letters to his son while he was in Africa.
CS Lewis, and Tolkien were meeting weekly in Oxford. They were a group called the Inklings. Dorothy Sayers was also part of it, as much as a woman was allowed to be at the time.
Ted asked if Tolkien had invented the concept of the PowerBar - travel food that would keep you going. While it is a mainstay concept in fantasy books now, we were wondering if Tolkien was the first to come up with it.
Mem mentioned how Marion Zimmer Bradley had talked about reading the books when they first came out, and wondering what happened in the last book, which was then unavailable. They speculated about it, and came up with a storyline to explain what might have happened.
Ted asked about the movies, and how they would translate the books into the movies. The BBC version left out Bombadil - and it seems an important part. The barrow downs provide the magic weapon that Merry uses to kill the witch king.
It was suggested that there was too much description of the land that they were traveling through. Mem thought that the travel through that area shows the ruined kingdom of Arnor. It helped to set the stage - showing how the previous greatness of the Numenoreans had fallen.
One advantage of making LotR into a movie is that the story line in the books can be condensed and still be coherent, unlike Dune.
Tolkien was almost a Luddite, and shows his resistance to modern technology in "The Harrowing of the Shire". It was clear that he resented the changes in England due to the industrialization. Sauruman represented the evil of technology . Tolkien had spent 2 years in the trenches in France. He came out of that with a vivid fantasy life, and wrote his story. He sent it to a publisher, who had his son read it, they decided to publish it as The Hobbit.
The story ends with the coming of the Fourth Age, the age of man. The elves and all the magic left Middle Earth. It was fated to be.
Helm's Deep has some similarities to MacBath. Birnam wood = ents. Theoden coming into his own.
Mem said that for years she would have said that Frodo was the main hero of the book, but over time came to belive that it really was Sam who was the hero. He was the everyman caught up in events greater than himself. He was the only one who carried the ring who gave it up freely. He cared more for Frodo than himself. The quest to destroy the ring would have failed without him.
Bombadil is in a different mythos than the Valar, the elves, etc. When he put the ring on, nothing happened. It didn't make him invisible. He seemed to be some sort of primitive nature spirit, as opposed to part of the structured mythos of the Valar.
Frodo offered the ring to Gandalf, to Elrond, Aragorn, and Galadriel. It is interesting that 3 of these characters already had a magic ring.
Boromir wasn't a villain - he was a tragic hero, brought down by his own character flaws - arrogance. Tolkien was classicly educated and that shows in some of his writing.
We talked more about the movies. They will be scary war movies, but the entire second half of the book is about wars and fighting.
Mem asked Ted why he didn't like the books. Ted said he didn't like excessive descriptive prose. He felt that it was boring because of the repetetiveness of the descriptions. Saying that the forest was scary the first couple of times was fine, but not when he said it the 5th time.
Ted also felt that at least the first book whipsaws between joy and happiness, to utter gloom and doom. The peace and prosperity of the shire starts off the book, and everyone was happy and singing, then they travelled and it was scary and dark and seemed hopeless. They reached Crickhollow, and were singing, then they left, and it was utter doom in the forest. They reached Tom Bombadil's and it was happy, and then they ran into the barrow wights.
We agreed that once they leave Bree, it pretty much settles on utter doom. Kerry mentioned that there were other authors that basically made their living re-writing these books. Robin C. shouted "Terry Brooks!" We agreed that Terry Brooks can't write, and stole all of the Sword of Shanarra stuff from Tolkien.
We talked about the lack of female characters in the books. Arwen doesn't say anything until the end of the book, when she gives her place on the ship to Frodo. Mem said she showed up at the end to say "I do" when she married Aragorn. Eric said that she only talked about the marriage later, and said "I did".
So, what were Legolas and Gimli doing in the caverns? (nudge nudge, wink wink). We talked about setting up a late night panel at one of the SF cons about sex in LotR. You have to schedule it for about 2am, and then go in and write suggestive things on the chalk board, so that the next morning people will think they missed a really interesting panel.
Someone asked what the Tolkien Society did, and the Mythopoeic society. Mem said they just sat around and talked about elves. Pre SCA. Star Trek came out right after LotR was published in the US.
Joe had a tape about Tolkien which he suggested that we watch it. Robin C. said that Ted knew how to change video input. Ted said it was easy, and that this was a household of intelligent individuals, and they should be able to learn how to switch the TV to different video sources. Mem covered her face and said "no, I don't want to know...". Robin said the VCR was disconnected. Ted went to adjust the TV.
Mem talked about her Eowyn costume. There aren't a lot of options available for women to do Tolkien costumes. We counted, and there are only ten women in LotR, and that's only if you include the spider Shelob. Other women are mentioned as part of history, or as ladies in waiting, but they don't actually say anything, or appear in the story.
We talked about Faramir and Eowyn. He doesn't congratulate her on her bravery, or on killing the witch king. He just says "Lady, you are beautiful, and I love you". She, despite fighting vigorously to show her valor, and go along with the warriors, accepts this, and agrees to marry him.
Ioreth, who worked in the house of healing, has more lines in the 3rd book than Arwen.
We started talking about when Sam would have her baby. She's due October 16th. Good luck.
When asked for a Heinlein reference, Ted said " The extent of male-female relations in Tolkien is the male character saying 'Lady , you are beautiful, and I love you'. In Heinlein, the male character says 'I am beautiful, don't you love me?'". I think that this could also be said as - in Tolkien, the male character says "Lady, you are beautiful, and I love you". In Heinlein, the male character says "Lady, you are beautiful, let's have sex.".
Present were Steve, Ted, Robin M, Robin C, Tim, Jay, Mem, Jack, Joe, Eric
Sam and Robert stopped by to show off their new baby. The baby was much admired. Eric came.
We began talking about upcoming books, and which of us needed copies of Waystation, or of Chronicles of Amber. Mem had a copy of the Amber books to lend, and Steve said he wanted to borrow them. She handed them to him, and said here were all of the books, in Volume I and Volume II. Steve said he only wanted to read the first book. Mem said (helpfully) that that would be Volume I.
We talked about the Amber books, and how Roger Zelazny started having problems with people harrassing him.. Some fans had adopted Amber and they got really into roleplaying the stories. They started writing him, and calling him, and telling him how to make the stories come out. They were so persistent in this that they were practically stalking him. He gave up writing Amber books for years because of it.
The meeting was called to order at 8:47.
Treasurer - Still needs to get receipts from Robin C. for room party. Joe also needs to get the money for the room he rented for the party.
Secretary - didn't update the webpage.
Book Acquisition - Robin didn't find any of the books at MileHi, except for Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny, which we aren't reading for a year.
Publicity - Eric came and said that he had been in Japan for the last 2 weeks, and while he tried to promote the group there, no one seemed overly interested in it. Eric will put fliers in the libraries. We thought that Rockrimmon library would be good, since it was local to our meeting.
Room party MileHiCon - went well aside from some minor problems getting a room that we could use.
Committee to find the by-laws - Ted can report on where the by-laws are not. They are not at this meeting. Kent believes that the by-laws are in one of his computers. Of course, said Mem, this might be the computer that is in a trash bag in the attic. Mem said she would bake a batch of brownies for whoever finds the by-laws - with or without nuts. Ted asked if he finds the by-laws with the nuts, can he still have the brownies. If we ever find them, we can put them on the web.
Robin C. asked if we could find a place to put the club books. It was decided to keep them on top of the clock.
Joe said that he had a copy of the by-laws on his computer, and at the last meeting, he told everyone that he would send a copy out within two weeks. Mem had said (last meeting) that we needed to ammend the by-laws, since Heinlein isn't mentioned in them at all. We discussed re-writing the by-laws to incorporate the way that Heinlein would have done it. We couldn't have committees (at least not more than 3 people). If we ever find the by-laws, we will commission Jay to make a bound copy of them, which we will then store on the clock.
There were many digressions. Ted called for new business. There was no new business. The meeting was adjourned.
Tim pointed out that there was a little timeline in the back of the book. And Jay said "it's the requisite Timeline reference". Everyone booed and hissed and threw lizards at him.
Mem liked the whole bit where Cordelia went home, and they thought she had been brainwashed. They tried to "cure" her. Eric felt that that part was not very sincere on the part of the author, it seemed gratuitous, as a way to include something negative about Betan society. We argued about this for awhile.
Betan society was arrogant, in that they could not believe that their own society had any flaws. By definition, what they did was the best way to do things, so there must be something wrong with anyone who has doubts.
Cordelia had far more self-discipline than many Betans. They vote to disobey her orders when she is captured.
Eric - Excruciating homogeneity of society is necessary for Betan society. Compared it to Japan - 99+ percent ethnic Japanese.
Cordelia was a heroine, but was saying things that were not in line with what the government had been saying. The government tried to help her - it was an intervention - although it used hypos and drugs to help with the persuasion. They were utterly convinced that she had been brainwashed during her capture.
Idealism of Betan society reminds Eric of idealism of Heinlein society. Tim said it was inconsistent for Betan society to be touchy-feely and soft, but then they are going at Cordelia really hard. Mem said in order to have that sort of culture requires a strong training in the cultural imperative. They don't have prisons - they have re-education centers. The society appears to allow a lot of personal freedoms, but only if people don't step out of the box. Cordelia didn't see the chains imposed on her by the society until she had moved too far out of the box.
Cordelia and Aral trusted each other, and accepted that each of them was honorable right away. Cordelia begins to trust what he says, although she had no reason to trust him. Would he have come after her, if Cordelia hadn't come after him? We thought he would have just stayed at home drunk.
The individuals of Beta have a common social contract which they all accept. They have a lot of individual freedoms within that, but the society is very structured. It started as a domed society, and everything had to be restricted when the colony was founded.
Steve mentioned that it was interesting reading this after reading a lot of the books later in the timeline. It gives you more info on the backgrounds of the characters, and lets you see them grow up. compared Duncan Idaho - Batarri
People wondered what the purpose of the afterword at the end of the book was. It seemed mostly unrelated - except for some of the philosophy. Barryaran society had become so codified that the basis for it was lost. It took an outsider to show the real honor that was the original basis for the society.
Aral Vorkosigan is called the butcher of Komarr, but is the most honorable Barryaran.
Barryar is very Russian - Tsarist Russia. Barryar was isolated from galactic society for a couple hundred years. Was a more primitive society technologically. Where did Barryar get all of their military strength, particularly if only the Vor can be officers.
Beta was a created society rather than an organic society like Barryar. No one could run off and leave Betan society - they lived in a dome, and outside of the cities no one could survive. Barryar had outlaws living on the fringes of civilization. Even though it was also a terraformed world, it was more conducive to life, and society was less artificial.
We talked some about the timeline, and the order that the books were written in. Shards of Honor was first, Warrior's Apprentice was 2nd, then Barryar.
We digressed into talking about the horror movie spoof "Student Bodies". Went from Mem's hobbit bookends to horsehead bookends to movie.
End of notes.