MT VOID, 04/11/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 41, Whole Number 2375

THE MT VOID
04/11/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 41, Whole Number 2375
Editor: Evelyn Leeper, evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
         Pick for PBS This Week (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
         TITANIC: THE MUSICAL (2023) (film review
                by Evelyn C. Leeper)
         STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND by Samuel R. Delany
               (book review by Joe Karpierz)
         Hugo Award Finalists
         This Week's Reading (The Book of Acts) (book comments
                by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Pick for PBS This Week (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
On April 15, at 10PM, Channel Thirteen in New York will be running
"American Masters: Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse".
Spiegelman is best known as the creator of the ground-breaking
graphic novels MAUS and MAUS II.  I assume it will run on other
public television stations as well.  [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: TITANIC: THE MUSICAL (2023) (film review by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
In honor of the anniversary of the sinking of Titanic on April 12,
here is a review of TITANIC: THE MUSICAL (2023) (with commentary
on books and reality as well):
TITANIC: THE MUSICAL is a filmed stage play rather than a film.
I'm not sure the Titanic story needed a lot of singing and
dancing.  However, while it is careful to make sure all the famous
people (the Astors, the Strauses, Lightoller, Ismay, etc.) are
mentioned and featured, it is also accurate in its lesser
characters.  Edgar and Alice Beane were real passengers, as were
the three Kates and Jim Farrell.  I think even the minor
characters were based on real passengers and crew.  In any case,
they are more realistic and representative of real passengers than
Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) was in the 1997 movie.  And they
recounted some previously untold stories, for example, Ida Straus
helping her lady's maid Ellen Bird on with her life jacket.  (In
real life, she also gave her her fur coat; in the movie, all this
seems to happen after all the lifeboats have left, but in reality
Bird did survive.)
The problem with color-blind casting is that the viewer doesn't
know whether the *character* is, e.g., African-American or not.  I
mention this because in TITANIC: THE MUSICAL we see a group of
second-class passengers including several characters from Ireland,
central Europe, and other places, and one of the characters is
played by an African-American.  I thought at first the character
was African-American, but then not only did she seem to be married
to a white man, but she was dancing with the white first-class men
and the white stewards, and I thought, "Well, either she's not
African-American, or they're confused about the social conditions
of the time."
Walter Lord's A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is a reasonable book for a
general overview of the disaster.  For those who want a more
serious analysis of the disaster and its broader social
implications, I would recommend Wyn Craig Wade's THE TITANIC: END
OF A DREAM (which I reviewed in the 11/07/08 issue of the MT VOID).
And no "Titanic" review of mine would be complete without my
commenting on Charles Lightoller, Titanic's second officer.
During the evacuation from Dunkirk, he sailed a 60-foot yacht
rated to carry 21 people from England and rescued 130 men on it.
My personal opinion is that he remembered the half-empty lifeboats
from the Titanic and swore it would not happen again.
This is not to say Lightoller was perfect.  During the
investigation, Lightoller complained that the officers should not
have to stay in the same hotel as the crew.  He also discounted
the importance of binoculars, and did apparently did clear one
lifeboat that had been filled entirely by men.
And Wade concludes his summary of the American hearing into the
disaster by saying, " At the present writing, the prevailing
historical verdict on the Senate's "Titanic" inquiry has gone no
further than the judgment of Second Officer Charles Lightoller,
who pronounced it, 'not but a complete farce, wherein all the
traditions and customs of the sea were continuously and
persistently flouted.'  Indeed they were.  Among the traditions
flouted was the habit of driving full speed into known ice-floe
areas.  Among the customs was that of sailing with an insufficient
number of lifeboats.  The 'Titanic' not only embodied a lofty
dream; its presumptuous innocence was akin to a fairy tale.  And
it had taken a 'fool' to look into the floating palace and declare
that the emperor had no clothes."  [-ecl]
[As their nod to the anniversary, Turner Classic Movies is running
THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN (1964) at noon on April 12.]
Released theatrically 04 November 2023.
Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28656527/reference>
What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/titanic_the_musical>
===================================================================
TOPIC: STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND by Samuel R. Delany
(copyright 1984, Bantam Books, 368pp ISBN 0-553-05053-2) (book
review by Joe Karpierz)
It has been a *very* long time since I've read a Samuel R. Delany
novel.  That novel was 1975's DAHLGREN, probably one of the most
polarizing science fiction novels of all time (at least that's the
way it seems to me, given the discussions I've had with folks
who've read the book as well as opinions I've read over the years
since I read it).  I read DAHLGREN based on a review in one of the
science fiction magazines of the day (the name of the reviewer as
well as the name of the magazine is lost to me in the depths of
time), which stated that DAHLGREN was the best science fiction
novel of all time (or some such statement).  Given that I was
devouring as much science fiction as I could back in my teenage
years-- I was *16* when I read it--I read it with interest.  As an
impressionable 16 year old, one who was not wise in the ways of
... anything, you might guess that I had absolutely no idea what
I'd read.  I've not read it since, and I don't think I ever will,
at least not until I'm retired and can dedicate the amount of time
necessary to try to understand it.
So, it's been fifty years since I've read DAHLGREN, or any other
Delany novel, until now.  I've had STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS
OF SAND on my book shelf (well, one of my bookshelves, anyway) for
decades.  I thought I'd bought it via the now defunct Science
Fiction Book Club, but I can find no indication either on the dust
jacket or in the book itself indicating that.  I realize that
doesn't matter, but it did surprise me once I picked it up.  It
was published in 1984, nine years after DAHLGREN.  I'm 50 years
older than I was when I read DAHLGREN, and while I think STARS is
less dense and confusing than DAHLGREN, I'm not sure I was mature
enough as a reader to understand this book and all its nuances.
And there seem to be a lot of them.
The novel is broken into three sections, the first being
"Prologue:  A World Apart", in which we meet Korga, a slave on a
relatively non-descript planet which appears to be cut off from
the General Information (GI) service, a web of knowledge (as
opposed to the Web, so hold that thought) that can be accessed
simply by thinking about what you want to know.  He has led a life
of intensely physical and demanding labor.  Korga undergoes the
"Radical Anxiety Transformation" procedure, which makes a slave,
but a happy one.  Rat Korga, as he is called after that procedure,
is owned by any number of masters until all life on his planet is
destroyed. The destruction of the planet might be from a
phenomenon called Cultural Fugue, and here I freely admit that I'm
quoting the definition of Cultural Fugue from Wikipedia since I
know of no other way to explain it, 'a process where
"socioeconomic pressures [reach] a point of technological
recomplication and perturbation where the population completely
destroys all life across the planetary surface"', or from an
attack from a spacecraft in orbit around the planet.  He should
have died, but he survived deep beneath the surface of the planet
in a refrigerated room.
The second section is entitled "Monologues:  Visible and Invisible
Persons Distributed in Space", which takes place on the planet
Velm, where we meet Marq Dyeth, an "Industrial Diplomat", an
"individual who helps manage the transfer of technology between
different societies" (again, quoting from Wikipedia).  We as
readers don't actually read about Marq doing much, if anything, of
that function.  Suffice it to say that Marq a prominent and
well-known Industrial Diplomat, as these things go in novels
whether they're written by Delany or anyone else.  Rat Korga is
taken to Velm and is introduced to Marq.  According to an
associate who works for the Web, an organization that controls and
manages information flow between planets, Marq and Korga are
perfect sexual matches for each other.
Much of the Monologues is spent exploring the relationship between
Korga and Marq, as well as the cult phenomenon that is growing
around Rat Korga as "the only survivor of the destruction of the
planet Rhyonon".  Huge crowds appear where ever he goes, as the
curiosity seekers come out of the woodwork to catch a glimpse of
the man who survived.
The final section is entitled "Epilogue", where in we learned more
about the Web and the "experiment" that brought Korga and Marq
together.  Saying much more than that would give away the ending
of the novel.
What I've described up until now is basically a summary of the
story, such as it is.  STARS is much deeper than all of that,
exploring gender and sexual politics.  One of the more jarring
things of the novel is that everyone is considered female, and
being a male is one of choice (I probably didn't even describe
that correctly).  There are times this distinction is confusing,
as Delany calls certain characters both "he" and "she", and it is
left to the reader to determine what Delany is trying to say.  To
be fair, there is a lot to discuss about the themes of this novel,
much more than I am not only qualified to talk about, but probably
much that I don't understand anyway.  I once said of Gene Wolfe's
novels that I needed to be a more mature reader to understand
them, but Delany is taking it to a higher level for me.  And
really, there is no discernable plot to this novel. while that's
usually a turn off for me, there are writers that can pull it off
to suit my tastes--Kim Stanley Robinson for one.  But not here.
I'm sure that this is a fascinating story for those who are
willing and able to dig down deep into what Delany is trying to
say here.  While there are a number of influential people and
publications that call this book a masterpiece, I will just say
that it's just not for me.  I do plan to read other Delany novels,
but like DAHLGREN, I'm not likely to come back to STARS IN MY
POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND.  [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo Award Finalists Announced
BEST NOVEL
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US, Tor UK)
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press,
     Sceptre)
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom)
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (DAW)
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (Tor)
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey, Hodderscape UK)
BEST NOVELLA
The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom)
Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom)
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar
     (Tordotcom)
The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (Tordotcom)
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (Nightfire)
BEST NOVELETTE
"The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video" by Thomas Ha
     (Clarkesworld, May 2024)
"By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars" by Premee Mohamed (Strange
     Horizons, Fund Drive 2024)
"The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea" by Naomi Kritzer (Asimov's,
     September/October 2024)
"Lake of Souls" by Ann Leckie in Lake of Souls (Orbit)
"Loneliness Universe" by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny Magazine,
     Issue 58)
"Signs of Life" by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 59)
BEST SHORT STORY
"Five Views of the Planet Tartarus" by Rachael K. Jones
     (Lightspeed Magazine, Jan 2024 (Issue 164))
"Marginalia" by Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 56)
"Stitched to Skin Like Family Is" by Nghi Vo (Uncanny Magazine,
     Issue 57)
"Three Faces of a Beheading" by Arkady Martine (Uncanny Magazine,
     Issue 58)
"We Will Teach You How to Read   We Will Teach You How to Read" by
     Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine, May 2024 (Issue 168))
"Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole" by Isabel
     J. Kim (Clarkesworld, February 2024)
BEST SERIES
Between Earth and Sky by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga Press)
The Burning Kingdoms by Tasha Suri (Orbit)
InCryptid by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
Southern Reach by Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books)
The Tyrant Philosophers by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ad Astra)
BEST GRAPHIC STORY OR COMIC
The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag (Graphix)
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1 written by G. Willow Wilson,
     art by Chris Wildgoose (IDW Publishing)
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed written by Marjorie Liu,
     art by Sana Takeda (Image)
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2 by Emil Ferris
     (Fantagraphics)
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way written by Ryan North,
     art by Chris Fenoglio (IDW Publishing)
We Called Them Giants written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie
     Hans, lettering by Clayton Cowles (Image)
BEST RELATED WORK
"Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo
     Nomination Statistics" by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose
     Jones (File 770, February 22, 2024)
r/Fantasy's 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge (r/Fantasy on Reddit),
     presented by the r/Fantasy Bingo team
"The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel" by Jenny
     Nicholson (YouTube)
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan
     S. Carroll (University of Minnesota Press)
Track Changes by Abigail Nussbaum (Briardene Books)
"The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion" by
     Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford (Genre Grapevine and
     File770, February 14, 2024)
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM
Dune: Part Two
Flow
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
I Saw the TV Glow
Wicked
The Wild Robot
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM
Fallout: "The Beginning"
Agatha All Along: "Death's Hand in Mine"
Doctor Who: "Dot and Bubble"
Star Trek: Lower Decks: "Fissure Quest"
Star Trek: Lower Decks: "The New Next Generation"
Doctor Who: "73 Yards"
BEST GAME OR INTERACTIVE WORK
Caves of Qud
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Tactical Breach Wizards
1000xRESIST
BEST EDITOR SHORT FORM
Scott H. Andrews
Jennifer Brozek
Neil Clarke
Jonathan Strahan
Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas
Sheila Williams
BEST EDITOR LONG FORM
Carl Engle-Laird
Ali Fisher
Lee Harris
David Thomas Moore
Diana M. Pho
Stephanie Stein
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Micaela Alcaino
Audrey Benjaminsen
Rovina Cai
Maurizio Manzieri
Tran Nguyen
Alyssa Winans
BEST SEMIPROZINE
The Deadlands
Escape Pod
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction
khoreo
Strange Horizons
Uncanny Magazine
BEST FANZINE
Ancillary Review of Books
Black Nerd Problems
The Full Lid
Galactic Journey
Journey Planet
Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog
BEST FANCAST
The Coode Street Podcast
Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones
Hugo, Girl!
Hugos There
A Meal of Thorns
Worldbuilding for Masochists
BEST FAN WRITER
Camestros Felapton
Abigail Nussbaum
Roseanna Pendlebury
Jason Sanford
Alasdair Stuart
Orjan Westin
BEST FAN ARTIST
Iain J. Clark
Sara Felix
Meg Frank
Michelle Morrell
Alison Scott
Espana Sheriff
BEST POEM
Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead (Titan)
"Ever Noir" by Mari Ness (Haven Spec Magazine, Issue 16, July 2024)
"there are no taxis for the dead" by Angela Liu (Uncanny Magazine,
     Issue 58)
"A War of Words" by Marie Brennan (Strange Horizons, September
     2024)
"We Drink Lava" by Ai Jiang (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 56)
"Your Visiting Dragon" by Devan Barlow (Strange Horizons, Fund
     Drive 2024)
LODESTAR AWARD FOR BEST YOUNG ADULT  BOOK
The Feast Makers by H.A. Clarke (Erewhon)
Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao (Tundra Books)
The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko (Amulet)
Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee (Delacorte Press)
Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole (Little, Brown Books for Young
     Readers)
ASTOUNDING AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER (sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Moniquill Blackgoose (2nd year of eligibility)
Bethany Jacobs (2nd year of eligibility)
Hannah Kaner (2nd year of eligibility)
Angela Liu (2nd year of eligibility)
Jared Pechacek (1st year of eligibility)
Tia Tashiro (2nd year of eligibility)
NOMINEES RULED INELIGIBLE. The following nominees received enough
votes to qualify for the final ballot, but were found to be
ineligible:
Best Series: The Singing Hills Cycle, by Nghi Vo (fewer than
     240,000 words in total)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Dune, the Musical (first
     performed in 2023)
DECLINED NOMINATION. The following nominees received enough votes
to qualify for the final ballot, but declined nomination:
Lodestar Award: Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
     (Peachtree Teen)
Best Semiprozine: Beneath Ceaseless Skies
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I'm doing more solo driving these days and, needing something to
listen to, have gone back to old podcasts.  Having listened to
Mike Duncan's "History of Rome" for the third or fourth time, I
have started mining "Classical Stuff You Should Know".  I just
listened to #33 ("The Odyssey: Part 1").  In it I think they said
that the word "polutropos" occurs in the Book of Acts (and of
course it's impossible to find something like that again in an
audiobook or podcast), and talked about how there are other
references to the Odyssey, but the only place I could find it in
the New Testament is at the beginning of the Letter to the
Hebrews.  Was this just a slip of the tongue?  And they also seem
to be referring to "Luke Acts"; am I just not parsing what I am
hearing, or is "Luke Acts" a meaningful term?
In any case, all this led me to read the Book of Acts, and I have
a couple of observations, or maybe two instances of the same
thing: padding.  I know the author wasn't being paid by the word,
but why then would he spend all of Chapter 7 recounting the story
of the Hebrews from Abraham through Moses and the Exodus?  And
then in Chapter 10, he first relates the story of Cornelius:
1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a
centurion of the band called the Italian band,
2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which
gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.
3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an
angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.
4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it,
Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up
for a memorial before God.
5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname
is Peter:
6 He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea
side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.
Then after Cornelius goes to Simon Peter's house in Joppa, we get
Cornelius relating this same story to Simon Peter:
30 And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this
hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a
man stood before me in bright clothing,
31 And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are
had in remembrance in the sight of God.
32 Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname
is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one Simon a tanner by the
sea side: who, when he cometh, shall speak unto thee.
Maybe it's a stylistic thing in the Greek of the time (sort of
like the repetitious adjectives in the Iliad and the Odyssey,
e.g., "the wine-dark sea", which is a common phrase there because
it is the right meter to fit in the poem when one wants to talk
about the sea.
(Of course, in science fiction, the first example would be called
an info-dump.)
While I was reading, I ran across Acts 15:29 (also repeated in
Acts 21:25):
29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood,
and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye
keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
These days Christians, even the strict ones, seem to be eating rare
steaks, to say nothing of blood pudding and blood sausage.  While
modern science (which these folks eschew when it contradicts their
beliefs) tells us that the red liquid from rare steaks is myoglobin
and not blood, I'm pretty sure the first century Judeans thought it
was blood, and that is part of what was prohibited.  So how do
modern scholars explain why it is okay for Christians to eat blood
pudding and blood sausage?  All the explanations I found seem to be
that Paul wanted to avoid offending the Jews of the time as much as
possible, so he put these strictures in as a nod to all the laws of
kashrut, but they weren't really laws from God.  But for reasons
passing understanding(*), of the four prohibitions, the second gets
to be ignored, while the fourth is considered super-important.
(*) A wonderful phrase which comes from Philippians 4:7, "And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."  [-ecl]
===================================================================
                                     Evelyn C. Leeper
                                     evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
           Satellites watched the residue of gas and energized
           particles strike the surface and rebound.  There was no
           heat or momentum transfer.
                               --Peter F. Hamilton, PANDORA'S STAR)
                               (as noted in ANSIBLE 211, Feb 2005,
                               Magical Physics Dept)