Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring Maryland USA
Many thanks for Challenger #20. And congratulations on your well-earned Hugo nomination! I have problems with one or two of the fanzines on the Hugo ballot, and a majority of the fan writers, but you deserve to be there, and I hope to see you walking across the stage to snag that rocket in September!
Mike Resnick’s article about the stupidities in SF movies was, as with all of Resnick’s articles, funny and entertaining. I think my threshold of stupidity in on-screen entertainment is lower than Resnick’s, but there are plenty of times when we must cringe at what Hollywood offers us. Take, for example, The Matrix Revolutions, a 2 ½ hour compendium of every war movie cliche ever conceived. (As Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter notes, The Matrix Revolutions is a film where a character named “The Kid” runs across a battlefield carrying an ammo can to help a machine gunner operating a giant robot.) I’m sure that Resnick screamed when he saw Phileas Fogg, in Around the World in 80 Days, wearing Rollerblades.
Gregory Benford’s piece about the future of space was, as always, thought-provoking. But where did Benford get the notion that we will run out of oil in 50 years? I’m sure that we’ll run of oil at some point, and I don’t believe the theory that oil is continuously created. But all the evidence of the past suggests that when the price of oil rises, companies get to work and find new areas to drill in. Isn’t it true that if we only had the proven reserves of 1978, we’d have very little oil now? I’m sure other forms of power will be economically viable sometime, but we ought to let the market decide which form of power production is the most efficient.
I was happy that Guy got permission to reprint his 1974 interview with Julius Schwartz. I only saw Schwartz at cons, although I did read and enjoy his autobiography, Man of Two Worlds. But I do know from reading Bill Schelly’s biography of Otto Binder what a good boss Schwartz was. Or comics editors browbeat their freelancers, or tormented them. Schwartz had no need to play power games or have ego trips. By all accounts, Schwartz was a nice guy, who gave some of comics’ greatest creators ample freedom to do their best work. My guess is that Schwartz’s fundamental decency is one of many reasons why he will be missed.
Mike Resnick’s article about the stupidities in SF movies was, as with all of Resnick’s articles, funny and entertaining. I think my threshold of stupidity in on-screen entertainment is lower than Resnick’s, but there are plenty of times when we must cringe at what Hollywood offers us. Take, for example, The Matrix Revolutions, a 2 ½ hour compendium of every war movie cliche ever conceived. (As Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter notes, The Matrix Revolutions is a film where a character named “The Kid” runs across a battlefield carrying an ammo can to help a machine gunner operating a giant robot.) I’m sure that Resnick screamed when he saw Phileas Fogg, in Around the World in 80 Days, wearing Rollerblades.
Gregory Benford’s piece about the future of space was, as always, thought-provoking. But where did Benford get the notion that we will run out of oil in 50 years? I’m sure that we’ll run of oil at some point, and I don’t believe the theory that oil is continuously created. But all the evidence of the past suggests that when the price of oil rises, companies get to work and find new areas to drill in. Isn’t it true that if we only had the proven reserves of 1978, we’d have very little oil now? I’m sure other forms of power will be economically viable sometime, but we ought to let the market decide which form of power production is the most efficient.
I was happy that Guy got permission to reprint his 1974 interview with Julius Schwartz. I only saw Schwartz at cons, although I did read and enjoy his autobiography, Man of Two Worlds. But I do know from reading Bill Schelly’s biography of Otto Binder what a good boss Schwartz was. Or comics editors browbeat their freelancers, or tormented them. Schwartz had no need to play power games or have ego trips. By all accounts, Schwartz was a nice guy, who gave some of comics’ greatest creators ample freedom to do their best work. My guess is that Schwartz’s fundamental decency is one of many reasons why he will be missed.
posted by ;-p at 11:50 PM
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