The Final day of VCon32/Canvention27 and I was off to a late start. Some of the morning programming looked to be of middling interest, but I was up too late last night and I need to get up too early tomorrow morning for work to pass up the opportunity to sleep in a little.
The first activity I attended today was the convention banquet and Aurora Awards ceremony. The lunch itself was pretty lame – no fault of the organizers, this was all the hotel’s doing (remember, this is the same hotel that’s making Con guests drink outta Dixie Cups) – serving beef satays that could only be called beef in that the vastly overcooked chunks of wood on the skewers might have once been shown a picture of a cow. But I was at a table with some nice folks from Whitehorse, Yukon; Missisauga, Ontario; Rockland, Ontario; and Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Aurora ceremony itself was entertaining. The keynote speech, “I am not what I seem”, about personal alienation and how that can be reflective of a writer’s place in society sometimes, was delivered by author Matt Hughes. Author Robert J. Sawyer, who ended up winning one of the awards himself, acted as MC and joked he was giving up his signature Hawaiian shirt-wearing look in favour of wearing black leather jackets like Neil Gaiman. Sawyer went on to point out that where Gaiman had made the mistake of choosing to wear black leather to an outdoor awards presentation this summer in China in 40 degree heat and had suffered for it, he at least could wear a leather jacket in Vancouver in a chilly October and be comfortable.
As for the Aurora Awards themselves…
FAN ACHIEVEMENT – PUBLICATION: Guillaume Voisine for Brins d’Eternite
FAN ACHIVEMENT – ORGANIZATIONAL: Cathy Palmer-Lister for Con*Cept
FAN ACHIVEMENT – OTHER: Christian Sauve, Eric Gauthier & Laurine Spehner for the blog www.fractale-framboise.com
ARTISTIC ACHIVEMENT: Martin Springett
BEST WORK IN ENGLISH – OTHER: Karl Johanson for Neo-Opsis Magazine
BEST WORK IN FRENCH – OTHER: Jean-Louis Trudel for an article in Solaris Magazine on “The History of Little Green Men”
BEST SHORT-FORM WORK IN ENGLISH: Robert J. Sawyer for “Biding Time”
BEST SHORT-FORM WORK IN FRENCH: Mario Tessier for “Le regard du trilobite”
BEST LONG-FORM WORK IN ENGLISH: Dave Duncan for “Children of Chaos”
BEST LONG-FORM WORK IN FRENCH: Elisabeth Vonarburg for “Reine de Memoire 3. Le Dragon fou”
Congratulations to all of this year’s Aurora Award winners!
Next year’s Auroras and Canvention will be held at Keycon in Winnipeg.
I do have one complaint in connection with the Auroras (aside from the food) - that’s the notable absence of a camera crew from Space – The Imagination Station (Canada’s science fiction and fantasy-oriented cable TV channel). It’s disappointing that Space’s sci-fi news show “Hypaspace” will show some coverage of conventions in Toronto (the location of the CTVglobalmedia head offices), or send videographers to San Diego or to various video game trade shows hither and yon, but they can’t be bothered to send a videographer out, let alone dispatch one of their company’s local cameramen or contract an independent shooter, to cover Canada’s national award for excellence in speculative fiction. You’d think they’d keep tabs on this sort of thing, being an SF channel and all. I’m not going to get into any Toronto-bashing here, I just think this was a dumb oversite on the part of the producers at Space. I intend to send them an email regarding their absence in the next couple of days. More to come.
After the Auroras, it was time for the afternoon’s programming.
I managed to catch the tail-end of the “Inventors, Patents and Mad Scientists, Oh My!” featuring a trio of scientists regaling the small audience with tales of wacky experiments and displays, blunders and general oddities. One of the most memorable was a story about NASA allegedly sending a copy of the specs for the Orion spacecraft that were drawn-up and abandoned to an author, then calling him up several years later and asking if he’d let them have the copy back because they’d lost the originals.
From there it was on to a panel discussion on “Writing Historical Fiction” (featuring, among the panelists, the day’s Aurora winners Jean-Louis Trudel and Dave Duncan). Lots of fascinating explorations of where to draw the line on the amount of detail to include in a story in a historical setting – how much is too much and will the strangeness of the environment alienate the audience. Alienation was a hot topic, coming out again when the panel chewed over how to properly portray the mindset of people in cultures of the past whose way of thinking was completely different from ours. They noted this is especially a problem given the shift in values over the decades/centuries/millennia – how does an author create an engaging protagonist who might, because of their times, have beliefs or take things for granted (like slavery, for example) that we today would find repellant. Lots of excellent audience participation too. I really enjoyed this session.
And then it was time for the “Turkey Readings”. A strange combination of fun and torture I’d never encountered before. The Turkey Readings are a long-standing tradition at VCon. A panel of various speakers of the Con is assembled. A box of really, really, REALLY bad SF novels are brought in. Each panelist is given a novel and must read from it. Meanwhile, volunteers from the audience are called upon to come up to the front and act out what’s being read. The “acting” by the volunteers is absolutely hilarious. But their antics just can’t override the sheer awfulness of the story that’s being read. I’m talking crap with lines like “genitals jiggling merrily”. I’m talking the worst pieces of pulp garbage where the “author” was clearly using a thesaurus to pad-out the text – they frequently have used every alternative adjective under a word listing, stacking them all, in an effort to increase the number of words in the book (and I’m guessing their pay cheques). And it’s utterly painful. One guy in the audience remarked “I’m less afraid of the author than I am of the editor who let this happen!” Oh, how right you are, fanboy. But that’s where the bidding comes in… The other angle to this event is that while the reading and pantomime are under way, members of the audience can bid money to bring the damn performance to a stop. The catch is that other, more masochistic, members of the audience can counter-bid to keep the thing going. And back and forth and so-on until finally someone puts up enough money to stop the madness that no-one’s willing or financially able to out-bid them. The money goes into a fan fund to bring fans from the other side of the country out to this event to foster a sense of national community. This was my first Turkey Reading session, and as painful as it was, I’m looking forward to watching it again next year.
This brings us to the closing ceremonies and the “Elron Awards”. The closing speech rambled and went way too long. I was tempted to leave in the middle of it, but I figured I’d put in enough time that I’d better see it through, and I wanted to see the Elrons.
The Elron Awards are a tradition at VCon going back years, where these spoof prizes are “given” to various individuals and organizations for their less-than-stellar achievements. The philosophy behind them is “If we honour the greatest, should we not also recognize the least?” VCon organizers are quick to point out “The name of the award has absolutely nothing to do with a former science fiction writer who founded his own religion. “ It award itself has, for many years, been a bronze lemon mounted on a GOR novel (in answer to a suggestion from author Ursula K. Le Guin that GOR author John Norman deserved “a bronze lentil for semi-literate fetishism”). These days, the lemon has been replaced by other items deemed symbolically appropriate for the “winner”. This year, the GOR novel was replaced (because organizers couldn’t find one) with a copy of Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code”.
This year’s Elrons went to a number of different recipients. The first went to the Sigma group, a collection of science fiction authors (Greg Bear, Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven) who gave advice to US government officials about the future and threats to that country. Others went to the governments and military organizations of the US and Russia for crazy weaponry schemes. Another group was awarded an Elron for a plan to mount an expedition to the arctic to drill a hole into the Earth in hopes of finding a hollow centre it could explore. A company garnered one of the dubious distinctions for trying to market Star Trek-themed coffins, urns, tombs and other funerary merchandise. The producers of the Simpsons were foisted with an Elron for having a giant outline of Homer painted next to the famous hill giant in Britain as a promotional scheme for this summer’s movie. A concept performer who’s had a medical procedure to grow an extra ear on his forearm got an award for wasting time and money that could have gone towards helping someone who legitimately needed medical assistance. Frank Miller was awarded an Elron for the titanic amount of historical inaccuracies in the comic and movie “300”. And the final award, which always goes to John Norman for pretty much any reason the organizers can make up from year to year, went, of course, to John Norman, for the plans by Dark Horse comics to publish an omnibus edition of the GOR novels, even though the company hasn’t posted any information on its site nor made any official statement.
And with that, so ends VCon32 and Canvention27. Congratulations to the Con organizing committee and a big thank-you to all of the special guests and panelists. Overall, I had a pretty good time and I’m looking forward to next year’s gathering. But for now, after three days of Con immersion, I’m pretty beat. G’night, all.
babbling relentlessly about science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
VCon - Day 2
Climbing to the top of the stairs this morning to the hotel’s convention level, VCon32/Canvention27 seemed like a different event than yesterday. Most displays, etc were set up yesterday, but there were still some holes – some boards in the art room needed to be filled, some tables in the dealer’s room were empty, the gaming room was relatively quiet, and while there were people in attendance, there was plenty of room usually. Today was a whole different ball game. I don’t have a formal head-count from the organizers, but there were a lot more Con-goers on site – it appeared like the numbers had tripled or quadrupaled (I could be wrong, but that’s how it looked). And they seemed a more lively bunch too – more groups chatting, more old friends re-uniting in the hallways, more people in costume (although the heavy costume presence may have been due to the fact that the masquerade and masked ball were this evening). Certainly there was more spirit in the air. A great way to start off the day’s activities.
And the start for me was watching the panel discussion on “The State of Canadian SF & Fantasy”. Panelists included Rob Sawyer and Lisa Smedman, to name a few, and there were a number of authors in the audience, including Dave Duncan. The session saw passionate talk about the nature of the publishing industry and how it deals with Canadian authors. That point evolved into the classic question of what makes Canadian SF Canadian (an ironic but key facet of our national identity is that Canadians are constantly trying to figure out what exactly our national identity is), and from there into the larger issue of what makes Canadian culture unique compared to the rest of the world. Some would call this naval-gazing, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but this degree of introspection and debate is one of the things that binds us (with all of our diverse backgrounds that are not only tolerated, but encouraged) together here in the true north strong and free. At an operational level, in many ways this session was an excellent example of how to achieve a balance between vigourous discussion among panel members and the inclusion of intelligent audience participation. The first session of the day at an Con can set the tone for the rest of the day, and after this one, despite a being up waaaaaay too late last night, I came out invigorated and enthusiastic.
After that it was over to a Q&A session with Peter S. Beagle. Beagle’s an immensely charming man with a never-ending supply of stories. He gave equal attention and consideration to every question that was asked by the audience, no matter how trivial or profound, whether it was asked by old fans or young children. And his stories were all quite entertaining and delivered in a careful, thoughtful pace that never strayed into babbling or ego. He reminisced about how a painting given to him by a friend helped, in part, to inspire “The Last Unicorn”. He answered questions about his cats and told us of one white Persian who preferred the company of dogs. He spoke at length about the two actors with, in his opinion, the greatest knowledge of literature: the incomparable Christopher Lee (who was passionate about being part of “The Last Unicorn” and said in an Austrian interview it was the closest he’d get to playing King Lear) and the late Sorrell Booke (or Brooke) of “The Dukes of Hazzard” fame. Beagle told us how he once asked Booke why we was doing a show like “The Dukes of Hazzard” when he could be doing serious acting on any stage of his choosing – Booke apparently responded that one pay cheque for one episode of “The Dukes” would buy him a lot of books. Definitely a great session to just sit back and listen to a master story-teller.
Next was a panel discussion on “Killing Off Characters”. There was a lot of interesting talk around gratuitous versus plot-necessary death, audience manipulation, logic in setting up deaths, consequences and even the logic involved to bring a character back from the dead (in whatever form) without undermining the story’s credibility within itself. That being said, the session was undermined somewhat by a couple of overzealous fans in the audience who frequently attempted to monopolize the panel’s time (one of the fans in question even got waved-off by a panelist she’d tried to interrupt on one occasion and was asked quietly by another member of the audience on another occasion to let people finish). I hate to keep harping on this beef, but it’s this kind of socially maladjusted behaviour that breaks the flow of an otherwise good debate or prevents other audience members from having the time to ask questions or make points that are actually intelligent and worth while. Getting back to the panel though, one of the great examples they brought up for gratuitous deaths meant to manipulate the audience (and the financial bottom-line) was the death of Superman, where a villain was created specifically by the authors to kill the previously unkillable hero so the line could sell a record number of copies and rake in huge profits before bringing Ka’Lel back. The panel’s example of a well-thought-out and plot-logical death was the recent assassination of Captain America, who’d come out against the US government’s superhero registration laws in the Marvel universe, thus making himself politically inconvenient and a target. Panelists also discussed the nature of the body counts in horror movies, as well as the purpose of including shocking, unexpected deaths in books and film (like that of Wash in “Serenity”). On the whole, this session was worth while.
After this block was over, I had a few hours on my hands – there weren’t any panels for a while that interested me and that was fine since it was high time to step out onto the strip and grab some chow. When I came back, I made my way to the dealers room again where I bought a stack of books from a publisher’s table (including an advance copy of “Tesseracts 11” – woohoo!) and a bunch of back-isues of On-Spec at that magazine’s booth. That purchase had the added bonus of giving me a chance to meet On-Spec’s Managing Editor, Diane Walton, and have a nice chat.
I then moseyed over to the far end of the room where Peter Beagle was signing books. He autographed my copies of “The Last Unicorn” and “The Line Between”, but what was better was the chance to talk with him one-on-one for a little while. He’s a warm and personable fellow who makes a genuine effort to pay attention to the people he’s talking with and to have a two-way discussion instead of merely pontificating. He spoke about how he feels more of a muscial influence when he’s writing than visual art, and noted that he doesn’t have music on when he writes because that might distract him from the music in his head – rather, he listens to baseball and will switch his attention from writing to the game when he picks up on something major.That led him to inquire about my name and recount stories of an old ballplayer from the 50’s who had the same last name (no relation, except very distant, I think). To me, the fact that he would look at a fan’s name tag and get into a conversation focusing, at least to some degree, on the fan instead of himself, underscored the fact that he’s a class act.
More wandering around brought me upstairs to the movie room, where a small group was well into that classic hunk of cheese “ Robot Monster”, heckling it mercilessly. I stayed for a while and joined in the fun – there’s nothing like slinging smart-ass remarks at a bad movie to bring strangers together. (“Hey, that young couple’s fooling around without any birth control!” – “Yeah, but that big dude in the gorilla suit with the cheap space helmet who just wiped-out every other living thing on the planet is probably birth control enough!” – “Only if he can catch them with that slow walk!”) I left after about 20 minutes though ‘cause the room was too damn hot.
My final session of the day was “Slayers, Champions & Space Rogues: The Joss Whedon Panel”. I think I would have enjoyed this one more if I’d been a “Buffy” or “Angel” fan. As it is, my preference is for “Firefly”. Now, for all you Buffy fans out there who might be preparing to take umbrage, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trashing on that show at all. I don’t dislike it, I merely never got into it. (I’ve got a buddy who’s constantly trying to convince me to borrow his Buffy season one collection though, so someday I may give in) I’ve seen a couple of episodes of Buffy and Angel here and there and thought they were entertaining enough, but I just never felt the urge to become a follower of the shows while they were around. “Firefly”, on the other hand, got me hooked after one episode. At any rate, it felt like 60%-75% of the talk from this panel and audience was Buffy-related, so while I wasn’t put off, I sat through it feeling generally detached. What “Firefly” discussion there was was okay, but nothing scintillating.
After that, I called it a day. I could have stuck around for a screening of “The Thing” (the original 50’s version, not Carpenter’s gore-fest), but the thought of the heat in that little room turned me off. There was also the Masquerade and Masked Ball this evening, but that’s not really my scene. Better to come home, rest, post the day’s blog and figure out what to take in tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
And the start for me was watching the panel discussion on “The State of Canadian SF & Fantasy”. Panelists included Rob Sawyer and Lisa Smedman, to name a few, and there were a number of authors in the audience, including Dave Duncan. The session saw passionate talk about the nature of the publishing industry and how it deals with Canadian authors. That point evolved into the classic question of what makes Canadian SF Canadian (an ironic but key facet of our national identity is that Canadians are constantly trying to figure out what exactly our national identity is), and from there into the larger issue of what makes Canadian culture unique compared to the rest of the world. Some would call this naval-gazing, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but this degree of introspection and debate is one of the things that binds us (with all of our diverse backgrounds that are not only tolerated, but encouraged) together here in the true north strong and free. At an operational level, in many ways this session was an excellent example of how to achieve a balance between vigourous discussion among panel members and the inclusion of intelligent audience participation. The first session of the day at an Con can set the tone for the rest of the day, and after this one, despite a being up waaaaaay too late last night, I came out invigorated and enthusiastic.
After that it was over to a Q&A session with Peter S. Beagle. Beagle’s an immensely charming man with a never-ending supply of stories. He gave equal attention and consideration to every question that was asked by the audience, no matter how trivial or profound, whether it was asked by old fans or young children. And his stories were all quite entertaining and delivered in a careful, thoughtful pace that never strayed into babbling or ego. He reminisced about how a painting given to him by a friend helped, in part, to inspire “The Last Unicorn”. He answered questions about his cats and told us of one white Persian who preferred the company of dogs. He spoke at length about the two actors with, in his opinion, the greatest knowledge of literature: the incomparable Christopher Lee (who was passionate about being part of “The Last Unicorn” and said in an Austrian interview it was the closest he’d get to playing King Lear) and the late Sorrell Booke (or Brooke) of “The Dukes of Hazzard” fame. Beagle told us how he once asked Booke why we was doing a show like “The Dukes of Hazzard” when he could be doing serious acting on any stage of his choosing – Booke apparently responded that one pay cheque for one episode of “The Dukes” would buy him a lot of books. Definitely a great session to just sit back and listen to a master story-teller.
Next was a panel discussion on “Killing Off Characters”. There was a lot of interesting talk around gratuitous versus plot-necessary death, audience manipulation, logic in setting up deaths, consequences and even the logic involved to bring a character back from the dead (in whatever form) without undermining the story’s credibility within itself. That being said, the session was undermined somewhat by a couple of overzealous fans in the audience who frequently attempted to monopolize the panel’s time (one of the fans in question even got waved-off by a panelist she’d tried to interrupt on one occasion and was asked quietly by another member of the audience on another occasion to let people finish). I hate to keep harping on this beef, but it’s this kind of socially maladjusted behaviour that breaks the flow of an otherwise good debate or prevents other audience members from having the time to ask questions or make points that are actually intelligent and worth while. Getting back to the panel though, one of the great examples they brought up for gratuitous deaths meant to manipulate the audience (and the financial bottom-line) was the death of Superman, where a villain was created specifically by the authors to kill the previously unkillable hero so the line could sell a record number of copies and rake in huge profits before bringing Ka’Lel back. The panel’s example of a well-thought-out and plot-logical death was the recent assassination of Captain America, who’d come out against the US government’s superhero registration laws in the Marvel universe, thus making himself politically inconvenient and a target. Panelists also discussed the nature of the body counts in horror movies, as well as the purpose of including shocking, unexpected deaths in books and film (like that of Wash in “Serenity”). On the whole, this session was worth while.
After this block was over, I had a few hours on my hands – there weren’t any panels for a while that interested me and that was fine since it was high time to step out onto the strip and grab some chow. When I came back, I made my way to the dealers room again where I bought a stack of books from a publisher’s table (including an advance copy of “Tesseracts 11” – woohoo!) and a bunch of back-isues of On-Spec at that magazine’s booth. That purchase had the added bonus of giving me a chance to meet On-Spec’s Managing Editor, Diane Walton, and have a nice chat.
I then moseyed over to the far end of the room where Peter Beagle was signing books. He autographed my copies of “The Last Unicorn” and “The Line Between”, but what was better was the chance to talk with him one-on-one for a little while. He’s a warm and personable fellow who makes a genuine effort to pay attention to the people he’s talking with and to have a two-way discussion instead of merely pontificating. He spoke about how he feels more of a muscial influence when he’s writing than visual art, and noted that he doesn’t have music on when he writes because that might distract him from the music in his head – rather, he listens to baseball and will switch his attention from writing to the game when he picks up on something major.That led him to inquire about my name and recount stories of an old ballplayer from the 50’s who had the same last name (no relation, except very distant, I think). To me, the fact that he would look at a fan’s name tag and get into a conversation focusing, at least to some degree, on the fan instead of himself, underscored the fact that he’s a class act.
More wandering around brought me upstairs to the movie room, where a small group was well into that classic hunk of cheese “ Robot Monster”, heckling it mercilessly. I stayed for a while and joined in the fun – there’s nothing like slinging smart-ass remarks at a bad movie to bring strangers together. (“Hey, that young couple’s fooling around without any birth control!” – “Yeah, but that big dude in the gorilla suit with the cheap space helmet who just wiped-out every other living thing on the planet is probably birth control enough!” – “Only if he can catch them with that slow walk!”) I left after about 20 minutes though ‘cause the room was too damn hot.
My final session of the day was “Slayers, Champions & Space Rogues: The Joss Whedon Panel”. I think I would have enjoyed this one more if I’d been a “Buffy” or “Angel” fan. As it is, my preference is for “Firefly”. Now, for all you Buffy fans out there who might be preparing to take umbrage, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trashing on that show at all. I don’t dislike it, I merely never got into it. (I’ve got a buddy who’s constantly trying to convince me to borrow his Buffy season one collection though, so someday I may give in) I’ve seen a couple of episodes of Buffy and Angel here and there and thought they were entertaining enough, but I just never felt the urge to become a follower of the shows while they were around. “Firefly”, on the other hand, got me hooked after one episode. At any rate, it felt like 60%-75% of the talk from this panel and audience was Buffy-related, so while I wasn’t put off, I sat through it feeling generally detached. What “Firefly” discussion there was was okay, but nothing scintillating.
After that, I called it a day. I could have stuck around for a screening of “The Thing” (the original 50’s version, not Carpenter’s gore-fest), but the thought of the heat in that little room turned me off. There was also the Masquerade and Masked Ball this evening, but that’s not really my scene. Better to come home, rest, post the day’s blog and figure out what to take in tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
VCon - Day 1
Launch day for VCon 32/Canvention 27 – outside: a chilly day in October with one hell of a wind and rain storm blasting in from the Pacific to lash BC’s Lower Mainland. Not unusual for the fall in these parts. But, inside the comfort of the Radisson in Richmond, things got off to a good start (for the most part).
Registration started at noon, but I didn’t get in until 3 – right around the time the first panels/sessions/seminars/whatever were getting under way. Things at the registration desk were well organized and were running quickly enough (a nice improvement over last year where long lines and registration steps that took forever greeted Con goers). This year’s Con T-shirt looks pretty cool – a black shirt with the Con logo (sporting a dragon) in red. Looking forward to wearing it tomorrow. In addition to the usual flyers for comic shops, game shops, costume designers and the like, the registration desk also featured a couple of tourism guides to the region for out-of-towners. Not a bad idea, but someone probably should have thought to type out a one-sheet list of restaurants in Richmond… the hotel’s at one end of the strip, but if you’re not a local like me, you might not know how much is farther down the road, what type of fare is available, and what the best restaurants are. During the course of the day, I heard several people ask where they could find good, cheap food. Unfortunately, in at least one instance, one of the guys at the registration desk didn’t know the area and wasn’t of any help. I offered a few suggestions, but what with the storm outside, I doubt many people (especially those without cars) went far.
Anyway, on to the Con’s content.
The first session I attended featured a topic that’s probably a staple of many cons: “Where The Heck Is My Hovercar?” Hosted by Neo-Opsis editor Karl Johanson and another fellow (whose name I didn’t catch), it was an interesting discussion with a nice amount of intelligent audience participation about technologies predicted by science fiction – some that came true (like personal communication devices – now cell phones), others that didn’t (the hover car, or the transporter beam), as well as developments and their effects that kind of snuck up on us (like the internet and all of its social ramifications). A sad irony about this session (unknown to those of us at the Con at the time – I didn’t find out until the drive home) was that while we were taking part in a discussion that used the idea of a hovercar (a mass-market available means of easy local airtravel), a small plane crashed into a condo tower nearby. Makes me wonder if it’s not a good thing that there aren’t more vehicles in the air to be prone to accidents that can affect residential areas.
Once that was over there was a time block where none of the sessions really interested me, so I wandered around for a bit. The dealers’ room was partially up and running – still a few empty tables though. I’ll probably check back tomorrow and pick a few things up. Next door the gaming room was all but empty (although it was quite busy by the time I left early in the evening). The art room was pretty much the same scene as the dealers’ – some displays up, some walls empty, more to come tomorrow. Checked out the hospitality suite for a minute, then back down to the Con floor.
An odd observation about the amenities provided by the hotel: there were several tables set up in the halls around the Con floor with pitchers of water for the attendees. But there were no glasses. There were no mugs. There weren’t even any plastic beer cups to put the water in. Nope. In their infinite wisdom, the hotel staff provided Con-goers with stacks of Dixie Cups. Dixie Cups? What, like if I’m thirsty I’d only want a shot – maybe a double-shot if I sip, of water? It’s not even like providing Dixie Cups is cheap – they’re a disposable item – they cost money to provide! A glass (or ceramic mug) on the other hand, is washable, and thus doesn’t cost the hotel anything to put out, aside from the odd break, which, let’s face it, probably only puts them out a few pennies considering they’ve got to buy glasses by the case. I heard more than one person complain about the Dixie Cups. I was glad I’d brought a couple of bottles of water in my satchel (shhhhh! Don’t tell the hotel staff- no outside food or drink allowed!). I mean, come on, if I walked around in public drinking out of a Dixie Cup, I’d feel like Brodie from Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats”. Would anybody like a chocolate-covered pretzel?
Anyhow, still with plenty of time to kill before anything interesting, on a whim I wandered into a session called Anime 101. I enjoy some anime, though I’m not a super fan, so I figured it might be an entertaining way to fill an hour. Unfortunately, no. I wasn’t entertained and I didn’t last an hour. More like about 15-20 minutes. Chalk it up to a pair of session hosts with the attitude of The Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons”, and two guys in the audience (the Quibbler – we’ve all had to put up with this show-off before, interrupting presenters to highlight minutia, and the Refugee From His Mother’s Basement – who has the social skills of a garden slug and thinks the entire thing is set up to be a personal conversation between him and the presenters where he sets the tone) who managed to drag the session waaaaaaay off topic and monopolized far too much time. I wasn’t the first to bail out on this session.
After escaping into the hallway I wandered around for a bit before attending a reading by Canada’s Dean of Science Fiction, Rob Sawyer. I’m a big fan of Sawyer’s stuff, so this was the highlight of the day for me. Aside from the content, it’s enjoyable to attend a session with him because he’s a nice guy who gives a lively performance when he’s reading. Unfortunately, before getting into the reading of his short story “Biding Time”, Sawyer noted that it would be his last work of short fiction. He noted that medium doesn’t pay particularly well and his time can be better spent writing novels. He also pointed out there weren’t many people who’d been steered to his novels by his short stories. Personally, that’s exactly how I got hooked on Sawyer. Once I read his short story “Just Like Old Times” in the anthology “Northern Stars”, I knew I had to see more of what this guy had to offer and began reading his novels. It’s a pity he’s getting out of short fiction (although he did announce a collection of his short stories would be published in February), not only because he’s good at it, but because it’s a form (or length, if you will) of literature that’s still valid – moreso in today’s hurried world where it’s hard to make time to sit down and read a novel for a couple of hours when you’ve got work and family to attend to. But, the man’s entitled to make his own choices and if it means he’ll have more time to write more good novels, I certainly won’t complain. Anyway, Sawyer didn’t disappoint when it came to his reading performance. It was the first time I’d encountered “Biding Time”, and, in fact, I don’t recall having read (or heard) any other story featuring his character Alex Lomax before either. The tale has a definite flim noire mood, heightened by the character of Lomax, the detective, who struck me as very Humphrey Bogart-ish, especially during his conversation with the rotund fossil dealer in the opening (it could have been Bogie and Sidney Greenstreet) and in his interrogation of his suspect at the climax. I had a chance to have a quick chat with Sawyer later out in the hallway when he was signing copies of “Calculating God” and “Flash Forward” for me and he said that when writing the Lomax stories he’d watched all of Bogart’s films to get just the right feel for that type of plot and the people who inhabit it. I’m very much looking forward to that collection of his so I can take a gander at the other Lomax installments.
From there it was on to the opening ceremonies. Strange that the opening ceremonies come near the end of the day, but who am I to argue, this is my second VCon and only the third con I’ve been to (the first was the ’96 WorldCon in Winnipeg, Manitoba). Things got off to a bit of a late start and the opening remarks rambled a bit, but aside from some people being hungry (it was scheduled over the supper hour), most folks know that there’s an easy pace to this kind of thing and thus took it in stride. Then the various Guests of Honour were introduced, the highlight among them being Peter S. Beagle, author of “The Last Unicorn” (among other works). Beagle was warm and sincere. I was struck how his voice is reminiscent of William Shatner’s - the difference being that Beagle isn’t as strident as Shatner. He has a quiet self-confidence, an aura that he’s comfortable with himself and his surroundings and doesn’t neet to show off or prove himself – something Shatner could learn from – and that’s reflected in his voice. Beagle gave a nice speech about his career as a writer, how he sees himself as an artisan, rather than an artist – someone who has to work at his craft and who acknowledges that sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get it right, and that once in a while the results cold be better. His point was that he keeps working at it, and when that kind of dedication is combined with raw talent, it produces something worth while.
After a hearty round of applause, things broke up for a bit. Some people stuck around for the Guest of Honour Concert, the flicks up in the movie room, or the Buffy Sing-Along, but I chose to head home to spend a little time with my wife and cat and get some rest. There’s a blurb in the beginning of the Con’s programme (coined by Ross Pavlac for Windycon XXIV) called “The Four Rules of Con Survival”:
1) Get at least five hours of sleep each night.
2) Eat at least two meals a day.
3) Do not confuse rules 1 and 2.
4) Show, brush teeth and change into clean clothes at least once a day.
I notice that it’s getting really late and that tomorrow will be a full day at the Con, so it’s time to observe Rule 1.
Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow.
Registration started at noon, but I didn’t get in until 3 – right around the time the first panels/sessions/seminars/whatever were getting under way. Things at the registration desk were well organized and were running quickly enough (a nice improvement over last year where long lines and registration steps that took forever greeted Con goers). This year’s Con T-shirt looks pretty cool – a black shirt with the Con logo (sporting a dragon) in red. Looking forward to wearing it tomorrow. In addition to the usual flyers for comic shops, game shops, costume designers and the like, the registration desk also featured a couple of tourism guides to the region for out-of-towners. Not a bad idea, but someone probably should have thought to type out a one-sheet list of restaurants in Richmond… the hotel’s at one end of the strip, but if you’re not a local like me, you might not know how much is farther down the road, what type of fare is available, and what the best restaurants are. During the course of the day, I heard several people ask where they could find good, cheap food. Unfortunately, in at least one instance, one of the guys at the registration desk didn’t know the area and wasn’t of any help. I offered a few suggestions, but what with the storm outside, I doubt many people (especially those without cars) went far.
Anyway, on to the Con’s content.
The first session I attended featured a topic that’s probably a staple of many cons: “Where The Heck Is My Hovercar?” Hosted by Neo-Opsis editor Karl Johanson and another fellow (whose name I didn’t catch), it was an interesting discussion with a nice amount of intelligent audience participation about technologies predicted by science fiction – some that came true (like personal communication devices – now cell phones), others that didn’t (the hover car, or the transporter beam), as well as developments and their effects that kind of snuck up on us (like the internet and all of its social ramifications). A sad irony about this session (unknown to those of us at the Con at the time – I didn’t find out until the drive home) was that while we were taking part in a discussion that used the idea of a hovercar (a mass-market available means of easy local airtravel), a small plane crashed into a condo tower nearby. Makes me wonder if it’s not a good thing that there aren’t more vehicles in the air to be prone to accidents that can affect residential areas.
Once that was over there was a time block where none of the sessions really interested me, so I wandered around for a bit. The dealers’ room was partially up and running – still a few empty tables though. I’ll probably check back tomorrow and pick a few things up. Next door the gaming room was all but empty (although it was quite busy by the time I left early in the evening). The art room was pretty much the same scene as the dealers’ – some displays up, some walls empty, more to come tomorrow. Checked out the hospitality suite for a minute, then back down to the Con floor.
An odd observation about the amenities provided by the hotel: there were several tables set up in the halls around the Con floor with pitchers of water for the attendees. But there were no glasses. There were no mugs. There weren’t even any plastic beer cups to put the water in. Nope. In their infinite wisdom, the hotel staff provided Con-goers with stacks of Dixie Cups. Dixie Cups? What, like if I’m thirsty I’d only want a shot – maybe a double-shot if I sip, of water? It’s not even like providing Dixie Cups is cheap – they’re a disposable item – they cost money to provide! A glass (or ceramic mug) on the other hand, is washable, and thus doesn’t cost the hotel anything to put out, aside from the odd break, which, let’s face it, probably only puts them out a few pennies considering they’ve got to buy glasses by the case. I heard more than one person complain about the Dixie Cups. I was glad I’d brought a couple of bottles of water in my satchel (shhhhh! Don’t tell the hotel staff- no outside food or drink allowed!). I mean, come on, if I walked around in public drinking out of a Dixie Cup, I’d feel like Brodie from Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats”. Would anybody like a chocolate-covered pretzel?
Anyhow, still with plenty of time to kill before anything interesting, on a whim I wandered into a session called Anime 101. I enjoy some anime, though I’m not a super fan, so I figured it might be an entertaining way to fill an hour. Unfortunately, no. I wasn’t entertained and I didn’t last an hour. More like about 15-20 minutes. Chalk it up to a pair of session hosts with the attitude of The Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons”, and two guys in the audience (the Quibbler – we’ve all had to put up with this show-off before, interrupting presenters to highlight minutia, and the Refugee From His Mother’s Basement – who has the social skills of a garden slug and thinks the entire thing is set up to be a personal conversation between him and the presenters where he sets the tone) who managed to drag the session waaaaaaay off topic and monopolized far too much time. I wasn’t the first to bail out on this session.
After escaping into the hallway I wandered around for a bit before attending a reading by Canada’s Dean of Science Fiction, Rob Sawyer. I’m a big fan of Sawyer’s stuff, so this was the highlight of the day for me. Aside from the content, it’s enjoyable to attend a session with him because he’s a nice guy who gives a lively performance when he’s reading. Unfortunately, before getting into the reading of his short story “Biding Time”, Sawyer noted that it would be his last work of short fiction. He noted that medium doesn’t pay particularly well and his time can be better spent writing novels. He also pointed out there weren’t many people who’d been steered to his novels by his short stories. Personally, that’s exactly how I got hooked on Sawyer. Once I read his short story “Just Like Old Times” in the anthology “Northern Stars”, I knew I had to see more of what this guy had to offer and began reading his novels. It’s a pity he’s getting out of short fiction (although he did announce a collection of his short stories would be published in February), not only because he’s good at it, but because it’s a form (or length, if you will) of literature that’s still valid – moreso in today’s hurried world where it’s hard to make time to sit down and read a novel for a couple of hours when you’ve got work and family to attend to. But, the man’s entitled to make his own choices and if it means he’ll have more time to write more good novels, I certainly won’t complain. Anyway, Sawyer didn’t disappoint when it came to his reading performance. It was the first time I’d encountered “Biding Time”, and, in fact, I don’t recall having read (or heard) any other story featuring his character Alex Lomax before either. The tale has a definite flim noire mood, heightened by the character of Lomax, the detective, who struck me as very Humphrey Bogart-ish, especially during his conversation with the rotund fossil dealer in the opening (it could have been Bogie and Sidney Greenstreet) and in his interrogation of his suspect at the climax. I had a chance to have a quick chat with Sawyer later out in the hallway when he was signing copies of “Calculating God” and “Flash Forward” for me and he said that when writing the Lomax stories he’d watched all of Bogart’s films to get just the right feel for that type of plot and the people who inhabit it. I’m very much looking forward to that collection of his so I can take a gander at the other Lomax installments.
From there it was on to the opening ceremonies. Strange that the opening ceremonies come near the end of the day, but who am I to argue, this is my second VCon and only the third con I’ve been to (the first was the ’96 WorldCon in Winnipeg, Manitoba). Things got off to a bit of a late start and the opening remarks rambled a bit, but aside from some people being hungry (it was scheduled over the supper hour), most folks know that there’s an easy pace to this kind of thing and thus took it in stride. Then the various Guests of Honour were introduced, the highlight among them being Peter S. Beagle, author of “The Last Unicorn” (among other works). Beagle was warm and sincere. I was struck how his voice is reminiscent of William Shatner’s - the difference being that Beagle isn’t as strident as Shatner. He has a quiet self-confidence, an aura that he’s comfortable with himself and his surroundings and doesn’t neet to show off or prove himself – something Shatner could learn from – and that’s reflected in his voice. Beagle gave a nice speech about his career as a writer, how he sees himself as an artisan, rather than an artist – someone who has to work at his craft and who acknowledges that sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get it right, and that once in a while the results cold be better. His point was that he keeps working at it, and when that kind of dedication is combined with raw talent, it produces something worth while.
After a hearty round of applause, things broke up for a bit. Some people stuck around for the Guest of Honour Concert, the flicks up in the movie room, or the Buffy Sing-Along, but I chose to head home to spend a little time with my wife and cat and get some rest. There’s a blurb in the beginning of the Con’s programme (coined by Ross Pavlac for Windycon XXIV) called “The Four Rules of Con Survival”:
1) Get at least five hours of sleep each night.
2) Eat at least two meals a day.
3) Do not confuse rules 1 and 2.
4) Show, brush teeth and change into clean clothes at least once a day.
I notice that it’s getting really late and that tomorrow will be a full day at the Con, so it’s time to observe Rule 1.
Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Another Con Job - VCon32/Canvention27 Starts on Friday!
Just a few hours until VCon32 – The Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming Convention, which is also hosting Canvention27 (Canada’s national SF con).
The event runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And it’s pretty convenient for me, being located in my little corner of the Lower Mainland.
Highlights include author guest of honour Peter S. Beagle (of “The Last Unicorn” fame),the presentation of the Aurora Awards (Canada’s highest honour for SF) and author Robert J. Sawyer, who will be the MC at the awards ceremony.
I’ll be on-hand for all three days and will be posting daily blow-by-blow summaries of what’s on at the con. Stay tuned.
The event runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And it’s pretty convenient for me, being located in my little corner of the Lower Mainland.
Highlights include author guest of honour Peter S. Beagle (of “The Last Unicorn” fame),the presentation of the Aurora Awards (Canada’s highest honour for SF) and author Robert J. Sawyer, who will be the MC at the awards ceremony.
I’ll be on-hand for all three days and will be posting daily blow-by-blow summaries of what’s on at the con. Stay tuned.
"Now and Forever" is One for Two
Over the years, I’ve come, with good reason, to have high expectations of Ray Bradbury’s works. Anyone who’s read this blog long enough knows that not too many months go by without a Bradbury reference or a full-blown raving about the man’s genius as a writer. But his newest work – which is actually a pair of stories from decades ago that were reworked again and again over time – is proof that even a master can stumble once in a while.
In “Now and Forever”, Bradbury presents us with two distinct tales: “Somewhere a Band is Playing” – about a young reporter who stumbles into a mysterious town and discovers not only love but the key to immortality (and its price), and “Leviathan ‘99” – a science fictional reforging of Melville’s “Moby Dick” substituting a comet and a rocket for the whale and the Pequod. While I enjoyed the first submission immensely, I was strangely unimpressed with the latter.
“Somewhere a Band is Playing” is classic Bradbury – all the fat, juicy poetic prose of his love of the American landscape and its small towns and the people within them. In his introduction, Bradbury gives the nod to Canadian author Stephen Leacock’s “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town” for embracing the richness (if frequently ridiculousness) of isolated villages and the characters who inhabit them. But even greater still is the love Bradbury put into crafting his female lead, Nefertiti, inspired by his great admiration and affection for the late Katharine Hepburn, who he insists could have played Nef at any age.
The story is ultimately about the power of love and writing (with a dire warning about how the power of the word can bring about destruction, whether literally or metaphorically) and how they can achieve a kind of immortality. Immortality is something frequently on Bradbury’s mind, whether it is child gods of summer in small Michigan towns, ghosts that hold on to their mysteries down through the ages, or Stanley Laural and Oliver Hardy tickling funny bones across space and time with their antics.
And it’s no surprise the power of writing comes into play. A fairly good chunk of his body of work has characters who are storytellers of one kind or other. They tend to have to deal with the ancient dilemma of the artist who sees the world in all its shades, but is always somewhat removed from it. Until now, that is. Here we have the story of a writer who has finally come home – who can finally be part of the world.
But achieving this holy grail is not without its difficulties, the protagonist is beset by his arch-enemy McCoy, another reporter who follows him around the country polluting the subjects of his stories by exposing them to the attentions of an ugly world and detailing their subsequent corruption. McCoy is like a shark following a ship, like Melkor trailing after the other Valar in the early days of Tolkien’s Middle Earth and upsetting their works, like Mordred undoing King Arthur. And yet, this time the writer, the maker of things, manages to keep something pure and outwit his nemesis. His second challenge, like many knightly quests, is to fight temptation – to realize the truth of things, in this case, what he really wants out of life – where his heart lies.
In perfect Bradburian fashion, it makes absolute sense that the catalyst that allows the writer to achieve immortality is love. Nefertiti is lover, teacher, beacon and inspiration to the protagonist. Where some might see her initially as a test of temptation, she proves to be the key to finding meaning and happiness in his life.
I won’t say “Somewhere a Band is Playing” is Bradbury’s finest work, but this heartfelt story is a solid and worthy addition to his best material.
“Leviathan ’99”, on the other hand, I just couldn’t get into for some reason. Obviously I like Bradbury (to belabour the point). And I have a deep enjoyment of and appreciation for “Moby Dick”. And yes, I also got a kick out of his screenplay for the novel. Why then, don’t I like this story? I don’t know. Maybe I was bugged in part because I couldn’t figure out how a comet could blind a person. Many of Bradbury’s attempts to paste the items, settings and events of “Moby Dick” into a space environment seemed clunky to me. It’s not that I’m a stickler for hard science per se… I do enjoy hard SF, but I also enjoy the stuff (like Bradbury’s) that uses scientific terms and pseudo-science willy-nilly, as long as the plot and characters are well done. It just didn’t seem to work here though. That being said, the author’s intro makes reference to one of the story’s incarnations being an old BBC radio play with Christopher Lee as the mad captain, and I think that would be a treat to listen to.
The heartening thing about this book, even though one story’s a hit and the other’s a miss, is that you can see how active Bradbury’s imagination is and how hard he tries to spin a good yarn, even if it doesn’t always play out the way it should. One for two ain’t bad in a lifetime of successes that resonate now and forever.
In “Now and Forever”, Bradbury presents us with two distinct tales: “Somewhere a Band is Playing” – about a young reporter who stumbles into a mysterious town and discovers not only love but the key to immortality (and its price), and “Leviathan ‘99” – a science fictional reforging of Melville’s “Moby Dick” substituting a comet and a rocket for the whale and the Pequod. While I enjoyed the first submission immensely, I was strangely unimpressed with the latter.
“Somewhere a Band is Playing” is classic Bradbury – all the fat, juicy poetic prose of his love of the American landscape and its small towns and the people within them. In his introduction, Bradbury gives the nod to Canadian author Stephen Leacock’s “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town” for embracing the richness (if frequently ridiculousness) of isolated villages and the characters who inhabit them. But even greater still is the love Bradbury put into crafting his female lead, Nefertiti, inspired by his great admiration and affection for the late Katharine Hepburn, who he insists could have played Nef at any age.
The story is ultimately about the power of love and writing (with a dire warning about how the power of the word can bring about destruction, whether literally or metaphorically) and how they can achieve a kind of immortality. Immortality is something frequently on Bradbury’s mind, whether it is child gods of summer in small Michigan towns, ghosts that hold on to their mysteries down through the ages, or Stanley Laural and Oliver Hardy tickling funny bones across space and time with their antics.
And it’s no surprise the power of writing comes into play. A fairly good chunk of his body of work has characters who are storytellers of one kind or other. They tend to have to deal with the ancient dilemma of the artist who sees the world in all its shades, but is always somewhat removed from it. Until now, that is. Here we have the story of a writer who has finally come home – who can finally be part of the world.
But achieving this holy grail is not without its difficulties, the protagonist is beset by his arch-enemy McCoy, another reporter who follows him around the country polluting the subjects of his stories by exposing them to the attentions of an ugly world and detailing their subsequent corruption. McCoy is like a shark following a ship, like Melkor trailing after the other Valar in the early days of Tolkien’s Middle Earth and upsetting their works, like Mordred undoing King Arthur. And yet, this time the writer, the maker of things, manages to keep something pure and outwit his nemesis. His second challenge, like many knightly quests, is to fight temptation – to realize the truth of things, in this case, what he really wants out of life – where his heart lies.
In perfect Bradburian fashion, it makes absolute sense that the catalyst that allows the writer to achieve immortality is love. Nefertiti is lover, teacher, beacon and inspiration to the protagonist. Where some might see her initially as a test of temptation, she proves to be the key to finding meaning and happiness in his life.
I won’t say “Somewhere a Band is Playing” is Bradbury’s finest work, but this heartfelt story is a solid and worthy addition to his best material.
“Leviathan ’99”, on the other hand, I just couldn’t get into for some reason. Obviously I like Bradbury (to belabour the point). And I have a deep enjoyment of and appreciation for “Moby Dick”. And yes, I also got a kick out of his screenplay for the novel. Why then, don’t I like this story? I don’t know. Maybe I was bugged in part because I couldn’t figure out how a comet could blind a person. Many of Bradbury’s attempts to paste the items, settings and events of “Moby Dick” into a space environment seemed clunky to me. It’s not that I’m a stickler for hard science per se… I do enjoy hard SF, but I also enjoy the stuff (like Bradbury’s) that uses scientific terms and pseudo-science willy-nilly, as long as the plot and characters are well done. It just didn’t seem to work here though. That being said, the author’s intro makes reference to one of the story’s incarnations being an old BBC radio play with Christopher Lee as the mad captain, and I think that would be a treat to listen to.
The heartening thing about this book, even though one story’s a hit and the other’s a miss, is that you can see how active Bradbury’s imagination is and how hard he tries to spin a good yarn, even if it doesn’t always play out the way it should. One for two ain’t bad in a lifetime of successes that resonate now and forever.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Beginnings and Endings - This Season's Sci-Fi
Warning: Spoilers (spoilage factor: about the same as the contents of your refrigerator after you’ve been away on vacation for three weeks – some items will be more spoiled than others)
It’s been about three weeks since the start of the new TV season here in North America, and while I haven’t made a point of watching every new or returning sci-fi show, I figured it was time to weigh-in on the few I have managed to catch.
HEROES (second season)
Overall, I enjoyed the first season of “Heroes”. It was nice to see a serious attempt to create a TV series based on a comic book-style premise (instead of the outright camp of “Batman” or “Wonder Woman” or “The Greatest American Hero”) and some of the characters and storylines were engaging. That being said, I was a bit ambivalent about last season’s finale. There was too much that didn’t make sense and I thought the writers didn’t need to leave all the potential plot lines dangling with the teasing possibilities that some characters might just come sneaking back (especially if the show needed a hook in the future to keep the viewers). Now, at the start of season two, the disappointment factor for me is sadly increasing. The season premier didn’t really feel like an episode at all – it was a rushed mish-mash of teasers designed to set the stage for plots that will come later. Poor writing in my opinion. The brains behind the show should have focused on a couple of key storylines (such as Hiro’s samurai adventures) and taken the time to actually develop them, instead of taking snapshots of nearly everyone – they made the mistake of trying to please all of the people and wound up with something so thin as to have no substance. And it hasn’t changed much with the subsequent episodes. There has been a little plot development with Claire, Suresh and Hiro, but their segments are so short they’re about as satisfying as a premature orgasm. I’m also getting tired with the writers’ obsession with dangling mysteries in front of the audience. Why did Peter lose his memory? How did he get from exploding in the upper atmosphere to a container in Ireland? Has Sylar really lost his powers? What will happen to Claire’s relationship with her father as she learns more about what he did to her new boyfriend when he was a company man? What about Suresh’s new job with the company – who’s playing who? What’s the deal with the disease afflicting some of the metahumans? Who’s stalking and killing Hiro’s father and the rest of the gaggle of geezers and leaving behind Kenzo’s mark? Who’s the new badguy haunting the little girl’s nightmares? While it is effective to set up mysteries once in a while to keep the audience guessing (and in these days, communicating with each other online about their guesses, thereby increasing the show’s hype), too many at once can make the show as flimsy as a house of cards. Granted, mystery creates tension in a show, but sometimes greater levels of tension can be achieved when the audience knows what’s going on and is on the edge of their seats waiting to see if the protagonist will figure things out in time to save himself. To keep dangling teaser after teaser also makes me wonder if the writers are afraid their plots aren’t strong enough or their characters aren’t interesting enough to hold the loyalty of the audience past the close of a limited story arc. The constant hints of things to come are starting to look like an inability to focus on writing quality episodes. Yes, episodes can be part of season or series-long story arcs, but if an episode can’t stand on its own, then the writers have failed at the craft of good storytelling. Shows like “Babylon 5” and the new “Battlestar Galactica” understand this – individual episodes may be key moments in larger stories, but those single moments make for powerful stories unto themselves. The writers behind “Heroes” really need to learn this. They need to learn the benefits of completeness. That being said, I’m not writing off “Heroes” yet. Some of the segments (short as they are) are still enjoyable. It’s hard not to get a kick out of Hiro’s attempt to build a hero out of a wayward, indestructible Englishman in feudal Japan. There is some potential to the new Parkman detective/surrogate daddy storyline. But if the writers can’t learn the art of focus, even these two heroes might not be able to save this show.
REAPER (new series)
This show about a young slacker who finds out he’s obliged to be the devil’s bounty hunter has been pretty entertaining so far. The concept is nothing new (“The Collector” had the devil dispatching the hero to, well, dispatch with a different soul every episode – though the protagonist was more of the Hollywood stereotypical dark hero), but the strength of this show is the hilarious dialogue. Kevin Smith of “Clerks” fame is associated with the show (he gets a creative consulting credit and I seem to recall he might have directed the pilot) and you can hear his vulger stamp on nearly every sentence from the sidekick “Sock” (played with gleeful confidence by Tyler Labine) – who’s essentially the teleplay bastard child of Jay and Silent Bob. The problem is this very strength in writing is the show’s weakness. Because there is nothing interesting or new enough about a guy rooked into being the devil’s bagman, or a guy pining for a girl he’s too afraid to ask out, and because the sight gags of the new spirit-trapping device (and accompanying impromptu fighting equipment and outfits the heros construct out of garden shed and garage tools) of the week are one-trick ponies, the show relies entirely on the dialogue and the performances. If there are just one or two episodes where the writing isn’t as sharp as it should be, or if the actors’ delivery is a little too flat, then the show is sunk – it wouldn’t take more than that to make the show boring enough that viewers wouldn’t return. For this reason, I’ve always got a bit of trepidation during the first 5 minutes or so of each episode – I always wonder if the other shoe is finally going to drop. To date though, “Reaper” is definitely worth watching.
THE BIONIC WOMAN (new series)
I’d initially had cautious hope for this reincarnation of the 70’s cyborg series. I wanted to like this show, I really did. I mean, come-on, with this project being helmed by Eick from the new Battlestar, there had to be quality assurance. Sadly, that quality doesn’t seem to be there and I think I’m done with the show. The pilot about Jamie Summers’ transformation from bartender (as opposed to tennis pro in the original series) to high-tech hero was mildly interesting. But in the quest to prove they can develop characters, the writers have made the mistake of spending too much time on bionic angst. This Jamie spends more time whining to her new boss and fighting with her little sister than actually battling the forces of evil. What’s worse, the sibling fights and make-ups feel stilted and phoney, like someone was trying to write what a sister-sister relationship is like without ever actually having had a sister or without even knowing someone who had a sister. One would also think that for all the intelligence and mental flexibility the so-called tests indicate Jamie has, she’d have an easier time adapting to her new life and would be more likely to see a future in the use of her new abilities. Then there’s Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar’s Starbuck), playing a psychotic bionic prototype. I think Sackhoff is generally a good actress, but this is definitely not the role for her. You can see she’s trying, she really is, to play the sultry femme fatale who can whisper enticingly into your ear one minute, then turn on a dime and rip your head off the next. The problem is that it just doesn’t seem to work for her. What comes naturally to Battlestar co-star Tricia Helfer (who isn’t just eye candy – she can clearly act and act well) playing various incarnations of the Cylon Number 6 looks painfully forced and fake when Sackhoff makes the attempt. This is a character who isn’t suited to Sackhoff’s face, body type or acting ability. Really, does she think that pursing her heavily lipsticked lips and gazing vacantly into the middle distance half the time makes for sexiness of the potentially lethal variety? Watching Sackhoff try to do Helfer is like watching a 12-year-old tom-boy dress up in her 18-year-old prom-queen sister’s gown and makeup to try to impress the paperboy. It just doesn’t cut it. And, beyond all that, I just haven’t found the storylines all that engaging. Last night, faced with a couple of choices on TV, I decided not to bother with the Bionic Woman. I probably won’t bother with it again.
EUREKA (season two)
Although my wife’s a fan of this show and I find it amusing enough myself, we don’t tend to watch it consistently. Not sure why. The premise is kind of a cross between “Northern Exposure” and “The X-Files”, which I don’t mind, and the writing, while solid, doesn’t take itself too seriously. For some reason, we’re just not tuning in on a regular basis or taping it. I suspect we’ll probably continue to watch it on an occasional basis, but I don’t know if we’ll be buying the DVD set sometime down the road.
HONOURABLE MENTION: THE FAMILY GUY STAR WARS PARODY
I’m an occasional viewer of “The Family Guy” – I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes the pronouncements of Brian the dog or the outbursts from Stewie crack me up, even though, as “South Park” has accurately observed, the show is formulaic in the extreme and the asides rarely have anything to do with the plot. The “Star Wars” episode, on the other hand, was tightly focused and a brutally funny take on Episode IV – in some ways, dare I say it, it was better than Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs”. In addition to the writing, I have to give the animators a huge amount of credit for their attention to detail – many of the exterior shots (such as the opening battle between the Rebel blockade runner and the Star Destroyer) seemed lifted almost exactly from the original footage – so much so that I wondered if it was exacting attention to copying all of the angles and movement or if it was a modern example of shadow animation. In any case, this special easily lived up to all of the hype that was going around since the producers first announced they’d be tackling Lucas’ baby. I only wish I’d taped it.
And on to an ending…
DR. WHO – SERIES THREE FINALE
I simply can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this episode (or three-part episode, if you want to get technical). The BBC team behind Dr. Who was at its best this time. Martha’s departure was painful but liberating. I think she’s easily the best Companion the Doctor’s had, but as she walked out of the TARDIS (for the second or third time), I found myself thinking, yeah, you had to do it. It was also fun to see the Master reveal how diverse events from episodes across the season that were seemingly unrelated were part of his evil machinations. Other plot tie-ins, like Captain Jack turning out to be The Face of Bo(Bow/Beau?) were fun to watch too. But best of all was The Master’s revenge. What better way to strike one last painful blow against the Doctor in defeat than for the Master to allow himself to die, thereby leaving the Doctor completely alone once and for all. That’s a villain who knows how to do the most damage to his adversary – I don’t think killing a Companion could have wounded the Doctor as much as that did, and it showed. The only part of the episode that seemed too corny for me was the Doctor’s reboot when the whole world thought about him at once – it smacked a little too much of readers being asked to clap their hands if they wanted Tinkerbell to live in “Peter Pan”. At least though, the writers seemed to be aware of this and acknowledged it with a snide comment to that effect from The Master at the time (though for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact wording). The new Doctor Who has become one of my favourite shows because of its sharp writing, frenetic pacing and great characters and acting. However, in other Dr-related news, I am kicking myself for missing the premier of the spinoff series “Torchwood” on CBC last Friday (we were babysitting my one-and-a-half-year-old nephew and got too distracted to turn on the TV or set the VCR. Toddlers will do that). I’ll have to hunt around for it on the net before the next episode hits the air tomorrow night. I’ve got a buddy who’s already downloaded the whole series and has been dropping teasers for a week now. Why isn’t he writing this blog posting?
It’s been about three weeks since the start of the new TV season here in North America, and while I haven’t made a point of watching every new or returning sci-fi show, I figured it was time to weigh-in on the few I have managed to catch.
HEROES (second season)
Overall, I enjoyed the first season of “Heroes”. It was nice to see a serious attempt to create a TV series based on a comic book-style premise (instead of the outright camp of “Batman” or “Wonder Woman” or “The Greatest American Hero”) and some of the characters and storylines were engaging. That being said, I was a bit ambivalent about last season’s finale. There was too much that didn’t make sense and I thought the writers didn’t need to leave all the potential plot lines dangling with the teasing possibilities that some characters might just come sneaking back (especially if the show needed a hook in the future to keep the viewers). Now, at the start of season two, the disappointment factor for me is sadly increasing. The season premier didn’t really feel like an episode at all – it was a rushed mish-mash of teasers designed to set the stage for plots that will come later. Poor writing in my opinion. The brains behind the show should have focused on a couple of key storylines (such as Hiro’s samurai adventures) and taken the time to actually develop them, instead of taking snapshots of nearly everyone – they made the mistake of trying to please all of the people and wound up with something so thin as to have no substance. And it hasn’t changed much with the subsequent episodes. There has been a little plot development with Claire, Suresh and Hiro, but their segments are so short they’re about as satisfying as a premature orgasm. I’m also getting tired with the writers’ obsession with dangling mysteries in front of the audience. Why did Peter lose his memory? How did he get from exploding in the upper atmosphere to a container in Ireland? Has Sylar really lost his powers? What will happen to Claire’s relationship with her father as she learns more about what he did to her new boyfriend when he was a company man? What about Suresh’s new job with the company – who’s playing who? What’s the deal with the disease afflicting some of the metahumans? Who’s stalking and killing Hiro’s father and the rest of the gaggle of geezers and leaving behind Kenzo’s mark? Who’s the new badguy haunting the little girl’s nightmares? While it is effective to set up mysteries once in a while to keep the audience guessing (and in these days, communicating with each other online about their guesses, thereby increasing the show’s hype), too many at once can make the show as flimsy as a house of cards. Granted, mystery creates tension in a show, but sometimes greater levels of tension can be achieved when the audience knows what’s going on and is on the edge of their seats waiting to see if the protagonist will figure things out in time to save himself. To keep dangling teaser after teaser also makes me wonder if the writers are afraid their plots aren’t strong enough or their characters aren’t interesting enough to hold the loyalty of the audience past the close of a limited story arc. The constant hints of things to come are starting to look like an inability to focus on writing quality episodes. Yes, episodes can be part of season or series-long story arcs, but if an episode can’t stand on its own, then the writers have failed at the craft of good storytelling. Shows like “Babylon 5” and the new “Battlestar Galactica” understand this – individual episodes may be key moments in larger stories, but those single moments make for powerful stories unto themselves. The writers behind “Heroes” really need to learn this. They need to learn the benefits of completeness. That being said, I’m not writing off “Heroes” yet. Some of the segments (short as they are) are still enjoyable. It’s hard not to get a kick out of Hiro’s attempt to build a hero out of a wayward, indestructible Englishman in feudal Japan. There is some potential to the new Parkman detective/surrogate daddy storyline. But if the writers can’t learn the art of focus, even these two heroes might not be able to save this show.
REAPER (new series)
This show about a young slacker who finds out he’s obliged to be the devil’s bounty hunter has been pretty entertaining so far. The concept is nothing new (“The Collector” had the devil dispatching the hero to, well, dispatch with a different soul every episode – though the protagonist was more of the Hollywood stereotypical dark hero), but the strength of this show is the hilarious dialogue. Kevin Smith of “Clerks” fame is associated with the show (he gets a creative consulting credit and I seem to recall he might have directed the pilot) and you can hear his vulger stamp on nearly every sentence from the sidekick “Sock” (played with gleeful confidence by Tyler Labine) – who’s essentially the teleplay bastard child of Jay and Silent Bob. The problem is this very strength in writing is the show’s weakness. Because there is nothing interesting or new enough about a guy rooked into being the devil’s bagman, or a guy pining for a girl he’s too afraid to ask out, and because the sight gags of the new spirit-trapping device (and accompanying impromptu fighting equipment and outfits the heros construct out of garden shed and garage tools) of the week are one-trick ponies, the show relies entirely on the dialogue and the performances. If there are just one or two episodes where the writing isn’t as sharp as it should be, or if the actors’ delivery is a little too flat, then the show is sunk – it wouldn’t take more than that to make the show boring enough that viewers wouldn’t return. For this reason, I’ve always got a bit of trepidation during the first 5 minutes or so of each episode – I always wonder if the other shoe is finally going to drop. To date though, “Reaper” is definitely worth watching.
THE BIONIC WOMAN (new series)
I’d initially had cautious hope for this reincarnation of the 70’s cyborg series. I wanted to like this show, I really did. I mean, come-on, with this project being helmed by Eick from the new Battlestar, there had to be quality assurance. Sadly, that quality doesn’t seem to be there and I think I’m done with the show. The pilot about Jamie Summers’ transformation from bartender (as opposed to tennis pro in the original series) to high-tech hero was mildly interesting. But in the quest to prove they can develop characters, the writers have made the mistake of spending too much time on bionic angst. This Jamie spends more time whining to her new boss and fighting with her little sister than actually battling the forces of evil. What’s worse, the sibling fights and make-ups feel stilted and phoney, like someone was trying to write what a sister-sister relationship is like without ever actually having had a sister or without even knowing someone who had a sister. One would also think that for all the intelligence and mental flexibility the so-called tests indicate Jamie has, she’d have an easier time adapting to her new life and would be more likely to see a future in the use of her new abilities. Then there’s Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar’s Starbuck), playing a psychotic bionic prototype. I think Sackhoff is generally a good actress, but this is definitely not the role for her. You can see she’s trying, she really is, to play the sultry femme fatale who can whisper enticingly into your ear one minute, then turn on a dime and rip your head off the next. The problem is that it just doesn’t seem to work for her. What comes naturally to Battlestar co-star Tricia Helfer (who isn’t just eye candy – she can clearly act and act well) playing various incarnations of the Cylon Number 6 looks painfully forced and fake when Sackhoff makes the attempt. This is a character who isn’t suited to Sackhoff’s face, body type or acting ability. Really, does she think that pursing her heavily lipsticked lips and gazing vacantly into the middle distance half the time makes for sexiness of the potentially lethal variety? Watching Sackhoff try to do Helfer is like watching a 12-year-old tom-boy dress up in her 18-year-old prom-queen sister’s gown and makeup to try to impress the paperboy. It just doesn’t cut it. And, beyond all that, I just haven’t found the storylines all that engaging. Last night, faced with a couple of choices on TV, I decided not to bother with the Bionic Woman. I probably won’t bother with it again.
EUREKA (season two)
Although my wife’s a fan of this show and I find it amusing enough myself, we don’t tend to watch it consistently. Not sure why. The premise is kind of a cross between “Northern Exposure” and “The X-Files”, which I don’t mind, and the writing, while solid, doesn’t take itself too seriously. For some reason, we’re just not tuning in on a regular basis or taping it. I suspect we’ll probably continue to watch it on an occasional basis, but I don’t know if we’ll be buying the DVD set sometime down the road.
HONOURABLE MENTION: THE FAMILY GUY STAR WARS PARODY
I’m an occasional viewer of “The Family Guy” – I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes the pronouncements of Brian the dog or the outbursts from Stewie crack me up, even though, as “South Park” has accurately observed, the show is formulaic in the extreme and the asides rarely have anything to do with the plot. The “Star Wars” episode, on the other hand, was tightly focused and a brutally funny take on Episode IV – in some ways, dare I say it, it was better than Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs”. In addition to the writing, I have to give the animators a huge amount of credit for their attention to detail – many of the exterior shots (such as the opening battle between the Rebel blockade runner and the Star Destroyer) seemed lifted almost exactly from the original footage – so much so that I wondered if it was exacting attention to copying all of the angles and movement or if it was a modern example of shadow animation. In any case, this special easily lived up to all of the hype that was going around since the producers first announced they’d be tackling Lucas’ baby. I only wish I’d taped it.
And on to an ending…
DR. WHO – SERIES THREE FINALE
I simply can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this episode (or three-part episode, if you want to get technical). The BBC team behind Dr. Who was at its best this time. Martha’s departure was painful but liberating. I think she’s easily the best Companion the Doctor’s had, but as she walked out of the TARDIS (for the second or third time), I found myself thinking, yeah, you had to do it. It was also fun to see the Master reveal how diverse events from episodes across the season that were seemingly unrelated were part of his evil machinations. Other plot tie-ins, like Captain Jack turning out to be The Face of Bo(Bow/Beau?) were fun to watch too. But best of all was The Master’s revenge. What better way to strike one last painful blow against the Doctor in defeat than for the Master to allow himself to die, thereby leaving the Doctor completely alone once and for all. That’s a villain who knows how to do the most damage to his adversary – I don’t think killing a Companion could have wounded the Doctor as much as that did, and it showed. The only part of the episode that seemed too corny for me was the Doctor’s reboot when the whole world thought about him at once – it smacked a little too much of readers being asked to clap their hands if they wanted Tinkerbell to live in “Peter Pan”. At least though, the writers seemed to be aware of this and acknowledged it with a snide comment to that effect from The Master at the time (though for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact wording). The new Doctor Who has become one of my favourite shows because of its sharp writing, frenetic pacing and great characters and acting. However, in other Dr-related news, I am kicking myself for missing the premier of the spinoff series “Torchwood” on CBC last Friday (we were babysitting my one-and-a-half-year-old nephew and got too distracted to turn on the TV or set the VCR. Toddlers will do that). I’ll have to hunt around for it on the net before the next episode hits the air tomorrow night. I’ve got a buddy who’s already downloaded the whole series and has been dropping teasers for a week now. Why isn’t he writing this blog posting?
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
A Tale of Two Dollars
I normally wouldn’t get into economic discussions on a blog devoted to SF, but recent currency capers have forced the issue. The soaring Canadian dollar – the Loonie, and the spanking of the US dollar are starting to have an impact on my geeky purchases, and not in the way they should.
For years, bookfiends north of the 49th have had to resign ourselves to dual prices on the covers of books – the US price being 20 or 30 per cent below the listed Canadian value. Insult was added to injury with provincial and national sales taxes slapped on top to pump up the price even higher. But the end was seemingly in sight a few weeks ago as the Loonie closed in on parity with the dollar – a feat not seen since 1976. The Loonie is now more-or-less at par with the US dollar. And, in fact, trading on some days has seen the value of the Loonie exceed that of the greenback. Experts agree it will probably stay this way for quite a while as the Canadian economy continues to boom and the US economy struggles with the housing loan crisis and crippling debt and deficits.
This age of high dollar values should be a time for Canadian sci-fi nuts, generally some of the highest-volume book-buyers, to be rejoicing in the streets, tossing our coke-bottle-lens glasses into the air in celebration of higher purchasing power. We should be teetering out of the store with even bigger stacks of the latest volumes by Robert Charles Wilson and Jack Whyte and Naomi Novik and others than we usually would.
But it hasn’t happened. Not yet, and probably not for a while. And I am right pissed off about it.
Go into any Chapters (Canada’s biggest book retailing chain) and they’ll rub their hands gleefully together as they scan each book into the till and rack up the outdated Canadian prices, even though we should be paying the US value. Comedian Tommy Chong (of 70’s Cheech and Chong fame), who lives here in Vancouver, was on a local radio morning show not long ago and mentioned he’d gone into a corner store to buy a magazine, noted the huge difference in price despite parity of the dollars, and, wanting to pay less, told the cashier he’d be paying in US currency and asked her to ring the magazine through in its American price. The cashier refused and told him they weren’t accepting US dollars. Not accepting US dollars? In Vancouver? In Canada? That’s unheard of. While this is a fairly extreme example, it shows that merchants are definitely cashing in on the dollar parity and listed price discrepancy. And they seem fairly determined to ride this pony to the bank for as long as they can at the expense of the Canadian consumer. In a recent newscast, I heard one national retail association state that retailers probably wouldn’t be changing their elevated prices for another 2 years (2 years!!!) as they wait to see if the dollar parity will last. Meanwhile, they certainly won’t shed any tears for the extra profits they’ll be tucking away courtesy of Canadian consumers. Oh sure, in a rare move for a manufacturer of publicly-accessible goods, Porsche has announced its dealerships will be lowering their prices by 10% to account for the Loonie’s rise, and that’s nice, but come on, as an average consumer, I’m not going into my local Porsche dealership once or twice a month (in fact, not ever) to pick up the newest items on display. It’s the bookstores and the record stores and the DVD dealers and the (insert the list of retailers of pan-North American goods ad infinitum) that I want to see price reductions at. I had a conversation with someone at a small, independent bookstore today who said she’d heard some of the publishing houses were going to be re-labeling books with lower prices to reflect the Loonie’s value in about two months. Two months? I’ll believe it when I buy it. And why not now? I’ll admit some ignorance about the industry and retail practices behind the scenes, but why not give consumers a break and just scan – or manually code in – the US prices so we’re paying fair value?
It raises the question of why I should even be buying books north of the border at all any more. A couple of weeks ago (when the Loonie was in the 96-97 cent US range), my wife and I drove down to Seattle for a day of shopping. One of our stops was at the Eliott Bay Book Company, where I tottered out with a little over a hundred dollars worth of sci-fi books. The same stack, if purchased back home, would probably have gouged me for about $150 – before tax. Even with the duty coming back across the border it was cheaper than buying these books at home. Before, I was pretty discriminating about buying books in the US – I’d only go for items that I couldn’t find here at home. Now, looking at the pricing racket, it’s actually smarter to do most of my book-buying there and only come into my local book retailers to buy the Canadian authors I can’t find down south. I’ve gotta admit, I’m not entirely comfortable with that, given that I want to support local Canadian independent bookstores like White Dwarf where there’s a relationship with the staff. But if it’s a question of saving 10 to 50 bucks (depending on the size of the purchase), money tends to talk. With most of Canada’s major cities being fairly close to the border, this is an option many of us might choose that could leave non-responsive local retailers in the lurch (local tourism boards are already getting pensive about this very possibility – retailers and manufacturers would be wise to listen to their concerns). Although I pity those in more northerly communities that don’t have the option of a quick drive south for a day of shopping (though internet purchases could offer an alternative and would save them from being hassled by overzealous US border guards who don’t quite understand that the vast majority of bad people move north across the border, not south).
I have to wonder if this sort of thing happens in other parts of the world where different currencies with competing values exist side-by-side. Does this take place in Europe, or has the Euro evened things out between the national currencies? Or, is it not an issue in Europe with media like books, CD’s & DVD’s because of language differences? I’d be interested if anyone knows.
If there’s anything positive in this whole nonsense of a theoretically higher purchasing power with a stronger currency being stymied by retail/manufacturer greed, it’s the disincentive to buy (though not buying, while helping the personal pocketbook, doesn’t do the economy any favours). If I’m petulant enough about the unfair price differential, I’m far less likely to go out and buy more books. That lets me whittle-down the towering pile in my in-box/to-read/new acquisitions box and, having made some headway against the tide of new books, lets me do a little re-reading of old favourites. Of course, the reality is that money saved on fewer book purchases can never really stay in the bank for long… the holidays are coming and my wife’s got her eye on some new jewelry. At least with an ever-increasing stack of new books, I could cry broke. Mind you, with book prices remaining unfairly high, I probably still can.
For years, bookfiends north of the 49th have had to resign ourselves to dual prices on the covers of books – the US price being 20 or 30 per cent below the listed Canadian value. Insult was added to injury with provincial and national sales taxes slapped on top to pump up the price even higher. But the end was seemingly in sight a few weeks ago as the Loonie closed in on parity with the dollar – a feat not seen since 1976. The Loonie is now more-or-less at par with the US dollar. And, in fact, trading on some days has seen the value of the Loonie exceed that of the greenback. Experts agree it will probably stay this way for quite a while as the Canadian economy continues to boom and the US economy struggles with the housing loan crisis and crippling debt and deficits.
This age of high dollar values should be a time for Canadian sci-fi nuts, generally some of the highest-volume book-buyers, to be rejoicing in the streets, tossing our coke-bottle-lens glasses into the air in celebration of higher purchasing power. We should be teetering out of the store with even bigger stacks of the latest volumes by Robert Charles Wilson and Jack Whyte and Naomi Novik and others than we usually would.
But it hasn’t happened. Not yet, and probably not for a while. And I am right pissed off about it.
Go into any Chapters (Canada’s biggest book retailing chain) and they’ll rub their hands gleefully together as they scan each book into the till and rack up the outdated Canadian prices, even though we should be paying the US value. Comedian Tommy Chong (of 70’s Cheech and Chong fame), who lives here in Vancouver, was on a local radio morning show not long ago and mentioned he’d gone into a corner store to buy a magazine, noted the huge difference in price despite parity of the dollars, and, wanting to pay less, told the cashier he’d be paying in US currency and asked her to ring the magazine through in its American price. The cashier refused and told him they weren’t accepting US dollars. Not accepting US dollars? In Vancouver? In Canada? That’s unheard of. While this is a fairly extreme example, it shows that merchants are definitely cashing in on the dollar parity and listed price discrepancy. And they seem fairly determined to ride this pony to the bank for as long as they can at the expense of the Canadian consumer. In a recent newscast, I heard one national retail association state that retailers probably wouldn’t be changing their elevated prices for another 2 years (2 years!!!) as they wait to see if the dollar parity will last. Meanwhile, they certainly won’t shed any tears for the extra profits they’ll be tucking away courtesy of Canadian consumers. Oh sure, in a rare move for a manufacturer of publicly-accessible goods, Porsche has announced its dealerships will be lowering their prices by 10% to account for the Loonie’s rise, and that’s nice, but come on, as an average consumer, I’m not going into my local Porsche dealership once or twice a month (in fact, not ever) to pick up the newest items on display. It’s the bookstores and the record stores and the DVD dealers and the (insert the list of retailers of pan-North American goods ad infinitum) that I want to see price reductions at. I had a conversation with someone at a small, independent bookstore today who said she’d heard some of the publishing houses were going to be re-labeling books with lower prices to reflect the Loonie’s value in about two months. Two months? I’ll believe it when I buy it. And why not now? I’ll admit some ignorance about the industry and retail practices behind the scenes, but why not give consumers a break and just scan – or manually code in – the US prices so we’re paying fair value?
It raises the question of why I should even be buying books north of the border at all any more. A couple of weeks ago (when the Loonie was in the 96-97 cent US range), my wife and I drove down to Seattle for a day of shopping. One of our stops was at the Eliott Bay Book Company, where I tottered out with a little over a hundred dollars worth of sci-fi books. The same stack, if purchased back home, would probably have gouged me for about $150 – before tax. Even with the duty coming back across the border it was cheaper than buying these books at home. Before, I was pretty discriminating about buying books in the US – I’d only go for items that I couldn’t find here at home. Now, looking at the pricing racket, it’s actually smarter to do most of my book-buying there and only come into my local book retailers to buy the Canadian authors I can’t find down south. I’ve gotta admit, I’m not entirely comfortable with that, given that I want to support local Canadian independent bookstores like White Dwarf where there’s a relationship with the staff. But if it’s a question of saving 10 to 50 bucks (depending on the size of the purchase), money tends to talk. With most of Canada’s major cities being fairly close to the border, this is an option many of us might choose that could leave non-responsive local retailers in the lurch (local tourism boards are already getting pensive about this very possibility – retailers and manufacturers would be wise to listen to their concerns). Although I pity those in more northerly communities that don’t have the option of a quick drive south for a day of shopping (though internet purchases could offer an alternative and would save them from being hassled by overzealous US border guards who don’t quite understand that the vast majority of bad people move north across the border, not south).
I have to wonder if this sort of thing happens in other parts of the world where different currencies with competing values exist side-by-side. Does this take place in Europe, or has the Euro evened things out between the national currencies? Or, is it not an issue in Europe with media like books, CD’s & DVD’s because of language differences? I’d be interested if anyone knows.
If there’s anything positive in this whole nonsense of a theoretically higher purchasing power with a stronger currency being stymied by retail/manufacturer greed, it’s the disincentive to buy (though not buying, while helping the personal pocketbook, doesn’t do the economy any favours). If I’m petulant enough about the unfair price differential, I’m far less likely to go out and buy more books. That lets me whittle-down the towering pile in my in-box/to-read/new acquisitions box and, having made some headway against the tide of new books, lets me do a little re-reading of old favourites. Of course, the reality is that money saved on fewer book purchases can never really stay in the bank for long… the holidays are coming and my wife’s got her eye on some new jewelry. At least with an ever-increasing stack of new books, I could cry broke. Mind you, with book prices remaining unfairly high, I probably still can.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The "Eye of the World" Closes - Farewell to Robert Jordan
I got the word the other day on SF Signal that Robert Jordan has died. Author of the hugely popular “Wheel of Time” fantasy series, Jordan also wrote several Conan novels among other works.
Robert Jordan’s real name was James Oliver Rigney, Jr., although he also wrote under Reagan O’Neill. He’d been battling cancer for a while and died on Sunday at his home in Charleston, South Carolina. He was 58.
I never read the Conan books or his other novels. I was strictly a “Wheel of Time” fan.
I remember quite clearly being introduced to the books shortly after they were released. I was a teenager, browsing the SF section of my small, independent local bookshop (remember those?), when the owner, who was used to seeing me come in every other week or so to buy something, said: “How would you like to try something new? This one, ‘The Wheel of Time’. I’m hearing a lot of good things about it.” Not one to pass up the advice of a trusted bookseller, I bought it. I still have that paperback copy, as well as the promotional bookmark for the series that she handed me.
Another fond memory is from my university years, when I was living in Winnipeg, and a bunch of us were avidly devouring each new installment. I remember long summer evenings as some of us strolled along lapping at cones and other treats from DBI Ice Cream and discussions about what this plot line was pointing to, or what the ramifications of that decision, word or action might be. Two of those friends, Jim and Selena, a married couple just back from teaching English in Japan, were so determined to read the books as soon as they were released that they couldn’t share a single copy for their household – they had to buy two copies – one for each of them.
It was a series began explosively with “The Eye of the World” and gradually started to get too slow as book after book was released and there was still seemingly no end in sight. The books started to loose their imagination and intensity and could have used a firm hand on the editor’s pen. I think it ought to have ended with “Winter’s Heart” and the cleansing of the male half of The Source. That would have been the logical finale. That being said, I did enjoy the later additions to the series and would have stuck with it until Jordan was ready to write the closing chapter.
Now, like everyone else, I wonder if the publishers will leave the series where it is, or if Jordan left behind enough in the way of notes for another author to wrap things up.
At any rate, thank you, Robert/James.
Robert Jordan’s real name was James Oliver Rigney, Jr., although he also wrote under Reagan O’Neill. He’d been battling cancer for a while and died on Sunday at his home in Charleston, South Carolina. He was 58.
I never read the Conan books or his other novels. I was strictly a “Wheel of Time” fan.
I remember quite clearly being introduced to the books shortly after they were released. I was a teenager, browsing the SF section of my small, independent local bookshop (remember those?), when the owner, who was used to seeing me come in every other week or so to buy something, said: “How would you like to try something new? This one, ‘The Wheel of Time’. I’m hearing a lot of good things about it.” Not one to pass up the advice of a trusted bookseller, I bought it. I still have that paperback copy, as well as the promotional bookmark for the series that she handed me.
Another fond memory is from my university years, when I was living in Winnipeg, and a bunch of us were avidly devouring each new installment. I remember long summer evenings as some of us strolled along lapping at cones and other treats from DBI Ice Cream and discussions about what this plot line was pointing to, or what the ramifications of that decision, word or action might be. Two of those friends, Jim and Selena, a married couple just back from teaching English in Japan, were so determined to read the books as soon as they were released that they couldn’t share a single copy for their household – they had to buy two copies – one for each of them.
It was a series began explosively with “The Eye of the World” and gradually started to get too slow as book after book was released and there was still seemingly no end in sight. The books started to loose their imagination and intensity and could have used a firm hand on the editor’s pen. I think it ought to have ended with “Winter’s Heart” and the cleansing of the male half of The Source. That would have been the logical finale. That being said, I did enjoy the later additions to the series and would have stuck with it until Jordan was ready to write the closing chapter.
Now, like everyone else, I wonder if the publishers will leave the series where it is, or if Jordan left behind enough in the way of notes for another author to wrap things up.
At any rate, thank you, Robert/James.
Conversion to Geekdom
A line was crossed the other day in our house. A point beyond which there is no turning back. My wife has finally admitted she is a geek.
Oh, the signs were always there – she’s had a fondness for video games and the latest techno toys ever since she moved to Canada as a teen. She’s watched many sci-fi movies like “Serenity” and enjoyed them immensely. But so do a lot of people who we wouldn’t normally consider to be geeks. But more signs have started to creep in over the past few years. She now watches a number of sci-fi TV shows, including “Dr. Who”, “Heroes” and “Battlestar Galactica”. Sure, she started watching because I had them on, but now she seeks them out on her own and is rather put out if she misses episodes. She’s also started to read SF. Traditionally, she’s a mystery fan, which is fine, but a while back, she picked up one of my Bradbury books, and now and again she’ll venture into other strange territories on my sci-fi bookshelves.
You could have said she was a geek at that point, but there was one crucial last step she had to take to reach the conversion threshold. That happened two weeks ago when she came with me to White Dwarf Books one afternoon. Glancing at the stacks, her eye caught on a copy of Rob Grant’s newest: “Fat” (okay, not the best piece of the genre ever written, but it’s sci-fi, so I’m not complaining). She read the back cover, flipped through the pages, brought it up to the counter and bought it herself.
All without any comment, suggestion or otherwise interference from me.
And that’s the important milestone, when a soon-to-be-geek takes that first step without any outside influence to actively pursue and purchase a sci-fi book. It’s an internal admission of the worthiness of sci-fi and a motivation that will continue at its own pace.
I just stood there and watched in quietly amused triumph. I felt like Darth Vader would have if Luke had crossed over to the Dark Side.
Oh sure, she denied the change when we got home. She fought it and fumed and made up excuses like anyone who doesn’t want to acknowledge a long-buried lifestyle truth. Finally though, this past Sunday, she came out of the closet. Sure, her admission was piled high with blame focused squarely at me, but it was an admission none-the-less.
“Honey,” she said, “You’ve turned me into a geek.”
Ah, sweet satisfaction!
Oh, the signs were always there – she’s had a fondness for video games and the latest techno toys ever since she moved to Canada as a teen. She’s watched many sci-fi movies like “Serenity” and enjoyed them immensely. But so do a lot of people who we wouldn’t normally consider to be geeks. But more signs have started to creep in over the past few years. She now watches a number of sci-fi TV shows, including “Dr. Who”, “Heroes” and “Battlestar Galactica”. Sure, she started watching because I had them on, but now she seeks them out on her own and is rather put out if she misses episodes. She’s also started to read SF. Traditionally, she’s a mystery fan, which is fine, but a while back, she picked up one of my Bradbury books, and now and again she’ll venture into other strange territories on my sci-fi bookshelves.
You could have said she was a geek at that point, but there was one crucial last step she had to take to reach the conversion threshold. That happened two weeks ago when she came with me to White Dwarf Books one afternoon. Glancing at the stacks, her eye caught on a copy of Rob Grant’s newest: “Fat” (okay, not the best piece of the genre ever written, but it’s sci-fi, so I’m not complaining). She read the back cover, flipped through the pages, brought it up to the counter and bought it herself.
All without any comment, suggestion or otherwise interference from me.
And that’s the important milestone, when a soon-to-be-geek takes that first step without any outside influence to actively pursue and purchase a sci-fi book. It’s an internal admission of the worthiness of sci-fi and a motivation that will continue at its own pace.
I just stood there and watched in quietly amused triumph. I felt like Darth Vader would have if Luke had crossed over to the Dark Side.
Oh sure, she denied the change when we got home. She fought it and fumed and made up excuses like anyone who doesn’t want to acknowledge a long-buried lifestyle truth. Finally though, this past Sunday, she came out of the closet. Sure, her admission was piled high with blame focused squarely at me, but it was an admission none-the-less.
“Honey,” she said, “You’ve turned me into a geek.”
Ah, sweet satisfaction!
Sunday, September 09, 2007
"You keep trying to take over the world."
The above sentence pops up in Austin Grossman’s “Soon I Will Be Invincible” more often than the book’s title phrase does. Odd for a book that spends half its time tailing the bad guy, but revealing.
Part of the book details the exploits of Dr. Impossible, malevolent scientist extraordinaire, as he escapes from a special prison for supervillains and resumes his quest for world domination. The other plot revolves around cyborg superhero Fatale as she tries to find a place among a top-ranking team of crimefighters and prove her worth.
On its simplest level, Grossman’s novel is quietly funny as we get a rather sympathetic look at the life of an evil villain. Following Impossible through his various tasks to get bits and pieces or arcania for his evil devices reminded me at times of the megalomaniac lab-mouse Brain, from Warner Brothers’ “Pinky and the Brain” (one of the best cartoons, ever), who, every night, went to great lengths to get what he needed to “Try to take over the world!!!” And while reading the litany of Impossible’s run-down of failed inventions and alliances were supposed to help him achieve world domination, it occurred to me that the best music for a soundtrack for this segment would be Sean Cullen’s viciously funny “Food of Choice” (where the comedian solicits favourite foods from the audience and describes in a supervillain persona how he will arrange to have the food of their choice end their lives). In fact, food is about the only thing Impossible didn’t use as a weapon.
As Dr. Impossible talks candidly about the hardships of being an enemy of society and reminisces about his past glories, his mantra of “You keep trying to take over the world” comes up several times, but not in the usual places where an arch villain would drop such a line.
For most comic, sci-fi, or James Bond ultra bad guys, it would be a totally different statement, something along the lines of “Now I’m going to take over the world!” (insert maniacal cackling), delivered at the threshold of victory or during the torment of a hero. For Dr. Doom, Lex Luthor, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Ming the Merciless, Max Zorin, Dr. Evil, or Chairface Chippendale, this would be a triumphant fact (at least in their own minds) carved in thousand metre-high letters upon the walls of destiny.
But for Impossible, the resolute statement of his code doesn’t come up in the heat of battle. Rather, it’s associated more often with the good – er, bad Doctor’s repeated defeats, shamings and general setbacks. It’s a bolstering of self-confidence for a man who knows, and occasionally openly admits, he’s doomed to always lose. As he comes up with one wacky scheme after another and tilts Quixotically towards another near-win, it’s a reaffirmation of who he is at heart – someone who keeps trying, despite the odds and despite what experience has empirically shown. This is a heart-felt sentence that is confided as part of a journal or on-going documentary interview (either internal or actual), and thus personal and quiet, not something flung at an enemy as some sort of taunt or war cry.
Grossman borrows a trick from Milton’s “Paradise Lost” playbook by making the story’s villain one of his protagonists. The fact that Grossman takes it even further and makes Impossible a somewhat sympathetic character (he’s clearly a nut, a megalomaniac and a potential killer, but it’s hard not to pity the nerdy little guy who respects his elders, appreciates fine workmanship, studies hard and who used to get picked on by the cool kids) might also indicate some influence from William Thackeray’s portrayal of Becky Sharp in “Vanity Fair”.
But what makes the novel most interesting is how the story of Fatale parallels Impossible’s. She’s the new superhero on the block, trying to navigate the perilous waters of the relationships among The Champions, the elite team that fights the forces of evil. She has to put up with her colleagues suffering marital problems, mild learning disabilities and alcoholism, among other issues, as well as in-fighting that would put high school hallway antics to shame. All of this on top of the fact that being a cyborg makes Fatale incapable of having anything resembling a normal life (including intimacy). In a world where having super powers should make you the coolest of the cool, the pairing of Impossible and Fatale makes “Soon I Will Be Invincible” a story of outsiders.
Interesting too is that there is no “Revenge of the Nerds” in this story – Impossible doesn’t win (not much of a spoiler to reveal that – he’s a villain in a stereotypical superhero’s world) and let’s face it, doesn’t even really fit in with the other supervillains (the bar scene reminded me of some of the episodes of “The Tick” – another of the best cartoons ever), and Fatale doesn’t win a hunky dude’s heart and rise to fame and glory. There is no triumph for these two aside from survival and introspection: Impossible’s still alive and determined to keep trying; Fatale has proven her mettle (pun intended) in a tough situation and begins to come to terms with her own inner demons. In a totally unrealistic universe, it’s a realistic ending – as in our world, the little guys generally only get small victories, while the aces on top usually stay on top.
Because of this, it would be tempting to invoke the old cliché and say that Impossible and Fatale are opposite sides of the same coin. Certainly both are damaged individuals. Both are on the outside. But there’s a significant difference between the two that shows Fatale has actually come out on top: Impossible comes full circle – ending up incarcerated and plotting his next escape and means to achieving supremacy – exactly where he was in the opening pages of the novel; Fatale, on the other hand, has learned an important lesson from another alienated soul – Lily, who has been both a hero and a villain. Lily refuses to allow herself to be boxed into a specific definition or role and has little use for the squabblings of the in-crowd. In fact, by walking away from it all, she shows Fatale that the cyborg can take ultimate power by being the one to define herself and by following her own heart. There is some sense that Fatale realizes this, and thus has moved beyond Impossible, who is imprisoned not by chains or walls, but by his accepted role within the system. Impossible becomes more than a name for this villain, it represents his chances of escape from his circumstances.
As novels set in superhero universes go, “Soon I Will Be Invincible” makes the perfect sidekick for Minister Faust’s “From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain”. Grossman’s individual-focused story, with its exploration of alienation and personalities coping with their past and present circumstances, compliments Faust’s tale that tackles broader issues like the self-help industry and celebrity psychiatrists, the price of ego, and the cover-up of the truth and propagation of lies to advance personal, political and corporate agendas.
The irony about “Soon I Will Be Invincible” is that like a superhero, it tries to hide its secret identity. Given the setting, this is most definitely a science fiction story, but you won’t find it on the SF shelves in your local bookstore (at least not in this neck of the woods), no, it’s under cover in the regular/non-genre fiction section, like Clark Kent with his suit and glasses on, blending with the mundane citizens of Metropolis. That is, until there’s a crisis, until someone buys the book and opens it and realizes (whether they want to admit it or not), it’s not human, it’s superpowered alien – it’s really sci-fi! I wonder if the publishers (who no doubt insist it be placed with the “normal” fiction) get it?
Part of the book details the exploits of Dr. Impossible, malevolent scientist extraordinaire, as he escapes from a special prison for supervillains and resumes his quest for world domination. The other plot revolves around cyborg superhero Fatale as she tries to find a place among a top-ranking team of crimefighters and prove her worth.
On its simplest level, Grossman’s novel is quietly funny as we get a rather sympathetic look at the life of an evil villain. Following Impossible through his various tasks to get bits and pieces or arcania for his evil devices reminded me at times of the megalomaniac lab-mouse Brain, from Warner Brothers’ “Pinky and the Brain” (one of the best cartoons, ever), who, every night, went to great lengths to get what he needed to “Try to take over the world!!!” And while reading the litany of Impossible’s run-down of failed inventions and alliances were supposed to help him achieve world domination, it occurred to me that the best music for a soundtrack for this segment would be Sean Cullen’s viciously funny “Food of Choice” (where the comedian solicits favourite foods from the audience and describes in a supervillain persona how he will arrange to have the food of their choice end their lives). In fact, food is about the only thing Impossible didn’t use as a weapon.
As Dr. Impossible talks candidly about the hardships of being an enemy of society and reminisces about his past glories, his mantra of “You keep trying to take over the world” comes up several times, but not in the usual places where an arch villain would drop such a line.
For most comic, sci-fi, or James Bond ultra bad guys, it would be a totally different statement, something along the lines of “Now I’m going to take over the world!” (insert maniacal cackling), delivered at the threshold of victory or during the torment of a hero. For Dr. Doom, Lex Luthor, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Ming the Merciless, Max Zorin, Dr. Evil, or Chairface Chippendale, this would be a triumphant fact (at least in their own minds) carved in thousand metre-high letters upon the walls of destiny.
But for Impossible, the resolute statement of his code doesn’t come up in the heat of battle. Rather, it’s associated more often with the good – er, bad Doctor’s repeated defeats, shamings and general setbacks. It’s a bolstering of self-confidence for a man who knows, and occasionally openly admits, he’s doomed to always lose. As he comes up with one wacky scheme after another and tilts Quixotically towards another near-win, it’s a reaffirmation of who he is at heart – someone who keeps trying, despite the odds and despite what experience has empirically shown. This is a heart-felt sentence that is confided as part of a journal or on-going documentary interview (either internal or actual), and thus personal and quiet, not something flung at an enemy as some sort of taunt or war cry.
Grossman borrows a trick from Milton’s “Paradise Lost” playbook by making the story’s villain one of his protagonists. The fact that Grossman takes it even further and makes Impossible a somewhat sympathetic character (he’s clearly a nut, a megalomaniac and a potential killer, but it’s hard not to pity the nerdy little guy who respects his elders, appreciates fine workmanship, studies hard and who used to get picked on by the cool kids) might also indicate some influence from William Thackeray’s portrayal of Becky Sharp in “Vanity Fair”.
But what makes the novel most interesting is how the story of Fatale parallels Impossible’s. She’s the new superhero on the block, trying to navigate the perilous waters of the relationships among The Champions, the elite team that fights the forces of evil. She has to put up with her colleagues suffering marital problems, mild learning disabilities and alcoholism, among other issues, as well as in-fighting that would put high school hallway antics to shame. All of this on top of the fact that being a cyborg makes Fatale incapable of having anything resembling a normal life (including intimacy). In a world where having super powers should make you the coolest of the cool, the pairing of Impossible and Fatale makes “Soon I Will Be Invincible” a story of outsiders.
Interesting too is that there is no “Revenge of the Nerds” in this story – Impossible doesn’t win (not much of a spoiler to reveal that – he’s a villain in a stereotypical superhero’s world) and let’s face it, doesn’t even really fit in with the other supervillains (the bar scene reminded me of some of the episodes of “The Tick” – another of the best cartoons ever), and Fatale doesn’t win a hunky dude’s heart and rise to fame and glory. There is no triumph for these two aside from survival and introspection: Impossible’s still alive and determined to keep trying; Fatale has proven her mettle (pun intended) in a tough situation and begins to come to terms with her own inner demons. In a totally unrealistic universe, it’s a realistic ending – as in our world, the little guys generally only get small victories, while the aces on top usually stay on top.
Because of this, it would be tempting to invoke the old cliché and say that Impossible and Fatale are opposite sides of the same coin. Certainly both are damaged individuals. Both are on the outside. But there’s a significant difference between the two that shows Fatale has actually come out on top: Impossible comes full circle – ending up incarcerated and plotting his next escape and means to achieving supremacy – exactly where he was in the opening pages of the novel; Fatale, on the other hand, has learned an important lesson from another alienated soul – Lily, who has been both a hero and a villain. Lily refuses to allow herself to be boxed into a specific definition or role and has little use for the squabblings of the in-crowd. In fact, by walking away from it all, she shows Fatale that the cyborg can take ultimate power by being the one to define herself and by following her own heart. There is some sense that Fatale realizes this, and thus has moved beyond Impossible, who is imprisoned not by chains or walls, but by his accepted role within the system. Impossible becomes more than a name for this villain, it represents his chances of escape from his circumstances.
As novels set in superhero universes go, “Soon I Will Be Invincible” makes the perfect sidekick for Minister Faust’s “From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain”. Grossman’s individual-focused story, with its exploration of alienation and personalities coping with their past and present circumstances, compliments Faust’s tale that tackles broader issues like the self-help industry and celebrity psychiatrists, the price of ego, and the cover-up of the truth and propagation of lies to advance personal, political and corporate agendas.
The irony about “Soon I Will Be Invincible” is that like a superhero, it tries to hide its secret identity. Given the setting, this is most definitely a science fiction story, but you won’t find it on the SF shelves in your local bookstore (at least not in this neck of the woods), no, it’s under cover in the regular/non-genre fiction section, like Clark Kent with his suit and glasses on, blending with the mundane citizens of Metropolis. That is, until there’s a crisis, until someone buys the book and opens it and realizes (whether they want to admit it or not), it’s not human, it’s superpowered alien – it’s really sci-fi! I wonder if the publishers (who no doubt insist it be placed with the “normal” fiction) get it?
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Battlestar Merchandisica - the Techie Invasion
TV techies have invaded a local comic store, and they are here for merchandise – their own.
I was moseying through the Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby today on my lunch break. It’s near my new workplace and it’s been a couple of years since I’d been in that particular mall. I was pleasantly surprised to find a comic and gaming store, Comic Land (part of a small local chain), nestled up on the second floor. It hadn’t been there the last time I was in, so I decided to check it out. Had a nice conversation with the manager and found out that location had opened only about a month ago.
But a month has been more than enough time to stage an invasion.
While poking through the various figurines, models and toys I asked the intrepid merchant if he had any of the Titanium line of Battlestar Galactica ships. I’ve been looking for the Galactica itself for months, but haven’t been able to find it (or any of the other ships released in the line, for that matter). Yeah, I know I could probably find a couple of vendors on e-bay within a few seconds and feed my fanboy fetish, but I’d rather buy from a store around here – support the local guy who’s busting his hump, ya know?
This is where it gets interesting… The manager confides that he hasn’t been able to keep them on the shelves. Not because of lineups of ardent fanboys peeling themselves away from their TV sets to venture out into the strangeness of sunlight on an odyssey of toy-buying (like yours truly). Oh no. The Battlestar toys are getting scooped-up by the crew who work on the set of the show just down the road at the Vancouver Film Studios. Seems they descend on the joint like locusts (and have even been known to phone in beforehand) on a very regular basis to buy up all the merchandise they can get their hands on.
I guess it’s good for this guy’s business, but what about the rest of us? First come, first serve I guess.
Makes me wonder why they’re doing it.
Is it because the crew themselves are huge fans of the show? And why not? Seeing it from the inside, they must know they’re part of a good thing and may have an affection for something they’re crafting that no mere viewer can match.
Is it because they want some memento of the show because it’s going to end soon and they’re too straight-laced or cautious to bother snatching a souvenir from the set?
Or, more cynically, is this an investment? Knowing how great Battlestar is, and knowing it’s coming to an end, and knowing how devoted fans can be, are they sucking up all the merchandise in an effort to corner the market? Are they taking possession of all the, well, possessions so that they can sit on the ships and figures and whatnot for a while, let the fan nostalgia – and the merchandise value build, then sell it all for a bundle and put their kids through college or pay for a trip to Cuba? Think of the value if they could get the merchandise signed by cast members. If that’s their game, I can’t really say as I blame them. I mean, there’s not a lot of difference between the collectibles market and antiques or the stock market. It’s just, I do kind of blame them ‘cause I’d like to buy one myself.
Or is there another reason that hasn’t occurred to me? (entirely likely)
Maybe one of these days I’ll get lucky and wander in sometime just after the new stock has arrived, and just before the crew who shoot the show that inspires it.
Fleeing from the studio techie purchasing tyranny, a Battlestar fanboy, bloginhood, continues on a lonely quest – a shining collectible, known as the Titanium series.
I was moseying through the Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby today on my lunch break. It’s near my new workplace and it’s been a couple of years since I’d been in that particular mall. I was pleasantly surprised to find a comic and gaming store, Comic Land (part of a small local chain), nestled up on the second floor. It hadn’t been there the last time I was in, so I decided to check it out. Had a nice conversation with the manager and found out that location had opened only about a month ago.
But a month has been more than enough time to stage an invasion.
While poking through the various figurines, models and toys I asked the intrepid merchant if he had any of the Titanium line of Battlestar Galactica ships. I’ve been looking for the Galactica itself for months, but haven’t been able to find it (or any of the other ships released in the line, for that matter). Yeah, I know I could probably find a couple of vendors on e-bay within a few seconds and feed my fanboy fetish, but I’d rather buy from a store around here – support the local guy who’s busting his hump, ya know?
This is where it gets interesting… The manager confides that he hasn’t been able to keep them on the shelves. Not because of lineups of ardent fanboys peeling themselves away from their TV sets to venture out into the strangeness of sunlight on an odyssey of toy-buying (like yours truly). Oh no. The Battlestar toys are getting scooped-up by the crew who work on the set of the show just down the road at the Vancouver Film Studios. Seems they descend on the joint like locusts (and have even been known to phone in beforehand) on a very regular basis to buy up all the merchandise they can get their hands on.
I guess it’s good for this guy’s business, but what about the rest of us? First come, first serve I guess.
Makes me wonder why they’re doing it.
Is it because the crew themselves are huge fans of the show? And why not? Seeing it from the inside, they must know they’re part of a good thing and may have an affection for something they’re crafting that no mere viewer can match.
Is it because they want some memento of the show because it’s going to end soon and they’re too straight-laced or cautious to bother snatching a souvenir from the set?
Or, more cynically, is this an investment? Knowing how great Battlestar is, and knowing it’s coming to an end, and knowing how devoted fans can be, are they sucking up all the merchandise in an effort to corner the market? Are they taking possession of all the, well, possessions so that they can sit on the ships and figures and whatnot for a while, let the fan nostalgia – and the merchandise value build, then sell it all for a bundle and put their kids through college or pay for a trip to Cuba? Think of the value if they could get the merchandise signed by cast members. If that’s their game, I can’t really say as I blame them. I mean, there’s not a lot of difference between the collectibles market and antiques or the stock market. It’s just, I do kind of blame them ‘cause I’d like to buy one myself.
Or is there another reason that hasn’t occurred to me? (entirely likely)
Maybe one of these days I’ll get lucky and wander in sometime just after the new stock has arrived, and just before the crew who shoot the show that inspires it.
Fleeing from the studio techie purchasing tyranny, a Battlestar fanboy, bloginhood, continues on a lonely quest – a shining collectible, known as the Titanium series.
Aurora Nominations
The list of the finalists nominated for the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s Aurora Awards is out.
Unfortunately, I can’t say I’ve read any of the finalists for best long-form work in English (released in 2006) – yet. I am glad, however, that R. Scott Bakker’s steaming pile “The Thousandfold Thought” didn’t make it onto the roster.
The short stuff on the other hand… I’m really glad James Alan Gardner’s “All the Cool Monsters at Once” made the final ballot. And yeah, it was one of the ones I voted for. As for the others, I’ve read Karin Lowachee’s “This Ink Feels Like Sorrow” and Hayden Trenholm’s “Lumen Essence”, but ‘Ink doesn’t stick out in my mind at all and my impression of ‘Lumen was a resounding “meh”. Didn’t read Rob Sawyer or John Mierau’s yarns.
Looking forward to seeing who takes the win at Vcon 32/Canvention 27 here in town in October.
Unfortunately, I can’t say I’ve read any of the finalists for best long-form work in English (released in 2006) – yet. I am glad, however, that R. Scott Bakker’s steaming pile “The Thousandfold Thought” didn’t make it onto the roster.
The short stuff on the other hand… I’m really glad James Alan Gardner’s “All the Cool Monsters at Once” made the final ballot. And yeah, it was one of the ones I voted for. As for the others, I’ve read Karin Lowachee’s “This Ink Feels Like Sorrow” and Hayden Trenholm’s “Lumen Essence”, but ‘Ink doesn’t stick out in my mind at all and my impression of ‘Lumen was a resounding “meh”. Didn’t read Rob Sawyer or John Mierau’s yarns.
Looking forward to seeing who takes the win at Vcon 32/Canvention 27 here in town in October.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Late Review: "Stardust"
Warning: minor spoilers (spoilage factor: a banana with a couple of brown spots)
Okay, so it’s been longer since my last post than it takes for George R. R. Martin to write an installment in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, but a lot’s been going on. I’ve jumped ship to a new job and the past few weeks have been the usual period of adjustment - not the least of which is re-setting my internal clock to regular work week hours instead of the somewhat later day I used to keep at the old place. Not being able to stay up as late is probably the single biggest reason for my blogging tardiness. And then there’s the other usual stuff going on: domestic life with the wife, catching up with old friends, etc. At any rate, for what little it’s worth, I’m back.
So a few weeks ago we caught “Stardust”. What a great film! My wife and I were completely captivated throughout the entire show.
Based on a Neil Gaiman novel, the movie centres around our young hero Tristan (played by Charlie Cox), who crosses an ancient wall, leaving England behind and entering a magical realm on a quest to find a fallen star and bring it home to impress the girl he loves. He arrives at the impact crater to find the star is a beautiful young woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes) who has ideas of her own about where she’s going. But that doesn’t deter Tristan, who binds the star with a magical cord and starts for home. Along the way, they’re beset by witches in search of youth and beauty, conniving princes and air pirates. And, not surprisingly, Tristan eventually grows to realize his true love isn’t the girl he’d originally had his eyes on.
Perhaps the finest complement that can be paid to “Stardust” came from Michael Marano in his Sci Fi Weekly review: that this movie has the same wit, energy and charm as “The Princess Bride”. In fact, though Gaiman’s story is original, they’re alike enough in setting and feeling that you could believe that Westley and Buttercup might invite Tristan and his love over for a merry dinner party one evening.
One of the big checkmarks this film earns is director Matthew Vaughn’s ability to find big name stars who are also top-notch actors (because the two aren’t always the same) who can confine themselves to playing solid roles as supporting characters. Robert De Niro does a masterful job in playing a secondary cast member who doesn’t scene-steal when he’s not supposed to, but who shines when the time is right. His Captain Shakespeare, air pirate and lightening harvester, is a screamingly funny synthesis of “Space Battleship Arcadia’s” Captain Harlock and the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane characters from “The Birdcage”.
And Michelle Pfeiffer does an equally impressive job of playing the witch Lamia. It takes a lot of guts and a hell of a sense of humour for a beautiful but aging actress to play a powerful woman who tries to maintain her fair looks longer than she should and has to watch them disintegrate with alarming rapidity. In playing a sorceress this time around, Pfeiffer is nowhere near the cute, pregnant-at-the-drop-of-a-hat New Englander she did in “The Witches of Eastwick” – this time she’s got a mean streak big enough to let her teach former costar Jack Nicholson a thing or two about black magic. And you can tell she’s enjoying every minute of it.
The movie’s charms are present in so many other ways as well, from the Three Stooges-like ghostly brothers to the touching backstory of Tristan’s father.
And the special effects are used with perfect flourish: the sky ship, the castle and the magic are all impressive eye candy, but they never detract from the story or the characters. George Lucas needs to study this movie carefully, to learn that deftly-used special effects should leave an audience feeling that they’re merely another background part of the world being presented, not its focal point.
As “The Princess Bride” revitalized the fairy tale when it came out in the 80’s, “Stardust” has kindled the torch high again for another generation.
Okay, so it’s been longer since my last post than it takes for George R. R. Martin to write an installment in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, but a lot’s been going on. I’ve jumped ship to a new job and the past few weeks have been the usual period of adjustment - not the least of which is re-setting my internal clock to regular work week hours instead of the somewhat later day I used to keep at the old place. Not being able to stay up as late is probably the single biggest reason for my blogging tardiness. And then there’s the other usual stuff going on: domestic life with the wife, catching up with old friends, etc. At any rate, for what little it’s worth, I’m back.
So a few weeks ago we caught “Stardust”. What a great film! My wife and I were completely captivated throughout the entire show.
Based on a Neil Gaiman novel, the movie centres around our young hero Tristan (played by Charlie Cox), who crosses an ancient wall, leaving England behind and entering a magical realm on a quest to find a fallen star and bring it home to impress the girl he loves. He arrives at the impact crater to find the star is a beautiful young woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes) who has ideas of her own about where she’s going. But that doesn’t deter Tristan, who binds the star with a magical cord and starts for home. Along the way, they’re beset by witches in search of youth and beauty, conniving princes and air pirates. And, not surprisingly, Tristan eventually grows to realize his true love isn’t the girl he’d originally had his eyes on.
Perhaps the finest complement that can be paid to “Stardust” came from Michael Marano in his Sci Fi Weekly review: that this movie has the same wit, energy and charm as “The Princess Bride”. In fact, though Gaiman’s story is original, they’re alike enough in setting and feeling that you could believe that Westley and Buttercup might invite Tristan and his love over for a merry dinner party one evening.
One of the big checkmarks this film earns is director Matthew Vaughn’s ability to find big name stars who are also top-notch actors (because the two aren’t always the same) who can confine themselves to playing solid roles as supporting characters. Robert De Niro does a masterful job in playing a secondary cast member who doesn’t scene-steal when he’s not supposed to, but who shines when the time is right. His Captain Shakespeare, air pirate and lightening harvester, is a screamingly funny synthesis of “Space Battleship Arcadia’s” Captain Harlock and the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane characters from “The Birdcage”.
And Michelle Pfeiffer does an equally impressive job of playing the witch Lamia. It takes a lot of guts and a hell of a sense of humour for a beautiful but aging actress to play a powerful woman who tries to maintain her fair looks longer than she should and has to watch them disintegrate with alarming rapidity. In playing a sorceress this time around, Pfeiffer is nowhere near the cute, pregnant-at-the-drop-of-a-hat New Englander she did in “The Witches of Eastwick” – this time she’s got a mean streak big enough to let her teach former costar Jack Nicholson a thing or two about black magic. And you can tell she’s enjoying every minute of it.
The movie’s charms are present in so many other ways as well, from the Three Stooges-like ghostly brothers to the touching backstory of Tristan’s father.
And the special effects are used with perfect flourish: the sky ship, the castle and the magic are all impressive eye candy, but they never detract from the story or the characters. George Lucas needs to study this movie carefully, to learn that deftly-used special effects should leave an audience feeling that they’re merely another background part of the world being presented, not its focal point.
As “The Princess Bride” revitalized the fairy tale when it came out in the 80’s, “Stardust” has kindled the torch high again for another generation.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
"Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales"
Warning: Spoilers
(spoilage factor: a couple of small spots of mold that have to be pared off a block of cheese before grating it on your pasta)
It took a few solid days of hunting around at several local outlets of big entertainment store chains to track down an exceedingly rare copy of the recently released “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (only to stumble on about five million copies in Costco just the other day – D’oh!). But the search was worth it. (And no, I’m not saying that as someone who’s gone on record as being a B5 fanboy -which I have)
These latest installments (the presentation, “Voices in the Dark” is actually two separate shorts) in the B5 canon take place in 2271 – 10 years after the founding of the Interstellar Alliance, 9 years after the end of Season 5, and 10 years before John Sheridan’s death and the destruction of the station.
In fact, the film opens with the destruction of B5, and as the clock winds backward to place us at the time these stories are set, we’re treated to part of Citizen G’Kar’s farewell to Sheridan from his departure in Season 5, accompanied by a simple B5 melody from Christopher Franke. I can’t think of a better way to take us back to the B5 universe than to use this bit of dialogue where the soft, low tones of the late Andreas Katsulas remind us of the lasting effect of people and places upon one-another.
And with that, we’re into the first of the Lost Tales: “Over Here”.
Shortly before B5 is to host the 10th anniversary party for the founding of the Alliance, station commander Elizabeth Lockley (now having risen from Captain to Colonel) has to deal with a staff member who’s having some sinister issues – nothing she can’t solve by importing an old Catholic priest from Earth. But as the two confront their demonic adversary, they realize the stakes are higher than the salvation of one man’s soul.
All in all, “Over Here” was a good story. But it wasn’t a Babylon 5 story. Certainly the wrestling with philosophical and theological issues and the feelings of the individuals trying to navigate this territory is standard fare for B5. And the fact that Lockley understands her way out of the problem and avoids the two narrow choices that her adversary attempts to impose on her definitely keeps it in the pattern of a major B5 showdown. But the set-up, the drawing-out of the plot and the final resolution didn’t feel like one of Straczynski’s typical B5 installments. No. This felt more like a short story from one of the old authors from the Golden Age of SF – stylistically and structurally it had more in common with the feeling of the neat logic of an Asimov yarn.
And in a different facet, Tracy Scoggins’ delivery of Lockley’s checkmate speech channeled pure Captain James T. Kirk. That’s not to say she made the mistake of a Shatner-esque delivery, rather there was a word choice and intensity and self-satisfaction that ol’ Jim woulda used in putting some alien posing as a Greek god in his proper place of intergalactic irrelevance. More of a sneer than, say, Sheridan’s exasperated “Now get the hell outta here!” to the Shadows and Vorlons at the end of their war. Fitting for Trek, a bit out of place for B5.
“Over Here” and its presentation of the threat of demons and damnation would also seem to offer some continuity problems within the canon, given that the pre-history of the galaxy that came out in the Shadow War indicated that most of mankind’s conceptions of demons and angels were the result of deliberate tampering by the Vorlons who wanted to program humans to be their allies on an instinctual level. Where does that leave room for the demons dreaming of the stars in “Over Here”? In fact, wouldn’t Lockley put even less faith as it were in her opponent’s demonic claims, given that she’s probably read all the files about the Shadow War and the dealings with the various First Ones? Wouldn’t her own experiences with high technology and advanced alien races predispose her to deal with this problem from a secular approach as opposed to theological?
That being said, “Over Here” is still a fine piece of science fiction in the style of the old school, if not strictly speaking that of B5.
Meanwhile, the second half of the presentation, “Over There” has us riding alongside President John Sheridan, on his way to the party at B5, dogged by a pesky reporter, his own shadows of melancholy about his future, and the sudden reappearance of the Technomage Galen, who brings a dire warning. It seems a young Centauri prince who Sheridan will meet along the way to the celebration could be a major threat to Earth if his grand aspirations come to pass in the decades after Sheridan’s death. And Sheridan has a difficult choice in how to best ward-off the potential devastation.
Unlike the first offering, “Over There” is pure B5. The plot, the balance of logic and heart, its fit into the canon, the behaviour, recollections and knowledge of the characters - everything in this feature makes it immediately recognizable as an episode (albeit a short one) of Babylon 5. And a good episode at that!
There might be some fans who would be tempted to criticize “The Lost Tales” for being too small – for having shorter stories and for featuring only three major characters from Babylon 5 and Crusade. But I think the limited scope of these stories is actually their strength. What we get out of it by only following one or two of the major cast members at a time is an incredible focus on their personalities and their crisis – something that would run the risk of being watered-down or outright swamped if the stories needed another half-hour or hour each to bring in the other major characters and properly flush each of them out so that they wouldn’t be short-changed. No. In this instance of storytelling, simpler is definitely better.
Others might point out that the digital special effects are a bit spotty at times – the animation of the background in B5’s hanger seems a bit clunky and the timing of the rotation outside Lockley’s porthole seems off. But that’s really getting into serious nitpicking. Let’s focus instead on what has a bigger impact – let’s focus on how great all the exterior digital effects look. B5 itself is rendered in exquisite detail that we as viewers could only have dreamed of when the series originally ran on TV back in the late 90’s. Same for the Starfuries. For the most part, Straczynski’s special effects crew has given us a work of art to look at.
And the feature is packaged nicely with a bunch of worthwhile extras. Straczynski’s fireside chats range from mildly interesting to downright hysterical and he gives a nice tour of the behind-the-scenes development of the project. There are also some really touching moments in the memorials for Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin). This extra is the part of the whole production where I wish there had been more cast members available to share their memories of these two fine actors.
I seem to recall once running across a fan site that said “Sooner or later, everyone comes to Babylon 5.” (I can’t recall if that was actually in the series itself – I’ll have to have another watch of the series sometime soon to check, not that I need an excuse or anything). In seeing what J. Michael Straczynski has put together for “Voices in the Dark”, I’m hoping that sooner or later more installments to “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” will be coming.
(spoilage factor: a couple of small spots of mold that have to be pared off a block of cheese before grating it on your pasta)
It took a few solid days of hunting around at several local outlets of big entertainment store chains to track down an exceedingly rare copy of the recently released “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (only to stumble on about five million copies in Costco just the other day – D’oh!). But the search was worth it. (And no, I’m not saying that as someone who’s gone on record as being a B5 fanboy -which I have)
These latest installments (the presentation, “Voices in the Dark” is actually two separate shorts) in the B5 canon take place in 2271 – 10 years after the founding of the Interstellar Alliance, 9 years after the end of Season 5, and 10 years before John Sheridan’s death and the destruction of the station.
In fact, the film opens with the destruction of B5, and as the clock winds backward to place us at the time these stories are set, we’re treated to part of Citizen G’Kar’s farewell to Sheridan from his departure in Season 5, accompanied by a simple B5 melody from Christopher Franke. I can’t think of a better way to take us back to the B5 universe than to use this bit of dialogue where the soft, low tones of the late Andreas Katsulas remind us of the lasting effect of people and places upon one-another.
And with that, we’re into the first of the Lost Tales: “Over Here”.
Shortly before B5 is to host the 10th anniversary party for the founding of the Alliance, station commander Elizabeth Lockley (now having risen from Captain to Colonel) has to deal with a staff member who’s having some sinister issues – nothing she can’t solve by importing an old Catholic priest from Earth. But as the two confront their demonic adversary, they realize the stakes are higher than the salvation of one man’s soul.
All in all, “Over Here” was a good story. But it wasn’t a Babylon 5 story. Certainly the wrestling with philosophical and theological issues and the feelings of the individuals trying to navigate this territory is standard fare for B5. And the fact that Lockley understands her way out of the problem and avoids the two narrow choices that her adversary attempts to impose on her definitely keeps it in the pattern of a major B5 showdown. But the set-up, the drawing-out of the plot and the final resolution didn’t feel like one of Straczynski’s typical B5 installments. No. This felt more like a short story from one of the old authors from the Golden Age of SF – stylistically and structurally it had more in common with the feeling of the neat logic of an Asimov yarn.
And in a different facet, Tracy Scoggins’ delivery of Lockley’s checkmate speech channeled pure Captain James T. Kirk. That’s not to say she made the mistake of a Shatner-esque delivery, rather there was a word choice and intensity and self-satisfaction that ol’ Jim woulda used in putting some alien posing as a Greek god in his proper place of intergalactic irrelevance. More of a sneer than, say, Sheridan’s exasperated “Now get the hell outta here!” to the Shadows and Vorlons at the end of their war. Fitting for Trek, a bit out of place for B5.
“Over Here” and its presentation of the threat of demons and damnation would also seem to offer some continuity problems within the canon, given that the pre-history of the galaxy that came out in the Shadow War indicated that most of mankind’s conceptions of demons and angels were the result of deliberate tampering by the Vorlons who wanted to program humans to be their allies on an instinctual level. Where does that leave room for the demons dreaming of the stars in “Over Here”? In fact, wouldn’t Lockley put even less faith as it were in her opponent’s demonic claims, given that she’s probably read all the files about the Shadow War and the dealings with the various First Ones? Wouldn’t her own experiences with high technology and advanced alien races predispose her to deal with this problem from a secular approach as opposed to theological?
That being said, “Over Here” is still a fine piece of science fiction in the style of the old school, if not strictly speaking that of B5.
Meanwhile, the second half of the presentation, “Over There” has us riding alongside President John Sheridan, on his way to the party at B5, dogged by a pesky reporter, his own shadows of melancholy about his future, and the sudden reappearance of the Technomage Galen, who brings a dire warning. It seems a young Centauri prince who Sheridan will meet along the way to the celebration could be a major threat to Earth if his grand aspirations come to pass in the decades after Sheridan’s death. And Sheridan has a difficult choice in how to best ward-off the potential devastation.
Unlike the first offering, “Over There” is pure B5. The plot, the balance of logic and heart, its fit into the canon, the behaviour, recollections and knowledge of the characters - everything in this feature makes it immediately recognizable as an episode (albeit a short one) of Babylon 5. And a good episode at that!
There might be some fans who would be tempted to criticize “The Lost Tales” for being too small – for having shorter stories and for featuring only three major characters from Babylon 5 and Crusade. But I think the limited scope of these stories is actually their strength. What we get out of it by only following one or two of the major cast members at a time is an incredible focus on their personalities and their crisis – something that would run the risk of being watered-down or outright swamped if the stories needed another half-hour or hour each to bring in the other major characters and properly flush each of them out so that they wouldn’t be short-changed. No. In this instance of storytelling, simpler is definitely better.
Others might point out that the digital special effects are a bit spotty at times – the animation of the background in B5’s hanger seems a bit clunky and the timing of the rotation outside Lockley’s porthole seems off. But that’s really getting into serious nitpicking. Let’s focus instead on what has a bigger impact – let’s focus on how great all the exterior digital effects look. B5 itself is rendered in exquisite detail that we as viewers could only have dreamed of when the series originally ran on TV back in the late 90’s. Same for the Starfuries. For the most part, Straczynski’s special effects crew has given us a work of art to look at.
And the feature is packaged nicely with a bunch of worthwhile extras. Straczynski’s fireside chats range from mildly interesting to downright hysterical and he gives a nice tour of the behind-the-scenes development of the project. There are also some really touching moments in the memorials for Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin). This extra is the part of the whole production where I wish there had been more cast members available to share their memories of these two fine actors.
I seem to recall once running across a fan site that said “Sooner or later, everyone comes to Babylon 5.” (I can’t recall if that was actually in the series itself – I’ll have to have another watch of the series sometime soon to check, not that I need an excuse or anything). In seeing what J. Michael Straczynski has put together for “Voices in the Dark”, I’m hoping that sooner or later more installments to “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” will be coming.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Another Overdue Review: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"
Warning: Spoilers
(spoilage factor: about the same as a head of lettuce that’s been left in the fridge a week too long)
No-one can deny this summer has seen an onslaught of Potter. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, based on the fifth book in author J. K. Rowling’s series about the boy wizard of the title, was released not too long before the final novel “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” hit the shelves. Of course, being Potter fans in our household, it was a given that we’d brave the lineups to see the new movie in its first week. And it didn’t disappoint.
Overall, director David Yates has done a superb job in paring-down an immense novel to its essentials and fitting them into a two hour and 18 minute film – substantially shorter than its predecessors. As Harry and his sidekicks wrangle with new threats from the evil Lord Voldemort and his gang of Death Eaters, we see the rise of bureaucratic tyranny in the Hogwarts school, showing that there are many different kinds of evil that can eat away at a society and its individuals. The pacing is quick and the darkness of the film and its subject matter gives it much more of an adult feel than the others.
The movie wasn’t without its flaws though. One of the important aspects of the novels is Harry’s growth into adulthood beyond the ongoing conflict with the forces of darkness, and part of that growth is his awakening interest in girls. The series of movies only gives the lightest of nods to this reality up until “Order of the Phoenix”. Here we see Harry enter into a relationship with Cho Chang, a young witch he’s been blushing over for quite some time. Well, not really. We certainly see them have a good first kiss. But that’s pretty much it. The relationship is essentially dropped after that. We don’t even see their breakup. In fact, Cho’s longing and hurt look at Harry as he brushes past her later on are about the only indication we have that the encounter might have been more than just a snog-and-grope in a broom closet somewhere. If Yates was going to bother including the relationship, he should have tacked on an extra 5 minutes or so for a couple of scenes spaced throughout the movie to show its development and disintegration. That being said, one small detail that was very nicely done was Ginny Weasely’s wistful look backwards as she and the other kids leave the room to let Harry and Cho have some time alone. A nice, quick way to foreshadow their relationship to come – if, that is, the director of the next installment even allows them enough screen time for them to have a relationship!
And in talking with a few other people who’ve read the book and seen the movie, there’s a general consensus that the battle at the climax was adequate, but that it felt a lot smaller in scale than it should have been.
Hats off though to Imelda Staunton for playing the usurping bureaucrat Delores Umbridge with such cotton-candy viciousness. A perfect performance for a well-written character who we’ve probably all come across in one form or another at some point in our lives.
And, of course, Gary Oldman continues to do a great job playing Harry’s godfather Sirius Black. But then again, when does Gary Oldman ever do a bad job?
One final note on small details: Mad-Eye Moody’s broom being outfitted and sounding kinda like a Harley Davidson. A bad-ass broom for the Potter-verse’s version of Snake Plissken.
One thing to note if you’re planning on seeing this movie in Imax like we did: the 3D presentation advertised is only the 15 minutes or so of the final battle. Most of the movie is regular 2D, so don’t sit there with your 3D glasses on your nose the whole time wondering what’s wrong with the picture like some people did in the theatre we sat in. But whether you see it in 3D or 2D, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is worth conjuring up the full price of admission.
(spoilage factor: about the same as a head of lettuce that’s been left in the fridge a week too long)
No-one can deny this summer has seen an onslaught of Potter. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, based on the fifth book in author J. K. Rowling’s series about the boy wizard of the title, was released not too long before the final novel “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” hit the shelves. Of course, being Potter fans in our household, it was a given that we’d brave the lineups to see the new movie in its first week. And it didn’t disappoint.
Overall, director David Yates has done a superb job in paring-down an immense novel to its essentials and fitting them into a two hour and 18 minute film – substantially shorter than its predecessors. As Harry and his sidekicks wrangle with new threats from the evil Lord Voldemort and his gang of Death Eaters, we see the rise of bureaucratic tyranny in the Hogwarts school, showing that there are many different kinds of evil that can eat away at a society and its individuals. The pacing is quick and the darkness of the film and its subject matter gives it much more of an adult feel than the others.
The movie wasn’t without its flaws though. One of the important aspects of the novels is Harry’s growth into adulthood beyond the ongoing conflict with the forces of darkness, and part of that growth is his awakening interest in girls. The series of movies only gives the lightest of nods to this reality up until “Order of the Phoenix”. Here we see Harry enter into a relationship with Cho Chang, a young witch he’s been blushing over for quite some time. Well, not really. We certainly see them have a good first kiss. But that’s pretty much it. The relationship is essentially dropped after that. We don’t even see their breakup. In fact, Cho’s longing and hurt look at Harry as he brushes past her later on are about the only indication we have that the encounter might have been more than just a snog-and-grope in a broom closet somewhere. If Yates was going to bother including the relationship, he should have tacked on an extra 5 minutes or so for a couple of scenes spaced throughout the movie to show its development and disintegration. That being said, one small detail that was very nicely done was Ginny Weasely’s wistful look backwards as she and the other kids leave the room to let Harry and Cho have some time alone. A nice, quick way to foreshadow their relationship to come – if, that is, the director of the next installment even allows them enough screen time for them to have a relationship!
And in talking with a few other people who’ve read the book and seen the movie, there’s a general consensus that the battle at the climax was adequate, but that it felt a lot smaller in scale than it should have been.
Hats off though to Imelda Staunton for playing the usurping bureaucrat Delores Umbridge with such cotton-candy viciousness. A perfect performance for a well-written character who we’ve probably all come across in one form or another at some point in our lives.
And, of course, Gary Oldman continues to do a great job playing Harry’s godfather Sirius Black. But then again, when does Gary Oldman ever do a bad job?
One final note on small details: Mad-Eye Moody’s broom being outfitted and sounding kinda like a Harley Davidson. A bad-ass broom for the Potter-verse’s version of Snake Plissken.
One thing to note if you’re planning on seeing this movie in Imax like we did: the 3D presentation advertised is only the 15 minutes or so of the final battle. Most of the movie is regular 2D, so don’t sit there with your 3D glasses on your nose the whole time wondering what’s wrong with the picture like some people did in the theatre we sat in. But whether you see it in 3D or 2D, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is worth conjuring up the full price of admission.
An Overdue Review: "Transformers"
Warning: Spoilers
(spoilage factor: about the same as a raw chicken left on a sunny window-sill in August for a couple of days)
It’s been several weeks since the debut of this summer’s uber popcorn movie, “Transformers” and the pain in my neck from having to watch it from the third row of the theatre in the first week of the run has just about gone away. But it was worth it!
The movie is director Michael Bay’s live-action re-imagining of the classic 80’s cartoon about the ongoing battle between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons.
In the original, an eons-long war between the two factions had drained their home planet of Cybertron of almost all of its “energon” resources – and thus the giant robots’ fuel or food if you will. In a desperate bid to find more energon to carry on the war, some of the Autobots flee in a starship but are hunted down by the Decepticons. In the ensuing battle, both vessels are damaged and the Transformers crash onto a primordial Earth. Millions of years later, an earthquake causes their machinery to reactivate, leading to the Transformers’ reawakening and the resumption of their war amidst modern-day humanity.
Bay’s version continues with the tradition of the Transformers letting their internal disputes spill over onto other worlds. But quite a few of the details change. We’re told Cybertron’s environment has been damaged by the civil war and we get the impression that consequently that world is pretty much uninhabitable. Thus the hunt for something called “the cube” – an ancient device of unknown origin that creates life. Kind of. Both robotic factions seek to possess the cube to tip the balance of the war, and in their quest, they track it to an unsuspecting Earth. The Decepticons waste no time in wreaking havoc to find they information they need to uncover the artifact. The Autobots are a bit more subtle, choosing to remain undercover during their own investigations, only coming out in full force in the open for the battle of the climax. Caught in the middle of it all is teenager Sam Witwicky, who just wants to get a nice first car and the affections of the girl of his dreams, but who unknowingly possesses the key to finding the ancient bone – er, cube of contention.
In typical Bay fashion, Transformers is a nearly non-stop orgy of action punctuated by snappy dialogue and effective one-liner humour and sexy leading ladies for the young hero (and the audience) to ogle. The special effects for the metal titans are top-notch. The actors do a capable job. And, best of all, Peter Cullen was brought back to reprise his role as the voice of Autobot leader Optimus Prime. In short, this flick is a modern teenage boy’s ultimate fantasy, or an 80’s action cartoon fanboy’s wet dream.
And the new version deserves bonus points for some of its details: I won’t spoil exactly what it says, but pay close attention to the decal on the side of the Decepticon police cruiser. Bay’s SFX guys have also finally resolved the major inconsistencies the old series had with conservation of mass: guns and cassette decks becoming giant robots. In this version, a portable stereo, no matter how evil it may be and no matter how great its ambitions, transforms to a height of about 4 feet rather than 50, and yet remains a respectable badass and capable spy in his own right. Also, extra geek points for the method the robots use to find new alternate forms: in the old series, the AI satellite Teletraan 1 scanned human technology and adapted the robots during repair to fit the forms they’d be mingling with on Earth and that would best suit their personalities and former functions; in the new movie, the robots seem to impress upon nearby vehicles that they encounter first and suit their needs. In this way, they’re rather like the later-generation Transformers of the “Beasties” series, which imprint on the first animal detected when their pods crash land. I don’t know if the Beasties parallel was intentional or accidental, but kudos anyway.
But there were also a lot of problems with the flick. One look at the robots in their natural anthropomorphic form, as they emerge from their crash craters, and (as others have noted) you have to doubt they’ve got the proper design to actually transform into anything, let alone a car, tank or jet fighter. Then there are the extensive changes that have been made to the characters of many of the Transformers themselves: Prime is still a semi (though a different kind of rig than his original cartoon form) and Starscream remains a fighter plane, but most of the others bear little resembling to their old namesakes. Bumblebee is now a Mustang, rather than a Volkswagon Beetle. Ironhide is a Hummer rather than an old van. Jazz remains Prime’s lieutenant, but he’s only Jazz in name. Now, instead of having a voice that would sound like it might belong to an old jazzman, like Scatman Crothers in the original, he’s got Darius McCrary voicing him as a rapper/hip-hop artist. The writers should have just renamed him MC or something like that and to make a better impression that he’d been re-imagined, rather than keeping an old monicker with a new, inappropriate voice. Another nitpick note was the unanswered question of why extreme cold seems to stop the Transformers in their tracks. Megatron is frozen in the arctic and later imprisoned in what’s basically a big-ass freezer. The nasty government types (led by John Turturro – in his undies, no less!) take down Bumblebee with ropes and blasts of cold. But, wouldn’t the Transformers have to survive the deep cold of space to travel from planet to planet in their search – especially Megatron, who’s new form is some kind of space fighter! And what’s with that crazy cosmic cube? Why does bestow life upon machines, but kill any robot that stuffs the thing in its chest? Too much raw power?!? Sounds like someone’s too drunk on energon! Too little thought to plot, more likely! And when it does animate various pieces of machinery around it, why, when they suddenly transform into robots, are they evil? I mean, I can kind of understand why the pop machine is diabolical – those things do steal coins from people all the time, so, it makes sense that they’d be inclined to up the stakes a little bit with some rocket fire, etc, but the other machines? Why would they go on a rampage? Wouldn’t they be just as likely to belt out “Happy Birthday!” like a newly-awakened Frosty the Snowman? And lastly, there’s something really wrong with the last scene of the movie: the young hero who’s finally go the girl of his dreams gets to snog on a hilltop overlooking the town with a beautiful sunset as the backdrop… but they’re on top of his car – his intelligent car, and a bunch of his car’s buddies. It’s like they’re necking in front of a crowd. Haven’t these big ‘bots ever heard of a human concept called privacy? I mean, hey, maybe young Sam and his girl are exhibitionists, and if that’s their thing, then fine, but personally I’d find it a bit creepy. How many of us have a tough time getting intimate with out significant others in front of the stares of the bewildered family pet, let alone a gaggle of extraterrestrial automata?
But in the end, the many faults of the movie just can’t outweigh its simple, mindless fun. Not only is “Transformers” worth the full price of admission, it was worth the pain in the neck I picked up watching it. Now, how can I get my printer or dishwasher or something to transform into a masseuse to rub away the sore spots?
Footnote:
Perhaps the best part of the Transformers getting such a blockbuster movie made is that it’s given me many, many opportunities to get a rise out of unsuspecting and, these days, largely ignorant fanboys with Gobot jokes, a-la Randall in Kevin Smith’s “Clerks II”.
Most of the current movie’s fans weren’t old enough to have seen the Transformers or the Gobots in their original TV runs, and so just stare blankly when the latter are referenced, requiring the “Clerks II” explanation that Gobots are “the K-mart of Transformers”.
But it’s inflicting Gobot references on old-school fanboys that’s most entertaining, just to see them froth in fury. Best example so far: I asked my brother what watching the Gobots was like at the drive-in theatre out in Langley. His response: “Gobots. Sheesh. It's not a transformation when all you do is stand up. Ironhide needs to go bust some Gobo-chops!”
That’s the kind of ferocity normally reserved for the Star Trek vs. Star Wars crowd. Pointless, but occasionally entertaining.
(spoilage factor: about the same as a raw chicken left on a sunny window-sill in August for a couple of days)
It’s been several weeks since the debut of this summer’s uber popcorn movie, “Transformers” and the pain in my neck from having to watch it from the third row of the theatre in the first week of the run has just about gone away. But it was worth it!
The movie is director Michael Bay’s live-action re-imagining of the classic 80’s cartoon about the ongoing battle between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons.
In the original, an eons-long war between the two factions had drained their home planet of Cybertron of almost all of its “energon” resources – and thus the giant robots’ fuel or food if you will. In a desperate bid to find more energon to carry on the war, some of the Autobots flee in a starship but are hunted down by the Decepticons. In the ensuing battle, both vessels are damaged and the Transformers crash onto a primordial Earth. Millions of years later, an earthquake causes their machinery to reactivate, leading to the Transformers’ reawakening and the resumption of their war amidst modern-day humanity.
Bay’s version continues with the tradition of the Transformers letting their internal disputes spill over onto other worlds. But quite a few of the details change. We’re told Cybertron’s environment has been damaged by the civil war and we get the impression that consequently that world is pretty much uninhabitable. Thus the hunt for something called “the cube” – an ancient device of unknown origin that creates life. Kind of. Both robotic factions seek to possess the cube to tip the balance of the war, and in their quest, they track it to an unsuspecting Earth. The Decepticons waste no time in wreaking havoc to find they information they need to uncover the artifact. The Autobots are a bit more subtle, choosing to remain undercover during their own investigations, only coming out in full force in the open for the battle of the climax. Caught in the middle of it all is teenager Sam Witwicky, who just wants to get a nice first car and the affections of the girl of his dreams, but who unknowingly possesses the key to finding the ancient bone – er, cube of contention.
In typical Bay fashion, Transformers is a nearly non-stop orgy of action punctuated by snappy dialogue and effective one-liner humour and sexy leading ladies for the young hero (and the audience) to ogle. The special effects for the metal titans are top-notch. The actors do a capable job. And, best of all, Peter Cullen was brought back to reprise his role as the voice of Autobot leader Optimus Prime. In short, this flick is a modern teenage boy’s ultimate fantasy, or an 80’s action cartoon fanboy’s wet dream.
And the new version deserves bonus points for some of its details: I won’t spoil exactly what it says, but pay close attention to the decal on the side of the Decepticon police cruiser. Bay’s SFX guys have also finally resolved the major inconsistencies the old series had with conservation of mass: guns and cassette decks becoming giant robots. In this version, a portable stereo, no matter how evil it may be and no matter how great its ambitions, transforms to a height of about 4 feet rather than 50, and yet remains a respectable badass and capable spy in his own right. Also, extra geek points for the method the robots use to find new alternate forms: in the old series, the AI satellite Teletraan 1 scanned human technology and adapted the robots during repair to fit the forms they’d be mingling with on Earth and that would best suit their personalities and former functions; in the new movie, the robots seem to impress upon nearby vehicles that they encounter first and suit their needs. In this way, they’re rather like the later-generation Transformers of the “Beasties” series, which imprint on the first animal detected when their pods crash land. I don’t know if the Beasties parallel was intentional or accidental, but kudos anyway.
But there were also a lot of problems with the flick. One look at the robots in their natural anthropomorphic form, as they emerge from their crash craters, and (as others have noted) you have to doubt they’ve got the proper design to actually transform into anything, let alone a car, tank or jet fighter. Then there are the extensive changes that have been made to the characters of many of the Transformers themselves: Prime is still a semi (though a different kind of rig than his original cartoon form) and Starscream remains a fighter plane, but most of the others bear little resembling to their old namesakes. Bumblebee is now a Mustang, rather than a Volkswagon Beetle. Ironhide is a Hummer rather than an old van. Jazz remains Prime’s lieutenant, but he’s only Jazz in name. Now, instead of having a voice that would sound like it might belong to an old jazzman, like Scatman Crothers in the original, he’s got Darius McCrary voicing him as a rapper/hip-hop artist. The writers should have just renamed him MC or something like that and to make a better impression that he’d been re-imagined, rather than keeping an old monicker with a new, inappropriate voice. Another nitpick note was the unanswered question of why extreme cold seems to stop the Transformers in their tracks. Megatron is frozen in the arctic and later imprisoned in what’s basically a big-ass freezer. The nasty government types (led by John Turturro – in his undies, no less!) take down Bumblebee with ropes and blasts of cold. But, wouldn’t the Transformers have to survive the deep cold of space to travel from planet to planet in their search – especially Megatron, who’s new form is some kind of space fighter! And what’s with that crazy cosmic cube? Why does bestow life upon machines, but kill any robot that stuffs the thing in its chest? Too much raw power?!? Sounds like someone’s too drunk on energon! Too little thought to plot, more likely! And when it does animate various pieces of machinery around it, why, when they suddenly transform into robots, are they evil? I mean, I can kind of understand why the pop machine is diabolical – those things do steal coins from people all the time, so, it makes sense that they’d be inclined to up the stakes a little bit with some rocket fire, etc, but the other machines? Why would they go on a rampage? Wouldn’t they be just as likely to belt out “Happy Birthday!” like a newly-awakened Frosty the Snowman? And lastly, there’s something really wrong with the last scene of the movie: the young hero who’s finally go the girl of his dreams gets to snog on a hilltop overlooking the town with a beautiful sunset as the backdrop… but they’re on top of his car – his intelligent car, and a bunch of his car’s buddies. It’s like they’re necking in front of a crowd. Haven’t these big ‘bots ever heard of a human concept called privacy? I mean, hey, maybe young Sam and his girl are exhibitionists, and if that’s their thing, then fine, but personally I’d find it a bit creepy. How many of us have a tough time getting intimate with out significant others in front of the stares of the bewildered family pet, let alone a gaggle of extraterrestrial automata?
But in the end, the many faults of the movie just can’t outweigh its simple, mindless fun. Not only is “Transformers” worth the full price of admission, it was worth the pain in the neck I picked up watching it. Now, how can I get my printer or dishwasher or something to transform into a masseuse to rub away the sore spots?
Footnote:
Perhaps the best part of the Transformers getting such a blockbuster movie made is that it’s given me many, many opportunities to get a rise out of unsuspecting and, these days, largely ignorant fanboys with Gobot jokes, a-la Randall in Kevin Smith’s “Clerks II”.
Most of the current movie’s fans weren’t old enough to have seen the Transformers or the Gobots in their original TV runs, and so just stare blankly when the latter are referenced, requiring the “Clerks II” explanation that Gobots are “the K-mart of Transformers”.
But it’s inflicting Gobot references on old-school fanboys that’s most entertaining, just to see them froth in fury. Best example so far: I asked my brother what watching the Gobots was like at the drive-in theatre out in Langley. His response: “Gobots. Sheesh. It's not a transformation when all you do is stand up. Ironhide needs to go bust some Gobo-chops!”
That’s the kind of ferocity normally reserved for the Star Trek vs. Star Wars crowd. Pointless, but occasionally entertaining.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
"Prisoners of Gravity" Released - Kind of
In 1989, a man converted his car into a rocket, shot himself into space, crashed into a satellite and began broadcasting his own SF show. No, that wasn’t an early draft for “Mystery Science Theatre 3,000”. It was the backstory to Canada’s legendary “Prisoners of Gravity”, a half-hour, weekly program focusing on science fiction, fantasy and comics. The show ran for 5 seasons and 139 episodes. Host Rick Green, a.k.a. “Commander Rick” interviewed a galaxy of guests such as authors Douglas Adams, Robert J. Sawyer and Ray Bradbury about issues including fandom, the impact of technology, ecology, sexism and feminism, and population growth. PoG garnered numerous awards and has become a cult classic.
Some may have looked at the cheap sets, Green’s deliberately campy performance, or the opening montage of the broadcast of an old nature show being interrupted by a storyline delivered through comics as being kind of hokey, but the show was worth watching. The authors and other guests gave fascinating insights into their own works as well as those of others and how these reflected our changing world. The show may not have taken itself seriously in a material sense, but it certainly did with its subject matter. That’s what took it beyond being charming into something that had a lasting value for those interested in the thoughts behind SF.
But, despite the quality of the show and its loyal following, TV Ontario, the station that produced the program, eventually cancelled “Prisoners of Gravity”.
But the Prisoners have broken out again – sort of.
Someone has started posting a couple of the episodes of “Prisoners of Gravity” on YouTube in multiple parts. Since this posting strays beyond nostalgia, perilously close to fanboy gushing, here’s a link to the first part of the episode examining fandom.
Thanks to Robert J. Sawyer (PoG’s most frequent guest) for spreading the news about the YouTube posting on his blog.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find some duct tape and a claw hammer to turn my wife’s Saturn into a booster rocket for my car/wannabe spaceship.
Some may have looked at the cheap sets, Green’s deliberately campy performance, or the opening montage of the broadcast of an old nature show being interrupted by a storyline delivered through comics as being kind of hokey, but the show was worth watching. The authors and other guests gave fascinating insights into their own works as well as those of others and how these reflected our changing world. The show may not have taken itself seriously in a material sense, but it certainly did with its subject matter. That’s what took it beyond being charming into something that had a lasting value for those interested in the thoughts behind SF.
But, despite the quality of the show and its loyal following, TV Ontario, the station that produced the program, eventually cancelled “Prisoners of Gravity”.
But the Prisoners have broken out again – sort of.
Someone has started posting a couple of the episodes of “Prisoners of Gravity” on YouTube in multiple parts. Since this posting strays beyond nostalgia, perilously close to fanboy gushing, here’s a link to the first part of the episode examining fandom.
Thanks to Robert J. Sawyer (PoG’s most frequent guest) for spreading the news about the YouTube posting on his blog.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find some duct tape and a claw hammer to turn my wife’s Saturn into a booster rocket for my car/wannabe spaceship.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Just Wild About Harry
No, this is not a review of the new Harry Potter movie. It’s too hot to sleep, so I figured I’d do a little blogging since it’s been too long (or, some might say not long enough by far) since my last posting. Trouble is, despite the blast furnace night, I’ve gotta at least try to get some sleep to keep me on my feet at work tomorrow. Solution: a Harry Potter mish-mash.
The timing is certainly appropriate. As one reviewer noted over at Sci Fi Weekly, with the “Order of the Phoenix” movie making its debut this week and the next (and last) installment in the series of novels, “The Deathly Hallows” coming out next week, this could be known as The Summer of Harry Potter.
I have already been TOLD we are going to see the movie Friday night. No ifs, ands or buts. My wife is quite serious when it comes to getting her Potter fix. And she didn’t need to persuade much. I enjoy the books and movies myself. Rowling has done a great job of characterization and world-building and the series itself is a kind of bildungsroman (Hey, it’s been a while, I can be forgiven for using pretentious literary criticism terms once in a blue moon. Gotta justify that dusty English degree hanging on the wall at some point.) – a novel of growth.
And, as far as the novel goes, I have, as well, been ordered to obtain one on the release day next week. No early ordering for us. Nope. We take our chances (I know, life on the edge of book-buying, we’re a wild couple). And why not? Despite all the hype, every year that a Potter book has been released, we’ve always been able to buy one on the first day just by walking into a bookstore. Usually we’ll buy it from Canada’s big box book retailer Chapters because their membership card allows for a tiny discount off the cover price. This time, however, I think I’m going to take a stand against the impersonal giant and buy the novel at Greater Vancouver’s local sci-fi specialty bookseller White Dwarf. Sure, they’re too small to afford to give buyers 10% off the cover price, but supporting your local genre store is more important than saving a couple of bucks. I give White Dwarf my business because I know that despite their small square footage they’ve got a ton of stock (including books that have been out of print for years) and it’s a rare occasion that either through directed looking or simple browsing that I can’t find something I like, and most importantly, they know their books and their customers. You can ask them anything and they’ll have the answer or be able to make a trustworthy referral. And, of course, they get bonus points for having an easy-going old bloodhound whiling away the afternoon slumbering under a table in the middle of the shop. The Hogwarts kids have got cats and rats and owls for their familiars; the folks at White Dwarf have got the hound. There’s something fitting about that.
Over at SF Signal, the gang started working on a Potter-inspired list a couple of months ago that bears mentioning. With input from regulars (including me) they’ve constructed “The Harry Potter Outreach”: a list of books designed as a referral tool to help convince non-SF readers who enjoy Potter to start reading other quality speculative fiction. A beginner’s guide or introductory course in SF if you will. The list has two primary categories: science fiction and fantasy. Each of those is sub-divided into age groups (under 12, young adult, adult) with appropriate book recommendations. There are, of course, many venerable old standards like “The Hobbit”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “Dune” and “Mote in God’s Eye”. But there are a fair number of new or books from the last two decades suggestions as well, including “The Iron Giant”, “Ilium”, “Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad” and “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Check this list out. Keep it handy. Sweet-talk your local librarian to make use of it. Pull it out whenever you’re talking to a Potterite who might be willing to explore the genre further if only given some quality guidance.
That’s it for this ramble. Must head for bed and hope for some spell of sleep to take hold. Instead of counting sheep, how many more days until Potter 7 is due out?
The timing is certainly appropriate. As one reviewer noted over at Sci Fi Weekly, with the “Order of the Phoenix” movie making its debut this week and the next (and last) installment in the series of novels, “The Deathly Hallows” coming out next week, this could be known as The Summer of Harry Potter.
I have already been TOLD we are going to see the movie Friday night. No ifs, ands or buts. My wife is quite serious when it comes to getting her Potter fix. And she didn’t need to persuade much. I enjoy the books and movies myself. Rowling has done a great job of characterization and world-building and the series itself is a kind of bildungsroman (Hey, it’s been a while, I can be forgiven for using pretentious literary criticism terms once in a blue moon. Gotta justify that dusty English degree hanging on the wall at some point.) – a novel of growth.
And, as far as the novel goes, I have, as well, been ordered to obtain one on the release day next week. No early ordering for us. Nope. We take our chances (I know, life on the edge of book-buying, we’re a wild couple). And why not? Despite all the hype, every year that a Potter book has been released, we’ve always been able to buy one on the first day just by walking into a bookstore. Usually we’ll buy it from Canada’s big box book retailer Chapters because their membership card allows for a tiny discount off the cover price. This time, however, I think I’m going to take a stand against the impersonal giant and buy the novel at Greater Vancouver’s local sci-fi specialty bookseller White Dwarf. Sure, they’re too small to afford to give buyers 10% off the cover price, but supporting your local genre store is more important than saving a couple of bucks. I give White Dwarf my business because I know that despite their small square footage they’ve got a ton of stock (including books that have been out of print for years) and it’s a rare occasion that either through directed looking or simple browsing that I can’t find something I like, and most importantly, they know their books and their customers. You can ask them anything and they’ll have the answer or be able to make a trustworthy referral. And, of course, they get bonus points for having an easy-going old bloodhound whiling away the afternoon slumbering under a table in the middle of the shop. The Hogwarts kids have got cats and rats and owls for their familiars; the folks at White Dwarf have got the hound. There’s something fitting about that.
Over at SF Signal, the gang started working on a Potter-inspired list a couple of months ago that bears mentioning. With input from regulars (including me) they’ve constructed “The Harry Potter Outreach”: a list of books designed as a referral tool to help convince non-SF readers who enjoy Potter to start reading other quality speculative fiction. A beginner’s guide or introductory course in SF if you will. The list has two primary categories: science fiction and fantasy. Each of those is sub-divided into age groups (under 12, young adult, adult) with appropriate book recommendations. There are, of course, many venerable old standards like “The Hobbit”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “Dune” and “Mote in God’s Eye”. But there are a fair number of new or books from the last two decades suggestions as well, including “The Iron Giant”, “Ilium”, “Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad” and “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Check this list out. Keep it handy. Sweet-talk your local librarian to make use of it. Pull it out whenever you’re talking to a Potterite who might be willing to explore the genre further if only given some quality guidance.
That’s it for this ramble. Must head for bed and hope for some spell of sleep to take hold. Instead of counting sheep, how many more days until Potter 7 is due out?
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Watching The Stars On Canada Day
A belated Happy Canada Day to everyone out there! The sun finally made an appearance here on the Wet Coast this long weekend, so rather than post like a responsible blogger, I dragged my pasty Canuck self outside to blearily blink up at the big bright yellow thing and get a dose of summer. Walked along the dike road beside the Fraser River to the village of Steveston for its annual Salmon Fest. Got there too late – most of the display tents had packed up and left – including the gang from VCon32/Canvention27 who not only were at a table trying to encourage closet SF fans at the event to come out to this year’s con, but who also took part in the festival’s parade. Great to hear that they’re taking SF into the general community, just wish I could’ve seen their costumes amidst the standard parade fare.
Anyhow, to celebrate the nation’s 140th birthday, I took a break from reading the new biography of Einstein by Isaacson and pulled an old favourite off the shelf: “Northern Stars”, edited by David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant. This hardcover collection of Canadian SF was released in 1994 to coincide with Winnipeg’s hosting of the Worldcon (my first con). Overall, it’s an excellent sampling of Canadian contributions to the genre, with short stories by Robert J. Sawyer, Phyllis Gotlieb, William Gibson, Robert Charles Wilson and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, to name just a few of the heavy hitters within. In addition to the fiction, there’s also a pair of thoughtful essays from the late Judith Merril and Candas Jane Dorsey on some of the things that make Canadian SF unique – an ambitious undertaking given that a nation’s literature in a greater sense mirrors a people’s perception of what it means to be of that nation, and in the case of Canada, an inherent part of our culture is that we’re still debating about and searching for exactly what it means to be Canadian. Which, as many have said, makes speculative fiction an appropriate medium to engage in this kind of head-scratching, naval-gazing and mining of the national psyche.
Anyhow, to celebrate the nation’s 140th birthday, I took a break from reading the new biography of Einstein by Isaacson and pulled an old favourite off the shelf: “Northern Stars”, edited by David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant. This hardcover collection of Canadian SF was released in 1994 to coincide with Winnipeg’s hosting of the Worldcon (my first con). Overall, it’s an excellent sampling of Canadian contributions to the genre, with short stories by Robert J. Sawyer, Phyllis Gotlieb, William Gibson, Robert Charles Wilson and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, to name just a few of the heavy hitters within. In addition to the fiction, there’s also a pair of thoughtful essays from the late Judith Merril and Candas Jane Dorsey on some of the things that make Canadian SF unique – an ambitious undertaking given that a nation’s literature in a greater sense mirrors a people’s perception of what it means to be of that nation, and in the case of Canada, an inherent part of our culture is that we’re still debating about and searching for exactly what it means to be Canadian. Which, as many have said, makes speculative fiction an appropriate medium to engage in this kind of head-scratching, naval-gazing and mining of the national psyche.
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