A trip to the hospital emergency room a few nights ago unexpectedly turned into a geekfest.
It was Canada Day, about mid-evening, (happy belated Canada Day, by the way, to all my fellow Canucks, and a happy belated Independence Day to our neighbours to the south) and after an enjoyable day at the local salmon festival, I was relaxing in the back yard with our cat, Wookie (what, me, an SF fan? Yes, I know, we forgot the second “e”) waiting for the bbq to finish its smokey magic on some bison ribs when another cat wandered into the yard. My beast chased the thing off, but I made the mistake of trying to pick him up afterwards (with the aim of putting him back in the house) while he was still in full territorial Kzin mode. In a second, he went from being my little buddy to a shredding demon wrapped around my hand digging claws and fangs as deep as they would go. Sporting a range of slashes and one sizeable gash in the back of my hand that went right down into the muscle, I asked my wife to take me to the hospital for a couple of stitches, a tetanus shot and some antibiotics (any doctor will tell you cat spit is some seriously bad stuff and you really want that tetanus shot if you haven’t had one in the last decade).
Once there, I explained the whole thing to a nurse. She looked up from her notes and said “So he went from Cringer to The Mighty Battle Cat?” That had the two of us chuckling pretty hard. I responded “You know it’s a good night in the ER when you can drop a ‘He-Man’ reference”. I think she was happy someone actually understood her slick little Saturday morning cartoons allusion. And who can blame here? How many of us have dropped SF-flavoured pop culture references that have fallen flat because the other party hasn’t experienced them? Makes it all the more enjoyable when someone’s on the same playing field as you.
But it didn’t end there… My wife snuck into the examining room while I was waiting and we got on a Monty Python kick (“Spamalot” is in town and we had started discussing whether we can rearrange our schedules to see it). By the time the doctor arrived, we were well into “it’s just a flesh wound” and “what are you going to do, bleed on me?” bits. I can’t say we had him in stitches – those were reserved for my mangled hand – but he was catchin’ the references as they flew and he seemed to appreciate a little levity on a busy holiday night shift. His requests for my wife to pass him a couple of pieces of equipment got us onto a Nurse Piggy and “Muppet Veterinary Hospital” kick that was pretty satisfying.
The strange tie-up to the whole affair came the next day when I was chatting with my mom on the phone, explaining what had happened. She responded by quoting Han Solo! “It’s not wise to upset a Wookiee.” My mom, suburban housewife, the shake-n-bake queen, the woman with little to no interest in SF and who was bemused at times, frustrated at others with her geeky son’s hoard of sci-fi books, turns around and out of the blue drops a Star Wars reference on me. The Force was strong with her that day.
I guess you just never know when or where an SF moment will happen, but that’s what makes them all the more enjoyable.
babbling relentlessly about science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
Seeing Is Believing - bloginhood's Back Online
It was one thing after another, but finally, after an absence of more than a month, I’m back online. I apologize for dropping off without warning, but a lot of what’s happened came out of the blue.
It started in the back half of May when I was installing an upgrade to my antivirus and the program decided it wasn’t going to play nice with Windows. Go figure. The immediate effect of these programs knocking heads with one another was that they cut off our home internet access. Within days, before I had time to plumb the depths of our machine to try to solve the problem, I was hit with “piece of bad news number 2”… I’d gone in to the optometrist for an eye checkup - a fluke, actually, because I hadn’t been in for about 4 years, and while I was starting to think it was time for a new prescription for my glasses, I’d kept putting it off until finally my wife (who had to get her eyes checked for a job application) made an appointment for me. The doc was peering into my eyes when he started making those “I don’t like the looks of that” type of noises. This gets me a little worried because the BC Optometrists’ Association has been re-running old ads talking about all of the horrible things that can be wrong with you that can go unnoticed until an eye doctor looks at you. Anyhow, he muses about some possibilities and says he’s sending me to see a specialist. Three days later I’m at one of our local hospitals where an ophthalmologist and his sidekicks put me through a two-hour routine that feels like I’ve taken the brunt of a first class eye-poking by Moe, Larry and Curly. He tells me my right eye’s got a bunch of thin areas and some holes in it. They fix that same day with (cue the Austin Powers music) a frikkin laser mounted on a device that felt like someone was trying to ram a paper cup into my eye socket while shining a green flashlight at me. Then they talked about the real problem. Seems, in addition to a whole bunch of thin areas and a Swiss-cheese’s worth of holes, my left eye had a partially detached retina. They told me if it detached entirely I’d go blind in that eye. Two days later they had me in another local hospital for surgery on the left eye, where they put me under general and carved into the thing like a grapefruit to fix the retina and the various holes. Afterwards, I was sent home with an eye patch. Sadly, it wasn’t a cool pirate eye patch, it was a big, puffy orange affair that my wife says kind of looked like a plastic sieve, so I probably looked like only the lamest of pirates – the weenie pirate dressed by his mother that all the other pirates picked on or something. That only lasted overnight ‘cause the next day they took the thing off. My eye was swollen and red as a maraschino cherry and the massively dilated pupil made me look like I was stumbling around with a concussion. Vision was very blurry, but it returned gradually over the following weeks, first with distance vision coming back, then clearing up closer and closer. It’s still a bit blurry close-up, but I’m told that will pass. Needless to say, while deprived of functional vision, I was unable to resolve the computer issue and get back to chatting with all of you folks. Worse than that, imagine having to go weeks without being able to read because it was too much of a strain! Looking at all of the books in my “to read” pile nearly brought me to tears. But that’s not all! Oh no, the fates were getting positively Dickensian on my ass last month. Within days of the operation, I came down with a monster case of bronchitis that sunk its claws into my chest and just wouldn’t let go. It was weeks before I was breathing normally again.
But after all of that, I’m back. And I’ve gotta say, it’s good to be back here, up on the ol’ soapbox, babbling about SF. I’d also like to say a heartfelt thank-you to all of you who sent your well wishes during my downtime.
Now, back to the SF portion of the blog.
One of the things that struck me (and there were many, as the bruises will attest) while I was stumbling around after the operation with my left eye in a haze and relying, initially, almost entirely on my right eye, was that it’s tough to be stuck peering at the world through just one eye. I got to thinking about all of the memorable, and not-so-memorable, cyclopic characters of SF cinema and TV, and decided to rank them according to who was the most cool.
And so, with a singular focus (sorry, I couldn’t resist), here are the Top 30 One-Eyed Characters of SF TV and Film:
30 – KITT – from “Knight Rider” – admit it, you too thought KITT was just about the coolest thing with one eye on wheels (come to think of it, how many other one-eyed things were on wheels?) when you were a kid. Problem is, “Knight Rider” was one of many, many Larson shows that didn’t age well, or survive the test of audience aging either. And this year’s attempt to revive the show hasn’t worked well either. They’ve definitely tried to up the cool factor by bringing in Val Kilmer to voice KITT, but Kilmer lacks the deliciously effete snottiness of William Daniels. KITT might not have finished dead last on this list if his/its abilities had included (beyond half-hearted banter and the obligatory turbo-boost per episode) the ability to lock the doors and override the driver’s control of them, thereby imprisoning The Hoff and preventing him from inflicting himself upon the world.
29 – the cylops – from “The Odyssey” TV movie – some cheap special effects tried to make a sumo wrestler into a monster from Greek myth – and completely failed to make it monstrous. The only reason for acknowledging this tubby fellow is that the TV movie was inspired by Homer’s masterpiece, and we have to at least give a nod to the producers for trying to bring the epic to the masses.
28 – Hector – from “Saturn 3” – this lumbering robotic throwback to 1950’s B-budget monster movies had no redeeming qualities at all except that it had the guts (or stupidity) to think it could try to take on Kirk Douglas. While we might also be tempted to give it bonus points for being attracted to Farah Fawcett in her prime, we would then also have to deduct points for its failure to have the foresight to see the kind of zombie she’s turned into now.
27 – Number Two – from the “Austin Powers” movies – Number Two gets flushed on this list because even though he realizes it is his practical work that keeps Dr. Evil’s criminal empire running, he’s unable to work up the gumption to take total control of the organization once and for all, either by freezing the villain out of the hierarchy during one of his prolonged absences, or through direct confrontation. While Dr. Evil has the advantage in, well, evil, Number Two could probably come up with a plan that would actually work. I respect loyalty, but Number Two’s lack of ambition is what keeps him as the bottom rather than the top. In fact, there isn’t much aside from his loyalty to Dr. Evil that makes Number Two actually evil – he could just as easily be working the support services for Mr. Powers.
26 – Cyclops – from the Marvel “X-Men” franchise – I was never a collector of the “X-Men” comics, but those that I did read didn’t leave me with much of an impression that Cyclops (occasional leader of the team, no less) was anything more than a supporting cast member. The movies have done nothing to change this impression. While there is some lip service paid to Cyclops being a “nice guy”, that’s not so much the case as he’s just a whiner. Petulance tends to blaze forth from him more than eyeball lasers. In fact, the ability to shoot lasers outta his face, and his occasional forays into leadership, are the only factors that put Cyclops ahead of Number Two in the ratings.
25 – the Death Star trash monster – from “Star Wars Episode IV” – somewhat cool for taking down Luke as he was warming up to a good whine, and yet not very cool because by releasing young Skywalker, it gave him ample opportunity to continue to whine throughout the rest of the series. The monster also rates as at least minimally cool because when we were kids, my brother and I had the Death Star play set (which invariably collapsed in on itself if the lid on our nearby toybox banged shut – something that we used to our advantage when our X-wing fighters were ready to blow it up) which included a trash compactor to chuck your action figures into, complete with foam “garbage” and a green trash monster figure.
24 – Death Star trash monster Meg – from “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” – this variant outranks the original trash monster because it was one of only two appearances by Meg on the show – not that I dislike Meg, rather that it kept with traditional FG vicious humour.
23 – Otto – from “WALL-E” – the autopilot with control issues from one of this summer’s animated blockbusters gets points for being a nice tribute to HAL-9000, and more points for being unlike HAL in that Otto never decided to exterminate its crew (unless of course, one considers the slug-like humans to be cargo). However, Otto loses points, not for refusing to relinquish control of the ship to the Captain, but rather because given seemingly inexhaustible resources, an FTL drive and a knowledge of Earth’s poor condition, the autopilot never rose above its programming (like WALL-E , EVE or the others) and never tried to find another suitable world to colonize.
22 – the aliens in the yellow spaceship – from “Monty Python’s The Life of Brian” – we don’t know a thing about them, except those two fat aliens in their yellow spaceship came along at just the right time to catch our hapless hero Brian in mid-fall off of a tower while he was being chased by Roman legionaries. Clearly they’d honked-off some other aliens – and paid for that with their lives – but they at least got Brian back to Earth in one piece so that we could continue watching his hilarious misadventures for a while longer. I think Reg and the other members of the PFJ would salute their sacrifice.
21 – Mike Wazowski – from “Monsters, Inc.” – It’s gotta be tough being a short guy in a world of monsters, especially when your job is scaring people in another dimension. But Mike keeps on plugging, he’s got a heart as big as his blue buddy Sully, and he keeps the gags coming full throttle.
20 – the Cylon centurions – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the old series) – these big shiny badguys weren’t known for their exceptional flying, or their marksmanship, or tactical or strategic thinking, or their durability, or their way with words, or much of anything else, for that matter, but they looked really cool, and if you can’t be good, at least look good.
19 – Maximilian – from “The Black Hole” – a “quiet type” among the badass robots. While this bot is certainly a tough, well-armed (and multi-armed) SOB, and while it is the second in command of its ship, Max only finishes mid-range in the standings because it lacks self control and foresight. Going on a rampage and butchering a crewmember of the Palomino caused more trouble – and subsequent damage to the ship – than whatever sick gratification Max got was worth. As well, the big red guy should have figured out that its boss was utterly off his rocker thinking he could take the Cygnus into the black hole while meteors were being dragged in without sustaining catastrophic damage. Never mind the fact that it should have taken the probe ship and left the Palomino’s crew behind, rather than waste time (and ultimately Max’s own existence) getting into a scrap with VINCENT on a ship that was breaking up.
18 – Captain Harlock – from the “Arcadia” and “Galaxy Express” anime series – as a Canadian, I guess if I’d grown up in Quebec and identified myself as part of the “Arcadian” generation, I’d place a higher value on Harlock. As it is, being originally an Ontario boy, my early anime was “Starblazers”/”Space Battleship Yamato”, which he wasn’t a part of, so Harlock lacks the nostalgia for me. Certainly, in anime terms, he’s a tough dude with a funky phallic pirate ship and so earns a measure of respect.
17 – General Martok – from “Star Trek – Deep Space Nine” – You’ve got to give credit to a tenacious old Klingon war hero who can survive a Jem’Hadar prison camp with daily death matches having only lost an eye. Martok also came out as a hero of the Dominion War. More importantly, he had the wisdom to accept being given the title of Chancellor of the High Council by Worf (who was entitled to the position, having outfought and killed the previous chancellor), realizing that he would make an effective leader and setting aside any pride about not having won the position himself. He also had the smarts to see the advantage in dealing with the Federation. Martok also rates acceptably well for uttering what has to be a quintessential example of Klingon philosophy: “Worf, we are Klingons! We do not respect other cultures! We conquer them!”
16 – Gort – from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” – Another strong, silent type among the artificial persons of this list. Gort is basically the ultimate cop. He’s programmed to observe and make sure the law and the rules are adhered to. When they’re not, he settles the matter. Generally with speed and finality. Sadly, it’s Gort’s complete lack of dialogue, which prevents us from knowing if anything else beyond the rules is going on in his head, that prevents him from rising higher in the standings. That and the fact that he looks like a 7-and-a-half-foot-tall sex toy.
15 – Rell – from “Krull” – arguably one of the worst of the big budget films of the 80’s, “Krull” did have one or two redeeming features. The character of Rell the Cyclops was one of them – kind of. You have to give credit to a guy who decides to help another group of people (another species, in point of fact) in their fight to save their world, against a common enemy. Rell really shines when he makes his final decision to aid in the attack on the Beast’s Black Fortress – rather than stay behind in safety to wait for what is presumably a peaceful and painless death, the big dude ignores his fate, saddles up and goes charging in to help the siege succeed, knowing his death in his altered fate will be unpleasant. And it is. He takes a couple of blasts from the enemy as he rushes the door, allowing his friends to get through, but is then crushed – slowly - by the closing rock gates before he can get to safety. You’ve got to hand it to Rell for that kind of sacrifice, especially giving his life for a young couple who overact so horrendously. However, he does lose points for the really cheesy hair-do, although in all fairness, most of the supporting characters looked like they’d been given bad hairstyling deliberately as a distraction to mask the afore-mentioned bad acting of the lead player(s).
14 – Franky – from “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” – ace fighter pilot, brilliant general, and very easy on the eyes.
13 – Commander Breetai – from “Macross”/”Robotech” – A Commander of a Zentradi battle fleet, this anime archtype is the leader who turns his back on his own people when he comes to grips with the need to do the right thing. Never mind the fact that he’s a decorated war hero, or that he’s the one of the largest specimens of his genetically engineered and cloned people, or that he’s apparently smart enough to earn a position of senior leadership. What makes Breetai an interesting character is that despite a lifetime of following orders and destroying ships and worlds when he’s told to, when confronted with humanity and its emotions and music and culture, he realizes that there’s something more to life than what he and his people have been pigeon-holed into. Sure, his decision to rebel is in part motivated by the fact that Supreme Commander Dolza has labeled his fleet as contaminated for engaging humanity for too long and failing to achieve victory and thus has ordered them destroyed, but by this point Breetai has already had the good sense to realize that talking to the humans can lead to better things than fighting them. Also to his credit, Breetai, the warrior, is willing to consult with and take advice from an academic (Exedore). What holds Breetai back from a higher rank on this list is the repetitive and clunky dialogue forced upon him and the other characters by the writers.
12 - the Cylon centurions (the modern models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These toasters are big and bad, armed to the teeth (er, faceplates) and fully believable as killing machines that would actually frighten the piss out of you if they were chasing you through the bowels of your drifting ship. Their cool factor has increased now that the rebel Cylons have allowed the centurions to develop sentience, and in the wake of that they’ve discovered self-respect and now insist that the humanoid models mind their P’s and Q’s. I was tempted to deduct points because one of them looked like it was starting to be seduced by Baltar’s rabble-rousing, and yet, maybe that makes these chrome nightmares worthy of more appreciation because it shows greater depth of character if one of them can have misgivings.
11 – the Cylon centurions (the old, First Cylon War models/Guardian models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These are the Cylons as they should have been on the old series. It’s not that they’re CG’d, and thus somewhat sleeker in appearance than the actors in suits from the old show, it’s rather that they move like they mean business and they’re tough like machines of war would be designed to be (they don’t go down after a single hit like the old show robots did). These Cylons also know how to fly their Raiders too, taking out capital ships like the Battlestar Columbia with skill and precision (as opposed to the old show Raider pilots that seemed to beat the Colonial fleet with nothing more than surprise and overwhelming numbers) and engaging Colonial Vipers effectively. They’ve even developed strategies for taking over ships – and taking out entire fleets – from the inside through boarding actions. Getting rid of those hokey old gladii at their belts in favour of slick-snapping long wrist blades also looks pretty cool. These Cylons are also a helluva lot smarter than the old show forebears – they don’t just build weapons, they come up with the idea to advance the evolution of their race. What they do to their human prisoners is unforgivably horrific and disgusting, but their hybrid experiment shows these machine entities are engaged in a process to better themselves, misguided though it may be. In some ways this makes them more frightening than the Cylons of the old show, and also makes them more human.
We’re into the Top Ten now!
10 – the Daleks – from “Dr. Who” – these brutal, oversized pepper pots are a Time Lord’s worst nightmare. Not only are they hell-bent on “ex-ter-min-a-tion!!!”, but no matter how many times you and your Companions think you’ve wiped them out, they keep coming back. Kudos to the Daleks in the new series for figuring out that hovering is a good way to overcome the pesky problem of stairs when you’re chasing down The Doctor.
9 – Mad Eye Moody – from the “Harry Potter” series – masterfully played by Brendan Gleeson, Moody is that mix of crusty old teacher and biker that a kid being hounded by the forces of darkness needs on his team. He’s reminiscent of Snake Plissken, or maybe an older, ulglier Indiana Jones if Indy hadn’t had the women and there had been more booze.
8 – R2D2 – from the “Star Wars” series – this trusty little astromech is the unsung hero of the “Star Wars” movies. Seriously, who is it that’s always getting the humans and their biological chums out of trouble, while in the process getting blasted or bashed? And what is their reaction when R2’s beaten carcass is dragged out onto the deck (if they bother to notice at all)? “Oh, we’ll fix him”. Pretty cold comfort for a loyal little guy who’s just had his circuits fried protecting your wetware. And you’ve gotta love that never-ending supply of gadgets that keep popping out to help in all occasions. Whether it’s fixing a star cruiser or shocking Salacious Crumb, R2’s your man, er, droid.
7 – Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. – from the “Indiana Jones” series – Indy a one-eye?! Say it ain’t so! Don’t believe me? Then you didn’t watch “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones”, where each episode was bracketed by an ancient, and curiously chatty, Indy sporting an eye patch. Since it was approved by Lucas, it’s cannon. Indy’s got one eye by the end of his apparently considerably long life. Lucas hasn’t yet revealed how our hero lost the eye, but I’ve gotta say I was disappointed that it didn’t happen in” Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to provide a bridge to the TV series and maybe some more interesting plot possibilities than what was offered up.
6 – Ambassador Kosh – from “Babylon 5” – This is a tough one. I wasn’t sure whether to include Kosh or not. While their encounter suits have only one “eye”, Vorlons do have two eyes when they appear to other races (all of them on the show being two-eyed) in the guise of that race. I can’t recall how many eyes the Vorlons have when they’re out of the suits and showing their own faces. If it’s only one, then I’d have to move Kosh much higher on this list, for all kinds of reasons I won’t go into now. If it’s more than one, Kosh gets knocked off the list. So, because I’m not certain, we’ll keep Kosh on for the time being because of the encounter suit, and reasonably high up because he was a pretty cool character. If I’m proven wrong about Kosh, then I’d probably add the Harrihausen cyclops from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” somewhere near the bottom of the list.
And now for the Top Five:
5 – General Chang – from “Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country” – How can you not like Christopher Plummer playing a Klingon general? Chang is smart, resourceful and tough. Unlike his fellow Klingons, the general knows how to use subtlety to set up an enemy for the kill, as evidenced by his style of debate, and his choice of weapon to sabotage the Federation-Klingon Empire peace talks – a bird of prey that can fire when cloaked. All the more interesting to watch when he does explode into violence – verbally or in space warfare – usually quoting something from “King Lear” or “Hamlet”. “You’ve never read Shakespeare until you’ve read him in the original Klingon.”
4 – HAL-9000 – from “2001 – A Space Odyssey” – without having a human body to walk around in or a face to show emotion, the voice behind this glowing red eye did it all as a believable personality in this cinematic masterpiece. As the movie unfolded, we heard HAL become more unsure of the situation, more secretive, at times cold, self-satisfied, and finally despairing and fearful. A machine was given a fully-flushed character, probably for the first time on film. And in the sequel, “2010 – The Year We Make Contact” we saw more of HAL, even a heroic side when he realizes that to save the human crew he will have to allow his own destruction, and moreover he decides to face the end alone (a frightening prospect for any sentient being, especially a machine that doesn’t have the ingrained spiritual beliefs most humans are raised with to fall back on), declining Dr. Chandra’s offer to stay with him.
3 – Colonel Saul Tigh – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – Colonial officer, Cylon sleeper, rebel leader, drunkard, husband, and friend to Adama, Saul Tigh isn’t always a likeable person – in fact he’s frequently an asshole, but he is a complex and interesting character. For a character who turns out not to be human, the Colonel is a very human character who struggles daily with himself. While he may possess many less-than-admirable traits, there’s still a coolness about Saul Tigh’s willingness in the face of confusion about his origin to take his life by the collar and choose to define who he is and will be.
2 – Snake Plissken – from the “Escape from New York” series – This was a tough one. I almost put ol’ Snake in the Number One slot. Plissken’s the ultimate example of the anti-hero: a Clint Eastwood-talking toughguy from the badlands who’s the badest of them all because he’s the best at getting the job done any way necessary, including winning gunfights (and lethal basketball challenges) against overwhelming odds, even though he’s only got one eye. And he’s a guy who, in the end, stands up against the real badguys, the tyrants, even if his solution to the problem of them isn’t always the safest option. But Snake’s a one-eyed hero who’s coolness is ultimately one dimensional. He comes in, hisses and busts heads, makes some decisions based on a somewhat moral compass, stirs the pot, then limps off alone into the night to be a badass somewhere else. He’s a comic book character. And so he can’t quite eke out the top spot.
1 – Citizen G’Kar – from “Babylon 5” – from freedom fighter to warrior and bombastic diplomat for a corrupt regime, then back to rebel leader and finally to philosopher and explorer, G’Kar is the finest among our company of one-eyed characters. Here is a Narn who began with childish tantrums and schemes and evolved into a poet whose words could bring together disparate races and yet someone who possessed he wisdom and humility to laugh at himself. At first, as a fan, I was sad and angry that his last appearance in the B5 universe was on that steaming pile known as “The Legend of the Rangers” (although even there his character was true to himself), but I was heartened (though still sad) when his quote about lingering voices from the final season of the show was used to open “The Lost Tales”. And so, with one eye, a reflective mind and an open heart, Citizen G’Kar rises above all of the generals and superheros and mechanical monsters to show what is really cool in a story’s character.
That’s my list. Who would you pick as the best of the one-eyed characters out there?
It started in the back half of May when I was installing an upgrade to my antivirus and the program decided it wasn’t going to play nice with Windows. Go figure. The immediate effect of these programs knocking heads with one another was that they cut off our home internet access. Within days, before I had time to plumb the depths of our machine to try to solve the problem, I was hit with “piece of bad news number 2”… I’d gone in to the optometrist for an eye checkup - a fluke, actually, because I hadn’t been in for about 4 years, and while I was starting to think it was time for a new prescription for my glasses, I’d kept putting it off until finally my wife (who had to get her eyes checked for a job application) made an appointment for me. The doc was peering into my eyes when he started making those “I don’t like the looks of that” type of noises. This gets me a little worried because the BC Optometrists’ Association has been re-running old ads talking about all of the horrible things that can be wrong with you that can go unnoticed until an eye doctor looks at you. Anyhow, he muses about some possibilities and says he’s sending me to see a specialist. Three days later I’m at one of our local hospitals where an ophthalmologist and his sidekicks put me through a two-hour routine that feels like I’ve taken the brunt of a first class eye-poking by Moe, Larry and Curly. He tells me my right eye’s got a bunch of thin areas and some holes in it. They fix that same day with (cue the Austin Powers music) a frikkin laser mounted on a device that felt like someone was trying to ram a paper cup into my eye socket while shining a green flashlight at me. Then they talked about the real problem. Seems, in addition to a whole bunch of thin areas and a Swiss-cheese’s worth of holes, my left eye had a partially detached retina. They told me if it detached entirely I’d go blind in that eye. Two days later they had me in another local hospital for surgery on the left eye, where they put me under general and carved into the thing like a grapefruit to fix the retina and the various holes. Afterwards, I was sent home with an eye patch. Sadly, it wasn’t a cool pirate eye patch, it was a big, puffy orange affair that my wife says kind of looked like a plastic sieve, so I probably looked like only the lamest of pirates – the weenie pirate dressed by his mother that all the other pirates picked on or something. That only lasted overnight ‘cause the next day they took the thing off. My eye was swollen and red as a maraschino cherry and the massively dilated pupil made me look like I was stumbling around with a concussion. Vision was very blurry, but it returned gradually over the following weeks, first with distance vision coming back, then clearing up closer and closer. It’s still a bit blurry close-up, but I’m told that will pass. Needless to say, while deprived of functional vision, I was unable to resolve the computer issue and get back to chatting with all of you folks. Worse than that, imagine having to go weeks without being able to read because it was too much of a strain! Looking at all of the books in my “to read” pile nearly brought me to tears. But that’s not all! Oh no, the fates were getting positively Dickensian on my ass last month. Within days of the operation, I came down with a monster case of bronchitis that sunk its claws into my chest and just wouldn’t let go. It was weeks before I was breathing normally again.
But after all of that, I’m back. And I’ve gotta say, it’s good to be back here, up on the ol’ soapbox, babbling about SF. I’d also like to say a heartfelt thank-you to all of you who sent your well wishes during my downtime.
Now, back to the SF portion of the blog.
One of the things that struck me (and there were many, as the bruises will attest) while I was stumbling around after the operation with my left eye in a haze and relying, initially, almost entirely on my right eye, was that it’s tough to be stuck peering at the world through just one eye. I got to thinking about all of the memorable, and not-so-memorable, cyclopic characters of SF cinema and TV, and decided to rank them according to who was the most cool.
And so, with a singular focus (sorry, I couldn’t resist), here are the Top 30 One-Eyed Characters of SF TV and Film:
30 – KITT – from “Knight Rider” – admit it, you too thought KITT was just about the coolest thing with one eye on wheels (come to think of it, how many other one-eyed things were on wheels?) when you were a kid. Problem is, “Knight Rider” was one of many, many Larson shows that didn’t age well, or survive the test of audience aging either. And this year’s attempt to revive the show hasn’t worked well either. They’ve definitely tried to up the cool factor by bringing in Val Kilmer to voice KITT, but Kilmer lacks the deliciously effete snottiness of William Daniels. KITT might not have finished dead last on this list if his/its abilities had included (beyond half-hearted banter and the obligatory turbo-boost per episode) the ability to lock the doors and override the driver’s control of them, thereby imprisoning The Hoff and preventing him from inflicting himself upon the world.
29 – the cylops – from “The Odyssey” TV movie – some cheap special effects tried to make a sumo wrestler into a monster from Greek myth – and completely failed to make it monstrous. The only reason for acknowledging this tubby fellow is that the TV movie was inspired by Homer’s masterpiece, and we have to at least give a nod to the producers for trying to bring the epic to the masses.
28 – Hector – from “Saturn 3” – this lumbering robotic throwback to 1950’s B-budget monster movies had no redeeming qualities at all except that it had the guts (or stupidity) to think it could try to take on Kirk Douglas. While we might also be tempted to give it bonus points for being attracted to Farah Fawcett in her prime, we would then also have to deduct points for its failure to have the foresight to see the kind of zombie she’s turned into now.
27 – Number Two – from the “Austin Powers” movies – Number Two gets flushed on this list because even though he realizes it is his practical work that keeps Dr. Evil’s criminal empire running, he’s unable to work up the gumption to take total control of the organization once and for all, either by freezing the villain out of the hierarchy during one of his prolonged absences, or through direct confrontation. While Dr. Evil has the advantage in, well, evil, Number Two could probably come up with a plan that would actually work. I respect loyalty, but Number Two’s lack of ambition is what keeps him as the bottom rather than the top. In fact, there isn’t much aside from his loyalty to Dr. Evil that makes Number Two actually evil – he could just as easily be working the support services for Mr. Powers.
26 – Cyclops – from the Marvel “X-Men” franchise – I was never a collector of the “X-Men” comics, but those that I did read didn’t leave me with much of an impression that Cyclops (occasional leader of the team, no less) was anything more than a supporting cast member. The movies have done nothing to change this impression. While there is some lip service paid to Cyclops being a “nice guy”, that’s not so much the case as he’s just a whiner. Petulance tends to blaze forth from him more than eyeball lasers. In fact, the ability to shoot lasers outta his face, and his occasional forays into leadership, are the only factors that put Cyclops ahead of Number Two in the ratings.
25 – the Death Star trash monster – from “Star Wars Episode IV” – somewhat cool for taking down Luke as he was warming up to a good whine, and yet not very cool because by releasing young Skywalker, it gave him ample opportunity to continue to whine throughout the rest of the series. The monster also rates as at least minimally cool because when we were kids, my brother and I had the Death Star play set (which invariably collapsed in on itself if the lid on our nearby toybox banged shut – something that we used to our advantage when our X-wing fighters were ready to blow it up) which included a trash compactor to chuck your action figures into, complete with foam “garbage” and a green trash monster figure.
24 – Death Star trash monster Meg – from “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” – this variant outranks the original trash monster because it was one of only two appearances by Meg on the show – not that I dislike Meg, rather that it kept with traditional FG vicious humour.
23 – Otto – from “WALL-E” – the autopilot with control issues from one of this summer’s animated blockbusters gets points for being a nice tribute to HAL-9000, and more points for being unlike HAL in that Otto never decided to exterminate its crew (unless of course, one considers the slug-like humans to be cargo). However, Otto loses points, not for refusing to relinquish control of the ship to the Captain, but rather because given seemingly inexhaustible resources, an FTL drive and a knowledge of Earth’s poor condition, the autopilot never rose above its programming (like WALL-E , EVE or the others) and never tried to find another suitable world to colonize.
22 – the aliens in the yellow spaceship – from “Monty Python’s The Life of Brian” – we don’t know a thing about them, except those two fat aliens in their yellow spaceship came along at just the right time to catch our hapless hero Brian in mid-fall off of a tower while he was being chased by Roman legionaries. Clearly they’d honked-off some other aliens – and paid for that with their lives – but they at least got Brian back to Earth in one piece so that we could continue watching his hilarious misadventures for a while longer. I think Reg and the other members of the PFJ would salute their sacrifice.
21 – Mike Wazowski – from “Monsters, Inc.” – It’s gotta be tough being a short guy in a world of monsters, especially when your job is scaring people in another dimension. But Mike keeps on plugging, he’s got a heart as big as his blue buddy Sully, and he keeps the gags coming full throttle.
20 – the Cylon centurions – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the old series) – these big shiny badguys weren’t known for their exceptional flying, or their marksmanship, or tactical or strategic thinking, or their durability, or their way with words, or much of anything else, for that matter, but they looked really cool, and if you can’t be good, at least look good.
19 – Maximilian – from “The Black Hole” – a “quiet type” among the badass robots. While this bot is certainly a tough, well-armed (and multi-armed) SOB, and while it is the second in command of its ship, Max only finishes mid-range in the standings because it lacks self control and foresight. Going on a rampage and butchering a crewmember of the Palomino caused more trouble – and subsequent damage to the ship – than whatever sick gratification Max got was worth. As well, the big red guy should have figured out that its boss was utterly off his rocker thinking he could take the Cygnus into the black hole while meteors were being dragged in without sustaining catastrophic damage. Never mind the fact that it should have taken the probe ship and left the Palomino’s crew behind, rather than waste time (and ultimately Max’s own existence) getting into a scrap with VINCENT on a ship that was breaking up.
18 – Captain Harlock – from the “Arcadia” and “Galaxy Express” anime series – as a Canadian, I guess if I’d grown up in Quebec and identified myself as part of the “Arcadian” generation, I’d place a higher value on Harlock. As it is, being originally an Ontario boy, my early anime was “Starblazers”/”Space Battleship Yamato”, which he wasn’t a part of, so Harlock lacks the nostalgia for me. Certainly, in anime terms, he’s a tough dude with a funky phallic pirate ship and so earns a measure of respect.
17 – General Martok – from “Star Trek – Deep Space Nine” – You’ve got to give credit to a tenacious old Klingon war hero who can survive a Jem’Hadar prison camp with daily death matches having only lost an eye. Martok also came out as a hero of the Dominion War. More importantly, he had the wisdom to accept being given the title of Chancellor of the High Council by Worf (who was entitled to the position, having outfought and killed the previous chancellor), realizing that he would make an effective leader and setting aside any pride about not having won the position himself. He also had the smarts to see the advantage in dealing with the Federation. Martok also rates acceptably well for uttering what has to be a quintessential example of Klingon philosophy: “Worf, we are Klingons! We do not respect other cultures! We conquer them!”
16 – Gort – from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” – Another strong, silent type among the artificial persons of this list. Gort is basically the ultimate cop. He’s programmed to observe and make sure the law and the rules are adhered to. When they’re not, he settles the matter. Generally with speed and finality. Sadly, it’s Gort’s complete lack of dialogue, which prevents us from knowing if anything else beyond the rules is going on in his head, that prevents him from rising higher in the standings. That and the fact that he looks like a 7-and-a-half-foot-tall sex toy.
15 – Rell – from “Krull” – arguably one of the worst of the big budget films of the 80’s, “Krull” did have one or two redeeming features. The character of Rell the Cyclops was one of them – kind of. You have to give credit to a guy who decides to help another group of people (another species, in point of fact) in their fight to save their world, against a common enemy. Rell really shines when he makes his final decision to aid in the attack on the Beast’s Black Fortress – rather than stay behind in safety to wait for what is presumably a peaceful and painless death, the big dude ignores his fate, saddles up and goes charging in to help the siege succeed, knowing his death in his altered fate will be unpleasant. And it is. He takes a couple of blasts from the enemy as he rushes the door, allowing his friends to get through, but is then crushed – slowly - by the closing rock gates before he can get to safety. You’ve got to hand it to Rell for that kind of sacrifice, especially giving his life for a young couple who overact so horrendously. However, he does lose points for the really cheesy hair-do, although in all fairness, most of the supporting characters looked like they’d been given bad hairstyling deliberately as a distraction to mask the afore-mentioned bad acting of the lead player(s).
14 – Franky – from “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” – ace fighter pilot, brilliant general, and very easy on the eyes.
13 – Commander Breetai – from “Macross”/”Robotech” – A Commander of a Zentradi battle fleet, this anime archtype is the leader who turns his back on his own people when he comes to grips with the need to do the right thing. Never mind the fact that he’s a decorated war hero, or that he’s the one of the largest specimens of his genetically engineered and cloned people, or that he’s apparently smart enough to earn a position of senior leadership. What makes Breetai an interesting character is that despite a lifetime of following orders and destroying ships and worlds when he’s told to, when confronted with humanity and its emotions and music and culture, he realizes that there’s something more to life than what he and his people have been pigeon-holed into. Sure, his decision to rebel is in part motivated by the fact that Supreme Commander Dolza has labeled his fleet as contaminated for engaging humanity for too long and failing to achieve victory and thus has ordered them destroyed, but by this point Breetai has already had the good sense to realize that talking to the humans can lead to better things than fighting them. Also to his credit, Breetai, the warrior, is willing to consult with and take advice from an academic (Exedore). What holds Breetai back from a higher rank on this list is the repetitive and clunky dialogue forced upon him and the other characters by the writers.
12 - the Cylon centurions (the modern models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These toasters are big and bad, armed to the teeth (er, faceplates) and fully believable as killing machines that would actually frighten the piss out of you if they were chasing you through the bowels of your drifting ship. Their cool factor has increased now that the rebel Cylons have allowed the centurions to develop sentience, and in the wake of that they’ve discovered self-respect and now insist that the humanoid models mind their P’s and Q’s. I was tempted to deduct points because one of them looked like it was starting to be seduced by Baltar’s rabble-rousing, and yet, maybe that makes these chrome nightmares worthy of more appreciation because it shows greater depth of character if one of them can have misgivings.
11 – the Cylon centurions (the old, First Cylon War models/Guardian models) – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – These are the Cylons as they should have been on the old series. It’s not that they’re CG’d, and thus somewhat sleeker in appearance than the actors in suits from the old show, it’s rather that they move like they mean business and they’re tough like machines of war would be designed to be (they don’t go down after a single hit like the old show robots did). These Cylons also know how to fly their Raiders too, taking out capital ships like the Battlestar Columbia with skill and precision (as opposed to the old show Raider pilots that seemed to beat the Colonial fleet with nothing more than surprise and overwhelming numbers) and engaging Colonial Vipers effectively. They’ve even developed strategies for taking over ships – and taking out entire fleets – from the inside through boarding actions. Getting rid of those hokey old gladii at their belts in favour of slick-snapping long wrist blades also looks pretty cool. These Cylons are also a helluva lot smarter than the old show forebears – they don’t just build weapons, they come up with the idea to advance the evolution of their race. What they do to their human prisoners is unforgivably horrific and disgusting, but their hybrid experiment shows these machine entities are engaged in a process to better themselves, misguided though it may be. In some ways this makes them more frightening than the Cylons of the old show, and also makes them more human.
We’re into the Top Ten now!
10 – the Daleks – from “Dr. Who” – these brutal, oversized pepper pots are a Time Lord’s worst nightmare. Not only are they hell-bent on “ex-ter-min-a-tion!!!”, but no matter how many times you and your Companions think you’ve wiped them out, they keep coming back. Kudos to the Daleks in the new series for figuring out that hovering is a good way to overcome the pesky problem of stairs when you’re chasing down The Doctor.
9 – Mad Eye Moody – from the “Harry Potter” series – masterfully played by Brendan Gleeson, Moody is that mix of crusty old teacher and biker that a kid being hounded by the forces of darkness needs on his team. He’s reminiscent of Snake Plissken, or maybe an older, ulglier Indiana Jones if Indy hadn’t had the women and there had been more booze.
8 – R2D2 – from the “Star Wars” series – this trusty little astromech is the unsung hero of the “Star Wars” movies. Seriously, who is it that’s always getting the humans and their biological chums out of trouble, while in the process getting blasted or bashed? And what is their reaction when R2’s beaten carcass is dragged out onto the deck (if they bother to notice at all)? “Oh, we’ll fix him”. Pretty cold comfort for a loyal little guy who’s just had his circuits fried protecting your wetware. And you’ve gotta love that never-ending supply of gadgets that keep popping out to help in all occasions. Whether it’s fixing a star cruiser or shocking Salacious Crumb, R2’s your man, er, droid.
7 – Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. – from the “Indiana Jones” series – Indy a one-eye?! Say it ain’t so! Don’t believe me? Then you didn’t watch “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones”, where each episode was bracketed by an ancient, and curiously chatty, Indy sporting an eye patch. Since it was approved by Lucas, it’s cannon. Indy’s got one eye by the end of his apparently considerably long life. Lucas hasn’t yet revealed how our hero lost the eye, but I’ve gotta say I was disappointed that it didn’t happen in” Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to provide a bridge to the TV series and maybe some more interesting plot possibilities than what was offered up.
6 – Ambassador Kosh – from “Babylon 5” – This is a tough one. I wasn’t sure whether to include Kosh or not. While their encounter suits have only one “eye”, Vorlons do have two eyes when they appear to other races (all of them on the show being two-eyed) in the guise of that race. I can’t recall how many eyes the Vorlons have when they’re out of the suits and showing their own faces. If it’s only one, then I’d have to move Kosh much higher on this list, for all kinds of reasons I won’t go into now. If it’s more than one, Kosh gets knocked off the list. So, because I’m not certain, we’ll keep Kosh on for the time being because of the encounter suit, and reasonably high up because he was a pretty cool character. If I’m proven wrong about Kosh, then I’d probably add the Harrihausen cyclops from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” somewhere near the bottom of the list.
And now for the Top Five:
5 – General Chang – from “Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country” – How can you not like Christopher Plummer playing a Klingon general? Chang is smart, resourceful and tough. Unlike his fellow Klingons, the general knows how to use subtlety to set up an enemy for the kill, as evidenced by his style of debate, and his choice of weapon to sabotage the Federation-Klingon Empire peace talks – a bird of prey that can fire when cloaked. All the more interesting to watch when he does explode into violence – verbally or in space warfare – usually quoting something from “King Lear” or “Hamlet”. “You’ve never read Shakespeare until you’ve read him in the original Klingon.”
4 – HAL-9000 – from “2001 – A Space Odyssey” – without having a human body to walk around in or a face to show emotion, the voice behind this glowing red eye did it all as a believable personality in this cinematic masterpiece. As the movie unfolded, we heard HAL become more unsure of the situation, more secretive, at times cold, self-satisfied, and finally despairing and fearful. A machine was given a fully-flushed character, probably for the first time on film. And in the sequel, “2010 – The Year We Make Contact” we saw more of HAL, even a heroic side when he realizes that to save the human crew he will have to allow his own destruction, and moreover he decides to face the end alone (a frightening prospect for any sentient being, especially a machine that doesn’t have the ingrained spiritual beliefs most humans are raised with to fall back on), declining Dr. Chandra’s offer to stay with him.
3 – Colonel Saul Tigh – from “Battlestar Galactica” (the new series) – Colonial officer, Cylon sleeper, rebel leader, drunkard, husband, and friend to Adama, Saul Tigh isn’t always a likeable person – in fact he’s frequently an asshole, but he is a complex and interesting character. For a character who turns out not to be human, the Colonel is a very human character who struggles daily with himself. While he may possess many less-than-admirable traits, there’s still a coolness about Saul Tigh’s willingness in the face of confusion about his origin to take his life by the collar and choose to define who he is and will be.
2 – Snake Plissken – from the “Escape from New York” series – This was a tough one. I almost put ol’ Snake in the Number One slot. Plissken’s the ultimate example of the anti-hero: a Clint Eastwood-talking toughguy from the badlands who’s the badest of them all because he’s the best at getting the job done any way necessary, including winning gunfights (and lethal basketball challenges) against overwhelming odds, even though he’s only got one eye. And he’s a guy who, in the end, stands up against the real badguys, the tyrants, even if his solution to the problem of them isn’t always the safest option. But Snake’s a one-eyed hero who’s coolness is ultimately one dimensional. He comes in, hisses and busts heads, makes some decisions based on a somewhat moral compass, stirs the pot, then limps off alone into the night to be a badass somewhere else. He’s a comic book character. And so he can’t quite eke out the top spot.
1 – Citizen G’Kar – from “Babylon 5” – from freedom fighter to warrior and bombastic diplomat for a corrupt regime, then back to rebel leader and finally to philosopher and explorer, G’Kar is the finest among our company of one-eyed characters. Here is a Narn who began with childish tantrums and schemes and evolved into a poet whose words could bring together disparate races and yet someone who possessed he wisdom and humility to laugh at himself. At first, as a fan, I was sad and angry that his last appearance in the B5 universe was on that steaming pile known as “The Legend of the Rangers” (although even there his character was true to himself), but I was heartened (though still sad) when his quote about lingering voices from the final season of the show was used to open “The Lost Tales”. And so, with one eye, a reflective mind and an open heart, Citizen G’Kar rises above all of the generals and superheros and mechanical monsters to show what is really cool in a story’s character.
That’s my list. Who would you pick as the best of the one-eyed characters out there?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Holy Sith! ...er, well, you know what I mean
I was doing my morning media checks as usual today at work when I stumbled on this strange little item on the CBC site, courtesy of Canadian Press and Associated Press: a court in Wales has handed a 27-year-old man a suspended sentence and ordered him to make payments to two other men he attacked back in March. But there’s a geek angle to the whole sordid tale. Our villain was dressed as Darth Vader at the time of the assaults. His victims: two of the founders of the Jedi Church in Britain. The whole thing was caught on video, with the Sith-wannabe yelling “Darth Vader! Jedis!” as he came at the two, er, Masters, wielding not a red light saber, but a metal crutch. Seems the Force was not with this dark lord of the shit disturbers, rather, it was intoxication brought on by the 10 litre box of wine he’d drunk beforehand. Sounds like somebody should have stuck to drinking blue milk.
And you thought things got ugly between fanboys when someone tossed the old Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer debate into the ring!
And you thought things got ugly between fanboys when someone tossed the old Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer debate into the ring!
Monday, May 05, 2008
Road Trippin'
Sorry I haven’t been posting in a while, folks. Things have been hectic at the office and I was away on business a week-and-a-half ago. Afterwards, my wife and I took a brief vacation on Vancouver Island (home of Neo-Opsis Magazine) where, incidentally, SF was never far from my mind (well, okay, let’s face it, SF is never far from my mind anyway, so who am I kidding? It just made itself a part of this vacation, that’s all.)
We started the trip in Victoria. Great city. Home of Munro’s Books – a great independent bookstore. It’s the kind of place with creaky wooden floors in a classy old stone building with lots of great books and staff who actually know the merchandise. I make a b-line there every time we’re in the capital. And, not surprisingly, I came away this time with a good find: Charles Dickens’ “Best Ghost Stories”. I’ve been looking for this one for a while but hadn’t been able to track it down until now. Trust Munro’s to have it. The main reason for wanting this book was for its closing short story “The Signalman”, which I read about in another book (and I can’t remember the title or author) or maybe heard mention of on TV or in a flick. After buying it, I was poking around the store some more, waiting for my wife, when I noticed something odd on the “classics” shelf – Penguin Classics is reprinting a bunch of H. P. Lovecraft stories. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lovecraft collections on the horror or speculative fiction shelves, but the classics? Not that I’m objecting, rather, I’m just surprised these books made it past the literary snobs at the publisher and at the store (which is not to imply that the staff are literary snobs, rather, that it’s a tendency one sees in general in book stores and thus a possibility for consideration here). I mean, the Victorians like Wells or Stoker or Verne or Stevenson or a little earlier with Shelley, those have always been considered authors who belong in the classics (although grudgingly by some stuck-up academics like a certain Victorian Lit prof I once had who refused to acknowledge them at all – but that’s a rant for another time), but Lovecraft getting his due? Will we see Clarke and Asimov or Bradbury lining the classics shelves in a few years? I certainly wouldn’t object, it merely points to a surprising new maturity in the minds of publishers and stores.
Anyhow, Dickens in hand (sorry, I just couldn’t resist), we hit the road and headed up to Courtenay, in the Comox Valley part of northern Vancouver Island. We worked there for a while a number of years ago and fell in love with the place and it was great to get back for a short vacation. 5th Street, in downtown Courtenay, looks, in many ways, like a piece of 1950’s small town North America frozen in time. Lots of old buildings that haven’t changed in years, populated by little local stores that also haven’t changed in years (like Leung’s grocery store – complete with original soda fountain counter). I hit The Laughing Oyster Book Shop, just up the street from Beyond the Kitchen Door (a kitchen shop with a green door – I wonder how many of the locals and tourists get that naughty little joke), and picked up a recent reprint of A.E. van Vogt’s “Slan” – a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while but just haven’t gotten around to. After that I popped into ABC Books & Inner Sanctum (sorry, couldn’t find a url to hyperlink here) – a combination used bookstore and comic shop (also selling cheap tourist trinkets) for a quick browse. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time in ABC/Inner Sanctum when I lived there (not a lot of extra cash in those days), but the store has a solid selection of used SF with a couple of potentially good finds like a good-condition hardcover of “Rendezvous with Rama” (with its astronaut and disco-light-background cover). Didn’t buy anything there this time, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re in the area.
Just across the street though was a mighty disturbing sight – a big frackin’ hole in the ground where the old Palace movie theatre had stood. This was one of the classic small town cinemas of yesteryear with the big façade out front and a single screen inside – none of the multiplex cookie-cutter stuff like we’ve got now. It was a great little cinema, made even better by the fact that when I worked on the north Island, everyone at the station got in for free – all we had to do was hand over a business card. I saw some great SF movies there like “Deep Impact”, as well as some real crap like “Mission to Mars”, but sitting in an authentic small town theatre was an experience unto itself – it was almost Bradburian to take in a show on a warm summer’s night, then come out afterwards and amble down the quiet old town main street under the stars after all the stores had closed. To put it another way, walking past the Palace of an evening, I could almost hear that soft harmonica and piano bit from “Field of Dreams” when Costner sees Doc “Moonlight” Graham for the first time. Since coming home I’ve done a little research. Turns out the Palace was closed for renovations when a fire broke out last July and it was then shut down permanently. Now it’s dust and a wonderful piece of Courtenay’s history is gone. It’s a damn shame.
And so, after resting and relaxing on the Island, we came home to the Lower Mainland. There and back again, as Mr. Baggins once wrote.
We started the trip in Victoria. Great city. Home of Munro’s Books – a great independent bookstore. It’s the kind of place with creaky wooden floors in a classy old stone building with lots of great books and staff who actually know the merchandise. I make a b-line there every time we’re in the capital. And, not surprisingly, I came away this time with a good find: Charles Dickens’ “Best Ghost Stories”. I’ve been looking for this one for a while but hadn’t been able to track it down until now. Trust Munro’s to have it. The main reason for wanting this book was for its closing short story “The Signalman”, which I read about in another book (and I can’t remember the title or author) or maybe heard mention of on TV or in a flick. After buying it, I was poking around the store some more, waiting for my wife, when I noticed something odd on the “classics” shelf – Penguin Classics is reprinting a bunch of H. P. Lovecraft stories. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lovecraft collections on the horror or speculative fiction shelves, but the classics? Not that I’m objecting, rather, I’m just surprised these books made it past the literary snobs at the publisher and at the store (which is not to imply that the staff are literary snobs, rather, that it’s a tendency one sees in general in book stores and thus a possibility for consideration here). I mean, the Victorians like Wells or Stoker or Verne or Stevenson or a little earlier with Shelley, those have always been considered authors who belong in the classics (although grudgingly by some stuck-up academics like a certain Victorian Lit prof I once had who refused to acknowledge them at all – but that’s a rant for another time), but Lovecraft getting his due? Will we see Clarke and Asimov or Bradbury lining the classics shelves in a few years? I certainly wouldn’t object, it merely points to a surprising new maturity in the minds of publishers and stores.
Anyhow, Dickens in hand (sorry, I just couldn’t resist), we hit the road and headed up to Courtenay, in the Comox Valley part of northern Vancouver Island. We worked there for a while a number of years ago and fell in love with the place and it was great to get back for a short vacation. 5th Street, in downtown Courtenay, looks, in many ways, like a piece of 1950’s small town North America frozen in time. Lots of old buildings that haven’t changed in years, populated by little local stores that also haven’t changed in years (like Leung’s grocery store – complete with original soda fountain counter). I hit The Laughing Oyster Book Shop, just up the street from Beyond the Kitchen Door (a kitchen shop with a green door – I wonder how many of the locals and tourists get that naughty little joke), and picked up a recent reprint of A.E. van Vogt’s “Slan” – a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while but just haven’t gotten around to. After that I popped into ABC Books & Inner Sanctum (sorry, couldn’t find a url to hyperlink here) – a combination used bookstore and comic shop (also selling cheap tourist trinkets) for a quick browse. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time in ABC/Inner Sanctum when I lived there (not a lot of extra cash in those days), but the store has a solid selection of used SF with a couple of potentially good finds like a good-condition hardcover of “Rendezvous with Rama” (with its astronaut and disco-light-background cover). Didn’t buy anything there this time, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re in the area.
Just across the street though was a mighty disturbing sight – a big frackin’ hole in the ground where the old Palace movie theatre had stood. This was one of the classic small town cinemas of yesteryear with the big façade out front and a single screen inside – none of the multiplex cookie-cutter stuff like we’ve got now. It was a great little cinema, made even better by the fact that when I worked on the north Island, everyone at the station got in for free – all we had to do was hand over a business card. I saw some great SF movies there like “Deep Impact”, as well as some real crap like “Mission to Mars”, but sitting in an authentic small town theatre was an experience unto itself – it was almost Bradburian to take in a show on a warm summer’s night, then come out afterwards and amble down the quiet old town main street under the stars after all the stores had closed. To put it another way, walking past the Palace of an evening, I could almost hear that soft harmonica and piano bit from “Field of Dreams” when Costner sees Doc “Moonlight” Graham for the first time. Since coming home I’ve done a little research. Turns out the Palace was closed for renovations when a fire broke out last July and it was then shut down permanently. Now it’s dust and a wonderful piece of Courtenay’s history is gone. It’s a damn shame.
And so, after resting and relaxing on the Island, we came home to the Lower Mainland. There and back again, as Mr. Baggins once wrote.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Review: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” reads like Harry Turtledove and Mordecai Richler conspired to remake the movie “Chinatown”. (And maybe they consulted Philip K. Dick along the way, with just a dash – just a dash, mind you - of Clavell’s “Shogun”.)
It’s an alternate universe tale, set in the 21st Century on an Earth where the attempt to establish Israel in the late 1940’s failed. Routed by the Arabs, the Jews fled to North America, where a territory was set aside for them on the Alaskan Panhandle. But there’s a catch, the District of Sitka, as it’s known, is only temporary. As the story opens, the 60 year lease on the land is about to expire and residents face another Diaspora.
It’s also a classic gumshoe tale, the story of Detective Meyer Landsman, crack homicide investigator, trying to solve the murder of a heroin-addicted chess genius who lived just a few floors below him in his seedy hotel. To do so, Landsman has to navigate his way through powerful crime syndicates, religious conspiracies, revolutionary dreams, government intrigue and plain old bureaucracy.
And it’s the story of a man trying to redeem himself. Landsman is a manic-depressive alcoholic who bucks authority and lives in a ratty apartment. He’s mourning a failed marriage and a dead sister and has unresolved issues from his childhood.
There is a pervasive sense of loomings (to borrow from the title of chapter 1 of Melville’s “Moby Dick”) in this book. The mountains, forest and sea hem-in the District on all sides. Time is running out for the District as the settlement expiry draws near and a people are unsure of their fate. Shadowy forces conspire for their own ends. There signs of passage indicating the divine may have been lurking about. Men are haunted by their childhoods. Amidst all this, how is one man supposed to sort out his own shit? Yet he doggedly moves in that direction, towards rebuilding himself. Landsman’s story becomes one of survival, and so, in a way, the story of his people.
“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a methodical book that plays out it its own time, like two old friends facing-off across a chess board.
But while I found the story interesting, it wasn’t compelling. I just couldn’t seem to care much about Landsman. And not because of cultural differences either. It was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe Landsman was too down-and-out to draw me in. Maybe his character was, in many ways, too much of a rehash of Rick Deckard (as much as from Scott’s “Blade Runner” as Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”). Maybe the book itself was a little too clinical. Maybe it’s because gumshoe stories, while I’ll read one or watch a film once in a blue moon, are not my favourite. I dunno. The book just didn’t demand that I come back to it right away after dinner. It was good, but it wasn’t great. It was, to borrow a little Yiddish, “nisht geferlekh”.
Special thanks to my good friend David Berner, author of David Talks/The Berner Monologues, for the Yiddish lesson.
It’s an alternate universe tale, set in the 21st Century on an Earth where the attempt to establish Israel in the late 1940’s failed. Routed by the Arabs, the Jews fled to North America, where a territory was set aside for them on the Alaskan Panhandle. But there’s a catch, the District of Sitka, as it’s known, is only temporary. As the story opens, the 60 year lease on the land is about to expire and residents face another Diaspora.
It’s also a classic gumshoe tale, the story of Detective Meyer Landsman, crack homicide investigator, trying to solve the murder of a heroin-addicted chess genius who lived just a few floors below him in his seedy hotel. To do so, Landsman has to navigate his way through powerful crime syndicates, religious conspiracies, revolutionary dreams, government intrigue and plain old bureaucracy.
And it’s the story of a man trying to redeem himself. Landsman is a manic-depressive alcoholic who bucks authority and lives in a ratty apartment. He’s mourning a failed marriage and a dead sister and has unresolved issues from his childhood.
There is a pervasive sense of loomings (to borrow from the title of chapter 1 of Melville’s “Moby Dick”) in this book. The mountains, forest and sea hem-in the District on all sides. Time is running out for the District as the settlement expiry draws near and a people are unsure of their fate. Shadowy forces conspire for their own ends. There signs of passage indicating the divine may have been lurking about. Men are haunted by their childhoods. Amidst all this, how is one man supposed to sort out his own shit? Yet he doggedly moves in that direction, towards rebuilding himself. Landsman’s story becomes one of survival, and so, in a way, the story of his people.
“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a methodical book that plays out it its own time, like two old friends facing-off across a chess board.
But while I found the story interesting, it wasn’t compelling. I just couldn’t seem to care much about Landsman. And not because of cultural differences either. It was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe Landsman was too down-and-out to draw me in. Maybe his character was, in many ways, too much of a rehash of Rick Deckard (as much as from Scott’s “Blade Runner” as Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”). Maybe the book itself was a little too clinical. Maybe it’s because gumshoe stories, while I’ll read one or watch a film once in a blue moon, are not my favourite. I dunno. The book just didn’t demand that I come back to it right away after dinner. It was good, but it wasn’t great. It was, to borrow a little Yiddish, “nisht geferlekh”.
Special thanks to my good friend David Berner, author of David Talks/The Berner Monologues, for the Yiddish lesson.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Hyperion Falls to Warner Brothers
Normally I don’t discuss movie news at length until the flick is released and there’s something to actually talk about. What’s the point of wasting air speculating on a lookahead story when any number of things could come along to derail production or release? But in this case, when it involves one of my favourite stories (SF or otherwise), I can’t help but get drawn into the news. The boys at SF Signal highlighted a story from the Hollywood Reporter the other day about Warner Brothers giving the green light to a movie based on Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos (“Hyperion” and “The Fall of Hyperion”).
This feels like years ago when New Line announced it was bringing “The Lord of the Rings” to the big screen. On one hand, it would be immensely cool to see a “Hyperion” movie if it was done right – if it was done right. That leads to the other, much more likely possibility, that it’ll be gutted and worthless.
Peter Jackson treated LOTR with love and respect, and understood that it had to be done as a trilogy to preserve its depth and scope. But early indications about “Hyperion” aren’t inspiring a lot of confidence in me. The HR article says the plan is to make a single film and that screenwriter Trevor Sands has taken “a selective approach to the two novels’ multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.” Sounds to me like they’re considering dropping or severely stripping-down some of the characters and story lines and most likely favouring a single type of narrative style. I worry that what’s left might be a typical Hollywood slasher flick with a sci-fi backdrop. Lame.
“Hyperion” isn’t a confusing story. It’s demanding, certainly. There’s a lot going on that requires not only a reader’s attention to the plot, but a lot of thought about the philosophical issues raised. And a single film, even one allowed to stray into the 2-3 hour range, just wouldn’t cut it to cover all that.
A proper treatment of the Cantos needs, at the very least, a 3-5 part miniseries (like the Sci-Fi Channel’s great adaptation of “Dune” and “Children of Dune” a few years ago) with each part consisting of minimum 2 hours run time. Ideally, it should have a full TV season to properly flush it out. Here I’m thinking of HBO’s plans for George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Think about it, there are seven pilgrims who embark upon the journey to the Time Tombs, each with vastly different stories told in completely different narrative styles, and each having crucial bearing on the final outcome of the Cantos. Granted, Het Masteen doesn’t play much of a role directly and doesn’t really share his yarn, but by the second half (“The Fall of Hyperion”), you’ve got the Keats cybrid playing a central role. To have a faithful adaptation of Simmons brilliant work requires patience. The Cantos would need an introductory episode, followed by separate episodes for each of the pilgrims’ tales in order for them to be told in enough detail to make any sense and for them to have relevance to the “current” action. You’d then be up to speed enough to play out the events of the second act over the course of several other episodes. And because the perspectives and types of storytelling would change, such a series would offer a completely new experience within itself with every episode. This isn’t an extravagant budgeting of time either. Believe me, I’ve cut enough tape over the years as a reporter that I know you can pare a story down pretty significantly to get to the focus and still make it good, but ultimately, there’s a point where if you hack at it like the Shrike, if you don’t leave the necessary details, if you remove crucial perspectives, then you don’t have a story anymore. At least, not a good one.
I hope I’m wrong, but the more I think about this WB film in development, the more I become resigned to the fact that it will probably be a simple monster movie.
But, since we’re spending time speculating about a movie that hasn’t even started production yet, let’s follow the SF Signal lead and have some fun playing the casting game. Since they’re going ahead with this flick, who would be the best actors to play the key roles in “Hyperion”? Here are my picks:
Martin Silenus – Danny Devito
Father Hoyt – Edward Norton
Colonel Kassad – Oded Fehr
The Consul – John Cusack or Nathan Fillion (Fillion might be better as Endymion from the sequels)
Brawne Lamia – Rosario Dawson
Sol Weintraub – Gene Wilder (watch “Murder in a Small Town” if you don’t believe me)
Father Dure – Robert Duval or Sir Ian McKellen, maybe Al Pacino
Het Masteen – Chow Yun Fat
Rachel Weintraub – Jessica Brooks
John Keats – Jamie Bamber
Meina Gladstone – Lauren Becall
Sad King Billy – Terry Jones
Theo – David Tennant
Shrike Cult Bishop – Bill Duke
Who am I leaving out? More importantly, who would you cast, if you had the time and the resources to make “Hyperion” right?
This feels like years ago when New Line announced it was bringing “The Lord of the Rings” to the big screen. On one hand, it would be immensely cool to see a “Hyperion” movie if it was done right – if it was done right. That leads to the other, much more likely possibility, that it’ll be gutted and worthless.
Peter Jackson treated LOTR with love and respect, and understood that it had to be done as a trilogy to preserve its depth and scope. But early indications about “Hyperion” aren’t inspiring a lot of confidence in me. The HR article says the plan is to make a single film and that screenwriter Trevor Sands has taken “a selective approach to the two novels’ multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.” Sounds to me like they’re considering dropping or severely stripping-down some of the characters and story lines and most likely favouring a single type of narrative style. I worry that what’s left might be a typical Hollywood slasher flick with a sci-fi backdrop. Lame.
“Hyperion” isn’t a confusing story. It’s demanding, certainly. There’s a lot going on that requires not only a reader’s attention to the plot, but a lot of thought about the philosophical issues raised. And a single film, even one allowed to stray into the 2-3 hour range, just wouldn’t cut it to cover all that.
A proper treatment of the Cantos needs, at the very least, a 3-5 part miniseries (like the Sci-Fi Channel’s great adaptation of “Dune” and “Children of Dune” a few years ago) with each part consisting of minimum 2 hours run time. Ideally, it should have a full TV season to properly flush it out. Here I’m thinking of HBO’s plans for George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Think about it, there are seven pilgrims who embark upon the journey to the Time Tombs, each with vastly different stories told in completely different narrative styles, and each having crucial bearing on the final outcome of the Cantos. Granted, Het Masteen doesn’t play much of a role directly and doesn’t really share his yarn, but by the second half (“The Fall of Hyperion”), you’ve got the Keats cybrid playing a central role. To have a faithful adaptation of Simmons brilliant work requires patience. The Cantos would need an introductory episode, followed by separate episodes for each of the pilgrims’ tales in order for them to be told in enough detail to make any sense and for them to have relevance to the “current” action. You’d then be up to speed enough to play out the events of the second act over the course of several other episodes. And because the perspectives and types of storytelling would change, such a series would offer a completely new experience within itself with every episode. This isn’t an extravagant budgeting of time either. Believe me, I’ve cut enough tape over the years as a reporter that I know you can pare a story down pretty significantly to get to the focus and still make it good, but ultimately, there’s a point where if you hack at it like the Shrike, if you don’t leave the necessary details, if you remove crucial perspectives, then you don’t have a story anymore. At least, not a good one.
I hope I’m wrong, but the more I think about this WB film in development, the more I become resigned to the fact that it will probably be a simple monster movie.
But, since we’re spending time speculating about a movie that hasn’t even started production yet, let’s follow the SF Signal lead and have some fun playing the casting game. Since they’re going ahead with this flick, who would be the best actors to play the key roles in “Hyperion”? Here are my picks:
Martin Silenus – Danny Devito
Father Hoyt – Edward Norton
Colonel Kassad – Oded Fehr
The Consul – John Cusack or Nathan Fillion (Fillion might be better as Endymion from the sequels)
Brawne Lamia – Rosario Dawson
Sol Weintraub – Gene Wilder (watch “Murder in a Small Town” if you don’t believe me)
Father Dure – Robert Duval or Sir Ian McKellen, maybe Al Pacino
Het Masteen – Chow Yun Fat
Rachel Weintraub – Jessica Brooks
John Keats – Jamie Bamber
Meina Gladstone – Lauren Becall
Sad King Billy – Terry Jones
Theo – David Tennant
Shrike Cult Bishop – Bill Duke
Who am I leaving out? More importantly, who would you cast, if you had the time and the resources to make “Hyperion” right?
Monday, April 07, 2008
Round 2 of the Aurora Voting
Now that the list of finalists is out for the Aurora Awards, it’s time to choose the winners. Aurora Awards Committee Chair Clint Budd reminds us there are a couple of different ways to cast your ballot:
You can vote online at: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/onlineVotingBallot.html
Or you can download a form to send by snailmail: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/votingballot2008PrixAuroraAwards.pdf
Here’s the catch on these two options though… it’ll cost ya five bucks to vote.
Or you can vote if you’re attending Montreal’s Congres Boreal (May 9-11) or at Keycon 25 in Winnipeg (May 16-19). Keycon is the con that’s hosting the Auroras this year.
Good luck to the finalists!
You can vote online at: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/onlineVotingBallot.html
Or you can download a form to send by snailmail: http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/votingballot2008PrixAuroraAwards.pdf
Here’s the catch on these two options though… it’ll cost ya five bucks to vote.
Or you can vote if you’re attending Montreal’s Congres Boreal (May 9-11) or at Keycon 25 in Winnipeg (May 16-19). Keycon is the con that’s hosting the Auroras this year.
Good luck to the finalists!
Heston Dies
Actor Charlton Heston died on Saturday at the age of 84. Heston starred in a number of memorable SF movies, including “Planet of the Apes” (as well as a cameo as an ape in the Wahlberg remake), “Soylent Green” and “The Omega Man”.
Personally, I think his best performance was in (no, not “Ben-Hur”) a remake of "Treasure Island" where he starred as the crafty old pirate Long John Silver.
I can’t say I approved of his politics vis-Ã -vis firearms, but I will say he was a solid actor.
Personally, I think his best performance was in (no, not “Ben-Hur”) a remake of "Treasure Island" where he starred as the crafty old pirate Long John Silver.
I can’t say I approved of his politics vis-Ã -vis firearms, but I will say he was a solid actor.
And Speaking of Battlestar (again)
Warning: Spoilers (spoilage factor: about the same as that cookie you’ve left in your office desk drawer, saving it for a snack later, just a couple of days too long)
What an explosive way to kick-off season 4 of Battlestar – literally! Of course we knew it would pick-up where season 3 left off, but that was one-heck of a no-holds barred battle sequence to open the show with. Certainly a great space dogfight, but it went far beyond a simple SFX candy fix, surpassing anything sci-fi has served up on the big or small screen in a long time (way beyond the slugfest at the beginning of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”) because of the emotional punch of the group of characters who’ve just discovered they’re Cylons and have just been thrown into a battle before they’ve even settled their identity turmoil. That fact that they’re not sure about themselves or what they should do and sometimes need to give themselves a shake – or have someone else give them a shake – to snap-to and get on with things made this sequence especially strong. This isn’t just a pat one-shot plot twist where characters make a change, shrug, and get on with what they’re supposed to be doing, this realization is a psychic blow that leaves them reeling and unsure of not only themselves, but of their actions or inactions during the fight.
If there was a weakness to the episode, I’d say it was the Adama-Starbuck relationship. At first viewing, it seems as though Adama is a little more comfortable with Starbuck than you’d think he should be. Sure, he loves her like a daughter and some part of him desperately wants this to be the real Starbuck so she’ll be back in the family, but given his tendencies over the past three seasons, you’d think he’d be more likely in this situation to have his guard up (like when Sharon returned), suspecting another betrayal, and thus be at least a little more hostile. Although some might argue that this seeming indulgence of Starbuck on Adama’s part shows the cleverness of the writing here in illustrating just how human the Admiral is, and how prone to making a possible mistake out of the need to have a loved-one back.
All in all, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this final season play-out.
What an explosive way to kick-off season 4 of Battlestar – literally! Of course we knew it would pick-up where season 3 left off, but that was one-heck of a no-holds barred battle sequence to open the show with. Certainly a great space dogfight, but it went far beyond a simple SFX candy fix, surpassing anything sci-fi has served up on the big or small screen in a long time (way beyond the slugfest at the beginning of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”) because of the emotional punch of the group of characters who’ve just discovered they’re Cylons and have just been thrown into a battle before they’ve even settled their identity turmoil. That fact that they’re not sure about themselves or what they should do and sometimes need to give themselves a shake – or have someone else give them a shake – to snap-to and get on with things made this sequence especially strong. This isn’t just a pat one-shot plot twist where characters make a change, shrug, and get on with what they’re supposed to be doing, this realization is a psychic blow that leaves them reeling and unsure of not only themselves, but of their actions or inactions during the fight.
If there was a weakness to the episode, I’d say it was the Adama-Starbuck relationship. At first viewing, it seems as though Adama is a little more comfortable with Starbuck than you’d think he should be. Sure, he loves her like a daughter and some part of him desperately wants this to be the real Starbuck so she’ll be back in the family, but given his tendencies over the past three seasons, you’d think he’d be more likely in this situation to have his guard up (like when Sharon returned), suspecting another betrayal, and thus be at least a little more hostile. Although some might argue that this seeming indulgence of Starbuck on Adama’s part shows the cleverness of the writing here in illustrating just how human the Admiral is, and how prone to making a possible mistake out of the need to have a loved-one back.
All in all, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this final season play-out.
Another Lucky Bastard
A buddy of mine was at a Canucks game the other night (no, that’s not what makes him lucky – the level of play from the damn Canuckleheads is far too inconsistent [with the exception of Luongo, who rocks] to make seeing one of their games lucky) and got to hang out for the whole evening with Aaron Douglas – Battlestar Galactica’s Chief Galen Tyrol. My buddy was watching the game in a corporate box with a couple of other guys, one of whom, the box-getter, is a Battlestar fan. Apparently Douglas was in a regular seat nearby, and one of the arena staff, knowing of boxboy’s fandom, asked Douglas if he’d like to come up and be their guest. Douglas accepted and ended up spending the game with them. My friend said Douglas was a pretty good guy and it was (aside from the game sucking) an enjoyable evening shooting the breeze. Wanna know what the irony is? This friend of mine (not the boxboy, mind you) isn’t a Battlestar fan himself. He hasn’t gotten around to watching the series yet. The luck of some people…
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Battlestar's Sackhoff & Park Interviewed in Maclean's
Maclean’s Magazine has interviewed Katie Sackhoff (Starbuck) and Grace Park (Sharon/Athena) about the soon-to-debut Season 4 of “Battlestar Galactica”.
Read the interview on the Maclean’s site. Warning: some spoilers.
Thanks to Drakkenfyre for the heads-up!
Read the interview on the Maclean’s site. Warning: some spoilers.
Thanks to Drakkenfyre for the heads-up!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Finalists for the 2008 Aurora Awards
The list of finalists for the 2008 Aurora Awards (Canada’s awards for SF fiction in English & French, art & fandom) was released today. Visit the Canadian SF Works Database site for the entire list. Looks like most of the stuff I nominated in the first round didn’t make it on the ballot this year.
The nominees for Best Long-Form Work in English are:
-“As Fate Decrees” by Denyse Bridger
-“New Moon’s Arms” by Nalo Hopkinson
-“The Moon Under Her Feet” by Derwin Mak
-“Rollback” by Robert J. Sawyer
-“Cry Wolf” by Edo van Belkom
The only one to make it through here from my list was Sawyer’s great book about a man given a second chance when technology restores his youth while his still-geriatric wife tries to unlock the secrets of an alien transmission.
I struck-out completely on picking the finalists for the Best Short-Form Work in English:
-“Falling” by David Clink
-“Saturn in G Minor” by Stephen Kotowych
-“Metamorphoses in Amber” by Tony Pi
-“The Dancer at the Red Door” by Douglas Smith
-“Like Water in the Desert” by Hayden Trenholm
Better luck picking them in the Best Work in English (Other) category though:
-“Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science” edited by Julie E. Czerneda
-“Under Cover of Darkness” edited by Julie E. Czerneda & Jana Paniccia
-“Tesseracts Eleven” edited by Cory Doctorow & Holly Phillips
-“Neo-opsis” edited by Karl Johanson
-“On Spec Magazine” edited by Diane Walton
I’d given the nod to On Spec and Neo-opsis, both fine mags indeed, but the latest installment of the Tesseracts anthologies was weak at best. Not sure how that one made it on the ballot, unless people just nominated it because there was so little to nominate.
The last category where I submitted my two bits was Fan Achievement (Organizational):
-Debbie Hodgins (KAG)
-Penny Lipman (Masquerades)
-Roy Miles (IDIC)
-Joan Sherman (IDIC)
-Geoffrey Toop (DWIN)
No love here either… I’d nominated VCon 32/Canvention 27.
Oh well.
Congratulations to the nominees who did make it onto the ballot! Best of luck to all!
The nominees for Best Long-Form Work in English are:
-“As Fate Decrees” by Denyse Bridger
-“New Moon’s Arms” by Nalo Hopkinson
-“The Moon Under Her Feet” by Derwin Mak
-“Rollback” by Robert J. Sawyer
-“Cry Wolf” by Edo van Belkom
The only one to make it through here from my list was Sawyer’s great book about a man given a second chance when technology restores his youth while his still-geriatric wife tries to unlock the secrets of an alien transmission.
I struck-out completely on picking the finalists for the Best Short-Form Work in English:
-“Falling” by David Clink
-“Saturn in G Minor” by Stephen Kotowych
-“Metamorphoses in Amber” by Tony Pi
-“The Dancer at the Red Door” by Douglas Smith
-“Like Water in the Desert” by Hayden Trenholm
Better luck picking them in the Best Work in English (Other) category though:
-“Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science” edited by Julie E. Czerneda
-“Under Cover of Darkness” edited by Julie E. Czerneda & Jana Paniccia
-“Tesseracts Eleven” edited by Cory Doctorow & Holly Phillips
-“Neo-opsis” edited by Karl Johanson
-“On Spec Magazine” edited by Diane Walton
I’d given the nod to On Spec and Neo-opsis, both fine mags indeed, but the latest installment of the Tesseracts anthologies was weak at best. Not sure how that one made it on the ballot, unless people just nominated it because there was so little to nominate.
The last category where I submitted my two bits was Fan Achievement (Organizational):
-Debbie Hodgins (KAG)
-Penny Lipman (Masquerades)
-Roy Miles (IDIC)
-Joan Sherman (IDIC)
-Geoffrey Toop (DWIN)
No love here either… I’d nominated VCon 32/Canvention 27.
Oh well.
Congratulations to the nominees who did make it onto the ballot! Best of luck to all!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Lucky Bastard
One of my wife’s coworkers, who happens to be a fellow "Battlestar Galactica" fanboy, got a very nice package in the mail yesterday – a copy of the script for the Season 1 episode “33” signed by 9 of the leading cast members! Seems he has a buddy who worked on the BSG production here in Vancouver in some capacity who asked the stars to sign the script. Nice to have friends like that, huh?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A Writer's Odyssey - RIP Arthur C. Clarke
News today of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s death.
It strikes me that this is another sign that we’re in a time of transition for science fiction. 30-40 years ago, the genre saw the rise of the New Wave, where Golden Age authors like Clarke and Asimov had to share space with young radicals like Harlan Ellison. Times changed and other movements rose, some finding their stride and developing staying power, others falling quietly by the wayside. But the Golden Age authors were always there – the respected elders still telling tales by the fire who we kept returning to. Sure, younger authors came and made their mark, but even if they were silent for years at a time, veterans like Clarke always came to the forefront again when they were ready, and because they tended to be toting something worthwhile in their bag of literary tricks, they always got our attention. But, to paraphrase a line from the movie “The Longest Day”, the thing about being one of the few, is that they keep getting fewer. Today, with the passing of Clarke, science fiction has one less venerable elder around the fire, and we’re forced to realize just how few of the Golden Agers really are left. Puts me in mind of that scene aboard the White Star in “Babylon 5” at the close of the Shadow War when Sheridan muses that it feels like some of the magic has gone out of the universe, now that the First Ones are gone. Sure, as Delenn points out, it’s time for the young to make magic. But still, there’s no denying we’ve lost something valuable.
It was Clarke who formed the nucleus of hard SF in my early education in the genre as a pre-teen. As I plundered the library and bookstores for stories that illuminated big ideas, Clarke showed how they could be grounded in what was really possible without losing the sense of wonder. As an adult, reading through some of his novels or short story anthologies that I purchased years ago, I’m impressed at how Clarke’s writing has withstood the test of time. As many of us have found out, one of the painful realities of revisiting favourite authors of our youth – even some of the legends whose works hooked us on SF in the first place – is that some don’t age well. Whether we find the ideas stale in our modern world of lightspeed technological developments, or whether in maturity we realize some of the oldtimers’ writing styles were clumsy or characterizations weak, it can be hard to enjoy their stories as much now as then. Frank Herbert comes to mind as a writer who’s style tends to invoke a “meh” from me, even if his ideas remain colossal. Even the mighty Asimov, whose works I devoured voraciously throughout my teens, all too often seems somewhat drab now. But Clarke, now Clarke’s another story. I still pick up some of Clarke’s old books and thoroughly enjoy his writing, never mind the cosmic scale of his imagination. Clarke succeeds through the decades because beyond the ideas he was a good storyteller. He knew how to use the language. And while he could always hold his own, in recent years he made good showings as well in his many novels that he co-authored with other writers.
Looking back at Clarke’s gigantic body of work, I thought I’d share some of my favourites…
Of his short stories, my favorite is “Superiority”, about an alien general imprisoned by Earth recounting his species’ failed attempt at conquest. Others rounding out the top 5 are:
"The Star" (a traditional Christmas read around my house)
“The Sentinel” (naturally) – inspiration for “2001”
“Expedition to Earth”
“Second Dawn”
Turning to his novels, number one on my list is “2001” (of course), but in a very, very close second is its first sequel “2010 – Odyssey Two”. I’ll never forget Heywood Floyd’s impression of Io as the Leonov flies past, or the destruction of the Chinese expedition that puts down on Europa. Others in the top 5 include:
“The Songs of Distant Earth”
“The Ghost from the Grand Banks”
“Rendezvous with Rama”
And again, Clarke did an impressive body of collaborative work, so I’ll tip my hat to his efforts there. Probably my favourite among his co-authored works was his most recent – the “Time Odyssey” series, where he and Stephen Baxter made a radically different re-imagining of some of the ideas behind “2001”.
So long, Arthur, we’ll keep a spot open by the fire for ya.
It strikes me that this is another sign that we’re in a time of transition for science fiction. 30-40 years ago, the genre saw the rise of the New Wave, where Golden Age authors like Clarke and Asimov had to share space with young radicals like Harlan Ellison. Times changed and other movements rose, some finding their stride and developing staying power, others falling quietly by the wayside. But the Golden Age authors were always there – the respected elders still telling tales by the fire who we kept returning to. Sure, younger authors came and made their mark, but even if they were silent for years at a time, veterans like Clarke always came to the forefront again when they were ready, and because they tended to be toting something worthwhile in their bag of literary tricks, they always got our attention. But, to paraphrase a line from the movie “The Longest Day”, the thing about being one of the few, is that they keep getting fewer. Today, with the passing of Clarke, science fiction has one less venerable elder around the fire, and we’re forced to realize just how few of the Golden Agers really are left. Puts me in mind of that scene aboard the White Star in “Babylon 5” at the close of the Shadow War when Sheridan muses that it feels like some of the magic has gone out of the universe, now that the First Ones are gone. Sure, as Delenn points out, it’s time for the young to make magic. But still, there’s no denying we’ve lost something valuable.
It was Clarke who formed the nucleus of hard SF in my early education in the genre as a pre-teen. As I plundered the library and bookstores for stories that illuminated big ideas, Clarke showed how they could be grounded in what was really possible without losing the sense of wonder. As an adult, reading through some of his novels or short story anthologies that I purchased years ago, I’m impressed at how Clarke’s writing has withstood the test of time. As many of us have found out, one of the painful realities of revisiting favourite authors of our youth – even some of the legends whose works hooked us on SF in the first place – is that some don’t age well. Whether we find the ideas stale in our modern world of lightspeed technological developments, or whether in maturity we realize some of the oldtimers’ writing styles were clumsy or characterizations weak, it can be hard to enjoy their stories as much now as then. Frank Herbert comes to mind as a writer who’s style tends to invoke a “meh” from me, even if his ideas remain colossal. Even the mighty Asimov, whose works I devoured voraciously throughout my teens, all too often seems somewhat drab now. But Clarke, now Clarke’s another story. I still pick up some of Clarke’s old books and thoroughly enjoy his writing, never mind the cosmic scale of his imagination. Clarke succeeds through the decades because beyond the ideas he was a good storyteller. He knew how to use the language. And while he could always hold his own, in recent years he made good showings as well in his many novels that he co-authored with other writers.
Looking back at Clarke’s gigantic body of work, I thought I’d share some of my favourites…
Of his short stories, my favorite is “Superiority”, about an alien general imprisoned by Earth recounting his species’ failed attempt at conquest. Others rounding out the top 5 are:
"The Star" (a traditional Christmas read around my house)
“The Sentinel” (naturally) – inspiration for “2001”
“Expedition to Earth”
“Second Dawn”
Turning to his novels, number one on my list is “2001” (of course), but in a very, very close second is its first sequel “2010 – Odyssey Two”. I’ll never forget Heywood Floyd’s impression of Io as the Leonov flies past, or the destruction of the Chinese expedition that puts down on Europa. Others in the top 5 include:
“The Songs of Distant Earth”
“The Ghost from the Grand Banks”
“Rendezvous with Rama”
And again, Clarke did an impressive body of collaborative work, so I’ll tip my hat to his efforts there. Probably my favourite among his co-authored works was his most recent – the “Time Odyssey” series, where he and Stephen Baxter made a radically different re-imagining of some of the ideas behind “2001”.
So long, Arthur, we’ll keep a spot open by the fire for ya.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Happy St. Patrick's Day
Okay, so I forgot to wear green today, I missed the parade at Celtic Fest on the weekend (complete with a myriad of multicultural performers from around the world amidst the traditional bagpipes and fiddles and packs of wolfhounds – ah, Vancouver, jewel of the Pacific, crossroads of the world), I didn’t have time to stroll down the road to the local pub for a celebratory pint of Guiness (although I did enjoy a double-shot of Bushmills from my liquor cabinet), I haven’t had time to crack open an SF book by an Irish author, and I’m not even Irish (although, typical Canadian mutt, I do have some in me), but this being St. Patrick’s Day, I figured I’d at least do a quick blog posting to highlight it.
Because it’s late after a full day at work (and that Bushmills is ever so gently easing my already considerable weariness into the forefront) I won’t go on as long as I could about all of the great contributions the Emerald Isle has made to western folklore and culture, nor do I have time to do a full role-call of all the great authors and books and actors and films. Rather, I’ll just give the nod to one who popped up on my radar again recently when I was re-watching the animated “Beowulf’ after purchasing the DVD: Brendan Gleeson. This Dubliner has always impressed me with his strong performances in a variety of roles, from the stolid but uneasy Wiglaf in the afore-mentioned Anglo-Saxon tale, to the uber-badass Snake-Plissken-on-a-broomstick Mad Eye Moody in the “Harry Potter” films, to the weary mourning father in “The Village”, to the vicious exploitative “entertainment” promoter masquerading as a righteous defender of humanity in “A.I.”, to the smooth-talking old scoundrel/new dad/ultra traffic jam-surviving hyper-evolved cat in an episode of the new “Doctor Who”, and the list goes on. You don’t need to chase rainbows to find treasure when you can watch a performance like that.
Because it’s late after a full day at work (and that Bushmills is ever so gently easing my already considerable weariness into the forefront) I won’t go on as long as I could about all of the great contributions the Emerald Isle has made to western folklore and culture, nor do I have time to do a full role-call of all the great authors and books and actors and films. Rather, I’ll just give the nod to one who popped up on my radar again recently when I was re-watching the animated “Beowulf’ after purchasing the DVD: Brendan Gleeson. This Dubliner has always impressed me with his strong performances in a variety of roles, from the stolid but uneasy Wiglaf in the afore-mentioned Anglo-Saxon tale, to the uber-badass Snake-Plissken-on-a-broomstick Mad Eye Moody in the “Harry Potter” films, to the weary mourning father in “The Village”, to the vicious exploitative “entertainment” promoter masquerading as a righteous defender of humanity in “A.I.”, to the smooth-talking old scoundrel/new dad/ultra traffic jam-surviving hyper-evolved cat in an episode of the new “Doctor Who”, and the list goes on. You don’t need to chase rainbows to find treasure when you can watch a performance like that.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Another Con in the Works
Looks like the organizers behind VCon, the annual Vancouver science fiction, fantasy and gaming convention, are getting the ball rolling for this year’s event. They’ve made their first update of the year on the VCon website; keep your eye out for more as preparations for the 33rd SF shindig move forward.
In other con news, I’ve been stopping by the Anticipation site every now and then to see how preparations are going for Worldcon 67 in Montreal. I didn’t have the cash to make it out to the one in Toronto years ago and my wife and I have got too much on the go this year to fly down to Denver for Denvention 3 – the 66th Worldcon, so we figured we’d definitely head to La Belle Province for the 2009 edition. We’ll probably extend the trip with a jaunt into Ontario to see friends and family afterward. So far, the Anticipation crew seems to be putting together a good lineup of guests. Just waiting to see their streams. At some point I’ll have to get around to registering before the price goes up. Mind you, it’s not the price of membership that bugs me, it’s what the price of oil/gas will do to transportation costs to get there! Oh, Doc Brown, patron saint of wacky inventions, where’s that trash-powered, flying car when I need one?!
In other con news, I’ve been stopping by the Anticipation site every now and then to see how preparations are going for Worldcon 67 in Montreal. I didn’t have the cash to make it out to the one in Toronto years ago and my wife and I have got too much on the go this year to fly down to Denver for Denvention 3 – the 66th Worldcon, so we figured we’d definitely head to La Belle Province for the 2009 edition. We’ll probably extend the trip with a jaunt into Ontario to see friends and family afterward. So far, the Anticipation crew seems to be putting together a good lineup of guests. Just waiting to see their streams. At some point I’ll have to get around to registering before the price goes up. Mind you, it’s not the price of membership that bugs me, it’s what the price of oil/gas will do to transportation costs to get there! Oh, Doc Brown, patron saint of wacky inventions, where’s that trash-powered, flying car when I need one?!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Big Group Steals the Record for Dressing Like Robin Hood
The BBC’s got a great story about a band of merry men (and women) who invaded Nottingham last weekend, not to topple the Sheriff, but to break the world record for the most people dressed as Robin Hood. And just like England’s famous outlaw, they took the gold, setting a new world record of 1,119. That easily splits the arrow of the old record, which was 607. To qualify, participants had to meet the dress code minimum: a feathered cap, a green or brown tunic and trousers, and leather footwear. As a couple of DJ’s from a radio station here in Vancouver quipped this morning: any one of those people could probably give a better performance than Kevin Costner.
Hearing the story this morning got me to thinking about the many, many takes on the Robin Hood legend in books, film and TV. There are quite a few I enjoy, but my favourite is probably “Sherwood” and “Robin & the King” – a semi-reimagining of the tale by Parke Godwin. The worst, hands-down, was an old cartoon from the late sixties (which I saw in reruns in the 70’s as a kid) called “Rocket Robin Hood” – terrible animation and stories so boring I felt like the writers must have been hit a few too many times with a quarterstaff.
Hearing the story this morning got me to thinking about the many, many takes on the Robin Hood legend in books, film and TV. There are quite a few I enjoy, but my favourite is probably “Sherwood” and “Robin & the King” – a semi-reimagining of the tale by Parke Godwin. The worst, hands-down, was an old cartoon from the late sixties (which I saw in reruns in the 70’s as a kid) called “Rocket Robin Hood” – terrible animation and stories so boring I felt like the writers must have been hit a few too many times with a quarterstaff.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
R.I.P. Gary Gygax
There was a note on SF Signal and a couple of other sites the other day reporting that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons had died.
For more than a few of us, D&D was a presence (sometimes near, sometimes distant but still there) in our childhoods and teen years. And there are certainly many who still enjoy the game and its various spin-offs and clones as adults.
I can remember buying some of the toys and watching the game-inspired “Dungeons & Dragons” Saturday morning cartoon back in the early 80’s. Back then, it was one of the cooler shows, what with the constant barrage of monsters and magic and weird landscapes. Later, as a pre-teen, some of the older kids introduced me and my friends to the role-playing game that started it all. Soon enough we were buying modules and strange multi-sided dice and building our own adventures once or twice a month. I remember having to explain the game to my mother when my younger brother and his friends started to play it regularly (more regularly than my friends and I had done) – some uptight members of the town’s mothers’ grapevine were trying to convince her it was a dangerous game and I had to make the case that, like any game, roleplaying was only trouble in the hands of kids who would were themselves dangerous and would be dangerous in any activity. From D&D, my friends and I went on to play the Marvel superheroes RPG for a little while in high school – usually for an hour or two after school in one of the school library’s board rooms (sometimes our girlfriends would play, other times it was just the guys). My brother and his buddies favoured the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles and the Rifts systems. Roleplaying had more or less lost my interest by the time I went to university, but I had friends who continued to play and my brother’s group kept at it for many years.
It’s pretty impressive how one game rooted in consensual imagination could spawn into so many sub-groups, inspire copies and branch out into other media. In fact, in the age of huge MMORPG’s, it’s interesting to note that the old game, the one that started it all, is still around. Yeah, there may be more people logging on to World of Warcraft and games like it, but most colleges and universities still have gamers clubs, comic and games shops host regular games and tournaments, and nearly every SF con has a gaming room where you can still see groups of men and women tossing strange dice as they explore the depths of their imaginations.
Getting people to come together to build their imaginations and tell stories is a great legacy for Gygax to leave behind.
For more than a few of us, D&D was a presence (sometimes near, sometimes distant but still there) in our childhoods and teen years. And there are certainly many who still enjoy the game and its various spin-offs and clones as adults.
I can remember buying some of the toys and watching the game-inspired “Dungeons & Dragons” Saturday morning cartoon back in the early 80’s. Back then, it was one of the cooler shows, what with the constant barrage of monsters and magic and weird landscapes. Later, as a pre-teen, some of the older kids introduced me and my friends to the role-playing game that started it all. Soon enough we were buying modules and strange multi-sided dice and building our own adventures once or twice a month. I remember having to explain the game to my mother when my younger brother and his friends started to play it regularly (more regularly than my friends and I had done) – some uptight members of the town’s mothers’ grapevine were trying to convince her it was a dangerous game and I had to make the case that, like any game, roleplaying was only trouble in the hands of kids who would were themselves dangerous and would be dangerous in any activity. From D&D, my friends and I went on to play the Marvel superheroes RPG for a little while in high school – usually for an hour or two after school in one of the school library’s board rooms (sometimes our girlfriends would play, other times it was just the guys). My brother and his buddies favoured the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles and the Rifts systems. Roleplaying had more or less lost my interest by the time I went to university, but I had friends who continued to play and my brother’s group kept at it for many years.
It’s pretty impressive how one game rooted in consensual imagination could spawn into so many sub-groups, inspire copies and branch out into other media. In fact, in the age of huge MMORPG’s, it’s interesting to note that the old game, the one that started it all, is still around. Yeah, there may be more people logging on to World of Warcraft and games like it, but most colleges and universities still have gamers clubs, comic and games shops host regular games and tournaments, and nearly every SF con has a gaming room where you can still see groups of men and women tossing strange dice as they explore the depths of their imaginations.
Getting people to come together to build their imaginations and tell stories is a great legacy for Gygax to leave behind.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
A New Look for On Spec's Website
Canada’s top SF magazine, On Spec, has redesigned its website: www.onspec.ca I have to say they’ve done a fine job of it. The new design is simple and elegant and the functionality works quite well. From the looks of it, there are still a couple of pages that need the content filled-in, but that’ll happen soon enough, I assume.
I’m not sure when exactly the new design kicked-in, but I suspect it happened sometime in the last week or two. As I mentioned not too long ago, I’ve been starting to wonder when the Winter 2007 issue of On Spec will be released, so I’ve been checking the site every now and again for the past couple of weeks. When I clicked on it earlier this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to find the new look (as well as the cover for the Winter ’07 edition, which made me doubly happy).
My hope is that the On Spec blog will soon follow suit. Aside from the blog’s look needing to be in-line with that of the primary site, I think this is an opportunity for the gang at On Spec to take a hard look at their philosophy behind the blog. It’s got a lot of potential for good content and community-building (which, fan priorities aside, from a business perspective, feeds into subscriber loyalty and increased subscription and ad sales), but since its launch, the On Spec blog’s potential has been largely unrealized. The central problem is that they’re not adding new content anywhere near frequently enough. Months can go by between postings. In order to keep readers/community members coming back, in order to make it a top SF destination on the net, rather than a forgotten and rarely-visited waystation, the mag staff have got to start beefing-up the blog. I’m talking about regular columns by the editors or frequent contributors, I’m talking about guest editorials by some of Canada’s big name authors, I’m talking about online diaries of the staff attending cons across the country, or anecdotes from the assembly of each issue of the mag, or progress notes if the mag’s going to be late, or regular writing tips, or more book and movie reviews, or highlights from the annual Auroras, or… or… or… Well, you get the point. They could and should be doing more with the On Spec blog.
That being said, I’m betting there are probably very good reasons why we haven’t seen more from the blog. I’m guessing it’s got to do with staffing and time limitations, probably stemming from the fact that it’s a big job assembling a lineup of great stories and poems and then putting the mag itself together every quarter (never mind finding time for personal lives and possibly other careers). As a former radio newscaster who had to assemble casts, read the news on-air, get stories, and, when time permitted, update the news content on the station’s website, I’m well away that websites and blogs can come in a very distant second on the priority list. And yet, maybe that’s where the staff can tap into some of their regular contributors or reliable readers to help out. A web presence and its community-building power are integral for the success of a publication like this in our era. If the resources aren’t there in the mag’s office to supply the blog with regular fresh content, that’s where tapping the community at-large becomes a solution worth examining. I think there are probably legions of loyal readers (myself included) and contributors who’d be willing to lend a hand.
At any rate, these things can take time, and like the reader waiting for the next issue of On Spec to arrive in the mail or on the shelf of the local book store, we’ve got to be patient. I think though, that in re-imaging the On Spec website, the mag’s staff have definitely evolved in the right direction.
I’m not sure when exactly the new design kicked-in, but I suspect it happened sometime in the last week or two. As I mentioned not too long ago, I’ve been starting to wonder when the Winter 2007 issue of On Spec will be released, so I’ve been checking the site every now and again for the past couple of weeks. When I clicked on it earlier this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to find the new look (as well as the cover for the Winter ’07 edition, which made me doubly happy).
My hope is that the On Spec blog will soon follow suit. Aside from the blog’s look needing to be in-line with that of the primary site, I think this is an opportunity for the gang at On Spec to take a hard look at their philosophy behind the blog. It’s got a lot of potential for good content and community-building (which, fan priorities aside, from a business perspective, feeds into subscriber loyalty and increased subscription and ad sales), but since its launch, the On Spec blog’s potential has been largely unrealized. The central problem is that they’re not adding new content anywhere near frequently enough. Months can go by between postings. In order to keep readers/community members coming back, in order to make it a top SF destination on the net, rather than a forgotten and rarely-visited waystation, the mag staff have got to start beefing-up the blog. I’m talking about regular columns by the editors or frequent contributors, I’m talking about guest editorials by some of Canada’s big name authors, I’m talking about online diaries of the staff attending cons across the country, or anecdotes from the assembly of each issue of the mag, or progress notes if the mag’s going to be late, or regular writing tips, or more book and movie reviews, or highlights from the annual Auroras, or… or… or… Well, you get the point. They could and should be doing more with the On Spec blog.
That being said, I’m betting there are probably very good reasons why we haven’t seen more from the blog. I’m guessing it’s got to do with staffing and time limitations, probably stemming from the fact that it’s a big job assembling a lineup of great stories and poems and then putting the mag itself together every quarter (never mind finding time for personal lives and possibly other careers). As a former radio newscaster who had to assemble casts, read the news on-air, get stories, and, when time permitted, update the news content on the station’s website, I’m well away that websites and blogs can come in a very distant second on the priority list. And yet, maybe that’s where the staff can tap into some of their regular contributors or reliable readers to help out. A web presence and its community-building power are integral for the success of a publication like this in our era. If the resources aren’t there in the mag’s office to supply the blog with regular fresh content, that’s where tapping the community at-large becomes a solution worth examining. I think there are probably legions of loyal readers (myself included) and contributors who’d be willing to lend a hand.
At any rate, these things can take time, and like the reader waiting for the next issue of On Spec to arrive in the mail or on the shelf of the local book store, we’ve got to be patient. I think though, that in re-imaging the On Spec website, the mag’s staff have definitely evolved in the right direction.
And the Nominees Are:
Just about the only advantage to being home this past week, too sick to go to work, has been that I’ve finally had time to give some thought to the 2007/08 Aurora Awards. The Auroras are Canada’s top awards for professional speculative fiction in English and in French, as well as artistic achievement and fan efforts.
It seems like it wasn’t too long ago that I was filing my nominations for the last round of Auroras (which were given out at VCon 32/Canvention 27 here on the Lower Mainland back in October), but the convention that will be hosting the awards this year (Keycon 25 in Winnipeg) is coming up soon.
A nice change this time around is the addition of an online nomination ballot – good to see the organizers behind an SF award finally getting around to joining the 21st Century. The balloting system lets you make three nominations per category, which makes the tough decisions easier (well, a little easier, anyway) if you’ve got a bunch of top contenders you want to put in the running.
The difficulty, admittedly, is that I haven’t read every piece of SF written by Canadians or residents of Canada this year, and because my French is somewhat rusty (the reality is we have far more use for Cantonese and Mandarin out here on the West Coast), I haven’t been keeping up with the stuff en francais that’s come out of Quebec, New Brunswick, St. Boniface or any other francophone part of the country except when it’s translated in anthologies like Tesseracts. But I think the reality is that, unless you’re a book or magazine editor, it’s pretty hard to keep on top of everything, so you read what you can when you can and make your judgments based on what you know.
Anyway, without further ado, here are my nominations for this year’s Aurora Awards:
Best Long-Form Work in English:
“From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain” by Minister Faust
“Rollback” by Robert J. Sawyer
“Axis” by Robert Charles Wilson
Edmonton’s Faust gave us hands-down the best SF book to come out of this country in 2007. It’s viciously funny while showing a knowledge and love of the superhero genre (especially for the warts on those heroic visages) and it acts as a platform for unflinching indictments of both the self-help book (or self-hurt as a friend once said)/pop-psychiatric scene and the modern political arena in North America.
Toronto’s Sawyer should be given credit for his sensitive portrayal of the lives of seniors and the complexities of relationships that change over time – and especially in this story as they’re changed by the technology of the times. Here he poses the question: what would you do if you were given a second chance?
I’ve reviewed this year’s solid showing by the other Torontonian on the slate, Wilson, so there’s no need to go into detail about “Axis” except to say that it’s a good book in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke.
Best Long-Form Work in French:
Again, I haven’t read from this year’s francophone fare, so no nominations here.
Best Short-Form Work in English:
“Why the Poets Were Banned from the City” by Jerome Stueart (in the Spring 2007 edition of On Spec)
“The Object of Worship” by Claude Lalumiere (in the “Tesseracts 11” anthology)
“…But With a Whimper” by Greg Wilson (in the Fall 2007 edition of On Spec)
This was a really tough category to pick favourites. There were a hell of a lot of good short stories to choose from this year, many gracing the pages of On Spec (I’m still waiting for my Winter 2007 issue to be delivered, so who knows how many other options could have frustrated my selection process if it had arrived before I filled out the nomination ballot!)
Stueart’s tale illustrates the power of writing while warning about current trends in politics and society that favour pragmatism and ignorance over creativity and knowledge.
Lalumiere examines religion and relationships.
And Wilson makes a cutting display of how revenge truly is a dish best served cold.
But because the process of choosing nominees was so hard this year, I thought I’d also rattle off my list of other top contenders you should try to read if you’ve got some time:
“The Pursuer” by Scott Mackay (On Spec, Fall 2007)
“Nine Sketches in Charcoal and Blood” by Marie Brennan (On Spec, Fall 2007)
“The Laws of Motion” by Catharine Macleod (On Spec, Summer 2007)
“Manna” by Leslie Brown (On Spec, Summer 2007)
“Quiet Empire” by Michael Vance (On Spec, Summer 2007)
“Made” by Paul Hosek (On Spec, Spring 2007)
Best Short-Form Work in French:
And because the one or two stories translated from French that I’ve read this year didn’t make an impact on me, no nominations here.
Best Work in English (Other):
On Spec Magazine
“Overclocked – Stories of the Future Present” by Cory Doctorow
Neo-Opsis Magazine
This is kind of the professional catch-all category, so it’s a great chance to pay respects to On Spec, a world-class SF mag by anyone’s standards (although I wish they’d add more new content to their website on a regular basis!) showcasing the best work by Canadians and others from around the globe. And Neo-Opsis deserves to be highlighted as well for their continuously solid effort. This is also the category where I think it’s appropriate to give the nod to Doctorow’s anthology, which was pretty entertaining overall, although I’m not sure whether it counts given that the stories were available online far in advance of the book getting published.
Best Work in French (Other):
Merde. I wish I had something to say here, but I don’t. Moving right along…
Artistic Achievement:
Another category where I don’t feel qualified to make a nomination. While some of the artwork on the various mag or book covers is interesting enough, none of the pictures, by themselves, have been absorbing enough to me to really merit nominations. While I give the artists full credit for their creativity and efforts, I’m more interested in the art of the words than that of the paintbrush.
Fan Achievement (Fanzine):
I don’t have time to read fanzines (which is not to comment on their quality, I simply don’t have enough time in my day), so nothing much to say here either.
Fan Achievement (Organizational):
VCon 32/Canvention 27
Cheers to the folks who put on a good con last year. Keep ‘em coming!
Fan Achievement (Other):
I guess this would be another catch-all category where things like blogs and websites and fan groups or fan support efforts would go. It would probably be crass to nominate myself, so I can’t put down bloginhood. And there isn’t much else I can nominate either… I don’t have enough time in the day to be a part of fan groups or support efforts, and as for other websites/blogs… I certainly can’t nominate Spacecast (the site for Space, Canada’s SF TV channel) because, well, it’s pretty lame, especially since they stopped posting the text version of Hypaspace (which itself, as a weekly feature, is getting pretty tired). As for other fan sites originating here in the Great White North (doff your toques and insert cuckoo theme by the Mackenzie brothers), I haven’t stumbled across any that have grabbed my attention. Probably my fault for not looking hard enough, but it gets back to that time thing. If someone sent me a link to a good site run by fellow Canucks, I’d definitely give it a look and maybe find something to nominate next year.
So that’s my nomination ballot for the 2007/08 Aurora Awards. The organizers are accepting nominations until March 17th (unless they start extending the process ad-nauseum like they did last year), so there’ s still plenty of time for you to have your say. Visit the awards page at http://prix-aurora-awards.ca/English/home.html
It seems like it wasn’t too long ago that I was filing my nominations for the last round of Auroras (which were given out at VCon 32/Canvention 27 here on the Lower Mainland back in October), but the convention that will be hosting the awards this year (Keycon 25 in Winnipeg) is coming up soon.
A nice change this time around is the addition of an online nomination ballot – good to see the organizers behind an SF award finally getting around to joining the 21st Century. The balloting system lets you make three nominations per category, which makes the tough decisions easier (well, a little easier, anyway) if you’ve got a bunch of top contenders you want to put in the running.
The difficulty, admittedly, is that I haven’t read every piece of SF written by Canadians or residents of Canada this year, and because my French is somewhat rusty (the reality is we have far more use for Cantonese and Mandarin out here on the West Coast), I haven’t been keeping up with the stuff en francais that’s come out of Quebec, New Brunswick, St. Boniface or any other francophone part of the country except when it’s translated in anthologies like Tesseracts. But I think the reality is that, unless you’re a book or magazine editor, it’s pretty hard to keep on top of everything, so you read what you can when you can and make your judgments based on what you know.
Anyway, without further ado, here are my nominations for this year’s Aurora Awards:
Best Long-Form Work in English:
“From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain” by Minister Faust
“Rollback” by Robert J. Sawyer
“Axis” by Robert Charles Wilson
Edmonton’s Faust gave us hands-down the best SF book to come out of this country in 2007. It’s viciously funny while showing a knowledge and love of the superhero genre (especially for the warts on those heroic visages) and it acts as a platform for unflinching indictments of both the self-help book (or self-hurt as a friend once said)/pop-psychiatric scene and the modern political arena in North America.
Toronto’s Sawyer should be given credit for his sensitive portrayal of the lives of seniors and the complexities of relationships that change over time – and especially in this story as they’re changed by the technology of the times. Here he poses the question: what would you do if you were given a second chance?
I’ve reviewed this year’s solid showing by the other Torontonian on the slate, Wilson, so there’s no need to go into detail about “Axis” except to say that it’s a good book in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke.
Best Long-Form Work in French:
Again, I haven’t read from this year’s francophone fare, so no nominations here.
Best Short-Form Work in English:
“Why the Poets Were Banned from the City” by Jerome Stueart (in the Spring 2007 edition of On Spec)
“The Object of Worship” by Claude Lalumiere (in the “Tesseracts 11” anthology)
“…But With a Whimper” by Greg Wilson (in the Fall 2007 edition of On Spec)
This was a really tough category to pick favourites. There were a hell of a lot of good short stories to choose from this year, many gracing the pages of On Spec (I’m still waiting for my Winter 2007 issue to be delivered, so who knows how many other options could have frustrated my selection process if it had arrived before I filled out the nomination ballot!)
Stueart’s tale illustrates the power of writing while warning about current trends in politics and society that favour pragmatism and ignorance over creativity and knowledge.
Lalumiere examines religion and relationships.
And Wilson makes a cutting display of how revenge truly is a dish best served cold.
But because the process of choosing nominees was so hard this year, I thought I’d also rattle off my list of other top contenders you should try to read if you’ve got some time:
“The Pursuer” by Scott Mackay (On Spec, Fall 2007)
“Nine Sketches in Charcoal and Blood” by Marie Brennan (On Spec, Fall 2007)
“The Laws of Motion” by Catharine Macleod (On Spec, Summer 2007)
“Manna” by Leslie Brown (On Spec, Summer 2007)
“Quiet Empire” by Michael Vance (On Spec, Summer 2007)
“Made” by Paul Hosek (On Spec, Spring 2007)
Best Short-Form Work in French:
And because the one or two stories translated from French that I’ve read this year didn’t make an impact on me, no nominations here.
Best Work in English (Other):
On Spec Magazine
“Overclocked – Stories of the Future Present” by Cory Doctorow
Neo-Opsis Magazine
This is kind of the professional catch-all category, so it’s a great chance to pay respects to On Spec, a world-class SF mag by anyone’s standards (although I wish they’d add more new content to their website on a regular basis!) showcasing the best work by Canadians and others from around the globe. And Neo-Opsis deserves to be highlighted as well for their continuously solid effort. This is also the category where I think it’s appropriate to give the nod to Doctorow’s anthology, which was pretty entertaining overall, although I’m not sure whether it counts given that the stories were available online far in advance of the book getting published.
Best Work in French (Other):
Merde. I wish I had something to say here, but I don’t. Moving right along…
Artistic Achievement:
Another category where I don’t feel qualified to make a nomination. While some of the artwork on the various mag or book covers is interesting enough, none of the pictures, by themselves, have been absorbing enough to me to really merit nominations. While I give the artists full credit for their creativity and efforts, I’m more interested in the art of the words than that of the paintbrush.
Fan Achievement (Fanzine):
I don’t have time to read fanzines (which is not to comment on their quality, I simply don’t have enough time in my day), so nothing much to say here either.
Fan Achievement (Organizational):
VCon 32/Canvention 27
Cheers to the folks who put on a good con last year. Keep ‘em coming!
Fan Achievement (Other):
I guess this would be another catch-all category where things like blogs and websites and fan groups or fan support efforts would go. It would probably be crass to nominate myself, so I can’t put down bloginhood. And there isn’t much else I can nominate either… I don’t have enough time in the day to be a part of fan groups or support efforts, and as for other websites/blogs… I certainly can’t nominate Spacecast (the site for Space, Canada’s SF TV channel) because, well, it’s pretty lame, especially since they stopped posting the text version of Hypaspace (which itself, as a weekly feature, is getting pretty tired). As for other fan sites originating here in the Great White North (doff your toques and insert cuckoo theme by the Mackenzie brothers), I haven’t stumbled across any that have grabbed my attention. Probably my fault for not looking hard enough, but it gets back to that time thing. If someone sent me a link to a good site run by fellow Canucks, I’d definitely give it a look and maybe find something to nominate next year.
So that’s my nomination ballot for the 2007/08 Aurora Awards. The organizers are accepting nominations until March 17th (unless they start extending the process ad-nauseum like they did last year), so there’ s still plenty of time for you to have your say. Visit the awards page at http://prix-aurora-awards.ca/English/home.html
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