A Long Time Ago In A Blog Far, Far Away

It’s been 30 years. On May 25, 1977, “Star Wars” hit the big screen and science fiction (or science fantasy, depending on how you view it) cinema hasn’t been the same since.
Pretty much everyone who was around then has a story about their first time seeing Lucas’ masterpiece and how it affected them.
For my part, I have an embarrassing confession to make: my first experience of “Star Wars” back in ’77 didn’t come from seeing it in the theatre. Nope. I was 3 at the time, and while my parents were perfectly happy to take me to see Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon”, they wouldn’t take me to “Star Wars”, no matter how much I begged, no matter that all my little friends were seeing it with their older siblings. They claimed that they thought I’d be scared, but my theory’s always been that they wouldn’t go because neither of them likes SF much, and they had no idea what this new film was about and how big it actually was. Took them a while to clue into that. So, I very clearly remember my disappointment at the time, and how I hung on every word from my friends and their big brothers who’d been to the film. Yep, I heard about groundbreaking “Star Wars” second hand. Cue the violins and please excuse me while I go and put a paper bag over my head in shame.
I also remember the TV trailers, but most of all, after the phenomenon really caught hold and the studio realized what it had… the merchandizing. “Merchandizing, merchandizing, merchandizing! Where the real money from the film is made!” to quote Yogurt from Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs”. The collectible glasses from Burger King, the action figures, the glow-in-the-dark lightsabres, the colouring books, yes, even the 4-foot-tall inflatable Darth Vader punching bag. (none of which I still have, otherwise I’d be sellin’ them on ebay and retiring)
Luckily, I was fortunate enough to miss the hated holiday special.
But such was the power of the, er, force behind “Star Wars”, that even those second-hand experiences were enough to get me hooked.
In the end, I didn’t see “Star Wars” until after I’d seen “The Empire Strikes Back” (luckily in the theatre this time, on opening weekend – my parents let me skip out on a ball tournament to take me to that one – they’d learned their priorities by then).
That was at the dawn of the home video age when you could rent-out a player and bring it home with a couple of movies (the player itself was not a VHS or Beta – rather, something that played large-format discs about the size of a record in a square plastic sheath – I can’t recall if it was an early laser disc player or not). And while it wasn’t the big old cinema in Kitchener, we had good home-made popcorn, plenty of pop, and when the 20th Century Fox music finished and those first words appeared on the screen, the magic was all there.

And now for the bonus features:

“Star Wars” has inspired strong feelings in people over the years. Some worship it wish slavish devotion, camping out on theatre doorsteps days in advance of the premiers and filling their homes with every sort of collectible the Ranch can possibly license until there’s no room for anything else (I know a guy named Sean here in Vancouver who’s gleefully a member of that group). Some enjoy the films and watch them at least once a year (count me among this bunch). Some take it all in stride. And some loath it completely – or at least what Lucas has done to the series with the prequels and constant tinkering of the originals.
But I think one of the best legacies of “Star Wars” is the satire it’s inspired, showing that not only was it a strong creative, er, force in its own right, but that it could inspire others to create, and to create something to make us all laugh.
In the world of animation, “Family Guy”, “The Simpsons”, “South Park”, “Robot Chicken” and “Undergrads” have all had a poke at The Trilogy over the past few years. Before that, in the years immediately following the original three films, we saw “The Muppets” (true, not animation, but in many ways more in the spirit of animation than live action), “Muppet Babies” and “The Secret Railroad”. I’ll never forget Mr. Passenger pulling out an extension cord, plugging it into a wall socket and dueling it out with Vader on the “Star Wars” spoof episode of “The Secret Railroad” – it still cracks me up (I wish that series was available on DVD – sadly, it’s probably lost).
My favourite live action spoofs have always been the above-mentioned “Spaceballs” and pretty much any Kevin Smith movie because they all include “Star Wars” references or debates. Best line from “Spaceballs”: Dark Helmet: “And that is why evil will always win, because good is dumb!”
There are also many who give the nod to “Thumb Wars”, but I can’t comment ‘cause I haven’t seen it yet.
And, of course, I’m really looking forward to “Fanboys” (initially slated for August, but I think I’ve read it’s now on the roster for January – d’oh!). The premise alone is worth the price of admission.
That being said, regardless of whether you favour live action or animated spoofs, everyone who enjoys taking a gentle shot at “Star Wars” must bow in respect to the one that got the ball rolling… I am, of course, referring to that masterpiece known as “Hardware Wars”. The producers of this short wasted no time in getting their festival of potshots onto the screen – it was out in ’77 as well. How can you not love a film where flashlights were used in lieu of lightsabres – the same as all of us were doing in our basements.
Ladies and gentlemen, to quote Brooks again: “May the Schwartz be with you!”

Playing A Better Hand Than "Heroes"

The first season of “Heroes” came to a middle-of-the-road conclusion on Monday. The series has had its moments of greatness and disappointment, but it’s writers and producers should be given full credit for breaking new ground in television for trying to portray metahumans as real people.
I’ll discuss my thoughts about the season finale of “Heroes” in a couple of days when I’ve had a chance to mull it over a little more. You can also find an excellent discussion of the episode on the SF Signal site (to which I’ve contributed a trivial muttering or two).
But for a superior portrayal of realism in a superheroic setting (if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron), I’ve recently started re-reading the “Wild Cards” series, edited by George R. R. Martin. “Wild Cards” presents a world where a genetically-engineered virus created by aliens was released in 1946 – a virus that kills 90% of those who contract it (these people are said to have drawn the black queen) and disfigures 9% of those infected into often hideous freaks called jokers. Only the remaining 1% gain meta abilities without becoming physical horrors. These are the aces. And even among the aces, most powers are weak (telekinesis that can only push a penny across a table) or relatively useless (the self-explanatory talents of Rainbow Man). For those aces who do possess powerful abilities, life isn’t easy either.
It’s the harsh realities of life for jokers, aces, normal humans, and society as a whole that make “Wild Cards” such a worthy read. Where “Heroes” simply brushes the surface of how governments might react to metahumans, what effect these powers have on personal relationships, and the journey of individuals as they discover their abilities and the limits of them, “Wild Cards” plunges into the darkest depths. Heroes make mistakes, have changes of heart and betray each other to save their own skins, and use their public status to get rich endorsing products and making movies or hosting TV shows – because, hey, doing good out on the streets doesn’t pay the bills. Jokers make futile yet determined efforts to have their civil rights recognized. It is a raw world of three-dimensional characters that is utterly believable if you’re willing to accept the premises of superpowers and alien viruses that are compatible with human DNA.
The series is also fun. If you’re a fan of Hiro Nakamura, you’ll love The Turtle. The variety of authors involved in the project gives the series a different feel with every short story in every volume – from action to hard-boiled crime to drama.
It’s been a while since the “Wild Cards” series was published (although I hear Martin’s working on a new project for the line), but if you can find a copy of any of the volumes, it’s certainly worth your while to pick it up. “Wild Cards” is what “Heroes” should have been.

Have Airship Will Travel This Long Weekend

Having just come off the Victoria Day long weekend (the time officially to pay tribute to the legendary monarch of the 19th and early 20th centuries, though observed by most as the frequently rain-soaked start of camping season), I thought it would be appropriate to dedicate this posting in her honour by taking a look at speculative fiction of that era and its retro successors of today.
Queen Victoria (born May 24, 1819, died January 22, 1901) ruled from June 20, 1837 until her death. Hers was an era of great scientific advance and cultural upheaval that saw the flowering of benchmark works of speculative fiction from both within and outside the vast British Empire.
The SF of the Victorian age did a remarkable job of capturing the spirit of the times, a sense of awe and fear… Of what could be learned and the power attained, the immensity of what still was not known, and an awareness of a future full of consequences. These authors showed us how an entire culture seemed to feel like an explorer at sea, learning new currents, reefs and islands, becoming comfortable with what was newly attained and yet still gazing at the uncharted horizon with a mixture of eagerness for the riches beyond and the dread of dragons off the map. In going beyond the now and the past to gaze at the wider social implications for the future, while grounding their works in the concrete perspectives of individuals who readers could empathize with, SF authors of the era transcended their peers who only focused on the social ills or class naval-gazing of the day.
My top 5 favourite works of this era from within the British Empire are:

”The War of the Worlds” by HG Wells
”The Time Machine” also by Wells
“Idylls of the King” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
“The Lady of Shalott” also by Tennyson
”Dracula” by Bram Stoker
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson

And there were a legion of other seminal works from outside the Empire, including my favourites:

“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne
“A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum

The zeitgeist of our modern Western culture is far different than that of Victorian times. We are more jaded, having split the atom, made powered flight commonplace and traveled to the moon, while still remaining trapped on this one world embroiled in strife and intolerance. But the memory of that freshness, of that time of boundless possibilities is still with us and conjures a wish to have it counterbalance our world-weariness, or at least offer the brief respite of nostalgia. Which is why the themes, settings, and general feelings of 19th century literature are still in use today (without the antiquated, overwrought language). Or, at times, authors will venture into the realm of alternate history, arming themselves with coal-fired steam engines and iron-clads with brass fixtures to pit Victorian-era adventurers against modern SF challenges in what we call Steampunk.
In print, we see great works like:

“The Terror” by Dan Simmons
“The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” (graphic novel) by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill
“The Prestige” by Christopher Priest

(and even a nod to the past from Minister Faust in “Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad” in the form of Digaestus Caesar, one of the gang of villains who’s SF orientation is “Victorian scientific adventure fantasy”)

And this is just a list of personal cream-of-the-crop favourites, never mind the legion of other solid retro-Victorian tales out there.
There are a legion of film and TV references as well, based on works from the Victorian era or moderns stories set within it:

Film versions of the afore-mentioned ‘Oz, ‘Leagues, WOTW, Time Traveller, Dracula, Jekyll & Hyde, Connecticut Yankee, Prestige and LOEG,
“Steamboy” – perhaps the ultimate steampunk indulgence delivered in high-energy anime style.
“From Hell” – the Hughes brothers’ film based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s graphic novel (which I classify as a genre work because the detective’s prophetic visions are an element of the fantastic).
The recent episode of “Dr. Who” where the Doctor must save Queen Victoria from a werewolf stalking a castle’s gloomy halls.
And, in a nod to my childhood, the cartoon series “The Secret Railroad”, about an old steam locomotive that takes a boy on journeys through time and space.

And steampunk has even made its way into the world of art: check out Erik’s Art, a very cool site where we’re presented with images of what “Star Wars” would have looked like if imagined by Victorians. Here are links to re-imagined renderings of:
Obi Wan Kenobi
The Death Star
Jabba the Hutt
Han & Chewie
Darth Vader

So grab your top hat, hop in your airship, and raise a glass of your favourite refreshment in a toast to Queen Victoria and all the great literature (and its legacy) that her era left us.

New Robotech Movie Should Stay In The Shadows

I finally got around to renting “Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles” last week and came to the conclusion that while it wasn’t a complete waste of time, it certainly wasn’t the best 88 minutes I’ve ever spent.
Now, I know, there are probably many of you out there chorusing “What did you expect from a fan-film follow-up to a series bastardized from the original Japanese?!” And I have to admit, you’d kinda be right.
I wasn’t expecting anything amazing (Robotech was never the epitome of timeless, top-notch anime). I was kind of hoping for something a little more coherent.
Let me make it clear, that when Robotech (an Americanized riff off of the anime classic “Macross”) first aired here in BC back in the 80’s, I was one impressed teen. How could you not like transformable fighters and starships defending the Earth from aliens – giant aliens no less? That being said, I was only a fan of the first part of the series which depicted the adventures of the crew of the SDF-1 and their battle against the Zentradi. The other two segments, highlighting the wars of subsequent generations against the Robotech Masters and the Invid were largely uninteresting to me at the time. Maybe I was just Roboteched out by the time the first chapter ended.
As an adult, I can still look back and enjoy the celestial slugfests and the attempts at creating three-dimensional characters (though often in a ham-fisted soap-opera way). Although I cringe at the gigantic run-on sentences with their unending streams of subordinate clauses: “…blah blah blah and therefore blah blah blah and so blah blah blah and therefore…” You get the point. Why could they not have had a better dialogue editor back in the day?
Anyhow, never having followed the back two thirds of the story, it was a foregone conclusion that I’d be a little lost with some of the character walk-ons and relationships that have their genesis in ‘Masters and Invid.
That being said, this flick was a complete mish-mash of classic character cameos (some unresolved), half-hinted backstories and rushed and undeveloped plot ideas. If old characters are going to make appearances, it should be a reason necessary for the advancement of the plot, not to satisfy cameo-thirsty fanboys. If a movie is released for the general public, backstories necessary to give it context need to be developed properly, otherwise it doesn’t make any sense to the uninitiated and seems stilted even to those who already know the story. If a major plot development takes place, it too must be flushed out, and not rushed unceremoniously out the door like the Invid departure as a means to make way for the next undeveloped challenge. In essence, a movie like this needs to be able to stand on its own as an individual story, one that just happens to be part of a larger tapestry.
This principle even applies to feature film pilots for new series (as it’s clear the producers of the new Robotech installment are hoping). Example: the feature pilot for the new “Battlestar Galactica” works great as a stand-alone film. Sure you’d like to see the fleet’s further adventures on the road to Earth, but you don’t need to because you’ve just been told a phenomenal story that works within itself.
“Shadow Chronicles” fails at this. Miserably.
That being said, it wasn’t totally without merit. The space battles were cool and the writers did manage to infuse the film with the same energy level of the original (if not the focus). I also enjoyed how the general design and colouring of the Earth capital ships worked as a nice little nod to another classic: the Yamato/Argo of “Space Cruiser Yamato”/”Starblazers”.
If you have only a passing interest in anime and Robotech history, I’d suggest waiting until “Shadow Chronicles” runs on TV for free before indulging your curiosity.

Yet Another "Where's The Flying Car I Was Promised?" Rant

My car died quietly Thursday morning in my garage. A ’95 Chevy Cavalier bought from the original owner who’d gently used it for three years. Not too much mileage on my black beauty either despite carrying me all over BC. And she always got me home. But aging problems have been mounting over the past couple of years – an issue with the radiator that had me refilling the coolant tank every 2 weeks, a leaky transmission, the gas gage was dead, a dead light on the radio portion of the dash, a couple of minor dents, a busted trunk lock from a failed break-in, and most recently inconsistent ignition. I’d always hoped that if she was gonna die, she’d do it at home and not leave me stranded somewhere, and lo and behold, she did me that last courtesy.
As I called a cab, thought about calling the Kidney Foundation’s car donation program (a tax receipt for your jalopy and the salvage proceeds go to a good cause), and unloaded the car of all the display material I needed to take to a conference that morning, I was trying to figure out how we’d be able to swing buying a new car and, like any good SF fan, I had that moment of futuristic frustration where I asked the gods of technology: Where’s the flying car I was promised?
I mean, this is the vaunted 21st Century! The age of technological progress! If I’m going to be making a decision to replace my old clunker with something new and shiny, I know I ought to be comparing the fuel efficiency of various models, their performance and reliability, their safety ratings, their environmental impact, their looks, their extra bells and whistles, but shouldn’t auto manufacturing be at the point where I can also compare airspeed, lift capacity and non-powered gliding capability?
A sky full of aerial autos is old hat in science fiction. The idea’s been a staple of literature for decades now (does anyone happen to know what the first reference to flying cars was?). It’s been illustrated on-screen in everything from “The Jetsons” to “Bladerunner” to the “Back to the Future” franchise. An old idea, but one that’s failed to materialize in any real practical sense.
Oh sure, there’s the old black and white footage of Avro engineers trotting out their prototype one-man flying saucer. And it seems that just about every year the flaccid excuse for a news program on Discovery Canada (what ever happened to the solid, real science news they used to run when that cable specialty channel first launched?) profiles some wacky back-yard inventor who’s claimed to have cooked-up a workable family flying machine. But where are Toyota, GM and Volvo in all this? What are Bombardier and Airbus doing to bring the dream closer to reality?
They’re content to leave us dreaming.
About the closest any of us are ever going to get to the personal urban aircraft is if we find ourselves in the plywood and cardboard cockpit of an entry in the annual summer “Flugtag” circuit sponsored by the Red Bull energy drink guys.
Although I do have to grudgingly admit that the notion of thousands of us daring young men (and women) in our flying machines taking to the skies is totally impractical. Just think of how the standard traffic accident would be magnified by mid-air collisions. You wouldn’t be crawling out of a crumpled heap or being pulled from a steaming wreck by the jaws of life – you’d be plummeting to the ground thinking your mother was wrong about telling you to wear clean underwear in case you get into an accident because this time, on impact, there’s gonna be a lot of soil – both yours and the ground’s – pretty much all over you.
Safety features like airbags would take on a whole new meaning – instead of big pillows popping out of your steering wheel, they’d have to be rapid-inflating helium balloons to stave-off the aforementioned catastrophic fall.
Where the accidents of today generally involve other vehicles, road signs, trees and the occasional house’s living room, an air car accident could have the potential to wipe out a house or even a residential block.
What about the ability of police to give you a speeding ticket? How would you pull over in mid-air? (Didn’t George Jetson have to deal with a harnessbull in a jetpack on more than one occasion?)
How about wait times in the lineups at the licensing bureau? If you think it takes too long now with 50 people in line ahead of you taking their drivers tests, think of how much longer you’d be waiting if they had piloting components in those forms covering fuel consumption, windspeed, drag and airframe stress? Even worse: think of how much more the bureaucrats at the licensing bureau would enjoy making you wait even longer!
Having to wash bird crap off of the car would be the last thing you’d be worried about – an encounter with a flock of seagulls (the birds, not the silly 80’s band) would pretty much put an end to the vehicle.
And having a sky full of personal aircraft (think of how many cars are on the roads now) would redefine air pollution. Hard enough looking at the night sky in a city and trying to see past the buildings, city light, smog, commercial aircraft and satellites to get a glimpse of stars without having an aerial autobahn to boot.
Then there’s the increased risk of getting lost. “Ah-ha!” you say, “you’d be able to look down on the buildings and streets and find your way around a lot easier!” Really? Doesn’t help when you’re looking at a road map now, does it? And what if you ran into clouds or a really thick smog bank? I would argue that the risk of nagging from impatient backseat drivers would actually increase as you drove around the same cumulonimbus for the third time.
Some might argue that developing sufficiently intelligent computers to handle the flying duties would alleviate these problems. Question: how flawless is the functioning of your PC or Mac? ‘Nuff said. Anyway, that just sounds like another kind of potential nagging backseat driver, except this is one that you wouldn’t be able to give the excuse that you can’t carpool with it because you’ve gotta pick up your kid after school. No, autopilots wouldn’t be the answer.
But still, there is some cheesy 1950’s appeal in the idea of backing your flying car out of the garage onto your personal helipad and whooshing off alone into the clouds in comfort without a flightplan or a care in the world… a sort of technological evolutionary next step in taking to the open road… The sky’s the limit.
Nah. The dealers would probably drain your bank account dry with rotten financing and high interest rates. And gas costs these days? Never be worth it.

Another Mainstream Pop Culture Nod To A Frakkin' Good Show

This month’s edition of Vancouver Magazine has a nice column by Laurel Wellman tucked away inside called “Geek Like Me – Hands up: who’s a Battlestar Galactica fan?” (sorry folks, the mag site’s a bit of a disappointment, this particular piece is yet not available online) Wellman writes about BSG’s growing popularity, from acceptance by mainstream critics (whatever that’s worth), to non-SF-fans watching the show, to die-hard fanboys holding fan club meetings (such as “The 13th Colony” gatherings at the Tim Horton’s donut shop in Royal Centre) and throwing Frak Parties to celebrate the season premiers. Nothing terribly new to SF fans who enjoy the show, but it’s nice to see yet another mainstream pop culture mainstay like VM giving it a respectful nod.

"Rollback" Is Forward-Thinking When It Comes To Rejuvenation

Interesting SF timing over the past couple of days… I finished Robert J. Sawyer’s new novel “Rollback” on Sunday, and was able to take in Sawyer’s reading/book signing Monday night at Vancouver’s speculative fiction bookstore, White Dwarf Books. I hadn’t planned it that way, just one of those nice coincidences where what you’re currently reading syncs-up nicely with a related an event.

The reading was an enjoyable evening. The folks at White Dwarf cleared an open space between the shelves and crammed in enough chairs for about two dozen of us and provided wine, juice and some tasty cookies, all under the watchful eye of the store’s resident basset hound. For his part, Sawyer was intelligent, warm and funny and seems like the kind of guy it’d be cool to sit down and have coffee with and talk about, well, pretty much anything. He gave a spirited reading of an excerpt from “Rollback”. Sawyer took questions from the audience, deftly managing a spirited discussion about the apparent halt of Darwinian forces in modern human evolution. He was also kind enough to share his thoughts about his approach to character writing in answer to my question about how he was able to put himself, as a middle-aged person, into the mindset of a senior citizen. Sawyer responded that he combined the writer’s ability to imagine himself as thoroughly as possible in his character’s shoes, with a good deal of observation of old people around him, as well as feedback on his drafts from friends who are seniors. He pointed out he’d previously had to make the same imaginative leaps into lives he’d never experienced when creating characters who were Neanderthals or evolved dinosaurs. Sawyer went on to note that his next task along these lines would be to include a 15-year-old blind girl as a character in an upcoming novel. Great to see he’s always looking to tackle new challenges as a writer. It’s one thing to invent an alien personality from scratch where you get to make the rules, it’s quite another to create human characters who readers can believe they’d actually meet out and about on the streets – something that Sawyer continues to do with success.

As for the novel, “Rollback” is a clever, warm and honest exploration of the challenges of being old, and the pitfalls that would open up if the elderly could become young again.
The story focuses on Don Halifax, an 87-year-old retired CBC (Canada’s public broadcaster) Radio producer and sound technician, married to Sarah, a retied SETI astronomer who, decades earlier, decoded an alien transmission and spear-headed Earth’s response signal. Now the aliens have sent another signal, scrambled with a different key, and a corporate tycoon wants Sarah to again take the lead in figuring out what the extraterrestrials want. Problem is, Sarah’s so old, she’ll never live to see if the aliens continue the conversation, never mind that she might not be around long enough to crack this code. That’s where the rollback procedure comes into play: it’s a rejuvenation process so insanely expensive only the ultra-rich can afford it. A series of medical treatments that reverses the aging process and returns the patient to a physical state of about 25-years-old. Sarah agrees to undergo the treatment and work on the new signal project, but only if Don gets the rollback to. Tragically, while the process is a resounding success with Don, it fails with Sarah, leaving her withered and old, and somewhat alienated from her husband. Don must now struggle to maintain his relationship with his wife and family even as he faces the challenges of reintegrating into a world that hasn’t had much use for him in a long time.
In a recent review on Sci Fi Weekly’s books section, Paul Di Filippo likens “Rollback” to a concoction made from the movies “Cocoon”, “Contact” and “On Golden Pond”. I don’t think that’s an entirely fair comparison.
“Rollback” is nowhere near as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about communicating with alien civilizations as “Contact” is – Sawyer’s book is far too practical in its philosophy about the impact of an interstellar meeting of the minds.
I’m not even going to get into the differences with “On Golden Pond”, aside from the fact that “Rollback” didn’t bore the hell out of me like the former did.
As for “Cocoon”, while one may be tempted to say there’s a similarity in the sympathetic treatment of the lives and challenges of the elderly in today’s society, I think there’s only a surface resemblance. “Cocoon” shows us a troop of seniors having, for the most part, a jolly good time once their rejuvenation kicks in. It’s like a long-form version of Spielberg’s Twilight Zone remake of “Kick the Can”. Sure, Hume Cronyn’s character runs around on his wife, but we’re given to believe that he was pretty much always that way until age slowed him down.
“Rollback”, on the other hand, presents relationships, choices and circumstances that are far more complex because of the multi-layered nature of the age disparities within it. Don is the same mental/emotional age as Sarah, but physically he becomes much younger, creating a world of difference in terms of physical capabilities, sex drive, appetites for food, need for sleep, even tolerance for the pace of conversation. He still loves Sarah deeply, and yet these differences drive him into the arms of grad student Lenore. Not in a happy-go-lucky way like Cronyn’s cheating husband in “Cocoon” but in a set of circumstances fraught with guilt that stains his new relationship.
Don must also struggle with the angst accompanying the fact that he will now outlive his wife – not by a few months or years, but now having to endure decades of mourning. And Sarah can only watch as he tries to cope with this. On top of this burden, Don begins to question his own value, pondering how many people more worthy than he have not had access to this procedure which would allow them to continue to make valuable contributions to society. We see overall that Don is suffering from a strange new kind of survivor’s guilt.
And yet Don’s not truly at home the young either – he may look like one of them, but he doesn’t think like them at all. Don has 87 years worth of life experience to shape his beliefs and affect his judgment, and this occasionally causes problems when Lenore has to upbraid him for being patronizing, or when he simply feels isolated among the young whipper-snappers at the pub. But this alienation doesn’t drive him away from his second love interest, in fact, it drags the two of them closer together, creating a love triangle not in the soap-opera sense, but in a deep, pained, needing and fragile way that is so human that as much as we can’t say we approve of cheating on one’s spouse, we can’t say what’s happening is entirely wrong either.
Don’s got other hurdles to clear beyond sorting out his love-life. His family is forced to readjust to him while Don himself has to come to grips with the fact that he might outlive his own children if the price of the rollback procedure doesn’t come down enough before it’s too late for them.
The jealousy of those around him is another obstacle. Humans have been obsessed with youth for a long time, stretching back into legends of Conquistadores hunting through the jungles of South America for the fountain of youth, Knights questing for the holy grail, or the first Chinese Emperor desperately trying any quack treatment or potion in a bid to live forever. Products and services aimed at returning youth and vitality are a huge part of the modern commercial market. With the premise in “Rollback” that the procedure is ultra exclusive because of its enormous expense, Don finds many around him want what he has and are quite upset when they can’t have it. He finds himself confronted by old friends who want him to get his rich benefactor to foot the bill for treatments for them. Relatives look on Don with jealousy and ask why he gets to go on living when their loved ones have had to die.
And life outside his personal relationships isn’t easy for Don either. With his newly regained youth, Don finds himself confronted with the question of how he will make his new lease on life productive. The answer seems simple enough: go back to work. But what if you’ve been out of the workforce so long your skills are irrelevant? Many out-of-work executives today are finding out that a lifetime of experience is nearly worthless if the nature of the job, the market, the corporate culture, the political/demographic necessities, or the dependent technologies have changed sufficiently.
It’s this tension between deeply complex and human relationships and alienation brought on by radial life and lifestyle change that makes “Rollback” such an interesting story.
Other points of interest in “Rollback” include a sudden change in character point of view about mid-way through the book (after a birthday party, I think), where we suddenly jump from Don to Sarah, then Lenore (possibly one or two others after this) and then back to Don for nearly the rest of the book. I still haven’t figured out why these sudden, temporary POV changes come into play. Certainly they make for an interesting shake-up in pacing and characterization, but why only for such brief portions of the novel? This may bear some more thought.
I also got a kick out of Sawyer referencing his fictional “Old Sully’s” beer – re-using the brand he invented for “Mindscan”. Curious bridge between a story about a man who’s life is extended through medical rejuvenation, and a tale about a man who’s life is extended by downloading his consciousness into an android. The two stories are in some rough way negatives of one-another.
The possibility of life-extending options was actually brought up at one point during the reading/signing discussion where one member of the audience asked Sawyer if he’d consider a robotic upload or a rejuvenation treatment. I seem to recall Sawyer saying he liked flesh too much to go for the android option, but he might be amenable to a rollback.
In any case, Sawyer has shown us with “Rollback” that it’s never too late to breathe new life into the old SF trope of the fountain of youth. And I’m willing to bet this is a yarn that will age well.

Space Opera

A couple of coworkers tried to recruit me into their opera club the other day.
A bunch of the staff and volunteers at the office get together every time a new opera comes to town and have a potluck supper followed by a discussion about the particular feature they’re about to head out to see. The idea is to revel in their specific cultural passion and to try to “enlighten” non-opera fans (and thus swell their ranks).
I declined the invitation.
While I have the highest respect for this form of music, it’s just not something I enjoy much. Certainly I do enjoy the instrumentals of operas, but the singing doesn’t do anything for me. I think it’s an acquired taste – and one that’s still fairly bitter to me.
The fact that the office types haven’t given up in their attempts to convert me (this recent “invitation” was, in fact, their fourth attempt – and it should be noted this recent invitation was actually repeated about three times over the course of two days) has caused me to begin to view them (affectionately though) as a type of cultural Borg – attempting to assimilate all consciousnesses in the office into their collective in an attempt to achieve perfection in musical appreciation and potluck supper variety. They differ significantly in that they haven’t arrived at the office in a huge cube or sphere – yet.
That’s got me to thinking about instances where opera has popped up in sci-fi/fantasy/horror TV and movies. This is not to be confused with operas that have used speculative fiction as their inspiration (such as “Dracula” or “1984” – Wikipedia’s got a whole list of them, and one that’s by no means complete – hasn’t “the Lord of the Rings” been turned into an opera?) – I’m talking about television shows or film in the genre(s) which have made effective use of opera as part of their soundtracks or the focal point of scenes. Even though I don’t enjoy the singing component, I can appreciate how its use can enhance a scene.
Non-genre examples come to mind easily: “Philadelphia”, “Glory” and “The Untouchables” to name but a few.
But speculative fiction TV/film examples are a little harder to find (references to opera in written sci-fi, fantasy & horror are legion).
It goes without saying that the various incarnations of “The Phantom of the Opera” feature this particular art form at some point.
There’s the scene near the beginning of “Star Trek: First Contact” where opera rattles the portholes as Picard broods over his recent visions of the afore-mentioned Borg just before Riker enters.
“Deep Space Nine” in its final years featured regular references to, and examples of, opera – though the decidedly unpleasant Klingon variety. And I think it was mentioned on “Voyager” from time to time.
There were a couple of points in “Conan the Barbarian” where opera is employed quite powerfully.
We hear references to and see the ruins of (and full-blown hallucinations of an intact version of) the opera house in the capital city of Kobol on the new Battlestar Galactica (though opera itself is not used in the show’s score to my recollection).
Don’t the new brides belt out a bar or two at the end of “Young Frankenstein”?
Can we classify that weird singing/spherical swimming performance in “Star Wars – Episode III Revenge of the Sith” in the scene where Chancellor Palpatine dangles the possibility of discovering the secret of preventing death in front of Anakin Skywalker as a type of opera?
Was opera featured as background music in a scene or two of “Serenity” or “Children of Men”? I can’t quite remember.
Beyond that, nothing much comes to mind in film or TV.
That being said, the disturbing thought has begun to take root that if I can appreciate – and even enjoy – the use of opera to enhance a scene in sci-fi/fantasy/horror TV and film, then perhaps, just perhaps, there is a tiny, deliberately unrecognized, part of me that does, in fact, enjoy it. (shudder) I won’t be buying tickets to see the Tenors anytime soon, but maybe this means there’s the possibility I might join the office opera club for supper one night sometime down the road.
Resistance is futile.

Science Fiction Slapshots

Finally coming to rest on the couch Monday night after hopping around the living room in the hometeam-just-got-a-big-win-in-the-playoffs-ecstacy, I got to thinking about science fiction stories.
Strange, I know. There’s little apparent connection between the Vancouver Canucks’ 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars in game 7 of their first round Stanley Cup playoff series (my hats off to fans in Texas, though – as much as I want Trevor Lindon and what’s affectionately been called in some quarters of the Lower Mainland “half of Finland’s Olympic hockey team” to take the cup, the Stars played one hell of a series and in some games deserved to win a lot more than our inconsistent Canucks did) and speculative fiction. I admit, it’s quite a leap. But for someone who’s passion is first and foremost sci-fi, and the national pastime of the True North a distant third (after good food), that leap is natural.
Flushed with a hockey-high, I got to thinking about how many Canadian SF authors practice their stickhandling with The Game, and while it’s not a theme you see in every story in every magazine or anthology, hockey does get mentioned once in a while.
The one that comes most readily to mind is Phil “The Mallet” Voyd’s heartfelt, funny and intense “Jonny B” (from On Spec’s Winter 2000 edition). It’s a first-person yarn of a regular guy who excels at one thing: Shinny – pick-up games on local outdoor rinks, Armed with his Edmonton Oilers Gretzky jersey, our hero finds himself facing-off against more than just the neighbours out for a little winter fun or an ex-minor-leaguer or NHLer remembering his glory days. No, this time it’s the devil himself, and it’ll be a frosty day in hell before he lets a weekend warrior get the best of him, unless our hero can make him lose his cool.
Another story worth checking out, also concerning the fascination denizens of other planes might have with a sheet of ice, a stick and a puck, is Marissa K. Lingen’s “Carter Hull Recovers the Puck” from On Spec’s Spring 2006 edition.
I could probably rattle a few more off the roster, but it’s getting late and tomorrow’s Game 1 of the Canucks second round series against the Anaheim Ducks. Who knows, if you listen really hard, you might hear, over the roar of the crowd, over the crunch of players against the boards, over the slap of a stick against the puck, the sound of a writer out there putting pen to paper as the game gives rise to new legends.

Pizza Con?

Who’d have thought dinner at a pizza parlour on a Saturday night would be like attending a science fiction convention? I certainly never did – at least, I never thought it was something that could happen by chance. But it did this past weekend.
My wife had come out to meet me at an event in Burnaby early in the evening as I was packing up a display table I’d been manning for the non-profit agency I work for. We decided to amble over to Me-n-Ed’s Pizza for a late dinner. The evening proceeded normally enough: we took a booth over by the windows, we shared a Caesar salad, my wife ordered her usual - a small roast garlic & smoked salmon pizza, I bellied up to a large gangster pizza (I know what you’re thinking and you might as well stop now – I may be portly, but I sure can’t finish a large pie by myself in one sitting – I’m not quite that much of a glutton – yet – I’ve gotta have leftovers for lunch the next day!) accompanied by a frosty bottle of rootbeer (ever since I was a kid, I’ve always felt a quality pizza needs a good rootbeer to truly get down into your soul and make you feel happy).
That’s when it happened.
We were talking about which of this summer’s roster of popcorn sci-fi and fantasy flicks we wanted to see when something a few tables over, I can’t remember what, caught our attention. Just as we were chuckling over some of the latest internet gossip about the movie “Fanboys”, something made us look over at a table of guys who looked, well, just like the characters from the “Fanboys” promo. And, true to appearances, they were talking about sci-fi movies and comics. The topic, if I remember correctly, was their collective opinion about what they perceived as an unwritten rule that “the main character can’t die”. Sure, it’s an assertion that I’d probably disagree with (I can think of at least half a dozen sci-fi films off the top of my head where the protagonist does, in fact, shuffle off his/her mortal coil by the time the curtain falls), but it’s the fact that our fellow geeks were chatting about SF movies, not four metres away from us, at the same time we were that was a bit of an odd coincidence.
Reaching for the hot chili flakes, we changed the conversation to books – a review of Cory Doctorow’s “Overclocked”.
But that wasn’t all.
Oh no, a one-off like that, in and of itself, would be a bit weird, but not entirely surprising. I can remember moseying down Broadway one night into Memphis Blues for some ribs, chatting about an episode of the new Battlestar Galactica, when, as we waited by the door for a seat, we overheard a nearby table of eight discussing the misadventures of Admiral Adama & co.
No, this night at the old pizza parlour was a threefer… About 15 minutes later, two big guys came in the front door - one of them a dead-ringer for Blues Traveler lead singer/harmonica player Jon Popper (minus the sideburns and the ammo bandolier loaded with harmonicas) – and grabbed a table about five metres away, pulling out a couple of Magic decks for a quiet game as they waited to order their dinner.
What was it that, without apparent rhyme or reason, attracted three groups of sci-fi fans to the same pizza parlour and caused us all to sit in the same section within a couple of tables of each other? It was like some weird version of Highlander, except with pizzas and fanboy talk instead of swords and Sean Connery and headhunting, where something inexplicable drew us to the same spot. It was like going to a con, where each table was a different room with a different discussion or activity. It was fun, in its weirdly unexpected way. Probably worth dining-in at the pizza parlour more often instead of just getting take-out.

Bradbury Garners Pulitzer Citation

The Pulitzer Board has awarded a special citation to Ray Bradbury.
The boys at SF Signal posted the news on today’s SF Tidbits list.
For its part, the Pulitzer site says the recognition is:

“…for his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy.”

At the time of this posting, there’s been no comment yet from the venerable master on his official site.

Bradbury certainly deserves this honour. I’ve enthused about his imagination, his heart and his style many times before on this blog, so I won’t go into it again except to say that Ray Bradbury is one of the greatest storytellers in the English language of our time and it’s a treat to crack open each new book he offers.
This announcement couldn’t have come at a better time for Bradbury either. Michael McCarty’s interview with the author for Sci Fi Weekly’s interviews page notes there are two new books coming out this year. Gauntlet Press is releasing “Match To Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451” and “Somewhere a Band is Playing”. Definitely looking forward to those.
So let’s look back on this “deeply influential career”…
As I’ve said before, my favourite Bradbury novel is “The Halloween Tree”. Best short story collection I think would have to be a three-way tie between “The Martian Chronicles” (pretty much a given), “From the Dust Returned” and “Quicker than the Eye”. Favourite short story: probably the one from “Quicker than the Eye” about the time traveler who visits the giants of English language literature on their deathbeds to reassure them that their lives and works have meaning and lasting value. Unfortunately I can’t recall the story’s name off the top of my head and I just happen to have loaned the book to a friend. I guess the old word of advice about never loaning books is really true, ‘cause now I don’t have it when I need a quote/fact check!
And now it’s your turn.
What’s your favourite Ray Bradbury novel, collection or short story? Which chunky, delicious Bradburian turn of phrase captured the exactness of a moment or feeling or thing to you? Which one of his tales made you weep or laugh or shake in horror or sit back and wonder? Send me a note and share with the rest of us how this great magician of the language has left his mark on you.

Someone Should Have Yelled "Cut!" On "The Reaping"

Sometimes you go to see a movie as a favour to someone else because they want some company. And when it’s a favour, it’s very often because your gut’s telling you ahead of time (based on previews and whatever buzz you’ve soaked up) that for whatever reason, this flick is gonna be a disappointment. To be sure, you can be surprised and enjoy your cinematic experience. But even if you’re instincts are right and the movie is a stinker, there’s no joy in telling the other person “I told ya so” because you’ve voluntarily wasted an hour-and-a-half to two hours of your life (and possibly some cash for the ticket and snacks) by going along. Last weekend was just such an occasion. My wife asked me to see the new Hillary Swank movie “The Reaping” with her, and sure enough, my gut was right: the best part of that show was the stale popcorn I sucked back waiting for the flick to end.
“The Reaping” is so unoriginal it’s not even worth talking about all of its flaws in detail because you’ve already seen all of its elements at some point or other. Combine your favourite (or at least the first that comes to mind ‘cause it’s hard to find one good enough to call a “favourite”) one of each of the following cliché suspense/horror movie categories: satanic cult, demon-child, pleasantly-bumpkinish-on-the-surface-but-in-fact-somewhat-creepy backwoods village, or world’s about to come to an end in a wash of hellish or vengeful heavenly fire – you’ll end up with “The Reaping”. If there’s a suspense/horror trope that’s been overused to the point of near irrelevance, this film will flog it a little more.
(And now for the totally unapologetic spoilers:) This is a movie so clichéd they even killed the sidekick black guy! You would have thought that being an intelligent scientist/investigator, this fellow would have said: “Hmmm. I’m knee-deep in a river of blood outside a town beset by biblical curses, with a reportedly evil child skipping through the bog somewhere just behind the next bush on her way back to her mom’s biker flop-house, the food’s rotten and maggoty, the cows are psychotic, later on I’ll be crawling around a ruined church and a mausoleum, and they’re asking me, a black guy, to spend the night in a dilapidated old Southern plantation house – on the uncomfortable hide-a-bed couch in the den no less! Something bad may just happen on this trip, and I think it may just happen to me. If you’ll excuse me, I’m taking the truck and going home. Best of luck, Hillary, and I’ll see you next semester (hopefully).” But, of course, that doesn’t happen.
Really though, I think the scariest thing about “The Reaping” isn’t all the hoary old tricks they use to try to make you jump in your seat, it’s the fact that the hereditary leader of the satanic cult that’s brought the wrath of god down on that forgotten hunk of bog is the town school’s science teacher. In an era where science seems to be held in suspicion by a frighteningly large number of Americans, I would worry that this turning away from rationality does not need to be reinforced by the movies – especially by one as bad as this. You might argue that the filmmakers did this on purpose to in some way satirize this apparent growing distrust of science, but I would caution that even if this is the case (and I’m not sure that it is) that too many people in the audience would have that distrust reinforced by the choice of the bad guy’s occupation, rather than see it for the intended satire. Will this film cause Americans to run into the street demanding that men of science be burned at the stake or that Galileo be re-excommunicated? No. But sociologists and psychologists have long warned that pop culture does have an effect on people’s perceptions, and this movie’s depiction of the town’s only scientifically educated person (someone who possesses what to the “simple” townsfolk must be arcane knowledge beyond their reach, and one who is a teacher and thus more powerful shaping the minds of the young) as someone with malicious intent, might at least subtly bolster the subconscious fears of some members of the audience.
Moreover, it isn’t Swank’s rationality or scientific knowledge that saves the day, it’s a leap of faith and trust in the ability of the almighty to shoot straight and hit the right target. Certainly not an original ending, nor one that will help turn the tide of suspicion of science that seems to be growing.
Why can’t science help the good guys win? I remember the climax of the 80’s animated movie “The Flight of Dragons”, where the hero counters the evil wizard’s summoning of various fell monsters with a roll-call of the sciences. What about the “Ghostbusters”, who used their “unlicensed nuclear accelerators” to blast a surly demi-god/100-foot-marshmallow-man back into “the nearest convenient parallel dimension”? What about “The X-Files”? Even though Mulder often followed his hunches and held a great store of faith in the existence of various critters of the unknown, it was always his cooperation with Scully, the doctor (read scientist), and their use of rationality and science that allowed them to uncover the truth, survive and, on occasion, triumph.
“The Reaping” could have shown some smarts and learned a lesson from “The X-Files” and maybe turned into a success. Instead, it put its faith in Hollywood horror clichés and failed utterly. If you really want to waste your time on this movie, be smart about it and wait until they show it on TV – at least then you won’t waste your money.

"The Host" With The Most

Right from the beginning, when the buzz first started to come out of the film festival circuit and filter through the internet, there was something about the Korean horror movie “The Host” that intrigued me. In an era of flicks with armies of zombies, honked-off ghosts, demon-seed kids, and worse, the endless series of deplorable “Saw”-like productions obsessed with sadism for its own sake, here was a good old-fashioned mega monster movie.
How long has it been since a new version of the I-can’t-believe-you-didn’t-see-it-comin-it’s-so-friggen-huge, citizen-stompin’, military-mashin’, one-monster tornado movie? The last new one I can recall Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” remake in 2005. Bfore that, probably the ‘98 “Godzilla” remake starring Matthew Broderick but where Jean Reno stole the show complaining about the lack of croissants. If there’s been anything since then, I can’t remember it. Help me out here, folks, have there been any other building-bashin’-sized monster movies lately?
It’s as though movie industries around the world decided that this genre of film just wasn’t cool any more – that audiences wouldn’t appreciate it ‘cause it wasn’t scary and the potential to be lame was too high. It’s as though “King Kong” was a one-off allowed in deference to Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” clout more than an appreciation of cinematic history. It’s as though the genre almost died.
And then along came director Joon-ho Bong with “The Host”.
Just like those famous beasts that stomped across the silver screens of yesteryear, the mega monster genre has risen again (if only for now) with this Korean gem.
The film centres on a Seoul family that’s pretty much like gum stuck to the bottom of society’s shoe: The grandfather at the head of the clan is a former carouser now eking an existence out of his snack shack in the park with his stupid and sleepy oldest son. His daughter ought to be a gold-medal archer but lacks the confidence to fully realize her potential. The younger son is an unemployed university graduate. The sole redeeming member of the family is number-one son’s 12-year-old daughter, Hyun-seo, who alternates between the roles of parent and child. The family is thrown into turmoil when a gigantic creature leaps out of the near-by Han River and begins its rampage, mashing some victims underfoot and swallowing others. One of those who winds-up in the belly of the beast is young Hyun-seo. The catch is that this critter seems to have a fairly slow digestive process, and if a person isn’t killed in the initial gulp, there’s a chance they may still be alive when the monster decides it’s eaten too much and regurgitates some of the bodies later. The girl, vomited up with a couple of corpses in a pit in a sewer, does what any smart 21st century kid does and scavenges a cell phone to call for help. But while her family members attempt to pull themselves together for a rescue, they’re hampered by government officials who refuse to believe the girl is alive, and who claim that anyone who’s been near the creature is now infected with a mysterious illness that makes SARS look like a summer cold.
“The Host” has it all: “gotcha” moments of thrills that make you jump in your seat, brooding atmospheres, well-rounded and realistic characters that you can believe in and cheer and worry about, social and political commentary (and while plenty of this is overt, some is couched in image and metaphor and requires some thought – something that helps give this creature feature a bite), a nod to monster movies of the past (there’s a clear connection of tradition between the original “Gojira”/”Godzilla”, awakened by nuclear testing and sent on a path of destruction through Japan, and the pollution-spawned creature of ‘The Host” which savages Seoul’s riverfront – it’s merely an update of the zeitgeist fears – what horrors will man’s irresponsible tinkering unleash), and best of all, it’s absolutely hilarious. And that’s not because the movie mocks itself. Far from it, the plot stays in character the whole time. The humour comes from the humanity… from the bickering, the bitterness, the misunderstandings and the natural stupidity of people, even those in tense situations.
A lot of the gags come from the main characters, but it’s a treat to see what’s happening with the supporting cast. I certainly wouldn’t want to spoil any of the laughs, but some of the funniest moments involve what’s happening in the background. In fact, it’s this layering of activity that shows just how smart this movie is. You’ve gotta have a huge amount of respect for a director who deliberately gives scene-stealers (whether they’re laughs or moments of terror or sadness) to the tertiary actors and extras, and who, by extension, gives the audience quick insights into a larger world involving more than the protagonists who we’re with for the ride. This is a crucial part of the success of this movie.
So let “The Host” invite you into its world for a while. It’s certainly worth the full price of admission.

The Shape Of A Few Good Yarns - "Tesseracts Ten"

It doesn’t take much arm-twisting to get me to take a break from novels for a little while and dive into a short story collection or two. They’re a great way to get a quick fix of favourite authors, to sample up-and-comers and to detect the occasional poseur who’s made it through so you can avoid him/her if they somehow pull off a novel. And best of all, you get to see writers rising to a different set of challenges to their craft than novels pose: how to cobble together an intriguing plot, how to develop multi-dimensional characters we actually care about (flying in the face of the nonsense regularly spouted by high school English teachers that short stories are all about plot with lean to non-existent characterization), and how to pull this off in the confines of an editor’s word limit. It’s the mark of a successful anthology when most of the stories within it can pull this off. “Tesseracts Ten”, edited by Robert Charles Wilson and Edo van Belkom and published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy, rises to this challenge.
Veteran authors Wilson and van Belkom have assembled a group of 19 new Canadian writers offering various shadows of unsettling futures cast by the uncertainties of today. Wilson says it best in the opening segment of his introduction to the collection: “The going gets tough, and the thoughtful get nervous.”
The anthology gets off to a strong start with Scott Mackay’s “Threshold of Perception”, a cometary armageddon tale of faith amid ruin. And it’s the human focus to the story that makes it so great… where others might be tempted to go the disaster movie route and centre simply on the damage caused by the comet, Mackay makes his tale one of human beings challenging each other and themselves to look at reality in new ways. He skillfully paints us a picture of people dealing with these challenges in shades of Asimov’s famous “Nightfall” (both the short story and the collaborative novel with Robert Silverberg). I’ll also admit I really liked this as a kick-off story because I’m a sucker for a well-written alternate history.
The poem “Frankenstein’s Monster’s Wife’s Therapist”, second in the lineup, packs a solid punch that sent me reeling. Here’s an example of how effective and sharp a really short contribution can be to an anthology like this. This kind of selection is like an onomatopoeia in a comic book – if it doesn’t get your attention, then you weren’t really paying attention to begin with.
I also liked “Buttons” by Victoria Fisher (did Dickens’ Sydney Carton have a collection like this after his appointment with the guillotine in “A Tale of Two Cities”?), Mark Dachuk’s “Permission”, and Rhea Rose’ creepy take on how Spiderman could have turned out (if Peter Parker was a farm wife) in “Summer Silk”.
But every anthology has its weak links. In the ho-hum category were Allen Moore’s “Donovan’s Brain” and Jason Christie’s “Ideo Radio Poem”. And Scott Mackay, while scoring with a great opener, falls a bit short the second time around with “The Girl From Ipanema”, which should have ended sooner.
On the balance though, Robert Charles Wilson and Edo van Belkom’s “Tesseracts Ten” (really the 11th in the family – though I try to forget about “Tesseracts Q” with its tedious separatist sentiments) is an enjoyable and intelligent collection. It’s a worthy addition to the line begun 22 years ago under the careful hand of the late Judith Merril and mentored through its successive incarnations by powerhouses like Phyllis Gotlieb, Robert J. Sawyer and Nalo Hopkinson. For all the dark omens threatening to seep out of the pages of this book, van Belkom is correct when he points out at the close of his afterword essay that the remarkable variety of these tales shows a bright future for Canadian speculative fiction (and I would add, especially the tradition of writing fine short stories) with new authors such as these to nurture it. “…that child is coming of age and entering adulthood with its best and most fruitful years lying ahead with only the sky serving as the limit to their creativity and ambition.”

An Empty Monkey House

Just got the word from Sci Fi Wire and SF Signal that author Kurt Vonnegut has died.
First impressions count for a lot, and that’s certainly been my experience with Vonnegut. The first tale of his that I ever read, and the one that sticks out the most in my mind for some reason, was his short story on an egalitarian nightmare “Harrison Bergeron”, from the collection “Welcome to the Monkey House” (originally published in “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” in October 1961). The story revolves around the life of the title character, a physical and intellectual superman in shackles to keep him at humanity’s common denominator (which in this story happens to be the lowest leveling of the playing field) and his eventual slipping of his bonds, obtaining his perfect mate and rising above the rabble. More than the caution of the perils of insuring that all people are equal, I think the theme in this story that stuck out most in my mind was that humanity’s own worst enemy can easily be itself, and in unexpected ways. In order to prevent individuals from dominating their peers or their country, the society depicted opts for stagnation. In trying to keep balance and prevent a fall in one direction, the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
Some of Vonnegut’s other well-known works include “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle”.
Sci Fi Wire quotes the New York Times as reporting Vonnegut had suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall a few weeks ago. Kurt Vonnegut died in New York on April 10th at the age of 84.

Speculative Fiction At Work

You know it’s been a good day at the office when you’ve been able to have in-depth, intelligent discussions with coworkers about speculative fiction. Today was just such a day for me.
The lunchroom conversation ranged from literature to film, stuff with pop culture status as well as selections quite a bit more obscure. We browsed on Tolkien, David J. Lake’s short story “The Truth About Weena” (which I first encountered in the Australian SF anthology “Dreaming Down Under”) and its different take on the tale of H.G. Wells’ Time Traveler, “The Matrix”, Bradbury and “V for Vendetta”, to name just a few.
And what made the chat great was that it wasn’t just a tete-a-tete between myself and the other SF nut on staff – everyone had something to say. Some wanted to hear more about authors or films they hadn’t encountered before, and I picked up a few titles that I’m eager to look into. A very refreshing change from other workplaces where the cattle merely graze in silence, or where legitimate points made using speculative fiction examples are met with snobbery from literati poseurs. It’s been said many times before that you can learn a lot about your peers from what they read and what they watch, and I must say I learned quite a bit today.
A good day at the office, indeed. Somebody cue Bachman’s “Takin’ Care of Business”!

Choosing Among Favourites

Here’s a note I added to SF Signal’s discussion about a recent poll in SFX (a UK science fiction magazine) on the best science fiction film ever. The top three on the poll were Star Wars, Serenity, and Blade Runner, respectively. 2001 came in down in 8th place. It’s hard having to choose from among your favourites – especially when the list provided is by no means complete!

“In some ways, I think Star Wars vs Serenity is one of those apples vs oranges questions: they're very much different kinds of movies and shouldn't necessarily be on the same set of scales. The appeal of Star Wars (when it first came out) was very visceral - it dragged you onto the rollcoaster for an unapologetic popcorn romp and any subsequant metaphorical/intellectual dimensions are just that - afterthought. Serenity, on the other hand, despite the action and humour, is right from the get-go more of an intellectual picture. The characters are full-flushed (especially with the series' background) and the issues raised demand some thought. In any case, I think Star Wars and Serenity are really duking it out for third place. If we're talking about the best SF flicks ever, 2001 and Blade Runner have first and second place, respectively, in my books.”

Working The Bugs Out Of "Eifelheim"

First of all, I’d like to apologize, folks, for the long gap since my last posting. I try to find something to babble about at least once a week, but things have been hectic for the past little while. My grandmother had a massive stroke two weeks ago and my wife and I, out here on the Wet Coast, had to grab a flight back to my hometown of Cambridge, Ontario to visit her in the hospital and to say goodbye. She’s still holding on and fighting to improve (the family doesn’t affectionately call her The Velvet Sledgehammer for nothing) and is fully aware, but the stroke has left her partially paralyzed and at 93 years old, you just never know. If I hadn’t gone back, I probably would’ve regretted it. Add to that a heavy workload at the office when I returned, and I haven’t had any time lately to indulge in the pleasure of logging on and spouting off.

But I’m back now, so let’s get to it.

A while ago I finished Michael Flynn’s “Eifelheim”. I know, I know, some of you are probably pointing out that this book’s been out for a few months, but I’ve got a ton of new books to plough through, and when there’s fresh servings of Dan Simmons and Minister Faust to be had, other stuff from author’s I haven’t read yet gets pushed to the side of the plate.
At any rate, when I did finally get around to it, “Eifelheim” wasn’t bad. Not great, mind you, but not bad.
Flynn’s story alternates between the events in a Medieval Black Forest village when an alien ship is wrecked nearby shortly before the onset of the plague, and the lives of an academic couple: he trying to unearth the history of the German hamlet, she wrestling with quantum mechanics. While intertwining the plot lines, the book also deals with how we form impressions of people based on limited information (whether it’s the personalities and motivations of individuals who lived in a town in another part of the world hundreds of years ago or the relationship a modern historian has with his research assistant), tolerance for that which is alien (be it an extraterrestrial, someone from a neighbouring village, a new and contradictory philosophy, or a different religion), and the way in which people face crisis and possible death.
Flynn does an excellent job of bringing to life the various characters in his village of Oberhochwald/Eifelheim. Normally, when one thinks of the peasantry of Europe in the Middle Ages, faceless, dirty, rude, dumb, drudgery comes to mind – probably because the education system spends more time on the exploits of nobles, conquerors, inventors and explorers or philosophers within or against the Catholic Church. And yet by flushing out the personalities of his various secondary characters, Flynn points out to those of us in modern times (who fancy ourselves as somehow unique and memorable when future generations will likely pass us over as we do the serfs and freeholders of 800 years ago) that these villages were populated with people who were as complex (or simple) as we: some that were intelligent (if uneducated), some who were narrow-minded, some who questioned the order of things, some committed to duty, the scoundrels, the dedicated workers, the healthy and the sick – all of whom had unique reactions to whatever life had to throw at them: from the joys of festivals to the horror of pestilence. What’s more, the author tries to make as many of the characters as multi-faceted as possible in order to make them believable. A prime example is Pastor Dietrich’s ward Theresia, who has a sweet personality and loves to hear stories and practice herb lore until the arrival of the alien Krenk, when her religious narrow-mindedness makes her quite hostile to them and the priest himself, but not to the other villagers who see things the way she does.
As for the insectoid Krenk themselves, Flynn falls a little short in trying to flush them out to the same degree as his human characters. To be fair, our experience of the Krenk is through the eyes of Dietrich (and thus limited by his Medieval mind’s education and perception of the universe), and is centred on the Krenk’s attempts to survive on Earth and interact with and understand their human neighbours. And yet I was left feeling that the author could have done more to give us a better sense of Krenk culture and what it is they miss about their home (except for vital nutrients to keep them alive or perhaps rarely-mentioned loved ones).
And while the present day plot lines were necessary to reflect some of the issues raised by the Medieval story, I thought this part of the story needed some more work. Sharon’s explorations of quantum mechanics added a hard SF flavour to the story, but one that was ultimately unnecessary (don’t get me wrong, I love a well-done hard SF yarn a-la Clarke or Sawyer – there was just no need for it in this book). I’d be tempted to call this hard SF afterthought a kind of mathsterbation. The novel would have lost nothing without it.
Also, the relationship issues raised between Sharon and Tom (and to some extent Judy) throughout the book are suddenly dropped at the end, leaving their portion of the story feeling somewhat flat and unsatisfying. It’s as though Flynn was suddenly rushed to finish his book and thought “Oh, if I deal with the spousal issues and love triangle possibility that I got into in the previous 290-odd pages, this book will get too long – I’d better just slam the door on it and concentrate on the Krenk stuff – then I can cap this sucker at 313 pages!” Or like the author suddenly got worried about having spousal relationship tale cooties infecting his alternate history tale and worried that if he didn’t drop that end of the story then it might supplant the alien focus of the book. Then again, maybe that was the editor’s call. I don’t know. But it seems fairly obvious that if you’re going to get into character subplots that detailed, even if you don’t tie-up their loose ends at the close of the book (because a pat ending would be equally unsatisfying), an author should make some effort to show that these concerns are still in some way weighing on his characters minds – that they’ve had some impact on the characters. Instead, Sharon seems to disappear once she’s had her scientific revelation while Tom happily goes cavorting around the Black Forest with the other woman giving us no sign as to whether this is going to be trouble.
That being said, don’t let the weaknesses of the modern plotline prevent you from enjoying “Eifelheim”. Overall, it’s certainly worth the read.

Passage Through "The Terror"

How do you create suspense in a novel based on a real tragedy? Dan Simmons does an admirable job of showing us in “The Terror”, a fictional take on the events of the ill-fated 19th century Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
History tells us the British Empire dispatched H.M.S. Erebus and H.M.S. Terror in 1845, under the command of Sir John Franklin, to find the fabled Northwest Passage – a coveted hypothetical route through the labyrinth of islands, pack ice and ice bergs choking Canada’s arctic waters. The brutal arctic had hurled back many previous attempts (including one by the legendary Captain James Cook via the Bering Strait) and would block many others to come. Franklin’s voyage was beset with bad omens; serious command errors were made; the ships became ice-locked; coal supplies ran low; food poisoning, scurvy and the elements ravaged the crew; the vessels had to be abandoned; and eventually, those desperate men left turned on each other in cannibalism. None of them made it out of the arctic. Many questions about the tragedy still remain unanswered.
As if the hardships suffered by the crew weren’t enough, Simmons, while sticking close to the facts, seasons his tale with a supernatural element of suspense: some thing is also out there in the snowy wastes… not a polar bear (as if they weren’t deadly enough), but something larger, ancient, and full of malice and cunning. Some thing that is deliberately stalking the crew, and not merely for a single, bloody wipe-out, but rather in a seemingly careful strategy designed to deprive the men of the most skilled and stabilizing of their number and of their morale.
On one level, Simmons is masterfully indulging in his love of the tale of Beowulf and Grendel. And yet there are other ways to interpret the nature of the Terror. John Clute has done an excellent job of shedding light on the beast in his Excessive Candour column on the SciFi channel site entitled “In the Belly of the Thing”, so there’s no need for me to repeat him.
Rather, I’d like to explore some of the ways in which the metaphor of passage opens up in the story. For passage in “The Terror” refers to far more than just a route through a geographical obstacle course. To be sure, there are plenty of passages over water (of the usually frozen, but on rare occasions liquid, variety) – that of Erebus and Terror across the Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean and their eventual passage to the bottom There’s the treacherous weather and Terror-plagued run between the two ships once they’ve become ice-bound. There’s the trek from the abandoned ships to King William Land. Then there are the many other voyages across the island and finally away from it as the survivors go their separate ways. It’s been noted untold times that a water journey is metaphorically a trip into the self and that certainly holds true in “The Terror” – these ordeals across the ice are merely backdrops for the real passages throughout the novel.
The entrance tunnels into the igloos of Lady Silence, the mysterious Inuit who haunts the expedition, serve as a literal passage from the world of the British crew into that of the native people able to live off the land. They also serve as bridges for understanding between two of the explorers and the woman.
The coloured maze of Carnivale tents inspired by Edgar Allan Poe reflects the crew’s descent into hopelessness and terror amidst the dark of their winter prison where time passes but the outside never changes and death strikes with sudden, shocking violence.
There are passages from books. Doomed Franklin aboard the flagship Erebus is fond of sermonizing and bores or downright loses his crew with excerpts from the Bible about the road to salvation. Captain Francis Crozier of the Terror, on the other hand, has little use for religion and rouses great interest from his largely uneducated men with quotes from Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” about life being “solitary, nasty, brutish and short”. While Crozier’s choice may be more obviously appropriate in the context of the story, in a strange and unexpected way, Franklin’s sermon about Jonah isn’t necessarily off either.
There are numerous points with a number of characters where we focus on the passage of air/breath and thus soul into and out of bodies: from the nearly-decapitated young seaman whose body refuses to quit breathing, to the frightening music of the Terror with its special “instrument” on the ice, to the Terror’s encounter with the vicious Mr. Hickey.
And there are rites of passage. Hickey uses manipulation and worse to rise in status. Dr. Goodsir, who begins the novel as somewhat effete, volunteers to engage in physical toil with the other men and over the course of his journey proves his mettle and earns respect.
Given our foreknowledge of the fatal outcome of the voyage, we also know that in signing on to the expedition, the men have booked passage not on Erebus or Terror, but rather with Anubis.
Captain Crozier himself navigates many passages throughout the course of “The Terror”. Among them is that of his final days drunkenness, through detox delirium (plunging into memory and drifting into prescience) and into cold sobriety. His greatest journey though is into understanding of and resignation to the frightening and alien road necessary for survival.
And these passages through terror are but the tip of the iceberg.

Lucas' Galactic Empire Conquers Real History

It seems neither history’s greatest conquerors nor even the generally subdued shores of present-day Nova Scotia are safe from the scourge of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader.
Canadian sketch comedy “This Hour has 22 Minutes” ran a segment in tonight’s new episode highlighting the failed Halifax bid for the Commonwealth Games. The gag also concerned, strangely enough, fallen empires.
Viewers are now being encouraged to take part in an online poll to rank dead empires, including those of the Romans, Ottomans and Mongols. Squeezed in at the bottom of human history’s most ambitious conquerors is a fictional option: the evil Galactic Empire from Star Wars.
And it hasn’t taken long for the geeks of the internet (yours truly included) to come swimming up to take a nibble at the bait. In just a couple of hours, the Galactic Empire has taken a huge lead over the competition with (at the time of this posting) 62% of the vote. The nearest competitor is Rome, coming in at just 11%.
They can build all the walls they want, but the Caesars just ain’t no match for the power of the Dark Side.