Sunday, March 21, 2010

Do you think that he still has his space suit?



If it wasn't for Yuri Gagarin, I never would have stopped.

I had plans to meet up with one of my coworkers from my previous job today, have a bite to eat and go for a beer.  We'd arranged to rendezvous in New Westminster, and since I didn't have anything important planned for the day I packed up the Nikon and headed down a couple of hours in advance so that I could play tourist.

I arrived at the restaurant a bit early, so I decided to do a quick turn around the block before going in.  As I rounded the second corner and headed up Begbie Street, I noticed that I was approaching the Arundel Mansions building, which frankly looked somewhat less palatial than its name would suggest.

As I went past the entrance, for whatever reason I glanced over at the door, just for a second.  I walked another 20 feet, and then stopped, as my mind caught up with the input from that momentary look, then headed back to look again.

Is everyone out there familiar with Yuri Gagarin?  Legendary Russian cosmonaut, the first man to reach outer space and orbit the planet? Died in a test flight accident in 1968?  How he would end up in a slightly seedy looking hotel in New Westminster is a strange enough question all on its own, but next door to Ella Fitzgerald?  Not to mention Lewis Carroll and Beatrix Potter, who really should be in apartments closer to A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh.  And as for classic novelists Antoine St. Exupery and Joseph Conrad, I can't imagine what their conversations in the elevator would be like, if in fact the Arundel Mansions enjoys the luxury of an elevator.

Oh, and Mr. A "Hilter", in #18? I'm sorry, Adolf, but if you're going to use an assumed name, you could at least do something more creative than just switching the third and fourth letters.
- Sid

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Wrong question.


Lt. Commander Data: I have been testing the aphorism, "A watched pot never boils." I have boiled the same amount of water in this kettle sixty-two times. In some cases I have ignored the kettle; in others, I have watched it intently. In every instance, the water reaches its boiling point in precisely 51.7 seconds. It appears I am not capable of perceiving time any differently than my internal chronometer.
Commander William T. Riker: Why don't you turn it off?
Data: Sir?
Riker: Data, people do not have internal chronometers. Why don't you see what happens if you turn yours off?
Data: Thank you, sir. I will try that.
[Riker nods and gets up to leave, but stops]
Riker: Just don't be late for your shift!
Star Trek:  The Next Generation, Timescape
At work today, one of my co-workers noticed that I was standing beside the kettle with a tea bag, a mug, and a patient expression.  Quickly sizing up the situation, she cheerfully commented, "You know, if you watch it, it won't boil."

Without even pausing, I replied, "No, they tested that on Star Trek - Data boiled a kettle at the end of one episode and it boiled in the same length of time whether he watched it or not.  Riker told him to turn off his internal chronometer and try it again."

She shook her head and said, "I have no idea how you can remember these things!"

No no, not how, why
- Sid

P.S. Yes, I am aware of the irony of putting up this posting immediately following my last entry, thank you for asking.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

A '72 Zelazny, from the vines on the south side of the hill.



A few years ago, I decided that I should add some kind of personal information to my resume, give some kind of little hint as to what I did when I wasn’t at work.  After some deliberation, I added the following:
PERSONAL INTERESTS
Science fiction
Military history
Oddly enough, no one has ever asked me for my opinion of the relative merits of the Russian T-34 versus the German Panther or for an analysis of the Duke of Wellington's strategy at Waterloo, but for whatever reason the science fiction tag seems to evoke a response.  In a job interview with the ICBC about four years ago, one of the interviewers got this funny look in her eye and said, “So, science fiction…do you go to...conventions?”*  And, in the case of my recent change of jobs, I’ve already mentioned the questions about my blog, during the interview I was asked what my favourite sci-fi movie was**, and last week some co-workers solicited my opinion of Babylon 5, which for whatever reason had come up during their lunch conversation.***

Sigh...

Here I am with this comprehensive, almost encyclopedic knowledge of fantasy and science fiction, and no one ever asks me about anything but the pop culture aspects.

There are times when I feel like a connoisseur who has developed a vast knowledge of wines, liqueurs, whiskeys and other beverages, building it up piece by piece over a lifetime of sampling and evaluation.  I know histories, vintages, successes, failures; I can distinguish subtleties of flavour; and my shelves contain a complete range from the exotic to the traditional.  And what do people ask me about? The relative merits of wine-in-a-box.
- Sid

*  The answer is no.  To quote my friend Laurie, I'm not that kind of a doctor.

**  Star Wars, the first one.  Not necessarily the best science fiction movie ever, but I have my reasons.

*** Reasonable show, took it a couple of seasons to find its groove, but it was always hampered by the fact that all the supporting characters were more interesting than the leads.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

pReviews.



A lovely Saturday here in Vancouver, sunny and double digit temperatures, so after finishing my laundry, off I went into the afternoon sunshine to do some shopping.  After taking advantage of the apparently constant sale at Sears by picking up three shirts for work, I decided to celebrate the raise at my new job by crossing the street to Chapters and having a go at the science fiction and fantasy sections.

However, first I took a pass through the Reduced section, often the home of unregarded trifles, and never made it any further into the store. I've been trying to cut back on my hardcover purchases, but if they're going to sell them for less than the cost of the paperback editions, it's very difficult to say no!  As a result I walked away with four books* sharing space with my new shirts - no need to increase our petroleum debt by using another plastic bag.  


The books that I purchased are:  Matter, by Iain M. Banks; The Heart of Valor, by Tanya Huff; The New Moon's Arms, by Nalo Hopkinson; and Hell and Earth, by Elizabeth Bear.  Now, I realize that you're not supposed to review books until after reading them, but in this case I thought I could at least offer an explanation as to why I picked these four novels, and my expectations of them.

Iain M. Banks is a fabulous writer, if a slightly schizophrenic one - his non-SF work is published as Iain Banks, no initial.  (There's a reason for this, but I leave it to my readers to research that as an extra credit assignment.)  Banks, who has become the front man for the Scottish / British SF boom of the last decade, is best known for his Culture books.  

How to describe the Culture?  The Culture is a hedonistic, non-materialistic futuristic society that exists on a galactic level and creates on a macro scale, with the greater burden of maintenance and warfare falling upon artificial intelligences of varying capabilities.  In spite of its apparent softness, Banks portrays the Culture as having a core of brutal, almost cruel realism, and the combination of these elements gives his stories a disturbing ambiguity.  Matter is the latest Culture novel, and when I saw it on the shelf I picked it up instantly - Banks has never failed to entertain, amuse and startle me.

I actually have a casual nodding acquaintanceship with Tanya Huff from her years as an employee at Bakka Books in Toronto.  To be honest, that's why I purchased the first book in her Valor series when it came out in 2000.  However, the series has turned out to be a good, solid, well-crafted addition to the sub-genre of military science fiction, and as such I expect this third book in the series to be an entertaining read.

Huff is probably the only person on this page that non-fans might be familiar with, whether knowingly or not.  Her Blood books, a vampire - detective series set in Toronto, were adapted for TV under the title of Blood Ties. It's currently in syndication and shows up now and then on whichever cable channels are looking for Canadian content.

Nalo Hopkinson is the closest thing to a wild card in my selections.  She's a strong talent, and a rising one, but so far I've only read her short work without having picked up either of her breakthrough novels: Midnight Robber or Brown Girl in the Ring.  Hopkinson's work draws heavily upon her Jamaican heritage for both story-telling style and inspiration, resulting in a unique and special flavour to her writing.

The New Moon's Arms continues this approach, with the story actually being set on a Caribbean island.  Since it won both an Aurora Award and a Sunburst Award when it was originally published in 2008, I have every reason to expect it to be a suitable introduction to Hopkinson's longer work.

Although Elizabeth Bear had her first story published in 1996, I've only started reading her books within the last year  - regular readers may remember her name from my posting about representations of Canada in SF.

I find Bear's writing to be odd in that she is quite a good descriptive author, handles character, action and dialogue extremely well, but her end game is somehow lacking.  It's as if she puts so much into the initial stages of her stories that there's no room to raise the energy level at the end, resulting in something that's more like the slope down to that flat bit at the end of a roller coaster than a real loop-the-loop. (If you want to be technical, it's all denouement, no climax.)  Regardless, she is a very good writer, and I'm willing to accept that there may not be a cymbal clash at the end of this book, and simply enjoy the ride.

The sad part for me about all of this is that when you have a lot of experience as a reader, it can be difficult to expand your horizons - obviously I have a clear idea of what to expect from these books in spite of the fact that I haven't cracked a single cover.  Sometimes when I'm in a used book store, if it's not busy I'll ask the counter staff to recommend something that they've found to be a great read.  If it's a place where they know my buying habits, sometimes they'll try to tailor their suggestions to what they've seen me buy, but I discourage them from taking that route.  After all, I already know what I like - that's the problem. 
- Sid

* If you can no longer grip your book selections with one hand, you have too many.  This is a useful rule which has saved me from overspending in the past, although after years of shopping in this fashion I can probably span well over an octave on a piano.