Monday, September 20, 2010

Monsters.


There have been times in recent years when I've felt that I've somehow slipped across the line into some kind of shadow world*, a world that crosses the border into the sort of fantasy existence that's dominated my reading habits for the last 40 years.

The result?  Zombies block the downtown streets, my niece is apparently a part-time vampire, a good friend tells me in apparent earnest that she's a space alien, coffee shops complain about extra-terrestrial influences,  the Internet attempts to communicate with me via broken English, and then there's things like this:


Yes, monsters.  A little research reveals that it's guerilla promo for a movie coming out in October that echoes District 9's concept of an unexpected alien incursion - and, in the same fashion that District 9 resonates off its South African location, the extraterrestrial presence of Monsters is in Mexico. However, in the case of the sign above, there's another layer of (perhaps) unplanned irony. 

I took that picture near my workplace in Vancouver, about a block from the center of the infamous East Hastings slums, where it's not uncommon to see people unconscious on the sidewalks or wandering in the middle of the street in a state of drug-induced dementia, screaming psychotically at the sky or weeping uncontrollably in the park.

Am I saying that these people are monsters?  Although it sounds lacking in compassion, in some ways perhaps they are - there's certainly a strong resemblance to the traditional portrayal of zombies, at least. The woman I saw last week with her pants around her knees and her rear end out in traffic as she urinated into the gutter is an unfortunate but ideal example - someone who has so abandoned any remnant of self-respect that they would no longer even find it necessary to seek out an alley or a corner out of sight to perform the more fundamental bodily functions.

Imagine a situation involving a drug that twisted and warped people's bodies to the same extent that crack seems to have destroyed the minds of some of these people. In that case, there would indeed be a necessity for warning signs for monsters.

Hmmm - perhaps the basis for a fantasy novel...
- Sid

* "Twilight zone" might be more apt, but obviously there are copyright issues.

Monday, September 13, 2010

"My name is Newt - nobody calls me Rebecca."


"They mostly come at night...mostly."
Newt, Aliens
"Acting just wasn't me."
Carrie Henn
To my mild disappointment, we do not have a winner in the Guess who this is! contest, but I'd like to thank everyone for playing.

The identity of the lady in question?  It's Carrie Henn, who played the part of Rebecca "Newt" Jorden in Aliens.  Apparently Ms. Henn's brush with fame left her unmoved, and she went on to become a schoolteacher in California.  (Remember, I said that she was an "amphibian" actress?  Newt, amphibian...boy, tough crowd tonight.)
- Sid

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Gernsback Continuum.


The winners of the Hugo Awards for 2010 were announced last weekend at WorldCon, science fiction's largest annual convention, held in Australia this year.  Unlike my usual experience with their movie equivalent the Oscars, I'm actually familiar with most of the Hugo winners and have read the winners of the Best Novel and Best Novelette awards - well, one of the winners of Best Novel, it was a tie between China MiĆ©ville's The City and The City (which I have read) and The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi (which I have not read but may well).

I've obliquely mentioned Hugo Gernsback a few times, most often in reference to the award which is named after him, and perhaps this is an appropriate moment to go into more detail about Mr. Gernsback and how it is that science fiction's premier prize bears his name.

It must be remembered that we live in an entirely new world.
Hugo Gernsback, Editorial - Issue One of Amazing Stories, 1926
As the 20th Century got under way, it would have seemed that the future was being created every single day, and Hugo Gernsback was determined to be part of that future. Born Hugo Gernsbacher on August 16, 1884 in Luxembourg, he emigrated to the United States in 1904, planning a career as an inventor.

Once in America, Gernsback established the Electric Importing Company in order to market an improved battery which he had developed, but unfortunately he did not experience much success with his new invention. As a result, he decided to expand the company into a more general supply house for radio parts and equipment.

In order to help create a market for that equipment, he began to include plans and articles in the company's catalogue. Eventually it developed into the first electronics and radio magazine: Modern Electrics, first published in 1908.

In 1911, the first portion of a twelve-part science fiction serial written by Gernsback appeared in the magazine - Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance Of the Year 2660.*   Ralph, the titular character, is an inventor and one of the top ten scientists of his time. The story deals with his meeting with Alice 212B 423, with whom he falls in love but has to rescue from a rejected Martian suitor, and even revives her from death at his rival's hands.

The tale takes place against Gernsback's view of the future, which in retrospect contains a combination of surprisingly accurate predictions of technology that we have now, and complete misses (to be fair, there's still a few hundred years left to make up the shortfall.) Ralph 124C 41+ was revised and published into book form in 1925.

In 1926, Gernsback launched Amazing Stories, the first magazine to be dedicated solely to "scientifiction", as he called it. Initially Amazing Stories only reprinted material by H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, but importantly it offered for the first time a potential venue for new authors. Over time it presented stories by now legendary science fiction authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. A. Merrit, Jack Williamson, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Edmond Hamilton, and Philip Francis Nowlan, whose classic character Buck Rogers first appeared in the August 1928 edition of Amazing.

In 1929, Gernsback was forced to declare bankruptcy, and although Amazing continued to be published it was no longer under his control.

He quickly recovered, and began publication of three new magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly. The first two were merged into Wonder Stories in 1930, and Science Wonder Quarterly became Wonder Quarterly. It was Science Wonder Stories which was credited by future science fiction author Isaac Asimov for introducing him to science fiction in 1929.

Unfortunately, Gernsback experienced financial difficulty with the Wonder Stories line as well, and sold the titles in 1936.  Although he continued in the publishing business until his death in 1967, he never returned to the science fiction market.

(The odd thing is that although Gernsback certainly is a dedicated visionary, he's a failed one when it comes to practical terms.  None of his magazines were financial successes, and his chosen name for the genre - scientifiction - was never accepted.)

Gernsback is often referred to as "the father of science fiction", but in my opinion, that's really not a fair description of Gernsback's role.  I would be far more inclined toward H. G. Wells as the parental figure for the genre. Instead, I think that Gernsback occupies a far more important role in the development of science fiction than simply being its father.

In many ways, Gernsback had the same relationship with science fiction that Henry Ford had with the automobile.  Ford didn't invent the automobile, but what he did do was create a factory assembly line system that allowed for the relatively cheap construction of cars, and as such made them a commodity that almost anyone could afford.  You could say that Ford popularized the car, made it into something that anyone and everyone knew about.


Gernsback performed the same sort of service for science fiction. Not only did his various magazines put a monthly dose of SF on every newstand in North America (and some in England), they also offered a venue for the readers of those magazines to offer their own speculations about the future to come.  An entire generation of classic science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Donald Wollheim, and Arthur C. Clarke acknowledged their early experience with Gernsback's publications as the primary influence in the direction of their future careers.

It's on that basis that Hugo Gernsback fully earned the privilege of having his name given to science fiction's top honour: the Hugo Award, a prize which he himself received in 1960 as a special recipient.

I bet no one ever handed that Oscar guy a golden statue of himself...
- Sid

*  It's a pun - "Ralph, one to foresee for one." -  just in case not everyone sounded that out.


Sunday, September 5, 2010

Yes yes, I'm sure there will be some kind of a prize.



Hey, trivia fans, guess who this is!  This "amphibian" actress co-starred in a major science fiction film, and it was the first and only movie that she ever did.
- Sid

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Tidbits.


Hi ho, Saturday afternoon on the Labour Day long weekend, and time for some quick updates and comments.
A recent New York Times article discusses the issues I expressed in my posting on gaming in regards to real-world overlap.  It would seem that people are up in arms (sorry, bad pun) over the most recent addition to the first-person shooter lineup.  Medal of Honor is set in Afghanistan, and in the online multi-player version, players have the option of playing as American soldiers or as the Taliban. It would seem that various political figures find the inclusion of terrorists as playable characters to be "tasteless", in the words of British defense secretary Liam Fox.And, further to my opening comments in that gaming post regarding Starcraft II, I was surprised to discover that the voice actors for the game include such science fiction big guns as Armin Shimmerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine), Michael Dorn (Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and the part of Sarah Kerrigan is voiced by none other than Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica.  Are things perhaps a bit quiet in the TV marketplace?My friend Chris informs me that a 3-D movie version of the Smurfs is in development.  Gosh, there's a clever idea...let's make a 3-D movie featuring blue people.  Boy, I wish James Cameron had thought of that.
I've just finished re-reading Peter Hamilton's Judas Unchained, the epic conclusion to the Commonwealth Saga.  The first book, Pandora's Star, is one and three-eights inches thick.  The second book is two inches thick and features visibly smaller type than its predecessor.

DAMN IT, PETER, THIS SHOULD BE A TRILOGY!!  IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR TOLKIEN, IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!!Local comic book store The Comic Shop has relocated to an address further along 4th Avenue.  In the process of moving, they culled some of their "previously owned" stock and left it in front of the store with a crooked cardboard sign saying FREE.  As a result, when I was coming back from the gym on Tuesday, there were stacks of 70's and 80's Analog and Galaxy SF magazines and a variety of fantasy and science fiction novels just sitting there, looking for a good home.  Sigh...as I scooped up handfuls of books and jammed them into my gym bag, I probably looked like a member of the legion of back-alley scavengers who are constantly trolling for recyclable containers.  ("Oh look, poor fellow, he's probably going to sell those books to get money for booze or crack.")  I was terribly self-conscious about it - thank god it was late enough that the streets were almost empty.

Not so self-conscious that I didn't make two trips, though.  Hope you all have a pleasant weekend!
- Sid


Two thumbs up from Lorena Bobbit, I assume.


"Wet...t-shirt...wet...t-shirt..."
Jerry O'Connell's last words as porn producer Derrick Jones, Piranha 3D
Let me start with a bit of background, setting the scene as it were.  As previously mentioned, I have a very good friend named Laurie: she has a BSc and an MA, speaks four languages, is a knowledgeable fitness professional, an afficionado of Shakespearean theatre, an expert ballroom dancer, and a member of Mensa.  Regardless, she cheerfully decided that Piranha 3D was the must-see movie to start the Labour Day weekend.

For the most part I don't agree with the concept that something can be so bad that it's good, but to my astonishment Piranha 3D manages to go through some kind of black hole/looking glass/time warp and come out the other side as a horrific, disgusting, but entertaining film.  I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it "good", but it more than delivers on everything that it promises.

And what does it promise?

Blood and boobs in 3D.

P3D is only marginally acceptable as a topic for this blog, although there is a vast precedent of 50's and 60's semi-science fiction films based on the same basic premise.  A seismic disturbance opens a chasm between a lake in Arizona and a hidden subterranean lake located immediately below it.  This pocket of water has apparently been sealed since the Pleistocene Epoch, creating an Darwinian pressure cooker for the development of unspeakably savage prehistoric piranha - old school piranha, if you will - that are now free to seek fresh meat.

Nice boat shoes!
Meanwhile, up on the surface, Spring Break has started, and the lake is filling with hordes of drunken bikini-clad babes as a porn producer arrives to shoot his latest magnum opus...do I really need to explain any further?

I really have to give full credit to all the creative parties involved in this production. Piranha 3D is utterly without presumption or ego - they set out to make an over-the-top horror film with less fabric holding the plot together than in most of the bikinis used, a film whose only reason for existence is to show half-naked bodies and hungry aquatic horrors gnawing away at them, and they succeeded beyond any possible dream of success. 

No opportunity for three-dimensional excess is ignored in this film.  3D breasts, full monty 3D softcore lesbian underwater nudity*, 3D vomit - and then the killing starts.  Detached 3D eyeballs drift through the water, flesh is graphically stripped from 3D bones, faces are chewed off (and in one exceptional instance pulled off when a young woman's hair gets caught in a propellor) and endless gallons of blood cloud the waters of the lake**. 

And of course the capper, the top, the capo di tutti capi - the severed penis scene, wherein Jerry O'Connell's character is savaged by the fish and then dragged out of the water, horribly maimed, nothing but bones and sinew from the waist down.

"My penis..." he gasps.  "They took...my penis."

Cut to an underwater view as a severed - I hesitate to say dismembered - 3D penis drifts by on the current, only to be snapped up by a hungry piranha.

And then...burped out again.  What more could you ask of a movie-going experience?
- Sid

* A phrase I never thought I'd be able to use in my entire life, let alone in this blog.

** Let's hear it for the Internet - apparently it's actually about 400 gallons of blood.