And after all the terrible things I said about them.

The issue isn't whether you're paranoid, but whether you're paranoid enough.

Strange Days

Lord knows that I've had some issues with Space, but I have to give them full points for picking Strange Days for their New Year's Eve lineup, especially since the climactic action of the film takes place on December 31st just before midnight.

Admittedly a flawed masterpiece, Strange Days has to be acknowledged as a complete departure from the usual space opera/alien monster big screen science fiction film. James Cameron's script is a bit uneven, but the base premise of memory as a saleable commodity is an interesting one - although it's unfortunate that the plot moves away from that premise into a sort of cyberpunk whodunnit. And surprisingly (at least to me) it's such a compact, almost intimate script, considering that I associate Cameron with so many large and elaborate projects.

That sort of "yes, but, although" analysis is characteristic of the ambiguity of the film, which garnered good responses from critics but didn't do well at the box office. In spite of its flaws, I've always found it very watchable: Kathryn Bigelow's direction is perfectly suited to the material, the cast (a fairly impressive lineup featuring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis and Tom Sizemore) all do a great job in their respective roles, and it's great to see a science fiction movie that really doesn't need any special effects other than a few elaborate fades. But I have to say that for me, the biggest flaw in Strange Days is the idea that anyone would pick Juliette Lewis over Angela Bassett.

- Sid

P.S. Oh, and happy New Year, everyone, all the best for 2008. One more step into the future...

"I ATE'NT DEAD."

"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad."

Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

When I learned that Terry Pratchett had been diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, I was horrified. Out of all the things that could happen to such a brilliant and subtle mind, there's an awful irony to Pratchett getting Alzheimer's, like finding out that a tightrope walker was going to lose their sense of balance. Following is his full statement, as originally posted on illustrator Paul Kidby's web site:

AN EMBUGGERANCE

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)

Terry Pratchett

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

I'm not sure if I was more astonished or impressed when I read that Pratchett is handling the situation with "mild optimism" - this explains a lot about the origins of Carrot's personality, if you ask me. I then watched a video of Pratchett doing an appearance at Barnes & Noble in New York, and I'm sorry to say that his comments on the situation struck me as having a slight air of denial about them.

However things should turn out in the short run (I say the short run because, as Pratchett points out, we'll all be dead at some future point) at least Pratchett has created, and hopefully will continue to create, a marvelous legacy for future generations of appreciative readers.

- Sid

P.S. I looked at hundreds of quotes from Pratchett in search of something appropriate for this posting, an experience not unlike eating two pounds of chocolate at once - it's great to start, but after a while you feel overwhelmed somehow. Regardless, I was pleased to stumble across a statement very similar to Zamyatin's:

Revolutions always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.

Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

Antici.....(say it).....pation.

Boxing Day in Vancouver - well, everywhere, I suppose, although I'm not certain of the internationality of the concept - and I'm sitting here at the computer watching BitTorrent struggle with three different downloads of the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas Special, guest starring Kylie Minogue. In theory, at least one of them will be finished by lunch...perhaps leftover turkey and David Tennant? 

- Sid

Postscript: Lunch was in fact spent watching the Christmas Special. Not a great episode when compared to some previous scripts, although Kylie did a reasonably good job and was an acceptable romantic interest for the episode. Considering that the entire episode took place on a ship called the Titanic, it was really more of an homage to The Poseidon Adventure.

"Twas the night before Christmas."

In spite of its religious origins, Christmas has ended up as the ultimate fantasy holiday, an odd blend of wish fulfillment, time travel and good will. Santa Claus somehow fills innumerable stockings overnight - but how? Tachyon reindeer? Teleportation technology? Cloning? Sorry, no, none of those options are ever mentioned, which indicates that the tradition of Saint Nick defies scientific explanation. NORAD's annual announcements about Santa's progress around the globe just seem wrong, somehow - one would expect that Kris Kringle's exploits are taking place on a plane removed from that of radar and tracking satellites.

The holiday season occupies an interesting role in the SF/fantasy canon, with several prominent examples to demonstrate the extremes. An often overlooked (or miscategorized) example is Dicken's A Christmas Carol, a ghost story mixed with time travel that sets the standard for the concept, as witnessed by the countless adaptations and reworkings of the character of Scrooge and his Christmas Eve experience. Doctor Who pays tribute to Dickens' contribution in the episode "The Unquiet Dead", which coincidentally takes place on Christmas Eve, 1869. And, given C. S. Lewis' almost militant Christianity, it's always surprised me a little that Father Christmas makes an appearance in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, although to be fair the history of the original Saint Nicholas is a deeply Christian one.

The oddest entry in the canon would have to be Harlan Ellison's short story, "Santa Claus versus S.P.I.D.E.R", which portrays Santa Claus as a James Bond-influenced superspy whose red suit makes him into a walking armoury. The second oddest may be Clive Barker's "The Yattering and Jack", wherein a demon reanimates the Christmas turkey as it sizzles in the oven. (Anyone planning to cook a turkey tomorrow, imagine if the damn thing battered its way out of the oven and attacked you.) H. P. Lovecraft's "The Festival", a quietly horrifying description of "traditional" holiday celebrations, runs a close third.

Terry Pratchett gives us one of the best long-form tributes to the season in Hogfather, which deals with the Discworld version of Santa Claus. It's easy to take Pratchett's pork-dispensing character as a simple parody, but, as with all of Pratchett's creations, the underlying elements that he references provide a fascinating perspective on the evolution of mythic figures.

However, when I started this posting, one work came immediately to mind as the most memorable seasonal piece: Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "The Star", an uncharacteristically somber piece for Clarke. A Jesuit scientist, part of an expedition to the Phoenix Nebula, discovers that the supernova which produced the nebula destroyed a civilization not unlike our own. His other discovery shakes his faith:

There can be no reasonal doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?

- Sid

Three thousand tubes of what?

I'm currently reading Arthur C. Clarke's Prelude to Space, written in 1947 and set in 1978, which describes a first mission to the Moon. Clarke points out in his introduction to the 1977 reprinting of the novel that, "On July 20, 1969, all the countless science-fiction stories of the first landing on the Moon become frozen in time, like flies in amber. We can look back on them now with a new perspective...for we know how it was really done and can judge the accuracy of the prediction."

Clarke's description of the mission varies considerably from the final result, but not so much that the novel has the anachronistic feel of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells. (Actually, I find that Wells holds up much better than Verne over time, but that's another topic.) However, the part that really jumped out at me, sixty years in Clarke's future, was the following conversation after a tour of the ship's cockpit:

"It's a bit overwhelming, but not so very much worse than a transcontinental jet's cockpit."

"It is if you know what goes on behind all those panels," said Matthews grimly. "Arnold Clinton - that's the electronics king - once told me that there are three thousand tubes in the computing and control circuits alone. And there must be a good many hundreds on the communications side."

Three thousand vacuum tubes? I almost laughed out loud - relying on a system like that to go to the Moon would be like having someone say that a battleship would only be able to sail if none of the light bulbs on board burned out. Now, admittedly, when Clarke was writing the book, state-of-the-art computing was represented by ENIAC, which had close to 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighed 27 tons. The next time that you have a problem with your computer, remember the gentleman in the image at the left of this paragraph, who is troubleshooting a problem in ENIAC by looking for a dead tube - see, Vista's not that bad after all, is it.

Coincidentally, the needs of the Apollo program for a more reliable system for use in the Apollo Guidance Computer led to concentrated research into the development of the integrated circuitry that replaced the vacuum tube and which is now used in virtually every piece of electronics in existence. Sadly, the AGC crashed five times - only in the computer sense, fortunately - during the landing approach to the Moon by the Eagle module.

- Sid