"Good news, everybody!"

One of the inevitable problems with writing science fiction is that it's actually quite easy to predict the future and be wrong.  Science fiction is full of errors and anachronisms:  breathable air on Mars, dinosaurs on Venus, space ships crossing the gulf between stars based on calculations made with a slide rule, or as per my posting on a moon ship whose computer is filled with vacuum tubes.

However, every once in a great while the balance falls in the other direction.  I'm currently reading Crashing Suns, a collection of Edmond Hamilton science fiction stories that were originally published in the late 1920s.  My version, published in 1965, contains the following apologetic note from editor Donald A. Wollheim regarding the various references to our solar system being governed by The League of Eight Worlds:

...the astute reader will also note that in those year the Solar System had only eight planets, Pluto not yet having been discovered.

Ha, well, good news. Thanks to the idiosyncratic 2006 decision by the International Astronomical Union to strip Pluto of its planetary qualifications, if they decide to do another edition they can leave that part out.

- Sid

The place you never want to look.

The Doctor: And she left you all alone?
Amelia: I'm not scared.
The Doctor:  Of course you're not scared, you're not scared of anything.  Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of the box, man eats fish custard, and look at you...just sitting there.  So you know what I think?
Amelia: What…
The Doctor:  Must be a hell of a scary crack in your bedroom wall.

Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour

The awful truth about Doctor Who has finally been revealed, and by no less a personage than the eminence grise of British fantasy, Sir Terry Pratchett.  In his recent stint as guest editor of British science fiction magazine SFX, Pratchett announces in his editorial that, although entertaining, light-hearted, and capable of wonderful moments, Doctor Who is not science fiction.

He goes on to make an acceptable case for his announcement, based on "pixel-thin" science and the Doctor as a deus ex machina figure, but he commits an odd oversight, especially for someone as sharp as Pratchett.  If it's not science fiction, what is it?

Fortunately, chief writer and executive producer Stephen Moffat had already addressed this question for the first post-episode Doctor Who Confidential of the new season, when he commented:

Fairy tales are the way we tell our children that there are people out there who might want to eat them.  They are warnings, in fantasy form, of the reality and the dangers of the world.

When I say Doctor Who is a fairy tale, I don't mean it's like a fairy tale, I mean it literally is -  far more than it's a science fiction show, far more than it's an adventure show, it's a fairy tale.

Due to the unfortunate influence of the Walt Disney Corporation, fairy tales have become light-hearted musical experiences that last about two hours and are available on DVD by the end of the year.  However, the traditional fairy tale is a far darker experience, where Hansel and Gretel kill the witch by pushing her into her own oven, and the queen eats the heart brought to her by the huntsman, thinking that it belongs to Snow White.

Viewed as cautionary tales for children, the new season of Doctor Who has, for the most part, fulfilled its role admirably.  We first meet Amy, the new companion, as a child who has asked in her nightly prayers for help with the frightening crack in her bedroom wall, and later in the episode, the adult Amy experiences that awful moment of wondering (and discovering) what's hiding behind her back, just in the corner of her eye.

The second episode starts with a child failing a test and being cast into a monstrous pit by the frowning robots who run the classes, and in a later episode Amy has to walk through a horde of deadly statues with her eyes closed.  The most recent episodes featured a boy whose father is taken from him, and then he himself is captured by the same monsters. All very simple things, horrifyingly simple - cracks in the wall, the places you don't want to look, the fear of failing adult expectations, walking blindly through nightmares, or the loss of a parent. 

When I was a child, I was terrified of the basement in our house.  It was a dank, dark, moldy hole, an unfinished repository for junk and bit of lumber. Only part of it was full height - the portion underneath the front of the house was an unlit crawlspace, and I did not spend a moment in the cellar without being aware of the horrible potential of the square black entrance to that area.

Some of my childhood chores required me to go down into the cellar, and my mother always seemed to think that I was trying to shirk my duties when I delayed those chores as long as possible.  However, it was fear rather than laziness that was behind my reluctance, something that I could never have explained.

I think that adults too easily lose track of that part of childhood: the fear of dark openings, the certain knowledge that there are monsters under the bed and boogeymen in the closet, and that things going bump in the night is not a cliché but an awful precursor of approaching horror.  And that adult blindness is a huge part of childhood fears, the inexplicable lack of understanding on the part of the grownups who turn out lights, close doors, and dismiss nightmares as "only a dream".

On that basis, Doctor Who doesn't need to be science fiction if it can be a good fairy tale.  I congratulate the scriptwriters for successfully attempting to evoke the basic fears of childhood - the elemental fear of so simple a thing as a crack in a bedroom wall.

- Sid

Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale. *

My apologies for going off topic today, but I've just come back from the veterinarian, and I came back alone.  After almost 23 years, Nigel the Cat, a true and faithful companion, has left the stage.

My wife Joy and I purchased Nigel from the Humane Society branch in Bracebridge, Ontario a few months after we'd bought a house there.  For those of you who have never visited the Humane Society, I don't recommend it at all if you're even the slightest bit tender of heart, it's heart-rending to have to chose one cat from all the cages and leave the others behind.

We'd narrowed it down to two choices.  One of the cats was just a charmer, friendly and outgoing, but afflicted with a stomach problem that would have required a special diet.  The other cat had been equally charming and friendly, but surprisingly quiet in a room filled with meowing cats.  I turned to the attendant and, pointing at the quiet cat, said, "You know, this one hasn't meowed at all."  The cat looked me in the eye and pointedly said, "MEOW."

And so Nigel entered my life.

His nickname at the Society was CB, or Cathy's Boyfriend - he apparently had a thing for one of the staff.  During the signout process, he sat on the desk and attempted to play with the pens that we were using to sign the documents, the first indication of an affection for writing implements that would last for almost his entire life.  On the way home, my wife decided to name him Nigel - I have no idea why - and somehow it turned out to be the perfect name for him, and a strong element in his notoriety.

He was a big solid cat, at least up until his last couple of years, tall enough to reach a doorknob and smart enough to know that was how to get out - but his lack of thumbs kept him from ever taking advantage of this arcane knowledge (arcane among cats, anyway).  He had a little nick out of each ear, as if someone had just snipped into them a bit when he was younger, rather than the scars of feline combat, but that was just part of his mysterious history.

When Joy and I split up, I got custody of the cat - she got custody of the car, and I guarantee that car didn't last as long as Nigel did - and Nigel and I moved to Toronto.  (For those of you who have never heard the cat-pissing-on-the-ex-wife-in-the-car story, ask me later.)  This was only the first move for Nigel, but the transfer to Vancouver six years ago was much more of an epic journey for the little fellow.

I thought that everything was going well when I got him to the airport without undue incident, but I hadn't realized that I'd have to take him out of his carrier.  However, Security wanted to x-ray it without a cat inside, so I took him out and held onto him as he tried not to panic, surrounded by the din and unfamiliarity of Pearson International Airport at its summertime busiest.  I could feel his little heart going bangbangbang, and did my best to comfort him until he was able to go back into his carrier.

I don't know what the rest of the trip was like, but when Laurie and I picked Nigel up at the Vancouver Airport he appeared completely calm in his little case.  I used to joke that it was his way of saying that it was now impossible to frighten him, that all of his capacity for fear had been used up someplace around Winnipeg.

The first time I took him out on the lawn in front of the building here, he looked around as if to say, "My god, what have you done?  This was completely different last week!"  But after he got used to things I think that he found the local scenery to be a lot more interesting than the view on Roseheath Avenue in Toronto.

I could write pages of Nigel the Cat anecdotes: the time he apparently vanished from inside the house under curious circumstances, the mole that backed him up across 20 feet of lawn and then escaped, the mouse that didn't escape, the Christmas cards, his unbelievable acrobatic escape to the back yard at 41 Schell in Toronto, the time he attacked my head and bit through my upper lip (ever have a 14 pound cat hang off your face by his teeth and claws?), the fact that he had Facebook friends that I didn't know - the fact that he was on Facebook, for that matter - and on and on.

But Time ticks on, and Nigel wasn't a kitten when I first met him.  Over 20 years after that first meeting, the time finally came, and, as always, he was calm and collected during the entire process.  I left his body with the vet - I know that a lot of people like to take care of that themselves, but I'm pretty sure that Nigel wouldn't hold it against me given the limitations of apartment and city living.

I'm going to miss Nigel more than words could possibly express, and the apartment seems empty and cold without him here.  Farewell, little warrior, best friend.  If there is a place that deserving souls go to after death, I'm sure that's where you are - and I hope that the doors are always open.

- Sid

* One last cat joke, Nige - the title is a quote from a poem by Catullus.

"We're going for a ride!"

An armoured red-and-gold figure stands braced, powerful, ready, as the hatch of a cargo plane opens to reveal the city far below.  Three clanking strides, a leap, and Iron Man is airborne, free falling into the night. 

A burst of energy from boots and gauntlets accelerates the gleaming form into the lights below as explosions set the night on fire.  A gout of flame momentarily hammers back the metallic flyer, who quickly recovers and continues his descent, which climaxes with his impact on a circular platform.

And then - dancing girls, rock and roll, lights, fireworks and cheering crowds of fans who scream in ecstacy as drone arms emerge from the rotating stage and disassemble the cybernetic armour to reveal a grinning Tony Stark.

As the music fades and the dancers leave the stage, he spreads his arms in acceptance of the cheers, and says:

"Oh, it's good to be back!"

Welcome to Iron Man 2.  

Sequels are always difficult. Film makers are faced with the challenge of attempting to repeat their success without repeating it too closely, while realizing that whatever they do it will be compared to their first production.  On that basis, how does Iron Man 2 score?

Personally, I found that it scored very well, although it suffers from a peculiar problem that seems to characterize a lot of comic book adaptations.

The best part about the character of Anthony Stark is that the writers have made him so marvelously erratic and spontaneous in his genius, giving him a humour that I don't recall ever seeing in the comic book character. Full points must be given, once again, to Robert Downey Jr.  If he did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him solely so that he could play the role of Tony Stark.

Surprisingly, Mickey Rourke almost matches Downey's star turn.  His portrayal of the villainous Ivan Vanko is an impressive creation, one into which Rourke throws himself completely. Long term fans may be a bit confused by Vanko, who is a combination of two characters from the comics: the original Whiplash and the Crimson Dynamo, an armoured Russian equivalent of Iron Man.

On the down side, I still can't get behind Gwyneth Paltrow as the love interest, and although Don Cheadle is an improvement over Terrence Howard from the first film*, I'd like to see someone with a bit more attitude in the role. I still think Gary Dourdan from CSI would be a good choice, let's try him for Iron Man 3, shall we?

 

One of the few things that I didn't like about the plot of the first movie was that the dice in the climactic battle were so loaded against Iron Man that it really wasn't a fight.  What I wanted to see was Iron Man winning against the odds because he's just so much better at this than his opponents.  Iron Man 2 gave me that experience, although in this case Iron Man shares the spotlight with the War Machine armour, the provenance of which has been changed somewhat from the comic book version.

Okay, all this sounds fairly positive - what "peculiar problem" does Iron Man 2 share with other comic adaptations? 

For no good reason that I can imagine, writers have found it necessary to double or triple up on major characters from the comic versions, creating movies that are just a little bit too busy - or perhaps "wasteful" is the word I want.   (Spiderman 3 and most of the Batman movies share this problem.) 

Scarlett Johansson certainly shows well as the Black Widow (although they never refer to her by that name), and rival industrialist mastermind Justin Hammer loses a few decades and most of his dignity in Sam Rockwell's version of the character. However, with the inclusion of Vanko, Hammer and the Widow, Iron Man 2 is loaded up with two major villains from the comic, an ambivalent love interest/major villain/reformed villain, while keeping Nick Fury involved in the plot - oh, and did I mention the War Machine?  I know that the history of Iron Man as a comic book character dates back to 1963, which offers a rich vein of material to mine for movie adaptations, but let's go easy, people. You could have made three movies with this many characters, it's more than a bit crowded for a two-hour story.

Not to mention all the damn hints about the upcoming Thor, Captain America and Avengers movies…

But really, these are minor issues, and for the most part I found Iron Man 2 to be an excellent followup to the first movie.  However, for me the sad part, the unbelievable part, was when Tony Stark boasts that with the Iron Man armour he has successfully privatized world peace.  It seems terribly naive, and somehow terribly American, to suggest that all the tension, all the anger, all the animosity and hatred in the world, could be completely eliminated by one man in a flying red-and-gold tin can.

- Sid

*A store window mannequin would have been an improvement over Terrence Howard, if you ask me.

Strength in Numbers.

Damn it, I missed Towel Day again. I had it marked on the calendar and everything, but somehow it completely slipped through the cracks until Dave, the training supervisor at work who is also a science fiction fan, burst into the office with a loud "Happy Towel Day, everyone!"

At least I can take small comfort in being the only person who knew what in the hell he was talking about - although admittedly, not everyone would find that a reason to be comforted.

- Sid

Housekeeping.

Over the three and a half years that I've been doing this blog, a few things have changed.  Blogger itself has added some features, and, to be honest, I've figured out how to do some things in the editing phase that I didn't realize I could do.  I've also recently added the little atomic swirl that I've been using as a marker at the end of posts.

However, this creates a bit of a dilemma for me.  Traditionally, I feel that when something is finished, it's finished.  As an example, I would like nothing more than for George Lucas to stop messing about with the Star Wars movies - yes George, it's wonderful that you have more money and better special effects capabilities, but I think that in their original form those movies represent a particular vision, a vision that was created using the tools available at that time.  I'm also not impressed by the remastered episodes of the original Star Trek that have started getting into circulation, the ones where the special effects shots of spaceships, planets, and so forth have been recreated to match current state of the art.  (And that stand out like sore thumbs compared to the other footage as a result.)

On the other hand, I am a big fan of consistency in documents, and it niggles at me that everything doesn't match up over time. I've also learned some little tricks that I think just make the postings look a bit nicer (it was surprisingly tricky to convince the HTML editor to put a space between the title and a picture).

So, here's the question: is it acceptable for me to go back and make changes to pictures, post videos, and add my little logo?  Or would I be making the same sort of egotistical mistake that's represented by all those director's cut DVDs?

- Sid

Clumsily written and scientifically incorrect?

A brilliant industrialist named Justin Cord awakes from a 300-year cryonic suspension into a world that has accepted an extreme form of market capitalism. It's a world in which humans themselves have become incorporated and most people no longer own a majority of themselves.

Jacket blurb for The Unincorporated Man 

After enjoying a pleasant brunch downtown at The Two Parrots this morning, I decided to enjoy the sunny weather and wander about for a bit.  Not surprisingly, my travels led me toward Chapters, and in I went for a casual browse.

I'm sure that there must be reams of manuals on shelf placement and book popularity, but suffice it to say that if an aisle is below a minimum width (as tends to be common with Chapters outlets) you're only going to browse the top two rows unless you're looking for something specific.  As a result, it's not a surprise that I noticed a large trade paperback of The Unincorporated Man, by Dani and Eytan Kollin, facing out on on the top shelf.
 
To my mild amusement, the cover contained the following bit of promotional drivel by Canadian SF author Robert J. Sawyer:

"Reminiscent of Heinlein--a good, old-fashioned, enormously appealing SF yarn. Bravo!" 

Umm....old-fashioned science fiction?...sigh...I guess it's too late to step back and take another run at that one, Bob?

- Sid

P.S.  Yes, I know perfectly well what he means, but as with a certain friend and the statement "Once we're on the plane, it will be clear sailing", there's just something a little bit askew in there.

It would look cool on a t-shirt, too.

Mr. Underhill answered the question. "Because the name is the thing," he said in his shy, soft, husky voice,  "And the true name is the true thing. To speak the name is to control the thing."

Ursula K. LeGuin, The Rule of Names

As I've mentioned previously, one of the great things about doing this blog is that it can lead me off in all sorts of unexpected directions.  As a case in point, right now I should be finishing off a posting on Hugo Gernsback, whose least successful contribution to the genre of science fiction was his attempt to have it called "scientifiction".

With absolutely no malice intended, I'm not all that sorry that Mr. Gernsback lost the coin toss on that one, the term scientifiction doesn't fall trippingly from the tongue.  Hold on, though - Gernsback's failed definition is legendary, but where did we get the winner?  Who first uses the term "science fiction"?

My copy of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction talks a great deal about the difficulty of defining the genre, to the point of stating:

There is really no good reason to expect that a workable definition of SF will ever be established.  None has been, so far.

However, they don't seem to touch on the words involved, the naming of the thing, as it were.  Well, let's see if the Internet can shed any light on this.

So, off to Google™ - but wait, typing in "science fiction" is just going to give me a million links to Star Trek and Star Wars.  Well, very often the best approach with Google™ is to ask it exactly what you want to find out:  "origin of the term science fiction". To my surprise, in addition to the usual lot of link farm pages offering wholesale definitions, there's a solid reference to an article by H. Bruce Franklin, a professor at Rutgers University, citing a book published in 1851 which uses the phrase "Science-Fiction". 

The book in question is A Little Earnest Book Upon A Great Old Subject, by William Wilson, and it contains the following wonderful statement:

 Campbell* says "Fiction in Poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanting resemblance." This applies especially to Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given, interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and true...

Further research reveals that some scholars attribute the term "science fiction" to editor and author John W. Campbell**, who was responsible for changing the name of the magazine Astounding Stories to Astounding Science Fiction in 1938, but in my opinion the Wilson reference is the obvious winner.  There's also a certain elegance to the part about the revealed truths of science being interwoven with a pleasing story which appeals to me, and, when you think about it, it's not a bad definition for the field.  I also find the following comment by Wilson to be a fabulous addendum to that definition:

We hope it will not be long before we may have other works of Science-Fiction, as we believe such books likely to fulfill a good purpose, and create an interest, where, unhappily, science alone might fail.

There you have it:  science fiction, where science alone might fail.  What better justification for the genre could there be?

- Sid

* I sincerely hope that this is not a reference to either one of the infamous time-travelling Campbell Brothers, who have made more disruptive appearances in the past and future than Doctor Who.

**  Boy, these Campbell guys are thick on the ground, aren't they?