A what now?

This morning while I was drinking my tea, I read a review of After Yang, an upcoming science fiction film staring Colin Farrell.  The Dazed review painted an intriguing picture of the film, but I was thrown off by the description of the film as "a sci-fi".  

This is my first encounter with the use of sci-fi as a singular stand-alone noun, rather than an adjective or an abstraction, and I'm not sure that I'm entirely on board with this.  

Karli and I had a lengthy discussion about the abstract versus the singular in entertainment genres, and decided that whereas terms like "drama", "comedy", and "romance" may work as both, "horror", "science fiction" and "action" still need to be adjectives.  If you feel that "sci-fi" has somehow crossed the floor in the recent past, please let us know, and please cite some examples.  (Sorry, the After Yang piece that starts this discussion doesn't count.)

This all begs the question of sci-fi versus science fiction, which has been hotly debated for most of my time as a genre fan/geek. "Science fiction" dates back to the 1920s, although some scholars say it may be in use as early as 1851, whereas the term "sci-fi" as an alternative to science fiction is attributed to uber-fan Forrest J. Ackerman, circa 1954.  

I feel that sci-fi as a synonym for science fiction is a relatively recent development - in my mind, sci-fi traditionally defines a less elevated sub-genre of science fiction: B-movies and so forth.  As an example, Star Trek is science fiction, whereas the Sharknado franchise is sci-fi - and to be honest, I'm open to debate on parts of Star Trek. 

- Sid

For I have sinned.

It's so true...this particular visit to Munro's, I managed to be weak only to a price point of about $30.

- Sid

"Meanwhile, on Planet Birthday..."

A happy birthday is a very personal and relative expression of, well, happiness.  For some people, it involves guests, cake, alcohol, loud music and dancing, and for others (such as myself) something quieter and less demonstrative is the celebration of choice.

For my birthday this year, Karli and I did a modest four day weekend getaway to Vancouver Island - Karli's mother and stepfather generously let us use their condo in downtown Victoria. I've always done my best to at least take the day for my birthday, and in years gone by I've managed to take the entire week for travel abroad, but since we're off to Disneyland on October 10th, I'm content with a long weekend.

Caterpillar Geek Girl, an Etsy maker that Karli follows on Instagram, had posted that she was going to have a booth at Capital City Comic Con over the weekend, and Karli suggested that we could take a look around on Sunday if we had time. Tickets weren't ridiculously expensive, and it sounded like an excellent addition to my birthday weekend.  I had fortuitously packed an obscure t-shirt from the Doctor Who Time Fracture Experience, so we geared up and headed over to the Victoria Convention Center after breakfast.

CapCon was a bit on the small side by convention standards, but I enjoyed it - my only previous convention experience was at Vancouver Fan Expo in 2019, and although it's not a major event, I found it a bit too crowded for my tastes. Capital City wasn't excessively busy and we were able to see everything in an hour or so. For a small con, they did well.  The Canadian branch of the famous 501st Imperial Stormtroopers, a Star Wars cosplay group specializing in stormtrooper armour, had a large footprint, Tim Russ and Garrett Wang of Star Trek: Voyager fame were on site for autographs and photo ops, and legendary Canadian comic artist Ken Steacy was on Artist's Row - with his family, who are apparently also in the business.  (Not to forget Caterpillar Geek Girl, whose booth we visited to the tune of three genre buttons and two magnets for Karli's work collection.)

It's interesting to visit a convention floor with someone who isn't really a fan.  Fortunately, for the most part I can categorize cosplay at a glance*, so I found myself interpreting some of the more notable costumes for Karli.  For example, there was a quite detailed Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marine, complete with a smoking bolt pistol - it might not have been up to San Diego standards, but it was obviously a labour of love, if that's the right way to describe the construction of a full set of Heretic Astartes armour.

Not all the costumes required an advanced geek degree - at this point in time it's not really rocket science to recognize a Starfleet uniform or a Hogwarts robe, and Karli was amused to see someone in a Stranger Things Scoops Ahoy uniform wandering the booths.

Post-con, I did some shopping at the Cavity Curiosity Shop, which has proven to be a gold mine of replacement books, as well as producing the occasional hidden gem.**  I'd already taken a look at their web site and was fortunate in that they were all still in stock when I arrived.  I was particularly pleased to get a near-mint copy of Volume One of Keep Watching The Skies, Bill Warren's classic tribute to American science fiction films of the 1950s.

While I was waiting to pay for my purchases, I spotted a battered 1947 copy of Planet Stories magazine priced at $60.00. It wasn't in great shape***, but I've always loved Planet Stories as representing a sort of subgenre in science fiction, and I suspect that a mint copy would be a bit out of my price range, so I added it to my stack of purchases.  Sadly, in the process I somehow managed to lose one of the books from my stack, I suspect it remained on the counter with some piles of books that were being sorted for shelving - the price of doing business, I suppose, and I may still be able to get someone in Karli's family to rescue it on their next visit if I'm lucky.

And really, that covered it off in terms of celebration - four days away with my wonderful wife, broken up by a fun little convention visit and some successful book shopping.  Karli also bought me some red hightop Converse and took me out for Irish stew at the Irish Times Pub, and that was all I needed for my personal equation for happiness.

And yes, we had a little cake to celebrate, courtesy of our absent hosts - I may not be interested in having a party, but what's a birthday without some cake?

- Sid

* Admittedly, for a lot of the anime, my mental scoreboard simply says, "SOMETHING FROM ONE OF A HUNDRED DIFFERENT ANIME SERIES THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN."  But at least I know it's anime.

** I can see a day in the future where I'm going to start downsizing my library, but to quote Aragorn from Peter Jackson's The Return of the King****, it is not this day.

*** I don't mean this as a criticism of either price or condition: 75 years is a long run for anything printed on pulp paper.

**** "Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!" 

It's quite a good speech, although not fully up to the standard set by Henry V at Agincourt.

"A place of nightmares, where reality and illusion merge into a twisted, waking dream."

"I started to suspect that there was something far more sinister and ancient lurking beneath the surface of Innsmouth."

H. P. Lovecraft, The Shadow over Innsmouth

Discovering a Cthulhu sticker on the back of a dusty minivan being driven by a pleasant-looking woman with a small child is like being in one of those movies where everything seems normal, but there are all these little hints that there's a hidden secret that will have terrifying consequences when discovered...

- Sid

"We've all done terrible things."

Some of us - well, most of us - we've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion. Spies, saboteurs, assassins. Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in. A cause that was worth it. Without that, we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing. I couldn't face myself if I gave up now. None of us could.  

Cassian Andor, Rogue One

There's an unspoken assumption in the first Star Wars trilogy that the Rebellion are the good guys, that the Empire can't win because their opposition has the high moral ground, to slightly misquote Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

2016's Rogue One was the first time that we saw that the Rebellion was guilty of its own sins; that there had been times when it was decided that the end would justify the means. We learned about Saw Gerrara's extremist cell, and watched Rebel agent Cassian Andor, capably portrayed by Diego Luna, callously kill an informant to prevent his capture by the Empire - no question here of who shot first.

Based on the previews, Andor, the upcoming Star Wars series on Disney+, will lay out the path by which Cassian Andor became the person that we meet in Rogue One, and presumably show us some of the "terrible things" that he did in the name of the Rebellion.  One of my criticisms of Rogue One was that I wanted to see more depth in the characters, and I'm hoping that the new series will answer the question of exactly how much Andor has sacrificed for the sake of his cause.

The trailers suggest a desperate struggle by an oppressed minority against a brutal foe that has become complacent in their power and invincibility, a more intimate struggle than the one we see played out in the space combat and ground battles of the Rebellion's future.  Generally this sort of resistance relies on deceit and subterfuge rather than valor and courage: the silent knife in the back, the anonymous blaster bolt that comes from nowhere.

To support this, the characters shown in the trailers all seem to be leading double lives: Andor disguised as a member of the Imperial forces; Luthen Rael, dramatically performed by the versatile Stellan Skarsgård, playing the convivial party host then attempting to recruit fighters for the Rebellion; and Genevieve O'Reilly's Senator Mon Mothma attempting to hide in plain sight.

All in all, it looks promising, and it gives the impression of having more depth and maturity than the space opera origins of the franchise - more Game of Thrones than Flash Gordon, if you will. 

There are already two seasons planned: the first season takes place five years before the events of Rogue One and deals with the start of the Rebellion and Andor's transition from cynical thief to idealistic rebel. The second season will be split into four three-episode blocks, each of which will take place in a different year and which will presumably document how Andor's idealism falls prey to expediency.

It's a sobering indication that the road to Hell is still paved with good intentions, even in a galaxy far, far, away.

- Sid 

Sunday morning with Karli and Sid.

Feminist tea...and...science fiction tea.

- Sid

Updates.

"Welcome to Britbox!"

And so, in the fullness of time, I subscribed to Britbox.  It was a bit puzzling, given that the service at the Airbnb in Whistler was more of a TV channel than a streaming service, but I have access to all the content, and all's well that ends well.

Given the vintage status of some of the shows that I've watched (gosh, Blake's 7, remember Blake's 7?) they're quite soft compared to the crisp 4K images that I've gotten used to, but that's a minor criticism given the comprehensive nature of the library.  My more serious complaint is that, unlike most of the other streaming services that we subscribe to, the app doesn't have a filter for science fiction content.  Surely by now the company that produces Doctor Who must realize that those fans might well be interested in similar content.

Missed one (insert Stormtrooper accuracy joke here).

In my post addressing Star Wars "space guns", I neglected to include the Imperial T-21 light repeating blaster  - also known as the Lewis gun, an iconic vintage WWI era machine gun.  

As with most of the repurposed weaponry from A New Hope, they left off the magazine, and in the case of the Lewis, kind of just stopped there.  But the real question is, why in the world is the Stormtrooper on the left side carrying his DL-19 upside down?

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

Speaking of space guns, the rebuilt Han Solo blaster prop from A New Hope brought a winning auction bid of $1,057,500 USD.  Take THAT, Captain Kirk!

They knew the job was dangerous when they signed up.

After discovering a hydrogen leak in a quick disconnect linkage between the launch system and the SLS, NASA has delayed its Artemis I launch again, this time until September 23rd.  We appreciate their commitment to safety, even though the only passengers on the rocket are a mannequin named Commander Moonikin Campos and two dummy torsos named Helga and Zohar.

Can we start calling it the OASIS yet?

It's rumoured that Meta is going to release a new VR headset in 2023 - originally there was going to be an upgraded Quest 3, but apparently now there will be a whole new product line, which is currently being developed under the code name Project Cambria.  The new Quest Pro headset will reportedly have higher resolution, mixed AR/VR features, and include feature tracking to accommodate avatar expressions, all at a significantly higher price point than the Quest 2.  In fact, that may be why the Quest 2 has recently gone up in cost - what a strange strategy for making a new product seem less expensive by comparison!

- Sid

7 of 9.

One of the lesser known geek holidays.

- Sid

"I need a time machine...I need a time machine!"

Today, Karli and I attended the Vancouver matinée show of the RuPaul Drag Race Werq the World 2022 tour, skillfully hosted by Season 13 finalist Rosé, who definintely displayed charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent over the course of the afternoon.

Photo by KT

The time-themed sets piqued our curiousity, but all was explained once Rosé completed her opening number and started the show.

It turned out that she'd inherited a time machine from Asia O'Hara, who had apparently transitioned from drag queen to drag mad scientist at some point since her fourth place finish in Season 10.  Rosé's plan is to use the time machine to travel back in time to the Season 13 finalé and overturn the results so that she is the winner - perhaps not the best use of the opportunity, but not everyone wants to see the Titanic before it sinks.

Sadly, as so often seems to be the case with time travel, it didn't quite work* out like that, and we ended up bouncing across time and visiting Caribbean pirates, the Spanish Empire, the Boston Tea Party**, 1961, the Mesozoic Era, and the year 3000, with performances by Naomi Smalls, Jorgeous, Kim Chi, Jaida Essence Hall, Lady Camden and, of course, Rosé herself, who is very much the star of the entire show.

Ultimately, the moral of the story is that you should live in the present and not dwell on the past, and the show ends on that note with an all-star revue performance.

Photo by KT

Although the majority of the cut sequence time travel animations featured the iconic DeLorean from the Back To the Future franchise, I was surprised and touched to see one sequence where a blue British police box gyrated across the time vortex.  Although, really, it shouldn't be surprising - if you're inclusive of everyone who falls under the LGBTQIA2S+ umbrella, you probably have some love to spare for nerds and geeks.

- Sid

* Or werq.

** You get used to some unusual costumes if you watch Drag Race, but seriously, dressing everyone as tea bags?

The voice of the machines.

As I've commented in past postings, the 30% off coupons from Meta (né Oculus) are a clever tool for developing and maintaining customer engagement in the nascent VR marketplace. My most recent coupon purchase of choice was Vox Machinae*, from Vancouver-based indie developer Space Bullet Dynamics**, and after a relatively short trial period, I have to say that it's easily the best VR experience that I've had on the Quest 2 platform to date.

Actually, I should qualify that. Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge is undoubtedly an excellent VR experience, but it's hard to avoid a touch of motion sickness as you hop from location to location, and that tends to disturb the illusion. For whatever reason involving the game's dynamics, I've had much less of a problem with Vox Machinae, which makes a huge difference in the playability of the game. 

In the universe of Vox Machinae, you're the pilot of a 25 meter*** industrial mining robot called a Grinder, which can be equipped with a variety of weaponry in order to fight off corporate raiders - apparently business is a little more competitive in this version of the future. The armoury options range from lasers and missiles to old-school kinetic impact cannons, and your Grinder also has limited flight capability, but you need to be careful in terms of how you utilize these options so that your chassis doesn't shut down from overheating and render you immobile and helpless. 

Vox Machinae was originally released as a PC game in 2018, and based on what I've seen online, the VR build doesn't have the same resolution quality as the desktop version of the game - which is a shame, I gather the PC landscapes are beautifully rendered.  Regardless of the number of pixels involved, I found that the degree of VR immersion in the game was so complete that in the heat of combat, it doesn't feel like a VR experience, it feels like actually operating a giant robot on an alien battlefield.  

 

The Grinder cockpit is detailed and complex, and I was impressed to discover that I had the option of actually adjusting the position of the info screens by moving them with my virtual hands. Grinder movement is controlled by two virtual joysticks, one of which controls speed and the other direction, and there's a lever option for flight.  Weapon fire is managed by buttons on the Quest controllers, and if things go very badly, hopefully you can pull the EJECT handle located between your legs at the last minute before your Grinder explodes.  In my first attempts at combat, I didn't understand which hand controller buttons activated the secondary weaponry, but once I had that established, my combat survival times went up considerably.

After my initial tutorial outing with my Grinder, I was almost disappointed to realize that there's a storyline attached to the game. I actually didn't have any desire to establish my psych profile by interacting with the rest of my team or anything similar, I just wanted to fight against other mechs.  Also, the character drawing and animation isn't particularly good - generally I've found this to be the case for most of the VR games I've purchased, but based on what I've read online, the PC version suffers from the same weakness.

Fortunately, there's an arena option which allows you to go up against bot opponents - it also supports Player Versus Player with other humans, but sad to say, I don't actually know 15 other people who would want to pilot a giant warbot in virtual life-or-death combat. At least, I don't think I do - if there are closet mecha fans in my social circle who are reading this, send me a text, we'll talk!

- Sid

* I'm not sure about the validity of this in actual Latin. Depending on where you look online, machinae is either an acceptable plural for machina, or it's machinarum, but then, as Eddie Izzard points out, Latin is a silly billy language.

** Come to think of it, a substantial percentage of the Oculus games seems to be from indie developers, I wonder if VR game creation just isn't viewed as a lucrative growth marketplace by the major players such as Bethesda or Blizzard.

*** For whatever odd reason, the marketing people at Space Bullet seized upon Tyrannosaurus Rex as the unit of measurement for Grinder size. The robots are described as being "seven time taller than a T. Rex", which seems to be a bit of a moving target in terms of scale depending on whether you're looking at dinosaur height or length, but since Wikipedia indicates that T. Rex height is about 3.5 meters, we're going to go with that as our yardstick.

"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy."

Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango!

Throwback Thursday - Doctor Who Experience: London, England, 2011. 

- Sid