"No! Try not!"

My wife Karli and I have a long-standing weekday habit: my alarm goes off half an hour earlier than hers, at which point I get up, make tea, and feed Jaq the Cat. When her alarm does go off, I come back to bed and we cuddle for fifteen minutes, she takes a couple of sips of my morning tea, we talk about how we slept, and she tells me about noteworthy dreams from her night of slumber.  Apparently people find this to be cute and charming - be that as it may, it's what we do.  Sometimes Jaq the Cat joins us to say good morning, or not, up to him.

This morning was no exception - 6:30 arrived, I trotted down the hall to the bedroom, and climbed back into bed.  As a groggy Karli struggled with the covers, she muttered, "There is no try, just varying degrees of 'do' - that's how that line should have been written."

And so, without further ado, I would like to introduce Jedi Master Karli.  When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.

- Sid

Tubi.

I had some time on my own at home yesterday, and decided to do a bit of research.  Wired had run an article on free streaming services, and I was curious to see if any of them were worth what they were charging.

Sorry to say, Plex didn't impress, Sony Crackle isn't available in Canada, and Vudu had more things for rent or sale than for free.  And then I hit Tubi, a free commercial-driven site.

As you'd expect, when I'm presented with any sort of media library, the first thing I do is to look at the science fiction section. And, as I sort of expected from a free service, there were a lot of movies that I had never heard of: knock-offs, cheap copies, and outright failures.

But as I looked through the content, I realized that there was actually a surprisingly high level of gems amid the dross - well, if not gems, at least things with a bit of sparkle to them.

I first noticed that there was a Marvel animated movie, Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow - it's generally accepted that Disney+ is going to eventually be the only streaming service featuring Marvel content, so I was pleased to see something here, even if it was only a straight-to-DVD production.

As I went on, I found more and more titles that jumped off the screen at me: an HD version of Battle Beyond the Stars, which I just referenced recently in my posting about science fiction Westerns; cult classic Hell Comes to Frogtown, an important part of the late WWF wrestler Rompin' Roddy Piper's acting career (he's better known for They Live!, but you have to start somewhere); Ex Machina, which seemed a long way from home in this odd mix of movies; an HD quality transfer of 1957 stop-motion monster classic 20 Million Miles to Earth - in fact, there were a lot of somewhat camp 50s science fiction films, including Devil Girl From Mars from 1955, I guarantee that Netflix™ doesn't have that one.  And I'm looking forward to Doomed! the Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, a documentary look at the 1994 Fantastic Four movie by the famous B-movie producer which never made it to commercial release.

There were also more serious classics, such as The Day of the Triffids (in an average quality transfer, I'm starting to wonder if they just can't find a 35mm copy anywhere) and The Last Man on Earth, with Vincent Price, which is the first film adaptation of I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson.

There were game-inspired creations like Dead Space: Downfall, and Dragon Age Redemption from 2011, starring geek goddess Felicia Day as Tallis the elf assassin; legendary bad movies like Star Crash from 1979, and Abraxas Guardian of the Universe (with Jesse Ventura - sorry, Roddy Piper is a better actor); and The Dinosaur Experiment, whose poster art we've already discussed; along with vintage Elvira Movie Macabre and Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes taking a sarcastic look at even more bad movies.
 

The TV section offered the entire collection of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Supermarionation™ programs, starting with the cartoonish Supercar, Fireball XL5*, Stingray, whose opening line of "Anything can happen in the next 30 minutes!", I still quote now and then, to the bemusement of people around me; Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlett and the Mysterons, and Joe-90.  Not surprisingly, it also included Space 1999, another Anderson creation; the 1966-1971 Dark Shadows series, The Dresden Files, Space Precinct, 3rd Rock from the Sun (admittedly just Season 1, as far as I could tell), the award-winning Tin Man miniseries (a 2007 re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz with Zooey Deschanel), the British Robin of Sherwood series from the 80s that I loved, One Step Beyond - my god, Tracker, with Adrian Paul, has anyone else reading this even heard of Tracker? Patrick McGoohan -  The Prisoner!  A wide range of old school anime, including Robotech Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Genesis Climber Mospeada in Japanese - with subtitles, thank heaven. The Black Scorpion series - fine, they can't all be winners...

It was like browsing through a single fan's slightly eccentric TV and movie collection (which it may well be, it's not hard to imagine putting an individual in charge of a specific section of a site like this.)  

I just kept finding things - A Boy and His Dog, based on the Harlan Ellison story of the same name; 1978 conspiracy classic Capricorn 1, and 2009 conspiracy classic Moon; Russian superhero movie Guardians, Hellboy animated feature Sword of Storms, with Ron Perlman doing the voice work for Hellboy; a Terry Gilliam movie called Tideland that I'd never heard of; the unfortunate 2009 adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's classic A Princess of Mars, with ex-porn star Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris, the titular princess; Cloverfield, that's unexpected; Under the Skin, with Scarlett Johanssen - ha, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, from 1940?  Really?  And good quality, too!

The movie section featured over 450 movies - and the icing on the cake? Plan 9 from Outer Space, which I would hope needs no introduction.  A mediocre digital transfer, but it's the thought that counts for things like this.

To wrap it all up, Tubi would be a fascinating opportunity even if they wanted money for it.  On that basis, a commercial every now and then seems a small price to pay.

- Sid

*  At some point in my childhood, a British relative sent me a toy version of the spaceship from Fireball XL5, complete with jet cycles and crew.  No kidding, there is one for sale on eBay right now for $26,525.36 CAD - it's a shame that I didn't just leave it in the box all those years ago.

“Droids to the world!”

 

Christmas decorations at the Storm Crow Alehouse on Broadway - these ARE the droids you're looking for.

- Sid

Geekmas 2019: Trek The Halls.

Although I've already been in discussion with Karli about holiday shopping, I'm also faced with the looming specter of our departmental Secret Santa gift exchange, not to mention friends and relatives* who might be seeking inspiration.

As much as I want to help all those people out, I have to confess that I'm feeling a bit challenged by the whole "here's what I want" thing this year - I'd actually be a lot happier to get a list of things to buy other people than to write one for myself.  However, it may well be that everyone else is in the same state of mind, so here are a few suggestions in the area of seasonal geek shopping.

Books
A small part of me considered not listing any books, given my current and ongoing state of tsundoku.  Then I had a bit of a laugh - I mean, seriously! - and starting to look at book buying options.

The joke is that most of the things that I'm really looking forward to reading won't be out until next year. The final book in the Expanse series won't hit until sometime in 2020, the next Charles Stross Laundry book is on the same schedule, and William Gibson's long-overdue novel Agency is scheduled for January 21, 2020, which is certainly a step up from previous publishing timelines, but no help for Christmas shopping.

So what IS available for the 25th?

It was missing in action during New York shopping, so the new Joe Abercrombie First Law universe book, A Little Hatred, would be a good choice, and at the moment of this writing, it's on sale in hardcover on Amazon.ca™  - although to be honest, I'd rather have the paperback version.

The only leftover book from last year's suggestions is Luna: Wolf Moon, by Ian McDonald, still a good choice, and the third book in the series, Luna: Moon Rising, is also now available.

Let's see, paperbacks ... Made Things, a book about the importance of making friends, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, or Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys (a unique concept, told from the perspective of a Cthulhu worshipper, for whom the whole thing is just the way she was brought up).  Sharps, by K. J. Parker, who I find to be just such a readable author (even if he is really Tom Holt) - in fact, let's put the first volume of Parker's The Two of Swords on the list as well. I'd love to add a hard SF novel, but right now there's nothing on my radar - I'm open to suggestions.

DVDs
Okay, I'm going to keep this dirt simple:  here's a handful of classic Doctor Who episodes on DVD, all for less than $25 on Amazon.ca™, none of which I already own:

The Ark in Space, The Five Doctors, The Beginning (the first three William Hartnell episodes, $25.95, in the interests of full disclosure - not to be confused with the $85 boxed set) The Sontaran Experiment, The Brain of Morbius, The Android Invasion,The Sea Devils, and Warriors of the Deep.

The BBC is methodically cleaning up the early episodes of Doctor Who and releasing them on Blu-ray, but the individual episode DVDs still make for affordable stocking stuffers.  And, really, there's a certain collectable nostalgia to the classic BBC single-episode releases with the classic logo, they were the face of Doctor Who video for quite a while.

Graphic Novels
I've covered off the big three of my requests from last year, but there are some options left.  If you don't want to shop online due to time issues, recommended brick-and-mortar locations would be the Granville and Broadway Indigo, or at specialty comic outlets like Golden Age Collectibles downtown on Granville.  (Sadly, The Comicshop, my normal Kitsilano recommendation, has closed its doors.)

 

Suggested options are:  Batman: White Knight, Flashpoint, Old Man Logan Vol 0: Warzones, and Joker - the Brian Azzarello/Lee Bermejo version.

Gaming

 

I'm probably going to buy The Outer Worlds, the new Obsidian Entertainment Fallout-style role-playing action game, at some point, although generally I like to let the dust settle before I commit - or, in other words, wait for the price to come down and bugs to be fixed.  It's not currently available on the useful Steam™ distribution platform, but I'm hoping that by the time it gets there, both of the above dust-settling events will have taken place. 

The game's current non-Steam™ list price of $59.99 is a bit more than I generally include on my Geekmas lists - workplace Secret Santa tops out at $25 - but with any luck, the Steam™ price will be lower, and as such, Steam™ gift cards would certainly be welcome. 

Merch
And, last but not least, a couple of t-shirt options: first, I've been looking at getting a Canadian Space Agency T-shirt for a while - I have lots of NASA stuff, but it seems appropriate to represent for Canada.

 

I was originally looking for a Weyland-Yutani t-shirt when I found this USCSS Nostromo t-shirt. It's a little over the $25 Secret Santa price range that I normally aim for, but it would certainly be a fun addition to my science fiction t-shirt collection, and I somehow feel that licensed products are slightly better than random knockoffs.  (It's no surprise that the CSA has better standards regarding wrinkled uniforms than the USC.)

XL by preference, thank you!
 

And there's this year's list. As always, feel free to just take a swing at the ball and surprise me, I have a very open mind regarding random gift selections.

And, if all else fails, I've never met a gift card that I didn't like.

Happy holidays!

- Sid

* I have to be honest here, I'm only referring to relatives by marriage, my own family hasn't had a seasonal get-together for several decades.

Well, apparently someone thought there might actually be try, after all.

 "Do.  Or do not.  There is no try."

Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

I was cleaning up notes on my iPhone, and found an unattributed quote:

Yoda is not the administrator of our lives.  Yoda doesn't know everything.

I wonder what defiant padawan announced that they would try to do something on May 25th of 2018?

- Sid

The Point.

 

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

Carl von Clausewitz, On War

I'm currently re-reading a digital copy of K. J. Parker's fantasy novella Mightier Than The Sword. At 75 pages it's a fun little read, clever, witty, and imaginative, that just sort of sits on my iPhone and gets opened now and then when I'm out of fresh reading material.

However, during this re-read, I began to wonder about the actual numbers involved in the story's climactic battle. (This is a thing that happens now and then when I'm reading, something in the math gets my attention.)

Here's the scenario: the bad guys have 4,000 to 7,000 warriors - we don't know exactly how many, because it's based on reconnaissance, rather than actual knowledge. On the other side, there are 575 archers who are supported by a thousand heavy infantry and 1,500 untrained local militia - not great odds, even if we take the low end count for the enemy, but let's average them out at 5,500 light infantry - more accurately, tribal barbarians, who apparently aren't even wearing shoes.  (Which may actually be a factor in all of this - wait, you'll see.)

Here's how the narrator, who happens to be commanding the defending army, lays things out.  He puts his militia in line, with the Steelnecks - his heavy infantry - on the flank, and hides his archers in a ditch behind the militia.  His opponents sensibly decide to launch their attack on the weaker target of the militia, and begin their charge.

The militia had sworn me a solemn oath to stand their ground, no matter what.  When the enemy were two hundred yards away, they turned and ran like deer; one moment they were there, the next they weren't, and who can blame them?

At this point, his concealed archers stand up and start to shoot.

Okay, time for math.  First, it looks like the general may have made a bit of a mistake.  Historians have determined (lord knows how) that a trained archer in the time of Edward III could shoot an arrow 365 meters.  Accuracy isn't an issue here, the target is an army of over 5,000 people, it would probably be hard to shoot an arrow at that many people and NOT hit someone.  So the good guys have already wasted 182 meters of opportunities to put arrows into the enemy.

The second factor is speed - on both sides.  A sprinting man can run at about 32 kilometers an hour, and a normal running speed is 24 kilometers an hour.  Realistically, in this situation the barbarians will obviously be running as fast as they can, but they're also carrying swords, axes, spears, shields and so forth, which most casual runners don't have to deal with.

So again, let's split the difference and give them a speed of 28 kilometers an hour, which breaks down to about 22 seconds to cover that 182 meters - presumably, like African marathon competitors, they're not handicapped by running in their bare feet because they do it all the time.

The next speed question is how long it takes to fire an arrow.  Again, we're not looking at careful target selection, the archers just need to pull an arrow from a quiver - probably on the ground - nock it to the bow, raise, pull and let go.  The internet suggests that there's some show-off out there who can fire three arrows in .6 seconds, but we're looking at a longer sustained volley, so let's say an arrow a second.

Given the 22 seconds that it's taking the charging infantry to reach the archers, that gives us 22 arrows each from 575 archers for an impressive total of 12,650 arrows.  However, that's in a perfect world.  Let's face it, by the time the barefoot people with axes and swords are three meters away, you've probably stopped shooting and starting running yourself.  If you don't run, you get stabbed or chopped, which is what happens to about half of the archers in the story.*

Even so, that's going to be about two arrows per attacking barbarian, although, again, a lot of this isn't targeted shooting, so a few lucky souls may not get any arrows at all.  (And a few less lucky souls will get four, after all, they have to end up somewhere, and as already discussed, 5,500 people makes for a big target.)

Does that wipe out the attacking horde?  At this point, we enter the realm of supposition, since the only ready sources of information about the results of volleyed arrows are the movie 300, the Battle of the Five Armies from the third Hobbit film, or Ian McShane's character in Hercules, none of which can really be considered as science.

You'd have to think that it would at least put a big dent in the attacking army - even if you've only been hit by one arrow, having three feet of birchwood with an iron tip stuck somewhere into your body is going to make you a less effective fighter when the thousand heavy infantry take you in flank. On the other hand, we don't really know what they're wearing or carrying in terms of protection, although there has to be some kind of inverse relationship between amount of armour and ability to sprint up a hill while archers snipe away at you and your companions.

The author, oddly enough, seems to feel that the archers would only be shooting at the front row of the attacking army, which feels like a mistake - or is it?  Hmmm...575 archers in a line, 5,500 running men, let's call that 10 ranks of 550 each (although probably not that organized) - let's slow things down a bit because our archers are aiming a bit, but even then, the math suggests that ten carefully aimed arrows per archer pretty much wipes out the attacking army.

The narrative suggests otherwise, with half the archers dead and half of them running, as a thousand heavily armed and armoured killing machines hit the barbarians in flank and wipe them out.  And even then, there's a suggestion that it's not a walkover, there are enough remaining barbarians that the first century of Steelnecks that comes into contact with them experiences 83% casualties. 

Ultimately, in that situation, I'm willing to admit that math might not be the only factor that determines the results. As von Clausewitz points out, even the simplest thing is difficult in war.

- Sid

* But why would the archers not have swords as well? Or sharpened poles as a defense to slow down the enemy - something, ANYTHING other than just a bow and arrows.
 
Postscript:

A couple of late-breaking comments on the above.  First, it turns out that the general hasn't wasted that first 182 meters - an earlier note in the book mentions that the maximum range of the bows used by his archers is 200 yards, so he's actually waiting for the enemy to get into range, not wasting time. (His archers must be using some kind of shorter compound bow, rather than the full longbow that made the English archer such a dangerous opponent.)

Second, after writing this all up, I checked in with my archery consultant, Her Ladyship Anika Styfe - aka my co-worker Christi -  and here's her comment:

Hmmm...in a 30 second round, I can comfortably shoot 8 arrows, with the first arrow ready to be loosed when the marshal says go.

For 20 arrows I'd say about 90 seconds, maybe a little faster for the lack of aim. But can't help muscle memory. :-)

So it would appear that an arrow a second would be an unrealistic timeline - but four seconds seems like a LONG time.

ePulps.

 

It's the end of November, which means that the holiday season will be coming up surprisingly soon, as it generally does.  As such, Karli and I are in the early stages of gift negotiations.  Karli is looking at streaming service subscriptions such as Britbox™ for her two sisters (and it's been suggested that an Amazon Prime™ subscription would be suitable for her), but to the best of my knowledge, there isn't a similar service for science fiction fans.*

However, it occurred to me that many years ago I used to subscribe to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which I found to be a great collection of fiction and fact to have show up in my Muskoka mailbox.  I certainly don't need to increase my burden of physical media (I actually still have those vintage copies of F&SF**) but this is the future, there must be a digital equivalent for those monthly mail drops.

Magazines featuring short fiction have been the backbone of science fiction and fantasy writing for close to a hundred years, ever since the 1920s. Weird Tales, which most famously featured the work of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, made its debut in February of 1923, and Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing Stories, the first publication dedicated solely to science fiction, in 1926.

Later publications such as Galaxy, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Astounding (to be renamed as Analog in 1960) allowed legendary Golden Age editors such as John W. Campbell Jr., Horace Gold, and Anthony Boucher to place their stamp on science fiction, defining and shaping the development of the genre.

The early pulp magazines found an avid readership, a readership which then produced the next generation of authors:  authors who also became editors, reviewers, and, in some cases, publishers. 

Almost all of the classic science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke were primarily short story writers during the early phases of their careers.  (Asimov's award-winning Foundation trilogy is actually a collection of short stories collected as book chapters in three volumes.)  In fact, up until well into the 1960s***, science fiction magazines were still the primary starting point for aspiring science fiction authors, giving New Wave writers like Roger Zelazny and Ursula K. Le Guin their first sales, and allowing Harlan Ellison to build a reputation based almost entirely on his short fiction.

I still see F&SF and Analog for sale on the magazine shelves at Indigo, which demonstrates that they're alive and well - or at least still printing paper editions - but what are the options for virtual subscriptions?

My old friend The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has chosen to do its subscriptions through an e-book distributor called Weightless Books, six issues for $36.97 - presumably in US dollars - MOBI, EPUB and PDF formats are available.

No questions with Analog - six different digital subscription options, including an app-based version with a $35.88 USD 12-issue annual subscription.

Asimov's Science Fiction, which was Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine when I subscribed, now seems to be under the same publishing umbrella as Analog.  Same page format, same subscription outlets - and same price, $35.88 USD for six "double issues", whatever that means.

Interzone, the United Kingdom SF magazine, doesn't seem to have a digital subscription on their site, but I found one, again at Weightless Books. $24.99 for six issues, probably USD.

For some Canadian content, there's On Spec, which charges $14.99 for a quarterly subscription.  This is also through Weightless Books, so I assume it's USD. 

As a wild card, while I was researching the above options, I suddenly remembered Cinefex, which my friend Colin had introduced me to back when we were at Ryerson together.  Cinefex is a serious offering of special effects filmmaking commentary, aimed predominantly at the professional market but still accessible by the casual reader.  It didn't exclusively look at science fiction and fantasy movies - historical films often rely heavily on digital effects as well - but the greater part of the content dealt with SF movie effects.

I initially didn't see a digital subscription option for Cinefex, but then I spotted the Cinefex for iPad link: "Carry the entire history of modern visual effects with you on your iPad."  A six-issue subscription through the app is $27.99 USD.

In conclusion, I feel that I should recognize the TOR Books website, which has excellent articles, free short fiction, and offers a free book download on a monthly basis. It's a pretty impressive offering for free.

- Sid

Postscript:

If anyone is interested in reading any of the classic magazines in their original formats, there's a surprising range of free opportunities available online.

• A selection of classic pulps can be downloaded in HTML, Flipbook, and PDF format at The Pulp Magazine Project, including a handful of vintage issues of Planet Stories and Weird Tales.
• I was surprised to see that 356 back issues of Galaxy Magazine are available for free at archive.org, although the quality of the scans varies. The issues can be read online or downloaded in a variety of formats.
• Close to the full run of long-running British SF magazine New Worlds is available at the Luminist Archive in PDF format, along with quite a wide range of scanned material - some of which, by their own admission, the site's creators did not obtain permission to reproduce.

* There's a channel dedicated to Japanese anime called Crunchyroll, but as far as I know, that's it, with the possible exception of some less-than-mainstream SF offerings.

**And, to my astonishment, when I went to look at them on my bookshelf, I realized that I had that subscription when I was 13 years old.

*** I'm open to argument regarding this timeline, but the 1950s witnessed the demise of many of the pulp magazines, and the 1960s began a shift toward novels over short fiction in the publishing marketplace.  Although, even then, portions of classic novels such as Dune were originally serialized in magazine form.

"See you around, kid."

  

I have to say that Omaze.com, the online fundraising site, has nailed it in terms of their business model:  offer a wide range of donation levels to win a unique prize or experience, generally in association with a celebrity representative.  And it works: as an example, the opportunity to be in The Force Awakens that I contributed to in 2014 raised over 4.26 million dollars for UNICEF.

And, really, it's brilliant.  As opposed to charity ticket draws with large cash prizes, there's almost no serious expenses involved for most of the prizes.  Win a chance to be in a Star Wars movie?  Real costs, flights and a hotel - maybe meals, or a cab to the set.  Value of experience? PRICELESS.

Similarly, breakfast with a bunch of Doctor Whos?  How much would breakfast for eight people cost on top of airline tickets and accommodations?  But to the right person, it's the experience of all time.

I've entered a couple of other opportunities that haven't made it here, including a chance to take selfies with the cast of Schitt's Creek that was really on Karli's behalf, but the most recent charity offering takes the prize, so to speak.

Dinner with Mark Hamill.

Oh, sure, you get to attend the premier of The Rise of Skywalker, too, but really - DINNER WITH MARK HAMILL!

In addition to his unique contributions to the genre, most people are unaware that Mr. Hamill is also a major comic book geek in his own right.  There's also some of his lesser-known work that I'd love to discuss - does anyone else reading this remember his voice-over work from the Jeannie animated series, which was a California surfer dude re-imagining of the I Dream of Jeannie series from the 1960s?  Or how about The Black Pearl, the comic book he created for Dark Horse Comics in the 1990s?  Not to mention his incredible body of voice-over work as the Joker, which has come very close to eclipsing Star Wars in terms of its notoriety.

No offense to Daisy Ridley or Adam Driver, who also have Star Wars charity packages up on Omaze, but even ignoring Mark Hamill's stature as a geek icon, they haven't really offered anything close to the same level of involvement.  It's one thing to take someone to the premier and take a selfie or give them a signed souvenir light saber, or even get them into the afterparty, but I feel that Mark has gone the extra mile in offering up some of his own time in the interests of charity.

I really don't expect to win, I generally don't have any sort of luck at all in draws, but whoever does win?  You're a lucky person in more ways than one, and I very much hope you appreciate it.

- Sid

"Hear that? It's the cosmic rays!"

Okay, let's all just be a little careful here, as soon as you say "cosmic particles" this starts to feel way too close to the Fantastic Four's origin story.

- Sid

It's important to have the strength of your convictions.

Purchased without a moment's hesitation or a second of doubt.

- Sid

 

“Judge me by my size, do you?”

As part of his presentation on creating the Epic Yarns adaptations of the original Star Wars trilogy, children's book creator Holman Wang mentioned being invited to the Sharjah Children's Reading Festival in the United Arab Emirates.  When his carry-on luggage, which contained examples of felted wire-framed Star Wars characters, was scanned, Security immediately took him aside to search his bag.

When Holman reported the results on Twitter™, @yvrairport, which is well known for the quality of its social media game, had the following reply:

- Sid

Epic Yarns.

It’s a pleasant Saturday morning for a walk to Granville Island, where I'm attending a talk by children's book creator Holman Wang as part of the annual Vancouver Writers Fest.  The front of the stage is decorated with samples of his work: fuzzy figures from Star Wars, and felt copies of him, his two children, and their dog.

Holman and his brother Jack collaborate in the creation of early reading primers that are intended for parents to read with their children.  Jack writes the stories, and Holman creates felted figures and settings that he then photographs as illustrations for the books.  The brothers got their start with the Cozy Classics series, featuring literary mainstays such as Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, and Huckleberry Finn, followed by Epic Yarns, a three-book retelling of the first Star Wars trilogy.

Obviously I've chosen to attend Wang's talk because of the Star Wars books, but their other creations are equally impressive.

I was initially curious as to how the brothers handled the process of adapting the stories for younger readers - after all, Moby Dick is hardly written for the pre-school crowd, and  the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke's hand is cut off by his father must be a bit traumatic for very young readers.

 

As it turns out, Holman and his brother strip the stories to their most essential components:  12 pictures, 12 words.  Rewriting the stories is Jack Wang's most crucial contribution to the process, along with steadfastly maintaining the integrity of the concept. I don't envy him the writing - it may sound easy to write a 12-word book, but I can easily imagine the difficulty of selecting 12 words that are both appropriate to the stories and accessible to small children.* 

 

After the writing is finished, Holman begins work on the elements for the photo illustrations. Each needle-felted figure takes him between 20 and 60 hours to create.  Holman, an entertaining and witty speaker, does a comically quick demo of the felting process, and comments that for felting, "Self harm is an occupational hazard."

"If I had a dollar for every time I’ve stabbed myself, it might be more than the royalties on the books."

 

The craftsmanship is extraordinary - the figures are about ten inches tall, created at about 1:7 scale. It's even more extraordinary considering that, when his brother initially approached him with the idea, Holman had never done felting - as he casually explains, his entire training is based upon "watching some YouTube™ videos".

The figures are constructed around wire armatures to give them some strength and to allow the figures to be posed for different settings.  In the case of the Star Wars books, Wang decided to make interchangeable heads and place them onto differently costumed bodies for different scenes out of the films, so that the faces would be consistent from image to image. In addition, he sometimes includes natural materials to create specific effects, such as uncombed sheep's wool for the Cowardly Lion's mane in their Wizard of Oz adaptation.

 

To simplify the process, he makes some of the clothing using sheets of felt, which he also uses for props such as Luke's X-Wing, constructed from styrene and bits of junk, and then covered in felt.  For larger figures such as Jabba the Hut or Luke's Tauntaun from Hoth, Wang carves rough figures in styrofoam, then works the wool directly into the foam.

For the backdrops to his felted figures, he builds sets that range from the simple to the complicated, "Macgyvering things together" and using elements like real fires in fireplaces, or dry ice for the Dagobah mists, in order to make the environments as realistic as possible.

In addition to creating studio sets, Holman also likes to shoot on location so that the scenes have natural skies and real backgrounds.  He jokes about wanting to shoot the SNOW image for The Empire Strikes Back, which features Luke Skywalker on a Tauntaun, on Seymour Mountain, but being unable to find a setup without trees in the background.  He ended up taking the final photo in front of a grimy snowpile in the parking lot, with the happily accidental result that the dirt and salt in the out of focus snow gave shading and texture to what would otherwise have been basically just a flat white background.

Generally the location photos have been taken locally in Vancouver, where the Lynn Valley stands in for the forest moon of Endor.  The sole exception hs been a desert shoot in Arizona's Yuma Desert, where the original movie scenes set on Tatooine and featuring Jabba's sail barge and the Sarlac were shot for The Return of the Jedi.

 

Wang's photographs are created almost entirely without resorting to Photoshop, relying instead on practical effects to set the scene - although Holman made an exception for the light saber effect for the Star Wars books.  He utilizes a variety of tricks and techniques to achieve the effects he wants, such as forced perspective to add in real background elements, and physically dragging backgrounds to create blur during long exposure times.

To date, Holman has done 17 books using these techniques: 12 Cozy Classics, three Star Wars, and a pair of books about the multiple jobs performed by parents on a daily basis: Great Job, Mom and Great Job, Dad.  These last two feature him and his family as characters, although he admits to claiming their two children for Great Job, Dad.  He deadpans, "My wife got the dog."  Alert readers will note that the Great Job books feature scale versions of Holman's other books as props.

When asked what his favourite was out of these projects, Holman admits that he enjoyed making the Star Wars books the most, because the movies were so much a part of his childhood.

 

"It was a chance to relive my childhood, and I was super excited to become part of the Star Wars universe in some small way."**

He also points to the Star Wars books as an example of successful self-marketing, or, as Holman puts it, "Sometimes you have to make your own breaks."

While exhibiting at the annual Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy, the brothers made contact with Chronicle Books, a San Francisco based publishing house.  Chronicle asked if they had any projects they'd like to pursue, and they immediately expressed their desire to adapt the Star Wars movies.  Chronicle approached Lucasfilm on their behalf, and to the surprise of the Wangs, Lucasfilm gave their conditional permission for the project, but requested a sample.  Holman created a felted version of Luke Skywalker, and Lucasfilm gave the go-ahead for the books.

 

Holman was surprised by the degree to which Lucasfilm left the two brothers alone, to the point of not actually providing very much support out in terms of figuring out how to create the iconic figures and scenes from the films.  One of their few edits was to the page featuring Han Solo encased in carbonite: Jack Wang had chosen the word FROZEN for the image, but the Keeper of the Holocron, as the Lucasfilm Star Wars database manager is commonly known, vetoed it - apparently the carbonite process is hot, rather than cold.*** 

 

In conclusion, Wang discussed how his work on the books has allowed him to express his identity through creativity, and helped him with the struggle between wanting to be creative and the need to have a regular job.

For his next project, Wang is writing a middle-grade novel, commenting, "I have no training as a writer, but then, I became famous as a felt artist without training."

"People should pursue their dreams.  If you have an idea and a passion, just run with it - who knows what will happen?"

- Sid

* I take minor exception with one of the single-word story choices as displayed during Wang's talk:  Droids.  Even speaking as a science fiction fan, I think that there would have to be something that was more of a household word to which a youthful reader could be introduced. (Although I guess it would depend on your household.)

** Presumably no pun was intended.

*** If you, like me, think of that as the carbon freeze scene, apparently we're both wrong.

"Aliens."

The Doctor: Where’d you want to start?
Rose: Um. The inside’s bigger than the outside?
The Doctor: Yes.
Rose: It’s alien.
The Doctor: Yeah.
Rose: Are you alien?
The Doctor: Yes. Is that all right?
Rose: Yeah.

Rose, Doctor Who

I was recently killing some time browsing at the Indigo outlet at Broadway and Granville while waiting to meet my friend Chris at the Storm Crow, and idly picked up a Doctor Who novel.  Although I generally don't buy novelizations and adaptations, in this case, I was literally just looking (which can lead to some interesting discoveries).

 

The cover blurb for this 13th Doctor adventure read as follows:

"A ruthless alien threat."  Sigh...

As fond as I am of Doctor Who, I feel that the show has one problem: it always has to be aliens.  Mayor of Cardiff pushing for a nuclear power station?  Turns out to be a Slitheen who wants to use it to power the Cardiff Rift to create a passage home, destroying Earth in the process.  Random visit to the city of Pompeii just before the eruption that destroys the city? It's being caused by alien Pyroviles trying to make a new home for themselves after the destruction of their planet. Superhero origin story?  Accidentally swallows alien technology.  Time travel to 1938 New York - turns out the Statue of Liberty is a giant alien Weeping Angel.

At some point this can become absurd.  Local supermarket runs out of milk?  Plot by bovinate aliens to rescue cows from servitude and slavery.*  Piece of gum stuck to the Doctor's shoe?  Alien hitch-hiker attempting to take over the TARDIS.

To be fair, there have been a few episodes, such as Season 11's Arachnids in the UK, that have relied on human malfeasance rather than alien malice, but by and large, yep, it's aliens.

It may be surprising, but I'd actually like to see more stories without the alien factor.  The Rosa episode really didn't require a time-travelling conservative trying to stop Rosa Parks, it could have just dealt with being witnesses to history who become participants in order to ensure that events transpire as they are meant to.  Similarly, The Demons of the Punjab doesn't need any demons, the tragedy of families in conflict was all the story they needed.

So, in the unlikely event that anyone at the BBC is reading this, hey, maybe it would be interesting to invest some time in looking at all the reasons that the Doctor decided to spend so much time on this ridiculous little planet on the edge of nowhere - with only the one alien involved.

- Sid

* The part about servitude and slavery is a Jean-Luc Picard quote, which really has no place in a Doctor Who posting - although there was an eight-issue Star Trek-Doctor Who crossover comic book miniseries published in 2012 by IDW.