As opposed to nerd glaze.

From: Sid Plested
Sent: April-25-13 8:33 AM
To: Wendy
Subject: Jane Lui
Jane Lui's web site is www.janelui.com – sometimes it’s not rocket science – and right on her front page is a link to a mashup video with Felicia Day.  (If you don’t know who Felicia Day is, sadly, you are experiencing geek fail.)
- Sid

Although I had to lead with the Felicia Day picture for the sake of nerd glaze (or geek fail, as the case may be), it is completely necessary to recognize Jane Lui herself: talented musician, passionate performer, and quirky sound effect guru.

- Sid 

"In the morning, she had forgotten."

I’m currently re-reading Dan Simmon's superb 1989 novel, Hyperion.  Simmons is a talented and versatile author whose work includes high concept SF like the Hyperion series and Ilium/Olympos cycle, horror novels like Carrion Comfort and The Children of the Night, and historical/speculative works like Drood.

Hyperion takes its structure from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, where each of the six major characters tells their tale to their fellow pilgrims. In this case, the pilgrims are making their way to the enigmatic Time Tombs on the distant planet Hyperion, where they hope to find the metallic Shrike, an anthropomorphic killing machine that will grant one of them a wish, and slay the rest. 

One of the pilgrims plans to ask that his daughter be healed - while doing archeological research in the Time Tombs, she has been afflicted with a terrible punishment, growing younger and younger each day, now with only a few days remaining until her life ends, ironically, by reaching its beginning.

I’m struck by the poignancy which Simmons gives to the situation through his description of the widowed father's reactions to the plight of his daughter as she grows younger and younger, losing her intellect and her memories one day at a time, bewildered and lost, up until the point where she says her last word: "Mamma".

For people like myself who have no children, it would be difficult to imagine how such a situation would feel, but Simmons creates a believable and tragic window into the gradual loss of a daughter.  It is made even more affecting by the father's inability to share his anguish with his daughter - because, if he does, she will simply forget.

- Sid

P.S. In passing, there is a marvelous wistful moment of whimsy at the end of Hyperion. It was such a perfect non-conclusion to the story that I was almost sorry that there was a sequel.

 

Well, he WAS playing the theme from Star Wars...

And when this fellow announced that he was a Narnian faun - I'm sorry, traffic noise prevented me from getting his name - my first thought was "Aren't you a little tall for a faun?" (As opposed to being a little short for a stormtrooper.)

- Sid

"Well let me ask you an important question then…what is your cup size?"

Me: This is not an interview, this is degrading. I’m done. (I walk away)

Him: (clearly dumbfounded and surprised) ..Come on, it’s all in good fun!

Me: Being degraded is fun? 

Mandy Caruso, Beautilation

Go to Google Images™, and type in "cosplay".

(Go ahead, I'll wait…)

What you'll see is an apparent Who's Who of characters from comics, movies, games, animé, and television shows.  A closer look reveals that it's pictures of people (and a few dogs) dressed as those characters or interpretations of them - mashups, steampunk, crossplay/Rule 63* versions - at conventions, studio setups, or appropriate locations. And there are a LOT of pictures.**

Welcome to cosplay. To slightly misquote the infamous Darth Laurie, every day can be Hallowe'en.

Originally, cosplay - an obvious combination of "costume" and "play"- was almost exclusively an homage to characters from Japanese animated programs, or animé.  Cosplayers would construct intricate costumes faithfully based on those of their favourite characters, and then have themselves photographed in appropriate settings for the characters they were portraying.  Cosplay originates in Japan in the late 70s or early 80s, and as it became increasingly popular, it made the transition to the rest of the world.

Having made that transition, it has become hugely popular on a global basis, to the point that a separate industry in cosplay support has developed, with companies suppling accessories, weapons, patterns and costumes to the cosplay community.  (I've listed a few stellar examples at the end of this posting.)

In spite of my own costumed appearances at Hallowe'en, cosplay doesn't really appeal to me as a hobby, for a very simple reason.  I'd rather make something completely original rather than duplicate an existing creation - not to suggest for a second that there isn't room for originality in cosplay, but it's generally a venue for duplication and interpretation rather than genesis. However, due to cosplay's enormous popularity, I consider it to have achieved a status as its own genre within the community, and follow it the same way that I follow books, comics, games and so on.  I admire cosplayers for their creativity and their craft, and the sense of commitment, accomplishment and enjoyment that they bring to their hobby.

That being said, cosplay has been the target of some of the stupidest comments and problems that have ever plagued a fan community.  Cosplayers have been the victims of three main problems: sex, race and entitlement.

Let's start with sex.  (As the bishop said to the actress.)  Comics and genre movies and games are all guilty of idealization and objectification of women to a greater or lesser extent, no argument there.  (I've commented on this previously, regarding Red Sonja and Wonder Woman.)  What this means to the cosplay community is that in order to accurately portray certain characters, women wear costumes that reflect the objectification from the original material - in other words, tight spandex and outfits without a lot of coverage.

The question of female empowerment has already been discussed here, and as in that discussion I can only comment from my own perspective.  Regardless, I think that any sensible person would agree that if a woman actually did decide to dress provocatively to attract male attention, there are easier ways to do it than by spending three months sewing a Poison Ivy costume and wearing it to a convention.

However, the problem is not the people in the costumes.  The problem is people who come to the false conclusion that because someone at a convention is dressed in a leafy bathing suit or spandex tights, they are a valid target for verbal or physical harassment.

Although she's probably not the first person to actively protest this kind of treatment, cosplayer Mandy Caruso certainly stands at the front of the line in terms of having both stood up to an abusive interviewer when dressed as Black Cat at a con, and in posting the details of her encounter on Tumblr for all and sundry to read.  Mandy's experience became part of a growing movement to address the issue of harassment at conventions, resulting in the recent Cosplay ≠ CONsent campaign started by 16-Bit Sirens, which has struck an obvious chord within the community.

Next we have the problem of race. Astonishingly, there are people who feel that cosplayers should only play characters of their own colour.  This particular bit of insanity was brought to the forefront several years ago when cosplayer Chaka Cumberbatch posted a picture of herself as Sailor Venus, prompting unbelievable comments like, "For a black cosplayer (not to be racist) she did an amazing job!"

Ahem. Everyone, I'd like to introduce Yaya Han.

Yaya Han is living the dream as far as the cosplay world goes.  As far as I can tell from her FaceBook page, she spends almost all her time visiting conventions, where, in addition to selling the products from her cosplay accessory company, she appears in the costumes she has made, judges competitions, sits on panels, and otherwise supports the community.  In the above photos (my apologies for lost copyright tags on one or two) she appears as Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Arkham City Catwoman, Baroness DeCobray, Carmilla from Vampire Hunter D, a Dark Elf, the Scarlet Witch, and a Granado Espada Wizard, none of whom are Chinese women in their original versions.

So what?  Ms. Han obviously possesses an incredible eye for detail, mad skills with a sewing machine, and a huge commitment to her hobby/profession. How unfortunate to try to limit that commitment by suggesting that she should only appear as Mulan or Chun Li because she's Chinese.  What a bizarre idea!  Does that mean that Canadians can't go to conventions dressed as Captain America?  (Any American readers who have the urge to say "yes", be careful about what you start. Wolverine was originally a Canadian...)

I think that what this really comes down to is the question of entitlement, or lack thereof:  the decision by part of the fan community that cosplayers - especially female cosplayers -  are literally just posers, without a "real" commitment to the genre.  Unfortunately the poster child for this sad philosophy is an actual comics professional, an artist named Tony Harris whose 2012 FaceBook rant against fake geek girls was so extreme that at first it was assumed that his account had been hacked. 

In spite of my jokes about wanting a higher geek rating, I don't for a moment think that there's a ranking system for geekhood - we are not better or worse than each other, we are just different in terms of what we know and like, and how we choose to express it. 

In a way, this blog is an example of that. I started this blog partially as a writing exercise, an ongoing motivation to sit down at a keyboard on some kind of regular basis and put words in a row. But I didn't randomly decide on science fiction novels, fantasy games, Doctor Who and comic books as topics - those are the things that I enjoy and are a large part of my life, and this blog gives me a way to have my own voice regarding them.

On that basis, I have nothing but respect for anyone, regardless of race, creed, colour, religion or cup size, who has made the same decision - the decision to commit, to have a voice, to tell the world what they love.  The fact that their voice may involve fabric and wigs rather than adverbs and HTML just adds depth to the topics that we're all talking about.

So, just to summarize: we're talking about people who have spent countless hours and hundreds of dollars to create costumes, who have then invested in plane tickets, hotel rooms and con tickets in order to show off their handiwork and share their craft with their peers, who then get hassled by slack-jawed mouth-breathers who ask them about their cup sizes or grab their butts - and there are people who don't think that they're serious enough in their commitment to be allowed - allowed - to wear the costumes?

To quote the Bunny, it is to laugh.

- Sid

SHOUT OUTS:

Mandy Caruso:
http://beautilation.tumblr.com/ 

Anthony Misano:
https://www.facebook.com/HarleysJoker
https://www.facebook.com/TheBatmanChronicles

Chaka Cumberbatch:
http://www.xojane.com/issues/mad-back-cosplayer-chaka-cumberbatch

Yaya Han:
http://www.yayahan.com/
https://www.facebook.com/yayacosplay
http://yayacosplay.deviantart.com/gallery

Svetlana Quindt:
http://www.kamuicosplay.com/
https://www.facebook.com/KamuiCos

Harrison Krix:
http://www.volpinprops.com/portfolio
http://www.flickr.com/photos/volpinprops

Catherine Jones:
https://www.facebook.com/gstqfashions
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gstqfashions

* Rule 63 states that for every fictional character, there exists a counterpart of the opposite sex:  Antonia Stark/Ironwoman, Prince Peach, Lucia Skywalker, Harlan Quinn - you get the idea. A formal example would be Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

** As a generalist geek, I cast a wide net, so I have a pretty good recognition factor for costume origins.  Ironically, considering that cosplay starts with animé, those are the outfits that I generally don't know, and I am unfortunately forced to categorize them in my head as "based on one of the thousands of Japanimation sources".

As opposed to reblogging the same picture a million times, which is Tumblr.

March 30th saw the the official premier of the current Clara Oswald, the new companion on Doctor Who, and I'm sorry to say that I found the whole thing to be a bit dull.  A couple of clever bits, but generally the episode was trying too hard in terms of setting up the new big plot point for the coming season, and showing off for the new companion. (Hopefully the new companion - we've seen the woman three times and she's still not really on board, in the most literal sense.)

I think that the companion recruitment process has become flawed - the last few pickups have seemed contrived, somehow. The joke is that the 2012 Christmas special gave us a charming, heartfelt scene between the Doctor and Clara, a meeting of minds and a meeting of hearts, a tender, magical moment that began the Doctor's return to the world after the loss of Amy and Rory, all thanks to Clara  - and then they killed her.

I think it's a shame that they didn't decide to go with the Victorian Clara as the new companion.  It used to be that the Doctor's companions came from the full range of time and space, but all the new ones have been uniformly British and modern.  Isn't it time for a different perspective?

However, full points for the following joke from Saturday's episode:

Doctor:  This whole world is swimming in wifi.  We’re living in a wifi soup.  Suppose something got inside it, suppose there was something living in the wifi, harvesting human minds, extracting them.  Imagine that…human souls trapped like flies in the world wide web, stuck forever, crying out for help.

Clara:  Isn’t that basically Twitter?

- Sid

"Better, Stronger, Faster."

I recently upgraded from my beloved but aging 6 megapixel Nikon D70 to a shiny new 24.2 megapixel system.  Shortly afterward, I had dinner with an acquaintance who, among other products, sells professional quality digital view camera backs. To my surprise, his top of the line sensors only weigh in at 80 megapixels of resolution.  I realize full well that pixel count alone doesn’t dictate quality, but I would have expected that high end pro equipment would go into the hundreds of megapixels – gigapixels, perhaps. 

But this gives rise to another question: at what point does technological improvement become redundant?  After all, if there’s a level at which a digital display contains more information than the human eye can differentiate*, why bother?

Ah, well then, obviously the next step is to upgrade the human eye.

And that may not be a joke. The creation of a direct neural link to hardware, visual or otherwise, would probably mean the biggest change in the world since the invention of the wheel, if not fire.  As one of my co-workers pointed out, the limiting factor in cell phone development is the human hand.  Current state of the art might well allow for all of the components of my iPhone to be crammed into something the size of my little finger, but the necessity to allow for physical manipulation of the controls makes that impractical.

Once that technology can be distributed here and there throughout your body – a node on your hand to answer calls, your retina overlaid with a HUD, an antenna plated onto your skull, the audio feed direct into your aural nerve, and so on – the nature of our interaction with technology becomes completely different, as much a part of our personal kinesiology as nodding our heads or blinking our eyes.

Not surprisingly, the concept is fairly common in science fiction.  William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy includes “simstim” as one of its props.  The concept is that headsets would allow the audience to experience a full sensory duplicate of a celebrity's glamourous life directly from the star's point of view:  visual, auditory, sensual, etc.

The exact process is characteristically undefined, but the most evident part of the technology is implanted artificial eyes, complete with corporate copyrights etched around the iris, that somehow transfer visual input into a digital format as well as functioning as eyes. (Presumably there are equivalent devices to allow for transmission of the other sensory inputs – in spite of the, ah, comprehensive nature of the experience, there’s no suggestion that all the critical aspects of the performer's anatomy are replaced.)

The technology of the Sprawl also allows for users to add sockets that allow them to access experiential information from silicon chips** and as a result be able to speak other languages or fly airplanes, at least as long as the chip is in place.

Samuel R. Delaney’s 1968 novel Nova posits a more physical approach, with interface sockets on both wrists and at both ends of the spine. These sockets allow the user to plug into any and all types of hardware, turning everything from flying a starship to operating the power winch for a fishing net into the same sort of directly experienced physical activity as climbing a flight of stairs or sweeping the floor. The result is a changed world, where everyone’s work has become a direct physical part of their lives, with a corresponding increase in personal fulfillment and worker satisfaction. 

The real question is not whether or not this sort of technology is feasible.  Medical technology is already taking its first fumbling steps into allowing blind people to perceive the world through hardware connections to the brain.  The question is a far more fundamental one:  would sockets be a privilege or a requirement?  This is a question that would depend entirely on how the interface system would be integrated into society.

On one hand, it could become the mark of the elite, where digital eyes and biomechanical hands would only be available to the now-infamous one percent, a sort of bionic bling. The other option is that it would become the mark of the underclass, a clear sign that the possessor has quite literally become part of the corporate machinery.

Hopefully there's a third option, an option closer to Delaney's future. where everyone would gain from the process, creating a world which was simultaneously larger and yet more personally connected than the one we live in now.   

- Sid

* The resolving power in pixels for the human eye is a difficult question, depending on whether you count all the photoreceptors or just the colour-sensitive cones concentrated in the central foveal area of the retina. Depending on what you pick as a cutoff, we may or may not have digitally exceeded the eye already.

** Daringly called microsofts:  you can almost hear the copyright lawyers salivating...

It does? Really? Wow, thank you!

You Know You're a Geek When, Part 3.

DOCTOR:  Oh, hello!

AMY:  Doctor, what is that?

DOCTOR:  It's all right. It's an Ood! Oods are good, love an Ood. Hello, Ood.

Doctor Who, The Doctor's Wife

I was pleased beyond words to receive the following e-mail on Friday, cheerfully informing me that the banner layout that I'd done for our safety department looked ood. 

In my wildest dreams, I have never aspired to that level of accomplishment, and it was with a sense of satisfaction in a job well done that I sent the PDF to my colleague.

- Sid

Some minds being weaker than others.

You Know You're a Geek When, Part 2.
(The events of the last week have unintentionally turned my posting on prime numbers into a series.)

The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.

Obi-wan Kenobi, A New Hope

You've probably spent too many years watching the Star Wars movies if, when you're digging around in a messy drawer (and finding everything but the object you're seeking), you hear yourself muttering, "These are not the droids I'm looking for."

Move along, move along...

- Sid

17, 19 and 83, mostly.

You Know You're a Geek When, Part 1.

If I had any lingering concerns about my geek rating, they're ended.  Bad enough that I noticed that I was primarily using lockers with prime numbers at the gym, but then I started picking them on purpose...

- Sid 

P.S. And if you frowned and typed "prime numbers" into the Google™ search field, well, I have either good news or bad news for you, depending on your desire to be a geek.

The one where Chandler achieves beatification.

We've reached an interesting watershed point in our technological development.  Not too long ago, all media was interpreted physically - ink on a page, light on a photograph, or the sound of a musical instrument being played.  Those experiences are all now digitally mediated, and without that silicon interpreter they no longer even exist.

I seem to recall a bold defense in a 1980s pornography case which was based on the fact that videotape on its own was meaningless, an anonymous greyish-black magnetized coating on mylar. It was only when the tape was dragged across a tape head and the results displayed on a cathode ray tube that the content could be considered obscene, so the production of the tape itself was innocent of wrongdoing. Sad to say the plea was unsuccessful*, but in my mind there's some truth to the hypothesis.

After all, in the case of a suitably comprehensive global disaster, the only use for a Kindle full of ebooks would be as a possible source of fish hooks**, content rendered useless by the final death of the battery, whereas paper-based books would retain their meaning and utility.

But surely not all the media of the computer age would be lost!  Walter M. Miller Jr.'s brilliant novel A Canticle For Leibowitz describes a future dark age in which racing forms and electrical blueprints have become the apocrypha of a new religious order.  Imagine instead the digitally-inspired religion of the post-apocalypse!

Picture if you will: a ruined monastery, its cracked walls shored up with street signs, fragments of concrete, and corrugated iron, the ubiquitous building materials of the end of the world.

Within the patchwork walls, a tonsured novice kirtles up his robes, mounts an ancient bicycle and begins to pedal. As his speed increases, the generator attached to the rusted chain in place of a rear wheel start to hum.  With a crackle of sparks, a scratched LCD screen flickers to life, and the assembled monks of the Order of Netflix™ once again reverently watch the temptation of Saint Chandler by Rachel, the Lilith of the Old World, and his rejection of the evil temptress in favour of the Blessed Monica.

I leave the question of Phoebe's status as demon or angel as a decision that each of us must make according to the dictates of their conscience, and the tenets of their faith.

- Sid

* Normally I'd say that the defendant didn't get off, but that seems inappropriate for a porn trial.

** How unfortunate that you would be unable to use a Kindle for kindling.
 

And counting.

Heart of the Swarm, the first expansion module for Starcraft II, is being released on March 12th. Blizzard Entertainment is famous for their superb cinematics, and the first look at the opening for the new module clearly demonstrates why.

However, I have to make the guilty admission that, over time, I've drifted away from my dedication to Starcraft, and as a result I felt a need to brush up my skills a bit before March 12th.  So I metaphorically blew the dust off my Starcraft II shortcut, and once again fired up the game after a long absence.

Not too surprisingly - or perhaps surprisingly to those of you who aren't gamers - that long absence encompassed a substantial number of upgrades and patches, so it took a bit of time for the game to bring itself up to date.  Once the system was ready to let me log in, I was amused to see that the current version of the game was as follows:

I admire Blizzard's attention to detail, but honestly, couldn't this have been held down to three decimal points?  Although I do have to admit that I'm a bit curious over what changed from Version 1.5.4.24539.

- Sid

Hopefully they serve popcorn, too.

Last year my employers were good enough to send me to San Francisco for a publishing conference.  Not only was it a great professional development opportunity, but San Francisco was a marvelous location for blog-related activities, as detailed in last year's postings about Borderlands, rocket ships, and changes of hobbit.

This year the conference is being held in Austin, Texas at the end of April, and I put in a request to attend again - I fully accept and understand that the company has the prerogative of turning down this sort of request, but if you don't ask, they can't possibly say "yes".

As it turned out, my VP and new departmental manager agreed that I could attend - much thanks to John and Ted - but I didn't see Austin as offering very much in the way of genre-related sidetrips.

And then I stumbled across a reference to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema...

The Alamo Drafthouse is arguably one of the world's most famous theatres when it comes to genre films.  It's actually a chain, with locations in a number of US cities, but it got its start in, you guessed it, Austin Texas.  They're not exclusively a genre chain, but their annual Fantastic Festival, famous poster series, and general interest in science fiction and fantasy films have given them a strong presence in the community. In fact, I've mentioned the Alamo Drafthouse before - that was the location of the surprise debut of the 2009 Star Trek reboot, introduced and hosted by Leonard Nimoy.

In addition to that reputation in the fan community, the Alamo Drafthouse has taken a unique approach to the movie-going experience.  Their theatres have a full dinner menu with table service (the seats have something very similar to lecture hall countertops), and also serve alcoholic beverages.  In addition, their online booking system lets you reserve a specific seat in the theatre in advance, so there's no need to show up early and stand in line. Finally, they are famous (or infamous) for their draconic rules involving summary ejection for cell phone use or talking during the movie.   

To summarize:  the Alamo Drafthouse is a genre-friendly movie theatre that lets you pick your seat in advance and drink beer during the movie, and throws out people who talk or use their cell phones - is there some reason NOT to go?

So that takes care of one evening's entertainment in Austin.  Hmmm...I wonder what my movie options will be?  End of April, start of May - damn, no, I miss the premier of Iron Man 3 by one day.  Unless I get lucky - wow, imagine if history repeated itself and Robert Downey Jr. showed up on stage!

Or, if not so lucky, Tom Cruise with the blooper reel from Oblivion - sometimes you pays your money and you take your chances.

- Sid

Tidbits IV.

Or maybe just cheaper than showing Armageddon.

Speaking of threatening meteors, I see that Space is showing Deep Impact today, which is either an astonishing coincidence or really responsive programming.

(And possibly in slightly bad taste under the circumstances, come to think of it.)


Obviously a science fiction fan in the wait staff.

The latest from the good people at Johnnie Fox's Irish Snug who previously used quantum physics to flog Guinness.


Not only that, but it's sold out.
I admit to having made my share of genre-related purchases.  I have a souvenir Doctor Who t-shirt from London, a variety of toy robots, a couple of animé action figures, and of course my slowly growing Major Matt Mason collection, but I'd like to think that I've kept it under control.

That being said, I can understand both the desire to build a perfect replica of the HAL 9000 interface from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the urge to own one.  But honestly, five hundred bucks?* 

I think that HAL himself says it best:  "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."
 

Regardless, thanks for your support.
In September of 2012, I proudly reported that The Infinite Revolution was number 23,702,450 out of all the web sites in the world, which put me very close to the top ten percent.  Astonishingly, in the subsequent five month period, I've jumped to 12,745,249 - how is this possible?  Who are all these visitors, and why do they never leave any comments?  Damn it, speak up, people!

- Sid

* However, I'm not here to tell people how to live their lives.  Should this screen grab give you the desire to shout "Shut up and take my money" at the ThinkGeek orderbot, you can obtain your very own HAL 9000 here.

And why are they throwing them at Russia?

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. On 30 June 1908, Moscow escaped destruction by three hours and four thousand kilometres - a margin invisibly small by the standards of the universe. Again, on 12 February 1947, yet another Russian city had a still narrower escape, when the second great meteorite of the twentieth century detonated less than four hundred kilometres from Vladivostok, with an explosion rivalling that of the newly invented uranium bomb.

In those days, there was nothing that men could do to protect themselves against the last random shots in the cosmic bombardment that had once scarred the face of the Moon. The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness; but by the end of the twenty-​first century, there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice. The human race had spread from pole to pole. And so, inevitably...

At 09.46 GMT on the morning of 11 September, in the exceptionally beautiful summer of the year 2077, most of the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball appear in the eastern sky. Within seconds it was brighter than the sun, and as it moved across the heavens - at first in utter silence - it left behind it a churning column of dust and smoke.

Somewhere above Austria it began to disintegrate, producing a series of concussions so violent that more than a million people had their hearing permanently damaged. They were the lucky ones.

Moving at fifty kilometres a second, a thousand tons of rock and metal impacted on the plains of northern Italy, destroying in a few flaming moments the labour of centuries. The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the earth; and the last glories of Venice sank for ever beneath the sea as the waters of the Adriatic came thundering landwards after the hammer-​blow from space.

Six hundred thousand people died, and the total damage was more than a trillion dollars. But the loss to art, to history, to science - to the whole human race, for the rest of time - was beyond all computation. It was as if a great war had been fought and lost in a single morning; and few could draw much pleasure from the fact that, as the dust of destruction slowly settled, for months the whole world witnessed the most splendid dawns and sunsets since Krakatoa.

After the initial shock, mankind reacted with a determination and a unity that no earlier age could have shown. Such a disaster, it was realized, might not occur again for a thousand years - but it might occur tomorrow. And the next time, the consequences could be even worse.

Very well; there would be no next time.

A hundred years earlier a much poorer world, with far feebler resources, had squandered its wealth attempting to destroy weapons launched, suicidally, by mankind against itself. The effort had never been successful, but the skills acquired then had not been forgotten. Now they could be used for a far nobler purpose, and on an infinitely vaster stage. No meteorite large enough to cause catastrophe would ever again be allowed to breach the defences of Earth.

So began Project SPACEGUARD. Fifty years later - and in a way that none of its designers could ever have anticipated - it justified its existence.

Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke

At approximately 9:20 on Friday, a meteoroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.  Estimates as to the object's exact size and weight vary - NASA's estimate is 17 meters in diameter and a weight of about ten metric tonnes.  Windows shattered,  buildings were damaged, and over a thousand people were injured, over one hundred of whom required hospitalization.

Coincidentally, the Chelyabinsk explosion took place sixteen hours before asteroid DA2012, 50 meters in diameter and 190,000 metric tonnes in weight, came within 27,000 kilometers of Earth, the closest recorded passage of an object of that size.  

I don't know who's tossing these things at us, but I have to think that eventually they're going to throw a strike.

- Sid

 

"I can put you back in the saddle...stand you up tall."

This blog posting is dedicated to Ted Vincent, who convinced his mother-in-law to watch Cowboys and Aliens in spite of her avowed dislike of both groups.

I've just finished reading a couple of Joe R. Lansdale stories, Dead in the West and Deadman's Road, both of which involve zombies in the post-Civil War West. Perhaps due to his Texas roots, Lansdale has always had a strong affinity for Western settings, albeit with unexpected and fantastic plotlines, as demonstrated in his work on Jonah Hex for DC Comics in the early 90s.

The interesting thing about these two weird Western tales is that there's no context for the characters to realize the nature of the peril they're facing.  Let's face it, if the media reported an outbreak of zombies tomorrow morning, a substantial percentage of the US population would smile happily, put an oversized clip into their AR-15, and go out into the streets to git some, as they say.  But in the West of the late 1800s, there's really no cultural basis for knowledge of the walking dead, and as such the characters are horrified and astonished to a much greater extent.

The movie Cowboys and Aliens offers a comparable scenario in terms of a situation where people are faced with an enemy with absolutely no precedent in their milieu.  As things stand right now, I suspect that virtually anyone in the world, upon seeing a bright ball of light descend from the sky, land in the back yard, and expel a couple of green fellows with big heads, would say, “Aha, aliens!”  Culturally speaking we’ve been preparing for this for years – in fact, I could probably write a reasonably plausible Men In Black subplot dealing with extraterrestrial Hollywood producers who have been funding movies with the purpose of preparing the general population to accept alien visitors more easily.

Cowboy and Aliens is oddly lacking in this area - it's surprising that there's an almost complete lack of speculation as to the origin of the titular creatures (the aliens, that is).  Other than someone asking the preacher if the invaders could be demons, there's no real curiousity about the origin of the giant fanged bullfrogs that are behind the problems.

Historically speaking, it's a very near thing.  A well read latter-days cowboy might be familiar with H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, which first saw print in 1897, and it's Wells who first introduces the idea of extraterrestrial invaders to the cultural mindset.  But other than that possibility, the whole idea of aliens would have to be a mystery to the Texes and Hopalongs of the Wild West.

Regardless of the opinion of the cowboys, there's a very basic question left unanswered.  What would the aliens think of the whole "cowboys" idea? Depending on their cultural matrix, who knows what they might think was actually going on with the riders of the purple sage?

As usual, science fiction has already address this question, so I close with the following excerpt from The Secret, a story in the Retief of the CDT series by Keith Laumer.  Jame Retief, a member of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, is about to rescue a captured alien diplomat who is being tortured with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies.*

"Mr. Minister, the US cavalry has arrived.  Are you ready to go?

"Heck no, Retief, we're just getting to the good part, where Roy mounts his wench and rides off into the wasteland."

"I think maybe you've got Trigger and Dale confused, D'ong."

"I confess I pay little attention to names. But how I admire the savoir fair of the cowbeomen, who, in times of strife, think first of love.  Always they and their faithful mates couple joyously as they dash off across the plains, hero and villain alike!"

Remember that quote the next time you're watching a John Wayne movie and he tells everyone to mount up...

- Sid

Recommended Reading:
If you're interested in this particular sub-genre of science fiction, I strongly recommend David Drake's trio of Roman-meets-alien books - Killer, Legions of Bronze, and Birds of Prey.  Drake does a very good job of creating convincing scenarios in which the Romans come out on top against aliens who may have superior technology, but not superior determination and bravery.

* Hey, I don't write this stuff, I just reference it.

I HATE it when that happens.

Sometimes when I'm waiting for a file to transfer or a disc to burn, I'll grab a paperback from my conveniently located bookshelves and just read a page while I wait.

Today I picked out The Atrocity Archives, the first book in the Laundry series by Charles Stross.  Stross is a brilliant author, who goes back and forth between hard SF novels like Singularity Sky and H. P. Lovecraft/John le Carré/computer geek mashups like the Laundry books with consumate skill. 

I flipped open The Atrocity Archives near the end of the story, where the action is taking place in an alternate dimension, an Earth near absolute zero, where the oxygen has long since frozen and fallen as snow to the brittle, lifeless soil - "colder than summer on Pluto", as it's described in the book.  

The group from our Earth is being stalked by body-snatching demons, eager to take possession of the invaders and use their bodies to escape through the portal to our dimension.  However, the hero of the story (who would laugh at that particular tag) harvests the hands from the long-dead corpses of sacrificial victims, and uses them to create Hands of Glory, a magical item that renders the person carrying it invisible.  All they have to do is ignite the fingertips, and then escape through the portal.  

Now, I've read this book a couple of times, enjoyed it enormously, purchased the sequels, and would probably buy the t-shirt if one was available.  But today this little voice in the back of my head spoke up:

Absolute zero...no air....

Ignite the fingers...escape through the portal...

....

How do the fingers keep burning in a vacuum?

Damn.  I had exactly the same experience reading a Terry Pratchett novel where a character fires the seventh bullet in a six bullet clip into the floor rather than his adversary.   It somehow subverts the whole process, you know?  

- Sid

Gnomic statements V.

I have always wished that there was someone to be the Amanda to my Neil.

- Sid