Better living through science - or not.

Recently I've found myself doing this whole experimental routine in the men's room - will the toilet flush automatically?  Where's the sweet spot to get the tap to emit water? If I move my hands counter-clockwise will it get hotter?* Let's see, is the soap manual or sensor-based?  How do I get a paper towel? (How do I get the paper towels to stop?)

And every time I go through my robot-influenced dance performance in front of a paper towel dispenser, I think of this prophetic section from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself.  The machine was rather difficult to operate.  For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology  became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.

Seriously, is the bathroom a place where you want to "wave your hand...and hope"?

- Sid

* Wait, this may be a brilliant idea.  Let's get on that, Science.
 

It's not over 'til it's over.

I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through The Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton, one of the books that I purchased with a gift certificate from this year's birthday gifts. Hamilton writes a modern version of what I think of as "space opera" - vast, sweeping, dramatic plot lines, epic settings, and a cast of thousands.*

The plot of The Great North Road starts on a more intimate level, with the discovery of a corpse in the river Tyne, which flows through the English city of Newcastle. The victim, a clone of the elite North family, has been killed in a distinctive manner: a five-bladed weapon of some sort (perhaps a knife-taloned hand) has punctured his chest and shredded his heart.

However, this is not the first time the authorities have encountered this particular modus operandi. A similar crime occurred twenty years earlier on the planet St. Libra, where another North clone was killed, along with his entourage. The sole survivor claimed that an alien monster was responsible, but due to the lack of evidence, the police decided that she was the actual murderer and incarcerated her.

The discovery of the corpse gives new credence to her testimony, but the authorities are still uncertain. In Newcastle, the police investigate the crime, while the elite Human Defense Army sends an expedition through the Newcastle gateway to St. Libra in hopes of discovering evidence of a hidden alien presence that may somehow have penetrated gateway security to wreak havoc on Earth.

However, the two streams of investigation seem to be contradictory. In Newcastle, the police discover that a cab was used by local gang members to dispose of the body, and trace it back to the scene of the crime, an apartment owned by an ex-girlfriend of yet another highly placed North clone. Meanwhile, on St. Libra, members of the HDA expedition are being picked off one by one under mysterious circumstances by some unseen menace that lurks in the jungle and leaves five-bladed wounds in its victims.

Logic says that both of these subplots cannot be correct - it's either a power struggle between North clones or an alien menace, a paradox which is puzzling the characters in the book as much as it's puzzling me. I'm looking forward to seeing how Hamilton resolves the situation.

Famed Golden Age science fiction writer/editor John W. Campbell once commented on the fact that it would be impossible to write a valid science fiction murder mystery, because there are too many ways that an author can cheat: time machines, teleportation, and so on.**   Hamilton has a bit of a tendency towards deus ex machina plot resolutions, and I'm hoping that he doesn't disappoint me by pulling some unlikely alien rabbit from his trans-dimensional hat during the final act.

- Sid

* In traditional space opera such as the Lensman series by E. E. Smith, the characters can actually be analyzed in terms of soprano, tenor, etc. Aliens would be the equivalent of dragons or some similar Wagneresque bit of scenery.

** In spite of which, there are several very good science fiction murder mysteries which seamless integrate exactly those sorts of SF memes and use them to create valid plot lines. Examples would be Larry Niven's ARM series, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, or The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov, which was written as a direct response to Campbell's comment.
 

Rosetta.

"Kudos to you, European Space Agency, and get off your butts and do more space stuff, NASA!"

Dodger Leigh, The Daily Byte

I confess that I was completely unaware of the impending touchdown of the Philae lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko this morning until I read about it in Chris Hadfield's Twitter™ account - feel free to take away my geek card.

The lander was launched from the European Space Agency's cometary probe Rosetta, and in spite of some problems with the thrusters intended to hold the lander on the surface while an anchoring harpoon was embedded in the surface, Philae successfully touched down on the comet - albeit with a couple of bounces. This marks the first landing ever on the surface of a comet, and is the culmination of a ten year, 6.4 billion* kilometre journey that began with Rosetta's launch on March 2nd, 2004.

Rosetta and its little brother* will spend the next 17 months investigating Churyumov–Gerasimenko, collecting detailed information on how the comet changes as it makes its way toward the Sun.  In addition, scientists at the ESA hope to learn more about the origins of the planets from this chunk of rock that predates the birth of the solar system.

To see some amazing shots of the comet's surface, pay a visit to Rosetta's Flickr™ gallery.  Included in the gallery is a very cool selfie by the probe from October, showing one of its 14 metre wings, which collect solar energy to power the craft, and a shot of the comet in the background.

© European Space Agency

Selfies with comets, selfies on Mars - is it just me, or are the robots having all the fun when it comes to space exploration? 

- Sid

* Yes, BILLION.

** Or sister, hard to tell from the photos.

 

Gnomic Statements XI.

 Let's all just take a moment and be afraid of the crazy lady, shall we?

- Sid
 

Requiem.

On Friday, October 31st, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight over the Mojave Desert.  The pilot, Peter Siebold, escaped with severe injuries.  The copilot, Michael Alsbury, died in the crash.

Since then, there has been a lot of talk in the media about the fact that space travel is inherently risky, and that although the death of Michael Alsbury is tragic, this will not deter us from the quest to expand humanity's horizons through the exploration of space.

Blah, blah, blah.

Space travel IS risky, no doubt about that.  People have died before this*, and there is every possibility that people will die in the future.  However, at some very fundamental level, Virgin Galactic's approach to space travel leaves a bad taste in my mouth, a bad taste which has very little to do with the expansion of horizons. The decision to sell tickets to space to the elite few who have a quarter of a million dollars in discretionary funds is like some odd precursor to the society pictured in last year's dystopian film Elysium, where the rich live in orbit and the poor are condemned to the wreckage of Earthbound civilization.

I don't want to diminish his death, but I can't help but feel that Michael Alsbury died so that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie could spend six minutes in space.

- Sid

* Some of those people have died at Virgin Galactic. In 2007, three people died and three were seriously injured when an engine exploded during a test.

 

De Castell, Dellamonica and Gibson

What’s the difference between fantasy and science fiction? Fantasy can’t happen. Science fiction is something that hasn’t happened, but could.

Probables and Impossibles, 2014 Vancouver Writers Fest

Today I ventured out into the autumn rain to attend a Vancouver Writers Fest event featuring veteran science fiction author William Gibson, and newcomer fantasy authors Sebastien de Castell and A. M. Dellamonica, reading from recent work and discussing topics ranging from world building to the dark trends in contemporary fantasy. 

To be honest, I was there for William Gibson - I've been a fan since reading Neuromancer, his first book, back in 1984, and I have an enormous respect for the unique perspective and superb style that informs his work.  However, I was very impressed by both de Castell and Dellamonica, and found the event to be well rounded and entertaining.

Dellamonica described the process of laying the foundations of her third book, Child of a Hidden Sea, as deciding that she wanted to write something "fun", and proceeding to make a list of things that she thought qualified, like portal fantasy, biodiversity, "pirates!", sword fights, David Attenborough, sailing ships and so on, and finally deciding not to discard any of the ideas and to "write about all of them!"

She defines portal fantasy as "Narnia for grownups - the idea is to go through a wardrobe or you're picked up by a tornado, something that transports you to another world but you're originally from here," and discussed how the origin of characters in our world places their story in the time it's being written, with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe ultimately being about England during World War II, and the impossibility of thinking about Oz without thinking about the Dust Bowl.

In some ways, Gibson was the odd man out on the panel when it came to the discussion of worldbuilding.  As he pointed out, his writing rarely involves the construction of a fully-featured environment: "I start with a character and ... small objects, and the nature of the character and the nature of the small objects expand into an assumed world. I think ... that part of my technique has always been to rely on suggestion." 

He described an encounter early in his career with role playing game developers who were eager to transfer the cyberpunk reality from Neuromancer into a pen and paper game. One of their first questions was, "where does the food come from", part of a list of similar "Marxist" questions that Gibson was unable to answer. Ultimately, the developers gave up, deciding that Gibson's world was "not gameable".

De Castell describes Traitor's Blade, his debut novel, as "The Three Musketeers meets Game of Thrones".  Like Gibson, he also writes from a character-centric position - in Traitor's Blade, he began with the question: "What happens when the ideals that you've believed in for your entire life turn out to not* work?" and created an honourable, heroic character who lives in a corrupt, collapsing society. From that starting point, he "builds the world out based on explanations and questions," explaining that one of the most useful qualities that you can give your narrator is ignorance.

He feels that within a richly textured narrative, the props acquire a deeper level of significance beyond their physical attributes - what it means to a character to use a laser rifle versus a light saber, for example.

One of the topics that came up in the Q and A portion of the event dealt with the question of adaptation, which might well have been a red button topic with William Gibson, given the indifferent response to the film versions of his work and the fact that Neuromancer, his best known novel, has been in development limbo for the last 30 years.** 

However, Gibson handled the question gracefully, and it was amusing to watch the way the other two authors deferred to him because they hadn't been exposed to that particular situation at this point in their careers, whereas he was a seasoned veteran regarding the entire process.

The original question about adaptation mentioned games as well as movies and television.  Ignoring the issues of food production in cyberpunk fiction, I suspect that Neuromancer would probably adapt quite well to the current novelistic, story-driven computer gaming milieu.  Maybe it's time to revisit that idea, Bill.

- Sid

* The split infinitive is Mr. de Castell's, not mine.

** To my surprise, I recently found out that Johnny Mnemonic was not the only Gibson movie out there - his short story New Rose Hotel was also adapted to film in 1999.

 

28 Days Later.

It still amazes me that a few random conversations could somehow combine with a handful of superheroes that I made up in grade school to create a novel in just a few months.  Let alone a novel someone else would want to read.

Peter Clines

Thanks to a superb group of friends, I'm just now wrapping up my birthday from last month with a final selection of gifts.  (Unwrapping might be a more appropriate verb, now that I think about it.)

When I visited Ontario, my friend Colin wisely presented me with a Chapters/Indigo gift card, which cleverly balances out my love of books with the difficulties of trying to buy me something that I don't already own (and might want to read.) Ill health and a busy schedule (a terrible combination, by the way) kept me from using the card until just last week, when I was finally able to dedicate some time to making a suitable selection of reading material.

Unfortunately, I find the Chapters/Indigo™ web site to be difficult to browse*, so I've adopted the odd technique of actually going to one of their physical stores, looking at the shelves, and e-mailing myself a shopping list for online purchasing.  This isn't as counter-intuitive as it sounds, purchasing online saved me about 20% right across the board. It also balances out the limitations of physical inventory, only two of my choices were available in the store, but looking at the shelves providing me with useful ideas for online searching.

The package from Indigo™ arrived at work today, containing the following selection of science fiction and fantasy novels:

• Ex-Heroes, by Peter Clines
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
• Great North Road, by Peter F. Hamilton
• The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch

I've actually already read Ex-Heroes in bootlegged digital format, and enjoyed it enough that I wanted to back it up with paper, so to speak.  Peter Clines' four book Ex-Heroes series sounds like a catalogue of clichés when it's reduced to its basic elements of superheroes versus zombies, but I've been impressed by the skill and believability with which Clines creates his post-apocalyptic world and the heroes and villains that inhabit it.

For the most part, his superheroes occupy the usual slots:  Saint George, aka the Mighty Dragon, is super strong and invulnerable, Stealth is a obsessive humourless black-clad crime fighter in the style of Batman, Cerberus is a robotic battlesuit operated by the scientist who created it, and so on.  However, Clines brings his characters to life - ironically, in a struggle to protect the last survivors of Los Angeles from the undead.

As an example, Saint George (George Bailey in civilian life) is everything that a hero should be - honourable, honest, fair, and brave - but he never comes across as flat or predictable, but rather as a decent guy who has been given the gift of superpowers and who feels that it is his duty to use them to make people's lives better, no matter what happens.** 

I freely admit that the series doesn't offer any great truths or startling insights, but if you're looking for a solidly written, entertaining and enjoyable reading experience, I strongly recommend the Ex-Heroes.

Neil Gaiman is an obvious choice - has Neil Gaiman ever written a bad book? I think that the worst thing you can manage to say about Neil Gaiman is that some of his writing is not as good as the rest:  there's variation even in excellence. That being said, reviews suggest that The Ocean at the End of the Lane may be one of the better examples of his work, and I look forward to reading it.

I've mentioned Peter F. Hamilton and his Reality Dysfunction series here previously - I can only describe Hamilton's talent as astonishing.  His futures are incredibly rich and detailed, filled with an astounding range of technologies, locations, characters and situations, and his story lines are epic.  Great North Road combines all of that with a murder mystery - and a detective named Sidney, it's rare for me to get that sort of opportunity to identify with a character.

It's far too easy to get into a rut when buying books, so I always try to throw in a wild card.  This time it's The Lies of Locke Lamora, the first in a series of fantasy novels about Locke Lamora, the Thorn of Camorr - confidence man, trickster and thief.  I was intrigued by the concept, we'll see if it lives up to its back-cover advertising.  Thanks for the opportunity, Colin.

I can't finish this posting without thanking my friend Chris for the final item on my birthday list, a TARDIS USB hub, which flashes its roof light and emits the characteristic sounds of phasing in from time travel whenever a device is plugged in.  And it's LOUD - no wonder people seem to be able to hear it from so far away on the show!  Thanks again, Chris - there may well be a video follow up to this posting so you can see - and hear - what it's like in action.

- Sid

*Okay, is there anyone - ANYONE - reading this who shelves their books alphabetically by title?  In their physical stores, Chapters™ displays their books by author, which is pretty much how every bookstore I've ever visited does it.  However, the Chapters™ web site does not offer A-Z By Author as a viewing option - how hard would that be to program, for heaven's sake?

** George is also a Doctor Who fan, which obviously goes a long way with me.  To be more accurate, he views the Doctor as a role model:  "He was just a really smart guy who always tried to do the right thing.  To help people, no matter what."

 

The Queen of Engines.

"That Enchantress who has thrown her magical spell around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force which few masculine intellects could have exerted over it."

Ada Lovelace as described by Charles Babbage.

October 14th is one of the less known holidays on the geek calendar, but nonetheless an important one. Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of the accomplishments of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

For readers unfamiliar with Ada King, Lady Lovelace, she is a pivotal figure in the history of computing, working closely with Charles Babbage, the creator of a steampunk gear-driven calculating machine that he called the Difference Engine*. Lovelace's speculations as to the potential of Babbage's proposed next-gen Analytical Engine, published in 1842, predict the eventual development of hardware able to solve a wide variety of mathematical problems, and her notes regarding the manner in which the Engine could calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers are widely considered to be the first computer program in history.

Although I completely agree with the adoption of Lady Lovelace as the symbol of women in science, why not celebrate the more visionary arts as well? Let's acknowledge the woman who occupies the same position in the pantheon of science fiction authors that Ms. Lovelace holds in the programming world, the woman who invented Frankenstein's monster, the woman who wrote the first eponymous post-apocalyptic Last Man novel in 1826?  Next year, let's see if we can't get Mary Shelley Day onto the calendar as well.

- Sid

* Astute readers will recognize this term in the title of one of my birthday gifts - a book in which an alternate history Lady Lovelace makes an appearance.

 

Remember, drink responsibly!

After a couple of pints, Sid starts flashing his TARDIS in the bar.

- Sid

UPDATE: As it turns out, my sister's question below about the ghost at the Inn on the Falls is not entirely correct.  Apparently there is a total of three ghosts on site, not one.  Now, as I've previously commented, I'm a bit of a sceptic when it comes to this sort of supernatural phenomenon, but it's an interesting coincidence that out of all the places we could have stayed in Muskoka, we ended up at the haunted inn.

 

Sentimental Concrete Robot and Other Toronto Vignettes

As per my birthday posting, I'm currently in Toronto as part of a one-week vacation trip to Ontario. Following are a few quick outtakes from the trip so far.

Good advice, but unexpected.

Really not the kind of thing that I was expecting to see for sale in Yorkville.

 
The alien invaders were quick to adapt their buildings to ours.

I'm not going to claim that the original Royal Ontario Museum is an example of classical architectural excellence, but seriously, these two styles do NOT work together.  In fact, if you told me this was the result of alien spores rather than deliberate planning, I might well believe you.
 

Abandoned Raygun, Rockwood Conservation Centre.

 

Score.

Whenever I visit Colin, he always takes me to the Pickering Flea Market - I'm not sure why, there's only so much shopping I can do when I'm travelling with carry-on - but this time there was an unexpected bonus.  The Market has added an Antiques section, where I was surprised to find some copies of Galaxy magazine from the 50s for a mere $3.50 each.  They're not in mint condition, the spines are a bit beaten up, but I know a lot of people of similar vintage who also have back problems.



Not a bad name for a band - okay, maybe an 80s band.

And, in conclusion - sentimental concrete robot, as per the posting title.

- Sid
 

Testing for America readers.

I've just started reading Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, originally published in 1930.  Last and First Men is a unique entry in the library of science fiction, in that for the most part it's without characters or any sort of a plot, and as such it's not really a novel at all.

Then what is it?

Last and First Men is a history of humanity, told from the perspective of the incredibly evolved denizens 2,000,000,000 years in the future. As with actual history, it is episodic, full of tragedy and accomplishment, marked by great leaders, compassionate humanitarians, and brutal villains.  Unlike actual history, Stapledon's version is punctuated by alien invasions, evolutionary alterations, and the eventual entropic death of our species, altered almost beyond description by millennia of evolutionary change.

I'm currently reading the section dealing with the very near future, circa 2030, where Stapledon offers the following description of the United States a hundred years into his own future:

In the Far West, the United States of America openly claimed to be custodians of the whole planet. Universally feared and envied, universally respected for their enterprise, yet for their complacency very widely despised, the Americans were rapidly changing the whole character of man's existence. By this time every human being throughout the planet made use of American products, and there was no region where American capital did not support local labour. Moreover the American press, gramophone, radio, cinematograph and televisor ceaselessly drenched the planet with American thought.

Thus it was that America sank further and further into Americanism. Vast wealth and industry, and also brilliant invention, were concentrated upon puerile ends. In particular the whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful individual, that phantom ideal which Europe herself had only begun to outgrow in her last phase.

Those Americans who wholly failed to realize this ideal, who remained at the bottom of the social ladder, either consoled themselves with hopes for the future, or stole symbolical satisfaction by identifying themselves with some popular star, or gloated upon their American citizenship, and applauded the arrogant foreign policy of their government. Those who achieved power were satisfied so long as they could merely retain it, and advertise it uncritically in the conventionally self-assertive manners.

Is it just me, or is the Internet the only thing missing from that description?

 - Sid

Starships, supersoldiers and steampunk.

Neon in the window
Sirens far away
News on the radio, happy birthday
Happy birthday, happy birthday

Concrete Blonde, Happy Birthday

Friday afternoon, and it's more or less the middle of my birthday.  As usual, I've booked the day off - generally I take the entire week, but in this case it's next week instead, I'm off to Ontario to visit my friend Colin. It's grey and rainy here in Vancouver, but I've had a pleasantly relaxing day regardless - a much needed break, work this week was a bit manic, to say the least.

It's a generally accepted fact that I'm a tough crowd when it comes to birthday presents, due to the fact that first, if there's something that I want, I tend to buy it, and second, my interests are a bit off the beaten path.  When you combine these aspects of my life, it's challenging to pick something which is both of interest to me and which I don't already own.

That being said, in the past few years people have stepped up in an admirable fashion that fully recognizes my geek-oriented lifestyle.  As an example, completely out of the blue yesterday one of my coworkers, Glen the field training supervisor, surprised me with a model kit for the Enterprise NX-01*.  Not too surprisingly, it's a snap-together model (they generally avoid letting people like me use model airplane glue) but at least I fit into the age range for the skill level.

After some negotiation, the Evil Doctor Smith weighed in with Captain America:  The Winter Soldier on blu-ray, an excellent movie that's just recently hit the stores, and one that I'm looking forward to watching again in high definition.  Hmmm...you know, I'm not sure that the good Doctor has actually seen this film.  If not, we'll need to plan a movie night - the combination of drama, martial arts and athletic stunts (with a pinch of parkour) should work really well for her.

However, I have to give my artist friend Norah the prize for the Geek Gift of the Year (pending late-arriving presents, there are still some districts that haven't reported in, as they say on election night.)

Last night Norah treated me to an excellent dinner at Cloud Nine, a rotating restaurant located on the 43rd floor of a hotel on Robson Street.  While we were waiting for our appetizer to arrive, Norah somewhat nervously (see above re: the challenge of picking presents) presented me with a hardcover copy of the first British edition of The Difference Engine, a collaborative 1990 steampunk novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, poster boys of the cyberpunk genre. 

Oh, sorry, that's not quite correct.  She actually presented me with a SIGNED first edition of The Difference Engine in hardcover. Given that she was only able to describe William Gibson as "that Canadian science fiction author who lives in Point Grey", to the person who was helping her choose a book, it's an impressive accomplishment to have come up with such a fabulous gift.

Thanks again for a perfect evening, Norah, and for future reference, you may now consider yourself a fully-fledged geek gift guru.

 - Sid

*  For non-fans, this is the Enterprise from Enterprise.**

** Ummm - did that help? 

"You are a broom."

I never know where the faces come from.

Doctor Who, Deep Breath

At long last, the new Doctor Who:  the new series, and the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi.

Unfortunately, they kicked off with another one of those episodes that just didn't seem to make any sense, and as such didn't give the new fellow a lot to work with.  It may be that there was a sort of quiet assumption that the novelty of a new face would make up for that, with the debut of Mr. Capaldi filling in for any shortcomings in the story itself.

The funny thing is that if you ignore the plot, it's actually quite a good episode.*  There's a lot of discussion about the process of regeneration, and what it would actually mean to repeatedly recreate yourself, century after century.  During the now well-established post-regeneration mania, the new Doctor finds himself looking at his new face and wondering as to its origins - and quite validly so.  The human face is very much the result of experience, and as such, the lined visage that he sees in the mirror puzzles him:  as he says, "Who frowned with this face?"

The alien robot/android/cyborg villain, who has apparently been repairing and rebuilding himself for millennia, is well used as a comparative foil for this question during the climax:

 Question:  you take a broom. You replace the handle. And then later you replace the brush.  And you do that over and over again.  Is it still the same broom? Answer: no, of course it isn’t.

You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There’s not a trace of the original you left…you probably can’t even remember where you got that face from.

There is an evocative moment where the Doctor holds a polished silver plate in front of the cyborg to illustrate his point, a plate which also reflects his own face - and the same question.

The obvious subtext here would be that Steven Moffat, who wrote the episode, is laying the groundwork for the new Doctor being exactly that, a new man - not the same broom, in other words.  On the other hand, the episode ends with a poignant moment between the Doctor and Clara, where he desperately tries to convince her that he's the same person if only she would let herself see him as himself.

When you think about it, the same issues apply to Peter Capaldi. He's certainly going to give us a very different interpretation of the Doctor, and my initial impression is that it's going to be quite good, and, indeed, very different, I think he has enormous potential. 

But I also think he's going to need to establish himself in the role - Capaldi's Doctor is likely to be less flamboyant and outgoing than his predecessors, and perhaps a bit edgier.  As he says, "That's good, oooh...oooh... that's good... I'm Scottish... I'm Scottish...I am Scottish...I can complain about things, I can really complain about things now."

Finally, let's discuss the question of Missy, who appears at the end of the episode.  The first episode of each season of Doctor Who always sets up the final episode, and it's quite likely that we will see this enigmatic character again.  But who is she? I would dearly enjoy finding out that Missy is the new Master - if they're not going to give Helen Mirren a shot at the Doctor, it would at least be a step in the right direction to give the part of the Doctor's nemesis to a woman.

 - Sid

* It is a sad comment that there have been many, many, many episodes of the rebooted Doctor Who that fit into exactly that category:  quite good if you ignore the plot.

Awesome Mix Vol. 1.

I can't stop this feeling
Deep inside of me.
Girl, you just don't realize
What you do to me.
When you hold me
In your arms so tight,
You let me know,
Everything's alright, ah-ahah-ahah...

I'm hooked on a feeling,
I'm high on believing,
That you're in love with me.

The soundtrack for The Guardians of the Galaxy is made up entirely of pop hits from the 70s - the selection of music is based on the single cassette tape that the young Peter Quill has in his Walkman when he's abducted by the alien Ravagers, and it's not so much a soundtrack as a combination plot point and running gag.  The only down side is that after seeing the movie, I've had Blue Swede's Hooked on a Feeling stuck in my head for the last few days.  To be fair, it's actually not that unpleasant, and people tend not to sit beside you on the bus if you're muttering "ooogah chaka, ooogah ooogah" under your breath.

 - Sid

Hooked on a Feeling.

Originally I wasn't planning to see The Guardians of the Galaxy: I sort of felt that I'd filled my quota for comic book movies this summer, they're not the first gen Guardians that I'm familiar with, and even then, to a certain extent the Guardians were B-side heroes in the Marvel universe (no offense).

However, the movie hit with a box office bang, so I succumbed to curiousity, recruited a couple of willing co-workers, and headed off to the Scotiabank Theatre earlier this week to see it in 3-D with full Dolby 7.2 Surround Sound.

Guardians is a lot of fun - it's got a quirky, entertaining script, Chris Pratt is a great casting choice for alien abductee turned outlaw Peter Quill (who desperately wants people to refer to him as Starlord but doesn't have much luck with it), Drax the Destroyer was surprisingly funny, Groot and Rocket were better than I expected, and overall, I felt that it almost lived up to the hype.

However, it's not perfect. The plot is more than a bit dodgy, the romantic relationship between Quill and Gamora, the female assassin played by Zoe Saldana, seemed to come from nowhere, and both Saldana and Karen Gillan, who plays Gamora's sister Nebula, are hugely underutilized, both as actresses and characters.

All that aside, the movie made me feel like a genius:  it appears that in some ways, I accurately predicted the next five years of Marvel Comics movies a full two years ago, when Thanos the mad Titan made his post-credit appearance in The Avengers. 

After the movie, I tried to explain the significance of Guardians to my two co-workers Glen and Terry over a pint, but ran into a minor problem.

I think that it's fairly clearly established at this point that I'm a geek.* As such, for me, Guardians of the Galaxy was filled with hints, references, foreshadowing and Easter Eggs.  To my educated eye, it's not so much a movie as a huge teaser for Avengers 3 - and yes, I realize that the second Avengers movie isn't even out yet.

Glen and Terry, although admirable people in their own right, completely lack the background for any of that. (Apparently they spent their childhoods enjoying fresh air and sports, that sort of thing.) Because of that, I actually felt a bit cautious in asking what they'd thought about the movie, I wasn't sure how much sense it would have made without some kind of back story. They both cheerfully announced that they'd really enjoyed the movie, but I couldn't help but be aware of how much they were missing.

As an analogy, imagine going to see a movie about D-Day with two people who had never heard of World War II.  D-Day certainly stands on its own as a significant event, filled with drama, excitement, sacrifice, and so forth, and as such would probably be accessible to people who skipped History class in high school.

But think of all of the depth that they'd be missing  - they wouldn't know anything about Hitler, the National Socialist movement, the Holocaust, Neville Chamberlain, Dunkirk, the Battle of the Bulge, Pearl Harbor, or Hiroshima, just for starters. (Not to mention the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.)

Taking that as a comparison, Glen and Terry don't know about the Kree, what the Nova Corps should really look like, Supremor, Captain Mar-vell, Jack Kirby's Celestials, Thanos' romance with Death, the possibility of the Skrull Empire showing up (or the Shi'ar, for that matter), the history of the Infinity Gauntlet (seen briefly in the first Thor movie), the other Infinity Stones (seen all over the place if you know where to look), the sad semi-suicidal life (and death - or not) of Adam Warlock, the Watcher, Eros/Starfox, Moondragon, the Magus, Pip the Troll, Gamora's death (or not), and how Spider-Man saves the galaxy.

Not to mention the identity of Peter Quill's father.

I did my best to explain some of this to Glen, and then asked him if he thought that he would retain any of the information until the third Avengers movie comes out.

"Sid," he replied, "I don't think that I'll ever forget this conversation, but I know that I'm gonna try really, really hard."

 - Sid

*Anyone who is reading this who hasn't figured that out, maybe you should go to the first posting and start reading, I'll wait. 

How long have you had your ticket to China?

"It's about time..."

Idris, The Doctor's Wife.

Patience does not come easily to me. In spite of that, I'm very used to waiting for things - I learned how to wait in the hard schools of hitch-hiking and film processing, where impatience gets you nothing but high blood pressure - but there's no philosophic background to it, I wait because I have to wait.

That being said, let's talk about the manner in which the BBC has been trying my hard-earned patience for a year and a half.

The new season of Doctor Who will start next Saturday, on August 23rd, 2014.  The final episode of the seventh reboot season of Doctor Who aired on May 18th of 2013, followed on November 23rd by the 50th Anniversary episode - yes, six months later.  The Christmas episode was shown on, you guessed it, December 25th, 2013, and introduced the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi*, in a brief post-regeneration sequence.

In other words, over a 16 month time span, they only managed to broadcast TWO episodes, an average of one every eight months.

I realize that these things take time to put together, but I have to think that there must have been some way to better allocate the available time.  Surely it cannot have been a surprise to discover that you were expected to continue producing episodes? Regardless, we're here now.  I sincerely hope that the new season, with the new Doctor - and apparently a new approach to the show - will have been worth the wait.

And, who knows, perhaps it will even be shown on a regular schedule.

 - Sid

* Mr. Capaldi's eyes also made a brief appearance in the 50th Anniversary special.