"YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE."

I was saddened beyond words last Thursday when I heard that 66 year old British fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett had succumbed to the combination of a chest infection and the rare form of Alzheimer's from which he had suffered for the last eight years.

In the innumerable obituaries and tributes which have followed his death, Pratchett is most often referred to as a satirist, comparable to Jonathan Swift in his trenchant mockery of the everyday world through his fantasy creations.  I realize that satire was part of Pratchett's intention, but to categorize his work purely in that fashion would miss the incredible depth of creativity and perception which characterized his writing.

Terry Pratchett made me stay up late and and get up early in order to read his books.  His imagination was limitless, and his style was simple but eloquent, with every word doing exactly what he wanted it to do, nothing less.

When I think of Pratchett's work, I don't think of satire, I think of the characters.  It is an enormous loss to realize that I will never again read a new story about Sam Vimes of the Watch, Esme Weatherwax the witch, the virtuous Captain Carrot, Nobby Nobbs (whose name may say it all), Rincewind the Wizzard*, Death, Death's granddaughter, or any of the host of other amazing characters who populated Pratchett's novels.  All gone, all ended - or, more accurately, not ended, but left in limbo.

Because of that, somewhere out there a man in a suit** is steepling his fingers together in the fashion of Montgomery Burns and thoughtfully saying, "You know, I bet we could find someone who would take over the Discworld series if we paid them enough money..."

Stop.  Just stop.

Terry Pratchett was a genius, one of those people whose talent was based in a unique perspective, and it would be a heart-breaking betrayal of his legacy for anyone to even attempt to imitate that talent.  If someone does succumb to the lure of lucre, I would strongly recommend that they be thrown into the scorpion pit along with the mimes.

Goodbye, Terry.  Thank you for letting us all see the world the way that you did, and for letting us see the worlds that no one else could have shown us.

- Sid

* This is not a typo, although really, it is. 

** In my world, the villain is always a man in a suit.  Draw what conclusions you wish from this.

Presumably very very rare.

- Sid

All our yesterdays.

 

Yesterday was a sad day - Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83.

The character of Spock as portrayed by Nimoy is arguably one of the most iconic and recognized science fiction characters. He’s the first mainstream alien, he represents an enviable philosophy of logic and thought, but was always seen as a character with hidden depths and passions - after all, it isn’t that Vulcans lack emotion, but rather that they control them. 

But it seems so unfortunate to define Nimoy’s life and career by a single character, although that seemed to be his fate for many many years. Nimoy discussed his ambiguous relationship with his green-blooded alter ego in two books: I Am Not Spock in 1975, and I Am Spock twenty years later in 1995.

As the second title would seem to indicate, time heals all wounds, and as time passed Nimoy came to terms with his inescapable link to this single role from his professional portfolio, embraced it, laughed about it, and ultimately accepted it as a part of who he was.

Regardless, rather than say goodbye to Spock, let us say farewell to Leonard Nimoy:  actor, photographer, artist, musician, director, writer, husband, father, and human being.

- Sid

The God-Emperor's new clothes.

I was raping Frank Herbert, raping, like this!  But with love, with love.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jodorowosky’s Dune

I’ve just finished watching Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary dealing with the legendary failed attempt by Alejandro Jodorowsky to make a film version of Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel in 1975. 

Jodoworsky’s production of Dune is a bit like the Holy Grail of science fiction film making, a mystical, almost mythical event that is surrounded by mystery and legend.  For years, bits and pieces of the pre-production work have been floating around: sketches, paintings, storyboards, costume designs, casting and location choices.  This documentary provides a clear view of the process whereby Jodorowsky made his decisions, and offers fascinating insights into one of the most unique and creative film making minds of the 20th century.

However, simply because something is a documentary, that doesn’t mean that it’s unbiased. The greater part of Jodorowsky’s Dune features Jodorowsky speaking about the project, with additional commentary by the producer for the film, Michel Seydoux, conceptual artists H.R. Giger and Chris Foss, and film directors Richard Stanley and Nicholas Winding Refn.  They are unanimous in their praise of the project, describing it as being literally ahead of its time and a great lost opportunity.

What the documentary does not feature is any sort of input from people speaking about the less positive aspects of the production.

Jodorowsky’s script is a million miles away from Frank Herbert’s novel, by everyone’s admission - including Jodorowsky’s. Herbert’s Dune is a brilliant combination of politics, sociology, ecology and religion, but it is firmly grounded in its own reality. Jodorowsky envisioned it as a mystical journey with completely different background, narrative, and climax, which might have been an incredible viewing experience, but which might as well have had a different title as far as its connection to the original.  In fact, Jodorowsky would go on to collaborate with one of the design team, French fantasy artist Jean Giraud, to create a graphic story entitled The Incal which would utilize exactly the same plot elements that appear in his Dune script.

Pre-production was littered with odd examples of excess and indulgence. Jodorowsky speaks blithely of enlisting Orson Welles to play the malevolent Baron Harkonnen by agreeing to hire the head chef from the restaurant where Welles was eating and having him cook for Welles every single day.  Dali, who was to play the Padishah Emperor, was to have been paid $100,000 per minute of his performance, and also demanded a personal helicopter and a flaming giraffe.

Other sources state that when Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976, two million dollars had already been spent on the pre-production planning without even having a contract.  When the script and the lavish production concept book were finally circulated in Hollywood, the studios were polite but definite in their uniform rejection of the entire idea as impractical and unproducible, especially with Jodorowsky at the helm of the project. 

Ultimately, I found that Jodorowsky’s Dune was rather like an inversion of the classic fable from Aesop about the fox and the grapes - instead in this case the grapes would have been the most incredible grapes ever tasted, grapes that would have redefined what grapes meant to the world, grapes that would have altered the perception of a generation of grape-eaters - if only it had been possible to obtain them!

Or it's entirely possible that the grapes - and the movie - would ultimately have proven to be sour after all.

- Sid

"Everybody wants to rule the world."

I’ve just finished re-reading Out on Blue Six, by Ian McDonald, which presents us with McDonald’s take on 1984:  the Benevolent Society, in which everyone is happy – or else.  People are assigned to the job which will make them happiest, matched with their perfectly compatible life companion, and placed into the caste which best suits their psychological makeup.  Causing pain, physical OR emotional, is a crime – a paincrime – which in standard Orwellian fashion is policed by the Ministry of Love.

However, as with most dystopias, the Benevolent Society is flawed. The job which is guaranteed to make you happy may not be the job you have wanted with all your heart for as long as you can remember, something which may challenge and frustrate you, but which fulfills your dreams.  Perfect compatibility does not equal love.  Children are separated from parents in the interests of caste divisions, never to see each other again.  And a society without any kind of pain is a society without empathy, without sacrifice, without progress.

At the end of the novel, the godlike, all-powerful AIs that rule the world award complete control over the Benevolent Society to a ragtag band of artistic rebels, and they begin the slow process of returning some disorder and unpredictability to the world, making it better by making it worse.

So here’s your challenge for the day. I’m going to wave my magic wand, or anoint you, or pull your number out of a very large hat. You, YOU, are the unchallenged ruler of the world.  Your authority is complete, although it is not magical. You cannot repeal the law of gravity* or make time run backward. If you decide that you want a one-inch deep trench that stretches along the entire U.S. Canada border, resources must be assembled, funds allocated, people hired.  (Training is probably minimal, although you never know.)

What would you do?

Given the nature of, well, human nature, there will probably be some moments of excess, as per Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty.  But once those initial moments of self-indulgence were out of the way, imagine the possibilities!

The entire military budget of the United States could be reassigned to solving the problems of cancer and AIDS.  The massive political structures of the Western world, the congresses and parliaments, rationalized and reduced and the excess capital reassigned to free health care and free education.

However, here's the real question. As above, your legislative control is universal, but you can't perform magic.  How many of the conflicts and struggles currently plaguing the world are the result of cultural and religious differences that you couldn't just tell to go away?  Would a law against war actually stop wars?  Hmmm....maybe we do need to keep some of the soldiers....and there's the beginning of the end. Damn, it looked so promising there for a minute.

Oh well, we can always try again.

So here’s your challenge for the day.  I’m going to wave my magic wand, or anoint you, or pull your number out of a very large hat. You, YOU, are the unchallenged ruler of the world...

- Sid

*  There's an H.G. Wells short story entitled The Man Who Could Work Miracles which accurately addresses the difficulties of possessing ultimate power without a clear understanding of physics.  

"Stand back, I'm going to try science!"

I have just started dating a fabulous woman named Karli.  This post could easily be just about that, she is an extraordinary person* and I'm very happy and a little bit in shock, but I'll try to stay on topic.

We had our First Official Date** on Friday, and the venue was a surprise for me.  Karli had mysteriously asked if I liked science, and my reply was "Yes, of course."  And then I said, "But don't tell me anything else, I'd like to be surprised."

In the fullness of time, Friday arrived, and after dinner I found myself happily standing in line at Science World, located at the east end of False Creek.  In the ten years I've been living in Vancouver, I've never made my way to Science World - I'd seen hordes of small children surrounding the building when I've walked by, and that had left me with the impression that it was pretty much a kid's attraction.

Little did I know that, as with many similar attractions around the world, Science World presents an After Dark evening event on a regular basis, for which the age limit is 19+, and alcohol is served.

So, in we went, and spent the next three hours, drinks in hand, exploring the various interactive exhibits - hampered only slightly by the knee-level child-friendly setup for most of them.

Given that science fiction is at least half science***, I think it's common that a lot of SF fans keep in touch with scientific developments.  After all, things like the exploration of Mars by robots or landing probes on comets were science fiction topics twenty years ago, and it's gratifying to see how we are slowly moving toward the realization of that science fiction future, the one in which we begin to explore more and more of our solar system and perhaps even start living on other planets. 

But in some ways this is also a challenging time for the scientific community.  The cover story on this month's National Geographic sums it up:

 

How strange and unexpected is it that we can be standing here on the edge of the universe, just starting to reach out and touch it, explore it, learn about it, and there are people who are presumably educated and otherwise intelligent who are unable to accept the basic physical truths of that universe? 

But there's hope.  After all, when NASA first posted a live video feed from Mars, the volume of interest was so high that it repeatedly crashed their servers.  Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has 1.28 million followers on Twitter™.  And on Friday night, I shared Science World with a genial, happy group of people who thought it would be a fun thing to spend Friday night playing science games.

Thanks again, Karli, I had a wonderful time.

- Sid

* She is smart, clever, perceptive, and gorgeous - based on votes to date, at least, six people have voted gorgeous, one beautiful.  Okay, seven people, I'm going to vote gorgeous as well.

** Previous to Friday we were in beta testing.  User comments were favourable.

*** Well, by letter count, exactly half, but that's not really how it works.

Toadies, Sycophants, and Lickspittles.

There's a particular cliché that seems to have become a fixture in adventure movies: the villain's cringing, cowardly sidekick, who licks his master's boots while abusing all below him.  These cardboard characters tend to suffer from bad dental hygiene and blemished skin, often provide comedic relief, and generally come to a bad end. In The Mummy, it's Beni, with his ambiguous accent and fez; in The Two Towers, it's Grimà Wormtongue, who comes to a much worse end in the book; and In The Battle of the Five Armies, the final segment of The Hobbit film trilogy, this character is Alfrid, flunky to the Master of Laketown.

Alfrid is thoroughly detestable. He abuses women and cripples, he sleeps on guard duty, he disguises himself as a crone to avoid fighting the orcs, and is despised by one and all.  Astonishingly, he seems to make a clean getaway at the end, sneering at the bravery of Bard the Bowman and escaping with his false bosom stuffed with gold to boot.

Seeing Alfrid march off triumphantly in the movie, it occurred to me that I'd like to see one of these one-dimensional toadies achieve redemption - can't we let one of them rise above themselves, just once?

At one point in The Battle of the Five Armies, orcs are overrunning the town of Dale, and every able-bodied man is locked in desperate combat except for Alfrid, who has concealed himself in an alcove to avoid discovery.   Exposed by circumstances, he is put in charge of the evacuation of the women, children and wounded by Bard, who presents him with a sword and sends him on his way.

Of course Alfrid ditches the weapon and pushes aside the weak and elderly to ensure his own safety, but let's imagine for a moment that the story went a bit differently.

There's a scene shortly afterwards where Bard sees his children menaced by a troll - Bard is a hundred feet away, and it's obvious that there's no possible way for him to reach his family in time to save them.  As in all of the Hobbit movies, the scriptwriter's solution is improbable physics, with Bard leaping onto a nearby cart and riding it down the street in a bouncing, unrealistic roller-coaster ride that eventually stops the troll in its tracks and saves the day.

But imagine that instead of Bard rescuing the children, Alfrid had just for one moment found his courage and taken action, used the sword he'd been given and attacked the troll.

I don't demand that he succeed, he only needs to distract and delay the monster long enough for Bard to save both the children and Alfrid. I don't want him to be killed, either.  All I want to see is that moment when he overcomes his cowardice, that moment when he realizes that he can be more than he is.

And on that basis, some less clichéd naming conventions would be a big help for these poor souls.  Imagine how differently Aragorn son of Arathorn would have been viewed if his name had been Alfrid Lickspittle.

- Sid

Artificial Intelligence II: We're Going to Trust You on This, Okay?

Any number of websites rely on some kind of system to determine whether or not they are being visited by actual humans as opposed to web bots of some sort, requiring users to type in numbers from a photo or answer a question about the Beatles.

These systems are called CAPTCHAs, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart - Alan Turing's Imitation Game flipped on its head, a filter to reveal primitive artificial intelligences rather than to prove consciousness.

However, the latest generation of CAPTCHA is completely different.  Apparently now they're willing to just take my word for it.

- Sid

Artificial Intelligence I: The Limitation Game.

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think."

Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

On Christmas Eve, I attended an afternoon showing of The Imitation Game, the heavily fictionalized but well acted biopic regarding the life of Alan Turing, the noted mathematician, computer theorist and World War II cryptographer whose life ended in disgrace and presumed suicide following his arrest for homosexuality in 1952.*  As a science fiction fan, I was surprised by the title, which has nothing whatsoever to do with cryptography. "The Imitation Game" is a reference to what is more commonly known as the Turing Test, as detailed by Turing in his 1951 paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this touchstone of artificial intelligence theory, the Turing Test is very simple.  A judge sits in one room, and in two other rooms are a human being and a computer.  The human being and the computer can only communicate with the judge via text displayed on a computer screen. (I believe that in the original version, the questions and answers were paper based, but monitors and keyboards certainly speed things up.) It is the judge's job to decide which one of the communicants is the computer, based on their interaction.  It is the human's job to be a human, and the computer's job to imitate a human**.

Turing's simple experiment for establishing artificial intelligence is a standard reference for science fiction authors: there are Turing scales for degree of AI, Turing certifications, and more threateningly, William Gibson's Neuromancer introduces the idea of the Turing Police:  an international organization responsible for the elimination of unauthorized or rogue AIs.

Science fiction aside, real-world computers have miserably failed the Turing Test, as demonstrated by the annual Loebner Prize competition, originated by American inventor Hugh Loebner in 1990.  To date, no computer - or more accurately, no computer program -  has managed to win the $100,000 award by successfully convincing the judges of its humanity.  Several smaller prizes have been awarded to the best program, but so far it's really been to acknowledge the best of a poor lot.

However, it's an interesting conceit to demand that a computer convince someone that it's a human. Why should the ability to mimic humanity be a requirement for consciousness or sentience?

It's easy to say that artificial intelligence would need to be based on the human mind, what else do we have to use as a model?  On the other hand, there's no other area of technology that follows this path: cars run on wheels rather than mechanical legs, and cranes don't feature huge arms with hands and fingers to pick up cargo.  Technology has always been used to exceed the limitations of the human form rather than imitate them, and artificial intelligence might do well to take the same approach.

Maybe we need to come up with a new name for the game.

- Sid

*  At that point in time, homosexuality was a criminal offense in England.

** Based on the way that people react to tests, I actually suspect that in practice they both end up trying to imitate a human.

Perhaps not a bad description of the performance, either.

And now, my lovely and talented co-worker Christi modeling her new chibi-C'thulhu hoodie, a piece of swag from one of her favourite local groups, the H.P. Lovecraft tribute band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.*  She's accessorized her look with her plush C'thulhu doll, the perfect gift for anyone looking for a puffy elder god toy.

I certainly appreciate the sentiment expressed by the design, but maybe let's not rush into this whole "worship" thing, given the manner in which C'thulhu's cultists traditionally celebrate their deity:

In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre's extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint.

Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing, and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the centre of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous in its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette.

From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a centre hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of C'thulhu

I realize that everyone needs a hobby, but Christi, seriously, maybe stick with your personal band project instead. After all, isn't "braying, bellowing, and writhing" a pretty good description of what your audience is doing anyway?

- Sid

* I'm so pleased by the number of obscure references in this sentence.

Adventure Time.

 

I've discussed my love for travel in previous blog postings, but I don't think that I've discussed how much it scares me.  My family didn't travel at all when I was a child, and as such I had to teach myself how to go on trips, an experience which took me completely out of my comfort zone.  I've done enough travel now that I've become competent at the various mechanics involved, booking plane tickets and hotels, going through airport security, finding my luggage, that kind of thing, but it's still very much an adventure for me.

2013's trip to Scotland proved to be an excellent source of blog content:  visits to Monty Python castles, found objects like police boxes and Tron churches, and of course a winsome geek or two.  2014 was a much less ambitious year for travel, but 2015 should turn out to be far more interesting, with travel destinations that will combine both the past and the future.

In April, my friend Colin and I are heading to Florida for a week in the sun, with the Kennedy Space Center prominently featured on my list of requested site visits.  This is where it all happened, this where they made history: the Saturn rocket, the Mercury and Gemini missions, Apollo, Skylab, the space shuttle, the ISS, and now that NASA is returning to a more active role with the new Orion rocket, it's going to be a central part of the next stage of space exploration.

My friend Terry is moving to Japan in a few weeks, and I've decided to pay him a visit in September.  In my mind, Japan is an idealized window into the future, with Tokyo in particular a Gibsonesque silicon metropolis that's just a little bit ahead of the rest of the world.  In addition, Japanese geek culture, in the form of manga and animé, has become a strong alternative to the Western superhero and Disney-dominated approaches to comics and animation. 

 

As an example, the life-sized* Mobile Suit Gundam statue and theme site located in Tokyo's Odaiba district has become a popular geek pilgrimage, but I also plan to make the more traditional pilgrimage to Kyoto, Japan's cultural and spiritual centre. Visiting Kyoto is like a trip into Japan's past, a glimpse of a time and a place which is almost the opposite of Tokyo's fast-forward vibe.

I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous about Japan, even nine months in advance.  I managed to survive a week in Paris in 2011 with my limited French, but travelling in a country where I can't even read the street signs** is going to be a real challenge, even with a locally based tour guide. But what would life be without an adventure now and then?

- Sid

* "Life-sized" is perhaps an odd way to describe a 60 foot tall recreation of a giant battle robot from an animated series, but you know what I mean.

**  This is a joke - apparently there are no street signs.

Strange days indeed.

Sometimes the Space Channel has some odd choices. One wonders "And what does that have to do with sci-fi, or even space?

- Laurie Smith, 2007 blog comment.

Oh Space, Space - why do you vex me so?

No, seriously, what were you thinking?  Today's lineup was one of the most marginal science fiction lineups you've ever programmed.  Okay, it doesn't include Jaws, but it's about on a par in terms of wondering what went wrong.

Let's look at the list, in no particular order:  Executive Action - fail, it's an action film.  Under Siege, ditto.  Under Siege II - see comment re: Under Siege.  The A-Team - already covered the last time you programmed it under the mistaken impression that it was science fiction (or maybe fantasy).  Face/Off - actually marginally science fiction, thank you.  Crank?  Hmmm....I'm going to go with action film again.  The Expendables - action film.  Expendables II...anyone in the audience?  Please, don't answer all at once - yes, thank you, action film.  Looper - FINALLY, an acceptable little time travel movie, which presumably made the program list because of Bruce Willis.

And the weird thing is that the rest of the week, before and after, is pretty good in terms of suitable selections - what happened today? 

For New Year's 2007, you showed Strange Days, a quirky but well done science fiction film whose pivotal action actually takes place on December 31st - why not make that a yearly tradition?  In fact, why not program the whole day with quirky little films, all of the wonderfully unique off-the-beaten-path movies* like Strange Days:  Dark City, The Zero Theorem, Code 46, Immortal, The Quiet Earth, Altered States, Solaris, Wizards, The Fountain  - have I got a full day yet?  Brazil, Soldier, Sunshine, Monsters - that should do it for a full programming day, one that might well attract some positive feedback from the critics. 

Admittedly, this isn't a list of movies that's going to attract the attention of the cool kids, but let's face it, the people who are watching Space on New Year's Eve are probably not the cool kids anyway.

Regardless - happy New Year, everyone!  One more step into the future...

- Sid

* This entire list is taken from two or three shelves of my DVD collection, and you know, "wonderfully unique off-the-beaten-path" actually covers quite a wide selection of science fiction movies - if not all of them.

Saint Nicholas?

There's a horror movie named Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everybody keeps invading you. 

The Doctor, Last Christmas

Christmas is a time of traditions, and as such I feel obliged to follow the Infinite Revolution tradition of posting a brief review of the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

Over time (no pun intended) I've found the holiday episodes of Doctor Who to be a bit uneven, with last year's offering quite definitely scoring as one of the less impressive samples. However, this year's special redeemed the shortcomings of Matt Smith's disappointing final episode.

Last Christmas offers a well-written scenario which prominently features Santa Claus, elves, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and alien monsters, and then cleverly integrates them all into the story in a logical, reasonable fashion which makes perfect sense in the context of the plot.*  This qualifies as good science fiction by my definition, in that it creates what seems to be an irrational situation and then explains it in a completely rational manner** without ever breaking the rules created by the storyline.

Last Christmas pays homage to several classic films, to the point of even listing them on screen for the less observant or knowledgeable members of the audience.  (If you're curious, yes, apparently Dave is forgiven.) To be fair, number five on that list should probably be Inception, but it may be that they were less eager to point out that particular influence.***

The episode also resolves the question of Clara Oswald's continued involvement (or not) with the Doctor, and manages to gracefully break the barriers to that involvement that were created in the final episode of Season 8.  Ultimately though, the episode's greatest achievement is in casting.  I mean, seriously, how can you go wrong by choosing an actor named Nick Frost to play Santa Claus?

Merry Christmas to all - once again, we're half way out of the dark.

- Sid

* In acknowledgement of previous complaints by my sister Dorothy, no spoilers here.

** Well, to be truthful, that's a bit strong.  It's not completely logical, but by Doctor Who standards it's pretty good.

*** That being said, series producer and writer Steven Moffat had damn well better not end the next season by announcing that it was all a dream, that will NOT go well for him.

Geekmas III: One to beam up, Scotty.

Pop quiz:  what makes for a good seasonal gift?

Well, it's not a bad thing if it's practical, but it can also be frivolous and entertaining, and obviously it should somehow be related to the recipient's interests. On that basis, I have to give my friend Colin full points for his choice of a Christmas gift this year:  the Star Trek Transporter Shower Curtain and Bath Mat combination.

It fits all the criteria - it's both practical and frivolous, it certainly reflects my interests, and it makes a decorative replacement for my previous plain white shower curtain, tying in nicely with my desire to come out of the geek closet.

I've seen Starfleet towels somewhere on line as well...hmmm...and, when you think about it, having a Star Trek themed bathroom would certainly put a different spin on the whole "to boldly go" thing.

Thanks, Colin!

- Sid

Geekmas II: Gimcrackery.

Every year my department at work has a pot luck luncheon combined with a Secret Santa gift exchange. One of my co-workers is very much a Christmas person, and as such invests a lot of time and effort* into decorating our boardroom and arranging the Secret Santa draw and so on. However, this year there was some discussion about the continuation of the Secret Santa tradition.  As someone quite accurately pointed out, “We’re all adults who make a reasonable wage, we can buy ourselves a $25 bottle of wine if we want to.”

The sad truth behind their observation is that it can be very difficult to buy a small gift for someone that you only know through work, which leads a lot of people to fall back on alcohol, the gift that keeps on giving.  I've been quite fortunate - my public reputation as a geek has done quite well by me with Secret Santa, as I’ve pointed out in previous postings.  This is the first year that I’ve received anything close to a duplicate of an existing possession – I received another figure from the CubeBot line – but that was followed up today by what I assume to have been the contents of a late-arriving parcel.   Coincidentally, when I came back to my desk after discussing the efficacy of the Secret Santa concept, I discovered a Doctor Who Floating TARDIS Pen on my desk.

Now, let’s be brutally honest.  The little collection of pop-culture geek gimcrackery that adorns my computer desk at home would be considered trash by most people, a pointless collection of dusty toys.  But for me they all have little stories. There are icons and memorabilia from my longstanding hobby, echoes of my childhood that would otherwise be forgotten, and, in the case of things like the Doctor Who pen, some of them represent a little bit of recognition from someone who has gotten to know me well enough to get me a little piece of shared memory – even if it is in secret.

Thank you, Santa.

- Sid

P.S.  The licensed manufacturers of this pen have a lot of confidence in their product, even if they've taken a slightly old school approach to it.  The packaging includes a twelve month guarantee for the pen, which is a long time to expect a pen to survive.  Surprisingly, pen owners seeking restitution cannot simply send an e-mail, but must write a letter - presumably using another pen.

* Time and effort which does not receive enough acknowledgement - thanks again, Meadd!

"No, you'll shoot your eye out."

For fans of A Christmas Story, I give you Superman #14, with an ad for the infamous Daisy Red Ryder Cowboy Carbine on the back cover, "ready for Christmas".

- Sid

The Infinite Reference.

 After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy in August, I made the following comment:

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.

and posted the following comic book cover:

 

Since then, Marvel Comics has boldly announced its Cinematic Universe movie lineup all the way up to May of 2019, which includes, among other things, the third Avengers movie, the two-part Infinity War.

All evidence indicates that the Infinity War storyline is going to deal with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet - kudos to me for figuring that out in advance.

Patting myself on the back now out of the way, let's look at the logistics.  In my August post, I also listed a lot of the background information that I felt Marvel would need to deal with in order to lay the groundwork for the epic struggle that will take place with Thanos the mad Titan.

Guardians of the Galaxy makes a good start on that process.  We finally get some more information about Thanos, who makes his first appearance in the end scene from the first Avengers film, we meet his daughters Gamora and Nebula, we are introduced to the Kree*, and generally get an introduction to the universe that lies beyond the boundaries of our solar system.

However, if they want to stay close to the original plot of the Infinity Gauntlet story, there is still a lot of ground to cover, and that's what four of the other seven movies in Marvel's post-2015 lineup will probably be taking care of.

One of the central characters in the Infinity Gauntlet story is Marvel's Master of the Mystic Arts, Doctor Stephen Strange**.  Check, the Doctor Strange film, starring noted otter-lookalike Benedict Cumberbatch as the Sorcerer Supreme, is scheduled for November of 2016.  In May of 2017, we'll see the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, which will undoubtedly continue to explore the extraterrestrial milieu introduced in the first film.  The first Infinity War film will debut in May of 2018, followed by Captain Marvel in July.

Captain Marvel is an interesting character - or characters, more accurately.  The original Captain was an officer in the Kree military who later gained cosmic awareness, battled and defeated Thanos, and then died of cancer.

However, during one of his adventures on Earth, he was caught in an explosion with a U.S. Air Force officer named Carol Danvers, who gained super powers as a result, eventually joined the Avengers as Ms. Marvel***, and later took over the name of Captain Marvel after his death.  In fact, over time three or four different people have used the name, but I gather that the movie version will feature Ms. Danvers in the titular role.  This confuses me a little, since the cosmic awareness Captain Marvel is the one who spent the most time dealing with Thanos, Gamora et al. It will be interesting to see how they reconcile the different versions of the character.

Following Captain Marvel will be The Inhumans in November of 2018, paving the way for the second Infinity Wars film in May of 2019.

This particular part of the lineup was quite a surprise to me - the Inhumans, leaders of a hidden race of experimental superbeings created by Kree experiments millions of years in Earth's past, have always been somewhat marginal characters in the Marvel Universe.  On the other hand, so are the Guardians of the Galaxy, and that gamble worked out very well for Marvel.

Personally, I would have replaced The Inhumans with a movie featuring Adam Warlock: the gold-skinned character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, who was recreated as a tortured anti-hero by Jim Starlin in the 70s and was a pivotal element of the Thanos/Infinity Gauntlet plotline.  There are a couple of visual references to Adam Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy during the scenes that take place in the Collector's lair.

This entire process has been a field day for long-term comics fans. As this posting makes clear, Marvel been loading up the movies to date with all kinds of overt and covert references to what's going to happen - provided that you're in a position to recognize them.  However, not all of the Easter Eggs are part of the game.  For example, I'm completely confident that Howard the Duck isn't making a return to the big screen.

- Sid

* In case people weren't paying attention, Ronan the Accuser, the villain in Guardians, is a rogue member of the Kree Empire.

**  In case people weren't paying attention in The Winter Soldier either, Stephen Strange is one of the people that Jasper Sitwell lists when discussing Zola's Algorithm in the rooftop scene.

*** Ms. Marvel is currently a 16 year-old Pakistani-American girl from New Jersey named Kamala Khan, Marvel's first Muslim character. Times change.

A Brief Experientially-Based Explanation of the Appeal of Video Games.

Friday was a long day in more ways that one.  I worked late on Thursday and came in at six this morning in order to have printed material ready for a project that had been delayed until Monday - no one had bothered to inform me.  I spent four hours in a meeting to get additional material for a training manual from someone who had not bothered to look at the first draft, and as such they spent the entire meeting just reading the existing content.

Finally, as I was getting ready to leave at the end of the day, I received a trio of rude and accusatory phone calls from our dispatch centre demanding an explanation as to why they hadn't received the posters that I had promised them on Thursday, if in fact I had actually done them at all. We tracked the courier slip and discovered that the package had been signed for at 1:30 on Thursday.  This was followed by an apology-free call from the centre in which I was told that the person who signed for the delivery had never bothered to open the box.

I think I'll be Batman for a while.

- Sid

Gnomic Statements XII.

You know, Emilia Clarke does look like the young Linda Hamilton!

- Sid

Geekmas.

It’s December 1st. American Thanksgiving and Black Friday are now behind us, I received my first Christmas card last week – apparently the holiday season has arrived, and with it, the challenging question of gifts for geeks such as myself.

Between Secret Santa at the workplace and my friends, I felt that there were enough people seeking guidance for holiday gift buying that some hints regarding affordable stocking stuffers would be useful.  I’ve split the options into four convenient categories:  books, movies, mugs, and hats.

To avoid overlap, if you do plan to purchase one or more of these items for me, just leave an anonymous comment with your choice of gift, and I’ll remove it from the list.  (If you’d like me to buy YOU one of these items, leave a comment with your name included.)

Books
I don’t usually recommend books as one of my gift options, but conveniently there are a couple of things unpurchased on my books-to-buy list.  The Peripheral, William Gibson’s new book, is currently out in hardcover, and I was intrigued enough by Sebastien de Castell’s presentation at the Vancouver Writer’s Fest that I'd like to read his book, Traitor’s Blade.  In addition, the fourth James S.A. Corey Expanse book, Cibola Burn, is also available.

Movies
The Evil Doctor Smith has already requested a short list of gift options, and called dibs on my top two blu-ray* choices, Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men: Days of Future Past.  However, there are still some options out there.  For example, I don’t have any of the Star Trek movies on blu-ray.  (Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are covered, thank you.)  My movie collection also lacks many of the classic SF/horror films such as Them**, The Thing (the black and white version, that is), The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and so on, although I did just buy the original Michael Rennie version of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  The Keanu Reeves version?  Perhaps less interested.

Mugs
I have a fairly large collection of souvenir mugs – after all, if you’re careful, a good mug will last for decades, failing unfortunate dishwashing accidents.  However, only a couple of my mugs are SF or fantasy related, which offers a wide open field for gift giving.  To avoid duplication, I already have a classic logo Doctor Who mug and a large TARDIS mug from last year’s Secret Santa.  The TARDIS mug has actually never had tea in it, I view it as more decorative than practical – there’s a reason that there aren’t a lot of square mugs out there.

Hats
Because I’m bald, I’m a dedicated hat wearer, generally in the style that I think of as baseball caps.  I’ve never gone looking, but there must be someplace out there that sells hats with Starfleet logos and the like, they can’t all be sports related.  Bonus points for hats duplicating actual hats worn in movies, such as Con-Am 27 or Nostromo caps. Nota bene: I do NOT want one of those Jayne Cobb Firefly hats, that’s not my style at all. Oh, and fabric all the way around, please, no meshbacks. Too much rain in Vancouver for that.

This list is designed to max out well under the fifty dollar mark per item.  However, if someone has a desperate desire to spend $120,000 USD on a 105 inch Samsung UN105S9W TV set for me, I will not stand in your way.  Happy holidays!

- Sid

* Yes, I realize full well that physical media is dead, thank you, but I still like blu-ray.  The resolution is good, video streaming lag isn’t an issue, and you don’t have to wonder whether or not something is available on Netflix.

** Giant mutant ants, 1954. Scared me to death when I first saw it on TV at the age of ten.  Features a Who's Who of actors who went on to greater fame in other roles:  James Whitmore, Fess Parker, James Arness, and a brief uncredited speaking role as an Army sergeant for one Leonard Nimoy. Coincidentally, James Arness also appear in the titular role of The Thing.