Look on my works, ye mighty...

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my works. Ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias

I talked to Terry Gilliam in the '80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ''Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, 'I wouldn't.'''

Alan Moore

Who watches the Watchmen? Well, last week it was me. Equipped with a bag of dry popcorn (damn you Laurie, for having ruined buttered popcorn for me) I settled in for the almost three hour marathon of Zack Snyder's take on what has arguably been called "the best comic book story of all time". However, it's also been referred to as arguably being unadaptable, and Alan Moore, who wrote the comic book, has refused to allow his name to be associated with the project.

The terrible thing about having read the original series in the late 80's is that when watching the adaptation there was always a hint of checklist in the background. This constant little voice compared the film to the comic: "Right ... yes .... no ... yes ... no ... yes ... yes ... what? ... perfect ... nonono!!". As with The Lord of the Rings movies, I'm going to have to wait for a non-believer to see The Watchmen in order to find out if it makes any sense on its own. *

That being said, I have to admit that the movie completely captured my attention, to the point that, when it ended, my first thought was, "Wait, I thought it was supposed to be almost three hours long?". The odd thing is that I'm not sure it deserved that sort of immersion - as above, I'll have to ask someone who doesn't know the original material.

The Watchmen wavers between moments of complete imitation of the comic book and points of complete departure. Some plot elements are diminished or removed entirely, others are magnified from their original significance. For example, the character of the Comedian holds a larger part of the stage than he did in the comic, whereas Rorschach seems reduced, and a subplot revolving around the original Night Owl has vanished completely. The Ozymandias portrayed in the original series came across as a perfect man, a physical and intellectual paragon who sincerely believes that his actions are in the best interests of humanity and that the end will justify his means, but I found the movie character to be much colder, almost repellent - it's interesting that they made his costume black rather than the comic book character's golden outfit.

There were a number of visual elements of that nature that bothered me on an almost subliminal level, little changes from the comics that weren't vital but which were a bit distracting in combination with the elements that were faithfully duplicated. Rorschach, the Comedian, and Dr. Manhattan are portrayed exactly as in the comic, whereas Ozymandias, Night Owl and Silk Spectre have their costumes changed to a greater or lesser extent.

But I have to say that I was astonished by how much some of the people resembled the characters as drawn by Dave Gibbons. Jackie Earle Haley perfectly evokes Rorschach in the scenes where he appears without his mask, and the Night Owl's alter ego of Dan Dreiburg as portrayed by Patrick Wilson is flawless. There were some minor flaws in the Comedian's progression in age, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan gives the role exactly the right kind of cynical, brutal amusement.

Overall, I found The Watchmen to be a good attempt to adapt something so widely considered to be unadaptable. I say "attempt" because I'm not sure that it succeeds as a whole, but the sum of the parts involved compensates for the places where it fails. Oh, and as per my previous posting on the topic, yes, the ending is radically different in its direction if not in its result. I can understand why they would make the changes they made, and I admit that the ending of the comic book version has been subjected to a certain amount of criticism as having elements of absurdity, but I don't agree with the spin that the new ending forces onto the reactions of the other characters.

One of the elements that made The Watchmen a difficult work for adaptation is the episodic nature of the original story. The logical breaks at the end of each issue allowed for a chapter-based rhythm to the plot structure and for the inclusion of a wide variety of supporting textual material - excerpts from the original Night Owl's biography, Rorschach's psychiatric profile, interviews with Jon Veidt/Ozymandias, and so on - that would be impossible to include in a movie. However, I look forward to seeing if the Watchmen DVD will re-introduce any of those elements once the story has been removed from the exigencies of commercial release. Who knows, if they put some work into that, Alan Moore may even allow them to put his name on it.

- Sid

* Fortunately my friend Alan in Toronto, who hasn't read the comic - and who doesn't read this blog, as far as I know - will likely be able to act as a neutral observer. (He performed a similar role for the Lord of the Rings movies, with which he was also unfamiliar in their written form. Sadly, young Alan is not a big fan of reading.)

The Lake of the Sun, the Bay of the Dawn.

Rather than true channels in a form familiar to us, we must imagine depressions in the soil that are not very deep, extended in a straight direction for thousands of miles, over a width of 100, 200 kilometers and maybe more. I have already pointed out that, in the absence of rain on Mars, these channels are probably the main mechanism by which the water (and with it organic life) can spread on the dry surface of the planet.

Giovanni Schiaparelli, Life on Mars

The Google home page kindly informed me this morning that today was the birth date of Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835-1910). This 19th-century astronomer's name may not be known to everyone, but generations of science fiction fans owe an enormous debt to Signore Schiaparelli - or, to be more accurate, to the mistranslation of his work.

In 1877, Mars was in a particularly favourable position for observation, and Shiaparelli, at that point director of the Brera Observatory near Milan, took advantage of this opportunity to make detailed observations of the planet's surface. Using these observations and additional data from the next decade, he produced maps of Mars which remained the standard until space probes allowed for more accurate images.

But when Schiaparelli's work was translated into English, the Italian phrase "canali", intended to refer to the channels that he had observed, was translated as "canals" - creations of intelligence rather than environment. The debate regarding life on Mars that was started by this minor alteration was to continue for almost one hundred years, until Mariner 4 sent closeup pictures of Mars back to NASA in 1965.

Regardless of the position of the scientific community, the idea of vast canals spanning a desert planet resonated with the science fiction community. That was the Mars that I first read about when I started reading science fiction, a dying planet inhabited by the descendants of a fallen civilization older than our own, desperately fighting a losing battle against the ever advancing sands. This is the Mars of Planet Stories, the Mars of Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, the Mars of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, the Mars known as Barsoom to its inhabitants in Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter novels.

However, Schiaparelli is more deserving of praise than the common translation error about canals would suggest. As he made his initial observations of the Martian surface, he began to name the various geographic features that he saw, and those names have left Schiaparelli with a lasting heritage.

Just as the broad flat plains of the Moon were commonly referred to as "seas", Schiaparelli used a similar convention for Martian names, giving us The Sea of Sirens, the Bay of the Dawn, and the Lake of the Sun. Other names came from mythology, the Bible, or history. But regardless of its origins, the geography of Mars has a sort of lyrical poetry to it: Tharsis, Chryse, Ophyr, Thyle, Cydonia, Elysium - they almost seem to have been chosen as locations for adventure and fantasy.


Current scientific theory has it that there may be no life at all on Mars, and science fiction authors have sadly and reluctantly moved on from tales of dying civilizations and fallen empires on our sister world. Now science fiction tends to look ahead to life on Mars as it would be lived by colonists from Earth, and, more ambitiously, to the prospect of terraforming Mars. Who knows, if technology can some day match imagination, a future generation of Mars-born humans may be able to stand on the shore of the Bay of the Dawn and see the sun glinting off the waves.

- Sid

P.S. In addition to reminding the world about Schiaparelli's birthday, Google has added a Mars option to Google Earth. (Thereby calling for a new name for the product, if you think about it.)

As if World of Warcraft armour wasn't silly enough.

There I am, stalking through the post-apocalyptic ruins of the Suez Canal in my captured L-5 Bogatyr battlewalker, searching for PAC infantry and other soft targets, when I notice that there's a familiar billboard ahead. Hmmm...given that I'm playing Battlefield 2142, it would appear that things fell apart about 133 years ago. Either that, or some radiation-crazed mutant has a fondness for putting up vintage movie ads.

A little online investigation reveals the following information from a 2006 Electronic Arts press release:

Today's announcement from Electronic Arts describes an agreement with New York-based in-game advertising firm IGA Worldwide, which will see an unspecified number of EA franchises implement in-game advertising. The first game that will see ads from IGA is Digital Illusions CE's Battlefield 2142, which will be receiving dynamic ads tailored to players' physical locations. Interestingly, the press release also states that ads will be customized by platform, though the game has been announced only for PC, suggesting that the game may eventually be coming to other systems. "Consumers are increasingly gaming in deep, virtual worlds and advertisers need adapted ways to reach these audiences," said European VP for Online and Strategic Relationships Frank Sagnier. "The agreement with IGA is a first step in a detailed strategy to deliver advertising in a seamless format." It was not specified what type of real world brands will be used to seamlessly and realistically integrate modern advertising into the fictional setting of a war-themed game set in 2142.

Sigh...yes, consumers are spending more time in "deep" virtual worlds, but obviously they're not deep enough. I can just see the next step in the process: some desperate, battered human raiders making their stand in World of Warcraft as the Orcs begin their charge: their Nikon spears ready, their Coca-Cola shields braced, heads defiantly held high in their Nike helms...

- Sid

"I have been faithful to thee, o Watchmen! in my fashion."

 Many years ago, there was a Jesus comic book.

Written and drawn by Frank Stack under the pseudonym of Foolbert Sturgeon, the concept for this early 70's underground creation was that Jesus had come back to Earth, as had been long awaited, but unfortunately no one cared. And, sadly, Jesus had the same problems with modern life that any long-haired sandal-wearing peace-loving hippy would have, albeit with the ability to turn abusive police officers into actual pigs.

In one issue of The New Adventures of Jesus, Christ goes to the movies to see a film adaptation of the New Testament. He sits enthralled as a muscular, almost Hulk-like screen Jesus fights an equally buff John the Baptist in the early stages of the movie, in the traditional Marvel Comics style hero-meets-hero combat. And, at the end of the movie, when the celluloid Christ uses his cross as a massive weapon to fight the legions, then rallies the Jews and defeats the Roman invaders, Jesus applauds wildly with the rest of the audience.

As the theatre empties, two people behind Jesus are discussing the film. One of them says, "The end's not like the book..."

And so, to the upcoming screen adaptation of The Watchmen.

For readers unfamiliar with The Watchmen in its original comic book form, it was a 12 issue limited series originally published by DC in 1986. Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, it took place in an alternate universe, one where Batman-like vigilantes have been fighting crime for decades, until they are finally declared to be as illegal as their criminal adversaries. In addition, another hero has appeared on the scene, one whose powers are literally godlike. The plot starts with the death of one of the retired heroes (who may not have been that retired) and follows the various characters of the disbanded Watchmen group as they attempt to solve the mystery behind the death, only to uncover a massive conspiracy.

However, that quick summary does an enormous injustice to the series. The Watchmen is considered to be a seminal work, "a comic about comics". Alan Moore's script was intended to turn the myth of the masked avenger on its head, to "show a reality that was very different to the general public image of the super-hero", as Moore himself explained. Every element of the story was planned and considered, from the creation of the archetypal heroes to the development of the style of colouring through the twelve issues, and down to the 9-panel layout and the type of line used to draw the illustrations.

More interestingly, it was also planned to be a demonstration of the unique nature of the comic medium. In fact, it could be said that The Watchmen was deliberately created in opposition to movies, which might explain why a movie adaptation was considered impossible for many years, in spite of the popularity of the series.

But time marches on, and comic books have now become a gold mine for the movie industry. As such, it was inevitable that someone would take up the challenge of The Watchmen. The question, of course, was how they would undertake that challenge.

There are three major points on the curve of comic book adaptation. At one end, you have complete, slavish obedience to the source material - Sin City, 300 - wherein the movie is as close to a one-to-one reproduction of the comic as possible. The middle position involves some compromise, but does its best to be true to the spirit of the original material - the Spiderman and X-Men movies, Hellboy, Iron Man. And at the far end of the curve? Presumably with the best intentions, liberty after liberty is taken, and you end up with Elektra, V, The Hulk, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - and maybe Constantine.


Early evidence is that the Watchmen movie falls between slavishness and compromise, with critical scenes being extracted with complete faithfulness to the look of the comic panels. Initial reactions to trailers have been quite positive because of that, with fans of the comic applauding the accuracy with which they see the comic transferred to the screen. There are some differences - some of the costumes have been altered, some of the faces aren't perfect matches for their four-colour counterparts - but so far, people are seeing what they want to see.

However, I recently learned that director Zack Snyder had changed the ending of the film from the apocalyptic conclusion of the comic. I gather that there's still some form of deus ex machina to pull the scattered threads of the conspiracy plot together, but not the one written by Alan Moore.

Personally, I find it to be an odd decision for Snyder to have made, and, to be honest, learning that the ending has been changed casts the whole project into doubt for me. The Watchmen comics present an intensely detailed and layered story, with a wealth of supporting material. Why be careful in ensuring that all the details are accurate if you're not using those details to reach the same conclusion? It's like doing a completely historically accurate presentation of Romeo and Juliet, at the end of which the lovers elope to Mantua.

However, I have to be fair. It could be argued that the plot of the comic series was almost irrelevant, more an excuse for the interaction and development of the characters than an attempt at brilliance. As Dave Gibbons himself commented regarding the plot, "...it just really isn't the most interesting thing about Watchmen. As we actually came to tell the tale, that's where the real creativity came in."

On that basis, any ending that allows for the same degree of depth and creativity in the telling of the tale and the exploration of the characters might turn out to be just as acceptable. And who knows, it may be an improvement on the original. After all, Jesus seemed quite pleased with the Rambo version of His story.

- Sid

And they're close to an Irish pub, too.

"You do realize," said Zanna, "that you're stroking a milk carton."
"You're just jealous."

China Miéville, Un Lun Dun

I spent part of the weekend on Vancouver Island helping my niece and her boyfriend move, but I also managed to find some free time to do some shopping in Victoria. If you're visiting British Columbia's capital, I strongly recommend Munro's Books on Government Street to anyone whose interests lie in the literary world.

During a previous visit, I had wandered into Munro's without any particular expectations, since very few non-genre bookstores have anything unique to offer to the science fiction and fantasy shopper*. However, to my surprise and pleasure, I found a paperback copy of Terry Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, which I'd never even heard of, let alone seen on a store shelf.

As a result, I went in this time with more of a sense of optimism, and was rewarded by a trade paperback copy of China Miéville's Un Lun Dun for a mere $11.00, which is not all that much more than I would have expected to pay for a regular paperback. Even more surprising, the price was actually $11.00, rather than $10.99 or some similar insult to my mathematical intelligence.

Now if they can only overcome their identity problem - do they really need to have their name in that many places on their storefront?

- Sid

* In fact, there are some genre stores that don't have a lot to offer, either. White Dwarf, Vancouver's science fiction and fantasy specialty store, has done nothing to impress me, between their hard-to-browse shelving and the fact that they never have called me about the book that I ordered three years ago. Their dog is a pleasant sort, though.

As a change from captions on cat photos.

In a Beautiful Mind moment of schizophrenic clarity I saw the book for what it was: not a gentle introduction to life's most profound curiosity, but a primer for the parasitic offspring of an invisible invasion!

Jason Yungbluth, Deep Fried Comics

The Internet has spawned a legion of webcomics, blogs, commentaries and forums, and I'm sure that there are people out there who fill every waking moment by subjecting other people to a barrage of links to their favourite net memes. I've done my best to avoid that here, although now and then a link to something will sneak in.

In this case, however, I couldn't resist. There's just something about the Zogg invasion manual ...

- Sid

You can stop now.

Usually when you have a black man or a woman president, a meteor is about to hit the Statue of Liberty.

Jon Stewart, 80th Academy Awards

As I type this, Barack Obama's inauguration is well under way in Washington, and it is impossible to ignore the historic nature of this event. And I mean literally impossible, in that if I had a dollar for every time someone has used the defining phrase "historic" to describe the situation, I'd be heading off to Fiji this afternoon instead of a job interview.

However, this event should have some kind of impact (no pun relating to the introductory quote intended) on the science fiction community. Sorry, it will now be necessary to create a different cliché to indicate a future or near future setting. Personally, I think that having a native American president would have a nice feel of irony to it, let's use that for our fallback position for now. However, I'm a fair minded man: I think that we can continue to cast Morgan Freeman as God.

- Sid

I know, "willful suspension of disbelief."

So, Sunday evening, back from the gym, perched on the couch with some dinner, fighting off Nigel the Cat's attempts to participate in said dinner and watching Stargate: Atlantis. In this evening's rerun, Colonel Sheppard, McKay, and the usual suspects go through the gate in order to ascertain the status of an exploratory team that's missed their contact deadline. Apparently the planet is uninhabited but McKay had gotten some unusual energy readings or some similar piece of plot advancement.

So, pop - or maybe whoosh - through the gate they go:


Gosh, guys, that's quite a clear piece of ground for an uninhabited planet, but maybe that's from the Gate bubble or whatever they call it. Oh well, moving on - the team heads off in search of their missing predecessors:

Hmmm....I grew up in deer country, and I have to say that's a pretty impressive game trail you have there, people.

And then they find some corpses, far too old to be the missing team, but obviously victims of foul play, right there beside that big flat stump.

I'm sorry, but forget the bodies, you need to find out what in hell is running around this planet that leaves a fifteen foot wide trail and can bite off a tree with a four-foot diameter leaving a completely flat stump!!!!

Okay, I realize full well that in actual terms, they bundled the crew onto a couple of trucks, drove over to Stanley Park, and set up some cameras, probably happier than hell that it wasn't raining. But really, what were they thinking? Their audience is made up of science fiction fans, the most detail-oriented nitpickers on the planet - could they not have driven someplace up the Fraser Valley and found a piece of ground that didn't look quite so lived in?

- Sid

P.S. What's really unbelievable about this is that there's a web site that has 992 screen grabs from this episode. In fact, it looks like they have about a thousand screen grabs per episode, or 20,000 images per season. Wow - see above re: detail oriented fans.

It's Matt Smith, it's Matt Smith!!!!

Today the BBC announced that 26-year-old Matt Smith would be replacing David Tennant as the Doctor on Doctor Who in 2010. My reaction, and I suspect the reaction of almost everyone, seems fitting.

Who?

- Sid

And everyone seems to complain about the lack of flying cars.

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

Niels Bohr, Nobel-prize winning physicist

Here we are, New Year's Day once again, all of us time travellers zooming along at the frightening speed of one second per second (faster than it sounds), and you know, I have to say that I have mixed feelings about the future so far. I don't mean the future as in a hundred years from now, I mean now - you know, the future.

Because let's face it, that's where we're living, the future. It's 2009 now, and by the standards I grew up by, I'm sorry, 2009 is the future. It must be, I've read hundreds, if not thousands, of science fiction stories that took place in our past.

2001? Well, I think we all know what that was like: space stations, moon bases, artificial intelligences, interplanetary exploration, all that stuff. No, wait, the moon base went away with the moon in 1999, didn't it? Remember 1984? It wasn't all that much like 1984, was it?

The first Isaac Asimov robot story, Robbie, is a touching tale of a mute robotic nursemaid set in 1998 - you remember, five years before all the governments banned the use of robots on Earth. It's also one year after the opening scenes of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, wherein an elite group of soldiers is trained to combat aliens in 1997, then hurled through a collapsar to Epsilon Aurigae, 2000 light years away. Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - better known to most people by the title of its movie adaptation, Blade Runner - was originally set in 1992.

This sort of thing is unfair, of course. As I discussed in my initial post, the role of science fiction is not intended to be predictive. Science fiction's role is one of "what if", not "when".

But I have to say that if I was going to pick someone to have written this particular future, it would have to be the late Mr. Dick. It's difficult for me to think of anyone else whose imagination would have created a future where there's a computer in almost every home in the Western world, incredibly powerful devices which require constant protection from offers of penis enlargement; where space exploration has been all but abandoned, apparently due to lack of interest; where the United States is involved in a war that costs them $720,000,000 a day - wow, do you think we'd be able to sell this to a publisher in 1955?

Oh well - the future is like a bed, I suppose. Having made it, we are forced to lie in it. Happy New Year, everyone - one more step into the future.

- Sid

One dead parent trauma per customer, please.

I always think it adds resonance to a hero's mission to have some defining element of tragedy in his background, don't you?

The Joker, Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

When I was a kid, living out in the country, we didn't have access to a wide range of TV stations. We had the CBC and CTV, CKVR out of Barrie, and sometimes if the weather was right we'd get a fuzzy view of a North Bay station. Because of this, my childhood was devoid of very much in the way of animated entertainment, and by way of compensation I probably watch more Saturday morning cartoons than someone in their late 40's should, an attribute I apparently share with my older sister Dorothy.

As a result, I recently had the opportunity to witness the debut of a new animated series: Iron Man: Armored Adventures, wherein we meet a teenaged Tony Stark, whose father dies under mysterious circumstances after refusing a request to turn a standard industrial product into a weapon of mass destruction. The young Tony, who was wounded in the accident and now has a power unit implanted in his chest to keep his heart functioning, is apparently going to use his experimental armor to investigate his father's death, fight crime, do good deeds, and so forth, all while going to high school.

Now, I agree with the Joker in that it does add resonance for a hero to have an element of personal tragedy in their backstory. And, of course, Batman, the Joker's nemesis, is the ideal example. His entire life has been sacrificed on the altar of revenge, revenge on the entire criminal world for the death of his parents. This is why Robin is the perfect sidekick - Batman sees in Dick Grayson the young Bruce, once again deprived of his parents by criminals. But Robin adds additional depth: does Batman have the right to force a child into the same mold that has left him emotionally crippled?

However, having one or both parents die at the hands of criminals doesn't have to be the only tragedy that adds resonance to a hero's mission! It's tempting to categorize Superman as having the same issues as Batman, but it's not his status as an orphan that gives the character of Kal-el its depth, it's his difficulty reconciling his life as Clark Kent with his secret identity as Superman. Bruce Banner's tragedy lies in the irony of an intellectual who transforms into a huge green hulk, a creature of impulse and force rather than thought, when he's overcome by emotion. In his early days, Spiderman was constantly trying to combine his responsibility to fight crime with his need to pay the rent for himself and Aunt May, and still get his homework done. In addition to their individual issues, the X-Men offer a collective tragedy, the tragedy of a group that is considered to be not fully human - in fact, there used to be a Marvel comic called The Inhumans, that dealt with a hidden city inhabited by a race of experimental subjects, possessed of a variety of superhuman abilities but marred by genetic damage.

And Iron Man? Well, it depends which version you want to look at. In the recent movie version, Tony Stark suddenly discovers - forcibly - that his professional life as a weapons manufacturer has consequences in the real world. People, innocent people, die because of what he does for a living, and after experiencing this first-hand, he decides that he needs to take a stand against that sort of abuse.

The comic book character originates in a different time, although, interestingly, he was created in opposition to the prevailing philosophic outlook of the period. When Stan Lee of Marvel Comics created Tony Stark in the 60's, he was intended to be the poster boy for capitalism and conservatism, sort of an anti-hippy, and many of his early opponents were his Soviet equivalents. However, over time Stark became the victim of a variety of personal weaknesses, with a long story arc dealing with his alcoholism.

I can understand the desire to re-introduce the character of Tony Stark to Saturday mornings in a more youth-accessible format. As my friend Chris pointed out when discussing this at the pub, everyone's father dies, and that makes it a particularly accessible plot point for a younger audience, more so than alcoholism and commitment issues. For me, it somehow diffuses the character. However, I can't help but think that if you take this approach too far, it will get out of hand. Imagine: Bambi, shattered by the death of his mother at the hands of mysterious assassins, is transformed by his loss into a dark avenger...

- Sid

"Major Matt Mason: Mattel's Man in Space!"

Carter: "You don't have to worry, Major. I played with dolls when I was a kid."
Kawalsky: "G.I. Joe?"
Carter: "No, Major Matt Mason."
Kawalsky: "Oh. Who?"
Ferretti: "Major Matt Mason. Astronaut doll. Did you have that cool little backpack that made him fly?"

- Children of the Gods, Stargate SG-1

Q: What was your favorite toy as a kid?
A: Major Matt Mason. He was a great astronaut: a full-on, lifelike astronaut, made with rubber and wire, kind of like Gumby. He was bendable and poseable, and I went through a few of them because after a while the wires get all twisted.

- Tom Hanks, Disney Adventures magazine interview

Christmas Day, once again. The lessons of charity and goodwill that are associated with Christmas can very often be lost in a flurry of merchandising and money, but even so it's difficult to be too judgemental about the simple pleasures of children and toys. It's a magical time of year for kids, and as such this posting is dedicated to Christmas Past and wonderful gifts.

As I've mentioned in my introduction to the site, I've been a fan of science fiction and fantasy since before I can remember. I was an advanced reader, and as such started reading selections out of my mother's library of fantasy and SF before I'd gotten to double digits in age. However, man does not live by bread alone, and I had all the usual childhood interests in toys, with an understandable influence from my reading choices.

However, keep in mind that I was born in 1961, and when I turned ten in 1971, there was nothing like the selection of science fiction toys that there is on the market today. We were well before the late 70's science fiction marketing boom from Star Wars*, and even then, the marketplace was quite different. Now there's an "action figure" for everything - if you think I'm kidding, go into a specialty comics shop and look around - but in the early 70's, it was either TV merchandising or GI Joe dolls, and sadly, TV had very little to offer the young science fiction afficionado at that point in time.

Ah, but there were certain unexpected advantages to growing up without much money in a rural environment. There was a store called Economy Fair in the nearest town, which, as its name suggested, dealt in lower-end merchandise. In retrospect, I suspect that a lot of their stock probably came from remainders and liquidations, and as such their toy section was a bit out of date and somewhat idiosyncratic, but certainly more affordable than ordering from the Eatons catalogue** would have been.

Regardless, it was out of this uncertain and weedy garden that my mother plucked the rose of my childhood Christmas gifts: Major Matt Mason, "Mattel's Man in Space".

As Tom Hanks says, these were great astronauts. Originally introduced in 1966, they were about six inches tall, and molded out of rubber over a wire and plastic armature, with accordion joints at knees, hips, shoulders and elbows which worked well with the spacesuit look of the figures. The wire frame combined with the accordion joints made the figures very flexible and posable, although over time the wires inside the rubber eventually broke, as might be expected of any piece of wire that a child bends several thousand times.

The basic figures came with a removable spacesuit helmet with a movable yellow visor, but as with any toy like this, there was a whole catalogue of separate accessories, vehicles and buildings available. I had some of them - there was a sort of yellow exo-skeletal power suit, with extendable arms and legs, and I seem to recall some kind of exploration outfit that had tools that you could operate with a combination of tubes and a little plastic bellows system. I also had a space glider, which was a thin plastic shell with a molded pocket at the front for the pilot. I think the only reason I had that particular toy was because the transparent cockpit cover was missing, and it had been marked down as a result, but an elastic band would hold the astronaut in just fine and the damn thing was a pretty good glider if memory serves.

I loved those things, they were the perfect toy as far as I was concerned. I remember that I owned the Major himself, and his alien companion Callisto from Jupiter. I may have had one other figure, maybe Sergeant Storm or possibly another Major, but the accordion joint for his right arm had given up the struggle and torn through, and my childhood imagination couldn't come to terms with a one-armed astronaut. (Although I did recycle one of his feet for Callisto, in spite of the fact that they didn't match at all.)

I made my own accessories, guns and swords (the Major Matt Mason line was surprisingly free of that sort of militaristic baggage) and even produced my own alien race, using tennis balls as bodies and salvaged lengths of wire for arms and legs, with two-prong plugs from dead appliances as heads. Frankly, mine lasted a hell of a lot longer than the Mattel toys, I was certainly using a better grade of wire.

Of course, as children do, I moved on. Eventually the figures fell apart completely, or were consigned to a box somewhere, and I abandoned that part of my childhood. I was saddened to discover that a figure in good shape from the Major Matt Mason line costs hundreds of dollars now, as you might expect from a collectable 40-year old line of science fiction toys. How unfortunate - it's too much money to spend on something like that, even if it would be great to have the Major up on the shelf over my computer, beside my Starcraft Terran Marine, my Japanese VOTOMS battle armour, and the Dalek toy that my friend Alan gave me...okay, maybe I haven't moved on all that far.

- Sid

* Although, coincidentally this is the year that George Lucas' THX 1138 was released.

** The Eatons catalogue was an enormous source of angst in my childhood, the equivalent of supplying someone on a bread and water diet with well-illustrated menus from four star restaurants. The Winter edition with the Christmas offerings used to arrive in September, a few weeks before my birthday, and I would slowly go through the toy section and covet the unattainable therein.

"Barren, silent, godless."

On the far side of the river valley the road passed through a stark black burn. Charred and limbless trunks of trees stretching away on every side. Ash moving over the road and the sagging hands of blind wire strung from the blackened lightpoles whining thinly in the wind.

- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

I've just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and I was startled and impressed. So much post-apocalyptic fiction either feels a need for a ray of hope, or fails to believably address the realities of the end of our civilization: McCarthy's grim, ashen future does neither. It is a dark and plausible window into what life might be like in a worst-case scenario.

Science fiction has an almost complete claim on end-of-the-world stories. Fantasy will sometimes address the topic - those of you who haven't read the Narnia books are in for a bit of a shock when they adapt the final volume for the movie screen - but for the most part apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic tales are the province of SF.

But what do we mean by the end of the world? Very few such stories deal with the destruction of the planet itself. In our near-infinite hubris, what is generally considered to be the end of the world is really just the end of humanity, which is not the same thing by a long pitch. (Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame breaks the ice for this sub-genre of science fiction in 1826, with her novel The Last Man, wherein a plague devastates humanity.)

The first post-apocalyptic novel that I can remember reading is Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, which I purchased through the Scholastic Books catalogue when I was about ten or eleven. (I still own that somewhat battered text, although I see that I've had to tape the spine a couple of times.) Originally published in 1959, it's a fairly conventional tale of nuclear war and its aftermath, a popular topic for that period.

I recall enjoying it when I first received it, but in retrospect I'm amused by the almost positive picture that it paints of the aftermath of a thermonuclear exchange. Much of the United States is destroyed, yet the protagonists, located in Florida, don't suffer from fallout, nuclear winter, starvation, or any sort of degradation. A few cardboard characters die tragically, but for the most part the novel portrays the lives of the survivors as a quiet but optimistic struggle, complete with fresh-squeezed orange juice.

In sharp opposition is Nevil Shute's On the Beach, written in 1957. Shute's novel takes place in Australia, the last part of the planet uncontaminated by fallout after a massive nuclear exchange. But this is only a temporary respite: the invisible cloud of airborne death is gradually making its way south, and slow, lingering death is inevitable. However, a thoughtful government has come up with a solution: mass-produced suicide tablets.

The novel portrays a response to inescapable doom that seems depressingly accurate. Characters become alcoholics, take refuge in complete denial, or indulge in high-risk distractions such as suicidally dangerous car racing. In the end, the fallout cloud arrives, radiation poisoning begins to have its way, and everyone takes their pills and dies. The novel ends with an orphaned American submarine making its way into the open sea so that the captain can scuttle his vessel - and kill the crew - in quixotic obedience to military regulations.

The Road takes a different approach. It tells the story of a father and son wandering through the ashen remnants of the world. The nature of the catastrophe is never specifically articulated, there is little backstory, and the father and son are left nameless. All of the detail is reserved for their struggle through the wasted landscape, and how that brutal struggle has molded and in some ways crippled their relationship.

This sparse, masterful narrative, written in McCarthy's signature punctuation-free style, pulled me in completely. I can imagine that this might not be the case for everyone, depending on your background: for me, the evocation of memory, of walking through barren, leafless trees in rain and snow, of monochrome landscapes and no sounds but those of the weather, was complete.

This is in no way a cautionary tale - the anonymous nature of the catastrophe leaves no room for sermons or cries of "Alas!". The equally anonymous nature of the characters allows anyone who reads the novel to slip into their worn shoes and stinking clothing, to see themselves as starving pilgrims without a destination. In spite of that Everyman structure, I'm uncertain about recommending this book to everyone. It's one of those books that is more easily described as impressive or admirable than enjoyable, and that may not be the sort of thing that people are looking for as we enter the holiday season. However, for anyone who does embark on The Road, I can guarantee a unique literary experience.

- Sid

But if you really feel that you have to, I'll be polite about it.

I realize that the holiday season is upon us, and that clothing can be a popular fallback as a gift choice, but I'll be honest, no one needs to knit me a Star Wars sweater.

- Sid

But is Sandra Oh tall enough to play She-Hulk?

I want to do a superhero movie and what would be better than Wonder Woman? And it would be a very bold choice. A black Wonder Woman would be a powerful thing. It's time for that, right?

Beyoncé Knowles, in a Los Angeles Times interview

In the course of recent travels on the internet, I stumbled across an article announcing that Beyoncé Knowles had expressed her interest in playing the part of Wonder Woman in a movie. As I mentioned in a previous post, the election of Barack Obama provides a strong impetus for evaluating the role that race plays, and casting comic book characters provides an interesting proving ground.

That's because comic book fans, serious fans, can be a little bit insane about things. Adapting a comic book to another medium, such as movies or television, is like entering a dragon's den: the possible rewards for success are great (Spiderman, X-Men), but the punishment for failure is severe (Daredevil, Elektra). Comic book fans make Talmudic scholars look like dilettantes in the great search for truth and understanding through continuous examination of the sacred texts, and as such can make or break the movie adaptation of a comic book in the first moment of evaluation. Lord help the script writer who gets some minor detail wrong, like Peter Parker's middle name* - at that point, for the hard core it's all over, regardless of the quality of the rest of the material. And, with that sort of outlook on minutiae, the impact of the casting choice for a character can easily be imagined.

With that in mind, what does comic book canon require - or allow - for Wonder Woman's racial makeup?

Although in broad historical terms the Amazons are generally associated with Greece, Herodotus places the home of the Amazons on the border of Scythia, near the Caucasus Mountains. The comic book origins of Wonder Woman are somewhat different, and have changed a bit over time. Originally Wonder Woman lived on Paradise Island, presumably somewhere in the Mediterranean region, but an 80's reboot established the name as Themyscira, and subsequent events destroyed the original, then created a new Themyscira in the Bermuda Triangle. (Coincidentally, the latitude and longitude specified in the TV version of Wonder Woman placed Paradise Island near that area as well.) Does relocating Wonder Woman's home to the Caribbean allow comic book fans to accept a Wonder Woman of colour, or would they demand adherence to the character's Hellenic roots?

Regardless, there should be other factors in play here. Asian-American actor Tzi Ma has commented on racially generic casting by pointing out that a character does not have to be racially tagged as Asian in order to be played by an Asian actor. "The only thing we can do," says Ma "is to try and make them realize: 'This role does not have to be written Asian. The mere fact that you put me in that role makes the character Asian.' " Is there anything in the character of Wonder Woman that precludes a black actor playing the role - and thereby making it a black character, as per Tzi Ma? I would think not. In fact, I would think that it would add some resonance to the backstory of slavery symbolized by the bracelets worn by all Amazons.

So, Beyoncé as Wonder Woman. Ignoring the extensive preface above, my initial reaction is: why not? In addition to a long lineup of black heroes such as the Black Panther, Luke Cage, Steel, Storm and so forth, it wouldn't be the first time a long-standing comic book character has been racially re-imagined. There's been a black Green Lantern** since the 70's, and Nick Fury, who heads up SHIELD, became a black man at some point when I wasn't paying attention.

However, I think that there's a very basic element of this question that needs to be stated. I think it would be reprehensible if Beyoncé didn't get the role of Wonder Woman because she was black. It's equally wrong for her to get the role because she's black, though. In the ideal situation, everyone should be judged on their merits and abilities, not their colour. Personally, I'd rather see Angela Bassett get it, I think that she would bring a degree of depth to the character that Beyoncé might not.

And then, obviously, there's only one place for the idea to take us next.

- Sid

* Benjamin, from his Uncle Ben - what, did everyone not know that?

** It's an odd combination, that - the phrase "black Green" seems to be somehow contradictory, doesn't it.

A successful ten bucks on Robbie Williams would nicely take care of Christmas presents.

David Tennant, who has been playing the role of the Doctor on Doctor Who for the last three years, has announced that he will be stepping down from the helm of the Tardis at the end of 2009. Sad news, but I can certainly understand why someone would want to get out before it completely took over their life, as has happened with more than a few cast members from Star Trek and its various permutations.

Of course, the immediate question that arises is: who will replace the talented Mr. Tennant? (One has to give full points to series script editor Gerry Davis and producer Innes Lloyd, who were jointly responsible for introducing in 1966 the idea of the Doctor's regeneration as a tool for continuing the series in spite of old age, boredom, and unsuitability on the part of lead actors. Hopefully raises were involved.)

I was surprised to learn that it's possible to gamble on the identity of the new Doctor, and that there is a substantial odds list available:

ODDS ON NEW DOCTOR FROM PADDY POWER (3rd Nov 2008)

• 2/1 David Morrisey
• 6/1 Paterson Joseph
• 8/1 James Nesbitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor
• 10/1 Russell Tovey, John Simm
• 12/1 Anthony Head
• 14/1 Robert Carlyle, David Walliams
• 16/1 Richard E Grant
• 18/1 Richard Coyle, Aidan Gillen, Alan Davies, Sean Pertwee
• 20/1 Jason Statham, Harry Lloyd, Nigel Harman, Marc Warren, Jack Davenport
• 25/1 Julian Walsh, Adrian Lester, Alexander Armstrong
• 33/1 Julian Rhind-Tutt, Rupert Penry-Jones, James McAvoy
• 40/1 Bill Nighy, Stephen Fry, Ben Wishaw
• 50/1 John Barrowman, Ben Miles, David Suchet, Hugh Laurie
• 66/1 Gary Oldman, Matt Smith, Paul Bettany, Joel Beckett, Christopher Eccleston
• 80/1 Alex Kingston, Dean Lennox Kelly, Christopher Villiers
• 100/1 Ricky Gervais
• 150/1 Hugh Grant, Russell Brand, Vinnie Jones
• 200/1 Robbie Williams

Personally, I'd like to see Sean Pertwee get in: as the son of Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor, there's a certain geeky appeal to having him step into the role, and he has some background in the genre. (Apparently he also put fifty quid on himself, according to an interview in The Sun.)

A few of the candidates are black, and one can imagine that there's a tempting synergy involved in following the election of Barack Obama with a Doctor of colour - but wait, why is there only one woman on the list? I'm aware that Joanna Lumley was under consideration a few years back, and David Tennant jokingly suggested that Billie Piper could step into his place quite easily, although for me that would involve one hell of a script. British comedian Jennifer Saunders has been mentioned in connection with the part, although apparently just for a one-off appearance.

For myself, I think that Claudia Black would make a fabulous Doctor*. She has an impressive resumé in the genre, would come with an established fan base, and she's drop dead good looking, something for which Doctor Who has not always been noted. Her transition from Aeryn Sun on Farscape to Vala Mal Doran on Stargate SG-1 demonstrates an ability to move from serious to comedic roles, something that would suit the Doctor's character.

Circumstantial evidence (and smart bettors) would seem to be leaning toward David Morrissey, whose picture appears at the top of this posting beside Ms. Black's. I'm a bit sceptical about Mr. Morrissey, to be honest. Successful Doctors have always had a slight spark of craziness in their personalities - nothing personal, but the man looks as exciting as dry toast. Oh well, let's not give up yet: there's always that 100 to 1 shot that Ricky Gervais will get it.

- Sid

* November 21 - And then the Doctor would be a woman, and Black - I'm sorry, I waited a week but I finally couldn't hold out any more.

Dead is the New Alive.

There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was a stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there: -- upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein: -- to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "A Vampyre! a Vampyre!"

John Polidori, The Vampyre

'What have you done to us?!' Lacrimosa screamed. 'You've taught us how to see hundreds of the damned holy things! They're everywhere! Every religion has a different one! You taught us that, you stupid bastard! Lines and crosses and circles. . . Oh, my. . .' She caught sight of the stone wall behind her astonished brother and shuddered. 'Everywhere I look I see something holy! You've taught us to see patterns!' she snarled at her father, teeth exposed.

Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

Hallowe'en: originally a festival marking the end of the Celtic harvest, it was considered to be a night when the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin. On that basis, it seems fitting to celebrate Hallowe'en with a discussion of vampires, creatures that also span the line between life and death.

Although the story of the vampire can be traced back to medieval Eastern European folklore, the vampire as modern mythology knows it originates in one place: the 1897 novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker. In the interests of accuracy, John Polidori's The Vampyre precedes it by 78 years, but Time has made its statement, and only a few hard-core fans of the nosferatu are aware of the earlier work, however influential it may have been upon Stoker.

Stoker's novel lays out the basic pros and cons of vampirism quite clearly. The powers of the vampire are legion: immortality, inhuman strength and speed, the ability to regain youth, control over vermin, the power to dissolve into a mist or dust and flow through the smallest crack, or to become a wolf or bat, to see in the dark, to control the minds of his victims, to create new vampires - an impressive array of allies, all in all.

Sadly, balancing that out is a set of rules covering the conduct and vulnerabilities of vampires that make the regulations for major league baseball sound simple. There are, of course, the things that everyone knows about: sunlight, garlic, crosses, holy water, stakes through the heart and beheading. Then there are the less well known regulations, the infield fly rules, if you will. For example, a vampire is unable to enter a dwelling unless someone has invited them in, in which case they are able to enter at will. A vampire must sleep upon the earth of their homeland, and can only cross running water at high or low tide.

I mentioned the running water rule to someone, and they said, "High tide where? Doesn't high tide sort of, move around? What if a vampire was in the middle of Canada, which coast do they have to worry about high tide at?" This takes us to the basic problem of the vampire myth. Originally laid out by a presumably Catholic Irish author in the heart of the Victorian era, it suffers from all sort of holes and flaws.

Sunlight? Okay, how about sun lamps? What portion of the solar spectra actually harms vampires? (In the first Blade movie, a full vampire is out in daylight wearing a thick coating of sunblock - but what about his eyeballs and the inside of his mouth?)

Holy water and the Cross? There's a non-vampire story by Larry Niven in which a character asks if a Moslem vampire would be afraid of a copy of the Koran, which is a perfectly reasonable question. The Terry Pratchett novel quoted above raises the strong possibility that if a vampire was vulnerable to the full range of religious symbology, they wouldn't be able to walk five feet without seeing something that was holy to someone at some point in time. And would a vampire who was an atheist before joining the undead give a damn about any of it?

What constitutes a dwelling? Could a vampire enter a public library without permission? Does a welcome mat that says, "COME ON IN" count as an invitation?

Some authors take this sort of nitpicking into account, and a lot of good stories have been written that deal with the hidden issues of vampirism. In recent years, AIDS has been a large factor, since, obviously, anyone who lives on a diet of blood is at particular risk. But does a vampire have to drink human blood to survive? There are lots of stories wherein a weakened vampire chows down on nearby rats or what have you, but I was really thinking more in terms of blood substitutes, plasma and so forth.

Finally, the question that really puts the nail in the coffin (sorry) for vampirism as a working concept is that of the predator-prey relationship. Population control for creatures at the top of the food chain is generally dealt with by the population of prey: if there are a lot of antelope running around, there can be a suitable ratio of lions. Too many lions, not enough antelope to go around, the excess lions either starve or move to another part of the veldt. What makes this problem worse for vampires is the ability to create new vampires, the ultimate pyramid scheme gone bad. A serious outbreak of vampirism would make an ebola epidemic look like a bad case of acne by comparison. Not only that, but they're immortal, so not even old age would cull the population. So where does the blood come from when everyone is a vampire?

In spite of the heavy hand of logic, vampirism has legions of fans. Vampires have become the supreme anti-heros of popular culture, with their combination of power and hidden - or not so hidden - sexuality. However, unlike UFOs and alien visitors, there doesn't seem to be any sort of substantial lunatic fringe convinced that there is a vast international conspiracy designed to hide the fact that fanged creatures actually do stalk the night in search of blood. Of course, if I were a vampire, that's exactly what I'd want people to think as well - until it was too late...

- Sid

The Demon Child

"She was to be the demon child forever."
Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire.

I'm primarily a science fiction and fantasy fan, but there's always some overlap with the horror genre, and so I'm familiar with Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, Anne Rice, et al. When staying in New Orleans a couple of years ago, I visited the grave of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen, wandered through the empty, evocative lanes of the St. Louis Cemetery with its crumbling crypts and memorials to the dead, and in London I followed the path of Jack the Ripper, walking on Whitechapel cobblestones unchanged since his reign of terror in 1888.

However, I recognize my status as a dilettante. In preparation for Hallowe'en, here's someone who's serious about all of this - I'd like to present my niece, Jody: vampire AND zombie.

- Sid

That scraping sound you hear is the bottom of the barrel.

The late George Carlin used to do a routine about urinals, which he would preface by admitting that if you found yourself talking about urinals, you'd probably missed some more important topic along the line. Similarly, the news that the Los Angeles Opera is staging a new opera based on The Fly suggests that there must have been SOMETHING else that should have been converted to song and stage first.

And yes, we're talking about the David Cronenberg movie, the one where Jeff Goldblum morphs into a decaying insectoid monster. Okay, if forced to, I could probably come up with some kind of comparison between Brundle and Faust, but it would certainly be a struggle. The whole thing is vaguely reminiscent of the Simpsons episode where Troy McClure stars in the musical adaptation of Planet of the Apes - although probably not intended to be funny.

- Sid

Part Two: The Dark Side

William Shatner: You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME! I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves? You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl? I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!

Charlie: Are - are you saying then that we should pay more attention to the movies?

- Saturday Night Live, December 20, 1986

The infamous Saturday Night Live skit with William Shatner takes us to one of the curious aspects of science fiction that has almost defined the genre in the eyes of the public: the Star Trek Fan, or "Trekkie".

It is customary to blame Fandom on Star Trek, and let's be fair, if fingers have to be pointed, Gene Roddenberry's opus really does create the first really big (and slightly insane) fan community. Star Wars and Harry Potter have attracted more than their fair share of, ah, "overly-excited" followers, but I still think that Star Trek sets the standard. In fact, as a phenomenon, Star Trek fandom has probably garnered as much attention as the material that created it.

And let's be honest, some of the excesses of Star Trek fans would sound like jokes if they weren't true. In fact, they are true and they still sound like jokes. Bad enough that someone has translated Hamlet in Klingon, but who in their right mind would decide to raise their children bilingually in English and Klingon, for heaven's sake? Yes, fine, it's probably a bit marginal to admit to attending Star Trek conventions in costume, but several years ago I was sitting in a strip club in Toronto (I make no apologies) and someone walked in wearing a full Next Generation Star Fleet uniform. Hallowe'en? No, sorry, middle of summer. (I saw one of the dancers chatting with him, and later asked her if she'd gotten any explanation of his outfit. Apparently he just liked the attention that it brought - which was probably not intended to be funny, in spite of the fact that he was talking to someone who was wearing a g-string and fishnet stockings for similar reasons.) Plenty of fans write their own versions of the material: Star Trek fans build eerily accurate duplicates of the bridge of the Enterprise and hire Walter Koenig and George Takei so that they can shoot their own episodes. (Don't believe that one? http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/)

As Shatner's monologue points out, over the years Star Trek has replaced real life for innumerable geeks, losers, nerds and fanboys. And yet...and yet...time heals all wounds. Somehow the ongoing cultural penetration of Star Trek has given it an unexpected legitimacy, to the point where it's become (dare I say) almost respectable to display a comprehensive grasp of the history of the Federation charter when chatting over cocktails. And, if anyone wishes to join the select, enviable few that possess that kind of knowledge, just let me know. After all, I do own TWO copies of the original Starfleet Technical Manual...

- Sid