"Casual yet commanding."

RED SHIRT Cologne is made for the young, modern man of the Galaxy who doesn't hesitate, who revels in being alive today.

Every now and then, I stumble across something that illustrates a degree of ... commitment, let's say, to the genre that we lesser mortals can only admire, never equal.  This time, we present for your viewing pleasure....
Star Trek Cologne.

Yes, Star Trek Cologne..."Leave Logic Behind" with the scent of Pon Farr, or "Boldly Go" with Tiberius, a casual yet commanding scent

And if at some point in the future you're unable to think of a suitable birthday or seasonal gift for me, please god do not waste your money on buying one of these fine products with me in mind.  Even if I did wear cologne, in my opinion it would be a demonstration of remarkable personal courage to dab on a bit of Red Shirt before heading out on any sort of "away mission".

- Sid

Hello, Colin.

Hello, Colin.  Let's see….if memory serves, this would be a non-visitation weekend, so hopefully you're booking some Campbell time, getting in a little rest and relaxation on your own.

I mentioned to you that my new job came with a pay raise, but for whatever reason it's a lot more dramatic than I thought it would be in terms of surplus cash.  As a result, I went out yesterday and cautiously wasted a little money downtown, bought some DVDs and a couple of books. (I know, that doesn't sound too extravagant, but I did say "cautiously", after all.)

I'm pleased by the new movie repackaging system that's started showing up on the shelves at HMV - pairs or trios of movies that share a theme of some sort, combined in a single package.  I picked up a combination pack containing the critically acclaimed Pan's Labyrinth, which I just didn't get to while it was in commercial release, and The Cell, a Jennifer Lopez science fiction/fantasy vehicle from 2000 that I did see in commercial release, such are the vagaries of life.  The Cell wasn't as critically acclaimed, unfortunately - perhaps not a stellar movie in terms of plot, but very rich visually. Cost me a whopping eight dollars for the set - see above re:  caution. 

I also bought the special edition of GATTACA, nice little concept SF piece, and finally laid my hands on a used wide-screen copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  (I have seen so many full screen copies of that movie for sale, I was starting to wonder if a wide screen version existed…)  I did a blog posting some time ago which discussed steampunk and its lack of real penetration into the mainstream, but you know, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came pretty close to creating a niche for steampunk mashup.  I wonder if they'll ever adapt the less approachable comic book sequel, which pits the League against H. G. Wells' Martians?

But all of that is just preamble.  What I really wanted to mention was that I picked up a trade paperback of China Miéville short stories, Looking for Jake - $17.00 at Chapters, so much for caution - and if you haven't already gotten it through The Science Fiction Book of the Month Club, I recommend that you keep an eye out for it in regular paperback format.  Which I suppose I could have done as well, but I've been coveting this particular book for some time - as witnessed by the fact that I basically read the whole thing in one sitting.

If memory serves, I introduced you to China Mieville when I was reading his Perdido Street Station, which coincidentally also came out in Y2K.  There's actually a good little piece in the collection I bought that's set in the same milieu, which discusses the fate of Jack Half-A-Prayer, the fReemade renegade whose arm has been replaced with a gigantic mantis claw. 

In fact, the whole book is full of impressive bits and pieces.  Some of them are a bit oblique, as with the tale of the feral streets, or viae ferae, to be technical, but as always Mieville's baroque writing style pulls the reader in and engulfs them totally.  In short form, he reminds me a bit of Clive Barker - come to think of it, there's a certain resemblance in their longer works too, a sort of poetic fascination with the grotesque.  But I think that Mieville has more of an urban fixation than Barker. In Mieville's stories, the sprawl of buildings and streets, alleys and walkways, is as much a character as it is a setting. 

You know, I like to think that I've done well by our friendship in terms of recommending authors. Not only can I take credit for China Miéville, as far as I know I aimed you at Terry Pratchett and Iain M. Banks.  But that's not intended to suggest that you're in any way behind, after all, you got me started on Little Feat and John Hartford - looks like a tie to me.

Talk to you soon,

- Sid

Actually, resistance is the ratio of voltage to current.

To my mild surprise, I had today off as well as Good Friday.  It was explained to me that this was because of the collective agreement.  I'll admit to being a bit confused by this - I'm pretty sure that I didn't join the union when I started my new job, and I'm absolutely positive that I didn't join the Collective.

- Sid

P.S.  Just so you know, Laurie, it's a slightly funny Star Trek: Next Generation joke.

"The Doctor will see you now!!"

Atraxi:  YOU ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD.
The Doctor:  No, but I've put a lot of work into it.

Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour.

Easter Sunday, and I honestly have to wonder how many people are spending any time at church today? When I was younger, Easter Sunday was a significant religious holiday which more or less closed down the country, but I see that a lot of stores and restaurants are open, and the Easter Bunny seems to be as much of an object of worship as Christ.

I can't be too critical, though, since you might say that I have also chosen to worship at a different altar - I've just finished watching The Eleventh Hour, the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who.

It's very tempting to make unfair comparisons between the previous incumbents and Matt Smith, the new Doctor.  (I briefly considered titling this post: David Tennant Light.)  However, I think that it's worth taking a moment to consider the unique nature of the Doctor Who series.

Unlike any other ongoing series, Doctor Who has an institutionalized method whereby the actor playing the main character can be replaced.  The process of regeneration allows the program to be virtually immortal (rather like the Doctor himself).  Actors can grow bored or grow old, move on, get fired, and the character simply regenerates - presto!  A new Doctor takes the place of the old one.

However, this process presents an odd challenge for both actors and writers. For the actor, it's a bit like doing Hamlet or Macbeth - the part has been played by many other actors, each of whom has left his mark, and it's now up to the new performer to offer what will hopefully be a new and different interpretation of the role while still remaining true to the essential nature of the character.

For the writer, it's almost the opposite.  The writer starts by wanting to be faithful to the character of the Doctor, as they have to be - the Doctor is the center around which the show revolves, after all. But there's always been a tacit understanding that after a regeneration, the Doctor is a new person, which allows for some innovation, and of course each new actor has strengths and weaknesses that need to be written to.

So, all that being said, how does Matt Smith fit into the Doctor template?

Short answer:  he's a pretty damn good fit.  In fact, he's such a good fit that I completely forgot about the fact that he was the new guy while watching the episode.  He's less dramatic than David Tennant was in his first appearance, but again, different actors, and I'd be willing to say that it might just be that he's making a deliberate effort to bring some steadiness to the role. As the youngest actor to portray the Doctor, it may be that the 27-year old Smith is trying to balance his perceived youth with some gravity, and we'll see how that develops over the long run.

Second-guessing aside, I'd give Mr. Smith a strong A, possibly even an A+ for his debut, but I'll certainly be watching that mark as the season develops.  Oh, and there's none of this David Tennant four-specials-a-year coyness, they're going right into a standard 13-episode run, with a fresh program next week.  The trailer at the end of the debut episode showed an intriguing mix for the upcoming shows:  olive drab Daleks with Union Jack flag decals, Stonehenge, vampires, Spitfires in space, lizard men, and (I think) van Gogh.

As always, I'll be downloading the episodes as they come, but those of you with more patience, less computer savvy, or just a stronger sensitivity to the international copyright laws will be able to watch the new season starting April 17th on the Space Channel.

- Sid

P.S.  The dissipated looking Easter Bunny is my niece, Jody.  There's a matching shot of a little fuzzy tail, but I'm trying to keep a Family rating for this blog, or at least PG.

P.P.S.  At the start of every week we have a staff meeting which starts out with everyone saying what they did on the weekend.  I was the only person who downloaded a Doctor Who episode...sigh...sometimes it's lonely.

Do you think that he still has his space suit?

If it wasn't for Yuri Gagarin, I never would have stopped.

I had plans to meet up with one of my coworkers from my previous job today, have a bite to eat and go for a beer.  We'd arranged to rendezvous in New Westminster, and since I didn't have anything important planned for the day I packed up the Nikon and headed down a couple of hours in advance so that I could play tourist.

I arrived at the restaurant a bit early, so I decided to do a quick turn around the block before going in.  As I rounded the second corner and headed up Begbie Street, I noticed that I was approaching the Arundel Mansions building, which frankly looked somewhat less palatial than its name would suggest.

As I went past the entrance, for whatever reason I glanced over at the door, just for a second.  I walked another 20 feet, and then stopped, as my mind caught up with the input from that momentary look, then headed back to look again.

Is everyone out there familiar with Yuri Gagarin?  Legendary Russian cosmonaut, the first man to reach outer space and orbit the planet? Died in a test flight accident in 1968?  How he would end up in a slightly seedy looking hotel in New Westminster is a strange enough question all on its own, but next door to Ella Fitzgerald?  Not to mention Lewis Carroll and Beatrix Potter, who really should be in apartments closer to A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh.  And as for classic novelists Antoine St. Exupery and Joseph Conrad, I can't imagine what their conversations in the elevator would be like, if in fact the Arundel Mansions enjoys the luxury of an elevator.

Oh, and Mr. A "Hilter", in #18? I'm sorry, Adolf, but if you're going to use an assumed name, you could at least do something more creative than just switching the third and fourth letters.

- Sid

Wrong question.

Lt. Commander Data: I have been testing the aphorism, "A watched pot never boils." I have boiled the same amount of water in this kettle sixty-two times. In some cases I have ignored the kettle; in others, I have watched it intently. In every instance, the water reaches its boiling point in precisely 51.7 seconds. It appears I am not capable of perceiving time any differently than my internal chronometer.

Commander William T. Riker: Why don't you turn it off?

Data: Sir?

Riker: Data, people do not have internal chronometers. Why don't you see what happens if you turn yours off?

Data: Thank you, sir. I will try that.

[Riker nods and gets up to leave, but stops]

Riker: Just don't be late for your shift!

Star Trek:  The Next Generation, Timescape

At work today, one of my co-workers noticed that I was standing beside the kettle with a tea bag, a mug, and a patient expression.  Quickly sizing up the situation, she cheerfully commented, "You know, if you watch it, it won't boil."

Without even pausing, I replied, "No, they tested that on Star Trek - Data boiled a kettle at the end of one episode and it boiled in the same length of time whether he watched it or not.  Riker told him to turn off his internal chronometer and try it again."

She shook her head and said, "I have no idea how you can remember these things!"

No no, not how, why…

- Sid

P.S. Yes, I am aware of the irony of putting up this posting immediately following my last entry, thank you for asking.

A '72 Zelazny, from the vines on the south side of the hill.

A few years ago, I decided that I should add some kind of personal information to my resume, give some kind of little hint as to what I did when I wasn’t at work.  After some deliberation, I added the following:

PERSONAL INTERESTS
Science fiction
Military history

Oddly enough, no one has ever asked me for my opinion of the relative merits of the Russian T-34 versus the German Panther or for an analysis of the Duke of Wellington's strategy at Waterloo, but for whatever reason the science fiction tag seems to evoke a response.  In a job interview with the ICBC about four years ago, one of the interviewers got this funny look in her eye and said, “So, science fiction…do you go to...conventions?”*  And, in the case of my recent change of jobs, I’ve already mentioned the questions about my blog, during the interview I was asked what my favourite sci-fi movie was**, and last week some co-workers solicited my opinion of Babylon 5, which for whatever reason had come up during their lunch conversation.***

Sigh...

Here I am with this comprehensive, almost encyclopedic knowledge of fantasy and science fiction, and no one ever asks me about anything but the pop culture aspects.

There are times when I feel like a connoisseur who has developed a vast knowledge of wines, liqueurs, whiskeys and other beverages, building it up piece by piece over a lifetime of sampling and evaluation.  I know histories, vintages, successes, failures; I can distinguish subtleties of flavour; and my shelves contain a complete range from the exotic to the traditional.  And what do people ask me about? The relative merits of wine-in-a-box.

- Sid

*  The answer is no.  To quote my friend Laurie, I'm not that kind of a doctor.

**  Star Wars, the first one.  Not necessarily the best science fiction movie ever, but I have my reasons.

*** Reasonable show, took it a couple of seasons to find its groove, but it was always hampered by the fact that all the supporting characters were more interesting than the leads.

pReviews.

A lovely Saturday here in Vancouver, sunny and double digit temperatures, so after finishing my laundry, off I went into the afternoon sunshine to do some shopping.  After taking advantage of the apparently constant sale at Sears by picking up three shirts for work, I decided to celebrate the raise at my new job by crossing the street to Chapters and having a go at the science fiction and fantasy sections.

However, first I took a pass through the Reduced section, often the home of unregarded trifles, and never made it any further into the store. I've been trying to cut back on my hardcover purchases, but if they're going to sell them for less than the cost of the paperback editions, it's very difficult to say no!  As a result I walked away with four books* sharing space with my new shirts - no need to increase our petroleum debt by using another plastic bag.  

The books that I purchased are:  Matter, by Iain M. Banks; The Heart of Valor, by Tanya Huff; The New Moon's Arms, by Nalo Hopkinson; and Hell and Earth, by Elizabeth Bear.  Now, I realize that you're not supposed to review books until after reading them, but in this case I thought I could at least offer an explanation as to why I picked these four novels, and my expectations of them.

Iain M. Banks is a fabulous writer, if a slightly schizophrenic one - his non-SF work is published as Iain Banks, no initial.  (There's a reason for this, but I leave it to my readers to research that as an extra credit assignment.)  Banks, who has become the front man for the Scottish / British SF boom of the last decade, is best known for his Culture books.  

How to describe the Culture?  The Culture is a hedonistic, non-materialistic futuristic society that exists on a galactic level and creates on a macro scale, with the greater burden of maintenance and warfare falling upon artificial intelligences of varying capabilities.  In spite of its apparent softness, Banks portrays the Culture as having a core of brutal, almost cruel realism, and the combination of these elements gives his stories a disturbing ambiguity.  Matter is the latest Culture novel, and when I saw it on the shelf I picked it up instantly - Banks has never failed to entertain, amuse and startle me.

I actually have a casual nodding acquaintanceship with Tanya Huff from her years as an employee at Bakka Books in Toronto.  To be honest, that's why I purchased the first book in her Valor series when it came out in 2000.  However, the series has turned out to be a good, solid, well-crafted addition to the sub-genre of military science fiction, and as such I expect this third book in the series to be an entertaining read.

Huff is probably the only person on this page that non-fans might be familiar with, whether knowingly or not.  Her Blood books, a vampire - detective series set in Toronto, were adapted for TV under the title of Blood Ties. It's currently in syndication and shows up now and then on whichever cable channels are looking for Canadian content.

Nalo Hopkinson is the closest thing to a wild card in my selections.  She's a strong talent, and a rising one, but so far I've only read her short work without having picked up either of her breakthrough novels: Midnight Robber or Brown Girl in the Ring.  Hopkinson's work draws heavily upon her Jamaican heritage for both story-telling style and inspiration, resulting in a unique and special flavour to her writing.

The New Moon's Arms continues this approach, with the story actually being set on a Caribbean island.  Since it won both an Aurora Award and a Sunburst Award when it was originally published in 2008, I have every reason to expect it to be a suitable introduction to Hopkinson's longer work.

Although Elizabeth Bear had her first story published in 1996, I've only started reading her books within the last year  - regular readers may remember her name from my posting about representations of Canada in SF.

I find Bear's writing to be odd in that she is quite a good descriptive author, handles character, action and dialogue extremely well, but her end game is somehow lacking.  It's as if she puts so much into the initial stages of her stories that there's no room to raise the energy level at the end, resulting in something that's more like the slope down to that flat bit at the end of a roller coaster than a real loop-the-loop. (If you want to be technical, it's all denouement, no climax.)  Regardless, she is a very good writer, and I'm willing to accept that there may not be a cymbal clash at the end of this book, and simply enjoy the ride.

The sad part for me about all of this is that when you have a lot of experience as a reader, it can be difficult to expand your horizons - obviously I have a clear idea of what to expect from these books in spite of the fact that I haven't cracked a single cover.  Sometimes when I'm in a used book store, if it's not busy I'll ask the counter staff to recommend something that they've found to be a great read.  If it's a place where they know my buying habits, sometimes they'll try to tailor their suggestions to what they've seen me buy, but I discourage them from taking that route.  After all, I already know what I like - that's the problem. 

- Sid

* If you can no longer grip your book selections with one hand, you have too many.  This is a useful rule which has saved me from overspending in the past, although after years of shopping in this fashion I can probably span well over an octave on a piano.

"Truss me, I'm the Doctor."

We're well into 2010 now, and in just over a month we'll see the first appearance of Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor.  The BBC has announced that the new season of Doctor Who will start on Easter with the broadcast of The Eleventh Hour, the first episode with the new Doctor. So far there's no trailer for that episode, but a clip introducing the entire season with Mr. Smith can be viewed on YouTube.*

Fans will be subjecting this season to an exacting scrutiny.  Not only does it mark the end of David Tennant's enormously popular run as the titular character, it also ushers in a new Head Writer and Executive Producer - Russell T. Davies, whose work in those two positions was largely responsible for the success of the resurrected Doctor Who, is leaving the show. He'll be replaced by Steven Moffat, whose scripts for the series have won him three Hugo awards to date.

So, we have a new Doctor, a new season, a new logo, a new head writer, and as shown in the picture above, a new costume for the Doctor, and a new companion as well.  But wait!  The new Doctor's costume is not the ordinary outfit it appears to be at first glance.  A closer examination reveals that his trousers are being supported by some kind of dimensionally displaced suspenders which don't require that the clips be attached to the braces.

As so many of the villains tend to ask, "Is this one of your tricks, Doctor?"  Well, sorry, no, it's just bad Photoshopping, sad but true.  Let's just hope this isn't an omen of how things are going to go now that Mr. Davies is no longer involved with the programme.

- Sid

* Oh look, bloody Daleks, how many bloody times does the Doctor have to wipe out "all" the bloody Daleks?  My god, they're worse than cockroaches.

Certainly sincere, but probably not flattery.

We're perched in a booth at the Frog and Firkin on Friday night, and the topic of music snobs has come up.

(Say hello, Chris. "Hi."  It's not a guest posting, but we take what we can get.)

Anyway, we were discussing music snobs - Alan, Laurie, you know who we mean - and it led me to wonder what exactly the term "snob" means in this context.

According to my Concise Oxford, there are a number of meanings, but the part that jumps out at me is "...judge of merit by externals".  In other words, a snob is someone who passes judgement based on the cover, rather than the book.  If you asked me, I would say that I'm not often guilty of snobbery in this sense, but there is one area where a mea culpa on my part is necessary: the literary pastiche.

If you've never run into the term before, "pastiche" is French for "imitation", and generally refers to a tribute to an artist that deliberately uses their themes or motifs.  However, I use it to describe the odd phenomenon that plagues the science fiction and fantasy communities, the "continuation" of a dead author's work by another writer.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series as continued by Eoin Colfer; Isaac Asimov's Foundation series as continued by David Brin, Gregory Benford and Greg Bear; John Gregory Betancourt's prequels to Roger Zelazny's Amber series; the Dune prequels/interquels by Frank Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson; the myriad of authors who have written Conan books - I could continue the list but I think you get the idea.

Now, I'm not completely guilty of uninformed pre-judgement. I did read House Atreides, the first Dune prequel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, when it first came out in 1999, although I will admit that I read it with a strong degree of skepticism.  Whether that resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy or not, I found the style and plot to be...let's say "inadequate", that seems polite.  Not necessarily bad, not horribly written or badly structured, just not up to the standard set by Frank Herbert in the original books.

And that's really my problem with the entire phenomenon.  It's not that any of the authors who indulge in this bizarre activity are bad writers - in fact, many of them have well-developed and successful careers in their own rights.  The issue is that they're not the same writers.  No matter how good an imitation is, it's still an imitation, and as such it can never match the original.  In a way, you could think of these books as literary zombies, still lurching along in spite of the fact that life has long since departed.

It would forgive the whole process a little bit if I thought that it was motivated by any sort of desire to keep the original author's creative flame burning for a little longer.  Sadly, I'm fairly certain that the sole motivation is profit:  the desire to beat a few more miles - and dollars - out of a literary horse.  As such, I find the idea offensive, and that's resulted in a blanket refusal to support it by purchasing any of the books in question, regardless of how good they might or might not actually be.

In other words, I'm a snob.

- Sid

Canny, explicable, and believable - is that so much to ask?

 

My previous post featured a picture of a sign in front of a local coffee shop, blaming extraterrestrial influences for their lack of drip coffee.  Now, before we go any further, I feel that I should clear up something about my opinion regarding the possibilities of alien intervention and its effects on coffee.

I don't believe a word of it.  Not a word.

Yes, when it comes to the entire category of what we will perhaps unfairly call "pseudo science", I'm a complete skeptic.  Sadly, in spite of a lifetime of science fiction and fantasy intake, some solid internal layer of disbelief has remained impenetrable, and as a result I don't believe in UFOs, ghosts, Chupacabra, crop circles, or any of the other X-Files entries that continue to resist rude and unseemly demands for documentation and evidence.

Truth to tell, that's my problem with all of it, the lack of hard evidence.  If once, just once, something would happen that left clear and irrefutable proof, that's all I ask. I don't want to hear about mysterious events that have no rational explanation - screw that, I want mysterious events with a clear and obvious explanation: alien visitors, psychic ability, pyramid power, whatever, doesn't matter, provided that there's proof.  In the real world, all we seem to have is this massive archive of blurry, out of focus, grainy and otherwise deficient images of fringe phenomena such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and large headed Greys from Arcturus, an archive that no one really takes seriously. It may well be that the truth is out there, but that's a sword that cuts in both directions: maybe the truth is that it's all false.

One of the great changes to the paradigm for the new Doctor Who episodes is that Earth-based plot lines don't just deal with three people in an isolated castle, but rather take place on a global scale and are witnessed by all of humanity.  A spaceship like an inverted mountain hovers over London and makes countless people stand on ledges and prepare to jump, they evacuate the city at Christmas due to several years of alien incidents, everyone on the planet looks like the Master for a few days, Earth gets shifted to another location, and everyone knows*, it's part of history. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Now, this is not to say that I don't think that there's life on other planets, I doubt very much that in the infinity of space we're the only planet that's managed to produce what we will charitably call intelligent life.  I just think that if extraterrestrials managed to cross the great gulf of interstellar space, they wouldn't waste their time with the sort of silliness that's been attributed to them.  In fact, if there are any aliens reading this (sit down, Laurie…) hey, it's time. Enough with the crop circles and anal probes, drop a shuttle craft down in front of the White House and send someone in to talk to Obama, okay? Seize the moment - after all, the next guy could be another George W. Bush.

- Sid

* Except Donna Noble.

Well now they've gone too far.

Damn aliens - I don't even drink coffee, and I think this is over the line.

- Sid

But did they find Nigel the Cat's Facebook page?

What was the name of your friend again, the one you met at Ryerson, the guy in front of the big tire?

- Brenda Allen, BCMEA

 I've just come back from a job interview, and to my surprise (and initial horror) I discovered that at least one of the three interviewers had read a goodly portion of this blog, and asked me questions about some of the postings. 

Now, to be honest, I haven't given a lot of thought to the fact that this blog is a public document.  About a year or so in, I put it under my full name because I wanted to point a prospective employer at it for writing samples (and didn't get the job, either because of or in spite of the blog) and never bothered to delete my last name.  I've actually derived a certain satisfaction from finding the blog when I google my name, but it's never occurred to me that someone else might do a search for my name and end up here.

Having recovered from the experience, I think that I'm going to leave my full name on the site regardless.  I can think of worse introductions to my personal life, and I take pride in some of the postings that I've done, there are three or four of them that are not bad at all. 

The final joke, as I save this as a draft, is that because I obviously need to treat the blog as being accessible to everyone, this posting will never see the light of day unless I get the job.  Terrible thing if my current manager stumbled across this and read that I'd been at a job interview.

- Sid

P.S. Are we all doing the math on this?

This Sleeping Satellite.

 

Did we fly to the moon too soon?

Did we squander the chance?
In the rush of the race
the reason we chase is lost in romance
and still we try
to justify the waste
for a taste of Man's greatest adventure.
Tasmin Archer, Sleeping Satellite

I found myself feeling a slightly bitter sense of irony while watching this evening's rerun of the Mythbusters Moon Hoax episode, given the changes to NASA's direction under Obama's new budget. "Hey, look, we really did go to the Moon before!" has become "Hey look, we really can't afford to go back!"

Now, this is not an entirely fair analysis of the new budget, and there are parts of it that make a lot of sense.  I've previously commented on the shortcomings of NASA's plans for future trips to the Moon and Mars, and the new plan does address some of those issues.*

The cumbersome "Apollo on steroids" Constellation program would be scrapped, essentially throwing away four years of work and nine billion dollars and leading to an indefinite delay in further plans to travel to the Moon or Mars, but perhaps allowing for a new direction in how the future of space exploration will develop.  The proposed new focus would be on funding for private sector development, and a shift toward more international collaboration on future exploration programs.  A portion of the budget would be aimed at developing new technologies to support that future exploration, although exactly when future missions would actually take place is still up in the air, so to speak.

This could either mark the beginning of a rational move toward the sort of global involvement in space exploration which has long been a staple of science fiction, or the beginning of the end as the private sector turns its back on extraterrestrial development for opportunities closer to home and the rest of the world turns it back on joint missions due to political conflicts.

Either way, I feel a bit like a child who has been told that there's no trip to Disneyland this year, what with Dad's recent unemployment and all - the family is just going to work on things around the house, and maybe when I'm a teenager we'll go to Europe with the neighbours. 

Is this sensible? Oh, quite probably it is. But would we remember how great it was the year we didn't go to Disneyland?  And will future generations look back with awe and respect at the year when we decided not to go to the Moon by 2020?

- Sid

* Although probably not because of my blog posting from 2007.

"One Ring to rule them all."

But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and have always done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Foreword to the Second Edition, The Lord of the Rings

I first read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings so long ago that I can't easily pin the date down in my head. I'm fairly certain it was in my first year high of school, when I would have been 13 or 14*. Oddly enough, my mother didn't own a copy, and I remember that for my first reading I signed the books out of the school library. I recall being mesmerized as I read it on the bus home, but fortunately the bus stopped to let people off without being prompted, so I wasn't in peril of missing my stop.

Apparently some people find it a daunting read, but I don't remember any difficulty getting into it. The irony is that I find it hard to read now due to sheer familiarity - I'm on my third set of copies, an honour which is shared only with Dune and Ringworld out of my library.**  I do sometimes advise less seasoned readers to take the same approach that the travellers do in the first book - when they stop for the night, so should you. (Even favourable critics admit that there's an awful lot of just walking in the first book.)

For the fantasy community at large, The Lord of the Rings is the elephant in the living room: you can't ignore it, and sooner or later you're going to have to talk about it. Tolkien's Ring has "ruled them all" for over 55 years. It has had an enormous influence, both good and bad, on authors in the genre; it's been subjected to intense analysis in a search for allegorical significance and original sources; it's been criticized for ruining the genre of Fantasy; and it has polarized its readership: people seem to either love it unreservedly or just can't stand it.

The discussion isn't helped by the fact that in some ways, discussing The Lord of the Rings is a bit like discussing the Bible. There's a certain gravitas associated with the text that demands respect whether you agree with it or not, although in this case The Silmarillion is probably closer to being the Old Testament for Middle Earth, complete with creation myth and the expulsion of a defeated "angel".

By comparison, The Hobbit reads more like a children's book in terms of tone and environment, as it was certainly intended to be. Many of the elements of Middle Earth that we see in The Lord of the Rings aren't mentioned at all, but as with its successor, the sense of monumental events observed through the eyes of humble participants is strong. And all the seeds for The Lord of the Rings are planted: the races of Dwarves, Elves, Orcs and Men; Gandalf the enigmatic and powerful wizard; Gollum and the Ring; and the threat of a distant evil. And hobbits, of course, who proceed to steal the scene from "the great and the wise" for the next three volumes.

The Lord of the Rings would be a very different story without the hobbits and the humanizing - so to speak - role that they play. The hobbits provide the emotional content of the story - is Gandalf ever hungry? Does Legolas become frightened? There are certainly cases where the more heroic characters fall prey to fear or despair, or feel pleasure or excitement, but for the most part the hobbits are the touchstones of basic feelings and sensations for the reader. It's not an accident that at least one hobbit ends up in each of the major plotlines as the tale unfolds: Merry with the Rohirrim, Pippin at Minas Tirith, and of course Sam and Frodo with the Ring.

Tolkien’s final master touch in this (and the only omission in the movie that I regret) is the Scouring of the Shire. This final capstone on Tokien’s intricate edifice allows us to see the hobbits in perspective, in their own environment and amongst their peers. This is Tolkien's chance to shows us how the four companions have been changed by their experiences: Merry and Pippin, now warriors and leaders; Sam, matured and his own man; and of course, Frodo, whose trials have left him with nothing but compassion for Sharkey/Saruman and his servants.

 

Frodo’s acceptance of a burden which will mean his doom, coupled with his transcendent end, his trip to the Western Lands with Gandalf and the last of the elves, may be what leads some people toward comparisons to Christ when discussing his character. For myself, I can’t see Frodo as Jesus because I find that Frodo’s tragedy is of a completely different nature than that of Christ. Frodo’s unspoken sin is that in the final trial, he fails: he succumbs to the Ring. (One has to wonder if this gnaws at him as he is publicly celebrated and showered with honours.)  Frodo never recovers from his journey - for the rest of the book Frodo is almost a spectator, no longer really involved in the events that take place.

Tolkien claims that his intent in the story is not allegorical, but people persist in attempting to uncover the "meaning" behind The Lord of the Rings. The situation isn't helped by the historical milieu in which the books originate - it is difficult to ignore the potential associations for a book written during WWII that deals with an epic struggle between good and evil.  Tolkien directly rebuts this view in the foreword to the second edition by describing how the story would have unfolded if it were based on the events of the war, and chillingly concludes, "In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt:  they would not long have survived even as slaves."

If you only have the movies by which to judge Tolkien's magnum opus, I think it's fair to say that Peter Jackson does a good job of conveying the feel and tone of the books, regardless of minor alterations and omissions in the plot. It couldn't have been an easy task - for example, the Balrog, the creature that pulls Gandalf into the abyss, is described only in flashes of detail:  a sword and flaming whip, darkness and shadows, and a streaming mane that kindles into flame.

Did Mr. Jackson get it completely right? Perhaps not, but if I had to summarize my reaction to the entire trilogy of movies, I would say that they accurate portray the scale of the books, the feeling of witnessing events taking place on a stage of epic proportions, balanced out by the involvement of the hobbits and their humble viewpoint. He was obviously hampered by his reliance on humans for casting purposes, although, as the character of Gollum demonstrates, it's only a matter of time...

- Sid

* My birthday is at the end of September, so it could be either one.

** Although probably not for long, there are a lot of potential candidates that are on their second copies. Sad how a paperback just doesn't hold up after 30 years or so.

Ten Plot Twists Looking for a Movie.

It appears that I'm not the only person who has found the plot line and character development of Avatar to be lacking - innumerable critics have praised the movie for its visual brilliance while decrying its elementary plotline and character development, and many have commented on the resemblance of its storyline to that of Dances With Wolves.

Personally, I have always felt that non-participant criticism is inappropriate, so I decided that it was unfair to take cheap shots at Avatar's shortcomings in the areas of plot and character without at least offering a few ideas of my own. So, in the great tradition of science-fiction in Hollywood, I present the following sequel to my original posting:

10 Things That James Cameron Could Have Done in Avatar.

1. "The thing about aliens is, they're alien."

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if in some way (any way!) the Na’vi are not as closely based on Terran tribal cultures – or possibly based on less mainstream cultural concepts?   Let’s see...what if they eat each other? Cannibalism is certainly a known factor in a variety of tribal cultures here, why not there? This was one of the key elements in Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, the idea of a human adopted by aliens (Martians in this case) and ending up with a completely different set of morals and beliefs, including a full acceptance of the idea of eating the dead as a form of reverence.

For that matter, what if they eat humans? After all, at that point it’s not cannibalism, although I’m not sure what it would be called - so far we haven’t had to define a term that dealt with eating aliens – but it would have that “gain-the-manna-of-your-enemy-by-eating-them” flavour*.

Perhaps they practise ritualized incest? Or ritualized sex with their horses? What if eating fresh dragon guano was part of their digestive cycle?  Suppose they’d demanded that Sully chop off his extra fingers to match their cultural norm?  Would it be as tempting for him if the Na'vi reproductive process involved him fertilizing the eggs that Neytiri left in the mating pond two days previously?

The idea that I’m chasing with all of these examples is something that would distance the Na’vi from humanity. As it is, other than some gung-ho graduation ceremonies involving dragon wrestling, and things like getting down from two hundred foot tall trees by jumping off the nearest branch and bouncing off leaves on the way down, there’s nothing in the Na’vi cultural matrix that comes across as unappealing. I would have been more impressed if Sully had been forced to overcome any kind of personal taboo - if there had been anything, well, alien about the aliens.


2. Rule 34, anyone? 
"I thought Jim did a really good job of putting Neytiri together. I thanked him for making her look hot. I mean, Neytiri is very sexy and lean with a really cute bod. I'm in pretty good shape, but I don't look that buff."

- Zoe Saldana

And while we're at it, let's make them a lot less physically attractive, shall we?  No one ever questions Sully's desire to join the Na'vi, and based on the quote from Ms. Saldana, why would they?  But what if the Na'vi look like toads, or praying mantises, or the spawn of Great C'thulhu?  The scene where Sully and his alien love actually meet in person and prove that their love transcends their physical bodies would have been far more impressive if Neytiri looked like a cross between road kill and a lobster.


3. Sully is a junky - discuss.
If you had a friend or co-worker who stopped shaving, bathing and eating regular meals, you'd wonder about his urine test results. In this case, Sully is an avatar addict - and what do his fellow humans do?  Urge him on in the interests of science!  What if they'd pulled the plug instead, on the basis that Sully is slowly killing himself by spending all of his time hooked up to his blue alter ego?

4. Avatars:  twelve for ten cents, or a dime a dozen.
After Colonel Quaritch's comment about the Na'vi being hard to kill, it's sort of surprising that they are so willing to adopt Sully, isn't it?  But if avatars were cheap and easy to produce, Sully could have had his throat slit a few times (with accompanying trauma) before managing to figure out a way to make an impression on the natives.  Think of it as a sort of weird homage to Groundhog Day.


5. Zombies are very popular these days.
Or, let's not have the avatars be clones at all.  Let's just say that's what they are, for PR purposes.  But instead, heck, why not just grab a few natives, dig out their brains, and put in an interface system?  That would have to be cheaper than building the goddamn things from scratch, wouldn't it?  But imagine the horror at finding out that small pink aliens have taken over the body of your brother, or your sister, or your friend, or your lover...

No, wait, that's already been done for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, never mind.  Except this time, we'd be the hideous body snatching invaders.


6. "Nobody goes home." **
For that matter, why put in an interface system?  If we can posit a technology that allows for a one-to-one experiential and sensory interface with another brain, why not just pull the human brains and drop them into the Na'vi?  Make all the controllers crippled volunteers like Sully, who are willing to give up their humanity for a chance to dig their toes in the dirt.

Or maybe don't tell the controllers that it's a one way trip...after all, the corporation running things is apparently unconcerned by issues of ethics.


7. The Ghost in the Machine.
What if Sully's avatar starts acting on its own? The avatars appear to be comatose when not linked to the human operator, but what if Sully logs in to find that he's already running down a jungle trail? What if his repeated addict-level usage creates a ghost mind in the avatar? This way Sully ends up on both sides, and the final mano-a-mano battle can be between Sully the committed gung ho marine with his new legs, and Sully the newest member of the Omaticaya tribe. 


8. Picture if you will...
Okay, I'm sorry, this is really a Twilight Zone plot, but what if one of the Na'vi is actually an avatar being controlled by ANOTHER alien species?  Or what if one of the humans is an avatar controlled by aliens studying us?
 

9. "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."
There's a very brief scene in the movie that shows Parker Selfridge, the base administrator, as played with scenery-chewing gusto by Giovanni Ribisi, sitting in his office staring at a piece of the ore that's responsible for everything.  Behind him, there on the shelf, is a model of the lunar lander, and there's a Na'vi bow hanging over his head and hunting spears in the case behind him.

Selfridge is portrayed as a complete corporate profit whore, without concern for the ecology or the people of Pandora.  But is this the office of such a man?  This could be the office of a man who has idealized the concept of space exploration for his entire life, who sees himself following in the footsteps of pioneers like Armstrong, a man who is fascinated by the idea of an alien race and an alien planet - but who is also forced to brutalize that race and that planet with strip mining, bulldozers, and explosives.  Wouldn't it have been interesting to find out that he hates everything that he's been forced to do in the name of Earth? 


10. "I wish I knew how to quit you."
Finally, let's break completely with tradition.  Let's have Neytiri the love interest get killed saving Sully, and let's have Sully seek physical comfort from her original fiance, Tsu'tey the warrior. Or perhaps not - after all, if people don't like the resemblance that Avatar has to Dances With Wolves, they're probably not interested in borrowing from Brokeback Mountain, either.

- Sid

* Sorry, "flavour" may be in bad taste here. In fact, "bad taste" may be in bad taste here.

** The astute fan will recognize this line from another James Cameron movie - there's a lot more of that sort of reference in these postings than most of you realize. 

Everybody put your hands in the air...

In the coming months, the likes of Microsoft, Hitachi and major PC makers will begin selling devices that will allow people to flip channels on the TV or move documents on a computer monitor with simple hand gestures. 

Manipulating the screen with the flick of the wrist will remind many people of the 2002 film “Minority Report” in which Tom Cruise moves images and documents around on futuristic computer screens with a few sweeping gestures. The real-life technology will call for similar flair and some subtlety. Stand in front of a TV armed with a gesture technology camera, and you can turn on the set with a soft punch into the air. Flipping through channels requires a twist of the hand, and raising the volume occurs with an upward pat. If there is a photo on the screen, you can enlarge it by holding your hands in the air and spreading them apart and shrink it by bringing your hands back together as you would do with your fingers on a cellphone touch screen.

- The New York Times, January 11, 2010

In response, we present the following cautionary quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the component and hope.  It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.

And is it just me or is there something contradictory about the phrase "soft punch"?

- Sid

I know, I say "decaying flesh" like it's a bad thing.

Here's a snapshot of my niece Jody without vampire teeth or zombie makeup - I just wanted to establish that she's a perfectly normal looking and quite attractive young woman when not smeared with blood and/or decaying flesh.

- Sid

Dimensionality - and lack thereof.

On Thursday afternoon I went to see Avatar, the must-see movie of the moment, and I strongly recommend that anyone planning to see it should take advantage of the 3-D option if it's available in your area.  (I'm sorry, Dorothy, neither Trail nor Castlegar seem to be offering anything other than plain old vanilla 2-D.)

Avatar deals with the discovery of valuable mineral resources on Pandora, a distant moon which is inhabited by a native race called the Na'vi.  In order to more easily negotiate with the Na'vi in Pandora's unbreathable atmosphere, artificial life forms - the "avatars" of the title - are created from a combination of human and native DNA. The incredibly expensive avatars can only be linked with the contributors of their human DNA, so when one of the controllers dies in an accident, his twin brother, paraplegic ex-Marine Jake Sully, is invited to take his place.

After his avatar becomes lost in the jungle, Sully is reluctantly rescued by one of the ten-foot-tall blue natives, a female hunter named Neytiri.  Her father, the chief of the Omaticaya tribe, decides that Neytiri will train Sully to see if one of the "sky people" can be made to understand their ways.

During his apprenticeship with the tribe, Sully provides information about them to the military presence on the moon, but also falls in love with both Pandora and Neytiri.  When the military decides to forcibly remove the tribe from their home above a prime deposit of minerals, Sully is forced to choose between his divided loyalties, and goes to war for Pandora.

As well he should - after all, Pandora is the real star of Avatar.  Writer/director James Cameron hired botanists, physicists, linguists and archeologists to make his world a fully rounded and detailed creation. The resulting multicoloured, bioluminescent computer-generated biosphere with its neurally linked flora and fauna, its flying dragons and floating mountains, is a visual feast that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.  No written description would do it justice.  The 3-D element certainly adds to the experience of Pandora, but even without that bit of icing on the cake, the cake is very tasty. 

However, I have to be honest - don't go to Avatar looking for similar innovation in plot or character.  I was disappointed to see that no cliché was left unturned in the writing of the screenplay, and the inhabitants of Cameron's world don't benefit from the same creativity and brilliance used in the development of that world.

The soldier who goes from spying on the Na'vi to fighting for them; the heartless, profit-oriented corporate manager; the chieftain's daughter who goes from disdain for the alien interloper to love; the brutal military leader who views the deaths of women and children as just part of a good day's work - I kept waiting for one character, any character to do something unexpected!

The movie is utterly and completely predictable: no ambiguity, no subtext, no surprises.  Everything happens exactly as you expect it to - as an example, the second we were introduced to Tsu'Tey, the suspicious and unfriendly Na'vi hunter who is supposed to marry Neytiri, I knew he was as dead as if he had put on a red shirt and beamed down with Captain Kirk.

I don't want to suggest that Avatar is a bad movie, it's certainly very watchable and enjoyable, but I was disappointed to find it to be such a simple movie.  I admire James Cameron's exploration of the 3-D effect in Avatar - now if only he'd used a similar technique to keep the plot and characters from being quite so one-dimensional.

- Sid