Inception

Like this reviewer, I had my doubts about this film when I first heard about it. The big box office didn’t help it, either. The young miss got Avatar from Santa in ’09. And that movie, while decent, lacked the sf screenplay chops to match its visuals.

My wife was really p***ed off I used my birthday gift card to buy Christmas presents. (Hey, what can I say? Money is tight these days.) So we had about $25 left on a rebate card and I picked up Inception the other day.

Best science fiction movie I’ve seen since The Incredibles. I can’t remember a genre movie that stuck with me and let me stick with it like this one. Complexity plus fx eye candy and good acting to boot.

My wife said she was going to have to view it another few times to absorb the small details. But neither of us found it difficult to follow. Unlike the decent flick Alice in Wonderland, I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep for fifteen minutes in the middle of it and wake up to rejoin the story in progress. Or was it all a dream?

Somebody said they need to get Christopher Nolan to direct Foundation. Don’t they ever.

 

Some Books

This is not a commercial to buy science fiction books. Just some thoughts.

Connie Willis’ publisher came out with part two of her enormous tome Blackout/All Clear a few months ago. This one story about time travellers in 1940 Britain was split into two separate 600-page books. I was looking forward to this “series” as I was for her brilliant novel The Doomsday Book. If you haven’t read the old book, don’t read the new one/s yet. Read her award-winning 1992 novel instead.

Ms Willis put a massive amount of research into Blackout/All Clear. It would have been a better effort as a single novel with judicious editing. I admit I got impatient, but I was hooked enough on the characters and the premise that I skipped more quickly over the middle sections of each book to get to the goodies.

Connie Willis is a fantastic author. Her short stories on the Blitz, first novel Lincoln’s Dreams, and The Doomsday Book–all brilliant, as I’ve mentioned above. She teases with some great bits in this new novel. Have the time travellers from 2060 really changed history and are the Germans really rolling up the Thames? Did that guy really die? Why is she revealing the ending, if it really is the ending? The twists and turns keep coming, and don’t get resolved until the very last pages. It’s a very satisfying beginning and resolution. Too much detail in between. Too bad; this story could have been as great as the other works of this author.

I read Ian McDonald’s The Dervish House, a tale of near-future Istanbul. It’s “accidental” science fiction in the sense that it’s mainly about economics in the guise of a thriller.

That said, I enjoyed the book. Except for the situation of the young boy, who supposedly has such a fragile heart condition that loud noises can kill him. His parents plug his ears. Problem solved, right?

Um, sound is transmitted through the air and through solids. There’s no ear to heart connection on this one. If a loud noise, like a bomb going off, is near this kid, he’ll feel it through walls and the sound waves travelling from his room into his chest, and boom.

The best science fiction book of this lot was another economic tale, The Windup Girl. Except that it was also post-apocalyptic, with a manageable helping of genetics. Paolo Bacigalupi’s first novel is an immensely satisfying read. Everybody is pretty much a bad guy, and perhaps not so much the title character who suffers inhuman degradation and persecution. But she’s one of the last people standing at novel’s end.

Like McDonald, Bacigalupi is looking to the Third World for his setting of future humanity. Makes sense.

In all of these books, I imagine where the religious sensibility fits. What would I be doing in these novels? Little enough religion in either of the last two novels here. Most sf authors just don’t have a handle on real religion to write about it. Or it’s been buried for other concerns.

While I prefer space opera, I do enjoy a well-written earthbound tale. If you have time or inclination for only one sf novel, read the latter of these three/four.

Read anything interesting lately?

 

Speaking of the Editing Process …

I was reading some fluff science fiction over the weekend. There’s one scene where the heroes are escaping the police, and an investigator is poking into a trap door that leads to a rather dangerous watery environment. The author vividly describes a crocodile clamping on to the woman’s head, pulling her into the water. Unfortunately, the author describes her as screaming. Two problems, and I’m sure you see them. How does a woman scream when her head is gripped by a predator? How can you scream underwater? It would be easy enough to describe her thrashing, being dragged to her death.

I almost finished the book–it was otherwise fast-paced and poked my curiosity. But I was deeply dismayed that a respected female physician–one of the two lead characters–would help a murderer (the other lead) get away from the authorities. Totally unbelievable. At least the guy could have been given some pheromone to overpower a woman’s resistance. But in the chapter before he meets her, he declines the treatment.

Liam’s comments on good editing in the thread below are golden. Maybe it’s why songwriting teams seem to have more success than soloists. Do you know the story behind the Beatles’ song that begins:

Well, she was just seventeen, and you know what I mean.

Paul McCartney’s original line was

Well, she was just seventeen, just like a beauty queen

John Lennon added the sneer “you know what I mean;” the songwriters were already telling you “the way she looked was way beyond compare.” What John’s line did, in addition to introducing a naughty hint, was to invite the listener in who knows what it feels like when your heart goes “boom.”

Anyway, early Beatles and puff science fiction are not rocket science. But they illustrate the value of good editing. Good teamwork is much more satisfying to me than going it alone and wondering how to take the “nice work” comments and sifting through them for the real truth.

 

Time Travel Interrupts A Marriage

The time travel premise is well trod territory in science fiction. The favorite problem is that a person goes back in time, does something in the past that changes the world. The Army of Northern Virginia gets a key bit of information that allows it to take Washington DC in 1862. Hitler focuses on Britain instead of the Soviets and thus wins WWII. Or the classic paradox: a person goes back and kills a direct ancestor. Try to get your head around that last one.

One of my wife’s favorite summer tv shows is Eureka. I don’t share her regard for the show. A little too fluffy for me. But this season’s premiere caught my eye. And much to my surprise, the producers are going with a premise that really shakes things up. Blowing up a franchise and starting from scratch worked for Batman and Star Trek. So what Eureka‘s braintrust has done is set off a small landmine. A handful of lead characters travel back in time for a day in 1947. At show’s end, they return to the present. But with a significant twist: 2010 is not quite the same as what they left at the beginning of the episode. Jobs and relationships are significantly altered.

While the Eureka cast found itself in 1947 they did some fiddling around. A soldier from the past is revived from heart stoppage using CPR and jumper cables. About a half-dozen 1947 soldiers get their butts kicked by a 2010 policewoman. And most telling, a 1947 scientist sneaks back to the 21st century, and finds his whole past body of work “erased” from a history of which he was never a part. But the most fascinating change in my mind is that Henry, a bachelor, now has a wife.

For a few episodes, the stories have danced around this situation, but they addressed it more fully this past week. His wife wants his affections, but Henry from the “alternate universe” barely knows the woman.

So a time traveler returns home and finds himself in a world in which his other self was married. Is he really married? Is marriage determined by a person’s location or time? Henry is the legal person in his “new” present, and entirely unique, so isn’t he married to the woman who sees him as her husband?

My wife was disappointed with the revelation this week: Henry tells his “wife” he’s not the same man who returned from time travel. So they separate. The moral thing to do, I suppose. And far more interesting than killing off one’s own grandparent. Anybody else watching this show? What’s your take on the unresolved time travel? To my knowledge no other sf/fantasy tv show has ever gone and done this. I confess it has my attention–which is probably what the network wanted.

 

On My Bookshelf: What’s The Point of Fantasy?

I’ve been reading some interesting books lately. It’s been mostly non-fiction, but a few works of fiction have gotten me thinking on the nature of science fiction and fantasy: what defines the genre, how well this genre can be written, and the pitfalls (as I see them) into which some good authors can fall. So for your consideration, I offer speculation on a historical figure, an alternate medieval Spain, and a sports figure.

First up is the well-regarded Kim Stanley Robinson tome Galileo’s Dream. The sf site ranked it high by both contributors and readers. Other Robinson works I’ve enjoyed. And I confess I’ve enjoyed just about everything else I’ve read from this author better than Galileo’s Dream. To be sure, this book is excellently written, well researched, and contains unique ideas. The chief literary ground it breaks is to serve as a biography of the 17th century scientist with the insertion of a plot based on the 31st century maneuverings of human beings living on the moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo himself.

If this were biography, it would be outstanding. The 1600′s come alive as we follow Galileo, his ego, his libido, and his fortunes and misfortunes. People from the year 3020 want to use Galileo for their own purposes, so he is occasionally kidnapped into the future in what I thought was a far more disappointing literary construction.

Kudos for the cleverness of paralleling Kepler’s Dream. Kudos for the idea of developing Galileo as the preeminent scientist, and a martyr (in some alternate timelines) for science. Apologists for the meanies in the Vatican will be heartened that Galileo is portrayed as a very flawed man with his own issues. As Robinson writes him he is fascinating, but not terribly attractive.

What left me cold about this book is the sterility of the 31st century plotline. It suffers in comparison to the 17th century, which is a real curiosity for a successful and talented sf author. Was it intended? If only the future plot were as strong as the real-life Galileo and his portrayal.

Billy Lombardo’s The Man With Two Arms is no less a piece of speculative fiction, a baseball novel with a trace of an earlier pioneer of the ballpark, W.P. Kinsella. This book hooked me deeper from the start, especially with its tender portrayal of a man as a husband and father. While some might think the book is mainly about the title character, a baseball Wayne Gretzky who can pitch with either arm and plow under the deadball pitching records of Cy Young and “Old Hoss” Radbourn, I had to wonder if for the first half, it wasn’t about a man balancing two arms: his wife on one, his son on the other.

This novel accelerates from a slow start into a race at the end, the frenzy of Danny Granville propelling the Cubs to .700 ball and himself to superstardom. Did I say Wayne Gretzky? That’s not quite right. What this character does to baseball surpasses what number 99 did to the hockey record book. The man’s “perfect” three-inning stint in the MLB All-Star Game is unbelievable.

I was disappointed with the surprise ending. It seemed a little contrived, and an all too-neat way of wrapping up a novel that morphed quickly into a story about a perfect man. Danny is a little too head-and-shoulders above the human race in this book. Can a father’s love and devotion propel a child to this level of extraordinariness? As a dad, I’d like to think so. But I realize that not only am I a flawed individual, so is my daughter (as much as I love her).

Read the book, though. It’s very good.

When I was at the public library the other night, a friend recommended the fiction of Guy Gavriel Kay. It’s been a long time since I read straight-up fantasy. And sf has been something of a bore for me lately. So I checked out the 1995 novel, The Lions of Al-Rassan. So far, real good. Kay is an excellent writer, and his great work with characters and painting scenes makes for a very pleasurable read. The first night I opened the book, I was on page 65 before I knew it. The next morning, I was still thinking about his characters.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but I suspect I will enjoy this book the best of these three. But I wonder if I’m really reading a fantasy work in spite of the little wizard sticker on the spine. This book is really an historical novel in a history that never took place. So far, there are no magicians, elves, rings, or things like that. This could have been a novel about three characters on the Iberian peninsula when the Christians, Muslims, and Jews all co-existed there. The speculation is what-if there was a different geography (and astronomy–this planet has two moons) that looked like just a little different from medieval Spain. Then the fantasy ends and we have three religions, political intrigue, despots in power, and ordinary people caught up in events way beyond their control.

It’s all handled wonderfully well, but is it authentic speculative fiction? I don’t think so.

To me, science fiction and fantasy are guided by one principle. You change something about how things are, and develop a story around that one new fact. Bad sf and fantasy change everything and leave the reader adrift. Masterful sf and fantasy writers can change one thing and delight the reader showing how the dominos fall: what if the Nazis won WWII, what if Britain had a mythology, what if there was a galaxy-spanning empire in the fiftieth millennium. Stuff like that.

With KSR, he starts off well: what if Galileo were influenced by 31st-century politicos? He adds a few juicy bits about ten-dimensional space and three-dimensional time and alien intelligences. Maybe Galileo’s Dream fails to match up to these other two books because it tries to do too much.

Billy Lombardo does it a bit better. What if a doting father could train his son to be a perfectly balanced athlete, able to throw brilliantly left- or right-handed? One premise, and it all falls into place from there.

Guy Gavriel Kay takes what seems to be a fantasy premise, what if Europe were slightly different. But his story, so far as I can see, would work just as well if it were a full-blooded historical novel. The aristocracy would be just as corrupt, the woman doctor just as countercultural, and the men just as heroic. Christians, Jews, and Muslims on one small peninsula? The possibilities for serious fiction, not to mention soap opera, are endless.

Read any good books lately?

 

Warehouse 13 & Eureka

The family and I have been enjoying two summer series on one of the cable channels. (I had a hard enough time typing out the old network name; there’s no way I’m misspelling an already-atrocious term.)

My friend Lee recommends Eureka. According to my wife, I recommended it too a few years ago. She doesn’t miss an episode, while I checked out of most of seasons two and three. The episodes are enjoyable enough, but I have a hard time giving a high endorsement. The writing is poor and contrived at times. I like the whimsy behind the series, and the sheriff holding his own in the town of geniuses, but I’ve never warmed to the huge ensemble cast seemingly going nowhere. You’d think with all the smart people in town, they could avoid some of the crazy mishaps.

More my cup of tea is Warehouse 13 and the direction the series seems to be taking as the first season finishes up. The cast is not nearly as large and there’s more time to explore fewer characters. The whimsy is there: the arms of Venus de Milo, Edgar Allen Poe’s pen, and Alice in a looking glass. But having a recurring villain that provides real menace is a huge lift to the drama. There’s a better balance to the new show.

 

To Not So Boldly Go …

Okay. I broke down and took the family to see Star Trek last week. I was prepared to love it and hate it, and I wasn’t disappointed.

First the good. It was nice to see Paramount finally put real effort into special effects for a Star Trek movie. And it was also nice to see the classic characters as youngsters. It was excellent to see Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov get some real action. The huge advantage of all the “Next Generation” Star Trek series is that they were true ensemble casts. The acting levels after STNG we more uneven than ever before, but they tried. The script, plot, and direction were all good–better than expected.

A few small nods. Great to see the bowels of the Enterprise–truly where no one has gone before. Nice to see continuity on small stuff, like McCoy’s divorce, Spock serving on Pike’s Enterprise, Sulu’s swordplay, Pike in a wheelchair, and even Uhura channeling Hoshi as a linguist. Of course, instead of being Pike’s female Number One, Majel just does computer voice-overs.

Now the rest. Nice going, Mr Abrams for blowing up not just a planet with six billion people, but hundreds of tv episodes and the ten movies where we have gone before. Sure, sure, some neo-Trek apologist will say it’s all in good fun, and it’s just an alternate history they can rejigger Bobby Ewing style if they don’t like where it’s heading … at the box office.

My wife and I had a long talk about alternate universes on the way home.

“You realize that Tuvok’s grandparents were sucked into a black hole tonight, don’t you?” I asked.

“No, they got the bad guy and they saved everything, right?” she said.

“To save Vulcan, they would need to go back in time and defeat Nero.”

“So they didn’t save Vulcan?”

“They saved the Earth. Remember Spock’s crack about being an endangered species?”

“Grandpa and Grandma Tuvok might have been saved though.”

“I calculate the odds of survival of any Vulcan individual at one in 600,000. For all of Tuvok’s four progenitors to have been saved, the odds are one in one-hundred twenty-nine sextillion, six-hundred quintillion.”

And the young miss started giggling in the back seat.

Okay,  I didn’t have the 129.6 sextillion figure at hand when I was driving home. But you get the drift. Tuvok won’t be around to save Janeway’s butt in the Delta Quadrant in the 24th century. Heck, he won’t even get to infiltrate the Maquis and make nice with Chakotay. One series blown up before it gets off the ground. Maybe it was by design.

I sure hope Kirk pays more attention to Khan when he bumps into him in the Abrams universe, because if Spock croaks while saving the Enterprise in the Mutara Nebula, there’s no going back to Mount Selaya to sort out his soul when it’s all done.

My biggest complaint is the sheer unwillingness of the franchise to live up to its billing, Boldly Going where None Have Gone Before. After classic Trek, arguably the only great move was shooting ahead eighty years to a “next generation.” After that, the three series concepts were meek and tame.

“Hey guys, if a ship exploring the galaxy is so great, let’s nail down a whole series to a space station with a mall.”

“Okay, the station idea wasn’t so hot. Let’s strand a woman captain on the other end of the galaxy for no decent reason.”

“Let’s go back in time and see how all the cool stuff like phasers, shields, warp 7 and miniskirts got invented.”

And now we have a movie that got the special effects right, the banter right, and the casting nailed picture perfect. The only problem is they didn’t set it in the 27th century. Where we truly haven’t gone before.

I’ll be the first to admit that Kirk and Spock sell this movie, even if they are kids and even if they are different actors. (Bill Shatner take note.) And the franchise was indeed desperate for new life after previous errors of not going far enough. It just seems like a cheap way to do it, rewriting history. When I look for good science fiction, I usually look to the future.

 

Good Things To Watch

The new Star Trek movie comes out to mass audiences tomorrow. I’m not terribly optimistic, although I do hear that a big budget for effects has been engaged. Do the producers behind this effort realize a good story will bring people to enjoy their product? Good science fiction filmmaking doesn’t absolve the creators from things like plot, character development, good acting, effective directing, and the lot. In a way, it can be more demanding because a certain consistency in science and logic is required.

Filmmakers adapt award-winning books. They also nab best-sellers when they feel timid. Why are so few award-winning sf stories and novels made for big screen or small?

What science fiction and fantasy books would make good movies or television series? It’s a question the world’s moviemakers and tv networks don’t seem to want to touch. I’m sure movie rights are owned and toughly negotiated by some authors. So I make this list completely independently of the legal issues of authors and their estates. I’ll concede that some great stories won’t work for television because the effects budget would be too darn high. Off the top of my head, here’s what I’d consider good to excellent possibilities, in no particular order:

Greg Bear’s Eon already has this trailer and others for an imaginary movie. It would make a great tv series, I think. The trilogy of novels based on an asteroid 300 kilometers long on the outside, but infinite on the inside, that has lots of potential for additional stories.

I’ve said before that either of two stories from Tolkien’s Silmarillion epic (please, not the whole thing!), the tales of Turin or of Beren and Luthien, would make outstanding movies. But not both together. It’s a mystery to me why a serious filmmaker would turn to the Hobbit before these two great tales.

I enjoy David Brin’s Uplift universe. The special effects needed for convincing dolphins, chimps, and gorillas would be a challenge, and I don’t see the point of filming an Uplift novel without them. That said, Startide Rising is well-plotted and contains one very cool space battle. It would be interesting to have a tv series based on the Uplift universe, perhaps based on the explorations of Helene Alvarez and her ship–that would be early in the Uplift sequence as published by Brin, in between books one and two.

I like Jack McDevitt‘s novels which are only getting better as they move along. Ditto the military sf series by Elizabeth Moon focused on Ky Vatta, which has five nice novels with good characters and action.

Isaac Asimov is possibly the most-recognized name within and outside of sf fandom, and though his books do get pretty wordy, I always thought a series based on his 48th century detective Elijah Baley (left) and robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw would be cool.

The libertarians among us might enjoy something of Robert Heinlein’s a little deeper that squashing bugs, something like The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

Short stories and novellas would be better fare for possible film, mainly because it’s easier to expand a good concept to film length than trim down a good story satisfactorily.

I’m not sure if I’m going to see the new movie. I’m reading another one of Greg Bear’s good books right now, and I’m enjoying it more than any fiction read I’ve had in the past year. Why see a movie when my imagination can click in so vividly at home. Or follow the exploits of present-day space explorers.

 

Derivation

My wife has Star Trek: Next Generation on in the background, one of the better season 2 episodes, “Elementary, Dear Data.” Episode and series contradict the premise of my post. There seems to be much congratulation about the fine end of the series Battlestar Galactica. Ron Moore did a good job with it, I hear, as he did with the ST:NG series. Moore’s specialty with Star Trek: the many great Klingon stories.

I find myself much less impressed.

The problem with tv science fiction is an extreme lack of originality. When they do hit something good, they try derivatives, otherwise known as spin-offs. The X-Files: now that was original. Who would have guessed an FBI agent as a malcontent? Firefly, too: the best science fiction series since 1987 at least. Great imagination to combine a Western with science fiction. It was crazy, but it worked brilliantly.

To a degree Star Trek and the other two good series derived from stories told before. But they spread out a good bit from the first notion, and mixed in a good dollop of their own originality. It’s no secret that the Star Trek series subsequent to the Picard edition dropped precipitously from the source material in both quality and popularity. tv geniuses figured Star Trek fans would welcome more stories somewhat like the ones they loved. And to a degree, we enjoyed them. For a while. But unlike true science fiction geniuses, they aimed for the safe, the tried and true, and played the game only to hold on to as much of an audience as they could as long as they could. Risk-taking? The temporal cold war, a woman captain, and a tortured commander of a space station.

What made the spinoff programs as good as they were? The original idea carried them a long way, plus the acting and writing was occasionally good. What we were really hoping to find was something truly original like Firefly. tv networks and movie studios routinely can’t deliver.

The SciFi network is promoting another Stargate spinoff. Clearly, they’re not looking for new ground. I see promotion in full swing for the eleventh Star Trek movie. Great: let’s go to an idea that worked forty years ago and spin it twenty years in the past. It sounds more like a historical costume drama than real science fiction. Same idea with the prequel Battlestar spinoff: it goes back into the past, too. More history masquerading as real science fiction.

They just don’t get it.

 

Coraline is Cool

The young miss needed a 150-page book for a book report. And she needed it quick, so we were off to the library Monday to find a tome, not made into a movie, at least 150 pages, and not lame. The librarian was most helpful, but as we were searching, I noticed Coraline on the YA shelf, so I put it in the young miss’s pile. It was an award-winner in the sf universe.

She didn’t choose it for her report, but I read it over the next day. It’s about as well-plotted as one could imagine, humor keeping interest until the scary stuff begins, and the scary stuff not trickling off until the very end.

I wouldn’t want to have my child reading it late at night in a dark and creaky household.

But I sure enjoyed it.

 

On My Bookshelf: A World Too Near

A few days ago I finished Kay Kenyon’s A World Too Near, the second in a science fiction series mostly taking place in a strange parallel universe not too “far” from ours.

This is good writing. Good enough to forgive what I thought were two big errors in the first book. This book develops the characters further, unravels their emotional lives, and puts seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their way. One notable point is the supporting cast: also well-drawn and complex, as any sentient characters should be.

My only quibble with this volume is Kenyon’s big wide universe, but very little wonder communicated about it. I’d recommend the first book if you haven’t read it. This one may be a notch below it, but not too far off. A series worth following.

 

On My Bookshelf: The Speed of Dark

Technically, this great book isn’t on my shelf any longer. It’s back at the library. I’ve been meaning to write a quick review for a few months now.

I first read Elizabeth Moon’s military science fiction, her five-volume series on the intrepid Kylara Vatta. I recommend that, unless you’re completely turned off by anything military. Moon plots very well, knows her science, builds good worlds, and seems to have the authentic whiff of military things.

Moon’s 2002 novel Speed of Dark is a significant kick-up from there. Most critics would place it in the top-ten of the decade. I would. Her protagonist, Lou, is an autistic man in a near future in which autism can be cured in early childhood. Unfortunately for Lou, he and his friends are among the last of the untreated autistic people.

Lou has choices to make in his personal life, so as a novel the reader is engaged by his challenges and a situation that grows increasingly unclear for him, if not dangerous.

This is great science fiction because it presents the reader with a what-if scenario that keeps one thinking long after the last page is read. In this case, what if a condition thought to be an affliction were cured. What about the people who were unable to be cured? What if they had lived their whole life and suddenly they could be treated, but it might change the very nature of who they are?

My wife was doing deaf studies a number of years ago. I was intrigued by the deaf culture and after I finished Speed of Dark I wondered what would happen if deafness were curable. If most deaf people opted for hearing, would it devastate a whole human culture? I was also thinking about homosexuality in that light. While some people I know are well-adapted and at peace with their sexual orientation, I’ve known others who weren’t. Suppose they could take a pill and change. I’m sure some people would do it. How would that exodus change the gay culture for those who remain?

In the book, Lou is on the receiving end of significant coercion from his employer to undergo the autism treatment. What if a seemingly good thing, like this cure, weren’t so good and moral if applied with a degree of evil?

A few years ago, one or two of you asked me what sf I would recommend to people who don’t read sf or don’t think they like it. This book would rocket to the top five of my list of sf books for the un-sf-initiated.

And like all great science fiction, this is just a darned good read for all the things a good book provides.

 

Ice, Echoes, and Amy

If the Catholic blogosphere were somehow a public gathering, I’d be tempted to run through it in a polar bear costume and yell, “I like Philip Pullman,” just for the spite of it. Instead, I get to read real books mostly before I go to bed at night.

I’d been meaning to read Alastair Reynolds’ Pushing Ice (reviewed here) for some time. On the other hand, I’ve also been avoiding it. What turned me off to the book was the plot synopsis about Saturn’s moon Janus peeling out of its orbit and shooting off into interstellar space. That just seemed like a too-weird pseudo-sf idea: where an author or filmmaker does something almost inexplicable and the point of the drama is how people react to it.
I had read a few of Reynolds’ earlier novels, and while I enjoyed them for ideas, I thought less of the character development and writing style.

Where this book was concerned, two out of three isn’t bad: good characters and a smoother style made up for aliens and a clunky moon leaving orbit. Like most good sf, it operates on different levels: a mystery as the humans try to discover what happened to them, a personal drama between two women vying for power and control, big sf ideas about the far future, small sf ideas about life on a spaceship.

Alien life isn’t a good thing in my book. There’s enough drama in the human mind and heart to keep a good story clicking. Maybe it’s my philosophy funk that tells me there are no aliens and we humans have the universe to ourselves. But I don’t need no stinkin’ aliens, even if they are called “Musk Dogs.”

On the other hand, The Echo Maker by Richard Powers was almost all about the inner realm of the human mind. It was not a fast read, but it was emotionally intense: a man who suffers an accident that impairs his brain, a caregiver sister who is not recognized, two love interests of the woman, a doctor whose professional and personal life implodes, and a mystery that slowly unravels.

And for film, we went to see Enchanted the other week. My wife liked it a lot. As did our daughter. I found it more fun and interesting than I thought it would be. And Amy Adams has a nice singing voice and good acting chops while being easy on the eyes.

I’m surprised Disney allows one of its own films to take a few pokes at the formula. The songwriting is not quite top shelf, though the music fits pretty well. Lucky thing the movie has a plot.

 

Tin Man on SciFi

I went into viewing this miniseries hoping I was going to be pleasantly surprised. I’ve been disappointed with most everything coming out of that network since the Dune adaptations several year back.

Too many low-budget horror flicks. Too much formula (like the Stargate spinoffs). Too much putting the laughs into their signature network ads instead of a little bit into Battlestar. Too much playing it safe. Why on earth don’t these people negotiate for a film version of a Hugo or Nebula award-winning story?

It’s been almost seventy years since the original film of The Wizard of Oz so maybe we can say it’s time for a remake.

Like any other form of film fiction, sf depends on two things: writing and acting.

The network got one thing right: they went to a great book. They got another thing right: they had the guts to adapt a story in a clever and possibly controversial way. They cast the title role (don’t ask why the title: I cant’ figure it out, two hours in) and the young woman lead way right. I hope it wasn’t good luck.

If they spent big bucks on Dreyfuss, they should’ve instead picked up Helena Bonham Carter or someone of her caliber for the role of the sorceress. Because some of the acting from the supporting cast is lame, lame, lame. I noticed Gwyneth Walsh in the credits. She played one of the Klingon sisters in Star Trek with enough camp and life to breathe it into the villain. But heaven forbid a network would actually sink a financial investment into a woman actor. Too bad, because this miniseries might have done more than just tread water if they had.

I repeat my question above: why, why, o why don’t these people negotiate for a film version of an award-winning novel? A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Doomsday Book, The Forever War, Man Plus, Startide Rising, Rite of Passage, A Fire Upon The Deep … any number of great novels would make great tv fare. Among sf fans, you have a consensus of good writing in this stuff. Instead they give us 30′s pulp, flavored by 50′s sexism, made up pretty with 90′s special effects.

 

Red Seas Under Red Skies

I enjoyed Scott Lynch’s second novel, and I’d recommend it to any reader, as I would his first, which I posted on earlier this year.

Lynch has gotten a lot of attention with his writing. Well-deserved, I would say. The few reviews I’ve seen think Red Seas is a superior book. Probably, imo. There were elements of this book that made it seem more like a patchwork of his main characters’ lives. It wasn’t quite as single-minded as the first book. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the pirate interlude in the middle of the narrative. I got to fifty pages before the end and I wondered when Locke and his friend were finally going to tie all their plans together–and was that Lynch going to leave a monster cliffhanger now that he got his contract. But things got settled mostly satisfactorily.

The fantasy/sf publishing industry certainly has its mind made up to publish serials, and while I prefer stand-alone books (and movies, for that matter) if the story and characters have hooked us, who’s to say we’re not going to read the rest of the tale.

Shows a darned lack of trust in the abilities of the sf readership universe and its authors, though.