The SF Library: Mandatory Anthology #1 "Adventures in Time and Space"

If you want to get a good sense of the "Golden Age" of Science Fiction, there is no better volume to have on your Science Fiction bookshelf than the Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas edited Adventures in Time and Space.

 Adventures in Time and Space is an anthology making an argument for the literary merit of Science Fiction as a genre.  It was originally published in 1946 -- one year after the dawn of the Atomic Age and the end of the Second World War.  I own the 1957 Modern Library Edition, and it is a book I return to often when I think about what Science Fiction is as a genre and where it can go "literarily."  The genre has had some fine wordsmiths -- Heinlein, Asimov, Iain Banks, C.L. Moore -- come immediately to mind, but it is a genre that still suffers under the shadow of the poorest written "Space Westerns" of the genre.  It is this shadow that Healy and McComas were trying to destroy.  These editors believe that by 1946 Science Fiction as a genre had found its place as a literary genre, a genre of truly imaginative literature.  And they believed that the elevation of Science Fiction as a literary form was largely due to the work of one editor, John W. Campbell Jr.  As they put it in the introduction to the Modern Library edition:

"Critics have called this the 'definitive' anthology of science fiction stories.  We agree -- not just because it flatters us, but because it is an accurate judgment of the magazine editor who first published most of the stories in this collection.

That man was John W. Campbell, Jr. And perhaps no one man ever had a greater influence over a literary form, for Campbell single-handedly revolutionized the writing of -- and possibly more importantly -- the thinking in modern science fiction.

He created what all of us -- readers, writers and editors -- refer to as the Golden Age of twentieth-century imaginative literature. You are about to read the golden bests of that golden time.

Prior to Campbell's advent as editor of Astounding Stories in 1937, science fiction had badly deteriorated from the standard set by its great founders, Wells and Verne. While some editors strove for genuinely interesting scientific speculation, they allowed such challenging postulations to be presented in a framework of atrocious prose. Generally, however, magazines nominally presenting science fiction offered science that was claptrap and fiction that was graceless and dull.

Campbell changed all that...

As I read those words today, I don't think that Healy and McComas are overstating Campbell's influence.  Campbell is an editor whose shadow looms large over the genre, just as Lin Carter's looms over fantasy, or August Derleth's looms over the Weird Tale.  There have been great editors since Campbell, but he was among the first great editors of the genre.  This is especially telling in the themes of the stories he edited.

Read Asimov's Foundation stories and A.E. Van Vogt's Space Beagle and Slan stories in one straight run, and you will notice themes emerging.  Asimov's "psychohistory" and Van Vogt's "nexialism" sound very similar to each other thematically, and they are applied in similar ways.  Both of these disciplines are collections of the skills of other disciplines, they are a kind of "master science."  This optimistic theme of a rigorous social science that could better our lives is a common undercurrent in Campbellian fiction.  It is one of the hallmarks of his tenure...as is optimism itself.  It is sometimes striking how optimistic Campellian fiction is.  Even when it is skeptical -- like Herbert's Dune -- it contains optimism.  For what are Mentats and the Bene Gesserit, but practitioners of Nexialism and Psychohistory?

Adventures in Time and Space doesn't include Dune World or Slan, but it contains stories with many of the same themes.  Among my favorite tales are:

• Robert Heinlein's "Requiem" and "The Roads Must Roll"
• Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore's "Time Locker" and "The Twonky" -- written as Lewis Padgett.  Moore and Kuttner seem to be to be vastly under-read by the modern SF reader.  C.L. Moore is arguably my favorite SF author, her combination of the weird and the wondrous are magnificent.
• John W. Campbell, Jr's "Who Goes There?" which is the story that the classic SF films THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and THE THING are based upon.  Campbell published this story under his Don A. Stuart pseudonym.
• Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall"
• A.E. VanVogt's "Black Destroyer" -- possibly my favorite SF story.  Readers will notice its influence in Ridley Scott's ALIEN and in the STAR TREK franchise.  The Space Beagle and its mission are surprisingly similar to that of the Enterprise and nexialism and Mr. Spock have a lot in common.
• Harry Bates' "Farewell to the Master" was the inspiration for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and stands as a classic tale far better than the "cold war bigger bully scares us straight" narrative of the film.

There are 35 tales in all in the anthology and they are tales that I return to again and again.  Much like Carter's "Adult Fantasy" series with its many fantasy anthologies, Adventures in Time and Space belongs on your bookshelf.

If only Erik Mona and Paizo had managed to get the rights to do a Planet Stories edition of the book before that line went on hiatus.  I would have loved to see this anthology with some artwork from their stable.  If only because the Coerl of "Black Destroyer" is also the influence behind the D&D monster the Displacer Beast.

SyFy's Mercury Men -- "Skyscraper Saboteurs"

"Skyscraper Saboteurs," the second episode of the intriguing Mercury Men web series, went live this morning. The episode builds on all the qualities that worked in the first episode, and features fewer of the drawbacks. It appears that the series is quickly getting past the sense of "pilotitis" I felt regarding the first episode.

The series takes place in Pittsburgh in 1975 where Jack Yeager (Curt Wootton) -- a character wonderfully inspired by classic pulp figures -- discovers a sinister plan by Venusian invaders, a plan that only he can stop. Lucky for the Earth, Jack is a combination Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, and Blackhawk:

Daring League captain, aerospace engineer, and former US Air Force pilot, Jack travels the galaxy to explore unknown worlds, new alien races, and advanced technological wonders. Always at Jack's side is the Lumiére, his trusted revolver which fires bolts of condensed light. Jack is dispatched to Earth to investigate the glowing men of Mercury.

Like the pilot, I do have some complements and criticisms regarding the episode, but watch the episode first. It is well worth your time. Join me in discovering the sinister plan of the Mercury Men!

Pros:

I've got to give the production team at Mercury Men Pictures credit for their focus on sound design. Poor design can really tank a feature, particularly a genre feature, but the MMP crew have added some interesting environmental sound effects that add depth to the feature. I am particularly fond of the "fuzz" sound of the Mercury Men themselves.

The visuals continue to be fairly impressive. I was particularly impressed by the scene where our heroes were on one side of a wall constructed of glass bricks, and the Mercury Men were on the other. The image where we look through Jack's looking glass was also impressive as it included "warping" around the edges and was more than a mere "circular cutout" image. Jack's hologram projector was a nice touch, and a nice effect.

Like the serials that Mercury Men is based upon, the MMP crew use a lot of visual storytelling. When the Mercury Men's plan is revealed, it is shown and not told. Very nice!

Cons:

I still find Mark Tierno's performance as Edward Borman a little forced. He seems to be acting in a style more akin to silent films than talkies. He isn't bad, but his movements have an odd fluidity that seems natural in a purely visual story. His line delivery is good, but I'm on the fence. If Edward gets blasted by the invaders I won't be overly distraught.

When Jack and Edward are walking down a stairway there is a wipe effect -- a nice homage to the serials -- that goes against the movement of the action taking place. This has the visual effect of slowing down the pace of the story and decreasing urgency. It almost feels as if the action is being rewound. I think wipes should follow movement, not run against the grain. Just a personal opinion.

Now that I've seen the story so far, I am more convinced than ever that I need to lift ideas from it for a short term Savage Worlds or Cortex+ campaign. I will certainly be statting up some of the characters as the show goes on and we learn more about them.

The MMP crew have captured the tone perfectly. This show is obviously done of love of the material and lacks the kind of ironic distance that too often seeps into the gaps and ruins a good story. Let's hope they keep it up. If their website, and their digital props, are any hint I think they will.

I already wish they'd build a flash based game based on their fictional Atari 2600 game.

[Blogging Northwest Smith] "The Cold Gray God"

Catherine Lucille Moore's seventh Northwest Smith tale, "The Cold Gray God," takes place in a city named Righa -- "pole city of Mars." One imagines that the location of Righa isn't too distant from the polar mountains where Smith and his trusty companion Yarol explored an ancient temple to a forgotten deity in "Dust of the Gods."

The "Dust" and "Cold" stories share many qualities, both take place in polar environments -- highlighting Moore's frequently used theme equating cold with evil. Both of the stories deal with forgotten Martian gods -- one can imagine the possibility that the forgotten Martian god is the same entity in both versions. The primary motivation for Northwest Smith to become involved in the narrative is the same in these stories...his overwhelming sense of curiosity. To be fair, most of the Smith adventures are triggered, in one way or another, by his curiosity.

"Dust" began with Smith and Yarol drinking segir whiskey and commiserating about their lack of finances. "The Cold Gray God" begins with an enigmatic female strolling down the streets of Righa, a city filled with the desperate and sinister, completely indifferent to any danger that might lurk around the next corner. The woman notices Smith, approaches him, and lays her hand upon his arm. Her touch gives Smith, "a queer little start, involuntar[y], like a shiver quickly suppressed." We know from earlier descriptions that the woman is beautiful, so the fact that her slightest touch causes shiver-like starts in a character as jaded as Smith gives us our first hint that something is deeply amiss with the woman.

Smith accompanies the woman back to her home, a traditional Martian home. For the first time in the Northwest Smith stories Moore gives us a glimpse into the Martian architecture in a way that sets it apart from the architecture of the American West. Moore takes a wonderful leap into making the Mars of the Smith tales truly alien, or at least fantastic.

The room they entered was immemorially ancient, changelessly Martian. Upon the dark stone floor, polished by the feet of countless generations, lay the furs of saltland beasts and the thick-pelted animals of the pole. The stone walls were incised with those inevitable, mysterious symbols which have become nothing more than queer designs now, though a million years ago they bore deep significance. No Martian house, old or new, lacks them, and no living Martian knows their meaning.

These three sentences can be unpacked to create encyclopedias of information about Mars and its history. The way that they trigger the imagination is a wonder. Read them, let the significance of what they mean sink in, and imagine the potential consequences. Moore's Mars is a world that has architecturally stagnated. It's buildings tell stories of forgotten empires; stories that are no longer understood. What are those mysterious symbols? What do they mean? What do they say about ancient Martian society? The lack of immediate answers to these questions hints that the story will portray the folly of forgetting the past, a hint transferred to full foreshadowing with the next paragraph.

Remotely they must be bound up with the queer, cold darkness of that strange religion which once ruled Mars and which dwells still in the heart of every true Martian, though its shines are secret now and its priests discredited. Perhaps if one could read those symbols they would tell the name of the cold god whom Mars worships still, in its heart of hearts, yet whose name is never spoken.

These words are ominous enough, but having read "Dust of the Gods" these words were more frightful than they would otherwise be. For in "Dust," Smith had encountered what may be the very remnants of this forgotten, discredited, yet still worshiped entity. The cosmic horror of a people who have "rejected" and forgotten a deity, yet still worship the deity in their heart of hearts, is wonderfully chilling. It's a sentiment that even Lovecraft never touched upon. Imagine a society that has left behind and rejected horrible evil, even forgotten it, but still echoes that evil by the very fact of that society's existence. Evil, even abandoned and forgotten evil, lingers forever on Mars.

Having informed us of the lingering evil that threatens Mars, Moore returns us to the "simple" story she began -- a tale of someone hiring a rogue to do some less than legal activity. Throughout the hiring/negotiation scene Moore re-emphasizes the discomfort that Smith feels in the presence of the woman, who we now know is named Judai. Under normal circumstances Smith shouldn't feel disdain for her. "He wondered briefly why he disliked even to look at her, for she seemed lovelier each time his gaze rested upon that exquisitely tinted face." Judai had once been a famous singer whose beauty and songs had captured the hearts of the solar system. Smith should feel elated that he has rediscovered this lost celebrity, yet his intuition makes him feel uncomfortable in her presence.

The mission Judai wants to hire Smith for is a simple one. A man has a box that Judai values and Smith is to acquire the box. For his efforts, Smith will be rewarded richly. Given that Smith's intuition is virtually screaming at him to leave the presence of this woman, and that Smith soon receives formal warning from someone he trusts that Judai isn't to be trusted, he should decline the job. As usual though, Smith's sense of adventure overcomes his intuition and good sense and he agrees to take up the job and acquire the box.

What follows is immensely entertaining, and not worth spoiling. Throughout the tale, the connections between this story and "Dust" continually echoed in the back of my mind. So did Moore's pattern of equating sexual attraction -- pure sexual attraction and not a higher "marriage of true minds" attraction -- with danger and death. Judai is a beautiful Venusian woman, as so many of the women who have put Smith in danger seem to be, but she exudes evil and danger from her very pores.

This story also highlights another of Moore's narrative devices, that of the importance of friends in surviving danger. Smith rarely saves his own hide in his adventures. Were it not for his trusty companion Yarol, Smith would not have survived his encounter with "Shambleau." Yarol is absent in this tale, otherwise one would guess that Smith would not have stepped as far into danger as he eventually does in this story. Yarol had accompanied Smith on his journey into the hidden arctic temple of a forgotten Martian god after all, and may have been sensitive to what was about to occur in this story.

Like many of the Smith tales, this one demonstrates how mundane actions can have monumental consequences. One can only imagine the damage that would have been wrought had Smith delivered the "Dust" in "Dust of the Gods." One gets to see what is released when Smith delivers the box in this story.

Cosmic Horrors are not to be trifled with. Thankfully Smith is made of sterner psychic stuff than your typical Lovecraftian protagonist. His psyche's ability to endure the horrific and bizarre is only matched by his curiosity to encounter the unknown.

Previous Blogging Northwest Smith Entries:

6)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Nymph of Darkness"
5)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Julhi"
4)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Dust of the Gods"
3)Blogging Northwest Smith: "Scarlet Dream"
2) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Black Thirst"
1) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Shambleau"

[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Nymph of Darkness"

"Nymph of Darkness" is the first of the Northwest Smith stories to be written in collaboration with another author. C L Moore's collaborator on this piece was none other than an 18 year-old science fiction fan named Forrest Ackerman. Forry, as his friends called him, died on 12/4/2008 at the age of 92. I had hoped to have this entry posted on the anniversary of his death, and to spend some time praising Forry's contributions to Sci-Fi. Not the least of these contributions is the creation of the term "Sci-Fi," a term unabashedly used by those fans who care more about entertainment than present day literary acknowledgement. Make no mistake, I enjoy literary Science Fiction. I just happen to enjoy my Sci-Fi as well, and make no bones about it.

I apologize for the delay, but it comes with a fairly good reason. I had remembered reading a version of "Nymph of Darkness" in Forrest Ackerman's Ackermanthology Millennium Edition compilation. I also remembered that Forry had pointed out that there were two version of the story. A "spicier" version of the story was printed in the April 1935 issue of the fan magazine Fantasy Magazine, while a much "expurgated" version of the story was published in the December 1939 issue of Weird Tales. I needed to hunt down my copy of Ackermanthology! in order to look at some of the notes Forry provided regarding the collaboration. I had also hoped to compare the Weird Tales version to the Fantasy Magazine version, but Paizo has thankfully provided us with the "real thing" and not the "expurgated" story. An examination of the Weird Tales version will have to wait.

"Nymph of Darkness" begins very similarly to "Black Thirst." In both tales, Northwest Smith is wandering the waterfront of the Venusian city of Ednes. The danger of the waterfront is emphasized in both stories, as is the darkness of the Venusian sky -- a fact that is even more important in this story than in "Black Thirst." In "Nymph of Darkness," Smith once again finds himself in the path of a woman who may be in need of his aide, but something is different this time. In the end, a couple of things end up being different, but the initial difference is a difference in Smith himself. In earlier Smith stories, Northwest has almost leapt to the aide of damsels in distress. In this story, he is far more cautious. Given Smith's caution, this is definitely a Smith story that takes place after the events of "Shambleau." Moore describes Smith as follows, "He wanted no sound to indicate his own presence to the terror from which the woman fled. Ten years before he might have dashed out to her -- but ten years along the spaceways teaches a man prudence. Gallantry can be foolhardy sometimes, particularly along the waterfront, where any score of things might be in close pursuit."

Before we continue, I'd like to state that of the Moore stories in the Smith series, this tale starts the most awkwardly. I don't credit this to the collaboration, so much as it seems that the opening paragraphs lack the strong hand of an editor. Where prior Smith tales set the tone effectively without repetitive paragraphs, this tale wanders a little before it gets going. In the first paragraph we are told twice that the Patrol is too afraid of the waterfront to police it effectively, an unnecessary redundancy. The second paragraph of the story begins with this clumsy sentence, "Through the breathless blackness, along a street beneath which the breathing waters whispered, Northwest Smith strolled slowly."

The use of alliteration here might be appreciated, "breathless blackness," "waters whispered," and "strolled slowly" if not for the repetition of the use of "breath." One likes "breathless blackness," but is pulled out of the narrative by "breathing waters" so close after the other construction. I like what Moore is attempting here, but I would have liked another editorial pass through these paragraphs. That said, the rest of the story moves a quite a clip and the awkwardness of the first two paragraphs hints more at Moore's mind groping for some construction that will get the story moving. Eventually she does, and later examples of alliteration pull the reader in effectively.

Ackerman supplied the original outline for the story, and invented the name of the nymph of the tale -- Nyusa. In Ackermanthology!, Forry assures us that Nyusa was the result of experimenting with sounds rather than being made up from the initials of the major metropolis N.Y., U.S.A. One thinks Forry might be protesting too much here and, given Moore's later honesty in her creation of names, one wishes he would admit the play on words if it is really there. Moore admits in the collaborative that Ednes comes from the middle of the word Wednesday.

Despite Smith's caution, he still ends up running into the girl and aiding her against her pursuer. This pursuer is a shambling humanoid creature named Dolf, who pursues Nyusa wielding some sort of greenish light. The purpose of this light is revealed shortly. Smith has run into the nymph, but neither he nor the girl have seen each other. They have been relying on sound and touch due to the deep darkness of the Venusian night. Nyusa eventually guides Smith into a building and she asks him to lift her to turn on a light. When he does, he notices that while he is holding the weight of a woman in his arms -- he cannot see the body. Nyusa is completely invisible, except when certain wavelengths of light interact with her own natural skin color. At these times she becomes a semi-translucent and mist-like figure. Moore's inspiration for the cause of invisibility, as she makes clear in her letters to Forry, is Ambrose Bierce's tale "That Damned Thing." Bierce's tale was the inspiration for a couple of H P Lovecraft stories as well ("The Colour Out of Space" and "Dunwich Horror"). The shambling Dolf's greenish light is constructed to reveal Nyusa's presence.

The source of Nyusa's invisibility is also the source of both sides of the narrative tension in the story. Nyusa is the daughter of some god of Darkness, echoes of "Dunwich Horror" here, and that god's worshipers use Nyusa by having her dance under the eerie green illumination as a part of their prayer rituals -- rituals devoted to her father. She is portrayed as an unwilling participant in the rituals of these creatures, known as the Nov, the reader (and Smith) likely assume that her resistance to participating in the rituals stems from some rejection of Darkness. We are, after all, used to our damsels in distress tales.

But Moore will have none of this. The Nov, who are white amorphous slug like creatures, may have a mystical hold on Nyusa forcing her to perform rituals praising her father, but her desire to leave has nothing to do with revulsion of things man is better for not knowing. No, her desire to be free stems from a desire to fully explore the Darkness within herself. She wants to be free and to have the power of her Darkness grow, not to have it restrained by the ceremonies of the wretched Nov -- who use her, but do not praise her properly.

Smith doesn't know this as he watches the dance ritual. He only sees the revolting visages of the Nov, and hears the approach of Dolf. Smith slays Dolf, and one of the high priests of the Nov. This frees Nyusa from the hold the Nov had upon her and Smith witnesses her partial apotheosis into a being of Darkness. For his "gallantry," Smith is rewarded with a kiss. The kiss is both cold and filled with love, a combination of human warmth and unimaginable Darkness.

Once more, Moore has played with the damsel in distress story and added her typical spin. Nyusa's sensuality is a thing of danger, where non-sexual love would have been something safe. Smith begins the tale wary of attempting to rescue a girl because he is afraid of what her pursuers might be capable of. He finishes the tale wary of that which he has helped to liberate. To be fair, Nyusa would likely have been free soon enough without Smith's aid, but Smith was there to witness her apotheosis and helped to hasten it.

One thinks that maybe Smith should have trusted his cautious instincts a little bit more than he did.

Who knows what long term ramifications this will have upon the fate of the universe?

Previous Blogging Northwest Smith Entries:

6)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Nymph of Darkness"
5)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Julhi"
4)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Dust of the Gods"
3)Blogging Northwest Smith: "Scarlet Dream"
2) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Black Thirst"
1) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Shambleau"

Has Science Fiction Leaving the Ghetto Meant the Beginning of a Post Sci-Fi Age? Stupid Question #3182

I have always been a Sci-Fi fan, a scifi fan, and a skiffy fan. While there is much to admire in the philosophically or politically sophisticated science fiction story, or the well-written literary SF tale, I have always liked literature that knew what its purpose was and fulfilled that purpose. The purpose of a Sci-Fi story is to entertain an audience with visions of the possible, and impossible, in an exciting and enthusiastic manner.

The Sci-Fi story doesn't spend pages upon pages describing sophisticated political systems, though there is nothing wrong in doing so in other sub-genre of Science Fiction. Instead, the Sci-Fi story uses readily recognizable archetypes as shortcuts for the audience to follow. Sci-Fi is Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Luke Skywalker, Northwest Smith, and Vic Corsaire.

One could probably get into long arguments regarding what is or isn't Sci Fi versus what is or isn't SF (literary Science Fiction), and those are fun discussions to have, but that is not the intention of this post today. Today, I am here to once again lament those who insult and deprecate Sci Fi in favor of a literary sub-genre they believe to be a far more noble pursuit. For these individuals, the ideal Science Fiction tale ought to be literary and "important." The SF story should touch on topical issues and present intelligent arguments about these issues. Such works include, but are by no means limited to, works like Asimov's Foundation, the works of H.G. Wells, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Huxley's Brave New World, and Iain Bank's "Culture" novels. All of which are works to be admired, and are great literature and great Science Fiction, but none of which are the be all and end all of Science Fiction. In fact, many might not stumble into these wonderful stories if they weren't first enticed by the "fluff" contained in "skiffy."

As you can tell, I am an unabashed fan of the "skiffy." My fandom was carved deeper into my soul after I attended a Forrest J. Ackerman panel at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con. There's something about sitting in a room where the audience is fewer than 20 people in the audience of like-minded fans that solidifies one's fandom. It doesn't hurt when one of them is John Landis (sitting right next to you) and he keeps elbowing you just before Forrest Ackerman's punchlines and is mouthing the words to each of Forry's stories. It was obvious that Landis had talked with Forry numerous times and that each time was magical. That kind of excitement is contagious.

All of which brings me to an article by Damien Walter at the Guardian book blog. I first got word of the book blog entry thanks to the excellent folks over at SF Signal, where they asked if the "Sci Fi" label still applied. Their answer is identical to mine, "Yes, the Sci Fi label is still important." But after reading their post, and the piece in the Guardian, I realized that a short rebuttal of Mr. Walter's blog post was insufficient as a response to Mr. Walter's post.

In the Guardian piece, Damien Walter begs the question of whether we as a popular culture are now "post sci-fi." His central thesis seems to be that "with sci-fi filling up every corner of cinema and TV and mainstream literature borrowing its ideas freely" there is no further place for the literary tradition to advance now that it has become a cultural phenomenon. His post is an articulation which might as well be renamed "The End of Sci-Fi and the Last Man."

One of Walter's key arguments is that "the walls of speculative fiction [that dread phrase -- C.L.] as a genre are quickly tumbling down. They are being demolished from within by writers such as China Miéville and Jon Courtney Grimwood, and scaled from the outside by the likes of Michael Chabon and Lev Grossman. And they are being ignored altogether by a growing number of writers with the ambition to create great fiction, and the vision to draw equally on genre and literary tradition to achieve that goal."

This is all well and good. It is even true as far as it goes, but it demonstrates (as Walter does elsewhere in the piece) a complete lack of understanding regarding the literary history of Fantastic Literature and Fantasy. What were the Iliad and the Odyssey, if not works of Fantasy or "Speculative Fiction?" What was A Midsummer-Night's Dream and The Tempest, if not Fantasy? The Faerie Queene? The Rime of the Ancient Mariner? Beowulf? The Oresteia? The Eddas? What is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward if not Science Fiction?

All of the above a great literary works, written to be great fiction, and yet all of them fit neatly within any imagined definition of Fantasy or Fantastic Fiction. True, few of them are Science Fiction qua Science Fiction, but SF is the sub-genre not the genre -- a simple fact that Walter gets horribly wrong in his piece. To quote, "yet the literary tradition that has its roots in HG Wells and Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe and George MacDonald, that grew through the writing of Tolkien, Lieber, Howard, Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov, and branched into the modern genres of fantasy, horror and science fiction, may have reached its fruition."

HG Wells and Jules Verne are the "roots" of the tradition? One might think of them as the branches closest to the trunk of the tree, but the roots? Is Walter serious? All the writers Walter mentioned are influenced by those works of Fantasy that predate them. One might argue that the 20th century was one where the literary world felt compelled to carve unnecessary categories into the literary landscape, categories designed to serve market interests, but one oughtn't think of 19th century writers as the root of a tradition. Don't even get me going on how one would attempt to draw a direct literary line from Wells to Howard.

It is not baffling that Walter piled Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction together, as they are both sub-genres of the Fantastic Tradition. That is true, but so is the work of Michael Chabon. Anyone who thinks Gentlemen of the Road is an attempt to scale the walls of Fantasy genre fiction from the "outside" is woefully mistaken. Gentlemen of the Road is a wonderful story in the direct tradition of Fritz Lieber, with no pretenses to being something else. It should be noted that much of the fiction of Avram Davidson is as worthy of literary consideration as that of Michael Chabon, and was as genre breaking for its day.

Just because Michael Chabon can draw from literary traditions other than the Fantastic Tradition when writing a story isn't a sign that we are in a "post sci-fi" era. It is merely a sign that Fantastic Fiction is ending a period of incestuousness where it fed off of itself for as long as it could. The fact that people are talking about the science fiction, or fantastic, elements of "literary fiction" is a sign that speculative fiction [that dread term again] is overcoming a certain stigma given it by literary critics and by "fans" who deride the fiction within their sub-genre which seeks to appeal to a wider audience.



*3182 is the number of lines in the epic poem Beowulf and his used here because of the muddled way Damien Walter articulates the lineage of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Hulu Recommendation Friday: The Brain That Would Not Die

Need I say more?!

Hulu Recommendation Friday: Buck Rogers

Given the recent discussions of Planetary Romance, it is natural to recommend the 1979 Buck Roger's television show starring Gil Gerard. The TV series falls somewhere between Space Opera and Planetary Romance. I'll leave it for you to decide exactly where. Many of the plots in Buck Rogers are similar to PR stories, but the emphasis on space fighter battles makes a good case for Space Opera. Regardless, the show's first season had a two part storyline entitled "Planet of the Slave Girls." The episodes aired back to back, if Hulu's airing dates are to be trusted, on September 27, 1979 and Buster Crabbe (the original Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon) made a cameo appearance.

And no one would argue that Buster Crabbe, who played both Flash Gordon (a Planetary Romance classic) and Tarzan (a character created by the father of the field) doesn't belong in a discussion of the genre.

Sporadic Geek Update (9/3/09)

Once in a while I like to imitate the excellent Morning Medieval Miscellany done by Professor Scott Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard. Doing a daily update of all things pop culture related would be an absurd task for an amateur blogger. I much prefer doing individual posts highlighting things that interest me, at least as my "regular" post technique. But there are times when it's nice to kick out a Sporadic Geek Update featuring things that might otherwise be overlooked.

Following the merger between Marvel and Disney, Sony has backed off on the Spectacular Spider-Man Cartoon. Does this mean that Spidey is headed over to Toon Disney? What about the new Avengers and Iron Man cartoons?

SF Signal has a good discussion about what San Diego Comic Con can learn from Worldcon and vice-versa. With the exception of the highly predictable "pretentiously disdainful view from the old guard" by Lev Grossman, the comments are excellent. Notice the difference between his snarky anti-"common fan" rant and the insightful comments by Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books. Lassen presents the difference between the SF "tourist" and the SF "devotee" as a good thing and looks at each con in its proper light. Grossman, a critic for Time Magazine and best selling SF/Fantasy, slanders the unwanted popular rabble in a fashion typical for one who favors "literary" works.

Lassen's Night Shade Books is a publisher of books important to the SF/F historiography. Night Shade keeps alive brilliant writers like Manly Wade Wellman and Clark Ashton Smith by releasing beautiful editions of their works. They also promote exciting, and often overlooked, new talents like Liz Williams and her Detective Inspector Chen series.

Lassen's trying to bring in new fans and introduce them to classics. Grossman is content to denigrate those who are introduced to SF/F via Hollywood. This is ironic, because Grossman's blog at Time isn't usually so filled with venom, and his writing is engaging. One expects a little, "I wish the casual fan understood how rich the SF genre is," but one would rather not read "the rapid expansion and mainstreaming of -- for want of a better term -- nerd culture is a dangerous thing." This isn't to say there isn't room for criticism of SDCC, and how commercial it has become, just that I would have rather read it without the snark. Snark is so 90s.

Matt Tarbit has done a wonderful job in creating a visual representation, with links, to all the games featured in Green Ronin's wonderful Hobby Games: The 100 Best. If you are looking for the perfect resource as an introduction to "Hobby Gaming," you cannot do any better than this book and Tarbit's webpage gives you the pictures the book lacks.

Wolfgang Baur, and his exciting Open Design Project, have announced three new projects that are awaiting patron support. I am particularly excited about Red Eye of Azathoth, though I wish they were offering it in Gumshoe format in addition to Pathfinder and Basic Roleplaying.

Kobold Quarterly has an excellent interview with Joseph Goodman regarding the state of the role playing game industry.

Catalyst Labs, the Battletech people, have a good blog post about role playing gaming and "those kids today."

Topless Robot -- Village Voice Media -- provides us with a trailer for the next installment in the Star Blazers saga. Like the writer on that site, Star Blazers was my first anime. I eagerly awaited each new episode as a kid. I have embedded the preview below, but head on over to the website and give them some traffic.

Progressive Boink has a demonstration of the typical immature fanboy hatred of Rob Liefeld. Liefeld is certainly not among the best artists in the field, but in a field filled with talented artists who are constantly behind deadline Liefeld is a worker. I remember reading in the introduction to a Hawk and Dove trade paperback that Liefeld was one of the most tenacious "submitters" in DC Comics history. He was constantly submitting work and had a huge productivity level. He is also one of those who expanded artist's rights within the industry, took on powerhouse Marvel, and was one of the founders of Image Comics. Image is to this day one of the shining lights of the industry and promotes a number of excellent titles -- books like Invincible, or a number of other titles. Sometimes an artist's legacy isn't in the work itself, but in what that artist has done for the field as a whole. He still cannot draw feet, but he certainly didn't deserve the treatment he received from "Yellow Hat Guy."

I Can Stop Pretending to Like Dollhouse

According to Variety, Tim Minear will be working on an updated version of the science fiction classic Alien Nation for Fox 21. The show is being developed for release on the Sci Fi network in what Fox 21 hopes will be another successful "franchise revival" from the Sci Fi network.

As was mentioned earlier on this blog, I am a fan of Tim Minear's. I'm so much of a fan that I have been lying about how much I like Dollhouse. I watched every episode, out of love for the creators, but I often found myself asking the television, "Really?!" Dollhouse just never seemed to figure out what its core conflict was and never really convinced me why I should sympathize with the corporation behind the Dollhouse.

I firmly believe that Minear is the right creator for an update of Alien Nation. In the Variety article Minear states, "Twenty years (after 'Alien Nation'), TV as a whole has evolved, and you can explore issues and go deeper with subject matter than you ever could before. On cable, you can play with ambiguity. This is a place I want to be."

If I were one who believed in omens, I would certainly say that cable -- in particular Sci Fi -- is a place that Minear belongs. Minear's shows have a long history of being aired on Friday nights where they wither and die under the curse of the Friday Night Death Slot. Unlike other networks, most of Sci Fi's most successful shows air on Friday nights and this may well include Minear's reinterpretation of Alien Nation.

Sci Fi may be crazy for attempting to change their name to Syfy, but between hiring John Scalzi to work on the next Stargate show and having a show for their network being developed by Minear, the network is well on its way to once more becoming a Sci Fi network instead of a "Ghost Hunters" network.

Marc Bernardin and I Agree. Buffy Doesn't Belong on a List of Women Who Shook Sci-Fi

Marc Bernardin, Cinerati/Geekerati friend and writer for Entertainment Weekly, has a brief discussion of Total Sci-Fi's "The 25 Women Who Shook Sci-Fi." Bernardin asserts, and I strongly agree, that Buffy has no place on a list of Science Fiction leading ladies.

Fantasy and Science Fiction are not the same thing. Yes, Science Fiction is technically Fantasy -- even hard science icon Isaac Asimov had the Mule with his psionic talents and his PSYCHOLOGY using leading man in Second Foundation. Like it or not, there is no real scientific evidence of mind control powers, even when possessed by sterile genetic mutations. Science Fiction often deals with the fantastic, because it is a sub-genre of Fantasy. This means it is more specific, it deals with science. If the vampires of the Buffyverse were the product of a disease as in Richard Matheson's I am Legend, or The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price which was inspired by that tale, then she might qualify. But that isn't the case. You see, there is this thing called the Hell Mouth in the Buffyverse and that's straight from the Fantasy playbook.

But my beefs aren't limited to the inclusion of Buffy. I'm peeved at those who were left out of the list in order to include Fantasy characters like Buffy and Willow.

What about Wilma Deering (as played by Erin Grey)?



Or how about Lornette "Mace" Mason?



Or, if you want to reach into crossover genre territory, Emma Peel?



And that's just some of the important TV and film leading ladies left out. Don't even get me going on how egregious it is for any list of SF&Fantasy heroines to leave of Jirel of Joiry. Not to mention real life heroines of SF&Fantasy like Catherine Lucille Moore and Leigh Brackett (to mention only two).

Happy News (I'm Back) and Sad News (Michael Crichton has Died)

The good news is that I will be able to post, if infrequently for the next few weeks, on a regular basis. I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for a couple of weeks helping schools prepare for simulation elections. I was able to coordinate and facilitate 26 simultaneous simulation elections for this Presidential Election. It was the most schools we have done at one time and I had a great time organizing the events.

Now to compile the results...which should take a little while as I don't have the same equipment as County Registrar Recorders and have to hand count ballots for schools that have participating populations ranging from 30 to 1500. Whew!

On a sad note, Michael Crichton has passed away. Crichton has always been one of my favorite science fiction writers. I know there are some who wouldn't give him that label, as he was of the "best seller" and thriller genre, but he was one of the modern giants for me. Maybe not as high up there as Iain M. Banks and Tim Powers, but up there none the less.

Crichton was responsible for my favorite science fiction film as a kid, WESTWORLD, a film which holds up surprisingly well and which likely inspired the very fun Dream Park series of novels by Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes.

He was also responsible for one of the most realistic science fiction films ever made, and another favorite of mine, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.

His novel TIMELINE was a wonderful argument against our almost knee jerk dismissal of the Middle Ages as primitive. Sadly, the movie didn't live up to the promise of the book -- though it did make me a Gerard Butler fan years before 300. Butler's portrayal of Marek seemed as if it had stepped right out of the pages of the book. Too bad the depictions of towns during the 100 Years War couldn't have followed suit.

I was also deeply entertained by his book EATERS OF THE DEAD and the movie THE 13th WARRIOR inspired by the book. I enjoyed the book's and the film's portrayal of the Beowulf myth "as real occurrence." It gave greater depth to my appreciation for the original poem.

JURASSIC PARK, both book and film, were excellent. The second JURASSIC PARK was better than the remake of Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD that Spielberg brought to the big screen.

Crichton's work was often "high concept," in that it could be reduced to the Hollywood tagline very easily. But his work also tended to be well researched, from the position of the argument it was making, and engaging. My future reading list just got one author smaller, and I am saddened by the news.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Pleasures of 2007

Yesterday, I posted my Science Fiction and Fantasy Pains of 2007. Now that is out of the way, I can write about the things that made me giddy this year. Tomorrow, I'll post about those things that I feel ambiguously about, but today is for happiness. Yesterday was doom and gloom, but today is joy and celebration. I encountered a lot of SF/F that I enjoyed this past year, in fact it has been a good year overall, and it has been hard to limit myself to just five pleasures from 2007. But rules are rules, and yesterday I wrote that I would provide five pleasures. So here goes. Be warned though, like the LA Times article that inspired me, some of the things that brought me pleasure this past year aren't exactly new (just new to me).

5) Mass Effect by Bioware: There are times when I begin to wonder whether a visual medium can convey the wonders I imagine when I read a good Science Fiction novel. Then there are the times that I am playing Mass Effect. Bioware amazed me with their groundbreaking Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic videogame RPGs. I never thought they'd be able to top those games, or that anyone could for that matter. With KotOR Bioware out Star Warsed (I know it looks awkward, but it sounds cool out loud) Georged Lucas. Then they released Jade Empire and I was stunned. Jade Empire took the excellent non-combat resolution system from KotOR and overlayed an exciting, yet intuitive, action combat element. I'm not the most "1337" (that's leet or elite) of game-players, especially in 3D interactive environments, but I was able to excel at Jade Empire. The same has been true of Mass Effect. I may get pwnt (that's owned or easily and readily defeated by elite gamers) when I play Halo 3, but when I am battling the enemy in Mass Effect I feel extraordinarily proficient. That is the elegance of the combat system. My only complaints are that real life days aren't long enough for me to play this as much as I want and that the protagonist comes off as a bit of a jerk no matter what dialogue choices I make. This would be rated higher if it had come out sooner and I were deeper into the game.

4) John Scalzi's Old Man's War Series: Imagine if you took the Forever War, Starship Troopers, and Gulliver's Travels and you put them all in a blender set to liquify. That's what the Old Man's War series is like. I may be baffled that Scalzi is willing to offer whole stories from this series to his fans for free, sure in audio format (though you can read the text version here), but they are so good that I am tempted to send John money just to make sure he will continue writing. Not necessarily the Old Man's War series, I am satisfied with it as it stands, but other things as well. Scalzi has a wonderful writing style and his ability to convey humor and humanity in often horrible circumstances is remarkable. I cannot recommend Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, or The Lost Colony high enough. It is rare to find accessible, yet crunchy, SF these days, but Scalzi has managed to do just that. He even manages to make political commentary without being preachy. Now that's hard.

3) The Detective Inspector Chen series by Liz Williams: If you took Blade Runner and Neuromancer, shredded the books, and pasted them into a novelization of Big Trouble in Little China with a dose of Bridge of Birds for good measure, you might just get something similar to the Detective Inspector Chen books. Maybe close, but not quite. The books take place in a society where both technology and magic exist, the protagonist has a demon wife, there's an underground trade in souls, and the internet equivalent has servers that are slightly disconcerting. The stories are as fun as the covers are stellar. If you like the Dresden Files and Hong Kong cinema, give this series a look.

2) The announcement of the 4th Edition of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game: I know this was on my list yesterday, but as I wrote then, this is a pretty big deal and I'm pretty excited about it. Yes, I lament the fact that a couple thousand dollars worth of books I own are now "obsolete," but I look forward to seeing what changes are coming with the new system. I have always thought that the game was fun, but that it lacked in certain ways as an abstraction of fantasy fiction in general. Many of the new rules seem to be aimed at fixing this small flaw and making the game a more seemless simulation.

1) The Geekerati Podcast I do with Eric Lytle, Bill Cunningham, and Shawna Benson: What does this have to do with SF/F? Everything. I decided to put the whole podcast down as a single Pleasure because otherwise I would have had nothing but Geekerati episodes listed in my top five. Starting with our interview with Susan Palwick about her excellent book Shelter, which was one of my favorite SF reads this year, the show has had a number of excellent segments. I recommend you stop by and listen to our Tim Minear (of Angel and Firefly fame) interview, our interview with Marc Bernardin (the Highwaymen comic), our interview with Win Eckert (of the Wold Newton Universe), or our discussion of Beowulf. In fact, hang out on the site for a while and download all our episodes. You won't be sorry.

The Future Was Only 11 Days Late

SCI FI Channel has finally revealed their "deep" entry into the realm of Internetelevision, SCI FI Drive-In. When SCI FI announced the broadband channel, the stated a release date of January 21st, but I wasn't able to find the site until this morning.

So far the offerings are pretty limited, but worth a visit. If they meet their proposed content this will become one of my favorite sites of all time. Currently, you can watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis, both films that you should rush out and see immediately.

What are you doing reading this still? Go watch Metropolis, then come back and complain that the Flash Gordon serials aren't available yet. Right now I have to settle for The Lost City, Undersea Kingdom, and Radar Men from the Moon. I guess that can tide me over for a while.

Who am I kidding? This is awesome!

The Future Appears to be Behind Schedule

On January 12, at the Telvision Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, the Sci Fi Channel made two announcements that made cinerati's editor squeal with joy. Sadly, it appears that they are behind schedule on the release of one of products.

The first was the announcement of a new 22 episode series based on Flash Gordon featuring the classic character along with his dastardly foe Ming. SCI FI's representatives at the TCA described the new series stating, "Stellar adventures and heroic battles mark this inventive new take on the perennial science fiction classic." I am excited about the prospect of the series, but the "inventive new take" statement makes me reticent to run around giddily while squealing for joy, I am still squealing for joy. I hope that RHI Entertainment and producers Robert Halmi Sr. (Earthsea) and Robert Halmi Jr. (Farscape), remember to include the Plantetary Romance tone of the original concept. It was the Planetary Romance aspects, and not the SF elements, which really set Flash Gordon apart from Buck Rogers and similar SF serial.



Fans of Space Opera films should note that it was the original concept, and not some "inventive new take," which inspired George Lucas to create Star Wars and that the inclusion of Planetary Romance goddess Leigh Brackett in the screenwriting process of The Empire Strikes Back added to the tone of that film. I am hopeful, but skeptical given the dark tone of the new Battlestar Galactica, that the show will capture the wonder of the earlier narrative. Sadly, much of modern SF seems to think that "darkness" equals narrative complexity and forgets that hopeful utopian views of the future can be just as deep an analysis of today's problems. For every George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, there is an Edward Bellamy and Jules Verne.

As for the future being late, SCI FI promised to bring their deep entry into internetelevision to the internet on January 21, and I have yet to see hide or hair of the project. SCI FI already has their "shallow" entry into internetelevision, you can watch the most recent Dresden Files online and watch a good amount of Battlestar Galactica footage online (including online exclusive material), but I was anxiously awaiting their deep entry. SCI FI announced their broadband destination site (what I call internetelevision) SCI FI Drive-in at the TCAs claiming that it would launch on January 21st giving access to "cult films, serials, campy documentaries, and trailers...includ[ing] such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligare and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, not to mention the original Flash Gordon serial" (geeee!) Sadly, the only mention of SCI FI Drive-in I have been able to find on the SCI FI site are in the forums (booo!).