SF Signal: Reading Science Fiction

In its ongoing service to humanity at large and sci-fi-loving  humanity in particular, SF Signal (Twitter: @sfsignal) presents an excellent “getting started guide” for those who have an interest in all or some part of the meta-genre but may have been put off by the seemingly inexhaustible ways that science fiction can be offputting.

Start here at Part 1 of the series.

The latest and last in the series, Part six 6 here, has links to all the parts.

The Book Connection (interview)

The Bec-ster
“This storyline is so new it just compelled me to want to keep reading. I had to see how it all ended.”

Syncopated Musings
“KiTE is not one of those books where you can check your brain at the door when you open its cover and begin to read.”

Elizabeth Mueller
“If computer programs wanted to take over the world, this would be the right book for them.”

I am a Pistacio
“Mr. Shears writes with a flavor reminiscent of Douglas Adams, but the resulting dish is entirely his own. Quite tasty.”

J. Lloyd Morgan
“When the “twist” of the book is revealed at the end, I found myself smiling. It was certainly clever.…I will give the following praise to the book: it’s like nothing I’ve read before. The author stays true to the tone and pacing of the book, which is always a plus.”

KiTE: Hard Sci-Fi with Heart

3/30 The Musings of a Hopeful Writer
3/31 Karen Adair
4/1 Why Not? Because I Said So.
4/2 My Life in a Laptop
4/4 mormonhermitmom’s book habit
4/11 T.J. Types TMI
4/15 A Bookworm’s Tale

Unscheduled stops:

Azurescape
Critical Mass
Rememorandom
The Atomic Spud

KiTE: Hard Sci-Fi with Heart

3/19 The Book Connection (Interview)
3/21 Designs by DeDe (Scrapbooking site? Hey, why not?)
3/23 The Bec-ster
3/24 Elizabeth Mueller
3/26 Husband and wife tandem reviews. Should be interesting: I Am  A Pistacio and Syncopated Musings
3/26 A Writer’s Eyes
3/26 J. Lloyd Morgan
3/30 The Musings of a Hopeful Writer
3/31 Karen Adair
4/1  Why Not? Because I Said So.
4/2 My Life in a Laptop
4/4  mormonhermitmom’s book habit
4/11 T.J. Types TMI
4/15 A Bookworm’s Tale

Reviews with no schedule, which like Billy Pilgrim, will be unstuck in time:

Azurescape
Critical Mass
Rememorandom
The Atomic Spud

The edition we’re reading has a great cover, which is similar to this one below. It’s more exactly like the one you’ll see in the author’s link above  (with the title in a black box) , but this version could be rendered here in larger image, and has the same effect:

Dead Girls, by Richard Calder

Dead Girls, by Richard Calder, excerpt:

We drove through an empty concrete wilderness that might have been twinned with Troy, Carthage or Pompeii; all about us were the lineaments of greatness soiled by sudden defeat.

‘Whitechapel,’ informed our driver. ‘Brick Lane.’

Whitechapel. That was where Mum and Dad lived when they first came to England. Jumping the kerb to avoid a burned-out car, the Bentley swung into a warehouse.

We got out, Jo leading us across an oil-stained expanse littered with automobilia – the sort of place grease monkeys dream of going to when they die – to where a rusted samovar stood. There, bending over, she grasped an iron ring set in the floor, and pulled. A trap opened.

Beneath our feet, a spiral staircase unwound into infinity; a plume of green light rose from the depths, casting a halo upon the warehouse’s roof.

‘Down we go,’ said out escort.

***

No we  didn’t choose that passage just because in included the word ‘infinity.’ It’s dystopian! But we are attracted to the green and blue in the cover, the InfinityBound colors.

***

A more detailed capsule review of Dead Girls will appear in the “Dark Streets” Suspense/Mystery column. Deadline is tomorrow (!) so we must get to it but now that the subject meshes some with the new swerve of this blog here’re the links to the previous efforts.  The next will appear on the 15th of November. If we forget to post it, remind us.

Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 8 – DARK STREETS
Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 9 – DARK STREETS
Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 10 – DARK STREETS
Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 11 – DARK STREETS

The Simak WikiPedia page cites the foreward of his short fiction collection Skirmish, noting that Simak thought of “Good Night, Mr. James” — the story on which this teleplay was based — as a vicious story: “…so vicious that it is the only one of my stories adapted to television.”

Full episodes of The Outer Limits can be found on Hulu.

BEN BOVA: Sometimes even science fiction can be ahead of its time.

Children of Men

The world mourns. Its youngest inhabitant has died. That’s the set-up in the opening of Children of Men, a dystopian reverse-quest picture from 2006, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine in an extremely odd turn as a superannuated hippie, long gray locks and all. What’s the big deal about the youngest person in the world?  Well “Baby” Diego was a celebrity because he didn’t die the day he was born but 18 years later. He’s not the last person on Earth, just the last person delivered to it. No one has reproduced in 18 years and the entire world — except, for some reason, the United Kingdom — has collapsed because of it.

The UK has managed to hang on to some sliver of civilization — people still make up lame excuses, like Theo (Owen) our hero, to slack off work and the shops still sell nice paper cups of take-out coffee — but the country is in the midst of a fascistic backlash against a tsunami of immigrants who have made their way there.

Owen’s Theo is the ideal of the reluctant hero, so ideal that you can’t be sure he’s reluctant about the actual mission or just pathologically reluctant. Those whose criteria requires a character “arc”  may well be disappointed. So-called “arc” is not an absolute requirement hereabouts –  more a nice-to-have-when-called-for. A contrived, poorly acted arc can be worse than well-written character who stays well-written and well-acted the entire story.  And so Owen’s one- or two-note performance is perfectly toned for this one and he is solidly within his range. He has the face for it. That anyone can keep a shred of sanity in this future hell would seem to require a severely modulated outlook. Too up or too down and you’d have lost your grip years before.

The quest is a reversed one because Theo is not pursuing a treasure, but working to deliver one to safety. He’s to escort Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) the first woman to turn up pregnant in 18 years, to a rumored and semi-legendary sanctuary. He’s enlisted/coerced by a band of pro-immigrant terrorists  (he’s almost killed by one of their bombs) led by Julian (Moore) who just happens to be his ex-wife.

The garbled motivations of the terror group and the mechanics of the plot are where the film doesn’t quite deliver. The idea that the plight of illegal immigrants would be the overarching concern of 1970s-style radicals and their holistic hangers-on at a time when the world is plunged into profound anarchy is less plausible than the unexplained global infertility.  A secondary faction comes into play and their motivation is even more opaque.

Much of the lack of clarity can be attributed to the mumble-your-lines naturalism of modern acting, combined with, to the American ear, the rapid-fire UK English patois. About a quarter of the dialogue was unintelligible. You get the gist, though, and the visually gripping world –  post-apocalyptically speaking — the action and the fast pace left no desire to rewind or turn on the subtitles just to hear what the heck that guy actually said.

The dreaded shaky cam also rears its tiresome head during action scenes, of course, along with the requisite, blood-on-the-camera-lens. That and the mumbled lines and this is an unfortunately not uncommon case of the storytelling sacrificed on the altar of cinema realism. It’s a movie for cryin’ out loud. Would anyone miss it if the camera didn’t shake?

In any case there are also minor plot holes on the order of  “How did he know she was there?” and “How did they track him down?” but these are mere quibbles in a film with a supremely primal emotional hook — the survival of the entire species — in a grimly imagined and photographed world. It hits a few more targets than it misses.

Loose Notes: There are stunts and there are stunts. Nothing spectacular here but one chase scene, unless it was done with CGI, has two guys getting knocked off their motorbikes, and it’s hard to see how they were not crippled or killed.

Michael Caine as Theo’s aged hippie mentor Jasper is a bit on the jolly side, but Caine is Caine and always improves any movie lucky enough to have him.

Like this :  Artificial Intelligence: helping man to explore the cosmos

Sounds like a story in there somewhere.

And we’ve recently been brushing up on our dystopia recently as well (again, for reasons  etc etc ….stay tuned)

The other night we screened Children of Men, which was better than not,  and we’ll give it a mini- review next. Film reviews are much less time-consuming than game reviews, so hopefully it will mean more posts . Two hours letting the subject  wash over  you and then write. Game reviews, well the way we like to do them anyway, can take over your life for weeks. Soon as we get our A-game technology back in gear we’ll do more.

But for now, back to science fiction.