February 2013

SF/F Commentary

Literary Explorations: When to Re-read?

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Today, I had a strange moment of contemplation:  since I don’t re-read books all that often, I wondered about the criteria for re-reading and what re-reading does to our perception of the work.  Do we re-read books we simply love, or are there certain elements that compel re-reading?  And what happens to a book when we re-read it (or to ourselves, for that matter)? But as I thought about this subject, it occurred to me that re-reading is a personal affair.  After all, my reasons for re-reading a book may not coincide with yours, in part because we’re not the same person, but also because there are probably thousands of reasons why people re-read (and no two reasons are necessarily the same).  For example, most of my re-reading falls into the following categories: Books for my research or teaching (PhD stuff, in particular — Tobias Buckell and Nalo Hopkinson will have been re-read at least 6 times in the last three years) Books I’ve loved (when I was a kid, I re-read the Goosebumps and Hardy Boys books over and over and over) Books I’ve found compelling and decided to re-read to get at some of the things I didn’t see last time (such as 1984) Your reasons?  Similar, perhaps, but also varied, I imagine.  It’s not often that I re-read a book for any other reason than one of the ones listed above, and the kinds of books that fall into these various categories vary by content and genre.  Research books are often spread across genres, from mainstream to SF/F to theory to history and so on.  Most of the books I’ve decided to read because I wanted to get deeper into the work are of the classic variety — usually works of genre that exist outside the Pulp Era paradigm, such as 1984, Brave New World, various works from the New Wave (Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany in particular) and so on.  And those works that I re-read because I love them tend to have a nostalgic flare to them, from some of my favorite children’s books to those few works that got me obsessed with SF/F in the first place. But I don’t do a lot of re-reading.  All in all, I’ve probably only re-read 5% of the books on my “have read” list.  There are good reasons for this too.  My shelves are full of unread books; unless I read something that knocks my socks off, I’m not likely to return to it (for an unspecific time, since I am not currently dead).  Why re-read when you can have new adventures? Of course, re-reading has its own advantages.  When you re-read, you discover new things.  I’ve read 1984 five times.  It’s not a book for everyone, but I find that re-reading it exposes a lot of elements and themes that I never noticed before.  Undoubtedly, that has something to do with age.  Some books, I think, open up like flowers the further away from the first reading experience you get.  1984 is one of those books (for me). But is there also a time when you shouldn’t re-read?  I’ve heard people say that Lord of the Rings is a great book to read as a teenager, but also that it loses its luster as you age.  I have no opinion on that particular point (for now), but I do think there are some books that deserve to remain as memories.  After all, a great deal of the stuff we loved as younger people certainly changes in tone as we age and become more knowledgeable about the world.  I know some of the kid’s books I recall reading over and over will probably look like sub-literature to my current self.  For me, keeping the image of so many great reading experiences is more important that indulging my curiosity. What about you?  Do you re-read?  If so, when and why?  Do you think there is a way to tell when you shouldn’t re-read something for your own good?

SF/F Commentary

Social Network Bingo (Or, Hey, I Do Different Things)

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I thought today would be a good time to talk about social networks (broadly defined).  Since there are about 10,000 of these blasted things out there, it’s always a struggle to figure out which ones work best for whatever it is I want to do — talking about geeky things, writing, and politics.  I’ve been pretty careful to separate some of these subjects from one another, in part because I (used to) think separation was important for aspiring writers such as myself.  After all, politics and writing sometimes don’t go together, particularly when you say things that other people won’t like (a guarantee in this political climate). And so, across my various social networks, I’ve found ways to separate and compartmentalize my various interests (with some crossover).  I won’t suggest that everyone should do what I do.  Rather, I think it’s more compelling to see how other people do it.  For that reason, I’d appreciate it if folks would comment below with their own explanations for how they use the various social networks. The following are the major social networks of which I am a part.  For those that don’t follow me elsewhere, this list might help you decide where to follow and/or avoid me: Blogger (where you’re currently reading this, I assume) Topics:  Writing, Genre Fiction, and Other Geeky Topics Follow:  N/A I use Blogger primarily to explore the geeky things that matter to me, and to maintain some sort of online presence for my writing career (fiction and academic).  As such, much of what I post here, if you don’t already know, is focused on genre fiction, with a side of writing (mostly genre fiction writing).  In the past, I’ve included things like politics and poetry, but those topics have since moved to other arenas (mostly because I find they fit better elsewhere, but also because, if I’m honest, I don’t want this space to fall into the politics trap). Twitter Topics:  Writing, Genre Fiction, Politics, Randomness, and Other Geeky Topics Other Uses:  Linking to my other content… Follow:  Friends, Colleagues, and Professionals Most of my Twitter activity is focused on genre, random things that I find amusing, and related categories.  For the most part, I’ve found it to be a great place to interact with other SF/F folks, and have, as such, used it sparingly for political stuff (maybe 25% of my activity there has to do with political things).  Likewise, I have found it a great avenue for keeping in touch with fellow grad students, many of whom follow me there.  You’ll find me discussing a lot of genre-related topics there because it is one of the most lively places for such things (such as today, in which Mari Ness, Julia Rios, etc. and I talked about SF Poetry). Google+ Topics:  Politics and Geeky Topics (w/ cross-pollination from my other ventures) Follow:  Professionals, some Friends, and Political Folks (plus a lot of random people who periodically disappear from my list) The bulk of my G+ use is political in nature.  In fact, of all the social networks I use, this is the only one that I use primarily to discuss politics.  As such, most of my followers aren’t necessarily genre people (though there are a few of those), but folks who find my take on various political issues interesting (even if they disagree).  The remaining, tiny percentage of posts is devoted to geeky things and my own various works (such as podcasts, publications, etc.).  If you want to know what I have to say about politics, though, this is the place to go.  You won’t find nearly as much discussion about such things anywhere else. Facebook Topics:  Personal Stuff, Writing, Politics, and Cross-pollination from Twitter Follow:  Friends, Colleagues and the Rare Professional Facebook is one of the ONLY networks I use primarily for personal communication.  I rarely friend anyone there who I do not already know.  As such, most of the people on my Facebook are people from college, friends, colleagues, and the occasional writer (most of whom fall into one of the other categories).  While politics, writing, and genre fiction pop up on my FB page all the time (usually through Twitter), its primary function remains personal. Tumblr Topics:  Poetry, Writing, Art, Nature, and Related Topics Follow:  Friends, Interesting Posters, and the occasional Colleague Of all my various social networks, this one is quickly become the most personal (in terms of what I share).  While I am sharing my own writing (poems and snippets from fiction), I’ve primarily been using it to explore various things that matter to me, such as art, life, my dreams, and more.  In fact, this will probably become my depository for all the things that frankly don’t fit elsewhere (particularly, my poetry).  Tumblr is uniquely designed towards sharing these sorts of things (also:  porn, which I’m not sharing).  While Blogger is also a great space for the personal, it doesn’t work so well for the things I’d like to do on the side, in part because my history on Blogger has pegged me as a certain kind of blogger.  Tumblr, then, is filling in the gaps. —————————————————– What about you?  Do you use your social networks in different ways?  If so, how?

Retro Nostalgia

Retro Nostalgia: Legend (1985) and the Power of Innocence

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(A different subtitle might say this:  “A World of Oppositions, Stricken By Their Equilibrium.”  This, of course, assumes I will follow Jason Sanford‘s story-title-generation process for these features.  I’ll leave artistic license aside for now…) One of the curious things about Ridley Scott’s 1985 fairy tale — appropriately entitled Legend — is how desperately it clings to its fairy tale origins.  I do not mean “desperate” in a negative sense; rather, I see Legend as trying to avoid falling into the trap of its own making precisely so it can maintain its format in a way that benefits the fairy tale that is its heart.  Thus, what begins as a saccharine childish fantasy of naive, star-crossed lovers from different worlds (Princess Lily from the Court of Men and Jack from the Court of Nature) falls into the abyss of its darkest undercurrents (love, betrayal, darkness, blood, and utter wickedness) before it is righted by a terribly cheesy narrative reversion (it was a sort-of-dream) and a return to normalcy — Jack and Lily part, presumably to repeat similar events the next day, always a step away from “completing” their relationship (marriage, more or less). It’s perhaps because of this structural necessity that I love Legend in ways befitting greater works.  Despite the narrative tricks, the sometimes too-cutesy plot points andcharacter quirks, and so on, I am drawn to the narrative’s return to a static universe.  True, the Lord of Darkness and his wicked goblins (Blix, expertly played by Alice Playten, still terrifies me)* disrupt the perfect world of Jack and Lily by assassinating one of the two living unicorns and shrouding the world in cold and darkness, but all of his damage is instantly reversed in the last 10 minutes of the film when Jack is allowed to jump back into the forest pool and retrieve his love’s ring.  The only indication that anything ever happened is the convenient arrival of Gump and his dwarf friends — themselves aids to Jack in his quest — with the two unicorns.  Only even in that moment the world is magically righted again, because the unicorns cannot, as far as the film makes clear, magically rebirth young in a matter of seconds, thus proving to us that the only true change to the world is that of memory.  Historical time is disrupted to return us to a special alternate world of “perfection.” For lack of a better term, I am calling this necessity for a static fairy tale world (a utopia, perhaps) the politics of innocence.  Legend never shies away from its affair with innocence, reminding us from the start that Princess Lily (Mia Sara) is naive, perfect, inquisitive, and ultimately unaware of the very real dangers in the world — one of her “royal subjects” even tells her so in the opening scenes.  Jack (Tom Cruise), too, suffers from this naivety, though with at least some awareness that certain “codes of conduct” should not be broken — which is exactly what he allows to happen. Innocence is so central to the story of Legend that it even dominates the conscious thoughts of the principal villain:  the Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry).  In a revealing scene — because, why not, right? — he admits his unquenchable desire for Princess Lily, calling upon his faceless father for advice, who tells him that he must “turn” her to darkness.  After all, the very person whose existence as an “innocent” was required to end the joyous reign of the unicorns — Lily being a diversion and temptation of sorts — must be the object of focus here, not because she’s a woman, but because she embodies a certain fairy tale stereotype of a woman. I don’t want to read this movie as a stereotype of ideal womanhood** — naive, innocent, and in need of controlling.  Why?  Because I think a more compelling view of this film is to imagine how it operates through a variety of innocences, some of them products of a misogynistic fairy tale tradition and others governed by the profound static-ness of Legend‘s world.  Nobody is left unaffected by the power of innocence, whether Jack, who cannot seem to grasp the fact that Lily is a “free spirit” who has no concept of boundaries (perhaps because she is a rebellious youth); the Lord of Darkness, who is compelled by desire to cross the social barriers befitting a, well, lord of darkness; or even the unicorns, who are just as tempted by Lily as by Jack (who, it appears, they trust well enough to let him know where they will be). This is the profound power of innocence, whether embodied in the ideal image of Lily (virginal, free, beautiful, and sweet as rain) or in the internal philosophy of a fairy tale, where innocence destroys itself, only to be reborn exactly where it began.  Legend is only static because innocence is cyclical.  For the world to return to its original place — a world of life, beauty, and wonder — no trace of the real consequences of the temptation of innocence can remain.  It’s an almost childlike reversion, if you will — as if Legend were the child that had to be returned to us, pre-influence (say, pre-Janet Jackson).  The audience, however, can’t return.  Ever.  The world might right itself, but we will always remember, like parents remember their children’s experiences, that something has occurred and that, just as innocence and light are cycles of power, so too are the darkest recesses innocence and light produce.  The Lord of Darkness is right:  he is in all of us, and he will return one day, perhaps in a different form, but returned nonetheless.  Regardless, historical time shifts, because we know the history as it actually happens, and narrative time swings back around to start all over again.  Rinse and repeat. Stepping out for a moment, I think it’s interesting to consider how this might apply to the narrative if we consider Legend either as a children’s fable OR as an adult

SF/F Commentary

Teaching Rambles: If You Could Teach It…: The Space Opera Edition

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One of the things I hope to do one day is teach a class on Space Opera.  Thus far, that opportunity has not arisen just yet, but the future is bright (as they say).  For this teaching-related post, though, I’d like to offer a suggested reading list for two different Space Opera courses and then get feedback from the wide world of SF/F.  I should note that I will conflate Military SF with Space Opera, in part because I’m not wholly convinced that they are always distinct categories.  For the sake of this post, I will use a slightly modified definition from Brian Aldiss’ (italics mine): Colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, often but not always optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes… The problem, of course, is that so much fits into this definition.  To avoid that, I will put emphasis on “very large-scale action” and take that to mean “multi-planetary action.” Since I mostly teach American literature courses right now, I’m going to make two lists — one for an American literature course and one for a British literature course.  However, I am also wide open to the possibility of a World Lit-style course, so if you have suggestions for space operas written by people outside the traditional science fiction zones, please suggest them in the comments. Here goes: American Space Operas The Skylark of Space by E. E. Doc Smith (1946) Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951) Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1959) Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970) Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell (2007) Dust by Elizabeth Bear (2007) The January Dancer by Michael Flynn (2008) British Space Operas Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1972) Canapus in Argos by Doris Lessing (1979-1983)(not sure which book I’d pick) Consider Phlebus by Iain M. Banks (1987) The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton (1996) Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (2000) Light by M. John Harrison (2002) Singularity Sky by Charles Stross (2003) Natural History by Justina Robson (2004) Of course, teaching all of these books in a single semester might be difficult.  Sacrifices suck… I’ve also not included short stories, which are likely to replace certain novels (such as Bujold, who has written many shorts in the Vorkosigan Saga, thus opening up space for more space operas). So, what would you change in my lists?  What am I missing? ———————————————————– Note:  I am not pleased by the overwhelming number of men on my lists.  Due to my definition, many of my favorite female authors simply didn’t fit, which exposed a critical gap in my reading.  If you have recommendations for significant space operas written by American and British women (other than the ones I’ve already named), please let me know so I can start filling those gaps in my reading.

SF/F Commentary

Star Wars Going Commercial? Oh, Right, Normal… (Or, Look, It’s Boba Fett and Han Solo!)

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If you haven’t already heard from io9, Entertainment Weekly, and Geeks of Doom, Lucasfilm is considering the possibility of two standalone Star Wars films — one involving an origin story for Han Solo, set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope (III and IV), and the other involving Boba Fett either between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (IV and V) or Empire and The Return of the Jedi (VI).  That is, of course, if you accept the rumors (including this weird one about a Yoda movie).  Frankly, we don’t have much reason to believe Disney won’t make as many Star Wars movies as they possible can, especially when you consider just how lucrative the universe has been for Lucas and his various companies.  Any new movie would equal a new video game, new books, new merchandise, and on and on and on and on.  Basically, unless a Star Wars movie ends up flopping at the box office — unlikely — Disney will probably pump out as many movies as is reasonable.  Expect one of these years to become “the year of Star Wars,” with t hree different movies/series releasing all at the same time… (that’s my rumor — you can quote me). What do I think about all this?  First, I’m not actually all that bothered by the prospect of a whole bunch of new Star Wars movies.  Honestly, I expect Disney to handle the franchise well enough; they might even do a better job of it than Lucas has in the last decade-ish.  I’m likely to see most of the movies, regardless of their setting, characters, and so on, if only because I have been a Star Wars nut since I was a kid (my mother gave me the VHS tapes of the Leonard Maltin editions, and I still have them — in fact, I have two sets, because I wanted one that I could play without worrying about damaging the tapes…I was a weird teenager). I see pride! I see power! I see a bad-ass mother who don’t take no crap off of nobody!  My concern is that Disney will produce Star Wars films it shouldn’t just because it can.  While an origin story for Han Solo or an expansion of Boba Fett’s sparse plot in the originals might be interesting, it does make me wonder whether there aren’t new and more interesting ways to inject freshness into a franchise that has, if we’re being honest, been pretty stale (with some exceptions to a few of the extended universe products — books and games in particular).  I love Star Wars and always will, but I’m also a bit bored of seeing the same old characters being trotted out over and over.  Now that we’ve followed through the origin of Darth Vader, I’d really like to see more new stuff.  New characters.  New stories.  And not just origins for characters living during the major events of the prequel and original trilogies.  I want to see stories set beyond the current film franchises. I’m like a snake. I lure you into a false sense of security, andthen I shot your ass under a table, melting your green skinlike a mutated cake from a galaxy far, far away… Fool… Think about it.  For those that follow the extended universe (I have some familiarity), imagine all the ways Disney could reinvigorate the franchise with new and exciting plots.  Take, for example, the post-Empire narratives, from the final death knell of the Empire to the various new invasions and terrors that befell the New Republic.  Even more fascinating might be to take us all the way outside of the immediate aftermath (an easier feat when you consider that most of the original cast is too damn old to reprise their roles) and film the Young Jedi stuff (the solo kids would make a great new set of heroes for new Star Wars fans) or even the incredible Yuuzhan Vong War, which would allow the original cast to return as secondary characters (or even as primaries, if one wanted to go that route — I’m not sold either way) and allow us to see the New Republican and the New Jedi Order engage in one of the most important, violent conflicts of its new life. The dreams of a Republic scattered like so much biology… Basically, I’m saying that there is too much to show us in this world to let it go to waste re-hashing stuff we’ve already seen.  Sure, Han Solo is a great character, but he’s an old character.  We more or less know his story; a prequel won’t change that.  We even know Boba Fett, to some extent, and so imagining his pre-ROTJ past doesn’t really add anything to the film franchise.  The only new material we’re getting is in whatever film J. J. Abrams ends up making, but I’m not sure where he’s going to set that story (or, rather, what Disney will let him and his writer do with the universe).  I can dream for a Mara Jade narrative, but I also have this absurd notion that Mark Hamill must reprise his role as Luke Skywalker at some point.  He can’t do that in the Mara Jade plot because he’s just too old (sorry, Mark), and I’m not sure I like the idea of casting a young blond guy to play the role… I guess my biggest concern is that Disney will try so hard to keep the money coming in that they’ll piss on the only opportunity I see that could make Star Wars more than just “that series we loved as kids, and which gave us enough merchandise to destroy a planet.”  I want to go back into that movie theater and have the experience of a lifetime — my first, actual Star Wars experience (the one older folks talk about all the time when they wax nostalgic about 1977). But I don’t expect that to happen…

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