For those that don’t follow me on Twitter, you’ll have missed the whole “Shaun had a cancer appointment today” stuff. As it turns out, I remain cancer free, and have done so since the conclusion of chemo in 2003. And that’s good news indeed. So hurray to me. Good news for the holidays and all that jazz. Now back to doing whatever I was doing…oh, right. Stressing out about work!
I’ve recently become a fan of CW’s Arrow. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s easily one of the best superhero TV shows on air at the moment. Don’t let the CW label fool you. Arrow is good stuff. It’s one part action thriller and one part superhero camp, all mixed together in a magic blender and served in an edible cup made of fruit or something. Look, it’s just really enjoyable, OK? And this is coming from the guy who has found DC’s output since Man of Steel pretty pathetic (the comics, the movie announcements, all of it)(yes, I know that Arrow came out before all that). So here are some of my thoughts on the first season and a half of the show. Yes, you can expect some spoilers. 1. The flashbacks are pretty clever as a narrative device. Throughout the show, we’ve been presented with Oliver Queen in his “I play rich turd by day, but at night I’m an arrow-shooting vigilante” form alongside his “rich boy left alone on a dangerous island full of mercenaries, warriors, and military wackos” form. This is hardly the first time we’ve seen this sort of thing (Lost had its own version of it, and shows like Heroes, X-Files, and so on have played around with the tactic), but the amount of attention paid to these flashbacks — as narratives unto themselves — is at least noteworthy. I particularly appreciate the attempt to connect what is happening in the present with what has already occurred; there are moments in Season Two, for example, in which the present only makes sense if you know what has already occurred, a fact that is punctuated by the slow development of these narratives in side-by-side fashion. Season Two even goes so far as to sort of “retcon” Oliver’s original “story” about what happened on the island, revealing that even we, the viewers, have been lied to. It creates a great deal of tension and puts the past and present in conversation in a way that may actually be quite unique (or at least rather uncommon). 2. I’ve been genuinely surprised by the quality of the action in this show. By comparison to Agents of SHIELD, whose action sequences often seemed lazy and dull (normal TV fare) in the first few episodes (it improves by miles as the show develops), Arrow is slick and, at times, brutal. This, of course, serves as an excuse for the various “fit” characters to prostrate themselves in glorious gladiator fashion. Muscles and tight tummies are glorified to the max. The show also gives play time to its less trained members, such as Felicity and Roy (the future Red Hood), the latter of which is some kind of parkour ninja. I love that this isn’t just a show of muscly people punching really hard, but of muscly folks actually having to be competent at what they do (mostly). Arrow doesn’t always get it right, though. I think the choreography and editing for Sara Lance’s Canary fights have lacked the same intensity as those of Oliver’s/Arrow’s. I’m not sure why there’s such a marked difference. Lance is supposed to be just as trained as Oliver, if not more because of her association with the League of Assassins. So she should be quick, agile, and brutal. But there are moments when her action sequences seem out of sync or slowed down. Maybe this has to do with the fact that Caity Lotz hasn’t had the same character foreknowledge to be prepared, or perhaps they simply put less time into her physical presentation because the Canary is technically a secondary character, and one that probably won’t stick around for too long either because of her association with the League of Assassins or because Arrow intends for her to take the mantle of the Black Canary (no, not this), which was originally Laurel Lance’s superheroine role in the comics. As much as I love her character, I do feel that there’s something missing in how her physical self is portrayed. My hope is that they will correct this. 3. I am at a point where I can honestly say that I despise Laurel. She was a sympathetic character in Season One, but since the death of Tommy, she has spiraled down into a pit of alcoholism and general asshole-ish-ness. It would be one thing if she were only destroying herself; however, throughout the first half of the second season, she’s been oblivious and, at times, downright vindictive. I don’t know if the writers thought it would be interesting to switch the roles of Laurel and her father, but that’s certainly what happened. Except, Laurel’s transition does not make her sympathetic. Sure, she’s begun attending AA meetings and trying to get her life under wraps, but even in her sober state, she’s just not a likable character. In some sense, I think her post-sobriety personality is less complicated than the Laurel of Season One, and that makes her less likable and far less interesting. Worse, she’s untrustworthy, flipping back and forth between standing by the people she loves and stabbing them in the back — granted, her stabs are less mean now that she’s sober. It’s just not a good path for the character. The father, however, has become a lovable figure — loyal to friends and family and loyal to the Arrow (at first for reasons of necessity — the police won’t let him do his job — but later due to a kind of shared trust; the scene where he monologues on why Laurel shouldn’t tell him the identity of the Arrow was probably my favorite moment from him since I started watching the show). 4. Oliver Queen’s character development is going to hit a wall pretty soon. And that wall is “the present.” I like Oliver. Sure, his present self is rather simplistic in the aggregate — one-directional, if you will — but given where he began in Season One (vengeful vigilante/murderer)
First, I must apologize for the lateness of this review. Mr. Sales has been remarkably patient with me and my repeated promises about getting it done. I’m a notoriously slow reviewer for the simple fact that I find it incredibly difficult to say what I think. A less cautious reviewer might simply speak from the heart and let the language be damned, but I think my academic side gets the best of me and demands I relate something more than a simple “I liked it.” And that means I get stuck for long periods of time on any work of art. In any case, I have a lot to say about Sales’ novella, “Adrift on the Sea of Rains,” the first of a quartet of interconnected novellas called the Apollo Quartet (released by Whippleshield Books). Set in an alternate history where the Cold War ended with the destruction of the Earth, a group of astronauts conducting experiments on the Moon struggle to survive long enough to successfully test an experimental machine that may save everyone. It’s a deceptively simple premise. Sales’ hard SF narrative of scientific discovery at times gives way to a character study of Peterson, Sales’ primary protagonist. Peterson’s past is interspersed throughout the novella in italics, providing a thorough account of a military-pilot-turned-astronaut and gifting astute readers with details of the American/Soviet conflict — a more educated reader might recognize details here that went over my head. The narrative shifts between the present, in which Peterson and his fellow astronauts attempt to conduct a successful test of their machine, and Peterson’s past, in which we we are given a glimpse into the man Peterson used to be. This device, however simplistic in design, provides the novella a comparative element that rounds Peterson as a character. Far from someone stuck in a seemingly hopeless situation, Peterson is humanized as an individual whose past complicates our understanding of his present. I wouldn’t call the format wholly successful — largely because I couldn’t quite discern the specific “pattern” in mind — but it did give the text a certain depth that would otherwise have been lacking, since the frame narrative, if one could call it that, is fairly straightforward by design. Short fiction, I find, benefits from some degree of narrative experimentation. On a related note, Sales’ prose is never so overwhelmed by the technical, nor overly sterile — a formal quality I have noticed in my pitiful amount of reading in the hard sf field. An apt description of the prose would be “economical,” providing the right level of character depth, technical detail, and tension to keep the narrative from being dragged under by gravity. Sales’ pension for littering scientific detail throughout is largely responsible for this balance, though a less tech-friendly reader may not appreciate this balance. For example, this brief passage from the middle of the ebook provides a combination of narrative elements: They were trapped, but now there is an escape. All but Kendall gather in the wardroom to discuss their options, squeezing about a single table but, unlike at meal-times, confidently, keenly, meeting each other’s gazes. It occurs to Peterson that he has lived with these men for two years but he barely knows them. He sees seven men he knows chiefly by their reputations and the psychological profiles in their records. Their faces are as familiar to him as his own, but they might as well be the gold visors of spacesuit helmets for all their expressions tell him what each is thinking. Not once since they became isolated on the Moon have they worked together… The Moon has changed them all; despair has made strangers of them… Hope: half a dozen modules in Low Earth Orbit. An elusive hope: they need to find a way to reach the space station. They have one ALM ascent stage left — and Peterson gives thanks it still remains, not launched out of desperation by one of them during the past two years. There are certainly more dense passages throughout the novella, but Sales’ style is perhaps deliberately careful with its science. Here, Sales establishes Peterson’s character in relation to his colleagues and provides snippets of technical detail as part of the mechanism for the emotional undercurrent of the entire narrative. Sales never quite lets that emotional element take over, which seems a reasonable product of the setting and the people involved. Unlike other “save the world with science fiction” narratives, Sales doesn’t indulge in melodrama to heighten the stakes (see The Core or 2012 for a prime example of this poor narrative practice). There’s an almost passive quality to the character development, which I can appreciate simply for my perceptions of realism in this case. I can see where Sales might have turned the wrong way and made his deceptively straightforward narrative into something dull and lifeless. But that never happens. Rather, the narrative’s deceptively lackluster opening — a bunch of guys doing science on the Moon — is built up in slow, deliberate motions into a massive, world-changing conflict. The end of that conflict came as a surprise, and unexpected though it was, I was happy to have caught the minute details which gave away what had actually happened. Sales’ narrative seems to fall into a kind of rhythm in which the scientific “narrative world” becomes what Delany might call a reading practice or protocol; it invites attention to detail on the part of the reader, and that jolt to the brain actually saves me from getting stuck in a reader mode of one form or another. I admit that this doesn’t happen all that often for me, particularly not with stories which are, if one is to look at the appendices, meticulously researched and detailed — a space science nut will certainly pick up details I simply missed (one of them needs to review this). Overall, I quite enjoyed “Adrift on the Sea of Rains.” If you’re looking for a hard SF novella to munch on, this
A.C. Wise and Sarah Pinsker suggested I put together a list of recommendations for the awards season (Nebula nominations are coming up or something). So, that’s what I’m going to do. For now, I’m only going to discuss six categories, as I don’t read often enough in the others to have a say yet (YET). Recommendations for any category, listed or otherwise, are more than welcome. Note: I’ve included links to interviews or discussions at The Skiffy and Fanty Show about some of the items (which may explain why I’m voting for many of these). Here goes: Novels: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (S&F Interview) Hurricane Fever by Tobias Buckell (S&F Interview) Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (S&F Interview) The Three by Sarah Lotz (S&F Interview) Memory of Water by Emmi Itaranta (S&F interview forthcoming) Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter (S&F Interview) Into the Grey by Celine Kiernan (S&F Interview) Zero Sum Game by SL Huang (my review) Graphic Novels: Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson (episode forthcoming on S&F) Movies (narrowing this list is going to be difficult): Snowpiercer (may not be eligible due to weird release nonsense)(S&F Discussion) Interstellar (S&F Discussion) Guardians of the Galaxy (S&F Discussion) Big Hero 6 How to Train Your Dragon 2 Captain American: the Winter Soldier (S&F Discussion) Edge of Tomorrow (S&F Discussion) Jodorowsky’s Dune (WISB Review) Fancast: The Incomparable The Book was Better Doorway to the Hidden World Galactic Suburbia The Writer and the Critic The Three Hoarsemen The Skiffy and Fanty Show (duh) Fanwriter: Cora Buhlert Foz Meadows Liz Bourke Kameron Hurley (S&F Interview) Paul Weimer (his work on Skiffy and Fanty is worth an acknowledgment, I think) Fanzine: A Dribble of Ink Nerds of a Feather Bookworm Blues Ecdysis Semiprozine: The Book Smugglers Strange Horizons Related Work: Speculative Fiction 2013 (I’m totally biased because I’m editing the 2014 edition w/ Renay) So, what am I missing?
I recently challenged Ian Sales* to name 10 films since 2000 that were better than Interstellar (2014). OK, that’s not entirely true. I challenged him to create a top 10 list of the best SF flicks since 2000; for Ian, they’re basically the same thing. He’s already released his list here. It contains some interesting choices, to say the least. While I disagree quite strongly with some of his selections, I do have to give him credit for not creating another boring “usual suspects” top 10 list; sadly, I’m probably going to disappoint people on that front. My list will only contain feature length productions, as short films should probably be discussed on their own. I’ve made no other distinctions with regards to format (live action, animated, adaptation, etc.) or delivery method (theater or straight-to-DVD). Alright, here goes: Inception (2010)This film continues to haunt me. Though its concept may not be original (Duck Tales, FTW), its clever use of the heist format to tell a dream-laden scifi action thriller with an ambiguous ending left me clamouring for more. Inception forced me to rethink about the soundtrack’s engagement with the narrative, too; the collaboration of Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan has produced some of the most experimental scores in blockbuster cinema (listen to the film next time you watch it; really listen). Through and through, this is my favorite movie from this period. Children of Men (2006)A beautiful, yet grungy examination of an infertile human culture struggling to survive. Much like the other films on this list, Children of Men examines humanity’s variant responses to catastrophe. Alfonso Cuarón’s direction, however, gives this one an edge over other dystopias. The single-shot chase scene is easily one of the most impressive moments in SF film since 2000. The Place Promised in Our Early Days (Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho)(2004)Makoto Shinkai’s alternate history allegory for the Cold War remains one of my favorite animated films of all time. Crafted with a certain minimalist style in terms of its characters, PPOED’s teenage protagonists are nuanced sides to a coin resting on its side. Even the science fiction premise — an experimental tower which has the ability to re-map our Earth with the landscape of an alternate, barren one — gives the film a beautiful symbolic resonance that I cannot stop thinking about (which may explain why I published a paper on this flick). Interstellar (2014)I contemplated placing this higher on the list, but the more I thought about it, the less sure I was that Interstellar fit the #1 SF film since 2000 rubric. Regardless, the epic character drama and visual spectacle that is Nolan’s almost-magnum-opus will continue to resonate with me for years. McConaughey’s performance alone is enough to break your soul, and the concentration of themes, though heavy-handed at times, left me physically affected. Cloud Atlas (2012)Easily the most ambitious film on this list, Cloud Atlas is as much a theme-movie as Interstellar. The Wachowski brothers managed to take a complicated, almost unfilmable novel and translate it into a multi-layered, multi-themed dramatic epic. Though the film may have taken a misstep in its racial presentation, the overall product is a thing of beauty that will probably be forgotten — a great tragedy of our time. Her (2013)Of the films on this list, Her is probably the most character-oriented of them all. This nuanced examination of near future Millenials interacting with their AIs takes pains to give us an honest look at what that might mean. How would our relationships progress? Could you love an AI? Could an AI love you? The film’s ending provides an almost somber answer, demonstrating the real violence inherent in artificial intelligence: that they might abandon us entirely. The Dark Knight (2008)Heath Ledger’s performance deserved its Oscar; here, Nolan strips Batman completely from his comic book roots (something I think Batman Begins failed to do) and injects the gritty reality of larger-than-life crime into a franchise that had for so long been about visual spectacle (of the Gothic variety). From the Joker’s social experiments to Bruce Wayne’s questionable actions, The Dark Knight offers a landscape within which we should think about the interaction of morality and law. Sunshine (2007)The first Danny Boyle film on this list, Sunshine is one of those films which gets a lot of flack for its “twist ending.” I, however, love the ending if only because it resonates with the film’s opening shots of Cliff Curtis “communing” with the Sun. Personally, I am a fan of films which can bring a little philosophical depth to an otherwise standard “save the world” narrative. Boyle delivers with a diverse cast and a whole lot of gorgeous shots of space. Pacific Rim (2013)The only CGI festival blockbuster on this list, Pacific Rim is the kind of film that you love unless you’re someone with bad taste or a desire to be punched (I kid). Guillermo Del Toro’s mecha vs. giant monsters spectacle gave me everything I had hoped for in a film of that type, but then layered on a decent character-oriented plot to give the film a little bit of soul. Unlike other giant robot movies which shall not be named, this one seemed to care about the main cast and their trials rather than giving all of the attention to overblown action sequences with no purpose other than to make our eyes bleed. I’ve seen this film multiple times now, and I’d see it again in a heartbeat. 28 Days Later (2002)A novel engagement with an otherwise tired horror concept. The opening scenes of Cillian Murphy wandering the dilapidated streets of London are chilling, but it is the terrible cost of humanity which makes 28 Days Later my favorite zombie-themed film of all time. There is a certain beauty in Boyle’s direction, which may explain why he appears twice on this list. Honestly, the ranking is meaningless. I don’t think I’d put things in the same slots if you asked me to look at this list
