Excellent interview with one of my long-time favorite fantasy authors, L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Tag: science fiction
Movie Review: Destination Moon (1950)
Destination Moon (1950)
3 out of 5 stars
Hmmm … quite the blast from the past. I watched Destination Moon via Netflix DVD while visiting my daughter last weekend. I placed this movie in my queue based on a recent post (one of his last) by John Scalzi over at his FilmCritic.com blog, wherein he mentioned nine science fiction films often overlooked or underappreciated.
Even with the help of legendary science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (both on the script and as a technical adviser), Destination Moon just doesn’t hold up well when viewed through the lens of the space age. Yes, they got some things right and tried to demonstrate weightlessness, pricinciples of inertia and some of the obstacles needed to overcome and survive space travel. For a hard scifi flick from the mid-20th century, I give the film an A for effort.
I did not care for the ending though. If you’re going to go to all the trouble to get to the moon, and almost not make it back due to poor planning (i.e. too much weight to return with the fuel alotted, no slack planned for when they had trouble landing and used extra fuel). The only real drama from the entire movie boiled down to who might have to stay behind and die on the moon. The characters finally achieve their weight goal with just seconds to spare and successfully take off from the moon.
And that’s it. The movie ends there. We have no idea if they made it back to Earth or if they splashed down safely in the ocean (another idea they got ‘right’ as proven later by NASA and the Gemini, Mercury and Apollo programs).
I found it interesting to compare and contrast with science facts from 1950 and what I now know in 2012, I don’t know that I’d consider this a ‘must see’ science fiction film. Maybe at the time (in the early 50s), but not now.
Movie Review: The Avengers (2012)
The Avengers (2012)
4 out of 5 stars
Fun. Early summer blockbuster. Popcorn for the brain. Terry and I loved every minute of it.
Gives a new meaning to ‘can’t we all just get along?’
I was disappointed for Thor. He makes a trip back to save the Earth (again) and still didn’t get to spend anytime with his girlfriend.
Movie Review: Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
3.5 out of 5 stars
After reading Scalzi‘s Filmcritic.com post this week, which featured nine science fiction movies I might have overlooked, I added several of them to my Netflix queue(s) (both disk and streaming) with the intention of watching at least one of them over the weekend. A few on his list I watched years ago. Since I didn’t get my last disk in the mail until last Friday, I decided to watch the cyberpunk anime almost cult classic Ghost in the Shell. I have Destination Moon (co-written by Heinlein, who also served as a technical adviser on the film) in the mail for Monday night.
I couldn’t have avoided anime if I tried with two artists for offspring. My son, Derek, especially fits the target audience for this subject matter, although I’m not sure the deeper philosophical ‘meaning of life’ questions would have been absorbed by his consciousness a decade ago (when he was a sophomore in high school). I remember my daughter being caught up in the Pokemon fad, even taking her to the movie theater to watch a film based on that character. My personal favorite remains Miyazaki’s post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds. I not only own an unabridged subtitled (not dubbed) DVD but the manga as well. But I’m partial to post-apocalyptic tales.
Cyberpunk, on the other hand, just doesn’t do much for me. Several years ago, I read the classic Gibson novel Neuromancer as part of a group read for discussion. I still haven’t gotten around to reading the other cyberpunk ‘must read’ Snow Crash by Stephenson. So I started Ghost in the Shell with some trepidation.
I enjoyed the visuals. Kudos to mid-90s tech and the seamless integration of traditional animation (well, traditional for the Japanese anyway) and computer graphics. I focused on the deeper undercurrents, the ghostly whispers heard by the protagonist, Major Kusanagi, and her musings and conclusions derived therefrom.
I found it odd, and perhaps a bit ironic, that the climax erupts in an abandoned museum, riddling murals of dinosaur fossils and a tree of ‘life’ rooted in ectoplasmic ancient history and branching up to the pinnacle of hominids with bullet holes, culminating with the evolution of a new life form from the ruins and desolation of human endeavors.
But what really got me scratching my head came during the epilogue, with an awakened and evolved cybernetic child’s first image, seen dimly across the room, is her own image in a dark mirror. And just a few seconds lately, she explains to her ex-partner and rescuer, the meaning behind her previous whispers, and then quotes the Bible! Specifically 1 Corinthians 13, with just touch of artistic license to add some personalization for the character.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
But it’s the next verse that whispered to her earlier:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
This verse is no stranger to science fiction. Philip K. Dick used it obliquely in the title of his 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly. I think there’s even an original Star Trek episode that includes some variation on this verse, perhaps it was Mirror, Mirror?
Other translations of the twelfth verse offer different reflections:
For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
KJV
Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.
NLT
It is the same with us. Now we see a dim reflection, as if we were looking into a mirror, but then we shall see clearly. Now I know only a part, but then I will know fully, as God has known me.
NCV
I must assume the use of these quoted verses by the director and/or writers of Ghost in the Shell plucked them from First Corinthians and intended to use them completely out of context with the rest of the thirteenth chapter (more commonly known as ‘The Love Chapter’ and a frequent wedding vow inspiration). For there was little of love, an absence of faith, and a scarcity of hope, for humans at least, in the Ghost in the Shell.
So these three things continue forever: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.
Movie Review: In Time (2011)
In Time (2011)
3.5 out of 5 stars
I’m not the first one to mention this in a review of In Time, and probably won’t be the last. The comparison to Logan’s Run is inevitable, but I see it also as a retelling of Robin Hood, at least the second half of it. Dystopian science-fiction is all the rage, especially now that The Hunger Games have made it to the big screen. But what the Hunger Games lack in depth (but make up for in violence), In Time brings a thought-provoking story and a message about just how much you can accomplish with only one day left to live.
Sweet Sixteen – KC Library’s Booketology and HBP’s Tournament of Villains
Booketology Round 2 Results & Round 3 Bracket | Kansas City Public Library.
Oh, the agony … of defeat. Last round, in the Science Fiction category, The Hunger Games bit the dust before the unstoppable Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But at least my personal pick for all time greatest epic fantasy novel ever written didn’t fall to mere rabbits. This round, however, The Lord of the Rings faces very stiff competition from that upstart Harry Potter.
And it remains a mystery (at least until Monday morning and the votes are tabulated), whether Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot will solve the Case of the Sweet Sixteen Surprise.
Cast your votes now and be entered in a drawing for a Booketology Prize Pack of one copy of each of the eight books that advance to the Elite 8 round, plus a basketball autographed by Kansas City author Whitney Terrell. (Click here for rules and details).
And just in case you weren’t having enough fun already voting for your favorite books, stop by Half Price Books Tournament of Villains, also in the Sweet Sixteen of the third round. Polls close in a few minutes, at 2:00 p.m. Central.
Green Men, Red Planet, Grey Lord, Black Dog
After spending a very lazy Saturday avoiding the invasion of little green men from the Emerald Isle by baking bread, reading about life under Mao in China and watching action flix, Apollo and I took a long walk Sunday morning under an increasingly gloomy overcast sky. Oddly, we saw only one other dog, which looked like a miniature version of Apollo. Only three other people were walking during the nine o’clock hour yesterday. We passed by two clocks on our walk, both of which are broken (either not telling time at all or completely incorrect in their display). Here’s a couple of shots of the clock at the north end of Lansing’s long undeveloped Town Centre street:
As Terry and I were about to leave the house in the early afternoon, my father stopped by on a surprise visit, mostly in response to a status update I Tweeted late on Saturday. He wanted the nitty gritty details concerning my success in updating my Autostar hand-held computer control device for my Meade ETX-90 telescope.
A couple of weeks ago, I had downloaded the most recent Autostar Updater software from Meade and finally remembered to attempt the hardware portion of the update. Hardware and I have a long history of adversarial confrontations. Basically, I used several different connector cables between my laptop and the Autostar device: 1) a serial to USB convert cable, 2) a proprietary Meade serial to Autostar cable (looks very similar to a phone jack, not nearly as big as RJ-45 though), 3) the Autostar cable to connect to the Meade ETX-90 and 4) a universal 12 volt transformer and power cable to supply electricity to the telescope. Once all the connections were in place and secure, I fired up the software. I did an auto-detect on all available COM ports and the software found the Autostar on COM5. Then, I instructed the software to download the most recent firmware version (43Eg … an increase of nearly 20 versions over the 26Ec firmware that came on the Autostar when I received it) from Meade and proceeded with the download to the Autostar at the astronomically miniscule data rate of 9600 baud. The update amounted to about 36 kilobytes of data. I have text files that are larger than that. It took fifteen to twenty minutes to complete the transfer. Man, has data transfer come a long ways in the last decade or two.
I gave dad the bread I had made him Saturday, as well as the Netflix envelope with The Adventures of TinTin sealed in it so he could watch that movie and then return it for me to Netflix in a second unsealed envelope I sent home with him.
Without further ado, Terry and I headed to the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library to attend a lecture and presentation by John Carter Tibbets billed as “From Africa to Mars! 100 Years of Tarzan and John Carter.” We arrived just in the nick of time and parked in the tenant parking garage, since I remembered to bring my security badge with me. I happen to work in that same building. As a result of the lecture, I decided to add the DVD of Greystoke to my Netflix queue. I remember watching it in the mid 80s, probably on a VHS tape, but decided now is the time to see it in wide-screen via DVD. I also acquired a movie poster for the John Carter movie, and other memorabilia, courtesy of Tibbets’ recent private screening of the film at a special showing to a select group of Burroughs aficionados. Tibbets closed the session with this wonderful quote from C.S. Lewis, summing up the why behind the timeless popularity of characters like John Carter and Tarzan:
To tell how odd things struck odd people is to have an oddity too much: he who is to see strange sights must not himself be strange. He ought to be as nearly as possible Everyman or Anyman.
— C.S. Lewis, On Science Fiction
On the return trip home, Terry and I detoured to Mission Med Vet to pick up Roxy‘s remains. We spent the drive home in silence, cherishing memories of her and missing her deeply.
Book Review: Archangel by Shinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Beyond Reality February 2012 Science Fiction Selection
The protagonist, Rachel, grabbed me immediately. Not only was she a superb vocalist, she reminded me in so many ways of my own daughter, also named Rachelle, and who is also a superb vocalist (mezzo soprano, though, instead of Rachel’s coloratura soprano). As soon as I finished the book, I sent a recommendation off to my Rachelle, hoping she’d read it and enjoy it as much as I did.
The religious references intrigued me (and sometimes made me laugh – did anyone else think that the name of Semorrah was a mashed-up condensation of Sodom and Gemorrah?) and the musical elements fascinated me. I play piano, attempt to sing (not as well trained as my daughter, so I gave it up as a lost cause at this point in my life) and I know basic music theory. My husband has years of training (jazz trumpet and guitar), composes music and has perfect relative pitch; all of which he passed on to our daughter.
On the question of whether this novel is science fiction or fantasy, I leaned towards the former early on. Once introduced to the oracle Josiah in Archangel, I began to believe I was reading a science fiction story (perhaps along the lines of Pern?). But the rest of the novel revealed little beyond that scene with the Oracle. Another clue could also be derived from the ‘smallness’ of their ‘planet’ in area and scope.
I interpreted the singing as magical. The story is mostly a romance, which I normally avoid like the plague, but in this case it worked well.
I have not decided yet if I will continue this series. I’ll have to research my friends’ reviews of it and see if it gets better or if this installment is as good as it gets.
All in all, I really enjoyed Archangel, even if it seemed to be a romance masquerading as a fantasy with hints of science fiction sprinkled throughout.
Movie Review: Real Steel (2011)
Real Steel (2011)
3.5-4 out of 5 stars
I needed some brainless mind candy this week and the next thing in my Netflix queue just happened to serve up Real Steel starring Hugh Jackman (of Wolverine and Leopold fame).
When I saw the trailers last year, the first thing I thought of was a video game my kids used to play called One Must Fall. Actually, the screenplay is based on a science fiction short story called ‘Steel’ published in 1956 by Richard Matheson (of I Am Legend fame).
For once, I admit I agree with Roger Ebert on this film, when he stated, “Real Steel is a real movie. It has characters, it matters who they are, it makes sense of its action, it has a compelling plot. Sometimes you go into a movie with low expectations and are pleasantly surprised.” My sentiments exactly. I came away very pleasantly surprised, giving my heart a much needed boost up from a devastating loss at home this week.
I did get a chuckle out of a couple of scenes as Atom began his climb up the robot boxing ranks. A nod and a wink back to Every Which Way But Loose and at least one of the Rocky films. I probably missed some other scenes that referenced other boxing films of the past, due to my limited experience in that film subcategory.
This movie kept me up way past my bedtime, but I didn’t mind at all. Take a chance on Atom and enjoy Real Steel soon.
Movie Review: John Carter (2012)
John Carter (2012)
4-4.5 out of 5 stars
I loved this film. I would even go so far to say I loved it better than the original book the screenplay was adapted from, A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. As soon as the BluRay for John Carter is released, I am buying it. That’s saying something, since I haven’t actually purchased a DVD or BluRay for myself in years (as a Netflix subscriber, why would I?). The last film worthy of that feat (but only on the discount table because I’m so cheap) would have been Live Free or Die Hard, but I didn’t get the chance since my daughter gifted it to me for my birthday last year. I plan to add John Carter to my permanent collection, shelving it next to my special collector’s editions of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.
Go see John Carter. Now. Don’t wait.
You don’t need to be a fan of science fiction or epic fantasy to appreciate a good tale well told, one that leaves you shouting for more.
***
Oh, and I almost forgot. I liked the musical score as well, which came as no surprise when the credits started rolling and listed Michael Giacchino as the composer. His work on The Incredibles impressed me so much I bought the soundtrack CD (another thing I haven’t done since the days of Star Wars).