Category Archives: SF

I don’t Normally Comment on The Oscars

 

It’s not that I have some great animosity towards the Academy Awards nor is my silence a protest over to whom the awards are presented. There are a great many overlooked films and persons involved in film production with many unjustly not considered for these elaborate peer group affirmations. That’s what all awards are, peer-groups reflecting the pride and prejudices of their times and members expressing collective opinions about what they approved of. These are not objective measures but as with everything associated with the arts subjective impressions and reactions.

A24 Studios

With all that said, it warms my awards cold heart that Everything Everywhere All at Once took home so many of those little golden funny men this year.

EEAO won the Best Picture, Best Director, Supporting Actor and Actress, Lead Actress, Original Screenplay, and Editing. That is an impressive sweep and for a genre film that sways from the deeply profound about the existential dread that can lie at the heart of human existence to very silly gags about butt-plug powered martial arts, those wins are ever more impressive and less likely.

It is no secret that in the arts, stage, screen, television, and publishing, genre material, science-fiction, fantasy, and horror is often cast out to a ghetto. All too often the entity of the genre is judged as no better than its worst example. For EEAO to overcome that bias is a true achievement. EEAOwore its genre proudly on its sleeve. There was no fuzziness about its categorization with terms like, ‘elevated horror’ or ‘psychological thriller’ deployed to justify celebrating a horror film such as The Silence of the Lambs. This movie shouted its geekiness and its absurdity while pulling tears from our eyes with the truth that merely living is simultaneously both joy and agony.

We can quibble and debate which person should have won this or that award but for the moment let’s just celebrate that for this brief shining moment genre is seen as equally worthy of respect as any ‘normal’ dramatic tale.

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My Strange Relationship with The Last of Us

 

A new prestige television series from the creator of the fantastic Chernobyl? You would think that I would be right there every Sunday evening, devouring the newest episodes.

The truth is that zombies of all stripes have worn rather thin for me, particularly the setting of the zombie apocalypse. Yes, I know that these are not technically zombies, they are not magically reanimated corpses but aggressive, disease-infected individuals. The cast looks

HBO

fantastic and there’s no doubt that the series is winning praise from both within and without of the genre communities. And yet I really am not interested in watching it. I never played the game. Games with prolonged story arcs are less appealing to me due to their intense commitment in time. I play first person shooters, never completing their ‘campaigns’ but simply enjoying the on-line matches against hyper-competent players who nearly always leave me beaten and broken.

So, it sounds like I have no relationship with TLOU, but that’s not accurate either.

Craig Mazin, the principal writer and showrunner, co-hosts a fantastic podcast on screenwriting called Scriptnotes. For Chernobyl he launched a companion podcast for the limited series to help illuminate the history and where the show explored fiction. The podcast was a success and helped promote the series and naturally HBO wanted another for The Last of Us.

So, without watching a single episode of the series, or having played the game one second, I am a devoted listener to the series’ companion podcast.

The podcast features Mazin, Druckman ho was the creative force behind the game and co-runs the series with Mazin, and the voice actor who first gave life to one the game’s and show’s principal characters, Joel. Episodes by episode they break down what happens, why they made the creative decisions that they did in staying true to the game or driving far afield from it, and expounding on, in their view, what makes foe compelling stories.

While I may not be interested in fungal zombies overrunning the world, I am thoroughly and utterly fascinated by the process by which that premise becomes so compelling to so many and the secrets of the story telling craft these men so clearly understand.

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Movie: Review M3gan

When the trailers for M3gan dropped I was far from impressed and planned not to see the movie. However, as reports came in from both the horror community and non-horror community that this was actually an entertaining film, I became curious enough to see it. I held my expectations in check though, having remembered that the horror community lost its mind over X, and I found that slasher far from coherent.

M3gan worked and I quite enjoyed myself at last night’s screening. Instead of pursuing a serious realistic tone this screenplay and movie leaned more into camp and irony, leaping to playfulness rather than seriousness to achieve its entertainment.

Cady (Violet McGraw) after becoming orphaned goes to live with her Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) who is a genius at artificial intelligence and robots creating robotic toys. Gemma, thrust suddenly into the role of parent, and utterly at a loss as to how to help Cady process her grief, adapts her robot toy project M3gan to assist, imprinting the android on Cady with the directive to protect Cady from harm. Harm having a wide definition and M3gan with a capacity to learn, adapt, and self-program leads to the expected horrific outcomes.

M3gan can be closely compared to Alex Garland’s Ex Machina another film that deals with the complexities of artificial intelligence and androids that develop their own agendas. Where Garland’s film is a serious mediation on the subject, and quite excellent, M3gan utilizes a far less serious tenor to achieve a similar story. Of course, both stories owe a deep debt to Shelly’s Frankenstein as both ex-Machina and M3gan explore in their own manner the responsibility that creators owe their creations.

A quite pleasant surprise in the movie was Ronnie Chang as Gemma’s boss playing a role that while it had comedic elements was not principally devoted to laughter.

Director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper managed to violate a few screenplay ‘rules’ about who and what you can kill in a film and not lose the audience, displaying a confidence and skill that elevated the project.

M3gan is fun, campy, and entertaining and is currently still in theaters and available on VOD at ‘theater at home’ pricing.

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An Intriguing Start: The Rig

 

January 6th Amazon Prime dropped the first season of its new supernatural thrilled program The Rig on its service. (Not to be confused with the 2010 American Horror movie.)

Starring Iain Glen (Whom many will recognize from Game of Thrones) as Offshore Installation Manager Magnus MacMillan, the program is set aboard the deep-sea drilling platform Kinloch Amazon StudiosBravo as the crew is about to rotate off after a long hard period of working the rig. However, tensions among between among crew between each other and between a representative of the Corporation, Rose Mason (Emily Hampshire) are pushed beyond the breaking point when a series of unexpected and inexpiable events isolates the platform, trapping everyone aboard.

With a large cast The Rig presents the complex, dynamic, and potentially explosive setting of overworked and scared people isolated from all help as they confront dangers without precedent.

Amazon Prime presented The Rig in the ‘binge model’ of distribution, making all six episodes of the premier season available on release. However, neither I nor my sweetie-wife enjoy the full-on a binge and as such we have watched only the first episode. Given that I can properly review an incomplete story I will recount my impression of its opening.

Among the characters populating the series is Fulmer Hamilton (Martin Compston) whose romantic relationship with Rose creates friction and fears of favoritism among the rig workers, Lars Hutton (Owen Teale) a fierce and suspicious rig worker whose distrust of the management and corporation is not utterly unfounded, and Alwyn Evans (Mark Bonnar) the human resources officer caught in the middle of the disintegrating morale.

Filmed entirely in studios in Scotland the series boasts a UK cast with the accompanying array for accents. The digital effects recreating the open seas and the exterior of the platform are most serviceable with only a few shots that have an uncanny unreal valley to them, but they are not enough to shatter the illusion.

I am intrigued enough to continue watching and have hopes that the season will be worth the watch.

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Greg Bear Has Left

Greg Bear Has Left

Following complication from surgery, SF author Greg Bear passed away this weekend.

I have read many but not all of his works and found his writing to be clear, smart, and entertaining. Twice I had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with this noted writer, both times at room parties at conventions.

The more humorous chat concerned his novel Anvil of Stars in which a human ship with alien assistance is one a quest to discover and destroy the civilization that annihilated Earth by completely shattering the planet. Being of quite limited means at the time I had purchased my copy of the novel from a used bookstore. (Let us now also mourn the passing to Adamas Avenue Books as well.) Shortly after the characters have launched their won civilization ending vengeance the next several pages confirmed if they had in fact correctly located the guilty party. The several pages that were in fact missing from my copy.

I relayed this to Bear, and he responded with a jesting tone that’s what I deserved for cheating him out of a royalty.

As I said it was in jest and he laughed as he pronounced my sentence. From panel discussions and those who knew him Greg Bear seemed a thoughtful, considerate, and good man. He will be missed.

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Series Review: ANDOR

 

First off let me say that posting will be light here for the next few months. I work in the enrollment department of a Medicare Advantage Health Care company and there will be hours and hours and hours of overtime work during this Annual Enrollment Period. Now, onto the review.

Andor is the Disney + series fleshing out the backstory of the character Cassian Andor see in the feature film Rouge One: A Star Wars Story. When the series was announced I was less than enthused and frankly rather skeptical. Cassian was mildly interesting in the film, which I enjoyed, but I felt no burning desire to know him better. When the cast list was released and it was clear there would be no return of everyone’s favorite sassy droid, K2SO, my interest in the series fell even further. With the bland and disappointing The Book of Bobba Fett I very nearly skipped this show.

I am so glad I did not.

Andor is the gritty, morally ambiguous story of the birth of the rebellion and Cassian’s recruitment into it. This is not a redressed fairy tale with knight, wizards, mysticism, and farm boys. Instead, we are dropped into a space opera world that is all too familiar to us. Cassian is a petty criminal, surviving on the edges of the Galactic Empire by selling stollen equipment. The

Disney Studios

oppressive fascistic empire is everywhere and callus in its disinterest towards it subjugated population. The resistance is fracture between zealots, politicians, and thieves. The Intelligence Bureau is a pit of backstabbing careerists, but some are intelligent and talented, presenting a far more real and recognizable threat than cartoonish villainy. The prison labor, its injustice and cruelty, is familiar to anyone with passing knowledge of reality’s greatest incarcerator.

Despite the startling white set, the clean rich apartments of its elite characters, Andor has a very noirish feeling to its story. Again and again characters are forced to compromise their personal morals on the altar of the ‘greater good.’

I adore this series with its rich characterization, its willingness to abandon ‘heroic’ tropes, and get its hands dirtywith the nasty, ugly, violent, and degrading business of revolution.

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I Failed My Players

 

Saturday Afternoon/Evening I ran my Space Opera TTRPG for my dear friends and sadly my brain betrayed me, and I achieved none of the tone or mood I has hoped for.

It was not a lack of preparation. I had worked my spreadsheets and gotten all the data collected I would I need, I wrote up an outline of the adventure, the characters, and the goals.

(A brief word on the spreadsheets. Space Opera from FGU came out in the 80s and is a very computation intensive game. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century I have crafted 9 spreadsheets to track the dates, the training, the distances traveled, the fuel used, and many other factors. I am quite proud of these sheets.)

However, when I got to the game, my brain failed completely. I was unable to sequence events properly and barely remained coherent as I ran the session. I ended the session early — was particularly disappointing as we had an unavoidable late start — and barely made it home awake.

I don’t know if it was a rejection, I received earlier in the week that had undermined my morale or a lack of good sleep due to apnea mask issues or some other factor, but it really hurt my weekend. Even more than the migraine I suffered the next day.

I shall have to make sure to not repeat this piss poor performance. I care too much for my players to want to ever have that happen again.

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The Shared Fantasy Element of Star Wars & The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

 

On a surface examination it would seem that the pop space fantasy Star Wars and the ground hard sf novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would have very little in common. One is a fairy tale quest reimagined in a galaxy far away taking place long ago while the other is retelling of the American Revolution set on a lunar penal colony.

Both are concerned with the overthrow of a cruel dictatorial government, one a cartoonishly evil emperor the other a multinational penal system condemning the guilty and the innocent.

But both works have a fantasy element in common, an unbelievably restrained set of revolutionaries.

Revolutions eat their young is a common sentiment. In reality, all too often after a successful revolution and the old guard is turned out, usually fatally, the next most common occurrence is the revolutionaries turn on each other. Divisions that had been set aside as they fought a common enemy resurface and what starts as disagreement turns quickly into violence and assassination.

It often takes a stiff spine and stomach to throw a revolution and it’s very easy to drift across the line from moral action into ‘the ends justify the means.’ After that the will to perform ‘questionable’ acts to win is easily turned against former allies.

In both Star Wars and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress the revolutionaries are upstanding characters that never got their hands truly dirty. The Empire is toppled and it is all just flowers and puppies and a new Republic is born.  In Moon Manny and his conspirators tried to rig the government so that they remained in power but lacking the blood methods usually employed to neutralize former allies they found themselves outmaneuvered and despite their intent an independent government formed.

I got thinking about this because the newest Star Wars television series Andor is gritty, grey, and morally dark.

I love it.

Andor feels real. It feels like the hard choices and nasty work of throwing a revolution. It flies directly opposed to the fantasy revolt of Star Wars and luckily for continuity it will never reach the post revolution period, but until it ends, I plan to be along for the ride.

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Spooky Movie 5: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)

 

To lighten the mood following the masochistic demons from beyond in Hellraiser I watched, along with my sweetie-wife, 1974’s Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla.

Released near the end of the ‘Shōwa’ era, 1954-1975, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla is the 14th film in the franchise and pits the now heroic kaiju monster against am alien robotic duplicate.

In apparent accordance with an ancient prophesy that a monster will come to destroy to world Godzilla reappears and unlike his more recent heroic turn, once again cuts a path of destruction across the Japanese islands. Simultaneously two teams of scientists, a hard-science specialist, and an archeologist, chase down clues to recent events while shadowed and threatened by mysterious agents, some of which turn out to be another vanguard of invading aliens and INTERPOL officers. With the arrival of the OG Godzilla, the imposter is revealed to be a cyborg Toho Studiosconstruction of the aliens. Mechagodzilla is more powerful than Godzilla that is until the correct interventions by priests, princesses, and the scientists. As with all the 70’s Godzilla movies the film’s resolution is never in any doubt and one does not watch kaiju movies from this period for suspense and dramatic turns, but instead for several men in outrageous costumes throwing down on a set filled with miniature mountains and buildings. Shōwa era Godzilla films, save the original masterpiece, are a fun guilty pleasure. I remember being quite disappointed when Godzilla vs The Smog Monster player at the local drive-in and no one in my family had the slightest interest in going. (I did eventually, only a few years ago, see the film and it is truly one of the weirdest Godzilla movies.) Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla will never listed as a great work of cinema nor is it every frightening, but it makes for a perfect light distraction during the more intense fare of the season.

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla is currently streaming on HBO Max.

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Another Novel Completed

 

Yesterday marked the final corrections and updated to my latest Seth Jackson military SF novel. Seth’s an American serving in the European starforces in a future where the United States took a wrong turn in the early 21st century and became a third-rate power.

In some form or another the character of Seth Jackson and the setting has been with me for 25 years, originally taking up residence in my brain about 1988. I have written him and characters around him in short stories and in novel, none of which have yet been published, but hope springs eternal.

The previous Seth Jackson novel got very nicely complimentary rejections from publishers, with no two editors agreeing on precisely what it was about that novel that didn’t work for them. That was encouraging for me. If they all or even most agreed on the fault then it was likely an actual failing in the text but with each having their own reaction it becomes much more about personal preferences.

One editor commented that she really liked the central character and when I started this novel I had hopes of submitting it her first. Sadly, for me not for her, she has now retired from the industry enjoying a well-earned rest.

The novel clocks in at 100,000 words which was the target length I had aimed for. it also represents the first time in this setting where I have written points of view from the ship’s chiefs, which I found to be much more fun to write than the officers.

Now comes the part of the process that I, along with many other authors, despise. The shopping it around. Creating query letters, trying to change my hat from creator to hype man, a role for which I have never been well-suited. I could not sell water in the Sahara.

Whinging about it will not help. Time to do the work that is not fun.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempt to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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