Category: SF&F Book Reviews

Science fiction and Fantasy book reviews by a classic sf&f fan

What’s the Perfect Science Fiction Story to Film?

photog 5 Comments Book Reviews, Movie Reviews, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , ,

I’m cheating here.  I really don’t have some authoritative answer but I’m interested in opinions.  I mean I have my own but I’d like to hear from you readers.  I guess I’m trying to separate what people want to see filmed from what they think would film best.  For instance, someone might love the book Stranger in a Strange Land but think that it wouldn’t translate to the screen at all.  And conversely you might not care for a book but recognize that it would make an amazing visual spectacle.  So that’s the challenge.  What you pick could be your favorite sf book but only if you think that it would be a terrific movie.

So, to be fair I’ll have to pick a book and tell why the movie version would be phenomenal.  Hmmmm.

Alright, so I’ll pick a controversial book; Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.”  And I’ll say why.  I’m basing my opinion on the 1997 film directed by Paul Verhoeven.  Verhoeven made the movie to be an ironic send-up of what he considered a fascist state.  So, he was mocking the military that makes up the whole story.  And yet, despite this hostile take on Heinlein’s book, the film is a staggeringly vivid visual spectacle.  The vistas of battle on planet and in space are remarkable even though this movie used CGI effects that are several decades out of date.  So, I try to imagine what could be done if someone who liked the story and the world it envisions wrote and directed it.  I think it could be amazing.

Now let me add that I don’t think this would happen in a million years.  Woke Hollywood has no interest in a pro-military sf war movie.  Ever since Vietnam they’ve made more than ten anti-war movies for every pro-military one.  But since I’m not asking, “what’s the movie most likely to be made,” I feel I can select the story that I favor regardless of its chances of actually appearing on the screen.  I think of the visual showing Buenos Aires being obliterated from space by the Bugs and I think of what the emotional impact of that scene would be.  And if the Rico character were presented as intended, I think it would be a sympathetic one for the male portion of the audience.  Of course, the jury is still out on whether I would keep the communal male/female shower facilities that Verhoeven introduced into his film.  It has its advantages and disadvantages as a cinematic device.  But I would demand that the movie stay as close to Heinlein’s book as possible.

So come on everybody, pick the story that is perfect for the big screen and give your reasons why you think so.  And I won’t restrict this by the book’s age.  It could be Frankenstein, War of the Worlds or anything else.  Even if it’s already been filmed several times, say why a new version would work.  But for pity’s sake don’t give me a woke book.  My stomach isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Replies:

 

Ed Brault:

Boy, this is a tough one. There are several I could choose from.

Larry Niven’s “A Gift from Earth” Set on a distant colony planet, it has action, suspense, political upheaval, and a rather unique social commentary on the impact of genetic engineering. The visuals would be well within CGI and other technical effects tech that has been around since Stargate SG-1.

Another would be “The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton. Crime and mystery in a not-too-distant future. Telepathy, psi powers, black market organ transplants, and a unique form of addiction that may not be that far off. All done in an almost-contemporary setting, just add automated flying cars, and a society so desperate for life-extending transplant material, they make almost any crime Capital, even False Advertising, sending the perp to the Organ Banks. Three short stories that put a creative spin on murder. The capper is the Jigsaw Girl, set on the Moon, with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, clones, and interplanetary politics.

“The Children’s Hour”, set on the Wunderland colony on a planet of Alpha Centauri. Conquered by the felinoid race, the Kzinti, and it is used as a staging base for the planned conquest of Earth. Three invasion fleets have been beaten off, but a new Governor has brought a new philosophy of war. Instead of “Scream and Leap” he advocates careful study of the enemy, how he thinks, and how “inferior” technologies may be used in VERY sophisticated ways against a more advanced force. Earth’s GHQ wants him dead, and a special team is sent to get him, by a very fiendish, complex method, all set in a background very reminiscent of “Casablanca”.

 

Chemist:

We agree on Starship Troopers. I think it could be redone with more attention to Rico and his development – especially his reconciliation with his dad.
Another Heinlein – Puppet Masters. I know. Been done. I think it could have been done better. It already has a very strong female character without being woke. Robert set Puppet Masters up for a sequel but never wrote it. I’d like to see a sequel where the humans take the war to Titan. I think a focus on the man / dog teams would be excellent.
And we know how Hollywood loves sequels – here are two movies just waiting to be made.

Now if you want to make a serious romp movie – any of Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” books would do. If I were writing it, I’d lean into the anti-government aspect. I think it would play well today.

 

Tregonsee:

Well I would like to see Starship Troopers done correctly. I imagine RAH is still revolving in his grave or haunting Mr. Verhoeven over the 1997 travesty. I think The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress MIGHT work. I’ve always thought the first of Zelazny’s Amber Series Nine Princes in Amber might make a nice movie, or better an 8-10 1hr show series (with other Amber Books to follow if it works). Larry Niven’s Ringworld or Protector might work, although Ringworld will have to be edited lest it skate into deep R or NR rated territory. For romps I favor Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing Of The Dog it is eminently filmable, though again a series might work better. The time travel nonsense is just absolutely beautiful and hilarious; there is a romance (or three), and we rescue an extinct species (spoilers 🙂 ) of great interest. And last but not least, the first couple of the Honor Harrington series might be fun, In particular On Basilisk Station and Honor of The Queen . I’d love to see it get to Field of Dishonor but that’s 5 books in and because of prolong our heroine does not age, but whatever star we choose to play her will age.

Oh and of course given my handle I am for a version of E.E. Smith’s Galactic Patrol. Though I fear modern Hollywood would mangle it more than Mr Verhoeven did Starship Troopers. Many of its features (in particular Lenses being MALE only with one special exception) would not sell in the modern world.

A big issue is that a 2-2.5 hour movie requires 200-250 pages of script. a 150 page book EASILY fills that amount of script, but modern Novels run 300-450 pages (And I’m Not even talking to You Mr. Sanderson…). the series/miniseries model doesn’t make as much cash as a successful movie, so it can’t fund as many physical effects (which still are needed for convincing SciFi c.f. Hail Mary Project ). Hollywood has been leery of NEW SciFi with the soft returns on several Star Wars sequels (doesn’t help they were really weak) and the catastrophe that was John Carter, which I thought was a fairly decent rendering of the Barsoom series start (it essentially being A Princess Of Mars reworked a bit). Maybe Hail Mary Projects‘ success will disabuse them of their SciFi fears, at least until they screw some other pooch big time…

 

TomD:

Every SF book that I’d like to see as cinema combines the elements of imagination, extrapolation, character development and world building. Problem being that doing all that implies a movie too long and convoluted to be doable or effective.

The book that I’d most like to see is Robert Silverberg’s “Lord Valentines Castle” but it would take a Tolkien Trilogy’s worth of effort to do and quite unlikely.

Tregonsee replied to TomD:

Tom D said

“Every SF book that I’d like to see as cinema combines the elements of imagination, extrapolation, character development and world building.”

I think that is true of a great deal of SciFi/Fantasy. For a film or even a series, we like to have a character or two to focus on, both because star power helps sell films and because with a cast of thousands, filming costs go up and engagement goes down. For many years, The Lord of the Rings and Dune were thought unfilmable. Lynch’s Dune and Bakshi’s LOTR nearly proved that true. I Think Peter Jackson did exceptionally well with LOTR and Denis Villeneuve has done well (albeit mangling the timeline a bit and gender swapping a character unnecessarily) with Dune. It helps to have a producer/director/writer that loves and understands the material.

I don’t remember enough of Lord Valentines Castle to be able to comment on it reasonably, but I think you are correct it probably is to obscure and would perhaps feel derivative of other scifi/fantasy. I wonder if we don’t have two separate classes here: films we’d like to see made and films that could be filmed. The latter class has grown with Computer Special effects reducing costs and making some things possible (e.g. an anatomically correct Puppeteer or Kzin is impossible without modern special effects). I wonder how large the Venn diagram of the overlap of those two classes is. And of course there is a third class, interesting to the general public. without being in that class the chance to break even on production costs goes WAY down.

 

 

 

Twelve Months – A Novel of The Dresden Files – by Jim Butcher – An SF&F Book Review

photog 4 Comments Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , , ,

I just finished the latest (and possibly the penultimate) Dresden Files novel; “Twelve Months.”  So, what should I say about it.  I won’t do a synopsis of the plot.  You can get that plenty of places but if you haven’t read it, you don’t want the spoilers.  And since this is book 18 (or 19 or 20?) of the series you wouldn’t be reading this book if you’re not already caught up on the saga.

So, I think I’ll just give my impressions of the book as a Harry Dresden book.  First of all, this book is a reaction to the havoc that the war in the last book “Battle Ground” wreaked on Harry’s life.  He lost several close friends and the love of his life so he’s not doing too well.  And so, this book chronicles Harry’s recovery from physical, emotional and supernatural wounds that he sustained.

And I would say that this book is much more of an emotional story than most of his earlier books.  And that’s not to say that Harry Dresden has just found his humanity in this book.  He was always an emotional man but I think the author is trying to emphasize that this older, wiser Harry is less motivated by anger and more willing to use empathy to think his way out of a conflict.  He’s even able to reason with a Lovecraftian monster to avoid a lose-lose situation.

And another observation I have is that I think I can see some of the loose ends being tied together.  If the next book is the last chapter of the Dresden Files, then he’s going to have to settle the hash of about twenty major characters and a hundred minor ones.  And some of these major characters are tied to railroad tracks with locomotives within sight.  And there’s no off-ramp for Harry.  He’s slowly advanced over the course of the series from an almost comically overmatched novice at magic to one of the top ten powers in the supernatural world.  He has friendships, alliances and vendettas with virtually all of the supernatural powers that exist in his crowded and lovingly detailed urban fantasy universe.  There is the White Council of Wizards, the Summer Fey, the Winter Fey, Ghouls, Lycanthropes, a Titan, the Black Court Vampires and the White Court Vampires.  There aren’t any more Red Court Vampires because Harry killed off the whole clan in an earlier book.  How exactly Jim Butcher intends to pull the plug on Harry’s adventures is a complete mystery to me.  Killing him off doesn’t seem to make any of the subplots work better and I just don’t see how he “retires.”  Too many enormously powerful forces want him dead.

But suffice it to say, if you’ve enjoyed the earlier Dresden Files installments then you will inhale the four hundred sixty odd pages of “Twelve Months” in a couple of days and immediately wonder why Jim Butcher is leaving you hanging waiting for the conclusion.  So, who do I recommend this book to?  Why, anyone who has gotten this far in the series of course.  And for that audience I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Have Patience Oh My Friend Polemarchus

photog 0 Comment Book Reviews, Current Events, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews ,

So, today Camera Girl asked me whether I had figured out the plot for my sequel to “The Sniper.”  I had to confess that my efforts to outline the story had so far been pretty feeble.  And this has a lot to do with work and the annoying responsibilities it entails.  But I have been thinking of late about a plot line having to do with a very, very wealthy and powerful character (Connors) trying to change drastically the way that Americans live.

And this ties in with the current state of affairs in these United States.  It’s apparent that people on the Left and the Right are turning to populist leaders and movements because the American dream doesn’t seem to be working very well lately.  Of course, the two sides of the political “binary” would attack the problem in completely different ways.  The Mamdani wing would confiscate all wealth and “redistribute” it in a way that would turn the United States into Cuba or worse.  But even the Right hasn’t managed to turn America into a capitalist wonderland.  Trump has made some moves to try and reverse the off-shoring of American industrial jobs but so far, the results have not been robust in my opinion.

So, I look at this situation and I think that this may be the challenge of our age.  And suppose the political parties aren’t up to the challenge.  And what if the corporations aren’t interested in being part of the solution.  If I want to get dystopian, I can have us descend into a rerun of the end of the Roman Republic with our own Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar.  We could run that playbook and end up with an Augustus ushering in the approximately five centuries of American imperial rule by destroying the republic.

But what if I write a more hopeful tale.  Not a utopia but a technocratic attempt to find a better way to organize society.  Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) is the boogeyman of the day right now and it gets stood up as the cause of and cure for all our problems.  So, I can easily be accused of jumping on the bandwagon if I have Connors use some form of AI to help design a different framework for integrating people with an optimal result for the great majority of the population.

Now, I freely admit I haven’t the foggiest idea what that would look like or even if such a thing is even theoretically possible.  I wouldn’t want to end up looking like Plato does when someone reads through his “Republic” and the whole thing is a bunch of feeble arguments where he knocks down a bunch of straw men on his way to enthroning “philosopher kings” as his best and brightest ruling over his ant hive of an ancient brave new world.

But I think I would like to play around with this idea of a trillionaire re-ordering society along logical lines to optimize human happiness.  So that’s kind of my take on the sequel’s plot.  Of course, the first question I’m asking myself is whether the attempt is a success or a failure.  I’ll have to roll it around to see which is more interesting.  Have patience oh my friend Polemarchus.

Books and Bugs

photog 2 Comments Book Reviews, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Reviews, SF&F Book Reviews , , ,

So, today’s post is about nothing.  I’m involved in a bunch of random things right now.  I’m reading two novels.  I’ve got Jim Butcher’s latest Harry Dresden book “Twelve Months” and I’m also reading a very old book called “Buddenbrooks” by the German author Thomas Mann.  And you couldn’t hope to find two more completely different stories if you tried.  But I have an interest in reading both.  But the Dresden book flies by while Mann’s description of the 19th century events in the lives of the merchant family Buddenbrook is a task that I peck away at a few pages at a sitting.  The translator saw fit to preserve the large chunks of French that Mann incorporated in the speech of some of his characters.  And the religiosity and the local customs of Northern Germany are curiosities for a modern American reader.

I’m also involved in a microscopic inspection of the flora in the fields.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I couldn’t find any preying mantis egg sacs in the yard this year and assumed that the mantids that I introduced into the yard in the last couple of years weren’t capable of surviving New England winters.  Well, either that isn’t correct or the native populations are making their appearance this year.  In two different areas of the yard on two different species of flowering plants (cone flowers and day lilies) I found the specimens photographed below.

Now, these critters are infinitesimally small.  And considering my old eyes, I’m shocked I found then at all.  And as things stand now, I haven’t been able to locate them again on the plants where I originally spotted them.  But this doesn’t discourage me.  After following some of the mantids around the fields last year I know that they get around and move quite a lot to find the diet of tiny bugs they need to fuel their substantial growth potential.

And I don’t mind saying that finding these little monsters cheered me up considerably.  I really do enjoy hunting them around the fields and watching them go about their work of stalking, killing and eating tiny flies and other arthropods.  Their skill is considerable and their appetites remarkable for something so small.

And the other thing keeping me busy is preparation for an upcoming birthday party for one of the grandchildren.  I found out that the propane cylinder I was trying to get refilled was too old.  Apparently after five years it’s considered unsafe and has to be recertified for use.  So, the Tractor Supply folks sold me a new twenty-pound cylinder for eighty bucks and now I have both.  I wonder how much they’ll charge me to “recertify” the old one?  I’m guessing something like eighty bucks.  After all, we’ve got to do whatever we can to discourage the use of evil hydrocarbons!  But it’s fine.  The burgers and dogs will still taste just as good cooked by the new propane.

Well, that’s enough for now.  I’m watching my Amazon account today.  I sold 613 pages of “The Sniper” on Kindle Unlimited today.  That’s almost three books worth and that is pretty good for my sales output so I want to see if it increases before I go to bed.

The Green Hills of Earth (1951) by Robert A Heinlein – A Science Fiction Book Discussion

photog 5 Comments Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , ,

Well, I’ve been having so much fun with the recent science fiction discussions I thought I’d reminisce about the science fiction stories that had the biggest effect on me when I was first starting out reading science fiction.  And the one that really impressed me the most early on was Heinlein’s short story collection “The Green Hills of Earth.”

I think it was my introduction to his “Future History” stories.  And I remember that reading these stories was different from anything else I had read up to this point.  With the space opera stories even as a child I could sense that there was a lot of handwaving going on to justify all the faster than light travel, humanoid aliens and super-duper energy weapons and shields that somehow translated 19th century naval exploration and warfare into interstellar adventure.

His stories attempted to describe the nuts and bolts of building space stations and lunar colonies based on the best information that existed at the time.  Some of the stories (about Mars and Venus) were highly inaccurate.  But the stories about the Moon are still quite close to what could and maybe will be accomplished.  In that vein I think the story that exemplifies Heinlein’s ability to make believable his picture of a lunar human environment is “Gentlemen, Be Seated!”  And the plot and characters are both so skillfully sketched that disbelief is completely suspended right through to the end.

Now some of the stories aren’t that believable.  “—We Also Walk Dogs” involves a very clever story about a consulting business that accepts the assignment of inventing artificial gravity in order to accommodate aliens from worlds that have both higher and lower gravity than Earth during a conference on Earth.  Basically, they bribe a brilliant physicist to accomplish this “simple” task by stealing a museum artifact that he covets.  As I said, it’s a ridiculous premise but Heinlein portrays the Machiavellian machinations of this seemingly unlimited consulting firm very skillfully and with great gusto.  So that even a story as unbelievable as this one is enjoyed on its own terms.

And that’s the thing with most of these stories.  The writing is so skillful that the reader never feels let down by the quality of the stories.  The characters are interesting and for the most part believable.  The plots are clever and as I said in many cases plausible.  And at the time this was far from typical in the stories that could be found on the science fiction shelf in the library or book store.

Here’s a list of the stories that were in that collection.  See if any are or were favorites of yours.

“Delilah and the Space Rigger” (1949; originally published in Blue Book)

“Space Jockey” (1947; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“The Long Watch” (1949; originally published in The American Legion Magazine)

“Gentlemen, Be Seated!” (1948; originally published in Argosy Magazine)

“The Black Pits of Luna” (1948; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“It’s Great to Be Back!” (1947; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“—We Also Walk Dogs” (1941; originally published in Astounding Science Fiction)

“Ordeal in Space” (1948; originally published in Town & Country)

“The Green Hills of Earth” (1947; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“Logic of Empire” (1941; originally published in Astounding Science Fiction)

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 09JUN2026 – Tregonsee’s Three Pronouncements About Stuff

photog 4 Comments Book Reviews, Guest Contributors, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews, Tregonsee

Long ago my wife and daughters found my pronouncements amusing. I codified them in a set of rules (which became referred to as the Rules of Acquisition after the Ferengi rules in ST: Deep Space 9). I have three related to fiction and opinions

16. Opinions are like certain bodily orifices. Critically important but not something decent people expose in public.

17. In fiction (Written, Visual, or Interactive) I desire a story and escape. If I want morals I’ll hear a sermon, if I want to work at something I’ll go to work and get paid for it.

18. This is not to say a writer or other content producer may NOT provide meaning or morals. Just don’t shove it in my face unceasingly (Remember that orifice in rule 16? You wouldn’t shove that in my face either).

And yes Clarke and Asimov are far more of the “Idea” arm of SciFi. Asimov often has to work to make his male characters two dimensional. His female characters rarely rose to that and are almost literally paper cutouts. Clarke uses some stereotypes in his early short stories, but almost all his stories even the Big ones like 2001 , Childhood’s End and Rendevous with Rama depend far more on story (and the first two are reusing parts of several short stories pasted together) than on character. I think it is why Asimov and Clarke excel in the shorter forms (up to about Novella) but struggle more ion the longer forms. This may also stem from the fact that from mid ’40s to mid 60’s the primary form (and most financially viable form) of Scifi was the magizines either as short stories or serialized for longer pieces. These forms make character development harder I would think.

photog’s Second Law of Science Fiction

photog 3 Comments Book Reviews, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews

Yesterday I formulated my first law of science fiction:

photog’s First Law of Science Fiction – Thou shalt not change more than one basic law of physics when making a good story.

Well, that was so much fun I thought I’d try for another one:

photog’s Second Law of Science Fiction – Thou shalt not bore the poor reader to death.

And really this should be the first law because it really is essential.  Honestly, if the reader is interested, he will probably forgive anything else; excessive use of time travel, repetitive battle scenes, gratuitous sex and violence, even scurrilous attacks on political enemies.  As long as the story keeps the reader’s interest, it’s a success.

Now this is an iron law for any kind of fiction.  But because different genres have different readers it behooves the author to pay attention to what his particular genre considers interesting.  So, if you write romantasy you must make sure you include plenty of female protagonists being ravaged by minotaurs or some other equally absurd mythical beast.

But if you write science fiction and especially if you write hard science fiction you have to make sure you can pass the science literacy test when it comes to the gadgets and phenomena that you hang your tale on.  So, that’s step one.

Step two is to make the characters and the plot interesting.  And this is where some of the best hard sf writers are found lacking.  For myself, personally, Arthur C Clarke seemed to have a hard time writing characters that were actual people.  Most of the time there just didn’t seem to be a recognizable human being on the page.  And I’m not saying he was a bad writer.  He wasn’t.  He was quite skilled.  It just seemed that he didn’t care about the human aspect in the story.  Now compare this to Isaac Asimov.  When I recently (four or five years ago) reread the Foundation books I thought the plot was at times marginal.  But even the less developed characters seemed to have recognizable voices and personalities.  Asimov managed to make the characters seem somewhat alive.  And live humans are interesting to live humans.  And since the people buying books are (for the most part) live humans it becomes critically important to write characters that appeal to the book buying public.

And that is why even the most technically savvy sf author must (in my opinion) learn how to simulate human characters.  And that is okay.  Because we don’t expect Tolstoy.  You can make the characters resemble almost any humans you’ve ever met.  In fact, it’s better if you mix it up and include a bunch of different types.  This will help to avoid the serious problem of all your characters sounding and thinking exactly like you.  And believe me, that is a big problem.

So, I guess the second law means that a good science fiction writer must also be a good writer in general if he doesn’t want to fail miserably.

Is Astrophage Science Fiction?

photog 6 Comments Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , ,

Last week I reviewed “Project Hail Mary” and I approved of it as high quality science fiction.  But am I being consistent?  Should I be calling it fantasy?  In other words, can a story based on a completely impossible premise be considered science anything?  So, let’s talk about this.

Andy Weir used a microorganism of extraterrestrial origin as the basis for his story.  This lifeform which he called astrophage had a complement of remarkable properties that made it both the source of an existential threat to human existence on Earth and the key to human interstellar travel.  Astrophage can convert light into mass and it can also convert mass into light.  This is “explained” by claiming that it can harness the energy produced when neutrinos and their anti-matter opposites (which apparently are also just neutrinos) annihilate each other forming light.  So somehow, the living cell can store neutrinos and then harvest them to produced light that can be used as a motive force to propel the astrophage at velocities approaching light speed.

Okay, this is gibberish.  None of those things can be done in a particle accelerator, never mind inside the protoplasm of a cell.  So, all of this is no different than E. E. Doc Smith pointing to his “inertialess” drive that allows the Galactic Patrol and their Boskonian enemies to hurtle through interstellar space at many time the speed of light.  It’s just hand-waving to allow the action in the story to occur in a time period that allows for a fun story.

Now, granted, Weir at least restricts his velocities to the limit that General Relativity permits.  And he allows time dilation and other relativistic effects to govern the fate of his astronauts.  But having his starship reach 0.92 c is based on an energy production method that is completely inexplicable by any physics or biology that we can point to.

So, why isn’t that fantasy?

I think I’m going to invent a rule of science fiction.

photog’s First Law of Science Fiction – Thou shalt not change more than one basic law of physics when making a good story.

So, if Andy Weir wants astrophage to have a biological basis for matter/antimatter conversion then everything else about his story has to be “legit.”  So, he can use astrophage as his workaround for amazing energy density for things like interstellar flight but everything else still requires the laws of physics, chemistry and biology to work the way they do in the real world.  Now some folks might begrudge him xenonite because somehow, he turned a noble gas into unobtanium but there’s enough wiggle room in chemistry so that depending on what else besides xenon is in xenonite we could imagine all the properties of this make-believe material without calling down the lightning of the gods of the periodic table.

So, I think that’s fair.  If you only make up one crazy make-believe MacGuffin to allow for the action in your story then I won’t cry foul and demote the story to the depths of the fantasy dungeon.  I mean, who could ask for more than that.

Project Hail Mary (2021) – A Science Fiction Book Review

photog 1 Comment Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , ,

“Project Hail Mary” is an sf novel by Andy Weir.  It’s currently finishing off a theater run as a motion picture made by Amazon (MGM).  And in fact, this is Weir’s second book to be turned into a motion picture (the first one was “The Martian”).

Just to start with the most important question, I think this is an excellent book.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

My review will have spoilers but I think I’ll be cagey about some of the plot elements because they’re pretty important to the way the story unfolds for the reader and I think they shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of my plot synopsis.

The book’s protagonist is Ryland Grace; a biology PhD who now teaches Middle School science because a paper he wrote about the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the absence of water was severely criticized.  As the story unfolds an autocratic European Space Agency administrator named Eva Stratta whose been given almost unlimited authority commandeers Ryland into a multinational science and engineering project that is studying a mysterious non-terrestrial organism that is absorbing an enormous amount of energy from the sun and threatens to throw the Earth into a cataclysmic ice age.

Ryland discovers that the lifeform (which he names astrophage) has a life cycle which sees it looping around between basking close to the sun in order to store up enormous energy traveling to Venus, reproducing in the atmosphere of Venus and then returning to the neighborhood of the sun.  And it travels back and forth in this cycle at speeds approaching c (the speed of light).  And the explanation for this capability is that astrophage can convert energy into matter and matter into energy.  There’s some hand-waving about neutrino production creating matter/anti-matter annihilation but of course there’s nothing that makes any sense.  Anyway, the astrophage is increasing its numbers asymptotically and within thirty years Earth will freeze and mankind will disappear.

And it is discovered that all of the stars in our neighborhood are also dimming because of astrophage.  All except one Tau Ceti.  So, a star ship will be built by the combined technical skills of humanity and staffed with a crew of three including a scientist trained on the current knowledge about astrophage and hopefully they will discover why Tau Ceti is immune to the dimming and use this to find a cure for our solar system.  And the star ship is powered using astrophage as fuel.  Well, actually the light that the astrophage produce for motion is the propellant pushing the ship through space.  Unfortunately, in the short window they have to create the ship and breed the enormous amount of astrophage needed, they cannot make enough for a round trip.  This is a suicide mission (thus the name “hail Mary”).

And in order to keep the crew from killing each other in the tight confines of the ship for four (relativistically speaking) years, they are in a coma state.  When the ship reaches Tau Ceti, Ryland is awakened and doesn’t remember who he is or where he is or why.  He discovers that aside from robotic presences he is the only living human aboard.  His two crewmates have long ago died during their coma states.

Gradually Ryland’s memory returns and he realizes that he must carry out the mission unassisted by the deceased pilot and engineer.  Slightly later on he realizes that another star ship is in his neighborhood and he discovers that the inhabitants of another local star system (40 Eridani) have also sent a mission to Tau Ceti to solve the problem of astrophage.  The alien is a sort of five-legged giant crab with an outer shell of metallic minerals.  His atmosphere is ammonia at twenty-nine atmospheres and 200°C and so Ryland cannot go into his ship but must allow the alien to come to the Hail Mary in a protective suit.

The remainder of the book is a journal of Ryland and Rocky (the name he gives the Eridian engineer who is the only surviving member of the 40 Eridani mission) learning how to understand each other and cooperate to combine their highly complementary skill sets to solve what should be an impossible problem; translating the resistance of the Tau Ceti system to astrophage into a practical solution for Earth’s sun and 40 Eridani.  And after many setbacks and several acts of selfless friendship by both partners they overcome the challenges and solve the problems and save Earth and Erid (Ryland’s name for Rocky’s home world).  Now Rocky’s ship has an enormous surplus of astrophage and he is able to provide Ryland with enough fuel for a return trip to Earth.  But after they separate for their voyages home Ryland discovers that a flaw in a containment tank will mean that Rocky’s ship will be out of fuel and doomed.  Ryland reverses course and rescues Rocky and returns him to Erid in the Hail Mary and must therefore abandon his own return to Earth.  He is able to send the solution to Earth’s problem (another single cell lifeform that Ryland dubs Taumoeba that eats astrophage and can be inoculated into the atmosphere of Venus) in four robot ships that will return to Earth on their own.  In the last scene of the book Ryland is living in a special enclosure on Erid that protects him from the atmosphere, temperature and pressure conditions that would kill him instantly.  But he has his friend Rocky around to keep him company and he has returned to his former occupation as a school teacher to Eridian children.

Okay.  This guy Weir doesn’t kid around when it comes to detailed scientific descriptions.  He’s got two different artificial gravity mechanisms (centrifuge and continuous acceleration/deceleration travel) and he describes their successful and unsuccessful usage in the story.  He goes into gory detail to show how his astrophage can be used in a stellar drive.  He goes into gory detail to describe his efforts to get Taumoeba to “evolve” into a population that will survive the atmospheres containing nitrogen on Venus and the planet near 40 Eridani.  He goes into gory detail to discuss his efforts to isolate and remediate the contamination of his fuel by Taumoeba.  This guy love technobabble.  But I guess most people reading science fiction love technobabble too so it’s a forgivable sin.  The other thing I notice is that Weir writes characters that correspond to millennials.  They’re much more touchy-feely and prone to virtue signal than I care for.  In other words, he’s writing for a modern audience, not a caveman like me.  In fact, even though she’s very much a girl-boss, the character I most closely relate to was the autocratic administrator, Eva Stratta.  My verdict is this is a very inventive and entertaining science fiction story and well worth the reader’s time.  I highly recommend it.

 

McGuffin Magic

photog 0 Comment Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , ,

I’ve been reading Andy Weir’s book “Project Hail Mary” and I’ll finish it soon and put out my review (which will be quite favorable).  But while working my way through it I was impressed by how the improbability of some of the “science” in a story doesn’t spoil the enjoyment garnered by its use.  After all, the premise of the story requires that Earth send an interstellar mission twelve light years away in order to move the story forward.  So, the “MacGuffin” has to be accepted to go forward with the story.  But what’s the formula for inventing an acceptable MacGuffin?

I suppose there are several methods.  The simplest is don’t explain anything.  Figure out a way for the main character to be unaware of any of the “technical” details for the MacGuffin.  Maybe he’s a completely non-technical individual; a grade school dropout or a literal caveman.  Or the technology is owned by an alien race that we can’t interrogate.

A more common way is to build up some technology based on a breakthrough in physics and other sciences.  And because it’s fictitious the main requirements and advantages of the explanation would be that it’s self-consistent and allows some very convenient short cuts in the plot.  This is the avenue Weir goes down.  His MacGuffin is both the problem and the solution to the problem.  He has built up a scenario that creates an existential catastrophe but also provides a mechanism for solving the problem and also turning the danger into a potential boon.

And that’s what’s extremely clever about this plot he’s invented.  It mimics the idea of the double-edged sword that some new discovery can be, for example, nuclear energy.  That was something that both threatened human extinction and promised the solution to the energy crisis.

As much as the mechanism Weir invents for his MacGuffin is intensely improbable, still, once accepted as fact, the rest of the story follows logically and satisfyingly from this premise.  He has this new “fact” introduced into the world and then spins that world around on it until he gets the wild ride that ensues.

So now he has interstellar travel at a respectable fraction of the speed of light, a reasonable excuse for an intelligent alien first encounter and throws that together with a likable protagonist who is swept along against his will by this cosmic catastrophe.  What’s not to like?

But what I realize is that I’m going to have to up my game when I write my sequel.  I’ve never fleshed out the rationale behind how Connors’ mining drone is able to do what it does.  I just sort of waved my hands around and said “abracadabra!”  Weir is careful to count up the zeros when he describes the amount of energy that his “astrophage” is able to store and discharge as the basis of his star drive.  Sure, attributing a neutrino-based energy storage system to a one-celled animal living in the hard vacuum of space in the vicinity of a star is pure nonsense.  But he does acknowledge the magnitude of the nonsense.  And that does make it fun.