Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

Aspects of World Building – 2

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This installment is a fake.  What I want to talk about isn’t really part of world-building but rather different aspects of writing characters.  But since I’m too lazy to start another series of posts for non-world-building writing considerations I’ll put them here.  And in fact, I might even do that with other posts on other aspects of writing because I am inherently messy and undisciplined.

So, aspects of characterization in science fiction!

Over the years I have noticed that characters in science fiction have become more detailed.  The earlier writers in the 1930s and 1940s often produced stories that were more about some aspect of science driving a plot that didn’t require well rounded human characters.  Even the protagonist might be something of a cardboard cutout.  Sometimes this was intentional because the author didn’t care about the characters.  They were merely a means to an end.  They just had to move the plot along to the payoff.

And sometimes this flatness was more a consequence of the extremely limited abilities of the authors to portray normal human speech and actions.  They weren’t good writers.

But the opposite problem is now the case.  There are “science fiction” authors who write “literary” stories that are extremely character driven and psychologically grounded and lavish enormous attention to the interactions of these characters but which do not produce any interesting plot.  So, if your story takes place in a dystopic or utopic future but all your characters do is discuss their romantic problems, I have a hard time thinking of that as science fiction.

It seems to me that a happy medium is what’s needed.  But that is easier said than done.

In my latest story-writing, “The Sniper,” most of the text is taken up with the plot.  There is dialog and interaction and character development but I wouldn’t say it is sufficient.  There are several relationships between the characters that need further development.  But the tricky part is fitting the required dialog into the storyline.  It’s almost as if I’ll need to have two of the characters pinned down together during a battle for them to have the time to say what’s needed.  I remember in Heinlein’s “Beyond This Horizon” there was some such scene that was pivotal for the exposition of the two major characters’ points of view and the resolution of the plot.  The hard part is making it seem spontaneous and not contrived.  Apparently, there is some art to this writing thing.

It’s funny.  Over the years I have developed a taste for some literary fiction.  Specifically, I enjoy well-written short stories.  What I have been toying with is the idea of embedding one or more literary scenes in an otherwise non-literary science fiction story.  There could be a minor scene going on and two characters, possibly neither one of them very important to the plot become involved in a discussion or an activity that has only incidental importance to the plot but which is inherently meaningful and aesthetically interesting.  Of course, that presupposes that I can come up with something that displays those qualities.

With respect to characterization, I intend to go back into my sniper novel and add more dialog to some of the secondary plot lines.  I need to work on my female characters.  I may even try to get Camera Girl’s advice on these.  She is, after all, a girl, so she may have valuable recommendations.  But I fear she may make her characters too ruthless.  Like all barbarians she is inherently merciless

And I still have to decide what I will do with my AI character.  If her creator dies, I’m not sure whether I want her to survive or not.  I had decided that she would suicide.  But I’m growing attached to her.  And I see her value in future stories.  Perhaps death of a parent can be a maturing experience.  She is rather childlike.

In conclusion, the correct amount of characterization in a story is an indication of the balanced writer.  Not so much that the plot bogs down nor so little that you don’t care what happens to the characters.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.”

What’s in the Air

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This week the Autumnal Equinox occurs and marks the point where the scales tip in the direction of night over day.  It’s subtle.  We still are enjoying days that have 80-degree temperatures, bright sun and the sound of cicadas and crickets.  But all the summer flowers are dead or dying.  The butterflies are almost all gone as are the hummingbirds.  The frogs still croak at night but their rhythm has slowed to a crawl and their hearts aren’t in it.

In a couple of weeks, the wolfbane will bloom and the short days will give way to frosty nights and the windows will close and the meals will feature oatmeal for lunch and soups for dinner.  And I’ll have to send for the guy who tunes up the heating system (may the Fire god Agni protect our dear furnace).

So indoor activities become more important.  I’ve been reading another book on the ancient DNA results.  It is very trendily named, “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich.  It has many of the results I have previously read but it made some further clarifications or conclusions.  I also watched a YouTube video that Reich was in.  In this video he made a very interesting assertion.  He said words to the effect that it probably isn’t the case that the Neanderthals and Denisovans went extinct.  Basically, they were reabsorbed in the various successive waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East northward after the last Ice Age.  He is of the opinion that the 2-4% Neanderthal genetic content of non-African humans is probably much higher, more like 10-20%.  And a similar case exists for the Denisovans.  And there may even be other intermediate species or races that we haven’t identified especially where DNA doesn’t survive as well.

Also, he clearly stated that Native Americans are a combination of about 1/3 ancient Siberian (sort of a proto-European group) and two thirds East Asian (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) ancestry that crossed the Bering Land Bridge in three waves.  There is a hint that a small relict population that includes some Australasian traits (e.g., Australian aborigine, New Guinean) exists in the Amazon rainforest but when and how they got there is unknown.

So, there is all this amazing information including the clarification of how the Yamnaya people from the space between the Black and Caspian Seas used the domestication of the horse and invention of the wagon to expand out and replace most of the inhabitants of Europe and Iran and half the inhabitants of India while spreading their language (Prot-Indo-European) to half of Eurasia and subsequently the world.

But the discouraging part of the book is how much hand-wringing Reich does about the fact that these ancient people weren’t feminists and how the conquerors managed to spread their DNA by having children with the lion’s share of the women of the conquered people.  And then we get the genetics of slavery.  Which is a similar story.  In fact, there is a whole chapter called Genomics of Inequality.  And then there is one called The Genomics of Race and Identity.  So, there is a whole lot of hand-wringing.  Oh well.  There is a lot of interesting results.  You just have to read between the whines.

I’m also reading Hans G. Schantz’s book “The Wise of Heart.”  It’s a reimagining of the Scopes’ Monkey Trial with biological sexuality standing in for Darwinian evolution in an environment where transgender activists have passed laws against stating biological reality.  I’m about a third of the way through and I can see he has carefully studied the courtroom nuances that such a legal confrontation would involve.  I’ll provide a full review when I finish.

And finally, now that the summer has ended, I hope to begin watching and reviewing the classic 39 episodes of “The Honeymooners,” the 1950’s sit-com that Jackie Gleason created.  I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this show.  I believe it is the greatest contribution that Brooklyn ever made to western civilization (well, except for, maybe, ringalevio).

And of course, I’m continuing with my outlining of the universe for my epic sf series (WHATEVERITSCALLED).  Believe it or not musing over it actually provides measurable progress in making the choices I need, in order to provide scope and direction to the plot choices I want built into the “world.”  One thing’s for sure.  No xenomorphs in my universe.  Ridley Scott stole that monster from “Voyage of the Space Beagle” but even though that book was terrible it still gave the xenomorph a better showcase.

So, lots of good stuff going on.  Stay tuned.

The Honeymooners – Complete Series Review – Overview

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I’ve always been a big fan of this show.  But nowadays the audience it was created for are either old or really old.  But, so what?  Shakespeare’s audience has been dead for over 350 years and his stuff is still plenty popular.  Am I saying Jackie Gleason compares to the Bard?  Maybe in comedy.  Have you ever watched “Taming of the Shrew?”  There really are an enormous number of similarities.  Kate and Alice Kramden are sisters under the skin.  And Beatrice from “Much Ado About Nothing” is right there too.  And Ralph Kramden and his buddy Ed Norton could be compared to Falstaff and Prince Hal.  Well, maybe not.  And Jackie Gleason and Art Carney had enormous chemistry together.  They were able to riff on whatever ridiculous plot device they were pursuing to incredible comic effect.  Physical comedy and clever dialog abound.  As clowns they stand up with anything Shakespeare produced.  And Alice Kramden’s aggrieved, long-suffering wife is perfection and provides the foil Ralph needs to justify his craziest schemes.  The weakest part of the cast is Trixie who really only acts as a plot device.  She’s a sounding board for both her friend Alice and as Ed’s wife whenever Ralph has gone so way overboard that Ed must rebel.

But anyway, there is an everyman or at least an every-Brooklyn-man of the mid-twentieth century in Ralph and Ed.  These are the guys who fought World War II and came back to Brooklyn and didn’t get to be the man in the grey flannel suit.  They’re the guys in the blue-collar uniform.  They don’t work in a Madison Avenue advertising office.  They work in the sewer or on a Madison Avenue bus and make awful wages and live in two room apartments in Bensonhurst and try to escape every chance they get to a game of pool or bowling or a Racoon Lodge Meeting to avoid their wives nagging them about the broken-down appliances, the bad plumbing and general lack of funds.

Ralph is the not-terribly-bright guy who thinks he is full of million-dollar ideas to get rich quick.  Norton is his best friend who follows Ralph’s lead and of course suffers the consequences constantly.  Their wives, Alice and Trixie are long suffering housewives who have more or less reconciled themselves to the marginal edge of the middle-class but not silently and often quite sarcastically.  The Kramdens and the Nortons are sort of the economic losers of the post-war economy.  But Ralph is always searching for that million-dollar idea and Alice and Norton and Trixie are right behind him being dragged along for the bumpy ride.

Jackie Gleason’s Ralph, Art Carney’s Ed and Audrey Meadows’ Alice are iconic characters that speak directly to Americans who believed in the American Dream.  Their striving and their frantic scramble to enjoy the American life of that time speaks to timeless pursuits of the human condition.  The Kramdens and the Nortons are a very lively spot in the history of fictional people.  The thirty-nine episodes produced in 1955 and 1956 are fine wine.  I like to watch them every once in a while, to remind myself of a happier time than our own.

Aspects of World Building – 1

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As is natural for a man of my era, Heinlein is the exemplar when it comes to science fiction craftsmanship.  But whereas in his youth he was something of a progressive I am a conservative.  So, whereas his earliest “what if?” scenario for his future history was the United States becoming an unlikely Christian theocracy, I’m confronted with the reality of a United States that’s already halfway to becoming a woke oligarchic police state.  Therefore, I’ll use that as the first component of my world building.  Of course, it’s hardly original or surprising.  Maybe it’s even lazy or boring.  But I think it fits.  Besides it can be a one off that’s quickly cured by a revolution that leaves a more interesting and fertile chaos in its wake.

And just as easy to add to the pot is the looming energy drought that is already a part of the daily conversation.  Global warming, green energy, fear of nuclear power; all of these conspire to make the future a bleak prospect for the everyday people trying to eek out a living and raise their families.  Therefore, technology around new energy sources and technologies is a no-brainer.

Now, all that’s good stuff but we need some cooler technology than geothermal turbines.  So, we’ll add in cold fusion (or at least warmish fusion) based on the alleged ability of some heavy metals (platinum group, tantalum, etc.) to produce neutrons under the right conditions.

And we’re going to need a Mars mission I’d say.  Why?  Why not?

What about global unrest?  I guess so.  I’m not all that interested in Asia or Africa, or Europe for that matter, anymore.  I guess I should think about their status to make the story convincing but I’ll leave that alone for the beginning.

What other technology?  Well, biological and genetic should be in the mix.  Maybe the ancient DNA information turns up some anomalies that point to a more complicated hominid prehistory that can be leveraged for some genetic engineering stories.  Maybe some research produces a useful understanding of how other aspects of the cellular apparatus beside the DNA mediate evolution.  Maybe some kind of evolutionary acceleration can be controlled using biochemical stimuli that are not currently recognized.  Maybe this science is unlocked by a genius who wants to change humans.  What kinds of change?  Obviously, intelligence but how about gills to breathe underwater?  Look at all those millions of square miles of ocean.  Maybe make humans photosynthetic.

Artificial intelligence is a for-sure part of the universe.  We need AI’s that in many ways appear to be conscious but whether they actually are I don’t currently know.  I’ll have to see what works.

Extraterrestrials?  I really don’t know yet.  Maybe it’s too early for that.  After all I don’t currently have a star drive.  Maybe I’ll start by finding out if there’s simple life somewhere in the solar system.  Could it be bio-pollution from Earth.  Could algae and tardigrades have drifted from Earth to Mars.  Sure, why not?  And could they have developed some interesting new tricks trying to survive on a freezing, almost airless desert?  Of course!

I used to toy with the idea that the gas giant planets (Jupiter and Saturn) might have a stable layer somewhere in between their hot cores and cryogenic surfaces where creatures swim and fight and live and die.  Maybe that would be fun to play with or maybe an ocean inside of one of the Jovian moons would be better.

Okay, I think that’s enough to start with.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 15SEP2024 – Known Space

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You might try fitting your story into Larry Niven’s Known-Space/Man-Kzin Wars Universe. Since Niven allowed other writers access to what is now a shared universe, over 15 books of short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels have been written by numerous authors. The Tech timeline goes from 19th Century India, through the age of fusion reaction drives, Bussard Ramjets, and the 3-days per lightyear Hyperdrive. You could set your story in any period along more that 1000 years of technology. The Kzinti Occupation years on Wunderland are ripe for Resistance stories, as are the post-liberation years of political upheaval as surviving working-class colonists try to overthrow the semi-aristocratic Herrenmen who are descended from the original Fifteen Families in the first colony ships, who claimed all the good farmland, industrial concerns, and control of the government.

Known Space – Wikipedia

How Do You Concoct a Science Fiction Universe with Plenty of Elbow Room?

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Different science fiction writers have produced every kind of world imaginable and for many different reasons.  A very large chunk of writers did this because they wanted a paycheck and they were told that science fiction was the golden way.  And depending on how talented they were, the stories they wrote were more or less interesting, memorable and coherent.

The earliest of these stories were cobbled together based on an author’s understanding of other genre literature.  So, if the writer wrote cowboy stories previously, then we got Showdown at the Betelgeuse Corral or some such thing.  And in the grand scheme of things that’s not really the worst outcome.  I mean, if our western author is a good story teller then the Showdown may be a very interesting space cowboy story.  And who doesn’t like space cowboys?

But if science fiction should include some world-building that actually has something to do with science then an author should go the next stage and make some kind of hand-waving exercise to justify the technology being used.  You know, warp drive fueled by matter/anti-matter mediated by di-lithium crystals that provide the warpity-warpity part (somehow).  Okay sure.

Now you have the means for a story but why is it?  Who is doing what to whom?  And here is where the cowboy story might be just what you want.  Or maybe it’s the Roman Empire writ large or space Arabia with monstrous spice sandworms or the American Revolution on Luna or Vietnam in space or, or, or.  Whatever gives you a good idea for a story with humans or humans and aliens or just aliens.

And if you want the story to be really worthwhile, well, learn enough about humans to write them somewhat convincingly.  Of course, this is going above and beyond.  There were (and probably are) plenty of writers who apparently have never spoken to or even bumped into living humans.  So, they’re forced to base their characterizations on themselves and thereby end up with some truly weird conversations and interactions.

Now, all of these things are on my to-do list for my foray into sf but I want one more ingredient.  I desire my world building to be the basis for more than one story or even one series.  I’m ambitious.  I think of Heinlein building his “Future History” timeline with its torch ships, terra-forming, social crises and advances in medicine and longevity and the first halting steps to the stars.  Now that’s the way to do it.  Build up a framework that will allow for a whole suite of related but not interlocking stories.  Give yourself some guidelines and parameters but leave plenty of elbow room for different events, characters, locales, times and moods.  I want to make sure I don’t paint myself into any corners so I need some kind of overall outline that I’ve thought through.  That way I’ll be satisfied with whatever restrictions are involved.  For instance, maybe in this universe there isn’t any working star drive and maybe there never will be.  Or maybe the sun is dying and my Earth is working out a crash program to send colonists in suspended animation to every solar system that’s been telescopically identified in the hope that at least some of them will survive.  Or maybe a universe where the aliens found us and have put us in a remedial program to become less stupid and we have an enormous inferiority complex that is causing terminal ennui.  Whatever the setup is I’ll have mentally signed off on it.

So that’s what I’m working on (in a sort of retroactive way).  I want to build a world that my sniper story can be nested into.  I like the idea of our real world being reflected in a story with a way of resolving the problems we have run up against.  But I think I have to put a lot more potential in the story beyond the political conflict.  So, I’m trying to look at the big picture and add as many gee-whiz angles to make it more fun.  I think I may add cold fusion to the mix.  I’ve always liked the idea of some research into some of the heavier metals providing some unhoped-for breakthroughs in advanced physics.  Maybe not as drastic as the E. E. Smith trick that gives his Skylark characters a star drive but definitely limitless and elegant power production.  It’s definitely cheating but I’m thinking about it.

But all this big picture stuff is hurting my head so it’s a tough slog.  But I think it’s the right order of operation.

Lights, Camera, Action!

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Today Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire has a movie out in pretty wide distribution called, “Am I Racist?”  I’ve seen some of the coming attractions and it’s in the vein of a mocumentary where he interviews various anti-racism experts disguised as one of them.  In this guise he gets them to say the most absurd things about racism and American society.  It looks like it might be interesting and potentially very funny.  And I say this after watching his first movie, “What is a Woman.”  It was very effective at exposing the incoherence of the various transgender hucksters and their victims.  I hope this new movie gets lots of attention and makes lots of money for Walsh and the Daily Wire.

This movie opening got me thinking.  It shows that stuff is starting to appear from our side of the street on a more regular basis.  But the problem is that it takes an outfit like the Daily Wire that has its own built-in readership to provide publicity.  What’s needed is an honest search engine that would act as a substitute for Google.  Of course, X is already beginning to provide a social media locale for everyone but the bias that Google uses against the Right is a big deal and can’t be overstated.  Maybe it’ll take the government busting up Google’s monopoly to finally even out the playing field.

In addition, it would be nice if someone would provide the same kind of integrated entertainment and media presence for the Right that Time-Warner provides to the Left.  Now I’m not crazy.  Amazon has decimated the book and movie businesses with its Kindle and streaming businesses.  And whatever is left of the movies is limping along under Disney.  But an underserved niche like traditionalists seems like a safe way to make money in the present environment.  Just look at Disney.  They own all the most successful franchises in the entertainment world but because they object to the traditionalist aspects of these intellectual properties, they routinely sabotage the success of the movies they produce in these franchises by injecting woke plots and characters.  Competition, any real competition is bound to make money by just following time honored precedent; sell sex!

If someone purchased existing stories in these same genres and just told the stories the way they were written fifty or a hundred years ago, they would be equally successful to the earlier movies like the original Star Wars or the earlier installments of Indiana Jones or the Marvel superhero stories.  All of these earlier works are just variations on the theme of the western hero that fights the monsters or villains and wins the girl.  This is as old as Odysseus or as new as Spiderman.  All anyone has to do is make sure that the man acts like a man and the girl is really good looking and falls into the hero’s arms in the last act.

It really isn’t that complicated.  But for whatever reason no one has attempted to build a lean, mean studio to do just that.  There are plenty of people; actors, directors, producers who have been cut out of Hollywood for the simple reason that the studios now have a quota system that excludes white people.  Hire a few of the better people, probably at a discount, and most importantly hire some of the best writers and put out movies at a reasonable price (not in Hollywood obviously) that tell stories that people want to hear.  And make money.

Well, eventually it will happen.  But will it happen in my lifetime?  Ah, well.  Where’s my fedora and bullwhip?

Darth Vader is Dead!

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The iconic actor James Earl Jones has passed away.

I think it was the summer of 1972 (but I could be wrong) I went to see Shakespeare in the Park with a girl I was going to high school summer school with and it was Jones playing King Lear. The park was full of unwashed hippies and life was good. There was a convenient summer thunderstorm during the storm scene. He was a fantastic King Lear.

 

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – A Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to recommendation section at the bottom to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

“Sweet Smell of Success” was produced by Burt Lancaster’s independent production company and starred Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker a New York City newspaper entertainment columnist whose influence allows him to make and break careers of entertainers, politicians and anyone who displeases him.  Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco; a cynical and morally bankrupt press agent who depends on Hunsecker’s largesse to survive in the shark infested waters of New York City’s entertainment industry.

Falco is being punished by Hunsecker because he hasn’t been able to break up a love affair between Hunsecker’s sister Susan and a jazz musician named Steve Dallas (played by Martin Milner).  And most of the plot revolves around Falco and Hunsecker’s efforts to smear Dallas’s name and/or have him arrested for marijuana possession.

Hunsecker’s influence with a brutal NYPD police detective named Kello eventually leads to Dallas being arrested on a trumped up marijuana possession charge, assaulted by Kello and hospitalized.  Near the end of the movie Susan rebels at the plot that her brother and Falco concocted against Dallas and she tells Falco that Hunsecker will blame him after she commits suicide by jumping out the window of her Manhattan penthouse.  Falco stops her from jumping but when Hunsecker walks in on them and sees his sister in her underwear with Falco he believes her when she says that Falco had attempted to sexually assault her.  He slaps Falco several times.  At that point Falco reveals to Susan that it was Hunsecker who hired Kello to beat Dallas.  As revenge Hunsecker calls Kello and reports that Falco framed Dallas and he should be arrested for this offense.  But Susan finally rebels against her brother and walks out of their apartment to join Dallas.  When Falco tries to flee the apartment, he is met on the street by Kello who beats him mercilessly and drags him away to jail.

Recommendation

This is one hell of a strange movie.  Lancaster and Curtis spend the whole movie bantering back and forth at each other with a rapid-fire dialog composed of some kind of 1950’s beatnik/hipster patois, or at least what someone in Hollywood thought beatnik/hipster patois should sound like.  It’s truly bizarre.  Such lines as:

”I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic.”

“You’re blind, Mr. Magoo. This is the crossroads for me. I won’t get Kello. Not for a lifetime pass to the Polo Grounds. Not if you serve me Cleopatra on a plate.”

“You’re dead son. Get buried.”

“Sidney, this syrup you’re giving out with… you pour over waffles, not J. J. Hunsecker.”

And as you could imagine this is an incredibly downbeat movie.  Almost none of the characters are admirable or even likable.  The ending is something of a redemption for Susan but hardly worth the ordeal of swimming through J.J’s and Falco’s cesspool.  I can’t recommend this movie to most people.

I’ll confess that about once a year I want to watch this movie, sort of as a joke.  Maybe I just kind of like Falco saying, “You’re blind, Mr. Magoo.”  And there are many people who admire this movie for its gritty portrayal of something or other.  I’ll leave it to the individual to decide.