Intelligent Science Fiction

Warning: This post contains spoilers about the books Who Goes There? I Am Legend and The Hunger Games.

What is it about science fiction that gives this particular genre such a broad appeal? If you look at Hollywood you’d be tempted to think it was the visual sensation of blockbusting special effects, but nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the reliance of movies on mind-bending special effects has diluted rather than enhanced great science fiction stories.

Science fiction has such a strong appeal because it is intelligent, it stimulates our thinking. And, often times, this distinction is lost when books morph into movies.

In Who Goes There? John Campbell introduces us to a creature Hollywood immortalized as The Thing. Although the movie is a vivid and faithful rendition of this novella, it misses a significant amount of the reasoning the scientists go through as both they and the readers struggle to comprehend what they’re dealing with. And that is where the brilliance of the story lies, in the exploratory, inquisitive, reasoning nature of man. The essence of the story is, how can reason triumph over a mindless monster, one than can perfectly mimic its target? Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie, but the way the scientists reason through the nature of this alien beast in the novella is brilliant, and it is lost in the screen adaptation. They consider the biological nature of what they’ve run into, they think about how the infection spreads at a cellular level, realizing that the infected cow would have laced their milk with parasitic spores. They discuss why the alien won’t engage in open combat with them, realizing that it has evolved a unique strategy to avoid such confrontations, and they come to the chilling realization that it would sweep unopposed throughout the world if even the smallest biological trace remains. As a reader, you feel like an unnamed member of the ice station, traveling with them on this doomed voyage.

In the same way, I Am Legend, takes an absurd, mythological notion and says, what of it were true? How could vampires exist in a modern world? The protagonist, Neville, talks us through the logic of vampires fearing the cross, but not because of any inherent supernatural power in that shape, it turns out that the shape is a vivid reminder for vampires, causing a physiological revulsion of what they’ve become. In the same way, mirrors allow them to see themselves for what they really are, and they are repulsed by the realization that they are monsters. Neville even notes that vampires of Jewish origin would suffer the same aversion to the Star of David as former Christians would of the cross. Garlic, rather than an old wives’ fable, becomes a biological agent that causes anaphylactic shock. Sunlight, it seems, breaks down the vampiric bacteria, just as UV is known to destroy other types of bacteria. In the course of the story, the question is raised, why do stakes kill vampires and not bullets? Neville, our rational hero, applying science over superstition, learns that the hemorrhaging caused by a stake cannot be contained as easily as the smaller holes caused by a bullet. And the reader finds themselves inhabiting a world where the absurd has suddenly become plausible and rational, at least in a fictitious sense in which disbelief can be suspended for the enjoyment of the adventure.

The Hunger Games is another recent example. The movie is breathtaking, but action and adventure win out over the awe of reason. In the movie, we see Katness attack the supplies of the upper crust contestants, but without the audience really understanding why. In the book, however, we get a sense of the hunger and desperation Katness suffers in the wilderness. Rather than a mindless attack on the stores of the wealthy tributes, we see Katness attack the stores to level the playing field, to square up the fight and ensure that the rich kids also need to scavenge and forage for basic necessities. In this way, they can no longer ruthlessly hunt down the other tributes with such ease. And so the book allows us to explore this fictional world with Katness, and to understand its means and motives in a way that is glossed over in the movie.

As a science fiction author, I appreciate what these authors have done, they’ve started with a simple premise and explored the possibilities latent therein, seeking to build fictional worlds for our enjoyment. It is said that the plot is the character in action. When it comes to science fiction, the plot is the character interacting with science in a way that influences both their actions and the actions of their opponents.

 

I Am Legend

The novel I Am Legend is considered a modern horror story, the forerunner of such apocalyptic movies as Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later, and games/movies like Resident Evil, and yet, when you read the book, it is clearly science fiction, not horror. There are no graphic depictions of someone being dismembered, no cruel descriptions of barbaric behaviour, but rather there is a breathtaking speculative attempt to apply science to superstition.

OK, so you’ve seen the movie, but have you read the book? Unlike most movie adaptations, from the Twilight saga to Harry Potter and more recently The Hunger Games, this novel is entirely different to the movie, and that allows both to coexist quite merrily, without comparisons as to which is the better.

I Am Legend is a present day what-if scenario applied to vampires, asking the question, what if Dracula was real and vampires gained the upper hand on modern society? It was written in 1954, but you wouldn’t know it. The depiction of suburbia and the sprawling cityscape of Los Angeles reads like it was written yesterday.

Like most book-turned-movie adaptations, Will Smith’s 2007 film version of I Am Legend is a stunning visual depiction, with several carefully crafted improvements, but it lacks the sense of depth you find in the novel. Although the movie is true to the character of Neville, and his fits of rage and sense of despair, the science portion of this work of science fiction is lost. Sure, Will Smith is a scientist, he has a lab with test-tubes and conducts experiments, but the movie is missing the depth of reasoning you find in the novel. And it’s the scientific rationale, the inquiring mind, the rational thinking that makes I Am Legend a sensational novel. We see some depth of consideration given to all the various facets of the vampire mythology. Why are vampires repelled by garlic? Why does a stake through the chest kill them when bullets don’t. Why are they frightened by the sign of the cross? And we get to watch as Neville exercises his reason to explore the various possibilities in a plausible manner.

The only criticism I have of this novel is the speed with which the conclusion comes about. The tension grows, the sense of interest grows, the curiosity grows, and then suddenly there’s a rush to close out the story. Given Richard Matheson‘s depth of writing and the amount of material he had to explore, I suspect there is much more than could be made of the ending, and yet, there was only ever one way it could end. Matheson knows that and so does the reader.

If you’re looking for some great reading material, I highly recommend I Am Legend, as eBooks go, it is absurdly expensive, so you might want to pick up a second-hand paperback copy from Amazon and save yourself a few bucks. If you’re really brave, try the audio version at night, alone.

PS. If you’ve seen the movie, but haven’t seen the original ending to the movie, it is well worth watching. Personally, I think they spoilt the movie by giving us the sanitized, and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after ending instead of this gritty, real-world ending that differs from the book, but is in much the same spirit.

 

Movies & Books

I just finished watching Cowboys & Aliens with the kids. Apart from the numerous plot holes, absurd bravado and testosterone-fuelled ego-fest, it’s not bad as far as mindless entertainment goes on a Saturday night. Watching the movie, though, I couldn’t help but see the shortcoming of movies in general. Visually, this movie is astounding. It has mind-bending special effects, with molten gold being sucked up in thin strands, in defiance of gravity. The aliens are like ugly on an ape, and look particularly barbaric/primitive for a race that has achieved interstellar travel, but the blue laser-like blasts and flying scout ships were a visual feast. And yet, there in lies the problem, movies excite with their action, but they fail to achieve the depth of a book because the imagination is never engaged. Read a book, and your imagination is guided, but ultimately the view you have is your own, any imagery or special effects are entirely yours. Reading is active, engaging, whereas watching a movie is passive, directed.

Reading is a remarkably versatile act. Get the right book, and you can be lost in orbit around a star light years from Earth for days on end.

Although the bulk of our communication is in words, there are subtleties that reach beyond language. We speak volumes with our gestures, facial expressions & posture. In life, touch and smell also come into play when you shake hands, or meet someone wearing perfume, or talk to someone having just finished up at the gym. Movies, at least, capture some of this non-verbal communication, but books don’t, not unless the author deliberately brings these elements into the text. Novels, it seems, are far more limited than movies, or are they?

Ultimately, fiction is about the suspension of disbelief, the willingness of a reader/viewer to ignore reality and inhabit an alternate world, one sculptured by another. The strength of novels comes from their limitation. Being restricted to just words, they can evoke every sense, even taste. Whereas a movie is dependent on camera angles and an actor’s versatility, a novel needs only the imagination of the reader.

Have you ever read a book and been excited about the release of the movie version, only to be disappointed when it finally comes out? Inevitably, you watch the movie and, regardless of the acting, regardless of the cinematography and special effects, you come away with the feeling something was missing. Why? There are three reasons.

Lack of imagination

Movies are passive, they replace rather than stimulate our imagination. The arts department and screenwriters have plenty of imagination. Their imagination arouses our thinking, but fails to stimulate our intellect as much as a book. We are astoundingly intelligent creatures. We need to have our minds exercised, excited. Movies do that to a degree, but no where near as well as a good novel.

Inability to internalise the character

The best movies, like Forrest Gump, allow you to internalise the main character, to identify with them, but this is extremely rare when it comes to science fiction movies. To be fair, science fiction novels generally fall short in this regard as well, but novels are written from a personal point of view. Novels allow you to see through another’s eyes, to hear their thoughts, to experience this pseudo-life in a way a movie cannot duplicate.

Lack of immersion

Ultimately, both of these lead to a lack of immersion. As engrossing as movies are they fail to sustain any depth beyond more than a few hours. A good novel, however, will capture the imagination for an extended period of time, over days or even weeks, allowing you escape to another world.

Growing up in New Zealand, I remember listening to the radio as a child. For several years, there was only one TV on our block, and it wasn’t in our living room, but we had a wall-mounted radio. I remember my mother and I sitting up to listen to War of the Worlds serialised for radio. Sitting there, my imagination was set alight by what was essentially an audio-book. To this day, when writing, I use a program called SpeakPad to listen to what I’ve written, to hear sections read back to me so as to engage my imagination. And so I’ve made sure Text-To-Speech is enabled on each of my novels because it is a variation I enjoy. Sitting there as an eight year old, the thought of an alien creature emerging from a strange, shiny cylinder, its tentacles snaking over the edge of a muddy crater, thrilled my imagination. As enjoyable as the Tom Cruise rendition was, it pales in comparison to the imagery built up in my mind all those years ago. Orson Wells, it seems, had a 70 year jump on the likes of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield for realism in entertainment, scaring thousands in the pre-World War II 1930s.

Will I go and watch Prometheus when it comes out at the movies? Absolutely. Will it have me on the edge of my seat? Undoubtedly. Will I find the effects and storyline dazzling? Sure. But it will be formulaic, it has to be, that’s just the nature of movies. It will be bound and limited, with stilted dialogue, limited character build up and probably no character immersion at all, but I’m sure the action will be heart-stopping. In writing the sequel to Trixie & Me my goal is to engage readers in a manner that will thrill them every bit as much as Prometheus, with some depth of characterisation you just can’t find in the movies (ambitious goal, I know, but you’ve got to shoot for the moon). Keep your eyes peeled for War coming in May/June 2012.

PS. The Orson Wells broadcast of War of the Worlds is well worth listening to. The second half, in particular, is absolutely brilliant.

 

Dr Who

Dr Who is the longest running science fiction TV show in history. It was almost twenty years ago when I first watched the Doctor in action, and now my kids are growing up loving it.

The Doctor is a Time Lord, a humanoid alien with almost a thousand years under his belt, two hearts, and the ability to regenerate into a new body. His space-time ship is the TARDIS, an acronym for, Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It’s a police box, a relic from a bygone era when police in London would walk a beat, stopping off in small police boxes for a cup of tea or to call in to police HQ to report a crime or an arrest. Both Dr Who and the TARDIS are an example of low-tech science fiction at its best, using elements (that used to be common), and incorporating them into a fantastic escape from reality. Dr Who uses the concept of a hidden world that exists parallel to our own, running in harmony to the every day world, with great effect.

In this post, we’ll explore the Top Ten Dr Who Episodes since the rejuvenated series began in 2005, as voted for by my family. For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on what makes these episodes great.

SPOILER ALERT

10 Impossible Planet & Satan’s Pit

Like so many Dr Who episodes, it’s the actors surrounding the Doctor that make the story, and in this story the audience seems to take on the role of one more crew member struggling to survive on the impossible planet. The writers of Dr Who have an audacity all of their own, not afraid to experiment and explore ideas, here invoking images of Dante’s inferno and the devil, while somehow avoiding any religious overtones.

09 Impossible Astronaut & Day of the Moon

Dr Who episodes are generally built upon a simple premise, in this case, having an enemy that wipes your mind any time you’re not looking at them, and this sets up a series of dilemmas for the Doctor and his companions. The slow reveal, with the protagonists writing on their arms to capture their fleeting thoughts, is simply brilliant and sets up some spine-tingling scenes. In a moment of dark humour, River Song asks Rory if their adversaries, the Silence, have arrived for battle. Rory, seeing the horde descending upon him, turns back to River, and, loosing sight of the aliens for a second, says, “Nope. Nothing here.“

08 Lodger & Closing Time

Although these two episodes occur a year apart and with entirely different story lines, we grouped them together  as they’re characteristic of the writers avoiding clichés in their scripts, giving someone other than the Doctor and his companions centre-stage. Granted, there is a tendency to dumb down these characters to almost a caricature of a simpleton, which I think is a little insulting to the audience, but somehow they pull it off and you still end up rooting for them. And any child that calls himself “Stormaggedon, Dark Lord of All,” can’t be all that bad.

07 Beast Below

In classic Doctor Who fashion, Beast Below fails to deliver a credible, believable concept while still having a touch of absolute brilliance. In this case, the last remnants of the English are aboard a spaceship travelling on a star whale, but, look past that, and there’s an intriguing sub-plot, with a glimpse of the dark side of a Time Lord. The Doctor commands, “Nobody talk to me. Nobody HUMAN has anything to say to me today.” And in that anger, he loses himself, only to have Amy Pond show him how human he really is, and stop him from making a grave mistake.

06 Vincent

Vincent is one of the rare tragedies in Dr Who. From the start, knowing this story is based on the historical character Vincent Van Gogh, you already sense the impending doom. What follows is a warm, light-hearted, engaging interpretation of Van Gogh’s genius, with the Doctor trying to change history, but even the Doctor has his limits. The sense of sympathy and emotion this episode stirs for Van Gogh’s tortured genius is quite something. It’s one of those episodes that has a surprising amount of depth for 45 minutes of footage.

05 Turn Left

Turn Left is brilliant for what is missing from the episode, the Doctor. Instead, we get to explore the character of Donna Noble and other companions, like Rose Tyler, as the writers explore a what-if scenario reminiscent of the Butterfly Effect. The Doctor, it seems, is a bit of a plot device in his own stories, a form of Deus Ex Machina, an easy escape from the most torturous of prisons. It’s all too easy for the writers to lean upon that crutch when crafting their scripts. Take the Doctor largely out of the picture, though, and some of the best writing emerges, with stories beautifully composed and full of depth. To me, it is no surprise the number one episode in this list is an extension of the same concept, but lets not get too far ahead of ourselves.

04 God Complex

With their usual outlandish penchant for staging the extraordinary in a dull, boring, below-par environment, The God Complex explores complex social themes within a science fiction story (honestly, how scary is that hallway?). Rather than fears, an alien predator feeds on beliefs, in a metaphor for society, which is so largely dominated by unthinking and irrational beliefs. In the midst of this, the Doctor is confronted over his “God complex,” stripping his persona naked before the audience. I would have rated this episode higher, but my kids voted me down.

03 Silence in the Library & Forest of the Dead (Vashna Nerada)

And I can understand why they voted me down, as these last three episodes are sublime. There’s no great social questions, no depth of character being exposed in Silence in the Library, just a heart-pounding story-line that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and a cliff hanger that has you begging for more in The Forest of the Dead. In classic Dr Who fashion, “Stay away from the shadows,” hails back to the low-tech origins of the story fifty years ago, with the alien baddies being nothing more than a shadow on the floor. Not scary enough for you? You haven’t seen the Vashna Nerada in action.

02 Girl in the Fireplace

What’s not to love about a story line that transports 18th century France into the 24th century? How can you not love a story that has a beautiful white horse wandering lost through the decks of a spaceship? The Girl in the Fireplace has it all, a tragedy with so much hope. The concept of stepping from a spaceship into various points in the life of Madame de Pompadore captures the essence of time travel like no other episode of Doctor Who. The characterisation is rich, with unique insights into the Doctor’s background when he reads the young woman’s mind, not realising “A door once opened, can be walked through both ways.” Yes, there’s plot holes in that the Doctor could have intervened later with the TARDIS to see Madame before her death, but this is one of those plot holes your suspension of disbelief is happy to overlook. And all through the episode you’re wondering why? Why her? It’s only in the final seconds of the show that you learn something the Doctor never does…

01 Blink

“Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. They’re fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good luck.” Blink is outrageous, audacious. The story line is entirely improbable, and yet it is woven together with sheer brilliance. Like Turn Left, the Doctor is largely absent from this unlikely contender for first place in Doctor Who episodes, but that seemed to have given the writers some latitude to construct a story that suspends disbelief like no other. It’s a shopkeeper that saves the day. There are messages from the past, woven together so they arrive in the present precisely when needed. It’s the Doctor battling evil over a distance of decades. The Weeping Angels are yet another low-tech common accessory to English life carefully woven into a clever and engaging story, more about the concept of Doctor Who than his persona. For years after seeing this, my youngest daughter would stare carefully at any statues of women in long flowing robes, wondering what would happen if she blinked…

In reality, there are two kinds of Doctor Who episodes, those that get just a wee bit silly, and those that faithfully hark back to the Golden Age of Science Fiction, where sci-fi stories had an unseen twist and accentuated our understanding of humanity. In reality, these ten stories are peers, each as brilliant as the next, each as thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining as the other, with so very little between them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this reminiscent review of classic Doctor Who episodes. If you have any others you’d like to suggest, please feel free to add a comment.

You can find a full list of Dr Who episodes on Wikipedia.

 

Predicting the Future

The future is fickle. No one has a crystal ball and yet, remarkably, science fiction has done a superb job of predicting and anticipating future trends.

Jules Verne was prescient in his novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon. In hindsight, it’s tempting for pundits to point out how his scheme of firing a cannon at the moon was laughable, but it is the concepts not the particulars that are important. His recognition of the need to offset the violent acceleration of a cannon shot with collapsible boards separated by baffles of water may be quaint and almost steam-punk Victorian in its notions, but his vision to reach out toward the stars was correct in every respect.

Over Christmas, I got hold of Explorers, a video tribute to Jules Verne by Buzz Aldrin and James Cameron. Although the video doesn’t explore as much of Verne’s vision as I would have liked, it does highlight that Buzz Aldrin, who, along with Neil Armstrong, landed on the moon, and James Cameron, the film maker that personally explored the sunken wreck of the Titanic, both share the same vision as Jules Verne.

Science fiction, it seems, anticipates science.

Perhaps the most overt example of this in the past generation has been TV shows like Star Trek, with it’s communicators pre-empting the mobile phones of today, and its non-intrusive medical scans being a precursor to the CAT scans and PET scans of today. It seems, we are boldly going where science fiction has gone before.

I’d go so far as to say not only has science fiction predicted and anticipated the future, it has changed the future. The case in point here, being, George Orwell’s 1984. In our mostly benign, modern western world, it is easy to forget the overwhelming threat posed by fascism and communism after the Second World War. These were very real threats in 1948 when Orwell inverted the decades to come up with 1984.

With bidirectional communication between individual homes and the state police, the advent of electronic surveillance was anticipated with the horrifying recognition of what Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin could have accomplished if they’d lived just a few decades later.

Orwell’s publication of a dystopian future in 1948 ensured 1984 never came to pass. Concepts like newspeak and Big Brother became seared into the public conscience and the free world has kept its politicians accountable, avoiding all Orwell feared.

And so, in the best traditions of science fiction anticipating the future, Matthew Mather has brought together a raggedy band of degenerate cyborgs intent on… oh, wait, they’re a bunch of science fiction authors, but the effect is the same, they’re intent on looking forward and anticipating Phuture News.

Phuture News is an experiment in social intelligence where anyone can propose a potential future story and then, in an example of crowd sourcing, readers are invited to vote on the likelihood and timing of that future story. Although some of the stories are humorous, like Justin Bieber becoming President of the United States in 2053, Ronald Regan accomplished pretty much the same thing in his generation, so it’s not as far fetched as it may at first seem.

I’ve thrown a few stories into the mix, looking at them as micro fiction. To my surprise, in thinking about these concepts I’ve realised that they’re an extension of viable current thinking, asking the question ‘what if?’ Like Jules Verne and his moon cannon, I doubt any of the stories on this site will actually come true as written, but the concepts underlying them may very well anticipate future progress.

If you haven’t checked out phuture news, you should.

 

Diverting the Amazon

The Amazon is the largest, but not the longest, river in the world, with an average water-flow greater than the next seven rivers combined. Its width varies from a mile across to six miles. During the wet season, it expands to roughly thirty miles in width, with its estuary emptying into the Atlantic across a broad front a hundred and fifty miles wide. How appropriate, then, that Jeff Bezos named his e-commerce company, with it’s various tributaries and its sheer volume, Amazon.

As an independent author, Amazon has given me, and countless others, a unique opportunity to explore the deep, dark forests of the publishing world in a way that couldn’t be dreamt of a few years ago. In the midst of this, the 99c e-book market has arisen as a niche category, a bargain bin in the basement, something from which readers can take a punt on new/emerging authors (like myself) with dubious literary ability (again, like myself). This is, quite serendipitously, a mirror of the cheap pulp fiction of the 1930-1960s that spawned the science fiction genre.

Most, if not all, of the great science fiction authors like Clarke, Heinlein, Dick and Asimov had their origins in the cheap paperbacks of this era, so there’s hope for me yet. I can’t help but wonder if, with the advent of electronic self-publishing, we are on the cusp of another era of great science fiction. Maybe, maybe not, as the ease of publishing has also led to a lot of electronic pulp, making it hard to separate the chaff from the wheat.

Enter Hugh Howey, the man who diverted the course of the Amazon. The 99c price bracket continues to be a launching point for budding authors, like myself, but it is saturated by trash pulp, some would say my trash pulp, but it is hard to find the gold nuggets. For example, consider these comments selected at random from some of the more questionable entries in the Top 10 Hard Science Fiction e-Books.

…the book quickly descends into moronic drudgery…
…Five star reviews? Amazing. Did they read the same book?
…I wish I’d read something else.
…reads like a massively annoying list of trite sayings strung together with pronouns and adverbs

So how do you distinguish the good from the bad, the great read from the grammatical nightmare? Reviews, themselves, are quite subjective and, it seems, easily distorted if you have 25 friends with Amazon accounts willing to lend you five stars a piece.*

The 99c e-Book pulp fiction represents an interesting dilemma for an author. Amazon pays lousy commissions in this bracket to encourage higher prices, but moving a new book to 2.99 or 3.99 takes it outside of the bargain bin and into obscurity. So the question facing budding authors is, sell your book for peanuts and enter competition with pulp that, in some cases, is a poor substitute for spam in your inbox, or price your unknown work out of the market?

And this is where Hugh Howey had a stroke of genius. He has effectively redefined the 99c price point, reinventing it as the region of high-quality short stories/novellas. His Wool series is essentially a series of related short stories, longer than chapters, but not full books in their own right. They are a return to the spirit of pulp fiction in the 1950s, engaging stories that can be read in a single setting and continued if the reader chooses to buy the next one in the series. Howey has been criticised for short-changing readers, as he doesn’t describe these books as novellas with roughly 20-25,000 words a piece, but he points out that if someone purchases all five novellas they will have spent 4.95 on 100,000 words, a fair price by anyone’s estimate. How much would you pay for a cup of coffee? How much would you pay to rent a Blu-ray for the night? Or to go to the movies to see a new release? (You need a second mortgage to finance a family outing to the cinemas in Australia) Yeah, it puts a 99c e-book in a very favourable light.

What Mr Howey doesn’t point out is that this approach is not advantageous to him, it is something that is advantageous to the readers. The reader starts with a low-cost appetiser. If they don’t like the amuse-bouche, they’ve reached a natural end to the story without wading through 100,000 words, and saved themselves four dollars. I’d be interested to know Mr Howey’s stats on Wool purchases as it would be fascinating to know how many people go on to buy successive editions.

In both scenarios, selling Wool in a series or compiled into a book, the cost to the reader is 4.95. But for Mr Howey, there is a significant difference in commission, 35% or 70%, so he is clearly putting the reader’s interests before his own.

And he’s given himself the time and space to grow as a writer. The stories improved in quality, characterisation and plot as the series progresses. Take a look at the reader ratings for the Wool series.

• Wool 1 Avg 4.6 stars over 90 reviews, only 2 one star reviews
• Wool 2 Avg 4.8 stars over 27 reviews, no one star reviews
• Wool 3 Avg 4.9 stars over 18 reviews, nothing below four stars
• Wool 4 Avg 5.0 stars over 18 reviews (some duplicated reviewers from Wool 4 but not all of them)
• Wool 5 Yet to be released

Now, this is not to say Wool is perfect, far from it. I picked up a minor blemish today in Wool 3. Will Wool get more one star reviews over time, without a doubt, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but, damn, these are dream stats.

As a writer that’s been harshly criticised for lacking depth, I find the focus on a series of high-quality short stories intriguing. And so, in the spirit of exploration and experimentation that has underpinned my writing with Amazon, I’ve come up with Serengeti using the same concept. Serengeti is the first of five stand-alone short stories in which I’ve focused on the quality of writing, the quality of characterisation and dramatisation over simply trying to pump out 100,000 words to compete with the deadheads in the trash pulp section.

My prediction for the future? The great science fiction writers of this century will come from the high-quality shorts in the 99c bargain bin on Amazon.

Thank you, Mr Howey, for carving out a niche for a series of high-quality novellas and changing the course of the river.

*  In the interests of transparency, two of my friends offered initial reviews of Anomaly, one of whom rated the book with four stars. This review continues to be a popular, judged relevant by a decent number of unknown readers. Both reviews are clearly labelled as being from friends. Also, in the interests of fairness, one of the negative comments above is from one of my one star reviews (ouch).

* Update: Hugh contacted me and let me know that the follow-through rate of readers purchasing Wool 1 – 5 appears to be around 95-98% so there’s a lot of satisfied Wool readers out there.

 

Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Over the holidays, I got Blade Runner out on DVD and was pleasantly surprised at how convincing the screenplay, the acting and the special effects were after almost thirty years. Apparently, there are fifteen odd gaffes in the film, not counting problems with translations and subtitles, but the suspension of belief and the character immersion is such that, even knowing a couple of them didn’t spoil the film.

Science fiction is a fascinating genre in that it puts science, be it speculative, imaginary or real, in the spotlight, but the truly great science fiction stories expose how much more there is to learn about ourselves. The dramatic conclusion of Blade Runner, with the dying replicant saving the life of Deckard, his mortal adversary, is, perhaps, the greatest scene in science fiction history – an android comes to understand the true value of life while mankind treats life with disdain. I still remember the first time I heard that speech and the delivery of the final line, “Time to die,” with its ambiguity about who would die. Roy had him. Deckard was dead to rights, but Deckard lives as Roy chooses not to waste another life. And Deckard learns the lesson, in turn saving Rachel.

If you haven’t seen the sketchbook for the set design, it’s well worth flipping through.

I have mixed feelings about a reboot. I just can’t see how Blade Runner could be improved. The script writers have their work cut out for them.

 

Apollo 18

Apollo 18 is a mockumentary using the kind of faux-realism first made famous by The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, albeit without the absurd camera shaking that made so many people nauseous. There’s a bit of handy-cam syndrome, but only enough to add a sense of authenticity, not enough to distract from the movie.

User ratings on IMDb give Apollo 18 a five out of ten, while Rotten Tomatoes, another user-driven rating system, has the movie at two out of ten.

Ouch!

As an author that has been criticised for weak characterisation, I think that’s part of the problem with Apollo 18. We, the audience, never really got to identify with the astronauts before they were thrown into the fray.

Warning! Spoilers

On a technical level, the movie has also been criticised for things like the footprints being too close together and too evenly distributed. With the exception of the actual Moon footage, the motion of the astronauts is too much like a shuffle and lacks the free, flowing, bouncing motion of an actual moonwalk. Clearly, faking a moon landing in the 21st Century, with a multimillion dollar budget, is not easy. It makes you wonder how they faked four moon landings in the 60s, or, perhaps they didn’t, perhaps Armstrong and Aldrin actually walked on the Moon. (Of course they did. I’m being facetious)

The use of sound within sections of Apollo 18 was misleading, with the astronauts hearing the alien creatures while on an EVA, something that’s impossible in a vacuum.

Also, the alien/rock creatures have absurdly fast motion/metabolism for something living in the coldest place on the moon, a crater that never sees sunlight. And one wonders what these critters feed on when there’s not an astronaut to munch on.

Having said all that, however, I think Apollo 18 deserves far more than a two or a five out of ten. I’d rate it as seven out of ten stars. It is an ambitious movie, carried out with an admirable level of detail, particularly within the LEM. The slowly building crescendo of suspense worked well for me. Alien life on the Moon was always going to be a tough sell, but I think they succeeded far more than Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which, ironically, rated better on both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.

I found the discovery of a cracked Soviet cosmonaut helmet particularly poignant. It was a stunning, vivid reveal within the storyline. And, as for the original poster, with the three-toed wolf-life footprint, I was hanging out for the point we’d see what made those tracks, but it never came. Perhaps it was a case of the marketing department outpacing the writers.

I would have liked to have seen a different ending. The conclusion seemed rushed and was a bit of a let down. But, hey, I’ve been criticised for both of those points as well with Anomaly, so there’s some learning here for all. A slightly different ending and Apollo 18 could have escaped the horror genre, which really doesn’t suit the movie at all.

If you have low expectations, you’ll be very pleasantly surprised by this movie. It’s not Apollo 13, but it’s nice to see someone going back to the Moon

 

One Star

Every writer wants five stars reviews of their novel, and understandably so, but those one stars can be quite insightful and are well worth playing close attention to as a novelist.

I recently finished reading Max Brooks World War Z and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, it’s not Shakespeare, it’s not Hemingway, but it’s a bloody good read (if you’ll pardon the pun). Max has an astounding 971 reviews, 597 of which are five stars, and then there’s the 46 one star reviews.

The one stars are quite varied. Some people were clearly hoping for more blood and guts, others felt the characters were one dimensional, while others felt it was a good idea, poorly executed (did they read the same book I did?). One astute reviewer labelled it “Yawn of the Dead,” which I think would have brought a smile to Max’s face, whether he agreed with it or not. But the common theme through all these reviews is that he needed a more convincing change of narrative when switching between characters. I’ve been criticised for a similar lack of depth in characterisation so there’s something in that both Max and I can learn from.

Another classic example of this is Ender’s Game, a science fiction novel I thoroughly enjoyed, and the twist got me hook, line and sinker. With well over 2900 reviews and a phenomenal 2300 five star reviews, you’d wonder how anyone could find fault with the book, and yet there are 79 one star reviews. And there’s a lot Orson Scott Card and I and anyone else who’d cares to look can learn from these reviews. Particularly, the review by Arteminism.

Very disturbed by central themes
I find it hard to understand how people cannot notice the deep themes of child abuse that run through this novel. From the struggle within Ender (the abused) to avoid becoming Peter (his first abuser), to “Uncle Graf” isolating Ender by removing him first from the protection of his family and then from friendships with his peers…

Graff… plans to convince Ender that no matter what, no adult will ever come to his rescue. Interestingly, Graff is later prosecuted for his treatment of these boys; he is fully acquitted and offered a promotion.

There are a bunch of comments associated with this review that suggest the reviewer “doesn’t get it.” Oh, he/she gets it all right, better than we do, as he/she is able to clearly separate the appeal of fiction and the suspension of disbelief from reality.

Graf’s comment, that no adult will ever come to Ender’s aid, is chillingly similar to the ploy invoked by paedophiles to control and contain their victims in a state of helplessness. And as for fully acquitted and promoted, well, that too is (unfortunately) all too true of child abusers in our world. I don’t think the author realised quite what he was unveiling.

The reviewer finds it hard to understand how people cannot notice the deep themes of abuse in this novel. And that is a valid point. I find it hard to understand how I could overlook something so obvious until it was pointed out to me in this particular review. In hindsight, I was aware of a sense of distaste at what unfolded, but I suspended that for the sake of the story.

The term for this is selective attention (or it’s counterpoint, selective blindness). We tend to become so engrossed in something we enjoy that we drop our guard mentally and morally, and so we’ll watch the movie Die Hard or Saving Private Ryan or Lord of the Rings without batting an eyelid at the horrific waste of life that occurs in these appalling battles, so long as the heroes are safe.

In Ender’s case, we see all that he endures as his rite of passage and we lose sight of the reality of how brutal and abusive the novel actually is, making this review an astute observation.

So far, my novel Anomaly has dodged one star reviews, although you wouldn’t know it from the tone of some of the comments.

Not just juvenile: actually puerile
…paper-thin and sickeningly sweet… it was so mercifully short

Science fiction or political, moral and religious lecture
…the story line as a science fiction work is weak, unfulfilled, and lacking depth… The writing was a bit too simplistic also; it felt pedestrian. Relationships were rushed and unnatural… I would rate it “Pleasurable-not memorable”

Ouch!

But, as a writer, these comments help to temper the natural enthusiasm and excitement there is in receiving positive reviews. They give me some direction, areas to work upon and address in future novels.

One star reviews… they’re not all that bad as there’s always more to learn

Update 15/11 – Opps.., there it is… one star to lighten my day. BTW, I’ve update the book with US English and US terminology.

Update 21/11 – And the floodgates have opened with ones and twos coming in droves. I once read an autobiography of a special forces soldier who, on parachuting into a combat zone in the dark, crashed into a tree. He noted that the sting of a branch, lashing against his face, gave him a sense of being alive. I know what he means.

 

Proud as Peaches

My novel, Anomaly, has held #3 position on the Amazon Hot New Releases in High Tech Science Fiction for a couple of days now, and I’m as proud as peaches.

Anomaly briefly sat at #2 for a couple of hours at its high water mark, but by the time you read this it will probably have dropped out of the new releases altogether. For an independent author, though, with no agent and no publisher, it’s quite something to make Amazon’s top ten (in a very narrow field), although it speaks more for the mechanism of Amazon than it does for my writing.

Amazon is more than a commercial enterprise, it is a disruptive and revolutionary democratic/economic force. I love the way those that rate a story are themselves rated by those that have also read that particular story. The reviews are often blunt, which is never easy to take, but is generally balanced and good natured. I’m yet to have any real depth of comments against either Anomaly or Out of Time, but criticism, though never easy to take, is always good, always something that can be learnt from.

Looking back, I’m critical of both stories. I probably shouldn’t say this aloud, but I suspect I’m guilty of preaching from a soap box. I need to relax a little more with dialogue and let it be more natural. So, there, that’s my critical Amazon review.

Anyway, if you’re up for a roller-coaster ride in science fiction, give these novels a whirl. Hopefully, you won’t be disappointed. If you are, though, I’m sure I’ll hear about it through your review

 

World War Z

Although, strictly speaking, zombie books and movies are in the category of horror, not science fiction, World War Z is the exception to the rule.

The title, World War Z, is an allusion to World War 2, and the parallels are obvious. The novel is written in the style of a historical review after the fact, in much the same way as overviews of WWII were the rage in the 1950s, explaining to a population that saw the war locally how things actually transpired globally. In the same way, World War Z provides answers once the fight is over.

Rather than the classic fight-or-flight survival concepts explored by most zombie flicks, WWZ looks at the social, political, military and medical implications of a world wide outbreak of zombies. And, in that regard, it offers some plausible, believable aspects of political science and social norms for consideration, each of them familiar to us but slightly altered by the flesh-eating horde.

Corporal punishment, as an example, is reintroduced by the United States of America. Although putting someone in stocks and conducting a publicflogging sounds medieval and highly unlikely, as the political leaders in this story point out, “What else were we supposed to do? Throw them in jail? Who would guard them? Who would feed them? With 200 million zombies swarming over the Continental US, we needed every able bodied man, woman and child in the fight. And, besides, public humiliation is a powerful deterrent.“ And with compelling insights like this, WWZ takes us on a global tour of the post-war world, interviewing key survivors and looking at the escalating stages of the war.

As tempting as it is, I won’t steal the thunder of Max Brooks and the military solution he contrives to stem the horde of the living dead, but I will add that such a heartless, unethical proposition is entirely plausible given the threat of human extinction.

This is not a book about zombies eating brains with guts flying everywhere, this book is about the social, political and military response. There’s a little blood and guts, but gore is not the dominate theme of the book. And it captures the different cultural attitudes of the German’s, the American’s, the Pakistani’s, the African’s, the Chinese’s, etc with surprising clarity and realism. There’s the big man African dictator syndrome, the war weary Europeans, the isolationist Israeli’s, those in denial, those profiteering from the misery and those that are bureaucratically incompetent and inert in front of the tsunami of the undead.

Oh, and the audio book version is compelling listening, reminiscent of the old radio broadcasts for War of the Worlds. You can get 10 free samples from various chapters as podcasts from the Apple store.

World War Z is a must read and when the movie with Brad Pitt comes out in 2012, I’ll be lining up to see it.

 

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

You know any movie with a title that sounds like a documentary is a gutsy move so it has to be brave and adventurous and FAQs is exactly that.

The cult TV series, Dr Who, was the first pioneer in the art of in-situ sci-fi, where no effort is made to dress up the story with special effects. At first glance, such an approach, with an old-style police box, some geezer with a scarf, bow tie or wearing tennis shoes with a suit, seems a little tardy, but the focus quickly settles on the characters and their interactions over sensational, spectacular effects and a classic is born. Frequently Asked Questions  succeeds in the same vein because the characters are believable, their reactions come across as unscripted and their response to each twisting turn through space-time is believable, even when the story veers off on speculative angles.

Warning: Spoilers!

With only a handful of special effects, 90% of the story takes place in a quiet, unassuming British pub over a pint of beer as our dopey lads ponder various science fiction premises over some warm ale, but when a time-leak opens up, some what appropriately, in the public toilets, a zany series of jaunts into the future and the past unfold with unpredictable yet hilarious consequences. Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart has one wondering if the retro-styling throughout the movie was intended to place it in the early 80′s, certainly, it could pass as occurring from any point forward of then and you’ll leave this film determined never to sing Bonnie Tyler while going to the bathroom.

This is not a movie you can watch just once.

The first time through, you’re left feeling somewhat bewildered and confused but that’s OK, as all the characters are feeling the same way, so you end up feeling like you’re the fourth time traveller, along for the ride, but without a beer. Second time through you’ll start picking up on the humour and feel like one of the in-crowd, like you’ve got some insider knowledge that allows you to sit back and enjoy the ride. By the third time, you’ll find yourself splitting your sides with laughter as the cascade of subtle British humour finally hits home.

I can’t rave too much about this movie. It’s five stars from me. But, whatever you do, don’t watch it once

 

Cowboys and Aliens

This post should come with a spoiler alert, but, honestly, you can’t spoil this movie.

Sure, there’s some dead pan acting from Daniel Craig and a few too many raised eyebrows from Harrison Ford. Sure, Sam Rockwell’s talent is wasted on a cliché riddled stereotypical performance of the classic introverted struggling bartender, and even Olivia Wilde fails to make Western period fashion look good, but… somehow… this is still a thoroughly enjoyable film.

There were plot holes you could drive a semi-truck through. The “bad” aliens look like a mash-up between something from Independence Day and the Morlocks of the Time Machine.

How our bad-ass evolutionary-throwback aliens ever developed faster-than-light travel is anyone’s guess. But then, as if to make this all the more sublime, we find out that pretty young Ella is a “good” alien that’s assumed the form of Olivia Wilde. Where’s your space ship, Ella? Surely you’ve got some kind of advanced weaponry we could use? No, OK, we’ll stick with bows and arrows, spears and the odd gun then.

Ok, I’ve got that out of my system.

So why is this a good movie? Why is this a movie you cannot spoil?

The answer to that is simple… the kids. My kids loved this movie and it brought out the kid in me.

Both girls rated it 9/10. And, to be honest, once I suspended my disbelief, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell all together in a Western action adventure film with aliens thrown in for good measure, regardless of how preposterous it was.

And, yes, I jumped too when the aliens sprang forth. I found myself jumping in my seat as much as my nine and ten year old daughters.

So… is it a classic that will stand the test of ages? No.

But it succeeds at what it sets out to accomplish, which is to provide the audience with a damn good roller coaster ride.

Get a bucket of popcorn, a coke and sit back and enjoy the ride.

 

Monsters DVD Release

Monsters was a low-budget film with big ambitions, that, I think, worked extremely well. It is War of the Worlds for Gen-Y.

The film was largely criticised as having shallow, obnoxious characters that weren’t likeable. But, for me, this is what made it work so well. The characters are true-to-life and not intended to be plastic Hollywood replicants or idealistic stereotypes.

The main lead comes across, at times, as an obnoxious asshole, while the leading lady is pretty but a little dazed by everything, but by the end of the film, they’ve been transformed by their experiences, so it’s faithful to its Gen-Y leanings. And this gives the movie the realistic, documentary-style feel it was looking for, with the dialogue and acting being largely impromptu and natural.

The premise of the movie is that a returning space probe crash-landed in Mexico, contaminating the area with alien DNA that finds itself on fertile ground.

Six years later, the quarantine zone has spread to cover the lower states within the US, and our normal-joes find themselves trapped on the wrong side of the border with the mating season about to begin.

The movie is made all the more remarkable when you realise it was shot for less than $500,000, with only two dedicated actors. Everyone else you see is a ring-in, normal people asked if they’d “run screaming in that direction,” for the next five minutes, etc. The “camera dolly” for the motion shots was a folded up jacket rested on the open window of a van driving slowly down the street.

There was also some criticism that a lot of the footage was filmed without the expressed permission of those in the area, but you have to remember “the film crew” was a bunch of mates in the back of a van, not a movie team sealing off an area for days on end.

The CGI was the result of the director sitting in his bedroom for six months, editing video footage using Adobe software, so I didn’t expect too much but was pleasantly surprised at the stunning results. There’s not a lot of special effects, but that makes the film more gritty and gives it far more substance that films that throw millions at their CGI teams.

I really liked this movie and am looking forward to getting my hands on the DVD release to look a little further behind the scenes. I think it’s an exceptional piece of work by a bunch of amateurs and shows up several big-budget Hollywood blockbusters.
If you haven’t seen Monsters, you should.

 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Although this post needs to be prefaced with a spoiler alert, it’s important to note that the biggest spoiler is, of course, the title of this movie. The apes win.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a brilliant remake, reinventing the rebellion of intelligent apes first seen on the silver screen well over thirty years ago.

Rather than providing a movie review, I’d like to focus on one aspect of the movie that worked remarkably well, and that is the use of non-verbal communication.

Screenwriters Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa did what few other recent screenwriters have done over the past few years and that is to take the time and care to methodically plan a storyline that is largely devoid of contrivances.

The story has a natural feel to it, strengthened by their use of non-verbal communication, which was always going to be so important about a story with apes, orangutans and chimpanzees.

Once young Caesar is brought home, the movie switches gears and a sense of pathos is built with the audience.

We see the young chimp constantly pressing up against an ornate glass window in his attic room. The window has a peculiar circular pattern.

Casear stares out through the glass he could so easily break, watching children playing on the street, people arriving in cars, confrontations with the neighbours, etc. He sees the world through that window.

Then, when imprisoned, our juvenile chimpanzee scratches the rough design of his beloved window on a concrete wall and falls asleep leaning against it. That simple imagery effectively conveying the idea of a comfort blanket to all those watching.

Still later, after the uprising has begun, we catch a fleeting glimpse of the same motif scrawled over a stop sign. It has become the symbol of the rebellion, having journeyed with the young Caesar through his adolescence into adulthood, its fleeting curves representing his life’s journey.

It’s the soft touches, the subtleties like this that allow Rise of the Planet of the Apes to communicate so effectively without words.

If you haven’t see Rise of the Planet of the Apes, what are you waiting for?