Tag Archives: SF

Cawdor update

So if you have been following my blog you know I spent a good chunk of this year working on my SF novel, Cawdor. Based on the beta-read feedback I have to conclude that this version has missed the mark and is not salvageable in its current state.

I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I have decided to plunge into Cawdor 2.0. I think I can see where this process went off the rails and what I should do to breathe some life into the project.

Here’s how this project came about.

For more than 10 years I’ve had an idea that I would like to do an SF version of the story of Macbeth. I knew it would be novel-sized and I also knew for most of that time I had not cracked an approach to the story. I did not want to do a  beat-for-beat translation.

Last year the final pieces were falling into place and I was suddenly engrossed in the most detailed world-building I had ever done on a story. The more I dug into it the more I kept finding.

I built a world and a situation that I thought would evolve the  plot naturally. That turned out to be in error. I took a world that I really liked and I hammered Macbeth onto it. This is not the time nor place for a MAcbeth, Cawdor requires a plot of its own and it very nearly grew one inside the Macbeth plotlines.

This yielded a muddled novel that did not know what it wanted or needed to be.

Cawdor 2.0 will ditch any attempt to follow Macbeth and its plot will grow organically from from the situations and the characters that are stuck on the distant and dying world of Cawdor.

While driving back from my Vegas Adventure I had an epiphany where the story had to go. What crucial scene had to be excised and changed radically about. The one scene that when removed and so altered would forever separate this from Macbeth. Macbeth’s murder of Kind Duncan.

I suspect the next sic months or so will be an interesting ride.

Share

Sunday Night Movie: Journey To The Seventh Planet

So there I was last night playing around with the Netflix instant queue on my Xbox 360 when I saw this title pop up.

Hmm, this is a 50’s SF film I had never heard of and I was in the mood for something light and fairly mindless. A badly imagined trip to the planet Uranus just was the thing.

This film from 1962 is Danish. I wonder just how many danish SF films are there? T stars John Agar who made a career out fo B-Sf films though this particular movie is several grade lower than his standard fare.

It starts with voice-over narration to let us know that it is the year 2001 and mankind has made the earth a paradise. There are no nations and no wars and all of man energies have been harnessed for peaceful and exploratory goals. To quote the narration: ‘All the planets close to the sun, including Saturn, have been explored.’ The writers were clearly using values of ‘close’ that are unfamiliar to me.

Anyway the UN has noticed regular radiation pulses coming from the planet Uranus and has dispatched an international crew to investigate and see if there is life. There is little expectation for life as they suspect that the planet has a surface temperature of negative 400 degrees. As they enter orbit and a brief period of weightlessness an alien intelligence, vast, cool, and unsympathetic —wait that’s from a better story — the evil alien mind takes over theirs and probes it for their dreams and fears. (1962? I wonder if this film was a favorite of Gene Roddenberry?)

They land and the landscape around the ship changes from bleak and frozen to lush and rich woodland. Our intrepid crew don’t realize this ’cause apparently they have no external cameras. They plan to take hours testing the suddenly hospitable atmosphere before exiting the ship. The Evil Alien Presence — as impatient as an author awaiting a rejection slip —  opens the door to their craft flooding it with rich breathable air.

Freaked beyond measure, the crew logically decided to leave and head for home. No they didn’t, they went ahead and walked outside, sans suits. I couldn’t PAY my players to be that stupid.

They quickly encounter old flames, childhood homes, and apple trees, all apparently equally loved by the repercussive crewmen. Let’s not consider where the apple-fetish might take us,

Further exploration indicates that a forcefield surrounds their landing site. A handy stick can be pushed through the field so they know it can be penetrated, but have no way to determine what the conditions are beyond. With due care and planning remote probes are sent through the barrier to ascertain the conditions. You don’t believe me do you? Well, you’re right. The German kid, on his first mission, sticks his arm through and finds out what it feels like to be a frozen TV dinner. Lucky for him the budget did not include one-arm effects and he is allowed to recover in a day with no ill effects.

The rest of the film is the crew exploring the frozen world in very thick non-pressure suits, encountering lovely ladies and accepting them as their long lost loves, fighting giant one-eyes bipedal rats,  and fighting with a Cycloptic-brain that pulses radiation at 750 roentgens.

If you are into MST3K fare, but without Joel and the Bots then this might be for you.

Share

Sunday Night Movie:FutureWorld

Two years after reporting about the massacre at he Delos owned amusement park Westworld, reporter Chuck Browning smells another story brewing. Delos has opened a new amusement park, insistent that this time the robot are fail-safe. When a man is murdered trying to get information to him, Chuck realized that not everything is as it seems at Delos.

Forced to work with a professional and personal rival, television reporter/personality Tracy Ballard, Chuck infiltrates the high-tech park Futureworld. Despite their bickering the television report and newspaper man discover this time  that more is at stake than homicidal robots. Uncovering a vast conspiracy that threatens the world, Chuck and Tracy risk more than their lives.

I’ve decided that I would start off my Sunday Night Movie posts with a pitch for the films I watched. The principle reason for this is so that I would get more practice at pitch writing. It is an important aspect of novel selling and an aspect I particularly suck at.

So the Futureworld is the squeal to the 1973 hit, Westworld starring Yul Brynner and Richard Benjamin. In Westerworld at film directed by Michael Crichton from his novel of the same name. The Delos corporation has created an adult theme-park populated with lifelike robots. People can play in artificial environments, engaging in sword fights, sex, gun fights, sex, and debauchery. (Drinking in other words.) The robots malfunction and instead of losing the fights, begin killing the guests. Technology gone awry, as you can see it was never a new theme for Mr. Crichton. Westworld was a hit and made oodles of money, that commanded a sequel.

MGM released Futureworld on 1976, Michael Crichton was not involved in this production so the technology did not go awry. Instead we have a very seventies plot of conspiracies and cynicism. Political and economic leaders from around the world are coming as guests of Delos and of course some nefarious is happening to them. This film was not as well received by either the critics or the public and is generally a forgotten SF film of the seventies. I ended up watching it last night because I was in the mood for something that would not task my brain beyond the most rudimentary concepts.

That said this film in many ways worked better for me than Westworld did. Westworld suffered from severe plot-holes that were required to create the situation that Crichton demanded of his story. For example, when the technology fails in Westworld, the powered doors all locked. Sealing the technicians, who might have resolved the plot before the main characters were in too much danger, in their underground control chambers. There are apparently no overrides, manual or otherwise on these doors. Without power it is simply impossible to open them. Furthermore, the air stops and all the tech die of suffocation. Even as far back as the seventies this is not OSHA compliant. Westworld required this so that Richard Benjamin would have to face the gunslinger alone. Truthfully, this is not very good writing.

Futureworld, by not having the plot revolve around a breakdown of technology escapes this trap. It also got one thing right about the future, the death of Newspapers. Everything else about the future is strangle contemporary to the seventies. Blythe Danner is wasted as the airhead television personality.

In the end this made a perfectly acceptable SF film for a late-night  just kick back and enjoy it viewing, but not one I’d want to own

Share

Sunday Night Movie: Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

It is a well know dictum in the SF community that the ‘good’ Star Trek films are all the even numbered ones and that the odd numbered movies are ‘bad.’ I have advised people to remember that what the even numbered, II, IV, and VI, have in common is Nicholas Meyer. He had a hand in writing all three and directed two of them.

I myself have espoused this Even/Odd dictum to people about how to judge Star Trek movies. (Counting all the Next Generation films as ‘odd.’ The first, a weak and bull film was the best of the lot. They proceeded to become more and more idiotic as the series progressed becoming what can oxymoronically called Luddite Science-Fiction.)

Recently Star Treks, II, III, and IV were released a a single blu-ray set with new bonus features. I resisted as best I could, but when I found a set for about $25 I broke down and purchased it even thought it had a ‘bad’ movie in the collection. I spent part of the weekend watching the bonus material and oohing and awing how gorgeous the films look in the Blu-ray format. Last night I decided that I would make Star Trek III: The Search For Spock my Sunday Night Movie.

Continue reading →

Share

A very pleasant day

Yesterday My friend, Gail Carriger, was in town to promote her third book, Blameless. (A NYT Bestseller I might add.) She had a signing event at the local speciality bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy. There was tea, biscuits, (Cookies to use Americans) and quite a crowd of fans. I and my sweetie-wife had a particularly good time listening to Gail take questions and read from her firs book in the series. (Soulless.)

Afterwards we three had dinner at Khyber Pass a local Afgan restaurant.  (My sweetie-wife and I have been there before and I adore the food.) Then we came back to our condo and taught Gail to play one of silly dice games, but I think she enjoyed it.

All in all I had a very good day yesterday.

Share

Fighters in Space

Thanks to George Lucas and his Star Wars films, modern SF has developed a love affair with fighters in space. Lucas used WWII aircraft footage as reference material for the special effects teams working on Star Wars and the influence is clear.

This led to a lot of imitators and copycats, all loving the carrier and fighter in space motif. For me to really became too much when the SF program Space: Above and Beyond (which I refereed to as Space: Abort and Begone) aired. In the program, which really was just WWII set in space, during a briefing pilots are advised to remember that the enemy fighter can out climb the allied fighters. Out – fucking – climb in weightless space. What the hell are they climbing against?

There are reason why carriers and fighter make perfect sense for wet navies, but trying to put them into space just makes the writer look all wet.

First, Ships and Planes travel through different media. A ship has to push water, heavy incompressible water, in order to move. This requires a great deal of energy to get very little speed. The USS Lexington in WWII could go at an astounding 34.5 knots.  (39.7 mph) to do this speed required 150,000 standard horsepower. An F4F Wildcat cruised at 155 mph, could go as fast as 318 mph on 1200 standard horsepower.

Nearly ten times as fast on less than one-tenth the power.

In space, the carrier and the fighter are traveling through the same medium, vacuum. There is no intrinsic reason why a fighter would be so much faster than a carrier. (yes the fighter has less mass, but if you have motive power that accelerate the fighter that fast, you have it for the big ship too, just takes more.)

Another reason planes and carriers makes sense on planetary surface is that planets are curved. Planes give ships an over the horizon spot capability. (In fact before WWII it was thought that spotting and scouting was the reason for Carriers, and that fighting would remain the domain of the big gun ships. The Imperial Japanese Navy persuaded us otherwise.) A ship in space has no horizon to limit detection. No need for small vulnerable spotters.

The third element that makes the airplane useful to surface navies is that the plan can carry a weapon load-out capable of sinking a ship. Note that this is general not done with the plane’s machine-guns or cannons. The attack planes carried either bombs or torpedoes. (Today it is the guided missile carried by planes that make them deadly to ships.) In SF movies we don’t see attack craft with one or two big heavy ship killers; they always attack big target with the same guns they used on the enemy fighters. Damn silly.

In terms of physics and real world analogs, space combat is going to look a lot like submarine warfare. Lots of sneaking. (if that’s possible — it may not be.) Cramped tiny spaces, and long range missiles or torpedoes for killing their targets. Note that under the water, with everyone in the same media, we don’t have carrier and fighters.

Share

DVD Review: The Lost Skeleton Returns Again!

A few years ago, before I had met my lovely sweetie-wife, I saw a charming movie at the local Art House theater. The movie was The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. A tongue in cheek send up of bad SF/monster movies of the late 50’s and early 70’s. the film gave us many memorable comedy bits including the famed Amish Terrarium. If you have not seen this movie you need to see it.

Yes, not every scene works as well as it could have. Some scenes drag on too long, but overall I enjoyed the movie.

This week the sequel hit the DVD shelves. It’s rare that I buy a DVD without having seen the movie, but I was willing to take that risk with a Lost Skeleton sequel.

The good news is I felt I got my money’s worth. This was charming and funny. It was clear that the cast enjoyed working with each other again. (those whose characters had died in the first film were playing the twins of those original characters.)

Unlike cheap SF films of the era they actually tried to  shoe-horn in character  growth as part of the comedy and it mostly worked.

What didn’t work was that this film by its very nature could not be as original at the first. Many of the jokes are extensions of gags and jokes used in the first film. Because of that they lose punch and comedy needs punch.

There is nothing in the film as original or as quote worth as the aforementioned ‘Amish Terrarium.’

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend buying this DVD unless it really strike your fancy. Best rent it first.

Share

SF history

Anyone who has been around lit SF for any amount of time is likely aware of the nearly instant debate that can be generated with a single name: Robert A Heinlein.
Depending on who you ask, Heinlein was….
A Communist
A Fascists
A Hippie
An Authoritarian
A Libertarian
The best Sf Writer of all time. (including future tense)
A Hack
A talented creator of female characters.
A sexist.

And he was all these things at the same time. Truly he is the Rorschach test of SF Fandom.
One of his most controversial works was the novel Starship Troopers. He wrote the book as a juvenile, it was rejected, new material was added and ti has not been out of print ever since. This is the book many point to when they call Heinlein a Fascist.

I have stumbled across — thanks to the comments and discussions at TOR SF — an archive of criticisms and defenses of Starship Troopers spanning a time from 1959 when it was being serialized in F&SF through its publication as a novel and ending in 1963.

Wow. The Heinlein flame wars are sort of like the 100 years war. This was a fascinating series of comments and essays to read. It has not moved my thoughts on the matter. (I’m a Heinlein Fan, but I worship no man. Something I think got from reading Heinlein; though — like Ayn rand — fantatical followers are upsetting and close-minded.) The essay comparing Starship Troopers with The Star Dwellers has made me want to find a copy of The Star Dwellers and give it a read.

If you have any interest at all this link is worth your time.

Share