Tag Archives: SF

Loscon 43 Day 3

Sunday was the final day of the convention. in spite of being up past midnight engrossed in good conversations I arose shortly after 8 am and took in a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant, A friend, Mark Fogg, joined me for breakfast and the good conversation from the previous night continued.

My bad luck with first of the day panels also continued as the retrospective on Military Sf was canceled. Instead I spend my first block period watching space-related cartoon from Warner Brothers and MGM.

Just a few topics and panels consumed the rest of the convention for me. A nice overview of the science gained from our most recent Martian rover, a lively discussion of tropes and cliché’s in fiction, and I ended it on science with a look at the result of the New Horizons mission to Pluto.

At about 4 pm my wife and I left the convention for home. The drive home passed uneventfully. We stopped for a meal with friends also heading to San Diego, and did a little grocery shopping near home before finally reaching our condo.

I stayed up a littler later than my sweetie-wife watched most of The Martian, but then exhausted I turned in for sleep.

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Loscon 43 Day 2

Day 2, Saturday, was my very busy day at the convention. Now to be honest the day did not start off well. The first panel I attended, the subject being why are manuscripts dead on arrival, was one that presented very little information that I did not already know and my alternate panel had been canceled, but those are the risk of a convention.

The next block featured a panel in which I was a participant, the subject being Redshirts, body counts and drama stakes in story telling. The panelists were all lively and informed, our discussion ranged far and I think went to very interesting places.

After that I took in a panel on stealing from history, Shakespeare, and other sources. Any panel featuring both Harry Turtledove and Tim Powers is neatly always worth attending.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with science presentations on the Dawn Mission, a read and critique workshop that I facilitated, and a bit to eat rather late in the evening.

My final event was panel that I had suggested to the programming chair, discussing Roddenberry’s failed pilots of the 1970s.. I had envisioned this taking place during normal con hours with a panel of 4 or 5. Instead it was scheduled for 9pm, and while the programmers had slotted two panelists, I was the only one that turned up.

An audience however did attend and so the show had to go on. Luckily the audience was willing to roll with just me up there and in the end I think we had a lot of fun talking about the pilots, the filmmaking of the era, and Roddenberry’s career before Star Trek.

With the last panel completed I spent the remaining hours, until well after midnight, in a lively hallways discussion with friends old and new.

A truly good end to a good day.

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Interstellar vs The Martian

In recent years we’ve had the good luck to see a number of high quality hard SF films released across the country; today I want to talk about two of them and why I like one over the other.

1-interstellarInterstellar is from Christopher Nolan the brilliant filmmaker behind movies such as Memento, The Batman Trilogy, and Inception. Billed as a hard SF story Interstellar depicts a dying Earth where blights are devastating crops around the world and humanity is struggling to grow enough food. The official stance of the U.S. government is that the moon landings were forged to force the USSR to bankrupt itself in a useless space race. Now with the world on the brink of collapse a last ditch effort to find a new home is underway thanks to a wormhole opened by friendly, off screen, aliens. Our characters are part of an expedition through the wormhole and encounter the bizarre and counter-intuitive effects of highly warped space/time. There are betrayals by people who have lost all hope but in the end, and with an expression of the twins paradox displayed for the audience, humanity is saved.

1-martian-9The Martian is from Ridley Scott and is a much more restricted in scope, dealing one man stranded on mars, alone and without the supplies required to stay alive until rescue can arrive. The story follows our hero as his brilliantly solves one problem after another and with his crew mates and people on Earth who devote tremendous resources, skill, and personal risk to save him. It is a man vs nature tale that focuses on a single man but also shows humanity as a whole fighting against an uncaring universe to save a single life.

Now both films have flaws in the science. The Martian storm that strands our astronaut simply can’t exist and that was a known fact my the novelist who penned the original book and the people who adapted it. In Interstellar the smaller craft used to go between their main ship and the surface of the various planets they explore flies by PFM, pure flippin’ magic. In neither case do I really fault the films for the scientific failures, you always have to give something and grading movies on a curve these examples are tiny error.

I do favor The Martian over Interstellar because the story is so free of unrequired cynicism. I do not object to a cynical take or tone in a story. I love noir and that genre requires a cynical worldview, but not all stories benefit from a heavy dose of the cynical. I look at Interstellar, particularly with its ‘love conquers all; subtext and find that the cynicism is at odds with the rest of the film. It is tonally uneven and discordant, where The Martian never breaks from the tone it aims for. It is always a story about fighting for survival and the common humanity in such struggles.

SF can be cynical, 1984 and the movie Blade Runner are both examples of fine SF stories that have and require a cynical heartbeat, Interstellar did not need it and its inclusion damaged the movie execution.

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Roddenberry’s Forgotten Dreams

If someone knows the name Gene Roddenberry it is almost certainly due to the 60’s television series Star Trek and it’s sequel series Star Trek: The Next Generation. During the 1970s Roddenberry attempted to launch a few other series before Paramount green-lit a Star Trek film and the whole cascade that followed in the wake of the titanic success of Star Wars. At my suggestion Loscon43 this year has a panel discussion, which I will be participating in, on these failed pilots.

In order the prep for the convention panel I have tried to hunt down the pilots and re-watch all of them. I succeeded in all of them except The Questor Tapes. If you are in Los Angeles do consider coming to the convention this weekend, but if you can’t make it here are some of my brief thoughts about these pilots.

Genesis II: NASA scientist Dylan Hunt is undergoing an experimental suspended animation technique when an unexpected rock-fall collapses the cavern where the experiment takes place and Dylan isn’t revived until well into the 22 century. The Earth is fragmented with some locales in post-apocalyptic barbarism while other areas have retained advanced technologies. Dylan ends up recruited by a group called Pax who are dedicated to rebuilding humanity but this time without its warlike nature. The pilot is dreadfully dull with most of the scenes tiresome exposition as everyone explains things to the poor Dylan and the audience. The most action packed parts of the pilot, Dylan rigging a nuclear device to foil evil-minded mutants, takes place off screen.

Planet Earth: Same set up as Genesis II, again our main hero is Dylan Hunt, a scientist from the 20th century who due to a suspended animation accident is transport to a post-apocalyptic Earth and works with a group called Pax rebuilding society. This pilot skips the origin story and drops us into an adventure as Dylan and a science team are forced to infiltrate a society where women enslave men in hope of finding a missing doctor needed to save the life of a leader of Pax. This pilot worked better, a lot less exposition but the dialog is stilted and the moralizing is heavy-handed.

The Questor Tapes: An eccentric scientist that few have ever met tricks the government into building an android. When the officials try to decipher the robot’s programming they damage the files. The android, Questor, awakens and escapes. The damaged programming has left him without emotions or knowing his purpose. With the help of a human friend, he tracks down his mysterious creator and learns that humanity has been guided through the centuries by androids keeping mankind for destroying itself. His creator is an android but is damaged and was unable to create his replacement, Questor. Questor is supposed to be the last in the line and if humanity survives Questor’s lifespan it will have matured.

I have memories of this pilot but I have not seen in it decades. Of course the moment Data was introduced in 1988 during the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation I felt very strongly he was Questor 2.0.

Spectre: The only non-SF pilot Roddenberry produced after Star Trek. Will Sebastian and his physician friend Dr ‘Ham’ Hailton are the occult’s answer to Holmes and Watson. Sebastian and Ham travel to London investigating an English Lord who is either a hedonist or a Satanist. Of Roddenberry’s post Star Trek pilots I liked this one the best, but when the credits flashed I noticed that on the screenplay he shared credit with Samuel A Peeples so it is clear he worked better with a partner than writing alone.

It should be fun discussing these project on the panel at the convention.

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Movie Review: Arrival 2016

Friday night after me sweetie-wife and friends finished our evening of board and card game I took the opportunity to visit a movie theater in y area and catch the new SF film Arrival before this weekend science-fiction convention, LosCon.

The theater is one I have been to a few time but generally is on the ‘do not go’ list because it had older and uncomfortable seating, but I had been told that the auditorium were now renovated with big recliners.

I arrived and true enough the seats were large, well stuffed, and quite comfortable. However the A/C had been set too high and I was quite cold foe the first third of the movie. I hope that is not indicative of their usual settings as this chain has the best prices and could well win my patronage.

1-arrival_ver11Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life, is a first contact tale with the emphasis on contact. A dozen alien vessels appear at locations around the world. No one can make out any pattern to the ‘landing’ sites and the aliens unannounced arrival is a mystery. The protagonist of the story Dr Louise Banks, played quite well by Amy Adams, a linguist the United States bring into the project with hope of forging a common means of communication with aliens.

The film is a steady, measured story about that trouble, learning to communicate with something that doesn’t think or perceive in the same manner as you. There is not ‘we learned your language from your broadcasts’ short cuts and the film covers a period of months as we struggle to understand. Jeremy Renner plays Ian Donnelly a physicist and co-equal to Dr Banks in the communications project which for the United States is being commanded by Col. Weber player by the always spot on Forrest Whitaker.

There are the usual tensions between civilian and military mindsets, but the script avoid clichés for the most part. The film is not an action movie in SF drag. This is a film about ideas and the deeper implications of contact. It is difficult to fully discuss this movie without venturing seriously into spoiler space. It is at heart a mystery and how much you like the film will depend on how well that mystery’s resolution work for you.

It worked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but your mileage may vary.

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LosCon Next Weekend

Next weekend is Thanksgiving Weekend here in the United States and for me that mean the Los Angeles Area Science Fiction Convention, otherwise known as LosCon. I think I may have attended every LosCon from 1997 until now. It is one of my favorite conventions.

My very first turn at being on a panel and not simply in the audience was at a Loscon when I was drafted for an on the spot Firefly panel. (That was a blast.)

Now for the last several years I have been a panelist for local San Diego Conventions Condor and Conjecture. This year I will be on several panels for Loscon as well.

I do not yet have the rooms, date, or times for these panels but here is where you can find me at LosCon

 

Redshirts and Bodycount

Description: Star Trek, with its many generations and recent reboot, gives us the opportunity to consider the way stakes and violence have been portrayed in media from the 60s until today. Is it possible to have high stakes without violence? Is the threat of death always necessary? How does an exceptionally nonviolent movie like Star Trek IV hold up today? Is sanitized violence in fact more offensive than ‘honest’ violence? And is there actually any reason to strive for nonviolence, if the audience is enjoying it?

 

Science, Fiction, and Politics: Shaping Reality

Description: Come join our panel of people working in science and science fiction for a discussion of how science, and science fiction affects politics – and vice versa.

 

The Politics and Socioeconomics of Space Exploration

Description: How do politics, economics, culture, and space exploration affect each other?

 

Roddenberry’s Forgotten Dreams

Description: From the TOS episode “Assignment: Earth” until Star Trek: The Motion Picture Gene Roddenberry attempted to launch a number of SF television programs that never progressed beyond an aired pilot. Join us as our panel discusses the shows that might have been

 

In addition to the panel discussions I will also be leading a critiquing session either Friday or Saturday evening.

 

Rogue Read & Critique

Description: Bring 1200-1500 words of a work in progress. In a supportive environment we’ll listen and give feedback.

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Space Zombies? Really?

So veering onto an entirely new track here s a quick post about making sure that your world-building and the your metaphors work and play together.

There’s an instance where it really falls down and that occurs in the fan favorite and short lived SF TV show Firefly.

(Yes I am taking my life in my hands by pointing a glaring flaw in the beloved series.)

The show is a hybrid SF/Western set in a terraformed solar system where dozen of worlds and hundreds of moons have shirt-sleeve environments. (never mind the science issues here – Joss and Science have never been a particularly strong match.) Inspired by the U.S. Civil war our heroes are plucky rebels who stood up to the central powers and lost. They now live on the frontier moons, scraping out a living running cargos and doing odd jobs, often of questionable legality, while trying to remain a few steps ahead of the suffocating core worlds. This is all and good. The set up allows an interesting exploration go the clash of cultures that happened with the U.S. Civil war without the overpowering evil of slavery hanging over everything. The transformed frontier moons allow a wild west feel without the native aliens so he side steps the American Native issues as well. Right from the pilot a threat is revealed in the form of ‘Reavers.’ Humans who it is said had gone mad at the vast emptiness of space and now travels from moon to moon, killing, raping, and wearing the skins of their victims, should they be so lucky as to have it occur in that order.

The show ran a few episodes before Fox killed it, but gathered enough of a fan base that Universal bankrolled a modest feature film that allowed Joss to resolve some incomplete plot lines.

On the Blu-ray bonus materials Joss explains that the Reavers, who play a central plot point, are in fact supposed to be basically ‘Space Zombies.’ (Because there is no escaping the zombie genre – anywhere.) The reavers are unbridled and uncontrolled expression of human anger and aggression, incapable of expressing anything other than violence and destruction. A metaphor for what goes wrong when you try to meddle with human nature, but within the world-building there utterly ludicrous.

Reavers when they appeared display no thought, no planning, nothing but naked savagery. They run and chase down their victims, tearing into them, tearing them appart, and then chasing after the next. Okay – that’s pretty zombish, but how the hell do they fly spaceships?

Seriously I would love to have Joss write me a scene that takes place aboard a ship piloted and controlled by reavers. How do they manage to make it go from place to place, piloting and landing safely while unable to think?

It is an aspect of the show that one has to ignore and if you are unable to ignore the issue the entire story falls apart.

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Genes and Gene Expression: an Analogy and Some Speculations

Consider something purple displayed on your monitor. It looks purple, the color is vibrant and clear. However if you take that monitor apart and examine it down to the smallest components you will never find a purple pixel. The only pixels you will find will be Red, Blue, and Green. Where does that purple come from?

Now if you know anything about monitors, or color theory, or light, you already know the answer to my rhetorical question. Red light plus Blue light will create purple light. If both Red and Blue pixels light, then their combined color will be purple, that much is simple and straightforward.

Now for an analogy, think of genes as pixels. Each gene does its one thing; code for mRNA from which a protein is created. There are a lot more different genes then there are pixels. For full color you only need 3 pixels, but humans have an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 genes, so a directly analogy, like all analogies, can only go so far but stay with me here.

Like pixels genes are either on or they are off, and they are not always on to full intensity. Just as a pixel can be dim or bright a gene can express, that is produce, either a little product or a lot.

Most of the genes in your cells are actually switched off Livers cell have no need to produce proteins for muscles and the same if true for nerve cells acting like skin cell and so on. Critical to life and everything that it entails is proper gene expression. Just as there is circuitry that controls the pixels, switching them on, off, dim or bright, there is a control system doing the same for genes and that is epigenetics. It is the system outside of your inherited genes that controls when and how your genes express.

There is a growing body of evidence that epigenetic traits are inheritable and may be responsible for a wide range of things never before suspected, including sexual orientation.

This would explain the paradox of twins. Identical twins can and do vary in sexual orientation eve though they have identical genes. Some have tried to use the twins data to argue that orientation is then not inherent but somehow chosen. However your epigenetic settings are not under your control and many of them are determined during gestation. And even identical twins in the same womb do not have identical experiences in gestation. The search for a ‘homosexual gene’ is misguided both due to excessive binary thinking, people are not either simply gay or straight, and it’s a quest to find a non-existent purple pixel. All sexually reproductive species will need to have a sexual response mechanism. It is likely that the form of the response, activated by maturity, is a result of gene expression over a number of genes. I suspect the same may be true of gender identity.

Any species with sexual reproduction and sexual dimorphism is going to have some form on internal gender identity and if that is a result of gene expression that variation in expression may result in variation in internal gender identification.

Your phenotype may be male but if your pixels light up for female that may be your self-identified gender.

This gets very science-fictional when you consider that the epigenetic controls look to be hackable. In mice we have already changed the epigenetic settings and changed behavior.

What if we unlocked such keys and controls in humans? Is it ethical for parents to modify a child’s orientation or gender identity? If it is ethical for a person to under go treatments that alter the phenotype to match and internal model is it also ethical to allow that person to alter the internal model to match the phenotype?

I am not proposing answers. These are big big questions, but they are questions we may very be faced with sooner than we think.

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Firearms in Space

I do not think I am getting much fiction writing done tonight. A doctor’s appointment threw off my schedule and here in the early evening I am utterly knackered. So In a few I will go veg in front of the television and stream something mindless.

Given that I am going to be about 500 words short of my target today I will write a bit on a subject recently brought to my mind. On Sunday my sweetie-wife and I watched the MST3K version of Moon Zero Two. For those who do not know this is a 1969/1970 Hammer production billed as the first space western. Before you go getting vision of Firefly stuck in your head it was nothing like that show. I had very vague memories of seeing this movie when I was younger. Actually it is not terrible and gets more science right than many sf films today.

One of the things the film depicts is the use of pistols. gunpowder firearms, in the vacuum of space. Contrary to what Joss Whedon would have you believe in the Firefly’s episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds” firearms do not require atmosphere for combustion; the oxidizer is packed in the with charge in the cartridge. Think about it, that bullet and cartridge are sealed together there is no avenue for the atmosphere to participate in the charge combusting.

So, if the cartridge will fire, are there any real issues with pistol packing spacemen? There are.

First off there is a serious issue with heat. Guns get hot and here on Earth a handgun relies on the air to carry away the heat by convection. Even then it is possible to fire the weapon so fast that the metal overheats, expands and jams. (This was apparently a factor in the British Army’s defeat at the Battle of Islandlwana.) A gun fired in the vacuum of space will have few options of dumping its heat. There will be no atmosphere for convection, the spaceman is unlikely to volunteer to do it through conduction and that leave just radiation which works best once the metal starts glowing. of course by then jamming will be only one of many problems.

Another issue is lubrication. Guns use a variety of lubricants that allow the moving and sliding parts to smoothly work. Unless you select lubricants for a vacuum setting I think it is likely you are going to find that they may freeze is in shadow or boil away if directly exposed. Either way it bears ill for the proper operation of your gun.

The last significant factor in my opinion is one determined by setting. If you are in a gravity field, say the moon’s, you’ll need to adjust your sighting to compensate for the change in gravity, but that’s merely technique. However, if you are in free space, floating free you have a new problem. No, not that the gun will kick you around like a jet pack, the force from a tiny slug going very fast is still going to be much less than what is required to move a person. No, I think the trouble will come from off-balanced forces. It is unlikely that the vector of the shot will pass cleanly through the marksman’s center of mass and that means the marksman is likely to start tumbling.

None of these issues are insurmountable. Perhaps vacuum rated guns could be designed with gasses to carry away the heat, and finding the right lubricants is an engineering issues I will wager has already been solved. The off-center force is most easily solved with small jets on the pressure-suit that would be slaved to the gun and fired to produced a counter-force with each round shot.

Well, that’s my essay for the night.

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The 5 Rules of Writing

Robert A. Heinlein famously set forth his 5 rules for success as a writer. If you go to a SF convention and they are brought up at a writing panel there is almost always contentious disagreement on exactly how good and how much you should implement the various rules. Since I have a shortage of humility here are my thoughts on the 5 rules.

Rule 1: You Must Write.

Okay this is a very good rule and usually one that doesn’t promote arguments. Clearly if you do not write you can not be a writer, but I find the rule too vague on how much and how often you should write. Some author prescribe that you must write every day, but that’s too much for me. I personally write 5 days a week. Monday through Friday, leaving my weekends for fun and relaxation. This schedule of writing has been very beneficial for me and I believe that you should have a schedule to your writing. maybe 7 days a week is right for you, maybe three days a week, maybe even just 1 day a week. Whatever it is I think you should have one and you should stick to it. If you rely on inspiration and mood you’ll spend more time dreaming and less time composing. It is the act of actually composing where you practice your craft and you have to do it to get better. Screw waiting for the muse, get out there and write. We go to our day job without the muse’s help writing is the same way.

Rule 2: You Must Finish What You Write.

I have a whole essay on my thoughts that the most important skill a writer can master is completing the tale; this is the same thought. An unfinished piece is no good to anyone, not even the writer. Mind you not all pieces can be completed, but you need to avoid quitting because it got hard or you got lost. that can be a habit and a very bad one. It’s been more then ten years since i started a novel and not finished writing it. Some of those I did finish were garbage and you will never see them, but they were completed.

Rule 3: You Must Refrain From Rewriting; except to editorial order.

Oh, this is the rule everyone fights over. Let me give you my take on it. This rule is not an excuse to avoid proofreading and corrections. This rule is an excuse to avoid polishing your prose and tightening your plot. This rule in my opinion is not about revision but about rewriting. It is about second guess that voice inside you that has something to say. It is about letting fear take out the thing you think really matters because you’re afraid how people will take it. It’s about making your stuff dull and lifeless and like everything else out there because a million voices are yelling that you’re doing it wrong. Trust that your vision, your idea, your voice is worth the time and don’t back down from what you want to say. (The editorial order is a concession that checks in hand beat art and principle and may have been more of his public image than hi actual practice.)

Rule 4: You must put the work on the market.

Well, you want to be a professional and paid writer, yeah you gotta do that. If you want it on your blog, something that didn’t exist in 1947 when these rules were drafted, knock yourself out. The point is get coin for your words you must overcome the quite common fear of rejection. Strangely enough this has been the least problematic rule for me. I send it out, I get rejections, and move on, rarely worrying about that rejection for more than a moment.

Rule 5: You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

Don’t surrender on the first rejection. Really if you’ve survived the first, the second stings far less. The truth of the matter is a single rejection tells you nothing except that the piece did not work for that editor on that day. You need to send it back out, again and again until either you sell or there are no market left. Now perhaps no markets left means – no paying markets, no markets you’d care to be seen dead in, that doesn’t matter. As long as there is a market where the piece might work, send it out. It is your job to write it it is the editor’s job to rejection and never do the editor’s job for them.

 

Well that’s my thoughts on the five famous formulations.

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