Quotulatiousness

July 15, 2019

Galaxy Quest – still the best Star Trek movie ever made

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

At Mark Steyn’s site, guest movie reviewer Kathy Shaidle lovingly reviews the cult classic — and one of my all-time favourite movies — Galaxy Quest:

In a just world, O.J. Simpson would currently be serving the 24th year of a double life sentence; Ronald Reagan would have been president during America’s bicentennial instead of Jimmy Carter — and Galaxy Quest would’ve earned half-a-billion bucks at the box office when it came out in 1999.

But inept and indifferent studio marketing (plus competition from another “sci-fi” comedy, Ghostbusters) relegated Galaxy Quest to semi-cult status. Which is ironically appropriate, given its plot:

At a science fiction convention, fans await an appearance by the cast of Galaxy Quest, a hokey interstellar TV adventure series unceremoniously cancelled in the early 1980s. The show’s fatally typecast has-been “stars” (played by Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub and Daryl Mitchell) are reduced to reluctantly signing autographs at tacky gatherings like this one, when they’re not cutting ribbons (in full costume) at supermarket openings.

That is, until genuine aliens — who, in cargo cult fashion, have based their civilization on Galaxy Quest re-runs transmitted through space — touch down and beg “the crew of the NSEA-Protector” to help them defeat the villain bent on destroying their planet. The adorable Thermians innocently believe the program’s “crew” are fearless, intrepid space warriors and technological geniuses, not just washed-up actors in laughable uniforms. Their language has no word for “pretend”…

Lazily calling this movie “a Star Trek spoof” unfairly slots it alongside broad, coarse parodies like Blazing Saddles or the soulless Mars Attacks! In truth, Galaxy Quest is a tender, big hearted valentine — more My Favorite Year than Airplane.

That the film’s jokes and, more incredibly, its special effects, hold up so well twenty years later is a testament to the loving care with which Galaxy Quest was crafted. Obeying the first (yet often ignored) commandment of movie comedy, all the actors “play it straight”

June 20, 2019

A Clockwork Orange – Dystopias and Apocalypses – Extra Sci Fi

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 18 Jun 2019

Go to https://NordVPN.com/ExtraCredits to get 75% off a 3 year plan and use code ExtraCredits to get an extra month free. Protect yourself online today!

A Clockwork Orange reflects a cultural fear of society’s moral decay in the 1960s. Its usage of a mashup slang language known as “nadsat” illustrates the complexities of rebellious youth culture. Ultimately, Anthony Burgess’s work asks us to think about if or when free will should ever be suppressed, but the major differences between the book and the film version of this story present contrasting takeaways.

Where the dystopias of Brave New World and 1984 warned against the easy slide into totalitarianism, and painted for us worlds in which freedom is nearly a forgotten thing… A Clockwork Orange presents us with a protagonist who has almost an excess of freedom, and in doing so it shows us the shift in societal fears.

June 12, 2019

A Canticle for Leibowitz – Dystopias and Apocalypses – Extra Sci Fi

Filed under: Books, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Extra Credits
Published on 11 Jun 2019

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a book about cycles and violence — about the cost of progress. But it is also about the persistence of humanity’s quest for knowledge and endless resilience. Unlike other post-apocalyptic fiction tropes, it is focused on the lives and goings of everyday people, rather than on the setting itself, and is a critical work to study if you want to understand the post-apocalyptic genre better.

Inspired by his own experience being part of the bombing campaign that leveled the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino during World War 2 and the fear of nuclear annihilation that gripped America during the Cold War, Walter M. Miller Jr. imagined the world in a brand new dark age, ushered in by the hubris of humankind — in the only novel he ever published.

June 10, 2019

QotD: Robert Heinlein on “honest work”

Filed under: Books, History, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The beginning of 1939 found me flat broke following a disastrous political campaign (I ran a strong second best, but in politics there are no prizes for place or show).

Robert A. Heinlein at the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention
Via Wikimedia Commons.

I was highly skilled in ordnance, gunnery, and fire control for Naval vessels, a skill for which there was no demand ashore — and I had a piece of paper from the Secretary of the Navy telling me that I was a waste of space — “totally and permanently disabled” was the phraseology. I “owned” a heavily-mortgaged house.

About then Thrilling Wonder Stories ran a house ad reading (more or less):

GIANT PRIZE CONTEST —
Amateur Writers!!!!!!
First Prize $50 Fifty Dollars $50

In 1939 one could fill three station wagons with fifty dollars worth of groceries.

Today I can pick up fifty dollars in groceries unassisted — perhaps I’ve grown stronger.

So I wrote the story “Life-Line.” It took me four days — I am a slow typist. I did not send it to Thrilling Wonder; I sent it to Astounding, figuring they would not be so swamped with amateur short stories.

Astounding bought it… for $70, or $20 more than that “Grand Prize” — and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for honest work.

(“Honest work” — an euphemism for underpaid bodily exertion, done standing up or on your knees, often in bad weather or other nasty circumstances, and frequently involving shovels, picks, hoes, assembly lines, tractors, and unsympathetic supervisors. It has never appealed to me. Sitting at a typewriter in a nice warm room, with no boss, cannot possibly be described as “honest work.”)

Robert A. Heinlein, 1980.

May 30, 2019

Fahrenheit 451 – Dystopias and Apocalypses – Extra Sci Fi

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 28 May 2019

Ray Bradbury not only cautions against censorship (the primary theme of Fahrenheit 451), but offers interesting commentary on who censors works at all, and why humans do it anyway.

Fahrenheit 451 is about many things. In Bradbury’s younger days, just coming out of the McCarthy era, he said the book was about censorship and book burning. Later in life, he said it was about the dangers of easy entertainment. Let’s analyze these viewpoints a little further.

May 29, 2019

QotD: Past civilizations

Filed under: Books, Europe, History, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… when anyone says “there was a civilization before us” your head (our head) jumps to airplanes, trains, steel mills, refrigerators, dentistry.

I’m telling you the chances of that are negligible, though I won’t scruple using a more advanced than us past civilization to give my characters a nasty shock when they get to space. I won’t because that’s just cool.

However of things like Ancient Greece or Rome? I almost think the chances against it are worse. And of course civilizations that live and die by coastal sailing would be mostly engulfed in the great melt of the last ice age.

And no, Europe hasn’t been extensively studied. As I said before, Europe is mostly built on Europe. And you can’t dig in a field without finding SOMETHING. If you think everyone runs to the academics or the authorities when something is found, you don’t understand people’s interest in building a house, or sowing a field, as opposed to you know, giving up ownership of their land in all but fact. Frankly I’m amazed so many people do report discoveries.

But the thought of “superior civilizations” got me to thinking of what say the Romans or the Greeks, or those other ancient civilizations if they ever existed, would make of us in the West. We cross the globe by flying through the air. Not just heads of state or priests, no, common people. Hell, our pets fly. Most places have clean, fresh water that someone doesn’t have to carry a mile or so (which has been most of the work of humanity I think, forever.) Forget aqueducts. We have water that comes from our faucets whenever we want it. Cold AND hot. We have temperature control inside our houses, allowing us ignore the weather and keep warm in winter and cold in summer. We can magically cure diseases that killed millions of people by injecting this magical elixir into the sick person’s veins. Our old live a long time in relative comfort. We get our teeth fixed and replaced, so most people can chew to the end of their lives. Most of us can read, and most of us have access to untold wisdom of the sort their hermetic orders would kill for.

We are the superior civilization. We are the enlightened ones, the shining and resplendent inhabitants of the wonderful future.

And we worry about what gender we feel like being that day, who is allowed to pee where, whether someone used the wrong word to refer to someone else who might be offended, whether our use of fossil fuels offends Gaia, whether slapping a kid on the behind is a criminal offense, whether we are doing all we could do with our lives.

In other words, we’re neurotic, unsatisfied, and a bit crazy like most of people who were born and raised rich throughout most of human history.

Which is why if we really were doomed to repeating a cycle, and if the civilizations before us were the same but more advanced, the message of the pyramids would be “Don’t use so much toilet paper. Just wash one square and reuse it.”

Perhaps we should be grateful they are truly profoundly unlikely to ever have existed or tried to send us any message.

Sarah Hoyt, “We Are The Superior Civilization”, According to Hoyt, 2017-05-15.

May 15, 2019

1984 – Dystopias and Apocalypses – Extra Sci Fi

Filed under: Books, Britain, Government, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Extra Credits
Published on 14 May 2019

What makes 1984 still relevant to modern readers is that it serves as a warning against fascism in all its possible forms. George Orwell’s service fighting in the Spanish Civil War led him to see that the heart of totalitarianism is about xenophobia and nationalism no matter which kind of government it came from.

The idea that Orwell presents us in 1984 is that people subtle enough and brutal enough can take the undirected dissatisfaction and anger of a society and point it at whatever they will, using us to damn ourselves.

May 8, 2019

Brave New World – Dystopias and Apocalypses – Extra Sci Fi

Filed under: Books — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Extra Credits
Published on 7 May 2019

We kick off a new season of Extra Sci Fi exploring the theme of dystopias and apocalypses. We begin with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World — a very early novel that make a compelling argument for why the dystopia exists at all.

Dystopian literature really began when the two World Wars, the Great Depression, and more socio-political unrest in the world began to disrupt the utopian aspirations of science fiction at the time. So enters Brave New World.

April 11, 2019

QotD: How to improve David Lynch’s Dune

Filed under: Books, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Dune (1982) is a Lawrence of Arabia pastiche with a mad bucket of half-baked science fiction tropes bolted onto it. It includes so much extraneous, confusing detail from the novel’s world, but when you think of all the things it omits you really get a good sense of why Lynch (or anyone?) could not form it in 2 or 3-hours.

I think there are two things that could be done to fix it. Firstly, remove all the speaking and turn the whole thing into a hallucinatory Lynchean nightmare, perhaps to be accompanied by Brian Eno’s mythic 45-minute album of Dune music. […]

Secondly, use Lynch’s movie as the basis for a full-length animated TV miniseries by rotoscoping it and bringing back the original actors for several hours or so of newly-animated scenes.

Rob Beschizza, “Sorry, David Lynch’s Dune sucks (or does it?)”, Boing Boing, 2017-04-21.

March 27, 2019

QotD: Gossip, rumour, and innuendo

Filed under: Europe, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Rumor was rife in the village as in the science fiction community. It should be. Both are the province of women. Not that men didn’t gossip/egg women on in the village, as they do in the science fiction community, but the men stupid enough to be seen doing it openly had a special name attached to them “Tricoteiros.” It was not a complementary name. And most men really didn’t get involved. They merely went along with what their wives decided and decreed. People who imagine women powerless in true patriarchal societies are out of their minds. Once the “court of public opinion” which is largely female, makes a decision, men risk falling victim to it, should they not conform to its dictates.

And this is why I loathe and despise rumor, and will stand up for a victim of it, no matter how little I like him or her: or indeed how little I know him or her. I will stand up for the victim, because rumor is a ridiculous way of ascertaining if someone should be “a part of society” (remember the charming moppets who said someone should be “cast out of society” for saying bad things) or if someone should have a job or if someone should be allowed to live somewhere in peace.

Because the one thing rumor is not concerned with is truth or true guilt, or even gradations of guilt. Yes, perhaps everything rumor says is true. Heaven knows it’s been known to happen, which is when people say “no smoke without fire” but they ignore all the times their stories and whispers were ALL wrong.

For instance, before I got married to Dan everyone knew (based on TRUST me little more than a resemblance in coloring) he was a baker from a neighboring village, whom I’d met in Italy. What was true to this tissue? Well, I was getting married and the year before, I was in Germany. (I’m still confused as to how Italy got attached to it.) Which was okay because I had no reputation to speak of. The life I lived in gossip was far more interesting than my real life. Having grown up as the “little sister” of my brother’s group of friends, they (and I) never paid any attention to the fact I was now past puberty. This meant if they saw me trudging towards the train and they happened to be driving, they’d pick me up and take me where I was supposed to go (mostly college or home) and if they were at a coffee shop and I walked by, they’d call me to sit and grab a coffee and a pastry (which they paid for, as older siblings will. Since my brother is around ten years older than I, most of them had jobs while I was in high school.) BUT the gossips knew I was having affairs will all of them (what a busy critter I must have been, what with carrying a heavier-than-full-load of courses and tutoring on the side, all this while having boyfriends/fiances. So when I got married, of course the best I could do was the baker from the nearby, poorer village. (Rolls eyes.) Which fortunately Dan couldn’t care less about, since when I told him the rumors he went off in whoops of laughter at the idea that his geeky, introverted fiance could ever be the village hussy.

Sarah Hoyt, “Painted All In Tongues”, According to Hoyt, 2017-03-20.

March 11, 2019

Misery was

Filed under: Health, Science — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

exurb1a
Published on 10 Mar 2019

Goodbye to closed-source human history. Maybe.
The Fifth Science Paperback ► https://tinyurl.com/y5zj33s5 (you may need to change your region accordingly: .co.uk, etc)

Sample story from the book (The Lantern) ► https://youtu.be/um6cGuJ4mNE

The Fifth Science Treasure Hunt:

Minimal clues will be provided in the videos below. If you happen to live in one of these countries, then all the very best of luck finding the books. They’re not hidden elaborately, just out of sight of passers-by. If you need to do any heavy lifting, trespassing, or scale walls, you’re definitely in the wrong place. Hint: strange fonts and geography.

England ► https://youtu.be/HQDeKPNUF4U

Germany ► https://youtu.be/qfKd134AETo

Bulgaria ► https://youtu.be/XLLaa7G97B8

I also make horrendous music ► https://soundcloud.com/exurbia-1
Help me to do this full-time, if you’re deranged enough ► https://www.patreon.com/exurb1r?ty=h
The rest of my books ► https://tinyurl.com/ycnl5bo3

Incidentally:

So, one of the many issues I didn’t get around to yelling at you about was the line between ‘genetic disorder’ and an individual’s unique features. I’ve mentioned before I’m more or less blind in one eye and this is almost definitely a result of a mutation in my family line. And you know, given the option, I’m not sure if I’d have it removed. Or, I’d need to give it a very, very long think.

There are plenty of lovely and bizarre anomalies specific to individuals, and it’s not for me to say – or even speculate really – where the line should be drawn when it comes to one day potentially making alterations to our descendants. I’m not a public educator, philosopher, scientist, or policy maker. Just an idiot with a USB microphone. I’m not the person to talk about this stuff. So I hope you’ll forgive my glossing over of it.

March 6, 2019

Dune – Maud’dib – Extra Sci Fi – #4

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Extra Credits
Published on 5 Mar 2019

Charismatic leadership can conceal corruption, and Frank Herbert saw how dangerous this was in the political events he lived through. Leto Atreides, Valdimir Harkonnen, and Paul Atreides (Maud’dib) each represent different types of charismatic but very faulty leadership practices.

Join us in a few months for the continuation of Extra Sci Fi on Tuesdays! http://bit.ly/SubToEC

March 1, 2019

Dune – Wandering in the Desert – Extra Sci Fi – #3

Filed under: Books, Environment — Tags: — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 26 Feb 2019

Dune is an ecological novel. Nature isn’t just the background setting, but firmly integrated into the science and systems of the world. Frank Herbert explores big ideas around environmental conservation, through the spice that must flow.

February 27, 2019

QotD: When progressives took over SF publishing

Filed under: Books, Business, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

When I sold my first novel in the late 90s. Most Americans might not be that sensitive to the “climate” but I was. I had after all grown up in a socialist (at best, during the better times) country where to graduate you had to present the proper progressive front. I knew the signs and the hints and social positioning of “further left than thou.” For instance, my first SF cons, as an author, in the green room, I became aware that “a conservative” was a suitable, laughter inducing punchline for any joke; that all of them believed the Reagan years had set us on course to total dystopia; that the US was less enlightened/capable/free than anywhere else; that your average Republican or even non-Democrat voter was the equivalent of the Taliban.

As for Libertarians, I will to my dying day cherish the dinner I had with my then editor to whom I was describing a funny incident at MileHi where for reasons known only to Bob, I found myself in an argument with someone who wanted to ban the internal combustion engine. My editor perked up and (I swear I’m not making this up) said “Oh, a Libertarian.” At which point my husband squeezed my thigh hard enough to stop me answering. But yeah. That was a not uncommon idea of a libertarian. If it was completely insane and involved banning something, then it was a libertarian.

I once overheard the same editor talking to a colleague and saying that if she got submissions across her desk and they were – dropped and horrified voice – somewhat conservative she recommended they try Baen.

Which the other editor (from a different house) agreed with, because after all, they weren’t in the business of publishing conservative works.

This immediately put me on notice that in the field if you were a conservative (I presume libertarians were worse, or at least they seemed to induce more mouth foaming. And though I was solidly libertarian and – at the time – might have qualified as a Libertarian, I suspect if faced with my real positions they would have classed me as conservative, because my positions were self-obviously not left and that’s all it took.) there was only one house that would take you, and if what you wrote/wanted to write wasn’t accepted by then, then you were out of luck.

After that I lived in a state of fear

I imagine it was similar to living in one of the more unsavory periods of the Soviet Union. You saw these purges happen. Whisper-purges. You got the word that someone was “not quite the thing” or that they associated with so and so who associated with so and so who was a – dropped voice – conservative. Suddenly that person’s books weren’t being bought and somehow people would clear a circle around them, because, well, you know, if you’re seen with a – dropped voice – conservative they might think you’re one too. And then it’s off to Never-Never with you.

I found a few other conservatives/libertarians (frankly, mostly libertarians) in the field, all living in the same state of gut clenching fear.

We did such a dance to test both the reliability and discretion of the other before revealing ourselves that we might as well have developed a hanky code. [Blue for true blue Conservative, white for pure Libertarian, red for the blood of our heroes, brown for OWL (older, wiser libertarian), purple for squishy conservative, powder blue for Brad Torgersen. (The powder blue care bear, with the bleeding heart… and the flame thrower.)]

Conventions were nerve wracking because I watched myself ALL the TIME. And you never knew how much you had to watch yourself. Suddenly, out of the blue, at a World Fantasy the speaker, a well known SF/F writer went on about Dean Howard, our next president. The room erupted in applause, some people stood to clap, and I sat there, frozen, unable to actually fake it to that point but too shocked to even put a complaisant expression on my face.

Sarah Hoyt, “Say Goodbye To The State Of Fear”, According to Hoyt, 2017-03-11.

February 21, 2019

Dune – Plots and Plans – Extra Sci Fi – #2

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 19 Feb 2019

On the surface, Dune appears to be a peak demonstration of “the competent man” trope so popular in Golden Age science fiction, but Herbert deconstructs this by carefully demonstrating how all of the characters make bad assumptions on faulty premises…

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