Month: July 2012

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“Across the Universe” by Beth Revis

One theme I see a lot in various science fiction commentary sites and blogs I read is that the genre itself is lagging in readership behind fantasy and horror to a pretty significant degree, and that one of the reasons for this is a comparative lack of ‘gateway books’ to the genre. Generally the idea of a ‘gateway book’ is a book that’s solidly in the genre, but not so solidly as to be inaccessible to people who have been reading it for a while. And yes, this is a definite problem; I found it myself, back when I really started reading SF on a regular basis in the late 1990s. Sometimes the standard tropes of SF can be a bit hard to penetrate, and the genre tends toward terminology that can often be used from one book to the next, so that if you know what it means or indicates, you’re fine, but the first time or two…it can be a bit hard to get into it.

Another problem is that there just don’t seem to be terribly many SF books for young readers these days, be it schoolkids or young adults. Why is this? I honestly don’t know. But when I look through the shelves at bookstores for books for The Daughter, I can find tons of fantasy, dark fantasy, and outright horror. SF is harder to come by, and it usually tends to be future dystopia stuff or steampunk. That’s not a complaint, just a summation of the state of things. But what I’ve always considered to be the heart of SF, the space adventure (whether it’s outright space opera or not), just isn’t around all the much anymore. The usual complaint is that no one is writing today’s equivalent of Robert A. Heinlein’s novels for juvenile readers, and for the most part, this seems to be true.

Which brings me to Beth Revis’s novel Across the Universe, which is the first book in a trilogy (the second, A Million Suns, is already out, while the last, Shades of Earth, is forthcoming). Across the Universe tells a good, old-school science fiction story, with two young adults at its heart. I loved it.

We open on Earth as a girl named Amy is being placed into suspended animation alongside her parents for a several-hundred-year journey aboard a starship called the Godspeed for the settlement of what is hoped will be a new Earth. Then we meet a boy named Elder, who is so named because he is being groomed to eventually be the leader of the ship. The Godspeed is well underway, and Elder is receiving his lessons from the ship’s current leader, Eldest, who is something of a stern taskmaster. (Or so he seems at first, before things start getting a lot darker.) But down in the hold, Amy awakens from her cryogenic sleep. She’s been thawed out, after an attempt on her life. Halfway through the ship’s journey. When she is told this, she realizes that when they arrive and her parents are revived, she will be in her 60s or 70s.

So, Amy is awake on the ship when she shouldn’t be, there is a murderer on the loose, and it turns out that life aboard the Godspeed isn’t quite what it should be, because the Godspeed herself may not be what she should be. Amy is alone on this ship which is run by a tyrannical leader. As the book progresses, several mysteries are resolved, but even more are unmasked, in this first volume of a trilogy.

The idea of a story set entirely on board a generation ship is not new, of course. But in Revis’s hands, it’s an interesting and effective use of a classic SF trope. None of this works without sharply drawn characters, and Revis does an excellent job of putting us into both Amy’s and Elder’s heads, as one tries to adjust to a terrifying situation that is unfair and nothing she ever deserved or envisioned, and the other finds himself rebelling against his longtime father figure as he starts to realize that things in his world are not what he has always thought them to be.

So if you’re looking to introduce a certain young adult reader to SF, this is a good place to start.

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Stitching the damned words together: a writing update

Writing! Writing! Writing!

I’m thinking that posting here may be slightly more sparse than usual during August, since I’m really trying to make some writerly goals here. Specifically, I want to get all the way through my red-pen markups of the Princesses in SPACE!!! (not the actual title) manuscript by Labor Day. Then, I want to have my personal edits applied by October 1, so I can get the book into the hands of beta readers. Depending on how long it takes beta readers to do their thing, and how much editing I have to do after I get that feedback, I’d love to be able to hit 2013 with sending this book out into the Void, where I hope a publisher will snatch it up. (Or maybe I’ll query agents first…not sure what the best route is, actually, which is more homework I need to do.)

The red-pen markups proceed apace, though, so I’m optimistic. I know of a few dates when I’ll not be able to get through my daily goal, so I’m going to have to make up for those elsewhen. I’m also hoping that the markups on the latter half of the book will go easier than the first half is thus far, as by that time I had a lot stronger idea of where the book was going. I’m finding a lot of meandering passages in the early going, that’s the literary equivalent of throwing stuff on the wall to make sure it sticks.

As for The Adventures of Lighthouse Boy (not the actual title), work is going along nicely there, too, although I did have to do a backtrack last week that wiped out ten thousand words (although I was able to reuse some of it). I’m aiming here for something of a rollicking adventure tale in the Alexandre Dumas tradition, with secret identities and alliances, royalty in hiding, hidden treasures, double crosses, and quite a lot of derring-do. Making a story rollick is not the easiest of tasks, and every so often I have to remind myself to put something in that rollicks.

I also had two characters show up out of the blue and quickly become essential to the story. I’m not kidding. I had my main character walking alone on a road, on his way to someplace, and I wanted to delay his arrival a bit, so I figured he’d meet someone. And along came these two folks who are now very important indeed. I like it when the story writes itself. I have a feeling that this book will need to be longer than Princesses (which I vowed to bring in under 180,000 words). I’m not sure yet, but I’m letting the story dictate the terms here. We’re talking lots of planned twists-and-turns here, and I’m sure there will be a bunch that I don’t even see coming.

Anyway, that’s where things stand with the writing. Onward ho!

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Sentential Links

Links, and some such.

:: The gun nuts do have a point.

We do indeed accept a certain number of vehicular deaths each year, including those caused by drunk drivers and crazy people, as the price we pay for mobility. And nobody is willing to give up cars are they? And nobody is suggesting that they do.

It is a valid comparison.

But here’s the thing, even though we do accept a certain number of vehicular deaths each year, we constantly seek to reduce those fatalities through mandated improvement in the state of the automotive art and road engineering, through laws and regulations and increasingly uncompromising enforcement and stricter punishments, through vigilance and observation and monitoring, though mandatory training and testing and licensing, though tracking those who habitually break the law. We don’t let crazy people drive. We make drivers buy insurance.

(Here’s the thing: I don’t even grant that car deaths and gun deaths are a valid comparison, and it’s why I’m always pretty unimpressed with arguments along the lines of “People die doing X, so why not outlaw X!” It’s because, while people die using cars, causing death isn’t what cars are for. Cars and guns are both examples of tools, but the purpose of a car is to get you someplace. The purpose of a gun is to kill. There just isn’t any getting around it. You can kill with lots of stuff: hammers, knives, and as George Carlin once speculated, you could probably bludgeon someone to death with the Sunday New York Times. What can you do with a gun other than kill? Shoot at inanimate objects so as to improve your skill for when you need to use it to kill?

And no, I’m not presenting an argument in favor of outlawing guns. I’m jsaying why I think a particular argument in favor of guns is really unconvincing, to the point of being deeply silly.

While I’m on the subject, I heard another stupefyingly dumb thing said about guns this past week: “We should never allow the government to be better armed than its citizens are!” Mr. Wright utters the same thoughts I have on that ludicrous notion:

Just so I’m clear here, you’ve bought yourself the biggest, most powerful, most heavily armed, most technologically advanced military in the entire history of mankind, complete with nuclear weapons, stealth bombers, tanks, and many other advanced capabilities too numerous to count. You’ve given them a full decade of intense combat experience in multiple theaters under a vast variety of conditions from mountain terrain, to forest and jungle to desert, right on down to door to door urban warfare. They have more than ten years direct experience in counter-insurgency tactics against multiple heavily armed, experienced, and utterly ruthless civilian militias engaged in guerrilla tactics. But you figure that an invader that can take that mighty force down can be beaten by you and your drunken rednecked beer buddies and a couple of Chinese knockoff AK-47 replicas, do you?

OK, enough of the gun stuff…but I found Mr. Wright’s two postings on this topic very commendable. And lest one think he’s some liberal looking to get rid of guns entirely, well, he provides a long list of his firearm-related bona fides, as well. No overall-clad hippie living in the Northeast who wants nothing to do with ever handling a firearm much less shooting one, he.

:: “Blade Runner” is a great example of several things. It shows us how even a fantastic visual experience can’t hold our attention for two hours if we are not made to care about the characters or the story. It is proof that the latter two aspects are of even more importance for a feature to work. “Runner” may very well be the best of the worst pictures ever made, or perhaps the worst of the best, but this places it in a spot of mediocrity that no work of such phenomenal qualities should ever approach. I feel grateful for its existence and I’m aware there are plenty of readers who believe that its visual virtues automatically make it deserving of cult-classic status, but I also can’t help but ultimately see this (one of the most influential films of the 80s) as a one-of-a-kind wasted opportunity for greatness. (I like Blade Runner more than this fellow does, but I’m of similar mind. It’s a movie that, aside from a few moments, I invariably find emotionally cold and distant, every time I sit down to watch it. I have a habit of watching it every five or ten years (that it’s been out long enough for me to have a ‘habit’ regarding viewing it that involves such timescales frankly scares me), and each time my reaction is pretty much the same.)

:: Many people believe geekdom is defined by a love of a thing, but I think — and my experience of geekdom bears on this thinking — that the true sign of a geek is a delight in sharing a thing. It’s the major difference between a geek and a hipster, you know: When a hipster sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “Oh, crap, now the wrong people like the thing I love.” When a geek sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “ZOMG YOU LOVE WHAT I LOVE COME WITH ME AND LET US LOVE IT TOGETHER.” (I tend toward the ultra-inclusion approach to Geekdom. My reaction to learning that someone actually likes the Star Wars Prequels is not unlike Jar Jar’s reaction to being saved by Qui Gon Jinn: “Muy muy, I love you!!” I love it when people love the things that I love!)

:: Quality and convenience… the marketplace recognized a need, and no commercial company was willing (or at least was permitted) to fill it. So amateurs stepped in. Now the structure that’s in place — all, I might mention, volunteer — is huge and well-organized and efficient. It’s no wonder that the content producers are terrified of it.

But they’ve got no one to blame but themselves. When the tide is coming in, you can’t make it stop by ignoring it. (I disagreed with SDB last week, so this week, I agree with him entirely. That’s how I roll!)

:: Since we started writing this site, we’ve become aware of a strong flashlight sub culture; a group of people obsessed with lumens, watts, and focused beams. These apparent dwellers of the dark seem to go hand in hand with knife enthusiasts, because, when you think about it…if you need a flashlight…there’s a good chance you could also use a knife. (Hmmm…never really thought about it, but I do like knives, although I don’t really have much of a collection. Flashlights, though? Oh baby.)

:: How cool must it be to be David Beckham? Except for having to be married to that Skeletor of a wife of his, he’s got it pretty damn good. Speedboat! He got to race around in a speedboat and get’s to eat free at Hell’s Kitchen. (I have no idea about Beckham’s wife, but the other stuff is all pretty cool.)

:: Along the way there’s the expected amount of eye-poking, ear, nose, and hair-pulling, tongue-biting, head-knocking, belly-bumping, wall-thumping, heavy object dropping, pratfalling, and general mayhem creating.

No pie-throwing, amazingly. An oversight the Farrelly Brothers regret, I’m sure. (No pie-throwing in a Three Stooges movie? WTF?! Of course, even with pie-throwing, I was never a fan of the Stooges. Abbott and Costello were more my speed.)

More next week!

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Film Quote Friday

2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece in several ways: it’s one of the great films, and it’s also one of the great science fiction stories. Stanley Kubrick’s vision can seem a bit impenetrable, but while he does make the viewer do quite a bit of the heavy lifting, he really does provide a solid grounding for the viewer to figure out what is going on.

The part of the film that may be the most memorable is the central part, which takes place aboard the spaceship Discovery, which is en route to Jupiter after the discovery of the Monolith on the Moon, and the Monolith’s subsequent broadcast of a strong transmission to that giant planet. It’s here that we meet our two human crewmembers, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, and their companion computer, HAL-9000.

HAL is one of the great villains in film history, and after killing everyone else on the ship and getting Dave trapped outside the ship in a pod, this exchange takes place:

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?

HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Dave Bowman: What’s the problem?

HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?

HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

Dave Bowman: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.

HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.

Dave Bowman: [feigning ignorance] Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?

HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.

HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.

Dave Bowman: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore! Open the doors!

HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

Bowman takes his chances with depressurization and manages to get back on board the Discovery, at which point he carries out his goal of disconnecting HAL. And then he arrives at Jupiter, alone, to discover whatever it is that awaits him there.

The film never really explains just why HAL, a computer that should be without emotion, suddenly becomes deceitful, dishonest, and sneaky enough to read the lips of the men on the ship. The most effective malice is often that malice that is coldly logical and doesn’t even recognize itself as malice. There’s never really any question that for whatever reason, HAL has decided that Bowman and Poole constitute a threat to the success of the Discovery‘s mission, and what’s even worse is that neither Bowman nor Poole have any idea what that mission even is.

2001 is really something astonishing: great SF, a meditation on the stages of human evolution, one of the trippiest of all movies, and in its mid-section, a chilling thriller that borders on outright horror. (Witness the sequence when HAL takes over Frank’s pod, while Frank is outside the ship…he never sees it coming, even as HAL has the pod extend its arms outward….)

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“If you don’t have a drummer, then why do you have drums, you fistful of assholes!”

There are movies that I continually mean to see, and never quite get around to it. Sometimes I’ll even check the DVD out of the library repeatedly, and still manage to let life get in my way and not watch it. One such film is Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which I heard some good things about back when it came out a few years ago. I intended to see it, and yes, I checked the DVD out several times. Never watched it…until now. And wouldn’t you know it? I really wish I’d watched it years ago. Or last year. Or six months ago. Whenever.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is cut from the same emotional cloth as Say Anything, which is a favorite movie of mine whose praises I never tire of singing. But where Say Anything unfolds over the course of a summer, Infinite Playlist unfolds over the course of about twelve hours. We open with Nick, leaving a message on his girlfriend’s phone; Nick is your awkward, skinny, music nerd (played by Michael Cera), and it quickly becomes clear from his rambling message that his relationship with Tris is pretty much dead, although he doesn’t seem able to let go. He keeps making mix-CDs for her, promising that this one, the one that pops out of his computer as he’s talking to her, is the last one – “More or less”.

Just after he finishes the disc, Nick’s bandmate friends show up to report that they have a gig lined up for the band (which doesn’t have a drummer – never fear, though, as one of them has procured a 1990s-style electric drumset), with the added enticement that a band called Where’s Fluffy is going to play a gig that night. Where’s Fluffy is apparently a legendary ‘underground’ type of band, whose gigs are never announced in advance except by clues left in places like bathroom walls.

Meanwhile, at school, Tris laughs to receive another CD mix by Nick, which she mocks to her friends before chucking it in the trash. The CD is rescued, however; Norah (Kat Dennings), who only knows Nick by listening to the mixes he’s made for Tris and which Tris has thrown out, plucks the disc from the garbage. She and her friend Caroline then receive the fateful text message that Where’s Fluffy is going to play that night, so it’s off to the clubs of New York City for them.

Not much of what happens over the next twenty minutes or so of the movie is a surprise. Of course Nick and Norah will be at the same club; of course, they’ll have a ‘meet cute’. In this case, Norah wants to prove to Tris that she has a boyfriend, so she asks Nick to pretend to be the guy, which of course, backfires once Norah discovers that Nick is Tris’s Nick. This is all done nicely by the actors and by the filmmakers, but it’s not really all that interesting. It’s at this point that the movie starts to go into interesting directions, by having Caroline get absolutely hammered, and then having Nick’s friends agree to take her home so that Nick can give Norah a ride. (One of them gives Norah a different bra to wear, helpfully telling her, “Nicky is definitely worth the underwire. He just needs a little push, that’s all.” (Nick’s bandmates are all gay, which is why they have a selection of bras in the backseat of their van. I think.)

Nick and Norah’s first conversation, in Nick’s Yugo, is cleverly crafted – it alternates between the characters being tentatively interested in one another and stepping back, as they’re both afraid to definitively move beyond their exes. It seems doomed, but the film gives funny circumstances to keep the two of them together longer than they wish: a drunken couple assumes that Nick’s yellow Yugo is a cab and climb in and insist on being taken someplace (Nick charges them $8.50); and then Caroline, still very drunk, wakes up in the strange van belonging to three guys who bear her no ill will whatsoever, but she doesn’t know that, so she ‘escapes’, leading to the rest of the film being a search for her…and for the elusive band Where’s Fluffy.

I’m already a fan of Kat Dennings, but in this movie, she displays a level of acting skill that her current big role – the sitcom Two Broke Girls — only allows her to hint at. Norah is tough, street-smart, intelligent, naïve, and vulnerable, all at the same time. She’s the daughter of a very rich man (which allows her to just walk right past the bouncer line into any club she wants), but the movie doesn’t dwell on this at all, which is frankly an awfully welcome development. In fact, the world of ‘adults’ isn’t much in evidence in this movie at all – it’s nothing but young people from pillar to post, and while their focus in life might not be what grownups want, the film doesn’t rigidly insist on depicting the youth as stupid, clueless nitwits who should just get a job.

Not much happens in this movie that is a real, genuine surprise, but some interesting directions are taken along the way, and I especially liked the double Maguffin of lost Caroline and this band that only plays its gigs in secret. Cera and Dennings have terrific chemistry, and Dennings is…well, there’s a reason why I think she’s just fantastic. This is a short and wonderful little movie. I loved it.

(Oh, just a quick warning: there is one scene in this movie that is among the grossest things I’ve seen in a movie. We’re talking “Mr Creasote from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life” gross. If you’re squeamish, well…trust your instincts. You’ll know when to hit the FF button on your player.)

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