(1) If film criticism ever becomes a duel to the death, people will say, never bet against David Gerrold when cinematic science fiction is on the line…. See his new review on Facebook.
All right, so let’s talk about SNOWPIERCER, a brilliantly produced movie that ultimately fails in the two most important ways a science fiction film can fail.
I’ll take the easy one first — the audience will suspend disbelief, they will not suspend common sense.
The idea here is that the Earth has frozen over. The only survivors are living on a train that circles the globe endlessly.
1) The Earth is frozen over because scientists have decided to put something called CW7 in the atmosphere to halt global warming. They do it with chem trails. It works too well. The planet gets too cold, everything freezes down so cold you’ll freeze to death in minutes.
Now, look — whatever that CW7 stuff is — you’re gonna have to put several million tons of it into the atmosphere to cools down the planet. That’s a lot of chem trails. It’s going to take a long time. Years. Decades perhaps. Even if you could retro-fit every jet plane in the world on its next scheduled maintenance, it would still take millions of miles. And you would think that as soon as the temperature gradients start falling too fast, not matching the projections, the scientists — or whatever agency behind it — would stop the process to evaluate the results. But no — whatever this CW7 is … bam, it freezes everything to a giant planet-sized popsicle.
2) Where did all that water come from? Even in this planet’s worst ice ages, there wasn’t enough H2o to make enough snow to cover every continent. ….
Unfortunately … even as an ALLEGORY this thing doesn’t work.
That’s the second and much bigger failure…..
(2) A killer review like that leads indirectly to the sentiment expressed in “Why Peter Capaldi Said No To Extra Doctor Who”.
It seems like eons pass in between series of Doctor Who. As with many shows which only run 10 or so episodes in a season, they’re over so quickly, and then there’s another year or more of wait before the show comes back. It turns out that the BBC would love to see more Doctor Who as much as fans would. However, the cast and crew, led by Peter Capaldi himself, have said no to requests for more episodes. The reason, according to Capaldi, is that while they could make more episodes, what they couldn’t do is make more good episodes.
(3) David Brin turns his thoughts to “Sentient animals, machines… and even plants!” at Contrary Brin.
In Brilliant Green: the Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence, plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso and journalist, Alessandra Viola, make a case not only for plant sentience, but also plant rights. Interesting, though science fiction authors have been doing thought experiments about this for a long time, e.g. in Ursula LeGuin’s novel “The Word for World is Forest” and in my own “The Uplift War.” Jack Chalker’s “Midnight at the Well of Souls” portrayed sentient plants, as did Lord of the Rings.
There is a level where I am all aboard with this. Ecosystems are webs of health that combine fiercely interdependent predation/competition with meshlike interchanges of sight/sound/chemicals that clearly manifest types of cooperation, even communication…. as I elucidated in “EARTH.”
On the other hand, I also step back to see the qualities of this book that transcend its actual contents, for it fits perfectly into the process of “horizon expansion” that I describe elsewhere. A process of vigorously, righteously, even aggressively increasing the scope of inclusion, extending the circle of protection to the next level, and then the next. See also this Smithsonian talk I gave about the never-ending search for “otherness.”
(4) And look for Brin to be in residence at Bard College in October.
David Brin, a scientist, a science fiction author and a commentator on the world’s most pressing technological trends, is in residence at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College from Oct. 5 to Oct. 25.
As part of Brin’s fellowship, he will mentor selected Bard students on their fiction and nonfiction writing. He will also offer a number of lectures and discussions. On Sept. 30, at 11:30 a.m., Brin will talk with Hannah Arendt Center Academic Director Roger Berkowitz and “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue on WAMC radio.
On Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. in Reem-Kayden Center 103, Brin will speak about his book, “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom?,” with Berkowitz. On Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Bertelsmann Campus Center’s Multipurpose Room, he will attend a debate on “National Security is More Important than the Individual Right to Privacy.”
Bard College is located in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
(5) Cheryl Morgan advises on “Writing Better Trans Characters” at Strange Horizons.
Trans people are a big thing these days in equality circles. People are asking what they can do to help the trans cause. Quite simply, the most important thing cis people can do for the trans community right now is to accept us as fully human; not as something to be gawped at and whispered over, not as a clever metaphor with which to discuss gender, but as ordinary people just like you. For cis writers, that means putting us in their stories.
I reject the idea that trans characters should only be written by trans people because cis folk are bound to get it wrong. While there are some really fine trans writers, there simply aren’t enough of us in the world to do what is needed. We have to be part of all fiction, not just fiction that we write ourselves.
(6) Kim Stanley Robinson defended his notion of future technology in Aurora as part of an article about science fiction realism for the Guardian.
Robinson makes no apology for the 21st-century tech of his 26th-century explorers, arguing that progress in science and technology will asymptotically approach “limits we can’t get past”.
“It’s always wrong to extrapolate by straightforwardly following a curve up,” he explains, “because it tends off towards infinity and physical impossibility. So it’s much better to use the logistic curve, which is basically an S curve.”
Like the adoption of mobile phones, or rabbit populations on an island, things tend to start slowly, work up a head of steam and then reach some kind of saturation point, a natural limit to the system. According to Robinson, science and technology themselves are no exception, making this gradual increase and decrease in the speed of change the “likeliest way to predict the future”.
(7) Les Johnson’s guest post about putting together a mission to Mars on According To Hoyt suits the current Mars-centric news cycle very well.
Since I work for NASA and have looked extensively at the technologies required to send people to Mars, I am often asked how close we are to being able to take such a journey. [DISCLAIMER: The very fact that I work for NASA requires me to say that “the opinions expressed herein are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.”] Basing my opinion solely on information that is publicly available, the answer is… not straightforward. Let me break it into the three areas that Project Managers and Decision Makers (the ones with the money) use when they assess the viability of a project in an attempt to explain my answer.
(8) MARK YOUR CALENDAR: April 3, 2016 will be the next Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale, CA at the Glendale Civic Auditorium from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. STILL $5.00
(9) Editors Eugene Johnson and Charles Day have started an Indiegogo appeal to fund their Drive-In Creature Feature anthology from Evil Jester Press.
Get in line. Buy a ticket, and take a trip to the DRIVE-IN CREATURE FEATURE. Where the monsters from the classic films from the 1950’s to 1980’s shined on the large iconic sliver screens. Where the struggle between human and monsters came alive for the fate of the world. Monsters created from an experiment gone wrong, legendary beasts long asleep, now awaken by melting humans, visitors from a far off world that aren’t as friendly as they appear. Monsters like giant parasitic bugs and ancient sea beasts on the prowl. A mysterious plague turning the homeless population into Moss people. A government sponsored monster goes toe-to-toe with a monster of Celtic myth. and many more are included.
Intriguing tales by some of the best names in horror, including New York Times Best selling authors and comic book writers, Jonathan Maberry, S.G. Browne, Elizabeth Massie, Ronald Kelly, William, F. Nolan, Lisa Morton, Joe McKinney, Jason V. Brock, Weston Ochese , Yvonne Navarro, including cover art by Cortney Skinner…
(10) Alamo Drafthouse has commenced its touring food and film event honoring the 50th anniversary edition of Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes.
During the months of September and October, Alamo Drafthouse locations nationwide will host THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES Feast, featuring a screening of the Vincent Price classic paired with a delectable multi-course feast using recipes from the book. Topping each evening off, Victoria Price – daughter of Vincent and Mary – will be in person sharing memories of her father before the film with her multi-media presentation “Explore, Savor, Celebrate: Life with Vincent Price.”…
In 1965, Mary and Vincent Price published A Treasury of Great Recipes — now regarded as the one of the world’s most beloved cookbooks. The book features recipes collected by Vincent and Mary at restaurants around the world, including original menus from classic restaurants and photographs by the great William Claxton. It has come to be regarded as “one of the most important culinary events of the 20th century” (Saveur Magazine) and was recently named the eighth most popular out-of-print book of any kind by Booklist. The 50th anniversary edition incorporates the original edition, unchanged and in its entirety, along with a new Foreword from Wolfgang Puck and A Retrospective Preface from Victoria.
Here are links to the rest of the schedule — San Antonio, TX – 9/28, Austin, TX – 9/29, Richardson, TX – 9/30, Kalamazoo, MI – 10/6, Kansas City, MO – 10/7, Littleton, CO – 10/14, Ashburn, VA – 10/20, Winchester, VA – 10/22, Yonkers, NY – 10/26.
(11) Vox Popoli has posted a political cartoon by Red Meat and Vox Day about the nonrelease of 2015 Hugo nominating data, “Cabal? What Cabal?”
(12) Dave Freer has an axiom about who it’s important for a writer to please in a post at Mad Genius Club.
That is something that many authors fail to grasp – and not just new ones. I recently read a diatribe by Adam Troy Castro – who missed this completely (He was attacking John Wright, who seems to be engaging his readers… who aren’t part of his publisher’s tribe). I quote: “has been abusing his publisher in public and attacking his editors as people” which is a bad thing, according to Castro “being an asshole to the people who give you money is not a good career move.”
The latter part of that is certainly true. What Castro seems to have failed to figure out is that the money doesn’t actually come from the publisher. It comes from readers – the subset of the public who love your work. If you abuse them, you’re dead. If your publisher abuses them (which is a fair assessment)… lose your publisher. Reassure your readers that this is not your attitude.
(13) Myke Cole, in “You are not crying in the wilderness”, tells why he writes.
Here’s the thing about writing: It’s really hard. It’s a LOT of work. You do most of this work alone and then you send it away and you have absolutely no idea whether it’s reaching anyone or not, how it’s being received, whether or not it means to others what it means to you. I have said before that I am no Emily Dickenson. I write to communicate, to receive a signal back from the array I am constantly sending out in the world.
I write to not be alone.
(14) Alex Pappademas shreds the new Muppets series in “A Rainbow Rejection” at Grantland.
The most fanciful thing about ABC’s muppetational but seldom celebrational The Muppets is that the late-night talk show behind whose scenes it takes place has a female host. In this regard, I support its vision. I support nothing else about The Muppets except the pilot’s use of the great Jere Burns, drier than a silica gel packet as always, in a B-plot in which he refuses to accept his daughter’s interspecies relationship with Fozzie Bear. His issue seems to be more about Fozzie being a bear than being a Muppet — at dinner, he makes snide comments when Fozzie compliments the salmon — but in a broad-stroke sense, I am with Burns on this one. I guess I’ve found the one marriage-equality hypothetical on which I’m a fuming mossback conservative: Turns out I am opposed to the sexualization of the Muppets and therefore to the implication that humans and Muppets1 can or should miscegenate.
This puts me roughly on the same team as the fainting-couch wearer-outers at the Donald Wildmon front group One Million Moms, who took a break from their courageous war on homofascist breakfast cereal and sinfully delicious lesbian yogurt on Monday to declare a fatwa on the new Muppets as “perverted” based solely on the ads — particularly the one that promises “full frontal nudity” and features Kermit the Frog in a casual locker-room pose. A clock that stopped in 1955 and should be thrown in the garbage because it’s an insanely and attention-hungrily homophobic clock is still right twice a day: There is nothing good about this ad, and perhaps you should not be in the Muppet-selling business if you can’t sell the Muppets in 2015 without adding the implication that Kermit fucks, let alone that Miss Piggy wants to fuck Nathan Fillion.
(15) Marc Scott Zicree has posted a new Mr. Sci-Fi video about the Profiles in History room at Monsterpalooza that showed items from his collection that will be going up for auction tomorrow.
(16) The Mets, one day after clinching the National League East, had their rookies take the super hero “hazing” to another level… Or, rather, they removed another level…
[Thanks to James H. Burns, Andrew Porter, the other Mark, SF Site News, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kendall.]
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I think Amazon’s Kindle samples are something like an auto-generated first 5% of the book (their print “Look Inside” samples are more generous, but more random). With short texts with a lot of frontmatter especially, that can work out to almost no useful content.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART TWO:
ALL THESE BOOKS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA EUROPA
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Fledgling, Octavia E. Butler
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
(by a hair. Gah.)
6. GIRL AND BOY
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
7. HURT IN THE DARK
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Accelerando, Charles Stross
11. LOOK BACK, LOOK AHEAD
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
Ragamuffin, Tobias Buckell
14. DEATH IS NOT THE END
Passage, Connie Willis
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
River of Gods, Ian McDonald
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
ALL THESE BOOKS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA EUROPA
1. Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
2. The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
3. Feed, Mira Grant
4. Fledgling, Octavia E. Butler
5. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
6. The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey
8. Lock In, John Scalzi
11. Farthing, Jo Walton
12. Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
13. The Martian, Andy Weir
16. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
17. Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
I grew up in a Unitarian Universalist church, so you can say that “the SJW is strong in this one.” For example, the Assistant Minister was my Dungeon Master for a good long while.
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Pass
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Pass
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
6. GIRL AND BOY
Pass
7. HURT IN THE DARK
Embassytown, China Miéville
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Accelerando, Charles Stross
11. LOOK BACK, LOOK AHEAD
Farthing, Jo Walton
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Blindsight, Peter Watts
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
Pass
14. DEATH IS NOT THE END
Passage, Connie Willis
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
Whereas we sought out UU as adults *because* we wanted a social justice community – I guess that would also make us SJWs. But now I feel cheated because our Assistant Minister was not a DM.
For what it’s worth, my husband, as a teenager in the early 1980s, played D&D in a group which included his Catholic priest. (So any implications that this was demon-worshipping-evil were blown right out of the water. Which was useful, in the 1980s…)
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
11. LOOK BACK, LOOK AHEAD
Farthing, Jo Walton
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
6. GIRL AND BOY
7. HURT IN THE DARK
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Accelerando, Charles Stross
11. LOOK BACK, LOOK AHEAD
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
14. DEATH IS NOT THE END
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
16. MYSTERY STORIES
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
More matchups that I can vote on this time. In a couple of cases, I bounced from samples of the antagonist.
Having everything you really like up against things you don’t read (like zombies or most YA) is almost as frustrating as having 2 favorites up against each other.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART TWO:
ALL THESE BOOKS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA EUROPA
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Accelerando, Charles Stross
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
Ragamuffin, Tobias Buckell
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
In honor of this set of brackets, I moved my first Alastair Reynolds book to the top of my TBR pile and gave it a go. It was Century Rain (selected based on recommendations made here long before nominations took place for this one; I think I got it back in June.)
I liked it OK, but didn’t love it. I thought I’d ask, is it a reasonably representative example of his work?
@Kyra: I didn’t think Century Rain showed AR at his best, if I’m remembering correctly. It wasn’t very consistent, and needed better characterization. Best part was gravitational wave detectors as plot device. I still think Revelation Space and Chasm City are the best of his, although that might be rose-tinted memories talking.
Cassy B. on September 30, 2015 at 5:12 am said:
I think the devil-worship-paranoia of that era was almost exclusively an evangelical thing. Catholics not only weren’t into it, they were frequently suspected of being devil worshipers themselves.
@Kyra: failed to add in the editing window: Century Rain isn’t that different to his usual style, it’s just that most of the others are much more “straight” hard SF.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART TWO:
ALL THESE BOOKS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA EUROPA
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
7. HURT IN THE DARK
Embassytown, China Miéville
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
The Martian, Andy Weir
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein
17. TIME AND SPACE
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
(A lot of the books I have read are surviving, it seems.)
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART TWO:
ALL THESE BOOKS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA EUROPA
Since many of my favorites were eliminated last round….
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
Blindsight, Peter Watts
Tie!
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein
and a protest vote for
Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord
@Kyra and other @Ian
Agreed, there’s a lot I like about Century Rain but the last quarter drags a bit. Reynolds tendency to stick to the speed of light limit seems to set him up for several stern chases which can be a problem for pacing.
Of the Revelation Space series the best three are probably the eponymous first book, Chasm City and The Prefect. All three share just the setting so can be read in any order really.
Of the others I think House of Suns is very good, even though it does have another chase it is handled better and the characterization is more even. Pushing Ice seems to be marmite, I like it but you have to put up with a fair bit of two of the main characters risking everything often out of spite and refusing to compromise.
Partly this can be explained by patterns of behaviour being ingrained over the years (Time Abyss is in operation) but you still want to reach into the plot and knock heads together. I’ve thought the same thing about characters in Cherryh as well though, often.
I have Terminal World lined up but not read, and haven’t yet started the latest series which seems confined to near Earth space.
This is a whine. 🙂
I’ll be on hiatus a few days. Oddly enough, the last few days of commenting have given me a bit of an existential conflict. I’m finishing off some horror work. And watching folks whose tastes I broadly trust rip savagely and enthusiastically into something like half a dozen of my favorite works in various media and genres is confidence-shattering: If that many people with clues think all this stuff is crap, maybe it’s just that I have a strong streak of crap thinking?
I don’t think that the stuff I need to be doing right now is crap. But I feel a lot less secure saying that than I did at the start of the week, and I’m still committed to doing the most un-crap job I can. So, I’m gonna go get this out of my head, through the keyboard, into the e-mails, so that I won’t have to wrestle with that particular anxiety. Then I can get on with other things.
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
Tough one this, urgh.
ETA: really should vote for one. Banks by a nose.
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
Vinge paints a very plausible near future.
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
I’ll be very surprised if Leckie doesn’t win this whole thing. Much as as I like it though, and I certainly thought it one of the best new books I’ve read recently, I don’t think it is perfect. I got bored during the opening part and stopped reading it for a while, fortunately the pace picked up just after the point I’d stopped.
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Learning the World, Ken MacLeod
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Accelerando, Charles Stross
Well at least one matrioshka brain made it through.
@Bruce Baugh —
Don’t go there. Tastes can vary wildly, and what speaks to an individual is in part a product of their own life experiences as well as reading experiences.
I rest secure in the knowledge that all this zombie stuff people rave about is crap, and also the knowledge that for the people it works for, it’s great stuff. Part of the fun of File770 is that the Filers will point me at stuff I would have missed because nobody sees everything, but also at stuff I wouldn’t have picked up until someone else’s take on it reframed it for me.
And, also, seeing the stuff people like or diske that they are clearly wrong about. 😉
Strongly agree with Lis Carey about varying tastes etc.
Thanks, Ian & Ian.
Bruce, I went through that and out the other side a while ago. Most of the opinions here are really interesting, but mine are still my own.
There was much I enjoyed about “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” but the ending left me vastly unimpressed. First, I found Harry’s method of foiling the bad guy completely unbelievable in all respects as a plot element*, and second, I felt that the “I will tell what I did via a letter written to my antagonist rather than showing it” delivery of the ending fell totally flat in the dramatic sense.
That having been said, the whole structure of the Kalachakra life cycle and the society these people built around having a “Reset Game” button on their lives (but only at the start, never at a middle point!) was absolutely fascinating.
*Spoilers for plot:
Uneel fnobgntrf gur onq thl’f uhtr ahpyrne ratvarrevat cebwrpg (jvgu qbmraf bs irel fzneg naq pncnoyr fpvragvfgf jbexvat ba vg) ol fhpu zrgubqf nf “fjnccvat vfbgbcrf” naq “punatvat ahzoref” naq “beqrevat cnegf gung ner gur jebat fvmr.” Naq AB BAR ba gur grnz, jbexvat jvgu n pbagencgvba gung unf gur cbgragvny gb perngr n qrnqyl ahpyrne rkcybfvba, abgvprf nal bs guvf fghss?? V nfxrq zl orfg sevraq, jub qevirf n ahpyrne ernpgbe sbe n yvivat, “Url, pna lbh whfg fjnc vfbgbcrf yvxr gung naq nffhzr ab bar jbhyq abgvpr nalguvat?” naq tbg n “Uryy ab. Gur fcrpgehz jbhyq or pbzcyrgryl qvssrerag,” juvpu vf jung V cerqvpgrq onfrq ba zl bja xabjyrqtr bs cnegvpyr culfvpf. Naq V’z n ovbybtvfg ol genvavat! Gur nhgube ernyyl arrqrq gb eha gung raqvat ol ng yrnfg bar genvarq fpvragvfg be ratvarre sbe n ernyvgl purpx, orpnhfr vg fanccrq zl fhfcraqref bs qvforyvrs naq znqr gur pynvzf bs gur cebgntbavfg naq gur nagntbavfg nf orvat fzneg crbcyr ynhtunoyr.
@McJulie:
Back in the original Mage: The Ascension game, one of the groups had a Rote (aka spell) called ‘The Big Red Button’. When successfully cast on any large complicated piece of equipment, it would guarantee that under some access panel was a button that would cause the machine to malfunction and/or self-destruct. The Sons of Ether (magical mad scientists) hated that Rote, because their equipment tended to be pretty questionably stable to start with.
(If you’re not familiar with Mage: the Ascension, part of the world is that obvious magic is generally a bad idea, but arranging coincidences or playing with things nobody else has seen is fair game. Hence the ‘under some access panel’ part.)
Also, glad to see the love for Slacktivist here. It’s amazing how intertwined a lot of the blogs I follow are. (I first got linked to Slacktivist from Bruce Schneier’s blog, of all places, when somebody joked about the security implications of your co-pilot being raptured when the cabin door was locked.)
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART TWO:
ALL THESE BOOKS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA EUROPA
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Abstain
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
Abstain
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
Abstain
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Abstain
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
6. GIRL AND BOY
The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey
7. HURT IN THE DARK
Abstain
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Abstain
11. LOOK BACK, LOOK AHEAD
Abstain
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Abstain
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
The Martian, Andy Weir
14. DEATH IS NOT THE END
Abstain
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
Abstain
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Fledgling, Octavia E. Butler
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Kiln People, David Brin
6. GIRL AND BOY
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
7. HURT IN THE DARK
Embassytown, China Miéville
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Lock In, John Scalzi
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Oryx & Crake, Margaret Atwood
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
Ragamuffin, Tobias Buckell
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
@Bruce – what Lis said. This is a well-read and opinionated group. I feel trepidation sharing my opinions here sometimes, both because I feel I’m not as well-read in any of these genres as some large percentage of the readers and posters here, and because many of the people who do post write insightful, obviously well-considered reviews that I couldn’t come close to matching without having kept extensive notes on the works in question. My solution is to say “fuck it” and blather on regardless. I think almost everyone here is mature enough to know taste is subjective.
@McJulie – I hadn’t thought of it that way, but our religious background and ultimate decision regarding fundamentalism sound very similar, and I loved the ending of CitW for about the same reason.
@Jim Henley
I saw that shortly after it came out. I was probably a freshman in college. I didn’t know where to put it in my brain. It felt like the evangelical propaganda movies they sometimes showed at my childhood church, but was ambiguous about the intended takeaway. Definitely not a thing I was used to, coming from a very authoritarian Midwestern culture. I need to re-watch it.
@Kathodus
Blathering on Regardless is an excellent plan (and also a worthy sequel to the Carry On film)
Setting? No – the time travelly parallel-worldy stuff is specific to Century Rain.
Writing style? Yes
@Bruce Baugh
One of the sad facts of life is that eventually, someone whose taste you respect is going to savage something you love and leave you clutching it defensively to your chest, or just be totally indifferent when you wanted someone to gush about it excitedly with. Of course, they’re always just wrong and blind when it comes to those specific things. 😉 Don’t worry, take the time you need, and I’m sure you’ll turn out a great piece of work.
One of the reasons why at least some message in fic is good is that it makes you think and evaluate your beliefs.
I grew up in the Uniting Church(amagamation of Methodist an Presbyterians in Aus), but apart from a grounding in ethics, it mostly didn’t take.
Later though I am reading Sherri S Tepper’s True Game world books and find I have to consider my stance on the death penalty. If we followed the True Game logic my guess is a lot of Fortune 500 CEOs would be euthanised.
And Pratchett’s Small Gods raised the question of why Gods need people to believe in/worship them at all.
By presenting the world in a different light good fic asks us to re-evaluate our values and understandings, sometimes changing, sometime reafirming them, but we are always better off having being asked the questions.
1. LASTING DAMAGE, NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY
Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
Abstain
2. THE SPEED OF SOFTWARE
The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
Abstain
3. BLOGGERS AND TECHNOPHOBES
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
Feed, Mira Grant
Grant
4. THE FUTURE HANGS ON A SLENDER THREAD
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
Fledgling, Octavia E. Butler
Abstain
5. ONE PERSON MANY BODIES
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Kiln People, David Brin
Leckie
6. GIRL AND BOY
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey
Carey
7. HURT IN THE DARK
Embassytown, China Miéville
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata
Abstain
8. SERIOUS ILLNESS
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
Lock In, John Scalzi
Scalzi
9. QUADDIES AND SPACE BATS
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
Learning the World, Ken MacLeod
Bujold
10. MOST OF HUMANITY GETS WIPED OUT
Oryx & Crake, Margaret Atwood
Accelerando, Charles Stross
Abstain
11. LOOK BACK, LOOK AHEAD
Farthing, Jo Walton
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson
Walton
12. IT’S HARD TO TALK TO IT
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
Blindsight, Peter Watts
Watts
13. I JUST WANT TO GET HOME
The Martian, Andy Weir
Ragamuffin, Tobias Buckell
Weir
14. DEATH IS NOT THE END
Love Minus Eighty, Will McIntosh
Passage, Connie Willis
Abstain
15. KIND OF A LOT GOING ON
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
River of Gods, Ian McDonald
Abstain
16. MYSTERY STORIES
The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
Kirstein
17. TIME AND SPACE
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Abstain
@Bruce Baugh,
Meredith said:
I agree with this so much.
@Tintinaus Vivienne had some interesting thoughts over on her blog today on that subject — http://www.futureslesstravelled.com/?p=467 (though you and she may use the term “message” to mean almost opposite things).
The book I’ve read recently that stands out for me in this regard is The Lathe of Heaven, which goes to great pains to keep pulling the rug of certainty out from under us. Sometimes, obviously, we need comfort and predictability, and we demand a certain formality, but it’s the challenge we remember the most, IMHO. Anything else is pabulum.
Anyway, chiming in because _this_, as they say.
I figure I should flag this here, since Kyra may no longer be reading the 9/27 thread:
https://file770.com/?p=25176&cpage=10#comment-349660
I doubt it makes any difference in the specific, other than having LOVE MINUS EIGHTY get a further chance — it didn’t eliminate anything — but if whatever went wrong is going wrong in other matches too, it’s worth taking a look.
And to Bruce Baugh: Like everyone else is saying, don’t sweat it. There are people who I respect immensely who don’t have anywhere near my reading (or writing) tastes, but all that means is that I don’t depend on them for recommendations, and they’re probably not my likely readers.
As long as there’s an audience out there for what you do, it’s worth doing, and to the best of your ability. [And even in those cases where it isn’t, it depends how much satisfaction one gets out of creating it; audiences are important to me for multiple reasons, but they’re not important to everyone. Still, that’s a reflexive internet CYA; horror certainly has a large audience, and one that has lots of smart people in it.]
@Soon Lee
*fistbump*
@Will R.
The post is interesting, the Spectator comment which inspired it, um, *wince*
Bruce Baugh on September 30, 2015 at 8:01 am said:
Oh no, no, no, no.
Even when I have a hate on for something – Time Traveler’s Wife, say – I strongly want it to exist.
I take it seriously, I read it, I think about it.
It is part of the baggage in my head, for good or ill.
I may even pass it along, because me not liking something doesn’t mean someone else won’t.
Once you rule out things like massive errors in craft, the rest of it is taste.
And there is no accounting for taste.
It’s like being ticklish, something either hits it or doesn’t.
And nothing’s ever going to work for everyone.
But always remember that there are folks out there waiting for you to play with them.
@Meredith I winced at that article as well. In fairness, she does say it was a comment that inspired her post, so I didn’t necessarily take it as an endorsement of the Spectator.
@Will R.
The comment is not good, either. It heavily implies that taking aborigine children from their homes was a good thing.
I seem to remember vaguely that Century Rain was recommended as a gentle first introduction to Reynolds because only a relatively small portion of it – like less than half – was given over to his trademark slow motion space chases. In addition to the Revelation Space books I second House of Suns as well (and don’t forget Galactic North). He challenges himself as a writer knowing it won’t result in perfection every time but at least it is an honest journey.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Vivienne reads The Spectator as a way to get exposed to different points of view. It’s not that unusual a practice. Hey, I read File 770.
Criticism of David Gerrold’s Criticism of the Film Snowpiercer
‘All right, so let’s talk about SNOWPIERCER, a brilliantly produced movie that ultimately fails in the two most important ways a science fiction film can fail.’
Yeah, saw the movie years back, I think… Still, I am more than up to discuss it. And I agree, the movie had its issues, and in addition, I am somewhat curious to hear what the self-styled master of all things related to the asterisk — has to say about it.
‘I’ll take the easy one first — the audience will suspend disbelief, they will not suspend common sense.’
I kind of do get what you trying to go for, but you are mistaken. It is not extremely strenuous for me to argue that suspensions of disbelief is simply suspension of common sense. After all, a reason for disbelief is often caused by something going against our common sense. Additionally, were one to pick up a religious text or a manual they are not personally invested in, it rarely takes much reading to stumble onto something that goes against one’s common sense, and yet there exists people who believe it to be true.
Suspension of disbelief is suspension of common sense.
‘The idea here is that the Earth has frozen over. The only survivors are living on a train that circles the globe endlessly. ‘
That is correct. It also reminds me of Transarctica, a PC game released in the year 1993, which was based on the post apocalyptic science fiction saga: La Compagnie des glaces. Just in case someone happens to fancy the concept and would want to absorb more media regarding it.
‘1) The Earth is frozen over because scientists have decided to put something called CW7 in the atmosphere to halt global warming. They do it with chem trails. It works too well. The planet gets too cold, everything freezes down so cold you’ll freeze to death in minutes.
Now, look — whatever that CW7 stuff is — you’re gonna have to put several million tons of it into the atmosphere to cools down the planet. That’s a lot of chem trails. It’s going to take a long time. Years. Decades perhaps. Even if you could retro-fit every jet plane in the world on its next scheduled maintenance, it would still take millions of miles. And you would think that as soon as the temperature gradients start falling too fast, not matching the projections, the scientists — or whatever agency behind it — would stop the process to evaluate the results. But no — whatever this CW7 is … bam, it freezes everything to a giant planet-sized popsicle. ‘
So the goal of this ‘CW7’ chemical was to halt global warming. Thus in order to understand what this chemical actually does in our fictional the setting, we are required to have at least some kind of rudimentary understanding of greenhouse gasses and of our atmosphere. For example how carbon dioxide does not have as high heat trapping ability as chlorofluorocarbons do, and that we can divide our atmosphere into different layers.
Thus from the top of my hat, my common sense dictates that there are at least two possible ways in which this ‘CW7’ chemical could operate.
A) Our chemical has a poor heat trapping ability and is light enough to float high enough to create an atmospheric layer of its own. A layer above the greenhouse gases that reflects away a considerable amount of the incoming solar radiation, hence causing global temperatures to drop.
B) Our chemical reacts with the pre-existing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and the resulting chemical compounds are heavy enough to fall down to the surface. The overall result is that since the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is reduced, it is much easier for solar and infrared radiation to escape our planet’s atmosphere. Therefore, lowering the global temperatures.
Additionally, because of diffusion, we are not required to fumigate every square inch of our skies to achieve either of the two listed options. We just need some time, and the gases will achieve an uniform atmospheric mixture on their own.
‘2) Where did all that water come from? Even in this planet’s worst ice ages, there wasn’t enough H2o to make enough snow to cover every continent. ‘
Water vapour, air moisture, will freeze if the conditions are right. For example few years ago we had this warm and very rainy early winter, until the temperature finally dropped overnight and caused all that moisture to freeze in few hours. It did not snow at all, the ice flakes simply formed and sprouted from every visible surface outside.
Additionally, I would like to point towards the Gobi desert; which is a cold desert. You do not need falling snow to turn a region into something frigid and incapable of supporting life.
As for Earth’s ‘ice ages,’ there are theories how Earth has been covered with ice in its entirety at least for three times. ‘Snowball’ Earth. Well, I must also mention the theories of a ‘slushy snowball’ Earth where portions of the planet remained free of ice.
Not to mention that all that looks like snow and ice, might not actually be snow and ice if the option B holds true for the chemical CW7.
‘3) Now let’s talk about that train. Supposedly there’s a track that spans the entire globe — we get a quick glimpse of the map. That train has been running for 17 years, non-stop. Who’s maintaining the rails? Who’s replacing the worn out bearings? Who’s maintaining the bridges. What’s it using for fuel? Any machine with moving parts wears out quickly. Even with the best materials available — friction takes its toll. This train is made out of bolognium….’
In the movie it was mentioned that the train ran with a perpetual motion engine. We know that ‘perpetual motion’ can only exist in isolated systems, and that true isolated systems do not exist. Thus we could argue that the train and its track form one perpetual motion machine that keeps going until it finally does not. (But for the passengers on board, the train will potentially keep going for all of eternity.)
And out of the sheer joy of engineering speculation, you could potentially build such a train in the following manner:
The track is made out of strong magnets and the bottom of the train is made of at least partially out of super conductors. Hence, the train is actually floating above the train tracks and all we need is a push to make our train move along the tracks.
Now, the fact is that trains usually do not remain in perpetual motion. Hence there needs to be a mechanism to stop our train. To move and to stop. As it was seen in the movie, our train had wheels. Thus we could theoretically use those wheels to give us our initial momentum, and then let them float in the air until we need to rewind the engine for another push of momentum. Then just add few solar panels at the sides and our train could theoretically keep on going forever by limiting the actual need for moving parts.
And as for the outside world, the conditions appear to be fairly uniform. It is primarily just cold. There is no scorching hot days to twist the rails. No erosion beyond wind. And our train moves fast enough to plough any snow in its way.
And what was Clarke’s third law again: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?
‘4) When there’s an avalanche blocking the track — does the train slow down and burn the ice away? No, it roars into it at high speed, cracking the ice like a bullet. Nothing derails. The engine doesn’t even get dented. ‘
Are you aware that even a lead bullet can pierce a sheet of steel? There is a section in YouTube dedicated just for videos showing that, if you do not believe my word of it. Thus if our train has enough mass and speed, then ploughing through a wall of ice become something of a triviality. Think of it as an ice pick being struck against an ice cube.
‘5) The McGuffin is industrial waste that produces hallucinogenic effects, but can also be compiled to make a bomb. Uh … really? ‘
Did you know that it is possible to get ‘intoxicated’ from paint thinner, and to turn it into an explosive? Thus, the concept of using unspecified industrial waste as the source of both hallucinogenic effects and explosives is not that farfetched.
Anyhow, I would strongly advice against using paint thinner as either explosive or material to get intoxicated from. Both are hazardous to your health.
‘6) The people at the tail end of the train are have-nots who are fed protein derived from crushed cockroaches. They are living in a slum. The people in the front of the train are the 1%.
Okay — why is there such a dichotomy? It’s never really justified. Why are these people even allowed on the train if they’re just there to be poor slobs?’
Think of the need for genetic diversity for sustainable population. In other words; without sufficient biological diversity the problems caused by interbreeding will arise in just few generations. The population might perish simply out of infertility.
Additionally, it is a universal truth that all people will die someday. Hence, it is beneficial if you posses a stock where you can draw replacements for whatever purpose.
And there is a final point I will address shortly after.
‘7) The train is a completely closed eco-system. We see a farm, we see an aquarium car, but we don’t really see enough to suggest an eco-system that can support all these people. And after 17 years, you’d think they’d have run out of steaks by now. ‘
It is a funny thing that you brought up the steaks. Because it was stated that before the people at the tail started receiving their protein bars, they were brought to a point of starvation where some turned to cannibalism. A point where some members at the tail of the train gained immense respect by offering parts of their own bodies to nourish the others. Thus, what suggests that the source of these steaks is not the people from the tail?
‘8) At the end, an Asian girl rescues a black boy, blows a hole in the side of the engine, which triggers an avalanche, which destroys the entire train. She and the boy are the only survivors. But it’s all right — they see a polar bear, so life is possible. Maybe — but if that polar bear is hungry enough, their life is over too. ‘
The assumption that they boy and the girl are the only survivors is based on the fact that they are the only individuals shown to climb out of the train. There might easily be more survivors still trapped within the other carriages of the train.
‘9) About that polar bear. Polar bears eat seals or whale blubber if they can find a dead whale. So if that polar bear is alive, seals must be alive. And if seals are alive, then fish are still alive. And if fish are still alive, then plankton is still alive, and that means the oceans aren’t frozen over because plankton need sunlight to grow. ‘
And that strangely enough brings us back to the ‘slushy snowball’ Earth I mentioned in passing earlier. Which raises an important point on human survival, how many of us would actually possess the right survival skills to survive global temperature drop right out of the bat? How many would even have an idea how the Inuit historically survived in very harsh conditions? The concepts of building igloos as temporary housing and hunting seals would be alien, if not an outright impossibility. Something that would be incredibly unlikely to cross into the minds of the survivors that got their ticket to enter the train. A group of people for which: the entire world they knew is both lifeless and frozen.
But yes, the observations based on the sighting of a polar bear are correct. Which makes it possible that other human beings have survived even in the frigid coldness. Hence, it is possible that our two survivors could be saved by other surviving communities of humans. Potentially even by a group hunters after that particular polar bear.
‘Should I continue?’
You can, but I must add that your track record has not been particulary solid thus far.
‘Okay, now some of the above can be fixed. For instance, the people living at the tail end of the train are the maintenance crew and the servants for the one-percenters. Everything from grease-monkeys to sex-workers. ‘
In our movie they were everything from spare parts to basically cattle.
‘From time to time the train arrives at some kind of underground facility where parts, fuel, and supplies are stored. The train is the only mechanism for moving supplies from one station to the next. So there are some survivors maintaining the stations, but the train brings its own repair and maintenance crew, because life in the supply bunkers is probably pretty bad too. ‘
Were there been these underground facilities, we would approach the setting of the previously mention PC game Transarctica. A setting that had multitude of population hubs, several other trains, political factions, trade, and even battles between different trains. But what you suggest did not actually reach that extent.
‘There, now right there, we have a more believable world situation. The maintenance crew is also responsible for clearing the tracks ahead of the train, checking that the bridges are holding up, and melting or blowing up avalanches. So there’s a luxury train and a crew train — and you have the set up for the story you want to tell. ‘
Previously it was criticized how the steaks must have already ran out during the 17 years of operation. Thus how do you propose that our train would be able to sustain the maintenance crew living away from if it could not even maintain the people living on the train?
Additionally, what you are suggesting would only make sense if these ‘maintenance crews’ were living in almost self-sufficient hubs of relatively hospitable conditions. For example; one location is able to do farming while the other is able to fish and the third produces the fuel required to keep every place heated up. In this setting, each of these separate locations would require the train to deliver them resources from the other locations. Hence, there would be no need to actually have any unnecessary people living at the end of the train.
And as for any rebellions; destroying the train would doom them all, not to mention how the people running the train could just speed by leaving any rebellious locale to perish on their own and a year later repopulate it. And for the new people, it will be a place with more space, and potentially better living conditions than before once they get things running again.
But the bottom line is, people want to survive, and they are all dependant on one train coming once a year. Thus any rebellion would suddenly become far more illogical and convoluted than just fighting your way onwards. Not to mention that each of these hubs of survivors would have their own individual struggles and tensions.
‘But that’s not the movie that got made — the movie that got made defies the laws of physics and a lot of the laws of common sense — so it’s not a science fiction movie based on science. It’s an … (wait for it) … ALLEGORY. It’s an allegory about a revolution by the have-nots against the haves. ‘
Funny: I could use your above paragraph to describe your suggestions.
‘Now, the acting in this is pretty good. And if you ignore the gaping plot holes, the directing is fast-paced and keeps us moving forward. The costumes, the sets, the details of this thing, all look pretty good — almost enough to be convincing. And I like trains, so I’m aboard to see where they’re going. ‘
Go on…
‘Unfortunately … even as an ALLEGORY this thing doesn’t work. ‘
Once again, lets hear what you have to say.
‘That’s the second and much bigger failure. ‘
Yeah… But I do not really see the need for your attempt at building dramatic tension. It is just film criticism.
‘So the have-nots fight their way forward to capture the engine and the emperor of the train who lives in the engine. He’s played by Ed Harris who reveals that the entire revolution was scheduled to happen, because there are too many people on the train. ‘
It would be more accurate to describe the role of Ed Harris as the god of the train. The man who built the train, who designed it, the man who saved them all from freezing alive.
‘See, along the way, the rebels meet Tilda Swinton who talks to them about ecological balance, how life on the train can only exist because everything has to be balanced and everybody and everything has to stay in its appropriate place. ‘
In other words that there is exist a ‘natural order’ which cannot be broken or violated against. Basically, the age old notion that some are more important and worthy based on the merit of their birth. The same excuse humanity has used since the dawn of culture.
‘Ed Harris repeats this to our hero — the leader and last survivor of the rebellion — that there are too many people on the train for the train to support them all, so the rebellion was engineered so that the extras could be terminated. 74 of them have to die. Or is it 74%? Doesn’t matter. It’s a cold equation. ‘
And necessary for the survival of the species itself because over population in a closed ecosystem leads to the collapse of the ecosystem. One which it might never recover.
‘It’s a very cold equation. The coldest possible. And it doesn’t take too much of a leap to realize that the train is an allegory for the planet and there are too many people on the planet Earth — and um … we really shouldn’t have this many people on the planet because the planet can’t support us all and … well, um, see, here’s the thing … Ed Harris is getting old and he’s dying and he needs to find a successor, someone who can be ruthless, and gee, wouldn’t it be really a good thing if the leader of the rebellion became the new emperor of the train? The engineer. But of course, you’ll have to engineer future genocides. ‘
There are other allegories we could just as well consider. But I’ll get back to them little later.
‘Our hero, who has finally accepted his role as a moral man, never really gets a chance to say no, he will not do it. ‘
Or alternatively, to say yes.
‘And then — the Asian girl blows up the train, killing the hero, the engineer, and everyone else aboard. And she and the black kid, the only survivors, see a polar bear, and we’re supposed to see her as a heroine, mother to the civilization to come. ‘
We have discussed the survivors before, but it is worth take notice how our hero did not get his choice, or chance to suggest a new solution.
‘Oh, hell no. ‘
Yes, you seem upset.
‘As an allegory, this one sucks — it says that even if the have-nots can fight their way to the front of the train and confront the haves, they’re still part of the larger process of keeping the whole shitty system running smoothly. And if they don’t accept, then the only responsible answer is to blow up the train, bring the whole system down, kill everybody, and maybe start over — if the survivors don’t get eaten by bears. ‘
So let us have a look at those other possible interpretations: unbearable inequalities in human conditions eventually result in open rebellions against the systems that maintain them. However, there is no quarantine that once the rebellion is over that there will be an implementation of a new system, or even new masters running the old system. The whole society at large could be derailed or even destroyed, and in the case of this movie — it happened quite literally.
‘Okay, this part of the allegory is kinda fixable. What if … when the hero is confronted with the choice to become the new engineer and live in luxury, what if he says, “Okay, I’ll do it.” And what if it’s his intention to change things for the better, so everyone has a fair chance at a decent life — and what if, to his horror, he discovers that’s not really possible, that the system isn’t designed for equality, that the system requires that some people have to be maintenance workers and some people have to be cleaners and some people have to be farmers and that all of this needs real management and … the system can’t be changed. ‘
In a way you are just presenting an option, a possibility, that was already possible outcome in the film we got.
‘Then, like Orwell’s Animal Farm, we see the real horror of this allegory — that it doesn’t matter what your intentions are, the system overrules your idealism. ‘
Which in turn would have made the movie be nothing but Orwell’s Animal Farm set in a train.
‘But no — these filmmakers just blow up the train. And the takeaway from this is that the only answer to inequality is to destroy the system that keeps everyone alive — including your friends, your family, and all the innocent people who were just doing their best to make it from one day to the next. Fuck that. That’s not a rebellion for justice — that’s nihilistic anarchy. ‘
Or once again, you could consider that the outcome of extreme inequalities is not automatically set in stone. For example of Tyranny we need look no further than Soviet Union, which the animal farm is based of. For something better we could just look at the British crusade against slavery, how an English king chose to tax slave trade and centuries later what was a global standard had become alien to the British. Or we could just look at all the great empires of history that crumbled and vanished from the face of Earth due to changes of climate.
So in this movie, we actually have three separate interest groups. Those longing to maintain the statues quo, those who long to change it for better, and those who are willing to end it just because the possibility presented itself before them.
‘So … as I said when I started, Snowpiercer fails twice. First, it ignores the laws of physics and the truth about how machines really work — and second, the underlying allegory collapses like a bad souffle because instead of making a valid and poignant point, the filmmakers decided it was easier to just blow up the train and suggest that life was possible outside the train after all …. ‘
And it seems I have disagreed with almost everything you have presented. Arguing the points that you have not truly understood the physics and to some degree even the allegory of the film itself.
‘No. Just no. ‘
You just did not like the end result because it did not cater to your preset expectations and presumptions.
‘Part of writing science fiction is getting your science right. You have to do your research. A good writer takes the time to learn about ice ages, learn how trains work, and in this case learns how to create a self-sufficient society in a hostile environment. And then, a great writer thinks about the theme of his story. ‘
And I find myself somewhat bemused by the irony, when the given criticism appears to have failed on all of those mentioned points.
‘If you’re going to show people being heroic in search of justice, there has to be a victory. The moral arc of this story leads the audience to believe there will be a victory, or at least some kind of enlightenment waiting for us at the head of the train. Instead, no — there is no victory. Yes, there is enlightenment — the train is a balanced eco-system, but instead of dealing with that philosophical dead-end, they just give up and blow it all to bits. ‘
Personally, I admit that I would have preferred an ending where there is an attempt to find a more humane solution to the train’s carefully balanced eco-system. But considering the setting, the only possibility would be through authoritarian population control; the too old are killed and strict control on who are allowed to procreate, in exchange of more egalitarian living conditions for all. And perhaps centuries later when the train stops, there are fields of grass for the people to walk upon.
But the movie ended, as it ended, and it certainly provided its share of enlightenment. The world which the people on the train believed to exist, was not true. Like it was said before, 17 years later, the sighting of that polar bear means that life is possible outside that train. The supposed philosophical dead end was based on nothing but misinformation.
And finally, there was a victory, it just was not for the person most of us rooted for during the run of the film.
‘But in its failure, by what isn’t here, by allowing us to look at what’s missing, the picture reveals something about what we expect/demand from a great story. ‘
Or in this case, inspect what one critic expected from it. How anyone can be critic, without knowing any better. It is worthy lesson to take into one’s heart.
‘See, the thing about a science fiction story — it has to have two endings. It has to have a satisfying resolution to the scientific puzzle or dilemma and it has to have a satisfying resolution to the hero’s situation. This picture fails twice, but it’s a useful failure.’
Scientific Puzzle: The survival of humankind. At the end of the movie: it is possible.
Resolution to hero’s situation: If we consider everything we discovered about our titular main character, he had done horrible things to survive. Perhaps he would have done much more to if he had given chance to decide for himself. Thus the survival of the boy he went to save, might have been the best ending considered his troubled past.
‘More shortly.’
And I do not think I will comment further, even if you do decide to add more commentary.
It is also a classic example of a heads-we-win-tails-you-lose style of argument from the right about the issue of how the left discusses evil. On the one side you get the Paulk (or was it Hoyt?) ‘grey-goo’ claim* that left or liberal (or maybe just modern) fiction/drama makes all morality relative and there is no clear cut distinction between right and wrong. In this scenario the ‘left’ is bad for NOT making moral distinctions and getting too entwined in the issue of why people did what they did and what the circumstances were and why it may have been a pragmatic choice or perhaps a moral one against some broader metric etc.
On the other, you have a complaint like was seen in that comment about Rabbit Proof Fence – an artist making a comment about right and wrong and visually or narratively taking a position (in this case the apparently oh-so controversial black-armband view of history that kidnapping children is wrong**)
*[just picking a local example – the complaint isn’t particular to them]
**[ oh you crazy leftists! What nutty kind of political correctness will you think of next!]
> “I figure I should flag this here, since Kyra may no longer be reading the 9/27 thread …”
Holy crap. I have no idea what happened. I am busy for the next few hours, but as soon as I can, I will, in fact, do a complete recount, and try to figure out what the heck happened.
@Brian Z (and Will R.)
Vivienne Raper reads a lot of right-wing stuff for that reason, although the end result seems to be that she mostly reads and talks about and links to right-wing stuff… I don’t think I’ve seen her link to a single, solitary left-wing source in an approving context. I’m not sure I’ve seen her link to one full stop.
She did quote bits that weren’t entirely to do with the, hrm, ‘how dare people paint white people history as bad, why, those aborigine children were better off away from the disadvantaged families they were born to’ flavoured stuff, so points for that.
I’m not entirely sure I’d go for message fiction as just being a story where both sides don’t get equal chance to persuade, since anything with a limited POV would be instantly at a severe disadvantage, but it isn’t a bad starting point.
I found the comment about asking “what would I have done in these circumstances?”
Pardon my relative ignorance about Australian issues, but the commentator seems to be a conservative, and one might expect that she would more likely support the position that children should not have been taken from their homes. (Not heavily imply that taking them from their homes was a good thing.) Instead, she took umbrage at Australian schoolchildren not even being asked to consider for themselves the moral issues at stake as part of their education. However, if I’m missing any aspect of this please correct me.
I’m not sure if you would count it, but she linked approvingly to an article by a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and emphasized that she shared some of the former RCP members’ views.
@Tuomas Vainio
I don’t know about anyone else, but I found your comment extremely hard to read. Surely there’s a better way to show which comments you’re quoting and which are your own? Using the blockquote or italics html buttons above the comment window, perhaps?
@Camestros
Well, when lefties take a moral stance it’s the wrong one, you see, and we can’t be having that!
@Brian Z
It helps if you read Sue Smith’s earlier comment:
I think that puts her later comments in context.
And no, the RCP don’t exactly count, in my opinion, and I’m sure you recall enough of the discussion on File770 to know why. 🙂
@Camestros @Meredith @Brian Z.
Great discussion. I do think the definition of “message” is nearly 180 degrees apart in the two places, and yet what’s being advocated for seems very similar.
I don’t think Vivienne slots neatly into a camp, which is part of what interested me about her post.