babbling relentlessly about science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 26 - Charles Stross
In this episode, we're joined by author Charles Stross who talks about discovering his love of sf when he was 5 and started reading Andre Norton's books at his local library. By the time he was 15, he'd read everything in the genre. Charlie also reflects on how growing up in Britain of the 1970s — a place he describes as a "malfunctioning society" — affected his perception of the American speculative fiction he read. He also discusses the shift that took place in British culture in the 80s, and how that steered him towards a career as a pharmacist — at least until he shifted to computer science and then technical writing.
Charlie tells us about his development as a writer, from his beginnings at age 12, to his first attempts to get published in his teens, to selling stories in his 20s, including a novel. He goes on to discuss how working as a pharmacist and in computers gave him insight into how organizations of different sizes function (or malfunction), leading to an understanding of bureaucracy as a villain. He also talks about his ideas around artificial intelligence and the Turing Test, and its relation to the Fermi Paradox.
And Charlie also shares some details about his new novel, The Labyrinth Index, as well as an upcoming book, Invisible Sun (in the Empire Games series), and a space opera story called Ghost Engine that's in the works.
Our conversation took place in October 2018 at the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy & Games Convention (VCon).
You can learn more about Charles Stross and his stories on his website:
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/
To listen to Invaders From Planet 3, or subscribe, visit Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast and Spotify. Be sure to rate and review the show while you're there!
Let the Invasion begin!
Posted by Robin Shantz at 12:09 AM No comments:
Labels: AI, artificial intelligence, Charles Stross, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, podcast, science fiction, speculative fiction
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 25 - Matthew Hughes
We're joined by author and editor Matthew Hughes in this episode. Matt talks about his first love in sf: Jack Vance's "The Dragon Masters", as well as Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton, along with his discovery of Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury and AE van Vogt. He also discusses some of the historical fiction novelists who influenced him, such as Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliff.
Matt talks about being "a guy just passing through" as he shares stories from his early years, starting with an unstable home life where his father, trying to stay one step ahead of money problems, occasionally uprooted the family at a moment's notice — sometimes in the middle of the night to move half-way around the world. There's the story of his teenaged knife fight. And he tells us how taking LSD made him a nicer person.
We also hear about Matt's evolution as a writer, from the teenager writing stories, to the newspaper reporter and editor, to the go-to speechwriter for Canadian federal politicians, their provincial counterparts in BC, and business leaders as well. He talks about his first sale of a fictional story, "Fishface and the Leg", and how he developed his career writing crime stories, and science fiction and fantasy.
Matt also shares details of the new speculative fiction novel he's developing, about a man in his Jack-Vance-Dying-Earth-inspired world who wakes up with amnesia and finds himself on the road to a confrontation with wizards.
Our interview took place in October 2018 at the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Games Convention (VCon).
You can learn more about Matthew Hughes and his stories on his website:
https://www.matthewhughes.org
Posted by Robin Shantz at 8:17 PM No comments:
Labels: Archonate, Commons, crime, Dying Earth, fantasy, genre fiction, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, Jack Vance, Matthew Hughes, podcast, science fiction, speculative fiction, writing
A Little Christmas Magic
I know it's been a month since I've posted anything, which includes being two episodes behind on airing the Invaders From Planet 3 podcast, but I've been knee-deep in life lately and haven't been able to give the nerdiverse my full attention. My plan is to get the delayed episodes up in a few days to get the airing schedule back on track over the holidays. I promise, there are some good interviews coming up that are worth waiting for!
In the meantime, I thought I'd share a little story of Christmas magic that happened a couple of days ago:
Over the years, I've occasionally been Santa Claus at parties for charities and at offices I've worked at. This year, the Rotary Club of Ladner needed Santa to come to their first annual community tree-lighting celebration, and because my dad is one of the Rotarians, I agreed to be Big Red (to use the elfin security detail's code name for Kris Kringle in "The Tick Loves Santa!" — one of the greatest episodes of the animated series of The Tick). Lots of families came and had lots of fun.
When you're Santa (and this is important: when you don the suit, you are Santa — especially to the little kids — you're not playing him, you have to be him — like Victor Prinzim putting on the cape and cowl in The Cannonball Run and becoming Captain Chaos), you have to be ready for anything. 99.9% of the time, the kids are happy, you give them 100% of your focus, you try to make a connection with them and tell a little story about life at the North Pole or Santa's adventures to make their visit special, and things are more-or-less straight-forward. Sometimes a baby will cry (even when Santa is quiet and easygoing, it can still all be a bit much for babies and toddlers just getting used to the world), but, generally, you don't get too many curveballs. This time around, there was one visit that was a little different...
About mid-evening, a mother brought her little girl over. She was just a teeny little thing, couldn't have been more than 3 or 4, with a big smile, and was absolutely adorable. She looked up at Santa with big brown eyes full of wonder — think of a brunette, brown-eyed version of Cindy-Lou Who from the original, animated "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" — and hopped up onto my knee, and we began our visit. I asked if she'd be a good girl this year ("Yes!"), and if she'd helped her mommy around the house, again, "Yes!" and she looked so happy that she'd pitched-in. Then I asked what she wanted for Christmas.
She looked up at me with those big eyes brimming with hope and absolute, unshakeable faith that Santa could make her holiday wish come true, and, now with a little sadness in her voice too, she said:
"Can you please bring my kitty back? He's gone."
Boom. A 50-kiloton nuclear bomb to the heart.
Because this was a tough one. You see, Santa can't make promises. Some kids will ask for dolls, or LEGO, or radio-controlled cars or trucks, or even new kittens or puppies, but Santa can't promise to bring any of it, because there's no guarantee that their parents will come through, and you can't say anything that will cause the kids to lose hope. It's like J Michael Straczynski wrote in an episode of Babylon 5 (I think this was from one of G'Kar's monologues): "Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope." Or, as Lorien said in another B5 episode: "Hope is all we have." So all you can say is something like "I'll work with my elves and we'll try to make sure your Christmas is special." And that's generally enough to make the kids happy. Santa hasn't promised anything concrete, so they can't be completely let down if the item doesn't come through, but you're leaving them room to hope, and, as a result. to be happy and enjoy the holiday.
But this is something different. In this case, Santa REALLY can't promise anything, because a missing cat may never come home. Heck, for all I knew at the time, the cat may have died and the parents may simply have told the little one that kitty had wandered off, just to make things easier on her. So Santa couldn't say he'd bring the kitty back. But, at the same time, I couldn't crush this little girl's hope.
And I had to keep my game face on with only a millisecond to think.
So I gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze and said "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry your kitty is gone. It's tough when kitties go off on adventures. This is a pretty tall order, but I'll talk to my elves and tell them to go out and keep a look out for your kitty."
She gave me a huge smile and a thank-you, and held onto her hope, and I steered things back on track, asking her about toys she'd like, gave her a candy cane I'd said the elves had made especially for her earlier that day, and she eventually left happy.
The whole thing has stayed with me for the past few days.
And now, just this morning, Dad forwarded me an email from one of his fellow Rotarians: the little girl's mother had been back to the community centre and had told the staff (who passed the word along to the club) how much they'd enjoyed the party and their time with Santa. But, best of all, she said the cat came back that evening after they'd returned home from their visit with Santa. So it seems the little girl got her Christmas wish!
Now I certainly can't take any credit for the cat coming home. The wayward fuzzball probably just got cold, wet, tired and hungry enough (even without pursuit by dogs, other cats, raccoons or coyotes) to come home on his/her own.
But if this coincidence made that little girl happy, and gave her a sense of holiday magic to make this year extra special — something that will stand out in her memory in the years to come, and hopefully help her make the season special for other people — then that's a real bit of Christmas magic.
Whatever you celebrate, and even if you don't celebrate anything in particular, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Labels: Babylon 5, Christmas, magic, Santa, The Grinch, The Tick
So Long, Stan
My first memory of comics god Stan Lee was his narration of the 1982 Saturday morning cartoon The Incredible Hulk. Sure, I'd seen his creations before, in the form of reruns of the 1960s cartoon Spider-Man, and during the original run of the late 1970s live-action TV show The Incredible Hulk, but the 80s 'Hulk cartoon (along with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends — later combined into The Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the Incredible Hulk Adventure Hour) was the first time I'd heard Lee's name and voice, and his intense voiceovers permanently cemented him to the those iconic comic characters in my memory. My appreciation for the actual comic books that had given rise to these characters (as well as the character of Stan, in the fan and larger public perception) would come years later.
When I read the news about Stan's death earlier today, I have to admit, it didn't come as much of a shock. He was 95, and, from the news and internet coverage over the years, it seemed as though he'd been in decline since his wife's death. Time passes, as do our heroes.
And Stan certainly was a hero to many. One of the creative forces behind so many of the superheroes and superhero teams that have been a part of our nerdy lives and fan culture conversation (along with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others), a pop culture figure who interacted with fans at conventions and other venues, and, in a larger sense on the pop culture stage, a reassuring voice that told us it's okay to like this stuff, and that our comic book characters and the stories they tell have real, meaningful value, beyond a few minutes or hours of entertainment. That value was especially evident in Marvel Comics' presentation of normal, later diverse, characters with identifiable lives (beyond — sometimes influenced by, and sometimes influencing — their superheroic adventures) and problems that we, as readers, can understand and have experienced. Peter Parker has to try to hold down a job outside of his costumed vigilanteism because, you know, food and shelter; and he worries about how to attract the girl he likes. The X-Men deal with discrimination, infighting, self-doubt, depression, and strained romantic relationships. Bruce Banner, in struggling to deal with the Hulk within, has to grapple with stress and emotional control, isolation, and the consequences of being persecuted and living without a home. Even the gods (and god-like alien entities) have problems in Marvel's universe. Thor has family issues, and, over the years, has made more than a few bad decisions. Galactus is alone — the sole survivor of not only his race, but his universe — and has to battle superheroes because, in order to survive, he needs to feed on the life force of planets (perfectly understandable and justified to the star titan, not so much to the inhabitants of Earth and other worlds). Thanos just wants Death to love him, and is rejected. Thus Stan's legacy of crafting characters with recognizable challenges and flaws is clearly present not just in his own creations, but in those of other Marvel writers and artists. And, beyond the empathy factor, it's this attempt to create three-dimensional characters that made Stan and Marvel's heroes — and villains — more interesting than their counterparts (at least until DC — and other publishers — started to catch on and flush-out their own characters' lives — internal and external).
Beyond the comics, cartoons and conventions, Stan was also a highly recognizable figure thanks to his media interviews and cameos in everything from Kevin Smith's Mallrats, to The Big Bang Theory, to the various Sony Marvel-related and official Marvel Universe movies. The overall impression was of a friendly, if occasionally curmudgeonly old guy. The loveable grandpa of comics. How true-to-life that was is up to those who knew him to say. But to the rest of us, it was the perfect representation of that person we'd always imagined was cobbling together the comics we loved.
Thanks for everything, Stan.
Labels: cartoons, comics, movies, Saturday morning cartoons, Stan Lee, superheroes, TV
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 24 - James Alan Gardner
Author, editor and kung-fu mathematician James Alan Gardner joins us in the latest episode of the podcast! Jim starts off by talking about how comics were his first speculative fictional love, especially Marvel's The Avengers and DC's Crisis on Earth One! and Crisis on Earth Two!, leading eventually to science fiction like Heinlein's juveniles, and later, in university, to fantasy by Tolkien and Stephen R Donaldson, and horror by Stephen King.
We talk about his decision to study Math at university, and how a student work internship in Toronto with nothing to do at night gave him the opportunity to start developing his abilities as a writer. Jim tells us about how a writing workshop in Banff allowed him to further hone his skills and find his own voice, and we later discuss how this differed from his experience at Clarion. We also talk about Jim's early work writing science fictional stage plays and radio plays, like Curio (a paranormal investigative series predating The X-Files) and Percy Pulsar, Space Accountant. And he discusses his first prose science fiction stories that were published.
Coming back to superheroes, we talk about Jim's novel All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault — a story pitting metahumans against vampires, werewolves and other paranormal monsters. And he teases its upcoming sequel, They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded, and the two other novels he's working on in the series. Jim also gives some hints about a haunted house novel he's developing.
Our interview took place in October 2018 at the annual Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy & Games Convention (VCon).
Find out more about James Alan Gardner and his stories on his website:
https://jamesalangardner.wordpress.com
Labels: comics, fantasy, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, James Alan Gardner, monsters, paranormal, podcast, science fiction, speculative fiction, superheroes
Punkin Punkin Punkin
This year's crop of jack o'lanterns at the Lair of bloginhood:
Labels: Hallowe'en, Halloween, jack o'lanterns, pumpkins
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 23 - Mark Barrowcliffe
Author Mark Barrowcliffe (also known under his pen names MD Lachlan and Mark Alder) joins us in this episode.
Mark tells us about his first loves in sf, including Alan Garner, Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea series, Tolkien, Moorcock, and Andre Norton. He talks about his enjoyment of Tolkien and Garner injecting mythology into their fantasy, and Moorcock's ability to challenge his readers by posing difficult questions.
When discussing his own writing, Mark reflects on the exhilaration of letting his characters tell their own story, and how this helps when writing characters that come from different backgrounds than his own. He also shares his thoughts on how his experiences practicing boxing, martial arts and fencing give him insight into the scariness of fighting, and how youthful experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs provided inspiration for writing the unreality of a werewolf's state of mind. And he talks about using the trappings of fantasy in storytelling without descending into escapism, and why it's important to refuse to impose modern sensibilities on characters from other periods in history.
We talk at length about his latest — and final — instalment in the Wolfsangel series, The Night Lies Bleeding. He discusses the difficulties of writing a story set partially in a Nazi concentration camp, his research into some of the prisoners who were kept there, and the story's exploration of the problems faced by characters who try to maintain a distance from the world, and who descend into evil.
We also chat about Mark's experiences with Dungeons & Dragons: from his teenaged years dealing with trolls both in and out of the game's quests, dressing for the part, his ruminations on that period of his life in his book The Elfish Gene, and returning to roleplaying years later.
And Mark gives us some hints about the latest story he's working on: a swashbuckling fantasy about a female fencer in the court of Versailles, inspired by the adventures of a real woman known for her duelling victories and romances.
Our interview took place in June 2018 via a Skype connection between Mark's home in Brighton, UK, and my studios in the Lair of bloginhood, currently located in a century-old, unused plantation irrigation tunnel in a mountain on Kauai.
You can find Mark's books under his various pen names at your local bookstore.
Labels: fantasy, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, Mark Barrowcliffe, MD Lachlan, podcast, science fiction, speculative fiction, swashbuckling, Vikings, werewolf, writing
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 22 - Sean Cullen
Comedian, author, podcaster and performer Sean Cullen joins the Invasion for this episode. Sean talks about how his love for speculative fiction started with works such as Tolkien's The Hobbit, Mr Bass's Planetoid by Eleanor Cameron, Stephen R Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, and Asimov's Foundation and Robot stories. We discuss the ups and downs of following a series, especially a long-running collection. And he talks about what makes a good story.
Sean and I dissect the Star Wars franchise, especially the prequel trilogy and the latest stand-alone focussing on Han Solo. We also talk about Space 1999 and Star Trek, and how science fiction is often a product of its time, and whether it's possible to go back to and enjoy your first loves in the genre. We then get into a discussion of more recent favourite books, including the works of Neal Stephenson, Dan Simmons, and Kim Stanley Robinson. And we reminisce about the madcap fun of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
We also talk about the books Sean has written for kids, including Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates and The Prince of Neither Here Nor There, as well as a superhero-themed novel he's currently writing for adult audiences. And Sean shares his thoughts on occasionally working science fiction references into his stand-up comedy.
Our interview took place in June 2018 via a Skype call between Sean's headquarters aboard The Seanpod, currently drifting along the bottom of James Bay, and my studio in the Lair of bloginhood, located in a sumptuous beach house on the shores of a methane lake on Saturn's moon Titan.
Find out more about Sean Cullen, his books, and his comedy albums on his website:
seancullen.com
Listen to episodes of The Seanpod on his podcasting page:
theseanpod.com
Watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on TV or YouTube.
And check the listings at your local comedy club to see when he'll be performing in your town.
Posted by Robin Shantz at 7:22 AM No comments:
Labels: comedy, fantasy, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, podcast, science fiction, speculative fiction, superheroes
VCon 2018 - Day 3 - Turkeys for Turkey Day
As the man once sang: I hurt myself today.
No, there was nothing involving a needle or other methods of substance abuse. This was a different kind of voluntary destruction of lives. This was the Turkey Readings. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Day 3 of VCon (which was also this year's host for Canvention — Canada's national speculative fiction convention): the sleepy Sunday when the fun is slowly, reluctantly, wearily grinding to a halt and people start to head home — some faster than others in order to make it to early Thanksgiving dinners with family (technically, the holiday is tomorrow, but a lot of Canadian families get it out of the way on Sunday so that we've got Monday to rest, rather than wrestling with a feast and guests all day and then having to return to work or school on Tuesday completely exhausted). I arrived around 1:30 to meet someone, but plans changed, so I had a little time on my hands and wandered around a bit. Today's attire: a Flynn's Arcade t-shirt from Uber Torso, and, yes, one person wandering by did get the Tron reference and gave it the nod of approval.
And today I actually managed to take in some programming! I caught the "I'm In Love With The Villain" panel, which, fairly obviously, discussed villains in sf (and pop culture in general, and history) and why we love them, or love to watch them or read about them even if we hate them. A lively and thoughtful discussion from the panel, as well as the audience. In fact, I give those at the front of the room a lot of credit for striking the perfect balance between their own panel pontifications and audience participation. It kept everyone engaged and entertained. Bonus points for this panel: unrelated to their topic, they mentioned that the West Coast Science Fiction Association (which runs VCon) had published an anthology this year as a fundraiser, something that I don't recall hearing about during the opening ceremonies (and, to be fair, maybe I just didn't catch it, and I probably looked right past the book when I was walking through the dealers' room this weekend), so I had to rush over to the dealers' room once the session wrapped up to snag a copy. Edited by Ellen Michelle, it's called Power: In the Hands of One, In the Hands of Many. I think putting out an anthology to help fund the con is a great idea, and I hope it's sold enough copies over the weekend to support more volumes in the future. Now we'll have to see how it reads!
After that, I linked-up with author Charles Stross (one of the con's Guests of Honour) to interview him for the Invaders From Planet 3 podcast. We covered topics ranging from the influence of Britain's "dysfunctional society" in the 1970s and 80s on its science fiction, to how his experience working in large, bureaucratic organizations affected his stories. Stay tuned for that episode in December.
Then it was time for the pain.
Why do I go to the goddamn Turkey Readings session every year? Why? In Return of the Jedi, C-3P0 warns Luke, Han and Chewie that they're in for "a new definition of pain and suffering" as they're "slowly digested over a thousand years" in the sarlacc pit. That prospect has nothing on VCon's Turkey Readings. While this exercise in psychological torture and masochism may not actually last a millennium, it damn near feels like it. If your local con has nothing like this, then it may be a good idea to read the following description so you'll be forewarned and can use any means necessary — up to and including a full nuclear strike — to prevent this painful travesty from ever being replicated by your fan organization, or anyone else in the universe for that matter. It goes like this: three or four panelists sit at a table at the front of the room with a pile of books. These are terrible books. Some of the worst culled from the history of the genre, usually by unremembered authors, but sometimes by big names who are still talked about. But make no mistake: these tomes are abominations. They contain truly painful writing, cliched plots, and ridiculous characters. The panelists divvy-up the pile, then one will start reading a selected story aloud. Did I mention the actors? Oh yes, this is more than just an assault on the brain through the ears. They attack your eyes too. Volunteers in the audience come up to the front to "act" out the scenes as they're being read. Their performances are enthusiastic, but on the same level of quality as the writing that inspires them. Deliberately. As the story unfolds, the ridiculousness of the writing and the antics of the volunteer actors drive the audience into fits of laughter. But, really, can we say this is the laughter prompted by something truly funny, or is this the helpless braying of once-intelligent minds being driven into the putrid, hairy armpit of madness? The latter, I think. If there's any redeeming virtue to all of this, it's that the victims in the audience can open their wallets and make bids to stop the pain. Of course, this is often just a trick to give the audience victims a false sense of hope, because others among the crowd (having the last vestiges of their sanity finally shredded away) can pay more money to keep the agony going! This auction of insanity goes on intermittently until finally some desperate soul can throw down enough money to make it stop once and for all. But then, of course, the next panelist picks up his/her chosen book, and begins to administer a new round of psychological annihilation, and those of us who have wandered into this circus of pain clutch out seats, vainly waiting for a financial hero to rise from among our number to buy a few minutes of respite. The positive side to the whole affair is that the money raised at the Turkey Readings goes to the Canadian Unity Fan Fund, which pays to bring a selected fan from one part of the country to a Canvention in another province in the interests of creating bonds of friendship among fans around Canada. Maybe that's why I keep inflicting this experience on myself year after year. I'll never be one of the fans who's a part of this exchange, but I certainly support the idea, and I usually put a couple of bucks in the pot every year to help out — and to, mostly unsuccessfully, try to put an end to whatever reading is being thrown at me in the moment. Of course, there's another explanation: maybe I keep going back to the Turkey Readings because they've been successful in permanently damaging my brain. Maybe I've been driven so far beyond rational thought that I can't help returning to the scene of the crime again and again — maybe it's become just as important a part of my Thanksgiving tradition to suffer through the Turkey Readings as it is to eat turkey dinner. Gobble, gobble, gobble...
Posted by Robin Shantz at 10:32 PM No comments:
Labels: anthology, Canvention, convention, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, podcast, VCon
VCon 2018 - Day 2 - More Conversations than Conference-Going
Can you really say you've spent a day at a con if you've hardly taken-in any programming? Yes. Yes you can.
Today was a day like that for me at VCon. I arrived at noon(ish — I mean, hey, come on, it's me! How often have I ever shown my mug before the crack of lunch?), and spent the whole day there, but only took in one thing that was on the con schedule. The rest of the time I spent talking with people. And it was great! Sure, there were a bunch of panel sessions I would have like to have attended, and they would have been interesting and entertaining, but I think I had a better time shooting the breeze with people here and there throughout the venue. Some people would call that a "bar con" (where a person registers for a convention, but ends up spending the whole thing camped-out in the hotel bar yakking with whoever drifts in), and fair enough, though I didn't step foot inside the hotel restaurant/bar today. Maybe a lounge con? A courtyard con? A hallway con? Call it what you will, it was a good day.
I started things off catching up with Kristi Charish. I was just finishing lunch when she walked by and stopped to talk for a while. We ended up having an interesting discussion about the state of self-publishing versus traditional publishing, and all of the permutations in between that have popped up in recent years. She also shared a little info about her upcoming instalment in the Voodoo series. Later, part of me thought it would have made a good podcast episode. But you know what? Sometimes it's nice just to leave the iPad/recorder off and shoot the breeze. Enjoy the easy conversations that just kind of happen. That's part of what makes sf conventions so great.
Next I met up with James Alan Gardner to do an interview for the Invaders From Planet 3 podcast (stay tuned for that episode in about a month!). I've been a fan of his work going back to the Northern Stars Canadian sf anthology back in the mid-1990s, and his recent superhero novel, All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault, was a glorious, fun, superhero/supernatural mashup that had a lot of heart. Jim's another good person to sit down and chat with, and I think you'll enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
A little wandering around then, and I drifted back into the dealers' room where I spent some time gazing wistfully at some of the Roman and Anglo Saxon items an antiquarian vendor had on display, and talking with him about history and how things like clasps and mounts and buckles would have been used, and by whom. I'd gone looking for something to buy my brother for Christmas, but ended up wrestling with temptation to get a trinket for myself. Didn't buy anything, but with one day left a the con, you never know.
After that, I had another interview for the podcast scheduled, this time with Matthew Hughes. He's another interesting person with a lot to say on everything from writing (of course) to a childhood and youth with incidents that could have been right out of a novel. No spoilers — you'll have to stay tuned for his episode of Invaders From Planet 3, coming up in late November/early December.
At that point, I toyed with going to a panel session, but it was after 6 and I was getting hungry, so I thought it'd be better to walk down the street for a bite. Sticking around for the session would have meant rushing through supper in order to get back in time for the Aurora Awards, and who wants to wolf down a meal when you should be taking time to enjoy it? So, scratch another session off the list. Instead, I walked through the deliciously crisp autumn night to the #9 Restaurant — Richmond's Chinese version of a 24-hour diner. It ain't pretty, but the food is good and inexpensive. Kung po guy ding, hoisin chow mein, and peppered deep-fried silver fish always make me a happy boy. If only they'd serve bolay tea, instead of the weak jasmine, it'd be perfect.
Back up the street to the con for the Auroras, and while I was waiting around, I saw a cosplayer styling a Negasonic Teenage Warhead suit. None of the energy blasts of her Marvel comic or Deadpool movie counterpart, but all of the attitude. We chatted for a bit, and she showed me some photos of some of her other costumes. I'm not a cosplayer myself, but I have a hell of a lot of respect for people who are — they show a lot of dedication and passion for the nerdy stuff they love. This conversation also reminded me that Saturday is generally the day that the cosplayers come out in force at VCon, but I hadn't really noticed any... mainly because I was talking with people instead of taking-in the masquerade or wandering around. But that's okay. If you see one good costume and a cosplayer having fun, it's worth it. I also ran into Kristi again during the wait, and we chatted a little more. And I saw someone I recognized from a session at the con a few years ago that I wanted to talk with briefly. This person had run a brief how-to on home recording and podcasting that I found really helpful when I was gearing up to put IFP3 together, and so I wanted to say thank-you. It's important. Lots of people teach or share info, and thankyous are pretty rare, so when you learn something worth-while from someone, it's important to give them that validation.
Then the doors opened and everyone filed-in to one of the larger rooms for the Auroras. No need for me to sum-up the list of nominees and winners — you can find that around the web. I'll just say congratulations to everyone on the lists this year! Well deserved, everyone!
Leaving the ceremony, someone caught sight of the Uber Torso CHOAM t-shirt I was wearing and asked "Hey, is that the CHOAM company from Dune?" It's a wonderful thing to be around people who get the references on Uber Torso's shirts. Yesterday, I was in the Tyrell Corporation Nexus 6 shirt. Tomorrow? Maybe Flynn's Arcade? Maybe Weyland Yutani's Hadley's Hope colony shirt? We'll see. If only the Wyld Stallyns tour shirt I'm waiting for would arrive, I might go with that.
After that, it was time to head home. As usual, hungry kitties waiting for a too-late supper, a blog that needs updating, and a little relaxation before bed.
See you at the con tomorrow!
Labels: convention, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, podcast, VCon
The Return to VCon - Day 1
Every October for the past I-don't-know-how-many years, I've happily (generally) attended the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Games Convention, or VCon. Last year, however, was an exception. The con organizers opted to go for a "relaxicon" format, and with the shorter event and a programming lineup that didn't really jump out at me (never mind other obligations at the time), I took a pass.
This year, they're back in the swing of things with a full con (the 42nd full con in VCon's history), so, even though my schedule's busier than it was last year, I wanted to come back. I'm not a social butterfly who hits all the parties (but, by the same token, I'm not a misanthrope either — some of my most enjoyable con moments have been random conversations with fellow fans), but I have become quite attached to BC's annual nerd gathering — as small as it is, I'm happy to identify it as my home con — and I missed it last year.
And I'm glad I came back. I arrived mid-afternoon today, and while the opening Friday is always a little sleepy at first, there was a nice energy in the halls of the hotel that charged me up.
As usual, after registration, I prowled around for a while to get the lay of the land. The Sheraton in Richmond has been a regular venue for VCon off and on for years, but the layout of the con in the facility is a little different this year, so it was good to do a walkabout. What was unusual was that I broke one of my prime rules of attending a con: never buy anything in the dealers' room on the first day. In this case, a couple of anthologies on a book dealer's table caught my eye and I didn't want them to be bought-up before I could snag copies, so I made that purchase. Then there was a chainmail maker who'd made some interesting pieces of jewellery that I thought would make nice birthday or Christmas presents for my nieces, so I figured I'd get that out of the way. Which is all fine, because now, even though I may wander through the dealers' room again, I won't be tempted to buy anything. Nothing wrong with another walk-through anyway just to look and stop and chat though (one of the dealers today was selling a replica of the Glaive and we had a good laugh about how few people are familiar with Krull, with most movie audiences these days associating it with Ready, Player One). I also spent some time in the art show. There were some nice pieces on display, but, as much as decorating will be on my mind when I buy a new place in a few months, money's tight, so I'll just have to enjoy looking without shelling-out for art this weekend.
Saturday traditionally is the big day for costuming, but during my walkabout today I saw a couple of cosplayers in nice getups: a guy who'd put a lot of work into an astronaut costume,
...and a Cylon centurion.
On to programming.
The first session I took in was "Flags & Iconography in Fiction". While I'm not a Sheldon Cooper "Fun with Flags" kind of guy, I did have to absorb a certain amount of flag-related lore on a job years ago when I was doing a project pitch with a government protocol master, and enough of it stuck that I thought I'd drop by this session to see what they had to say. Overall, it was interesting, and everyone had a chuckle over some sf flags that wouldn't work particularly well in the real world, like the Earth Alliance flag in Babylon 5 (too busy, and it has words, which is apparently a no-no), or the Alliance flag from Firefly (a clumsy-looking mashup). Not a bad way to start the con, programming-wise.
From there, it was over to the opening ceremony, which started with a flash mob dance by a bunch of local high school kids promoting their production of Monty Python's Spamalot. Everyone got a smile out of it, and it was a nice way to kick off what's normally a dry affair. The opening ceremony was also fairly short, so bonus points to the organizers and guests of honour.
After that, I took in the "Ghost Stories of Antiquary" session (perhaps that should have been "Antiquity"?), which gave an overview of authors of that genre from the Regency, Victorian and Edwardian eras. I was familiar with a couple of them, but it was nice to learn about the others. At first, it seemed like the room housing this session might itself have been haunted, as the lights kept turning off and on, and dimming, at random with no-one at the switches. Rather than a pesky poltergeist, it turned out to be the doings of some well-meaning hotel staff on the other side of the back entrance, trying to turn off the lights to assist the panelists' powerpoint, but not telling each other that they were doing it, resulting in two or three staffers repeatedly flicking the switches as they passed back and forth. Finally they realized what was happening and we finished the session in a comfortable, wannabe-spooky darkness.
When that was over, I got some exercise in the wonderfully brisk autumn night air and walked several blocks to get some supper at Pho An Nam, my favourite Vietnamese place in Richmond.
Back at the con a little over an hour later, I took in "The Quad Comedy — Sci-Fi/Fantasy Improv" performance, which was a riot, especially the "Spider Farming Song" and the "Time Bomb Song". Lots of fun, and I hope they con keeps bringing them back in the coming years.
I was half-tempted to call it a night at that point, but I figured I'd squeeze in one more session, so I went to the first half of the "Not So Family Friendly Feud", a pleasantly raunchy take on the gameshow classic. I would have stayed to watch the second set of teams challenge the surveys, but I didn't sleep well last night, and the day was catching up with me. And I knew there were two hungry cats at home probably plotting to eat me in the night just to make a point if I didn't get back soon. So I hit the road.
Looking forward to what Saturday has in store.
Labels: convention, VCon
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 21 - Chris Beckett
Author Chris Beckett joins us in this episode, where he talks about his first loves in sf, including Heinlein's Starman Jones, CS Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth. He describes the importance of being able to explore his father's book collection and coming from a family with a scientific background, and what his father thought of his eventual decision to become a writer.
We also chat about how Chris' career as a social worker has influenced both his own writing and his views on other science fiction. As part of this, we talk about the connection between the science fictional mindset and that of social work, and sf's value as escapism.
Chris also discusses his latest novel, America City, and drops a hint about his next, as yet untitled, work.
Our interview took place in June 2018 via a Skype connection (and I apologize in advance for audio dropouts or Skype artifacts in the recording) between Chris' home in Cambridge, UK, and my location in the Lair of bloginhood, buried in the stone bulwark at the end of the White Rock pier.
Find out more about Chris Beckett on his website:
www.chris-beckett.com
Labels: episode, interview, Invaders From Planet 3, podcast
Concerning Hobbits — and Bachelors
Happy Hobbit Day, everyone ! I hope you've been able to celebrate the shared birthday of Bilbo and and Frodo Baggins with seven or eight stomach-explodingly large and delicious meals today.
Meals are, of course, the closest thing to a hobbit's heart — even dearer than genealogy, gardening, or xenophobic grumbling. And meals often form the heart of some of the most entertaining — and sometimes meaningful — moments in JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings novels, as well as Peter Jackson's cinematic adaptations of them. Who can forget the raucous feast of the dwarves as they barge into Bag End in TH, or the extravagant double birthday party that opens LOTR (interesting how both stories, regardless of their soft openings, get their real start with a meal)? Or Frodo & co dining with the elves under the stars as the flee the Shire in The Fellowship of the Ring? Or Sam and Frodo's meagre rations of lembas on their trek towards Mount Doom?
But the meal that's come to mean the most to me in recent years is Bilbo's sit-down just before the arrival of the first of Thorin's companions in The Hobbit. Not much is made of it in Tolkien's novel; just a mention that Bilbo was about to sit down to tea. Peter Jackson spends more time crafting this moment in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey though: in his version, Bilbo's sitting down to a quiet supper.
And craft is the right word for it. This is an exquisitely crafted little scene where we experience the quiet of the evening in a relaxed little community in an uneventful corner of the world, with Bilbo, the solitary bachelor, cooking his fish and a few side dishes, sitting down in a silence broken only by the murmuring snap of the fire and soft scrap of dishes, and preparing to eat, alone. The first time I watched that scene, it took my breath away. It only lasts a second or two before the dwarven assault on the pantry begins, but in those few seconds it captures entirely and perfectly the essence of bachelorhood. Here, in the comfortable silence and dim light of the hearth and candles, we see a man who is content, perhaps even happy with his life, but at the same time, probably unconsciously, feeling lonely and unfulfilled. Living life well enough, but somehow feeling that he wants more, even if he isn't aware that he's feeling it. Not an angst, but a calmly accepted and possibly forgotten absence. It is a state of being I've felt before as a bachelor, and these days, now that my marriage has collapsed, it's a feeling that's enveloping me again. It's a moment that's a universal statement about the bachelor experience (and probably that of bachelorettes, and, to some degree, possibly of widows and widowers, although those would be freighted with loss and more overt sadness).
Sure, there may be some of you out there reading this who say "I'm single and I couldn't be happier! That scene isn't relevant to me at all!" Okay. So be it. You can go back to writing your erotic sequel to The Mysterious Two then.
The rest of us, meanwhile, will take a little time to appreciate a cinematic moment that's beautifully filmed by Peter Jackson, and played confidently and subtly by Martin Freeman. No other film I've seen has ever captured the true feeling of bachelorhood as well as THAUJ — others are always moving too quickly when they set up a character's bachelor lifestyle; there's always a musical score or theme song that's trying to shoulder its way in front of the real, potentially meaningful content of the scene; the pace and cuts are frequently too quick to let the viewer experience the person's state of being; the tone is frequently engineered to mock the character (as in The 40-Year-Old Virgin), or, if the actor is playing it cool, to blatantly tell us that something is lacking in their deliberate detachment (like in Up in the Air). But as short as this moment is in THAUJ, within itself, it gives itself time to really let us experience a life and how that life feels in an honest and meaningful way. Say what you will about Jackson's Hobbit trilogy (and there are plenty of flaws), this is, as J Michael Straczynski's Vorlon Ambassador Kosh might say in Babylon 5, "One moment of perfect beauty."
One that's served up in a simple hobbit meal. Happy birthday, Bilbo.
Labels: books, fantasy, Hobbit Day, Lord of the Rings, movies, Peter Jackson, The Hobbit, Tolkien
Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 20 - Voice of the Fans 2
The Invasion has resumed! Season three of the Invaders From Planet 3 podcast kicks off with a new Voice of the Fans episode, where I interview a group of fans about their first loves in science fiction, fantasy, video games, comics, movies, TV — whatever!
My guests include Ryneld Starr, Sarah Corbeil, Jose Palacios, and Sam McCreath. Our interviews took place over the summer of 2018 via Skype calls between their homes and my studio in the Lair of bloginhood, currently located in a pillow fort in your mom's basement.
And because every fan's voice is important, I'd love to hear from you too! Leave a note in the Comments section below telling us about your first love in speculative fiction. And if you'd like to be part of next year's Voice of the Fans episode, contact me at talktobloginhood@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, don't forget to tune in over the coming weeks for the next episodes of the show. I've got interviews with some cool authors, performers and artists coming up this season, and I think you'll enjoy these conversations as much as I did.
Final Episode of Excellent Prisoners of Gravity Documentary Now Online
The team at Radio Free Krypton has now posted/aired the final episode of its excellent documentary on Prisoners of Gravity!
Part four of "Inside the Orbit of Prisoners of Gravity" talks about the show's legacy, and asks the question of whether it could be done today. Interviewees include the PoG host and producers, author Robert J Sawyer, and fans — including me. For my part, I think, at least as far as Canadian fans go, the legacy of PoG is every sf-related, interview-oriented podcast and video log/Youtube show. Whether these shows follow the PoG template or go in their own directions, Commander Rick and his producers showed us that it could be done (nearly 30 years ago), and so all of us have escaped the world to our own little broadcasting/podcasting/vlogging space stations. We're all the children of Commander Rick (although I can only wish that I had his hair).
Thanks to Radio Free Krypton for putting this documentary together. As important as Prisoners of Gravity was 30 years ago, it's just as important now for fans to celebrate what the host and producers accomplished for the speculative fiction community — especially the Canadian sf community (though not exclusively so, since the show contained many interesting interviews with American and British sf and comics creators too) — and the legacy it created. It was the first time (at least in this country) where our community had a voice that showed the significance of its work, it was a voice that further connected our community, and it was a voice that could be heard/seen by people outside of our community. For Radio Free Krypton to document this achievement, and explore its ongoing relevance, is also important to our sf community. For that, the RFK team deserves an Aurora Award. And I'm not just saying that because they invited me to participate in this doc (although being part of this group does tickle me immensely) — I would have endorsed it anyway. It's that good.
Lastly, I think it's also important to thank TV Ontario for airing the show in the first place. During the first half of my childhood, in Ontario, I devoured TVO's programs (Hey, TVO introduced me to Doctor Who! That's why Tom Baker will always be my favourite.), and even after moving away and growing up, I can still see them for the quality shows they were. It's also important to thank BC's Knowledge Network for picking up PoG from TVO — without Knowledge, I wouldn't have seen the awesomeness of Prisoners of Gravity in its original run back in the late 1980s and early 90s. The value of public broadcasters is incalculable.
If you haven't listened to "Inside the Orbit..." yet, head over to Radio Free Krypton and do so! And if you've never seen an episode of Prisoners of Gravity, what are you waiting for? Punch it up on Youtube and watch one, or three, or all of them! Thirty years on, it's still as relevant, thought-provoking and entertaining.
Labels: books, broadcasting, comics, fantasy, horror, movies, podcast, Prisoners of Gravity, radio, Radio Free Krypton, science fiction, TV
Mini Reviews: Trouble on Paradise, Eden, and Earth
We're still a couple of months out from Hallowe'en, but for this edition of the Mini Reviews, I've decided to post some thoughts on books that deal — to varying degrees — with monsters. Both the inhuman and the human kind.
Here's the lineup:
The Night Lies Bleeding by MD Lachlan
The Dinosaur Princess by Victor Milan
Daughter of Eden by Chris Beckett
The short version? These books are all awesome and you should buy and read them immediately.
Now for the longer (but still mini) reviews. As always: SPOILERS AHEAD. And if you don't like spoilers, you can just go back to working on that Yor: The Hunter from the Future fanzine you've been trying to put together for the last 35 years.
The Night Lies Bleeding, by MD Lachlan
What could possibly be worse than the old Norse god/monster wolf Fenrir coming to Earth in human form to reincarnate again and again over the ages, each time transforming into a gigantic werewolf that chews through everyone around him like a chainsaw ripping through a box of baby bunnies? Nazis, of course.
In The Night Lies Bleeding, the final instalment in MD Lachlan's superbly unsettling Wolfsangel series, Fenrir's latest avatar is living as a British aristocrat and museum curator, trying to stay detached from humanity as the UK is hammered by the German Blitz in the Second World War. But there's a difference from his previous lives, one that's more important than his social status or wealth: Previously, as a Viking, a would-be Byzantine courtier, a priest, or someone caught up in the Norman Harrying of the North, he'd only lived a single lifetime (and generally not very long at that). He'd been confined and died after each transformation and rampage. This time, however, the avatar of the wolf, currently known as Endamon Craw, has been living the same life for a few hundred years — there was no death after the transformations of the recent centuries. And while Craw has been trying to lead a quiet life, to keep away from things that might make him lose control, he's now drawn back into the inescapable fate laid out by the Norns when he's brought in as a consultant on a police investigation into a series of mutilations and murders. It seems someone else is trying to use some of the ancient runes to become a werewolf himself. Every day Craw assists with the case, he's confronted with things that increasingly prod the wolf inside him, bringing it closer to waking. Meanwhile, in Germany, a lazy doctor who doesn't support the Nazis or the war submits a research proposal to the SS as a joke, only to have it taken seriously by the occult-crazed High Command. Dr Max Voller is ordered to report — with his wife, Gertie — to Wewelsburg, otherwise known as The Black Vatican, a castle where the SS carries out abominable experiments on concentration camp prisoners as it attempts to access arcane power to win the war. Once there, he's forced to carry out his research, committing atrocities on prisoners lest he face punishment or execution, and for fear that his wife might be taken by superior officers who have their eyes on her nordic beauty. For her part, Gertie soon finds herself facing an otherworldly place of horrors as she attracts the attention of an ancient entity. And lurking in the background, the god Odin manipulates the situation to try to outmaneuver his fated encounter with the wolf.
The Night Lies Bleeding marks a departure from the rest of the series in a number of ways. On the surface, there's the basic movement of setting out from the Middle Ages to the more familiar terrain of the early-mid Twentieth Century (while probably not personally familiar to most readers, it is a time that we would have heard about from parents or grandparents who experienced the War, and its effects are still visible upon the world stage and our cultural dialogue, even more than 70 years on).
As noted previously, there's also the change in the existence and perspective of Fenrir's avatar. Not having died in several centuries, Craw carries the detachment, aloofness, and vague melancholy that we've come to associate with immortals in speculative fiction, but — and here's where the author shows his skill — Craw is more interesting than his counterparts in literature and film in that he's not just aware of how different he is from normal humans because of his long life and extensive experiences, he's not just comparing everything to the good old days (though he does indulge in these things), more interestingly, he's constantly re-evaluating himself and his own behaviour in the world that normal humans have created. When another character says something or behaves in a certain modern way (let's say not showing deference to Craw as a person of higher social/economic status), Craw's immediate internal reaction is to feel insult or anger at the breach of protocol by an uppity peasant, but he then reminds himself that times have changed, reflects on the nature of those changes, and makes an effort to adapt. And not just to adapt his clothes or mannerisms — he's not simply engaging in a masquerade to be camouflaged among the humans — instead, he goes even further, reminding himself to change his beliefs and feelings, in essence, to change a part of who he is, because this kind of evolution of the self is the only way he can survive and remain sane (aside from periodic outbursts from the wolf). You never see Connor Macleod from Highlander, or the Greek gods of Peter S Beagle's Summerlong, or the various deities of Neil Gaiman's American Gods instigating that kind of internal change of self — they remain who they are. Lachlan's Fenrir, on the other hand, despite being a monster, has that capacity (which, perhaps in the eyes of other gods — though this perspective isn't given in this book — might be part of what makes him monstrous).
But this story also marks a departure from the other Wolfsangel books in that the nature of its horror has shifted somewhat. What was most frightening in the other books was the idea of the helpless loss of self at the hands of others. The transformation of an unwitting and unwilling avatar into Fenrir, caused by the vicious magic and schemes of gods or witches — beings so incredibly more powerful than the avatars that there was nothing they could do to prevent what was happening to them, with the change being accelerated as they were thrown onto blood-soaked battlefields. The focus of the other books was also, ultimately, on the carnage inflicted by the wolf as it pursued the woman it loved, usually to their mutual destruction, with the monstrous alienness of the supernatural being front and centre. But here, the supernatural elements are almost incidental. Yes, Craw becomes Fenrir. Yes, there are people trying to use the ancient runes to create more werewolves or to gain power or the favour of the old gods. Yes, there are supernatural entities trying to control the situation. But with the story shifting into the setting of the Second World War, the real horror that takes centre stage is the very real monstrousness of facism — the monstrousness of people who became Nazis. Here, the story is moving into Dan Simmons country, where no supernatural god or monster can compare with the horror of what human beings do to each other due to hate, evil beliefs, or self interest. Yes, the previous books were set during times where human beings committed monstrous acts upon one-another, such as Viking raids, or witches confining people in caves, or the Norman Harrying of the North. But those were background elements to their stories, where TNLB presents Nazi atrocities, and the willingness of people to do them, as its central thrust. What's most terrifying in this story is not a loss of self at the hands of more powerful beings, or the transformation of a man into a supernatural monster, but rather the loss of self and the transformation of a good man into an all-too-human monster as a result of deliberate choices that man takes upon himself. It is the horror of watching a once good man becoming desensitized to the cruelty and evil around him, being too weak to refuse to be a part it, and willingly participating in it — and rationalizing this decision as the right choice — in order to protect his own life and that of his wife, but then ultimately to gain greater personal comforts and prestige. It's the horror of a person once sympathetic to the suffering of the human beings around him becoming one who indifferently sees them as disposable material. It is the all-too-real horror of a doctor transforming into a Nazi torturer. Fenrir, Odin's schemes to outwit Ragnarok, and the witch's possession all seem trivial compared to what human beings are doing to each other in World War II Europe. They seem trivial compared to what could be brewing in today's world of explosive nationalism and intolerance. It's a story that leaves the reader shaken, knowing that monsters can't be escaped just by closing the book.
The Dinosaur Princess, by Victor Milan
Others have said it, and I'll gleefully hop on the bandwagon: Victor Milan's The Dinosaur Lords books should be adapted into a TV series (HBO or Netflix would be perfect). The reality though is that rather than listen to this excellent idea; or adapt another good, original story; or create something new, Hollywood will most likely continue to look inward and rehash old properties with modern twists. Instead of a lineup of top actors astride computer-generated hadrosaurs, T-Rexs and triceratops, we're more likely to be served something profoundly lame like a reboot of Barney Miller — except, rather than a half-hour, one set sitcom, it'd be an hour-long, gritty, gore-intensive, multi-location police procedural/crime drama where Wojciehowicz turns into a pacifist Buddhist to try to overcome crippling PTSD; Dietrich is now a woman and sidelined to desk duty amidst allegations of police brutality; Harris is a mom trying to advance in her career while raising three young kids, dealing with a husband who's a world-class chef who cheats on her, and supporting an elderly mother who wants to go back to school to become an archaeologist; Yemana talks to the ghosts of murder victims; Fish is a closet BDSM sex addict; and Barney himself may or may not be on the take from the mob. You know they're going to do it. Probably with a high-octane pilot episode featuring a gun battle in the streets (a-la Heat) where the squad tries to foil a bank job by Big Blast, the guy who likes to use a bazooka for robberies. Hey, that might actually be kinda cool... Wait! What did I say? No. Must... focus... on... quality... storytelling. Really, Milan's Dinosaur series needs to be adapted for TV or streaming services, and that includes the latest instalment, 2017's The Dinosaur Princess, because it's just so visual, and just so good.
The Dinosaur Princess picks up just after the events of The Dinosaur Knights, with the people of the Empire of Nuevaropa on the world of Paradise regrouping after their defeat of the Grey Angel Raguel and its horde of mindless humans (along with some fully-aware knights and nobles who followed the angel willingly out of self-interest). The emperor returns with his court to the capital, but the victory is hollow. Apart from the appalling loss of life and the fear that another Grey Angel may come to launch a follow-up crusade against mankind, the court is creaking under the intrigue of rival factions. On one side, there's Princess Melodia, who finds herself sidelined at court, back to being daddy's girl, despite her success as a light cavalry (which means horse cavalry on a world where heavy mounts are usually duck-billed dinosaurs, but can also include ceratopsians and the big carnivores) commander during the war. But even worse, Duke Falk — the man who imprisoned and raped her while scheming to take control of the empire — has also survived the battle, and due to his bravery defending the her father, the emperor, he's hailed as a hero and keeps a senior position in the government. Worst of all, Melodia knows that if she calls Falk out, the political chaos could cause a civil war (if anyone believed her) and Falk, knowing this, takes every opportunity to cast glances and verbally needle her, savouring her inability to respond. But Melodia has a powerful ally: her many-times-great grandmother, who returns to the capital to school the princess in the castle's hidden secrets, arranges for her to learn to fight astride dinosaurs, and helps her learn palace intrigue and prepare to take revenge, because no-one goes after the old lady's family and lives to tell the tale. But Falk isn't alone either: his scheming mother has arrived and made a bee-line for the emperor's bed to cement her family's control. Meanwhile, the renegade noble Karyl has been welcomed back into the fold after leading the attack against the angel (and, specifically, after his allosaurus, Shiraa, ate it), along with his sidekick, Rob the dinosaur trainer. But the good times don't last for the pair when Karyl is visited by the queen of the supernatural fae, who has her own designs against humanity. And if that isn't enough, the emperor's youngest daughter, Princess Montse is kidnapped, with another country seemingly to blame, and Melodia's fiance Jaume and his squad of knights have to try to rescue her before war breaks out.
As with its predecessors, The Dinosaur Princess is one hell of a fun ride, treating readers to knight-on-dinosaur mashup action; court intrigue; well-rounded, believable characters; and a lush world combining elements of Medieval warfare, the style of ancient Mexican and South American empires, and, of course, dinosaurs. It's rewarding to see Melodia continue to develop as a character as she picks up skills with new tools to survive both dinosaur combat and life-and-death plots against rival families within the castle walls. Karyl and Rob are also characters that I couldn't wait to see more of from chapter to chapter as the noble tries to hold up under the political and seemingly supernatural pressures piled on top of him while coming to terms with his new lease on life, and his salt-of-the-earth sidekick thrives under new responsibilities, even as he longs for his old carefree days. As always, I also have to take my hat off to artist Richard Anderson for the wonderful sketches at the head of each chapter, and especially the cover art, which just explodes off of the book and into your brain.
And while I can't find any flaws within the story of The Dinosaur Princess itself, the overall series may be weakened by the possibility that it will remain incomplete. Tragically, Victor Milan died this past winter. The man had real talent that will be missed from the genre (his contributions to the Wildcards mosaic novels were great, and I'm sure others can sing the praises of his other novels), and his death leaves The Dinosaur Lords series hanging. That's because The Dinosaur Princess is only half a book. Just like The Dinosaur Lords was half a story, and needed The Dinosaur Knights to complete the tale of the battle against the Grey Angel's crusade, there needs to be more to tie-off the plot threads The Dinosaur Princess leaves dangling, and to give the reader a sense of completeness, or, at least, wholeness to the story. George RR Martin, a friend of Milan's, has speculated that Milan "may have another book or two in his DINOSAUR LORDS [sic] sequence coming out, but I am not sure of that." As fans of the series, we can hope that's the case, and that capable editors at Tor, possibly with the help of other writers (as we saw with Kevin J Anderson finishing The Wheel of Time series after the death of Robert Jordan), will be able to work with whatever drafts and/or notes Milan left behind to wrap things up.
If that's not the case, and there is insufficient material to work with, or an unwillingness from the publishing house or the author's estate to continue the project, then the question becomes how should someone new to the series approach it? Is it even worth reading, in the absence of an end to The Dinosaur Princess' storyline, never mind the overall plot of the series? I know some readers who are completists, and won't touch a series if the author hasn't seen it to its end. But these stories, this world, and these characters are just too good to not experience. If there's nothing further, I'd be tempted to suggest that someone new to the series could just read The Dinosaur Lords and The Dinosaur Knights. There's enough closure with the success of the battle against the Grey Angel to satisfy a completist. Does that mean that The Dinosaur Princess should then be ignored? Not necessarily. I think that anyone who really enjoys the first two books should definitely read TDP. Sure, they might be left hanging, but even if things are left open, does that matter? The Dinosaur Princess is a sufficiently good, if incomplete, story on its own to be worth reading. And, let's not forget what Emperor Londo Mollari admonished his young audience in Babylon 5: In the Beginning: "The story... is not over yet. The story is never over." So enjoy The Dinosaur Princess for what it is, as a single moment in time. More story left untold, perhaps, but more open trails for dinosaurs to tread in your imagination.
Daughter of Eden, by Chris Beckett
What if you had a chance to meet your gods? What if they didn't live up to your expectations? What if the story they told, and the values they held, were different than what you believed?
As much as Daughter of Eden features civilizations coming to terms with the reality of their gods and the durability of their beliefs and identity, this final book in Chris Beckett's Dark Eden trilogy is about the little people. Where Dark Eden focussed on John Redlantern, a combination Cain and Moses figure, inventor, and breaker and builder of civilizations; and Mother of Eden was about Starlight, a messianic figure and one of the great beauties of Eden, who tries to bring compassion to a people; Daughter of Eden is about Angie, a regular peasant who's just trying to get by. When her island community is taken over by the hard-line religious culture of the mainland (or Mainground, as it's known), Angie's people disperse and in order to survive she has to fall in with a small forest tribe of a different faith; marry (after a fashion) and have kids with a simple-minded man; occasionally allow his brother, the one-handed chief (who's a bit of a bully stuck in the memory of his glory days with the army), to have sex with her; and endure prejudice from the others for being a foreigner from a religious/political/cultural minority and because she's a "batface" (a person with an extreme form of harelip, one of the conditions common among the population of Eden due to extensive inbreeding). But Angie is intelligent and practical, and does what she has to in order to live and provide for her children. The story alternates between this present and her youth, just after the dissolution of her home community, when she took to the road as the assistant to a priestess (the people of Eden worship the policewoman/astronaut/castaway who was the mother of their race), criss-crossing Mainground from the towns and villages on the coast to the original settlement in a valley beyond the mountains where their astronaut forebears were stranded. In that past, Angie sees the importance of religious belief to the Maingrounders' self-image and ability to deal with the hardships of life, and she learns what can happen when an intelligent person questions those beliefs and is honest enough to admit a life among the faithful may not be for her. Meanwhile, in the present, Angie witnesses the arrival of an invasion fleet from New Earth (a nation with a similar but somewhat different religion — think Protestants as opposed to Catholics — founded by John after he and his followers fled Mainground generations before). As the New Earth soldiers with their superior weaponry begin their brutal conquest, Angie and her people flee across the mountains to humanity's original home on Eden, arriving, coincidentally, just before a scientific expedition from Earth. After hundreds of years, humanity has decided to find the planet its first experimental starship went to when it was stolen, and to see if there are any traces of the rogue astronauts or the police who tried to bring them home. When the Earthlings introduce themselves, first to Angie, then to their other local cousins, the people of Eden — Maingrounders and New Earthers alike, as well as other, smaller civilizations — must come to grips with the reality of meeting gods whose stories and worldview don't match up with their own.
Daughter of Eden is a smart, intelligent, and absorbing page-turner of a book. It's strength is in Beckett's shifting of gears to focus on the life and perspective of a normal person who's generally at the mercy of the more powerful people around her, and her culture, but who ultimately is important (as the regular people of the world usually are, despite credit usually going to the great) to how events play out. Angie is important not just for being the first one to spot the New Earth invasion fleet, or to make first contact with the astronauts and act as a cultural liaison to them, or discover a long-lost holy relic, but because she (again, a normal person, not one of the leaders) is the one who is telling this story, a story that will be heard by many of the communities on her world as she assumes a new role at the end of the novel. She has a voice. Despite being one of the typically downtrodden, she is a person with agency. Despite being one of the little people, she matters.
Moreover, once we meet the new astronauts and they begin to share history about the original incident involving the starship and information about the Edenites' progenitor/goddess Gela, and when they begin to share recordings left by her, we begin to see that she was a regular person too. One with flaws and worries and no grand schemes about creating a holy legacy. As Angie (and the others) learn all of this, she realizes that even gods can be little people too. That little people can be important. That they can build new, lasting things and shape the world around them.
We also see (through Angie's eyes) the new astronauts having to change their worldview too. At first, they have to get their heads around an entire world full of humans descended from just two people, not just surviving, but thriving in spite of the genetic problems from massive inbreeding, lack of modern technology or contact with Earth, and having to adapt to an alien lifestyle under the dim light of glowing trees in the darkness of a rogue, starless planet orbiting the galaxy. They have to get past their initial pity and revulsion for a people who (due to their genetic abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies, and environmental conditions) look different from Earthlings and who live in violent, technologically primitive, religious fundamentalist cultures. They have to deal with the disappointment of being confronted by a people who are disappointed that the astronauts' statement of facts has challenged accepted dogmas on Eden. And they have to see the potential in some of Eden's inhabitants to become more than they are.
A few years ago, I stumbled on Dark Eden by accident and picked it up on the strength of it's win of the 2013 Arthur C Clarke Award, and, most of all, because of its back cover description of descendants of interstellar castaways living in the biological lamplight of trees on a planet of darkness. I was glad I did, and I'm just as glad now that Daughter of Eden has wrapped things up as strongly as the series began. Buy this book.
Labels: castaways, Chris Beckett, colonies, dinosaurs, gods, horror, immortals, knights, MD Lachlan, Richard Anderson, science fiction, space travel, supernatural, Victor Milan, Vikings, war, werewolves, witches
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Robin Shantz
Robin Shantz is a life-long fan of science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between. In addition to babbling on this blog, he's also the host/producer of the Invaders From Planet 3 podcast.
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