What Do You Want, Your Modesty?

 One of the peculiarities of life is that you can go years or decades without examining patterns that you know are peculiar. Such was the case recently with the constant switch in Ancient Greek between singular and plural. This fluidity is particularly noticeable in the Chorus, and to a lesser degree in the protagonist, deuteragonist, and (if there is one) tritagonist of Greek tragedy. This environment, however, partially normalizes this movement, especially if you know the history of Greek drama. The Chorus was the primordial performer at the Dionysia, with the occasional Choregos as the equivalent of the modern soloist. The Choregos could stand out, but he was still ultimately part of the Chorus. The Protagonist emerged as a performer who could act independent of the Chorus and engage in dialogue with it. The Deuteragonist came next, although a bit too early to be a cat of any kind, and then, much later the Tritagonist. The Chorus was singular and plural from the beginning, and the Choregos could move between the numbers as necessary, but the permeability of grammatical number for the Protagonist and his kin I had assumed was the result of the elevated style of Greek drama. This was partially true, but not necessary for the reasons I had assumed.

Before I go any further, I would like to clarify that in almost all case the explanation of metric convenience is a facile explanation and diminishes the skill of the tragedians.

An investigation into Smythe's Greek Grammar, a tome of wisdom compiled by a greater intellect than mine, revealed much. There is a Plural of Majesty (S1005) in Greek, but it applies to the noun rather than the verb, as an Anglophone might anticipate. These plural nouns do impart an air of majesty to tragedy, but it is the number of the verb which is more relevant here. The verb, specifically in the first person, when plural with a singular noun, is termed a Plural of Modesty (S1008), a concept rather alien to English-speakers, except perhaps in a cynical and manipulative way. This Plural of Modesty is meant to diminish the individual and place her in the greater crowd of whichever category is currently applicable. The evidence that some individuality remains lies in the retention of the feminine. When a feminine speaker uses the Plural of Modesty in verbalization, the modifying participles remain feminine if singular (S1009). If the participles change their number to plural, the gender becomes masculine, because masculine is the default in Greek. The construction of participles render this condition especially visible. 

The permeability of singular and plural, however, is still far more common than the above would suggest. Tragic dialogue flows between the specific circumstances of the tragedy and general statements which are applicable to the circumstances (S1012), between individual disaster and cosmic horror. This fluidity renders most of the shifts of number comprehensible, with the remainder a matter of consistency of style.

The core of Greek is its facility with grammar, but even something as simple as grammatical number cannot escape (lanthanein) the pathological philosophizing of the greatest dramatists.

He May Be Invincible, But My Wallet Isn't

 At great personal cost, I have caught up to what I believe is the appropriate point in Robert Kirkman's Invincible. I cannot be certain, however, due to the reshuffling of plot elements in adapting it to a different medium. Consecutive reading renders the sense of time quite differently, but the events in-universe do occur faster than I had imagined. When Invincible first came out, I read some issues, but I was more enthusiastic about Dynamo 5 than anything else in the Kirkman universe. The events of Volumes 3 and 4 move quickly because the comic-reading audience would already be familiar with the scenarios from other franchises. Ottley's style is not my favorite, but it is neither off-putting nor fundamentally unreadable (if colors can be said to be read). I have a bad habit, driven by the impulse to cut the chaff from my pull list, of dropping series before the surprise reveal which rewards the patient reader; on the other hand, the risk of continuing a series beyond literary and financial justification would make me a sucker rather than a good and loyal fan.

    Kirkman's dialogue is reflective of the era in which it was written; for some this may be an unforgiveable sin. I do not deem it as such. Although I would not use such language now, the slur in question was used casually then, and even now there are worse and more malevolent curses. Active homophobia seems not to be a concern in a universe full of Martian invaders. The other issue, the strange relation that Robot and Monster Girl have to aging, is not problematic as much as fascinating and a problem that could only be explored using fiction. I may write more about this later. For now, I recommend Invincible, but perhaps a more graduated approach to financial acquisition.

Foundation's Fruit: Seeds

 My review of Foundation, Season One, was the last, best hope for taking this blog in a certain direction. It failed. But an autopsy is still in order. For those who hold the delusion that the original book is filmable as is, I can do nothing. Film must fill the visual voids that a well-honed story leaves to the imagination of those that have them. Foundation also faces the John Carter dilemma of appearing derivative because others have borrowed from them in another medium.

The first season of Foundation accomplishes several things. Firstly, it establishes a framework of a season-long mystery. Mystery is a fundamentally Asimovian narrative structure. Psychohistory may be based on probability, but the initial conditions are specific. Secondly, it fills in the universe; the original stories assumed that readers at the time would fill in the context from the blatant historical references. The elements which trickled in must appear more quickly in a visual medium. Thirdly, the casting corrects (perhaps overcorrects) the blandness forced upon the original trilogy by John W Campbell's preference for only white heroes.

If any franchise is going to play the long game, it is Foundation. I do not believe I can assess it properly without watching a second season.

Miracleman (Miracleman, Does Whatever A Miracle Can ...)

Marvel is incorporating Alan Moore's Miracleman, or a version thereof, into its main universe. The true miracle is that the rights situation was resolved. Given Miracleman's transformation from Captain Marvel to Marvelman to Miracleman, perhaps this version should team up with Angela, a fellow company-crossing character. Both have been written by Neil Gaiman, after all. I cannot imagine, however, that Marvel can deliver on the mood of Miracleman's world.

Made in Abyss, Season 1: Katabasis Japanese-style

 

I’ll admit, I binge watched Made in Abyss, Season 1. I’d been wanting to watch it for a while, because I like YA protagonists experiencing and overcoming horrifying scenarios, but I was put off by the rumor of Japanese images not conducive to the online reputation of American males. Thus, the opportunity to binge it without extra cost was welcome. You know things are going to become dark when the default idyllic hometown from which the plucky girl protagonist leaves has lax child-labor laws, especially for orphans. The duo of plucky yet emotional child who should not be embarking on life-endangering quests and her ridiculously human robot boy (with plot-convenient amnesia, of course) is as wholesome as animation comes. The animation itself, both of places and bizarre creatures, is Ghibli-esque. The price paid for the descent into the Netherworld (and especially any ascent) is just as excessive as it should be. Facilis descensus Averni indeed.

I am looking forward to Season 2 in 2022. But why are the Japanese so obsessed with still-birth? And why is nobody in this world concerned about the specific timing of the layer with all the skeletons?

Dustborn: Fury Road for Fifth Graders

 

Dustborn by Erin Bowman is an easy YA read set in a place that is only slightly less doomed than N K Jemisin’s geomancer trilogy. That the map at the front is critical to the plot was refreshing. The contingencies of modern book format out of universe and the awkward yet necessary placement of the map in-universe allows forgiveness for a lack of consistent absolute scale. The characters are appropriately ignorant or startled by Old World technology, as they call it. The setting appears post-apocalyptic (which is technically correct), and the astronomy is wonky, but the sheer ignorance of the locals about anything outside of survival, and sometimes even then, is an effective screen for the actual truth. When the truth is revealed, the rather shallow world building makes sense. Sometimes with YA books it is hard to tell whether a book is the first of a trilogy.

 

The names of the characters are a bit on the nose. The protagonist, Delta of Dead River, is the predictable adolescent girl point-of-view, while Asher of Alkali Lake is the mandatory love interest/antagonist. The baby doesn’t get a name until later, and Delta’s creativity does not extend to names. Nobody is particularly likeable in the harsh environment, but some people are more awful than others. The distribution of skills and knowledge makes The Masterpiece Society’s utopia look well-planned.  The plot is stolen, but no more so than many science fiction juveniles. The linguistics is shoddy, as it nearly always is, but serviceable. The thematic swearing is mildly irritating because the thematic appropriateness is not enough to distract from the awkward prosody reminiscent of “translationese.”

There is nothing revolutionary about the setting, plot, or characterization in Dustborn; it is, nonetheless, a pleasant diversion, and a wholly acceptable juvenile for those parents who find the classics a bit too patriarchal – or do not want their kids watching the Mad Max franchise. If Bowman set another story in the future (or past) of this setting, it would be welcome.

Foundation's Fruit, Part 2

 

                Another word for change is adaptation, and none more so from a medium of words to a medium of people. This is particularly important in adaptations of sources long on words and short on action, a description which epitomizes the earliest stories of the Foundation series. Many Golden Age stories suffer from this, in the opinions of many modern readers, and most lack the rigor of Asimov’s genius. There is a serialized version of Flash Gordon, black and white, but the scripts are written with radio in mind. This mismatch is jarring, even with allowances for the slower pace of action in the early days of film and television!

                The other challenge is the reflexive presentism of most of the viewing audience. Logic can tell a person that this work was produced before another work which received an adaptation sooner, but the nature of television and film, especially since the development effective CGI, is to bypass that logic. The number of people who read the book first and watch the show later has diminished, although the percentage is thankfully not yet so low as Brave New World levels. Dune and Star Wars used ideas found in Foundation, but they preceded it to television and film adaptation. The latter adaptation, therefore, must establish visual distinction from the former.

                The third challenge is a different kind of adaptation. The history of Rome upon which the Foundation series was based is that of Edward Gibbon. This is a classic history, but there have been many changes in Roman historiography since his time. Even if his thesis were correct, there are multiple other causes for the collapse of the Western Empire. A contemporary adaptation can use this historical knowledge to expand the world of the adaptation.

                The premise of the Foundation series, in whatever form it may be, is that the Galactic Empire is stagnant and will fall. There will be a period of barbarism. The use of psychohistory can reduce this period from thirty millennia to one millennium. The Imperial government does not like doomsayers such as Hari ‘Raven’ Seldon. They want to harness the predictive power of psychohistory for its own continuance. Psychohistory works through probability, not predication, but the Imperial government either does not understand this or does not want to understand this. Psychohistory is also more effective the less people are aware of it, and certainly the less people understand the mathematics.

                In the show and the books, Trantor is the imperial planet, the world-city save for the Imperial gardens. The show’s space elevator is impressive and becomes important later – there is only one dramatic reason to showcase a space elevator. The trip down the space elevator, unlike the descent to the surface in the original framing device, is visible to Gaal Dornick, the new kid who provides reasons for exposition. This visibility is partially to provide the audience with an idea of the size of Trantor; but it also immediately contrasts with Dune, in which a rule of the Spacing Guild is that nobody sees planets from space. This lack of visibility is as important to the plot of Dune as the visibility is to the Foundation series. The visibility of the space elevator also contrasts with the literal covering of the inhabited areas of Trantor and its people. The greater galaxy is hidden from the populace by a physical barrier, just as the true level of rot of the Galaxy is hidden from the Imperial Government from their own psychological barrier. Perhaps psychohistory acts as the space elevator for the entire galaxy; or maybe there are other forces at work.

                The sheer scale of everything is true to the source material, although there are only as many absolute numbers as necessary – perhaps science fiction script writers have finally learned their lesson about scale. Everything in the Empire is large, larger than you can imagine, and this should be regarded as a bad thing. There is only one technological item which is small, but it is present to show that the Empire can miniaturize if it wants to. There is also no indication of the cost of miniaturization, so perhaps it is astronomically expensive. Both this item and the robot (because no Asimov IP would be a cash cow without at least one) cover items which are (mostly) unchanging and therefore stagnant, reflecting this important theme of Foundation.

                The solution to solving the problem of showing galactic stagnation while portraying personal interactions is quite interesting. The use of Empire (rather than Emperor, and specifically without the definite) as a personal name is infelicitous but understandable, if the purpose is to show the identity of Emperor, Empire, and Imperial Dynasty. The length of the present dynasty as four centuries is coincident with the length of the Western Roman Empire, and its origin in a period of interminable civil war may be a reference to the Roman Crisis of the Third-Century or the fratricidal wars of the Constantinian dynasty. The existence of Empire is a logical conclusion in a science-fiction setting to the problems of Constantinian strife, as well as the closest thing to a God-King in a setting where religion is minimized and treated pejoratively. The action of the religious leaders on Synnax, Gaal Dornick’s homeworld, illustrate the position of the Foundation show regarding religion.

                The companion to Empire is not a Bene Gesserit, although that may be the first impression. Those who have read the books know the identity of Demerzel, but the series has changed so much that one should not assume. The names given to Empire alliterate with Demerzel, which in turn suggests Demerzel’s identity, but the demeanor of Demerzel towards Empire suggests their identity is the other character whose name begins with D that could fulfill that role – especially since Seldon’s personal life has changed from the book series. This change (if true) does raises the question of where Demerzel’s book identity is; his absence from the series, at least long-term, is inconceivable.

One last note: the brief mention of the Robot Wars on a time scale not conducive with the timeline of the books is the show’s way of saying that we know Asimov has robots and everybody loves them, but that is not the focus of this story. The show is also saying that this show is (mostly) robot-free, but this is not Dune, in which the absence of thinking machines in the likeness of a man is a conscious driving force for the society.

                The big changes over which many have panicked wait for another time. And somehow I have avoided Hari Seldon almost entirely!

Foundation's Fruits: Prologue

 

                Before I start to analyze the Apple TV Foundation series, I think it only fair to lay out my own perspective as a long-time fan of the Asimov Foundation and Robot novels. I am a fan of Golden Age science fiction, with all its flaws. I enjoy exposition, which is why I could read most Stephen Baxter novels once. I was introduced to the Foundation, Empire, and Robot series (by which I mean the novels, not the short stories) as separate series. My favorite Asimov, however, has always been The End of Eternity. All three had the same author, and therefore used similar themes, but because they were separate series, their timelines and technologies did not need to line up perfectly. Eventually I had read all the originals and moved on to the novels which tied things together, both the Robot and the Foundation series. When Foundation’s Edge brought the conclusion of The End of Eternity into the Foundation series as a legend, at first I thought it might just be an Easter egg, since time travel is not a feature of the Foundation, Empire, or Robot series. The incorporation of the critical character of the Robot series suggested otherwise. Nonetheless, I understood the unified timeline as one of the many that could arise from the conclusion of The End of Eternity rather than the exclusive one. The limiting factor in The End of Eternity was the limitation to Earth, which in turned limited the possibilities of Humanity’s development; the galaxy is orders of magnitude larger, and therefore contains commensurately more opportunities. Multiple timelines would allow not only for the divergent dates for the formerly independent series, but also timelines in which the other Asimov stories could live – particularly the ones with alien species, which are conspicuously absent in the Foundation series, both original and expanded. At the time, I was under the influence of Heinlein’s later works, whose multiverse is wild and chaotic (and a bit creepy), but I had hoped that the unification of Asimov’s popular series would at least leave room for his lesser stories in other universes. (I’m not sure where I should put this, but I had these thoughts before Nemesis was published).

I thought the unification was a mistake, like the continuation of the Pern series past the recovery of AI, but Asimov had written it and it was therefore canonical. It was a long time until I read Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation because I had confused it with the Second Foundation trilogy. I am a bit of a purist in the sense of favoring the original author and perhaps his successor if he had worked with him long-term, such as Christopher Tolkien and (originally) Brian Herbert. After I had read all five Dune novels, I read the immediate prequels and found them a decent if not necessary addition to the Dune canon, but the prequels set during the Butlerian Jihad felt like a betrayal. I had become wary of sequels and prequels not written by the original author. Once I realized that Asimov had written Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, I read them. The expansion on Trantorian society was welcome, but the reason for humanity not encountering aliens was disturbing. The reason for humanity’s lack of innovation was even worse, and absolved, at least in part, the Empire itself of the sin of stagnation. Sometimes the unrealistic elements in a story are best left unaddressed in canon for fans to speculate upon; look what happened to the simple statement about Klingon foreheads and Worf’s refusal to elaborate. I did eventually read the Second Foundation trilogy, whose authors I respect greatly, but each book felt less and less like the Foundation universe. Newer additions are Nemesis and Mark Tiedemann’s Robot series, both of which would have benefitted from a multiverse or at least a looser canonicity akin to that of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle; thus I have always thought of the unified series as one possibility among many.

The inevitable truth is that a TV adaptation of the Foundation series would have to change and elaborate even more than the later published books. The chronologically books have slightly more actions, but the chronologically earlier books are conversations and interrogations, devoid of actions and (thankfully) Heinleinian sexuality. Much like the Hobbit, the extant text was not designed to carry live action of the length necessary for modern television. There are other Golden Age texts that could sustain more action but lack the intellectual depth; there are others that have even less dialogue and more monologue. This denseness is not solely a thing of the past; Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee novels can be dense in this way. A well-timed and well-delivered speech, on the other hand, can be entrancing; this was a strength of the (original) Babylon 5. 

            The necessity of change is not just a matter of a change of medium, but of time and influence. I like to call this the “John Carter” problem. An influential work inspires imitators, or perhaps plagiarists in a less generous interpretation. If the imitators become popular in a separate medium, or the originals fade from memory, then when the originals enter that medium as a second work, many people assume that the older work is stealing from the later one. The older work then does not do well in the new medium, and the fans of the older work are annoyed at fans of the younger work who proclaim the originality of the younger work in the second medium. Even worse, the anti-creative nature of intellectual property often prevents the older work from a second, better thought-out adaptation.

I realize that I have said nothing about the Foundation Apple TV series yet, but I am around the thousand-word limit, and that seems sufficient for today.

Be Prepared: A Brief Personal Review of Vera Brosgol's Russian Scouts in Exile Graphic Novel

 In her semi-biographical graphic novel Be Prepared, Vera Brosgol epitomizes many of the experiences of going to summer camp for the first time. The manipulations of younger Scouts by specific older Scouts, the cruel mockery of teens, and the heightened drama of young hormones all ring true, as does the hoarding of candy. Someday the tale of the Boar of Pioneer Campsite will be told! The integration of boys and girls was not familiar from Boy Scout camp (until recently), but was indeed familiar from Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) and various programs put on by the Episcopal Diocese of California (BREAD - "Boy-Related Education After Dark!) The CYO experience seems most relevant in the context of not quite fitting. Vera's protagonist Vera thinks that attending Russian Scout camp will allow her to find a place where she fits in, but she is not Russian enough there just as she is too Russian in New York with her (perceived as?) rich friends and their fancy dolls and summer camps. The organization itself seems a bit out of place, a piece of Russia in America, exemplified by the Russian and American flags flying side by side. Many Scouts have been all the roles in the book: the lost new kid, the best friend, the best friend betrayed and bitter, the unexpected friend, the cool counselor, the manipulator and the manipulated. Growing up is hard. Be Prepared is terrific.

Foundation's (Middle) Finger

      The trailer for the adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation is now released, and has sparked the predictable outrage of the few, the loud, the keyboard warriors. One of the objections is the change in race and sex of Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin. No one denies that Asimov’s world is a sausage fest, not even the author himself, who admitted that his science fiction lacked women because he didn’t know how to write them. Susan Calvin, as much as I love her, has the personality of “emotionally lonely nerd” rather than “real woman.” Arkady Darrell is a plucky Heinleinian teenager. Dors Venari, whom I am sure will appear, was based on Asimov’s wife, but she appeared in the prequels published at the end of Asimov’s life rather than in his early days.

     What I find more interesting about the online uproar was the concern over race. The depiction of race was a valid concern then just as it is now, but the depiction of race within Asimov, or rather the lack thereof, requires contexualition. Asimov’s editor was John W. Campbell, a former writer and formidable editor, who was a racist. He apparently did not care that Asimov was Jewish (and who would with Asimov’s sales figures?), but he did insist that aliens could never beat humans and that heroic space adventures must be blonde and blue-eyed. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s episode “Far Beyond the Stars” portrayed this attitude with excellence. Much like the comic book market, there were few options for writers of science fiction, so Asimov decided that he would omit that part of physical description altogether. The culturally imposed racial divisions of the far-flung future would not be the same anyway. Heinlein experienced this also and hid hints of race and sexuality within his books.

      Changing Salvor Hardin to a woman, especially one of color, is a big middle finger to John W Campbell’s racist editorial decrees. Canonical Hardin is the very model of a backroom politician, not traits normally associated with “feminine” characters, but perhaps this attitude leads to television Hardin feeling more at home on Terminus than in the center of the Galaxy. This “tough gal” attitude worked for Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica reboot! Hardin’s presence on Trantor is probably a concession to a compressed time scale for at least the first two seasons and the reality of actors. A more radical interpretation of Hardin would be that Hardin is transgender: he presents as female, but he identifies as male. Given how rigid Imperial Galactic society is, that would both provide him with outsider status similar to the rest of Seldon’s merry band of misfits, but still permit him to be or become the cynical and manipulative character necessary to the survival of Terminus. Or perhaps the reveal of the true goal of the Encyclopedia Foundation will be the turning point for Hardin’s character. Adaptation opens up possibilities, not all of them negative.

Formula IN SPACE!

        The first few chapters of Andrew Moriarty's Trans-Galactic Insurance: Adventures of Jump Space Accountant resembles nothing so much as the first three issues or episodes of a mini-series which one would drop and later, after the series was complete, revisit now that one understood the importance of the interminable exposition to a serviceable but hardly exciting mystery. The initial reference to Belters suggested a story that was Solar rather than Galactic. The characters were sufficiently fleshed out to serve the plot but scarcely more than that, as is common espionage plots. The implication of a plucky girl who aids the protagonist also being a minor in modern Western sensibilities, and therefore a nod to Heinleinian heroine, was well executed by a single line. The portrayal of the ideal spy as too boring to cause casual notice was a relief from the flashy action heroes of so much science fiction.

               The greatest blemish in the plot-driven world-building is the use of the term ‘credit’ as a basic fiat unit of currency in a book starring an accountant investigating fraud! I realize that credit is a generic science-fictional unit of currency, but one would think that a story about financial fraud would be more aware of the specific financial meaning of credit and debit in balancing accounts. It is not that Moriarty should have chosen some exotic name for the currency, such as ‘quatloos'; but he should have used something other than ‘credits’ when the fictional economy uses a double-entry system. This must be the way that physicists and engineers feel about gross ‘errors’ in other science fiction novels. If you are looking for a series that begins with a space-based human civilization cut off from its parent, you should go read John Scalzi’s latest series, The Interdependency Trilogy, instead.

Back to the Brigade?

Written on June 19, 2018. A follow-up post will arrive after sufficient research.

In recent years, there have been numerous groups that have claimed that the Boy Scouts of America have lost their claim to be "morally straight" and formed their own organizations. This is, of course, their right. The phenomenon is fascinating, but scarcely new. One feature I have noted that these organizations share are that they are implicitly or explicitly religious-based, specifically Christian, if not even more narrowly denominational. These groups are, in fact, correct in claiming that they hearken back to the early days of youth organizations, but they are wrong (for the most part) in claiming that this Christian youth group mentality was the purpose of the BSA.

Many of the original troops were groups of boys from the YMCA, which at that time was a Protestant organization, but the primary motivator here was threefold: first, that's where the boys were; second, that's where pre-built facilities were; third, the YMCA was already an organization committed to the moral improvement of young men. This was functionally no different than the current reasoning that encourages troops and crews to use church basements and social halls as meeting spaces. The perceived Protestant element was so strong, however, that the Catholic Church forbade its boys from joining until 1913.

The Scouting movement already established in England had addressed this issue: although the initial testing ground for the Scouting movement had been the resolutely Presbyterian Boys' Brigade, of which there were Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, and Pacifist iterations, the Scouting method was designed as a religiously neutral method of training boys, and the Boy Scouts, once founded, maintained that neutrality. The self-organizing principle ensured that many groups were religiously homogeneous, often because they were also units of the Boys' Brigade or equivalents. This was also a reflection of the more segregated religion of the day, except in the military, from which Baden-Powell came. Baden-Powell and Brigadier Smith, the founder of Boys' Brigade worked together for many years, but the split, one of many among the promoters of the booming youth program movement, was on the relatively passive role of religion with the Boy Scout organization. Baden-Powell was adamant that duty to God was a matter of individual conscience and therefore could not and should not be administered by external forces within the Boy Scout organization. Smith, whose initial inspiration to form the Boys' Brigade had come from the union of Sunday school and military drill, could not countenance such sloppiness. This was hardly the only ideological rift among youth leaders, but the military and political aspects are topics to be discussed another time.

It is worth noting that neither of the predecessor organizations in the United States, the Sons of Daniel Boone and the Woodcraft Indians, placed explicitly denominational requirements on their members. This ecumenicism (for non-denominational, sadly, has now come to mean "very specific denomination") carried over to the BSA, although it seems that many people could not wrap their minds around the concept except in terms of military training.

Nowadays there is an organization called the Troops of St George. It is Catholic, somewhat military ( partly through expediency of Army/Navy store supplies in Texas), and incorporates father-son elements similar to the YMCA's long-defunct Indian Guide program. The truly distinguishing paraphernalia, however, is the Rosary. Although the organization is not linked to the military, nor are troops within the organization required to practice drill, the assumption of a military rank system and the explicit religious element are a return to the days of the Boys' Brigade, or in this case, the Catholic Lads' Brigade.

https://troopsofsaintgeorge.org/troops/

https://boys-brigade.org.uk/

http://www.bgbrigade.com/

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Sons_of_Daniel_Boone

http://history.oa-bsa.org/node/3039

http://vintagekidstuff.com/yguides/yguides.html

Right Place, Right Time

After a disastrous evening, full of painful walking through the dark of an unfamiliar town, in which so far the only bright light had been a pleasant surprise encounter with Grayson, I made it back to the San Leandro BART station. A man approached me from an angle I could not see well, and addressed me. I responded with the prudent reaction when a stranger approaches on BART - cautious hostility - but when I saw him, I realized that he was a Kaiser employee. He had recognized my Scout uniform. He wanted to know if the council office was still there, and if so, when it was open. I sympathized; it is nearly impossible to tell when the council office is open from an occasional glance from the street. Some buildings look open in all circumstance; others appear closed when they are not. He had been s Scout in Troops 313 and 247, an Arrowman, and a camper at Royaneh, but had lost his insignia in a house fire. I encouraged him to talk to the council about replacements, at least for 247 and Order of the Arrow insignia, and to see if any of his old friends were in the Royaneh volunteer corps.

If my evening had not gone sideways, I would not have been there; but if I had not been there, I would not have been able to help a man who truly valued his Scouting experience. I cannot prove it, of course, but I am inclined to believe the Great Master of All Scouts wanted me there at that time.

Afar: Dreams of Distant Lands and Times

Afar, written by Leila Del Duca (Shutter, Scarlet Witch) with art by Kit Seaton (The Black Bull of Norway, Otto the Odd and the Dragon King), is a post-apocalyptic tale that feels more fantastic than scientific and more adventurous than cynical, pessimistic, or grotesque. The setting is post-apocalyptic, but in the period when society has recovered sufficiently to have medieval tech cities along with the requisite scavenged and jury-rigged “tech” from the bad old times.  The mix of styles and the chimeras that replace the creatures of our era give a flavor of cosmopolitan fantasy. The art is gorgeous, neither too cartoony nor too realistic. The various worlds featured all feel different, even the one most similar to that of the protagonists’.

This is a character-driven book centered around our protagonist, a girl named Boetema, and the deuteragonist, her younger brother Inotu. There are five threads: the departure of the parents to become “salt shepherds” and their subsequent absence; Inotu’s tendency to get in trouble and force the siblings to move again; Boetema’s narcoleptic astral travel and speaking in tongues while asleep; Boetema’s possession of an alien girl, Lindu, and her attempt to repair the damage she caused during her first trip; and training in the astral plane under what (somewhat troublingly) seems to be the trickster spirit of the post-apocalyptic future. The thread with the parents is unlikely to be resolved until the end of the series. Inotu’s attraction to trouble is necessary to start the action, but his role is sidelined to that of narrator and interlocutor to illustrate the reconciliation and growing bond between the siblings. The possession of Lindu and the quest to fix the initial damage provides the requisite love interest (Inotu’s love interest is sidelined within the first act, but she does get a name!), and the astral travel possession sets up a love triangle that could be messy. Lindu’s boyfriend (and therefore that of Boetema possessing Lindu) is certain that the unpossessed Lindu will be fine with Boetema periodically possessing her, but Lindu herself has not spoken. In this universe, an astral traveler can only possess another astral traveler, including those not yet aware of their power. It seems likely that the similarity of the two damaged worlds will somehow allow knowledge of the other to benefit the other. The fifth thread, that of training in the astral plane, has barely started. None of the restrictions of astral travel have been elucidated and the appointment of a trickster god, who in lore led a boy to his death in the desert, does not inspire confidence – or, at least, suggests that Boetema should temper her enthusiasm and exercise caution.

The characters in this graphic novel are black, but race is not a theme. The action is present, but not overwhelmingly grim. Even the necessary parental abandonment is downplayed. Afar is recommended for 11 to 14-year-olds, leaning towards girls, but not necessarily, given the preponderance of female leads in YA books.

Filling the Void

“There’s Nothing There”

Created by Patrick Kindlon & Maria Llovet

Art by Maria Llovet

Letters Jim Campbell

This is a selfie celebrity take on demonic summoning and possession. Emptiness and voyeurism are transformed into something meaningful.

Reno Salletti is a rich party girl known for being a rich party girl. But when she is invited to a party that proves to be an occult summoning, she becomes a target. Befitting the subject, the initial characterization is slight, but Reno gains some character through the conflict. The extent to which she grows would spoil the ending.

There are graphic sex scenes, hardly surprising for a story that starts with an orgy, but all sex and violence depicted is in service to plot and characterization.

Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse

The apocalyptic genre has resonated with audiences for generations, despite the disapproval of parents and ecclesiastical potentates, but its star has been ascendant in our media-saturated culture for many years now. The Walking Dead has lasted (too many?) seasons, and my good friend Beth roped me into watching iZombie. The week before I headed off to Latin boot camp, I was picking up Spider-Titles at Mission Comics and Arts (now moved around the corner, not closed!), when a book caught my eye: Junior Braves of the Apocalypse, Vol. 1: A Brave is Brave by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner (authors) and Zach Lehner (artist). The proprietor, Leef, agreed that this graphic novel was right up my alley. But I would have to wait before I could read it.

When I did buy it, I was glad I did. I'm not much for zombie books or horror in general. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the setting that made me more comfortable with the premise. Perhaps it was the nostalgic freedoms denied to today's generation. But this graphic novel is now part of my BSA-themed collection.

The initial cast, especially the tribe, of the graphic novel displays the diversity one would expect of an ensemble cast with a high expected death rate. The organization itself is lawyer-proofed BSA, although many of the elements are more reminiscent of Campfire Girls (long since renamed something far less memorable) and Woodcraft Indians. The old school Scoutmaster, harsh but well-intentioned, and his assistant, who prefers a softer touch, take the tribe on a week-long camp in the woods. When they return, civilization has collapsed - there may be order somewhere, but nowhere near the location of the plot. The tribe uses its skills to avoid capture and infection, but of course there are losses along the way. One character's unconventional use of trail markings was particularly gratifying. The mix of ages within the tribe is a bit of a stretch, but these lawyer-friendly versions of Boy Scouts, often mix Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts indiscriminately, and, it must be admitted, the mixture allows a greater range of reactions.

Many reviews would focus on the boys, who are indeed well-written. But I am more interested in the dynamic between the tribe leader and assistant. Their styles are initially antagonistic, but their devotion to the welfare of the boys, despite their quite different definitions, is a refreshing change to the usual portrayals of adults in youth-focused apocalyptic tales as crazy at worst, incompetent at best - in the case of the school staff, both. The tribe is split at a crucial moment, leaving the assistant with the main group. As much as I dislike the notion that one can only relate to a character who is like oneself, it is an effective technique. The frustration and dedication of the assistant tribe leader was portrayed clearly and effectively. 

The Junior Braves' manual provides gaps between the action, in which the authors can provide the infodumps that the characters would not discuss (either because they are under attack, or already know it, or both). Various pages from the manual inform the reader of the Junior Brave philosophy, a cross between the Boy Scout Law and the Outdoor Code, the taxonomy of trail signs, knots, and first aid. It certainly seems to be more readable than the current edition of the Handbook!

The first volume ends on a positive note (well, as positive as one can be during a zombie apocalypse) and the promise of adventures in the woods of the northwest.

I would recommend this graphic novel to anybody who enjoys zombie stories and anybody who was Boy Scout. It's less graphic than the current shows, has plenty of action, and displays positive relationships, even if the ever-present threat of zombification introduces tension into those relationships. Go forth and read!

Interstitial Highways

I was travelling on my birthday - alas, not in style - when a middle-aged Asian woman, possibly Chinese, pulling a grocery cart of the common kind although it did not (yet?) contain groceries, wandered to the back of the 33. This was not propitious but not unanticipated, since strange people flow to the back of the bus. The woman was not spewing profanities, but she had an urgent question to ask the other passengers. Surprisingly, this question was not "have you been saved?" or an invitation to a meditation session at some obscures church, temple, or center. By no means! She informed us that a Chinese real estate developer (no name provided) would die very soon, and if he couldn't agree (with whom?), everything would be demolished. Maybe God is Chinese? Gods in general don't die, but it's hard to argue that the results aren't spectacular and world-changing when they do. On to the question. The woman informed us that Buddhists believe what she believed (even though she was clear that she wasn't Buddhist). She wanted to know, quite urgently, if anybody knew which planet the border of Wisconsin and Michigan was on. Apparently, not Earth. Now I've heard Madison described as another planet, but not quite so literally. After a gentleman at the back of the bus fended off her question, the location of the interplanetary nexus (in which Buddhists believe) changed to the border of South Dakota and North Dakota.

Eventually, she wandered off to ask her urgent question of others. But if the world ends soon in a cosmic building dispute, now you know why.

Names and Numbers

For years, our cabins (ours in the sense that we live there, not that we own them or are able to deny access to them in other sessions at Royaneh) at Pioneers had number only, one to seven,  although cabin seven was the most desirable, being easier to clean although farthest from the fall-ins at the junction of the road and the campsite. This has changed; although the numbers have remained, each cabin has a name, according to the donors who funded the construction of newer, better cabins, although in the same basic form as the old cabins. This pouring of money into the cabins was an expansion of a long tradition of maintaining the cabins lest they be replaced with the abominations that are more friendly to non-Scout populations but reduce the outdoorsy nature of the summer camp experience. Traditionally, these repairs were done during the Good Turn weekend, but the aggressive promotion of Camporee has thrown off that custom.

Giving something a name is a momentous occasion; it is not a coincidence that the naming of the beasts by Adam occupies a prominent position. Names give an identity that numbers cannot. Although the cabins have retained their numbers, the use of the new names - Weber, Callendar, Skewes-Cox, Ehrman, Applegarth, Morrissey, and the one I'm forgetting - has begun to rise. Will the numbers cease to be used? What will happen when a Scout who shares a name with the cabin dwells therein?

The Last Days of Forty-Niner

One summer, when I was in college and helping at Royaneh with Troop 14, a camp commissioner, whose son was in the troop, approached. He said that Troop 347 was coming to camp in the third week and urgently needed extra adult leaders. He asked me if I would help him with the leadership of that troop. I said yes. I had no summer job to which to return, and I have always believed in the Scout Law. So I was present at the third opening campfire of the year as a provisional leader, a leader on loan, as it were, from another troop. Troop 347 had a much smaller contingent than Troop 14, and camped in Forty-Niner, which lay below the chapel and the horseshoe pit. Once this campsite had contained four cabins in the same style as that of the Pioneer campsite, but erosion and weathering had reduced it from four to two plus a fire pit. The 347 contingent was small enough to fit, even though one of the cabins had a gaping hole at the back which made the building only half-usable. This 347 had disabilities - but with aid, they could attend Scout camp. It may seem strange that the council would put Scouts in a campsite with hazards for even non-disabled persons, but I am no expert in the difficulties of ADA compliance and fundamentally physical spaces such as summer camps. Every time I stepped into the cabin, I felt a twinge of fear lest someone, disabled or not, should fall through or lacerate themselves, There were many enjoyable times that session, but when I returned next summer and found Forty-Niner had been torn down, I shed no tears. Forty-Niner is now a toy-sized climbing wall to provide an extra merit badge area.

The Gilded Lily and the Golden As

[Note: Yes, I am using man meaning male; yes, it is a deliberate choice given the assumed audience.]

The Roman empire was built on military might and sound infrastructure, but monetary policy was not an area in which the Romans excelled (they probably farmed it out to the Greeks).. The Emperors had no budget - even if your idea of acquiring money is to take it at sword point from peasants, it is useful to know how much you can extract this year without having your sources dry up the next. The Empire did not understand this. When the Emperors needed more money, they made more money. The result was what one would expect from a basic knowledge of economic theory: inflation. When the Emperors discovered that make more money had not made them richer, and after they had failed to learn this lesson multiple times, they debased the currency: they used their dwindling supplies of the metals from which the coins had been wholly made in earlier eras and substituted a cheaper metal for the interior while coating the outside with the more precious metal. These later coins, although they looked the same, were not the same: gilded is not the same as golden, brazen not the same as bronze.

We use the word currency not only in reference to money, but to the qualities of men as well. An unearned award is like the gilding over the lead inside; rather than reflecting the accomplishments of the man who wears it, it deceives the world and misleads the public to believe that there is something of value where there is mostly dross. But coins and individuals do not exist in isolation. Once there are gilded coins mixed in with the golden ones, shrewd individuals will soon suspect that even the golden ones might be gilded. Once that suspicion has found fertile soil in the minds of men, the value of all the coins are reduced in the markets. It is likewise with virtue or character: it is hard won, but easily lost. The corruption of the individual, though it may often be invisible from the outside or to the unpracticed eye, once known, raises suspicions that other individuals who are in fact golden may be in truth gilded. And while in some cases this may be true, it is a human weakness to generalize from the worst to the entire group.

Thus a group which openly proclaims that its awards reflect moral values and are testaments of character must be vigilant against the debasement of its highest awards. It is far easier for the value of a coin or a medallion to be tarnished than for it to recover its former value. The latter may not be possible; then something which was bright and glorious has become sordid and stained, and the sublime reduced to the profane.

Navel of the World

On a bright Saturday morning, a hardy few Scouts and parents gathered at the Blue and Gold Ferry Building in order to seek by boat, albeit not a swift one, the island now called Angel but to many trapped therein after a long voyage to these domains hardly angelic. Across the foam-flecked waters we crossed to the harbor where the vessel lay anchor and we debarked. Our leader, though still yet a youth, spake unto the rangers and discovered that the path we had chosen was no longer passable. He sought, therefore, another path whereby we might attain the summit of the isle. After we had trod but a short while, we came to a place of rest and refreshment whose roof was made of leaves and whose seats were made of the fallen brethren of the trees. In this place we shed our vestments and donned the garments more meet for journeying.

The ascent led the faithful company through copses and fields full of those flowers whose virtue allows them to grow in this soil unto the summit. From that giddy height, thronged by many who had come to that isle, a man or boy could see all the shores that surround the mighty bay. The ground beneath was made of greywacke, a stone that is born grey but changes to tan upon exposure to the relentless air, and serpentinite, a greenish compound whose poisons forbid all but the hardiest plants to grow. Some in error call it serpentine, a more harmonious word, but those to whom more wisdom has been granted know that serpentine is but a part of the whole from which serpentinite takes its name.

The company descended to the far side of the isle, where they supped on the food which they had brought them. It was a fair spot to enjoy the fare, but that long grey isle wherein some many suffered,, perhaps justly, in part lay between the isle upon which the company sat and the fair city of tall towers and mighty hills whence we had fared that morn. Nigh unto the place of merriment were three grooves dug deep into the earth, that those warriors who once stood guard upon the isle might better aim their weapons in defense of the realm.

When the company had eaten their fill, they journeyed once more. They found a building, long abandoned, ruined but not yet wholly fallen down, wherein they played, imagining the adventures that boys do dream of according to their nature. Some, not tall enough though slender, wished that they had wings or mighty thews that they might reach the levels above forever out of reach of ordinary men. A marvelous mechanical device might have aided in the accomplishment of their desire, but the company lacked such wonders.

The company returned too early to the place where they had arrived upon the isle and from which the vessel would depart at the appointed time (or so it was hoped). Now the converse of men is good for the strengthening of brotherhood, but it would have been better if our youthful leader had used the time he had created for something other than idle games. I with another went to the house nearby, once the residence of the governor of the isle but now a place of remembrance for all that had passed upon that isle since the first Europeans set foot thereon. It may be that my enthusiasm made the sights within that building greater than they might have been, and that another more critical eye assessed the sights more truthfully.

The vessel which was to bear the company back to the city wherein they dwelt tarried in its coming, so that the number that desired to leave the isle, fair as it was, was vastly greater than the number which the ship could hold. All of the company made the first journey (the masters of the Blue and Gold had summoned a second vessel to rescue the sad remnant upon the isle). The boat itself was filled with merriment, of which much derived from the overconsumption of alcohol by those whose idea of pleasure is to eat and drink until judgment fades and impulse rules the limbs. Once the vessel neared the port of the Blue and Gold, a man in their service who fancied himself a wit warned the passengers to ensure that their vehicles, two-wheeled and painted with garish colors, not be taken by thieves and scoundrels.

Then the company landed and this tale is ended.

Sundiver

David Brin is an excellent science fiction author, but like any author, his quality varies. My more oenophile science fiction book club has chosen poorly in this regard, although it must be admitted that Brin's best is within series rather than at the beginning of one. The problem with the first book in a series is the same as the pilot for a series, except worse: it must both establish the nature of the universe and provide a compelling story. Unlike a pilot, an initial book must stand on its own, lest the book do well enough to sell but not well enough to justify a sequel. In a genre such as science fiction, a book can rely on many conventions - the quality is determined not by how common the tools are, but how the author uses them.

The beginning of Sundiver reads as though Brin had written a story that was absorbed and overwhelmed. It is necessary to establish the nature of the society that your protagonist comes from, but that can be a challenge when the real story lies elsewhere in an environment that is not conducive to expo-speak. Many of the details of this particular future history probably come from Brin's non-fiction book The Transparent Society, which would explain how swiftly and smoothly the details are covered. It would have been nice to know more about the Shirts and the Skins (although perhaps not the Spider-tracer up the backside), but it's better to have details to inspire the imagination than describe everything in detail and lose focus. If you want to describe everything, you should write fantasy, not science fiction.

At its heart, Sundiver is a murder mystery embedded in galactic politics. The basic premise of the Uplift Universe is that the galaxy is full of aliens with superior technology. The measure of status in the galactic society is 'uplifting', genetically raising client species to intelligence. Apparently R&D is expensive, since the client species have a long time of indenture before they can join galactic society as a full citizen species - the Uplift Universe is based on species, not individuals. Humans are an affront to the concept of Uplift - either their patrons abandoned them, or they are a 'wolfling' species, an occasional phenomenon of naturally occurring evolution. In either case, the procedure would have been for an established species to take them as a client, if not for the fact that Humans had already uplifted chimpanzees when first contact was made and therefore qualified as a patron-level species. Some aliens are not happy about these upstarts, but since Humans are a patron level species, the only ways to demote them are either to identify the neglectful patron species of Humanity and therefore which extant lineage should take over their education or to prove that Humans need guidance and then 'generously' offer to guide them. This ain't the Federation, folks!

The setting for the meat of the story is a base on Mercury and the titular Sundiver, a sunship which, as its name implies, can withstand the environment of the Sun - the corona specifically, rather than deeper realms. I am not familiar with a story that does so (perhaps I should borrow the Hal Clement collection from the library again). The Solarians, the inhabitants of the Sun, seemed implausible to me, but I have been informed that they are not as ridiculous I had thought. They don't seem to be especially intelligent, but the mentality of a plasma being is probably quite different than that of a carbon-based life-form.

The Library, the database that contains the knowledge that galactic society uses for many purposes, but in the context of Sundiver, schematics for spaceships. Although Earth's Library branch is miniscule compared to that of established races, its knowledge base is immense compared to that of pre-Contact Humanity. The Library is so well-established that no new research is done within galactic society - whatever you need to do, the Library has the schematics to build it. The Library, essentially, is a lazy high schooler's dream. Bubbacub, an alien from a species called the Pil and resembling a psychotic teddy bear, is operating from an assumption of superiority and is profoundly embarrassed that he cannot find any reference to the Solarians in the Library. The solely Human discovery of the Solarians validates the idea of research and cements the status of Humans as responsible members of society. Humans do have access to the Library but the database is organized according to alien principles which Humans must learn. I understand why science fiction in other media assume that any trained pilot can operated any spaceship for the sake of keeping the pace, but it is nice to see an acknowledgment of the effort to learn new systems.

Sundiver is a good introduction to the Uplift Universe, but not an essential read if you want to get into this 'verse. Like many people, I read the following book, Startide Rising, before I read Sundiver
and, really, that's the best way to approach the separable books in the series. The Uplift Universe stories never return to Earth in a meaningful way, preferring to focus on the greater galactic society and the havoc which Humans and their anomalous status produce in it.

Foundation

The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov is a seminal series in the history of science fiction. Unlike other series of its day, it is focused on dialogue rather than action. Although the Foundation series was not the first to be planned out.. The Lensmen series by E. E. "Doc" Smith has that honor, but whereas that series uses military escalation on an exponential scale to lead to the final confrontation between cosmic Good and Evil, the Foundation series shows a gradual plan to reduce the Interregnum between the First and Second Galactic Empire from thirty millennia to a mere one thousand years. The escalation in the Lensmen series is wholly military and quite repetitive, while the progression in the Foundation series takes abrupt turns but also maintains its central conceit. The later books of the Foundation series explore the fatal flaws of the previous Foundation books, but this post is about the first book, also called Foundation.

Foundation is a compilation of  the first four stories in this universe, plus a framing story that functions as an introduction. In-universe, there is already a framing device, the Encyclopedia Galactica, which manages to be simultaneously the most intriguing and the most frustrating reference guide created up to that date. It is a literary device that places much (but not all) of the exposition otherwise delivered in Golden Age science fiction by the designated mouthpiece, thus stopping the flow of the story, into a format in which exposition is expected but not conducive to a dialogue format. The inspiration for the Encyclopedia Galactica was Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which does indeed have this style of dialogue. At the same time, however, the necessities of drama create lacunae where a real encyclopedia would be at its most useful.

The framing story, "The Psychohistorians" a recounting of the young mathematical star Gaal Dornick with the elderly and illustrious Hari Seldon, founder of psychohistory, is more substantial than many framing stories for other collections that followed. It fleshes out the nature of the Empire at the time of the foundation of the planet Terminus at the edge of the galaxy. The composition of the Encyclopedia, a massive undertaking in a Galactic society more than twelve millennia old, is used as the rationale for kickstarting the process of a shortened interregnum. Dornick, Seldon, and the Commissioner of Public Safety Chen are adequately sketched out for a framing story, but there is not extensive characterization. If you do want a fleshed-out version of the founder of psychohistory, you should read Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, two books written in the twilight of Asimov's life. The details of Trantor, the Imperial capital, have not weathered well scientifically, and were subject to revision by Asimov himself in the aforementioned books. The story is well-written, but does not have the punch that the individual stories have.

The second story in the collection and the first published, "The Encyclopedists", lays out the important concepts of the Foundation series. The Empire is losing control of the Periphery, although it has not yet admitted to it. Scientific research is dead - the current generation of 'scholars' considers reading the secondary sources adequate. Even the Encyclopedia Galactica is a compilation of previous knowledge - possibly an inspiration for the Library in David Brin's Uplift Universe? The Encyclopedia Foundation on Terminus, despite its own regurgitation, is actually in a better condition than its neighboring kingdoms, where technology appears to have gone into freefall. The characters of the Foundation series are neither heroes nor villains, but merely people who have convictions upon which they act. Salvor Hardin is not a good man, but he is the man Terminus needs. Pirenne, the chief Encyclopedist, is a straw man. Lord Dorwin not only shows the absence of original research in the Empire but also speaks with an comic accent that would be unacceptable today. The conclusion of the story is not really a conclusion - the deus ex machina, provided by a holographic Hari Seldon, confirms Hardin's authority over Pirenne's, but does not explicitly provide the answer to the Seldon Crisis (another concept which this first story fleshes out), a situation that has developed until there is only one solution. The story ends with the statement that the solution to this crisis is obvious; the answer is not given until the second story. This is fine in the current collected edition, but it would be enormously frustrating to contemporary readers who, one presumes, were not informed that this was the first part of a planned series! Thus "The Encyclopedists" is a framing story that establishes a new universe through two forms of exposition and does not contain a proper ending. And yet it sold well enough to justify a sequel!

The third story in the collection, "The Mayors", explores the use of religion as a coercive force. As stated above, the solution to the first story is given in the second: Terminus now controls the surrounding kingdoms by cloaking technology in the guise of religion. The upper classes of the kingdoms, in turn, control their populaces by using the technological religion. The older generation does not believe in the religion except as a means to power, but the younger generation, raised in an atmosphere soaked in this religion, is not so confident. Religion within the Kingdom of Anacreon becomes a proxy for a power conflict, in homage to Byzantine politics. The floating throne is also a Byzantine contribution (although the Byzantine mechanism was obviously not nuclear). Hardin, as a representative of Terminus, understands the power of religion in Anacreonian society and uses it to defuse the political crisis. Hardin's character has not changed in the thirty years since "The Encyclopedists". He is still a pragmatist leading a government that pretends to be idealist. The Regent of Anacreon, an ambitious man in the guise of a pragmatist, is strongly implied to have murdered the late King of Anacreon. The teenaged and as-yet uncrowned new King of Anacreon, Lepold I, understands the benefits of power but not the delicate balance that entails. This story, at least, ends with a proper conclusion.

The fourth story in the collection, "The Traders", takes place at a later time, when the states beyond the original Four Kingdoms have seen the dependence that the Foundation's religions have created within the Four Kingdoms. Several states have banned missionaries lest their states follow the Four Kingdom's descent. The principal of this story, Ponyets, a trader motivated by profit rather than patriotism or religious zeal, is not from Terminus, a reject from a seminary. The citizens of Termius still do not think of him as "one of them." Ponyets is sent on a mission to Askone, a region which forbids the use of atomics, the very technology in which the Foundation specializes. Fortunately for our protagonist, greed is universal and blackmail is a time-tested tool. The Askonian Grand Master would lose his life if he revealed the hypocritical source of his new wealth. At the same time, however, the scalability of Foundation technology, or rather, lack thereof, indicates that this brand of snake oil salesmanship can no longer be a primary tool in the rise of the Foundation.

The fifth story in the collection, "The Merchant Princes", shows the rise of the merchants over the mayors and the priests, exemplified by our protagonist, Hober Mallow. The Four Kingdoms no longer have any pretence of power - its governments are now part of the Foundation Convention and the nobles are disinherited. Mallow is dispatched to the Republic of Korell, a de facto hereditary dictatorship. Mallow passes a test involving a trespassing missionary using his knowledge of the Seldon Plan. This makes Mallow look bad to the Foundation populace but endears him to the Commdor of Korell. The limited power source of Foundation technology, a liability in "The Traders", is an advantage here, since the Commdor wants to sell atomic beads as jewelry, and an expiration date guarantees repeat customers. The more important feature for the Foundation universe in this store, however, is the realization that the Empire is still at the center of the galaxy and still powerful. Mallow visits Siwenna, a planet on the edge of the current Empire whose history illustrates the weaknesses of Imperial power - the generals of the Empire are more interested in stripping the provinces of raw materials than keeping order, so the general populace cannot rely on even a minimum of security. This story also features the first contact between the Foundation's miniaturized technology and the Imperial technology, which still uses bulky materials as though it still controlled the entire galaxy. The discovery of the existence and power of the Empire leads Mallow to the conclusion that the Foundation will not win against the Empire in its current political configuration, but first he must survive the legal challenge that his handing over of the false missionary has precipitated on Terminus. So there is another change in the government of the Foundation, and a shift from survival in a world of petty states to anticipation of a conflict with an equal or greater power which is not susceptible to the previously used means of control.

Since this is the Foundation universe, military force is less important than sociology, but the Imperial illustration of that must wait until the next collection, Foundation and Empire (one of the tricky aspects of the original Foundation trilogy has Second Foundation as the third book!).

Jupiter Ascending

My decision to watch Jupiter Ascending despite reading the reviews beforehand was based on sociability rather than quality, so this review will focus less on the question of whether it is worth seeing in theaters (if you have a large screen at home, the answer is no) and more on the details; as such, there will be numerous spoilers.

The best way to picture the movie if you have not seen is a combination of the poor man's Dune and Star Wars with an aesthetic but not the heart. The heroine of our story is Jupiter Jones, an illegal immigrant (her words, not mine) with a stupid name and a crappy job. She is the daughter of an English ambassador's son, whose life expectency is governed by the Law of Disney, Parental Division, and a Russian woman. Her soon-to-be-late father is, of course, an astronomer, and like many scientists, is terrible at naming things, in this case his unborn daughter. The choice of the name Jones for our protagonist is no doubt meant to remind us of Indiana Jones, and therefore Harrison Ford, and therefore the good Star Wars trilogy. Our hero is an adventure – IN SPACE! The alliteration is typical of a superhero name, which our heroine definitely is not. The use of the name Jupiter, however, goes beyond this. One can tell from the spelling of their surname that the Wachowskis are Polish rather than Russian, and there is a Polish name, Juspeczyk, that is sometimes transliterated as Jupiter. The most prominent characters in comics with the surname Jupiter are Sally and Laurie Jupiter from Watchmen and the financier of the version of Teen Titans with teenage Ray Palmer, Loren Jupiter (who may be a gender-swapped version of the Watchmen character, given how the DC multiverse/hypertime tends to work). The use of Jupiter in this context makes me wonder whether the Wachowski's protagonist was Polish before the demands of blockbuster movie-making mandated that all Slavs be Russians with ties to criminal activity.

In the world of Jupiter Ascending, humans are not native to Earth – Earth is in fact a long-term plantation. I do have to give the Wachowskis credit for answering the question of why there are humans in space before it irritated the more perceptive members of the audience. In science fiction terms, panspermia, the idea of genetic seeding, is a better explanation than “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” The movie only discusses planting humans, but I must assume that other items were also seeded when the Earth humans were. The deliberate extinction 65 million years ago would certainly provide the opportunity – because of course the movie has to tie in the one extinction event that even a moron has heard of. No doubt the novelization of the movie will fill in some of these details.

Jones is important to the powers that be because she is a genetic recurrence, the exact genetic copy of an important figure in the universe. I should mention that this movie illustrates the common flaw that science fiction writers have no sense of scale. The Empire in Dune does not encompass the whole galaxy, and even the Republic and Empire is limited to its own galaxy. The use of Babylon 5-style hypergates suggests that long distance travel is not as “simple” as putting in coordinates. Since this is a movie rather than a book or television series, the limitations are not explained. But I digress. The idea of a genetic recurrence as the secular equivalent of reincarnation in a human population which is probably in the quadrillions or quintillions is a good idea. The movie makes it clear that the powers that be are looking for a genetic recurrence because the will of Jones' late identical space twin has a clause that drew attention to the possibility rather than some mystical prophecy or some Kwisatz Haderach-y nonsense. In a bit of foreshadowing, Jones is identified as a genetic recurrence when she goes into a clinic to sell her eggs, which her creepy Russian slacker cousin identifies as “harvesting” in order to make money to pay off his debts. Perhaps the Wachowskis used Russians rather than Poles because Russians are an acceptable target for ethnic slandering.

The universe of Jupiter Ascending is a highly aristocratic place, complete with Houses, servants, and planets as properties. Jones is the genetic recurrence of the matriarch (no father is mentioned) of the House of Abrasax, which is a stupid Star Wars name if I ever heard one, although to be fair there are some profoundly stupid names in Dune as well. The House of Abrasax is one of the most powerful Houses of the universe – nobody ever discovers that they are the scion of some piddling mid-rank House in adventure stories – although since we don't see or hear anything about any other Houses, the House of Abrasax might as well be rulers of the universe. The other reason for their importance is their control of the human resources (quite literally) to make the liquid that allows indefinite life provided that you can pay for it. This is not only gross, but also begs many questions regarding the function of the harvesting industry.

Let's take a look at the numbers. The human race, according to the movie, emerged one billion years age on a planet other than Earth. The Earth was seeded 65 million years ago by the Abrasax Corporation. The House of Abrasax is therefore at more than 65 million years old. Kalique, the daughter of the genetic original who exposits at Jones is 14,000 years old and the genetic original was murdered at 91,000 years old. Kalique feels that this was an abrupt and untimely end, but the movie never clarifies what is a normal lifespan for the one millionth of the 1%. This means that if 100,000 years (rounded up to the nearest hundred thousand) is an average lifespan for the member of a House, the House of Abrasax has existed for 650 generations! To put this in perspective, the Empire in Dune is 10,000 years old, and the maximum life span of aristocrats is around 200 years. Houses Corrino, Harkonnen, and Atreides have existed from the beginning of the Empire. Therefore there are at most 50 generations between the foundation of the Empire and Muad'Dib. This is still an absurdly long number of generations for one group of families to consistently hold power, but at least it is within the time frame of human history measured in generations. Assuming that 50 generations is a reasonable time span for space aristocrats, this means that a healthy life span is 1.3 million years! Even at 100 generations, it's still well over half a million years per individual. This exaggerated (and I've never had to use the word 'exaggerated' in a understated sense before) life time would explain why the children of the genetic original behave like petty infants. They are, after all, only tens of thousands of years old. Since there is no suggestion that ordinary humans such as the space navy captain, live any longer than Earth humans, the longevity of the aristocrats is dependent on the liquefied humans. This longevity allows the Houses to maintain dominance over the other races of the universe. Since there are no other products shown of similar importance, I must declare that the spice must flow! - in the most literal and disgusting way possible.

The three primary heirs to the Abrasax fortune naturally fight over control of the resources. Although two are content to use coaxing or intimidation, the third combines these tasteless but expected corporate tactics with the creepiest seduction to ever “grace” the silver screen. I can understand how aristocrats can present a marriage as a business arrangement, and I'm no prude, weaned on Greek and Egyptian myth and history but this is beyond the pale. Luke and Leia didn't know that they were related (although the ret-conned information about the Force suggests that they should have), Jaime and Cersei Lannister have some level of affection for each other, and Pietro and Wanda have serious psychological problems, but a son marrying his own mother (from his own, genetically-oriented perspective) is creepy beyond words. That said, this lack of concern about genetics in a future space society is nothing new. The Spacers of Isaac Asmov's Robot series show no concern for kinship outside of reproduction, but this is made more palatable by an exaggerated avoidance of the Westermarck effect. Not so here. Jones rejects her own son's sexual advances before agreeing to the political marriage.

The aesthetics of the spaceships is different, but not as impressive as some of the reviews indicated. Perhaps a contemporary audience has been spoiled by the abundance of movies and especially video game designs. The extensive use of force fields in the construction of the spaceships is definitely futuristic, but immensely impractical. Here is seen the benefit of using actual models at some stage of world building. There is considerable latitude in spaceship design once you are free of atmospheric considerations, but wide freedom does not equal absolute freedom. If there were peace throughout the realm and nothing ever crashed, then perhaps detached parts of a spaceship would make sense, but it is an absolute that in any adventure set in space the power will fail. In a world full of million-year-old aristocrats, I wouldn't place much faith in the detachable parts having adequate life support or engine capability.

MLK Hike 2015

On Saturday morning, a horde of red neckerchiefs assembled in the Bear Valley parking lot of Point Reyes National Seashore, ready for the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend backpacking trip. Three days and two nights is not a very long trip, but it's the best one can manage during the school year with a miscellany of 'winter vacations'. Sometimes the diversity of the Troop is also a liability. At this point, everyone was clean and energetic. The two Philmont crews had decided that this trip was mandatory in order to test their gear and skills for the summer; this decision considerably swelled our numbers. The smaller Scouts were there also, with all the enthusiasm and boundless energy of the truly young; inexperience in backpacking would dampen this, but not extinguish it.

When the First Emperor ordered maps to be made of all the great roads of his realm, he commanded that the distance in li (imperial miles) be measured in time spent travelling rather than absolute distance, and that the roads be measured both uphill and downhill. On the first day of this trip, the intrepid Red Horde learned the truth and wisdom in this approach. The distance to Sky Camp was not far, but the journey was entirely onwards and upwards (with apologies to C.S. Lewis). The first stop involved a good deal of pack adjustment, as the contents that were still in the city were moved by the rhythm of the trail. When the group crested and then descended, albeit briefly, into camp, everybody set up camp. The wind of the last time the Troop camped here was absent, greatly aiding the speed of setting up. But the gnats, o the gnats, the gnats swarmed around anything breathing out carbon dioxide.

The first event of the afternoon was a round robin of skills. These included orienteering, outdoor safety, proper packing, and of course knots - it wouldn't be a Scout outing without knots. The stories of outdoor safety seemed to become more gruesome and exciting as the groups rotated. After the learning came the fun: the troop divided into two teams and played a game of Capture the Flag which proved to be more hotly contested than most. In light of this dispute, a rematch was scheduled for Sunday night.

Saturday's campfire was (sadly) a Nalgene (c) campfire, since Saturday had been declared a Spare the Air Day. It is annoying, but probably not accidental, that many Spare the Air Days are the same days a group like this might go camping and want to build a fire. For those who do not know what a Nalgene campfire is, I shall explain. Concern for fire safety sometimes, and more and more frequently often, trumps the traditional focus ("hearth" in Latin) of a roaring fire with Scouts around it singing and entertaining each other. Although the heat of the fire on a cold January night is the most noticeable feature of the traditional fire, the way it provides light is a second important role. The third function is the designation of the stage on which the skits are performed. Without a true fire, the heat is absent, but the other two roles can be supplied by a "fire" consisting of flashlights and Nalgene bottles of different colors. The effect is a cold rainbow that illuminates the performances.

The actual performance at Saturday's campfire was no better and no worse than other recent campfires. The food group skits were undercooked, and one was raw - the players were arguing on stages about the skit so long that they ran out of time! I would say more, but I suspect that my dissatisfaction with the skits, although justified, is somewhat colored by my own unreliable memories of my days as a patrol leader. The food group songs were enthusiastic, but the singers often did not know some of the key lyrics. The Troop songs and yells, however, were enthusiastic, and my traditional song worked almost perfectly. The Troop heard some stories about the San Francisco Giants.

That night, around half past nine, the fog rolled in, making everything unprotected extremely wet. For many, this was not a problem: I, however, was sleeping outside. The important parts of my equipment remained dry, and the exterior of my camping pillow (which was now outside my sleeping bag, as I was resting my head on a sweater) proved its durability and usefulness.



Sunday morning was cool and wet, very unlike the dry weather of the previous trip. Even with the unintentional late start, squarely blamed on the boy leadership, there was no chance of truly drying anything, and a few insects were packed with the boys' gear. Everybody filled their water bottles before we left because there would be no opportunity for resupply between Sky Camp and Wildcat, our final destination. The group left Sky Camp at a brisk pace. The woods were cool and the path was easy, but then the group reached the first fork in the road, and the leadership determined that they had led the group a half-mile the wrong way! There was nothing to do other than turn around and dismiss the mistake (unconvincingly) as a "warm-up". It's better to make such mistakes on a trip such as this and learn from them rather than on a trip where there are higher consequences for errors!

The morning was all downhill through the fog, thick enough to cool but thin enough to see clearly - ideal hiking weather. A steady downhill, even in these conditions, begins to weary the legs, but cool weather may not last, so one must take advantage of it when one can. This fog lasted a surprisingly long time.

As the group was approaching the descent to Arch Rock, the sole of my boots detached. I was forced to changed into my camp shoes. which fortunately were tennis shoes rather than sandals. Nor was I the only one whose boots failed - one of the fathers suffered a similar loss. I do not recommend the trail to Wildcat in tennis shoes, certainly not with a backpack.

When the group reached Arch Rock, the Troop ate lunch amidst the day hikers.  Arch Rock is a knob that sticks out into the Pacific. Its top is bare and sandy, with a few scattered rocks. Its edges gradually curve into the surrounding abyss. It is a scenic spot, but somewhat disconcerting. The remaining water supply was considerably greater than that of last time, since the fog had had provided cool weather almost the entire descent.

After lunch, we ascended the hill that was the first barrier on the journey to Wildcat. The initial climb is clear and then gives way to a forest track with many side-tracks, probably deer trails, descending into the brush. Near the first crest was a viewing station, although few members of the Troop took advantage of it, preferring to get as much rest as they could. Past that point, the trail was easy but deceptively long - several cool, covered stretches were nearly identical and planted false hope in the weary soul. The descent into Wildcat appeared at last, and the group lost all the altitude that it had gained since leaving Arch Rock.

We pitched our tents and set up our food areas as soon as we reached Wildcat. This time we did not discover a field mouse nest in one of the food boxes. Wildcat was more crowded than last time, so playing Capture the Flag in the campsite was not feasible. The boys headed to the beach, where they played the second round of the MLK Capture the Flag series and soaked their feet, swollen from the long day's march, in the Pacific Ocean. One food group had split the duties of grubmaster and had a failure of communication; this group was coping admirably with a skimpier meal, but the other groups had enough food to share, whether that was the result of Scout spirit or a practical desire to dispense of food before the next day's hike.

The campfire was once again a Nalgene campfire. The skits were more creative than Saturday night, but I could hardly believe my eyes when one group performed the very same skit as a different group had performed the night before. The song were once again enthusiastic, and the fathers who had come on the trip performed a medley as their contribution to the campfire. There were, of course, more Giants stories.

After the campfire, there was a conference of the leadership, both boys and adults, for debriefing, discussing any disciplinary issues, and planning the next day's route. The Senior Patrol Leader had not been the previous MLK hike on which we traversed this route, so there was much discussion on which route back to the Bear Valley parking lot would quickest, most efficient, and involve the least backtracking.

This night, many Scouts, especially younger ones, decided to sleep under the stars. The weather was drier and windier in Wildcat than Sky Camp, but I was a bit concerned that the little Scouts would not be warm enough. Fortunately, that concern proved unwarranted - some had friends' tents to which they could retreat, while others had the latest, warmest sleeping bags and the ability of all small things to burrow.


On Monday morning, the Troop rose early, although not as early as last time, when the Troop had risen before dawn and ascended the first hill home in the half-light. Further delay, but a necessary delay, came from breakfast. Scout's Own, the non-denominational service which normally takes place on Sunday morning, took place on Monday - given the nature of the long weekend, Monday was an appropriate time for serious contemplation. Scout's Own took place on a knob overlooking the Pacific. The waves crashing behind the emcee and the speakers were so loud it was sometimes difficult to hear.

Once the other adult whose shoes had dissolved had an adequate (though not ideal0 pair of shoes and a large portion of the pack of the struggling little Scout had been redistributed, the Troop headed up the trail. The ascent looked less intimidating in full light. The first crest, indicated by the presence of a water tank was encouraging, but it proved that my memories of this trail from two years ago were rosier than warranted on the matter of the amount of uphill and fire road. It was cool while we traveled. As usual on the last day of a trip, part of the route was trudging steadily onward in anticipation of civilization and a visit to In 'N' Out. The Troop made good time and reached the Bear Valley parking lot an hour later than the last trip.

It's always hard to end these accounts, since a good trip often lacks a dramatic ending - if real-life adventures ended the way stories and movies do,  life would be exhausting and terrifying. The MLK 2015 hike had its ups and downs (both literally and figuratively). It will be remembered well by those who were there, and the unpleasantries will fade away soon, leaving only the recollection of an exciting weekend hike.

Foundation's Finals

The expansion of series beyond their freshness date is a common practice. One can thank the Galactic Spirit that Asimov did not have a child who co-authored with him in his dotage and then continued to dilute his (or her) literary heritage. The final duology of the Asimov-penned Foundation series, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, connect the Robot and the Foundation series far more ably than Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. Although Golden Age series are not as dependent on a Future History as contemporary science fiction, it makes perfect sense that Asimov's last books would connect the characters who represent his most enduring concepts, psychohistory and the Three Laws of Robotics. The connection is far less awkward than the Future History multiverse of Heinlein where everybody sleeps with Lazarus Long! Asimov still has not learned how to write women well (although he certainly appreciates their attributes more publicly than in his classic works), and it's not entirely surprising that that the female companion of the legendary psychohistorian is a robot rather than a woman.

The nature of prequels is a loss of surprise and historical inevitability, but the very conceit of the Foundation series makes this an asset rather than a liability. It may be a bit depressing, however, when the audience knows how many people are going to fail. The tendency of fictional characters to adopt rather than breed is puzzling - in a tight timeline, such as a comic, it is an understandable shortcut, but in a fictional biography of a man who lives a full lifetime, it is puzzling. One almost imagines that there is some sort of aversion to biological granddaughters in fiction!

The revisions in the geography of Trantor are a necessary evil, although the time when Trantor was domed over appears to have been moved forward considerably from the Empire novels. Eras in the Asimovian amalgamated universe seem to be more important in terms of sequential events than absolute dates. The trio of Seldon, Daneel, and Dors Venabili suggests that Asimov would have liked to revive Susan Calvin for his final novels but could not justify a second time-travel incident like that of Joseph Schwartz, especially after the swerve from temporal to spatial research in 1932.

One of the advantage of a novel written by the creator of a series is the restraint in adding discordant elements. The robot-idolizing inhabitants of the Mycogenian Sector and the previously unmentioned rise to high office of Hari Seldon are additions rather than intrusions. Although aliens appear in other works by Asimov, the focus of the Robot-Empire-Foundation series does not allow their participation in the principal narrative; thus the spare focus of a Golden Age 'verse is preserved.

Selma and Suspension of Disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is an essential component of the cinematic experience, aided and abetted by that human faculty that gives rise to stories, lies, and Plan Bs when the world seems set against you. The darkness of the cinema, only recently swept clear of the glare of cell phones, is a sensory deprivation which the audience has chosen in order to clear the palate for other sensory experiences. This voluntary immersion is especially important for films that take place in other times, whether in the past or future. Selma is about the past, although its release date suggests it is the past representing and commenting on the future - the Chinese government once banned films set in the past for this reason. This representation, however, may not be exact, and above all should not be explicit. The power of such messages are that they infiltrate the mind, allow the audience to ruminate, to understand where the parallels are not exact and thereby encourage a creative response to the social crisis so addressed.

The inability of the creators of Selma to get the rights to use the actual words of Martin Luther King, Jr., is not necessarily a liability. Every school child has heard "I have a dream" so many times that there is a substantial risk that the audience will gloss over it. The torturous rewrites that this legal barrier triggered may have cause audiences to pay more attention to the message. These rewrites, however, are very much in character for the era and therefore do not disrupt the audience's immersion in the narrative.

This immersion lasts throughout the film, only to be broken at the last second by an intrusive song referencing the incidents in Ferguson. Even if King's Selma march were the right comparison to Ferguson, the insertion of this song indicates an astonishing lack of subtlety in an otherwise well-constructed film, the cinematic equivalent of crying out another woman's name in the moment of passion or the study guide that turns a work of literature into a school assignment. The only possible conclusions to be drawn from this are either that somebody involved in the film did not trust his audience to understand the parallels (in which case he should have made a better, more focused, film) or that the parallels between movie and reality are not as strong as the auteurs would wish, and that the addition of the final song is a desperate attempt at "relevance".

Review: In Real Life

Just finished In Real Life, the graphic novel by Corey Doctorow and Jen Wang, selected for Mission Comics and Art's book club meeting which (sadly) will be lacking yours truly. The visual equivalent of a short story, IRL tells the story of Anda, a teenage female gamer who develops a social conscience through her experiences in-game. IRL has a rather simple plot, structured around bullying and gold farming, the practice of hiring cheap labor to mine in-game objects for real cash value, (which of course is not reflected in the pay of the labor force), The exploration of how a perceived injustice on one level (i.e., in-game), may reflect an injustice on another (i.e., in reality) is well-constructed. The characterization is a bit shallow, but sufficient for the short format and appropriate to the personalities of many teenagers. The art has fluid, rounded lines; the portrayal of the female form in the real world sequences is neither idealizing nor grotesque - there are more straight lines and generic shapes in the online world.