Monday, December 1, 2014

Foundation's Filming

Warning: This writing assumes that you have read the entire series, and therefore does not avoid spoilers.


The recent announcement that HBO had bought the right to make a Foundation series, based on the Asimov books, raised some issues. On the one hand, if there’s any company that knows how to treat a book franchise seriously and produce a quality television show, it’s HBO (the disaster that is Will Smith's I, Robot still stings). On the other hand, the Foundation series has some liabilities as the basis of a mini-series or multi-year series. Asimov’s stories are heavy on dialogue and short on action. Although a television show can tolerate talking more than a movie, there must be some action, a feature which is conspicuously lacking in the Foundation series. Furthermore, a key component of psychohistory in the Foundation series is that the actions of individuals do not matter; what matters is the mass socio-economic movement. One might note that this lack of individual impact is the exact opposite, the 'Star’s End' as it were, of what audiences seek in movies and dramas. The collapse of an Empire is a messy affair, and there are many action sequences from which to draw, but would they hold an audience as tightly when the premise of the series is that they will not only fail, but fail to have any impact whatsoever?

Hari Seldon himself is a rebuttal to the notion of psychohistory – it’s hard to imagine more of a personal impact than shaving more than 90% off the Galactic dark ages. The Mule, everybody’s favorite mutant, derails the Seldon Plan, and only the efforts of the Second Foundation reestablish its proper course. Arkady Darell, the plucky escapee from a Heinlein juvenile, not only turns out to be special, but is even a descendant of one of the earlier protagonists, Hober Mallow. It must be admitted that Terminus was settled by a very small founding population, but the idea that one family produces many descendants who have an impact on the history of the Galaxy is redolent of a different, more fantasy-oriented, franchise. Certainly, young Miss Darell would not appear soon in a Foundation series, but if it were successful, there is not a chance that the series would not cover the Mule.

If it is not possible to look to the (First) Foundation for individual actions with consequences, perhaps the Second Foundation is a font of drama. Yet the Second Foundation is not a league of assassins, but a secretive order that nudges the masses when they unwittingly seek to thwart the Seldon Plan. It is hard to imagine something more anticlimactic on screen than a mental push (not even spoken) that causes the individual’s grand plan to fail. Its dramatic success in the Foundation stories is predicated on the ability to treat telepathic communication as vividly as oral communication.

There are some positive aspects to a Foundation series. The key one for HBO, of course, is that it is a true classic science fiction universe which antedates Lucas’ pastiche of ‘40s entertainment. Galactic empires are not, of course unique to Asimov, but the Foundation series possesses elements present in the Star Wars universe that can draw in fans of that franchise while avoiding copyright lawsuits on the part of the Mouse. Trantor, Terminus, and the other one-biome planets are a familiar element to audiences; their distance from Earth mostly prevents the problems of the march of science that John Carter presented during his adventures on Mars. The lack of physical description in Asimov’s stories facilitates casting – although it would be interesting to cast an Asimov look-alike for the part of Seldon. Much of the visuals come from the book covers – at least those which bear any relevance to the contents! The names of Galactic planets are based on classical or pseudo-classical names, providing both ease of pronunciation and coding the nature of the planet. Asimovian nomenclature is mercifully free of the meaningless apostrophes of some science fiction universes, and no debilitating dependence on the ‘exotic’ letters of the English alphabet separates the Foundation universe from Game of Thrones. Even the common language, a frequent stumbling block but necessary evil of the fantasy and science fiction genre, is justified in the Foundation series since the Galactic Empire is a stand-in for the Roman Empire and the common language for Latin. The lack of aliens in the Foundation universe distinguishes this universe from all the other currently active science fiction franchises that operate on a galactic scale.


Being an Asimov fan in the impending arrival of the Foundation series is much like being a citizen of Terminus under the Seldon Plan: you have no control over the many elements coming together, but at least you don’t have to put up with 30,000 years of development hell.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Window of the Soul

Recently, I was reflecting on the idea of cleanliness - clean in body and mind. An unclean mind is a bit like a dirty window - when the window was clean, someone could look out and see the world and other people clearly, but now that it is dirty there are spots where all you can see is the dirty and muck adhering to the window. In those spots, unlike the clean areas, the scene never changes. If you allow the window through which you see the world to become begrimed by these specific forms of filth, every time you look out you will see that grime imposed on the otherwise changeable scene. Even worse is gunk on your side of the window, which you could remove more easily than the grime on the outside. Thus, if you have some interior blemish of soul or mind, you will see that blemish in others and treat it as a normal part of the human condition. So perhaps if you see a fault in all men, you should check that your own window doesn't have some gum stuck to it!

Monday, October 6, 2014

Sand (Hugh Howey)

All good science fiction stories have an element of parable to them; sometimes this element subsumes the harder science, not to the extent that it becomes fantasy, but rather to avoid too many info-dumps. Sand takes place in a world that is devastated, desiccated, and depopulated, where the poor scavenge the sands for the remnants of old civilization in a process of diminishing returns. This is a world where the poor are hucksters, thugs, and prostitutes, while the rich hide behind walls and pretend that their security and status is not built upon the same shifting sands as the poor they revile. There is little about the wealthy in Sand; this is a story about those who little, if even that much. The inhabitants of these shantytowns have a better physical situation than the Fremen of Dune, but a poorer spiritual one.

Scavenging the remnants of the past is the only thing that makes living outside the walls tolerable to the wretched poor. The way in which the same item that once was cheap and plentiful has become a rare artifact creates a permanent impression on the reader. The protagonists, with one exception, make their living by diving for these relics in suits designed to control the flow of sand around them and selling the relics. As in any good sea yarn (and here it would not be remiss to remember that the name 'Sahara' ultimately means 'sea'), there is a hidden realm, rumored to be replete with riches, the fabled city of Danvar. The discovery of the hidden city initiates the bloodshed.

The characters are almost wholly the members of a family whose father fell from a position on power on which his grasp was less than sound, and then deserted his wife and children. His wife is a fallen woman, both through the desertion of her husband and the choices she made later out of desperation, which temporarily fed her children, but would drive them away in the long term. The eldest of the family, born before the family's fall from grace, is the best adjusted and least bitter, but she perpetuates the family habit of eventually betraying the trust of the younger members in order to seek her own self-interest. This betrayal teaches the next eldest that there is no support, even within family, and triggers the next betrayal. The next sibling, the eldest brother, is a ne'er-do-well whose discovery of Danvar precipitates the plot. The middle brother is waiting for his chance to abandon the youngest brother, who will then be alone.

The geology and linguistics are inconsistent. Enough time has passed that the stars of Orion's belt have spread visibly, the city of Danvar is buried a mile deep, the Rockies have crumbled to the extent that the peaks barely rise above the surface of the sands (the Waterworld effect), yet the name of the hidden city remains barely changed, and, more egregiously, the names which the mother of our protagonists gives her offspring are modern names which still have the modern meanings! These errors are less offensive if the story is viewed as a parable, a warning against things to come, exaggerated for the sake of memorability.

The conclusion is a combination of Steinbeck and Exodus, a satisfying ending to the story of a family that must make great sacrifices to overcome their lot. The ending is positive, but with the realistic ambiguity that Hollywood loves to excise.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Revealing the End Among the Dry Dust

Civilization is a tenuous construct, and this is illustrated nowhere more plainly than in Eric Cline's 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Cline demonstrates how the civilizations of that area - Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, Mycenaean, Ugaritic - were tied together by trade rather than isolated civilizations and how the best evidence of this trade lies in the exchanges of wealth among the elite, not only in (relative) imperishables, but also in the more fragile goods, whether worn or consumed. He further shows that there were merchants of foreign nations in the capitals of these nations, possibly for generations. The specter of imprecise archaeological chronology rears its head, but Cline handles it as well as can be expected. The source material is richer than in past decades, but all archaeology is feeding on scraps! The interconnection of the civilizations presents a clearer picture of the post-apocalyptic past, but muddies the waters of the lives of the survivors, since the equation of new pottery forms with invasion and a new population is no longer a Euclidean equation. Cline's book is informative, but written in a style too dry for the casual reader, and not technical enough for a professional. Some authors have the skill to walk the via media: in this book, Cline is not among that company.

Monday, September 22, 2014

The Power of One

First of all, a caveat: I wrote this for my book club, so it is a book review that presumes that you have read the book. So, while I often talk in generalities, I do not avoid all spoilers. You have been warned.


I was almost finished with The Girl with All the Gifts, (the cheaper Hachette link is not working right now) by M. R. Carey and truly enjoying it when it occurred to me to look him up online. Then I discovered that M. R, Carey was the pen name of Mike Carey, the author of the 11-volume Lucifer graphic novel series, which I highly recommend, as well as the Unwritten graphic novels, which I started but lost interest in (they weren't bad, though - check the first volume out, and make up your own mind), and the Felix Castor supernatural mystery series, which I have not read. Carey's origins as a comics writer and a screenplay writer are important influences in the strengths and weaknesses of The Girl with All the Gifts.

At first glance, The Girl with All the Gifts has two strikes against it: it is a zombie book (herein called "hungries") and its protagonist is a precocious girl. Either of these, if done less than well, could have ruined the book. The protagonist, Melanie, is a hungry who has maintained her intelligence. Melanie's character is fleshed out (so to speak), and her mentor/schoolgirl crush, Miss Justineau, recieves some character development, but the other characters who round out the principal quartet, Sargeant Parks and Doctor Caldwell, are shallow. The characterization of Parks improves as that of Justineau goes fallow. Melanie is a strong enough character on her own, but the plot demands interaction (it's a zombie book, after all, not a "last man in the world" book), so there is a lot of Justineau in the beginning. Justineau is the force that explains why Melanie is "alive", rather than cannon fodder for Parks' men, and a quite different novel could have been written about Justineau's project. Justineau, however, is fundamentally a plot device in Melanie's world, so once the quartet leaves Justineau's natural domain, her characterization withers and dies on the vine as she persistently engages in mind-numbingly stupid objections given the post-apocalyptic world she lives in. Sympathy for the devil is one thing, giving him your credit card is quite another.

To make a long story short, bad things happen (because of course they do, because it's a zombie book), and the merry band hit the road. Justineau becomes baggage, and Melanie and Parks become the important duo. Parks' changing attitude to Melanie is not really character development as much as revelation of a constant character in differing circumstances. He does not learn as much as one might think, but to say more about that would spoil the ending. Melanie's relationship with Caldwell remains (justifiably) hostile.

The limited sociological detail in the novel is reasonable, since this book is not about the society, but rather about the coming of age (in a strange way) of a little undead girl. The scantiness of the personal relationship is more troubling. The Girl with All the Gifts is not only a novel, but also a screen play, written simultaneously; apparently, the novel's multiple viewpoints are collapsed into the single viewpoint of Melanie in the script. The paucity of description of characters in the book is probably interference from the script process, as are some of the graphic scenes that only touch lightly on the plot. Both movies and comics are collaborative art forms, which means that they are both more than the sum of their parts and divided in complimentary tasks. Some of the details absent from the book would be filled in by the illustrator in a comic or the set designer in a movie.

The scientific explanation of the apocalypse makes a fair amount of sense - at least, it explains how the walking corpses are walking. The explanation of Melanie's functionality is good, as far as it goes. It does answer how a ten-year-old hungry can maintain intelligence, but there are some confusing and inexplicable things about her existence to the ten year mark - human babies don't map perfectly onto animal babies. Only Melanie's total lack of knowledge of her life before captivity excuses the lack of an explanation. The complexities of Carey's other plots makes it probable that he does have one. The resolution of the plot, which is closely tied to Melanie's nature and others like her, is cold and logical, yet hopeful. It would be nice if the movie does not have an artificially happy ending, but Hollywood is rather hopeless in that regard. As in all zombie books, the solution is (or seems to be) a temporary solution, but it does further the standard "future history" of the zombie apocalypse from one generation to two generations. If The Girl with All the Gifts catches the imagination of the zombie-mad masses, I expect that there will be further exploration of undead incubation, child care, and post-human civilization.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Canoe Trip 2014

We gathered on an early Saturday morning in a place from which we could see Angel Island and sites across the Bay. The exercisers arrived before the boys did. A prompt departure was a challenge - military efficiency is not expected, but we still failed to leave before the arrival of the legendary Late Scout. The trip up to Burke's Canoe Trips was uneventful, with some delaying on the road longer than others for their cappucinos. In previous years, a Troop father had generously allowed us to camp on his riverine estate with an apple tree much beloved by small Scouts, but in this year the house was undergoing renovation, so we could not stay there. I could not find the cord which I had bought for this trip and with which I had intended to secure my drybag, so I had to use my shoe laces. Part of being prepared is knowing secondary uses of objects! The supply boat carried our extra water, which our leader had managed to acquire. The first challenge of the river was a choice between a portage and a particularly swift and bushy curve. Many of the Scouts chose to portage, but with skill we avoided the worst traps of the curve.

When we had passed this, we saw a cormorant gliding along the river, heedless of the canoers invading his realm; there were many revelers this weekend, since those who sought adventure had adapted their expectations to current drought conditions. We also saw ducks in a row - I had thought this an image drawn from the repetitive targets of carnival hucksters, but it is a real phenomenon. Six or seven duck were perched on log in an eddy, craving the algal growth below them.

The Troop dad, who had gone home to fetch his kayak, now joined us for a stretch. He was good company and he left before the journey back up-river became too long. The cormorant appeared again, this time on the stump of a high tree, with its wings spread out. Majestic and serene!

The campsite which we had found in lieu of the apple orchard was a RV campground, so we held out  few hopes for it, but our site was surprisingly pleasant and large. It was much better than the land on which we used to camp, the land of the Pomo tribe, which held a large dirt patch and an over-priced convenience store. One Scouts had forgotten his kit, so I lent him one of my two bowls on the promise of a thorough cleaning and remembering to bring his supplies next time.

There was a proper fire pit, so our campfires had actual fires, a nice change from the creatively arranged but hardly warming translucent Nalgene bottles illuminated by flashlights.The skits were in the low moderate range, not bad for the beginning of the year. The yells were reasonably creative, and all the songs were off-key. I spoke on the history of canoes, a rough, unpolished speech, but most works start as uncut diamond.

The Troop settled down quickly after the campfire ended. I had forgetten my warm top for sleeping outside, but the second, interior drawstring of my sleeping bag provided a more than adequate cocoon. The spot which I had selected was ideal, as far as dirt patches go - flat, no sharp rocks or tree roots, no overhanging tree branch to drip on me in the morning. That last proved not be a concern, since the place was too dry for dew. The older boys had decamped to a lower grassy field, but around midnight they returned from the mosquito-laden mere that adjoined the grassy area.

In the morning, the adult group had no breakfast, but a combination of personal rations and an overflow of apples from one of the Scout groups solved the problem. There was a brief Scout's Own, done sufficiently and briefly. By this point, there was only one parent to choose as the speaker.  We returned home early, but everybody had had a good time.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Gorgeous? Only Mostly.

The current exhibit at the Asian Art Museum is entitled Gorgeous, one of those pretentious adjectival titles so beloved of show organizers scrambling for a label, any label, to encompass the miscellany they have scrounged together. My sweetie wanted to see the show, so we went on a pleasant Saturday. The ticket price was reasonable. The exhibit was divided into four parts, although the sequence was not apparent without explicit guidance. I'm still not sure what the justification for the division, other than space, was. Many of the items were very beautiful, quite a few were fairly pretty, some were baffling, and a very few should not have been in an exhibit entitled Gorgeous! The statue of Michael Jackson and Bubbles (the chimpanzee, not Fred Astaire's tap dance tutor) was pretty - a bit tacky and shiny, and something which the Ancien Regime would have loved. The abstract art, especially the paintings, held a tenuous position - my beloved could see no worth in them, but I had to concede that the proportions followed a pleasing geometry. The display of an iPhone offended my very sense of art - not a block carved or painted in the shape or colors of an iPhone, not one constructed or mutilated by the artist, but just an iPhone. Found art requires a context - otherwise, it's just an object! The display of an iPhone as art should also serve as an indictment of the art- and music-starved education of the millennial generation.

A different item which suffered from lack of context was the quartered pile of rubble in Room 4 of 4. If it were in the vicinity of a bombed-out building like those of Cocteau's post-World War II Orpheus, or next to Grace Cathedral when the grand stairs had been demolished, I could have deemed it art; without that context, an informational poster updating a committee on building progress would be more artistic. And then there was the urinal, well-made and clean, and by no means the ugliest thing in the exhibit. Craftmanship has become rare, but so rare that there is no difference between good design and artistic creativity? If there were an artist in this situation, it was the designer of the urinal model, not the vapid artiste who ordered it from home furnishing.