Take My Home, Take My An(a)-, Make It So I Cannot (Under)stand

Prepositional prefixes beyond the Attic pale often lose their final vowel. This causes the consonant to assimilate to the consonant of the verb root; thus anaphanen becomes amphanen once the nu makes contact with the phi. In the case of anamimnesko, however, the loss of the vowel can be catastrophic. The root here is mna with reduplication and suffix -sk- in the present tense alone. Neither reduplication nor the continuous suffix apply to the aorist, so anamnase becomes the unpronounceable anmnase. This is further reduced to amnase, which form now clashes with the alpha privative. If it were the alpha privative, it would have the opposite sense – both a catastrophe and an antistrophe. It is fortunate, therefore, that the preferred word for forgetfulness is lethe rather than amnesia!

Kino's Journey (manga), Volume One

             There is a limit to how much television is endurable, no matter what the quality; but that limit is more flexible for books. Manga has a reputation for interminable plot that can scare off readers unwilling to commit. Kino’s Journey is not such a manga and therefore features here. Kino’s Journey, written by Iruka Shiomiya and drawn by Kouhaku Kuraboshi, is derived from the light novel by Keiichi Sigsawa (that missing vowel is intriguing for a Japanese name).

            Volume One of the English translation features three episodes of Kino’s journey – an origin, a dystopia, and a parable. The first episode is in the Land of Adults and provides an origin for Kino and their talking motorbike Hermes. Too much information here would be spoilers for the other adaptations, but the Land of Adults is reminiscent of the world of “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” except that the Transformation is at an earlier age and the Carousel is much franker. Kino escapes on Hermes the talking motorcycle. The next land is the Land of Understanding Each Other’s Pain, a land which appears empty. The inhabitants of this land were once normal but they overdosed on an empathy drug to bring society closer together, with the result that now they are all even more isolated and their society will soon be extinct. The reaction of isolation to the negative thoughts revealed by the empathy drug is understandable but one would have thought that the society would have a plan for dealing with the negative thoughts they knew existed in humans. Perhaps this is overthinking, and one reason that Kino and Hermes remain only three days in each Land; but surely there must be a fiction where the sudden telepathy is addressed in a productive manner. The third episode is a parable in which there are only three men: an old man who is replacing the torn-up railway tracks; a middle-aged man who is tearing up the tracks, and a young man who is laying down the tracks. This is obviously a metaphor for stages of life.

            The strength of an episodic format is the minimization of consistent characters. The weakness, however, is that those few characters must be compelling enough to draw a return. Kino and Hermes are successful in this task.

Transformation with Dot and Tot: More Than Meets The Eye

             At first glance L. Frank Baum’s Dot and Tot of Merryland is the equivalent of that episode in a rewatch of a series that is rewatched for the sake of completeness but otherwise is reserved no spot in conscious memory. It is that bottle episode which justifies the argument for a shorter season – not quite organized enough to offset its blandness, nor whimsical enough to offset its lack of organization, nor clever enough to breathe life into its half-hearted mystery. It is a fifth magnitude star in the sky wherein shines the brilliant constellation of the Famous Fourteen. Nonetheless, Dot and Tot of Merryland contains structural features worth examining, if only as comparanda. Dot and Tot of Merryland is the work that follows the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although its realm would not be incorporated into the Continent of Imagination for many years. Dot’s real name is not Dorothy, but she is a Little Princess, even before her adventure. Tot’s name is not Tot, but the resemblance of the name of the lead and her mascot to Dorothy and Toto is hardly accidental. Dot is the leader, in both age and social standing; her mother has perished from some delicacy in her nature, and her father has left her in the care of a governess in the Secret Garden of his estate, while Tot’s father is the head gardener, much like the Gaffer at Bag End. It is water rather than air that bears the duo to the land of adventure, the Merryland of the title, a method which Dorothy would not use until Ozma of Oz. The entrance to adventure is narrow and almost prohibitive to adults who are children at heart, a natural category of humanity in Baum’s perception.

            There is a guardian, human despite his designation as the Watch-Dog of Merryland, but he is a Baumian guardian, comic and ineffective. He is bought off by a sweet cake, suggesting Cerberus and a descent into Hell, which completely fails to deliver. Yet, as will be revealed, the presence of a Watch-Dog in a location before the Seven Valleys is a potential misdirect, encouraging the reader (or read-to, depending on age) to remember a more Classical or Medieval katabasis than Baum’s actual intent. After an exchange between Dot and the Watch-Dog which is the typical watered-down logic of which Caroll’s Wonderland is the adult version, the duo sail into the First Valley.

            The First Valley is the Valley of Clowns, and it may be well to remember that Dot and Tot’s adventures, such as they are, take place in that sweet intermediate period between the apotropaic clowns of archaic religion and the demonic clowns of contemporary horror. The Seven Valleys of Merryland are isolated and infrequently visited, even by their own Queen. There is more contact between some of the Valleys and our world than between the Valleys themselves. Dot and Tot’s inability to steer their boat effectively renders this journey more of a fairground ride than the deliberate travel of their silver-shod predecessor. Flippityflop, the Prince of Clowns, but not the Clown Prince, welcomes the children and tells them that Clowns are indigenous – and endemic – to this Valley. The most skilled Clowns are set upon the peak of the mountain that separates this Valley of Merryland and the mundane world. From there they tumble into the world. Descent from the mountain is a favorite method of travel in Baum’s works, although this may be the only instance of a non-evil character using it; the Cast-Iron Man of The Monarch of Mo and the Roly-Rogues of Queen Zixi of Ix are not friends to the protagonists of their tales. Once a Clown is in our world, he seeks a circus, the telos of a true Clown. For there are false Clowns in this fallen world, who can be identified because they do not make children laugh. The idea of Clowns as an ethnicity could be seen as an othering tactic, and maybe even a mockery of indigenous peoples, but it could also provide positive messages. The first of these messages is that a true Clown is true to his nature, as all people should be; this message is consonant with Baum’s valorization of Dorothy and condemnation (however slight) of the Wizard. The second message, which is more mature than the first but not nearly as dark as othering, is a warning to children that people – and Clowns – are not always who they say they are, but the results of their actions will reveal their true nature. In the Valley of the Clowns, Dot and Tot encounter no women, despite Flippityflop’s mention of his father and grandfather before him. In addition to displaying Baum’s preference for Princes to Kings, even when they are King or Queens in truth, the lack of women references the traditionally male-only profession of clowning. Fortunately for the true Clowns, Merryland has a mechanism in the Third Valley whereby new Clowns might be born.

            The Second Valley is the Valley of Bonbons. The inhabitants of this Valley, unlike those of the Beautiful Valley of Mo, are entirely made of candy, as is their environment. Even before the mandatory color palette of the Quadrants of Oz, the theme of each land is overwriting its original complexity. The Candy Man, the leader of the Valley and considerably less menacing than Tony Todd, welcomes the children. Candy People, unlike Clowns, have both sexes as well as children, and as a society closer to that of the familiar world, the Candy People have black servants, licorice dolls who take care of the children of other colors; no prize will be given for guessing what the licorice children are called. The primary difference between Candy society and our world is the lack of non-candy-based sustenance, which Dot recognizes as a potential problem for permanent residency, but Tot is too hungry to care. The Candy People have no teeth and therefore have no cavities. Tot’s consumption of several fingers belonging to their host does not result in arrest, as might be anticipated, because replacement parts are easy to find. They grow in the marshmallow fields, where the licorice folk collect them for the Candy families. With that distasteful acknowledgement done, this dismemberment and replacement is yet another theme found both in The Magical Monarch of Mo and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Candy People do not die of old age, but they do eventually break into pieces that cannot be repaired. This is reminiscent of the China Country in the south of Oz, although the Merryland method of disposal is not recommended for divided china. The good and beautiful people of the Valley of Bonbons honor their deceased not with broken hearts but respectful edification in an act of what might be called “candy-balism.” Our protagonist and her charge, as visitors from what Baum called “civilized” lands, are horrified, but the Candy Man points out that there is no other sustenance in the Valley and that it is an honor among his people. The child-like logic wins over the children. Whether Baum intends this cannibalism to serve as an indictment of barbarous habits or a plea for tolerance of differences greater than that of the class distinction between the families of Dot and Tot is difficult to determine. Perhaps this consumption of the dead is a reference to Theosophist interest in Tibetan burial customs. The children’s horror at this custom is particularly hypocritical given the near-universal habit of biting off the heads of gingerbread men, leaving each as a body for a John Dough mystery. At least the inhabitants of the Valley of Bonbons do not send forth their own to be eaten – the licorice laborers in the fields of white are in poor taste already! The children must move on, Dot because she recognizes that they need actual food, and Tot because his hunger is a clear and present danger to the local population.

            Unfortunately for Tot, the Third Valley is the Valley of Babies, and babies are not food, as we learn in Ozma of Oz. The babies in question are human babies, although some of the boys might be Clowns and resolve the absence of women in that coulrophilic land. The “adults” in the Third Valley are Storks, all female and all white, but servants nonetheless to the eponymous babies. The Storks collect the baby blossoms that fall in storms from the sky and no doubt disqualify Storks with allergies. This focus on the babies rather than the Storks is understandable from the perspective of two small children, but it also reveals a gender divide between men and women – the all-male Clowns who qualify leave their Valley, but the Storks send forth others. The tone of Dot and Tot’s journey is becoming slightly darker, since the Storks are always exporting babies to forestall some sort of infantile apocalypse should there be no more room in the Valley. Is Baum, a pioneer of modern media and franchising, also a predecessor of the sordid tale of the commercialization of Cabbage Patch Kids? Are the Storks some sort of nursery rhyme Amazons? At least Dot and Tot finally receive some nourishment from the milk fountains in the Valley.

            The Fourth Valley is the Valley of the Dolls, where Dot and Tot are arrested by the wooden soldier despite his gun lacking ammunition; for the Queen of Merryland is not fond of strangers. That she has never met a non-resident of Merryland indicates that this stance is one of ignorance rather than experience. Her instructions to keep out foreigners are comical and ineffective, as the inaction of the Watch-Dog of Merryland attests, as well as her Baumian fairytale army. The wall of the city is reminiscent of China Country, and the average age of the fairyland juvenile arrest record is dropping precipitously. When Dot and Tot are brought before the Queen of Merryland, she is almost as tall as Dot. This detail is more important meta-textually than one might expect, because Dot and Tot of Merryland was the last Baum book illustrated by W. W. Denslow before his falling out with Baum over the rights to the characters of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Baum’s prominence overshadowing him like Lee over Kirby. Denslow’s illustrations in the original show the inhabitants of Oz as possessing a similar height to Dorothy, and thus the Queen of Merryland should match the height of the protagonist. Had Dot and Tot of Merryland been a critical success, perhaps a similar dispute to that of the newspaper strips would have arisen.

            The Queen of Merryland, like other rulers of Baumian wonderlands, is isolationist, but she accepts Dot and Tot’s explanations of the Watch-Dog’s dereliction of duty; nonetheless, she intends to block up the entrance from which Dot and Tot entered – Narnia rules apply to her portals, but the Queen of Merryland is no Aslan. Since she cannot allow the children to leave and she cannot dispose of them, she adopts them as her heirs – even though she does not need any. This is the reason why the title is Dot and Tot of Merryland rather than Dot and Tot in Merryland. The adoption can seem abrupt, even for such an episodic text, until it is recalled that is an American fairytale. Naturalization is not only an American phenomenon, but it is also the explicit intention of Baum’s fairytale output, most prominently accomplished in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. Dorothy, after all, becomes, a Princess of Oz, and several other humans from our world become citizens of Oz.

            From a narrative standpoint, this elevation both places Dot and Tot as equals in Merryland in contract to the regular world and gives them responsibility. The Queen of Merryland, as negligent a ruler as many in the Continent of Imagination, appoints Dot and Tot to be in charge of the Valley of the Dolls while she heads upstream to instruct the Watch-Dog on what to do if more potential visitors to Merryland decline to obey him. The Watch-Dog isn’t very bright, either because he is senile, or because nearly five centuries of isolation is probably not healthy for anyone’s mental state. Against her better judgment the Queen allows Dot and Tot to experience the dolls of the Valley of the Dolls at their most chaotic. One would think that the Valley of the Dolls would be alive with Doll society, but the Queen found them noisy and disruptive and therefore leaves them asleep most of the time. This could be commentary on controlling (but not eliminating) the imagination, but it also reflects, not entirely favorably, on the controlling nature of queens, princesses, and sorceresses in Baum’s writing. There are elements of Glinda and Ozma that are troubling to lovers of liberty.

            The awakened Dolls of course do not know who Princess Dot and Prince Tot are and therefore do not recognize their authority. The wand which roused the Dolls is an item of Baumian magic, very specific in its duration and operator. The rebellion of the Dolls does not end until the Return of the Queen. This brief period of authority offers Dot and Tot some perspective on what it is like to be an adult who is minding children. The next rebellion in the Baumian canon will be in the Emerald City and only slightly less absurd in its weaponry. The Queen of Merryland decides that she should complete her circuit by sailing downstream with Dot and Tot and perhaps figuring out what to do with them since the children do not really want to live in Merryland forever (take that, Peter!) nor can she feed them properly, a matter of great concern for Tot.

            The Fifth Valley is the Valley of the Pussy Cats, whose taste in what constitutes beautiful music is significantly different from that of the two children and the Queen. Mr. Felis, the leader of the Pussy Cats, welcomes the party and explains that the test of adulthood in this Valley is the ability to jump to the roof of the house where one grew up as a kitten. The loudest voices are the most beautiful ones and authorize their possessors to rule the valley. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to the internet. Yet the cats are still communal and gladly take the kittens of large litters into their own homes. Dot and Tot are much more enthusiastic about the invitation to the traditional nocturnal concert than the Queen, who has already experienced such passionate singing, and therefore the party moves on.

            The Sixth Valley is the chronically understaffed Valley of Wind-Up Toys, where both Mr. Splits, two halves of a man, just barely manages to keep the animal inhabitants of the Valley fully wound. The Queen is aware of this problem, but proposes no solution, perhaps because as a Doll she lacks her own imagination. At the very least, she could allow some of the wind-up animals to remain temporarily unwound. Mr. Split’s gimmick, other than being bifurcated like a Mangaboo, is an allegedly amusing vocal tic whereby one half starts words and the other finishes them; but the two halves are never in the same place at the same time, creating great difficulty of comprehension. Possibly the frenetic pace of Mr. Split, never able to complete a thought, represents the overwhelming busyness of adult life and its deleterious effect on concentration and community; there is no functional society in the Sixth Valley.

            The Seventh Valley, the Valley of Lost Things, is devoid of life, mundane or fantastical. It is full, however, of lost things, particularly young children’s jackets, and especially those which belonged to boys. This rings true to experience. Dot finds a doll she lost, which the Queen allows her to keep on the grounds that it is no longer lost. Dot and Tot, in contrast, are lost, because they do not know whether the last arch will take them back to our world. The Queen consents to them leaving, after which she will seal the exit from the Seventh Valley. If the Valleys beyond the Fourth represent increasing adulthood, the Seventh Valley as a particularly sanitary landfill is a stark condemnation.

            Dot and Tot exit the Seventh Valley but fall asleep before they enter our world. This event parallels the initial nap (at least on Tot’s part) before encountering the Watch-Dog. This equivalence of fairyland with a dream state, the first such instance in the Baumian canon, js supported by the deceptively half-hearted mystery of the Queen of Merryland’s name. The Queen deflects the question every time it is brought up. Why is knowing her name so important when her title is clear? For this point the doll which Dot lost and then found is critical. In the literal manner of young children, Dot had named her doll Dolly, which she ultimately decided was the name of the Queen of Merryland. If Dot was worried about her lost doll the entire journey, then the journey was not a series of episodic adventures, but rather a quest. It is the nature of a quest that the questor is changed in some way by the end, usually by being more mature than at the beginning; Dot cannot return to Narnia. It is no accident that an alternative pet name for Dorothy is Dolly, allowing Dot to find herself. This analysis is far beyond the capabilities of a small girl such a Dot. Thus Dot and Tot of Merryland is a quest narrative experienced by a questor unaware of her quest and not yet capable of the necessary abstract thinking. Baum insists on the truth of the experience by having Dot and Tot’s boat appear upstream from where it was originally moored – this should not be possible. This feature of the narrative cannot be casually dismissed because it is precisely this “over the rainbow” feature that has endeared the 1939 Wizard of Oz film to generations of Americans. Dot and Tot of Merryland is a far more substantial work than it seems at first glance.

 Final Version Composed and Performed In A Backyard June 4, 2021

Doubling Down: The Reduplication that Europeans Do Not See

Reduplication is a linguistic phenomenon so basic that it is found throughout the world, except in Europe. When, therefore, the Europeans spread across the world in conquest, encountering new languages which possessed this feature and triggering the creation of new languages which used this basic tool of communication, they scorned it; but this disdain required willful blindness on the part of the more educated Europeans to the existence of partial reduplication in one language that they elevated above all others: Greek. In some instances, where the ravages of time and the desperation of analogical repair had worn away the surface pattern, this blindness could be forgiven; in many cases, however, the reduplication was a clear and present feature. The history of the Indo-European languages in Europe was, in part, a process of systematically removing this reduplication, but in Greek, and to a lesser extent Latin, it still remained, and those were tongues which the elites of Europe held in reverence. In Latin reduplication remained only in the perfect tense as an increasingly archaic and non-productive feature; in Greek, however, reduplication was the principal method by which the perfect was created, while reduplication in the present was non-productive. Since the fact of reduplication indicates a primary segment from which the reduplicated segment is taken, the reduplicated segment is almost always simplified, although the details of that simplification varies according to the language. If the simplification of European languages had been a laudable quality, the European point of view might have been consistent, but it was the complexity of Latin and Greek that was admired. Thus, logically, the complexity of foreign tongues should have been admired instead of suffering disdain.

The more change-oriented among my readers may see a lesson in this; I merely offer it as an observation.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead (Al Ewing)

 We Only Find Them When They're Dead, by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo, is a graphic novel about harvesting materials from dead space gods. The space gods in question are the size of Marvel's Celestials (recently featured in the mediocre film The Eternals), but in appearance they resemble the New Gods of DC. This scaling has precedent in DC; at one point New Genesis and Apokolips were cosmically large and the boom tubes used for transport adjusted the size of the New Gods to be commensurate with Terrestrial life. One of heroes flew through space to Apokolips and discovered how miniscule they were. The corpses drift into the galaxy like cosmic fish and are harvested for exotic substances. All these corpses appear to be coming from one direction, but the exotic material is so valuable that nobody in power is motivated to ask the questions they should ask, such as "Why are there so many dead space gods and who killed them?" With a title such as We Only Find Them When They're Dead, naturally some crew discovers one that is not quite as dead as the ones before. The plot is standard fare: a crew desperate enough to take chances flouts the law and is pursued by the space police with whom some of the ragtag band have personal connections. The crew of the pursuer also choose to break the law in pursuit, thus establishing the precedence of revenge. The fishermen of space have left the coast for deeper waters. 

The representation is moderate and is integrated well into the plot. It is difficult to guess where this storty might lead, partly because this is one of the areas involving space gods which is not frequently examined, and partly because volume one is dedicated to establishing the world and the relationship of the characters before they depart for parts bereft of other humans, or aliens other than giants, that much remains unexplained. It will be character driven by necessity, but the work of giants is the motivation for further reading. All the gods found by humanity within the galaxy have been dead, but is this due to some property of our galaxy or galaxies in general versus open space? Do the space gods come from some galaxy that might even be described as Promethean? What War in Heaven resulted in the death of the Gods? Or do the Gods date from a time before the galaxies? To paraphrase G'kar, humanity can stay out of the way or be stepped on.

Every Science Fiction Story is Someone's First

 

The Last Cuentista, by Donna Barba Higuera, is a middle grade book that serves as a gateway to heavier science fiction. The heroine, Petra Peña, is genetically flawed in a less obvious way than the protagonist of Gattaca, but closely enough that its disclosure would disqualify her for the exodus from Earth, whose lateness is definite and whose greatness is much disputed. This genetic deformity spares her the conditioning which she is intended to receive, but it is a cruel mercy, to the character if not the reader, to be awakened in a strange world. The plan for the ship has gone awry, since a smooth ride would be unsatisfactory in all but the best hands. Conformity is the watchword – the dangers of excessive originality have no place in the solipsistic world of YA novels – and our plucky heroine must struggle alone against them while feigning conformity using home ec chemistry. The world of the ship and that of the new planet are lightly sketched but it is sufficient to provide the feeling of a real place; the lacunae are due to irrelevancy or the logical ignorance of the heroine. The educator tapes, more like those of Cyteen than Hospital Station, explain away the otherwise implausible expertise of an adolescent girl. Many science fiction ideas are touched upon in the world building, but the primary drive of the book is action reminiscent of a Heinlein juvenile, based more on chemistry than engineering. Perhaps it seems a bit strange to pass over the story-telling component of a book called The Last Cuentista, but if it is remembered by the youth of today, it will not be because it is the deepest narrative, but because it has served as a preface to more detailed narratives.

Yaghan: Coincidences Do Come True

 The last speaker of Yaghan, the indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego, has sailed (or perhaps canoed) beyond the sunset. In the memorial article for the woman and the language, a curious fact emerges: the word for sun is lamp. To Anglophones or Francophones, this may seem remarkable. And the more romantically inclined may daydream of a latter-day Pythias or Hanno voyaging, leaving this word as an indication of early contact. Unfortunately for such bold thinking, the similarities are often due to mere coincidence. Lamp is merely a word in a recently moribund language, whose living light has been extinguished.

(If you nonetheless want to know more about the language, the Wikipedia article at the time of this writing is a good place to start)

Edge Lords of Universe: Valerian and Laureline, Volume 19

 At the Edge of the Great Void is the nineteenth volume of the Valerian and Laureline series, the midmost part of a trilogy of volumes. The change from an almost purely terrestrial view in the previous volume to an exclusively celestial and cosmic one in the current volume could come across as jarring. I suspect, however, that those who read this volume when it was new were already heavily invested in the peripatetic scene changes of the series. Valerian and Laureline, having wrapped up affairs as best they could on twentieth century Earth, are now making their way to the titular edge of the Great Void in search of their old headquarters, before they offended the false gods of Earth. Since their support system from before is gone, they must rely on overtly dubious means to survive (their former bosses were not above underhanded moves). The antagonists, of course, use even more dubious means and are far less concerned about the welfare of individuals. On an economically shattered planet, Laureline recruits an woman, Ky Lai, a human by all exterior signs, from space Indochina. Laureline is very much the lead in this volume. After a brief stop on a "cemetery planet" to interrogate filthy thieving space scavengers, Valerian and Laureline and Indochinese Mrs. Kato arrive at Roubanis, the planet at the edge of the Great Void. Valerian is then sidelined for the most of the rest of the story so that Laureline and Ky Lai can use their powers of persuasion, deception, and textile manufacture to overthrow an unjust regime, a common plot in the Valerian and Laureline universe. There is a comedic subplot about the ridiculously violent way the space pirate captain chooses her crew for the voyage into the Great Void. Valerian and Laureline join the crew, while Ky Lai remains behind with her space Indochina people to make textiles.

This volume has a strong "middle book" feeling to it. It can be read on its own, but all the components of the story are pieces that need to be setup for the following volume.  Valerian and Laureline, like many long-running series, developed increasingly longer narrative rather than one-off stories connected by the series' theme.  The scale became grander, which is saying something when the first volume started with an galactic agent traveling through space and time in medieval Earth. The real question is what happens when our heroes meet the Lords of All the Cosmos - what could possibly happen in the following volume!?

Looking Backward: A Tale of Tmesis

The delights of digital tools are manifold, but one area in which they fail is the phenomenon of tmesis, whereby a prefix normally attached to a verb is separated, sometimes at a considerable distance due to the non-configurational nature of Greek, and thus the unwary may be led to the wrong dictionary entry. This separation, this cutting off, is an illusion, not just in translation, but in origin. It was quite logical for the Greeks who first observed this feature to call it a cutting off, a lobotomy of an intact word, for they were looking backward and needed merely a descriptive term rather than an analytical one. The science of philology was millennia away.

The true nature of the phenomenon, however, was not one of cutting, but of grafting. In earlier days, the adverb or preposition could float, and only gradually became attached to the verb. This is why some verbs could be modified by prepositional phrases, while others, to which the prefix was appended, governed cases other than the expected case. Some barbarian tongues, such as German, left this process conspicously incomplete; thus this process should be called thesis, not tmesis, but the cruel mistress of convention had established a false analysis as the official term.

Saga #55 (and #56) Dramatis Personae

This year witnesses the return of several independent series, among which is Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. The failure of the television adaptation of Y: The Last Man may allow Saga to arise to greater heights. I must confess that I did not read all issues of Staples' interim project about magic and sisterly betrayal.

 

Saga is the story of Hazel, the child of two races whose war has consumed the galaxy, enlisting the other races to whom this did not matter. Elsewhere I have compared this to the genesis of Peloponnesian War, and perhaps it will have a similarly devastating end; but this is unlikely to occur until our protagonist is older. The purpose of a first issue, especially after such a gap, is to reintroduce the themes and characters; as a wise man once since, every story is someone's first story. Thus Saga #55 reintroduces our protagonist Hazel, a blasphemy according to both races, a bit older and in denial of some of the trauma she carries (but with a sweet hat); Squire, the former heir of the Robot Kingdom (which is a kingdom of humanoids with televisions for heads), who has obvious trauma; Alana, Hazel's mother and provider, although she is not doing a particularly good job at it; and a newcomer, Bombazine, her employee who looks like a refugee from a stage play of Oz. The rocket tree which they call home also makes its return. The bounty hunters The Will (the article is mandatory), Gwendolyn, and fan favorite Lying Cat also appear.

Saga, as with many works focused on an underage protagonist, may lead the unwary or simple-minded to believe that this comic is "safe" for children. Although each child is different, this reintroduction goes out of its way to include suicide, police brutality, coition, adverse childhood experiences, a false accusation of child abuse by a child thief, as well as smuggling of adult "food". The greatest potential of preadolescent protagonists are adventures in the 'real' world, but that does not mean the audience is children.

Update:

Saga #66 is now out. This issue introduces new characters and a new setting. The dreams of the new crew are not what one would have expected. The colors are bright, but the content is fairly dark.

Manseed

Jack Williamson's Manseed is a story of human colonization of space predicated on the vastness and emptiness, and that we cannot outrun our own sins. The narrative alternates between the contemporary humans of the Raven Foundation on Earth and the far future Defenders of Mansphere (which is a terrible name for a planet). The primary connective tissue derives from the elements of personality which inevitably slipped in among the practical data in creating the Defenders, the half-machine supermen tasked with scouting and preparing new worlds for humaniry. The choice of siblings as genetic material seems particularly ill-advised and unlikely for a collection of otherwise scientifically literate participants. The genetic pool is shallow enough to be suitable for noting but a parable (much like the current series Raised by Wolves). The psychosexual adaptation of the myth of Adam and Eve, mixed with Cain and Abel, and the misogyny now known to be pervasive in science fiction circles of the seventies, is blatant.

Manseed was published in 1982 and was written by a man in his seventies. Even in the feminist science fiction of the time, such as that of Suzette Hayden Elgin and Sheri S Tepper, the gender dynamics was covert and aggressive. Williamson was a writer of an older generation and his characters' discomfort in adapting to the novel circumstances limits the power of the narrative. This book has not aged well.

James White: The Things Are Also People

 An author often overlooked except by authors fond of obscures references (such as Grant Morrison) is James White, whose space medicine series Sector General, a Star Trek: Doctor Space Nine or Lensmen with a pathology lab, was an analgesic to the militarism of science fiction. Such a view is not surprising from a Northern Irishman who grew up in the Troubles (which lasted even longer in the Star Trek universe, according to Data). White's team of Star Surgeons is a mix of different species, all of whom are dedicated to the treatment of patients, no matter their provenance. The specialized knowledge required to treat the patients could never be contained in any sapient brain, so the pre-surgery preparation involves "Educator tapes" created by the best medical minds of the patient's species - or whichever species is closest to J'onn Doe. The tapes, however, contain a partial psychology of the species, so the human who partakes may develop brief and exciting appetites. Actual appetites are limited to vegetarianism, due to potential trauma from observation of lunchmates. The species in the universe are organized by an alphabetical code, which is rendered in the Roman alphabet (for humans anyway). The team includes one spirited red-headed human woman, but there are alien women as well - especially Charge Nurse Naydrad, who is a giant caterpillar. The scandalous behavior of the methane-breathers is a running joke here, long before it appears on Babylon 5, and when I first saw Sikorsky of the Starjammers, I thought he might be a visual reference to the insectoid Dr. Prillicla.

When I read the ET ER comic one-shot, I had hoped it would be more like this rather than the Masquerade with ailing extraterrestrials, but the closest I have ever seen to a use of Sector General in modern media is its cameo in Grant Morrison's run of Green Lantern, in which Hal visits and later contributes to the destruction of the homage, complete with giant caterpillar nurse and empathic insect pathologist, while Hal continues on his way to death and eventual godhood. It would have been nice to see Sector General treated with more respect, but media portrayals of space hospital have generally not fared well in ratings. I am not sure whether this is due to the restriction of romantic plots or the necessity of television writers to eliminate the fiendishly clever puzzles in search of an audience less willing to face an intellectual challenge.

The Words We Leave Behind

 A feature of the Pindaric realm, the epinician genre, is the double use of grammatical components and its corollary, the absence of words that would not have been absent in a prosaic work. The complex meter demands such compromises. This absence works best when the audience is so familiar with the story presented that it perceives the new text as an alternate presentation rather than a novelty. A problem, arises, therefore, when the audience receiving is no longer the audience originally intended to receive; and even more so when the primary language of that audience is not the language of the work.

This phenomenon, however, is not unfamiliar to contemporary consumers of media. Movie adaptations of popular franchises often depend on the audience's knowledge of the book series and therefore feel at liberty to discard scenes that convey critical information to those who have not read the books and are merely accompanying their progeny or sweetheart to the cinema. The consumer intimately familiar with the work may not realize how deficient these lacunae can be to their companion, and perhaps even become angry when they fail to appreciate the genius of their literary god. From the perspective of the companion, however, this low esteem for the film is appropriate; the cinematographers have failed to create a coherent narrative in service of spectacle.