What do the story of the Tortoise and the Hare and Atlas Shrugged* have in common? They're both stories with messages. And neither is very entertaining. It's relatively common for writers to put in some kind of underlying message in their works, generally to their work's detriment (at least as a story. No one really likes 1984's plot or characterization, but everyone has at least heard of it). I get that writers like to do that in an attempt to create some larger meaning, but I've always found it annoying, especially when things get preachier than one of those old Saturday morning cartoons.
Granted, I'm not one of those people who like talking about philosophy, and it's pretty hard to convince me of anything. I don't go out of my way to find 'political' statements in things, unlike my dad, who was convinced that the Lord of the Rings movies had some kind of liberal agenda. :) But in my experience, people tend to like works that they agree with, and dislike ones that conflict with their existing beliefs.
But the real problem in my mind is that whatever the hell message the author is trying to communicate doesn't really work, especially when the message is on an individual level. I hate to get all after-school special here, but everyone is different. The things that make me happy, the things I want out of life, are going to be different than what other people want out of life, except for a few universal constants. It's pointless to try to tell people what to do when everyone operates under different priorities.
The absolute worst way for author preaching to enter a story is the voice character. The character who exists for the primary reason to be the author's mouthpiece, to force his opinions on the reader. And because the author controls the world, the world and the plot bends around this character to make sure that he's correct. And, of course, any opposition to this character is strawmanned into idiocy.
To avoid this, I like to make so that I don't agree with my character's viewpoints. To be sure, I try to put a little bit of myself into every major character I write, and I try to make my characters likeable, but that doesn't mean I agree with them, or would do the same actions in their place. In fact, some of my characters are so crazy that I'd be amazed if anyone agreed with them all the time.
However, I break my rule. I created a book with a message, or a theme, or commentary, instead of a focus on just making a great story. It's not an important message, thank goodness, and probably not a very controversial one, but my fantasy novel No More Kings does have such a message. And it's the subject of my next blog post: Classism in Fantasy.
*Lots of people, including some very successful people, like Atlas Shrugged. Maybe you like Objectivism, but come on, it's horrible when it tries to stand on its merits as a novel. It has a fifty page written manifesto in it! Ugh.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
We Are Legion
Legion is Sanderson's novella that I put on my e-reader; he has another one coming out soon that takes place in the Elantris universe (I'm hella stoked about that one). My first, strongest impression: it's short. Very, very short. Disappointingly short.
But it's good. The basic story is about a guy who invents various hallucinatory personas that advise him on how to do things. So, essentially, the main protagonist is a well-rounded genius who can know anything, but who's not really sane. And the plot revolves around a 'magic' camera that can take pictures of the past, and a guy who wants to use it to confirm the truth of his religion. I have to say, as far as uses for this camera, go, it's fairly innocuous.
The story was enjoyable and interesting; Sanderson is just too damn talented. It doesn't really come alive the way some of his fantasy novels do, though, and his protagonist was fairly generic (again, it was short). But the most interesting thing I have to say about Legion is this: it shouldn't have been a book.
Some people might see this as a criticism, but it isn't. I might like books more than movies, for example, but no medium is really better than another. But the mediums are different, and they have different strengths. While the novella Legion has a lot of action occurring mentally, it takes place through conversations with imagined people inside his head. Tell me that doesn't sound perfect for a televion show.
The character even lives the life of typical A-Team/MacGyver/USA Channel protagonist, where random people come to him requiring his unique portfolio of skills and abilities. Episodic as hell. I think it could work. The Pretender was years ago, after all, and the mental 'illness' angle of it gives it a potential for more serious drama and meaningful interaction with other people in the world.
Seriously, Sanderson, if you know someone who in television, get on the phone and make your pitch. Actually, don't. I'd rather read one of your books; Alloy of Law was way too much fun.
But it's good. The basic story is about a guy who invents various hallucinatory personas that advise him on how to do things. So, essentially, the main protagonist is a well-rounded genius who can know anything, but who's not really sane. And the plot revolves around a 'magic' camera that can take pictures of the past, and a guy who wants to use it to confirm the truth of his religion. I have to say, as far as uses for this camera, go, it's fairly innocuous.
The story was enjoyable and interesting; Sanderson is just too damn talented. It doesn't really come alive the way some of his fantasy novels do, though, and his protagonist was fairly generic (again, it was short). But the most interesting thing I have to say about Legion is this: it shouldn't have been a book.
Some people might see this as a criticism, but it isn't. I might like books more than movies, for example, but no medium is really better than another. But the mediums are different, and they have different strengths. While the novella Legion has a lot of action occurring mentally, it takes place through conversations with imagined people inside his head. Tell me that doesn't sound perfect for a televion show.
The character even lives the life of typical A-Team/MacGyver/USA Channel protagonist, where random people come to him requiring his unique portfolio of skills and abilities. Episodic as hell. I think it could work. The Pretender was years ago, after all, and the mental 'illness' angle of it gives it a potential for more serious drama and meaningful interaction with other people in the world.
Seriously, Sanderson, if you know someone who in television, get on the phone and make your pitch. Actually, don't. I'd rather read one of your books; Alloy of Law was way too much fun.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Where Have All the Starships Gone?
I might be mistaken, but I've noticed a trend in science fiction recently. There's not that many spaceships. I think science fiction has trended away from spaceships, even though a
starship is basically the iconic image of science fiction. They aren't conspicuously absent, but there does seem to be conspicuously less. It shouldn't
be the alpha and the omega of the, of course, but the spaceship is scifi
most beloved icons. The apocalypse is big now, of course, so that has something to do with it, but I think there's more to it than that.
It might also be the growing realization of just how impractical space travel is, that humanity won't be going to other star systems or colonizing worlds anytime soon. The best we can do is watch billionaires go into space, and cheer on Curisosity and Mohawk Guy (does anyone else follow the Mars Rover on Twitter? Pew pew! Hilarious).
I blame Star Trek. It's not it's fault, of course. The original series only lasted a few seasons, but it spawned four other shows, tons of movies, books, video games, and who knows what else. It was successful as hell. If anything, it should have spawned more spaceships, as people flocked to imitate it.
But that's passed by now. Now, Star Trek is a bloated, decayed corpse of an elephant in the middle of the room, that everyone else has to step around to avoid. Any kind of high technology starship story is going to invite, fairly or not, comparisons to Star Trek.
Deal with it. Obviously differentiation is required, but that seems easy to do in a hundred different ways. Science fiction needs to get over Star Trek, and reclaim the stars for all of the other fun science fiction stories that should be told.
And while we're talking about getting over things, Firefly is not coming back. Yes, it was great. Yes, it's criminal that it got half a season when Dollhouse somehow got two. Yes, Syfy should scrap every other show and awful monster movie they're working on to bring it back on the air. But it's not happening, so let's hear about some other cool scifi show on television...there has to be one, right?
Next time: I finished Legion (it was really, really short), and my thoughts on Sanderson's novella.
It might also be the growing realization of just how impractical space travel is, that humanity won't be going to other star systems or colonizing worlds anytime soon. The best we can do is watch billionaires go into space, and cheer on Curisosity and Mohawk Guy (does anyone else follow the Mars Rover on Twitter? Pew pew! Hilarious).
I blame Star Trek. It's not it's fault, of course. The original series only lasted a few seasons, but it spawned four other shows, tons of movies, books, video games, and who knows what else. It was successful as hell. If anything, it should have spawned more spaceships, as people flocked to imitate it.
But that's passed by now. Now, Star Trek is a bloated, decayed corpse of an elephant in the middle of the room, that everyone else has to step around to avoid. Any kind of high technology starship story is going to invite, fairly or not, comparisons to Star Trek.
Deal with it. Obviously differentiation is required, but that seems easy to do in a hundred different ways. Science fiction needs to get over Star Trek, and reclaim the stars for all of the other fun science fiction stories that should be told.
And while we're talking about getting over things, Firefly is not coming back. Yes, it was great. Yes, it's criminal that it got half a season when Dollhouse somehow got two. Yes, Syfy should scrap every other show and awful monster movie they're working on to bring it back on the air. But it's not happening, so let's hear about some other cool scifi show on television...there has to be one, right?
Next time: I finished Legion (it was really, really short), and my thoughts on Sanderson's novella.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Redshirts and My Thoughts
I wanted to come up with some semi-clever title about Redshirts to prove how clever I am, but I couldn't. And so blood loss makes dullards of us all. Oh well. I don't think that it's much of a spoiler to say that at it's heart, Redshirts is about Star Trek though, so let me get that out of the way right off. If you don't know what a redshirt is, follow the link and hang your head in shame, because even I know and I have seen ONE episode of Star Trek.
Star Trek isn't a big deal to me, so I might fall out of the target market of this book a little bit; I liked Wrath of Khan (and I love randomly opening this window to annoy my roommate whenever I'm slightly vexed - major sound warning. Seriously. It's really annoying.), and I liked the remake but thought it was too careful not to upset the diehard fans who care about the reboot continuity. It's not like Batman Begins tried to tell us that this happened in a different timeline as the first Batman movie, Adam West TV series, and original comic books because Superman traveled around the Earth quickly; it's just a different story, deal with it.
So with that out of the way, I can say that I thought Redshirts was enjoyable and entertaining. It was less enjoyable and entertaining than any of Scalzi's other books, and I'm not even a Scalzi fan. The premise starts off entertainingly enough, more or less 'ordinary' science fiction heroes stuck on a starship that has the same stupid shit that happened to the poor crew of the old Enterprise. Away missions are invariably fatal to the poor redshirt stuck accompanying the senior officer, the laws of drama have more power than the laws of physics, and technobabble explanations are the order of the day.
The first half of the book was definitely the more entertaining half though. Once the true explanation is revealed, however, the quality plummets. The book devolves into overly meta nonsense. I don't want to drop any major spoiler bombs that an intelligent reader couldn't figure out two pages in, so I'll avoid specifics, but by the end the characters are practically breaking the fourth wall, which has always seemed to me incredibly amateurish. But if you like meta stuff, maybe you'll like the second half, I don't know.
To me, though, it's always amounted to intellectual masturbation, ultimately pointless. It essentially involves lampshading the lack of any real story or characterization. Speaking of characterization, it's weaker than Scalzi's usual fare, which I think even he would agree is not his greatest strength. And that might be why the book just didn't click for me; the characters are weak. In terms of how they're characterized, regardless of whatever rank they might hold in Starfleet (or whatever the organization is called in the book), they're extras. To put it simply, they're not main character material. I don't end up caring more about them by the end than I do at the beginning.
And despite Howard Taylor's description of the book as a call to arms to creators, well, I've always been against what I could describe as dumb, stupid character deaths for the point of drama. In fact, that's where the title of my blog comes from, my critique of character's behavior not stemming from any real motivation, but because THE PLOT DEMANDS IT. And maybe the characters don't die pointlessly, but the narrative still has an iron grip upon the flow of the plot of Redshirts.
So, I realize I sound incredibly negative, but I'm always more negative than positive. I enjoyed Redshirts....but not that much. Maybe I'm just not a Star Trek fan. My next blog post will be about science fiction, space opera, and Star Trek.
Star Trek isn't a big deal to me, so I might fall out of the target market of this book a little bit; I liked Wrath of Khan (and I love randomly opening this window to annoy my roommate whenever I'm slightly vexed - major sound warning. Seriously. It's really annoying.), and I liked the remake but thought it was too careful not to upset the diehard fans who care about the reboot continuity. It's not like Batman Begins tried to tell us that this happened in a different timeline as the first Batman movie, Adam West TV series, and original comic books because Superman traveled around the Earth quickly; it's just a different story, deal with it.
So with that out of the way, I can say that I thought Redshirts was enjoyable and entertaining. It was less enjoyable and entertaining than any of Scalzi's other books, and I'm not even a Scalzi fan. The premise starts off entertainingly enough, more or less 'ordinary' science fiction heroes stuck on a starship that has the same stupid shit that happened to the poor crew of the old Enterprise. Away missions are invariably fatal to the poor redshirt stuck accompanying the senior officer, the laws of drama have more power than the laws of physics, and technobabble explanations are the order of the day.
The first half of the book was definitely the more entertaining half though. Once the true explanation is revealed, however, the quality plummets. The book devolves into overly meta nonsense. I don't want to drop any major spoiler bombs that an intelligent reader couldn't figure out two pages in, so I'll avoid specifics, but by the end the characters are practically breaking the fourth wall, which has always seemed to me incredibly amateurish. But if you like meta stuff, maybe you'll like the second half, I don't know.
To me, though, it's always amounted to intellectual masturbation, ultimately pointless. It essentially involves lampshading the lack of any real story or characterization. Speaking of characterization, it's weaker than Scalzi's usual fare, which I think even he would agree is not his greatest strength. And that might be why the book just didn't click for me; the characters are weak. In terms of how they're characterized, regardless of whatever rank they might hold in Starfleet (or whatever the organization is called in the book), they're extras. To put it simply, they're not main character material. I don't end up caring more about them by the end than I do at the beginning.
And despite Howard Taylor's description of the book as a call to arms to creators, well, I've always been against what I could describe as dumb, stupid character deaths for the point of drama. In fact, that's where the title of my blog comes from, my critique of character's behavior not stemming from any real motivation, but because THE PLOT DEMANDS IT. And maybe the characters don't die pointlessly, but the narrative still has an iron grip upon the flow of the plot of Redshirts.
So, I realize I sound incredibly negative, but I'm always more negative than positive. I enjoyed Redshirts....but not that much. Maybe I'm just not a Star Trek fan. My next blog post will be about science fiction, space opera, and Star Trek.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Things To Come
I'm going to put up a short post of what's might be happening on this blog in the near future. I've loaded copies of Redshirts by Scalzi and Legion by Sanderson into my e-reader, so once I finish them I'll post my thoughts on each of the novels.
My friend should also be finishing his second novel, Skull and Bones, and I'm going to be doing a couple of posts reading through it, analyzing it, and soliciting feedback about it. I haven't read any of it yet, but I've heard it described as a Pulp novel, so that should be fairly interesting. I also ended up giving him the name of his villain, Eigenstolf. If that name isn't a selling point, I don't know what is. :)
My friend should also be finishing his second novel, Skull and Bones, and I'm going to be doing a couple of posts reading through it, analyzing it, and soliciting feedback about it. I haven't read any of it yet, but I've heard it described as a Pulp novel, so that should be fairly interesting. I also ended up giving him the name of his villain, Eigenstolf. If that name isn't a selling point, I don't know what is. :)
In Praise of Awful
Much like everyone else in the entire world, I enjoy movies that are good. In fact, that's probably my working definition for a good story (i.e. enjoyable). But I also love bad movies. No, that's not exactly true: bad movies are fairly common. I enjoy the terrible, the awful, the godawful, the movies that are cinematic train wrecks.
Now to be fair, these movies aren't much fun to watch by yourself, but if you can get a bunch of your equally witty friends together to mock the thing, they're hilarious. And if you're stuck on a space station, you can always cobble together some robots from scrap metal to fill the void (you might need to do the voices yourself, though, and prepare for a complete mental breakdown). This is the basic formula of Mystery Science Theater, although the commentary can vary in quality (and they're always stealing my lines :( ).
I recently watched what is commonly considered to be the worst movie ever made: Manos, the Hands of Fate. Behold!
More impressively, I've seen it twice, since one of my friends wasn't present for the initial viewing, and he would have missed out on all the new in-jokes we have about the film. I worry that a third viewing might actually kill me. I could write a week's worth of posts about why it's bad, but either take my (and everyone else's) word for it, or watch it yourself (with friends).
Interestingly, I think the time is ripe for a Manos sequel. After all, in August they showed Manos throughout theaters across the country; it's legendary badness has promoted it to cult status. And the ending certainly leaves room for a sequel. I'm trying to talk my friend's little brother Chris into directing the film. After all, he was the film genius behind all of the film projects we turned in for easy As in high school.
I've seen two other films that aren't quite as godawful as Manos, but still so terrible to be entertaining. And while neither has made it to DVD, you can find them on Netflix streaming service. The names of the movies are Unmasking the Idol and Order of the Black Eagle. Both star the same balding (yet sexy by script) secret agent, Duncan Jax: the first is a weird combination of Bond, Indiana Jones, and Enter the Ninja, the other is a slightly less weird combination of Bond and Commando. Oh, and his sidekick is a baboon, and clearly the brains of the operation.
Can I sell these movies, or what? After watching them, we gave them a 4 and 5 star review on Netflix...ratings that they still hold, at least from a few days ago. I think we were the only ones who reviewed these. The movies are also surprisingly racist for something made in the 80s.
What I love about these kinds of movies is how bad they are. Their creator didn't let fear hold him back. If he worried that he was making something awful, these films wouldn't have ever seen the light of day. There's a kind of exuberance to these works that I respect (perhaps the only thing I respect about them, from a creator's standpoint).
More, I think we've all seen stuff that we hated. Films that were uninteresting, or boring. Films where you couldn't really recount what happened walking out of the theater, or films where you just couldn't find yourself caring about what happened to the characters. These are films that were merely bad. But the truly awful films are ones that take huge swings and miss, hard. They're the ones you remember.
Books, are a little different, but I'd much rather create something truly terrible than something that was merely bad, or even mediocre. Something people could laugh about; something I could even laugh about (years down the line, probably, but still).
Now to be fair, these movies aren't much fun to watch by yourself, but if you can get a bunch of your equally witty friends together to mock the thing, they're hilarious. And if you're stuck on a space station, you can always cobble together some robots from scrap metal to fill the void (you might need to do the voices yourself, though, and prepare for a complete mental breakdown). This is the basic formula of Mystery Science Theater, although the commentary can vary in quality (and they're always stealing my lines :( ).
I recently watched what is commonly considered to be the worst movie ever made: Manos, the Hands of Fate. Behold!
Interestingly, I think the time is ripe for a Manos sequel. After all, in August they showed Manos throughout theaters across the country; it's legendary badness has promoted it to cult status. And the ending certainly leaves room for a sequel. I'm trying to talk my friend's little brother Chris into directing the film. After all, he was the film genius behind all of the film projects we turned in for easy As in high school.
I've seen two other films that aren't quite as godawful as Manos, but still so terrible to be entertaining. And while neither has made it to DVD, you can find them on Netflix streaming service. The names of the movies are Unmasking the Idol and Order of the Black Eagle. Both star the same balding (yet sexy by script) secret agent, Duncan Jax: the first is a weird combination of Bond, Indiana Jones, and Enter the Ninja, the other is a slightly less weird combination of Bond and Commando. Oh, and his sidekick is a baboon, and clearly the brains of the operation.
Can I sell these movies, or what? After watching them, we gave them a 4 and 5 star review on Netflix...ratings that they still hold, at least from a few days ago. I think we were the only ones who reviewed these. The movies are also surprisingly racist for something made in the 80s.
What I love about these kinds of movies is how bad they are. Their creator didn't let fear hold him back. If he worried that he was making something awful, these films wouldn't have ever seen the light of day. There's a kind of exuberance to these works that I respect (perhaps the only thing I respect about them, from a creator's standpoint).
More, I think we've all seen stuff that we hated. Films that were uninteresting, or boring. Films where you couldn't really recount what happened walking out of the theater, or films where you just couldn't find yourself caring about what happened to the characters. These are films that were merely bad. But the truly awful films are ones that take huge swings and miss, hard. They're the ones you remember.
Books, are a little different, but I'd much rather create something truly terrible than something that was merely bad, or even mediocre. Something people could laugh about; something I could even laugh about (years down the line, probably, but still).
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Zombie Attack!
I love zombies. They're unfeeling killing machines made all the more horrific by their former identity of living beings, but without all the gothic whining of the vampire. Best of all, zombies are inherently proactive: they want flesh/brains/whatever, and they spread their infection to everyone in the world sooner or later. They're great bad guys, more of a force than a character though.
But these days, they're everywhere. Dead Island, Left 4 Dead, DayZ. Resident Evil. Zombieland. Dawn of the Dead. Some French movie on Netflix called the Horde. The Walking Dead. Hell, even the CDC released a zombie survival guide in some vain attempt to be cool. It wasn't a very good guide, of course - no weapons, nor anything unique to the challenges facing those living in a world populated with the walking dead. Zombies have gotten so 'mainstream' that my dad actually linked me to the CDC guide, and I'm pretty sure he still has trouble figuring out Youtube.
The point is that the only way I could see more zombies is if there was an actual zombie apocalypse. Which would actually suck, by the way, that Facebook group non-withstanding. They've become such a, well, inoffensive, generic bad guy, that for some stories they're more secondary bad guys/ background than anything else - after seeing an episode of the Walking Dead, I made the argument that it wasn't really ABOUT zombies. It just happened to have them in it.
I hate to say it, but zombies might be played out. If not, they're certainly getting there. A decent zombie story these days requires differentiation, a unique take on the zombie apocalypse. I've never put a lot of thought into my own permutation, but I'd go after one of the common rules of zombies: water is safety. Living in the Midwest, escaping the apocalypse by taking a sailboat to some isolated island is much more of a long term goal for me in case of sudden zombies, so I don't put a whole lot of trust in it. In truth, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, since I don't see why zombies couldn't swim to the supposedly safe island in their endless quest to devour all human flesh.
So I'd do the reverse. Zombies come from the sea. They swim quite well. The tides are changing, they sweep in, bringing thick fog, and the zombie hordes of the drowned climb up the beaches of coastal towns, killing people and throwing them back into the ocean to rise as more sea zombies. As the apocalypse spreads, the sea level could be rising; if I wanted to be a preachy environmentalist I could connect it to global warming or something.
And on a side note, if anyone reading this gets bitten by a zombie during the apocalypse, do us all a favor and admit it. You're not special, not immune, and you'll save your buddies a lot of trouble. :)
But these days, they're everywhere. Dead Island, Left 4 Dead, DayZ. Resident Evil. Zombieland. Dawn of the Dead. Some French movie on Netflix called the Horde. The Walking Dead. Hell, even the CDC released a zombie survival guide in some vain attempt to be cool. It wasn't a very good guide, of course - no weapons, nor anything unique to the challenges facing those living in a world populated with the walking dead. Zombies have gotten so 'mainstream' that my dad actually linked me to the CDC guide, and I'm pretty sure he still has trouble figuring out Youtube.
The point is that the only way I could see more zombies is if there was an actual zombie apocalypse. Which would actually suck, by the way, that Facebook group non-withstanding. They've become such a, well, inoffensive, generic bad guy, that for some stories they're more secondary bad guys/ background than anything else - after seeing an episode of the Walking Dead, I made the argument that it wasn't really ABOUT zombies. It just happened to have them in it.
I hate to say it, but zombies might be played out. If not, they're certainly getting there. A decent zombie story these days requires differentiation, a unique take on the zombie apocalypse. I've never put a lot of thought into my own permutation, but I'd go after one of the common rules of zombies: water is safety. Living in the Midwest, escaping the apocalypse by taking a sailboat to some isolated island is much more of a long term goal for me in case of sudden zombies, so I don't put a whole lot of trust in it. In truth, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, since I don't see why zombies couldn't swim to the supposedly safe island in their endless quest to devour all human flesh.
So I'd do the reverse. Zombies come from the sea. They swim quite well. The tides are changing, they sweep in, bringing thick fog, and the zombie hordes of the drowned climb up the beaches of coastal towns, killing people and throwing them back into the ocean to rise as more sea zombies. As the apocalypse spreads, the sea level could be rising; if I wanted to be a preachy environmentalist I could connect it to global warming or something.
And on a side note, if anyone reading this gets bitten by a zombie during the apocalypse, do us all a favor and admit it. You're not special, not immune, and you'll save your buddies a lot of trouble. :)
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