Station 11 is a book with a bit of a buzz around it: written by a Canadian expat living in New York, it won the British-based Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of 2014, but has been slow to find an audience in the US. I?ve just finally gotten to read it, and have some thoughts.

First and foremost, as others have said, don?t mistake this for a science fiction story. If you expect science fiction with all the tropes that implies, you?ll be disappointed. If you’re avoiding it because you’re worried it might be too science fiction-y, take a chance on this book. It does take place before and after a plague wipes out 99.999% of the world population, but it?s not a book about science fiction ideals, utopian or dystopian society. If anything it?s about malaise and learning to forget the good old days.

Is it a good story? Yes. Is it without its problems? No.

From here on, there are spoilers.

In many ways, I felt like I was re-reading The Stand, Stephen King?s end-of-the-world story where people walk and walk and walk, and along the way meet other people.

I was frustrated by the way that the survivors just accepted their lot and became scavengers unwilling to try to make sustainable lives anywhere. Why don?t they stop walking and camp in one of the many houses? Why does every house have broken windows? If the sheets from the hotels are still good, why aren’t the mattresses? Why the complete abandonment of electricity? Doesn?t anyone have a solar recharger? Wind, ever heard of it?

One thing that The Stand had that this story lacks is tension. There was a good and a bad presence, and the two sides were recruiting for a showdown. There?s none of that in this story, which is fine, but the author hints that it might go there, then doesn’t deliver. 

There?s also a lot of story that occurs off page.

How does the devout Christian boy Tyler become The Prophet? One day he wonders off with his mother, then ten or more years later he returns with an entourage and a commitment to violence and sexual slavery. His transformation might have been interesting. Why do they call him The Prophet? Why mention that his followers are heavily armed then have them so easily defeated? The other characters never really seemed in fear of him, nor did he come across as anything more than yet another in a series of threats to be overcome (most happening off page). Why was he so easily defeated if he?s the story?s ?big bad?? (Don’t tell me there was symbolism in the murder-suicide. It didn’t feel earned. One of my stories has a similar scenario and I’m working hard to make sure that it’s earned so the readers both embrace and are repelled by the event.)

If we?re going to spend a third of the book following someone who lives in a travelling symphony, wouldn?t it be nice if it was one of the important people? Maybe we could learn how this marvel came into being, maybe we could discover the trials and tribulations of being responsible for the well-being of the troupe. Or even why it keeps traveling. How does this traveling symphony survive winter? Are there towns with enough excess food as to be able to take them in (they certainly aren’t farming/harvesting their own food)?

Near the end of the book, we learn that a town south of the airport has rediscovered electricity. Now that might be an interesting story! Industrious people working to not just survive but rebuild! Does the book ever go there? No, even though in all probability The Prophet came through there on his way north and if we?d followed his story, we?d know part of that one too. By the end of the book, someone’s left to investigate it, but again, that’s story happening off-page.

Also, the symbolism was a bit heavy. The Undersea is limbo is the airport. We get it. The cloudy paperweight always went to people with uncertain futures. Yay. Shakespeare lived through a plague, now the plague survivors perform Shakespeare. Got it. The Prophet carves airplanes on people he’s kicked out of his paradise, like the quarantined “ghosts” on the Air Gradia flight. I get it, it just doesn’t resonate.

So what was good about this story?

• The sense of loss. The author does a great job of showing people realizing just how much they have lost and coming to terms with it.
• The sense of place. She describes Toronto vividly. The post-plague environment is usually written in very evocative prose although was oddly lacking in wolves, coyotes, bears, raccoons, and wild dogs (we are told that deer are plentiful, so their predators should be too. It’s human pressure that keeps those populations down).
• The interlinked character studies – there are a handful of main characters (Kirsten, Clark, Arthur, and Miranda with, to a lessor extent, Jeevan and Tyler) who all crossed paths before the plague and who all cross paths or influence each other?s lives after the plague.
• If you like stories where you don’t get all the answers (because that’s life), you’ll appreciate this one.

Final analysis: The book was enjoyable, if frustrating. I?m glad I’ve read it but I wouldn?t read it again. The author is a great observer and writer, I?m just not sure she?s a great storyteller. If you ever need an example of a writer who tells instead of shows, then you should point at this book. She made me care enough about the world she built to be annoyed at the stories she didn’t show within it.

I?ve had one of those realizations, one of those realizations^{(updated below)}.

I?ve parted ways with pop culture in all its forms. My opinions and ideas used to align with pop culture (or counter-culture) or at least be informed takes on pop culture. Then 2016 happened. It’s not just that my cultural icons started passing away en mass. It’s what’s risen to replace them.

It’s not just that my cultural icons started passing away en mass. It’s what’s risen to replace them.

I don?t understand a culture that could elect Donald Trump. Hell, I don?t understand a culture that would even consider voting for him.

I don?t understand how the gamergate/rabid puppies look at themselves in the mirror. I couldn?t be that shamelessly malevolent towards anyone for simply holding a different opinion from mine. This is hyperbullying, accentuated by the internet. Right and wrong don?t matter, politeness doesn?t matter, only volume and vitriol matter now.

Yet these people are the new mainstream, the Trumpsters, the generation defining the culture that we live in.

Pop culture and I have divorced. It?s official. Maybe that?s a good thing.

There are other signs. I?ve noticed a few things on Reddit. First, when it comes to discussing trends and preferences in science fiction, I?m definitely in the old school, deep enough to be a useful resource reference for others, but not one who?s opinion matters going forward. Decades of knowledge and experience given no value because experience now is equated with being ?too old?.

In another Reddit thread, a question was asked – what?s the most over the top performance you?ve seen in a film. I suggested Tim Curry in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. No one knows what I mean. Worse, the answers that are getting the most up-votes are names I don?t know.

Recently, I had some kid (25? 30? years old) tell me that I obviously didn?t know Star Wars very well(!) because when he asked me which ship was the coolest, I replied the Falcon. Wrong! I was told. The coolest ships are the TIE fighters – the mass-produced, not very sturdy ships flown by the Empire. Why were they obviously the coolest? Because they represented power and violence.

Pop culture and I have divorced. It?s official. Maybe that?s a good thing. Maybe we?ll both be happier for it.

Here’s Tim being over the top:

UPDATE:

No, not giving up the flame. Fuck ’em. They’re idiots. Time to take it back…

SPOILER & SPECULATION Heavy – Read at your own risk.

As most people know by now, the third act of Rogue One was extensively reshot. The earliest trailers for the film have loads of shots that not only aren?t in the final version, but contradict what we all saw on the big screen.

Putting together what could have been, and may once have been is purely to speculate with very few clues. And that?s what the rest of this article is going to do, without attribution.

Sorry.

Accept it or stop reading.

IO9 kind of missed the point in their article ?The First Script for Rogue One Had A Completely Different Ending? As a statement, that?s fine, but then the article starts with ?you probably noticed that much of what?s in the trailers is not in the movie.? IO9 makes the mistake (or wants you to) of thinking that that first draft was the version that was filmed and then reshot to make the ending darker.

From the sources that I?ve spoken with, the opposite is true. The final edit, after the third act reshoot, was not as dark as director Gareth Edward?s edit. Neither was based on the first draft that IO9 is referring to in this article.

On screen, we see the fates of each crew member. But in the trailers, at least one, K-2SO, is alive later in the story, in a place that we now never visit.

In the first version of the film, Vader doesn?t appear until near the very end. The earlier appearance of Vader in the final cut is really shoe-horned into the plot. I don’t know if that was a reshoot sequence or not, but as others have noted, the planet (Mustafar) lacks the titled name that all other worlds get, an odd editorial decision, but possibly an oversight due to time limitations caused by the reshoots. The story works perfectly well with the whole Mustafar sequence edited out*.

On screen, Jyn and Cassian die on a beach, embracing each other, knowing that they?ve succeeded, but that they can?t escape their fate. It?s an oddly peaceful death-scene. It?s also not how they died before the reshoots.

The heroes have beaten their enemy, Krennic, and appear to be on the verge of surviving. Jyn, Cassian and K-2SO escape from the primary building, using a train/subway. Krennic chases them. There we see him outdoors, purposely stalking them. Jyn and Cassian join the rebel fighters.

Somehow, K2 dies, Krennic dies, and Jyn and Cassian board a ship and pilot it off the surface of Scarif and join the rebel fleet.

Note Jyn in K-2SO’s seat.

Their sense of safety (and the audience?s) is shattered by the appearance of Vader. He is the enemy beyond their abilities, unstoppable malevolence, the Vader we have yet to really see on screen. Vader kills both Jyn and Cassian, quite possibly the rebel who gets Vader’s lightsaber run through him and the hatch was originally Jyn.

Yet the plans for the Death Star escape, leading to the events in A New Hope**.

It?s the absence of Vader murdering of our heroes that has infuriated people that I’ve spoken with. It also explains why Disney felt the need to ?Lighten the mood? from Edwards’ first cut towards what we see now on screen. Yes, Vader killing Jyn even as she hands the plans over would have been cool, but it’s a level of darkness that Disney decided they didn’t want their name on.

Thoughts?

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* Just as The Force Awakens would work better if we hadn’t had that whole Han and Chewie on another ship sequence mid-film – a sequence that was there solely to appease Chinese financiers and audiences.

** I hate that name.

Let’s talk about Martin Caidin

Martin who?

You know, Michael Crichton’s contemporary, the other big name writer of adventure stories grounded in science in the 1970s and 80s.

Martin who?

Have you never heard of The Six Million Dollar Man?

Oh, yeah. OK. Martin who?

The man who wrote over 50 books including a couple of Indiana Jones books in the 1990s, and the novelization of the movie The Final Countdown. But if you know him at all, it’s probably because of his most famous character, Steve Austin, and the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man. The show was loosely based on Caidin’s book, Cyborg (1972).

The basic scenario was the same for both the TV show and the novel: An astronaut survives what should have been a fatal crash, and is enhanced with bionic parts to allow him to not only live, but excel as a secret agent of the US government.

But the book was more political (it involved Isrealis and Arabs, and you can guess which side our cyborg was on), violent, and didn’t shy away from discussing sex. It should be noted that this wasn’t so unusual back then. Books were often much more randy than their filmed counterparts. Want proof? Read Peter Benchley’s Jaws. Sheriff Brody’s wife is having an affair. She fantasizes about getting into a car crash and her husband’s co-workers discovering that she’s driving panty-less to her lover’s nest. That definitely didn’t make it into the movie.

I’ve read Cyborg and enjoyed it. Cyborg had three sequels, and I thought I’d read one of them, although their descriptions on Wikipedia don’t ring any bells.

Cyborg really does read like a Michael Crichton book. And it’s made me wonder why Crichton went on to such a successful career, where Caidin’s career was successful, but less stellar.

Crichton’s first break out book was The Andromeda Strain (1969), about a virus coming to Earth and causing havoc. Coincidentally, a year earlier, Caidin published Four Came Back about astronauts unintentionally bringing a new virus back to Earth.

I’m not suggesting that Crichton borrowed from Caidin – when an idea is ripe to be exploited, like-minded people will find it and use it, and in the late 1960s near Earth space travel was a very hot topic. For whatever reason — marketing, quality of storytelling, fickle Gods — The Andromeda Strain caught the public’s attention.

The Six Million Dollar Man wasn’t Caidin’s only shot at fame. It wasn’t even his first. I remember seeing a movie on TV when I was a kid. It was called Marooned, and it was about an astronaut stuck in Earth orbit with no way home. It turns out that was one of Caidin’s stories too, and it was released as a movie in 1969, with some big names – Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman – and some staple actors of the genre – Richard Crenna, David Janssen. It showed up on TV some time later.

This doesn’t being to touch on Caidin?s life – he was a professional pilot (who flew with the Thunderbirds aerobatic team); he restored vintage aircraft, he wrote flight manuals approved by the FA; he was a TV talk show host who challenged far-right hate group leaders to debate him on air; and later in his life, he claimed psychic abilities, but refused to let them be tested.

All in all an interesting man. You really should read his wikipedia entry at least, and maybe one of his books (if you ever find them in a second-hand book store. They’re not in print as far as I can tell).

We saw Arrival (no ?the? in the title) this past week, and while I loved it, there was a point that stuck with me – and it probably wasn?t the point that you?d think.

Things that I loved – that it was a slow film, that it gave you time to think about what you were seeing and experiencing. I loved that you don?t always get answers. I loved some of the ideas, such as language limiting what you’re allowed to think.

The aliens? ultimate fate was unexplained, as was, if you think about it, their arrival. And I have a sense that those two are joined to each other somehow. The ?twist? of the story was strong and made me want to go back and watch it again to see if it was obvious with foreknowledge or if it stood up to repeat viewing.

But? but? but? there was this nagging thing in the back of my mind.

At one point it?s mentioned in passing that the aliens don?t understand algebra but do understand higher maths. Since math doesn?t work, we need language. Bring on the linguists! I thought that was a cheap and cheesy way to get around the idea that math is a universal language.

I know there?s a difference between teaching a language and learning a language, and I know the character is a linguist, not an ESL teacher. However, once the linguist had decided that she needed to teach the aliens English or at least map English words to the equivalent alien ideas, she did it poorly.

The old Polish man in this Christmas advert does a better job teaching himself:

Look at his use of Post-it notes. He does what our linguist should have done, especially when trying to separate ?human? from ?personal name?. First everyone gets a ‘human’ post-it, then each individual gets their own name as a post-it: So much simpler than how she worked.

It?s an incredibly small thing, but it bugged me, the way that watching Interstellar bugged physicists. When you know something and a film gets it wrong, you are bumped out of the film. I got back in, but I wish I hadn?t been thrown out.

 

I guess every point of refuge has its price
– The Eagles, Lyin? Eyes.

 

Song lyrics – go figure.

Like many new writers, I first started my chapters with song lyrics – the embodiment of the idea I wanted to express. Like most writers, I got over it, but still, for longer works, I do usually have a playlist that represents moods or concepts, if not ideas, that I want to express. These aren?t necessarily favourite songs by any means. They just capture, or evoke in me, an aspect of a story that I want to share.

Leonard Cohen is a god, there is no doubt. The line ?We were guided by the beauty of our weapons? in First We Take Manhattan speaks to a creative hubris that could spawn a thousand stories. But do you need to telegraph that idea to your readers by including the lyrics that inspired you?

Sometimes a song just captures a mood – A Toronto-based band called FM put out a concept album called Black Noise. Their song One O?clock Tomorrow somehow captures an essence of the wistful romance of deep space travel. I?d like to capture that too. So the song goes into a play list.

Some songs just embrace character well. Take for example, The Waterboys, Don?t Bang The Drum. The song starts with:

?Well here we are in a special place
What are you going to do here? (…)
What show of soul are we going to get from you? (?)
If I know you, you?ll bang the drum like monkeys do.?

A lot of their songs are harshly critical observations about conformity and self-involvement. It makes for great character conflict.

Compare that to Glass Tiger?s (Watching) Worlds Crumble, where the narrator is apparently more important than those suffering from his actions:*

Look at me, I’m watching worlds crumble
Look at me, I’m making walls tumble
Take my hand, oh, Lord, it’s all I’ve got
Look at me, I’m watching worlds crumble.

Makes you want to scream ?Do something.? But then again, the idea of a helpless protagonist is common in many genres, and the idea that you can?t always stop the consequences of your actions is a bit of a theme in my writing. I don?t know if the song inspired the idea or just gave voice to something inside me.

Once last one for you. The Alarm, a band who tried to make pop-punk, with some success, had a song called Where Were You Hiding? There?s a line in it that I often think about without ever actually feeling inspired by it: ?They say all good things come in threes, well here comes the third degree: Where were you hiding when the storm broke?? oddly enough, whenever I listen to that song, I feel critical – the lyrics are so ?  witty but staged and shallow: ?The truth is the truth or the truth is surely a lie.? Very anthemic, great for stadium rock singalongs, but not nearly as deep as it pretends to be.

The price that song lyrics claim for their refuge? if you haven?t internalized the idea, you haven?t taken ownership of it. Inspiration comes from everywhere. I wrote a short story once after watching a turtle cross the road. Readers don?t need to know that. To borrow the butcher?s analogy, you don?t show how the sausage is made.

*My interpretation. Yours may vary.

Something bothered me after watching Rogue One – where was that scene from the trailer? Then, the more I thought about it, it became where were those scenes from the trailers? So I started digging through the trailers, capturing any image that I didn’t remember being in the film.

It’s worth noting that I saw this film in Malaysia. There may have been edits (for duration or content) made for a Malaysian audience that mean that some scenes below were in the version you saw. If so, please note them in the comments below. Also, I’ve only seen the film once, I may have just missed seeing a scene.

Alternate takes or trimmed scenes:

These shouldn’t be spoilers.

I don’t remember seeing the captured rebel pilots on Jedha.

 

Flying over the fallen statue. It’s still seen, but it’s fallen the other way, and you see it from ground level.

 

K2 promising not to kill Jyn because the captain told him not to.

 

Krennic has “The Power” conversation with Vader. The scene is still there, but that line, which always felt poorly delivered anyway, isn’t.

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STOP HERE IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO SEE SPOILERS!

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Much more spoiler-y edits:

Krennic walking through the destruction on Scarif. Given where he was when the attack started, and where he later confronted Jyn (in the same buiilding) how did he end up outside?

 

Jyn in a pilot’s seat. Not in the movie. Add this to one below about K2, and you get the possibility that there was a very different ending to this film.

 

Vader on the Death Star. Not in the movie:

 

K2 still alive after Jyn has the Death Star plans. Not in the movie.

 

The biggest, in my mind. Jyn versus the TIE fighter. I was anticipating this scene, and when it became obvious they were building to it, I started to get excited. Then boom, no TIE fighter in this scene. This was the scene that triggered this whole post.

Am I wrong? Where any of those scenes there? My partner isn’t the biggest Star Wars fan, so there were a few times when I had to look away from the screen to explain something to her (like why I laughed at the “Hey, watch where you’re going…” scene).

The passing this week of Greg Lake, singer and songwriter of one of my favourite Christmas songs, made me realize that there are still a lot of new Christmas songs being written, ones with staying power.

The passing this week of Greg Lake, singer and songwriter of one of my favourite Christmas songs, made me realize that there are still a lot of new Christmas songs being written, ones with staying power.

For most of us, the Christmas songs that we hear year in and year out, even those done by modern artists, are songs from the 1950s and 60s. Whether it?s The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, White Christmas, It?s beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas or Santa Baby and Christmas, Baby Please Come Home, a lot of what gets radio airplay is old.

Yes, Springsteen?s Santa Claus is Coming to Town is a vibrant, different take on a classic that gets copied often, and U2?s Christmas, Baby Please Come Home is great (as are Madonna?s Santa Baby and John Mellencamp?s I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus) but I want to look at newer creations.

So this is Xmas, And what have you done?
Another year over, And a new one just begun
~ John Lennon

It was in the 1970s that new Christmas songs started to appear, songs that weren?t written for kids or as disposable ditties. Of course John Lennon?s Happy Xmas (War Is Over) is probably the seminal song of this type. It wasn?t just the message that changed. Gone was the Phil Spector Wall of Sound, replaced by an acoustic guitar and a chorus of voices not quite in sync with each other. Leave it to Lennon to redefine another category of music.

The aforementioned Lake, once part of ELP and King Crimson, released I Believe in Father Christmas two years later. This the first Christmas song that I remember hearing that had a more adult, less sugary take on Christmas as child-like innocence and adult cynicism battle in his mind. Somehow it finds an upbeat resolution. It was released just two years after Lennon?s So This is Christmas.

That questioning of Christmas probably peaked in 1984?s Do They Know It?s Christmas but I think the gold standard for dark Christmas dirges has to be the Pogues Fairytale of New York, released four years later. There are more ythat have stuck with me for decades: The Payola$ Christmas is Coming (1983!) which may not be known outside of Canada, sounds somewhat upbeat until you realize that the singer is unemployed and lonely. Faith Hill?s Where Are You Christmas epitomized and to some extent mainstreamed this adult angst Christmas song trend. Now everyone does it – from ColdPlay to th Barenaked Ladies.

A very Merry Xmas, And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one. Without any fear
~ John Lennon

Of course not everything written in the last few decades has been angst-ridden. Chrissy Hind anf the Pretenders’ 2000 Miles, sung as if it were a sad tome, elevates to a happy song of hope. Even George Michael?s song of betrayal and broken hearts, Last Christmas, is upbeat. Technically not a Christmas Song, but I tend to only listen to Jon Anderson?s stunning Chagall Duet this time of year. And we can?t forget Mariah Carey?s All I Want for Christmas Is You, the epitome of pure sugar.

I?m sure there are more, both traditionally sappy and modernly cynical. What?s your go-to recent Christmas song?

Interesting astronomy news breaking today (October 14, 2015):

A star 1,451 light years away from us, catalogued as KIC 8462852, is showing an odd behaviour. Up to 22% of its light disappears for between 5 and 80 days at a time, suggesting that something big is orbiting it.

We’re not talking planet-sized big, we’re talking big-big. For example, Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system, could have that same effect on an observer if the observer was standing on one of our outer planets, like Pluto. Pluto is about 5.5 light *hours* away from our sun. This star is 1,451 light *years* away.

Two possibilities:

1. There is something, perhaps an interstellar dust cloud or a “rogue” planet – one that has been ejected by its star system – between us and that star, that is interfering with our view of the star;
2. There is something huge – bigger in at least two dimensions than the star itself – orbiting that star. Astronomers have already ruled out a dust cloud caused by planetary formation as :

• a) the star is old and planetary formation occurs early in a star’s life, and
• b) such a cloud would show up as excessive infrared light, which this doesn’t.

The article in The Atlantic contains a link to the research paper if you really want to delve into it, or you could join the rest of the internet in speculating that it might be a ringworld, or the ongoing construction of a ringworld, or an incomplete Dyson Sphere, or a complete Dyson Sphere with holes punched in it (apparently called a mobious sphere), or…

Start by reading the article in the Altantic or watch this video from the editor of Universe Today magazine.

Then, if you have an interest, read the astronomical paper it’s based on. While you’re at it, read this second article at the Atlantic about how a “we’ve discovered aliens!” false alarm happened in the 1990s, and how it shouldn’t happen again.

UPDATE: For a more scientific perspective from a real astronomer, try Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy article, complete with charts. For a bit less scientific and more guarded interpretation, read this article a Space.com.

UPDATE 2 (Jan 19/2016): It gets weirder. The star has been fading, pretty consistently, for over acentury. An astronomer went through archived photos and compared luminosity, and it is distinct (and by galactic standards, rapid). Again, Phil Plait has a good discussion of the topic here.
 

Many people argue that Galaxy Quest is one of the best Star Trek movies. If you know the movie, you know it isn’t a Star Trek movie at all, but it has the heart, soul and humour of a great Star Trek movie.

I’d argue that we had a great Star Wars Episode 1, but it was released a year later than the Phantom Menace. It was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Imagine, a story about a seasoned warrior and his apprentice being sent on a mission to find a misguided child and to protect that child from a corrupting, powerful force. The seasoned warrior ends up dying, and the apprentice completes the mission. That’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Now imagine a story where a seasoned warrior and his apprentice are sent to stop a trade embargo and accidentally find a child who in the context of that film alone, shows little redeeming qualities, but also no penchant for evil. The seasoned warrior ends up dying, and the apprentice completes the mission. That’s The Phantom Menace.

I’m not foolishly saying that simply slapping ILM-quality effects onto Crouching Tiger would have made it a Star Wars story. I just remember sitting in the Imax movie theatre watching Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, and thinking, “Wow, This is what Episode I could have been.” Just the fact that the young woman had already started down the dark path and needed to be drawn back, first by being shown superior skills, then given education and respect made a huge impact on the weight of the story. The Phantom Menace had Jake Lloyd’s too impish and impulsive performance (I’m NOT blaming him. It’s all George’s fault.)

I’d actually mostly forgotten all this. But yesterday someone told me that there’s a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I hadn’t heard about it. I don’t know if it’s a worthy companion piece, or if like The Phantom Menace, it will dilute the value of a great story.