Retrospective: 超時空要塞マクロス (Super Dimension Fortress MACROSS). Part One.

Introduction.
Part Two.

The Macross

Let's begin an analysis of Super Dimension Fortress Macross in earnest, beginning with a broad overview of the plot.

Fair warning.  In this analysis THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.  If you haven't yet seen the series, you have been warned and this analysis is written with the assumption that the reader will proceed upon his or her own discretion.  If you have seen the series, by all means, please continue reading.

PLOT OVERVIEW
The series opens with the crash-landing of an alien warship on South Ataria Island in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean.  Earth is in the midst of a world war but the appearance f this alien vessel quickly unites mankind under the auspices of a powerful United Nations, which forms the U.N. Spacy.  Over ten years, the ship is rebuilt and remodeled, its technologies reverse-engineered, and is christened the Macross.  To support the massive undertaking of repairing and examining the ship and its technologies (including a spacefolding FTL drive), an enormous city springs into existence surrounding the vessel and occupying most of the island.

The story begins in earnest with the celebrations to launch the vessel.  It is here that we are introduced to most of the characters that will dominate the narrative.  Captain Bruno J. Global, an Italian submarine captain who had fought for the United Nations during the unification wars and whose appearance exemplifies the "Mustache Pete" stereotype.  His first officer is First Lieutenant Hayase Misa, a Japanese woman whose father, Admiral Hayase Takashi, was Global's superior during the wars.  Her coworker, companion and close confidante is Claudia LaSalle, an African American bridge officer.  The leader of the Skull Squadron, Roy Focker, is a heavily drinking, smoking, womanizing, American cowboy who started out as a stunt pilot before joining the United Nations forces during the U.N. Wars.  He is in a romantic relationship with LaSalle and hosts his young friend Ichijyo Hikaru, the son of the air circus owner for whom Roy flew before the wars.  Ichijyo Hikaru is introduced as an energetic, brash Japanese pilot of age 16 with a record of seven championship awards for stunt piloting.  Finally, Lynn Minmay is a 15-year-old, half-Chinese, half-Japanese girl from Yokohama who moved to South Ataria Island with dreams of becoming a star.

Britai's flagship

The celebrations and launch preparations are interrupted by the arrival of the Zentraedi, an alien race of giants who are searching for the crashed vessel since it is identified as belonging to the Supervision Army, an enemy force with whom the Zentraedi are at war.  Their commander, Britai Kridanik, orders an assault to capture the vessel, brushing aside all orbital defense platforms encircling the earth and bombarding the island before launching ground and air attacks.  Hikaru and Minmay are immediately swept up into the events and find themselves, along with many of the survivors, as refugees aboard the Macross when a space-fold operation goes wrong.  The Macross, with its precious cargo of civilian refugees, then battles its way across the solar system back to Earth.  Once it arrives, the crew and refugees alike must navigate the complexities of government policy and military command that wants to mitigate the impact of the alien attacks on Earth and use the vessel to distract the Zentraedi away from the home planet.

Left-to-right: Lynn Minmay, Ichijyo Hikaru, and Hayase Misa.

Throughout the story, interpersonal drama unfolds in the form of a love triangle between Hikaru, Minmay, and Misa.  Hikaru is initially attracted to Minmay who, although she finds herself drawn to Hikaru, is ultimately career driven and extremely capricious due to her youth.  However, the 19-year-old Misa and 16-year-old Hikaru, despite the intense dislike the two have for one-another, gradually find solace in companionship.  As the series progresses, years pass and they grow older and more experienced and mature.  As they age, Hikaru gradually detaches himself from Minmay and finds in Misa a more sophisticated and meaningful relationship.

THEMATIC DEPTH
What sets Macross apart from other "real robot" anime?  Mobile Suit Gundam arguably has a sophisticated plot full of intrigue and illustrative of the horror of war (especially involving advanced robotic technology and futuristic weaponry).  There are a great deal of similarities between the two, as well.  Hikaru appears to be much like Amro--both are excellent pilots who become leaders.  Both the Macross and the White Base are iconic vessels that serve as major targets for the enemy to capture or destroy.

Mobile Suit Gundam

The similarities are mostly surface.  Macross actually subverts many of the elements that are prominent in Mobile Suit Gundam.  In addition, Macross isn't as unambiguous about war.  Where Mobile Suit Gundam simply depicts war as bad, Macross demonstrates how war can often be unavoidable.  Nevertheless, Macross still tries to provide a positive message by exploring how misunderstanding and lack of communication can create military conflict and give methods by which negotiation can lead to peace.  Mobile Suit Gundam is far more pessimistic in its outlook.

The characters in Macross are multifaceted.  It is difficult not to care about them and find oneself deeply engaged by the narrative.  Actions have consequences.  People live, love and die.  They are beautifully, wonderfully flawed in the most human and believable ways.  Characters have real motivations that go beyond simply winning the war.  Unlike Mobile Suit Gundam, the characters of Macross have lives outside of the conflict.

The war against the Zentraedi is a catalyst for much of the drama but it is by no means a mere situational MacGuffin.  It forces characters to analyze themselves and become more introspective.  It provides a vehicle for experience.  They change, grow, and develop as people.  Kawamori Shoji invested a great deal of time and effort into creating these characters, their needs, desires, hopes, and motivations.

The narrative of the series is also challenging to the viewer.  There is no clear-cut good-guy/bad-guy dynamic.  Kawamori refuses to spoon-feed the viewer with a morality.  Instead, he uses the themes to make the viewer think.  One may not agree with the choices certain characters make.  They mess up, fail, fall down and occasionally some don't climb back up.  There is heroism and sacrifice, tragedy, foolishness and tunnel vision, blind ignorance, love, appreciation for beauty, loss, and triumph.

THE HERO
Ichijyo Hikaru is the hero of the tale.  He starts out as a kid.  Although he is an experienced air-show pilot he is unready to deal with the realities of air-combat and warfare.  Nor is he prepared to pilot a transforming mech.  He stands out as a protagonist because he, like us, is thrown into this conflict.  The viewer can identify with him very quickly.  He's not "the One," a Newtype, or the Kwizatz Haderach.  He's just a kid who gets swept up by events far beyond his control.  Hikaru is forced to adapt and grow in order to survive.  His journey becomes our journey through the series and we experience the story, the love, the loss, and the lessons vicariously through him.

He stands in direct contrast to Amro in Mobile Suit Gundam.  Amro is a Newtype, a sort of psychic whiz-kid at piloting robots.  Amro's alter-ego is Char Aznable and the two engaged in one of the most legendary feuds in all of anime.  Enraged at the destruction the Zeon forces are wreaking, he jumps into the cockpit of a Gundam, barely glances at the instructions and immediately starts piloting in a combat situation.  He is entirely untrained and untested, yet he successfully defeats the enemy Zacks.

View the scene here.

Hikaru's first experience is quite the opposite.  In fact, it's terrifying.  Hikaru is absolutely overwhelmed.  He ended up piloting a Valkyrie fighter entirely by accident and ends up escorted to safety by his mentor, Roy Focker.  Even this escort barely rescues him and he is instructed to transform in order to avoid colliding with the Macross.  He may have the skills and training to fly a plane but he is entirely incapable of piloting a bipedal robot, crashing into buildings and causing a lot of damage.

Amro is special by having an innate talent.  Hikaru isn't special.  He's entirely mundane.  He's a human.  The fact that he becomes an ace fighter pilot is not through virtue of being a Newtype like Amro but a result of hard work, training, courage, and willpower.

Next time, we'll take a look at the circumstances of war and its impact on Macross as a major theme.

Retrospective: 超時空要塞マクロス (Super Dimension Fortress MACROSS). Introduction.

Part One
Part Two.

Several years ago, I wrote this post, discussion the value of 超時空要塞マクロス(Choujikuu Yousai Makurosu = Super Dimension Fortress Macross) as a science-fiction drama.  If you've already read that post, please bear with me because I'm going to cover some similar ground.

My discussion of Macross inevitably begins with Robotech.  For many Generation X'ers who were children during the 1980s, including myself, our introduction to Japanese アニメ (anime = "animation") was through the various work of Carl Macek (who passed away in 2010).  Macek is either a hero or a villain depending on to whom you speak.  While Macek did a lot to bring アニメ to North America and other Anglophonic countries, this often required mash-ups, heavy editing, and sometimes even complete and total rewrites of entire series.  The most notorious (and, indeed, his first big) project was Robotech for Harmony Gold, which took three unrelated anime, 超時空要塞マクロス (Super Dimension Fortress Macross), 超時空騎団サザンクロス (Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross), and 機甲創世記モスピーダ (Genesis Climber Mospeada), combined them into three consecutive generations and changed names, dialogue, and even edited out certain scenes in order to make the show more palatable to an audience primarily composed of American and Canadian children (and possibly their parents).

Carl Macek

Interestingly enough, Robotech was not the only program to receive this treatment.  Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years was a mash-up of two separate anime, 宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック (Space Pirate Captain Harlock) and 新竹取物語 1000年女王 (Queen Millennia).  Both were taken from manga series written by 松本 零士 (Matsumoto Leiji), the genius behind 宇宙戦艦ヤマト (Space Battleship Yamato) and 銀河鉄道999 (Galaxy Express 999).  The reason for these mash-ups revolved around syndication regulations in the United States--in order to air a weekday television series, there needed to be at least 65 episodes (essentially a minimum-length run of five episodes per week over the course of thirteen weeks). マクロス (Macross) had 36 episodes, サザンクロス (Southern Cross) had 24, and モスピーダ (Mospeada) had 25.  Individually, they didn't have enough--combined they had 85 episodes, well above the minimum requirement for U.S. syndication.

The purpose behind the heavy editing was two-fold.  First, Macek had to rewrite names and dialogue enough to explain the progressive generations and put them into a narrative framework that would make sense.  Thus, for example, the Zor in サザンクロス (Southern Cross) were rewritten as the Robotech Masters, the overlords of the Zentraedi from マクロス (Macross).  In addition, dialogue and visual content had to be edited to make the show fit for children, since in the 1980s it was assumed that cartoons were strictly for kids.  Thus, dialogue that related to mature themes (such as sex or suicide) had to be sanitized for American child audiences.  The brief and occasional nudity also had to be excised.

What was shocking, however, to me as a kid, were the abundance of mature themes and ideas that persisted.  Characters died and the price of war was high.  There was a continuous narrative that flowed from episode-to-episode.  This was during a time when G.I. Joe and The Transformers were self-contained, independent stories and it mattered little if you missed a few episodes.  Robotech was the first show that I made certain I watched daily as a child.  If I missed episode 13 of G.I. Joe, I could still pick up and watch episode 14 the next day because Cobra Commander would be hatching a completely new and unrelated plan.  Missing an episode of Robotech meant that I missed out on character and plot development.

In addition, when a plane was shot down in Robotech, there wasn't always a parachute to let the censors know the pilot escaped.  People died, good and bad.  Robotech was about war and the cost of war.  Robotech challenged me far more than the other television cartoons that I viewed and it inspired me to a wider and more complex world of stories and storytelling.

I'm not writing this series of blog entries, however, to discuss Robotech.  I'm writing a retrospective that will analyze and review 超時空要塞マクロス (Super Dimension Fortress Macross).  To that end, I want to discuss first how Macross came about and then, in subsequent posts, explore the narrative elements and themes of the series.

Kawamori Shoji

The Genesis of Macross
Macross was the brainchild of 河森 正治 (Kawamori Shoji), an animator, designer, and conceptual artist who began working in the Japanese animation industry during the late 1970s.  His influence as a designer is extremely heavy--he's done designs for Matsumoto Leiji's Space Battleship Yamato and even had a hand in creating a number of Generation 1 Transformers.  If you've seen Eureka 7, the Patlabor movies, the Ghost in the Shell film, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Outlaw Star, or Vision of Escaflowne, you've seen mechanical designs by Kawamori.  Kawamori got his big start working as an intern and assistant artist at スタジオぬえ (Studio Nue), which produced Matsumoto's Space Battleship Yamato in 1974.  Kawamori would eventually come to helm 1996's 天空のエスカフローネ (Vision of Escaflowne) at Studio Nue before branching off to create many science-fiction and fantasy anime that would come out during the new century, particularly 2001's 地球少女アルジュナ (Earth Maiden Arjuna), 2005's 創聖のアクエリオン (Genesis of Aquarion), and 2012's AKB∞48.  However, he always seems to return to the universe of Macross from time-to-time, revisiting it with Macross Plus, Macross 7, Macross Zero, and most recently, Macross Frontier.

Macross is a foray into what is known as the リアルロボット ("real robot") genre in Japan.  The basic idea of this genre centers on somewhat explainable scientific and technological advances that make possible the construction and piloting of giant robots.  The first true real robot series is usually considered to be Mobile Suit Gundam, and Kawamori’s Choujikuu Yousai Makurosu helped to better define the tropes and characteristics of the genre.  This genre is noteworthy for its departure from other giant robot shows like Voltron because the core concepts are more realistic, don’t rely upon gimmicks like “blazing swords” and “monsters of the week,” focus on weapons that are known to be technologically possible, don’t have special attacks that are activated by voice-command, and so on.

What first inspired Kawamori to create his own "real robot" series was the immense success of 機動戦士ガンダム (Mobile Suit Gundam) during the late 1970s.  Combined with his experience working on Space Battleship Yamato and the immense success such space-opera programs had, Kawamori drew up plans for a space-opera of his own.  This time, he would incorporate a great number of themes absent from those series.  He would use the backdrop of interstellar war to galvanize the action but the real drama would always be interpersonal.  Thus, Kawamori teamed up with Studio Nue colleague Kazutaka Miyatake for mech design and Artland’s Haruhiko Mikimoto for character design.  By 1982 the result was an epic story of the power of music and love amidst the tragedy of futuristic space-war.

In Part One, I will give a brief overview of the plot for 超時空要塞マクロス (Super Dimension Fortress Macross) and initiate discussion of its more salient themes as well as occasionally compare it to other popular "real robot" anime, especially Mobile Suit Gundam.

Twin Post: D-Day and Ray Bradbury

Two things have really converged today that make being a blogger a bit interesting.  The first is that on June 5, Ray Bradbury passed away.  The other thing is that today, June 6, is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy during the Second World War.  Both topics are likely being blogged about all over the internet, but I thought it would be remiss of me to not say at least something.  I've avoided doing this before because everybody is doing it, but this time I figured I'd hop on the bandwagon.

Ray Bradbury
The passing of this giant of science-fiction is honestly quite sad, especially since he was prescient enough to foresee the cultural decline of American society into kitsch and the waning of literary awareness.  I read Fahrenheit 451 back in high school and it struck me how much Bradbury predicted how cultural and moral relativism would generate a malaise of meaninglessness and censorship of literary works (much of which comes out in the "Coda" of the book).  I was reminded of this when I discovered that new editions of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn were being published with heavy editing in order to make the work less "offensive."

I've read only a few of his short stories, but I especially remember "All Summer in a Day," dealing with school bullying on a colonized Venus (before we knew about the pressure-cooker atmosphere) because she's the only student to have ever seen the sunlight (since Venus is shrouded in clouds and constant rain).  This makes her "different" and the other children reveal the base, cruel, evil selfishness of human nature--only to discover deep shame and guilt for their actions at the end.  Sadly, what's done is done and they can never undo their behavior.  It's a great story about human nature and was quite moving for me to read as a child who suffered from bullying and ostracism.  Although I was far more angry and missed the real point of the story--that you cannot undo evil--and focused more on the poor girl who ends up being tortured by her peers.

Bradbury is one of those writers who has proven that science-fiction can, indeed, be literature.  He was most prolific during the height of science-fiction writing, during the middle of the 20th century.  That was when the likes of Bradbury, Clarke, and Asimov rubbed shoulders with Heinlein, Sturgeon, Hubbard, and Ellison and others.  They wrote in a world before Star Wars radically altered our perceptions of science-fiction (for good or for ill).

D-Day
On June 5, 1944, as we all should know from school, the Allied invasion of Europe began with paratroop drops and an amphibious landing in Normandy, France.  This was the turning-point in the war against Nazi Germany.  Although Hitler had been steadily losing ground in North Africa and Italy, it wasn't until the French front was opened that the Nazi war machine really began to fall apart.

We've all seen the opening shots of Saving Private Ryan.  Hopefully, we also watched the chronicle of Easy Company in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.  Some of us fancy ourselves to have survived the horrors of the war through playing Call of Duty 2 or Medal of Honor: Frontline.  The experience of war can be horrific and harrowing.  Many of our grandparents and great-grandparents (has it been so long?) are still haunted by the memories of those days, when they stormed the beaches, killed and died.

The Normandy landings would see at least 12,000 Allied soldiers dead.  By the conclusion of Operation Overlord, the Allies would have suffered over 225,000 dead and wounded, while the German casualties approach 450,000 by some estimates.  The immense human suffering and destruction of lives brought about by World War II should not be easily forgotten--nor should the lives and deaths of the men who fought against Nazi Germany.

Since I had the pleasure of reading Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad, I have wanted to read some of his other books.  Considering how excellent Stalingrad was, I figured I'd plug his D-Day book, especially since I intend to get around to it within the next year or so.


Interesting note:  I find it interesting that nearly 160,000 men stormed the beaches at Normandy in June of 1944, while (considering my last post) almost the same number of men marched ashore at Busan in May of 1592 to begin the samurai invasion of Korea.

Book Review -- THE DYING EARTH, by Jack Vance

Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed, isolated system temperature, pressure, and chemical potential will eventually achieve equilibrium. All of the energy tends to even out throughout the system. Sometimes, this is referred to as entropy. When we think of entropy, we usually imagine loss of energy, not necessarily energy equalization. But something is lost when energy is equilibrated. What's lost is vitality, motion. The imbalance of energy permits action, transfer and conversion of energy convey motion and collision. When elements within a system bleed energy off to form that equilibrium, those elements seem to die.

It is this sort of energy death that Jack Vance explores in The Dying Earth. I recently reread my 1960s Lancer SF Library edition of this seminal work of its eponymous genre during school vacation. It's not very long, only 160 pages. Within are six stories set on an unnamed continent in a far, far distant future when the sun has grown dim and the inhabitants of the weary Earth imagine that it will one day gutter and flicker out like an exhausted flame.

Through these tales, Vance explores the theme of innocence--an ironic topic considering the setting is a far distant future where everything is slowly dying. However, through her old age, the Earth has regained a shred of her own innocence, as magic and myth have resurfaced, albeit mixed with science and technology. Vance's language invokes that same sense of the legendary and mythopoeic that Tolkien, Dunsany, and Howard possessed, although instead of dwelling in some mythic past when the world was young, he places his era of legend in a dreamlike future full of nostalgia and misty exoticism.

It was night in white-walled Kaiin, and festival time. Orange lanterns floated in the air, moving as the breeze took them. From the balconies dangled flower chains and cages of blue fireflies. The streets surged with the wine-flushed populace, costumed in a multitude of bizarre modes. Here was a Melantine bargeman, here a warrior of Valdaran's Green Legion, here another of ancient times wearing one of the old helmets. In a little cleared space a garlanded courtesan of the Kauchique littoral danced the Dance of the Fourteen Silken Movements to the music of flutes. In the shadow of a balcony a girl barbarian of East Almery embraced a man blackened and in leather harness as a Deodand of the forest. They were gay, these people of waning Earth, feverishly merry, for infinite night was close at hand, when the red sun should finally flicker and go black.

Countries have strange names, such as Kauchique, the Cape of Sad Remembrance, and the Land of the Falling Wall. We read of "orange-haired witches of the Cobalt Mountain; forest sorcerers of Ascolais, white-bearded wizards of the Forlorn Land," and silk-clad princes of "Cansaspara, the city of fallen pylons across the Melantine Gulf." Vance's prose infuses his perpetually twilit world with a sense of storied history.

The ground rose, the trees thinned, and T'sais came out on an illimitable dark expanse. This was Modavna Moor, a place of history, a tract which had borne the tread of many feet and absorbed much blood. At one famous slaughtering, Golickan Kodek the Conqueror had herded here the populations of two great cities, G'Vasan and Bautiku, constricted them in a circle three miles across, gradually pushed them tighter, tighter, tighter, panicked them toward the center within his flapping-armed subhuman cavalry, until at last he had achieved a gigantic squirming mound, half a thousand feet high, a pyramid of screaming flesh. It is said that Golickan Kodek mused ten minutes at his monument, then turned and rode his bounding mount back to the land of Laidenur from whence he had come.

We may only spend a few pages on the Modavna Moor, but that brief description of Golickan Kodek's ride from Laidenur gives the location weight and feeling, and makes it seem a real and actual place. Though Prince Datul Omaet is only mentioned in passing, the fact that he exists, is a sorcerer, and comes from a city of "fallen pylons" from across a sea makes Vance's world just a little bit richer and more fascinating. Vance doesn't flesh everything out with the thoroughness of a Tolkien, but rather keeps his world open and unmapped like Robert E. Howard or Clark Ashton Smith, enabling him to broaden and expand it at will.

Though the setting has great potential for nihilistic pessimism, Vance avoids that. In a sense, the decay and imminent death of the Earth is an opportunity to rediscover a romanticism. Though the Earth cannot be saved from its ultimate fate, maybe it could be spiritually redeemed through heroism, sacrifice, bravery, and intelligence. Indeed, there's a great strain of optimism that runs through the entirety of The Dying Earth and defies the sun's exhaustion. The mythic lyricism of Vance's prose is very much a return to an older form, and though he's not the master that Dunsany or Tolkien would be, he does a decent job of it nonetheless.

"Far in the past, far beyond thought, so the legend runs, a race of just people lived in a land east of the Maurenron Mountains, past the Land of the Falling Wall, by the shores of a great sea. They built a city of spires and low glass domes, and dwelt in great content. These people had no god, and presently they felt the need of one whom they might worship. So they built a lustrous temple of gold, glass, and granite, wide as the Scaum River where it flows through the Valley of Graven Tombs, as long again and higher than the trees of the north. And this race of honest men assembled in the temple, and all flung a mighty prayer, a worshipful invocation, and, so legend has it, a god molded by the will of this people was brought into being, and he was of their attributes, a divinity of utter justice.

"The city at last crumbled, the temple became shards and splinters, the people vanished. But the god still remains, rooted forever to the place where his people worshiped him."

Magic plays an enormous part of the setting--both in its romantic nostalgia and in its entropic decay.

At one time a thousand or more runes, spells, incantations, curses, and sorceries had been known. The reach of Grand Motholam--Ascolais, the Ide of Kauchique, Almery to the South, the Land of the Falling Wall to the East--swarmed with sorcerers of every description, of whom the chief was the Arch-Necromancer Phandaal. A hundred spells Phandaal personally had formulated--though rumor said that demons whispered at his ear when he wrought magic. Ponticella the Pious, then ruler of Grand Motholam, put Phandaal to torment, and after a terrible night, he killed Phandaal and outlawed sorcery throughout the land. The wizards of Grand Motholam fled like beetles under a strong light; the lore was dispersed, and forgotten, until now, at this dim time, with the sun dark, wilderness obscuring Ascolais, and the white city of Kaiin half in ruins, only a few more than a hundred spells remained to the knowledge of man.

The spells are described as "so cogent" that characters can only fit a limited number of them into their brains at any given time. Upon casting of these spells, the release of magical energy wipes the formulas from the sorcerers' minds. This is exactly what role-playing-gamers describe when discussing "Vancian magic" in games like Dungeons & Dragons. Indeed, E. Gary Gygax and David Arneson were directly influenced by Jack Vance's setting when they were designing D&D, and elected to try to capture the feel of Vance's magical system in their game. This is obviously how Vance's The Dying Earth found its way into Gygax's heavily influential Appendix N.

This interesting mixture of innocence and romanticism amidst decay and entropy is combined with another major theme that runs through his books--justice and redemption. Characters either surrender to their base desires and lusts for power, or they can achieve a sort of moral epiphany and seek to do right. Such characters as T'sais, Turjan of Miir, Etarr, through love, sacrifice, bravery, and loss manage to achieve redemption and have their courage recognized. Other characters, like Liane the Wayfarer and Mazirian, get a satisfying comeuppance. Though Vance's world is dominated by decadence and dark forces, the just, good, and brave can definitely make a positive difference in the world, and Vance's stories are of those exceptional people who manage to overcome obstacles both internal and external.

One may say that all of these good deeds are for naught, since the sun is fading and eternal night is immanent, but the tenor and texture of the narratives do not suggest that this was Vance's aim. Rather, the author seems to feel that his protagonists really do matter and that their actions truly have a positive impact in spite of the looming heat-death of the world. Though cities crumble to dust and the sun continues to fade, magic and wonder still persists, and the world can still be enchanted, right up to the very end.

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
Style B+
Substance B
Overall B+

Book Review -- A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller Jr.

This December has been extremely sparse for me when it comes to posting and for this, I guess, apologies are in order. Nevertheless, I'd finished this particular novel for almost the entire month, so there's little excuse for the tardiness of this review.

Having flown as a tailgunner during the Second World War and participated in the destruction of the ancient Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, Walter M. Miller Jr.'s novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, is a product of his subsequent meditations on war, knowledge, and faith in the wake of his wartime experiences. The only novel Miller ever published which garnered any significant literary attention, A Canticle for Leibowitz wrestles with several conflicts which are far more poignant today than even were during the early 1960s when the novel was first published.

Before setting pen to paper, Miller had explored a number of themes in short stories published in science-fiction magazines. Among these, he especially focused on the ideas of technological regression and orders of priests that would preserve knowledge against the ravages of time and human ignorance. His experience writing this sort of struggle, combined with post-apocalyptic literature (born from the growing awareness in the 1960s of MAD), his faith and Catholic background, and his own reservoir of memories from World War II, would coalesce into a short story that would become the first segment of A Canticle for Leibowitz.

A Canticle for Leibowitz was originally three novelettes that were originally published in F&SF in the mid-1950s. This is evidenced by the subtle shifts in writing style between the three segments. After heavy editing, the three sections were sewn together into one single narrative of an abbey constructed 600 years after a "Flame Deluge" (read: nuclear holocaust) and continuing for a millennium thereafter. This abbey, the eponymous Abbey of St. Leibowitz, is the actual protagonist of the tale, and the people around it are all supporting cast. The first segment, "Fiat Homo" (i.e. "Let There Be Man") , chronicles the "miraculous events" which lead to the canonization of the former Beatus Leibowitz into the roll of saints. The second, "Fiat Lux" ("Let There Be Light") describes simultaneous struggles that could shape the destiny of the abbey and determine the way knowledge is preserved and disseminated in the future. The final section, "Fiat Voluntas Tua" ("Thy Will Be Done"), describes the distant future, where man is once again reaching beyond the boundaries of the Earth, but is also poised to destroy himself in another Flame Deluge.

One of the most obvious conflicts that Miller wrestles with is that of faith and knowledge. The reader is well aware that Leibowitz was originally a Jew and an engineer in the employ of the U.S. military. However, a series of seemingly "miraculous" coincidences (a chance discovery of articles in a sealed bunker having once belonged to Leibowitz, for example) result in his canonization as a saint in the Catholic Church. This is an extreme irony that should, by no means, go unnoticed. The presence of the mysterious, eternal old Jew that wanders throughout the three sections should rivet the audience's attention on this irony. There's almost a childish ignorance with which the monks handle the newly discovered articles which some might see as mocking. However, I do not (see below). Francis' character is purposely simple and unintelligent, but Miller is certainly not expressing the entirety of the abbey as being as childishly dull. Their knowledge is limited, which is why they work so diligently to preserve what little has survived.

Miller isn't simply presenting a simplistic dichotomy of knowledge vs. faith. The conflict is one of method and attitude, as well as control. This is very much personified through the character of Thon Taddeo, a brilliant young scholar who is nephew of the Mayor of Texarkana (an incredibly powerful kingdom). He achieves the privilege of examining the library of the Abbey of St. Leibowitz, where the only copies of many materials from the world before the Flame Deluge are preserved.

The conflict between preservation and application of knowledge emerges as the highlight of the second segment, and is, indeed, the pivot point upon which the entire novel turns. Thon Taddeo seems to predict the more modern and vocal atheist scientific thinkers of our own era, such as Richard Dawkins. Although Thon Taddeo does not claim atheism outright, he directly challenges the faith of the monks by attacking the very core of their mission--the preservation of knowledge. He embodies the hubris of secular scholarship and scientific achievement.

"Tomorrow, a new prince shall rule. Men of understanding, men of science shall stand behind his throne, and the universe will come to know his might. His name is Truth. His empire shall encompass the Earth. And the mastery of Man over the Earth shall be renewed. A century from now, men will fly through the air in mechanical birds. Metal carriages will race along roads of man-made stone. There will be buildings of thirty stories, ships that go under the sea, machines to perform all works.

"And how will this come to pass?" He paused and lowered his voice. "In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear. And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world." --pp. 214

Thon Taddeo's choice of "prince" is not coincidental. That Thon Taddeo also repeatedly refers to Mayor Hannegan of Texarkana as "prince" should not go unnoticed by the reader. Miller was steeped in Catholic lore. By invoking the word "prince," Miller is calling our attention to Ephesians 6:12, which states that a Christian's war is against principalities, powers, and the forces of darkness, not against flesh and blood. The choice of the word "prince" also has a Machiavellian resonance, which will be further expressed in "Fiat Voluntas Tua."

Miller strips Thon Taddeo of his hubris and pride throughout "Fiat Lux." In a later chapter, Thon Taddeo attempts to argue that the species of Man that caused the Flame Deluge was not the species of human that inhabits the post-apocalyptic world. The Abbot rightly dresses him down, accusing him of attempting to distance himself and his colleagues and their scientific achievements from the achievements that caused the Deluge. Dom Paolo, the Abbot, argues with Thon Taddeo that such knowledge must be kept from mankind "until he is wise," and that once science and technology have tied themselves to the terrestrial and the political, then another Flame Deluge is inevitable.

Brief anger flared in the old priest's eyes. "It's time you met our founder, I think," he growled, pointing to the carving in the corner. "He was a scientist like yourself before the world went mad and he ran for sanctuary. He founded this Order to save what could be saved of the records of the last civilization. 'Saved' from what, and for what? Look where he's standing--see the kindling? That's how little the world wanted your science then, and for centuries afterward. So he died for our sake. When they drenched him with fuel oil, legend says he asked them for a cup of it. They thought he mistook it for water, so they laughed and gave him a cup. He blessed it and--some say the oil changed to wine when he blessed it--and then: 'Hic est enim calix Sanguinis Mei,' and he drank it before they hung him and set him on fire. Shall I read you a list of our martyrs? Shall I name all the battles we have fought to keep these records intact? All the minks blinded in the copyroom? for your sake? Yet you say we did nothing with it, withheld it by silence."

"Not intentionally, "the scholar said, "but in effect you did--and for the very motives you imply should be mine. If you try to save wisdom until the world is wise, Father, the world will never have it."

"I can see the misunderstanding is basic!" the abbot said gruffly. "To serve God first, or to serve Hannegan first--that's your choice."

"I have little choice, then," answered the thon. "Would you have me work for the Church?" The scorn in his voice was unmistakable. --pp. 224-5

How similar to the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens does Thon Taddeo sound! He nakedly prefers science to serve a selfish, venal master who cannot even sign his own name. His scorn for religion is incredible. He identifies religion with ignorance and darkness--an identification that is quite prevalent in American "common knowledge" today. Thon Taddeo puts his faith in science and technological advancement and erroneously believes that humans will not repeat the Flame Deluge again.

This results in the advanced setting of 3781, in which the Mayorate of Texarkana rules much of North America and is on the brink of nuclear war with a fierce rival power in Asia. Meanwhile, the abbot and monks of St. Leibowitz prepare to send a ship with their entire archive and the next Pope to a distant colony and continue on. It is in this chapter that the struggle between science and religion unites with a broader overall struggle between ethics and morality--especially regarding the euthanasia of fallout survivors who suffer from a lethal dose of radiation. The callous disregard with which the Mayorate of Texarkana authorizes doctors to prescribe euthanasia for "hopeless cases" disgusts Abbot Zerchi, and he forbids the clinic that sets up in his abbey to hand out euthanasia slips.

The names of the Abbots are as interesting as their personalities. Miller is astute and carefully sets up a scenario of beginning-to-end for the earth. "Fiat Homo" is the rebirth of the world, as the title ("Let There Be Man") suggests. Abbot Arkos' name hearkens back to the Book of Genesis, since his name is drawn from the ancient Greek work ἀρχή meaning "origin," "beginning," "first cause." Abbot Arkos is plagued by doubts regarding the enrollment of Leibowitz among the canonized saints. Dom Paolo, who dominates "Fiat Lux," is a much different character, who stands at a crossroads between ages. He battles his physical ailments valiantly in order to secure a future for the Abbey of St. Leibowitz and the Church as well. Abbot Zerchi closes the book by dominating "Fiat Volantus Tua" with his unwavering moral courage and determination to do what he believes is right, no matter the cost. The alphabetic play from A to Z in the names reflects Miller's speculative future as having a definite beginning, as well as a most certain end.

Throughout the novel, there also appears a certain old, weatherbeaten Jewish man who surfaces in each segment of the novel. He is still searching for the Jewish Messiah, and is apparently deathless (perhaps due to a mutation from radiation). Through him, Miller invokes the legends of the Wandering Jew of legend. However, he puts a very different spin on the character than is found in medieval folklore. The Jew (who is called Benjamin by Dom Paolo) assists Brother Francis' discovery of the hidden fallout shelter and its contents by scrawling "צל" (Hebrew letters tsade and lamedh) on the entrance--events which lead directly to Leibowitz's canonization.

I feel I should also mention how Miller handles mutation in this novel. Especially at the end, when mankind has fully realized and rediscovered the fruits of its technological manifest destiny, the children of the first Flame Deluge still walk among the unaffected, a poignant irony as the Mayorate of Texarkana stands on the brink of participating in a second Flame Deluge. Much of this is encapsulated in Rachel, the infant unconscious second head that grows from the shoulders of the elderly Mrs. Grales. Mrs. Grales begs for Rachel to be baptized, even though she has never been conscious. Abbot Zerchi is witness to Mrs. Grales'/Rachel's transformation at the end, in which Miller seems to suggest symbolically (through Rachel that is) that the mutants shall inherit the Earth.

Importantly, Miller reminds us of the role of the Catholic Church as a preserver of knowledge. The erroneous image of the Dark Ages after the collapse of Rome being a time of widespread ignorance is prevalent in the atheist forum. But that is simply so much propaganda. The reality is that the Church played a vital role in preserving knowledge through scriptoria. The statement that history is written by the victors is largely false--history is written by the literate who care. This is the reason we have lavish histories of the "barbarian" Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, but no histories of the various Celtic nations of pre-Roman Gaul or the advanced kingdoms of medieval sub-Saharan Africa. The truth is that without the Catholic Church, Western European history would have been as blank and empty as other "barbarian" peoples'.

Ronald Numbers says in Myths and Truths of Science and Religion that there is no evidence that "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages" nor "killed off ancient science" nor "suppressed the growth of natural philosophy." The Age of Enlightenment was made entirely possible by the preservation of knowledge provided by the Catholic Church during the whole of the medieval period.

Miller taps us on our shoulder and sets his Abbey of St. Leibowitz forth as an encapsulation of the entire Church during this so-called "Dark Age." Their struggle to preserve knowledge and the meticulous care they take in copying manuscripts and illuminating them is folded into their faith. From one angle, this reverence for the knowledge, even if poorly understood (such as Francis' illuminated copy of the circuit blueprint), may seem absurd, as if Miller were mocking his subjects. However, Miller understands the power of ritual and symbolism, especially in the Catholic faith. This deep reverence ensures care and preservation of the original materials. Miller doesn't shrink from the negative side-effects, such as the conflict in the abbey over the lighting machine borne from a sentiment that preservation of knowledge has nothing to do with application. Nevertheless, Miller boldly confronts our assumptions regarding darkness, stupidity, ignorance, and the Church. Indeed, the Abbey of St. Leibowitz had been singularly responsible for building and maintaining the school in the nearby town of Sanly Bowitts (which had "achieved a fantastic literacy rate of eight percent") in "Fiat Lux."

There is much more to write about this novel. It's a immense masterpiece--carefully written and revised by its author. Miller's work is rife with hidden meanings and carefully crafted writing. His characterization is phenomenal. Each person is fully defined and realized. Nevertheless, the most important character of the story is the Abbey itself, and its inhabitants create a picture of a bastion of faith, determination, curiosity, humility, and moral courage on its behalf. Miller's prose is adequate, although in "Fiat Lux" (and moreso in "Fiat Volantus Tua") he digresses into lengthy passages in which characters ruminate on the fate of mankind and the destiny of the Abbey a bit much. Regardless, this novel is a deep and multi-layered work of exquisite genius, and certainly demands a re-read sometime in the near future. It definitely deserves to be enrolled in the literary canon.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Style B+
Substance A+
Overall A

Book Reviews -- Asimov's FOUNDATION TRILOGY

It's been about two weeks since I've last posted. A lot has happened since then. I took a vacation in Fukuoka, Japan during the Korean holiday of 추석 (Chuseok). That put me out-of-touch for the better part of that week. I'm stumbling through Democracy in America, but I find de Tocqueville to be incredibly depressing, since I can't help but lament how much American culture has abandoned its original shape and principles in favor of consumerism. The return from Japan bummed me out a great deal. I am deeply in love with that country, which causes no end of consternation with my Korean and other non-Korean associates here, who take my indifference toward Korea to mean I hate it (which I don't).

So, I decided to revisit an old flame in order to raise my spirits--Isaac Asimov's original Foundation Trilogy.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, although chronologically starting earlier than Foundation itself, aren't nearly as interesting, and are mostly redactive set-ups for the stories in this book.

The book is basically a chronological collection of short stories that were first published separately in the early 1940s in Astounding Magazine. These segments were collected into a single volume by Gnome Press in 1951 and chart the first hundred-fifty years of the Foundation. The premise is simple--the 12,000 year-old Galactic Empire (cue "The Imperial March") is declining, and will gradually collapse, though no one realizes it at the time but Hari Seldon. The mathematical genius, though the science of psychohistory, predicts the future, and works out how to shorten the 30,000-year barbaric interregnum to a brief 1,000-year rise of a Second Empire. The kernel of that Empire is the Foundation.

Asimov's prose is without flair, but that isn't necessarily bad, and is, indeed, refreshing in these days of word-bloat. Orwell would never have complained about Asimov's brevity, in fact it would have been seen as a strength. And indeed it is. The pacing and terseness of prose is an effect of the medium of transmission--the pulps. Like Lovecraft and Howard in the decades previous, Asimov's early work was, for the most part, serialized in magazines. This created a need for rapid pacing and swift plot development. Thus, since word-space was at a premium, many of the futuristic features (clothes, devices, buildings, vehicles) largely go undescribed, leaving the details up to the reader's imagination. After being raised on the visuals of Star Wars and the many incarnations of Star Trek, I had very little trouble filling in the gaps.

Asimov's writing is, of course, dated. Computers do not exist in his interstellar universe, simply because, in 1941, when he was writing, the ENIAC hadn't even been built yet. IBM was still NCR--National Cash Register. Laser weapons don't exist, but instead "nuclear blasts" are aimed at enemies. Granted, nuclear tools are present, but they are incredibly small--cars, planes, even flashlights and refrigerators run on perfectly safe atomic energy. These features can be abrasive to the modern reader who cannot understand why the characters pore over microfilm projectors rather than just pulling up entire books on their PDAs, but I could get past it easily.

The stories' plots develop rapidly. Most of them can easily be read in 45-minutes to an hour (depending on how fast you read). Characters have a tendency to be somewhat flat, but Asimov doesn't have a great deal of leg-room in which to work--they are flat quite by necessity in my opinion. The dialogue is rather bland and unimaginative, I'll admit, and this is actually the greatest weakness of the stories, because most of the action occurs offstage. We'll see characters plotting a coup, for example, and then, in the following chapter, they'll be discussing how their coup was successful, but we never actually see the coup happen. I'm not certain why. But this is a primary feature of Asimov's story-telling, and it feels like I'm watching a Greek play and not reading a science-fiction story some of the time.

Granted, this is a feature of much science-fiction. Although Frank Herbert wrote an incredible story with Dune, he wrote very little about the actual battle fought against the Harkonnen. It is as if any author writing science-fiction before Star Wars either couldn't grasp the ability to describe space-warfare or ground combat effectively or excitingly, or they believed it was far to gauche to explain the grittier aspects of their universes. After Star Wars you see a vast difference in attitude towards futuristic warfare, especially from Kevin J. Anderson and Dan Simmons (see my previous posts on the Hyperion books).

What makes this book so incredible is the "high concept" that drives the entire story. Asimov explores the concept of psychohistory--the capacity to predict the movements of vast numbers of people. What is fascinating is how each crisis that arises was predicted by imperial mathematician Hari Seldon's psychohistory. The Foundation weathers its storms simply by "going with the grain." Historical forces basically drive the Foundation through its evolution from a single, insignificant planet into a major political force on the edge of the galaxy. Asimov's main character of the story isn't anything more than the big concept itself. How do individuals interact with this concept is also a question. Although Asimov doesn't spend a great deal of time on it, one has to wonder how much individual initiative and free will count throughout the stories' development. The individuals that act throughout the various crises that the Foundation finds itself in all seem to operate in an almost Daoist fashion--they kind of "go with the flow"--there is always an obvious solution to all of the problems and the characters simply behave as if there were a natural impetus drawing them and their Foundation toward that solution. Asimov is obviously not a proponent of "great actor history" and seems to believe that people are (deterministically) a product of their space and time.


Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
The first half of this book (about 90 pages) is the final death-throes of the Galactic Empire and their attempt to conquer the Foundation. And this is, perhaps, the most frustrating book to read.

On the upside, the book is full of intrigue and plotting. General Bel Riose is a believable military man who is as ruthless as he should be. We certainly get a feel, from the dialogue, for the different regional accents and dialects that have been developing during the past 200 years of Imperial disintegration. We also get the feel that the stories in Foundation are seen as history by the characters, who are, in many ways, scions of the first book's protagonists. Plans are hatched, and the ultimate victory of Seldon's Plan is ironic, but interesting. You have the definite feeling that history truly marches as Hari Seldon had plotted. The deeds of individuals are subsumed by psychohistory. Everything works out in such a way as to leave the reader somewhat satisfied regarding the historical inevitabilities that Seldon prepared. As an historian myself, I find this all fascinatingly reflective of structuralist views of history.

The second half is a bit longer and a bit better, and a major monkey-wrench is thrown into Seldon's Plan, and the reader is left wondering, How the heck is this going to turn out alright for the Foundation? This is good. The story in Part II is excellent, moves well, and has less off-stage action than the first. The characters are a bit more fleshed-out than in the first half, and the dialogue throughout this book is overall better than in Foundation. You can see how Asimov has been growing as a writer.

On the downside, again, there are no space battles. The entire book (both parts) are about war yet, disappointingly, action is described as having happened off-stage. In addition, I feel that the censors had a bit too much fun with one particularly foul-mouthed character, a professor with the penchant for saying, "unprintable" in place of any other "colorful adjective." I have a feeling that this was not the writer so much as the censor having a good time. In addition, transitions are handled horribly. There are no spaces between paragraphs when one scene ends and another begins. The reader is jerkily pulled from one situation to another perhaps minutes or hours later. This feature did not exist in Foundation, and it gives the book a slightly sloppy, not-quite-final-draft feel to it.


Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
About a decade separates the last penstroke of this book from the first penstroke of The Psychohistorians, the opening story in Foundation, and the reader can see how far Asimov has come. Characters are far more dynamic and interesting in this book than in the previous volumes. Compared to other writers, however, Asimov's characters are still somewhat wooden in their behavior, with a few specific exceptions--and these exceptions do a lot in demonstrating Asimov's growth as a writer.

This book has even less action (as in, guns blazing) than the previous two. However, more things seem to be done on stage, as opposed to off, in this book and though it moves less it seems to pull the reader in a bit more. The bulk of the story is devoted to intrigue. If I were to compare this book to a film, it'd have to be Clerks, since the best parts are when characters are just sitting around talking to each other.

Asimov's dialogue develops the plot entirely, and carries it on it's shoulders. Dialogue is the key to this narrative. Asimov isn't interested in what is going on outside of the discussion room--indeed, the story reflects this. Gigantic space battles between fleets of warships are unimportant in the Grand Scheme of things. Interestingly, Asimov's narrative style and the elements of the story itself have finally achieved a sort of synthesis in this regard.

The dialogue serves to increase the tension and reveal what the characters are thinking--which ultimately revolve around the location of the Second Foundation and the reasoning behind all of their deductions. The book keeps you guessing. Just when you think you've found the Second Foundation, it turns out that they were one or two steps ahead of you and they have you all figured out.

Morality is ambiguous. I'm not certain if I really like the Second Foundationers, and can honestly see why the original Foundation might consider them a potential threat, although the two were originally supposed to work toward a single goal from "opposite ends of the galaxy."

The "big revelation" as to the location of the Second Foundation feels like Asimov painted himself into a corner. It just feels so forced, like he needed some enormous twist but was incapable of working it out in any way. Sure, the reasons and rationale behind the actual location of the Second Foundation do make sense, but it seems... well... stupid. Forced, as I had said earlier.

Nevertheless, this book is probably the most solid of the series and probably the most interesting one. Its pacing is good, things develop swiftly, and you definitely get a feel for the gigantic forces of history at work. All-in-all, a pretty solid book. But, still, like most of Asimov's novels, they are better read because of the uniqueness of his ideas rather than for the quality of his prose and the dynamism of his characters. And, believe-it-or-not, those ideas were better expressed in the original Foundation, despite his growth as a writer in this later book.


Foundation
Style B-
Substance B
Overall B-

Foundation and Empire
Style C
Substance B-
Overall C+

Second Foundation
Style B-
Substance B-
Overall B-

The Great 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Debate

Although I often disagree with many of his conclusions, and find his film reviews amateurish in an extreme, Confused Matthew's critiques of various films are, nevertheless, fun to watch.

His review of 2001: A Space Odyssey received a great deal of flack, however, from Kubrick fans and fans of science-fiction in general, and in a lot of ways, it was well deserved. The best critique Matthew has of 2001 is that it's pacing is flawed by being overly lethargic. Of course, untutored as he is, Matthew makes a very big deal of this. Not surprising, overreaction is very much part of his modus operandi.

But a clear, cogent critique of Confused Matthew's review was posted by Chase Melendez on youtube. And it is one of the best, finest, and clearest rebuttals by an (obviously) intelligent, educated, and thoughtful film viewer to Confused Matthew that I've seen. He basically makes all of the points to Matthew that I've wanted to make (and then some).

So, for your viewing pleasure, Chase's review of... Confused Matthew's review of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (First, watch Confused Matthew's 2001 review.)




Be certain to click the little green note that says "Continue to Part n" because he's written nine parts to his review. Yes, that's correct. Nine Parts. Each almost ten minutes long. Yikes.

Matthew made a response, but it's very weak, in my opinion, compared to the onslaught of logic and intellectual criticism that Chase slaps down. In Matthew's defense, Chase is awfully personal and does level a lot of ad hominem attacks against Matthew. Yes, Chase is correct--Matthew's inability to see 2001 as a film does beg the question of whether or not he should be reviewing films at all. But that is an entirely different debate--Chase's premise, actually, is not that Matthew's inability to see 2001 as a film is due to Matthew's lack of sophistication and therefore evidence that his review should be considered invalid. Instead, Chase's premise is actually the reverse--that Matthew's inability to conceive of 2001 as a film, to understand what Kubrick's direction and Clarke's writing were attempting to achieve, or to even be able to piece together a solid narrative structure out of the dialogue-bereft segments of the film, are evidence that he lacks the basic sophistication required to go about reviewing films. In other words, although Chase's argument is actually excellent in many ways, it fails based on its structure--that of ad hominem.

I most certainly disagree with Chase's conclusion, although I do believe that Matthew desperately needs to entertain this question and approach some of the films he reviews on a much higher level. Matthew does seem to prefer movies that present moral and ethical dilemmas and then resolve them in neat, tidy packages. This does belie a much more pedestrian level of sophistication.

Honestly, the same sort of critique needs to be leveled against Matthew regarding his review of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, which was also overwhelmingly negative and did very little but showcase Matthew's absolute and complete ignorance of Japanese storytelling techniques, myth, symbolism, and even an understanding of how the protagonist is engaged in a very typical "coming of age"-meets-"heroic journey" tale. Seeing as my skill with Windows Movie Maker is pretty sad, and I'm not photogenic enough to sit in the camera and look good (like Chase), it will not likely be me who meets Matthew with such a poignant and much-needed response. Any response I would make would require me to remained focused at the basic premise--Matthew's lack of sophistication, his ignorance of Japanese storytelling tropes and culture, and his admitted dislike of anime, all argue for themselves as evidence that Matthew should never have attempted his review in the first place, but I could not allow these factors to distract or derail my argument from being specifically about the errors in Matthew's assessment of the film.

The entire ad hominem argument is Chase's attempt to shut Matthew up before he even makes a response. While I do agree with Chase in a lot of ways (Matthew is absolutely wrong regarding 2001 because he simply cannot wrap his head around Kubrick's non-conventional storytelling techniques), the attempt to discredit him as a reviewer is kind of a low blow. However, I believe that Chase sees in Matthew the spark that could make him a much better film-viewer and movie-watcher. Chase is without-a-doubt superior to Matthew in his training and sophistication as a viewer. And Matthew really does come off in his reviews of Spirited Away and 2001 that he thinks that not only are these movies stupid, but all of their fans are totally devoid of reason for liking these flicks and obviously have bad taste, despite all of his protestations to the contrary (an impression I did not get when I viewed his reviews of The Matrix sequels--and I happened to like The Matrix Reloaded more than I had liked the original).

Note: I'm currently working on a video response to his Spirited Away review, and it is very difficult to resist ad hominem arguments because he is sometimes just so genuinely obtuse and his dismissive derision of the film is purely offensive. Someone who is so erudite and knowledgeable of philosophy and postmodernism (see his reviews of The Matrix sequels) should be beyond this sort of puerile and facile sloppiness. This thread on the CHUD forums is quite telling--the entire thing is two pages of people bashing him, with not a soul defending him whatsoever.

Movie Review -- INCEPTION

I like MovieBob over at Escape to the Movies, although I did not agree with his review of Avatar (I prefer Red Letter Media's take on that film). I liked what he had to say about Inception, and I do not think it is way too twisty and cerebral for most Americans.

Inception is about dreams and reality. But, when you get right down to it, what it is really about is just reality. What is reality? Its a sort of existential thriller that excites the viewer while prompting him or her to think, much like The Matrix did.

It's also a deep exploration of psychological trauma, and what sort of things can surface in our psyche because we have difficulty dealing with them. Christopher Nolan (director) not only puts on a show in which the viewer must question what is real and what is illusion/dream, but also explore the subconscious. This is a movie that is full of incredible action scenes, great character development, and an exciting and absorbing plot.

I don't want to give much of this movie away, but I'll say it's certainly worth your $8 for the ticket. I'd even like to go see it again. It was that good, and I rarely want to fork over the cash for the same movie ticket twice. This film, written, produced, and directed by Nolan, is an excellent example of character arcing and storytelling. For example, I was quite surprised by how excellently the script develops Cobb's (DiCaprio) motivation, trauma, and resolution. There is very little info-dumping--instead the movie takes you on a brief, tantalizing tour through Cobb's psyche at one point, before revealing all of the secrets, and even then, it does not reveal everything. This constant sense of development makes Cobb an incredibly real and sympathetic character throughout the film.

The timing of the film's opening is tricky. At first, I thought Nolan was jumping back-and-forth through different time-periods (past, present, and future), but I caught on within a few minutes as the film progressed. It's not above the audience's head--you should be able to figure out what's going on rather quickly, and any remaining information that the viewer requires is delivered through natural dialogue as Cobb instructs one of his future partners. What might be above the audience's head is the very last seconds, where the screen goes black right before we find out if it's a dream or if it's real (watch very, very carefully and you'll understand what I mean--it's not cut-and-dry at all).

This is an excellent film that is well-worth seeing in the theaters. It's a great example of what I think of as fine cinema. I was extremely impressed by Nolan, especially after the great job he did with the latest two Batman films. Nolan is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors.

INCEPTION
Style A
Substance A+
Overall A

Book Review -- REVELATION SPACE by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds likes two things: Chekov's gun and the Big Dumb Object, and he uses them prolifically throughout Revelation Space, his 560-page debut novel, published in 2000. Reynolds holds a PhD in Astronomy and Physics from St. Andrews, and worked for the European Space Agency until retiring in 2004 to pursue writing full-time. His depth of knowledge in astrophysics plays an enormous and defining role in his work.

One of the biggest issues with early science-fiction as a genre is the lack of hard science in conjunction with the fiction. There's always been a great deal of hand-waving and the futuristic equivalent of "wizards doing it" in regards to many of the realities of interstellar travel and communication. The best writers tackle concepts, but rarely ever incorporate actual science into their works.

In contrast, numerous science-fiction authors can, and often do, incorporate accurate science and technical know-how in their books, giving them a very authentic feel. However, these writers often fail to create dynamic, believable characters or meaningful stories.
This is where Reynolds sets himself apart. Reynolds never resorts to inventing hyperdrives or warp engines. He brings actual physics to bear on the realities of space-travel, colonization, and futuristic technology. And he not only creates an interesting story that sucks the reader in, but he creates deep, dynamic characters that feel alive. A decade after publishing the first novel set in his Revelation Space universe, he's developed a solid following and been signed to a 10-book contract in return for £1 million.

Revelation Space begins by jumping back and forth in time and space to the viewpoints of three different and seemingly unrelated characters--Dan Sylveste in 2551 on planet Resurgam (Sigma Draconis system), Ilia Volyova in 2540 on the lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity bound for Yellowstone (in the Epsilon Eridani system), and Ana Khouri in 2524 in Chasm City on Yellowstone. One is a xeno-archeologist, scholar, and ultra-wealthy socialite (Sylveste); one is an Ultra--a heavily modified human who lives on vast merchant-ships sailing between stars (Volyova); one is a former soldier turned assassin (Khouri). All of the characters seem to have nothing in common, and indeed, they are drastically separated by time and space. Khouri's story starts 26 years before Sylveste's and 16 before Volyova's.

Gradually, the timelines start to resolve, due to the vast distances of space and the passage of time in cryogenic sleep and at near-relativistic speeds. By midway through the book, all three timelines have merged into one. This is one of the factors that marks Revelation Space as good science fiction. The author should contemplate issues of technological advancement and the limitations of physical reality and their effect on the human experience. Reynolds meets the challenges of space-travel and time dilation head-on in this novel, and conquers.
That is just the beginning. Revelation Space is not a simple, straightforward novel. Reynolds, like Simmons, creates a universe in which he considers the problems of vast distances in space on travel and communication, meaning that planets are, for all intents and purposes, are heavily isolated from one another for years (sometimes even decades), leading to distinctive cultures, governments, and political issues arising on each world. Through groups like the ultras, he explores transhumanism through genetic modification and cybernetic implants. Nanotechnology is explored, as is the over-dependence on it (when nano-machine epidemics such as the Melding Plague are released, posing an enormous threat to anyone or anything possessing cybernetic or nanotechnology).

When it comes to extra-terrestrial life, Reynolds confronts the Fermi Paradox directly (indeed, the Paradox is actually the entire point of Revelation Space). He also explores the morality of cloning, artificial intelligence (he even invokes the Turing test), and the concept of immortality-via-uploading your psyche into a computer simulation.

What Reynolds also does incredibly well is the set-up and execution of plot-points. Like I mentioned at the beginning, Reynolds loves Chekov's gun, and sprinkles the item throughout his novel. What seemed to originally be interesting details can become very important later. As I progressed through the book, I started to get a feeling of completeness--as if Reynolds was using every single piece of his world constructively to further the plot.
The plot itself is well-written and executed, for the most part. Reynolds lays out characters and setting, then incorporates them into the rising action, and the action most certainly rises. Every development generates a suction-effect on the reader, as characters' pasts return to haunt them, puzzle-pieces are snapped-together, and more details about the setting and the overall mystery are revealed. The Big Dumb Object doesn't really come into play until later in the story, but when it does, it's pretty-much the focal point of all the mysteries that have been explored up until this point in the novel.

The characters, at first, are not really very likable. In fact, Sylveste and Volyova both come off as callous and willing to sacrifice others' lives or well-being in order to see their goals met. Only Khouri really seemed likable to me, at first. However, as the story progresses, I found myself starting to like the characters. Sylveste's callousness is driven by a need to prevent a possible future catastrophe. His keen intellect, his adaptability, and his determination actually turn him into an admirable character, although many of his traits develop into near-fatal flaws as the climax of the novel approaches (although he does, interestingly enough, have the last laugh). Volyova becomes something of a major screw-up, and it becomes apparent that she's outclassed by some of the more antagonistic characters on board her ship (such as Sajaki). However, she's quick-witted enough to overcome her mistakes and adapt, and when she and Khouri finally work together as equals, they make a very potent duo.

The weaknesses of the book are minor, but noticeable. First, the ending is far too tidy. It is admirable that Reynolds does his best to make sure all holes are tied shut, but some of the threads he uses come off as extremely weak. Too many questions are answered by the end of the novel, and I would have preferred many of them to have remained unresolved in order to keep a degree of mystery in the setting (such as the nature of the Shrouders). Not all questions are answered, mind you, leaving plenty of room for sequels, but some of the answered questions just disappointed me. I would have found different solutions to have been stronger and more satisfying than the ones that Reynolds offered.

Secondly, Reynolds' has a terrible tendency to remind the reader of certain plot points repeatedly. Granted, he usually does this from different characters' perspectives, but overall, it seems unnecessary. It's not as if he were really writing three separate novels (despite what I said earlier). The reader does not need to be reminded three times from three different perspectives.

Thirdly, Reynolds tries to weave character description into the story. While this is admirable, it comes off strange. We don't get a description of Volyova until we are two-thirds of the way through the novel. By this point, I've already pictured her (based on her name) as a Slavic Russian, but Reynolds seems to conceive her as a Russian of Asiatic origin. It's not debilitating, but just annoying, and a nice, simple description of her when she's first introduced would have been better.

Finally, there are parts where the story takes an incredible turn, and where your jaw drops right open and you can't helped but be stunned, but then Reynolds turns around and basically invalidates everything that just happened. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it is really disappointing. For example, there was one part of the book where Sylveste is met with one of his antagonists, and he destroys the object that this antagonist needs. The destruction is something that costs Sylveste a great deal--he essentially wastes an incredibly valuable and irreplaceable asset, and says, "F--k you" while he does it. I had to re-read that section three times. The character displayed such assertiveness and, frankly, such balls that I was thrilled to see what would happen next. But it turns out that a copy is found and Sylveste's amazing action is completely robbed of its significance. Reynolds just took a moment of incredible character growth and invalidated it. This was highly disappointing to me.

As for prose, Reynolds' writing is not incredibly evocative or flowery. There are parts of the book when he does describe things wonderfully, creating impressions drawn from modern, cold, sterile imagery--fitting for a science-fiction novel. It's not as iconic as the first line of William Gibson's Neuromancer ("The sky was the color of a television set tuned to a dead channel").

Through the three characters, Reynolds starts off telling three separate novels. Sylveste's is an obsession with a long-extinct alien race that nearly costs him everything, Volyova fights to survive being stalked by a madman on her ship while the rest of the crew sleeps in cryogenic fugue, and Khouri finds herself forcibly recruited by a mysterious benefactor and ends up involved in a plot that is far, far above her understanding. That Reynolds can write in three different moods, then fuse the three threads into one thread is a pretty ringing endorsement for his ability as a writer. That he can do it while writing a mystery story about the Fermi paradox, artificial intelligence, and first contact (of a sort) full of exciting plot-twists and exploring/incorporating a dozen different science-fiction themes is a testament to his skill as a writer and the amazing breadth and depth of knowledge with which he infuses his story.

There's a lot more to say about the story, but I'm trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum. Any deeper analysis of style or plotting will require me to give much of it away, although I hope this gives you a pretty clear picture of the sort of novel Reynolds has woven for the reader. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and am kind of surprised by the slamming Reynolds' Pushing Ice got over at the Alexandrian. As a literary work, Reynolds' Revelation Space is far more space opera than deep exploration of the human experience in a science-fiction context. He does incorporate those themes into his novel, but not with the literary finesse of Dan Simmons' Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. Nevertheless, Revelation Space is very much the sort of novel that I want to read when I browse through the SF section at Borders.

Check out this post over at the Wertzone for more information on Reynolds' other novels in his Revelation Space series. Indeed, Adam Whitehead has written a nice little profile on Reynolds in case you are interested.

In summary, this book was a really enjoyable read. As hard science-fiction goes, it's all about big ideas and it develops them pretty well. The resolution is a bit weak, but everything fits together well. It's not the best science-fiction novel I read. Reynolds is no Frank Herbert. But he's still a darn good writer, and I found this book to be worthwhile.


Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Style B
Substance B+
Overall B+