Archive for January, 2011

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Book Review: “Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart

Warning: the following book review contains explicit language, which is quoted directly from the novel. Reader discretion is advised.

I find most near-future-world-gone-mad stories hit-or-miss. Either they try too hard, or the characters are too flat, or the ideas are just too far out there (or not far out there enough). But occasionally I’ll find one that has the perfect mix of stuff I like.

With Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, I got lucky.

Super Sad True Love Story is a hilariously-scary near-future love story about a 39-year-old man named Lenny Abramov, clearly based at least in part on Shteyngart himself. The son of Jewish Russian immigrants who moved to New York before he was born, Lenny grew up with all the Russian pessimism, Jewish guilt, and immigrant pride that those folks were wont to do. Now he works for a multinational corporation’s Post Human Services division, selling life extensions to HNWIs (high net worth individuals). Our story begins with him finishing up a year in Italy, trying to make sales and failing spectacularly, living in a way considered dangerous by his coworkers (eating too many carbs, drinking too much wine), going to parties, and trying to figure out how he’s going to explain to his boss and close friend Joshie why he hasn’t hooked any clients.

At a party, Lenny runs into Eunice Park, spending time in Italy between her graduation from college and her entry into law school. Eunice, the daughter of Korean immigrants living in New Jersey, is very thin, very pretty, and very much a product of her environment. Lenny falls in love with her instantly, and through a strange confluence of circumstances manages to take her to bed.

Using first-person accounts from Lenny’s diary and Eunice’s GlobalTeens account (more on that shortly), the book then follows Lenny and Eunice as they separate and get back together, return to New York, and try to build a relationship.

Until America falls.

From a science-fictional perspective, Super Sad True Love Story is the standard “America loses power while Europe and China grow in strength, America falls, America is rebuilt” story I’ve read in various short-stories and novels over the years. But where the novel shines is in the author’s uncanny predictions of the near future*. Here are some:

Money: The dollar is as devalued as the currency in current third-world nations, but most upper- or middle-class Americans use yuan, or “yuan-pegged dollars”, which are worth more. Right now, if I’m reading the news right, the dollar isn’t as well-respected globally as it used to be. Also, in the book, several nations are run by their largest companies — StatOil in Norway, HSBC in the UK (which is now called HSBC-London), Stability in Canada, and Petro in Russia. Mergers are rampant, too; Eunice’s bank is AlliedWasteCVSCitigroup, and LandOLakes also apparently has a financial wing.

Technology: Phones have been replaced by an umlaut-laden version of the word apparatus, “apparat”. People rarely speak (or “verbal”) to each other, preferring to use apparati to instantly find out about others. This is already happening; people on dates, trying to build relationships, would rather sit and stare at their phones than actually speak to each other. Apparati are also getting smaller and smaller, and are able to bring in more and more information; while cell phones have actually gotten slightly larger, the other half is already happening. (The book also has a very clever dig against iPhones in it.) Oh, and the sheer amount of information Lenny can get about Eunice as he flies back from Italy is staggering and scary — credit information, friends, photos, addresses, shopping trends…

Social Networking: Today, everyone and everything is on Facebook, and Facebook can suck in all your different social networks — Twitter, Foursquare, GetGlue, etc. In Super Sad True Love Story, everyone — adults, kids, professionals — uses a social network called GlobalTeens. Eunice happens to write long letters to her best friend Jenny, who lives in California (where Eunice used to live), and GlobalTeens keeps telling her that people don’t read anymore, that she should send image messages or video streams instead.

TV News: There are apparently only two 24-hour news channels, FoxLiberty-Prime and FoxLiberty-Ultra. Lenny’s parents watch these. Everyone else gets their news from media streams, which can come from anywhere, including Lenny’s friend Noah (who does a political stream) and Noah’s girlfriend Amy (who, despite being in perfect shape, runs the “Muffintop Hour”). This is sort of a riff on Current, and others who have YouTube or UStream shows.

Devaluation of Shock: Slang has gotten more and more extreme. JK, for example, has become “JBF”, or “just butt-fucking”. Eunice talks to Jenny about porn they watched together as children (and the context indicates this is completely normal). The terms AssLuxury and AssDoctor are thrown around with impunity. One of Noah’s friends runs a liberal-slanting news stream intercut with explicit video of hardcore homosexual sex. The pervasiveness of porn and the subsequent imitation of acts seen in it is described in Jenny’s letters to Eunice about parties where it is normal for people to have pornographic-style sex in company. A top retailer of clothes for women and men is JuicyPussy. The hot new jeans trend is called Onionskin, which are completely transparent. “TotalSurrenders” are women’s undergarments that pop right off with the touch of a button. And we complain about pants on the ground…

Rating Everything: Walking through New York City, Lenny passes credit poles, which display his high rating (1520). Apparati can rank everyone in the room to see who the most desirable men and women are. Personality and fuckability are measured on a scale of 0 to 800. At Lenny’s office (a converted synagogue — actually kind of a cool image), an arrivals/departures train board shows what kind of mood everyone is in.

American Patriotism: In the novel, America is very much in decline. Poorly-spelled signs from the American Restoration Authority claim “Together We’ll Go Far” (the Wells Fargo slogan; I knew it sounded familiar) and various other vaguely-positive messages about change. Anti-immigrant sentiment is strong, and people who don’t look like “‘Murricans” (in the Fox News sense of the word) are grouped by metaphor or stereotype — Chinese people save, Latinos spend or have bad credit, and so on. As things get worse, roadblocks are set up throughout New York, plastered with signs saying that, by reading the sign, citizens deny the existence of the checkpoint while implying their consent to let the ARA do whatever it needs to do. And while the use of apparati is permitted on airplanes, the closest Lenny can get to JFK to meet Eunice’s plane is somewhere on the Van Wyck Expressway, at an ARA checkpoint patrolled by National Guardsmen with automatic weapons.

The novel is full of clever wordplay, prescient references, hilarious-while-being-vaguely-uncomfortable interactions between characters, and a scenario about the end of America that will frighten the hell out of you because it’s completely plausible. It’s also vaguely reminiscent of the way Muggle Britain was unaware of the war between Voldemort and the Order during HP6 and HP7. I really enjoyed reading it, and I got through it quickly — it’s an easy read, and I’ve always found humor to go faster than tragedy. I’d call this a satire more than anything else, but I think it also fits into sci-fi in the same way as films like Gattaca and Code 46**, and its exaggeration of what’s happening now echoes the “Would You Like To Know More” moments of Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of Starship Troopers. I definitely recommend Super Sad True Love Story.

And I’m not JBF.

* I believe the book takes place in the 2030s (possibly the 2020s or 2040s). I can’t recall it ever being explicitly stated, and I wasn’t able to easily infer it.

** A quick rant about “Code 46″ — I really liked the film, and thought it was beautifully-shot with great sets and locations. It doesn’t have any cursing, and there’s no explicit violence, but it’s rated R. Why? Because in one scene, actress Samantha Morton is shown from the front with her bottom half completely uncovered. Meanwhile, films suffused with violence like “The Dark Knight” and “Batman Begins” are PG-13. What does it say about us as a culture that we’re more afraid of a one-second shot of the place that babies come from than our tweens and teens seeing a pencil jammed through a guy’s eye and the aforementioned guy stumbling around in pain for at least five times that long?

Jan 30, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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Hugo- past, present, and yet to come

Laura Burns, aka @moonrangerlaura or @scifilaura, is a NASA Contractor and a science fiction and podcasting fan. She participates in the science tracks at many East Coast cons. She has attended several WorldCons and has voted for the Hugos in times past. She is the head of the Parsec Awards Steering Committee (www.parsecawards.com) and has had her secret identity documented by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace (www.murverse.com)

In Hollywood it is Awards season. With the constant coverage of the Golden Globes and Oscar nominations, it is hard not to know about what is going on in sunny Southern California. In the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror world, awards season has also started, but with much less pomp and circumstance. The two big awards for genre fiction are the Hugos and the Nebulas. The Nebulas are determined by members of the Science Fiction Writer’s Association, but the Hugos.. the Hugos are determined by the fans. That means you. Or at least it could. And your favorite podcasters hope you take the challenge.

First, a bit of history. The Hugo awards are managed by the World Science Fiction Society (http://www.wsfs.org/) and awarded at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). The awards honor professional and fan contributions to the community. The first WorldCon was in 1936, but the first awards weren’t given out in 1953. Isaac Asamov was the Toastmaster and Philip Jose Farmer won for “Best New SF Author or Artist”. Even then, there was a Fan aspect to the awards as Forrest J. Ackerman won for “#1 Fan Personality”. Over the years the categories have evolved with the times.

The 2011 Categories are as follows: (http://www.renovationsf.org/hugo-intro.php) (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-categories/)
* Best Novel
* Best Novella
* Best Novelette
* Best Short Story
* Best Related Work
* Best Graphic Story (Trial Award)
* Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
* Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
* Best Editor (Long Form)
* Best Editor (Short Form)
* Best Professional Artist
* Best SemiProzine
* Best Fanzine
* Best Fan Writer
* Best Fan Artist

Historically, the Hugo award is a literary award, and thus the nominees are based on printed, ink on paper works. This is changing. In 2006 podcast Novella “Burn” (http://www.jimkelly.net/index.php?Itemid=45&id=15&option=com_content&task=blogcategory) by James Patrick Kelly was nominated for the Hugo and won the Nebula in 2007.  At the 2010 ceremony, the podcast Starship Sofa (http://www.starshipsofa.com/) won the Hugo award for best Fanzine. Having been at WorldCon and NASFic (North American Science Fiction Convention held since WorldCon was outside North America), I can tell you that this caused a bit of a stir.

From what I can determine, your favorite podcasts, stories, authors and editors are eligible for the following categories.
* Best Novel
* Best Novella
* Best Novelette
* Best Short Story
* Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
* Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
* Best SemiProzine
* Best Fanzine
* Best Fan Writer

Web content is also eligible for
* Best Graphic Story (Trial Award)
* Best Professional Artist
* Best Fan Artist

The story must have been first published in 2010. You can find out more details regarding eligibilty and the specific awards here (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-categories/).

Since the Hugo awards are determined by the fans, you have the power to make an impact. All of the statistics on the number of nominations and votes are posted online. (http://www.thehugoawards.org/2010/09/2010-hugo-award-statistics-posted/) Historically, fan involvement has been very low.  Last year was a record year for Hugo Nominations with less than 900 ballots. (http://www.thehugoawards.org/2010/04/a-little-data/) Some of the short story finalists made the cut with only 23 nomination votes.

So, how do you nominate and vote? First, you need to “join” the World Science Fiction Society by purchasing a membership to the World Science Fiction Convention. (http://www.renovationsf.org/memberships.php) There are several different membership levels. A supporting member, someone not planning on attending the convention, costs $50 until February 28, 2011.  A supporting member has the right to Hugo Award and Site Selection voting rights. Receives any materials relating to that voting. In 2010, the voting packet included free digital access to the nominees. If you later decide to upgrade to an attending member, you will do so at a discount. (http://www.renovationsf.org/register.php#types)

The Hugos are arguably the most prestigious award given for genre fiction. Far too few people get involved in the nomination and selection process. This is your chance. Nominations are open until March 26, 2011, but you need to have purchased your membership on or before January 31, 2011. If you were an attending or supporting member of the 2010 WorldCon (Aussiecon 4), you are automatically eligible to nominate, but not to vote.

There are a lot of nuances to the Hugo awards, and I have not covered all of the details here, but if you are interested, please follow the links and get involved. There are some frequently asked questions here (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-faq/).

Jan 29, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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No Ordinary Defense of Genre Television

Anyone who’s ever been a fan of a losing sports team knows that sometimes you have to make excuses for your club’s poor play. As a lifelong Dolphins fan, believe me, I know — I’ve spent more than a decade extolling our defense while facepalming at the antics of our atrocious offense.

As a sci-fi fan, I’ve lately found myself feeling the same way.

No one was more excited than me when No Ordinary Family was announced. I’ve often thought The Incredibles was robbed of a best picture nomination, but if the compensation is a live-action version, well… who am I to complain?

There’s just one problem: I don’t actually like No Ordinary Family.

On paper, the show is a great concept for someone like me: normal family gets superpowers, does superheroic things. And the cast is pretty good: Michael Chiklis as Mr Incredible, Julie Benz as the super-speedy mom, Stephen Collins playing against type as an evil research magnate, and Romany Malco (who always stole the show in Weeds) as the sidekick. The scripts are your tried and true origin story plots — family vs superheroism, vigilantism vs the need to do right, and the ever-popular “getting discovered” story arc. On paper, it’s a recipe for success.

Except that the execution keeps falling flat. The family drama is too dramatic or too silly. Most of the subplots with the kids make me want to facepalm (despite the excellent job Kay Panabaker does as the telepathic teen daughter). The geek references from Katie, one of the sidekicks, are wasted on the audience because it’s abundantly clear she’s a geek only to pacify the geek crowd who — and let’s be honest here — isn’t getting what they need from this show.

We wanted a live-action Incredibles. What we got was a family drama with a veneer of superheroic fantasy. And as bad as it would be for genre as a whole to lose No Ordinary Family, I can’t see any way that the show can turn itself around without killing off a few of the characters in a David Mack style (remember what he did to the crew of the Da Vinci, and the billions he sacrificed to the Borg).

The thing is, instead of geeks saying we should cut our losses and support other genre shows like Fringe, we try to have our jumja sticks and eat them too. We make apologies for the less-intelligent plots, the overused origin stories, the constant hammering into our heads that MISUSING POWERS FOR PERSONAL GAIN IS WRONG. The core audience already knows all this stuff. They want more Chuck and less Brothers & Sisters.

Now I’m not completely dim — I’ve worked in television for six years, and I understand the concept of making a show appeal to the widest audience possible. Unfortunately, homeopathy doesn’t work. Putting 1/100th of 1% of genre into a 100% solution of ABC family drama won’t cure the lack of geek audience.

I’m tired of making excuses for shows like No Ordinary Family. I’m tired of keeping passable excuses for genre on the air at the expense of truly good shows like Fringe. I don’t wish anyone working on the show any ill will, and if it stays on the air for five years, I’m totally fine with that. But I can’t keep ignoring the flaws of genre shows like No Ordinary Family. I say it cheapens the content pool as a whole, and — let’s be honest here — if they wanted a TV version of The Incredibles… well, doesn’t Disney own it already?

I’m leaving No Ordinary Family on the DVR, and I’ll probably finish out the season. But I can’t lie to myself anymore.

I don’t think I actually like the show.

Jan 28, 2011 | 3 comments View Post
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EP277: Rejiggering the Thingamajig

 
icon for podpress  EP277 [31:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By: Eric James Stone
Read by: Kij Johnson
Originally published in Analog, 2010
Discuss on our forums.
All stories by Eric James Stone
All stories read by Kij Johnson
Rated PG: For violence.

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 269: Élan Vital
  • Next week… Linguistics… in space.

Rejiggering the Thingamajig
by Eric James Stone

The teleport terminal had not been built with tyrannosaurus sapiens in mind.

Resisting the urge to knock human-sized chairs about with her tail, Bokeerk squatted on the tile floor, folded the claws of her forelimbs together, and concentrated on her breathing. Meditation would calm her nerves. What should have been a two-minute waystop as she switched to a different teleport line had stretched to three hours, and being the only passenger in the terminal creeped her out.

The cheerful voice of the customer service AI roused Bokeerk from her trance. “It is my pleasure to inform you that the cause of the technical difficulties in the galactic teleport network has been found.”

Bokeerk perked up and rose on her hind legs, remembering just in time to duck her head so it wouldn’t bang the ceiling lamps. “Please send me to Krawlak,” she said. It was unlikely that any of her eggs would hatch for another few days yet, but she was anxious to get home.

“It is with the utmost regret that I must tell you that will not be possible at this time,” said the AI, with a tone of such abysmal sorrow that Bokeerk’s eyes could not help but moisten with sympathetic tears. “I require assistance in repairing the problem.”

Bokeerk lowered herself into a squat again. “When will help get here?” She looked at the time display on the digital assistant strapped to her left forelimb. She had now been stranded for three hours and fifty-two minutes.

“I estimate a spaceship carrying a repair crew could be here within twelve years,” said the AI. Its voice seemed to have lost the customer service aspect.

Read More…

Jan 27, 2011 | 1 comment View Post
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Superheroes II: Metropolis, we have a problem

Hello 2011! I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday and are ready for a kick-ass year… wait, it’s halfway through January already? Oh boy. But hey, this year is an odd number, and a prime one at that. That’s got to be a good sign. Right? Right.

My last post about superhero prose fiction seemed to generate a few comments, not only here but also over at io9 who were kind enough to reblog it. I made a lot of omissions, some glaring, and I knew I would. I’ll return to the subject of superhero prose fiction later on where we can talk properly about examples of the genre. In that post I missed a lot of titles (Playing for Keeps, Brave Men Run, George RR Martin’s Wild Cards, Union Dues, In Hero Years, I’m Dead, to name just a few), but only because I don’t think these are (or were) signs particularly of a forthcoming movement towards superhero prose fiction. As I said last time, superhero prose fiction has been around almost as long as superhero comic fiction has been, possibly starting with The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther from 1942 (the plot of which, involving ghost ships and Nazis, sounds awesome). While it’s probably impossible (and foolish) to try and generate a comprehensive list of superhero prose fiction, we can at least take a gander at some prime examples of the genre a bit later. As it happens, my prediction might have been right up the wazoo anyway, as it looks like the YA dystopia is shaping up to be the Next Big Thing. I might be wrong but it seems to me that the vampire/werewolf trend originated in YA books too, before influencing more adult-oriented works. Although I’m not quite sure where the fashion for zombie originated – is there a YA zombie series that I don’t know about?

Anyway, I wanted to touch on superheros again for a moment as there is something that has been bugging me recently. NBC’s new superhero TV series The Cape has started, as has the Cartoon Network’s latest DC universe animated series, Young Justice. The fact that they both debuted at more or less the same time is just coincidence and not particularly relevant, but it does serve to illustrate a little problem I – a comics fan and superhero write –  have with the genre.

Live-action superheroes just don’t work.

Uh-uh. Hold the hate mail and move the mouse away from the comment button. Let me explain.

The Cape is attempt – one of the first, I think – at creating an original, made-for-television costumed superhero. Costumed is the key here, although it’s probably unfair to single out this one particular issue with The Cape given that it really is the least of the show’s problems (which, off the top of my head, include the title, the premise, the cast, the characters, the plot and the writing… but other than that it’s pretty great, no?), but it does illustrate my point. Vince Faraday, aka The Cape, looks immensely silly when dressed up as the superhero. Okay, the suit is assembled from bits and bobs from the Carnival of Crime (yes, the Carnival of Crime) and based on a comic book character beloved by his son (although not a comic book written like I have ever read, although I suppose Vince was adding in the exposition and description himself when he read an issue to his son in the first episode). But… no. It’s impractical and is looks silly.

So what’s new? This is comic book stuff, right?

Actually, yes it is. The Cape would work fine as a comic book, assuming it was written by someone who knew what a comic book was (unlike the writer of the TV series it seems). The bits we see of the actual (fictional) comic in the TV show looks okay. And superheroes in cloaks and hoods are a dime-a-dozen, and there’s plenty of scope for dramatic flowing fabrics.

It’s perhaps telling that other, more successful television superhero shows have neatly avoided the problem of silly costumes by not featuring them at all. Everyone in Heroes was in civvies. The other currently screening superhero TV series, No Ordinary Family, likewise has avoided comic book cliche, visually at least, even if the central premise of the story is as old as the hills. Misfits, that UK subversion of televisual superheroics clad our anti-heroes in the orange jumpsuits required by their community service, and even cracked a joke about traditional superhero costumes in one memorable scene from the second series. Notably, when a costumed superhero does appear, things start to get creaky, because it’s a guy in a silly suit (although they didn’t do that bad a job). Looking at earlier examples, The Flash was stuck in a bizarre muscle suit in 1990, and the less said about the 1997 attempt at a live-action Justice League of America, the better.

The prime example is The Dark Knight. I’m a Batman fan and I love this film… but Batman himself is a bit silly. When he sticks to the shadows like he should, no problem. But there is one surprising scene where he terrorises The Joker in a police interview room. A brightly lit police interview room. The Joker here looks amazing, as tailor-made purple suit aside, he is just wearing clothes. But in the glare of the fluorescent strips, Batman looks very, very silly. An interesting experiment in creating a more comic book-like Batman is the fan film Batman: Dead End, which features a Batman in grey spandex fighting… erm, aliens (as in Aliens aliens). Okay, so the story is a little odd, but Batman looks pretty good. However, sticking an actor in skintight lycra causes all sorts of problems with movement, result in the need for careful choreography to avoid unsightly creases and bulges. The forthcoming Green Lantern film is avoiding this by using an entirely CG costume, but from the trailer it looks a bit peculiar (although it would help if the eyes of the mask were whited out, like in the comic).

Of course, I’m generalising. There are exceptions. Marvel seem to be doing a better job. Iron Man looks amazing, by virtue of the fact that the suit is hard, metallic, robotic. The best example of successful live-action superhero costuming might be seen in the X-Men films. Here, brightly coloured spandex is swapped for dark leather which looks great and, importantly, moves well, despite Logan’s initial dismissal of the rack of jumpsuits. Spider-man likewise is pretty slick, if a little CG-friendly. Back in DC land, Watchmen too manages it admirably, with the current crop of heroes looking pretty cool while their predecessors, very cleverly, were clad in rather more home-spun costumes. Jonah Hex might have been a train wreck of a film but it looked pretty good, but then Hollywood has a long and glorious history of Westerns and, like the Joker in Batman and everyone in Heroes, the people in Jonah’s world just wear normal, if customised, clothes.

But what’s this got to do with The Cape and Young Justice? Well, Young Justice is better than The Cape in all respects, and is shaping up to be one of the best DC animated series in a long while. But visually, it is just so much better than The Cape. Superheroes just work in animation, which is perhaps not surprising given the ease of transition from static comic book pages to moving animated scenes. The inhabitants of the DCU, at least, have never looked better than in Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. Any impracticalities or craziness in superhero costume design that just fail in the real world fit perfectly into animation, just as they do on the comic book page. It’s the same when you’re reading prose superhero fiction – as a reader you’re in control of the action, and everything looks just tickety-boo.

Unfortunately/fortunately (delete as applicable) I’d say The Cape is set for cancellation before the season is out. Hopefully Young Justice will settle in for a long run, but on the basis of the double-length pilot episode, its well deserved. Looks aren’t everything – far from it, in fact – but certainly The Cape is not a great example of live-action superhero design.

Now if NBC were looking for a circus-themed superhero, why didn’t they just commission a live-action series of Deadman?

Jan 22, 2011 | 5 comments View Post
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Film Review: “Tangled”

For as long as my daughter has been alive, I’ve pledged not to be one of those parents — you know, the ones who bring kids to inappropriate films*, or bring kids with inappropriate behavior to films.

Well, we managed for four years. But when my daughter’s best friend’s mom suggested we all get together and see “Tangled”, I couldn’t very well say no. And off we went.

“Tangled” is your standard modern-day-Disney riff on the old “Rapunzel” story. In this version, however, Rapunzel’s parents are the king and queen, and they didn’t need an enchantress to help conceive her. Instead, the enchantress has been hiding a magical flower which bestows eternal youth and health. But when the queen falls ill late in her pregnancy, her soldiers find the flower and she drinks a potion made of it. Her illness is cured, and when Rapunzel is born, the baby’s magical hair can cure anyone who knows the secret song. At first the enchantress just wants to steal a lock of Rapunzel’s hair, but when she finds out it only works if the magic is freely given, she steals the baby.

Fast-forward 18 or so years, to Rapunzel’s 18th birthday. She’s been locked in a tower all this time, thinking the enchantress (Mother Gothel) is her real mother. But the tower isn’t a terrible place; other than no human contact with anyone other than Mother Gothel, Rapunzel is free to read, dance, paint, sing, cook, play music, or do anything else that suits her. However, for her birthday all she wants is to see the floating lights — a huge flock of floating lanterns released on the birthday of the lost princess. Mother Gothel says no, and Rapunzel resigns herself to her fate.

And then Flynn Rider, a thief, shows up. He, along with some henchmen, stole the lost princess’s crown, but when the palace guards get too close, he escapes and stumbles upon the tower. Rapunzel promptly hits him with a cast-iron frying pan, makes a deal with him — “you guide me to see the lights, and I’ll give you back your satchel, which you seem so very intent on retrieving” — and off they go on a madcap adventure full of singing, amusing animals, derring-do, and, because it’s Disney, love between the rascally-yet-kindhearted male character and the naive-yet-courageous princess just on the cusp of legal adulthood.

The animation in “Tangled” definitely lives up to the Disney name — the lighting, color, art, and movement are gorgeously-done. However, I was less than impressed with some of the voice synching — there were areas I definitely noted that didn’t look quite right. The music was also very good, for what it was — audio wallpaper, except for the singing parts — but it isn’t a soundtrack I want to buy instantly (compared to, let’s say, “Stardust”, where I actually paused the DVD to go on iTunes and buy the soundtrack right away). The songs didn’t blow me away either, except for the first two numbers — Rapunzel’s song about her day, and Mother Gothel’s “Mother Knows Best”. I feel kind of bad saying that because I’m actually related to the lyricist (he’s my cousin) and if you don’t go see the movie or buy the soundtrack that probably has some impact on how much he gets paid, but I’m not going to lie to you. The duet between Rapunzel and Flynn wasn’t all that inspired, and the song about the henchmen and their dreams wasn’t all that different from any other song like it in any other princess-centered animated film. Fortunately, there aren’t that many songs in the film.

The cast for the film was rather small — in fact, the king and queen don’t have any lines at all. Mandy Moore plays Rapunzel, and she’s quite good. Zachary Levi (Chuck from “Chuck”) is Flynn, and you can just hear him playing half the lines as Charles Carmichael***. Donna Murphy (Picard’s love interest in “Star Trek: Insurrection”) is Mother Gothel, and she’s clearly having a good time doing the role. Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, and Brad Garrett also appear. The best acting, however, comes from the obligatory Disney animal characters. First is Pascal, Rapunzel’s pet chameleon, who conveys a wide range of emotion with only his eyes and tail, and gets to stick his tongue into… well, you’ll just have to see it. And second is Maximus, the horse of the captain of the guard. He really steals the show. “Played” as more of a large dog than a horse, he has some of the best moments in the film. I mean, it is a Disney film; one thing they know how to do is animal characters. His duel with Flynn is one of the most hilarious things I’ve seen this year.

One thing I do want to talk about before I close is death. This film contains three direct references to death — two characters actually die, and you also see a hangman’s noose as one character is led off to be executed. I saw this film with a four-and-a-half-year-old and a three-year-and-eleven-month-old. The latter child I think handled it better because she’s seen a lot of Disney films, but my daughter hasn’t really been exposed to death beyond the passing of one of our cats a year or so ago. It was hard to explain to her what the hangman’s noose was and why the character was so afraid to see it, and it was even harder to make sure she understood why the other two characters died. One of their deaths was the classic Disney “cursed by their own hubris”, but the other was… well, I’m not going to mince words: someone got stabbed. The film is rated PG for “brief mild violence”, so I guess someone being stabbed to death qualifies as mild these days, but I really didn’t expect it. My daughter wasn’t traumatized or anything, and the story does have a happy ending (it is a Disney animated film), but it’s something to think about if you’re bringing a young child.

Also, make sure your child understands the concept of being kidnapped as a baby and raised by an evil enchantress who only seems like a nice person, or else you’ll be answering questions throughout the entire film. As I said before, Mother Gothel isn’t really evil… at least, not until Rapunzel defies her and leaves the tower.

And finally, not that it really matters, but there’s a huge plot hole in the film: what exactly is Mother Gothel doing with her eternal youth and good health? Just… living forever? Seems kind of silly to me. What’s the point of having those things if you don’t use them? It’s never addressed, and as an adult, it bothers me. Kids won’t mind, though.

Overall I enjoyed the film, although I’m kind of miffed that I paid $26.50 for it (two adults at $9.50 and one child at $7.50). I give it 2.5 stars if you’re an adult, and 3.5 if you’re a kid — this is the kind of stuff kids love these days, apparently, and I can’t imagine any kids going and not enjoying themselves. Still, it’s PG for a reason, so make sure your child understands the Disney interpretations of kidnapping and death before plunking them down. It’s 100 minutes long, too, which makes me happy — I hate paying theaters for anything under 90.

* When I saw 28 Days Later, there was a woman there with a child who couldn’t have been more than six. And as you know if you’ve seen it, the film is full of violent images and, in the very first scene, Cillian Murphy’s penis**.

** I really hope that phrase doesn’t screw up Escape Pod’s Google ranking.

*** Does he still do that character? I haven’t watched Chuck since the end of Season 2.

Jan 21, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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EP276: On a Blade of Grass

 
icon for podpress  EP276 [21:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By: Tim Pratt
Read by: Mat Weller
Originally published in the Subterranean Press Newsletter, 2008
Discuss on our forums.
All stories by Tim Pratt
All stories read by Mat Weller
Rated PG-13: For language, two F bombs, and some parasitic details…

Show Notes:

  • Feedback for Episode 268: Advection
  • Next week… Rejiggering stuff – really, this time.

On a Blade of Grass
By Tim Pratt

“Interstellar war is about as exciting as playing chess by mail.” The guy who said that had been leaning into the bar for so long I thought his chest might fuse with the wood. I drifted over, because he wasn’t a regular, and I was bored with all my regulars and their regular bullshit.

“Who plays chess by mail anymore?” I said. “With the ‘net and all.”

“Nobody. Guys in jail maybe, I don’t know. Because it’s boring. My point. Inefficient and slow. Just like this war.” He tapped his glass meaningfully. He was rumpled and sleep-creased and middle-aged and smelly, but a better class of smelly than my usual crowd — like working-all-night-sweaty smelly, not sitting-around-all-day smelly. Long enough tending bar and you can tell the difference.

I refilled his glass. He was a pretty good drinker, but the little guys often are. “They say by the time our warships get out there, to their homeworld, the Phages might even be extinct. Like, just from natural processes, long timescales, like that. Or they might’ve evolved into something new, something that doesn’t… you know…”

“Want to eat us?”

Read More…

Jan 20, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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The Speculative Literature Foundation 2011 Older Writers Grant

The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) is pleased to announce that it is accepting applications for the 2011 Older Writers Grant. The grant of $750 is available to any writer of speculative literature of 50 years or older at the time of application who is just beginning to work professionally in the field. There are no restrictions on the use of the grant money.

The grant will be awarded by a committee of SLF staff members on the basis of interest and merit. Applicants are asked to submit a brief autobiographical statement, a writing sample, and a bibliography. For full details on how to apply for the grant, please see the SLF web site: http://www.speculativeliterature.org/Grants/SLFOlderWriters.php, or email olderwriters@speculativeliterature.org. Applications must be received by March 31st 2011. The successful applicant will be announced on June 1st 2011.

Jan 19, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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Film Review: “Ponyo”

About a year ago, I started hearing buzz about a Japanese animated film called Ponyo. I knew it was directed by Hayao Miyazaki, known in the U.S. for, among other things, “Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind”, “My Neighbor Totoro”, “Spirited Away”, and “Princess Mononoke”. My first exposure to Miyazaki was with “Mononoke”, and while I enjoyed the animation and the story, the ending threw me a bit. Then, later, when I saw “Spirited Away”, I felt the same — mostly starting when the main character took the train away from where she was working.

But then I heard people saying that the first 20 minutes or so of “Ponyo” made no sense, and were just beautifully-drawn sea scenes. So I mentally shelved it and figured I’d come back to it at some point.

Enter Netflix, which I just subscribed to. Netflix, which had “Ponyo” in HD.

Well, one Saturday night, my daughter wanted to watch a movie, so I suggested “Ponyo” — it was age-appropriate, and contained nothing more objectionable than occasional scary images (according to what I read before showing it to her). We had dinner, settled in, and began to watch.

She was hooked. Completely captivated. And so was I.

“Ponyo” is a riff on the classic “Little Mermaid” tale of the fish who wants to be human. However, in this story, the fish who wants to be human is the half-human-half-fish daughter of a human sorcerer and the goddess of mercy. While exploring the sea near a Japanese harbor town, she is caught up in a net that is dredging the sea bottom, cleaning up trash, and eventually washes up in the shallows near the home of five-year-old Sosuke. Sosuke saves her from the glass bottle that’s got her trapped, and there he names her Ponyo (her given name is Brunhilde). Later, Sosuke takes Ponyo to his school, shows her to his friends and the old women next door (his school is beside a Senior Center, where his mother works), and eventually loses her to the sea when her father uses magic to retrieve her.

And then it gets weird. Because, you see, Ponyo has fallen in love with Sosuke and will do anything to be with him, including defying her father, stealing his magic elixirs, and transforming into a human girl. In doing so, she creates a massive storm which nearly washes Sosuke’s mother’s car off the road and ends up submerging the entire town in what is some of the coolest artwork I’ve seen in anime lately.

Because “Ponyo” is directed at children, you know the ending will be happy. But there’s plenty of adventure to be had, lots of humor — once Ponyo gets to Sosuke’s house, there’s several moments my daughter and I both LOL’d at — and and ending that, while somewhat neatly-wrapped-up (what about all those flooded houses and shops?), is still satisfying.

The artwork in “Ponyo” is beautiful, as befits a Miyazaki film, and you really feel like you’re in that harbor town with Sosuke. The mother, Lisa, is somewhat cliched (think Misato Katsuragi at her most stressed-out), but she’s a good character nonetheless. The seniors with whom she works provide plenty of comic relief, as does some of what Ponyo’s father gets up to. And then, when the town is submerged, the adventure Sosuke and Ponyo go on is quite a cool sequence.

Because the film was made by a Japanese studio and written by a Japanese writer, there are some things the characters do that don’t track. It’s hard to explain to my four-year-old why Sosuke’s mother is leaving him alone for the night — from what I know of Japanese culture, kids are a bit more self-sufficient than American kids of the same age, but still, Sosuke is only five — and the food they eat is very different from what she has in the morning. I mean, I’ve never given my daughter a ham sandwich for breakfast*. She also didn’t understand the supermarket, and I don’t think she comprehended that the reason none of the letters looked familiar was because it was another language. But these are small things.

The voice acting was probably the weakest part of the film, at least for me. Tina Fey didn’t do a very good job as Lisa, and the girl who played Ponyo (the youngest Cyrus sister) had a very annoying voice. Of course, that was part of her character, but still… annoying. The youngest Jonas brother played Sosuke, and he was all right. Liam Neeson played Ponyo’s father, and while he sounded mostly like a put-upon Irish father, that really wasn’t right for the role — despite the character’s appearance. The best voice acting by far was done by the women who played the ladies at the senior center — Betty White and Lily Tomlin.

If you’re a Miyazaki completist, or you want to see a really beautifully-drawn film, I’d say you should watch “Ponyo”. Your younger kids will like it, and older ones will sit through it without too much difficulty. At least, the first time. I liked it for the artwork, and for its humor. But overall, I don’t think it was as strong as some of Miyazaki’s other films, despite the strength of Sosuke’s character and the way he sees the world he lives in. In some ways the hyperactivity of Ponyo’s character and viewpoint actually detract from the story as a whole, and it’s at its best when Sosuke is the center of attention. Still, I’d say it deserves most of the praise it’s received, despite my problems with it.

If you’re a kid, it probably gets four stars (out of four). My daughter certainly considers it her new favorite, and loves to sing the theme song. But for adult audiences, I’d consider it a three-star film.

* Actually, we keep kosher, so she’ll never have one anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Jan 18, 2011 | 3 comments View Post
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We live in the future

My science-fiction-loving friends have often heard me claim that, if Robert Heinlein was alive today, he would be very upset with us for not having colonized the moon or other planets. I’m still pretty upset about it myself. Only a few hundred living humans have ever been in space, and the American media still looks disdainfully upon anyone willing to spend the time and money to go up with another country’s space shuttle.

Even the term itself is un-futuristic. “Space shuttle.” It sounds like a fancy name for the tram that takes you to the different parking lots at Disney.

But this week, I realized that we really do live in the future.

I personally live in the greater Atlanta, Ga., area, and we recently were held in the icy grip of a winter storm that cancelled school for a full week, left thousands stuck on their couches and not at work, and generally made people ecstatic for one day and morose for the next four.

Welcome to HothLanta

I happen to work for a company that provided me with a brand-new Macbook (as of November) and a way to access all the programs I need to do my job from literally anywhere with an internet connection. So, while thousands of my co-workers were stuck at home doing nothing, I got work done all week. I worked in my kitchen, I worked in my basement, I worked in my living room with my feet up. I stayed in contact with co-workers via instant messages, I took conference calls at my house, and I fulfilled dozens of work orders.

I couldn’t have done this ten years ago. But now, I live in the future.

For days, meteorologists used computer models to warn me the storm was coming. I got information from television, radio, and the internet. I was able to entertain my child using video games, movies, recorded television, and her very own computer (my four-year-old daughter has a laptop with a Linux install; that amazes me from time to time). I kept up on what other people were doing using Twitter and Facebook, and even got on board with the hashtag #hothlanta, creating a community amid a paralyzing storm system.

A century ago, if a storm had hit, I might not have known about it until it was too late, and I certainly wouldn’t have kept as busy as I did. But now, I live in the future.

Despite being trapped in my house, a prisoner to unsafe driving conditions, I still managed to cook and eat meals, stay in contact with my extended family, keep up with the latest news, complete my assigned work tasks, and even watch three full seasons of “The IT Crowd”.

When Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida (I lived there at the time), the only information we got was from the radio. After it passed, we had no idea when the power would be back on or if it was safe to leave our neighborhood. But this week I found out all those things before even putting on my jacket. Because I live in the future.

What really sealed it for me was this: on Thursday, I was working in my kitchen and wanted to listen to some music. Normally I’d put on last.fm or iTunes radio, but I only have a limited amount of bandwidth in the house. So I took out my iPad, activated the Remote app, and started playing music from my personal library. Without getting up off my ass, I controlled my personal laptop in the next room, told it what music to play and how loud, and within moments was enjoying, among other things, the London Symphony Orchestra performing the soundtrack to “Superman: the Movie”.

I live in the future. And as much as I complain, I kind of like it here.

I wonder what I’m going to do tomorrow.

Jan 17, 2011 | 2 comments View Post
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