[audio http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Guides/GoodReads/WritersandReaders/2008/Christchurch/Audio/JosephDelaney.mp3]

If you noticed, I have a thing for Chandler.   If you didn't - I have a thing for Chandler.

I particularly have a thing for his Rim Worlds milieu, but I can say honestly that I have read almost everything he has ever written for publication, a few things not originally intended for publication, and probably even a few things never intended to see the light of day, and I've never been truly disappointed.  I haven't always been wowed. A few (very few) of his stories have left me saying 'um - ok', but I've never had to give a negative review.

I've also seen the man writing - in the buff - and if you aren't put off by an author who's literally been stripped of all pretense and illusion, if in fact you can say you still enjoy his or her work, well then, you can only come to one of two conclusion: either they write some pretty damned good stuff, or you're an unabashed, gushing fanboy.  And please note that those two conclusions are NOT mutually exclusive.

Now truth to tell, seeing 'Jack' Chandler writing in the all-together was a second-hand photographic experience (his friends called him Jack and I would have been a friend if I'd ever had the chance to meet him), but I don't really think that deflates my argument all that much.  It is, however, certrainly much less awkward than experiencing it personally.

When someone has been stricken by unabashed gushing fanboyitis, no explanation is required if they are merely expressing their opinion (however over the top it might be) or somehow manage to keep it to themselves. (I'd keep back a few paces though. You never know when the geyser is gonna blow.)

Justification is only really required  when the goal is to convince others to share the disease.  So, on one level, I really don't have to say anything else other than I really like his stuff and wish more people did too.  On another level -

I ought to tell you a little bit about his stories. And say something about why maybe you'll want to hunt up a few of them to read yourself. But first, a bit about the man himself.

He was a sea captain, working his way up the ranks of promotion in the merchant fleet, first of England and later of Australia.  He served as an officer both during war and peace time. His travels during WWII took him to New York where he met with John Campbell, who encouraged him to write. Jack took up the challenge and sold his first submitted story.

The really interesting thing about the man's personal history that informs his written work is - right now, in the real world, you can't get much closer to being a starship captain than being a sea captain. Chandler recognized this and used it, bringing a level of work-a-day detail to his stories that has probably been equalled, but not by many.  The degree of realism comes through on every single page; the man didn't have to 'make stuff up', all he had to do was look across the bridge and substitute the inky depths of space for the blue expanse of ocean out the port windows. 

This unique perspective for SF stories translates well to the page and immediately creates a background environment that is familiar and comfortable.

Enough about 'Jack'.  There's plenty more biographical and autobiographical material on the official website for anyone who's interested.

***

One of the major charges leveled against 'old' science fiction is that it lacks characterization.

 Chandler's work's certainly qualify as old. His first story appeared in Astounding in 1944, his last novel was published in 1984.  One of the reasons for writing this piece is that his 'last' John Grimes/Rim Worlds story has finally seen print in Jack Dann's Dreaming Again anthology (available this month).  The story - Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo - is the only known Grimes story that hasn't been previously published.

But so far as characterization goes - It simply isn't possible for a character about whom 18 novels and 31 stories have been written to lack characterization. Simply. Not. Possible.*

Character Characterization is not the only character building that's going on in the stories.  In addition to the Grimes tales, there are at least eight more novels and at least a dozen more stories that share a common background - an internally consistent 'future history' that is at least as complex and as richly detailed as any other, including Niven's Known Space and Heinlein's Future History.

What other science fiction author can you name that has 25+ novels and 40+ other length stories devoted to the same consistent universe and 'future history'?  Right now, off the top of my head, my answer is 'none'.

 Another shaggy old argument against 'old' SF is that the stories are just 'idea' stories, with little to recommend them beyond nifty tech or nifty concepts that were out-dated four decades ago:  computers operated by punch card.  Invasive medical technologies.  Telephones with dials on them. Shopping in person.

Let's talk about tech for a minute.  The man invented three separate and distinct faster than light drives - one of which still remains plausible today.

His first - the Ehrenhaft Drive - took mankind on its initial expansion to the stars.  The ED essentially turns itself and the vessel to which it is attached into a charged magnetic particle, which then travels along the 'force lines' between stars.

Out-dated, yes.  Unworkable, yes.  But extremely important for two reasons: first - Chandler abandoned it. Second - this drive often failed, stranding its crew and passengers, who then - if they were lucky - managed to crawl to a nearby habitable world and set up a 'lost colony'.

Lost colonies - human societies cut off from the mainstream - are meat and potatoes in science fiction lore.  Chandler's Ehrenhaft Drive gave him a tool he could use over and over again.

His third FTL drive - the Erikson Drive - only works on the outer edges of our galaxy where the fabric of space and time run thin.  The Erikson Drive is hokey, involving an extra kick with a reaction drive when a ship is already at .9999 c.  But it performs the trick of going FTL not by adding this extra push (a physical impossibility)  but by pushing the drive and its ship into an alternate dimension.

This drive has the added virtue of 'reversing its sign' and allowing trade and relations with the beings that inhabit anti-matter worlds.

(The Erikson drive is only featured in one novel and a few shorts and various clues throughout those stories suggest that they are not truly canonical works.)

Chandler's bread and butter was the Manschenn Drive, a time and space distorting gyroscopic affair made with moebius strip rotors.  Chandler is sufficiently and properly vague about its inner workings that no holes can be poked in it (there's nothing really to poke at); his descriptions of how it works properly intriguing and equally vague: the drive 'moves ahead in space while moving backwards in time'.

Before the cosmologists jump on me with causality issues and the physicists attack - note that some recent hypothesis and even some experiments have seemed to indicate that some form of time-manipulation may be possible.  'May' is key, because that's ALL you need to keep your science fiction science plausible.  And Chandler gave due credence to the causality issues as plot devices and so was obviously aware that he was playing with fire. He didn't shy away from it, he embraced it. 

And unlike many SF authors who get entangled in the strangeness that appears to be the foundations of our universe, he didn't even try to explain it or wrap it up in some pseudo grand theory of everything.  Weird and bizarre things happen when you play with the Universe's dice.  Instead he concerned himself with the effect these things had on people and how they dealt with them.

The Manschenn Drive is not the only tech that Chandler introduced which has withstood the test of time.  He was sufficiently familiar with the advance of technologies to realize that what was familiar to him (television with three channels, telephones with dials, no personal computers, etc) would not be what was used in the future.  He was sufficiently sly to dress his future with devices that are cleverly vague and yet workable.  His 'playmaster' device, a feature found on every spaceship and virtually every home, is telephone, radio, television, information retrieval and fact checker - home theater, video recorder, audio recorder.  In short, anything you can do with media electronically is embodied in a single machine that you can interact with in a multiplicity of different ways - voice command, keyboard, radio, etc.

There are even 'planetary networks' - that serve as air traffic control, security system, long-range communications devices and that interact with individual shipboard playmasters.  And all of this is activated and controlled in very ergonomic user-interfacey ways.  No one apparently has to 'learn' how to use these systems, it's intuitive.  And we're STILL trying to achieve that level of inter-connectivity and ease of use.

Finally, the boo-hissers say, that old stuff wasn't literary enough.  It was poorly written and doesn't take 15 pages to describe the nap of the carpet and another 15 to mention the smell of the new roof shingles. 

Ok,  You got me.  Chandler wasn't a 'literary' writer.  He could write, competently, interestingly, engagingly, but not literarilly.

Although he did write sufficiently well to get  Australia to underwrite a 'what-if?' alternate history novel (in print as Kelly Country), one of the last novels he ever wrote.  I think that in this particular case I'll let the literary review board of an entire nation speak for Chandler's competence in stringing words together.

Credentials? He's got plenty.  He's won several Ditmars - the Australian Hugo award, some Seiun's from Japan and was nominated for a retro-Hugo. His stories were steadily in print from the 50's (with ACE) through the late 80's (with DAW).  He's in the top 50 of all time SF authors who appeared regularly in Astounding SF, based on reader response. Two of his stories are amongst the most anthologized in the industry - The Cage and Giant Killer.

Those two stories alone have given birth to entire plot schools, being the seminal, original works to introduce the plot: The Cage gave birth to the 'aliens think we're animals' concept, while Giant Killer set the bar for 'mutated rats as competition for humans' concept (not to mention one of the best ever 'think like an alien' presentations to appear anywhere, anytime in print).

Very well developed characters. A huge and consistent future history.  Future tech that is still future tech. Writing that is at least acceptable to one country's literary council.

Other than an inability to find his works, I can think of no other argument levelled against classic SF for which Chandler is NOT the exception that proves the rule.  So I'll answer that one by saying - every single day virtually every single one of his novels and collections are available on Ebay, ABE and Amazon - usually for a couple of bucks each.

Not only are Chandler's works fully up to snuff in the light of today's offerings, he's a cheap read too!

Do yourself a serious favor and check him out.  If you want to start at the beginning, visit the official Chandler site.  For some additional detail, visit my concordance site. If you want to start reading about John Grimes' adventures from the beginning, pick up a copy of The Road to the Rim. (I just got an ACE double version off Ebay for a buck.)  

*John Grimes is probably one of the most fully realized characters ever created by an SF or fantasy author.  He's a righteous old bastard who keeps his own counsel, intelligent and crafty enough to get himself out of the messes he  himself into, has no respect for authority just for authority's sake, has a winning way with women and some well-developed 'kinks'. He also smokes a pipe, prefers his gin pink and his women red-headed, doesn't think all that much of convention (unless he's the one trying to enforce the rules), can be a bit stuck up when it serves his purpose and can't resist a lady in distress.  John always 'does the right thing' even if it might take him a bit to get around to it, and it is very doubtful that you'll like the way he does it.

'The Dresden Files' series Book #6

Paperback: 372 pages - Publisher: Roc; 1st edition (August 3, 2004) - Language: English - ISBN-10: 0451459873 - ISBN-13: 978-0451459879

Back of the Book reads:

HARRY DRESDEN - WIZARD

Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

For Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, there have been worse assignments than going undercover on the set of an adult film. Dodging flaming monkey poo, for instance. Or going toe-to-leaf with a walking plant monster. Still, there's something more troubling than usual about his newest case. The film's producer believes he's the target of a sinister entropy curse, but it's the women around him who are dying, in increasinly spectacular ways.

Harry's doubly frustrated because he got involved with this bizarre mystery only as a favor to Thomas, his flirtations, self-absorbed vampires acquaintance of dubious integrity. Thomas has a personal stake in the case Harry can't quite figure out, until his investigation leads him straight to Tomas's oversexed vampire family. Harry's about to discover that Thomas's family tree has been hiding a shocking secret: a revelation that will change Harry's life forever.

Blood Rites on Amazon.com

Blood Rites on Chapters.ca

Blood Rites on Amazon.ca

31 Aug-08 to 2-Sep-08

Review: And Harry thought he was alone

Harry's friend, Thomas, a vampire from the White Court, asks Harry for a favor: His friend, Arturo Genosa, an adult film producer, believes than an entropy curse has been laid upon him. The women in his films are meeting untimely and intriguingly spectacular deaths, and Arturo doesn't know why. As Harry investigates, he wonders if the studio Arturo left behind could be behind it all. But as his investigation continues, new information comes to light and it becomes more than that.

Meanwhile, Mavra, a vampire from the Black Court is back - and is after Harry. He hires Kincaid to help him get rid of her and recruits his cop friend, Murphy, and his mentor and teacher, Ebenezar McCoy, knowing that he and Kincaid can't do it alone.

Thomas's family becomes involved in Harry's investigation of the entropy curse, leaving Harry confused and wondering if Thomas set him up. However, a soulgaze with Thomas brings forth something that Harry had never known: Harry's mother had been one of Lord Raith's women - the head of the White Court vampires and Thomas's brother. Thomas is Harry's half-brother.

And just when Harry is left wondering if there are any more surprises... Harry learns that Kincaid isn't exactly human. He also learns that Ebenezar is also known as Blackstaff McCoy - the one who takes care of the 'ugly' matters that the White Council won't take care of themselves.  Ebenezar has done things he's not proud of, including lying to Harry. It was Thomas's father, Lord Raith, who had found Harry's mother, Margaret LeFay, and killed her shortly after Harry was born. Now, more than ever, Harry is determined to get rid of Lord Raith.

Holy crow, did a lot of things come to light in this book. Harry's friendship with Murphy grows deeper, and Murphy learns she has more courage than she thought she had. He wonders if Mavra is gone for good and how he's going to get the funds to pay Kincaid before Kincaid's 'deadline'. Thomas is his brother, who has been banned from the Raith House and is now staying with Harry for the moment. Arturo's entropy curse has been put to rest. He is unsure if he'll ever forgive Ebenezar.

As with all the Dresden novels, the magic and action are pumped up, raising this reader's adrenaline. I love how Harry manages to figure out everything, fitting all the pieces together. The mix of friends and enemies are always at the forefront, and Harry's sarcasm comes out more and more. I love his quirkiness, his relationship with Murphy as well as Bob. The author manages to give the reader explanations to rituals and rules, both Black Court and White Court vampires alike; their differences in powers and formalities. But he doesn't go overboard, avoids creating anything formal as to limiting his story line for future novels. Butcher's blend of paranormal/supernatural, occult beliefs and magic creates a world unlike any other - something distinct that you can't compare to other series' in this genre. Bravo, Mr. Butcher! 

You can't get better than Harry Dresden. This series is highly recommended to those who like paranormal and sci-fi novels.

Rating:

Any fears I have that I will not be welcome aboard this high-tech marvel are soon allayed by the captain, one James T. Kirk, who makes it known that with my extensive knowledge of archeology, anthropology, alien civilizations, and the occult, I will be a valuable member of his crew.

Unfortunately, I have not been long aboard the Enterprise before a strange affliction overcomes Captain Kirk's trusted second-in-command, Mr. Spock:

It is not long before the source of Spock's disquiet becomes apparent, as a hostile transmission arrives on the giant communications screen, interrupting the crew's nightly showing of that episode of "The Twilight Zone" where some guy on a plane sees a monster tearing up the engine right outside his window.

A gasp goes up from the crew. Yes, it is Captain Kirk's arch-nemesis, Captain Sweet Tater of the starship Space-Spud. Captain Tater was believed to have been baked when his ships engines were damaged in an earlier encounter with the Enterprise, setting it adrift on a collision course with the sun, but obviously Kirk and his crew underestimated Tater's resourcefulness. For a moment, all is silent, as the crew awaits the Captain's decision. Will they hand me over? They hardly know me; why should they endanger themselves on my behalf?

The Captain's reasoning is, of course, impeccable; but we are now set to engage in an all-out battle with a tactical mastermind. Kirk orders us all to our battle stations, an order made difficult to carry out because the crew members are careering wildly from one side of the bridge to the other as the Space Spud unleashes a volley of Photon French Fries. But the shields hold -- for now.

The battle is joined! Only one ship will triumph! I must conclude my transmission here as all power is being diverted to offensive and defensive systems. But I am confident we will prevail; because Captain Kirk is just like me, Dennis the Vizsla -- he never gives up.

Normally, I much prefer reading series books in order but unfortunately I didn't realize until too late that this book was the 3rd in a trilogy. I have no regrets about reading it first as it almost immediately captured my interest and attention. I found it easy enough to get the gist of what went on in the earlier books as I read along.

Unlike many of the reviewers here I thought the ending was perfect. It made perfect logical sense to me and I could understand exactly why and Walker and George would feel as they did about finally finding Earth and returning home. I love the fact that it does leave it open for more stories.

I admit that I am a big fan of Alan Dean Foster. I enjoy his stories and love the way he writes. I love science fiction with lots of cool aliens and foreign worlds and Foster always brings it home for me. I am now about 2/3 of the way through the first book in the TAKEN series,Lost and Found: A Novel. It's wonderful entertainment!

By the way, if you like Foster then I also recommend E. E. "Doc" Smith's Chronicles of the Lensmen, Volume 1 (Interplanetary, First Lensman, Galactic Patrol )and Chronicles of the Lensmen (The Lensmen Series, Volume 2) -- Space Epics at it's best --

Wish me luck with my read-through this week! :)

Here is a sneak preview of the next book cover!!!!!! Isn't GORGEOUS!!! Thank you to Wojciech Zwoliñski for creating yet another beautiful photo for me!

Warning: This story is not in any way related to what may be Shankar's actual script. Any similarities are purely coincidental and I have nothing to do with it.

(Picture: From the movie Sivaji at Behindwoods)

It is current day in the city of Chennai. Real estate prices in Chennai are going over the roof. People attribute it to inflation and world level price rises, demand from IT companies and Corporations. But who is left behind, the common man. Comman Man has to go far away to the outskirts of Chennai to buy their dream houses. Comman Man gets cheated by Real estate Gundas. Agricultural lands are getting bullied into being converted into Residential sites. A lot of black money gets exchanged to avoid the Govt. Tax. A real estate revolution is happening albeit in a very wrong way. Who would have to solve this and put an end to this? The case is handed over to the local Assistannt Commissioner of Police Mr. Arumugam Periyasamy. The character of Arumugam is played by Rajinikanth. Yes, Rajinikanth will be playing a cop after a long time.

Arumugam's job is to weed out the corrupt Real estate Brokers in the city who cheat Common People by selling them Fake land. Quite a small and simple case when compared to other big ones you can get. But Arumugam's sincerity and dedication to job is boundless. Kayalvizhi, is a local College lecturer, played by Nayanthara, who also works as a Police informer. Arumugam (Aru) gets Kayalvizhi's (Kayal) contact through another Police friend, ACP Palanivel Rajan(Palani) played by Prabhu. With the help of Kayal, Aru begins to collect evidences against the Goonda Brokers.

When the story builds up to this, a big real estate tycoon in the city gets murdered in his bungalow. It is one of a unique kind of murder, that no one has ever seen. The victim is burnt through with a 1 rupee coin sized hole in his chest. You can literally see what's behind through that hole and the boundary of the hole is completely charred. ACP Palani gets to handle this case and begins his investigation at the bungalow. The Forensic department shows the result that the Victim is killed using a Thick, sharp Laser beam, which is very rarely available, probably in high profile physics research institutes and is not of a portable size. Palani is bewildered. Why would anyone kill with such a rare equipment? and How is it possible to do it?

Few days later, Another victim of the same kind falls in another place killed in the same way. Palani understands that it is mostly a scientist who is on this serial killing spree. He starts collecting information on Research institutes with Laser Laboratories. But none of it gives him any clue. He has no finger prints, no traces of the Murderer, no information at all.

Meanwhile, Aru's case moves forward and he narrows down to one big broker in the city. He gets the arrest warrant from the City Commissioner and rushes to his bungalow to arrest him. Alas, This big broker is already murdered before Aru reaches his home. Aru runs outside the bungalow to see if there was anyone out there. He quickly sees a person jumping the compound wall but he is unable to see clearly due to the dusk light. Aru chases this mystery person. The person keeps running and suddenly makes a huge jump from the ground to the 2nd story of a tall building and starts climbing up very fast. In the speed the person's trousers gets mangled with a beam in the building and it tears apart. Aru witnesses something very strange, It was a bionic leg. Aru quickly gets hold of the pipe on the building and climbs fast holding other supports from the building.

The mystery person gets his leg stuck in one of the floors and he is now struggling to get his bionic leg off, while Aru steadfastly climbs up and closes in on the person. The mystery person frees himself up, but it is too late because Aru catches his legs just as they reach the terrace. A struggle occurs. Aru fights the mystery man but whenever Aru punched the man his knuckles ache. It was like he was punching a steel bag. The mystery man who is still shown from the behind hardly budges from Aru's punch. Very strangely, he doesn't hit Aru back but only tries to get away from him. The mystery man's face is slightly visible from the hood he is wearing and Aru tries to get it off. After a few seconds of struggle, Aru places his right hand on his face and uses the left hand to pull out the hood.

It wasn't a man. It was a Robo. Steel faced, expressionless but with hair. The camera rolls around Robo. Robo was none other than a look alike of Aru (Rajinikanth). Aru stands back. It was like looking into the mirror with a coating of stainless steel on his face. This is the century's best stand off between the Antagonist and the Protagonist. The conversation between Robo and Aru happens:

Robo: Hi Aru, How are you?

Aru: Who are you? How do you know my name?

Robo: (laughs) It is interesting to see that you are asking yourself who you are?

(Aru shows a confused face.)

Robo: I will explain. 10 years from now, The people you arrest in your real estate case come out of the prison. They have enough money and contacts that they evade a few years of imprisonment.

Aru: I haven't caught anyone yet.

Robo: You see that's a paradox. (The following is shown as Flash Forward in the movie) These real estate gundas will kill you as soon as they are out and your body is sliced up and thrown into the gutter. Your face is the only recognizable part in the body. Scientist Arivalagan (Played by Nasser), your college friend smuggles your body from the mortuary and turns you into a bionic steel bodied Robo. That's me.

(Robo tears open this hooded jumpsuit and reveals a thin steel framed Robo body with just the face alone intact with the hair looking exactly like Aru. His bionic right hand's index finger is longer than the other fingers and looks like a laser gun that can be triggered by the button over that finger using a thumb. This was probably what he was using to kill the people.).

Aru: What do you mean? How did you get here?

Robo: If I kill the ones you have to arrest, you will have no one to arrest and no one needs to kill you with a Vengence. This is the paradox.

Aru doesn't believe it.

Aru: Again, If you are built 10 years from now, how did you get here?

Robo: Arivu's Time machine that he had built last year from today. It is kept as a military secret for everyone's safety, but there are too many things at stake so Arivu himself gave it to me to go back in time and kill them.

Aru: It is not lawful. You cannot just go on a killing spree. If you are planning to save my life by killing them, don't bother. I am not someone who is afraid of death.

Robo: I know you are not afraid of death because I am not afraid of death either. Heck, I came back as me from the dead you. Death for you and me is just a temporary state. My main reason for being here is not just to save your life. The future of this city and the common people depends on this murder. If i don't kill them now, they will grow more powerful 10 years from now and the city will be entirely under their control. You don't know how bad that will be, because I know, Arivu knows. You will have to let me go and finish my job. Now I have 3 more people to murder before we solve this.

Aru: I am not letting you do this. Murdering people is not the solution. We have to let the law handle these people. I will not let you kill anymore people.

What will happen next?

Will Robo be able to convince Aru about what needs to be done with a Bhagvad Gita styled advice and both Robo and Aru be able to kill the last 3 bad guys? or Will Aru not believe in Robo and fight against Robo and prevent him from killing the other 3?

Whichever way the story moves into, I am sure it will be pretty darn interesting. But I am not going to finish this story either way and I am going to leave it open.

Perhaps, you can pick this up as a Blog tag and write your own ending in your blog. You can link back to this post and write your own last few scenes and the Climax of the movie Robo. I will be glad to read your perspective and if I like your ending I will be updating this post with a link back to your climax post.

(Edit: I have my own climax thought out but will not be posting that now.)

PS: A script of a movie is usually very detailed, but since this is just a summary story in a blog I had to limit myself to the main content of the story. There will be lot of questions in the readers mind and I am assuming that you will be able to answer those yourself sensibly and just infer the main story alone. If you would like to point out loop holes and unanswered inferences in the story please leave them in the comments, I can try to answer those or perhaps fix the loop holes by correcting the story as I can. I appreciate you reading this, Thank you for your time.

PPS: It seems the Title of the Robo movie will be either Yantram or Iyandiram (or Iyanthira?) as Praveen says in his comment.

Bugsport.

From his merchandise page:

Studebaker had contracts to make aircraft engines during the second world war as well as making the weasel and a duce and a half truck. So , Studebaker was already part of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower talked about. When the UFO crashed in Roswell in 1947, Eisenhower signed the treaty with the aliens 1954, who better to use back engineered technology to produce UFOs than a struggling automobile company who had a record of government contracts going back to the Civil War and was already in the "inside"? Besides that, the design of Studes were much more aerodynamic than any other marquee and UFOs should be "slippery" when traveling through the air shouldn't they? So once again, Studebakers come to the front of the line. A logical progression?

Indeed.  I came across this web comic a week or so ago, and shared it with a few friends.  But I wanted to wait until I had a chance to get through all the current strips (about 160) before I posted something about it.  It's quite good, very funny and well drawn (no surprise since the artist/author has a solid resume of work as an animator/director).  Bugsport is done in a classic style, drawing heavily on adverising motifs and pop culture (there's all kinds of visual and textual references - more than I am probably catching).  You can probably just dive right in with the latest strip, but then you'd be missing all the wonderful stuff that he has already done.

Give it a try. And someone please put up a Wikipedia article about Bastien and/or Bugsport, OK?  I mean, seriously, if I have one this guy certainly deserves one.

Jim Downey

Perhaps there are certain patterns that franchised science fiction is doomed to repeat? Or maybe fandom and its obsessions are as predictable as the people who exploit them. In any case, it seems that neither side learns very rapidly, or history wouldn't be repeating itself.

His first teleplay for the Zone was "The Time Element" in 1957 when he tried to sell the concept to CBS.

Of course they rejected it, saying it "didn't meet network standards". And it was stashed away in the CBS vaults.

Serling eventually got his way and it was broadcast November 24th, 1958 by the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse .

The show was a hit and in 1959 Serling got the green light for his series.

But "The Time Element" was never broadcast as an official Zone episode. "Where Is Everybody?" starring Earl Holliman, which aired October 2nd, 1959 marked the beginning of the series.

The rest is history so to speak.

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The following is the original Twilight Zone pilot "The Time Element" that aired November 24, 1958 on the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse and intro'd by Desi Arnez (Sr.) himself. This espisode is rare and found on DVD only. I was surprised someone YouTubed it.

Then again, I shouldn't be, should I?

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The Time Element 1/6

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The Time Element 2/6

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The Time Element 3/6

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The Time Element 4/6

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The Time Element 5/6

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The Time Element 6/6

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Jenny, the world's oldest gorilla in captivity died at the age of 55 in the Dallas zoo.  She suffered from an inoperable stomach tumor.  This is the second gorilla the zoo has lost this year.  Hercules, a 43-year-old silverback died of a heart attack recently.  The zoo is keeping an eye on the four remainining gorillas to make sure they don't slip into a depression.  The scary thing is that one of the four gorillas is 46-years-old. 

BTW - The lifespan of a gorilla in the wild is about 35 years.

My first attempts at changing things were quite feeble.  I gave to what seemed to be worthy charities and set up foundations.  I spoke publicly about the growing environmental and social crises.  I became politically more active.  Years went by, wasted years, while I realised that my foundations and charitable giving was about as useful as a thimble would be in emptying out the ocean, and my political activities were if anything even less impactful.

I realised I was going about this from a entirely the wrong angle.  I had assumed, as a businessman, that the people who were involved in charity and politics knew what they were doing.  In retrospect that assumption seems laughable, but hindsight of course is 20/20.

In business if you find yourself facing a barrier there is no virtue in reforming the system to make it easier for others to overcome the same barrier.  You don't sponsor anti-corruption measures in the Congo, you pay your bribes and make your killing.  If you can sponsor a law that will favor your industry at the expense of the taxpayers, you do it without hesitation.  The political organizations I had become associated with were either ruthlessly focused on a very narrow objective, as a business would be, without any view of the larger picture or else they were concerned with sweeping reforms to make the system as a whole work better.  Neither of these models seemed to me to be capable of producing the results I was after.

This was when I quietly began to pull back from my charitable and political causes and refocus myself on my business interests.  I began to pull together a team that could study the ways in which we could use the power of the company and my own wealth to extend my influence and shape the trends of the nation and the world to conform better with my personal vision.  The only guidlines that I gave them were that we must be quiet about our activities and we must be ruthless in pursuit of our aims.  The world was at stake and it deserved no less than our most concerted efforts.

Sometimes it's just way too easy.

Like today.

SFSignal pointed me to Retrospace, which has a piece on women's clothing fashions of the future.  Retro makes the obvious observation that according to what we've seen from science fiction, women will be wearing short, short, short skirts.

Unfortunately, their history is wrong.

They state that the origin of SF-Minis is probably Anne Francis in Forbidden Planet.  Forbidden Planet was released in 1956 and was probably in production as early as '53.

Here's Dale Arden in 1940's Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe:  

Looks to me like Dale Arden is wearing a micro-mini, and nifty little heeled booties, not to mention that fetching barracks cap with feather thing.

Me, I want the raygun rifle Flash is holding.

No.  I'm not being picky or pedantic.  When it comes to mini-skirts, shapely legs and thighs that "go all the way up to 'here'", I believe it is very important to get our facts straight.  VERY important.

•  The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
• "By His Bootstraps" by Robert A. Heinlein
• "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
• "--All You Zombies--" by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
• Time and Again by Jack Finney
• Timescape by Gregory Benford
• Replay by Ken Grimwood
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Now don't jump over to Google and start reading reviews of The Little Book - too many reviewers have given way too much away, and I'll work hard not to do that here.  This is a first novel for Selden Edwards and it took him thirty years to write.  I highly recommend buying the audio book edition narrated by Jeff Woodman to get the full affect of this dazzling yarn.  Listening will keep you from reading too fast and rushing through the story, and Woodman gives excellent voice and feelings to the characters.

The Little Book is about travel to Vienna in 1897, and if you are up on your history you might guess what famous historical personages make guest appearances.  After reading this novel I hunger to to read about Vienna and many of its famous citizens, and even research some of the books and people that I assume are products of Edwards imagination, but feel so real in the story.  I want to believe that Arnauld Esterhazy, the prep school history teacher, was at least based on someone real.

Like The Time Traveler's Wife, The Little Book is a love story, about a man, Wheeler from 1988 who falls for a 1897 lady, Weezie.  Unlike the Niffenegger book, Edwards style is less serious, if not zany, which leads to the major weakness of the novel.  The story is meant to be deadly serious and realistic, but sometimes the sparkling prose comes across too light, making it seem more like a fable or tall tale, giving the feeling that Edwards is highly amused as he manipulates us readers.

If I had written this book I would have had all the main characters narrate their stories in the first person, switching between each in a round robin style that conveyed the cyclic nature of time travel.

But I am nitpicking here.  Selden Edwards writes in a unique voice that is entertaining and full of fascinating details.  He constructs his characters so they go through numerous changes that surprised me the reader.  I especially loved the cross generational communications because Edwards really does make us feel that each generation has a different voice and mindset.  Jumping back to 1897 Vienna goes to explain how Freud changed our awareness of the inner landscape of our minds.  Characters before Freud need to be mentally different.

The Little Book is a little book and goes much too quickly.  I don't like getting trapped in long books, but this one could have been two, three or even four times the length and I think I'd still hate for it to end.  Edwards stays close to the core plot and characters, whereas he could have meandered though 1897 more, and when you come to the end, you might be like me and wished the story was longer, giving all the details between 1897 and 1988.

I love geometric plots, and this one is supposed to be a Möbius strip, but in the end, Edwards cuts the loop leaving the plot linear.  I would have jumbled scenes so the narrator juggled the plot, like Niffenegger played with her storyline.  Edwards focuses on building literary characters rather than designing literary plots, but I think time travel seems to beg for twisty elements.

I don't think The Little Book is a great novel, but it's very entertaining, and adds to the evolution of time travel stories.  I'm pretty sure if you loved Time and Again or The Time Traveler's Wife, you will probably love The Little Book.  Time travel novels tend to be short, so I'm wondering when someone will write the Lord of the Rings epic size time travel fantasy.  I know romantic novelists like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series are epic in size, but I haven't read it.  It appears less about time travel and more historical romance to me.  Not my cup of tea, although most good time travel stories involve romances.

There are plenty of science fiction series built around time travel, but they are mostly adventures.  The books in my list above play with time philosophically.   Books that explore changing the paths of events are less interesting now than books that use time travel to change the development of characters.  Few stories about time travel reflects the true inner impact that I think time traveling would have on a person.  I think Heinlein and Niffenegger went the furthest with this, but I expect new writers to go further.

Jim

As it's the end of a short workweek, I wanted to dive back into the blog with something on the lighter side of things and what could be an easier topic to bring up than a discussion of a fictitious profanity word. As the title of this entry infers, I'm talking about that BSG colloquialism – frak.

In case you haven't caught it, the Associated Press is carrying a news story about the prolific nature of this invented swear word. The article has its beginnings from a blog entry by writer Lee Goldberg appropriately titled ”The Power of Frak”. In his entry, Goldberg applauds "Battlestar Galactica" series creator Glen Larson for doing what few writers/TV show creators have been able to do – create a random meaningless word to replace a contemporary profane one so that it passes by network censors and yet still retains the intensity and meaning of the actual word it's replacing. And he's right – when you watch BSG and one of the characters says “frak off”, there's no question what word the character is really saying. But at the same time, this made-up word works brilliantly in the context of the show in that it creates another layer of realism to the show's backdrop, of these people being from another planet like Caprica, Picon, or Gemenon – after all, it's only natural being from another civilization that they would have their own swear words.

But as the AP article points out, what's really remarkable about this word “frak” is just how invasive it has become in our society. My own personal experience can vouch for that as, being a father of young children, the last thing I want my kids to hear is their dad uttering profanities. So being able to use “frak” instead has come in handy. Granted, I don't by nature swear much anyways since I think most times there are better words one can use to communicate with. I credit (or blame depending on how you want to look at it) that thinking on one of my English professors who berated the use of profanity, pointing out that we were inheriting a rich and evolving language that should allow us to express ourselves more appropriately. Of course, though I agree with that notion in general, the reality is that in some situations, the harsh and almost aggressive nature of swearing can't be replaced with the use of a gentler, more sophisticated language. Hence my appreciation for this fictional product “frak”.

And yet, I can't help but wonder if the growing popularity of “frak” has less to do with wanting to express oneself using a pseudo-profanity word, in cases where the use of real profanities would be frowned upon, and more to do with the ubiquitous use of its real-life counterpart. These days, the other “f” word is pretty much used as any type of word construct you can think of – it's used as a noun, a verb, an adjective or however else you'd like to use it. And while it still carries a bad reputation, the over-usage of it in common discourse is perhaps dulling its sharp edge. Growing up, the “f” word carried a strong, negative connotation and thus, it's usage had a powerful, immediate reaction on those who heard it. And let's face it – that is one of the things profanity is supposed to do. And yet, as with anything that initially creates shock and aversion, repeated exposure eventually leads to a deadening of this reaction, if not a resigned acceptance. So perhaps that's why “frak” is now starting to take off – in addition to being socially acceptable, it can carry that power and intensity its real-life counterpart used to have.

On an aside, for those who are interested in learning more about “the business”, I'd suggest you peruse Goldberg's blog "A Writer's Life" (it's listed in my blogroll) as he shares a wealth of personal experience in writing books and script-writing that really serves as that much needed bucket of cold water reality for anyone who thinks they have the 'next great idea'. After all, the undisputed truth about the entertainment industry is that it's a business like any other one. And it's always helpful getting the know from the inside.