The Power Powers Us

Right now I'm writing a series set in a world without religion -- wholly and totally without religion -- so stripped of religion that when the people cuss (as they do, abundantly and appallingly) their wicked words are never blasphemous.  All my future cusswords are scatalogical or political or ad hominem attacks.  

I did this for two reasons.  One, I wanted to write a world where religion didn't exist and it was no big deal.  (My secret hope is that the reader won't even notice the absence.)  And two, as we grow up as a species, it's my solid belief that we'll stop believing in gods, same as we've stopped believing in demons, and spirits, and haunted places.

Which brings me to Zenna Henderson's People stories, collected recently and released as Ingathering.

When I was a kid, I read Henderson's stories, all of them I could find in my ratty little Jefferson Parish library, over and over.  I liked them and they bothered me, both at the same time.   

They're stories about a special people, chosen (no, not like the Jews) and gifted, driven from their homeland (NOT like the Jews!)  who build spaceships, sort of, and escape their planet, which is being destroyed, because God has decided to drive them into exile for some special plan of his own (NO THIS IS NOT LIKE TEH JEWS!) and they cross over to Earth, where somehow they are driven apart upon landing and end up in many different places (THIS IS NOTHING LIKE THE DIASPORA SHUT UP) and are persecuted and tormented and some are killed (in what is absolutely NOTHING LIKE pogroms) before they gather together again in some canyon somewhere I think in New Mexico maybe.

And did I mention they have magic powers?  

That's the cool part.

They can fly, and "lift" heavy objects with the power of their minds.  They can read minds, and see what's far off.  They can heal, both physical and spiritual wounds.  They can call weather. And a few other tricks -- one plays music out of thin air.

Importantly, though, and the point of my screed:  all their magic comes from God.

"The Power," they call him.  Or sometimes "The Presence."  Lots of praying in these books, lots of letting "The Power" direct them, or asking the Power what they should do.  Also, he tells them.  This God answers prayers.

Well, what is wrong with that?  Wouldn't you like a Magic Sky Genie who gave you nifty powers and answered your email?

Yes, sure, who wouldn't?  However, in fiction, it's a killer.   

This is one of the big problems with putting religion in your fiction*.  

Any problem -- however grim -- in any of Henderson's stories is cured at once and easily by calling out for help.  (There's need!)  If the Magic Sky Genie and his Magic Ray of Power can solve every problem, well, what then?  Clearly, in a world filled with anxiety and powerlessness, to write stories where every problem is swept away and the Righteous Always Prevailed, yeah, that can be attractive.  But also a bit dull.

Henderson did write other stories:  the non-People stories, gathered in a collection I remember reading much later, in my twenties -- the Anything Box.  These stories, as I recall, were much darker, and not so Jesusy.  A lot more successful.

But this post isn't about them.

*The other problem is that many of your readers, or, well, you know, probably all of them, won't share your particular brand of religion, and so there you are, describing earnestly your particular worldview that you so earnestly believe and there your reader is, backing away slowly.  This happens to me with a couple of male SF writers whose names I think I won't mention just now.

Black and White

There is a point (or should be a point) in all good books where you're reading and when the children call you think, "just a few more pages."

I hit this point a little after page 50 for this book. I carried it with me last night to the salon for my I've-worn-a-headband-to-keep-my-hair-from-annoying-me-too-many-days-in-a-row haircut, and I never got the urge to throw it against the wall, but I was very close to the put it down and forget to pick it back up point.

Then they broke the heroes.

They showed the characters as children. They pointed out all the things these women had to recover from to make them who they are.  They gave me a reason to care.

And now I'm caught.

Now I need to go so I can read "just a few more pages."

See you next week.

I hope you have a "just a few more pages" book to keep you busy until then.

My favorite sci-fi series of all time

It's gotta be Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

I'm re-watching it for the umpteenth time, and I love it just as much as I did the first time. It took the Star Trek universe to new heights and let the fans walk outside of the world of the Federation. It showed fans that characters outside of the Federation rules and codes didn't have to be evil and that sometimes even the Federation had to bend those codes to get along with other races.

Sure, the show had some problems. (They had to occasionally resurrect the same old plots seen in older shows.) I still believe it's the best of the Star Trek series. One of the reasons for this is the characters. Through the show's seven seasons, we get to see all of them fleshed out and completed, alive with back stories. And most of them didn't give a crap about Federation rules. The show was also able to have recurring villains (individuals, not races) because the central setting was stationary instead of a traveling ship. Hell, even the villains felt fully fleshed out and understandable if still unlikable.

DS9 feels like an old friend to me, due in large part to how much attention is paid to the characters, both male and female and...other. If you haven't seen it because you could never get behind the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation, don't be afraid. In many ways, it's as different as night and day. I can almost guarantee that you'll find something to like.

With all shows, however, you'll have to forgive its first season a little bit. It takes a little while to hit its stride and realize it can have story arcs instead of trying so hard to put out stand-alone episodes. Also, you'll have to keep in mind what year it was made in and realize special effects had gone only so far. But if you take my advice, you'll give it a chance. I promise it's worth it.

My Revolutionary Post

A joke that’s been floating around the interwubs lately:  

Q: What’s the definition of a socialist? 

A: A Democrat with a spine.

 I meant to post a Neglected Fiction Book Review for today’s post, but I spent most of the week and weekend fuming over Governor Walker up there in Wisconsin. 

One of the main pleasures, for me, in reading as well as in writing SF lies in the world-building: specifically, in the chance to dream new possibilities, new ways of constructing our social structures.  Every kid knows, from the time she stands up in this world, that the way we’re doing it now is not fair.  And the smarmy adage we get given as children, that life isn’t fair, so we should just suck it up -- that’s nothing I, personally, ever found any comfort at all.  If it’s not fair, why aren’t we working to make it fair?  What’s stopping us?  Do we have something better to do? 

Like watch NASCAR races? 

This is why I like science fiction.  Sure, some of it is just for fun -- but lots of it is deadly serious fun, looking at why things aren’t fair, looking at how to make things fair. 

So.  Here.  Today.  More lists! 

First, a list of Books that recast society: 

John Barnes, Orbital Resonance.  This is a book that gets misread, I think, as a dystopia.  I can’t think why.  The society sounds like paradise, to be.  Granted, the earth below is in awful shape; but the world that has been created in the asteroid -- the planned society -- that world works wonderfully.  Unless you’re allergic to social engineering?  (And, as I said to one of my students who was expostulating against the evils of social engineering, “You’d rather have an unengineered society?  Not planning things?  That’s what you think we should do, is it?”  He stared at me, bemused, wondering -- obviously -- what pointed I was trying to make.  Because, yes, that is, in fact, what he and his ilk think we should do.  In God we trust.  Amen.)  

Ursula Le Guin, Always Coming Home.  This one is a bit difficult to read, I admit.  There is a plot, I promise.  But you’ll have to work hard to find it.  And it’s buried deep in anthropological data-heaps: flora and fauna of the area, mating practices of the culture, how the houses are built, music and poetry of the various tribes, foods that are eaten and when, clothing, tribal history -- if you like this sort of thing (and  I do) it’s a lot of fun.  Otherwise, I admit, it’s daunting.  

Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia.  Written in the early seventies, postulated that part of the West Coast seceded from the U.S. and formed a ecological utopia.  Kind of cool to see what was seen as “radical” behavior in 1973.  

Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing.  One of my students loaned me this book some years ago -- I get the best books that way!  This one won a Lambda award.  Also concerns parts of California seceding.  And witchcraft!  Which upsets some people on the net who happen to have read it as I found when I researched it -- Starhawk herself, apparently, being (oo, scarwy) a witch.  The book has some very powerful scenes of political action. 

Suzy McKee Charnas, The Holdfast Chronicles.  I read the first book of the Holdfast Chronicles very young -- maybe fourteen or fifteen? -- and the rest as they came out, one at a time.  A post-apocalyptic society, with patriarchy taken to the extreme; a second, all-female society has formed out in the wilds.  I love these books to pieces. (Literally: I had to buy a new copy because my first copies fell apart.) 

And -- finally! -- China Mieville’s Fifty Works of F/SF for Socialists to Read

Go!  Read!  Re-shape the world!

Because what else are we here for, after all?  Getting the perfect tan? 

 

Series Starters; Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison

DISCLAIMER: I discovered this book eight years ago in my then-preferred Fantasy section. This is the book that really caught my interest and made me search out this genre. As such, I’m not entirely impartial. For me, this book was more than a series starter. It was the beginning of a whole new world and a whole new type of story.

I know Kim Harrison wasn’t the first to write Urban Fantasy.

Anne Rice (Interview with a Vampire, 1976) could easily be argued to have begun the genre though she was shelved in general fiction. Laurell K. Hamilton, an early adaptor, (Guilty Pleasures, 1993) was shelved in horror – yes, I’ll agree that her books no longer fit in Urban Fantasy, but in the beginning they could have. Tanya Huff was another forerunner, her book Blood Price having been published in 1991, but I don’t know where she was shelved in the beginning. I didn’t discover her until well after I found Kim Harrison’s series, until Urban Fantasy had its own name.

Maybe Tanya Huff had been hiding in Mystery, because that genre seems to have lent much to Urban Fantasy – a main character trailing through many events and books and whose name drives the series. Sherlock Holmes, anyone? Tanya Huff’s Victory Nelson is an ex-police officer gone private investigator, so it isn’t that much a stretch. In fact, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake works with the police, and in this series Rachel Morgan is leaving Inderland Security (police for the paranormal) to start her own investigative agency.

She lives in the Hallows; the part of Cincinnati where witches, vampires, and others who are not entirely normal (Inderlanders) collect. This would have been the fringes of society, except for the virus spread by a genetically engineered tomato that decimated the normal human population, and left the Inderlanders mostly unaffected. Once the world settled, Inderlanders realized they were no longer massively outnumbered. They came out of hiding to keep civilization going. Here, the paranormal is part of everyday life and our main character is a witch.

We start with something simple. Rachel Morgan tracking down a tax-evading leprechaun; a little nothing case that should be easy.

A catalogue of her recent spate of embarrassing mistakes directly contradicts her certainty that she’s better than this run, but it feeds into her desire to escape a job where she’s being quickly and certainly set into the role of incompetent, and worse, incompetent stuck in a thirty year contract. 

A thirty year contract that required a significant outlay for training. It doesn't take long for the rumors of the nasty death following the non-completion of a work contract is buried beneath a mountain of job stress and Rachel does the unthinkable.

She quits.

That might have been acceptable – they wanted her and her mistakes out anyway – but her some-time partner and the rising star of the agency, living vamp Ivy, quits too. For that, they would happily kill her. To be sure she knows where she stands, they start with a deadly spell on her last paycheck. She has to thwart their first assassination attempt in order to leave the building alive.

After that she’s running to avoid sudden death; to earn enough money to pay off her training costs which she hopes will convince the I.S. to stop trying to kill her; or to catch a big enough criminal that it would make the I.S. look bad for trying to kill her.

Really, her goal is to stay alive for more than a day.

As I said, this has been one of my favorite series since it came out and it stands up reasonably well to a re-read eight years later. There a few more typos and formatting errors than I remembered (causalities instead of casualties), but the copy I’m reading is my first e-book ever, so I won’t cry foul until I’m sure the error is not me pushing the wrong buttons. Even so, it is still one of my favorites and I’d recommend it to any Urban Fantasy fan that might have missed this one.

I am eagerly awaiting the release of book nine.

Pale Demon hits the shelves February 22^nd.

----

Since I wanted to play with my new toy (I finally got an e-reader!) and didn’t want to avoid my self-assigned homework (this review) I purchased Dead Witch Walking as an e-book to let me do both at once.

That means I have a paper version on my shelf I can offer up so someone else can experience Rachel's life on the run. To win, comment below with a unique and recognizable name (anonymous can only win if there’s only one of you), and tell me

A) Why I’m wrong in my review,

B) Why you haven’t read this series yet,

      or

C) Suggest another Urban Fantasy Series for me to read and review for the next ‘Series Starter’.

(Should you want to do one of those things, but already have this older book, tell me you're entering for Friends of the Library and I'll pass it on to them if you win. I don't want to discourage anyone from pointing out other facets of the story.)

You have until midnight Thursday the 24th. I'll announce the winner on Friday.

And since our blog is new and young, I wanted to offer something super-special if we get more than twenty-five comments and luckily enough, a few years ago I had collected some extras. So, for that amazing outpouring of love, you’ll get the Dead Witch Walking book from my shelf, a Burning Bunny pin, the RIP Kisten Felps armband extra from 2008, and the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office toe tag for Rachel - extra from 2007.

What a haul.

You may only enter once, but you may send as many friends our way as you'd like.

Writer poll!

Not just for writers, mind, but that's where I'm coming from when I say:

What movie influenced you the most (in your writing)? For you non-writerly types, that part in parenthesis can be changed to...well, whatever you want it to be.

For me and at least two other people I've spoken to, it's Labyrinth.


The tone of the movie, the look, the villain, the heroine and unlikely hero, they've all influenced me greatly. I try to inject humor into all my plots because of this movie. I like strong-willed heroines who are still human enough to make mistakes. I write quippy villains and my heroes are seriously flawed and are usually far from physically perfect (but never as far as Hoggle). And my plots always have at least one fight scene. ^_^ Gah! It makes me happy just thinking about it.

If I could have made this movie any different, it would have been to make one of Sarah's companions female. Nothing wrong with her companions; they turn out to be a good group, but it's another story that isolates women from other women. One woman, many men is the formula for many a fantasy or action movie. I wonder if the writers consider more women to be competition for the love interest or something? But female friends support each other (at least in my experience). Wouldn't a woman want to have her BFFs along?

Because Making Lists Is Easier Than Writing Anything At All

(InterTubes Version)

 So you write Science Fiction, or Fantasy, and you’re a feminist, and you’re living in the future, which means you’re all wired up. 

What ought you to be reading on these Interwebs today? 

Here’s a short and wholly eclectic list based (I bet you could have figured this part out) on what I happened to noticed or come across my ownself.  

Some are feminist sites; some are SF/Fantasy sites; some are Feminist/SFF sites; some are just sites for writers.  Some are just mad cool.

This is by no means a complete or exhaustive (though it make be exhausting) list -- please (please!) add the links I’ve overlooked in comments.

  

Locus Online: The professional connection for those in the field. 

The Angry Black Woman: A group blog.

Polenth’s Quill -- posts on science as it relates to science fiction.  Only two flaws: does not post enough; and pet cockroaches!

Science in My Fiction: Science by SF Writers Which SF Writers Can (Mostly) Understand.  With cool pictures and diagrams!  And occasional contests!

 

Feminist SF - The Blog!  Yeah, you gotta read this one. 

 

K. Tempest Bradford: Snappy, snarky, smart. I found this blog during the great blogwars of RaceFail09.

 

Kit Whitfield, who wrote the only werewolf book I ever liked.  Post on writing, and on feminism.  Bonus cat-blogging.

 

Duotrope Digest:  If you don’t know about this site yet, you better

 

Feministe -- one of my top three favorite Feminist blogs

 

Feministing -- Another

 

And IBTP, who has taught me about 80% of what I know about being a feminist.

 

Rise Reviews -- reviews the small presses and magazines, especially SF/F magazines.

PoC/50 Book Challenge -- this started as a list of 50 SF/F books written by writers of color, but they’re way past 50 now.  I go here when I need something new to read that’s not by the usual suspects à those same top ten boring white guys.  Not just a book list.  Also mini-reviews.

I’m Here, I’m Queer, What The Hell Do I Read?  Same sort of idea, but for LGBT.

  

Torque Control.  A group blog, SF/F.

  

Making Light -- The Nielsen/Hayden team:

Free Speculative Fiction Online.  Free access to fantasy and SF stories, like a billion of them.  Skews sort of canon, but surprises me sometimes.

 

io9:  Needs no introduction.

 

Crossed Genres: Come over there and read us!

 

WorldSF: Lavie Tidhar and his crew.

 

Daily SF:  You know, I can’t decide if I like these people or not.

 

Slacktvist: I love Fred.

Update for a blog I can't believe I forgot: 

Starship Reckless:  Another blog by a working scientist/ feminist who writes SF/F.  Athena publishes widely, from Huffington Post to Strange Horizons to Science in My Fiction (and in her field), so there's always something to see on her page.

 

Who Else is Picking Tile Chips Out of Their Bra?

Today I'm supposed to write something thoughtful, erudite, or, at the very least, intelligible, but I have spent all week trying to come up with a topic and seem to be at a loss. 

For once. 

Usually I'm a talky-talky person with opinions on everything. We've gone a round or two on the sexism discussions and I'm having some personal connection with those issues, but they're not really FanSci topic worthy. (Try arguing with a four year old that just because McDonalds call them "boy toys" and "girl toys" does not make it so.) I think I've been spinning this issue around in my head too much and I haven't been able to get beyond it. 

I think the examples Husband and I set make this less of a real issue for my little ones, but I still worry.

I put down a tile floor this morning -- only a small one, in the bathroom, but I did it. (That's where the tile chips came from. Those things fly off the tile saw with some serious velocity and I find them in all sorts of unexpected places.) I'm the one that tiled and mostly rebuilt the kitchen when we bought this house. (Husband and a friend of his hung the cabinets, but that's a heavy lifting issue.) I swung the sledgehammer to pull all the walls down when we realized we needed to see all the possible piping issues before we could build anything new.

Then again, we went traditional in that I'm a home-mommy while Husband works. (I threw up all day every day for the first six months of both pregnancies. It was a practical decision. Also, I have trust issues with strangers and my babies.)

It's still not a FanSci issue, but I can't seem to get past it. I can do the step by step work of rebuilding the bathroom, but every time I sit down and try to think, my head spins on the same topic. Should I have made a different argument? Does he really believe this stuff? How much of this is because my mother-in-law can't recognize the sexism in her words and phrases.

So, since I can't get my head in the right place, I wondered where your heads are. Are you thinking Valentines thoughts? Planning Valentine's plans? Ignoring the upcoming holiday to build your own projects, read your own books? Write your own books?

I have a pile of books to read. I think I'm going to make the weekend computer-free again and spend the time reading. Maybe that will help. 

Next week, I'll be on topic. 

I promise.

Your romantic comedy is peeking out

I hate when anyone refers to romantic comedies as chick flicks. I don't like them. I never have. They all seem like they're trying to move Jane Austen's character dilemmas into modern times, and I don't know if that same sort of "I've got to get married" desperation applies anymore. In fact, Austen novels are a lot less enjoyable once you realize that some of the characters are actually saying, "I've got to get married or I'll starve to death." Then the comedy looses a little something.

So, that's a no from me for romantic comedies, no matter how many times someone says I should like them. It's amazing how many people become experts on human behavior when topics like this come up. "All women like them," people say. Does this mean I have to hand in my ovaries? Does this mean that any men who like them have to apply for a uterus all their own? (This is why I think everyone should have to take an anthropology course in college, just so they realize how many different viewpoints exist in the world and will learn the difference between all, some, most and none.)

I'm told that men like action and sci fi movies. This is why, I've heard, you'll find less women in these films and those that you do find are usually dressed in very little (or very tight) clothing. Men like to see naked women, I've heard, and these films are made for men and therefore...

You get the idea. But I love action. I love sci-fi. I love to see a helicopter being blown up. I want to be a hero just like the heroes of these movies. I want to have chums who are willing to risk their lives for me like I am for them. Is it too much to ask that I also might want to wear a sweater? Or that my skintight "action suit" can match my fellows' instead of also being gathered between my breasts so that each one is outlined? (Yeah, I've seen this before. We're all thieves wearing tight black clothing, but the woman has a few extra stitches between her breasts to...distract security guards? Can she hold something with them maybe? That's some muscle tone.)

I don't like being excluded from my gender or made to feel like an oddball because of what movies I like. I've read time and again about the number of women who like sci fi, who go to see the movies, play the video games, watch the tv shows. Magazines love to do articles about these hordes of women, so why do movies still treat us like we're not there? Where are the female sci fi heroines with female friends, none of whom are dressed in skimpy skimpy clothing? Men who love sci fi and action will go to see these movies, too, trust me. They like a helicopter blowing up as much as I do. And the lack of skin won't bother them so much, I promise. You can find a lot more skin on the internet and for free. Many of the men I know adored Buffy, and though she sometimes wore revealing clothing, it never felt ridiculous, and she didn't have to wear it all the time.

But I like Pie...

My daughter, now 12, wants to write anime and cartoons and graphic novels.  

Well, I should say she is writing them: since we pulled her out of the traditional school system, which frankly just wasn’t working out, and began homeschooling her, she spends perhaps thirty hours a week (it might be more) drawing and animating with her Bamboo pad.  She has a couple of storylines going, and several more in her head which, she says, she’s not yet good enough to write.

When I teach World Literature, or Science Fiction for that matter, we always reach that point in the semester -- the Virginia Woolf moment, I have come to think of it, because the first time it happened was when I was teaching Woolf’s Room of One’s Own. 

It’s the moment when I discuss why the anthology we’ve been using has been so white, and so male.  (Norton Anthology of Rich White Europeans, my husband, who also teaches at the university, calls it.)  Its also at this point that I nearly always flash back to a couple of memories. 

I’m twenty-one.   I’m taking biology, not because I have to -- I’m an English major, after all -- but because I want to.  The professor, an earnest young woman, pulls me aside on the first day and tries to get me to drop the class. “This really isn’t for you,” she says.  The lab instructor, an older man, grins at my chest and asks me to meet him at a local bar after lab lets out.

I’m twenty-six, first weeks in graduate school, drinking in the bars with the male MFA candidates, to show them I’m as tough as they are.  “We-e-ll,” one of them tells me.  “You just have to be aware.  You just have to know.  Publishing is a man’s world.  Not to say women can’t get published.  Just, men have a better chance.  That’s just how it is.”

I’m twenty-seven.  More than half the MFA program, far more than half, is female.  But the male students win all the prizes, get all the fellowships, get any extra graduate sections that are around to be given.  When a couple of the feminist students band together to raise this issue to our professors (all white males except for one) the (male) professors do not respond well.   “I don’t know what you expect us to do with this information,” one of them snaps.  As if they have nothing to do with awarding those prizes and fellowships?  As if allocations of awards and resources is pure fucking chance?

I’m thirty.  My favorite brother and I have a fight about feminism, and how women should be grateful, and stop complaining, and when are we going to be satisfied?  “After all,” he says, “we let you have the vote.”

I’m thirty-seven, taking over a WLIT class from an older (male) professor.  The text, an anthology, is actually a good one, with many selections from non-Anglophone countries.  I itch to teach some of the Asian works particularly, since that’s an area I studied when I was working on my doctorate; or some of the African works.  But no -- I am new here, I must teach what he has taught, follow his syllabus. Which is entirely -- yeah, you guessed it -- focused on those works in the anthology that are European, male, and previous to the 19^th century. I say nothing, but my expression must give something away, because he suddenly goes into a rant, about how if any of “these other” works were “any good” obviously “someone” would have noticed a long time ago!

It’s 2007.  I’ve been trying to publish science fiction for years, to little avail.  This essay by Susan Linville appears on Strange Horizons, one of the few venues where, at that point, I feel women’s writing is welcome.  No matter how many times I read it, the essay keeps telling me the same thing:  women don’t get published because they’re quitters and crybabies.  Nothing to do with social bias if stories by women are only a quarter of those published in SF magazines.  We know this (says the article) because even when SF editors are women, still more men than women are published (because women unlike men are not raised in a patriarchy and so don’t have a social bias to prefer male stories.  I guess.).

2009.  We’re reading a graphic novel in my WLIT class -- I think it might have been The Rabbi’s Cat, though it’s hard to remember.  Somehow we get onto the subject of women drawing comics, probably through my kid.  I talk about the relatively few number of women who make it drawing comics. Kid in the third row puts up his hand laconically.  Without waiting for me to call on him, he announces, “That’s because women just aren’t interested in doing things like that.”  Right next to him, an earnest woman just my age nods emphatic agreement.

2009.  RaceFail arrives, with gender-fail at its heels.  Black people just aren’t interested in writing science fiction.  Black people just don’t have the education, Women just aren’t interested, just don’t have the math, can’t stick it out, have too many children.  Face it, we’d rather make pies anyway.   

It’s 2010.  2011.  Look here at these numbers.  

Locus Magazine's List of Recommended Stories (Stats)

Hugo Nominations

British SFA Award Finalists

PKD Award Nominees

Could be worse -- could be a lot better.

Those are just the awards, mind you.  Publications -- well.  I keep my eye on who publishes women and who never/seldom does.  I know it makes a difference when I’m deciding whether to submit to a given venue. 

My point here -- and I do have one -- we write science fiction. 

It’s 2011.

Shouldn’t we be living in the future yet?

Give up your time-anchors!  You have nothing to lose but your chains!

 

 

 

FanSci Television

io9 gave me another list. Every New Science Fiction/Fantasy Television Series That Could be Coming This Fall It's a long name, but exciting! I wish it was a little later and we knew which ones really had a chance, 'cause tv lasts longer than movies.

Sometimes. [Head lowered to mourn the shows cancelled earlier than I'd hoped.]

We start with ABC.
Poe: Edgar Allan Poe as a detective? I can't wait. I hope it's good.
AKA Jessica Jones: A failed super-hero (in a world of super-heroes) becoming a PI!!! Sounds fascinating. And it gives me a new comic book to look up. Alias. I never watched the show of that name, but I don't think they're connected.
Inhuman: A title, nothing more. (not quite a Poe quote.) Makes me thing of Being Human. Hope not. There seems to be a habit made of copying shows. My brain goes superhero for the example: first Heroes, then No Ordinary Family, and The Cape. I'm happy to have superhero shows that aren't Superman, but they all felt too similar. The first two needed to be better (stop flopping all over to please the audience, Tv Execs, we were pleased the first season -- with Heroes, at least). The last show needed to be worse. So much of that one was Grade B. It just didn't go far enough.
Patient Zero: I'll keep this one in mind for Husband.

CBS.
Grave Sight: Feeling/Seeing the final moments of the newly dead. A Charlaine Harris creation. I'm the rare person who doesn't love True Blood, but it sounds interesting.
Wild Wild West: What more is there to say? What will they do with it this time? I can't wait to find out.

The CW has seven. I don't know what to expect there. They seem to have dug into the teen melodrama market and I haven't watched them since Buffy. Husband and children loved Teen Titans though. Raven could be good. Spirits sounds a little too much like Charmed and it's hard for me to get excited about a redo -- I say right after I get excited about Wild Wild West. Husband recommended I watch the original show and I tried, but there's a lot of ...camera angles and scene framing... that... dates it. It's filmed like an old western. I'd like to have the chance at enjoying it without feeling oppressed by time period. (I watched the first Kojak the other day and was greatly amused to think that the civilian hostages were once worth more than cops. Can you imagine that today? A person killing an innocent woman getting hunted as fervently as someone who killed a cop? --It could be television warping my view here, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.)


FOX.
Alcatraz: J.J. Abrams? Does that mean Fringe was cancelled? I need to look that up! I'm afraid to look that up. Don't tell me. Wait no -- do tell me. Is it gone? Did they get to force-finish the story arc? Like Bab5 (except without the extra season after they thought they were cancelled)? Like Dollhouse? There was a five-year story arc! [commence weeping]
Locke and Key: Another comic book series. Supernatural doorways. Reminds me of The Lost Room. I liked that one too. Or that house movie from decades ago.... House? IMDb says.... House. There's a House II, too.
Magical Law: A legal show set in a universe where magic is real. I can't wait! Please, please make it!
Smokers: Looks like cowboys and aliens. (Not the upcoming movie, but the idea you'd come up with when you think cowboys and aliens.) I'd watch.
Splitting Adams: Alternate realities, one where Adams is a prosecutor, one where she's the prosecuted. Sounds like it would do better as a movie, but could be interesting.

And I'm not done yet. One more channel. NBC. So exciting!
17th Precinct: More magic plus law. I want to watch this one, even if they did bring up Harry Potter. (Not bad-mouthing Harry Potter, but looking forward to adult television -- and not adult as in X's or R's, just not made for kids.)
Grimm: Last year it was superheroes with family issues. This year magic cops. Oh, please be good. One of you, at least. Please be good.
Wonder Woman: Please be good. That's all. Please?
Dark Tower: Stephen King. I know people who have been excited about this one for months already. The word 'epic' comes up a lot when talking about this one.
Echelon: More supernatural investigations. One more possibility to ROCK!
Emerald City: At least it's not Syfy. [shudder] It has to be better than that.
and, last, but not least...
Zombies vs Vampires: Buddy cop show. One secret vampire. Dealing with zombie outbreaks. Oh, NBC, I could love you.

And that's a lot of video. Possible video. (Please?) And this isn't even all of them. These were only the ones I found most exciting. Go review the full list, if you have time, and tell me if I missed something I should be excited about. Or gush with me about something here. So much Fantasy and Scifi coming up, my eyes are glazing over. I think I've already started to drool.

I can't wait till Fall!

Fingers crossed everyone, and keep them there. Oh, all right. You can uncross them to type. But keep them crossed inside. Where it counts. We have to get some good genre television with all these to choose from!

I didn't respect that power and it's out now

Jurassic Park was one of my favorite movies. I want to get that right out there from the start. I saw it on opening day. I've always loved dinosaurs and Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum. It's a win win win!

I watched it again the other night while tinkering around on my computer. And you know what, if you're not watching the dinosaurs, the movie is...dare I say, god awful! The dialog often makes no sense. The decisions people make are beyond bad and at times, too stupid for the deciders to live. Most of the bad dialogue falls out of the mouth of poor Laura Dern. "You can't think your way through this one. You have to feel it." Um...seems to me everyone needs a lot more thinking. All zoos I've ever heard of have contingency plans in case the animals get out. What the hell was the plan in Jurassic Park? Was power failure really beyond the scope on a tropical island where storms and hurricanes are a yearly problem?

I'm angrier about this than I should be. Probably because I saw it in the theater so many times, bought the VHS and then the DVD, the anniversary edition of the DVD at that. I should probably just strip out all the dinosaur scenes and watch them. That way, I wouldn't have to ponder why the people in charge of the park continued to breed a dinosaur that couldn't be shown to the public because it was too dangerous. Or why they would be reluctant to kill the dinosaurs when the dinosaurs are eating people. If a lion got out at the zoo and started eating people, would the zookeepers hesitate to shoot it? I hope not.

Are there any movies you love that you've just listened to? Does the dialog stand up without the visuals? Does the movie make sense without the glitz? How many bad movies could have been made better by a CGI dinosaur or two?