6 posts tagged “literature”
The Golden Compass is the first of the Philip Pullman series, and I've just finished. Having already seen the movie, I found that the book was different in many details from the movie, but similar in feel and themes and the overall arc of the story.
Most notably, the last three chapters of the book didn't make it into the movie. I can't say more without providing spoilers, but it will be interesting to see if the next movie starts with those three chapters, or if the story on screen will continue to diverge from the book even further.
Anyone who likes fantasy, talking bears, and villains in ecclesiastical robes will like this book.
Originally posted on my old blog on April 25th, 2006:
I just got done reading The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.
Every once in a while, a long while, if you are an avid reader, you will find a book that defines you in a way. The Time Traveler's Wife is like that for me. It's the story of Henry and Clair. Henry is a time traveler of the involuntary sort. For him, time travel occurs like epilepsy. Stress and flashing lights can induce it, but sometimes it happens without warning. He'll be cooking dinner, for instance, and suddenly he's deep in the past, sans clothing, trying to figure out where and when he is.
The title of the book is The Time Traveler's Wife, but of course I identified more with Henry, and while the POV jumps back and forth between Henry and Clair, Henry seems to be the soul of the story.
There's a definite resonance between this book and another that I felt was difining of me, and that was Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Both books, of course, deal with an individual who involuntarily time travels, but there's much more to it than that. The difference is that Henry's character is traveling bodily into the past (and less frequently, the future), where he can actually meet himself. Vonnegut's character, Billy Pilgrim, has a consciousness that time travels, but he's in his own body in that time period every time it happens.
The similarities are subtle but more important. Both characters, Niffenegger's and Vonnegut's, exude an air of stoic resignation about their plights. There's nothing they can do about it, so they hang on for the ride and try to take things in stride. They're depressed about it, probably, but they deal and move on. It's a character type that I always identify with. C. J. Cherryh's books are filled with characters like this, which is probably why I like them so much. They are reluctant heroes, much put upon, and they cope because they have to.
The blurb on the cover from the Chicago Tribune says that The Time Traveler's Wife is "a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time." I have to wonder if they read the same novel I did.
There's a spoiler coming, so if you want to read the book and be suprised, you may want to stop here. It's interesting to talk about spoilers, because the book is full of its own spoilers, where a time traveling Henry accidentally tells himself or Clair about something that will happen in the future. But I digress. The spoiler I want to reveal is that Henry knows when he will die. He's witnessed it, in fact. Both the witnessing version of him and the version that died were time traveling into the past, but on one of his jaunts into the future he also looks up his own obituary, and he knows where in real time he died. After being shot, he returns to the present before he gives up his last breath, so that is when the obituary is dated. Like the Cyclops in that cheesy fantasy movie Krull, he has forseen the moment of his own death. He knows like a man condemned to execution the exact date and time that he will expire, and the governor isn't making an eleventh-hour pardon.
The triumph of love over time? Perhaps, but death trumps love.
Sunday morning, we went to a session called "Zooming to the Silver Screen: When Books Become Movies." Panel participants were Melinda Snodgrass (moderator), Doug Beason, Steven Gould, William Stout, and Carrie Vaughn. The focus of the panel was to discuss movies that were actually better than the books that they were made from, which is rare, but does happen. One of the common themes at the conference was authors lamenting the fact that editors rarely edit, anymore, particularly when the author is successful, much to the detriment of the literature. I think one of the reasons movies are sometimes better than the books upon which they are based is that the act of making it a movie sometimes forces the screenwriter to cut out the deadwood.
Other times, the ideas behind the story are good, but the writing itself is boring or just too unbelievable to follow. Pretty much anything by Philip K. Dick falls in this category. The ideas are compelling, but given half a chance the movie has to be better than what the author actually wrote. Unfortunately, that's not saying much, and many times movies based on Dick's ideas are still pretty aweful (Total Recall, Minority Report) with the occasional near-gem (Bladerunner).
Immediately after this was the Guest of Honor Presentation, in which the Toastmistress Jane Lindskold grilled Vernor Vinge for an hour and a half about where he comes up with his ideas, how he writes, etc. One of the many things discussed was the fact that Vinge (pronounced Vin-gee) had introduced the concept of a "technological singularity" to describe the idea that the predictable extrapolation of artificial intelligence is that someday machines (or humans enhanced by machines) will become so intellectually advanced that present-day humans would not even be able to comprehend their culture or world. The term singularity, here, is borrowed from astrophysics, in which it describes the central point of a black hole, which is both infinite and immeasurable. In the same way, the advance of intelligence in machines is increasing at an exponential rate, and as with any exponential curve that curve must eventually become too steep for unaided humans to keep up.
How does this relate to science fiction? It means that if you are writing about humans in the very far in the future at all, you have to come up with some reason why humans haven't all become replaced by machines. It turns out that science fiction writers have been doing this for some time. In Isaac Asimov's Foundation books, for instance, artificial intelligence is considered somewhat taboo, and robots are shunned. Planets that do use robots become stagnant and eventually die out because they rely on the robots too much, so they don't advance artificial intelligence any further. In the Dune series, by Frank Herbert, artificial intelligence is somewhat of a religious taboo.
In Vinge's own books, Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, quantum mechanics operates differently near the center of a very large gravitational object, like a galaxy, than it does at a distance from that center. Phenomenon like quantum tunneling, etc., are more noticeable on planets closer to the galactic core than out on the rim, meaning that computers are harder to build and won't work as efficiently near the core, but will work great out near the rim. The result is that computers of immense power, even beyond the ability of humans to understand, are capable in the dark places between galaxies, but impossible to build near the galactic core.
I was highly impressed with Mr. Vinge, particularly with the fact that he has done all of his writing while having a whole "day-career." Many authors have day jobs, but he has had a full-time career, and still managed to become a published and well-regarded fiction writer. It gives me hope.
After lunch (which I will write about later), we came back for "Slime Creatures from Outer Space: Creating Aliens." Panel participants included Yvonne Coats (moderator), Doug Beason, Mark Ferrari, Jane Lindskold, Laura J. Mixon, and David Thomas. This was a panel about how to create believable aliens in your fiction. The consensus seemed to be that no matter what we do as writers, it won't equal the strangeness that an alien species is likely to possess. Aliens in science fiction tend to be humans altered in ways that are metaphorically useful, not nearly as odd as real aliens would likely to be.
I actually don't have a problem with this; as fiction writers, we have to keep our characters, whether human or alien, sympathetic and identifiable for the reader. Making our characters so bizarre an incomprehensible that the readers couldn't possibly care about them is not conducive to good fiction. Furthermore, I don't really subscribe to the notion that intelligent life would be totally inscrutible to humans. If they (the alien species) are similar enough to us to develop technology, then they would have to have a lot of traits in common with humans, even if they came to have those traits by a completely different evolutionary path.
Following the "Slime Creatures" panel, appropriately enough, were the "Green Slime" awards, in which books, movies, and other commercial science fiction ventures are given awards for being particularly bad science fiction. I don't remember who all won, but I remember that the Sci-Fi Channel was mentioned several times.
Then, it was the closing ceremonies, and the conference was over.
There was a post-conference party in the Con Hospitality Suite which we attended. This party is called the "Dead Dog Party," and we didn't stay long. Most of the people there seemed nice enough, but like a typical Mensa meeting there were one or two blow-hards that seem intent on showing everyone that they are smarter than the other smart people, nerdier than the other nerds, and generally just more of a fan than you. They also really don't like being corrected when they talk off the top of their head and get facts wrong.
It's late now. 'Night.
Oh my God, do I have too many neighbors. I'm out of town for four days, and it takes forever to catch up my reading.
I have spent the weekend down in Albuquerque (or "I'll be quirky," as I like to call it) at Bubonicon, Albuquerque's own annual science fiction and fantasy convention. It was held at the Wyndham near the airport. That hotel, incidentally, has a fairly nice restaurant with somewhat spotty service called the Rojo Grill. Go for the food, or go because you're staying in the hotel anyway.
There are a lot of different science fiction conferences. Since I don't care for dressing up like a Klingon or a Storm Trooper, I am glad that this one is oriented to written science fiction, rather than movies or TV, though there is enough of that going on at this Con to keep the Trekkies and the Star Wars freaks entertained.
The first session we went to was called "The Outsiders: Mainstream Authors Who Dabble in the Genre," with discussions of a number of mainstream authors, like Walter Mosley, who made their names in more "respectable" genres, then decided to dable in science fiction or fantasy. Panel members included John Maddox Roberts (moderator), Daniel Abraham, S.C. Butler, Suzy M. Charnas, and Pati Nagle. A common theme in this session is that mainstream authors that "slum" in science fiction are generally abysmal at it. Having read Walter Mosley's Blue Light, I can sympathize with this point of view. There are notable exceptions, however, like Audrey Niffeneggar's incredible novel, The Time Traveler's Wife.
After this was the Opening Ceremony, where Guest of Honor Vernor Vinge was introduced, and then we went to a a different room, missing "New Mexico Alien Fauna" for a reading by prolific (and very, very funny) author Connie Willis.
After this, we took the rest of the evening off from the sessions to visit the art show and the dealer room.
The art show at Bubonicon is worth the price of admission, which is ironic since you don't have to register for the conference to visit the art show. It's a silent auction, so you can buy the art you see there, and much of it is very, very good. One of my favorite was a saintly portrait of a nude blonde, entitled "St. Labia, patron saint of pornography." For some reason, Strix wouldn't let me bid on that one.
The dealer room, or "Huckster's Room" as it's traditionally known, is full of used books, action figures still in the packaging (if you're into that sort of thing), art, and asundry other nerd merchandise.
Saturday morning, after breakfast, we went to a writing workshop by author Sage Walker. It was mostly about how to brainstorm and come up with ideas, and most of the techniques she went through were a little too silly for me. Anyway, my problem isn't coming up with ideas - it's about sitting my butt down in the chair and writing... something other than my blog, that is.
The next session we went to was another panel, "Culture-Building: Strategies for Organizing Imaginary Worlds." Jane Lindskold was the moderator, with Jan Howard Finder, Sally Gwylan, Warren Hammond, John Miller,and Vernor Vinge. As someone who is a fan of "universe building" in science fiction, I found this session extremely interesting.
After this, Strix went out to the dealer room to hunt for books, while I stayed and watched a slide show from the Artist Guest of Honor, William Stout, an incredible artist who has done everything from comics to movie posters to album covers to movie production design to huge, wall-sized murals. I highly recommend visiting his site.
The next thing we did after this was go to the media room, also known as the Zero-G Lounge, where fans of various TV shows, cartoons, and movies can sit around and watch their guilty pleasures with other fans. We went at a specific time because we saw in the program that they were going to be playing musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More with Feeling," so we went and sang along with the songs with the other geeks.
After the closing curtain on Buffy, we went down for the costume contest. This is the second year we've attended Bubonicon, but the first that I participated in the costume contest. I don't normally get into such things, but I have been reading the Harry Dresden series from Jim Butcher, and absolutely love it. Harry is the only openly practicing wizard in the city of Chicago, and dispite being in this urban locale, he is described as wearing a black duster, a black Stetson, and otherwise wearing all black. When he's going into battle, he wears a silver pentacle and carries a staff, which he uses to direct his magical energy. While reading the books, I realized that I already had the duster, the hat, and the black clothes, including black boots. All I needed was the pentacle, which I bought online, and the staff, which I found at the Mancos Ren Faire. Although the sleave of my duster covered for the most part, I also had a silver bracelet that I had bought Friday morning before leaving Farmington that was supposed to simulate the magical shield bracelet that Harry wears when going into dangerous situations. This is the result. I didn't win any of the costume categories, and I didn't really expect to, since my costume was so simple, but I did get a number of compliments on my costume, particularly from female attendees. Of course, to really be Harry Dresden, I'd have to be about a foot taller, but no one's perfect, particularly me.
Directly after the costume contest was an "Intergalactic Spelling Bee," in which contestant-volunteers spelled names and words from science fiction and fantasy. Then, though tired, we went to boogy the night away at "Darth Maul's Dance Hall and Sith Lounge," which was really just mostly-eighties dance hits. It was fun, but Strix had studying to do now that the semester has started, so we went back to the room.
Enough for now... catch you later.
So, being a fan, I did do the midnight book release thing. Strix read it first, since she's a faster reader than I, and now I've finished it.
[Spoilers! If you haven't read it, yet, run away! Okay, you've been warned.]
It's a good end to the series, and Rowling has kept up with her reputation. There were some rough spots:
- Harry, Hermione, and Ron spend an inordinate amount of time hiding out in the woods, trying to figure out what to do next. I can't help but wonder if the author was the one who was really trying to figure out what to do next during the scenes.
- I have a problem with the "good guys" using the Unforgiveable Curses so frequently. These are supposed to be the good guys, right?
- The Deathly Hallows were as much a distraction to the reader as they were to Harry. Horcruxes, Harry! It's all about the Horcruxes!
I was also very sad to see so many of my favorite characters die, but I understand why she did it. While this is ostensibly a children's series, it is also a story about tyranny, bigotry, fascism, and the act of fighting against such forces. In the real world, when we fight against fascism, people die. Rowling didn't want to gloss over this fact, and as a result, this cap in the series is full of death.
Who else would like this book: children, teenagers, adults, the very old, ghosts, animated portraits, trolls (provided they can read), half-giants, centaurs, house elves, goblins, werewolves, merepeople.
"I would write a history of human stupidity, and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow...and I would make a statue of myself...grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who." - Cat's Cradle
I hope this is how Kurt went out.
