Micro Horror Story, "Martians"

            The first human trip to Mars was seen as the most important event in history.  Funded by a coalition of nations to set down near the southern most patch of ice that had been located by previous satellite missions in a space craft that was the largest ever constructed.

            It was an accomplishment, spectacle, and dream all at once.

            Drifting thru the space between worlds observations of the sun and the stars were conducted and every aspect of the landing was discussed again and again.  Every part of it was down in their minds.  When it came time for their little science orchestra to play, they would hit every note.

            They were smart, brave, and heroic.  All the things you would want the rest of earth to aspire to.

            They orbited Mars, gazing at the tiny moons and letting out little pods to gaze down on them, to await their return to the main ship in a matter of weeks.  Bits of the ship that had been packed for months snapped off and drifted down to the planet, some piloted by the crew, some trusted to land near enough to the target sight to be picked up later.

            The landing was gentle, measured, and went off without a hitch.  The work back home and on the way had all come together.

            The first walk out on the red planet was done with suits made for the mission, carrying tools created for their experiments, in vehicles designed for the area.  They took photos and video of each member of the crew standing on the edge of a glacier dozens of acres wide and along dry river beds hundreds of miles long.

            The world was unspoiled, beautiful, and scary in a way that none of them never would have anticipated.

            It was in the caves that they found it.  Where they found them.  Bones.  Human bones.  They were wearing a suit that had been made for the mission.  They held in their hand a tool that had been used to leave a message on the wall.

            “It is happening again.”

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Some of the Genius of "The Planet of the Apes" (1968)

            The Original 1968 “Planet of the Apes” is a science fiction classic.  It is so influential as to seem pedestrian by modern standards, filled with story elements ranging from cliché to thin.  But much like all classics in any genre, the reason it feels predictable or unremarkable is simply because we grew up in a world that it helped create.  The final twist is one of the most iconic moments in movie history, endlessly parodied and creating a demand for clever twists in the genre from there out…. Kind of.

The Plot

            A group of astronauts crash land on a primitive world, after taking a quick assessment of the local humans and concluding they will be running the place in short order, they are then confronted with a brutal reality, a race of ape-men control the planet and use humans as little more than cattle.  The presence of the astronauts, humans who can speak and possessing scientific knowledge beyond what the apes thought humans capable of, throws the social order into a spin.

            Ultimately, it is revealed that the Apes have been covering up the truth, that a once great human civilization ruled earth before destroying itself.  The last astronaut explores the ruins and reveals that the lost civilization was the USA.  The “Alien Planet” was Earth the whole time.  The Astronauts had been in suspended animation and arrived in the far future after a cataclysmic war.

The Twist

By today’s standards the twist is an anti-twist.  Why would an alien planet have humans?  There is a dead giveaway.  BUT, it is important to understand the world this movie was released into.  I kind of give the twist a pass because at the time Science Fiction was still more allegorical to old time adventure and exploration stories about being at sea and finding islands with natives that resembled us but had a differing social order.

For instance, look at "Star Trek" which was still on the air when the movie was released.  Star Trek had so many human populated planets that the whole thing feels cheap in retrospect.  But, it is a consequence of the genre, Star Trek was asked to use props the studio had on hand so as to squeeze all the utility they could out of them.  “We’ve got a Gangster Planet, an Ancient Rome in Modern Times Planet, we have a planet with a Haunted Castle, and another with Greco Ruins!”

The audience for “Planet of the Apes” was primed to say, "Okay, so this is a planet much like ours that fell to apes."  More akin to a cheap out rendition of the Elder Thing/Shoggoth civilization in, "At the Mountains of Madness" by HP Lovecraft.  Altho, the sub textual message of that story WAS SUPER DIFFERENT than the message of “Apes”.  (I should talk about that sometime.)

Having the twist of “Planet of the Apes” be that it was explicitly Earth might have rocked some mental boats because the audience saw Earth in science fiction as being safe from those kinds of story.  Or at least you knew what you were getting into, like “The Last Man on Earth”.  There weren’t any other post-apocalyptic movies from this era that took place on Earth and that was the big reveal, people were just used to certain genre conventions pulling them toward not getting the twist.  Kind of.

The Context

            Let us briefly travel back in time to the era of 60’s science fiction and look at what I would consider the most influential science fiction works of the time and why that presents an important context for “Planet of the Apes”.  At the time there were four shows that have remained in the popular consciousness because of their deep penetration into pop culture.  “Star Trek” and “Doctor Who” which were more oriented toward exploration in the classic adventure story sense, and “The Twilight Zone” and the “Outer Limits” which were both genre-shows known for having twist endings.

            All four of these shows have an element of anthology storytelling to them.  “Twilight Zone” and “Outer Limits” explicitly, but “Doctor Who” and “Star Trek” often felt like standalone storytelling, continuity was not as strong an element as it is these days, the crew of the Enterprise or TaRDiS would show up at a place, be confronted with a science fiction story, and then solve the story and leave, you could watch a serial of “Doctor Who” or an episode of “Star Trek” and see it as a standalone story for the most part.

            Now, “Doctor Who” would travel to possible futures and show the world in various states of decay, or back in time to show the literal caves humans used to live in.  “Star Trek” would travel to human populated worlds and often times had embarrassing presentations of, “THIS COULD BE EARTH!” presentations with “The Omega Glory” one of the most obnoxious episodes of the series.  But neither of these shows was about seeing EARTH after the fall as a gotcha to the audience.

            “Twilight Zone” and “Outer Limits” on the other hand HAD LOTS OF THIS KIND OF THING!  Tho, the “Twilight Zone” takes the cake in this department, I think there were multiple stories of Adam and Eve making the best of things in the post apocalypse of a civilization that preceded ours or being all that was left of our current world.

But, even the “Twilight Zone” twists come in a bunch of different ways, “Third from the Sun” is about people fleeing the planet in an experimental spaceship as a nuclear war is about to break out, turns out the habitable world they are fleeing to… IS EARTH!

Conclusion

            We have this era of science fiction in which Astronauts like the crew of the Enterprise go to planets *like Earth* that have some twist, only looking like Earth to make a point.  We also have “The Twilight Zone” which has twists all about saying, “And it was Earth all along”.  I think the reason “Planet of the Apes” works is that those two micro-genres in Science Fiction, “we are somewhere else” and “it was Earth” really had not mixed as much at the time.

            When the movie starts we think we are watching “Star Trek” by the end we realize we are watching “The Twilight Zone”.  "Planet of the Apes" bridged that gap and changed people's understanding of the genre so that such a twist wouldn't really work these days without some kind of setup that would require a lot more explanation (for instance, “humans have been space faring for so long Earth has been forgotten and the space explorers went there not knowing what it was”).

            Or, you know, maybe I don’t know what I am talking about.  “Planet of the Apes” had a lot going on with animal rights and the idea of a social order that strips the humanity and history from a people to make them into cattle.  Creating a metaphor that some would call “mixed”, but I prefer to look at as complex.  Trying to do too direct a comparison to real life issues always feels cartoonish to me, I prefer to have a blending of issues so that the audience has to do some of the work and can reach their own conclusions about the touched-on topics.

            Or, you know, maybe I don’t know what I am talking about.

"Oh shit.  There goes the planet."

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Audible Review, "Genesis"

Introduction

I recently finished another boring book that had strange pacing problems, it was “Genesis” by Ken Lozito and narrated by Scott Aeillo.  It is book one in the “First Colony” series.  I got it on sale from Audible as I am a frequent reader of science fiction.

It sucked...

The Plot

            After a botched military black operation against the international criminal organization known as “The Syndicate” results in the death of millions, Colonel Conner is kidnapped by his commanding officer and put onto the first ever interstellar colony ship.  Conner will be made the fall guy for the botched op but will be allowed to live in exile on some distant alien world.

            After arriving Conner quickly ingratiates himself with the comically inept colonists by telling them incredibly basic tactics and saving people from their own stupidity.  He becomes head of his own search and rescue team and after a short period of time spent in the role manages to save people from a horde of slavering monsters.

            Then, rather than offer any sort of denouement, the last 30 minutes of the story is a massive sequel hook to a book I will never read.

The voice actor did his best, with the material he was given.

           

First: Some Good Stuff

            This book has a lot of good set up.  A main character with a dark past fighting terrorists and criminals; hundreds of thousands of colonists in suspended animation means that the author will never run out of new and interesting characters that need no explanation for why they haven’t been around; and there are mysteries on the planet, with alien ruins and monsters that promise adventure in a pulp science fiction sense.

            The action scenes are pretty good.  I have a good understanding of the geography of each fight, the capabilities of the monsters and equipment, and the limitations of the heroes due to injury and other limiting factors.  It is a shame the action scenes are boring because they are in service to my first complaint.

Now the Bad Stuff: Lame Characters

            The dialogue is boring, flat, and functional.  Little humor or humanizing aspects exist.  When variations occur, it is to illustrate a character as a whiney stupid dipshit.  No one uses interesting turns of phrase, nobody gives any small stories to explain their own world view, nobody except Conner seems to have any backstory of note.  Call me crazy, but the command staff of the first interstellar colony ship from Earth would have some pretty elite and interesting people, not just a gaggle of dweebs.

            I guess when I said, “…never run out of new interesting characters…” when talking about the good stuff, I was giving credit to the concept/set-up, but I can’t point to anything in the execution.  Aside from the two roles of, “Complain about Conner” and “Agree with Conner” there really isn’t much going on that characters get up to.  I guess, “Resent Conner for being right” is a third option.

There is Sean, the son of the governor who wants to join search and rescue to reach his full potential and get away from his parent’s smothering him, and he shares a name with Conner’s son who he left behind on Earth.  Sooooooooo, Sean had SO MUCH POTENTIAL as a story element, but fails for the same reason everyone fails.  He is just so flat.

But hey, there is a scene in which Conner fights alien monsters in power armor.  That is kind of cool.
I mean, nobody dies and there is no tension at all in the scene.  So, it is kind of toothless and boring.

Bigger Complaint: Boring Protagonist

            Beyond the background characters being boring the real diamond hard issue at the core of the story is Conner himself.  HE IS BORING TO SUCH AN EPIC LEVEL.  He is not a character so much as he is a collection of skills.  He makes a decision, he does a thing, and then the situation resolves itself. 

There is never a point where Conner has a character defect (fear, lack of confidence, indecision, or even something more complex like greed or over confidence).  There is no point where he makes a mistake or lapse in judgement which results in something bad happening.  Conner is always right, Conner always has the tools to resolve the situation (with one exception where a scientist has to do science at a science thing while Conner protects them), and Conner is only opposed by the petty jealousy and bullshit of others, never his own.

Honestly, the Doom Marine has loads of personality, especially by the standards of early video game characters.
I feel bad comparing this guy to Conner.

Conner’s story begins with him BEING FRAMED FOR THE DEATHS OF MILLIONS and you would figure such a thing would cause some mistrust with the gaggle of strangers he now has to work with… NOPE!  The strangers immediately accept that he was framed.

Conner doesn’t even feel all that bad about all the people dying, at no point does that disaster cause him to second guess himself, feel guilty about maybe having made a bad call, and at no point do the circumstances of the disaster reflect on the story.  The bad guys did this, he just happened to be there to catch all the shit.  Conner learns nothing from the experience… Which makes me wonder, as a reader, why the author bothered with the deaths of millions as a starting point?

Conner could have just been on the Colony ship to work in law enforcement on the new planet.  Same background in the military but wanting to start a new life on the frontier.  You could even leave his estranged family back on Earth, have him move on because he could not face them after all the stuff he did in the military.  It changes NOTHING about the rest of the story.

BETTER YET, have the incident mean something.  Conner is fighting the Syndicate and learns that thousands of Syndicate operatives are implanted on the colony ship, they want to run their own planet by taking control of the colony.  The idea of an elite team having to ferret out a group that wants to build their own new criminal empire in the stars, that sounds epic.  You could even point out that such an idea goes back thru history, the Medici family than ran Florence (and by extension Italy via their bank empire and control of the Vatican) their symbol was the visible planets in the sky, and another sphere representing their family.  That is fucking awesome, and a perfect symbol for what Conner could be fighting against.

BETTER EVEN STILL, have Conner be responsible for the deaths of millions.  Have that fact kept secret and he is haunted not only by causing those deaths, but the very real danger that someone might somehow discover who he is, and that discovery destroy their trust in him… OR BRAND HIM AS A CRIMINAL AND KILL HIM.  There is a scene, Sean finds out Conner killed a huge number of people out of negligence or stupidity and rejects him, “My surrogate son has seen thru the veneer of heroism I use to shield the world from the monster within me.  DRAMA!”

There is so much potential, and it is flushed away.  Conner becomes the boring competent protagonist, what a character like Captain America becomes in the hands of a bad writer.  It is not impossible to make this type of protagonist work, but you have to challenge his Character not his Abilities.

To continue the comparison, Captain America is interesting when someone shows him an easier way to accomplish his goals, but that way compromises Cap’s ethics, and then Cap has to deal with the harm and loss of life that comes with taking the hard road to hold to his principles.  Conner should have had to confront something that challenged his morals, not something that tested his ability to use power armor or a laser rifle.

Instead, Conner just wins, and the people who disagree with him are seen as dipshits.  Maybe I would be more tolerant of that if (at the very least) Conner’s advice was not so basic and simple as to be insulting to my intelligence.  His discussion of check-in procedures and use of surveillance technology is so simple that the fact that the colonists weren’t using those tactics makes them come off as buffoonish.

Minor Complaint: Names

            Conner’s team was called “Ghosts”.  The bad guys are “The Syndicate”.  The planet is “New Earth”.  Everything is so generically named it feels like I am playing “Destiny”.

Bitch if you want, fans of Destiny.  The names for things in this blow.
The game also blows.

*Sigh and Groan*

            I feel almost bad writing this out, as the author seems like an okay guy.  I feel like the bones of this book work as a basic adventure story with a lot of sequel hooks thrown in… But good lord would I love to just go in and re-write this thing with punchier dialogue, more personal scenes, and more character conflict that feels earned rather than petty bickering.  Things that play to my writing strengths and my taste in stories.

            “Genesis” is weak.  There are just too many other books with similar subject matter that are loads better.  “Old Man’s War” absolutely pummels this story into the dirt, same with “We are Legion (We are Bob)” or even “Steel World” which is not high art, but at the very least has some tension and humor.

            I guess I finished “Genesis”, joining it to a growing number of books with the distinction of, “Bad books I made it thru”.  I cannot recommend this, it was like trying to eat an unseasoned and under cooked potato.

"Attack on Titan" sucks too.

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            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Star Trek BS, "The Borg"

            “Rocketboy1313 talks about Star Trek a bit and with no Over Arching Theme”.  Admittedly it is not a great title.  Not a great theme really.  I just had some left over writing from random discussions I have had online and in person about “Star Trek” and decided to throw this out there for consumption.

            Today’s topic is THE BORG.  Kind of.  All of this stuff has official explanations, but I don’t care what those explanations are and have instead written some of my own that I feel make more sense in the context of what I know about the series, and what about this universe that sticks out in my mind.  You can do this too; it is called “Head Canon”.

            Since it is all fictional and doesn’t matter, existing only as an imaginary story to help us ruminate on the world and life to better understand ourselves, the story specifics are meaningless, disregard them at your leisure.

 

Their ships are super rad.

Introduction

            For those who don’t know, the Borg are a race of cyborgs.  They come from a region of the galaxy that they completely dominate.  A vast empire from which these mentally linked shock troops coordinate as a singular intelligence.  They speak as an intimidating chorus of dull voices, they seem their eventual success as such a certainty that they call resistance to it “Futile”.

            The Borg reproduce in two fashions, the first is growing knew biological beings and then attaching cybernetic components as they age, but the other more horrifying method is to inject microscopic robots into the blood of other alien races, bonding with them mentally and making them part of their collective will.  Assimilation of all cultures, scientific knowledge, and striping out all sense of self and personal identity.  They are space-zombies and the single best villains in the franchise.

            They were introduced in “Star Trek the Next Generation” to both the audience and the crew of the Enterprise by the godlike being, Q.  Q’s motives for such an introduction seem to boil down to, “I’m a dick” but regardless of his long-term plans for such actions this episode established that both Q and the Borg had prior interactions with the recurring character of Guinan, a wise bartender character played by Whoopi Goldberg who is centuries old and whose people were destroyed by the Borg… and Really hate Q.

            The Borg became more and more sucky as time went on.  For that matter, so did Q.  Because “Star Trek Voyager” made everything that was big and threatening in “The Next Generation” worse and worse.  Regardless, let me tell you about my fan theory.

My Bullshit

            I actually thought that the Borg might have existed on only 1 planet as a big uni-mind (like "The Matrix") for thousands of years until they encountered some space fairing species.  Their collective intellect is always shown as being vast in knowing things, but rarely good at inventing new things.  I think that the creation of a vast linked intellect led to the society stagnating.

            I think that the species that first met the Borg-Matrix was the El-Aurian, the name of Guinan’s people (Whoopi Goldberg’s people).  Perhaps a scout craft landed far outside their own territory and wanted to learn about the vast and knowledgeable super mind.

This is Guinan on Earth in the late 1800's.

            Maybe Q made the introductions.

            The El-Aurians got assimilated into the mind and that started the Borg on a path of moving from solar system to solar system growing at first in a linear fashion, as they could only breed more of themselves or capture people to add cybernetic attachments, which just seems like a hassle.

            The real start of the Borg’s golden age was the discovery of a new technology, nano-bots which made assimilation of new species so easy that started growing their boarders exponentially.  Finally they decided to go after the El-Aurians’ home world and wipe them out.  The super villain equivalent of self-actualization.  This would explain El-Aurians aversion to both Q and their history with the Borg.

Some More Bullshit
            On “Voyager” the best character was Seven of Nine played by Jeri Ryan, a Borg freed from the uni-mind and returned to a state of being a human (albeit still covered in cybernetic components) who wanted to explore being a human (the race she was before being assimilated) but held onto learned behavior, knowledge, and beliefs from the Borg.  Her knowledge was limited, only a single mind she could hold only a tiny fraction of the Borg’s collective information, but she would often use experiments to further apply her knowledge to help the crew in new ways (she at one point cured death… “Voyager” was often stupid).

            One of Seven’s beliefs was that of Omega.  A theoretical element(?), particle(?), and they went with molecule(?) that would serve as a “perfect” thing.  The Borg see perfection as something that can be attained and Omega as an example of something that is perfect.  But at the same time Seven was always lacking on certain time periods and had holes in her data, so I gelled these concepts together. 

Jeri Ryan gets unfairly maligned, often just labeled as a pretty face, but she is an excellent actress in this series.
When I say she was the best character, SHE WAS THE BEST CHARACTER.

            900 years ago, might have been the Borg’s first experiments with the Omega molecule as a power source which was such a devastating waste of time and resources that the Borg have still not fully recovered and archived all the data from that period. Beyond that they were more insular at the time, seeking that technology rather than expanding, and that explains why they have no strong memories about the prominent empires of the era, like the vast subspace tunnel empire, the Vaadwaur, mentioned in “Dragon’s Teeth”.

            However it is also really possible that with only the minimal amount of data from that specific time, in that specific place, about that specific people would be in the Borg hard drives Seven of Nine has access to on “Voyager”.   This would serve as a good explanation of maybe the Borg not having fractured memories, but just her own data stores being limited (I doubt the entirety of Borg Wikipedia could fit in her cargo bay).

End of my Bullshit

            I have been thinking about “Star Trek” lately because of the new series I have not yet seen.  And probably won’t see for a while because CBS can bite me.

            Hopefully any reading this will find my musings entertaining.  It is just my own head canon.

            (Pardon any grammar issues.  I have a real job now and my time for proof reading has dropped off QUITE A BIT).

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Audible Review, "Starship Troopers"

"One of the Worst Performances"

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

            No, and I almost shut it off forever at numerous points. Whenever I am left thinking, "Well, I already bought it, might as well finish it," it is not a good sign.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Starship Troopers?

            There are several discussions in the book concerning political science. While several do a good job at illuminating their points the one that stood out to me was the one about "value" which misused macroeconomic terms for a microeconomic discussion. It was so flatly wrong that it was distracting.  It is sad when the most standout part of a book is the thing that makes me realize it is a lot dumber than it thinks it is.

Would you be willing to try another one of Lloyd James’s performances?

            GODS, NO! HE WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST! How do you make combat with giant alien bugs via power armor boring? He has the habit of pausing. After. Every. Sentence. Often for up to a full second, which doesn't sound like a lot but good lord does it make the whole thing sound even slower and more boring. His reading is the most detached, dry, plodding performance I have ever heard. He should be embarrassed.

            You might be saying, "just turn up the speed" I did, it just makes his pitch annoyingly high and the pauses are still there and are still long proportionate to the now sped up sentences. AWFUL WORK!

Do you think Starship Troopers needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

            There have been follow up works, just not by this author. "Starship Troopers" practically spawned the genre of Space Military. With discussions of applied technology, tactics, and the morality of fighting a war of genocide against thinking creatures who are so alien that the idea of seeing them as worthy of moral consideration is difficult if not impossible.

            I have already talked about “The Forever War” which is a much bleaker and more cynical look at the exact same subject matter.  “Troopers” leans much more on a dry philosophical discussion of social science (which it laughably miss-labels as a hard science) while “Forever” leans more on talking about the technology that makes the universe go around.  The evolving social order of “Forever” is far dumber and more obnoxious than the distant (proto-fascist) civilian world of “Troopers”.

 

Which is still more democratic than the most nerd popular Space Marine franchise.

Any additional comments?

            In addition to the reader being absolute fail, the recording itself had dozens of errors, as sentences scattered thru the book drop in audio clarity, volume, and are done but what may be a different actor. This is shoddy work. If not for this book's status as a modern classic I could not imagine it receiving a rating as high as it has.  Which leads me to a final point, the fanboys.

            I don’t think it is any secret that there are far too many insipid dipshits who find something they like and will hear no words of criticism against it and shower it with praise regardless of failings, but “Starship Troopers” seems to have rung the bell calling home the hoard of stupid.  This thing has a stupid level of 5 star ratings on Audible in spite of the performers lacking abilities being listed by many of them.  I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.

            I also cannot figure out why people feel the need to bad mouth the movie as a means to stroke the book.  HEY IDIOTS, if someone came to read/listen to the book because they found the movie engaging then maybe don’t try to shove them off.

            Either they will read/listen to it and enjoy the deeper exploration of the concepts at the sacrifice of action, OR they will find the book boring and preachy (like I did) and go back to enjoying the movie with greater perspective on both having been gained.

            YOU ARE NOT HELPING them to learn anything by calling them dumb for liking the movie, and you are not helping to sell the book or the ideas you hold in high esteem by shoving back the people who want to purchase and enjoy the book.  STOP BEING SNOBBY DIP SHITS.  It is the job of anyone who enjoys a thing (or part of being an adult) is to be an ambassador for the things you like, and part of being an ambassador is knowing that different people like different things.  STOP BEING A SNOBBY DIP SHIT.  Let people like what they like and then go on liking what you like.  Grown up.

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Audible Review, "Out of the Silent Planet"

            I was/am sort of on a kick to try out lots of different science fiction titles from the past.  “Stranger in a Strange Land”, “The Forever War”, "The Sirens of Titan", and “2001: A Space Odyssey” I have already listened to and so I decided to expand my scope to a Christian-Fantasy author and his brief foray into Science Fiction.  C.S. Lewis’ “Out of the Silent Planet”.

            Until recently I never knew about this three-part series, it being totally eclipsed by “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” which Lewis wrote 12 years later.  I only heard about it indirectly when reading about one of those incidents in history that sounds like something made up by an English Literature nerd on tumblr.

            There was a rivalry/argument between Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke, writer of “2001: A Space Odyssey” which happened in a pub, and they each brought a guest, one was a prominent writer in the field of science academia and the other was JRR Tolkien.  You can read about it here.

 

This is book 1 of 3.   Apparently, part 3 is as long as the other two together.

            Since this book and its sequels have been mostly eclipsed I could have ignored it, it is not nearly as influential as the books it borrows ideas from, but I liked the author’s style and maybe I would discover a gem neglected by the popular sphere.  I did, if I had to describe this book in a short statement it would be, "Beautiful Heavy Words".

            Since I got this on Audible I am posting the opinion I put there here along with the questions they ask their users to help guide their review writing.  Hopefully, this style is as easy to read as it is to write.

Would you listen to Out of the Silent Planet again? Why?

            Maybe.  The writing is haunting in many instances.  To the point of being beautiful poetry.  Descriptions of alien landscapes, drifting thru the heavens, or seeing humanity almost with the eyes of an extraterrestrial.  The language is fantastic.

            It is however, tiring to read.  Much like listening to long quotations of Shakespeare by the end of them my mind feels like it has been worked out listening to the rhythm and word selection so earnestly.

 

I would also like to say that the artwork produced for the covers of this series is consistently eye catching and beautiful.
There is also a good bit of fan art.  I wish all the books I looked at would be so inspiring to artists.

What other book might you compare “Out of the Silent Planet” to and why?

            The setting will have to be compared to the "John Carter of Barsoom" franchise.  Except that this vision of the alien landscape is less bleak and barbaric and more of a semi-celestial Eden.  It is also more of a haunting walk thru a strange world as opposed to an action/adventure.

            The appeal of the story is gazing at the world it creates and seeing the peaceful existence of the inhabitants but still being sort of scared for the enormity of it all.  I suppose another good comparison would be "2001: A Space Odyssey" (ironic), as there is a core theme of exploration and a guiding hand of a powerful and benevolent figure, with an emphasis on enormous thoughts and large scopes.

Which character – as performed by Geoffrey Howard – was your favorite?

            Oyarsa the invisible all-knowing lord of the planet is the sort of benevolent deity I like in stories. Involved, clearly wise and helpful, but Oyarsa has limits to both his authority and his patience.  Oyarsa knows what a threat is and acts accordingly to eliminate them.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

            That would be impossible.  I found listening to it almost exhausting because I would hang on near every word.  I needed breaks to digest it.

Any additional comments?

            I think that after a long break I will return to the series and eventually finish it.

            I don’t know if I can recommend this book to anyone except those who will find the appeal of the writing style.  There is little action, it is totally sexless (there isn’t any women in the book), and a big conceit of the narrative is based on decrying colonialism which is good from a historical perspective, but less a part of the modern cultural zeitgeist.

I am 90% sure this is supposed to be about the books.

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Audible Review, "The Forever War"

            I finished this book on Audible not too long ago and decided to expand on the review I put there (hence the list of questions about the book to help give the review some structure for people who do not review movies and books as a hobby).  Strangely this book was recommended to me by my former roommate back in 2014-2015 but I never got around to reading it because I was too busy being a lazy pile of garbage masquerading as a graduate student.

            Anyway, I almost gave up on this book a couple times because (aside from the emotional core of the C-plot) there wasn’t much about it that entertained me, it is kind of a slog.  That “TLDR” said, this is my review of Joel Haldeman’s “The Forever War” or as it could have been called, “Space Viet Nam”.

 

Unlike "Stranger in a Strange Land" this book has a metric ton of art.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

            I would only recommend this to a person who really likes science fiction minutia. There are big sections that are just descriptions of the weapons, armor, tactics, materials, and other science related details of fighting a battle. If you like the "tech" part of science fiction than this will definitely appeal.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

            I would have had more characters call out the main character on his bullshit.  It only happens once and it is one of the better things in the book.  There is a chapter in which they give him a psych evaluation and call him a "Failed Pacifist" and that his "tolerance" is only what he thinks is tolerant, that he actually does have bigoted thoughts and they do interfere with his judgement, but he doesn’t admit such things to himself.  That is clever, I wanted more of that.

            Hearing a lot of the main character’s thoughts as a modern audience, his describing himself as "normal" because he isn't gay comes off as bigoted to me.  I have to keep telling myself how it is a product of its time.

What about the voice actor, George Wilson’s performance?  Did you like it?

            George has a strong ability to give distinct voices to all the different characters, it is much appreciated. I think that Plot-C (the love story) works so well in large part because he is such a strong voice actor.

Did “The Forever War” inspire you to do anything?

            Continue with looking at other science fiction titles dealing with war, though other books much lighter in tone.  (I liked “Old Man’s War” a lot more because of its lighter tone, even if it is far less “realistic”).

 

I will probably get around to all of these before the TV series starts getting put out.

Any additional comments?

            To me, there are 3 big aspects to the book that can be broken up at looked at individually, mostly because the thing changes gears between them super abruptly.

            First, there are the discussions science. Tech is described in detail and at length... Kind of boring unless you really like that kind of harder sci-fi.  The science is surprisingly hard and realistic.  At one point a seismic event happens because of an attack drone hitting the surface of a moon at near light speed and it kind of cracks the planetoid.  That’s cool.  At no point, do you feel like something is unclear in how it works or what it can do.

            Second, the social commentary of leaving Earth and coming back to a totally transformed society in which fashion, urban unrest, poverty, and homosexuality are major cultural forces to the point that it massively alienates the protagonist. This stuff comes off as obnoxious at various points and kind of took me out of the story, which is set 40 years after this book was written; apparently, there will be interstellar flight and explosive growth and shrinkage of the Earth's population in that time which reads as insane.

            Compared to the discussions of science this part seemed laughably out of touch.  It also has a shockingly poor grasp of the UN’s role in international politics, sure it might change with interstellar war going on, but the idea that they institute a worldwide currency based around rationing sounds crazy.  This is another instance in which “YOU HAVE INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL” should have a much bigger impact on how Earth works like how I squinted condescendingly at the film adaptation of “Ender’s Game”.

            Lastly there is the love story, which works completely.  At least it did for me. The story epilogue was sweet and appreciated because this C-plot worked so well.

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Audible Review, "Stranger in a Strange Land"

            I started writing this review before I even finished “Stranger in a Strange Land” because there is one LOOMING criticism that I keep seeing in a lot of old and new reviews of the book.  Some variation of the phrase, “it meanders”.  Yeah, it really does, but that is because this is not really one book.  It is 2 short books that were wielded together and each is weaker because of it.

 

I am generally disappointed with the fan-art community.
This is a sci-fi classic and there is nothing out there.
This is just the most recent book cover.

The Plot Goes Thusly

            You know what, I need to explain my chief criticism of the book via the plot, so let’s just say the plot is, “Valentine Michael Smith is Space Jesus.  He founds a church and sometimes he is a carney.”

Critique

            You could snap this book over your knee and you would get “Stranger of Mars” and “Stranger of Earth”.  The first story is a quasi-spy thriller about finding a man who has inherited a mountain of a fortune from parents he never knew, inherited a governmental authority over Mars because of a legal knot, and he has super powers because of his time spent with the Martians.  He is important on multiple levels.

            This first story ends with a big confrontation between the Man from Mars and his entourage of sympathetic humans versus the governments of Earth, and it is resolved peacefully with the entrusting of the fortune, a strange divestment of the accidental government authority, and his fantastic powers being kept secret.

            That would be a solid novel.  Valentine Michael Smith’s abilities as the Man from Mars and his worldview are interesting.  These ideas are explored with real stakes hanging overhead.  There is tension as you feel the government closing in on them, Mike’s growing awareness of the world and increasing care and concern for his friends, and the oncoming collision the two worlds.  All of this gets resolved in a satisfactory way without a massive shedding of blood, that is unique… And then the book keeps going.

            The Second part of “Stranger” is its own story and could have easily been stretched out into a full novel, what I would like to call “Stranger of Earth”.  This story is about the Man from Mars finding religion and explaining how his powers work as a reflection of his alien mindset and philosophy.  The Martians who raised him taught him how to tap into a greater power within himself and now Mike is going to teach everyone the Martian ways as a path to peace and enlightenment.

            Space Jesus is hardly an unknown idea in fiction, this is a quintessential example of it.  I would kind of like to see Mike debate Ender from “Ender’s Game” about their conflicting theological nit-picks.  Ender would probably turn into a psychic ghost in a couple hours because of his superhuman intellect and empathy.  But, I digress.

Ender had another advantage in that the Aliens he interacted with were vividly described.
Martians have only the vaguest of descriptions, 3 legs and big as a ship.  Rather weak.

            While you could complain that the first story is padded by too many conversations about moral relativism, lampooning astrology, and hanging out by the pool, this story is starving for attention.  Whole action sequences involving escape from prison, the firebombing of his temple, and the Martians having used Mike as a spy for their interests are all talked about but not shown.  What could have been an action packed tale of religious persecution is talked about almost academically until the final scene.

SPOILERS

            The last scene is a jarring turn into graphic murder.  As the Man from Mars allows himself to be martyred to serve as a figure head for his religion.  The reason he needs to do this is Earth is now on a countdown.  Martians see Earth as a threat and are preparing to collectively use their telepathic powers to rip the planet to bits.  They won’t do this for centuries, maybe even a 1,000+ years, but if the people of Earth don’t learn Mike’s psychic abilities to fight back then we are all toast.

MORE SPOILERS

            Turns out that Angels are real, and occasionally incarnate on Earth to create new religions to help humanity in times of extremely dire circumstances.  Mike is the archangel Michael and he is starting his religion to save Earth from Martians.  WHAT!?

END SPOILERS- You can start reading again

            So here is my biggest criticism of this book: it is not 1 book, it is 1 book, a stripped down manuscript for a second book, and NO THIRD BOOK.  This thing needed a third book to take place resolving the dangling threads of Mike’s church and the Martians’ ultimate decision about Earth.  Where is the “Revelations” part of the thing?  When Mike comes back centuries later with greater powers to combat the stars falling to lead humanity to some final salvation?  Too much is just left hanging.

Rumors

            I have read that this book started out as a bet between Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard to see who could create a functioning religion, but that Heinlein backed out when shit got too real.  You know what?  That is a plausible urban legend.  “Stranger” has a functional world view even if the psychic powers are a complete fiction.

            Free love, communal ownership and cooperation, a belief that all people are aspects of god… All of this stuff is a cohesive religious philosophy.  Rewrite this narrative so that it was beamed to the author by some alien mind and that all of this took place on Earth thousands of years before Rome and bam, you have a religion and mythos.

Recommendation?

            This book is hard to recommend.  I tend to judge books on different criteria, “do I like the subject matter?”, “does the writing from page to page have good flow and word usage?”, “does the book have good structure?” each of these things is present and to me gaugeable.

            Subject matter: I liked it.  The idea of how would a quasi-modern world deal with Space Jesus from Mars and his new church is a good place to start a story.  The few action sequences we get or scenes of them testing his abilities are interesting.

            Writing flow: I loved the dialogue 90% of the time.  It gets a little misogynistic at points (it was written in the 50’s, by the standards of the time it was exceptionally progressive, but by modern standards it is still too conservative in some areas but hyper-liberal in others), conversations can get a little long, and some words get over used; but taken as a whole there is a good rhythm.  Exposition (the bane of genre fiction) is done in funny ways, explaining legal questions is done while characters argue over who is cooking diner, that is cute and natural.

            Structure: This baby has bone cancer.  As I mentioned it is a three-part story missing the third part and the second part is malnourished.  There are long sections of things taking trips to literal carnivals to perform magic shows.  What?  What?

            I do not regret listening to this.  And the book that has to follow it, “Neuromancer” is already suffering from the comparison as it is heavy with lingo and jargon but lacks the easy going dialogue and relaxed ruminations of “Stranger”.

            If you like dialogue driven stories with a loose fitting narrative that is more about hammering out ideas (like Plato writing down Socrates’ methods for teaching) then this book will work for you… Mostly.  But I imagine you will end up having my same issues as it gets overlong and under-punch.

Voice Acting

            I should note that the voice acting for this book was solid.  There are a dozen speaking roles and each is done with enough distinctiveness that I was able to keep them all separate in my mind.  The only ones I would have difficulty telling apart would be the extremely late characters or tertiary presences like Ruth, Dawn, or the other astronauts from the Mission to Mars that brought Mike back to Earth.

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            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.