Science, religion, euthanasia

The first part of Canticle (Fiat Homo - Let there be man) is set in a post-nuclear apocalypse 'dark ages.' The second section (Fiat Lux - Let there be light) follows six hundred years later, at the time of a scientific renaissance.

The pre-apocalypse 'memorabilia' that the monks of the order of St. Leibowitz have been keeping safe for all those centuries are finally of interest again. And one scientist- the brilliant, difficult Thon Thaddeo - comes to the abbey to study them.

Canticle has been studied in college courses for its discussion of 'the relationship between science and religion' (a phrase which, as a biologist, I have come to truly hate). I'm not sure what Miller really has to say about that relationship, however. The monks are mostly saintly, true. But Thon Thaddeo is far from a bad person; proud and bad-tempered, yes, but basically honest.

The bad guys in Canticle are neither the monks nor the scientists, even though science will eventually (in the third section of the book, Fiat Voluntas Tua - Let thy will be done) make another nuclear holocaust possible. The bad guys are the politicians, the people who want power.

The humor - still much present in part two - is less evident toward the end of the book, but then impending nuclear war tends to make life seem less funny. And Miller spends a fair amount of time on the question of euthanasia.

The first bombs have fallen. The government has set up 'relief stations' (read: euthanasia) for those individuals who have received such a high dose of radiation that death is inevitable. The doctors (playing the scientist role, here) are in favor of the idea; the monks resist.

I wasn't entirely convinced by their argument that we should suffer through to the end, but I'm not sure that Miller intends for us to be. You cannot read this section, now, without remembering that Miller himself suffered from serious depression for much of his life, and that 12 years ago, in 1996 - he committed suicide.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

I haven't read every science fiction novel ever published, so I can't say that A Canticle for Leibowitz --by Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960 - is unique.

But it's pretty darn unique. The setting, for one thing: in a monastery. And the protagonists? Monks. Not your standard sci-fi for sure.

I can remember getting a few pages into it and thinking - this is funny. The idea that you could write a serious novel and make it witty and fun was a revelation. (These were my early teen years; I hadn't yet read Pride and Prejudice.) Perhaps this explains, in part, my life-long prejudice against works with I AM A PIECE OF SERIOUS LITERATURE written all over them.

A prejudice, by the way, which extends to movies. Ingmar Bergman? ZZZZZZZ.

The main character of the first part (Fiat Homo, "Let there be man") is Brother Francis, a young novice at an abbey in the post-apocalyptic southwestern United States. Brother Francis - charming, naive, trusting - is another revelation. He wants to be monk (memo from the teenaged me: say what?).

Occasionally you will find a reviewer who rants about Miller's supposed pro-Roman Catholic bias; that Canticle promotes 'blind faith' and an unquestioning subservience to authority. These reviewers have apparently not read beyond the first few pages. Brother Francis - despite his devotion to the abbey, despite his trust in his superiors and his desperate longing to be allowed to profess his vows - refuses (in the face of considerable pressure from the abbot) to recant his story that he saw someone who might have been 'the blessed Leibowitz' out in the desert.

He refuses, in other words, to bend to authority, to change what he believes to be the truth even the tiniest bit. The reader admires him, even as we are also invited to understand the reasoning of the very human and politically astute abbot.

Fiat Homo ends with Brother Francis' death from an arrow to the head. He is buried by the same old man who might have been - but in the end, was not - the blessed Leibowitz.

Space Marines

In some ways I liked the sequel to Alien even better than the original. Sigourney Weaver was back, of course, along with a squad of marines. The marines were a bunch of seriously-armed-to-the-teeth dudes - and one equally armed-to-the-teeth woman. Which leads to the best line of dialogue in either film:

Male marine to female marine: "Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

Vasquez: "No. Have you?"

The theme of corporate stupidity and greed - hinted at in Alien - plays out here in full as Ripley, the marines, a good android (wonderfully played by Lance Henricksen), and a Company shill (the usually amiable Paul Reiser) return to the planet visited by the Nostromo.

The marines are brave and (mostly) smart, but they are in over their heads: the enemy is something they don't understand, and modern weapons won't save them. Ripley understands, but she is also hampered - at least temporarily - by her own prejudice against androids. The Company shill is just that.

And did I mention there's a little girl ('Newt') to rescue?

In the end, Ripley and the little girl survive, along with (sort of) the android and one of the marines, Hicks. Hicks is the exceedingly cute one, the calm one, a leader - he's our hero to match our heroine. We see them off into hypersleep and go home reasonably happy . . . . .

Except then they die. The third movie in the franchise (Alien3, released in 1992, six years after Aliens) begins with the crash of an escape pod, and the death of Newt and Hicks.

What?

How annoying is that? Apparently James Cameron (the director of Aliens) was annoyed as well. You cannot have your audience emotionally invest in your characters, see them through perilous times, have them barely escape with their lives--

--and then kill them off in the first few minutes of the next movie. That just bites.

I decided not to see the third movie when I found out about this bit of plot. In my mind Ripley, Hicks, Newt and even Bishop the android are happy somewhere, in hypersleep or out, and alive.

In space, nobody can hear you scream

One of the all-time great movie tag lines, by the way.

I'm not a fan of scary movies. The whole 'horror' genre leaves me cold, both in books and on film. Not to mention the latest torture-porn stuff, ala Saw and Hostel. Pathetic.

But there are scary movies, and then there are scary movies. Alien combined a great science fiction look with a monster to really sink your teeth into. Or vice versa.

I found out later that there was a person inside the alien suit: one Bolaji Badejo, 7 ' 2 " and thin enough to fit inside and play convincingly non-human. Yes, the alien was not some mechanism like the shark in Jaws. Or all CG.

And I agree with those who've argued that the monster was a lot more frightening in the first movie, when you barely saw it, than it was in the sequels. You didn't know what was going after the crew; that was the genius of the thing.

So we have an unknown planet, with atmosphere so thick you can barely see through it, a bunch of strange eggs, and another alien, but this one with his chest ripped open. Setting us up for the (arguably) most famous scene in the movie: John Hurt not quite getting through his spaghetti dinner.

I can't say too much about that scene; I've seen the movie several times, but always have my eyes covered at that point.

But the alien is only one of the scary things that the people of the Nostromo are faced with. They are, in fact, dupes. They've been set up by the Company, which has sent an android along with the crew, presumably (some of this was a little hazy before the Aliens sequel) to discover potential alien weaponry, biological or otherwise, and return it to human civilization.

This being the part where human beings stupidly get way in over their heads, and possibly a commentary on messing with weaponry that could kill us all.

At the end, only our kick-ass heroine (Sigourney Weaver, on her way to becoming a major star) and the cat survive. She had argued against bringing the alien into the Nostromo in the first place, she had discovered the androids machinations - and now she's in hypersleep, heading back to Earth.

A Billion Days of -- say what?

Today's blog is about the sci-fi novel A Billion Days of Earth by Doris Piserchia, first published in 1976. I read it sometime in the 1980s, lost the book in a move from Florida to Washington state, and only recently re-read it.

I love the book. I just don't understand it. At all. Usually I don't enjoy books - or movies - that I find totally confusing. I don't like anything that feels like deliberate obscurity on the part of an author. And, as a rule--OK, Twin Peaks excepted--I don't like excessive weirdness.

Here we have a seriously weird, confusing--and often depressing--book. Which I totally enjoyed. Go figure.

The 'billion days' of the title refers to the time period of the story--3 million years from today, more or less. Human beings - the real Homo sapiens - have evolved into - gods? - who have extraordinary powers. I guess. Anyway, they can float on clouds.

Our protagonist is Rik - he's human, more or less, except he's descended from rats. The rat-people are the humans of the story. There are also lengs - dog-people, also sentient. And did I mention the zizzies, who are a combination sparrow/cat/bee, flying furred creatures with a three-foot wingspan and a stinger?

Yeah. Anyway, the story begins with the entrance--creation?--of Sheen, a lifeform (I'm echoing Data, here) made of silver. Sheen absorbs sentient beings, who then lose their independent will--and turn silver themselves.

What I find interesting about the book are the changes in tone. Sheen's actions, at first, seem almost good-natured. He absorbs a creature here and there, and has funny, almost friendly conversations with Rik, who resists him. We even have time to visit other sub-plots, including one about a family of uber-ultra-rich rat-humans, the Fillys. But somewhere around the middle of the book, things start downhill in a big way. Sheen has absorbed so many people by this time that society collapses, and the result is just as ugly as you might expect. After the initial low-key tone of the story, you feel things tip and crash down; there is a truly horrifying scene where the rat-humans are herded into a slaughterhouse and forced to choose between violent death and absorption by Sheen.

What is the author trying to say here? That society is fragile? I'm not sure.

At any rate, the end of the story brings a second shift. One of Sheen's first victims 'escapes' back to real life, and it turns out that anyone can do the same. They only have to want to. Rik gets his wife back (another sub-plot). Sheen decides he doesn't have the heart for total destruction.

And the gods (Homo sapiens) decide to leave the earth on rocket ships.

No, I don't understand the book at all. But it kept me interested, beginning to end. And if there is anyone out there who does understand it, drop me a line, heh?

The future begins again

Wow.

They brought the awesome.

Star Trek (2009) may not be a ‘great’ movie. ‘Great’ tends to get used for Serious Films in black and white, or with subtitles. American action-adventure films seen by gazillions of people need not apply.

So maybe it isn’t a great movie. But it’s sure one hell of a ride.

A joyous, funny, thrilling re-visit to the lives of people we already know very, very well. And now we get to grow up with them all over again.

Zachary Quinto has gotten a fair amount of press for being the new Spock—deservedly—but this Star Trek rides on the back of its captain, and actor Chris Pine takes it all on, and more.

I do kendo (Japanese sword fighting) and in kendo there is the idea that when you attack someone your attack is totally committed, with full spirit. In your mind you do not consider the possibility of defeat.

That’s our James T. Kirk. I’ve lost track of the number of times Kirk gets in a hand-to-hand fight in this movie – OK, there was the bar, and the fight on the drill platform, and Spock attacking him on the bridge, and we should probably count those two seriously vicious animals on Delta Vega, and a then a couple more fights inside the bad guy’s ship – and he gets his ass handed to him every single time. He is saved by (pick one) – Captain Pike. Sulu. Spock. Spock’s father. Only at the last does he manage to save himself (in the middle of another butt-kicking) by getting a hold of bad guy minion’s gun.

But he does it all, every time, with full spirit. In his mind, he’s already won.

This Star Trek is angst-free. Nobody wears a bat/spider suit and whines about how unhappy they are. Even Spock is angst-free, or at least he seems like it when he’s kissing Uhura. Repeatedly.

And I haven’t even mentioned Karl Urban's Dr. McCoy - nice job - or the happy wonder that is Simon Pegg’s Scotty.

If you liked any of the previous Star Trek incarnations at all, if you like sci-fi, if you just like feeling like life can be good and worthwhile and your friends can fight at your side and you can all be something special – well, then, see this movie.