Things I like: Science Fiction

For regular readers here, this is no surprise. And I mean that I like science fiction in all its flavors: books, movies, TV, graphic novels. And it doesn't even have to be great science fiction. I've said this before, but I believe that even bad science fiction has merit. This is because even the worst science fiction is trying to make a point or send a message. It may fail miserably, but it's still trying.

Science fiction is allowed to address important social and political issues that traditional genres would not be able to without being considered preachy. Most recently we saw this with Battlestar Galactica, addressing torture, fundamentalism and terrorism, among other things.

My early beginnings in sci-fi were the novels of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. As I got a bit older, Larry Niven became probably my favorite hard sci-fi author. It might be cliche, but for a brainy and shy teenager, the escapism of science fiction was one of the few things that brought me solace and joy for those tough years.

In my adult years, I gravitated to the cyberpunk of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. But, I'm still discovering authors that are fantastic, like Greg Bear and Iain M. Banks, and fantasy authors like Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman.

Obviously, as with all males of my age, one of the most formative experiences of my youth was seeing the original Star Wars movie. In those days, there was no Internet, no DVD's, and VCR's really weren't prevalent yet. Going to a movie theater and seeing something like Star Wars was an indescribable experience. It's so indelible that I remember that it was at a drive-in in Salem, Oregon and we watched it in the back of my folks Jeep.

It was through Star Wars, Blade Runner, the Alien movies and the books of my youth that my interest was cultivated. The 70's and 80's were, however, NOT the heyday of science fiction on television. You had the original Battlestar Galactica (which may prove wrong my theory of all science fiction having merit) and Space 1999, both unintentionally campy and embarrassing. I had no exposure to Doctor Who until I was in college. It's really just been the last 15 years or so that science fiction has come into it's own through things like the X-Files, the Stargate shows, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, the new Doctor Who, and many other shows. Something that was often an afterthought in programming now has a channel dedicated to it (SyFy) and just about every traditional network has at least one program that could be considered science fiction.

I just don't find issues of science, philosophy, consciousness, religion, the environment, war, etc. being addressed in such an entertaining manner as I do in science fiction. I don't read a lot of fiction, but when I do, about 75% of it is science fiction.

Top 5 favorite science fiction/fantasy books, no particular order: Dune, Lord of the Rings, Snow Crash, Neuromancer, Contact

Top 5 favorite science fiction movies, no particular order: 2001, Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Children of Men

Next up, tomorrow:  Bluegrass music

Book Reviews

All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson

I just finished reading All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson.

Ostensibly the culmination of the "Bridge" trilogy (the 2nd of which I'd already read, Idoru, but I've not yet read Virtual Light. They are not so much sequels as successive novels chronologically set in the same environment and sharing many of the same characters.

Like most Gibson works, you're exposed to a world that seems to be in the near future and has a lot of elements of our current world. He's so meticulous in the details and almost poetic in his writing style. It always takes me a few chapters in a Gibson book to get in the rhythm of it. But once I do, it's hard for me to put them down.

All Tomorrow's Parties explores the technologies that are just in the process of emerging and have not yet formed the world that is familiar in novels like Neuromancer. It's not necessarily the same future as that of Neuromancer but seems to indicate a move in that direction. The book also delves a lot into the nature of data patterns, a subject that occurs in a lot of his books, most notably Pattern Recognition.

One of the things I like about Gibson is the Blade Runner dirtiness to it. Even though his stories are about computers and virtual worlds, there is a real world earthiness to them. And a lot of punk and underworld references.

There are other "cyberpunk" novelists, but Gibson is by far the best and generally considered the original. About the only other author of this genre that I really read is Neal Stephenson. I've heard good things about Bruce Sterling (who has collaborated with Gibson) but have not had the chance to read him yet, though I do have a few of his books.

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Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons



I've come really late into the graphic novel genre. I was by no means a comic book kid growing up. I was a sci-fi kid and just didn't get the attraction of comic books. Naturally assuming their subject matter to be that of Saturday morning cartoons, I dismissed them out of hand. Kinda figured that only goobers who didn't like reading words bothered with 'em. Considering how much of a social outcast I was, I probably shouldn't have been casting aspersions.

With Watchmen being made into a movie and with the film success of renderings of graphic novels such as 300, V for Vendetta (also by Moore), Sin City, etc., I figured it was time. And from all that I had read, Watchmen was the perfect place to start.

The Watchmen refer to a group of superheroes in an alternate America. Where it diverges from a lot of superhero stories is in the development of the characters. These are deeply flawed people who don't always have the noblest of intentions or methods. In the same manner that Unforgiven deconstructs the Western, Watchmen is very much a revisionist comic.

It has a very unique narrative style that intersperses the main story with fictional supporting documents. Almost like a case file or dossier.

There are a lot of political and sociological elements in the story and like V for Vendetta, you can certainly find elements common with our current world, even though this story is over 20 years old.

Comic book readers certainly don't have to be told about Watchmen. I'm sure they've all read it. But if you are new to the graphic novel and comic book area, take a look at this one. You won't be disappointed.