Category: science fiction

Categories
science fiction this shit is fucked up worldcon wtf

Well, I sure don’t like this (I’m talking about the Hugo stats)

First, go read Jason’s roundup of info, because he is more measured, cogent, and informative than I could hope to be: Genre Grapevine on the Hugo Awards “not eligible” problem (ETA: Cora really digs into the irregularities at her blog.)

(And you really should consider supporting Jason, because he does solid work all around.)

I don’t necessarily have anything new to add, but I have been reminded that, particularly in such a relatively small group, it can be very worth it to speak up even if the response boils down to a rousing hear, hear! It is all too easy for silence to be read as either assent, consent, or disinterest, and I also know I have my own association with WSFS nonsense as a dedicated meeting attendee.

My thoughts, then, are thus:

  1. This is really fucked up and really upsetting. People being marked as “ineligible” for no cogent reason I’ve yet encountered, despite a plethora of nominations and obvious eligibility. While some of the “ineligibles” are pretty easy to read as politically motivated–and that is already not okay in the slightest–others (I specifically mean here my friend Paul Weimer) make absolutely no goddamn sense in that framing. Not that it would be okay either way. Absolute fucking bullshit, top to bottom.
  2. It’s a massive stain on the Hugo Awards themselves, I would argue far worse than the Sad Puppy nonsense because at least there were no questions there about the admin tampering with the Hugos. So I reiterate: what the actual fuck.
    1. Cheryl Morgan makes an interesting point about this, by the way. The thought that releasing stats with problems as a deliberate act to draw attention is certainly a possibility. Though I find myself wondering why, if this was intended as a deliberate act of whistleblowing, one of the American members of the Hugo Admin hasn’t out and said something.
  3. I am pissed, I’m horrified and… I’m honestly also not surprised that there were some kind of bullshit shenanigans. I chose not to participate in Chengdu WorldCon as a panelist or anything else because of the policies and acts of the Chinese government; while I certainly know the people are not their government, I had massive concerns about either top-down political interference or protective self-censorship. I am deeply saddened and disappointed to have that choice vindicated.

You can consider the above 3 points to be squared, as my housemate Corina shares these opinions. (And doesn’t have a blog of her own, because she is wiser than me.)

I’ll admit, after my initial what the actual fuck, this is fucked reaction, my second thought was, oh boy, the Glasgow business meeting is going to be spicy as hell. Which: good. Deservedly so, if it pans out the way I imagine.

With that in mind, I want to draw attention to another post by Cheryl: Decoupling the Hugos. Please give it a thorough read, and take a look at the draft resolution.

I had a similar thought on hearing the news. Making the Hugo Admin independent of WorldCon could prevent uneven application or different interpretations of rules, say, and provide more continuity. Election administration is only as good as the honesty of the people in charge, but as we in America got educated on thoroughly in 2020, if you have officials and administrators who are answerable primarily to the rules themselves and deeply invested in the process regardless of their potential personal feelings about the results, it can shield you from a lot of interference.

I also, for reasons of my current planned participation in the Glasgow 2024 WSFS Business Meeting, don’t feel I can personally push this proposal forward–and I may very well not be able to debate on it. But I can sure say I think it’s a good idea, and Kevin has crafted some solid starting language, and I hope I get a chance to vote on something like this in August whether I’m sitting on a chair out in serpentine territory or at the table.

We already showed once that, for all its required two-year timeline, WSFS can react to deeply troubling occurrences within the Hugos. I have high hopes that we can do so again.

Categories
science fiction worldcon

I wish I could trust you and I hate what we’ve become.

File 770 posted the Sad Puppies list (slate? what? We’ll get in to that in a moment) last night, and here. My knee jerk reaction:

I’m not proud that this is my initial reaction. But I’ve got 3 years of good reasons to feel really gun shy on this. It’s not like we all came together after Sasquan and hugged it out. There was nasty, horrible shit raining down long after the convention had been laid to rest.

Is this a slate? Several of the categories have more than five possible choices. Does that make it a rather truncated long list instead? From File 770, it sounds like this was recommendations-based, spreadsheet included. Does that make its existence no longer a political jab? What does this do to writers who said they categorically do not want to be on a slate, ever, ever, ever? Do they ask to be removed? What about writers who just want nothing to do with any of this, slate or no?

I know for a fact that at least two of the people on that list weren’t asked if they were okay being included. I would not be shocked if most/all of the other unexpected names (Alyssa, Nnedi, Ann, etc) are in the same boat. Not cool.

But it’s just a recommended list. But it’s got the “Sad Puppy” name all over it and all that goddamn baggage.

Because this is the thing. After three years of slates and shouting and people being intensely shitty, after the porous barrier between sad and rabid and the fecal stench known as Beale that clings to everything, I cannot fucking trust any of this.

So is it a recommended reading list, innocently offered? Or is it a Trojan Horse, intending to get people to maybe think hey, we don’t really need to ratify those WSFS amendments everyone voted on last year when we were almost universally pissed off about a slate rolling the Hugos. See, it’s not so bad. Let it go. And then next year it starts all over again because nothing’s been fixed.

Or is it a way to try to fuck over a lot of writers who don’t want anything to do with this, because suddenly they’re on the damn list, and no one knows if it’s a slate or not, but there’s the knee jerk feeling of if these assholes want a thing, I don’t.

Or is it a way to score some cheap points because if these writers end up on the final ballot and win (or score over No Award), look at all these SJW hypocrites, see they’re okay with slates as long as it’s people they like. That’s certainly consistent the Wile E. Coyote-style Sooper Genius I’m Totally Playing Six Dimensional Chess nonsense we perennially get told is really going on, you know, where people get roundly slapped down by the community and then loudly proclaim that it’s what they wanted all along. (PS: You’re transparent. We know it isn’t.)

And is the very existence of this post (and ones like it) going to be used to add to the carefully curated sense of grievance that’s been fueling this entire stupid, stupid fight?

This makes me so angry, because I’m already seeing people getting dragged into this bubbling cesspool of bullshit and paranoia. And I hate thinking like this. I hate it. I want to believe the best in people. I want to believe in good intentions, and change, and moving on from bad times.

But I’m also not a fucking idiot, and I can remember further back than yesterday. I remember the last three years that led to me fucking dreading the Hugos this year because I knew the drama would be inevitable. I remember the incredibly fucked up (and at times racist, misogynistic, homophobic) things that have been said about friends of mine and writers I deeply respect. And I remember the transphobic shit that got spattered on Sasquan right next to the puppy ribbons very clearly.

I’d like to believe the best of you, Sad Puppies. But I can’t. Give it a few years of people not treating the fucking Hugo awards like some Game of Thrones-lite eliminationist slap fight and maybe I’ll be able to. (Though the forgive and forget threshold of others is certainly not dictated by my comfort level.) But this year I’m paranoid, and I’m mad, and you’ve fucking earned it.

Additional: Please read Catherynne M Valente’s post on the topic. Cora Buhlert has much more measured commentary than mine as well, and I totally agree with her commentary about branding.

Categories
movie science fiction someone is wrong on the internet

Luke vs Rey, a point-by-point comparison

Since there’s been shit talked about the comparison between Rey and Luke (and how “realistic” Rey is as a character in a universe where there is sound in the vacuum of space and magic exists but okay) I wanted to actually sit down and granularly compare the two characters. Rey’s information comes in after my fourth viewing of The Force Awakens. I filled out the Luke column last night and tonight, while rewatching A New Hope. Note that I suffered through the CGI-ed up version with the incredibly stupid, added Jabba the Hutt scene in there, so you should send me pity donuts.

I decided since Rey’s arc in The Force Awakens basically takes her from zero to dropping her in front of a Jedi Master, who had better be training her in the next film or Luke and I are going to have words, I should pick a similar point for Luke for comparison. That basically gets him through the battle on Hoth (beginning of The Empire Strikes Back), when he goes off to find Yoda and get himself some proper training too.

EDITED TO CORRECT: Apparently time elapsed between Yavin and Hoth is three years? I got pointed toward a better timeline. Damn, Luke. Obi-Wan took his fucking ghostly time telling you where to find a teacher, didn’t he.

This does make my inclusion of Luke’s lightsaber grabbing a little more ehhhh (imagine me wiggling my hand here), though I’m still of the opinion that if it would have been of narrative use in A New Hope, he could have done it just fine. But your milage my vary there and I’m really not looking to argue this particular point.

Of course this contains spoilers for The Force Awakens, gosh. And A New Hope, if you have managed to avoid that for all these years.

Luke Rey
2
 Background Moisture farmer; actually Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala’s kid, adopted by a family on Tattooine, a desert planet, for his own protection. He’s a secret prince! Abandoned by her family at 5 years old on Jakku, a desert planet. Became scavenger to survive. Other background as yet unknown.
3
 Age at the start of the adventure 19-ish 19-ish
4
 Major character flaw at start Immature (whiney, unworldly) Unable to move on from past abandonment, a little too fiercely into the self-reliant loner thing
5
 Develops past character flaw? Yes (definitely no longer whiney, goes from unworldly to otherworldly by the time he hits RotJ thanks to a stop at the dramatic cloak store) Yes (stops trying to return to Planet Bumfuck, comes to trust her friends will come through for her thanks to Finn)
6
 Has boobs*** No Yes
7
 Skills going in to film Good at fixing droids and other machines

Good enough pilot to be considering the Imperial Academy; later compares the Death Star trench run to doing a canyon run back home. (Getting the impression that he’s only flown on-planet, but he doesn’t specifically say that.)

 Proficient at fighters and freighters via flight sim; has flown actual freighters on planet only**.

Repaired a wrecked light freighter (Ghtroc Industries 690) and made it space worthy**

Has survived on her own as a scavenger since early childhood, capable of repairing and refurbishing components in order to sell them.
8
 Good with blasters? He can sure bullseye some Womp Rats! Not bad with the Millenium Falcon’s turret guns either. Not at all going in, mediocre coming out
9
 Melee? Manages to wave around the lightsaber immediately without hurting himself or alarming Ben, decent with it by the time he hits Hoth in Empire Strikes Back Expert with staff, basically wields a lightsaber like it’s a half staff
10
 Non-Force skills they show off during the course of the film Talks Han into rescuing Leia like a canny little shit

Swings Leia across a chasm-ish thing in swashbuckling style while being shot at by Stormtroopers

Apparently went to the Han Solo school of door repair

Unveiled as the best X-wing pilot EVAR, hotdogging it all around the Death Star. (Leia later compares Poe Dameron, the “best/most daring pilot of the Resistance,” favorably to Luke**.)

 Does some darn good repair work on the Millenium Falcon, earns Han’s respect

Navigates around Starkiller base very cannily while rescuing herself

Good enough pilot that Chewie doesn’t mind flying with her on the Falcon

Beats up a group of thugs on her own to protect BB-8; manages to get the drop on Finn, who was a squad leader before he left the First Order**
11
 Major in-film mistakes His plan to rescue Leia isn’t exactly A+, though a lot of that can be blamed on the influence of actual human disaster Han Solo Accidentaly releases the Rathtars in Han Solo’s freighter by resetting the wrong fuses. Almost gets Han, Chewie, and Finn killed in the process.

Runs off into the woods and gets captured by Kylo Ren. Finn, Han, and Chewie come rescue her, and Han gets killed by Kylo Ren while there.
12
 Does Han Solo offer them a job? Yep, right before the attack on the Death Star Yep, right before introducing her to Maz
13
 Do they speak droid? Yes. Yes.
14
 Nemesis Sith Lord Darth Vader, who was supposed to be Jedi Jesus before Palpatine got his hooks into him, fully trained and badass for the last twenty years

(Darth Vader blocks multiple blaster bolts with his fucking hands in the Empire Strikes Back)

 Kylo Ren, who has lots of raw power but is not well trained (Snoke says his training isn’t complete, Han implies Snoke isn’t training him properly because he’s just using him), and has temper tantrums because his self control sucks that bad. Also, his lightsaber is literally called “the junk saber” in the script because it’s badly made, unstable shit.

(Kylo Ren stops a blaster bolt mid air)
15
 Do they fight their nemesis? Sort of? Darth Vader chases him down the trench in the Death Star while flying a TIE Fighter. Yes. Toe to toe lightsaber battle.
16
 Advisor Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, who gives Luke the Force 101 before fucking off into ghosthood; Luke gets like a day worth of lightsaber training while flying on the Millenium Falcon, followed by some noncorporeal coaching Maz Kanata, self-described as someone who isn’t a Jedi but “knows the Force,” who tells Rey she needs to close her eyes and feel the Force
17
 Is their advice useful? Luke trusts in his feelings and blows up the Death Star Rey closes her eyes and feels the Force, then defeats Kylo Ren
18
 Force powers utilized prior to proper training Uses the Force to make the torpedo shot no one else can make and blow up the Death Star right before it destroys the Rebel Base at Yavin, when failure is really not an option.

Doesn’t get his ass killed by Darth Vader, who is in a TIE fighter at the time and chasing him. Presumably partially due to using the Force, since Vader even remarks on strong he is before Han comes swooping in.

Force grabs lightsaber (beginning of Empire Strikes Back); my presumption is he could have done this at the end of A New Hope if the script had called for it. It’s not like Ben trained him how to do this particular trick before getting evaporated by Vader.

 Jedi mind trick on Stormtrooper James Bond to get him to release her from Kylo Ren’s villain chair and leave the cell door open, getting it right on the third try when failure is really not an option.

Stands up to Kylo Ren’s telepathic attack on the second go round, turns the tables on him.

Force grabs Luke’s lightsaber away from Kylo Ren in the most epic scene of the entire movie

Manages to “trust in her feelings” enough to beat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel, notably after he’s been shot by Chewbacca and poked in the right arm with a lightsaber by Finn
19
 Blows up the Empire’s/First Order’s giant super weapon? Yep. No, that was accomplished by Poe Dameron, after Han and Chewie blew an X-wing-sized hole in the Scientifish Jargon Generator Housing
20
 Gets a medal? Yep. No, but General Organa hugs her.
21
 Leia hugged Luke too, you know. Sure did! :D Yeah but his was a creepy potential incest hug!

** – Information from the Before the Awakening stories.

*** – This should not actually be relevant, yet somehow is to some people.

In conclusion, Rey and Luke are each shining, precious space babies in their own way. She gets more badass Force tricks and beats the snot out of disgruntled Mini Snape. He gets to single-handedly blow up the most pants-shittingly terrifying megaweapon the galaxy had seen at that point, by using the Force. Please stop undermining Luke’s enormous, medal-earning accomplishment just because Rey has boobs and made Stormtrooper James Bond drop his blaster.

Categories
feminism science fiction someone is wrong on the internet

She’s not like other girls.

I’m not that tuned in to YA because I live under a rock, so this was the first I heard about Bergstrom poking YA authors as a whole in the eye. Went and read the interview linked in that post. Have some serious fucking problems beyond the general feeling of dude have you just managed to sleep through the existence of Katniss Everdeen?

A couple quotes from the interview:

As the father of two daughters, I became pretty appalled at the image of women they received from the culture. It was all princess-this, Barbie-that. It was almost a satire of femininity. My wife—a very strong, highly-motivated attorney—was appalled too. What century were we living in if the feminine ideal little girls learned about was still a woman in a pink dress and a nineteen inch waist? I decided to create a female heroine who was the opposite of all that—a young, strong female who discovers real heroism within herself.

And

I knew I wanted to create a strong heroine for The Cruelty, the opposite of the cheerleader-prom queen. She starts as a lonely, introverted girl, bullied by her prettier, richer classmates. After her father is kidnapped she transforms herself into a cunning, strong warrior.

As the auntie of two fantastic little girls, one of whom has already gone through a princess phase that left me feeling like I was going to be vomiting pink rainbows for the rest of my life, I have serious fucking problems with this. Because you want to talk about the shit society does to young women that leaves us fucked up forever?

It’s telling us that pink and the trappings of stereotypical femininity are signs of weakness while simultaneously punishing us if we eschew those trappings.

It’s convincing those of us that develop an allergy to pink that we’re “different from other girls” and therefore better, and encourages us to shit all over the women who should be our allies in the struggle because obviously if they’re feminine, they’re losers.

It’s conflating the feminine with the misogynistic bullshit view of the feminine. There is nothing wrong with liking princesses and makeup if you derive personal strength from them. The problem isn’t the makeup. The problem is the societal narrative that says you deserve to be dismissed because of it. The problem is the poisonous bullshit that says women are lesser and attacks the outward appearance of womanhood as if that’s the root of the problem. Because you know what? Not wearing pink and not wearing makeup isn’t going to save you from the pay gap.

It’s telling us that the only heroism that counts is the sort that girly girls can never exercise. It’s telling us that heroism is connected only with violence when some of the most impressive heroes in the history of our species have been those who exercised radical non-violence. It’s telling us that the lone wolf is the real hero when the greatest movers of our societies have been the organizers.

Oh, and you know what else? Some of the most fantastic fucking people I’ve known in my life were cheerleaders in high school, and I’m ashamed I started out believing the stereotype of them as queen bitches. And the cheerleaders I once knew who were jerks? How much of that was because they, like every other woman in this fucking society, got fed the bullshit notion that being female is a zero-sum game that someone has to lose?

So yeah. Problems. Major fucking problems.

I spent years getting told I “wasn’t like other girls” because I didn’t like the feminine stuff. And I spent years thinking that made me better, which is such bullshit I’ll carry that shame until my dying day. And this is how fucked up that narrative has left me. I have to constantly question myself and my own gender presentation because of it. Do I not like dresses because of internalized misogyny, or because I really don’t like dresses? Do I hate being called miss and ma’am because there’s still part of me that believes to be female is to be lesser, or is it really because I feel more like a goddamn sir? Is my knee jerk, emotional reaction of I’m not a girl because I’m really not a girl or because I’ve been taught to hate girliness and still haven’t expunged that cancer from my brain? Is the queerness of my gender an internalization of the shit that’s been fed to me my entire life, or because I’m just bent this way? I don’t fucking know. I’ll never fucking know. At least now I’ve finally figured out that it doesn’t make me better. It just makes me different and that’s okay.

But I resent the promulgation of these poisonous narratives. I resent that in 35 years there’s probably going to be another person like me who’ll be asking these same questions and having these same conflicts because people can’t figure out the problem isn’t pink, the problem is that we’ve all been taught to hate women.

Categories
science fiction worldcon

Looking forward to WSFS meetings

I ended up browsing a bit on File770 and saw the latest collection of news, which included this astounding example of hollering before you’re hurt from David Pascoe writing on Sarah Hoyt’s blog:

While there’s a good deal of speculation over whether such a motion will even get approved (what then, would supporting members get for their hard earned filthy lucre? How could WorldCon possibly garner any kind of diverse, international support by shutting out anybody who can’t afford to fly across an ocean to come to the majority of conventions?), that it’s not reduced to backroom rumor mills is a sign of how strong the desire is to keep out the undesirable types.

A few points after reading the post:

  1. As a queer pinko liberal SJWer hell bent on destroying everything that makes America great(TM) I would stand against that kind of resolution so fast that the air displacement would break the sound barrier. In reality, I (and I surmise a lot of my filthy brethren and sistren) want supporting memberships to be cheaper. Because greater accessibility to voting is a good thing, always.
    1. I don’t have a problem that the self-named puppies want to nominate things they like. I never have, because I’m an actual adult human being who isn’t threatened by people disagreeing with me. It’s okay to not like things as long as you’re not a dick about it!
    2. I do have a problem with the fact that the puppies aren’t acting like puppies–they’re acting like seagulls. As in making a lot of noise and shitting all over everything. Which is, by the way, a classic example of being a dick.
    3. It’s also okay if things I don’t like get awards! Things I don’t like get awards all the time! Almost nothing I ever think should get an Oscar gets an Oscar, for example. I might grumble, but I haven’t made it my mission to personally destroy the Academy Awards because it’ll make people who have sinned by disagreeing with my taste upset.
    4. Considering the go-to whinge on the puppy side seems to be the ceaseless butthurt over If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love, the hypocrisy is just astounding.
  2. As a note, I’ve heard a couple suggestions that there should be some kind of test to force people to prove they’ve read the works they’re nominating/voting for. I would also vote against that so fast I might injure myself. Making voting less accessible doesn’t help anyone. Or at least not anyone I’d want to help.
  3. If there is a more lovingly self-pitying way to characterize those who disagree with one’s position than calling them “puppy kickers,” I have yet to hear it. Barf.
  4. Speaking of making life hard for anyone who can’t fly across the ocean to attend a convention, how about we stop holding so many WorldCons in the US? Helsinki in 2017. Just sayin’.

If I wasn’t clear enough, the ego-stroking conspiracy paranoia about limiting voting memberships? Appears to be just paranoia. The lovelies at File770 helpfully provided the supporting link for current business on the WSFS agenda for this year, and destroying all those who dare disagree with my taste in escapist fiction being a giant dickbag about voting memberships isn’t on there as of yet. Since there’s some new items on there, a quick run through of thoughts:

  • 4 and 6: still in favor of this
  • The Five Percent Solution: YES STILL IN FAVOR
  • Best Series: They’re no longer trying to destroy novelette to make room for this category. I generally tend to be of the mind that more rocket ships to go around is a good thing, but on the other hand, I have no desire to sign myself up for that amount of reading. On a third hand (because I’m an alien creature) maybe it would encourage people to finish up their goddamn series in a timely manner instead going on and on for like 20+ books. Probably not, but I could hope. On the fence, still thinking about it.
  • E Pluribus Hugo: Still can’t wrap my brain around this. Still think it’s needlessly complex. Still willing to be convinced, but as that might well require a powerpoint presentation, I doubt that will happen.
  • Multiple Nominations: Ensuring that a work can only be in one category? I’m in favor of that. Spread the rocket ships around, etc. I also consider it necessary if Best Series if going to be a thing.
  • Nominee Diversity: I’m so goddamn tired of the dramatic presentation short form being the Best Doctor Who category. Also, whether the author is someone I personally like or not, I don’t think any one person needs to have a lock down on all or most of the slots in a category. Stop being greedy. (Though I think some clarification is likely necessary when it comes to authors, for example, how that works in a co-author situation, etc.)
  • Two Year Eligibility: The part of me that never has enough time to read thinks sure, why not. The part of me that understands math points out that if there’s a two year range of eligibility, you’re really just doubling your field. Not in favor. Could potentially be argued around, but not bloody likely.
  • Electronic Signatures: Seems like a no-brainer. Will hopefully help give site selection another little boost when it comes to trying to diversify Worldcon geographically.
  • I Remember the Future: Sure, why not.
  • Hugo Eligibility Extension for Predestination: Again, sure, why not.
  • Hugo Nominating Data Request: It would certainly cut down on the speculation in all quarters. I’m in favor of more data being available–so long as anonymity is guaranteed.
  • Open Source Software: Sure, why not? Is there a reason to not?
  • MPC Funding: Another sure, why not?

NOTE: I will be attending all of the WSFS meetings at Sasquan unless something actively prevents me from doing so, since it’s been asked a couple of times. And if there is wifi to be had, I will be liveblogging at this space. If there isn’t wifi, I’ll livetweet from @katsudonburi. I just type a lot faster (and more coherently) than I can swype tweets into being, so keep your fingers crossed for wifi that won’t make my wallet cry.

Categories
movie science fiction

[Movie] Snowpiercer

There is a basic level of surreality you have to accept when you approach this movie, similar to when you watch a Terry Gilliam or Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. (I can’t believe it’s coincidence that one of the characters is named Gilliam.) There are things that happen that don’t necessarily make sense outside of a sort of dream logic. But if you can accept that, the experience is intense and rewarding.

Snowpiercer is gorgeous and disturbing and a bit heartbreaking. Just the way it was filmed was beautiful. Every car of the massive train has its own distinctive color palette and environment, which I loved. It goes from claustrophobic filth in the rear of the train to strangely 50s-esque, to technicolor futuristic to heartlessly gearpunk. And while there’s quite a bit of violence in the film, it’s brutal rather than titillating. People who get hit once with an ax go down and stay down. (Well, mostly.) Characters come out of the mid-film meat grinder utterly shell-shocked.

(And considering the movie I saw before this was Transformers 4, I appreciated the visual coherence among the complexity all the more.)

The plot for the movie sounds deceptively simple when summed up: Geoengineering that attempts to counter the undeniable threat of global climate change goes horribly wrong, throwing the world into a life-killing ice age. Humans take refuge on a massive train that is effectively a closed ecosystem that never ceases moving, making an entire circuit of all the continents once a year. There is a strict class system enforced with religious fervor, based on the original ticket bought by the passengers. The tail of the train is basically steerage, controlled brutally and fed on “protein cubes” with the cars becoming increasingly high class toward the engine. Curtis (Chris Evans) working with Gilliam (John Hurt) foments a rebellion and attempts to take control of the engine so they can demand equal treatment for those who live in the tail.

As you can imagine, this movie is very specifically about class, and about the way the poor are controlled, abused, and used by the wealthy. It’s also very much about the structures put in place by the wealthy in order to maintain that control—in this case to a Machiavellian, mind-bending degree. But the most pointed and brutal scenes of the movie are really the ones that involve children, both the way children are indoctrinated from an early age, and the way the children of the poor are ultimately meat for the gears of society.

The next time someone says that science fiction—nay, good science fiction—can’t or shouldn’t be political, I invite them to sit down and watch Snowpiercer. Then take a big swig from their swimming-pool-sized movie theater cup of shut-the-fuck-up.

I can’t begin to say how grateful I am that Bong Joon-ho dug in his heels and fought to keep his cut of the movie intact. If you’re one of those lucky people who live in a city where Snowpiercer is showing on its limited release, drop what you’re doing and go.

(For an excellent analysis of Snowpiercer as a movie about capitalism, see here.)

And a few SPOILERS now: 

Continue reading “[Movie] Snowpiercer”
Categories
movie science fiction

[Movie] The most disappointing thing about Edge of Tomorrow is its title

Couldn’t you have come up with something better for a title? Really? I felt like I should be seeing an episode of Star Trek. Or perhaps Lady Gaga would appear at any moment, wearing disturbingly avant garde yet somehow still sexy robotic battle armor with unbelievable high heels, and belt out a song while pyrotechnics go off in the background.

Come on. The book this was based on was titled All You Need Is Kill. That’s an awesome title. Why not just stick with that?

Complaints about the title aside, I actually really liked this movie. Which surprised me, since I had read the review from Strange Horizons and went in all braced to reach the same kind of frothing rage levels to which Oblivion originally drove me. Which couldn’t be good for my blood pressure, but these are the things I do for you people. But I was pleasantly surprised, and I’m not sure if I will ever find it in my heart to forgive Tom Cruise for making me like him again, even if just a little.

The shortkey for Edge of Tomorrow‘s plot is “Groundhog Day as military scifi with an alien invasion.” Which is not inaccurate. Though Groundhog Day displayed a notable lack of powered battle armor that caused people to run like they were about to shit in their pants. And an even more profound lack of Emily Blunt’s arms. And I hope we can all agree that from this day forward, all movies should be required to give at least two full minutes of screen time to Emily Blunt’s arms.

Anyway, the plot.

Due to a MacGuffin, Tom Cruise (named Cage, as a nod to Keiji, hero of All You Need Is Kill) repeats the same day over and over again. Rita (Emily Blunt) had the MacGuffin until recently, but lost it for reasons that I’ll call good enough to pass. She works with Cage and a scientist who is the only person who believed her when she was repeating days to try and stop the alien invasion.

For the most part, it works. If you can accept the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey that goes on, the movie is actually a lot of fun. Cage dies a lot, and a lot of those times involve Rita shooting him in the head to reset him because he’s just fucked up that badly in his training. There’s snark, and some highly amusing deaths that made me laugh out loud. It was internally consistent with what it did, didn’t belabor the days repeating once the audience had gotten the point, and so on. The pacing was good, there were twists, I liked it.

Honestly, I have only two real complaints, which are a bit spoilery:

  1. Considering Rita makes it very clear early on in their partnership that she is so incredibly disinterested in having sex with Cage that it’s not even funny, I really could have done without the bit of romance that got thrown in there. I feel like it should have been more than enough for Cage to have a deep, mutual friendship with Rita, considering they’re literally the only two people on the planet that understand what the other person is going through. I consider it a small mercy that the actual bits of romance took up very little screen time, but I sure rolled my eyes when it did come up.
  2. The last five minutes. What the hell, man. Just. What the hell. It was precisely the expected cowardice we see in most films like this, where a potentially meaty ending gets completely short circuited by the desire to see the hero survive triumphant and get the girl. This ending also completely circumvents the MaGuffin rules (the timey-wimey gets way too wibbly-wobbly at this point) that have been faithfully obeyed throughout the entire rest of the movie, which made it extra annoying.

I came out of this really liking Rita as a character, by the way. For all that she was inextricably tied to Cage since he was the one with the MacGuffin and not her, I feel like throughout the film she was the force really pushing him along and keeping him moving. While he had to live day after day to choreograph their way through various scenarios, she hung ferociously on to her goal the entire time and kept pushing him. In the two occasions where he very overtly tries to “save” her to her face, she refuses to accept it. At the end, she even firmly tells him that neither of them are making it out alive and gives him a look that clearly communicates suck it up, cupcake. I really liked her. And her arms. But mostly her. (Also, I appreciated that the movie managed to refrain from making her a sex object except for pretty much one shot, which I will forgive because her arms. You don’t understand. I want to run away to the mountains and marry Emily Blunt’s arms.)

Tom Cruise did a credible job as Cage, leaving the scenery largely ungnawed. I personally felt like he did a good job of depicting (in perhaps uncharacteristically subtle ways) when given a chance just how the endless cycle of life and death was messing with him. It wasn’t nearly as explicit as what we saw in Groundhog Day, but it was there.

Smarter and much more internally consistent than your average big budget scifi/action tentpole, Edge of Tomorrow has left me pleased when I thought I wouldn’t be. But goddammit, that means I’m going to have to give Tom Cruise yet another chance. Curses!

Categories
movie science fiction

I am sorry you were held captive in a windowless basement in 2013

I was going to rant about this on Twitter, but bleh. Quick blog post is easier: The Sad State of Modern Sci-fi

Short summary: They do not make amazing scifi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey any more. CGI is ruining everything. There hasn’t been a good (in this case defined as thoughtful and intelligent) scifi movie since Moon in 2009.

Mr. Forward: I am extremely sorry to hear that last year, you were held captive in a windowless basement by evil, scifi-hating orcs and thus not allowed to go to the theater and see Her or Gravity (which relied heavily upon cgi). The former, I’ll note, won a richly-deserved Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The latter won several Oscars, including taking home Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón. (Now, to be fair, Mr. Forward’s post is from February 14, 2014, so he couldn’t have known this would happen.) I am also saddened to hear your subterranean prison did not have pay-per-view, and thus you were incapable of accessing Europa Report–a movie that was not without its problems, but was still an extremely solid offering for the genre if your requirements are thoughtful and intelligent.

And you’ll note here, I’m just sticking with the hardest scifi I can find. Go into softer scifi and you get Under the Skin. If you want to expand out toward fantasy, I can offer quite a few more movies that definitely deserve to be called thoughtful and intelligent in 2013, including Byzantium and Only Lovers Left Alive.

2013 was an incredible year for genre film, any way you slice it. While most of what I named were smaller, independent films, Gravity had a lifetime domestic gross of ~$274 million, not too far behind 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s inflation adjusted lifetime domestic gross of ~$297 million. Those numbers ain’t anything to sneeze at.

I guess you could dismiss the films I’ve named as not good enough in relation to the examples you hold up. It’s probably true that they’re never going to make another film like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that’s okay. That film already exists, and has held up through time. Let the filmmakers of today make different films and seek the answers for different questions. If Her and Gravity are insufficient in your eyes, I’d question if you’re defining good scifi cinema as thoughtful explorations of big questions on film, or as thoughtful explorations of big questions on film that precisely  fit your personal taste. At which point you lose my sympathy if your taste is so narrow as all that.

Categories
science fiction sexism

The Shrill Sound of Not Shutting Up

So I was just thinking this morning, about how back in my undergrad days I wrote a paper wherein I mentioned that use of the adjective shrill to describe a person can be generally considered a red flag for sexism. That class involved peer critiques, and I subsequently had a male classmate who took a lot of umbrage to that statement explain to me, in a very animated way, how I was totally wrong.

Because, yanno. Shrill just gets used to describe women more because our voices are higher pitched than men’s. So when we’re loud it’s even more high pitched. It’s just accurate.

Yeah, dude, you’re right. I don’t know what could possibly be sexist at all about implying that the very pitch of our voices is grating when we’re being loud, as in: saying things you don’t like. (Seriously, has anyone ever been described as shrill in a positive way?) And it gets applied to men too, so it can’t be sexist! (Because goodness knows, men have never been insulted by the implication that they act/sound like women.) I’m sure there is absolutely nothing demeaning about a strongly voiced fact or opinion being reduced, in effect, to nothing more than an annoying sound.

You know. It’s not what you’re saying. It’s just the way you’re saying it. Being all loud and stuff. It hurts my delicate ears. Can’t you be sweeter?

Of course, recollections like these don’t just float up out of the blue. My brain got wrenched in that direction last night thanks to Tangent Online’s special review of the Women Destroy Scifi issue of Lightspeed.

First off: oh my gosh the reviewer said nice things about my story, AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, (she screeched with shrill delight. Huh. Doesn’t really work, does it?)

Generally speaking, the reviews are solid; while I’ve disagreed with various reviewers from time to time, I think the site does yeoman’s work when it comes to sorting through the massive number of short stories out there. (With occasional notable exception.) Where it just gets kind of special is in the response to Christie Yant’s introduction, and then David Truesdale’s “closing thoughts,” which could be better titled Oh you silly lady writers, being all wrong about everything and stuff.

I’m not going to really wade into this. Natalie Luhrs, Amal El-Mohtar, and E. Catherine Tobler already did an amazing job at their respective sites and you should go read those. I just want to point out one thing. In the entire special review, the word shrill gets used twice. (Emphasis in both quotes added by me.)

Once by Martha Burns:

In addition, the authors play with tropes regarding femininity and don’t worry that the decision makes one too much or not enough of a feminist. They do not have to worry that the project makes one shrill. Voila. And the stories work.

(Which is a very positive statement that, I think, acknowledges the historic use of the word.)

And then once by Dave Truesdale:

The sad thing, and this is something I can’t help but fear, is that the closer these hypothetical weary travelers get to the SF community down there in the plush valley, looking to find rest, refreshment, and perhaps a place to call home, what they will first hear wafting up on the wind from that village in the valley below are cries and exhortations that it is not a nice place to visit, much less to consider making it a home. The shrill cries of racism!, sexism!, and homophobia lives here!, Beware and stay away!, will drive the travelers away before the decent folk of the village have a chance to tell them how life really is, there in their village where all are welcome and the occasional ne’er-do-wells are shown the road out of town.

“Shrill cries” is pretty much the summation of Truesdale’s characterization of the various in-genre blow-ups of the last couple of years–which was at its most basic one of the major motivating forces for the existence of this anthology and its resounding success on Kickstarter. Apparently not only are we totally wrong, we’re incredibly loud and annoying while we’re at it. His poor, delicate ears.

Considering Ms. Burns had only just said that we “do not have to worry that the project makes one shrill…” Well.

Hopes: dashed. I love the smell of irony in the morning.

(Have I mentioned the Women Destroy Scifi issue of Lightspeed? Because you should totally go buy it.)

Categories
science fiction squee writing

So then the squee happened.

I literally had just gotten in the door from work, was rushing to try to get my computer set up so I could say mean things about Godzilla (2014) on the Skiffy and Fanty show (which is a whole other bit squee right there) when my phone rang. Scaring the crap out of me in the process.

It was Christie Yant. This is the first time in my life I have been called about any kind of writer-type thing. And Christie wanted to talk to me about Women Destroy Scifi. Namely that they needed another story for the print edition and she loved my story that she had to turn down so much, that was the one she wanted and then I think she might have said some other things but I couldn’t hear her over my brain going OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(And all I have to do is be able to do quick turn around on the edits tomorrow. Sister, for a chance to destroy science fiction, I WOULD DO MY EDITS WITH FEET WHILE BALANCING ON MY FREAKING HANDS AND SINGING LATIN HIPHOP FOR YOU.)

So I get to destroy scifi with my sistren after all. AND I STILL GET TO BE IN LIGHTSPEED. YES. I JUST SOLD THE SAME STORY TWICE TO LIGHTSPEED. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

And that was my Friday night. I think I win.