Category: science fiction

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science fiction TAM

Leave My Elves Out of This

NOTE: This is a time travel entry – it comes from the past! I just got around to posting it today.

I am at TAM still as I write this, though it won’t be posted until I get home since I am, you could say, highly skeptical of the South Point Hotel’s claim that a day of internet access is worth a thirteen dollar fee. So hello from the past, I’m having a lot of fun and hope you are as well.

We just got done watching DJ Grothe interview Richard Dawkins. For the most part I found the discussion quite fascinating, and I really liked the interview format. It meant that DJ got to be a little combative (but not hostile, mind you) and force Dr. Dawkins to clarify some of his points. Generally, it was fun and very interesting.

There was one point where I got a bit riled, however. DJ mentioned an interview that Dr. Dawkins had done yesterday, where he had something to say about fantasy literature. Basically, Dr. Dawkins said that he thinks (though by the time DJ had thrown a couple “hey now, you realize that I’m a giant nerd” salvos his way, he’d backed down to “I wonder if…”) that fiction involving “profligate” magic contributes to children being credulous and thus more susceptible to religion. And he basically came down against fantastical fiction that was not exceptionally hard science fiction.

As someone whose hobby is writing fantasy and speculative fiction, you can imagine I had a rather negative reaction to that statement. Because some day I would like to make some money off of this hobby (not that I’m going to stop writing if I don’t) and no one likes to be pointed at as a possible source of mental decay among children.

I tried to ask a question at the end of the interview, and didn’t get to. Then, while waiting for the elevator and complaining bitterly to my dear friend Micah about this terrible injustice to the fantasy nerds of the world, Micah pointed out that Dr. Dawkins was standing right behind me. I had a moment of utter panic, where I tried to justify just slinking quietly away and saving my cranky point for when I could expand it to a work of total and passive aggressive blog spew. I didn’t want to be that person, however. Somehow I found the courage to walk over to Dr. Dawkins and say, as nearly as I can remember it:

“Dr. Dawkins, I would like to make a point as a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction. Have you considered that if you read these sorts of stories, you might be less likely to accept religion. Because sure, Jesus can turn water into wine, but Harry Potter can kill you dead with two words.”

And then he smiled politely and escaped down the hall, though I’m pretty sure I did speak clearly and loudly enough to be heard. I did not pursue, as he looked rather harried and I didn’t want to be one of Those People.

That done, I now feel like I can engage in some passive-aggressive blog spew, guilt free.

There are a lot of factors coming in to why that particular statement – which likely would have been a throw-away if DJ Grothe weren’t a proud Nerd-American – really set me off. For one, I already get a bit snippy when it comes to privileging science fiction (hard sci fi particularly) over fantasy. It’s an old, old argument and one that can probably raise the blood pressure of anyone that’s spent any amount of time in the fan communities. Suffice to say that I fall on the side of fantasy/scifi-ish spec fic simply because I already live in a universe with our laws of physics, and if I’m going to escape into a book, I’d be quite charmed if the laws of physics wouldn’t read over my shoulder for five minutes because damnit, I happen to like elves. I am well aware of the beauty, majesty, and wonder inherent in the natural world. I am a geologist, and for a reason. But if I want to read a book about elves, I’m going to read a book about elves, and the majesty of the natural world can damnwell amuse itself for ten minutes while I willingly suspend my disbelief.

I also don’t take kindly to people looking down on my hobbies. I don’t think anyone does. And while I’d never claim that most of what I read is “great” fiction (however you define THAT) I take real exception to the notice that reading fiction rots one’s brain in any way. Particularly when my next best option is watching an episode of Lockdown on MSNBC1.

But Rachael, you say – you, of course, being the voice of an actual reasonable person in my head – he’s not talking about you. He’s talking about kids. Sure, fine. I’ve been reading fantasy since I could read. I grew up on books that had pictures of unicorns on the cover. My mother read The Hobbit and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to my brother and I when we were little, and I don’t think she did it in order to make us more credulous. At least I sure hope not.

I can almost – almost – see where Dr. Dawkins is something from. Almost. If I try really hard, I can imagine what it might be like if a child were given nothing but fantasy works and then allowed to read them in a complete analytical vacuum. A negative effect in that case is perhaps plausible. And I will also be the first to admit that I am not a psychologist, and I have not researched this topic. But there are several reasons beyond my knee-jerk moment of temper that I find this idea highly suspect.

  • There seems to be an assumption that the parent/guardian of the child would actively encourage them to think of the fantasy world as one as real as our own. There may be parents like this out there. I wouldn’t know. But I doubt it’s the majority. I would wager that just about any parent, their child frightened by something that happened in a fairy tale2, would then assure the child that it’s only a story, that the frightening thing is not real.

    And supposing there is a parent who either actively encourages a child to blur the line between fantasy and reality or simply remains completely uninvolved in their child’s developing relationship to literature. Is it then the fault of the fiction the child reads, or the fault of terrible parenting if that child eventually becomes a very credulous adult who is willing to believe in magic? Do we expect that such children would become serial killers if they were fed a steady diet of horror and true crime stories rather than sword and sorcery fantasy? Would science fiction (of the Richard Dawkins approved variety) cause such children to be more grounded in reality if they’re reading things that couple reasonable physics with, say, aliens?

  • Even in the complete absence of parent input, children are quite capable of observing, on their own, that the laws of the fantasy world do not work. Particularly when we are talking, as Dr. Dawkins did, of “profligate” magic, where its existence is intrinsic in the world and its use is simple and matter-of-fact within the story. No matter how hard you pretend that bit of wood is a magic wand, it’s still not going to turn your annoying little brother a dog. No matter how many frogs you chase down in the swamp, none of them turn into princes. And so on. One wonders if this is actually a case for skepticism, since after the fourth time you jump off the back of the couch and do not, in fact, fly even after your best friend SWORE that was fairy dust, you may well start wondering if you were a bit hasty to believe the claims of that Peter Pan person.

    Children also believe in Santa Claus because we tell them that he is real and then deliberately provide evidence that he is real as well – even evidence as simple as presents with a “From: Santa Claus” tag on them and an empty plate with a few crumbs on it, left from when Santa supposedly ate those cookies. If given absolutely no corroborating evidence, how long would a child continue to believe in the myth of Santa Claus, particularly when exposed to peers who are eager to disabuse them of such a babyish notion?

  • As a personal observation, as far back as I can remember, I was very well acquainted with the difference between pretend and reality. When I pretended to be a tiger, I knew very well that I was not actually a tiger. When I pretended there was magic, I knew very well that it didn’t exist. There may very well be some children that simply cannot tell the two apart after they’ve hit a certain age. I would daresay that those children likely require psychiatric intervention.
  • Consider the Christian Literature industry. In the book Rapture Ready, Daniel Radosh points out that there is a lot of general Christian fiction and romance, but not a whole lot of sci fi/fantasy. There’s also the point that there are fundamentalists of many stripes that think Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons are of the devil. Why is this? Are they frightened of a fantastic tale that posits miraculous powers that do not come from their god? Is there some latent fear that fantastical fiction that doesn’t have a religious bent to it may actually negatively effect someone’s beliefs somehow, particularly since these books often utilize elaborate (and completely made up) religious systems? I can’t say for sure, but I think this is a point that really ought to be considered.
  • From what I’ve observed in regards to children growing up Christian – particularly in the more fundamentalist sense of the world – they’re often completely inundated with the Bible, told repeatedly that it is without a doubt true. Rather than picture books of fairy tales, these children often read picture books of Bible stories. I’m really forced to wonder if this constant reinforcement of “No, THESE stories are real” is what is necessary to convince children that they ought to believe them. I rather doubt any parent treats fantasy stories like this.
  • One might point out that it’s not too hard to find people in the scifi/fantasy nerd culture that have some very credulous beliefs. I don’t particularly buy this as proof. Is the rate of credulous belief in these communities greater or smaller than in other groups that form around common interests? And even if that ends up being the case, we are often fond of saying that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Does fantasy fiction encourage credulity, or do credulous individuals enjoy fantasy fiction because they are already prone to a plethora of irrational beliefs and the stories feed in to those beliefs?
    •

    I posit that it is just as likely that if you are well versed in fantastical fiction – and also well aware that there is a solid difference between fantasy and reality – it may actually make it a little harder to believe in religious stories. If you read Lord of the Rings and understand its complete and beautiful mythology AND also know that something so complete and detailed was created by one man, I wonder if that would make you just a little skeptical of other complete and beautiful mythologies, written down by human beings – even if you’ve been told that they’re actually true.

    I am not going to get ridiculous here and trumpet the super awesomeness of fantasy or speculative fiction as reading material. We all have our own tastes and our own reasons for reading what we do, and we all gain a certain something from what we read, or we wouldn’t be reading it. Some of us (and from a tender age) need a little break from reality now and then, and we’re comfortable with the idea that reality will be waiting for us right where we left it once we emerged. I suppose you could argue “garbage in, garbage out,” but I’ll say this. There’s certainly worse garbage out there than elves.

    1 – No, really, what is with this show? It’s completely awful and without merit – it’s basically like Convict Zoo or something – and yet I can’t look away. I’m very worried what this might say about me as a person.

    2 – And here I mean “fictional story that the parent believes is only a story.” Just to be clear.

    Categories
    geeky stuff science fiction

    Terry Pratchett on Doctor Who

    Terry Pratchett has written an interesting guest blog post about Doctor Who, and I have to say that I pretty much agree with him. And not just because I think Night Watch is an amazing book because it both made me laugh out loud and made me cry.

    I tend to be more liberal with my definition of what science fiction happens to be, probably because I grew up reading fantasy and then moved over to science fiction when I got sick of unicorns. All I really want out of my science fiction is an element of scientific plausibility and some sort of logic to the laws of physics. I’m not that demanding. And in fact, I prefer my scifi almost unforgivably loosey-goosey compared to what hard science fiction fans like. I think long explanations about how faster than light travel could work incredibly boring. Really. Just tell me “It’s something to do with wormholes,” and I’m good to go1.

    That said, even by my own incredibly forgiving definitions, Doctor Who really isn’t scifi. It’s magic cleverly tarted up with machinery. I don’t think even whipping out Clarke’s third law (“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”) helps the case all that much when, as Pratchett cites, there’s an alien using pills to transform body fat into little baby aliens. And you know what? That’s totally okay. It’s a fun show, and I actually don’t think it matters all that much if people want to call it scifi or fantasy or superhero adventures, though I’m sure whoever feels that their genre is being abused will disagree with me. And I suppose it is something of a culture shock to people who have watched Doctor Who if they go to the local store and pick up some scifi and discover that it doesn’t go quite like that.

    What I actually think is more interesting about what Mr. Pratchett had to say were his comments on how the Doctor has become increasingly god-like, particularly in these new episodes.

    The Doctor himself has in recent years been built up into an amalgam of Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ (I laughed my socks off during the Titanic episode when two golden angels lifted the Doctor heavenwards) and Tinkerbell. There is nothing he doesn’t know, and nothing he can’t do. He is now becoming God, given that the position is vacant. Earth is protected, we are told, and not by Torchwood, who are human and therefore not very competent. Perhaps they should start transmitting the programme on Sundays.

    I think here, he’s hit on a bigger narrative issue than the tissue-thin science of the supposedly (winkwink) science fiction show, and something that I think really ruins some episodes that could have otherwise been interesting. I tend to think that the Doctor’s increasingly god-like tendencies are probably connected to the need the show feels to threaten to blow up bigger and bigger things, which I’ve already complained about at length.

    During The Waters of Mars I felt like the writers at least recognized the problem and did something quite dramatically fantastic with it. The Doctor buys in to his own image for a moment, believing in his god-like powers, and then at the end of the episode he gets a good metaphorical gut-punch to show him that no, he’s not everyone’s savior. It was lovely, and unfortunately ruined by what followed it. Here’s hoping that the new season will let the Doctor go back to being very smart and inventive, but not some sort of deity.

    1 – I actually have another reason for this beyond my own intellectual laziness. I don’t think that those sorts of explanations make for good narrative or believable characters. For example, unless your character is the guy that invented the FTL engine, or someone intimately involved in its maintenance, it just doesn’t seem all that plausible that they’d be that detailed about how it functions. Just think about people today and cars. If you ask someone who isn’t the sort of person that changes their own oil how a car functions, you’d probably get something along the lines of “well, it burns gas and that makes the car go.” At the risk of generalizing too much, I don’t think most people give a crap about how their car functions so long as it gets them from home to the ice cream shop without exploding. And I bet that some day, when we’re zipping around faster than light in shiny space ships, most people on those space ships will feel pretty much the same.

    Categories
    doctor who geeky stuff science fiction tv

    The End of Time

    Thanks to April, my big brother’s wonderful girlfriend, I finally got to see the second part of The End of Time last night. For those of you who aren’t giant Doctor Who geeks, move along, move along. Nothing to see here.

    SPOILERS ABOUND. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    I will start by saying that the first part really didn’t impress me. It was loud, bombastic, needlessly explodey, and involved far too many shots of the Doctor either walking or running somewhere accompanied by rather overdone music, which really just made me feel like they were trying to add some filler to the episode to make it long enough. But at the end, I was still excited about the second part, because if nothing else, there were going to be Time Lords. Apparently lead by a very spitty Timothy Dalton. The general Time Lord culture was something I’ve really missed out of the new Who, and I was excited at the prospect of them making a comeback, since that would open up all sorts of new plot as well. Also, I was hoping that if the Time Lords did make a return, maybe we’d get to see a new incarnation of Romana, who was one of my favorite characters ever from old Who.

    Sadly, I was disappointed, on many, many, many counts.

    Before I get down to the real kvetching, there were certain things out of the second part that I really, really liked. There was a lovely scene between the Doctor and the Master, which involved them not shrieking at each other, and it was beautifully done and very dramatic. I liked spitty Timothy Dalton as Rassilon, and even though I’d already spoiled myself as to who he was, I still just about wet my pants when the Doctor used the name. Dalton makes a wonderful Rassilon; sure, he’s the founder of the great and noble Time Lord civilization, but I think it adds some real dimension to the culture when we get to see that Rassilon was also a giant, scary bastard. And for all that the Time Lords did not in fact make a comeback like I’d been hoping, I think that some of the plot was very interesting. If nothing else, the revelation that the doctor destroyed the Time Lords not as collateral damage in the destruction of the Daleks, but on purpose because they’d become just as evil, just blew me away. It casts the Doctor in a whole new light and was very well done.

    That said, the rest of it? I’m not going to claim it was awful and that Russel T. Davies and I are through (not that it matters at this point) but of all the big, explodey, bombastic, over the top season enders, this one was definitely the worst. It was a lot of sound and fury, and very little substance. The Doctor saving the Earth at the end just seemed a little too easy and clean. And I’m sorry, but whether it’s the long pre-regeneration goodbye sequence, or just the intended-to-be-dramatic-but-not-really bit where the Doctor can’t seem to decide if he should be pointing his gun at Rassilon1 or the Master, I spent a lot of time wanting to yell “GET ON WITH IT!” at April’s TV. That’s never a good sign.

    As a good example of just what was wrong with the episode, take Donna. I was incredibly excited about Donna being in the episode, since she’s by far my favorite of the companions. I cried, quite literally, when she had to have her memory erased at the end of last season, and it made the wonderfully poignant point clear that yes, thing really do go terribly, terribly wrong in the Doctor’s life and there aren’t always happy endings. And then in this episode… what? She gets surrounded by a bunch of Master copies and then her head sort of explodes and… that’s it. She has basically no bearing on the plot at all, other than as a footnote. It’s not that I wanted something bad to happen to Donna, goodness no. I love her to pieces. But after the frantic warnings from the Doctor about what will happen to her if she remembers, and then basically seeing her brain explode on screen, suddenly at the end she’s all better and nothing seems to have happened. What? What was the point of the build up?

    The Doctor’s death also annoyed me, frankly. I do like that it wasn’t Rassilon that did him in. I thought David Tennant did some amazing acting when it came to the sudden swing from high to low, as he goes from thinking that he’s escaped fate to realizing that his death is inescapable. I can even go for him giving up his life to save Wilf, and the wonderfully nasty, egotistical things he said to go with it. But hinging all of that loveliness on a booth that apparently requires someone to be locked in it for no apparent reason really just takes all the steam out of the sacrifice. They had to find a way to kill the Doctor off, and that was the best they could do? Really?

    And then of course, the Doctor gets irradiated and sort of killed and it’s all quite heart-wrenching until he gets up and then spends the next fifteen minutes wandering around and exchanging significant looks with nearly everyone who has ever been in more than two episodes with him. The thing that was often so emotional about other Doctors regenerating was how abrupt it seemed. Take the Christopher Eccleston regeneration; it made me cry. He went from fine to basically dead and regenerated in in only a few minutes, and even though I’d been expecting it, it was still emotional and well executed. What they did with Tennant seems to me the equivalent of if Eccleston had paused, made himself some tea and sandwich, done some phone calls, answered all of his correspondence, and then finally kicked the bucket. Bleh.

    Then the fact that the Doctor regenerating this time apparently made the Tardis catch on fire? Don’t get me started.

    Admittedly, The End of Time had a tough act to follow. Right before we watched the second part, April let us watch The Waters of Mars since we hadn’t seen that yet. That episode is amazing. It was creepy, it was suspenseful, and the ending just blew me away. But what I find so frustrating is that it’s obvious that this sort of tight scripting and emotional roller coaster is more than possible on the show, and then they get to the season finale and just sort of blow it all on the Master having a fake glow-in-the-dark skull for a head.

    I think maybe the biggest problem is that every season finale of the new Doctor Who has been over the top and explodey. We can’t seem to have a finale that doesn’t involve the possible destruction of the Earth at best or the entire universe at worst. And I find that frustrating, because many of what I consider to be the best episodes of the new Who have been the very ones where the stakes were relatively small. The weeping Angels in Blink weren’t threatening to destroy space and time. Midnight was just about a few people, on a single ship. The Girl in the Fireplace was about one woman’s life. The problem is, every time you have to end a series by threatening to blow up the universe, you paint yourself a little further in to a corner, since next time you feel obligated to somehow ratchet the stakes up higher2. And frankly, after one or two threats to destroy the universe or space/time or whatever, it gets sort of boring, because you know they can’t destroy the universe because there’s going to be a season next year.

    It just makes me sad to think what they could have done with this story, with this revelation of how awful and evil the Time Lords were at the end of the war, if they hadn’t needed to put it hand in hand with the threat of total destruction. How much more interesting would it have been, if the Doctor had come face to face with Rassilon and had to reenact is final decision, not because he was worried about space and time getting destroyed, but because he was once again face with the ghost of his own people becoming just as monstrous as the Daleks.

    It’s obviously possible to have a lot of drama and tension and excitement without threatening to destroy the universe again. Hopefully the next round of Doctor Who scripts will keep that in mind.

    1 – After seeing Rassilon being an all powerful giant bastard earlier, I was forced to wonder in this scene why, after the Doctor first pointed the gun at him, Rassilon didn’t simply pop the Doctor’s head off like he was a giant Pez dispenser.

    2- My brother illustrated this point nicely last night. A not quite verbatim quote: “[Author whose name I have somehow spaced out] wrote a book where at the end he blew up the Earth. And then he wrote a sequel where at the end, he blew up the universe. And then he wrote a third book where at the end, he blew up all possible universes. After that there was nothing left to blow up, so he had to end the series.”