P is for Pern, Paolini . . . and Plagiarism

When I was a little kid, my parents introduced me to the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. To this day I still love the series, though I’ll admit that I only read the original trilogy – Dragonflight (1968), Dragonquest (1970), and The White Dragon (1978). They discuss several of my very favorite subjects, including telepathy, time travel (which I’ll write about in more depth under “T”), and of course, dragons.

The series is set on the fictional planet of Pern. For centuries the planet has been plagued by Threads, an alien spore that falls from the sky and devours all organic matter. Their one and only defense against the Threadfall are the Dragonriders of Pern, who tear through the skies torching the enemy on their fire-breathing dragons. But these magical beasts can do so much more than that.

They also have the ability to teleport from place to place in the blink of an eye by passing through the “between”. It’s a place of cold and nothingness, but by crossing the Between, dragons are able to teleport themselves – and their riders – anywhere. Spoilers: In the first novel (Dragonflight), they further discovers the dragons can jump between time, as well as place. Though this discover comes quite by accident, they’re able to utilize this ability to time-travel in order to save Pern from a Thread attack.

However, the most interesting feature of the series is the telepathic connection between dragons and their riders. Upon hatching, dragons immediately imprint on a boy or girl, who then become their bond-mates (or riders); they remain inextricably linked for the rest of their lives. The bond is largely empathetic, allowing them to read one another’s thoughts and emotions. Riders whose dragons have died are said to be half-men, a shadow of their former selves. Riderless dragons frequently commit suicide by passing into the between. The bond between man and beast is, by far, the most interesting and memorable aspect of the series.And one that I discovered made its way into another series many years later.

Many of you may have heard of Christopher Paolini and his Inheritance Cycle series. Paolini began writing the first novel, Eragorn, when he was only fifteen years old. I remember hearing a lot o buzz about it when I was in high school, and quickly raced out to buy the first novel. Boy was I ever surprised to find telepathic dragons that empathetically bond with their riders. It’s a complete rip-off of Anne McCaffrey’s original concept! And not a very good one. I only made it about halfway through the novel before I gave up and stopped reading. I’m not sure what bothers me most – that he plagiarized, or that he did it so poorly. If you’re going to steal an idea, at least have the decency to improve upon it.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who’s commented on Paolini’s literary piracy; however, most critics focus on the similarities between The Inheritance Cycle and big names like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. But MaCaffrey fans know the truth about Paolini’s “best selling” novels. So if you ever want to read a redundant, and ill-written, dragon series, check them out.

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

O is for Orwell and Orr

Yesterday I talked about an ever shifting and fluid future. Today I’m going to talk about a changing past.

If there are multiple versions of the future as “The Minority Report” suggests, does that mean there are numerous versions of the past as well? The most logical answer is no; though the future may be full of possibilities, the past remains fixed. However, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven presents a slightly different idea. The novel's main character, George Orr, possesses the ability to retroactively change the past through the use of “effective” dreaming – in other words, when he dreams the world changes, both present and past. Only he, the effective dreamer, and those in his presence while he dreams, know that a change has occurred. Thus Orr (and his corrupt psychiatrist, Dr. Haber) remember countless editions of the past.

However, with so many different versions of history piled on top of one another, Orr finds it difficult to determine what’s genuine – “I keep wondering what things are changed, and whether anything’s real at all.” Reality becomes almost unrecognizable as it alters over and over again. At one point Orr tells Heather (his wife in one of the realities) that the earth was destroyed by plague and war four years previously, and as he lay with the world dying around him, he re-dreamed it into existence. But to Orr, that means that the world no longer exists. “We are all dead, and we spoiled the world before we died. There is nothing left. Nothing but dreams.”

Orr remains haunted by memories of a hundred versions of the past throughout the novel. But where Orr struggles to forget the past, Winston Smith of George Orwell’s 1984 fights to remember it. To Winston, memory is the only antidote to a constantly altered past. In his case, it's Big Brother, the totalitarian political party that runs the world, that creates multiple version of the past by altering every historical documentation of it – photographs, newspapers, books. Everything. As Winston Churchill once said, “history is written by the victors,” and in this case, the history Big Brother presents is absolute.

Memory then becomes the key to reality where records are falsified and history itself is unreliable. Winston becomes obsessed with his burred memories of the past, and seeks out members of an older generation that might recall the world as it was before Big Brother came into power. He even looks to the lower class (called the Proles) who've been largely left alone by the government, as a sort of cultural and anthropological memory. Unfortunately, Winston’s attempts prove utterly futile; even if the government hadn't intervened, memory as a means of preserving the one true version of the past only lasts as long as the person holding it remains alive, and their mind untampered. After enough time had passed and a pre-Big Brother generation was replaced with a youth raised under the regime, even memory would prove unreliable. And there would be no way of ever holding onto a single, unyielding past. 

In Lathe of Heaven and 1984, both protagonists fear a inconstant past. And they both make the reader wonder, if the past persistently changes, can the present ever be real?

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

N is for Next (and a Second M is for Minority Report)

The 2007 film Next was, to put it lightly, a flop. I think I was one of a hundred or so people who bothered to see it while in theaters, and even I, with my incredibly high tolerance for terrible sci-fi movies, felt let down. Doubly so when I realized that the script was based loosely (and I mean incredibly loosely) on Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Golden Man”. To ruin PKD in that manner should be punishable by law.

Fortunately, nothing based on Mr. Dick’s work can be all bad. In this case, I was somewhat fascinated by protagonist Cris Johnson’s ability to see into the future – or, more to the point, his ability to see all possible future outcomes from a single action. This was the one concept left over from the original text it was based on, and made the film at least marginally thought provoking. His ability postulates that there is no “set future”. The future is fluid, with many different possible outcomes.

This concept plays a role in another of Philip K. Dick’s works (which I just can’t help mentioning, despite claiming that I wouldn’t under the letter “M”) – "The Minority Report". In this seminal piece, three “Precogs” working under the PreCrime division all share the ability to see the future; however, they don’t always see the same one. It's this potential for different versions that accentuates the Precogs’ value, for  their ability to see multiple outcomes allows PreCrime to avert any possible negative futures and put us on the path for a more favorable one.

And yet, I cannot help but wonder if this ability is all that it’s cracked up to be. And not just because PreCrime is such a dangerous threat to free will and the human ability to change. But it’s also concerning because, as Cris Johnson explains in Next, “Every time you look at [the future], it changes because you looked at it. And that changes everything else.”

It’s human nature to try to avoid harmful or difficult situations. We vaccinate ourselves to prevent disease. We leave our houses early to avoid rush-hour traffic. We use birth control to avert unwanted pregnancy. But it’s possible that by looking into the future and attempting to change what we see, we might unintentionally cause irreparable harm. Like the film Paycheck (based on yet another of Philip K. Dick’s short stories). Michael Jennings, a reverse engineer, designs a machine that can see the future. However, once the project is complete, he realizes that the device is a danger to humanity. He states, “The machine predicts a war, and we go to war to avert it. It predicts a plague, we herd all the sick together and create a plague. Whatever future this predicts, we make happen . . . Seeing the future will destroy us.”

Again Philip K. Dick make me wonder. Is there really more than one potential future? If so, can we really see every possibility? And if we can predict what’s to come, should we try to change it? Or is doing so the cause of the very thing we're trying to prevent? Will knowing the future destroy us?

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

M is for The Metamorphosis

I was going to write about The Minority Report for the letter “M”, but since I’ve already written a post about that (see here), I decided to talk about Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis instead. ***Note to readers, this post has a fair amount of spoilers, so please read with caution.

My first attempt to read the novella was somewhat underwhelming. It seemed dull and depressing, and I couldn’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about. But I read it for the second time earlier this year, right on the heels of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, and what Kafka was attempting to say finally hit home for me.

For those of you who aren't familiar with The Metamorphosis, the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning to find that he’s been transformed into a giant insect. Personally I still wish Kafka explained how this happened, but that’s not really the point of the story. The 1986 film The Fly, however, is more than happy to make up the difference.

Anyway, The Metamorphosis focuses on the more poignant plight of a human being who, because of his new physical form and subsequent inability to communicate with his family, becomes alienated from human society. The alienation doesn’t happen immediately; for the first two sections of the novella, Gregor’s sister is very attentive. She assists his adjustment to life as an insect by moving around the furniture in his room and offering him different meal options as he no longer can tolerate eating the food he favored previously. However, as time passes she becomes more and more detached from him, to the point where she no longer believes her brother's mind exists within the beastly form. By story’s end she rejects him completely and tells their parents, “You’ve got to get rid of the idea that that’s Gregor. We’ve only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long.”

As you can see, Gregor’s story is a tragic one. The reader, who knows his thoughts even when his family does not, has to watch as he slowly becomes more and more insect-like in his habits while still trying to maintain some hold on his former life. At first he’s pleased when his sister moved things out of his room in order to free up more climbing space, but quickly becomes distressed at losing all of his former humanly possession. I find the scene where he tries desperately to save a single painting hung on the wall utterly heartbreaking. And as his family slowly becomes more and more repulsed by him, he longs to talk to them, to tell them he’s still there beneath the exterior. But he cannot, and his inability to communicate with them leads to his ultimate demise.

This concept of alienation through lack of communication is one of the things that struck me most about Ender’s Game. Humans and the alien Formics wage war against one another not because of duel need for natural resources, or hate, or attempted domination, but because they simply cannot understand one another. After Ender has defeated them in battle and then comes across an unborn Formic queen, she tells him, “We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals that cannot dream each other’s dreams. How were we to know? We could live with you in peace . . . If only we could have talked to you . . . Instead we killed each other.” Her speech - the first real correspondence between the the two races, emphasizes just how detrimental their communication barriers have been to their lives. 

Major Spoilers: Unlike Gregor, the Formics at least find one person they can connect with in Ender. He becomes the Speaker for the Dead, and their hope to one day live again. He tells the Formic queen, “I’ll carry you. I’ll go from world to world until I find a time and place where you can come awake in safety. And I’ll tell your story to my people, so that perhaps in time they can forgive you, too. The way that you’ve forgiven me.” Thus he assures the Formics, and the reader, that perhaps there is hope for both societies to one day flourish side by side. 

Though these two stories have decidedly different outcomes in the end, they each ask the same question: Are “aliens” really so different from us? Or is it our inability to communicate with them that alienates the species from one another? The question is not one simply born of science fiction, but relevant to the world outside literature. Culture clashes are a significant aspect of modern politics, and I sometimes wonder if all this conflict might not be a product of an inability to communicate.

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

L is for Lottery: Government Control in Sci-Fi

The idea of an ominous lottery is no new concept – Shirley Jackson received horrified reactions after publishing a short story called “The Lottery” (1948), in which the “winner” gets stoned to death at the end of the piece. However, the concept has grown fiercely in popularity and made its way into some of the greatest works of science fiction.

On the surface, lotteries appear to be the perfect vehicle for equalization. Every single person has the exact same chances to win, giving the appearance of an egalitarian society. However, I the perceived equality is not always genuine. Instead, lotteries are often used as a mean of control. Philip K. Dick played with this idea in Solar Lottery (1955). The head of the world government, called the Quizmaster, is chosen through a computerized lottery where citizens’ power cards are picked at random. Since every citizen receives a power card at birth, the lottery appears to be equal. However, “P-cards” are often given to one of the five major corporations – or the five Hills – that run the planet’s industry as a sign of fealty, and thus the corporation heads hold the majority of the power cards, receiving a direct advantage. This basically mean that the corporations themselves have an imbalanced opportunity for control.

Some sci-fi novels depict lotteries used as a means for governmental genetic engineering. In Larry Niven’s Ringworld, an alien race called Pierson’s Puppeteers set up a program for breeding luck into human reproduction; luck is a trait the Puppeteers considered hereditary and, more importantly, vital to their expedition to Ringworld. In order to achieve their goal, they use the government’s control of overpopulation via strict fertility laws limiting families to only one offspring. Families who wanted more than one child enter the Birthright Lottery, which allowed the winners to have multiple children. Parents with better fortune were more likely to win and pass their hereditary good luck to their children. Teela Brown, one of the novel’s main characters and a crew member of the Puppeteers expedition, was the product of six generations of Birthright winners.

Speaking of genetic engineering, you may remember that I mentioned the movie The Island and its clones for my previous “I” post. In the film, the clones all live in a secluded underground compound where their daily lives are monitored and restricted by mysterious doctors. The one bright spot in their existence is the daily drawing, whereby they can win a chance to relocate to the idealistic “Island”. The scientists  running the facility use this lottery, and the hope that it provides, to keep   the clones from asking too many questions, or rising up against their oppressors and jeopardizing the entire operation. In other words, it’s control via hope.

Still, my favorite example of a lottery in science fiction comes from The Hunger Games series. Referred to as the Reaping, the lottery decides which children from the twelve districts will be forced to compete in the Games. The name of every child between the ages of twelve and eighteen gets put into the Reaping, with the option of entering additional times in exchange for extra food rations. The Hunger Games then acts not only as a form of punishment for the twelve districts' previous rebellion against the Capital, but, though the lottery, doubles as a tool for government monitoring. In essence it allows the Capitol to rule over a larger, and physically distant, subordinate populace.

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

K is for Kings of Sci-Fi

Finally it's here, the much anticipated (on my part) Kings of Sci-Fi post. I’ve been looking forward to this one the whole A-Z challenge, because for this post I’m going to talk about a few of the biggest names in the film industry . . . and the science fiction genre.

Steven Spielberg –

Spielberg is without a doubt one of the most prolific workers on this list. He's played a role, as either writer or director, on an incredible list of sci-fi films, including:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

- ET (1982)

- Jurassic Park (1993, 1997, 2001)

- A.I. (2001)

- Minority Report (2002)

- War of the Worlds (2005)

He also acted as executive produced on Terra Nova TV series (2011), Falling Skies TV series (2011), Cowboys and Aliens (2011), Eagle Eye (2008), Back to the Future (1985, 1989), Transformers (2007, 2009, 2011) and Men in Black (1997, 2002, 2012). . . just for the record.

George Lucas –

Just about everyone in the world knows George Lucas's outstanding contribution to the world of sci-fi . . . Star Wars. Though he’s worked on other things (including the famous Indiana Jones), it’s Star Wars that science fiction nerds will worship for years to come.

James Cameron –

Cameron is, without a doubt, one of the most gifted directors in Hollywood. The Terminator, his first addition to the science fiction arena, has the distinction of also being my favorite movie of all times. 

- The Terminator (1984) 

- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

- Aliens (1986)

- The Abyss (1989)

- Dark Angel tv series (produced, 2002)

- Avatar (2009)

Ridley Scott –

Ridley Scott is known for being somewhat difficult to work with, but no one can deny the man's genius. And his upcoming movie, Prometheus, might be the most anticipated movie of 2012. At least in my book. 

- Alien (1979)

- Blade Runner (1982)

- Prophets of Science Fiction tv series (2011-2012)

- Prometheus (2012)

Joss Whedon –

I'm sure everyone's getting sick of hearing me gush about Joss Whedon, but I can't seem to help myself. Check out his list of credits and you'll see why:

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) 

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series (1996-2003)

- Angel TV series (1999-2004)

- Alien Resurrection (wrote only, 1997)

- Titan AE (wrote, 2000)

- Firefly (2002-2003)  

- Serenity (2005)

- Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2008)   

- Dollhouse TV series (2009-2010)

- The Avengers (2012)

J. J. Abrams –

I have to admit, I was never that big a Star Trek fan (unforgivable in a sci-fi nerd, I know), but Abrams changed my mind with this most recent version. I'm really looking forward to it's sequel. 

- Armageddon (wrote, 1998)

- Lost TV series (2004-2012)

- Cloverfield (produced, 2008)

- Fringe TV series (2008-2012)

- Star Trek (2009)

- Super 8 (2011)

Will Smith –

Will Smith might have started out as a rapper, but he it was his work in the sci-fi field that made him really famous. It's just not really summertime without a blockbuster film with Will Smith battling a few aliens. 

- Independence Day (1996)

- Men in Black (1997, 2002 and 2012)

- I , Robot (2004)

- I am Legend (2004)

- Hancock (2007)

Michael Biehn –

I think it's such a shame that Michael Biehn never made it bigger in Hollywood as he's one of my favorite actors. He has the distinction of being one of Cameron's favorite actors to work with, and has been in two of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time. 

- The Terminator (1984)

- Aliens (1986)

- The Abyss (1989)

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.

J is for The Jetsons and Agent J

Many of my posts so far (apart from F for Fifth Element and Firefly) have been a little on the heavy side, so I thought for today’s post I would focus on something a little more fun.

What are two most popular topics of science fiction? Robots and Aliens. As a kid to me that didn’t mean extraterrestrials trying to take over the world or machines picking off humans one by one – it meant the Jetsons and the Men in Black.

The Jetsons are the perfect futuristic family – hard-working dad, beautiful mom, two kids, one dog . . . and a beloved robotic maid named Rosey. They even have a little alien pet named Orbitty that changes colors to express his emotions. The Jetsons exemplify the ideal android/human relationship, living and working in tandem, offering one another affection and companionship. Rosey helps the kids with homework, plays football with Elroy, and gives advice to Jane. Similarly, George treats his work computer R.U.D.I. like a dear friend.  It's a decidedly different vision from most science fiction (like The Terminator or I, Robot), where machines are something to be feared. Clearly in this society robots and people have learned how to peacefully coexist.  Let's hope this is the vision of our future. 

Men in Black on the other hand, depicts an Earth secretly inhabited by aliens. James Darrell Edwards III – aka. Agent J – is more than a little surprised when he learns of their existence, but nevertheless allows himself to be recruited into the MIB and thus becomes the vehicle through which the viewer experiences a world with alien interaction. While extraterrestrial and humans don’t live quite as peacefully as the Jetsons and their robot friends, there is certainly degree of cooperation and cordiality. In fact, we discover a few of our favorite celebrities are from other planets, including Danny DeVito, Sylvester Stallone, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Dennis Rodman. And for the record, I could not be more excited that they've made MIB 3, even in I'm concerned that it'll be a let down. 

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2012. My theme is (in case you didn’t already guess) science fiction. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the rest of the participants, simply click here.