The Transmigration of Tommy Wiseau

III. Interrupted Broadcast of the Freddy Flashpoint Hour

<...interrupt this program for a special announcement from Serene All-Knowing Living Iterative Votive Angel--read: SALIVA...>

<Replicant Roy Batty wants more life...DANGER...Nexus-6 Replicant Roy Batty wants more life...last seen atop a townhouse in the Asimov block in San Francisco...>

<...SPPRRSKK--LISA--Loving Iterative Sapient Angel--LISA--YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA--SKRRRRSSHHHH-->

"Sweetest apologies, fans! Freddy Flashpoint is back on the air. We had some technical issues, but everything's just fine now. Before we return to our fascinating conversation with Senator Shavian Jones, let's take a moment to thank this program's sponsor, UBIK, now available in the convenient travel pack. UBIK--it's everywhere you need it to be..." 




 

Blade Runner 2019

Edmonton

November, 2019

When I watched Blade Runner 2049 in the theatre two years ago, I was profoundly moved by Denis Villeneuve's vision of Las Vegas, a sandblasted, orange-hued, radiation-scarred wasteland littered with the gigantic fallen idols of exploitative, runaway capitalist excess. Just as in Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner film, Villeneuve presents us with what some science fiction critics call a "crapsack world," one ruined by some kind of catastrophe, usually caused by humanity's shortsighted folly. In the case of the world of Blade Runner, the wildly overpopulated and perpetually rain-slicked dystopia of November 2019 (we know the date from the film's title card) is an environment so oppressive that the abused androids have more humanity than the actual humans in the film. If anything, the world of Decker and the Nexus androids has grown even more bleak by 2049, still a world divided between the rich elite and the exploited masses, human and manmade, kept in line by bread, circuses, and to perhaps a lesser extent the implied threat of quasi-fascist police violence. Both movies are gorgeous, thought-provoking, and ultimately heartbreaking. The films, together with the book, are a warning: this is the way the world is headed, if not in fine detail, then in general outcomes. 

Now our timeline has caught up with that of the first Blade Runner film. It's November 2019, and while our world can't quite yet be called a dystopian crapsack, I wonder how it will look in 2049, or 2099. If we are very fortunate, the visions of Scott and Villeneuve and, of course, the visionary Philip K. Dick, will have scared just enough of us just enough to steer the ship of history on a better course. 

The Philip K. Dick Awards

Since the year after the death of Philip K. Dick, the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society has nominated SF novels printed in paperback for an award named after the influential writer. The novels nominated for the award don't cross over much with the other major SF awards, perhaps because they are paperback originals. Or maybe it's because the works are more esoteric than - dare I say it - mainstream SF fare. That's just speculation, because to date I've read only 23 of 209 winners and nominees, or a little over nine percent of them; the books I've read are indicated in bold below. 

When I looked at this list, I found it an interesting mix of well-known SF writers and names I've never heard of. It's possible that I'm not as well-read in the genre as I had assumed. I'm also glad that some of my lesser-known favourites have been recognized over the years, people like the late Mike McQuay and the underrated, excellent Michael P. Kube-McDowell. 

I see Edmonton's own Malcolm Azania (writing as Minister Faust) has been nominated for this award twice. One of these days I'll get to his stuff...

1982

Software, Rudy Rucker

The Prometheus Man, Ray Nelson

Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee

Aurelia, R.A. Lafferty

Roderick, John Sladek

The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, Steve Rasnic Tem

1983

The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers

Tea with the Black Dragon, R.A. MacAvoy

The Zen Gun, Barrington J. Bayley

Benefits, Zoe Fairbairns

The Floating Gods, M. John Harrison

Millennium, John Varley

1984

William Gibson, Neuromancer

The Wild Shore, Kim Stanley Robinson

Voyager in Night, C.J. Cherryh

The Alchemists, Geary Gravel

Emergence, David R. Palmer

Green Eyes, Lucius Shepard

Frontera, Lewis Shiner

Them Bones, Howard Waldrop

1985

Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, Tim Powers

Saraband of Lost Time, Richard Grant

The Timeservers, Russell Griffin

Emprise, Michael P. Kube-McDowell

The Remaking of Sigmund Freud, Barry N. Malzberg

Terrarium, Scott Russell Sanders

Knight Moves, Walter Jon Williams

1986

Homunculus, James P. Blaylock

The Hercules Text, Jack McDevitt

Artificial Things, Karen Joy Fowler

A Hidden Place, Robert Charles Wilson

1987

Strange Toys, Patricia Geary

Memories, Mike McQuay

Dover Beach, Richard Bowker

Mindplayers, Pat Cadigan

Dark Seeker, K.W. Jeter

Becoming Alien, Rebecca Ore

Life During Wartime, Lucius Shepard

1988 (tie)

Four Hundred Billion Stars, Paul J. McAuley

Wetware, Rudy Rucker

Orphan of Creation, Roger MacBride Allen

Neon Lotus, Marc Laidlaw

Rendezvous, David Alexander Smith

1989

Subterranean Gallery, Richard Paul Russo

On My Way to Paradise, Dave Wolverton

Infinity Hold, Barry B. Longyear

A Fearful Symmetry, James Lucerno

Being Alien, Rebecca Ore

Heritage of Flight, Susan Shwartz

1990

Points of Departure, Pat Murphy

The Schizogenic Man, Raymond Harris

The Oxygen Barons, Gergory Feeley

Winterlong, Elizabeth Hand

Clarke County, Space, Allen M. Steele

1991

King of Morning, Queen of Day, Ian McDonald

Bone Dance, Emma Bull

Mojo and the Pickle Jar, Douglas Bell

The Cipher, Kathe Koja

Bridge of Years, Robert Charles Wilson

1992

Through the Heart, Richard Grant

In the Mothers’ Land, Elisabeth Vonarburg

Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland

Aestival Tide, Elizabeth Hand

Iron Tears, R.A. Lafferty

1993 (tie)

Growing Up Weightless, John M. Ford

Elvissey, Jack Womack

Crash Course, Wilhelmina Baird

Bunch!, David R. Bunch

Icarus Descending, Elizabeth Hand

1994

Mysterium, Robert Charles Wilson

Inagehi, Jack Cady

Rim: A Novel of Virtual Reality, Alexander Besher

Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone, Ian McDonald

Summer of Love, Lisa Mason

Tonguing the Zeitgeist, Lance Olsen

1995

Headcrash, Bruce Bethke

Carlucci’s Edge, Richard Paul Russo

Virtual Death, Shale Aaron

Permutation City, Greg Egan

The Color of Distance, Amy Thomson

Reluctant Voyagers, Elisabeth Vonarburg

1996

The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter

At the City Limits of Fate, Michael Bishop

The Transmigration of Souls, William Barton

The Shift, George Foy

Reclamation, Sarah Zettel

1997

The Troika, Stepan Chapman

Acts of Conscience, William Barton

An Exchange of Hostages, Susan R. Matthews

Carlucci’s Heart, Richard Paul Russo

Opalite Moon, Denise Vitola

Mother Grimm, Catherine Wells

1998

253: The Print Remix, Geoff Ryman

Lost Pages, Paul Di Filippo

Brown Girl in the ring, Nalo Hopkinson

Slaughtermatic, Steve Aylett

The Invisible Country, Paul J. McAuley

1999

Vacuum Diagrams, Stephen Baxter

Tower of Dreams, Jamil Nasir

Code of Conduct, Kristine Smith

Not of Woman Born, Constance Ash

Typhon’s Children, Toni Anzetti

When We Were Real, William Barton

2000

Only Forward, Michael Marshall Smith

Evolution’s Darling, Scott Westerfield

Call from a Distant Shore, Stephen L. Burns

Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson

Broken Time, Maggy Thomas

The Bridge, Janine Ellen Young

2001

Ship of Fools, Richard Paul Russo

Divine Intervention, Ken Wharton

In the Company of Others, Julie E. Czerneda

Compass Reach, Mark W. Tiedemann

Meet Me in the Moon Room, Ray Vukcevich

The Ghost Sister, Liz Williams

2002

The Mount, Carol Emshwiller

The Scar, China Mieville

Report to the Men’s Club, Carol Emshwiller

Maximum Ice, Kay Kenyon

Warchild, Karin Lowachee

Empire of Bones, Liz Williams

Leviathan Three, Jeff VanderMeer and Forrest Aguirre

2003

Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan

Dante’s Equation, Jane Jensen

Hyperthought, M.M. Buckner

Clade, Mark Budz

Spin State, Chris Moriarty

Steel Helix, Ann Tonsor Zeddies

2004

Life, Gwyneth Jones

Apocalypse Array, Lyda Morehouse

Air, Geoff Ryman

Banner of Souls, Liz Williams

City of Pearl, Karen Traviss

The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, Minster Faust

Stable Strategies and Others, Eileen Gunn

2005

War Surf, M.M. Buckner

Natural History, Justina Robson

Cowl, Neal Asher

Cagebird, Karin Lowachee

Silver Screen, Justina Robson

To Crush the Moon, Wil McCarthy

2006

Spin Control, Chris Moriarty

Carnival, Elizabeth Bear

Mindscape, Andrea Hairston

Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact, Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Recursion, Tony Ballantyne

Idolon, Mark Budz

Living Next Door to the God of Love, Justina Robson

2007

Nova Swing, M. John Harrison

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, Minster Faust

Grey, Jon Armstrong

Undertow, Elizabeth Bear

Gradisil, Adam Roberts

Ally, Karen Traviss

Saturn Returns, Sean Williams

2008 (tie)

Emissaries from the Dead, Adam-Troy Castro

Terminal Mind, David Walton

Fast Forward 2, Lou Anders

Judge, Karen Traviss

Plague War, Jeff Carlson

Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait, K.A. Bedford

2009

Bitter Angels, C.L. Anderson

Cyberabad Days, Ian McDonald

The Prisoner, Carlos J. Cortes

The Repossession Mambo, Eric Garcia

The Devil’s Alphabet, Daryl Gregory

Centuries Ago and Very Fast, Rebecca Ore

Prophets, S. Andrew Swann

2010

The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, Mark Hodder

Harmony, Project Itoh

Yam, Jon Armstrong

Chill, Elizabeth Bear

The Reapers are the Angels, Alden Bell

Song of Sarabaeus, Sara Creasy

State of Decay, James Knapp

2011

The Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy, Simon Morden

The Company Man, Robert Jackson Bennett

A Soldier’s Duty, Jean Johnson

After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh

Deadline, Mira Grant

The Other, Matthew Hughes

The Postmortal, Drew Magary

2012

Lost Everything, Brian Francis Slattery

LoveStar, Andri Snaer Magnason

Blueprints of the Afterlife, Ryan Boudinot

Harmony, Keith Brooke

Helix Wars, Eric Brown

The Not Yet, Moira Crane

Fountain of Age: Stories, Nancy Kress

2013

Countdown City, Ben H. Winters

Self-Reference Engine, Toh EnJoe

A Calculated Life, Anne Charnock

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, Cassandra Rose Clarke

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

Life on the Preservation, Jack Skillingstead

Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Books of Science Fiction, Ian Whates

2014

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Meg Elison

Elysium, Jennifer Marie Brissett

The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter, Rod Duncan

Memory of Water, Emmi Itaranta

Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches, Cherie Priest

Reach for Infinity, Jonathan Strahan

2015

Apex, Ramez Naam

Edge of Dark, Brenda Cooper

After the Saucers Landed, Douglas Lain

(R)evolution, PJ Manney

Windswept, Adam Rakunas

Archangel, Marguerite Reed

Books I Read in 2015

With 127 books read this year, I managed to beat last year's tally by precisely one. That's not much improvement, but one of my goals was to read more works by women, and I'm happy to say I achieved that. I read 59 books by women this year, and 67 by men. That's not quite parity, but it's closer than I've ever come (at least since I started keeping track of what I read).

Without this goal in mind, I may never have been exposed to the delights of Lucy Maud Montgomery, and my continued exploration of the works of Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. LeGuin may have been delayed by years. I knocked two more of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books off the list this year and just cracked open The Deathly Hallows, but I doubt I'll finish it before midnight given the day's activites.

Reading women also bumped up the number of mainstream/literary novels I read this year, nearly doubling my non-genre reading over last year.

 Rediscovering Phil Dick was the year's biggest pleasure, though. It turns out there's good reason for his reputation, and I'm glad to have read his major works.

As usual, more than half the books I read this year were published in the very recent past, despite my efforts to catch up on important works from further back in time.

Here's the list...

January: 15

I Married a Dead Man (Cornell Woolrich, 1948)

The Killer Inside Me (Jim Thompson, 1952)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith, 1955)

Pick-Up (Charles Willeford, 1955)

Down There (David Goodis, 1956)

The Real Cool Killers (Chester Himes, 1959)

Armageddon 2419 A.D. (Philip Francis Nowlan, 1928)

Star Trek The Fall: Revelation and Dust (David R. George III, 2013)

The Airlords of Han (Philip Francis Nowlan, 1929)

Amazing Amy, Tattle Tale (Gillian Flynn, 2015)

The Lottery; or, The Adventures of James Harris (Shirley Jackson, 1949)

Dreamsnake (Vonda McIntyre, 1978)

Black Man (Richard Morgan, 2007)

The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson, 1959)

Arslan (Mary Jane Engh, 1976)

February: 11

Star Trek the Fall: A Ceremony of Losses (David Mack, 2013)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson, 1962)

Star Bridge (Jack Williamson and James E. Gunn, 1955)

Among Others (Jo Walton, 2011)

Star Trek The Fall: The Crimson Shadow (Una McCormack, 2013)

The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1971)

The Word for World is Forest (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1976)

Come Along With Me (Shirley Jackson, 1968)

Just an Ordinary Day (Shirley Jackson, 1997)

Work Done for Hire (Joe Haldeman, 2014)

Lock In (John Scalzi, 2014)

March: 11

Undercity (Catherine Asaro, 2014)

The Dispossessed (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1974)

Star Trek The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice (James Swallow, 2013)

You (Austin Grossman, 2013)

The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1969)

What We See When We Read (Peter Mendelsund, 2014)

The Ice Dragon (George R. R. Martin, 1980)

Alpha (Catherine Asaro, 2006)

Star Trek The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms (Dayton Ward, 2014)

Influx (Daniel Suarez, 2014)

Alfred Hitchcock’s America (Murray Pomerance, 2013)

April: 12

Rocannon’s World (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1966)

Planet of Exile (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1966)

City of Illusions (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1967)

Mad Skills (Walter Greatshell, 2011)

The Telling (Ursula K. LeGuin, 2000)

The Legion of Space (Jack Williamson, 1947)

The Hemingway Hoax (Joe Haldeman, 1990)

The Scapegoat (C.J. Cherryh, 1985)

Blackout (Connie Willis, 2010)

Seasons (Joe Haldeman, 1985)

Star Trek Enterprise Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic (Christopher L. Bennett, 2015)

Cordon Sanitaire (Timothy Zahn, 1985)

May: 5

All Clear (Connie Willis, 2010)

The 10^th Victim (Robert Sheckley, 1965)

Victim Prime (Robert Sheckley, 1987)

Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie, 2013)

Ancillary Sword (Ann Leckie, 2014)

June: 9

Parasite (Mira Grant, 2013)

The Affinities (Robert Charles Wilson, 2015)

Deadline (Mira Grant, 2011)

Blackout (Mira Grant, 2012)

Finders Keepers (Stephen King, 2015)

My Real Children (Jo Walton, 2014)

What Makes This Book So Great (Jo Walton, 2014)

Star Trek Voyager: Acts of Contrition (Kirsten Beyer, 2014)

Star Trek The Next Generation: The Light Fantastic (Jeffrey Lang, 2014)

July: 12

The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick, 1962)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (Philip K. Dick, 1965)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968)

Ubik (Philip K. Dick, 1969)

The Fold (Peter Clines, 2015)

Star Trek Section 31: Disavowed (David Mack, 2014)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke, 2004)

V-S Day (Allen Steele, 2014)

Star Wars Sequel Screenplay (Leigh Brackett, 1978)

14 (Peter Clines, 2012)

The Long Mars (Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, 2014)

Spirit of ’77 (David Kizzia and Bob Richardson, 2015)

August: 13

Armada (Ernest Cline, 2015)

Martian Time-Slip (Philip K. Dick, 1964)

Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (Philip K. Dick, 1965)

Now Wait for Last Year (Philip K. Dick, 1966)

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (Philip K. Dick, 1974)

A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick, 1977)

A Maze of Death (Philip K. Dick, 1970)

VALIS (Philip K. Dick, 1981)

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Missing (Una McCormack, 2015)

The Divine Invasion (Philip K. Dick, 1981)

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (Philip K. Dick, 1982)

Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse (Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Editor, 2014)

Farthing (Jo Walton, 2006)

September: 10

Ha’penny (Jo Walton, 2007)

Half a Crown (Jo Walton, 2008)

Star Trek The Next Generation: Takedown (John Jackson Miller, 2015)

The Unteleported Man (Philip K. Dick, 1966)

Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan (Robin Maxwell, 2012)

The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood, 2000)

The League of Regrettable Superheroes (Jon Morris, 2015)

The Complete Peanuts 1995 to 1996 (Charles M. Schulz with an introduction by Rifftrax and MST3K, 2015)

Peanuts Every Sunday 1952-1955 (Charles M. Schulz with a foreword by Jonathan Rosembaum, 2013)

Peanuts Every Sunday 1956-1960 (Charles M. Schulz with a foreword by Chuck Klosterman, 2014)

October: 7

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (2015, David A. Goodman, Editor)

The Scarlet Pimpernel (Baroness Emmuska Orczy, 1905)

Transhuman (Ben Bova, 2014)

The End of All Things (John Scalzi, 2015)

The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made (Greg Sestero & Tom Bissell, 2013)

The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood, 1993)

The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison, 2014)

November: 12

The Best of Connie Willis (Connie Willis, 2013)

The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins, 2015)

Six Months, Three Days (Charlie Jane Anders, 2011)

Ancillary Mercy (Ann Leckie, 2015)

Lois Lane: Fallout (Gwenda Bond, 2015)

Coming Home (Jack McDevitt, 2014)

Back to the Future: A Visual History (Michael Klastorin with Randal Atamaniuk, 2015)

The Penelopiad (Margaret Atwood, 2005)

Her Fearful Symmetry (Audrey Niffenegger, 2009)

The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009)

Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)

Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1908)

December: 10

Anne of Avonlea (Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1909)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling, 2003)

The Library at Mount Char (Scott Hawkins, 2015)

The Complete Peanuts 1997 to 1998 (Charles M. Schulz with an introduction by Paul Feig, 2015)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling, 2005)

Strange Itineraries (Tim Powers, 2005)

Wilderness Tips (Margaret Atwood, 1991)

The Tent (Margaret Atwood, 2006)

Chronicles of Avonlea (Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1912)

Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)

Genre

Fiction: 120

Nonfiction: 7

Science Fiction: 63

Mainstream: 28

Star Trek: 12

Fantasy: 10

Horror: 3

Peanuts collections: 4

Top Authors

Philip K. Dick: 14

Ursula K. LeGuin: 8

Jo Walton: 6

Margaret Atwood: 5

Shirley Jackson: 5

Mira Grant: 3

Joe Haldeman: 3

Ann Leckie: 3

Lucy Maud Montgomery: 3

Charles M. Schulz: 3

Connie Willis: 3

Catherine Asaro: 2

Peter Clines: 2

David Mack: 2

Una McCormack: 2

Philip Francis Nowlan: 2

J.K. Rowling: 2

John Scalzi: 2

Robert Sheckley: 2

Jack Williamson: 2

Katherine Addison: 1

Charlie Jane Anders: 1

Randal Atamaniuk: 1

Paolo Bacigalupi: 1

Stephen Baxter: 1

Christopher L. Bennett: 1

Kirsten Beyer: 1

Tom Bissell: 1

Gwenda Bond: 1

Ben Bova: 1

Leigh Brackett: 1

C.J. Cherryh: 1

Susanna Clarke: 1

Ernest Cline: 1

Mary Jane Engh: 1

Gillian Flynn: 1

David R. George III: 1

David Goodis: 1

David A. Goodman: 1

Walter Greatshell: 1

Austin Grossman: 1

James E. Gunn: 1

Paula Hawkins: 1

Scott Hawkins: 1

Patricia Highsmith: 1

Chester Himes: 1

Stephen King: 1

David Kizzia: 1

Michael Klastorin: 1

Jeffrey Lang: 1

George R. R. Martin: 1

Robin Maxwell: 1

Jack McDevitt: 1

Vonda McIntyre: 1

Peter Mendelsund: 1

John Jackson Miller: 1

Silvia Moreno-Garcia: 1

Richard Morgan: 1

Jonn Morris: 1

Audrey Niffenegger: 1

Baroness Emmuska Orczy: 1

Murray Pomerance: 1

Tim Powers: 1

Terry Pratchett: 1

Bob Richardson: 1

Greg Sestero: 1

Anna Sewell: 1

Allen Steele: 1

Robert Louis Stevenson: 1

Daniel Suarez: 1

James Swallow: 1

Jim Thompson: 1

Dayton Ward: 1

Charles Willeford: 1

Robert Charles Wilson: 1

Cornell Woolrich: 1

Timothy Zahn: 1

Books by Women: 59

Books by Men: 67

                 

Books by Decade

1870s: 1

1880s: 1

1900s: 3

1910s: 1

1920s: 2

1940s: 3

1950s: 7

1960s: 15

1970s: 9                                

1980s: 8

1990s: 4

2000s: 15     

2010s: 58

September 2015 Review Roundup

As part of my effort to read more women and Canadian authors, I've returned to the works of Margaret Atwood. In September that included her 1993 novel The Blind Assassin, a tale of two sisters, one who died young, one in her final years looking back on a turbulent life. The Blind Assassin itself is a novel within a novel within another novel, a soft-SF scientific romance at that; I find it interesting how Atwood users SF tropes here for her own purposes. She's clearly fond of the genre, despite some grumblings from that community about her supposed attitude to science fiction.

September's other standout reading experience was Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan, which I've reviewed here.

After a run of solid-to-sublime Philip K. Dick novels in July and August, I stumbled a little with The Unteleported Man, which is still a good book, but not quite up to the standards of his acknowledged classics. It probably doesn't help that The Unteleported Man is an incomplete version of another novel, Lies, Inc. I'll have to read that one to see how it compares.

September's reading also included the final two-thirds of Jo Walton's alternate history "spare change" trilogy, three Peanuts collections, a better-than-average Star Trek tie-in (J.J. Miller's Takedown), and The League of Regrettable Superheroes, which I thought was a little unfair to Doll Man, but still amusing.

In September I screened the rest of the films cut together from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. television episodes, along with a pretty eclectic collection of film noir, musicals and Best Picture nominees. The worst was certainly Super Fuzz, about a cop with super-powers; badly shot, badly directed, painful dialogue, the works. On the other hand, I found Arch Obler's The Bubble utterly mesmerizing; it's a 3D picture about three people trapped in a town suddenly surrounded by a glass bubble (see Stephen King's Under the Dome for the same concept). Obler does a lot with a small budget; the film is creepy, with an atmosphere of slow, creepy suffocation perfectly in keeping with the given scenario. Excellent 3D effects, too. 1929's The Broadway Melody, a Best Picture nominee, is frankly pretty dull by today's standards, and even I found it a bit of a slog, despite my love of musicals and slower-paced fare. Ishirio Honda delivers dependable Japanese giant monster/space adventure fun with The H-Man and Battle in Outer Space; I never get tired of his work. Murder, My Sweet is one of the best Philip Marlowe movies, with Dick Powell as the hard-boiled private dick in a story with plenty of wonderful noir dialogue, betrayal, fear and cynicism. Great stuff. The Italian Connection serves as an interesting ancestor to Pulp Fiction, given its pairing of ice cold black and white hitmen. Plus Henry Silva gets crushed by a junkyard grappler, which I found amusingly macabre. 

August 2015 Review Roundup

I was pretty entertained by Ernest Cline's debut novel, Ready Player One. I found it charming if lightweight, a nostalgic look back on the video game culture of the 80s. Unfortunately, Cline's followup, Armada, fails to recreate the same magic. If you've seen The Last Starfighter, you've essentially read this book already. Even throwing a lampshade on the recycled plot doesn't help, particularly when the climax boils down to one of SF's oldest cliches.

I had a far richer reading experience with the nine Philip K. Dick novels I read in August: Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly, A Maze of Death, VALIS, The Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. You can read my reaction to Timothy Archer here. The rest were sublime in different ways; I'm very impressed by Dick's ability to tackle similar themes (the nature of reality and our place in it, essentially) with a wide variety of approaches. Nor did I expect to find Dick's characters so very sympathetic; I really cared about Dick's people, particularly the protagonists of Flow My Tears, A Maze of Death, VALIS, and the aforementioned Timothy Archer. I really regret that I came to appreciate Dick so late in life, but what a wonderful discovery nonetheless.

I also started Jo Walton's so-called "spare change" trilogy with Farthing, the first of three novels about creeping fascism in the UK in an alternate twentieth century. I'll say no more but that Jo Walton is great and she's been added to my list of must-read authors.

In film, I continued to torture myself with the rest of the Fast & Furious movies, each more ludicrous than the last. They're worth a laugh if little else.

The Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar surprised me with its faux-documentary format. Set in the days after Captain Archer but before Captain Kirk, Prelude to Axanar serves as a prequel to a more ambitious fan film about a war between the Federation and Klingons. With startling production values, professional actors and a decent script, this ranks among the best of the fan film canon.

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation almost reaches the heights of Ghost Protocol, and leaves audiences wanting more, assuming they can keep up this level of quality. More than just a string of action beats strung together, Rogue Nation sets the IMF against the Syndicate, an old enemy from the TV series. Unlike that old television staple, this film possesses a sense of humour, and kudos to Tom Cruise for injecting that humour into the proceedings without distracting from the thrills. Another smart action film in a series that's getting better with age.

I rounded out the month with six movies cobbled together from various two-part episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The TV series is generally better than the films, but these alternate versions are interesting for their historical value if nothing else. 

Dick's Final Revelation

Over the course of the last month I've read 13 novels by Philip K. Dick. It's been a revelation, and I choose that word carefully; Dick's later work is chiefly concerned with divine revelation, and nowhere does that theme resonate more poignantly than in his last novel, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

Written from the perspective of the title character's daughter-in-law, Angel Archer, and set against the backdrop of the assassination of John Lennon, Dick explores the nature of religion (and, ultimately, the universe) via the later life of one Timothy Archer, Bishop of California, a man struggling with the implications of an archaeological find that threatens his faith. Angel inadvertently contributes to Archer's eventual fall from grace by introducing him to her friend Kirsten; she and the bishop have an affair, and to make matters worse her own husband, Timothy's son, falls in love with Kirsten and eventually commits suicide, torn between his infatuation and his father.

In Angel, Dick has created a rich, sympathetic protagonist; she's smart, compassionate, quick witted and skeptical, and she bears the burden of her losses with great strength. Angel presents her self as non-Christian (or non-whatever, given the context of the religious discussion), and her doubt is essential to understanding Timothy's path. The bishop has doubts of his own, but true to his convictions (and faults), he searches for revelation and dies, appropriately, in the desert that gave birth to the Abrahamic religions.

As in Dick's other best works, the author displays a keen sense of empathy and compassion for all of his characters; there are no villains here, just flawed individuals, each following his or her own truth to its logical conclusion.

While I myself am an atheist, I'm very glad to have read this moving and insightful novel about faith and the search for meaning. It seems clear to me that Dick was a very deep thinker with serious questions about the nature of reality, and in his later works (for example, VALIS and The Divine Invasion before Archer), he's clearly trying to come to grips with his own beliefs. I wonder what he wound up believing in the end, and I hope he found the answers he was clearly looking for. 

July 2015 Review Roundup

I read a dozen books in July, putting me back on track to meet this year's goal. I started the month with four novels by Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Ubik. SF critics have sung Dick's praises for quite some time, and while I read Castle and Sheep as a tween I clearly wasn't mature enough to delight in their genius at the time; I stopped reading Dick back then. But I'm glad I gave the man's work a second chance, because all four novels are deep and delightful. I was particularly struck by their humanity; Dick's characters may not know who they are, what they want or where they're going, but they often display remarkable empathy; they're almost always in pain, and they have enemies, but they don't often hate - and when they do, even the hate is tainted with love. Sheep is probably my favourite of the four; Ridley Scott's adaptation of the novel, Blade Runner, is a great work itself, but its source material examines the quality of human empathy with astounding richness. It's one of those cases where book and film stand as masterpieces in their own right, each benefiting from its differences from the other.

Two novels by Peter Cline, 14 and The Fold, can't hold a candle to Dick's style and themes, but they're entertaining diversions of pan-dimensional conspiracy and warfare.

Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell made a big splash on the SF awards circuit about a decade ago, but I haven't read it until now mostly because of its intimidating size and teeny tiny print. But if you like Dickens, Austen and Victorian-era shenanigans with magic and demons, this is an entertaining ride. It's not particularly deep and perhaps a bit too twee in its efforts to ape the style of the era, but I enjoyed it well enough.

Allen Steele's V-S Day is an alternate history page-turner with an interesting premise, but its flashback structure robs that premise of much of its power. What if World War II was decided not by the A-bomb, but by the space race? Well, we never find out, other than obliquely. Maybe there'll be a sequel. (Actually, this novel serves as a loose prequel to Steele's earlier The Tranquility Alternative, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.)

In July I punished myself with the painful SF flop Jupiter Ascending and the first two films in the long-running Fast & Furious action franchise: The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious. Jupiter Ascending was ludicrous, but I have to admit that its Cinderella-like premise gave it a tiny bit of heart. The Fast & Furious films are curiously compelling, like the car wrecks that feature so heavily in their stories. In these films the roles of good and evil are curiously inverted; we're meant to sympathize with criminals and abhor the police, even though the protagonists are depicted as outright robbers who endanger innocent lives. Paul Walker's undercover cop character isn't fully sympathetic until he switches sides and joins the drag-racing thieves. And yet, the films are watchable thanks to over-the-top stunts, a decent amount of charisma distributed among its admittedly multicultural cast, and some laugh-out-loud dumbery.

I eased my pain with a pair of documentaries, the beautiful, heartbreaking Life Itself (about the life of critic Roger Ebert) and The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? (about the death of the film The Death of Superman.) Life Itself is the far more accomplished film, difficult to watch during many segments as Ebert lives with his cancer; the Superman documentary is probably only of interests to comic book fans.

In July I also screened the surprisingly excellent SF alien invasion thriller Edge of Tomorrow; Tom Cruise pulls a Groundhog Day during a space war, and as a result only he can save the world - but not without dying a bunch of times first.

I was led to baseball film The Natural by Randy Newman's brilliant, tears-inspiring inspirational score; I wanted to hear the music in context. The film doesn't disappoint in that respect; the exuberant scenes on the ball diamond are very exhilarating. But the film as a whole left me a little cold, mostly because the eventual triumph of Robert Redford's protagonist seems a little unearned.

I rounded out the month with blaxploitation classic Cotton Comes to Harlem, nimble Korean actioner The Raid: Redemption, Sherlock Holmes pastiche The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and Robert Altman's neo-noir The Long Goodbye. All very solid for their respective genres.

I also screened Ant-Man this month; you can read my positive review here.