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Review of Brett Petersen’s The Parasite from Proto Space & Other Stories: The 2020 Anthology from Before the Golden Age

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Brett Petersen’s The Parasite from Proto Space & Other Stories has been compared to the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, and Charles Bukowski, among others. Suppose I told you that I not only agreed, but added Frank Herbert, Sam Delany, and Olaf Stapledon to that lustrous list, and added them after reading just the first two stories in Petersen’s anthology. In the words of Ringo, would you stand up and walk out on me? If you did, that would be your loss.

Because Peterson’s stream-of-consciousness, metaphor-of-metaphor prose hits all of that at times, and sometimes more. The 2020 anthology feels like it was written sometime in the 1930s to the early 1950s, that is, before the height of the Golden Age of Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, even though its stories were written just a few years ago. The parasite in the title story is what used to be called, before and during the Golden Age, a bug-eyed-monster, except this BEM offers observations such as, “He turned the doorknob, which felt like one of Frosty the Snowman’s testicles.” Ok, there’s no way that could have been published in the 1930s. But that’s what makes The Parasite so strikingly original. It feels as if was written almost a hundred years ago, when Hugo Gernsback was riding high, but its attitudes and language smack you in the face with today.

Other stories feature worms from another dimension that eat our memories (not computer worms eating computes memories); a sentient goat, eppes (my word, Yiddish, tough to translate), that also gets hijacked to another dimension, apparently connected in some way to the one with the memory-eating worms; and— well, I’m not going capsule-summarize every story in this gonzo book.

Nor do I love every tale in this anthology. There’s a dark neo-pre-cyberpunk ambience coursing through the stories, sometimes too dark for my usually sunny taste. A father tells his son, “it won’t always be like this” (so good), and that proves true with an ugly vengeance. I prefer a little more hope. Another story features a murderous building, but its inherent black humor—the tenants “yank their window shades down like a skirt blown up by an undercurrent from a sewer grate”—is overwhelmed by the grim. The truth is that there is just one story with an unambiguously happy ending in this anthology, a space-faring tale in which an unlikely hero stops an extra-terrestrial construction from shattering “every preconceived notion we had about the universe” and then humanity. And perhaps one more with an uplifting ending, if an afterlife story can really be happy. I would have preferred more than one and a half of these endings.

But be that as It may, Petersen’s way with words is superb, his dark imagination boundless, his eye for detail and logic in fleshing out these paranoid visions keen and impressive. If this sounds like your cup of tea, pick it up.



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Snowpiercer 1.1: Promising Hybrid

With the summer heat approaching, it's always good to see a show about the cold.  Even better, in this time of Coronavirus lock down, a series in which some of the people are crowded together, and one character even yearns "to be alone for one hour," is very welcome.

But does Snowpiercer, a series about what's left of humanity on a frozen Earth hurtling around the world on a huge, myriad-car train, have what it takes aside from the summer and COVID-19?  Based on the first episode (I haven't seen the 2013 movie or read the graphic novel on which the movie and hence the series is based), I'd say: Yes!

And that's not because of the science fiction, at least thus far, which is pretty standard and thin, for a dystopian thriller: a bit of suspended animation, cars that grow lush food, and the train itself.  But Snowpiercer has promise in the detective part of its story: a "tailee" (people who weren't invited onto the train, got on by jumping on, and are kept in the back) who was a homicide detective before the Earth grew cold, called upon by the people in charge on the train to solve a murder.

In other words, the post-apocalyptic train could be a real winner, not because of the train itself, but because of the great backdrop the train provides for a murder story.  I've always been a big fan of science fiction/detective hybrids - Isaac Asimov's robot detective stories, John Stith's "Nick Naught" detective stories - which inspired me to write my own blend of the genres in The Chronology Protection Case, The Silk Code, and other stories.

So, I'm up for watching and reviewing the rest of Snowpiercer, especially after the big twist at the end of the first episode.  I'll see you back here in a few days, after the second episode airs on TNT.






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Extraction: The Perfectly Ambiguous Ending and the Determining Quote

Hey, if you're up for an adrenalin rush and almost two hours of fast-paced machine-gunning action, you can't do better than Extraction on Netflix.  [spoilers follow]

Though, actually, Extraction is more than that.  It's a story of how a Rambo and the boy he's attempting to rescue against all odds form a real bond in the interstices of the non-stop action.  It's a story of betrayals and loyalties and just and unjust deserts.  A tale of irrepressible human emotion amidst all the bullets and blades.

But that's not what makes Extraction exceptional, and what I liked best about this movie.  It's the very ending.  We see Tyler, having just about brought Ovi to safety, get shot in the neck, and either fall or let himself fall off a bridge into the deep river below.   We see nothing, no one, rise up to the surface.  But eight months later, Ovi jumps into a pool, sits at the bottom, and swims back up to the surface.  He and we see a figure standing on the side of the pool.  It's not clear what Ovid sees.  But we the audience see a blurry figure who could be Tyler.   So the question is: Did Tyler really survive?  Or is what we are seeing just Ovi's imagination?  A perfectly ambiguous ending.

But where's what I think, and why.  Earlier in the movie, Ovi gives Tyler some advice.  "You know, you drown not by falling into a river.  But by staying submerged in it".  It's a quote from a book Ovi read in school.  And my guess is that's exactly what Tyler did when he jumped, badly wounded, off the bridge into the water below.  He fell into the river, but summoned all his strength to not stay submerged in it.  Why would the writer (Ande Parks), director (Sam Hargrave), or whoever it was, put this in the movie if not to provide this clue.

There's word that there will be a sequel, or maybe a prequel.  The filmmakers of course can go whichever way they choose.  But I think that in their hearts they know that Tyler survived.



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Decades Apart: Worth Keeping Close

I thought I'd resume reviewing one of the hidden little treasures of Amazon Prime Video: literally little, as short to very short, time-travel movies.

Decades Apart is a little under 20-minutes.  The 2018 short tells the story a phone call made by Diane in 1953 that unintentionally reaches Nathan in 2018.  A tender, charming, understandably awkward conversation ensues, and that's the movie.  Well, there's a little more.  When Diane runs out of coins to feed the telephone in the train station that has long been abandoned in 2018, Nathan rushes to what's left of the station to see her.  I won't tell you how that works out.

The strength of the movie is that tender, even touching, conversation, and the two cellos (by 2Cellos) that provide musical accompaniment.   Deborah Hahn is fine as Diane, and Martin Tylicki as Nathan. The telephone as an extra-sensory, even extra-dimensional instrument is something that goes back to the beginning of the 20th-century, and figured in music and postcards.  That was the part of Decades Apart that I liked best.



But there are let's call them temporal clunkers in the dialogue.  Diane protests that she's not a "telemarketer".  That term didn't come into common use until the 1970s.   The two talk about "landlines".  That term didn't come until use until the 1980s and later, when mobile phones began to become massively popular.

But I still found this little movie worth watching.  Kudos to director Andrew Di Pardo, and writers Andrew Di Pardo and Gilbert T. Laberge.  I look forward to seeing more of their work.

 
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Seberg: The Long Arc

Donald Trump almost daily attacks the FBI as criminal lowlives.  Ironically, back in the late 1960s, when the FBI was still under the racist J. Edgar Hoover's control, those Trumpian ravings were not untrue.

Seberg tells one of those true and outrageous stories.  Jean Seberg, a beautiful, young, blonde American actress wanted to do more than just act.  She wanted to really do some good in the world.  Her way of doing that was to give money and support to the Black Panther Party. That in itself would have infuriated Hoover's FBI.  But when she slept with a black activist, that really drove many in the FBI out of their minds and what little integrity they may have had.  They surveilled and hounded Seberg to the point where she attempted suicide.

Seberg tells that story, with the converging counterpoint of Jack, the one FBI man with a conscience. He reluctantly goes along with the increasing persecution of Jean Seberg until, eventually, after her unsuccessful attempt to take her life, and his wife's encouragement of his ethics, he can't persecute her any longer.  I have no idea if his character is based on a real character, a composite of people, or totally made up.  That's the way it is with docu-dranas.  But whatever his resemblance to the truth, Jack makes for a powerful dramatic character.

And Kristen Stewart, best known for her work in the Twilight movies, does an excellent job as Seberg, conveying the combination of resolute social decency and vulnerability to those who wanted to bring her down, that made her life both eminently worthwhile and so painfully difficult to continue.  If there's any consolation in her story, if that we've become at least a somewhat more just society over the years.

But we're by no means there yet, and, pending the results of the election this coming November, we may have a longer way to go than most people would have predicted just a few years ago.

 
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The Goldfinch: The Burden of Immortality

My wife and I saw trailers for The Goldfinch in those bygone pre-Coronavirus days last Spring, when we went out to the movies.  But we didn't get a chance to see it in the Fall.  It therefore was a real pleasure to finally see it on Amazon Prime Video last night.  The movie is a tour-de-force, even a masterpiece, about the intersection of timeless art and the vicissitudes of human life.  "The Goldfinch" is a real Dutch Golden Age painting by Carel Fabritius, a student of Rembrandt's. The movie is based on a real novel by Donna Tartt about a series of fictitious events surrounding the painting, which I haven't read.

The narrative begins when a terrorist's bomb kills young Theodore Decker's mother during their visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (another place I miss even driving by in these locked-in months).  He leaves with a painting that also survived the bomb, "The Goldfinch," which an old man, another victim of the bombing, urges Theo to take.  The next decade or more of his life, and the rest of the movie, is dedicated to Theo's keeping himself and the painting alive.  He navigates, sometimes expertly, the various family members, girls, women, friends, and players in the fine art and and antique business.

Oakes Fegley as young Theo and Ansel Elgort as his older self are just superb.  My favorite character other than Theo is Jeffrey Wright as James "Hobie" Hobart, whose explanations about the enduring differences between antiques and repros, and it the difference between mortal humanity and an immortal painting, and why it is therefore so crucial that the immortal painting survive, are non-pareil, in movies or anywhere.  And Wright delivers these talks perfectly - indeed, I like his performance in The Goldfinch even more than in Westworld and various commercials,  Other memorable performances include Ashleigh Cummings as Pippa, Theo's truest love, and Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard as young Theo's friend young Boris, who will play a game-changing role in Theo's later life.  For her part, Cummings manages to convey the deep, complex love she has for Theo, which may be immortal but doesn't always lead to happy endings.

There's a great artistic ambience in The Goldfinch, including the music of Glenn Gould (if you're interested in his virtuoso work and its continuing impact, check out Alida Altemburg's DMajor TV and her Glenn Gould page). And the New York City ambience, the restaurants and the busy streets, make me want to get out there and back there even more.   But like the painting, The Goldfinch movie transcends current catastrophes and even the pandemic, my guess it will be watched and appreciated forever.

 

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Baptiste 1: Logic, Passion, and Unflappability

If you loved Julien Baptiste and his talent for finding missing children in the two seasons of The Missing (reviewed by me here and here), you'll love him in the spinoff he has on PBS, under his own name, Baptiste.

The second season of The Missing ended with Baptiste struggling to solve the missing-girl case with a tumor in his brain.  He solves the case, brilliantly.  But his future as a consulting detective is far from clear.  In Baptiste, we learn that "he's not the man" he was, but gets pulled into a another missing girl case, which soon becomes much more than that, as Baptiste finds himself battling some European mega-gang that threatens not only him but his family.

And it turns out that, despite his protestations, he's every bit as sharp as he needs to be.  And he needs to be sharp indeed, as the case develops, and everyone involved including members of his family and other police become suspect.  Tchéky Karyo is just perfect in the lead role, cementing Baptiste's place as an all-time logical, compassionate, usually unflappable, unique detective.

Tom Hollander, who made an excellent contribution to The Night Manager and many other series, puts in another memorable performance in Baptiste as Edward Stratton who until almost the very end walks a fine line between villain and hero.   And he's not the only character who may be playing both sides, offering a never-ending challenge to Baptiste's considerable powers of deduction.

Most of the action takes place in Amsterdam, where the world-renown Red Light District, aka der Wallen, provides an ideal backdrop for Baptiste's and the good guys' battle against the flesh-dealing gang, whose propensity for swiftly killing anyone who gets in their way seems almost preternatural.  Among the police, Europol's Genevieve, well played by Jessica Raine, was my favorite.

There's always been a Sherlock Holmesian quality to Julien Baptiste.  If that's your cup of tea, don't miss this.

See also The Missing 1: Worth Finding and The Missing 2: Unforgettable




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Killing Eve 3.6: Wounded

Well, wounded applies to at least two major characters in Killing Eve 3.6, just on BBC America tonight.

First. as I intimated in my review of episode 3.4, Niko wasn't killed by the pitchfork in his neck, after all.  As I often say, in the metaphysics of television drama, someone is not 100% dead for sure unless you see the head literally blown or cut off (and, even then, if it's 24...).  Since Nico got prongs only in his neck, I figured there at leas was a fair chance he survived.  Which he did.  But not his wanting to be with Eve, although that was already pretty well gone, too.  But now we hear him, in a voice reminiscent of the late Stephen Hawking, tell Eve just what he'd like her to do.  Not stay with him, in terms a little more vivid.

But there's another wound suffered tonight, this one by Villanelle.  Not that she hasn't been hurt before on the job, but this stab in the arm carries a big symbolic significance:  she doesn't want to do this kind of work any more.  She's been saying that since the beginning of this season.  She wants to assign people to do the killings, not do them herself.

But speaking of killings, Konstantin's daughter happily does one, too, before the episode is over.  He figures in a lot of different subplots tonight, the most interesting (to me, at least) actually being not his own daughter, but what is going on exactly between him and Fiona's daughter.  He may be Kenny's father.  Would he sleep with Fiona's daughter, knowing that there's even a chance that she could be his daughter, too?  This means either he knows for certain that he's not her father, or they didn't sleep together, or both.

Provocative possibilities.  Now that I'm all caught up with Killing Eve, I'll try my best to get in my reviews of the last two episodes of this season in a more timely way.

See also Killing Eve 3.1: Whew! ... Killing Eve 3.2: Bringing It Into Focus ... Killing Eve 3.3: The Third Time's the Charm ... Killing Eve 3.4: Tip Toe Through the Tulips ... Killing Eve 3.5: The Darkness

And see also Killing Eve 2.1: Libido and Thanatos ... Killing Eve 2.2: Villanelle as Victim ... Killing Eve 2.3 Lipstick ... Killing Eve 2.6: Billie ... Killing Eve 2.7: Death and Sex ... Killing Eve Season 2 Finale: Possibilities After the End

And see also Killing Eve: Highly Recommended (Season 1)


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Killing Eve 3.5: The Darkness

An excellent, standalone episode of Killing Eve - 3.5 - in which Villanelle gets to go back to Mother Russia and her family.

It was clear, or at least I realized, from the beginning that Villanelle was going to kill all or at least some of her family after spending some time with them.  After all, she is a psychopathic or sociopathic (I'm never clear what exactly the difference is) killer.  But it was nice the way it played out.

She spared her brother and the boy (her half-brother) who loved Elton John.  (I've been saying the music is really great this season.)  Both of them were good to her.  So she was good to them.  She was especially good to the boy, leaving him a big wad of rubles sufficient to see Elton John in a farewell concert.  My wife and I saw him in his farewell concert in Hempstead, Long Island in November 2018 (my review is here).  We paid big bucks for that, and it was well worth it.  But it's been a long farewell tour.  Elton John has taken his time saying goodbye to that yellow brick road (sorry, couldn't resist).  So it makes sense that he'd still be touring in this episode of Killing Eve, fortunately written and recorded before the pandemic that's made most concerts around the world virtual (see, for example, mine on April 4, 2020).

But back to Villanelle, what pushes her over the edge, and brings out her killer instinct, is her mother saying she has a darkness within.  Villanelle replies that she her mother has the darkness.  Both statements are true.  But why did Villanelle have to kill her?   See the second paragraph above.

One question: was there anyone in the burning house other than Villanelle's mother?  Maybe not, but tough to say.  We didn't see anyone else - only her mother on the floor.  Anyway, it was a good close to an apt and important episode.  I'm going to watch tonight's episode now, and be back with a review if I'm not too tired,

See also Killing Eve 3.1: Whew! ... Killing Eve 3.2: Bringing It Into Focus ... Killing Eve 3.3: The Third Time's the Charm ... Killing Eve 3.4: Tip Toe Through the Tulips

And see also Killing Eve 2.1: Libido and Thanatos ... Killing Eve 2.2: Villanelle as Victim ... Killing Eve 2.3 Lipstick ... Killing Eve 2.6: Billie ... Killing Eve 2.7: Death and Sex ... Killing Eve Season 2 Finale: Possibilities After the End

And see also Killing Eve: Highly Recommended (Season 1)


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Killing Eve 3.4: Tip Toe Through the Tulips

Just catching up with Killing Eve, I just watched episode 3.4.  A powerful episode - like every episode this season, and every episode in the series, I suppose - with two very notable things:

1. Villanelle had one of her best killings, which is to say one of my favorites, of the season.  She strangles an old lady in her garden.  No big deal as a mode of killing, so why one of my favorites?  Because we're treated to Tiny Tim singing "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" as Villanelle kills her.  What's great about that?  Well, here's Tim's hit record.  A masterpiece, and just perfect accompaniment for a Villanelle kill.

2. But old ladies figure in all kinds of ways in this episode.  Villinalle's handler is an old lady, but we've seen her before.   Someone we haven't seen is an old bird in Poland, where Eve's husband Niko has decamped.  Eve is thrilled when he starts texting her.  But it's the Polish woman using Niko's phone.  And when Eve, thinking Niko wants her back, joyfully comes to Poland to reunite with him, she gets something quite else: the old lady killed Niko (assuming he's dead and not just badly wounded) with a pitchfork.  Another great killing scene, in a season in which Eve has witnessed all too many of them.

I should say that the music in this series, though always good, has really stepped up a good notch this season.   My only regret is that Tim is still not around to enjoy this renaissance.  He died in 1996.  Not killed, fortunately, by Villanelle, or anyone else.  Alas, he died of a heart attack, which he suffered when singing, yep, "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" in that wonderful falsetto.  Poetic justice?  Well, no, I wouldn't call his death justice - he didn't deserve to die - but there was something poetic in his dying when singing his signature song.  I wonder if that's what moved the produced of Killing Eve to feature it in this episode?

See also Killing Eve 3.1: Whew! ... Killing Eve 3.2: Bringing It Into Focus ... Killing Eve 3.3: The Third Time's the Charm

And see also Killing Eve 2.1: Libido and Thanatos ... Killing Eve 2.2: Villanelle as Victim ... Killing Eve 2.3 Lipstick ... Killing Eve 2.6: Billie ... Killing Eve 2.7: Death and Sex ... Killing Eve Season 2 Finale: Possibilities After the End

And see also Killing Eve: Highly Recommended (Season 1)


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