Adrian Collins's Blog, page 148

REVIEW: Blade Runner 2049

Famously, Ridley Scott and Phillip K. Dick disagreed on the role of androids in their versions of the same story. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, they represent imperfect copies of human beings. Soulless mockeries of people who resemble more Robert Chalmer’s “philosophical zombie” than actual people. In Ridley Scott’s version, they represent the dehumanization of minorities and people by the elite and upper class.

There’s been a massive number of interpretations of Blade Runner since it’s release and it’s become one of the most influential films of all time despite being an initial box office bomb. Do Replicants have a soul? Do we? In Christian interpretations of the film, Roy Batty kills God to become his own man but then becomes as Jesus to redeem himself. In a Buddhist interpretation of the film, there’s no self and Roy realizes he and Decker are as one. The fact Decker might be a Replicant himself only highlights this combination. So with a film that has so much baggage, why make a sequel thirty years later? The answer could be money (and probably is for the financiers) but in Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve seems to have done so for the art instead.

At two hours and forty minutes long, Blade Runner 2049 gets far more into the world building which was only alluded to in the original film. Whereas Blade Runner was primarily influential for its style, its sequel tries to bring to life the planet in ways we didn’t get to observe before. We learn how most people live, eat, breed, and believe in the world of 2049. Villeneuve is clearly in love with the Blade Runner world and I’d argue he’s done an excellent job of extrapolating how it might look thirty years from the moment the elevator doors closed on Sean Young and Harrison Ford in The Final Cut.

But is it good? I think it’s a masterpiece but this is going to be the kind of movie you have to set down and reserve three hours to enjoy. This is a slow paced movie that, honestly, could have been tightened up by at least forty minutes and would have probably lost very little. Really, it feels like two different movies in the same way The Dark Knight Rises did. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded two films from this movie as while the movie is slow, it’s never boring. It just requires you to pay complete attention if you’re going to get everything you can out of it.

The premise is K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner in the year 2049. The Tyrell Corporation has gone bankrupt and been bought out by the functionally identical Wallace Corporation. During one of his missions, he discovers evidence of a Replicant who gave birth to a child and he is ordered by his Captain (Robin Wright) to eliminate all evidence of her as a mixed human-Replicant child or even a born Replicant could humanize them too much. The Wallace Corporation, who has been unable to produce breedable Replicants, immediately dispatches their agents to find said child. It isn’t really a spoiler to state the Replicant who gave birth was Rachel (Sean Young) or the father was Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

K is an interesting character because he’s basically the Deckard many people believed the “Deckard is a Replicant” character would be. He’s a slave hunter who exists to enjoy the simple pleasures of his 1950s housewife-esque A.I. Joi (Ana de Armas) and doing his job with a stoic professionalism. The existence of the child has a profound effect on him but one that takes a while to manifest. His arc is the central portion of the movie and proceeds in a believable and subtle manner.

I’m one of the viewers who actually doesn’t believe Joi is any more sentient than Siri or Cortana. I believe she’s a program designed to tell him what he wants to here and has as much meaning as a romantic partner as I have with Leliana from Dragon Age or Lara Croft in a self-insert fanfic. Nevertheless, the movie asks us to reflect on what she means to him whether she’s a being with no inner life or not.

I was also fascinated by the character of Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) and found a more intriguing character than K in many ways. The favored slave of Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), she is in the uncertain position of being entirely replacable. I appreciate whenever we get fascinating female villains in movies, especially when their threat doesn’t rely on their sexuality. I actually may have found her a bit too fascinating as I was hoping for a much bigger role for her than that of antagonist. Nevertheless, Sylvia Hoeks is mesmerizing every time she’s on screen.

Fans of Harrison Ford are going to have mixed feelings on the subject because he doesn’t really appear until the third act. Even so, he makes excellent use of his time and I think he had a lot of fun in the film. I actually have a photo of the filming where he accidentally clocks Ryan Gosling during one of their fight scenes and his embarrassment.

Are there any flaws? I think the movie could have been tighter and I’m not actually all that sold on the “science” of it or the implications. The idea a Replicant being capable of having the children of humans strikes me as less revolutionary than it might be given they seem so human as is and plenty of persecuted minorities have children with their persecutors yet that didn’t do them a damn bit of good. Yet, certainly, I understand why it meant a great deal to the Replicants.

There’s a good number of sub-themes spread throughout the movie I felt were worthy of discussion. These include environmentalism, objectification, and poverty. One of the more seemingly extraneous parts of the film has K visit a massive child labor sweatshop in the middle of America where thousands of children are forced to disassemble electronics for food. These aren’t Replicants, who are at least valuable property, but the children of the destitute who are left to fend for themselves. It’s a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man being every bit as vile in this setting as it is to their creation.

Some viewers have criticized the movie’s handling of female characters and I think that’s a really bizarre field to choose as a battleground. This is a movie with more female parts than men and all of them with great variety. Joi and Mariette are sex workers but the movie is in large part about objectification. I do think Robin Wright’s character should have ordered K to sleep with her during one scene because the way the scene resolved didn’t work for me but, otherwise, this is a society where sex is just another commodity people are forced to traffic in.

Visually, the film is stunning and there’s a lot of long tracking shots of the environment. Oddly, a few of the scenes felt a bit out of place like the fact the planet has a massive solar farm which is bigger than anything in our coal guzzling world. Apparently, humans in this world have learned to get past their oil guzzling ways. There’s also little bits of world building which worked well like the fact K has his own apartment in the worst part of town but its still nicely furnished and more than many homeless humans loitering outside his home have.

Action-wise, there’s not much to speak of as the fights are incredibly short but brutal. K is superhuman so he can take a pounding which other, regular, humans can’t but he’s usually quite brutal in dispatching his foes. This isn’t an action movie, though, but a mystery and there’s only a few such scenes peppered through the film. Still, one of the few parts of the film which could have been cut for time is a long fight scene between Deckard and K in the middle of a crumbling casino. While I’m sure Harrison Ford wants to get these in while he can–I think it would have been better just focusing on their words.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this movie and think it’s a worthy sequel to the original. This movie didn’t do great in theaters but I hope it will find itself a new life on DVD and streaming. So, definitely pick it up if you have the chance.

Watch Blade Runner 2049

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REVIEW: The Complete Chronicles of Conan

For sword-swinging, camel-punching action, there’s no protagonist who looms quite as large in the history of fantasy as Conan the Barbarian. Of course, he’s quite different in the books than the films—more cunning, more aware of deception. While I love the film, it’s a shame it looms so large in the public imagination compared to the fiction.

[image error]Every scrap, poem, and paper has been put into The Complete Chronicles of Conan. It takes the publication order of these stories, instead of the chronological approach that had been tried by L. Sprague de Camp.

This gives the whole book a feeling of sitting around listening to someone tell stories. It’s rare for someone to tell their life story in one long methodical rush, and this less methodical approach feels far more evocative for someone like Conan. We get stories of Conan being the King of Aquilonia, we get stories of Conan as a youth. We see him as a pirate with Belit, and a thief, all out of order but fitting together regardless.

Robert E. Howard’s writing style was crisp and vibrant. His mastery of action scenes is well-discussed, but he made even the smaller scenes strong. Background description made his Hyborean Age come alive. He was an absolute master of pacing, and even his longer works maintained a constant momentum throughout. His characters were never complex, but they were stark and bold.

With the exception of The Hour of the Dragon, they’re all short stories. In addition, The Complete Chronicles of Conan has three stories—Drums of Tombalku, Wolves Beyond the Border, and The Snout in the Dark—that are drafts, The Hall of the Dead, which is just a synopsis, and The Hand of Nergal, which is just a fragment of a never-finished story.

Of all the Conan stories, The Tower of the Elephant is one of the most famous, and feels the most like the ur-text for all other Conan stories. Conan and a thief team up to rob a wealthy wizard of his treasure, and that wizard has powers, and victims, greater than expected.

“’Take your sword, man, and cut out my heart; then squeeze it so that the blood will flow over the red stone. Then go you down these stairs and enter the ebony chamber where Yara sits wrapped in lotus-dreams of evil. Speak his name and he will awaken. Then lay this gem before him, and say, “Yag-kosha gives you a last gift and a last enchantment.” Then get you from the tower quickly; fear not, your way shall be made clear. The life of man is not the life of Yag, nor is human death the death of Yag. Let me be free of this cage of broken blind flesh, and I will once more be Yogah of Yag, morning-crowned and shining, with wings to fly, and feet to dance, and eyes to see, and hands to break.”

I am also a fan of the very similar story Rogues in the House, which adds in the twist of an angry and intelligent ape. Red Nails, another classic, has both a dragon and an ongoing blood feud between two factions in a secret city.

Read The Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard

If you liked this, you should try:

Gollancz also put out a book called Conan’s Brethren that features Bran Mak Morn, Kull the Conqueror, Solomon Kane, and several of Howard’s historical stories as well.

My absolute favorite story that Robert E Howard ever wrote is Worms of the Earth, a Bran Mak Morn story about how far the leader of a dying people should go for revenge. After a couple of his people are crucified by Romans, Bran Mak Morn embarks on a quest to see revenge through, including making a deal with a terrifying witch.

“There was a stir, a seething in the writhing shadows, and from the darkness crept, like a four-legged animal, a human shape that fell down and groveled at Bran’s feet and writhed and mowed, and lifting a death’s-head, howled like a dying dog. In the ghastly light, Bran, soul-shaken, saw the blank glassy eyes, the bloodless features, the loose, writhing, froth-covered lips of sheer lunacy—gods, was this Titus Sulla, the proud lord of life and death in Eboracum’s proud city?

Bran bared his sword.

“I had thought to give this stroke in vengeance,” he said somberly. “I give it in mercy—Vale Caesar!“

Howard was one of the undisputed masters of sword and sorcery, and is worth the read nearly a century later. All of these stories are old, and plenty are in the public domain on Project Gutenberg. But despite that age difference the writing remains as vivid as it ever did.

Read Conan’s Brethren by Robert E. Howard

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REVIEW: Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

The concluding volume of The Nevernight Chronicle has cemented the view in my mind that Jay Kristoff deserves to be placed among the great grimdark authors. Darkdawn is a brilliant conclusion to the trilogy, it answers every question, ties off every loose thread, and does so in a witty, violent, and thoroughly engrossing way. Darkdawn is the promised crescendo of Mia’s story and it does not disappoint.

One of my absolute favourite things that I have discovered about Jay Kristoff’s writing through completing The Nevernight Chronicle is how hilariously self-aware he is. The opening page for example has the chronicler apologise for the ‘state’ the reader was left in at the end of Godsgrave and that they ‘seemed quite upset’ (which was true) and later on comments such as ‘it’s actually not a bad read. I mean if you don’t mind footnotes and a fuckload of cursing’ or ‘you can tell it was written by a man’ because of the way the sex scenes are described, provide not only some much needed light heartedness in the novel but also shows that Kristoff is clearly aware of some of the biggest criticisms of the trilogy and uses it to his advantage. As someone who quite liked the footnotes and does not mind the swearing, I found it hilarious.

The reader has known from the outset of the first novel that Mia will die. So it is not a spoiler to say that it happens in Darkdawn and that the whole novel builds up to the final promised battle between Mia and her nemesis, Consul Julius Scaeva. But even having known since the start of the first novel such a huge part of how it ends, the denouement of Darkdawn was still fantastic. There were twists, turns and heart breaking surprises even up to the final pages.

Just because the ending was truly an epic conclusion does not mean that Darkdawn was a slow burn novel in any way. The story begins straight after the concluding events of Godsgrave with Mia in the bowels of the gladiator arena and sprints straight in to the action. Darkdawn has a much faster pace than its predecessors and maintains a sense of earnestness and import until the grand finale. Reading it felt in some ways like a mirror of the events of the novel, with no safe place to stop, a huge sense of urgency and near constant tension. Firstly, I think this relentless speed comes because Darkdawn mostly follows the present timeline of Mia’s life and having already provided us with all the supporting information Kristoff has less need to back fill our knowledge gaps to progress the narrative. The reduced use of footnotes also helps speed up the reader and move them through the narrative quicker than in the earlier novels. Even the physical layout of the book encourages them to just keep on going. In Nevernight and Godsgrave when a chapter ended the remainder of the page was left blank so the end of chapters were good pausing points. Whereas in Darkdawn the next chapter begins straight away, with only the chapter subtitle stopping you from just reading on that little bit. Almost every time that meant I continued to read even though I really wanted to savour every sentence the novel had to offer.

I have said in my earlier review of Nevernight that I liked that it read more like an entertaining biography than a fictional novel. This has grown in Darkdawn through the revelation that the chronicle is a metafiction. The chronicler’s identity is discovered early on in Darkdawn and how this is done and the revelation that series is actually a novel within a novel was so utterly surprising that I gave up trying to predict how the journey was going to unfurl and decided to just enjoy the ride.

And what a ride gentlefriends. The more traditional structure of Darkdawn made it seem grand and all-encompassing in a way that the first two novel were not. It felt like a true epic, with Mia and her allies journeying across different places in Itreya, gathering allies, fending off Illuminati, winning some fights, losing others. The final battle was as destructive as it has been promised to be from the beginning, and it was an exceptionally written clash of titans. Even having anticipated it all the way through the series I was utterly invested in how that final battle played out.

Darkdawn was a bittersweet read; I loved almost every word of it. At times it broke my heart, I did not want it to end, but I wanted there to be a happy ending (which as we know is rare in grimdark). I desperately wanted to keep some characters safe, I was glad to see the gruesome demise of others. It is a hugely satisfying end to the trilogy and although Mia’s story is complete, I still want more from this world and if Jay Kristoff ever does return to the Red Church I will gladly devour that novel too.

Read Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

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REVIEW: Angels of Death E9: Slaughter

When I saw the name of Angels of Death E9 I knew we were at the epic bloody climax of this season, and Slaughter did not disappoint. This episode was absolutely brimming with awesome.

In Slaughter, Hadrael the techmarine goes to war with Ignius the dreadnaught by his side to try and free The Sword of Baal. Ignius is everything you’d want from a dreadnaught, with the walking tank mowing down the endless tide of Tyranid enemies in brutal and unrelenting fashion.

In the void above, the bridge crew on The Sword of Baal valiantly prepare for the end, pistols drawn, and bloodied and beaten crew preparing to destroy their ship to stop the Tyranid horde from taking it. I like they way the story and animation team spent time with the crew to depict this moment. In the end, it’s easy to showcase the space marines in all their bloody, post0human glory. It’s far harder to depict the people with just a uniform and their courage standing in the way of certain death.

On the ground (well, in the orbital tower) Orpheo and his remaining Blood Angels prepare to breach the inner sanctum while the Tyranid Patriarch awaits them inside. A collision of human flesh and chitinous alien bone armour is about to happen in epic proportions.

This episode is an overall good watch, bringing together most of the storylines we’ve been following for the last eight episodes. We get what feels like an enjoyable closure to the battle and arc of the characters, with one nice sleight of hand twist at the end.

Unfortunately some of the action seems a bit rushed, especially that against the Patriarch, which just didn’t look as good as some of the other battle scenes. Once again, the poor choice of sound effects stick out and robbed one scene in particular of enjoyment. It was somewhat made up for by the epic dreadnaught wading into battle, and by the eruption of the black rage once more, though.

Overall, Slaughter was a fun episode and I am so pumped to see the 10th and final episode. I will definitely have some thoughts on the wrapping up of the first full season on WarhammerTV, so stay tuned for more.

Watch Angels of Death E9: Slaughter

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REVIEW: The Wheel of Time E5: Blood Calls Blood

The series may have started limply but by The Wheel of Time E5: Blood Calls Blood, this show is starting to become must see television. The adaptation of Robert Jordan’s beloved series is starting to hit its stride and this week is yet another example of how much the show has improved since that first uninspiring episode. Game of Thrones can take a break; there’s a new fantasy darling in town that will appeal to fantasy fans and casual fans alike.

Blood Calls Blood displays the confidence of the writers and the excellent cast. Moving at a quicker pace than in the novels, some of our heroes from Two Rivers arrive at the White Tower as the fake Dragon Reborn is dragged in a cage into the heart of Tar Valon. Tar Valon – the spectacular home of the Aes Sedai pulls the cast back together as they deal with the fallout from the last episode. Mat continues his journey into his full blown emo phase and Rand does his best to keep things light as he wanders through the city and meets the amazingly wonderful, Loial, an Ogier. The peaceful, slow talking Ogier is a highlight of the episode and a character that fans of the series and newcomers will instantly love (even if he is slightly altered from the novels). Loial casually identifies Rand as an Aiel – a warrior race from the desert lands to the east, and he finds it amusing when Rand denies this. Egwene and Perrin are captured by the malicious Children of Light and the sadistic Eamon Valda tortures Perrin to test Egwene and force her into channelling. Valda is played to perfection as he revels in his sick game of torture until a pack of wolves suddenly arrive…

The heart of Blood Calls Blood belongs to the gang leading the Logaine into the city. Moiraine’s Warder, Lan, worries about losing the person he cares for most as he watches his friend, Stepin, fall into despair and grief. The episode really shows the viewer how strong the connection is between the Aes Sedai and their Warders and it is heart breaking to watch Stepin unable to deal with his grief. The moments of emotion in the episode are powerful and really force the show to step it up a level. We have connected with the characters and now the writers play with those connections by putting them through hell. The Wheel of Time E5 is proof that this is a show that knows exactly what it is doing. There is even a hint of Game of Thrones in the politics of The White Tower as the Aes Sedai make a play for Nynaeve.

Blood Calls Blood is a near perfect episode of fantasy television. The pace may be quicker than the novel but the writing is tight and the cast is perfect in their roles. Packed with emotion, the episode is the best one yet and a sign that the series is on its way to be one of the greatest fantasy shows in the history of television. Stunning scenery, excellent writing, and an emotional ending that ends the episode on a perfect note. Blood Calls Blood blends the high fantasy of Lord of the Rings grit of Game of Thrones. I can’t wait for episode 6.

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An Interview With Ken Liu

Ken Liu is an author of both long and short-form speculative fiction; his short story collections The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories each won Locus awards for best collections. And his silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, won a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award. Aside from being a prolific writer, Liu has worked as a translator, software engineer, and lawyer.  

I had the great honor of chatting with Liu about some of his approaches to story creation, and how technology, law, and software creation overlap, as well as his epic series The Dandelion Dynasty. 

[GdM] I read an article where you said, “Tech, law and publishing might seem like three unrelated careers, but…all three jobs required symbolic systems to construct “machines” that achieved specific results. (link)” Could you elaborate on how these three spheres of thought are similar and how they diverge?

[KL] First, it’s a pleasure to talk to you and your readers. Thank you.

As a programmer, a lawyer, and an author, I’m always writing, for machines and also for people. In each case, I’m constructing machines out of symbols that solve specific problems, and they do this by making use of rules in different systems. In a program, these are the rules of computation in a universal Turing Machine. In a contract or brief, these are the legal rules of the particular jurisdiction as well as the rules of interpretation and enforcement followed by authorities in that jurisdiction. In a story or novel, these are the set of grammars and interpretive frameworks, unique to every reading community, that readers deploy to bring the words on the page to life.

Constructing machines is, of course, the bread and butter of engineering. And the aesthetics of craft are similar in every case. Much advice about programming—balance, structure, clarity of expression, self-documenting code, the preference for simplicity, functional design, striving to do more with less, know the language and the toolset—would apply just as well to legal drafting or fiction writing.

However, there is much more predictability and certainty at one end, when you’re writing for machines and abstract mathematical constructs, versus the other end, when you’re writing for people with individual life experiences, expectations, blind spots and insights, biases and hopes, that all inform each reader’s sui generis mind. In a very real sense, the story that the author leaves on the page is incomplete, for the reader must perform her half of the dance to animate the words with her unique view of life and finish the story. Authors must eventually accept that fiction is about giving up control, and stories only work when there is a bond of resonance between the reader and the writer. The more I write, the more I treasure that bond, which is so hard to find and maintain. It’s a miracle that any stories are understood at all.

[GdM] When talking about using symbolic systems for your chosen professions, would it be fair to say that there is also an implied importance in the specificity of word choice? Words themselves have power, especially in fields like computer engineering, law, and English. Does this specificity flow into your stories? Do you search for the perfect words to convey an idea?

[KL] Writers are always on the search for not just the perfect word, but also the perfect phrase, sentence, grammatical structure, rhetorical device … indeed, often to search is not enough, for what they want, need, crave doesn’t even exist, and they must invent it.

Milton did not write in some nondescript, generic tongue called “Early Modern English.” He had to invent his language suited to the task of justifying the ways of God to men: bending the vernacular to fit the syntax of Latin; blending allusions ancient and modern, biblical and scientific; seducing the reader into sin with classical rhetorical tropes before thundering them awake with Puritanical rage. Dickinson did not write in some idealized, bland grapholect called “19th-century American English.” She had to invent her language suited to portraying the vastness of existence in the dance of a single Bee and a single Clover, where each dash, each Capital Letter, each lilting enjambment – so musical and yet so contrary to a song! – is a moment of joy seized from gossamer Death.

Think of the writers you admire: Spencer, Nabokov, Lu Xun, Hughes, Le Guin, Faulkner, Stein, Woolf, Dillard, Sontag, McCarthy, Morrison – none of them bothered to write in the smooth, effortless language of everyday life, of business and instruction, of convention and cliché. Writers with something to say and worth reading don’t settle. They all searched and searched for the perfect language suited to what they had to say and, failing to find it, invented their own tongues. To read them, one must learn their idiolects; it is the only way to see the world they saw.

[image error][GdM] You are both a prolific short story author and a long-form novelist. Each of the two forms requires a different headspace, a different way to construct stories. Between the two forms of storytelling, which do you feel most at home in? Or are they so different that it is hard to compare them?

[KL] As you note, short fiction works completely differently from novels. Short stories are like insects, while novels are more like elephants. They don’t just differ as a matter of size—they have completely different body plans and physiologies, uniquely suited to the scale of the universe they must function in.

I’ve always enjoyed writing short fiction, but I write very few short stories (maybe a few a year). Almost everyone I know writes faster and more than I do, but because I published many of my stories, written over a long period of time, in a relatively short span early on, the illusion that I’m prolific persists.

I also write very few novels—really, only one: the Dandelion Dynasty series (which is like one very long book). But I’m lucky that my one novel is also the piece of fiction I’m proudest of. In it, I think I come closest to the language I need to tell the stories I want to tell.

[GdM] What was your inspiration for the short story, The Paper Menagerie, that won Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards? While I don’t have the same frame of reference as the characters in the story, the problems and interactions feels relatable. The magical parts of the story seems like a perfect extension of the relationship between the mother and son.

[KL] I wrote “The Paper Menagerie” originally for an anthology on wizards (spoiler: it didn’t get in). I wanted to come up with a different take on magic users than conventional ones, and at the time I was reading some personal narratives by women who are often described as “mail-order brides.” The courage and strength and resilience of these women moved me greatly, and so I decided to write a magic realist story inspired by their stories.

The themes of “The Paper Menagerie” are universal. Like the mother, we are all migrants from one life to another, whether it’s literal migration across political borders, or simply growing up and taking on new roles that you didn’t have before, and we must figure out how to be who we are while everyone else is telling us who we should be. Like the son, we all must deal with labels and prejudices others impose on us, and to struggle against self-hatred, to resist the cowardly desire to conform, to realize that our parents also have their own stories, to find how to fit our own story into all the stories out there, to grow in wisdom and strength until we are worthy of the love we’re given.

But “The Paper Menagerie” has also been misread. It’s a story about systemic racism and internalized racism, and how we don’t reflect enough on these issues and don’t stand up to hatred. However, I’ve often seen summaries of the story describe it as being about “an American father and Chinese mother, and their son, who is caught in the middle of their cultural conflict.” This is utter nonsense. Both the mother and the father are American – to deny that the mother is American is to implicitly equate Americanness with whiteness and to marginalize the American experience of immigrants, a core part of the American story. The son isn’t caught “in the middle” of anything. There is no “cultural conflict” here (which is a trope that comes from the racialized “clash of civilizations” narrative of colonial discourse), but pure and simple racism. Each time I see that the story is read to conform to the meta-narrative of systemic racism, I also hope that it’s an opportunity for readers to break free of the meta-narrative and see the story the way it’s meant to be seen.

[GdM] One of the things I appreciate about your short story writing is taking a metaphorical idea and boiling it down into a story that we readers can understand contextually. Is that a subconscious thing, or do you find a concept that moves you and write a story around it?

[KL] I think of my preferred mode of crafting short stories as “literalizing metaphors.” The world in my story is just a few steps to the side of ours, where some concept that we speak of metaphorically is literally true. We speak of love making the world coming alive, so in my story “The Paper Menagerie” love literally animates the paper animals. We speak of technology as magical, so in my story “Good Hunting” magic is literally and gradually replaced by technology. We speak of reading the book of nature, of writing shaping the way we think, of the orality of Internet discourse … so in my story “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” all of these metaphors about reading and writing become literally true.

When a metaphor is made tangible and real, there are ways to play with it and interrogate it that are simply impossible when the idea is merely a metaphor. The literalization can be done through a fantasy or science fictional lens (or any other genre), which is why I don’t care much about genre labels. Ultimately, it’s the specifics of what I can do with the literalized metaphor that interests me, not the broad framework through which that literalization takes place.

[GdM] You are releasing book three of The Dandelion Dynasty called The Veiled Throne . Could you tell us a bit about The Dandelion Dynasty in general for people who have not gotten the pleasure of reading it yet?

[KL] Absolutely! The Dandelion Dynasty is a four-volume silkpunk epic fantasy series that took up the bulk of my time and creative energy over a ten-year period. The Veiled Throne, as you note, is the third volume. While writing the series, I learned a lot about myself as a writer, as a father, as a husband, as a grandchild, as a technologist, as a lawyer, and as a person. I can’t wait to take a new reader from the opening lines of this book all the way to the final period after the last sentence in Speaking Bones.

A preliminary note: I invented the term “silkpunk” specifically to describe the aesthetic in the Dandelion Dynasty series. (Other authors have used my term to describe their own books, and I won’t be talking about their uses. My only concern here is my definition, for my aesthetic.)

In creating the silkpunk aesthetic, I was influenced by the ideas of W. Brian Arthur, who articulates a vision of technology as language. The task of the engineer is much like that of a poet in that the engineer must creatively combine existing components to solve novel problems, thereby devising artifacts that are new expressions in the technical language. In creating the silkpunk aesthetic, I was influenced by the ideas of W. Brian Arthur, who articulates a vision of technology as language. The task of the engineer is much like that of a poet in that the engineer must creatively combine existing components to solve novel problems, thereby devising artifacts that are new expressions in the technical language.

It is not “Asian steampunk.” It is not “Asian fantasy.”

The “punk” part is also not a worn suffix devoid of content. To me, silkpunk is about a key punk project: re-purposing what was for what will be. These books are my rewriting of the narrative of modernity (and in the later books in particular, the modern American national narrative). This is a vision of modernity no longer exclusively centered on what we think of as the “Western” experience. Rather, it melds multiple traditions and myths important to me, from the Iliad to Beowulf, from Paradise Lost to wuxia, and transforms the Chu-Han Contention into the foundational political mythology of a brand-new, modern people.

Why did I do this? Well, a driving impetus behind this series is my desire to challenge and interrogate the conventional narrative of modernity, which is often modeled on a particular telling of the story of my country, the US of A. The Story of America is most often told using allusions to Western models such as Classical Rome (just think of how many aspects of American politics and national culture evoke images of America as a “New Rome”). But when you are constrained to one set of allusions, there’s a limit how much you can push readers to see something new in a familiar tale or, even bolder, to change the narrative.

Something radical had to be done. I decided to depart from the “New Rome” model and instead evoke East Asian models in this fantasy epic recasting of the Story of America — and by extension, the narrative of modernity. Thus, I borrowed much of the plot of The Grace of Kings, the first book from the Chu-Han Contention, as interpreted by the historian Sima Qian, and built up a vocabulary of non-Western political allusions and precedents that could then be drawn on in the re-imagining of the epic of modernity.

Starting with the second book, The Wall of Storms, and then even more so in the third book, The Veiled Throne, all that effort pays off. The story here is about the creation of the constitution for a new people (a constitution, in my view, is not a document, but a set of stories that form the core of a people’s self-perception, self-regard, and deepest values). The plot here no longer has a clear, specific historic analog. (Thus, identifying the people of Dara as “fantasy Chinese” or the Lyucu as “fantasy Mongols” or any people in these books as “fantasy [fill in the blank group]” would be very much misguided.) Rather, the central concern of the Dandelion Dynasty is a series of questions: How can a new nation built from a collection of diverse peoples compose a new constitution, agree on a new source of political legitimacy, rally around a new foundational mythology? How do we carry out a political experiment to build a more just society without creating more injustice? What weight should be given to the wisdom of tradition by revolutionaries? Is it a curse or a blessing that a new generation must contend with the weight of history they are born into and live with the decisions made by their forebears? Is a “perpetual revolution” desirable or even possible?  …

If these seem to draw on my experience as a lawyer, then the next set of themes are based on my life as a technologist. The Dandelion Dynasty is also a series about science and discovery: it’s epic fantasy with a heavy dose of scifi—I mean, one of the characters literally proclaims, “the universe is knowable,” a manifesto of the scientific view of the cosmos. I had some of my best writing moments in the discovery of the silkmotic force and the invention of the machines derived from its power. Many of the discoveries and inventions in the series are drawn from antecedents in China’s classical past; some are based on the work of ancient Greeks; some are modeled on the experiments of Ben Franklin; and still others are simply cut by me out of whole cloth. Being a technologist by trade, I love writing about discovery and innovation—and I’m pretty sure my readers enjoy reading about them too.

Before we go too far down these philosophical routes, however, I should note that it would be just as accurate to say that The Dandelion Dynasty is about young people flirting and partying and being silly and awesome garinafin-vs-airship set pieces and devious battle tactics—derived from history, to be sure, but also from the author’s experience in playing video games and watching football—and legalistic dirty tricks and deconstructionist mis-readings and fantastic engines constructed from silk and bamboo and giant capacitors humming with the power of lightning … I mean, sure, themes are important, but books always need fun.

I wrote the book because I had things I wanted to say and I wanted to have fun. Those are the only two good reasons to write a novel as far as I’m concerned.

[GdM] You have a motif about flowers throughout the novels, specifically the chrysanthemum and the dandelion. What made you choose these two flowers, and how does the love and preservation of certain flowers become a political act?

[KL] Without spoiling the story, let me just say that floral metaphors and motifs are core to all the books in the series. Often, the way I use flowers in the books is contrary to convention. They are not so much symbols of beauty as symbols of strength and resilience, and the flowers I celebrate are not necessarily the “noble” flowers, but the “hundred flowers” that often get dismissed as weeds.

Those who don’t read much contemporary fantasy may have an impression that epic fantasy is devoted to nostalgia for what never was, to an authoritarian view of politics as best geared towards the return of the rightful king. But that is hardly an accurate view of the epic fantasy from the best writers of today, such as Kate Elliott and Rebecca Roanhorse. The Dandelion Dynasty is also an epic about modernity and constitutionalism, about freedom and democratic ideals, and metaphors about flowers play a key role in literalizing these concepts.

[GdM] It is safe to say that there are many examples of Daoism in your work. Could you speak a bit about that and how it influences your writing? The interview I read spoke specifically about The Legends of Luke Skywalker story you wrote and how George Lucas used a lot of Eastern philosophy to create The Force.

[KL] I think it’s more accurate to say that I’m influenced by three separate yet related philosophical traditions: Daoism, Zen Buddhism, and American Transcendentalism. I wouldn’t say anything I write is specifically an instance of Daoism, for Dao is a concept that resists being pinned down and literalized as a metaphor. I do, however, find much appealing in the Daoist’s utter contempt for our general obsession with language, with tracks and traces left by Reality as opposed to Reality itself.

The American Transcendentalism of writers like Emerson, Thoreau, and Dillard, on the other hand, is a much more direct influence on my writing. There are bits of the Dandelion Dynasty that pay homage to these writers (as well as the Daoist and Zen Buddhist masters), but the clearest mark they left on my work is an abiding awe for nature’s simultaneous fecundity and terror, its utter lack of regard for us as well as its recurring generosity.

[GdM] You said, “I’ve always wanted to read a fantasy book in which the heroes are not wizards, but engineers.” I love this idea, and I agree! Engineering can be as fantastical as any wizard character I know of. Is this why you approach things in The Dandelion Dynasty through the lens of engineering?

[KL] Absolutely. Engineering is a species of art, probably the highest form of art in our technological age. Engineers will produce our epic poem, our Globe Theater, our Sistine Chapel, our Yongle Encyclopedia.

So much so that I read you created prototypes to test out the Silkmotic Force. What did you build? How did your prototype work as a theoretical concept come to life?

I built electrostatic motors (also known as Franklin motors, as they were invented by Ben Franklin) so that I could understand their operating characteristics; I made Leyden jars (early capacitors), charged them up and shocked myself (I don’t recommend this – it can be very dangerous) to know how that felt; I made programmable carts modeled on Hero of Alexandria’s designs out of Legos; I 3d-printed models of airships and other vehicles; I flew kites and studied their flight; I prototyped circuits and implemented some of the silkmotic machinery’s operating instructions in software to see if they would actually work; I emulated classical Chinese instructible looms … These were some of the most engaging parts of writing the books.

[GdM] I saw another book in The Dandelion Dynasty series scheduled to be released in late 2022, Speaking Bones. Are you still working on it?

[KL] The Veiled Throne and Speaking Bones were actually written as a single book, and the whole thing was finished a couple of years ago. Because the book was too long to be published as a single volume, my editor and I decided to split it right down the middle into two books. The nature of publishing is such that books often are finished years before publication, and we just have to wait patiently for the books to be released. Fortunately, at this point the wait won’t be too long, as the final volume in the series is coming out in June of next year.

[GdM] Lastly, what else do you have going on? Are you reading anything remarkable you would like to talk about?

[KL] Besides The Veiled Throne, which just came out, my most recent publication is a novella I did for Audible called The Armies of Those I Love, which is a post-post-apocalyptic tale of engineering, love, and hope, narrated by Auli’i Cravalho. Readers who enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn may find it particularly appealing.

A book I’ve really admired recently is Why Fish Don’t Exist, by Lulu Miller. This is a hard book to describe. It has elements of biography, autobiography, history of science, science, memoir, journalism … and doesn’t sit comfortably within any one category. The best way I’ve found to tell people about the book is to say that it’s an attempt to answer the question: how do we go on?

Thank you so much for the interview. Readers, I hope you enjoy the Dandelion Dynasty and the rest of my fiction!

Start reading the Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu with The Grace of Kings

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Horrific dark SciFi at Bad Space Comics

I was introduced to New Zealand based artist Scott Base’s Bad Space Comics when I was mindlessly scrolling Facebook one night and saw the below image.

Immediately hooked, I went through the story panes and as the horror grew, became more and more obsessed. This particular story, The Suit, brilliantly provides enough context to assume the technological period puts this story far in the future, while also using that technology to provide a fantastic body horror aspect to the story. The Suit tells a gripping story in 10 panes, with short, punchy commentary quickly driving what’s a simple yet thoroughly enjoyable story forward. A theme of asking at what point should we stop using technology to prolong life is an incredibly interesting one–and if you’ve ever watched somebody slowly deteriorate physically and mentally while being kept alive in a miasma of drugs while beside a hulking, beeping machine, it’s one I think that will hit home. This is matched with an excellent somewhat scratchy greyscale / charcoal style approach to the art, which I am a massive fan of.

Having loved The Suit, naturally I immediately checked out the other five stories the artist had available: The Billionaire, a story about an astronaut, Ghosts of Future Past, about a time traveller, Invasion Day, where one country’s mismanagement of the environment leads them into conflict, After Life, which is a kind of commentary on religion, and Old Gods, which tackles the question of a greater being/s influence on humanity.

One of the really cool things I like about Bad Space Comics is the face value story you can glean and take away from each comic, and then the deeper themes Base has written in behind each story. The artist’s bio reads, “Love comics. Love science. Less fond of the rich maggots killing our planet.” and you can see those themes of environmentalism, hopelessness, capitalism, and rebellion in his works, amongst others.

Now, I’ve left my descriptions of the stories as brief and spoiler-free as possible because I’d much rather you go see the comics for yourself than I ruin them for you. And I haven’t featured any other art pieces (apart from the website header, below) because, again, I’d rather you go to the artist’s website and check it all out.

The website is in its infancy, so you’ll only need about 10 minutes to read them all, but do yourself a favour and haul arse over there. You don’t need to be a comic book fan to appreciate a short story well told visually.

Head over to Bad Space Comics

Click on the image below to head over to Bad Space Comics by Scott Base.

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REVIEW: Game of Thrones S4

Returning for a fourth season, Game of Thrones S4 hits new heights that only dragons can reach as tight storytelling, amazing production values, and a cast fully deserving all the awards thrown their way all merge together to create TV greatness. This is the model that The Witcher, The Wheel of Time, and even Amazon’s Lord of the Rings aim to follow as a wave of fantasy shows hit our screens.

Game of Thrones S4 combines elements from George RR Martin’s A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows. The ten episodes are packed full of the twists and turns now expected from a show that has become an absolute juggernaut. Fantasy’s most hated boy-king, Joffrey, continues to delight in being an absolute bastard and starts to piss off the true ruler of the seven kingdoms, his grandfather, Tywin Lannister. Joffrey seems to annoy one person too many and is poisoned in front of an audience including his distraught mother, Cersei, who cries out in her grief that it must have been her brother – the imp, Tyrion Lannister – who killed her son. This sparks a chain of events that lead to one of the best single combats in TV history. The charming, charismatic Prince Oberyn takes on Gregor Clegane in a battle to decide Tyrion’s fate. The Viper versus The Mountain. Oberyn vows vengeance for the rape and murder of his sister and uses Tyrion’s predicament to finally get his revenge. It is a stunning fight built with the expected pulsating soundtrack and beautiful imagery as the elegant viper battles the bull-like mountain. Two differing styles clashing with high stakes in an episode that scales the mesmerizing heights that Game of Thrones hits so often. You will want to watch it again and again. Although, you might want to hide behind your hands towards the end. Not the eyes, anything but the eyes…

Game of Thrones S4 packs a lot into the ten episodes but the writers have found their footing and it is well paced and develops each of the characters in a satisfying way. Arya and The Hound continue their blossoming buddy cop relationship that is one of the highlights of the show and build towards another cracking fight between Sandor and Brienne. Jon Stark still looks as weary as ever as he feels torn between his love for Ygritte and his love of his homeland. Bran gains some new abilities and finally comes face to face with the Three-eyed Raven and Daenarys begins to show a sadistic side in the way she punishes folk who defy her rule. There’s a lot going on in Game of Thrones S4 but by the end you will be begging for more.

Game of Thrones S4 is the pinnacle of fantasy on TV. Each episode is a constant reminder of the show’s greatness as you are truly immersed into the world of Westeros and the complicated lives of its inhabitants. There are dragons, bloody fights, beautiful scenery, and the best soundtrack to a show in years. Game of Thrones S4 finds a place in your heart in each episode and then decides to break it in the best of possible ways, leaving its audience in a bloody mess. This is TV greatness. A heavyweight show at its peak capable of taking any shot that Amazon or Netflix can throw at it. Pure perfection.

Check out our reviews of other Game of Thrones seasons

Season 3

Season 2

Season 1

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REVIEW: We Break Immortals by Thomas Howard Riley

An exciting debut by a new fantasy author, We Break Immortals by Thomas Howard Riley held nothing back and left me eager for more. Everything is dialed up to eleven, and nothing is certain.

The book follows multiple characters as they try desperately to prevent a demented serial killer from becoming, in essence, a god. He is one of the baddest of big bads that I have read recently and taking him down is a nigh-impossible goal. The characters are all fighting their own battles, however, against themselves. The question is: how can they defeat a powerful villain if they can’t even defeat their own personal demons? These battles that the characters fight against themselves are what kept me riveted.

Aren is a Render Tracer, otherwise known as a “glasseye”, meaning someone who can see traces of magick remnants. He does this with the help of some special tools. Aren uses his gifts to track down magickusers gone rogue. The magick in We Break Immortals is incredibly well-developed. It’s complicated and could be confusing if not for the use of Aren to show how everything works. Thankfully, it is explained in a way that makes perfect sense. Aren is very good at what he does. He is also an addict, which elevates his character from interesting to incredibly nuanced and complex. He is his own worst enemy, a fact that is made extremely apparent throughout the book. I love books that have characters with inner struggles and hidden obstacles to overcome.

Keluwen is a walking timebomb. She’s angry, she’s snarky, and she doesn’t take crap from anyone. She’s also a magickuser, which complicates matters when both her crew and Aren–a glasseye who goes after people like her–end up crossing paths. The dynamic within her crew was always interesting, especially her relationship with the crew’s leader.

Lastly, there’s Corrin. Ah, how I loved Corrin! Rougish with a knack for attracting trouble, he nonetheless manages to have his own sense of right and wrong. Corrin is the sort of person who does the best he can with what he has. And what he has is a fair amount of luck (whether it’s good or bad, I’ll leave to the reader to decide), a long list of vices, and a liberal dash of derring-do.

The world was well thought out and brought to life. More than just a backdrop for the storyline, the amount of development that has gone into the world makes it almost a character in its own right. The history, and mythologies are fascinating and it just keeps building.

We Break Immortals has heart, humor, excellent characters, and violence aplenty. It’s the sort of book that plunges in and never stops to let you catch your breath. It is, in a word, badass.

Read We Break Immortals by Thomas Howard Riley

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REVIEW: Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop is one of the most beloved anime of all time. It was never one of the most popular or widely watched but it was unique and its fans have managed to keep the flame of it alive since 1998. There’s not that much like it out there with a used universe, Western motifs, space travel, and noir crime drama. I mean, Outlaw Star, Firefly, and The Expanse are pretty much it. However, being such a well-regarded piece of animation means that any adaptation is going to have a lot of people sharpening their knives about it.

The premise is Spike (John Cho) and Jet (Mustafa Shakir) are a pair of bounty hunters living in the Sol system after the destruction of Earth. Humanity continues to thrive-ish with colonies on Mars, Jupiter’s moons, and a large number of artificial habitats. They are not very good at their jobs due to the fact they’re both so lethal that they keep killing their targets. They’re also associated with the mysterious Faye Valine (Daniella Pineda), who may or may not be a bounty hunter herself or is just passing herself off as one.

This is one of those adaptations that come with a caveat that I recommend people watch before the original. If you’re familiar with the original anime, you’ll probably enjoy this but there’s a big sense of, “Why did they change X or Y?” This isn’t a complete disaster of a live action like the Death Note one but I feel like a lot of things were simplified in order to make this reach the broadest possible audience. There’s also a few things, as a longtime fan of the anime, that I feel were inferior to the original.

The positives first: John Cho does an excellent job as Spike Spiegel. He isn’t quite as fluid and graceful as a guy based partially on Bruce Lee but that’s a tall order for any actor and a minor complaint. I also love Mustafa Shakir’s Jet as he manages to perfectly channel the anime character. He’s gruff, tough, and probably the only decent man left in the human race. Daniella Penada’s Faye is the best, though, as she manages to properly channel the charming and self-interested character we all fell in love with with only a few false moments.

Well, no, there’s one better character than Faye: Ein. Ein is awesome. Whenever Ein is not on screen, I’m like, “Where’s Ein?” Like an unironic version of that Simpsons skit about Poochie. The dog should be in every scene and when he’s not, everyone should be wondering where he is. I almost stopped watching when they briefly abandoned him.

There’s some decent-ish adaptations of episodes but the show is actually at its best when it’s trying to do its own thing. It’s bright, colorful, and reminds me of a live action cartoon in a way similar to the Wachkowski Sisters’ Speed Racer movie. This might have been a mistake as the show could easily have been a more grounded and grittier take without losing anything. On the other hand, this is a show that has people turned into trees by a bio-weapon and it’s genuinely horrifying.

The best changes are making Jet into a divorced father rather than just a guy with an ex-girlfriend. The anime character always read as older and the new family is something that helps ground him as someone who has something to lose unlike Spike. Jet doesn’t want to live as an outlaw criminal but it’s the only way to make use of his police officer skills and possibly generate enough money to get back a semblance of his old life. I also enjoyed the changes to Faye’s story of trying to regain her past as giving her another con woman to play off of works well.

The worst changes are definitely the changes to the Red Dragon Syndicate, Julia, and Vicious. In the anime, all three of them are used sparingly and full of mystery that contributes to Spike’s character development. Here, they’re overused and sucked of most of their allure. We get to see every painful detail of Julia and Spike’s relationship and I wouldn’t believe he’d remember a week after their breakup let alone carry an all-consuming torch for years. Vicious is just utterly drained of menace and reminds me of Theon Greyjoy or Visery Targaryen versus the terrifying killer that Spike could not beat on his best day.

Cowboy Bebop is a pretty fun series but not something I would state is as good as the original. On the other hand, there’s a lot of people who would never watch the anime that would watch the live action version. The ten episodes also end on a cliffhanger and I hope we’ll see a second season that goes off in its own direction.

Cowboy Bebop is currently streaming on Netflix.

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