Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 94

TT: Truly Speculative SF

JANE: Last week you suggested telepathically that we should talk about…

ALAN: …Religion and theology in science fiction.

[image error]

Stapledon’s Star Maker

JANE: I suppose that, as usual, you are going to point out that H. G. Wells was a pioneer in the use of this particular trope.

ALAN: Actually no. Wells did publish The Wonderful Visit in 1895 – it’s a novel about an angel visiting Earth. But the angel is much more of a fantasy creature than it is a heavenly angel and Wells pays little or no attention to the possible religious implications.

As far as I can tell, science fiction came quite late to the notion of discussing religious ideas, which is odd because it’s been a preoccupation of mainstream literature for as long as there’s been mainstream literature.

JANE: Actually, that’s not precisely accurate.  Religion and science fiction – especially in its “speculative” mode, rather than its harder science mode – have long worked together.  To quote Clute and Nicholls’ Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:

“It was the religious imagination of people such as Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) which first envisioned an infinite Universe filled with habitable worlds, and it was visionaries like Athanasius Kircher and Emanuel Swedenborg who first journeyed in the imagination to the limits of the Solar System and beyond.”

John Mastin’s 1909 Through the Sun in an Airship even had actual physical space travel.

ALAN: I’ve not read any of those, so I really can’t comment.

JANE: Me, either, and even the encyclopedia classifies them more as “scientific romances, rather than true science fiction,” but it does show that science fictional elements and theological speculation have gone hand-in-hand for a long while.

As time went on and scientific works – such as Darwin’s theory of evolution or new discoveries in geology that extended the probable age of the Earth beyond what had been deduced from material in the Bible – put pressure on what had been uncontested theological truths, authors took up pens to explore the conflict.

Some of this, like Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam: A.H.” or Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” was non-fiction, but many other works, if published today, would certainly be termed science fiction, since they dealt with the implications of science and scientific experimentation, as well as the impact of such of religion and faith.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction provides numerous examples going through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Suffice to say that the work that is most often cited as the first “true” science fiction novel dealt as much with religion as with science.

Want to guess what it is?

ALAN: I’ll go with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – on the grounds that Brian Aldiss considered it to be the very first example of “modern” science fiction in his brilliant and scholarly critical examination(s) of the field, Billion/Trillion Year Spree. Am I right?

JANE: Absolutely!  These days, most people – influenced by Hollywood depictions – think of Frankenstein as a “monster movie,” but the actual text deals less with the actions of a monster than with the question of what would happen if a man took upon himself God’s role – that of creating life – and the consequences when that man is able to be a creator, but lacks God’s ability to provide guidance to his creation.

Still, none of these works are “science fiction” as we tend to think of it today.  What would you nominate as the first SF novel to tackle the difficult line where science and religion meet?

ALAN: One of the earliest (and still one of the best) examples of SF coming to grips with religious and theological ideas in any significant way is in Olaf Stapledon’s 1937 novel Star Maker  which culminates in a vision of God as a scientist constantly experimenting with aspects of creation in a multitude of universes.

Stapledon has a small but very devoted following in the UK. His books are seldom out of print. Both the late Arthur C. Clarke and Brian W. Aldiss were huge fans. Unfortunately, however, he seems not to be very well known outside the UK. Have you ever come across his books?

JANE: Uh…  Not me.  I know the name, but I’m not sure I’ve read much of his work.  Sorry.

ALAN: Only a year after Star Maker appeared, C. S. Lewis published Out of the Silent Planet (1938), the first volume of what eventually became his great science fictional / theological trilogy. (The other two volumes are Voyage to Venus (aka Perelandra) (1943) and That Hideous Strength (1945)).

Lewis thought very deeply about the relationships between religion and science and many of his published works, both fiction and non-fiction, concern themselves with the boundary between the two. Along the way, he coined what I think is a very telling phrase to describe the vastness of interstellar distances. He called them “God’s quarantine regulations”. He saw these huge distances as a means of separating us from other beings who, unlike us, could be thought of as being unfallen, and still in a state of grace.

And, quite apart from any religious considerations, that is also a very good answer to the so-called Fermi paradox. If the universe is full of alien life, why have we never seen any evidence of it?

JANE: I agree.  I really liked Out of the Silent Planet.  Most people don’t realize that the “silent planet” of the title is Earth…  I won’t say more, because it’s a major spoiler.

Perelandra was seriously creepy, especially the bit with the frogs.  That still haunts me to this day.

That Hideous Strength is rooted more on Earth.  As such, as a younger reader I liked it a lot less than I did Out of the Silent Planet, with its wonderful aliens and depiction of life on a lower gravity planet.  However, as I grew older and my life crossed with self-styled “intellectuals” very like those featured in the novel, I found a lot worth thinking about.

You might say the science fiction was what drew me into the books, but the theological elements are what make me re-read from time to time.  (Although Perelandra the least frequently.  I can’t get over the creep-out.)

ALAN: I have a question for you – what’s the most expensive SF/Religious epic ever made?

JANE: I have no idea.  I hope you’ll tell me all about it next time!

[image error]

Expectations and “The Dark Crystal”

Prompted by my listening to an audiobook version of Jim Henson: A Biography by Brian Jay Jones, last Saturday Jim and I watched The Dark Crystal.  Although I hadn’t seen the film for decades, I’d seen it many times before.  I think I also read a novelization because, as we watched, my hindbrain filled in details that weren’t on the screen.  Jim, on the other hand, had heard about the movie, but never seen it.

[image error]

The Dark Crystal

(For clarity’s sake, I’m going to refer to my husband as “Jim” and Jim Henson either by his full name or as “Henson.”)

I was very interested in what Jim’s reaction to The Dark Crystal would be, as well as how his reaction would compare to that of the original audience for the film.  As you may or may not know, The Dark Crystal was not well received.  A great deal of this had to do with the expectations the original audience brought to the theater with them.

At the time when The Dark Crystal was released, Jim Henson was very well known.  However, mostly for his Muppets, which had already broken into the adult viewer market with The Muppet Show, the characters from which had even crossed over to the big screen.

Therefore, the audience attending the film thought they knew what “a Jim Henson production” meant: colorful, wildly over-the-top characters, humor (both broad slapstick and ironic and dry), and bouncy musical numbers.  They definitely did not expect a solemn, even dark, fantasy film.

Although the silly, over-the-top elements were definitely part of Henson (Brian Jay Jones’s biography notes that, early in his career, most of Henson’s Muppet sketches ended either with an explosion or with someone being eaten by someone else), there was a lot about Henson’s work his Muppet fans probably didn’t know.  Henson periodically longed to drop anything to do with puppets and do independent films.  Even when working with puppets, he was most fascinated with how they could be used to push expectations, not with following established trends.

Henson had to persist for years to get The Muppet Show on the air, because American television and movie executives “knew” that puppets were only for kids.  In fact, The Muppet Show’s original backers were British, and the show was filmed in England.

A side note.  Apparently SF/F fans were more receptive to the than were the general public.  My guess is that in addition to not having the same expectations, they were familiar with the tropes being used.  Many may have already been familiar with Brian Froud’s art, since his Faeries had been very well-received.  Jim Henson must have been aware that the SF/F crowd could be a core audience, because he gave a presentation on the film at a Worldcon prior to the film’s release.

So, what did Jim think of The Dark Crystal?  He liked it quite a lot.  However, he also brought very different expectations to the viewing.  In contrast to the original audience for The Dark Crystal, although Jim was definitely familiar with the traditional Muppets, he was also familiar with Henson’s later work, most especially with Labyrinth, a film that is one of my personal favorites.

(Labyrinth did even worse than The Dark Crystal on its original release, but has since found a solid following.)

Labyrinth and the Dark Crystal share several elements: a plot that relies on fantasy tropes, sets and characters indebted to the art of Brian Froud, and the use of sound as a form of language.  Labyrinth has more humor than does The Dark Crystal.  It also includes human characters as well as puppets, a formula Jim Henson had used repeatedly, whereas the closest The Dark Crystal comes to human characters are the two gelflings, Jen and Kira.

Jim also is a long-time reader of Fantasy fiction, as well as an anthropologist – possibly the perfect audience for a film that attempts to create a world and its creatures pretty much from scratch.  When I asked Jim if he had found the plot a bit too trite or formulaic, he grinned and said, “I’ve always had a weakness for that sort of story.”

Expectations again…

So, there you have it.  None of us really see or read anything fresh.  We bring our expectations with us, then let them shape our reactions.  The real question is whether, for you, “That’s not at all what I expected” can be construed as praise or criticism.

Interesting thought indeed.

FF: Reading Aloud and Silently

First…  If you’re free, I’m going to be reading an unpublished short story tonight at the monthly meeting of the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society.  The meeting starts at 7:30.  First time visitors are requested to make a $1.00 donation.  (Others must pay their club dues.)

[image error]

Persephone and Naruto

The meeting is held in the Activity Room of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church at the west end of building – please enter through North Door (backside of building).  Contact Jessica C./Craig C. at 266-8905  or  cwcraig@nmia.com with any questions.

So… For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones.  Audiobook.  Sometimes when an artist becomes iconic, it’s easy to forget the ups and downs along the way.  If this biography has a sub-text, it’s “If you believe in your work, then persist.”  Bonus.  Reader Kirby Heyborne works very hard to capture the voices of various key people in Henson’s life, including Henson’s own gentle “Kermit-the-Frog” voice.  A performance that adds to the pleasure of the work.

A Choice of Gods by Clifford Simak.  A novel wrapped around a theological/philosophical meditation.

Naruto by Masashi Kihimoto.  Finished my re-read of this long manga series and found it very satisfying.

In Progress:

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich.  I loved his Ravens in Winter and have meant to read this for a long time.  While Ravens in Winter focused on the question of why ravens would call to share food, this is a more general look at this complex bird.  Oh, this is non-fiction!

And Carry a Big Stick by S.M. Stirling.  Manuscript of the first book in a new series.  Over halfway and the situation is dire.

The Bees by Laline Paull.  Audiobook.  Fiction.  Flora 717 is not a typical bee.  Story is told mostly from her point of view as she moves through many different roles – including, possibly, that of traitor to all she thinks she holds dear.

Also:

Some short stuff, especially catching  up on archeological magazines.

TT: Hidden Enemies

JANE: Last time you said something about Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade inspiring other stories…

[image error]

Puppet Master

ALAN: Yes, that’s right. In The High Crusade, an alien ship lands in England in 1345. In Michael Flynn’s novel Eifelheim (2006), an alien ship lands in Germany in 1349. However despite this and other similarities to The High Crusade, Flynn’s novel goes in a completely different direction from Anderson’s. The theme of Eifelheim is primarily theological. The German priest Deitrich has to battle with two (perhaps blasphemous) ideas. Can aliens become Christians? And where is God when catastrophes happen?

Michael Flynn is a greatly under-rated author. He really deserves to be much better known than he is.

JANE: Ooh…  That sounds grand.  Where is God when catastrophes happen is, of course, a perennial theological question.

However, the other goes to the heart of the issue of what is a soul and can anyone other than humans possess one?  SF is not the first literary area to attempt to deal with this.  The Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Little Mermaid” (the original, not the Disney version) has this at its heart, as do all those lovely tales where animals kneel down on Christmas and the like…

ALAN: Quite so. C. S. Lewis wrestled with this complex theological issue in his Space Trilogy – Out of the Silent Planet, Voyage to Venus, and That Hideous Strength. And James Blish addresses similar problems in his 1958 novel,  A Case of Conscience.

JANE:  Voyage to Venus is better known in the U.S. as Perelandra.  Good book, although seriously creepy at times.

Another good example of how Alien Invasion stories echo the fears of the time is the manner in which the McCarthyism through Cold War years spawned covert op “puppetmaster” type tales, representing the “alien among us” fears.

ALAN: Yes indeed. Jack Finney’s novel The Body Snatchers was published in 1955 at the height of the communist invasion paranoia. The soulless “pod people” are generally considered to be a commentary about what life would be like under a communist regime. The theme must have struck some sort of chord, because the book has been filmed four times (usually under the title Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

JANE: As I mentioned last time, my novel Smoke and Mirrors also has hidden aliens – and since I grew up during the Cold War, I suspect it owes something to the paranoia about spies that was prevalent during my formative years.

I’ve been frequently asked if I was influenced by either Finney’s work or Heinlein’s novel The Puppet Masters.  Oddly enough, the answer is “no” to both.  By the time I was reading SF/F, both books were certainly classics in the field, but in my erratic reading – which was mostly informed by what I found at the library that looked appealing or what friends gave me – I didn’t stumble across them.  In fact, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve still not read either of them.  Or seen the movie…

Maybe you could educate me?

ALAN: Goodness me – colour me astonished! The Body Snatchers tells of a mindless “invasion” of interstellar spores. The seeds duplicate human beings, growing them from pods and reducing the original human victims to dust.

Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters is thematically similar. It was actually published four years before Finney’s novel, though it is not as well known. Slug-like creatures arrive in flying saucers and attach themselves to people’s backs, taking control of their victims’ nervous systems, and manipulating those people like puppets on a string.

Both the pod people and the puppets are generally considered to symbolise the way that  people are constrained and controlled by totalitarian regimes. And given that both works date from the 1950s, clearly the references are to Soviet Russia.

JANE:  Hmm…  Despite my past life as a literature professor, I’ve always been a bit suspicious of analyses that draw these kinds of parallels, mostly because as an author I know how often they’re wrong!

ALAN: As it happens, I do have some evidence for my analysis. Heinlein’s original manuscript for The Puppet Masters ran to about 90,000 words. It was severely edited for the magazine serial and the novel – both were about 60,000 words long. In 1990, Heinlein’s original, unedited manuscript was finally published. The Soviet references are much more blatant in the unedited version; so much so that really no doubt remains about what Heinlein was trying to say.

In many ways, the 60,000 word version is a much better book. It’s more subtle, and the prose is much less flabby. Unfortunately it seems to have vanished from the world. All the editions published since 1990 have been of the unedited version.

JANE: I wonder why Heinlein’s novel didn’t have the same impact as Finney’s? It certainly sounds like a compelling tale.  Though slugs…  (Shiver!)

ALAN: I suspect that it’s because Heinlein’s novel was first published in a pulp magazine (Galaxy) whereas Finney’s was published in a slick magazine with a much wider readership (Colliers).

JANE: The alien invasion novel certainly hasn’t died either because we have accepted the role of technology in our lives or because of the diminished fear of the “communist menace.”  However, it does continue to take on new shapes.

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex is a good example of this.  Although ostensibly a “children’s” book – the protagonist is only eleven – it deals with issues like relocation of indigenous populations, reservations, cultural assumptions and the like.  These elements made it – for me – a very thoughtful tale.

In 2015, it was made into a film that I haven’t seen with the title Home – a title that, to me, undermines the entire point of the novel because, although a “road trip” novel, the real journey is one of intercultural understanding.

ALAN: That sounds like an interesting book. A lot of really good books fly under the radar because they are published as “children’s” books or YA novels. For several years I’ve been a book buyer for my godchildren and I’ve really enjoyed some of the books they’ve asked for. Not that I really need an excuse to read a YA novel, of course. A good book is a good book no matter what label the publisher attaches to it. I’ll add Adam Rex to my list of authors.

JANE: I hope you enjoy The True Meaning of Smekday.

ALAN:  I have a thought as to where we might tangent off to next time…  Let me see if I can send you the idea telepathically.

JANE: Ah-hah!  Got it, excellent idea!  I look forward to chatting about it next week.

Unexpected Impediment

This past Thursday, I had an emergency root canal.  This pretty much undermined any plans I had for the week.

[image error]

Elegant Impediment

Well, not the root canal itself.  That was easily and efficiently handled by an endodontist and his assistant.  In fact, I left the endodontist’s office feeling better than I had since Monday, when what had been an occasional twinge turned into intermittent waves of burning pain that eventually spread from the vicinity of the tooth to flow along my left upper and lower jaw, then to below my ear and up the side of my face.

“Intermittent” is the reason I didn’t call the dentist sooner.  When the pain would quit – often without warning, certainly not in response to anything in particular – I’d think “Oh, it’s over.”

But it wasn’t.  As the week went on, and the surges became more common and the ebbs less so, I accepted that I needed help.

I learned that these waves of pain are not at all uncommon when a tooth nerve is “flaring.”  I also learned that most upper molars have three roots, but I only had two.  This caused both the endodontist and my friend Melissa (who is a dentist) a great deal of delight.  Apparently, two roots is an upper molar is rather rare.  It’s nice to make specialists happy.

What else did I learn from this experience?

Well, I learned that the actual root canal procedure is not much worse than having a difficult cavity filled.  However, I also learned that the aftermath can be – especially in the case of a situation like mine where there was a lot of pain – far worse than any cavity.

Because of the intensity of the pain I’d been in, the endodontist sent me home with prescriptions for both 800 mg of ibuprofen and a narcotic concoction.   While I was grateful to know the pain would be kept at bay, the treatment left me loopy and tired.   I ended up sleeping most of Friday afternoon.  When I was awake, I couldn’t read anything that demanded analytical thinking.  So much for the research I’d planned to immerse myself in.

Or for getting end of the year paperwork together.

Still, even as I was feeling sorry for myself, I was also incredibly grateful.  I found myself thinking how glad I was not to live in the days of yore when not only weren’t there charming dental professionals to remove the source of the pain, there weren’t x-rays to let them see the problem or carefully constructed tools to do the work.

If you were lucky, someone yanked out the tooth and you didn’t get an infection.  They didn’t send you home with the means to control the pain.  You might get a swig of something or you might be told to stop whining and get back to work.

Yeah…  Pain control – especially in historical or fantasy fiction – is something that is given far too little attention.  Characters get wounded, wipe off the blood, then hurry back to the adventure at hand.   There are numerous justifications for this, including “who wants to read about someone actually dealing with pain and suffering,” but still…

Another thing this little diversion got me thinking about was how many writers I know who don’t plan for impediments in their schedule.  They say to themselves: “I can write a book in six months.  I’ll add on two weeks to read through and edit, then move on.”  Then, they get sick – or their kid, spouse, or pet has an emergency or something breaks – and they find themselves running behind.  This, in turn, leads to the stress of having missed a deadline, which can further slow a writer up and…

So here’s a bit of advice.  When setting up a schedule for yourself, factor in a week or two for things to go wrong.  The date you give to your editor or whoever you’re turning the project in to includes this extra time.  Don’t let having allowed for extra time make you lazy.  Work as if you didn’t factor it in.  At the very worst, you’ll finish early.  But, at the best, you have breathing room for those times when a little twinge turns into a big deal.

You’ll thank yourself and so will the people you work with.  Trust me on that!

Now, off to catch up on all the things I didn’t get done.  One of these will be reviewing the short story I’m reading Friday night at the meeting of the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society.  Details are available on my website.

Ravens and Muppets and More

I’ve continued reading more non-fiction than fiction.  I’ve also read a great deal of shorter material that’s not listed here.

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.

[image error]

Ziggy: Apprentice Muppet

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guin.  Audiobook.  Well done, with a balanced perspective.  However, I’m not a convert to the “narrative non-fiction” approach of reporting what people are thinking at a given moment.  Mr. Guin did not overindulge, so when he included this, it startled me and made me doubt the veracity of other statements.

In Progress:

Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones.  Audiobook.  Sometimes when an artist becomes iconic, it’s easy to forget the ups and downs along the way.  If this biography has a sub-text, it’s “If you believe in your work, then persist.”  Bonus.  Reader Kirby Heyborne works very hard to capture the voices of various key people in Henson’s life, including Henson’s own gentle “Kermit-the-Frog” voice.  A performance that adds to the pleasure of the work.

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich.  I loved his Ravens in Winter and have meant to read this for a long time.  While Ravens in Winter focused on the question of why ravens would call to share food, this is a more general look at this complex bird.  Oh, non-fiction!

And Carry a Big Stick by S.M. Stirling.  Manuscript of the first book in a new series.

Naruto.  Moving up to the final conflict.  How one chooses to react in the face of loss is showing as a major theme of this story.  Issues 66-69.

Also:

Many, many articles on a wide variety of subjects.  The Muse is hungry and I must feed.

TT: When Humans Fight Back

ALAN: Last week, after we finished our chat, I realized that alien invaders don’t have to be physically present in order to take over our world.

JANE: I suppose that’s true.  Has anyone written from that angle?

[image error]

Put Up Your Hands!

ALAN: The famous British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle wrote a number of first-class SF novels. One of them, A for Andromeda, was dramatised by the BBC in 1961. My family quickly became addicted – we watched every episode. It scared the willies out of eleven-year-old me.

JANE: Tell me about it…

ALAN: A new radio telescope receives a signal from the Andromeda Nebula. When decoded, it proves to be a set of instructions for building an advanced computer.

Once the advanced computer has been built, it turns out to be able to create and control living cells. Eventually, using genetic information obtained from a person (Julie Christe in her first major dramatic role!), the computer constructs a human clone which is known as Andromeda.

Initially, Andromeda seems benign. For example, she develops an enzyme that heals injured cells. But the enzyme proves to be a two edged sword – sometimes it makes people sicker.

It soon becomes clear that the computer and Andromeda are initiating a plot to take over humanity. The future looks grim

JANE:  Indeed it does…  And apparently the advent of computers looked grim to Sir Fred Hoyle – and, even though an astronomer, he had doubts about what might be “out there.”  Or maybe not…  This sounds more like what we’d term “horror” than an actual cautionary tale.

ALAN: That may be why it worked so well on television.

However the aliens don’t always win when they invade us. The idea of aliens defeating humanity was a concept that did not sit well with John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding (later Analog).

JANE: Campbell showed a preference in this direction even before he became an editor.  Many of his own works – these days people tend to forget that Campbell was a popular SF writer both under his own name and the pseudonym Don A. Stuart – were stories in which humanity beat back invasions.  “Who Goes There?”  — better known by its movie title The Thing – is only one these.

ALAN: The Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of SF remarks that some of Don. A. Stuart stories (such as the 1939 story “Cloak of Aesir”, for example) are at odds with Campbell’s later editorial policy that humanity would always get the better of any aliens. And, in one of his many autobiographies, Isaac Asimov says that the reason why there are no aliens at all in his Foundation stories is that he felt uncomfortable with Campbell’s human chauvinism, and so he bypassed the problem by simply not having any aliens in the stories that he sold to Astounding.

As we mentioned when we were discussing psionic powers, Campbell really was one of the most influential SF editors of the twentieth century.   So because he insisted on publishing stories that clearly demonstrated humanity’s superiority to the aliens, that’s exactly what his authors provided him with…

JANE: It’s interesting to note that the time period in which Campbell-as-editor dominated the SF field was during WWII.  Stories in which “we” lost and “they” won would not have appealed to the mood of the time.  Even after WWII was over, the trend had been established.

ALAN: That’s probably very true. One of my favorite stories from this period, and one that works strictly to Campbell’s prejudices, is Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade in which an alien spaceship lands in Lincolnshire in the year 1345.  The story was originally published as a serial in the July–August–September 1960 issues of “Astounding” before appearing as a novel from Doubleday in 1960. It seems to have been almost continuously in print ever since. These days it is available from Baen Books.

It tells the tale of Sir Roger de Tourneville, who is recruiting a military force to assist King Edward III in the war against France. The aliens are caught off guard by his English army. They have no real experience of hand-to-hand combat and they are soon overwhelmed by the angry English forces. Once Sir Roger gains control of the spaceship, he manages to figure out how to drive it, and he and his army go adventuring among the stars…

JANE: I quite enjoyed The High Crusade.  Anderson – who was a, I believe, a founding member of the SCA – knew his historical material well, which made a great difference.  I’ve heard the same people, who roll their eyes about the likelihood of Ewoks defeating Imperial walkers and the like, go ecstatic over The High Crusade.

In fact, now that I think about it, The High Crusade is proof that editorial preferences can inspire, rather than stultify, creativity.

ALAN: The High Crusade might be said to have created its own lineage but, before I get to that, I’d like to mention a few more novels in the “humans defeat aliens” vein. In Harry Turtledove’s “Worldwar” novels (1994), the alien invasion takes place during World War II. The squabbling nations stop fighting each other (somewhat reluctantly) and join forces to fight the invader.

In Footfall (1985) by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the government recruits a team of SF writers to advise the military on possible alien tactics and technologies! And, of course, the SF authors get it right every time. Take that, ratbag aliens!

JANE: The Footfall concept actually has a real life counterpart in Sigma, “The Science Fiction Think Tank,” founded by frequent Analog contributor, Arlan Andrews.  I’m not sure if they’ve advised the government regarding aliens, but they do brainstorm creative solutions to problems.

ALAN: I’d never heard of Sigma until you mentioned it. I’ve just gone and looked it up and yes, we definitely have a case here of life imitating art.

JANE: As we said earlier and will certainly say again, once a variation on the Alien Invasions trope is developed, it isn’t simply replaced by new developments.  Instead, it continues to attract new adherents, who give it their own spin.

One of the more recent takes on this I’ve read is War of the Planet Burners by Dennis Herrick.  Aliens invade, cut off electricity (and thus everything dependent on it, which is just about everything), and set about terraforming Earth to suit their particular needs.  But humanity – in this case in the person of combat veteran Joel Birchard – is determined to fight back.

Herrick is a huge fan of Alien Invasion and First Contact stories.  He even brought out his own reprint of “Farewell to the Master,” the short story by Harry Bates that was the source for the film The Day the Earth Stood Still.  As a bonus, he provided a diverse list of Alien Invasion/First Contact stories at the end.

ALAN: Harry Bates was not very prolific. In many ways he was a one-shot wonder. None of his other twenty or so short stories came anywhere near approaching the quality of “Farewell to the Master”. Pity…

JANE: You mentioned that High Crusade has its own progeny.  How about we start with that next time?

Brain Stretching

This last week was all about brain stretching.  I immersed myself in volumes on illustration, fonts, and related areas of book design.  I stared at letters and pictures until I could see them as shapes, not as information symbols.

[image error]

Lucky Canister!

Did I enjoy myself?  Get back to me on that.  I feel like someone who has just run a marathon and hasn’t stopped panting.  My mental muscles are still aching.  Oh, and someone just walked over and told me that the race is far from over, it’s only starting.

When my mind was saturated with information, I took a sideways turn into using my hands so my head could recover.  I’ve been wanting to try decoupage.  I’d even bought a jar of ModPodge several months ago, but it had just sat in my closet, waiting for the right time.  When I found a book specifically about using ModPodge (as opposed to several I’d looked on about decoupage, all of which seemed to assume you wanted to reproduce Victorian effects or things you could achieve far more easily with a  cheap decal), I knew the time had come.

Because I’m a practical person, and because Jim and I have just about no available wall space, I decided to decorate a canister that, at some future date, I could use to store something.   Then I went and stared at various types of paper, looking for what would appeal.

I was about to give up until I could make a trip to the craft store when, stuck up on a high shelf, I glimpsed the remnants of a craft project I’d tried – and failed to complete – some years before.

My sister, Ann, had given me a kit which promised to show you how to make a hanging globe from the scarlet and gold envelopes the Chinese use to hold New Year’s “lucky money.”  I’d not done very well with it – although whether the fault was mine or the kit’s is anyone’s guess.  But I’d loved the paper and couldn’t make myself throw away the envelopes.  Thus, there sat the partially completed project, a mute reminder of failure, for several years.

Now I grinned, pulled down the partially formed globe, and, before I could think my way out of it, started cutting up the envelopes.  Where possible, I preserved the diamond shapes that had been part of the original project but, when I couldn’t, I allowed myself to just keep pieces and trust they’d come in useful.  Then I started putting on the ModPodge.

I was about half-way through when I realized that what I was doing was actually related to the research I’d been doing.  As with fonts and illustrations, I was making myself look at the envelopes not as envelopes, or as carefully folded diamonds meant to be fit together, but as paper.  The image printed on the envelopes had a distinct orientation which I preserved, but when I needed a small piece to patch a gap or create a border, I looked not at the picture, but at the underlying pattern until I found what I needed.

The process was extremely satisfying.  Three coats of sealant gave gloss that, if possible, brightened the original scarlet and gold, as well as protecting the paper.  As a final touch, I slid the tassel that had been intended to hang from the bottom of the original folded paper globe over the knob on the lid.

And there my new canister shines.  I’m not sure what I’ll put into it.  Maybe some of the guinea pigs’ treats.  Maybe tea bags.  Maybe…  Who knows?

As if doing this one project opened up a storehouse in my mind, I have ideas for related projects.  The same book contained instructions for making votive candle holders.  I’d liked the tops, but found the bottoms boring.  However, I’ve thought of some very interesting alternatives involving polymer clay, wire, beads, even gravel from my landscaping.

More brain stretching…  As I have written elsewhere (see “Walking Away from It” in my Wanderings on Writing), sometimes the best way to solve a creative project is to think about something else for a while.  You may be surprised at what comes forth.

FF: Birds, Fonts, and Mass Murder

Shifting the balance for a bit over to more non-fiction than fiction, and feeling stimulated by the change.

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine).

[image error]

Never Turn Your Back

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Welcome Chaos by Kate Wilhelm.  Part spy thriller, part philosophical meditation.

Extreme Birds by Dominic Couzens.   I really enjoyed these short essays.

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield.  Fascinating mixture of history and art.  Well-written, with a cool use of fonts throughout.

In Progress:

Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guin.  Audiobook.

And Carry a Big Stick by S.M. Stirling.  Manuscript of the first book in a new series.

Naruto.  Various revelations show that truth can be more complex than any web of lies.  Issues 62-65.

Also:

Parts of several books on illustration and other elements of book design.  Very colorful reading!

TT: Here They Come…

JANE: So, after discussing post-humanity, how about we take a look at a classic SF trope that bridges “out of this world” and, well, “into our world”?

ALAN: Hmm… Let’s see, would you perhaps be thinking about “Alien Invasions”?

JANE: That’s it! We discussed aliens for several weeks back in 2015, but while Alien Invasions involves some of the same material, it is also supremely different in that much of the focus is on the impact of such invasions on us, rather than the aliens themselves.

[image error]

What d’ya mean, cooters?

ALAN: You know, I think almost much every time we’ve started talking about a science fiction trope, I’ve begun by pointing out that H. G. Wells wrote the first story about it in 18UmptyUmp. Not surprisingly, I’m going to do it again. He pretty much invented the whole alien invasion theme with his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds.

JANE: Wells’ imagination definitely had what today would be termed a “speculative fiction” bent.

ALAN: I think you could make a good case that SF writers have spent the last century or so exploring the concepts that Wells opened up for us. I have a collection of his complete short stories which I got as a school prize when I was fourteen. I have no idea how many times I’ve read it, but I’ve read it lots. I think the stories are just as fresh and alive today as they were when they were first published. Wells really was a genius.

JANE:  And not afraid to go where no man had gone before…

One thing that interests me about the Alien Invasions trope is how, perhaps more than most of the SF tropes we’ve discussed, it is influenced by the cultural currents of the time that it was being written.

ALAN: Indeed so. Invasion scares have always been close to the surface of real life. In the UK we’ve suffered through some very real invasions by Romans, Vikings and Normans and we’ve had several hundred years of paranoid panic about waves of Spanish, Dutch, French and German invaders coming after us. So, of course, it’s very easy to think of science fiction aliens as allegories for whoever the enemy of the day might be.

JANE: Absolutely!  Although the U.S. hasn’t suffered the same waves of invasions, I think the colonial heritage in which “we” are both the invaders and – once the desire to overthrow the colonial powers arose – the invaded has left its mark.

So was Wells reacting only to England’s long history of invasions, or was there something more?

ALAN: Wells’ original novel, and many that came after it, assume that the superior technology of the aliens will always give them the edge over us.  I think that perhaps this could be taken as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the massive changes on all levels of society created by it. Centuries of relative stability gave way to an era of rapid change and innovation – we’re still living with this every day and it’s quite natural for us to assume technological superiority will always win the day.

JANE: I agree wholeheartedly.  I think it’s important to remember that in The War of the Worlds humans survive by accident, not design.  I won’t say more in case some of our younger readers aren’t familiar with this classic.

I will mention that Howard Waldrop wrote a brilliant story, “Night of the Cooters,” that provides a view of what happened in Texas when the Wells’ aliens invaded.

Also, while not precisely a “sequel” to The War of the Worlds, John Christopher’s “The Tripods” series (first book The White Mountains) is a dystopian tale which reads much as if Wells’ alien invasion was not stopped, and what happened thereafter.

ALAN: An important question that I think we need to ask ourselves is just why have the aliens invaded in the first place? Wells’ Martians wanted to live here because their own planet was becoming uninhabitable. From their point of view, humanity is just getting in their way and stopping them from enjoying some prime real estate. This idea has been explored in more depth by other writers.

William Tenn is remembered as a superb short story writer. He only wrote one novel, Of Men and Monsters (1968), but it’s a brilliant one. Giant, technologically superior aliens have conquered the Earth. The few people who remain live like vermin in holes they have excavated in the insulation material that lines the walls of the monsters’ homes. In order to keep themselves alive, the people sneak out to steal food and other items from the aliens.

 A complex social, political and religious order has evolved within the walls. Women preserve knowledge and work as healers. Men are the warriors and thieves. As far as the aliens are concerned, human beings are just a nuisance, neither civilized nor intelligent. They are generally regarded as vermin to be exterminated, in much the same way as we regard cockroaches.

JANE: Or mice…  I think the title is alluding to Of Mice and Men.

ALAN: I think you may well be right – though I must admit I hadn’t spotted that reference until you pointed it out.

Robert Silverberg took a similar idea even further in his 1998 novel The Alien Years. The novel tells the story of an alien invasion over a period of about fifty years.

The aliens themselves remain quite enigmatic – nobody really knows why they have invaded. They largely ignore the people who are living here. They just want to be left alone to do whatever it is they are doing, though they do make use of humans as slave labour in their mysterious projects.

Any attempt to kill these inscrutable invaders results in extremely harsh reprisals. After one such attempt, the aliens introduced a virus that killed more than half of earth’s population!

Despite this, some people have collaborated with the invaders. Not unnaturally, these quislings are hated and despised by the rest of humanity…

JANE: Ah!  Shades of nations invaded by the Nazis during World War II.  Even your use of the word “quisling” comes from that time, via Norway.  As I mentioned earlier, Alien Invasion is a trope that strongly lends itself to examination of human nature.

ALAN: True – though the Nazis were much less enigmatic than Silverberg’s aliens. However the parallels do tell us a lot about how people might well react under these circumstances.

JANE: I think we both have more to say about this particular trope – including how it expanded in response to different historical events.   How about next time?