James S.A. Corey's Blog, page 18

Ignite New Mexico: Adapting Game of Thrones

So a little while back, my buddy Cameron told me about this gig he's part of here in Albuquerque called Ignite New Mexico.  Every so often folks get together and spend an evening doing presentations to one another.  The talks are five minutes long (no longer) on the theory that even if the talk sucks, something else interesting will be along in a minute.  I was in the first part of the Game of Thrones comic book adaptation, and so I did a (very) brief rundown of how that process works and what some of the challenges were coming into it.

We came out with something like this:

Paying Tribute: Starship Troopers

I've been wanting to do this for a while.  Write a series of book reviews of the books that had the most direct influence on my writing, and on The Expanse series in particular.  Hopefully, this is just the first.

Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein:

Starship Troopers moved onto my nightstand a couple of days ago.  I always have a nightstand book, and it tends to be something I've read before.  I'll read a few pages while my wife does her pre-bed puttering, and I need something I can easily put down when the lights go out.  If it's a new book and it has really grabbed me, it's harder to stop reading.

So I've been going back through Starship Troopers a few pages at a time, and it's been really informative re-reading this classic of military SF after having now written two novels that include elements of military SF.

Synopsis for those who haven't read it:

Johnnie Rico is the 1950′s version of the All American Boy, living in a society that rewards federal service with full citizenship rights.  Most of the people in his society forgo federal service, with the feeling that getting the right to vote isn't worth two years of signing yourself over to the government.

Johnnie's parents are wealthy people who look down on federal service.  They intend to send him off to Harvard and then into the family business.  But in an attempt to impress his friend and a cute girl, Johnnie winds up signing up for federal service and being assigned to the Mobile Infantry just before a war breaks out with an insectoid race.

The book jumps back and forth between Johnnie's memories of his training as a 'cap trooper', and the current events of his tour of duty during the war.  We follow Johnnie through boot camp, his time as an enlisted grunt, and then his passage into Officer Candidate School and later his time as an officer with the Mobile Infantry.  During this time, we see the entire war unfold from Johnnie's perspective, from the first shot (an asteroid attack on his home town) to the final victory.

The book is an interesting mix of political philosophy, tech porn (powered armor!), and insider looks at life as a soldier clearly informed by the author's own time in the Navy.

Thoughts:

Starship Troopers influence on my vision of the future is less clear than I had originally suspected.  Yes, like everyone else in the universe, I fell in love with his descriptions of the powered armor that his mobile infantry wear.  It's one of those ideas that is so clearly correct, that it immediately becomes part of the SF zeitgeist.  And, in fact, the military is hard at work to make his vision a reality.  Strength augmenting exoskeletons have already been developed that would allow a soldier to carry more gear into battle.  Wrap some armor around that, mount weapons on it, we've got Mobile Infantry suits.

But outside of the armor, not much else of Starship Troopers finds its way into The Expanse, with one notable exception I'll talk about later.

Heinlein's future looks like 1950′s America has taken over the world.  I always forget that Johnnie is from Argentina until I read the book again.   While I like the idea of a global society that has largely abandoned regionalism, I find myself very resistant to the implication that this global society will just look like America.

Heinlein's vision of gender roles is also very trapped in the 1950′s.   Johnnie's mother is the stereotypical 50′s housewife who doesn't work outside the home, and who has to flee to her room when confronted with an emotional situation.  The only other female character of note is Carmen, the cute girl who Johnnie attempts to impress by signing up for federal service.  Here, Heinlein does make an attempt to 'futurize' his women by saying that they are better at acrobatics and fine motor control, and can therefore be pilots.  But, while the idea of women as combat pilots probably seemed fairly radical to a 50′s American man (not Russians though, their female pilots were the terror of the WWII skies), Heinlein can't help but maintain this sense of gender segregation.  MEN are good at some things, WOMEN are good at totally different things.  And while it is implied that there are male combat pilots (so men are also good at the things women are good at), there is no indication that women are ever in the infantry.  Given that sheer physical strength is no longer an issue (everyone is wearing strength augmenting armor), this seems like a missed opportunity.

And finally, the politics.  Lengthy essays have been written on the vaguely fascist society of Starship Troopers, so I'm not going to get into that, except to note the one way in which it parallels something in The Expanse series.  In Starship Troopers, only people who do a tour of federal service are true citizens.  This service grants them the right to vote and hold public office.  People who choose not to do federal service have all the same basic rights as full citizens, except that they are denied access to the political process.  The Earth of The Expanse series is also a global government, under a mutated future version of the United Nations.  It too has a society stratified by a citizen's level of engagement.  However, instead of stratification on political and governmental service, its society is stratified by a general willingness  to work.  People on our version of future Earth can choose to go on the dole, a government stipend we call Basic Support (this is covered in Caliban's War).  Once on Basic, the government will pay for all of your basic needs: housing, food, medical care, primary education, etc.  But they don't pay for any luxuries or for advanced education.  In order to get money to attend University, a citizen must be willing to earn 'work credits' by taking an actual job for two years.  The government doesn't want to waste an expensive university education on someone who will just decide to go on the dole afterward.  So, in both stories the citizenry is largely stratified by what I call, "the engaged and the apathetic."

Bottom Line:

I have a love/hate relationship with this book.  The political and gender views are firmly trapped in 1950′s society, and that part of it drives me nuts sometimes.  I don't blame Heinlein for this, as he is clearly a product of  his time.  Fifty years from now all of the cultures in modern SF will probably appear just as quaint.   At the same time, the book is astonishingly readable.  Johnnie's time in bootcamp, and then later as a cap trooper in the mobile infantry, is fascinating.  I find myself arguing with Heinlein's political philosophy as it comes out of his character's mouths, even as I thrill to their victories.  His vision of SF military life clearly informed my own, in both the things I stole from it and the things I rejected.  His version of a world government and a society stratified by those who want to contribute and those who don't shows up in my work as well.

Most of all, though, I think his vision of a humanity that explores, colonizes, and then rises up to meet the challenge those things bring informed my own vision of the future.  I want to think we someday spread ourselves across the solar system/galaxy/universe, and we bring our problem solving skills with us.  I hope if we run into other intelligent life that we never go to war with it, but finding ways to co-exist will be just as challenging as fighting, and I like to think our species will be up to that challenge.

Ultimately, Starship Troopers is a hopeful view of the future, and that love of an optimistic future has stayed with me ever since.

 

Next Time: The Stars my Destination

Concerning the Charitable Assumption of Madness

I choose not to believe in free will as a courtesy to my friends — Walter Jon Williams

I've had a few conversations in the past few days about men behaving badly.  One was a conversation about Frank Miller's opinion of the Occupy movement.  Another was a private post about sexual harassment at conventions.  Another was an exhumation of an infamous incident involving a famous science fiction author and editor that no one would benefit by being too specific about.  Suffice it to say he was an ass in public and everybody knew it.

What they all had in common was the assertion that someone — Frank Miller, the author and editor, a population of sexually inappropriate fans — were mentally ill.  This wasn't done by a mental health professional, or even by folks who had experience with mental illness in their own lives.  It was done as an act of charity.  Given the behavior of the person in question, the kindest thing we having the conversation could come up with was that he was not merely mentally ill, but in fact so mentally compromised that he was no longer responsible for his actions.  That he was, functionally, no longer human.

The alternative was that, with a sane mind and will intact, he'd chosen to behave that way.  And agreeing to pretend he was utterly broken seemed kinder than saying was morally responsible for despicable acts.

Medicalizing behavior — talking about brain function and dysfunction — takes it out of a social realm and put it into the domain of science.  And I *love* science.  It think it's the most powerful, interesting, beautiful invention humanity has ever created.  It's a system of thought that has more wonders than the best imagination.  But as it stands right now, there's no room in the Western reductionist model for will or choice.

That's all right.  We've had all kinds of experience in science where there were experiences and data that didn't fit the model.  We're used to working with best-fit models that we all know aren't quite right, but we don't have anything better yet.

So, for some of us (myself included), when we see someone doing something inexcusable and we still want to like them, it's tempting to fall into that model and say that there are a lot of guys with Asperger's Syndrome in fandom.  Or that the anoxic brain injuries that often come with heart surgery can lead to impaired judgement and poor impulse control.  Or that anyone who'd say crap like that is clearly having some kind of Charlie Sheen-esque manic episode.  I know I'm tempted.  And the more I think about it, the less comfortable I am with it.

The problem is that I have two ways of evaluating behavior:  one that includes will and agency, and one that doesn't. There are certainly instances when brains do malfunction so spectacularly that holding people to the usual standard is unrealistic.  I have no trouble at all crediting people's good acts to them, but when someone's behaving badly, I want to shift to the other model to let them off the hook.  I don't consider what I'm saying about all the people diagnosed with Aspergers who aren't sexually predatory, all the functioning schizophrenics who aren't shooting congresswomen, all the people with brain injuries who put tremendous time, energy, and attention into respecting social boundaries.  And so I think my charitable impulses lead me to a deeper kind of injustice.

SF Signal Article

I saw you tonight. You were walking with your cabal from the university to the little bar across the street where the professors and graduate students fraternize. You were in the dark, plain clothes that you think of as elegant. I have always thought they made you look pale. I was at the newsstand. I think that you saw me, but pretended not to. I want to say it didn't sting.

 

God, sometimes I amuse myself.

I have a guest post up at SF Signal.  I am very fond of it.

Daniel's Virtue Remains Intact

Stephen King won the best SF category of the Goodreads awards.

Losing to Stephen King is not embarrassing, I must admit.  We got almost 900 votes, and came in ahead of some other excellent books.  Not a bad showing, and we're grateful to every single person that voted.

And, to his great relief, Daniel doesn't have to pose nude now.   Unless he just wants to, I guess.

My Wife Proves Her Sincerity II

Another Reason Daniel is the Luckiest Man in Christendom

One and a call it five/sixths appearances by Daniel Abraham

If you're in Albuquerque tomorrow, chances are that I'll be part of a signing at Page One at 1:30.  I say chances are because we had our mini version of the apocalyptic windstorm yesterday, and it might snow today.  If you've ever been to central New Mexico, you'll understand that snow is viewed as a strange alien substance to be treated with extreme caution in case it explodes.  So it's quite likely that I'll be at Page One at 1:30.  If it gets rescheduled, I'll let you know here as soon as I find out.

The Entirely Admirable Taos Toolbox

But if you're an aspiring writer, I know where you can come hang out with me for sure.  I get to be the weekend lecturer at this year's Taos Toolbox.  The full-week instructors are Walter Jon Williams (who I've worked with for many, many years and who taught me a great deal of what I know about writing) and Nancy Kress (who also rocks).  Applications for this year's workshop opened yesterday.  If you're trying to break into professional-level writing, there's no place better to work on craft than Tolbox.

I Win the Internet

Booya.

L. A. Noire: The Soft-Boiled Detective

It's been a couple months since I finished playing through LA Noire, but as I dig it out of the pile and take it over to Ty that he may undermine his productivity for a change, I find myself thinking back on it with real fondness and no particular desire to return.  There aren't a lot of things that inspire this kind in instant nostalgia in me.

Team Bondi and Rockstar Games' admirable LA Noire

It was my first Rockstar game.  I am assured by those who know better that it shares the particular hallmark of Rockstar games:  bad driving.  I can see how in something like Grand Theft Auto, where mayhem is the joy of the game, that would be a lot of fun.  LA Noire puts me on the other side of the law — not a criminal, but the policeman holding back chaos.  My first thought when I had to pull up my map and plan how to drive from one location to the next was that planning routes is pretty much exactly my experience of being in LA.  I realized that I was suffering a kind of failure of translation when I was off to investigate a crime scene and found myself in a line of cars at a red light, waiting to make a left hand turn.  Eventually, I gave in to the mechanics of the game and zoomed everywhere with my siren on, blasting down the wrong side of the road or through back yards or train tunnels.  It cost some of the verisimilitude, but it was more fun.  (Ian Tregillis of Bitter Seeds fame apparently went so far as to "borrow" the fire truck during one of the arson cases.)

Eventually, I gave up the driving, making my partner take the wheel and reducing the time it took to complete a case by an easy forty-five minutes (and also avoiding untold property damage).

The game itself was an odd mix.  Driving, as I said, but also a kind of search-and-find walkthrough of crime scenes, a lot of shooting and fighting action scenes, and the interrogation mini-games in which I was called upon to read the body language of the suspects.  I've never played a game like that, and all in all, I thought it worked more often than it failed.  The designers did, I thought, an admirable job of finding new combinations of these things to keep the play from feeling too repetitive.

Which is also how I felt about the story.  The story plays through four rough arcs — patrolman, homicide, vice, and arson — with an overarching plot given mostly in cutscenes that the detective I played wasn't privy to.  I don't suppose that kind of dramatic irony is new to console games, but it was pretty effective, if only in that it kept promising that everything would eventually come together.  And it more or less did.  More or less.

In his forward to the really quite lovely anthology The Best American Noir of the Century, Otto Penzler persuasively argues that noir and hard-boiled detective stories are actually different — and even mutually exclusive — subgenres of mystery.  The hardboiled detective is a kind of knight (I'm borrowing from Chandler by way of Penzler here) who "can walk the mean streets without beng mean himself."  A hardboiled detective remains an honorable man in dishonorable times and circumstances.  Noir, on the other hand, is about the frailty, moral compromise, and eventual destruction of the protagonist.  To draw a comparison, hard-boiled detective stories are a revamp of epic fantasy in which evil has put the land out of balance, and a pure and rightful king must return to the throne to make the world right again.  Noir, by that analogy, is a form of horror in which the universe is malignant by nature and degrades and destroys the protagonist.

Through that lens, I have to call LA Noire successful.  The designers built the arc of the character of Cole Phelps in classic noir style.  He comes in looking like the knight — the true and righteous man in a corrupt world — and then through the game, he's taken apart bit by bit, until he becomes something pathetic and destroyed.  Oddly, I find that kind of tragedy cathartic.

Was it perfect?  No.  The homicide arc in particular — while a decent self-contained story — fit awkwardly into the overall plot.  I wanted the cases to give me more of Phelps along with the cases, so that when his character made his mistakes, I understood and sympathized with them more.  I haven't seen another game that tried what LA Noire tried though, and going first is always a challenge.  If there are more games with this novelistic or cinematic bent — and I hope there are — LA Noire will, I think, be one of the games to study, both in what it needed to improve and in how it succeeded.

(NOTE:  If you've come to this entry directly and it's November 29th or 30th, 2011, you might should just check out the Last Days post too.)

Last Days

Not before the apocalypse or anything, but if you are interested in either voting for Leviathan Wakes in the Goodreads Choice Awards or shaving off my wife's eyebrows (her hair is already slated for destruction), it's now, baby, or never.