John C. Wright's Blog, page 84
January 17, 2014
THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS by Jack Campbell – Chapter Two
In chapter two, DAUNTLESS by John Hemry turns into the ANABASIS of Xenophon. Way cool!
No, I am not actually going to review each chapter separately. I just wanted the world to know that I really liked this book, and reading it was long, long overdue. Had I been a better friend to Mr Hemry, I would have bought it the day it came out, in hardback.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Raphael Ordonez on Genre and Subgenre
Here is a gentleman, kind enough occasionally to leave comments here, with an interesting meditation on the definitions of genre and subgenre. http://raphordo.blogspot.tw/2013/11/genre-and-subgenre.html
Here is a sample:
Everyone’s heard the canard about how advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to primitive peoples. What this ignores is that magic is technology. There’s no difference. Let me repeat. There is no difference between magic and technology, except in the eyes of conceited modern observers. Just because I’ve rejected some hypothesis in my systematic attempts to control my environment doesn’t somehow render the hypothesis a member of a different category from the ones I accept. A savage practicing homeopathic magic or whatever it is they do nowadays is merely exhibiting a certain belief regarding cause-and-effect. A medical professional does the same. The latter presumably has better results. But this is a difference of degree, not of kind. A belief in a supernatural world subject to testable and consistent rules and limitations is no less “scientific” than phlogiston theory or M-theory, whatever we may think of the truth of the thesis.
So, when people go on about how a fantasy needs to have a well-defined magic system that’s adhered to consistently, they’re not talking about fantasy at all. They’re talking about science fiction, or, at any rate, technology fiction. Galadriel the queen of Lothlórien gently mocks Samwise for wanting to see “elf magic,” confessing that she isn’t entirely certain what is meant by the word. Thus does she smile at dragon dice, Magic cards, and other systems. Did Merlinus Ambrosius adhere to a magic system? No. He simply went places, and things happened. Do you get the feeling that the plot is contrived or arbitrary because of that? No. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, et al., knew what it was to write a romance. It’s these systems that allow for contrived, unreal plots. In the end it’s no different from Scotty saving the day by rerouting the secondary reactor drive through the main power converters. You know. Just difficult enough to add the right amount of tension.
[...] Speaking broadly, we might say that fantasy has an ecological, holistic outlook. It integrates. Science fiction is about doing; fantasy is about being.
Need I add that I agree?
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Please Read the Matt Walsh Blog
And read it every day. The man is pure brilliance. For example:
The Argument for Obama’s $10.10 Minimum Wage Hike, Explained in Dialogue Form:
Worker: “Hi, I’d like to work for you.”
Employer: “Sorry, the government says we have to pay everyone at least 10.10 an hour. We don’t have any money in our budget to hire more workers at that rate.”
Worker: “Well, I still need a job. I’ll gladly work for 6 dollars an hour. Deal?”
Government: “Hold on! You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to sell your services for less than 10.10 an hour!”
Worker: “But… I’d rather make under 10.10 than be unemployed. Why can’t I enter into a private employment contract with this establishment if we both feel that the arrangement benefits us? We are both consenting parties, aren’t we?”
Government: “Because that isn’t fair.”
Employer: ”Excuse me, but I’d like to have a say in this conversa-”
Government: “Enough out of you, business owner! This is between me and the worker.”
Employer: ”Actually, I really think you have nothing to do with-”
Government: “FAIRNESS! We are decreeing a minimum amount that all people must be paid, regardless of the financial realities of an individual business, and regardless of the actual measurable worth a particular worker represents. If a worker wants to work for less rather than not work at all, we won’t allow it. We are doing this because of fairness and freedom. WHAT DON’T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND ABOUT THIS?”
Worker: ”Well, if I can’t work than I guess I’ll have to start selling my stuff. Anybody want to buy my TV for 100 dollars?”
Buyer: “Awesome! I’ll take it!”
Government: “WAIT! You aren’t selling that thing for less than 200 dollars. This is for your sake. You deserve 200 dollars for that TV.”
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 16, 2014
THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS by Jack Campbell – Chapter One
I finally got around to reading by John Hemry (writing as Jack Campbell). Normally anyone reviewing the book would wait until he actually, you know, read the book before commenting on it. Not I.
I’ve just got done with the first chapter, and it is great, simply great. I could wait and read the rest, and form a proper, balanced, and objective judgment, but I am too enthused.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 11, 2014
RED NAILS, or Why is Conan a Barbarian?
This is a somewhat overdue review, only seventy-eight years after the fact.
‘Red Nails’ is a novella first serialized in 1936 in the July through October issues of Weird Tales, and the last of the tales of Conan the Barbarian penned by Robert E Howard, as well as one of the best. Thanks to the magic of the internet, it is available free of charge to any who care to read it: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32759 or listen to it: https://librivox.org/red-nails-by-robert-e-howard/
Some of the appeal of this yarn may be lost on any modern reader who has encountered Howard’s many imitators, because this story contains all the elements of the quintessential Conan adventure: from a feisty yet desirable swordswoman, to prehistoric monsters raised by eldritch powers, to lost races (at least two) swimming in their own sadistic corruption and occultism, adepts of black magic (at least three), murder, torture, betrayal, death, and at least one mystic wand issuing a death-ray.
As with all Howard stories, the characters are defined with broad and simple yet bold brush strokes, nor prompted by any complexity of motives to their acts, nor given overmuch to introspection; the action is fast, death is swift, and the mood is one of oppressive eldritch darkness closing in.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 4, 2014
Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters — Complete
I wrote an essay, long even by my unwieldily prolix standards, to the point that the use of any characters in a story, male or female, should serve the purpose of entertaining and edifying the reader rather than serving the propaganda purposes of amateur social engineers convinced that the unintentional implications hidden in science fiction yarns, of all things, influences the virtues and standards of society.
http://www.scifiwright.com/www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-1
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/an-added-comment/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-2/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/testing-the-bechdel-test/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-3/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-4/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-5/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-an-observation/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-6/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/strong-female-characters-of-oz/
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters
I wrote an essay, long even by my unwieldily prolix standards, to the point that the use of any characters in a story, male or female, should serve the purpose of entertaining and edifying the reader rather than serving the propaganda purposes of amateur social engineers convinced that the unintentional implications hidden in science fiction yarns, of all things, influences the virtues and standards of society.
http://www.scifiwright.com/www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-1
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/an-added-comment/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-2/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/testing-the-bechdel-test/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-3/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-4/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-5/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-an-observation/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-6/
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/12/strong-female-characters-of-oz/
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 2, 2014
Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters – Part 5
Part of an ongoing rant where your humble author chews the scenery. In our last episode, we discovered that Political Correctness is not political program but a cultic worldview with no particular center and no particular goal, bound together only by a general discontent at the sufferings of the world, and the belief that a rebellion destroying the legitimacy of all prior institutions and the erection of a totalitarian utopia will solve everything.
We left asking whether this had anything to do with science fiction. The answer proposed was that it does not, or rather, it has about the same relation that commercial advertisements have to the magazines in which they appear.
The cult wants to put leftwing messages into stories to influence the minds of the reading public and make their leftwing worldview seem like the norm, the default view, so that everything natural and decent and traditional and rational seems unbearably wicked and disgusting.
Speaking of magazines, I feel the an answer to the charge that women in the bad old days before the Women’s Liberation Movement were portrayed in SF as weaklings and ninnies is merely to glance at covers circa 1940-1950. This is hardly a scientific or thorough survey, but then again, we are talking about what subconscious impression is left in the minds of young women reading space adventure stories. I invite anyone to compare them to the same number of images from current SF paperback or trade paperback covers of adventure stories.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 27, 2013
Christmastide
Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, no witch has power to charm,
So hallow’d and gracious is the time. –Hamlet
I thought today, Dec 27, the Feast of St John (and my own name day), would be an apt time to reflect on it, and to urge my fellow traditionalists to continue the Christly and Christian work of Keeping the Feast and Partyin’ On! Let us pause for unsolemn reflection on these solemnities.
We all know the Twelve Days of Christmas from a famous nonsense song about a lady whose true love gives her 184 birds of various types, not to mention 12 fruit trees, 40 golden rings, 106 persons of the various professions either musical or milkmaidenly, and 32 members of the aristocracy variously cavorting.
No doubt you have ever wondered how the lady in the song feeds all the leaping lords and dancing ladies, pipers, drummers, and milkmaids now living in her parlor, the answer is that she feeds them the 22 turtledoves, 30 French hens, 36 colly birds, and 42 swans, not to mention the nice supply of eggs from the geese, milk from the cows and pairs from the pair trees.
You may have heard that the lyrics contain a secret meaning, referring to Catholic doctrines or rites forbidden by Oliver Cromwell. This is true. The secret meaning is that the Walrus is St. Paul, and if you listen to a record of the carol backward, it says “Cromwell under his wig is bald.” All this is well known.
What is not as well known is that traditionally, these are twelve days of feasts which start on Christmas Day and run through to Epiphany on January 6th, which is the festival variously of the Adoration of the Magi and the Presentation in the Temple. (Really hard core Christmasteers extend Christmastide 40 days, ending on Candlemas February 2).
Before Christmas, during the season of Advent, while everyone else is shopping and partying, we who keep the traditions fast, pray, do penance, and make ourselves miserable. It makes the holiday much brighter by contrast.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 25, 2013
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus
This is a short story composed in honor of this day, which I provide as a gift to my readers. Merry Christmas.
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus
By John C. Wright @ 2013
Her name was Ginny. She was six years old, and it was Christmas Eve.
Her eyelids trembled and slowly her eyes closed. With a painful effort, she tried to stay awake. For a moment, her face was utterly at peace. Then with a little sigh of effort, her eyelids fluttered open.
“Mommy…? Is it all right…?”
“Hush, now,” Her mother replied. “Everything is all right.”
“Mommy, is it all right if I stay up until Saint Nicholas comes? Just this once? I won’t ask again.”
Her mother’s name was also Virginia. She was bent over the bed, passing her hand over her daughter’s face, comforting, soothing.
“Yes … just this once … Stay awake. Stay awake for Santa Claus, baby…”
Virginia passed her hand over her daughter’s head as if to smooth to curly blonde hair; but Ginny had no hair any longer.
“… I hear the sleigh bells ….” Janie said. “He’s coming … How will he fit…?”
“What was that?” Virginia bent close to her daughter’s barely-moving lips.
“No chimney. There is no chimney here. How will Saint Nicholas get in?”
There was no chimney in the terminal ward of the children’s hospital.
“He’ll think of something, baby. He’s Santa. Just have faith. Just hold on.”
One of the many blinking boxes connected to the little girl gave off an alarm which sounded like a bright, sharp jingle, which sounded like bells. Ginny said, “Will I see Saint Nicholas?”
“Yes, darling, O, yes my darling.” Virginia’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Santa Claus is coming. You will see him.”
The medical technicians and the nurses, voices tense but low, uttering precise commands as quickly and crisply as priest conducting a well-known and long-beloved ritual, continued their desperate work as one alarm and then the next went off. There was no room around the bed for Virginia to stand and hold her daughter’s hand. The doctor told her not to worry. He gave Virginia some vague reassurance, as false but well meant as telling a child to believe in Santa Claus.
The little girl’s eyelids trembled and slowly her eyes closed. She tried to stay awake.
After two hours and a half, as one alarm after another went off, and one monitor after another showed a flat line, they stopped their attempt to revive her. The doctor signed the certificate, showing the time of death as 11: 53. Seven minutes before Christmas Day.
She had lived to be six years old, and it was Christmas Eve. Her name had been Ginny.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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