Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "sci-fi"
Back to the future
I'm re-writing a story of the future I drafted some 30 years ago, then forgot. An old friend brought the manuscript over from England recently. The title is "Cod's Roe". The idea seems good, but the style pedestrian. However, as I type it up, hoping to reinvigorate it as I go along, I'm not changing very much: mostly from past tense to present. Appropriate, huh?
500 down
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Background to Heresy
I cannot offer an unbiased review of my own work, so I’ll try to “add value” with some background.
This was a classic “manuscript left in a drawer” for decades. It wasn’t even one of my drawers. Recently, an old friend came over to visit from England and brought this and another one I’d forgotten I’d ever written. It seemed a bit dated, but there was a spark there, so I rewrote it into its present form. Among other things, I relabelled it from “Cod’s Roe” and clothed it in the fashionable historic present.
I inserted the expression “arithmetical democracy”, although I first heard it later, from the mouth of Alvaro Cunhal, head of Portugal’s Communists, who used it disparagingly to explain why his party should run the country even though relatively few people voted for it. I guess he favoured the kind of “emotional democracy” practised in “Heresy”, not that it would have got him into power anyway.
My story is a child of its time, though the the notion of diet replacing politics as the focus of identity was ahead of its time. In Italy, where I’m living today, the infusion of technology into politics has become fashionable, and politics are becoming ever more emotional.
Back in 1971, I was an out-of-work new graduate. One day, I went to the unemployment office to sign on, and they offered me a job there. I took it like a shot. In “Heresy”, I have a little fun with the strange rituals of bureaucratic life, above all the idea that conformity and orthodoxy are the supreme virtues.
All in all, I think “Heresy” is humorous, thought-provoking and short enough to be well worth the time you’ll spend reading it. Let me give it five stars to encourage the young writer I was then.
This was a classic “manuscript left in a drawer” for decades. It wasn’t even one of my drawers. Recently, an old friend came over to visit from England and brought this and another one I’d forgotten I’d ever written. It seemed a bit dated, but there was a spark there, so I rewrote it into its present form. Among other things, I relabelled it from “Cod’s Roe” and clothed it in the fashionable historic present.
I inserted the expression “arithmetical democracy”, although I first heard it later, from the mouth of Alvaro Cunhal, head of Portugal’s Communists, who used it disparagingly to explain why his party should run the country even though relatively few people voted for it. I guess he favoured the kind of “emotional democracy” practised in “Heresy”, not that it would have got him into power anyway.
My story is a child of its time, though the the notion of diet replacing politics as the focus of identity was ahead of its time. In Italy, where I’m living today, the infusion of technology into politics has become fashionable, and politics are becoming ever more emotional.
Back in 1971, I was an out-of-work new graduate. One day, I went to the unemployment office to sign on, and they offered me a job there. I took it like a shot. In “Heresy”, I have a little fun with the strange rituals of bureaucratic life, above all the idea that conformity and orthodoxy are the supreme virtues.
All in all, I think “Heresy” is humorous, thought-provoking and short enough to be well worth the time you’ll spend reading it. Let me give it five stars to encourage the young writer I was then.
Just In Time
I think it was Lit Bug who kindly recommended the film "In Time" to me, due to my interest in dystopian speculative fiction and my lack of a wish to live forever. I watched it last night, with pleasure, mainly because the idea is brilliant. Moreover, the image of the digital "watch" on your arm which counts down the very seconds that you have left to live (unless you can somehow recharge it) is magnificent, one I think will remain in film history. I also loved the way they portrayed time-related idioms as having gained overwhelming significance in the language. However, they tried to superimpose on this very promising base a run-of-the-mill action movie which I cannot imagine would have halfway satisfied fans of either action movies or science fiction. It also seemed unhappily designed as a "star vehicle" for the two main characters. The male, Justin Timberlake, whom I'd heard of as a singer, was convincing as a "rough diamond", though less so as the saviour of humanity, and was given a few pithy comments to make amid a torrent of platitudes, as was the leading lady, one Amanda Seyfried, who looked great in her opening sequence, when she just, er, looked, and increasingly less so after she had revealed her whiny voice. Her main talent appears to be sprinting in high heels. I couldn't do that, so I shall cease and desist from badmouthing an actress and end by saying that, although I'm a bit fed up with Manichean attitudes even in my beloved sci-fi, and I wish the director had not wilfully misunderstood Darwin, I'm glad that both the endlessly-persecuted goodies and the evil, near-immortal baddies found reasons to reject immortality.
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