Betty Adams's Blog, page 118

Huxley is Everywhere

Referencing yesterday's post "Brave New World" is apparently a template for much of the dystopia fiction out there. Or is it rather a dark utopia? Either way this author has seen many, many echos of the world created by Huxley in modern culture. Classics are like that I suppose. 

Convergence of Ideas Old and New

[image error] [image error] Was the Convergence of “The Clone Wars” and “Brave New World” Deliberate?

“Three tiers of racks: ground floor level, first gallery, second gallery.
The spidery steel-work of gallery above gallery faded away in all directions into the dark. Near them three red ghosts were busily unloading demijhons from a moving staircase.
The escalator from the Social Predestination Room.
 Each Bottle could be placed on one of fifteen racks, each rack, though you couldn’t see it, was a conveyor traveling at the rate of thirty-three and a third centimeters an hour. Two hundred and sixty-seven days at eight meters a day. Two thousand one hundred and thirty-six meters in all. One circuit of the cellar at ground level, one on the first gallery, half on the second, and on the two hundred and sixty-seventh morning, daylight in the Decanting Room.”


Fair readers? Does any of this sound familiar?  Of course if you recognize the actual source, shush you well read teacher’s pet and let someone else answer the question!
Modern science fiction fans might look at this passage and immediately imaging a plot critical scene from that juggernaut of cultural relevance that launched in 1977 but only achieved plot significance for this blog post in 2XXX with the release of “The Clone Wars”. This is indeed a very apt description of what one Obi Wan Kenobi finds on Kamino. Right down to the “ghosts” moving about the factory that is producing the clones.  However this scene is not in fact from the screen play, or novelization of the movie. It is an older tale, one that shares some remarkable similarities with the much vilified prequels.
In 1932, with the world still smarting from the War to End All Wars, and the warning that maybe in fact it wasn’t already rumbling like distant thunder on the horizon, poet and playwright Aldous Huxley published “Brave New World”. It is this deeply disturbing tome that produced the above concept. Human reproduction reduced to a factory process. The all powerful state creating individuals to be grown like machines and used for specific purposes.
First off let this author admit that the similarity just might be a mechanical thing. A factory is built to be efficient and human biology lends itself to very specific processes. So the visual similarities might just be two different creators reaching the same result by an empirical study of the logical growth of science and industry. But there is still the underlying socio-political issues that lead to the creation of these institutions in their respective worlds.
There is a power that is seen as a good. On the one hand the growing post-apocalyptic state of Huxley’s “Brave New World” and the Jedi in Lucas’s “Star Wars”. They are handed by science (or science as represented by the Kaminoians) a docile population that serves their needs. On the one hand consumption that keeps the social order going to keep certain ideals in power and on the other war that maintains the social order while moving certain ideals in power. Both the Jedi order and Huxley’s state focus on the suppression of intense emotion, promoting amiable service to a greater good, ‘we all belong to each other’. The scenes where Obi Wan and Skywalker Sr. are flying through the capital could have been written off of nearly identical scenes in the opening of “Brave New World”.
So this author, having seen the repetition of a pattern, now wonders if it was deliberate on the part of the “Clone Wars” writers? Were they trying to depict the corruption of the Jedi order by so strongly aligning the core of the Grand Army of the Republic’s power with the saccharine dystopia found in Huxley’s “Brave New World”?  Trying to tap into the sense of subtle horror that has risen from the book for nearly a hundred years now? Were they trying to subtly trying to display the fact that the Jedi were not the ultimate good that the culture had assumed they were from the original 70’s series?  Was the convergence deliberate at all? Was it simply that the images created by Huxley have so far seeped into the cultural consciousness that when asked to visually display a cloning factory that that was where their minds went without thought?

So what do you think?
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Was the great similarity between the Cloning Facility on Kamino and the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center a deliberate attempt by the writers to show the corruption of the Jedi order or simply cultural convergence on a subconscious level? 

Pumpkin Pies

It is entirely the Pumpkin Pies' fault that there is no real post today. That and the Empanadas that were not quite as requested. Granted the surprise Christmas Carol sing Along was a contributing factor as well....so anyway no real post. 

Music in Culture

Another important world building question is what role music plays in the world you are creating. And for science fiction worlds the conecpt of does the culture even have music presents itself. It is religious in nature? Secular? Medicinal? Can everyone participate in it? Or is it restricted to particular indivduals?

Movement

Just a reminder that pace and movement is as important in writing as it is in art. 

18th Century Dating Problems

#18thCenturyDatingProblems 

#WhenABeautifulWomanSavesYourLifeButWon'tTellYouHerName

An excerpt from "Far From The Madding Crowd" 
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Gabriel had always known that when the fire was lighted and the door closed one of these must be kept open -- that chosen being always on the side away from the wind. Closing the slide to windward, he turned to open the other; on second thoughts the farmer considered that he would first sit down leaving both closed for a minute or two, till the temperature of the hut was a little raised. He sat down.
His head began to ache in an unwonted manner, and, fancying himself weary by reason of the broken rests of the preceding nights, Oak decided to get up, open the slide, and then allow himself to fall asleep. He fell asleep, however, without having performed the necessary preliminary.
How long he remained unconscious Gabriel never knew. During the first stages of his return to perception peculiar deeds seemed to be in course of enactment. His dog was howling, his head was aching fearfully -- somebody was pulling him about, hands were loosening his neckerchief.
On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner of unexpectedness. The young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More than this -- astonishingly more -- his head was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning his collar.
"Whatever is the matter?" said Oak, vacantly.
She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind to start enjoyment.
"Nothing now,' she answered, "since you are not dead. It is a wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours."
"Ah, the hut!" murmured Gabriel. "I gave ten pounds for that hut. But I'll sell it, and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in old times, and curl up to sleep in a lock of straw! It played me nearly the same trick the other day!" Gabriel, by way of emphasis, brought down his fist upon the floor.
"It was not exactly the fault of the hut," she observed in a tone which showed her to be that novelty among women -- one who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it. "You should, I think, have considered, and not have been so foolish as to leave the slides closed."
"Yes I suppose I should," said Oak, absently. He was endeavouring to catch and appreciate the sensation of being thus with her, his head upon her dress, before the event passed on into the heap of bygone things. He wished she knew his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent.
She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shaking himself like a Samson. "How can I thank 'ee?" he said at last, gratefully, some of the natural rusty red having returned to his face.
"Oh, never mind that," said the girl, smiling, and allowing her smile to hold good for Gabriel's next remark, whatever that might prove to be.
"How did you find me?"
"I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut when I came to the milking (it was so lucky, Daisy's milking is almost over for the season, and I shall not come here after this week or the next). The dog saw me, and jumped over to me, and laid hold of my skirt. I came across and looked round the hut the very first thing to see if the slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one, and I have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to sleep without leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were like dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgetting it was warm, and no use."
"I wonder if I should have died?" Gabriel said, in a low voice, which was rather meant to travel back to himself than to her.
"Oh no!" the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic probability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that should harmonise with the dignity of such a deed -- and she shunned it.
"I believe you saved my life, Miss ---- I don't know your name. I know your aunt's, but not yours."
"I would just as soon not tell it -- rather not. There is no reason either why I should, as you probably will never have much to do with me."
"Still, I should like to know."
"You can inquire at my aunt's -- she will tell you."

When You've Lost Your Audience's Attention

Keeping an audience involed in your story involves a wide range of points but maintaining a good pace up for your story is critical. Ballencing description with action is a constant back and forth (with most editors perfering less description and most authors wanting more). Nothing can answer the "how much" question except for experience and listening to your audience. 

A Matter of Private Judgment

An excerpt from George Eliot's "The Mill on the Floss"  that caught this author's eye in the reading. 

Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found the relation between spoken and written language, briefly known as spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world. Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less time than usual, and if the spelliing differed  from Mrs. Glegg's---why she belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was a matter of private judgment.

Oncoming Storm

The snow and ice approaches this author's home and she preares for the onslaught. 

Editing Starts Soon

After taking a break from authoring for a few weeks it is time to start editing.  "Discovery" will start going under the knife next week.  Here is a snippet of the unedited version. 


​The road did prove to be easier going. And the grin on the nurse’s face was worth the cranky servicemen. They had reached a rise in a recently clear-cut area just as dark began to fall. One of those clearings had come to the sky, a hole in the dense clouds that stretched just to the visible horizon giving about ten miles of clear sky in all directions. To the west stretched the vast rolling Pacific; dark, ominous, and uneasy in the approaching night. Freeman suppressed a shiver, they had taken out Hitler’s sea wolves, there was no need to fear the dark waters anymore. To the east the patchwork of timber forest that had fed the needs of a nation at war. Above them shone the rain cleansed night sky with Polaris twinkling as it ever had, no matter the madness of the men beneath him. They tramped on, trying to reach the crash site they had been sent to locate and begin the probably futile search for the missing crewmen. Suddenly the still of the night was broken with a hoarse cry of fear when one of the men shouted and pointed to the northwest. Without pausing to think Chief Petty Officer Freeman barked orders for the men to seek cover. He was vaguely aware that, much to her disgust, the nurse was swept up and carried off to safety as the battle hardened warriors found shelter in the stumps and fallen trunks. The most experienced private crouched beside him already with a note pad and pencil handy. The airman had his compass out and up and lined up even as he tossed his wrist watch to the private.
“Three-hundred ten.”
All traces of his accent were gone as he called out the bearing.
“Three-hundred twenty-one.”
Freeman snapped out the numbers not bothering to check on his assistant. The younger man knew what was needed from long hours in the European theater tracking the Luftwafta roaring towards their targets.
“Two fists over the horizon exactly,” one seaman shouted out and the recorder deftly added that information to the current bearing and time.
“Father in Heaven it is like liquid gold,” the nurse murmured reverently from where she crouched in the debris. “Like the course of an angel.”
“More like a V2 coming in over London,” growled one of the privates.