Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

Randy said:

I have the earlier edition. According to ISFDB there are some content differences between the anthology as first published and later editions. So don't be surprised if someone raves about or detests a story you don't even see in your copy. :)

Thanks for bringing this to the group’s attention, Randy. I just peeked at the ISFDB, but couldn’t tell at a glance whether there are actual content differences or just order differences.

Lena wrote:

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest comes to Netflix!

Interesting. Thanks for posting this, Lena. One of the things I noticed in looking at the trailer was the “look” of the series. As much as I hated Gladiator, Ridley Scott’s epic seems to have established a template for what a Roman-era battle scene should look like — dark and muddy.

I wonder how closely this series hews to actually fact. It’s obviously told from a German point of view (which I guess is fine with me). Way, way back when I was going to school this battle was taught as being pivotal, establishing the Rhine as the eastern extent of the empire in that part of Europe, thereby weakening the western Roman empire’s defensive capabilities re the waves of foreign invaders beginning in the 5th century. That conclusion has been repeatedly questioned and reassessed, but, regardless of its future impact, the battle itself was a pretty riveting historical event.

I’m afraid I’ve slackened a bit in my reading pace. I’ve only just completed the chapter featuring the (view spoiler)[hunter-killer (hide spoiler)].

“A Moment Before Breaking”, A. C. Wise

A fairy tale of sorts; that is, the sort of fairy tale H. P. Lovecraft might have told his children if he had had any. I liked this one enough to recommend it, although some of the plot points remained a bit murky and I kept thinking that the endeavor might have worked better as a novella.

✭✭✭

Lena said:

Here are all the Dune books both in chronological and publication order.

Do have an opinion, Lena, on the Brian Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson books? In general, I have heard not-so-good things about them. I have not read any of them myself.

Randy said (in part):

He occasionally showed up at alt.ghost-fiction way back when and always had insightful things to say.

Yep. Those were indeed the good old days.

Lena said (in part):

From the introduction by Michael Dirda

A brief, off-topic aside: Michael Dirda happens to be one of my favorite book critics. He’s a very eclectic reader who doesn’t look down his nose at “genre” books.

So I’ve read the first 50 pages of Dune . (I’m reading a 2010 Ace electronic edition of the book. There aren’t any chapter markings, but there are physical page numbers.) Here are some first thoughts.

(view spoiler)[
Wow. I had forgotten how much Frank Herbert throws at the reader right out of the gate. There’s a lot of stuff (terminology and concepts) for the first-time reader to assimilate. I vaguely recall that when I picked up a copy of this book as a kid I suffered through a couple of abortive attempts before I was finally able to gain sufficient traction.

In reading these first chapters I was quickly reintroduced to those aspects of the book I really like and those few that bug me. First off, let me mention the world building. As I noted yesterday, for a sci-fi book that’s over 50 years old, the complexity of the society Herbert has created remains pretty darned impressive. One of the things I always thought Herbert excelled at was the presentation of complex ideas. In fact, sometimes, he got a little too wrapped up in such complexities to the overall detriment of the story and its characters. Of the Herbert books I’ve read (and I have not read that many), Dune may be the best when it comes to fully-realized, three-dimensional characters (although in our initial introduction to the Harkonnens, they come off as almost cartoonishly evil).

The novel opens with the gom jabbar scene. I think it’s one of the better episodes in the book, economically introducing the reader to some of the key components of the society at large as well as aspects of Paul’s character and psychology. I had forgotten about the emphasis the Bene Gesserit places on distinguishing “humans” from animals. That kind of stark differentiation seems oddly out of place in a sci-fi novel, but we are talking about what is essentially a kind of theocracy, so maybe it makes some sense.

I had also forgotten that the idea of the “Kwisatz Haderach” was introduced so early. It may seem contradictory given that this is a concept that is fairly central to the book as a whole (a book, by the way, that I still profess to admire), but I’m forced to admit that I’ve alway had qualms about this concept. The idea is tied to the book’s notions about prescient powers, which in turn rely via a lot of hand-waving to the idea of genetic memory. Unfortunately, genetic memory is all pretty much pseudoscientific nonsense. Of course, sci-fi writers from the 50s and 60s were much more likely to incorporate that kind of material in their work; in the case of Dune, it’s a just little disappointing seeing such a prominent plot element juxtaposed with other other sci-fi elements that are much more grounded in actual science. Another closely related aspect of the Kwisatz Haderach that has both annoyed and puzzled me is the odd bifurcation of prescient knowledge into male versus female regions, with only a male Kwisatz Haderach possessing the ability see both and thus more accurately predict the future. At the risk of pissing Lena off😉, it’s a feature that’s never well explained and that, frankly, seems a bit sexist. I could make some additional comments about the Kwisatz Haderach and predestiny, but I’ve stop here; I’ve already droned on far too long.
(hide spoiler)]

Lena said (in part):

“Hero and anti-hero just depends on when you stop the story.” Paraphrased but a good point.

Or maybe on which side of the battle-line you’re situated. It’s hard to imagine that the inhabitants of Limoges would ever have regarded the Black Prince as a hero after he sacked and destroyed it.

You might want to temper your expectations a bit going into this read, Fiona. Frank Herbert’s Dune books remain a pretty impressive example of world-building, even at 50+ years of age. But, without getting into spoiler territory, there are aspects of the author’s vision that you may find troubling.

Lena said:

Woohoo! Fun teen slasher movies just got a facelift

It looks sorta cute and I (sometimes) enjoy Vince Vaughn, but I’m not sure there’s enough plot here to fill an entire movie. The premise is kinda reminiscent of those in old Buffy episodes. I doubt I’ll see this in the theatre, but it might be fine for eventual home viewing.

Fiona asked (in part):

I've been a very bad science fiction fan and have actually never read Dune... I'd like to though, is anyone wanting a reread before the movie comes out?

I might be up for that.

J. said (in part):

I wonder if Villeneuve will have the courage to show that Paul isn't a hero.

The Villeneuve film only covers the first half of Dune . Without getting all spoilery, I think the themes to which you allude don’t start coming into focus until the end of the first novel and in the sequels (especially Dune Messiah ).

Lena said (in part):

You’re right. I still had the page up but the share link option had disappeared! I found another link

Thanks, Lena.

I've read that the 2020 Villeneuve release supposedly only covers about half of the Frank Herbert classic. Maybe that’s a good thing. Among its other problems, the 1984 Lynch version always felt rushed, especially the last half.

Lena said (in part):

Here it is, the new Dune
The visuals are better than expected, but the music was not even close to good enough.

Lena, sadly, the link you provided already appears to be defunct (I get a “video unavailable error”).

Hans Zimmer composed the music for this version of Dune , and while I know he’s respected and well-liked by many, I’ve always found his scores rather blasé.

As for the movie itself, I like the casting and I’m kinda okay with the director, Denis Villeneuve.

“Haunt”, Siobhan Carroll

(view spoiler)[I remember reading about the Gregson slave-trading syndicate and the infamous Zong massacre quite a few years ago. Carroll uses that incident and, more generally, the Atlantic slave trade as the backbone for this well-written, albeit thoroughly depressing, tale. If forced to sum it up what I think Carroll is going for here, the tale is about guilt and the attendant burning need for expiation through confession, even when such attempts take place against the backdrop of an uncaring and unjust universe. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭✭

Another of our previous selections finished!

A final thought or two. I don’t consider myself all that much of a hard science fiction guy, so I was little surprised, in looking back over my ratings for the individual entries, to discover that I enjoyed this anthology as much as I did (certainly at least a bit more than many of the other group readers appeared to). For an annual best-of anthology there are disappointedly few stories that I would consider truly outstanding (the best being Ken Liu’s “Seven Birthdays” and C. W. Johnson’s “Of the Beast in the Belly”); on the other hand, the vast majority are better than average. I also find it a little ironic that in book which supposedly takes hard science as its focus, I was predominantly drawn to those stories which dealt well with the soft sciences.

Overall rating: ✭✭✭½

“Fieldwork”, Shariann Lewitt

This anthology ends with a fairly solid, if unspectacular, story about (view spoiler)[a mission that tries to determine whether or not “true” (i.e., uncontaminated) life exists on Europa. That part of the tale is just okay; what makes “Fieldwork” worthy of inclusion in this book is the idea of family, a theme that the author works pretty well here. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“The Seventh Gamer”, Gwyneth Jones

This story proved to be one of the more interesting ones in the anthology. (view spoiler)[Jones employs the idea of an alien NPC as kind of a red herring; the eventual reveal that Chloe’s spirit guide is, in fact, some kind of sentient AI that has evolved in this digital environmental niche is a rather slick notion and handled well, although the suggestion that the gamers hypothesize that Pevay is “an alien because the alternative was too scary” doesn’t make all that much sense to me. If I have a major issue with the story it might be that the plot is a bit shaggy and might have benefited from some judicious pruning. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

Lena noted:

The best part of that story was learning the legend behind the title

I agree, Lena. That was an intriguing urban legend.