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.

“Starship Down”, Tracy Canfield

Like “Charnelhouse”, “Starship Down” is a story that starts with a reasonably interesting premise and then fails to capitalize on it. (view spoiler)[It’s sort of a Prime Directive tale: What obligations do technologically advanced species have to those less advanced? It’s a little too on the nose for my taste, but at one point Yee’s god-like powers vis-á-vis the Bunnies are referenced in the line “she gazed upon her creation, and saw that it was good”. But to my way of thinking Canfield doesn’t really grapple with the questions being posed in any kind of meaningful way; the story’s concluding paragraphs are the equivalent of a shrug. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

“Charnelhouse”, Jonathan Shipley

My grasp of literary history is a little shaky, so don’t quote me on this, but the 19th and early 20th century witnessed a real fascination in the West with ancient Egyptian culture, spurred in part by various archeological discoveries. Over the years I’ve read innumerable supernatural stories in which something “bad” (a curse, for example) occurs at the site of some dig. (view spoiler)[Shipley’s tale is kind of a science fiction variation on those earlier stories. And at first it’s not too bad; the author does a reasonable job of setting up the plot. And then, incredibly, he blows it. The story just...ends. It ends without answering any of the questions the reader has been formulating. (hide spoiler)]

✭½

“Obsidianite”, Kat Otis

Okay, first the quibbles. (view spoiler)[The marketing of obsidian-based jewelry paying for what must surely be the incredibly expensive costs of space travel never made sense to me. And, frankly, whenever Otis started going into detail about the economics of space trading, I felt she was on shaky ground. Second, the plot involves something of a revenge element that hinges on the relevation that Ethan, Janessa’s ex, is quite the bad guy. But the way in which this unfolds doesn’t quite track for me — if your goal is ditch your new wife because she’s pregnant, why bother to alert Janessa in the first place? On the other hand, I quite liked the protagonist of this story and thought the conclusion was pretty rousing. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

“Spaceman Barbecue”, Peter Wood

This was another rather “meh” tale for me. Bascomb James, in his introductory remarks, characterizes this as akin to the “stories found in Boys’ Life.” That strikes me as a fairly accurate assessment. (As a former scout, I enjoyed a subscription to that magazine.) Maybe that’s part of my problem with this story. I’m on board with the proposition, as outlined by Elizabeth Bear, of infusing current science fiction with a bit more of the sense of fun that pervaded the genre during the 40s and 50s, but what Wood is doing is a bit different. (view spoiler)[This story seems lifted in toto from a 50s pulp magazine; there are references, for example, to rocket ships, “old-fashioned flying saucers”, photon ray guns, etc. I’m not sure that I get the point of these self-consciously retro plot elements. Wood is also making some sort of point about can-doism, relating it to a fictional philosophy called “atomicism” and standing in contrast to the main character’s slacker-like behavior; but the way it’s handled is a bit clumsy and the eventual use of Matt’s ray gun strikes me as a particularly unconvincing deus ex machina that’s designed to ensure a happy outcome for Hank (as opposed to any real fundamental change in Hank’s attitudes or behavior). (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

“Composition in Death Minor”, K. G. Jewell

There comes a climatic point in this story where someone needs to push a big red button. That scene sort of jerked me out of the story, making me think that that button was the type of visual plot element you’d see in a screen treatment; and it crystallized for me the notion that this story, while competently written, was really fairly generic and typical of something you might see on television. Not bad, but just not that compelling. (At least that was my reaction.)

✭✭✭

“Bad Lieutenant”, Tony Burgess

“The idea follows that in the fullness of infinity that stone has become the first letter d that denied us the coffee.”

Um, okay. Burgess’ story is laden with similar pseudo-profundities. From my perspective, it’s basically word salad.

½

“The Night Wire”, H. F. Arnold

It’s easy to imagine that when editor Max Booth was putting together this anthology, “The Night Wire” was one of the first things that he considered for inclusion. It’s one of only three stories that wasn’t written specifically for the collection and is widely considered to be one of the best stories to have appeared in Weird Tales during the Farnsworth Wright era. Almost nothing is known about Arnold; he wrote a total of three stories for the pulps including this 1926 story. When I first read it as a teen I had a kind of “meh” response, but it did stick with me and I’ve found that subsequent readings have deepened my appreciation of its virtues, while simultaneously allowing me to forgive its flaws. There are points where Arnold’s prose is a little overwrought when it might have been wiser to show a bit more restraint; but then again, maybe that goofy, pulpy quality is part of the story’s charm. What I most appreciated about “The Night Wire” was the open-ended nature of its conclusion during an era in the American pulps when such ambiguity was not really the norm.

✭✭✭✭½

Lena, writing about “Open for Business”, said (in part):

The guys were similar, I just thought of them as different facets of the prototypical American male.

I did a little eye-roll when our intrepid narrator, (view spoiler)[who has embarked on an enterprise that could potentially end all life on Earth as we know it, still has libido enough to allow himself wistful thoughts about his former girlfriend, who was “a tigress between silk sheets”. Gotta keep those priorities straight. (hide spoiler)]

Lena wrote (in part):

I think I started earlier than 12. I remember classic trek on Nick at Night.

I think I was about 10 or 11 when I started reading science fiction. The first authors I was exposed to included Isaac Asimov, Andre Norton, Clifford D. Simak, etc., etc. I was a huge fan of the original Star Trek series when it first aired (well, at least the first season or two).

“Open for Business”, Sam S. Kepfield

I’m afraid that I pretty much loathed this story and struggled to finish it. (view spoiler)[It’s odd that in Elizabeth Bear’s essay, she mentions didacticism as a cardinal sin characterizing the weakness in a lot of current SF, because this introductory story is drenched in that sort of long-winded preachiness. We have our three characters, largely indistinguishable from one another, engaging in interminable speechifying about entrepreneurial spirit, governmental obstructionism, yada, yada, yada. It doesn’t help that I find the actions and motivations of the trio pretty vile; they essentially hold hostage all life on the Earth in order to pursue personal profit and then go on to characterize (i.e., rationalize) their acts as extending our “freedom”. Yuck. (hide spoiler)]

✭

“ ‘Dear Speculative Fiction, I’m Glad We Had This Talk’, An Open Letter to SF”, Elizabeth Bear

First of all, let me say that I like Elizabeth Bear’s fiction. I wish I had the time to read more of it. But I gotta say that essays of this sort always make me little weary. While reading this one, I couldn’t help but think about the well-known quote by Peter Graham that “the golden age of science fiction is twelve.” Graham was waggishly stating that in arguments about when science fiction was at its peak, debate combatants tend to prefer the era in which they were first reading the genre (i.e., around age 12). I mention this because there is some minor irony in the fact that Bear, in passing, extols the comparative virtues of two late 20th-century books, The Forever War and The Left Hand of Darkness (books she was presumably consuming during her formative years); ironic because I’m old enough to remember opinion pieces from that era criticizing those very novels in terms almost identical to ones Bear uses to criticize current SF offerings. The fact is, every age ushers in a new set of critical Cassandras warning the reader about the imminent death of the genre and bemoaning the glories of a lost and bygone era.

Lena wrote:

Original trailer https://youtu.be/fuWf9fP-A-U
Scary version https://youtu.be/2T5_0AGdFic

Clever and amusing. I seem to recall there were a series of these trailers, but the Scary Mary one was the best of the lot.

Corinne said (in part):

“Lol. There are actually fans using the "being openly gay wouldn't make sense for the time period" argument re: Dumbledore. You can accept three headed dogs, invisibility cloaks, and Aberforth's "affinity" for goats, but not an openly gay dude in the 20th century?”

I would have been fine with a script that showcased a more openly gay Dumbledore, but on the other hand I wouldn’t necessarily dispute the logic of the forgoing fan argument. If Rowling’s books have shown us anything, they’ve amply demonstrated that folks in the wizarding world are subject to the same passions and prejudices as we Muggles.

Lena said (in part):

Oh no, Mary Poppins looks like it’s going to suck.

It’s hard (for me at least) to tell much from a 30-second trailer. I’ll probably end up giving it a chance.

I was in New York City and had the opportunity to catch a few shows including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I had read and more or less enjoyed the stage play (scripted by Jack Thorne, based on a story by J. K. Rowling and John Tiffany). But seeing it being performed on the stage made more clear a lot of the emotional nuance that is all too easily missed on the printed page. Neat special effects.

Ian wrote (in part):

Night shifts are evil and I think they are slowly destroying my soul.

My condolences. I worked a single-person night shift for about a year. What I found soul-crushing wasn’t just the constant fight against the body’s natural circadian rhythms, but the social isolation. When my position went away due to budget cuts, I was relieved.

Ugh. I’ve fallen way behind on this particular collection. I find that I’m having a hard time motivating myself to continue.

“Sharks with Thumbs”, David James Keaton

I found this one to be a really tough slog; it took me a couple of sittings to force my way through it. (view spoiler)[I more or less understand the basic idea here. In fact, Keaton is on record as saying this story was inspired, at least in part, by John Cheever’s 1947 short story “The Enormous Radio”, where a married couple finds their lives and relationship unraveling when they discover they can hear the conversations and arguments of their neighbors being broadcast through an old radio. Keaton transforms Cheever’s radio into a fly (“fly on the wall”, get it?). My problem is that, in contrast to the characters in the Cheever story, there’s no character arc here; my sense is that the narrator is experiencing some fractured version of reality before he even encounters the fly. Listening to his internal monologue, with all of its weird tangents and oddball logic, is a bit like engaging in an extended conversation with a schizophrenic. In fact, I suspect that’s Keaton’s point. But it doesn’t make for a pleasant reading experience. At least not for this reader. (hide spoiler)]

✭½

I finished binge-watching the first season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a Netflix series that just dropped. It was created (and co-written) by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and takes place in the same universe as his other series, Riverdale. I haven’t watched Riverdale, so can’t comment on how Sabrina compares. Perhaps more than anything else, this new series makes me think of Joss Whedon’s Buffy in terms of structure and themes, although the writing in Sabrina lacks Whedon’s trademark light touch and cleverness. Still, there’s more here to like than dislike. Netflix has committed to a second season. I’ll probably watch.

✭✭✭

Fiona said (in part):

Has anyone else seen the Haunting of Hill House? It's absolutely fantastic - and a really interesting way of adapting and riffing on the source material.

I’ve just started watching it. I was somewhat skeptical of the approach (a mixture of horror and family drama) while watching Episode 1, but having now made it through the first 3 episodes I am more impressed. (Nice scene to open Episode 3, which manages to work in what is probably the most iconic line from the novel.)

“The Givens Sensor Board”, Josh Malerman

The more I reflect on this story, the less I like it. It’s written in a kind of stream-of-consciousness style, which I reflexively dislike. In those relatively few instances where I’ve appreciated it (e.g., Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse ), it’s use at least serves some purpose. In Malerman’s story, it seems more like an affectation designed to mask an essentially banal plot. (view spoiler)[The storyline is built upon the idea of sensors placed in coffins used to signal instances of premature burial. We are told that at the time of the story such sensors are in use in every cemetery in America (and have in a number cases been instrumental in averting tragedy). All of which is nonsense. And not even inspired nonsense; in fact, it’s rather silly. Although a few people have applied for patents for “safety coffins” during the 20th century, such devices haven’t really been used since the 19th century; certainly not since the advent of embalming. And it turns out that this plot device is ultimately being used in the service of what turns out to be an uninteresting and rather vile revenge fantasy. (hide spoiler)]

✭