Jlawrence’s Comments (group member since Mar 08, 2010)

Jlawrence’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

What I really admire now more than anything else is balance. As a budding nerdling I forgave (or flat-out didn't notice) clunky writing and paper-thin characters if a novel was playing with really interesting ideas. Likewise, striking writing could make up for weak plot and half-baked ideas (*glances at JG Ballard for a moment*). But now it's not good enough for *one* aspect of a book to really shine - balance is where it's at, man.

"Vance wrote: "Kris wrote: "Those look like good books..."

They really are. I am going to recommend Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was for a sword vote sometime..."

Thanks for this recommendation - looks great!

Want.

Kate wrote: "I feel terribly guilty about lemming The Graveyard Book, especially since Gaiman signed it for me and drew a little headstone with Kate written on it."

BTW, I'm officially jealous of your cruelly lemmed copy of The Graveyard Book.

I've lemmed a good number of books - sometimes guiltily, sometimes with relish. I have a custom goodreads shelf titled 'abandoned-but-tempting' for ones I might pick up again.

Of S&L reads, I've lemmed The Eye of the World and The Once and Future King (both are on that abandoned-but-tempting shelf).

The most recent book I lemmed (just yesterday!) I do feel guilty about - The Name of the Rose. I wrote this: "I feel some shame in doing this, but I'm putting it down after reading about 60%. I've been looking forward to it for many years, and it seemed like I would love it: a murder mystery set in a medieval monastery, a Sherlock Holmes-like super-observant monk as the investigator, a library that's a labyrinth, dark secrets revolving around arcane books - I was expecting it to be what would happen if Borges somehow managed to write a juicy page-turner.

But instead, despite some amazing moments, I mostly found myself slogging through, only mildly engaged. Part of it might have to do with not liking the info-dumps that are continually spooled out through long dialogues - distinctions between heretical sects and other fine complex theological points all make sense in the context of the story, but I would really rather receive huge chunks of information on that stuff in a non-fiction book these days. On the other hand, it wasn't so long ago that I read Anathem and I liked the info-dumps there, so maybe it's a combination of the subject matter and presentation here. Regardless, I felt like I was getting too far behind on my 2012-reading-challenge-list by forcing myself through this, but may pick it up again someday."

Noel wrote: "Ahhh but that was the early eighties, everyone was on drugs then:)"

Well, you've got me there. :)

Tigana or Assassin's Apprentice.

Because the fantasy elements are essential to making Book of the New Sun what it is, and work the way it does - they are not superficial but crucial to the story. Just as (as you argued and I agreed with) the space elements are essential to making Star Wars what it is as an imagined world and a visual experience.

And it's not a matter of re-categorization, the series has straddled the boundary since it was published. Wolfe has written about how different editions of the series have flipped between being labeled and shelved as fantasy or science fiction. And further, Sword of the Lictor won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and the British Fantasy Award in 1983, and The Shadow of the Torturer won the World Fantasy Award in 1981 (see here).

I can still enjoy the Ep IV if I close my eyes when Greedo shoots first, and when there's the clumsily inserted new Jabba scene with repeated dialogue, and then annoying CGI inserts in ....well, ok, it's rough - but what of the original is still there I enjoy. And Empire I still enjoy without qualifications. Return of the Jedi gets a sorta lame, aside from the steel bikini (let's repeat the climaxes of both previous films...um....) ...and then the rest I pretend don't really exist. ;)

Sorry, whatever flaws the original Star Wars has, Willow is just an instantly forgettable mediocre film. And if Lucas had done the original Star Wars as a medieval fantasy film, I think it would have sunk without a trace instead of becoming a cultural phenomenon, and the history of recent cinema and the pocketbooks of Kenner toys would have both been very different.

Sean wrote: "Jlawrence wrote: "But I agree with your early statements, Noel, that the *space* elements of Star Wars are indispensable to the world it creates, its whole texture and feel - it would *not* be the same thing with everything simply transposed into a medieval setting."

*cough* Willow *cough* "

Yes, and Willow SUCKED. And what was one of the (many) reasons? Because it was not in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.... ;)

I (bloody, still beating) *heart* these. :)

Noel wrote: "For 'fantasy' to have any meaningful effect as a genre descriptor, it needs to be well defined and have set elements such as sword and sorcery tales, magic systems that are recognisably just that, dragons, castles and such like. "

Agreed, but I'm not arguing for a watering down of the category 'fantasy' - that still applies absolutely to Lord of the Rings, Song of Ice and Fire, etc. I'm arguing for 'science fantasy' as a useful sub-category of speculative fiction/science fiction.

There are various works which are *not* traditional fantasy, but nevertheless use easily-recognizable elements of fantasy so strongly that those fantasy elements are essential to the work.

Book of the New Sun features castles, sword duels, medieval-lifestyle towns, medieval-style guilds, and wizards who seem to wield magic. But there is a scientific explanation underlying it all. Therefore it fits Wolfe's definition of 'science fantasy' - a story "in which the means of science are used to achieve the spirit of fantasy." If this was the only case of such a story, it would not be worth defining a category for it. But that category applies to other works like Dragonriders of Pern and The Dying Earth.

Star Wars also makes strong use of easily recognizable fantasy elements - it has sword duels, wizards who employ a magic system (the Force is mystical, midichlorians or no midichlorinas), etc. But I agree with your early statements, Noel, that the *space* elements of Star Wars are indispensable to the world it creates, its whole texture and feel - it would *not* be the same thing with everything simply transposed into a medieval setting.

Nonetheless, I think the science in Star Wars is largely nonexistent. So "space fantasy" for it. I think by "space fantasy" I pretty much do mean the same thing as "space opera", I just find it more useful.

Noel wrote: "If people want to take straight-up space operas and shoehorn them into fantasy, western, samurai or anything else, they can, but it makes genre classification increasingly meaningless and less valid."

Well, I didn't do any such thing. It was Lucas who shoehorned fantasy, western, samauri movies, WW2 dogfights and what all else into the space opera format, which is part of what makes the original Star Wars films so amazing. :)

And really, the most important category to me is "good fiction" or "fiction I love" (Adrienne's "awesome genre). :)

But categories and genres can be useful when I'm looking for a certain *kind* of book, or thinking about similarities between certain books.

That's substituting the word "fantasy" for "fiction." Sure, you can do that, but then the category "fantasy" ceases to have any function, since then Bridgette Jone's Diary, The Brothers Karamazov, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Lord of the Rings and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are all in the same category. All categories are artificial, and many books straddle categories, but "fantasy" is a useful sub-category of fiction, and I think "science fantasy" can be too, even if it's fiddly.

Joseph wrote: "Nick wrote: "Lynch did a great job considering the movie had a time constraint of 3 hours. Dune is too complex to make into a single movie."

Right now my dream adaptation would substitute the visual style and most of the cast from the Lynch movie into the SciFi versions."

I agree that would be an ideal adaptation! The SciFi Paul Atreides especially struck me as whiny (though he got much better in Children of Dune), and I like William Hurt, but he was a much too wimpy Duke Leto. Maybe with a quantum computer and home CGI-and-editing technology of a decade or two hence, we can all make our own versions. ;)

Noel wrote: "You couldn't resist it could you? Your Gene Wolfe obsession can be treated you know. Next time you feel the temptation to bring The Book of the New Sun into any unrelated conversation, just lie down in a darkened room and call Uncle Noel :) ."

Nah, it's incurable. :)

But ol' Mr. Wolfe has used the term himself. He says "a science fantasy story is one in which the means of science are used to achieve the spirit of fantasy" in his essay "What do they mean, SF?".

I'd say science fantasy is something like The Dying Earth or The Book of the New Sun, where a setting appears to be fantasy and the story uses many elements of traditional fantasy, but there is actually a science fiction core and explanation for the setting - magic in the setting is really advanced technology, etc.

Star Wars I'd classify as space fantasy. It uses lots of fantasy elements like science fantasy, but does not have a true science fiction core - science is pretty much thrown out the window (sound in space, spaceships act like WW2 planes in the vacuum of space, etc.). But I don't think its space elements can simply be switched for medieval fantasy elements and have it remain the same. The Death Star floats from star system to star system and blows up entire planets, for instance - that doesn't have an immediate fantasy equivalent. Actually, a motley stew of elements were synthesized/riffed on to create the original Star Wars universe (Kurosawa films, WW2 arial films, Westerns, early science fiction pulps, early cinema's cliffhanger serials, comic books, Joseph Campbell theories, etc.) -- that soup of influences is documented well in The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film and The Secret History of Star Wars, and Lucas isn't shy about admitting all those influences.

I do like the idea of 'speculative fiction' being an umbrella that can contain science fiction, science fantasy and space fantasy, even though it can be argued that space fantasy is not doing speculation as much as it is creating (at its best) unique imaginative experiences.

Sword & Laser video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXAzI...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esexyj...

Well, I have so much on my to-read list that I don't have a problem picking up something new from that list. BUT...I'm sometimes very indecisive about whether to continue a book that I'm not really loving, because I feel like it's eating into the time I could spend on other books on that impossible to complete to-read shelf.

I've gotten better at simply putting a book down, but some I feel obligated to finish - I'm experiencing that with The Name of the Rose right now. I've looked forward to reading it for many years, and all its ingredients suggest I'd love it, but....I'm just finding it mildly interesting at 50% through. But I feel compelled to not abandon it...

Oooh, I'm very interesting in seeing that, I've been fascinated by Jodorowsky's epically-whacked-out failed vision of Dune.

There's some good info and production art here (you can see art contributions of HR Geiger, Chris Foss, Moebius).

Both Tom's and my lines were cut from Vampire Secrets. :( :(

We're at 5:50 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rvcnz...

From the same show, Veronica as Virgin #5, being spirited away in a bag at 5:20, and presented at 6:35:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2O3kN...

I mean, the imposter Veronica...