Uttergloss Hootenanny

24: Comments

2007-02-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

In some ways, this season is interesting not in spite of duplicating earlier plotlines but because of duplicating earlier plotlines. The similarity of the 'Morris' brother' business to the one two years back with Edgar's mom was striking enough to call attention to itself, and, of course, played out quite differently. One has similar expectations for the repeat of the 'Cabinet Coup/25th Amendment invoked' subplot from season 2. And since they're talking War in the previews, one wonders if it'll be with "Three Middle-Eastern countries" again...

24: Predictions

2007-01-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

1. In keeping with this season's "boneheaded policies turn out to be right" mini-theme, Nadia is almost certainly a Mole.

2. Graem's last words will include the phrase "your dead wife".

3. Unless I'm mistaken, they just namechecked Nina for the second time this season. I'm getting more and more of a feeling that we are going to learn that she miraculously survived Season 3, has been in US custody and comatose since then, and was what was traded to the Chinese for Jack, setting her up as the Season 7 Big Bad...

24: Rocket Romano Versus Chopper, Round Two

2007-01-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

Seriously; the falling helicopter has to be an ER shout-out, doesn't it?

Early season thoughts: it's starting to look like "What did the government give the Chinese to get Jack Back?" is going to be this year's Chekovian Gun. But how do you pay that one off? Pretty much every vililan 24 has ends up dead or pardoned-and-exiled, so there's not many people that the US could be trading. I don't think they'd be able to convince us that Nina Myers miraculously survived Season 3 and has been in a secret prison since then (although if she did, the 'don't tell anyone who even knows Jack' part is easy to credit.) in a handful of snippets and side references during a fairly busy main plot, so who?

Motif-watch. (I think we'll have to go with the pedestrian 'Death' as Season 5's motif, by the way). So far, we may be working on "the dangers of making deals with terrorists" or "profoundly stupid decisions that, through dumb luck, turn out to be correct", both of which are a little complex. Surely they'll refine down a bit later.

Update

2007-01-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

Still around, with posting to be fairly intermittent for the time being. Posted my nanowrimo2006 postmortem over at fiveyearsafter. May or may not do weekly 24blogging this year around, although probably not until next week if at all.

Wish there was a decent new Lexicon Game around to join. Or that I had access to a large enough potential player base to start one on my own with a reasonable expectation of getting a good batch of players. Set up a wiki indexing all of the ones that I've seen on the intertubes.

And writing regularly at 100wordstories as well.

Lost, Season 2

2006-12-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

Hey, I'm still alive!

Anyhow, having finished season 2 of Lost, I thought I'd revisit my questions post from season 1, and see how we're doing on resolving things.

The Island

What's inside the hatch? resolved
What is the monster? unresolved
Why are there Polar Bears in the Tropics? [maybe under Walt rather than The Island] unresolved
Where is it on a map? unresolved
Why is it undiscovered? unresolved
What is the power source for the transmission? resolved
Who are the Others, and what is their agenda? unresolved
Why is the tide coming in so high and fast? unresolved

The Plane

Why did it crash? resolved
How did so many survive? unresolved
Where are the other survivors Boone contacted on the radio? resolved

Jack

How did his marriage end? resolved
How does he keep a constant level of stubble without ever being either clean-shaven or developing a full beard? unresolved
What's up with the tattoo? unresolved
Where did his dad's body go? unresolved

Kate

What was her initial crime all about? resolved
What was the reason she ran away from home in the first place? resolved
To whom was she married? unresolved
How did that turn out? unresolved
Why was she calling the Marshall at home? unresolved

Locke

How did he become crippled? unresolved
How was he cured? quasi-resolved
When did he acquire his mad skillz at hunting and survival? quasi-resolved
Ditto his encyclopedic knowledge of trivia such as instantly identifying Nigerian Currency? unresolved
What happened after he stared at the beast? unresolved
What happened after the vault light turned on? resolved

Sawyer

What was the fiasco in Miami? quasi-resolved? (possibly the flashbacks in 'the long con'?)
Why isn't he having nicotine withdrawl problems? unresolved
Why didn't anyone blame his headaches on above? unresolved

Sayid

When and why did he leave Iraq? (Probably trailing Nadia, but how did he get that trail?) unresolved

Charlie (No current mysteries with Charlie I can recall.)
Claire

Why is Aaron's being raised by Claire so important? unresolved

Hurley

What do the numbers mean? unresolved
Why was he in the mental institution? resolved
How did he get the nickname? unresolved

Jin and Sun

How did Sun's father find out Jin was planning to flee? unresolved

Shannon and Boone (Nothing much here, either.)

Michael and Walt
Does Walt have the ability to control random events [Backgammon vs Hurley scene]? unresolved
Does Walt control the weather? unresolved
Does Walt have the ability to summon wildlife? unresolved
If so, is he responsible for the Polar Bears? unresolved
If so, when Rouseau mentioned 'Bears', was she thinking of more normal tropic-friendly species? unresolved
If he can do all these things, as well as perfectly throw a knife with positive visualization, is there anything he can't do? Is Walt, in fact, some kind of demigod? unresolved
Why do the Others want him? unresolved

Rousseau

Who was Alix's father? unresolved
What happened to Alix after he was taken? resolved
Is she crazy/how crazy is she, or were the rest of her crew actuall infected by something? unresolved
Why does she, living alone on a deserted island and coming from a culture comfortable with female body hair, shave her armpits smooth? unresolved

All right, and now for the new questions.

The Island

Why did the shark have the Dharma logo on it?
Where'd the horse come from?
Why did the parrot know Hurley's name?
If the Island cured Jin, Locke, and Rose, why not Shannon?
Why are the castawas such an incurious bunch?
Is the food drugged? Why doesn't anyone consider that possibility?
Is space-time warped in a Snow-globe-like manner around the Island, or is Desmond just a bad navigator?
Who built the leg statue? Why?
Who broke it? Why?
Why four toes?

Desmond and The Vault

Why require periodic human input at the terminal?
Who is the "Him" that Desmond was waiting for?
Where are the missing stations?
What exactly is behind the concrete?
What do the glyphs mean?
What is in the 'vaccine'?
What was written on the blast door map?

Jack

Who is his sister?

Kate
Locke
Sawyer

Hurley

Can we really exclude the Dave theory of everything?
Why was Libby in the institution?
Why was Libby in Sydney/on that flights? (Hurley inherits Libby's questions.)

Charlie

What caused his hallucinations?

Claire
Jin & Sun

Did the island cure Jin, did Sun sleep around, or was she implanted in some sinister manner?

Sayid
Michael&Walt
Eko

Why did the smoke monster retreate from him?

The Others

How does their indocrination work?
How do they choose who to take?
Who is their leader?
Where's the real hatch that goes with their fake entrance?

So, questions are multiplying, but with some progress. The ending of season two, though, makes any kind of resolution to any of the various issues surrounding Walt seem extremely difficult, which could be bad since they certainly seemed central in season one. Also, nice trick with the numbers--making them so central to the world of the vault throughout the season that one doesn't notice the utter lack of progress in explaining any of the mystery surrounding them. Well played, Lost producers...

Note

2006-09-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

In case one hadn't already guessed, posting will be spotty-to-nonexistant here through the end of November...

Contra MacLeod

2006-09-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of months ago, Ken MacLeod posted this on his blog, during the Israel/Lebanon hostilities.

Now, as I may have mentioned before, I have some sympathy for the viewpoint that the idea of 'civilized warfare', that there is any signficant state between 'peace' and 'total war', that that idea is illusory and false. But while I find it a useful illusion, he finds it a pernicious one.

The problem, though, is that while his views on jus in bellum are in my view quite wrong, his views on jus ad bellum are, frankly, outright evil: the idea that it is possible to simultaneously reject self-defense as a just reason for warfare and accept the genocidally racist arab irredentism as a perfectly fine casus belli is so profoundly wrong that one can hardly help but look for alternate, sinister personal motives. One does find traces of a particularly rabid anti-colonialism, but it is one that is premised on the bizarre unspoken contentions that Jewish culture is utterly alien to the Middle East, there were never any indigenous Jews anywhere in the region, and that Arabs are either historically incapable of imperialism and colonialism or that they must, uniquely, be forgiven for it.

Geopolitical Nightmares

2006-09-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

One way to characterize eras is by their nightmares, as delivered, of course, by it's culture's fantasists. And so there is, within the Science Fiction umbrella a subgenre of Geopolitical Nightmare Stories. In the Cold War era, we had such things as Robert Heinlein's "If this Goes On", George Orwell's "1984", and any number of various and sundry apocalypses. Post-cold-war, we've been stumbling between various different Nightmares, from the generic Corporate-dominated (and simultaneously Asian-Ascendant) worlds of Cyberpunk (and, for that matter, Kurt Vonnegut's "Hocus Pocus"), to environmental collapse stories like John Barnes' "Mother of Storms" (or the anti-environmental collapse story of Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn's "Fallen Angels" for that matter) to the New World Disorder of John Barnes' "Kaleidescope Century".

Of course, five years ago Geopolitics gave us some new nightmares.

And that's why two of the books scheduled for this coming year have such an interest: two surface-similar Geopolitical Nightmare Stories, from authors about as far apart politically as it is possible to publishably get: Orson Scott Card's "Empire" and Ken MacLeod's "The Execution Channel". Will be interesting to see where they meet and diverge and meet again...

Off-Agenda Linkblogging:

2006-09-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Via TNH's Particles:

Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars.

Enjoy.

Agenda

2006-08-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

Have falled behind on posting here. Some things I'd like to get around to, though, in the near future:
1. Some post-Hugos comments
2. Some McLeod-related comments
3. Notes on abridgement with respect to the last 2 Harry Potter films
4. A comparison between Preacher and The Boys
5. An overview of some recent guilty-pleasure reading...

Well, there were Mischief and Malarkies...

2006-08-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

Finally watched V for Vendetta. Extremely disappointing, that. Okay, so in adapting a story from a longer medium there are going to be cuts, clearly. I'm not at all sure that the cuts here were the right ones (I really wanted to see the songs make it to film, both 'This Vicious Cabaret' and 'I Like the Boots'. Was fairly pleased to see a little bit of Storm Saxon...)

But beyond the cuts, the real problem with the film is the changes. The core of which is, of course, the one I'm alluding to in the title. The film's version of totalitarian Britain is simply a weak sister of the original. They should have kept the panopticon, shut down briefly by V, and not a place in which only a few people are surveilled. It should not have been a place where even the most popular TV host can think that he could possibly get away with lampooning the leadership. And, in the final scenes of the movie, there should certainly be multiple black people in the crowd, because V's Britain should be based on a foundation of genocide, not merely atrocity.

And, of course, another key feature of the books is that there should be nowhere else to go to. Having an America about, even engaged in a civil war, diminishes a lot of the work's point and makes multiple characters come across as idiots for not having left. The single line that was cut from the film that did the most damage has to be "Africa's not there anymore"...

Five overrated things.

2006-08-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Soundtrack to Chess
Warren Ellis
Final Fantasy VII
Breakfast
Kurt Vonnegut

The Girl on the Mantlepiece

2006-08-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

So, I recently finished reading Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, largely on the strength of the recommendation of the esteemed Mr. Hite. An excellent book, certainly among the top five of the year so far. But there are a few things about which to talk.

One should not that, unlike, as I am told, the UK version of the book, the US version does not contain, anywhere on the cover or the text, the phrase 'Book one of the Gentlemen Bastards Sequence' or anything of the like. Thus, I came to the text under the mistaken belief that it was going to be an entirely self-contained novel, rather then the beginning of a series. If I had had that knowledge, my problem might have been less pronounced, I'll admit.

But even in book one of seven, introducing a character by telling the reader repeatedly that she is extremely special, and following that up with indications that she is currently a continent away that are persistent enough to make anyone suspect dramatic irony at work is a ~~Tolstoyan~~Chekovian Gun on the Mantlepiece, creating dramatic expectations that are confounded in an unsatisfying manner when it refuses to go off by the third act.

A couple of other points:

I found it more than a little bit cute when Locke and company actually believed that they had been the first to invent The Bank Examiner. C'mon, next he'll say Chains was the first person to walk into a pawnshop with an antique violin...(Being familiar with other con-artistry based SF; The Golden Globe and American Gods, for example, I figured that instantly and so the strange pacing of that chapter didn't really help with the tension level.)

And I got an interesting, China Meville-ish vibe out of the book's major antagonists-a militant socialist and a magical-biotech-animal-grafter. Which in turn suggest an interesting metatextual reading of the meaning of their fates...

(At least the socialists in this book are of the unsophisticated, not-particularly-different-from-the-politics-of-a-French-villiage-athiest sort. The bizarre anachronism of Meville's fairly sophisticated socialism in a world with neither a liberal enlightenment tradition nor revolutionary experiences of either the American or French varieties, let along both, has always bothered me. Almost as much as George R. R. Martin's belief that introducing reliable contraception into a late medieval society wouldn't make any social changes at all happen...)

Maybe I'm shallow...

2006-08-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

But I really don't think that anyone who's auditioning for a major role in an edgy, pay-cable television series should be even allowed in the door without agreeing to do nude scenes.

This post is, ostensibly, about the first season of Showtime's Weeds. In which we have a major character who spends an episode or two exposing her breasts to, well, everyone except the audience.

At the time I was just assuming the Weeds wasn't going for the full-on edgy pay cable series thing, just a sitcom with four-letter words thing. But then, a couple of episodes later, a bit part character is brought in for a few sex scenes and she does do the nudity thing. So it's not that, just pure Dream On Syndrome.

(Named for the first edgy, pay-cable television series, in which the unwillingness of the major recurring characters to show their all, so to speak, contrasted most wildly with the enthusiasm that the one-off guest stars shed their clothing...)

Directors and Showrunners at HBO and Showtime, make your stand! No more implying that couples spend so little time on foreplay that the tops remain on! No more bedsheets so strategically placed that it looks like someone made the bed around them after the act! Make 'em sign on the dotted line up front. (And I should note that this goes for male prima donnas as well...)

(Other than that, the show was fairly enjoyable, if lightweight...)

And now for something completely different

2006-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Below: a chapter out of one of my abandoned novel attempts. Just for the heck of it.
----

Chapter 4: Andy in Flight

Andy's got a one-way ticket and no baggage, so he gets the full treatment between the effects check-in and the dressing room: scans, body cavity search, blood screening, a full factory diagnostic on his eye. He always travels light, sending his baggage with his car on autopilot to the hotel early enough to get there about when he does. After the bleeding, he tears open the plastic bag and puts on the airline outfit. And the airline underwear, the topic of which stand-up comics have been drawn for as long as he can recall. He's got a while to wait while the docs process his blood.

The blood test has always struck him as silly, instituted, as it was, after a spectacularly unsuccessful terrorist attack back in '28. Some group, probably either the third incarnation of Al Qaeda, or maybe the Algerian Liberation Front, managed to infect one of their would-be martyrs with a supposedly airborne strain of Ebola, and pumped him full enough of drugs to mask enough symptoms and got him onto a passenger jet on an international flight. Midway through the poor fool started to bleed out and spread those germs around even faster.

The "Death Plane" story started hitting the news at 10:00 AM on the morning of the New Hampshire Primaries, causing quite a dilemma for the Democrats. Jack Desmonds was taking a second shot at the presidency, and had no serious opposition (the 'five dwarves' of that era), and was looking forward to some serious airtime and exposure for his 'New Plan for America' agenda. The Republicans had no such problem; the President, weak as he was with the general public, had no worries about losing New Hampshire to John Malcolm's insurgent 'Face the Facts Express' campaign, and the lack of exposure could only hurt Malcolm in the states he was actually competitive in.

Andy had been in New Hampshire, in the media-people's favorite local Bar, Patrick's, drinking with Brian Redwing, master of the political beat for a major national newspaper. The Television had the "Death Plane" news cycle on it, a couple of pundits arguing if the Air Force should shoot it down over the Atlantic before it can land or not. Andy's eye was brand-new back then, so new it still made the inside of his eyelid itch. Not even paid for yet, although that was going to change in a few minutes.

"So, what have you got?" asked Redwing, half-genial, half-impatient.

Andy grinned. "The big one."

"So you found a way to make that Frankenstein gear pay off already?"

"Sure did. I've gotten myself inside the Desmond campaign's local organization, shuffling papers, knocking on doors, calling people up just before dinner, that kind of stuff. Then, this afternoon, I manage to be on the other side of a glass window when Desmond and his inner circle got word of that thing" Andy pointed with his thumb at the TV, where the "Death Plane" story logo had undergone another incremental mutation from the makeshift text and clipart it had started out as toward a fully-evolved news-story icon.

"Behind glass? If this is based on lip-reading, they'll be able to spin any story they want in response."

"There's a really nifty directional mic in my 'Frankenstein gear', Brian. Picks out and restores the sound waves off the glass surface."

"Hm. So what did he have to say?"

"Well, the highlights are 'This is my day' and 'Why couldn't they have just shot those motherfuckers down over the ocean and said it was an accident.' Plus an exceptionally paranoid rant, even for this century's politics."

"Nice." said Redwing, before finishing off his beer. "What's the price on this?"

"I figure on a hundred K/" said Andy. "Redwing didn't spit up his beer, which he took as a good sign. "Plus I get to use the paper's legal staff if Desmond tries and sues."

"You don't ask for just a little, do you?"

"It's not a little story. Not everyone gets to bring down a presidential candidate."

"Maybe. But who else do the Dems have?"

"After this, they could bring Sandra Parker out of retirement and do better in the general."

"Heh. Okay, I'll go seventy plus legal. No higher."

Andy had been expecting to settle at around fifty thousand. "Deal."

"All right, let's take a look, then."

Brian transferred the funds to Andy's bank and Andy sent the video to Brian's laptop. Andy nursed his own beer while Brian watched the candidate fume.

Brian freezed the image, midway through the bit where Desmonds was accusing President Clayton of keeping the plane around just to take airtime away from his campaign, or maybe even having foreknowledge of the whole plan and letting it happen anyway for the same reason. "I think you're wrong." he said.

"About what?" asked Andy.

"Look at the other people in the room." Andy did. Desmond's inner circle, which is to say the Democrats' key leaders. Their top fundraisers, pollsters, spokespeople for TV appearances. Andy shrugged. "Now look at what they're doing." Andy saw it now: to a man, they were nodding, giving assent and encouragement. Not a single cautionary voice was being raised. "This won't bring down a candidate. It'll bring down a party."

Brian wrote up a quick accompanying story and sent it, with the videos, to his paper. The paper took a half an hour to verify the GPS-stamps in the video, then pushed the story to their website and Newsprinter machines. The TV outlets were slow on this, with their assets maximally covering the plane itself, but on the internet it spread like wildfire.

The TV stations picket it up just before the plane landed at a hastily-abandoned airfield in south Florida, mostly spinning it as an 'oddly enough' light perspective piece before live images of the Quarantine Zone began to dominate the news cycle.

As the day went on, the story kept getting worse and worse for Desmond and his party. Voter outrage over the moral dimension was joined by questions about Desmond's judgment and character as it became obvious that the 'Death Plane' wasn't so deadly after all: only three of the passengers became at all sick, and all of them were responding extremely well to antibiotic treatment. President Clayton made a statement about the Plane, but didn't deign to mention the Desmond story at all. Then Malcom's camp put out a more direct statement, condemning Desmond's remarks, defending Clayton's choices on the plane, and appealing to disgruntled Democrats to cross party lines and vote for him.

In the end, Clayton took the state, but just barely, 52% to 47%, and since the pollsters predicted Malcolm would only get 25%, it was a major momentum gain. In fact, adding the protest votes he got in the Democratic Primary, which put him second to Desmond and ahead of all five dwarfs, Malcolm wound up with more total votes than Clayton.

And that, Andy still thinks, was the end of the Democrats as a national party. Oh, they were pretty well doomed after Parker, and some say moribund going back to Kerry or even Carter, but that was the tipping point. Andy's brought out of his nostalgia by the airport doctor, who gives him a clean bill of health, so it's onward, into the secured area of the Terminal.

Andy can't help but think about how much the inside of an airport reminds him of prison. Two classes of people, two kinds of uniform, and little enough variation in each kind. He's heard that some New York businessman plans to start a new airline offering a choice of custom-fitted safesuits, designed by the leading names in the world of fashion: Pride air, to jump with the seven deadly airlines. Well, they'd really only make it three, alongside Air Gluttony (Epicura, with its airborne three-star restaurants) and Air Lust (Natura, which dispenses with safesuits entirely in favor of an all-nude flight experience, and, according to popular rumor, secretly offers nearly-free tickets to attractive and loose women). Andy hopes the Pride folks make a decent go at it, if only to see a little variety in Terminal attire. He's sticking with Air Green, the rest of the pack: no frills, low cost, and a cash bar. He checks the board with the schedule; his flight is on time, departing from a nearby gate. A short walk brings him to the waiting area, where he gets a fresh newspaper and sits down to wait.

The newspaper is mostly full of President Cramer's speech at NASA HQ yesterday; half his standard stump speech, half waxing rhapsodic about the space program. He and his whole party just love the space program; it lets them look forward-thinking and progress-friendly and helps to mask their retrograde views on biotechnology. Goes all the way back to the beginning, when Clayton lost the Republican primaries over it. Andy had been working the streets, trying to track down the truth about a particularly ugly rumor about Malcom's brother, not getting very far, but he came up for air for the last Clayton/Malcolm debate, on the eve of Super Tuesday.

Malcolm had capitalized on the Democrats' collapse to mount the most successful primary challenge to an incumbent president since, well, forever; getting close enough to victory that the President had agreed to the debate. Andy found Brian with the other press, pre-empting his question. "I got nothing." he said.

"That's okay. I figured so much. I've had us chasing a completely wrong idea about little Johnny." Brian answered. Andy stared blankly at him. "My old pal Desi Alums found out the real deal, and she's going to spring it at the beginning of this little circus. Sit down, enjoy the show."

Andy sat, and looked around. "Looks pretty calm so far. I've seen media circuses, and this doesn't look like one to me."

"It will. Trust me, it will."

The lights in the press room dimmed briefly, the signal that the debate was about to begin. The sounds of voices and movement abruptly faded to nearly nothing, leaving only the muted clutter of rapid keyboarding. Following that was several minutes of introductions, slowed by round after round of obligatory applause. Then came the opening statements, trimmed by the format to a bare thirty seconds, giving each candidate barely enough time to thank the hosts and offer a mini-sound-bite version of their campaign theme. (Clayton: Stay the Course; Malcolm: Take back America.) The first question went to Malcolm, and it was Redwing's friend.

"Desdimona Alums, Boston Globe. Mister Malcolm, do you agree with your party's 2036 platform position against the legalization of human genetic engineering?"

Malcolm hesitated, catching the predatory look on Desi's face, suspecting what was coming next. "Let me tell you what I don't believe. I don't believe that congenital birth defects are and indispensable part of the human condition. I don't believe in making criminals out of parents who only want their babies to be born healthy. And I don't believe in the rhetoric that's been coming out of other parts of this party, saying that allowing these parents to have healthy children will inevitably lead to some general loss of humanity or some evil race of superhuman monsters."

Malcolm paused, allowing Desi to break the format and drop in the followup: "Judging from your Senate record, this seems to be a fairly new position for you. Does this shift have anything to do with the fact that your brother's son, your nephew, was genetically modified and gestated in a facility in the Netherlands?"

The press room roared in a fury of typing, even as monitors indicated ratings spikes as friends and agent programs referred more and more viewers to the debate. Andy almost smacked his forehead; of course, that explained it all. He and Brian had come across photographic evidence of Malcom's sister-in-law, clearly not pregnant, a month before the baby's birth. They had suspected an adoption, of an illegitimate child of the brother or even, they dared hope, the candidate himself. Desi got the right trail and followed it to ground.

Malcolm, finally succumbing to the politician's natural instinct to fill dead air, began his answer. "My sister-in-law June" he started, "suffered through three miscarriages before taking this step, and each time I personally saw the pain, the agony that this loss put her through. I can't say that wanting to stop anyone else from experiencing this kind of senseless, needless tragedy doesn't influence my thinking, no."

The moderator took the moment to regain control of the debate. "President Clayton, your response?"

The President paused, gathering his own thoughts. He looked unprepared for this turn of events; apparently, his opposition research team followed the wrong threads too. Finally, he turned to the questioners' box, looking directly to Desi. "Excuse me, miss?" He said. She met his gaze in acknowledgment. "Did you say that John Philip Malcolm was grown in some kind of vat?"

"An artificial womb, yes, sir." she responded.

"Not of woman born?" Desi nodded. "Well, I'd like to express my deepest sympathy for my opponent's family, both on the loss of those three children and on the deeper tragedy of having a child living among them without a soul."

Andy's neck had snapped, instinctually, midway through Clayton's remarks, over to Malcolm, to watch his response. He saw the Senator's face turn bright red with rage, showing even through the makeup. He turned to Clayton, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it, turned his back, and walked off the podium and out of the venue.

"Well," Brian told him, "So much for a unified convention."

Malcolm held a very short press conference about an hour later, proving Brian right by refusing to answer a 'support the nominee' question. Another reported asked if walking out on the debate might show he had too short a temper to be President. Malcolm grinned and said "Well, considering that my first impulse was to walk up that S.O.B. and pop him one in the face, I'd say I showed admirable restraint."

The voters, that day mostly in Southern states, favored Clayton's view but admired Malcolm's style. Malcolm edged out victories in Florida, Virginia, and Kentucky, losing the rest, but moving up in the polls in the remaining big states.

The voice on the speaker announces that boarding is about to begin, so, starting with the handful of people with small children and then proceeding from the assigned seats in the back of the plane to the front, each passenger goes through one more round of metal detectors and retina/fingerprint biometric ID verification. Andy's seat is near the front of the plane, where the first class seats would be if this airline had first class seating, close enough to see the cockpit door.

Seated next to Andy is a round-faced pudgy man wearing business-casual clothes and a blond toupee, a long one that goes down to his natural, gray-peppered-black sideburns. Andy buckles in right away, his seatmate waits until the stewardess gives the instructions for them, then fumbles around getting the pieces out from under himself as the stewardess poses with and discusses her Taser. HE gets the belt fastened just as she concludes with the traditional "In the unlikely event of a critical crowd control issue, the cabin will be suffused with Kayonex gas, rendering the passengers unconscious but unharmed."

Andy wishes he were unconscious, but he could never manage to sleep on a plane. There's an idea for another deadly airline: Air Sloth, where they gas everyone, every flight. Once the plane reaches cruising altitude and the 'no electronic devices' light goes off, in lieu of sleep, Andy brings up the third recording in his Brian Redwing file, the eve of the Republican Convention, '28.

Andy arrived late to Brian's 'war room' meeting: the two junior political reporters for his paper, Ken Bale and Connie DeLong, were there, along with their official photographer Terry Avelon, and a couple of stringers and interns Andy never got the names of. Probably a couple dozen more low-level types following along remotely from Washington. Brian was holding court.

"Okay, we've got 931 delegates committed to the President and 988 committed to Malcolm going in, along with 198 uncommitted superdelegates. Give me the scenarios."

"Brokered convention?" piped Bale.

Brian rolled his eyes. "No chance. Neither one of these guys is going to even thing about stepping aside, and there isn't any credible compromise candidate at any rate. Next?"

DeLong threw in with "So, two questions, then. Does Clayton have enough superdelegates in hand to make up the difference, and do he and Malcolm know how they're going to break?"

"I think that's at least three questions, but points taken." Brian turned to the camera to directly address the offsite contingent. "Research how many of the supers do we think they each have?"

A voice came over the speaker. "Thirty actual endorsements on each side. Beyond that it's guesswork. Fifteen with a known long-term grudge against Clayton, Eighteen holding paper on Malcolm. The rest are anyone's guess. Voting-record affinity gives Malcolm a slight edge, but I wouldn't trust that."

Brian turned next to Andy, the first time he acknowledged his presence. "Good that you could make it." he said. "What've you got?"

"Fifteen thousand pissed-off Shriners in Delaware." Andy said. He got a bunch of blank looks. "Seems like the convention center broke their contract in order to rent the hall to something called the B.T.N.C."

Brian took it in. "When?" he asked.

"A week, starting the day after tomorrow." Andy answered.

Bale got it next. "N.C. would be National Committee? One of them's going to start a new party?"

"So whoever's going to lose knows it." said Connie. "Does the winner know he's only getting half a party?"

"Doubtful." said Brian. "If any of the splitters were going to spill the beans ahead of time they'd have gone to the media first. B.T, B.T...Research!" he swung round on the camera. "I want a list of phrases with those initials that make sense and are connected to either candidate. Let's put them on the board."

A smartboard on one of the walls began to fill with two-word phrases. Brian quickly eliminated the negative ("Axe 'battling terrorism' and variants. No one's going to invite people calling them the Terrorism party. Axe everything that shortens into something dreadful-sounding.") Then he took out the ones very outside of the mainstream. ("Benign Theocracy", "Beyond Transhumanism", and "Ban Taxation"), and of course, the just plain silly ones ("I think we can rule out 'the Beefsteak Tomato party'").

Eventually, the possibilities narrowed down to just a few; the neutralish "Bargaining Table", the Malcolm-leaning "Benevolent Technocracy", and the Clayton-leaning "Better Tomorrow"

"I like the last one." Brian said. "What's the usual context when Clayton's used the phrase?"

"Quoting Reagan" said Connie. "Second Inaugural address. 'Voices were raised saying we had to look to our past for the greatness and glory. But we, the present-day Americans, are not given to looking backward. In this blessed land, there is always a better tomorrow.'"

"Perfect. Plus it makes more sense for it to be Clayton. A third-party run might actual have a chance with a sitting President running."

"You sure?" asked Bale.

"Sure enough to roll the dice." Brian turned once again to the camera and the offsite crowd. "Put in a call with...who's that new kid running his campaign? Bob something or other. Carver. Bob Carver. Let him know that Brian Redwing is doing a historical piece on Reagan's second term for tomorrow's edition, and that I'd welcome his boss' expert commentary on the subject."

There followed several minutes of nervous waiting. Then, a few more minutes. Then, finally, an incoming call.

"Redwing here" Brian answered over his headset. "Yes, sir. I'm sure we can do business."

"No, but I could hold it until just before the voting." Pause. "An interview, for starts. Face-to-face. And some names, a couple more that I can get quotes off of." Another pause. "Thank you, Mr. President."

Brian hung up, and addressed the room. "Clayton's be sending a Limo. Research, I want a brief list of the historical fault-lines in the Republican party. Everyone else, looks like you can call it a night."

And so the celebrations began. Watching vids of himself drinking always makes Andy thirsty, so it's a lucky break that the stewardess arrives to take his drink order just as the recording wraps up. He's feeling a bit southern by now, given the destination, so he orders bourbon. His seat mate puts away the rental palmtop he'd been working crosswords on, and orders a bloody Mary. The drinks appear momentarily, what would be doubles or more if bought at a bar. Andy's seen the pathetic little bottles that used to get served on planes before people started thinking too hard about the weapon quality of broken glass. Like piercings and Heavy Metal music, it was a cultural artifact of the past that baffled Andy every time he gave it a moment's thought.

Andy nurses his drink until the descent begins, gulping down the last of it just as the stewardess makes her final pass by. The ride down is bumpy but not overlong. After the short wait while the plane taxies to the terminal, he briskly walks off the plane, collects his personal effects bag, and takes a cab straight to his hotel. En route, he goes online, and restores the software in his eye-socket to it's usual patched-and-customized state. He then checks in at the hotel and orders a sandwich from room service. When the cab arrives, he goes straight to his room to eat, sleep, and get an early start on the next day.

Another small post on RPG Theory

2006-08-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

So, after a little more thought on the matter, as well as reading today's rpg.net big thread and the Big Model glossary document, I have a few more opinions or points to throw out:

1. I vaguely remembered the whole Turku thing, and the glossary certainly reminded me of it. I thought it was genuinely awful at the time; I remember characterizing their agenda as 'Gamers against fun'. I begin to suspect that the entire Forge-based realm of theory is, at it's heart, a radical reaction to the Turku 'movement', and that is what causes it's biggest weakness: a near-total rejection of Immersionism. It's only when you lose immersionism that the impossible thing becomes impossible; a key feature of being a protagonist in a story is being trapped in, as Howard might complain, a world you never made, in control of nothing but your response to it.

2. One generally suspects nearly all game designs are attempts to react to, and pre-empt, the sins of one's worst GMs (and scenario designers). So rules-crazy 70's games were all about GM caprice, and much of the Forge's favored methods are reactions to heavily railroaded games in their pasts...but collect too many game designers in one place, and you begin to accumulate a critical mass of anti-GM karma, to the point where many of the games strip the GM of various segments of his authority, or even do away with the role altogether. But directorial powers have a strong tendency to disrupt any sense of immersion. But, of course, that sort of play, while certainly enjoyable in it's own right, has passed so far into storytelling that the very concept of 'Role-playing' has become lost. (Indeed, I am deeply surprised that the Forge's terminology hasn't declared 'Role-Playing' a verbotten term itself. One supposes that only the trouble of having to change domain names has spared it...)

Little comment...

2006-08-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

So lately I've been doing a bit of readings in RPG theory, dipping into some threads at RPG.net and The Forge. Just for kicks, that is. Anyhow, something that appears to be, at this admittedly casual glance, utterly absent from the entire analysis is the experience of being a GM. It looks, to me at least, that this has caused most of the indy-style RPGs to meld themselves into a 'game designer as Auteur' model even stronger than the most meta-plotty 90's style game line, which may be turning off the 'GM as Auteur' model that has a plurality if not a majority in actual experience (not to mention the 'Entire Playground as Auteur' Freeformers.) But that's just my limited experience talking. If anyone more knowledgable in theory issues knows more about Big Model-ism as applied to the GM's creative agenda happens to stumble onto this post somehow, feel free to enlighten me...

Rantlet, again

2006-08-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

I'm becoming increasingly of the belief that the idea that there can exist any state between peace and total war is a tremendous folly.

On the other hand, it's a fairly useful folly.

But if one wants to maintain it, it requires a concerted effort to avoid thinking and discussing matters of jus in bello too deeply...

Books

2006-08-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

Since voting just closed on this year's Hugos (I still think Spin will take it, but only because Anansi Boys was robbed of a nomination somehow), it's time to start thinking about who'll win next years prize. I recently read the two most likely current contenders, Rainbow's End and Glasshouse. Both were excellent books, although neither was so perfect as to make the choice easy. The Vinge didn't quite live up to its own promises, and the Stross reminded me more of Kaleidoscope Century than any enjoyable novel ought to...

What else will likely be rounding out the list? Well, I've heard good things about The Lies of Locke Lamora, which is on my immediate list. And I'm eagerly awaiting Three Days to Never. Beyond that, we'll see...

Catching Up...

2006-07-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

So here's the mini-version of posts on recent DVD-TV watchings:

Boston Legal, Season 1: Very amusing, and much moreso for the fact that in the back of your head it's Kirk, Odo, and Murphy Brown running the firm...

Six Feet Under, Season 5: Much better than Season 4, and one of the best series finales ever.

The 4400, Season Two: Again, a big improvement over the mini-series, looking forward to more of that.

The Wire, Seasons one and two: Indeed, the best damn show on television. Stands up to multiple viewings; season three can't show up soon enough...

Next up: A few sf books; early 2006 awards handicaping

Political Mini-rant season again

2006-07-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

Any theory of the ethics of warfare which fails to justify the decisions of the Allied General Staff during WWII is profoundly flawed. In fact, any such theory which, if followed, would criminalize those decisions, can be considered to be reducto ad absurdumed out of relevance.

And no, exceptionalism is not the answer.

Best news in DC's October Solicits

2006-07-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

(From CBR)

Infernal Triangles, the third Rick Veitch Swamp Thing trade is not only coming out, but will include the Annual #3 that got skipped in the first Veitch volume.

Now, if only they could find some way to reprint "Loose Ends", Alan Moore's first Swamp Thing issue...

MI-5

2006-07-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

First series. Mostly good series, evil cliffhanger. However, the first episode displayed a profound lack of understanding about America that one would think any show's editors would have caught somewhere along the line. (There's no state that refuses to extradite criminals to other states because they would face the death penalty. So the offer to land the baddie in a non-death penalty state was worthless on the face before it was even reneged on. Any everyone involved should have known that.)

Commander in Chief

2006-07-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Watched the first four of this one, not sure if I'm going to go back and hit the rest, so profound was the decline in this episode. At this point I simply can't swallow any conceivable reason why the Speaker hasn't gone public with the prior President's dying wishes...

Anyhow, at least some good acting out of Kyle Secor. Strange to see Tim Bayliss becoming a software magnate/prime suspect and then a First Husband in so short a timeframe...

And we're back...

2006-07-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Although not with very much content. Although:

Anyone notice that the latest reprinting of Alan Moore's Future Shock shorts contains all of the Abelard Snazz stories? Including the one that he specifically had removed from the Titan collection because he had inadvertently lifted the plot from a science fiction short story he had ready? Interesting...

She don't need a thing, she don't need saving or a lay

2006-06-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

Currently in the listening-to stack: She Wants Revenge's self-titled album. (Once again, R.E.M. ruined the word epinymous for everone.) Which I'm liking quite a bit. Sounds like a distillation of the parts of Depeche Mode that I like, without the parts that I find annoying, with a little bit of Joy Division thrown in...

Harry Potter, Endings Sequence

2006-06-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

So, since everyone's talking Potter and book 7 speculations these days, here's a little one:

Notice that each book has Harry bring a different set of people in to the final action/confrontation sequence? (Usually he's by himself at the end, but I'm talking about who's there at the start of the big finish.)

Book 1: Ron and Hermione both accompany him into the stone's hiding place.

Book 2: Only Ron is with him going into the Chamber.

Book 3: Only Hermionie is with him in the time-travel sequence.

Book 4, the center book: He's alone (or accompanied by his rival Cedric, if you start the 'final sequence' a bit earlier.)

Book 5: His entire extended peer group show up at the ministry.

Book 6: He's with his mentor Dumbledore.

So, each time it's been painstakingly different groups. My guess for book 7, to fit this 'pattern'? When Harry heads into the final confrontation, he'll be surrounded by his (former?) enemies: Snape, Draco, Wormtail. And maybe even Dudley, too.

So anyway...

2006-06-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

Finished watching the first season of Gray's Anatomy on DVD recently. It certainly is striking, how close to being the exact same show it and Scrubs get, isn't it?

Anyhow, the prospective problem in both shows is, as was the case with ER, the fact that the first year of a young doctor's residency is far more dramaticly interesting than the second year. Or the sixth.

My proposed solution? The Shift. Cross these shows with 24, sort of. Not quite real-time, but the entire first season takes place during our cast of recently minted doctors' first 48-hour shift at the hospital. Future seasons can take place later during that same year...

52's Clues: Week 5

2006-06-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Here we go, at last.
Page 1: Creepy kid.

Page 2: You'd think Alan Scott could call ahead...

Page 3: That banner's in awful good shape for having been up for a month. Also, Title.

Page 4: Skeets doesn't know about Luthor's newest plan.

Page 5: Doctor Irons is paged, Steel answers.

Page 6: Ali-Ka-Zoom!

Page 7:Time-Freezing Drugs must come in handy all kinds of places.

Page 8: "Steel" appears to be almost reciting the information about the hand. Whatever possessing entity he's got has access to his memories, but has to actively look for info?

Page 9: So who's eye does he have?

Page 10-11: Looks like how Supergirl got to the Legion's time is here.

Page 12: Wasn't Troia supposed to have been the person running the show in space? So why does Alan think that he was the one in charge?

Page 13: Don't remember Alan being that dense, either.

Page 14: The DC Universe: so small that every lesbian police officer knows every other lesbian police officer.

Page 15: So Renee kept one kirby-gun. What happened to the rest of them?

Page 16: Not sure who that is blasting at Hawkgirl's chest...

Page 17: So, "52" is coming. And the Red Tornado knew about it.

Page 18: Buddy Baker: the marriedest man in the univere.

Page 19: Convenient, there being a spaceship on the planet.

Page 20: Wonder if Alan's got one of Adam Strange's eyes. And if so, where the other one ran off to. Also wonder if Buddy's testicles are also among the misplaced organs, and who got them...

(More snark than clues this week, but it's the issue's fault, honest.)

So..

2006-06-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

No 52 today. Tomorrow, maybe. Meanwhile, a couple of questions on Wonder Woman, V3 #1:

1. So, can we assume from the absence of swords or blood on the Dr. Psycho reveal page that Donna hasn't actually been impaled by anything other than in her head?

2. So, is Steve Trevor the new Nemesis? Or is the original Nemesis disguised as Steve Trevor? And does that mean there's a real Steve Trevor out there in addition to Nemesis, or is Trevor entirely a cover ID for Nemesis. (Actually, the "tom" reference rules out the first, but the others are still out there...

Sorry, been lax.

2006-06-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

Will get back to a regular schedule soon, promise. 52 tomorrow, probably something on MI-5 season 1 fairly soon...

52's Clues: Week Four

2006-06-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

(I'll finish off Week 3 when I go back and do the History of the DCUs.)

Page 1: "Kane St.", named for the family of an upcoming Gotham heroine, perhaps?

Page 2: Halo's working for Nasa. Also, they're doing this on the shuttle rather than the much roomier-lookng station...

Page 3: The president's name is Horne nowadays.

Page 4: "Thaddeus Star" is a distinctive name; might mean something somewhere.

Page 5: Okay, 'NPRK' is one of Gold's sponsors. Also, "Me" and "It" on his back on the first panel, not entirely consistent with what's on it in panel 3. Which is where some names (of Team Hunter people) are.

Page 6: "Urinating Wino" probably not on of the 52 spin-offs coming this year.

Page 7: Does the Question have knowledge of the future, too? Or just know more than he's telling.

Page 8: Steel is a bit...conflicted.

Page 9: ...and may qualify for the Mad-Scientist kidnapper by now...

Page 10: Poisoned...

Page 11: ...and possibly a new Bulletman?

Page 12: Devem, which means that he's probably spying on someone for someone else. At least one someone.

Page 13: Ralph either didn't get a vision or he's starting a long one.

Page 14: "Samara". Or maybe "Simpsom & Co".

Page 15: Montoya didn't hear anything. Big guy falling or jumping down that trapdoor would have been pretty loud, wouldn't it?

Page 16: Secret warehouse full of high-tech guns, so let's send a blind monster to move them?

Page 17: Panel 5 looks painful. Almost lethally painful.

Page 18: Nice gun.

Page 19: Looks like Geo-Force, but costume says "CP". Also, not helecopter 52 but 38 instead.

Page 20: So, Hawkgirl's a giant, Greet Lantern I's lost an eye, Celcius and Bumblebee are in mighty bad shape, and two other characters are unidentifiable.

Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus

2006-05-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

Just finished listening to it on audiobook. A fairly interesting and surreal experience, reading science fiction (or anti-science-fiction, depending on definitions) that has become so thoroughly obsolete that it starts to resemble alternative history...

The West Wing, Seasons Five and Six

2006-05-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Finished those both in sequence fairly recently. I think I like the 5th season more than the consensus does, but I think that the show peaked in the 2nd year, and every season without a 'big hunk of cheese' episode was a wasted season.

Now, the 6th; that was some good television, although the 'next generation' cast proved more interesting than the regulars, which, if it does carry through to the 7th, will make one wish that the show had managed to go into the 'Law and Order' mode of continuous cast turnaround. Much like 'The Paper Chase', actually, of which the fact that it is still unavailible on DVD continues to be one of the great ongoing crimes against television history. (It's not even as though it had lots of license-requiring music, even.)

The Top Fifty Thing

2006-05-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

How I would have voted, had I made the list on time for the deadline:

1. Superman (Clark Kent)

2. Batman (Bruce Wayne)

3. Amanda Waller

4. Braniac 5 (Querl Dox)

5. The Flash (Wally West)

6. Lex Luthor

7. Wildfire

8. Two-Face (Harvey Dent)

9. Deadshot

10. Captain Boomerang ('Digger' Harkness)

11. Green Lantern (Guy Gardner)

12. John Constantine

13. Ambush Bug

14. Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond/Martin Stein)

15. Terra

16. Changeling (Garfield Logan)

17. The Ultra-Humanite

18. General Zod (pre-Crisis)

19. Emerald Empress

20. Oracle

21. Ice

22. Per Degaton

23. Blackfire

24. Starro the Conqueror

25. Vartox

26. Lucy Lane

27. Hugo Strange

28. Polar Boy

29. Mogo

30. Zatanna

31. T. O. Morrow

32. Vandal Savage

33. Vril Dox

34. Steel (Henry Irons)

35. Blue Devil

36. Kobra

37. The Infinite Man

38. Rond Vidar

39. G'nort

40. Mordru

41. Starman (Jack Knight)

42. The Ray (Ray Terill)

43. Robin (Tim Drake)

44. Nightwing (Dick Grayson)

45. Andromeda

46. Phantom Girl (Tinya Wazzo)

47. The Composite Superman

48. Gorilla Grodd

49. R. J. Brande

50. The Green Man

52's Clues: Week Three

2006-05-24T16:43:00.000-07:00

Here we go again...

Page 1: Dead Luthor, considerably more intact than Alex ought to be.

Page 2-3: Everyone knows about other earths these days, looks like.

Page 4: Terra-man can claim society membership.

Page 5: 5,079,432, eh? That's a big number. Wonder where the majority fall in...

Page 6: Future Tech Colloquium next week. You know, the people of the DCU are pretty blaise about megadeaths, aren't they.

Page 7: Steel's working with STAR on something called an NX-520. With a 52 inside it, of course.

Page 8: How many times does Superman/Clark have to shut down Intergang,anyhow? Also, they have a historical Darkseid connection...

Page 9: ...as well, apparently, as a Thanagar one.

Page 10: Bags the girl is actually a willing employee of Intergang.

Page 11: Fusion Cuisine cart-vendors. What a town, Metropolis.

Page 12: Skeet's information on criminal activity still okay here...

Page 13: ..as is his sports scores...

Page 14: ...But his financial page is broken.
...Continued.

24: You didn't think we'd forget, did you?

2006-05-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

No, but I was worried that they would.

How to adjust my season 6 idea for this season 5 ending: easy. Basically, you start off with Jack, working for CTU on an interim basis, and have a few quick comments about how he was rescued and the parties responsible were all brought to justice. (Essentially, you pretend that you're going to repeat season 3's weasel-out-of-the-cliffhanger move.) Then proceed with the too-extreme Jack, and close on the real Jack in the Chinese prison as planned...

Gnomic Utterance

2006-05-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

A language with the word 'queue-jumper' has no need for any other term for scum.

Link with Heavy Reading:

2006-05-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

Dan Simmons' May-June Message. Basically a long cogitation on his rather controvertial April Message. But, sadly, doesn't reveal what the three words were or even discuss whether they are 'guessable'...

52's Clues: Week Two

2006-05-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, now, as I said, we have a few mysteries to put these clues to. So let's begin.

Page 1: The title; more implications that something's odd in the timestream.

Page 2: "oprk"?

Page 3: The groundskeeper says "writes" instead of "draws".

Page 4: Skeets is apparently not damaged.

Page 5: Skeets, from the future, is still favoring Magnus over Morrow...

Page 6: The Red Tornado is dead again.

Page 7: There was a Red Inferno, also.

Page 8: Someone is kidnapping the Mad Scientists of Earth.

Page 9: Renee moves fast. The Question finds a full set of underwear on the floor...

Page 10: ...yet both people in bed are still wearing their own underwear. Clue, or censorship? U-decide.

Page 11: Address begining with '52'. Is this just being cute, or is there some kind of 'bad wolf' thing going on?

Page 12: Skeets' records are oddly scrambled at this point.

Page 13: Skeets can control technology like landing gear controls.

Page 14: Wrong flight number, also. 24+28=52.

Page 15: Renee calls the question 'no-face'; comparing with two-face?

Page 16: "Sauato" and "Gilvia" boxes.

Page 17: Not so abandoned, according to the Question.

Page 18: First Church of Commander Adama/Conner Kent. The last worshipper is probably in Kahndaq.

Page 19: Lead by Wonder Girl

Page 20: The inverted S-shield. Drawn on Sue's gravestone. Only someone who understands Kryptonian would say 'written'...

I'll leave the History of the DC Universe for later.

52's Clues: Week 1 continued

2006-05-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, now that Week 2's out and I've got a better idea of what the actual mysteries are going to be, let's tackle the rest of the issue, looking for a potential clue on every page...

Page 3: The gun comes from the "Anselmo Case" in 1995

Page 4: Bar is named "52 pickup"

Page 5: Fire Department precinct/whatever #52

Page 6: Skeets' information is good enough to predict Mammoth at this point.

Page 7: Booster 'knows' they're all coming back.

Page 8: ?

Page 9: The title of the episode, discussed in depth here.

Page 10: Skeets' information includes a very different ending to the week.

Page 11: A message

Page 12: Natasha has been invited to join the Titans?

Page 13: Natasha's shield is closest to Electric Blue Superman's

Page 14: Was Khandaq recognized by the US before?

Page 15: Black Adam has a mystery enemy.

Page 16: So does Sivana. The composite Grodd-Killer Croc?

Page 17: Ray Terell survived.

Page 18-19: Big group scene.

Page 20: Skeets' binary numbers: 1010001=81, 00111000=56, 00110=6, 000110=6, 110=6, 0000=0

Page 21: Clark Kent, ordinary human.

Page 22: The Question: going meta?

Page 23: Montoya and Ralph contrast interestingly. She won't seriously contemplate suicide, but will dive right into her bottle. If Ralph's bottle is full of gingold, he's the other way 'round.

Page 24: The Question is interested in Montoya.

24: Okay...

2006-05-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

Does Logan want to be caught, still, or something? Because he's just getting stupider as we go, with the whole 'oh, nevermind, let Bauer go' business as the capper.

Anyhow, in non-24-related business, here's Infinite Crisis in 30 seconds. (Sadly, without bunnies. But beggars can't be choosers.)

Blogging will be limited to the meta-

2006-05-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

...in celebration of Miracle Monday.

52's Clues: Week 1

2006-05-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

Brief attempt at annotating the 'continuity shards' coming together in pages 1-2 of the first issue of 52:

(most interesting ones bolded): Hal Jordan's Origin. The Martian Manhunter. Captain Comet. Superman. ?Steel?. Animal Man. Robin kissing ?aquagirl? A rocket. Sue Dibny's body being found by Ralph. A Joker. Max Lord's death. Seven Soldiers' Frankenstein. Wonder Woman deflecting bullets. Booster Gold. Flash's origin. A batarang. A bald person in a black suit and headband kneeling in front of a statue of Superman with it's S-logo inverted. Conner and Cassie. The barrel of a gun. Superman changing identities. Captain Comet shooting an alien worm. An energy beam. A yelling person. A green lantern ring. Aquababy. Martha Wayne dying. Black Adam and another guy. The joker in a gloved hand. The JLA's origin.

Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 4

2006-05-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Strongly recommended, covering three late-silver age crossovers between the Justice League and the Justice Society. Earths covered: Earth-1 and Earth-2, of course. Also Earth-Prime, Earth-S, and Earth-247. Sort of.

If this is the length that the volumes in this series is going to shoot for, approximately, then Volume 5 would end up covering Earth-898 (with the western heroes crossover), as well as the murder of Mr. Terrific and the New Gods team up.

Volume 6 would then get the Secret Society of Super Villians rematch and the big 5-issue crossover with All Star Squadron.

Leaving not much for and increasingly hypothetical Volume 7: 'Family Crisis', scribed by a young Kurt Busiek, and a largely incomprehensible crossover with Infinity Inc. during the height of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Getting to V. 6 soon would be nice. But going on to V. 7...not so much a priority, I don't think. Especially with lots of excellent stories to go into the companion "Team-Ups" collection series. (Like the DC Comics Presents Annuals, for one.)

UPDATE: On the other hand, the two issues in the Legion crossover in V4 were both giants, unlike any of the ones in the future. So you might be able to squeeze the SSSV story's 3 issues into a Volume 5, leaving all of the remaining issues for Volume 6...

24: Miles. Slime. Limes. Smile. Whatever.

2006-05-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

Y'know, while this season's actual Terrorists were third-raters, the ancillary villians are proving above-par at least.

Anyhow, onward to hours 5-8 of my hypothetical Day 6 outline, begun here:

Hour 5: CTU has finally decided that Jack has, somehow, gone rogue, and deploys resources to try and capture (faux-)Jack. A US submarine approaches the Chinese flotilla, and Jack tries to send a signal to its sonarmen. The ex-general checks in with Faux-Jack. Faux-Jack then calls up his real employer, and tells him that the general is moving according to plan.

Hour 6: Faux-Jack is hunting another genius biochemist while CTU's hunting him. The real Jack manages to get a message to the sub, where it is relayed back to the mainland, but Faux-Jack's earlier interference at the naval base prevents it from going any further. Then the general's fleet learns that they've been detected and sinks the US submarine.

Hour 7: The general finds out that faux-Jack is killing the biochemists, not capturing them as he wanted. Jack overhears, learning that Kim is not in the general's control, really. As the sub is nearing a covert docking facility, Jack seizes control of a weapons room and launches himself to shore in a torpedo tube (the sub will take at least another hour to properly dock.) Faux-Jack escapes CTU in a deadly shootout.

Hour 8: Jack tries to make contact with CTU, who, thinking he's gone rogue, capture him, torture him, and generally don't listen to his warnings. Eventually he convinces Chloe to check out the logs back at the Naval base, but her bosses keep her from managing to check it out for now. Faux-Jack's employer tells him that CTU has the real Jack, and so he should lay low (Implying a mole, of course...)

Veronica Monk: Two more explorations of the Drama of Mystery

2006-05-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

So, just finished up the first season of Veronica Mars, and am halfway through the first season of Monk, two shows which make an interesting contrast.

In both shows, at the pilot/setup, we have main characters who are portrayed as professional detectives obsessed with solving one very personal case, and having little trouble solving whatever other ancillary cases should happen to appear in their paths.

Of course, of the two, Veronica Mars is a Drama of Mystery and Monk is...not.

Overall impressions of VM: good dialog and characterization, decent plotting. Like Desparate Housewives, overcompensated for the Twin Peaks factor by burning through the uber-mystery entirely in the first season without setting up a new one immediately. Problem is, I won't come for the mystery and stay for the soap; I came for mystery and want more of it, dammit.

Which brings us to Monk. Now, while it doesn't do any damage to Veronica's nature to have there exist things that she can't figure out, Monk is Sherlock Holmes, the uber-detective, and so the idea that there exists, anywhere, a case that he can't crack within 43 minutes, let along three years, is incongruous.

Which, along with the memory losses, lead one to odd speculations if one thinks too seriously about it. The only way this guy could possibly not be able to solve his wife's murder is if he doesn't want to solve it. Which sends the suspect list to a place way, way darker than the tone of the series.

So far, at least, they're giving too many details and references if they want it to be a perpetual baseline never-to-be-solved mystery (like Remmington Steele's past) but too few to convince this viewer that they even have a solution in mind. We'll see...

So does that make Colin Powell Kal-L...?

2006-05-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

How could I not link to this: Reason Magazine's Brian Doherty's Infinite Crisis/George W. Bush piece.

Random Lines: The Final Chapter (DC Challenge 12)

2006-05-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Let's go with five lines this time:

"Darkseid shares wtih no one!"

"The blue baldies? They're off in a think tank somewhere-- --exercising their big brains over the mess they've made!"

"Maybe something's finally right! My belt-radio's going wild!"

"It's like a child's nightmare come true! I just can't believe I'm--"

"Hooray, Hooray. Maybe now we can fit everything back into place."

Penultimate Random Lines: DC Challenge #11

2006-05-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

"I teleported your true head far, far away, Superman! Your one chance to regain it is to kill the alien!"

"Right behind you, Supergirl! But I can't help feeling that all our efforts will prove to be in vain."

"Yes, Bork, I know! Your ressurection formula will become a natural law--involate----irrevocable----eternal!"

24: Hi, Jack!

2006-05-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

Y'know, nobody ever says 'hello' in the 24-verse. A version of "Hi, Bob" for that show would be one of the world's first Sobriety Games.

Anyhow, at this late date I think that the closest thing to a season Motif we're going to get is 'disintegrating relationships'. Whether you're waking up next to a virtual stranger from work you'll probably never talk to again, or the guy renting your apartment turns out to not be a particularly good substitute for the former man of the house, or you left your one-armed boyfriend to hook up with a creepy psycholgist, or your husband would rather let the crazy guy shoot you in the leg than answer a few questions, or your fellow occupant of the West Wing turns out to be either manic-depressive or um, evil, when Jack's in town and the Clock is Ticking, it's probably time to Get out. Now. At least on Day 5.

The Home Strectch: Lines, DC Challenge #10! With Vibe!

2006-05-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

"What'm I supposed to do, Gypsy? My Vibrating Power's good for knocking things down, not holding 'em together!"

"< style="font-style: italic;">boy, I fought alongside one of your descendants and---Hmmm...that hardly sounds logical, does it?...>"

"The Zeta-Beam has transported the entire Earth to another solar system!"

You Know the Drill. DC Challenger #9

2006-04-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

"Don't patronize me! Why cannot you guardians and your stop this Green Lantern Corps stop this Bork?"

"Beware, all! I sense that those grotesque demons below are not of this Earth!"

"Thank the stars some of Adam's friends from Earth showed up, father, to help us defeat these last remnatns of Bork's hordes!"

Random Lines, DC Challenge #8

2006-04-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

"The Batman hasn't been seen in 10 years, but something happens and the 50-year-old crimefighter goes back into action."
(The solicit for Dark Knight Returns #1. Okay, here's three real ones.)

"Bork must be found, project X must be halted. The fastest, simplest way to accomplish this is through the conquest of Earth."

"Hi there. Know where I can find a good mechanic?"

"Do not be afraid, human. Orion, Adopted son of Izaya, shall not let you fall."

Random Lines, DC Challenge #7

2006-04-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

"So sue me! Ah-ah, goosestepper...you stay down! Besides, stupid or not...it worked, didn't it?"

"<Yes, Yes! I want those men--whoever they are...and I want them now!>"

"Sounds Serious...and Earth is my home......so I'll do it--on the house! Besides, Earth's just a short hop from here for Space Cabby!"

24: Not so much about yesterday's show...

2006-04-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

...which was sort of meh. We'll see if the new new archvillian works out, I guess.

Anyhow, I'll use this space to outline what Day Six would be like, if I ran the zoo...

First: the last scene of the last episode of Day Five is some Chinese Embassy analyst looking at a newscast from sometime in the day, freezing the frame, zooming in and refining the image. He then picks up his phone, calls someone up, and says (in Chinese with subtitles) "Jack Bauer is alive."

Not sure what I'd do with the Preview on the Day Five DVDs.

Anyhow, On to the first two hours. We start with Jack walking into CTU cold, telling them he's learned of a major threat for that day against the government, and gets the squad of the day to support him in chasing down a Chinese national in LA, a biochemist who he says is working on a biological weapon.

During those two hours, Jack's methods start off at the top of the extreme scale and get worse and worse...kneecapping and/or torturing people who aren't even remotely guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With about five minutes to go in the episode, they find the guy, and then, instead of taking him in, Jack shoots him. Curtis barely has time to say 'What the hell' before Jack shoots him, too.

Then, in the final scene of the premere, we go to that prison near the border with Siberia that was mentioned in Season 4, where we see, being tortured by a nasty Chinese interrogator...Jack Bauer.

The second two hours, aired the next day if the last few seasons are a guide, mostly follow the real Jack Bauer in said prison. There's an ex-general of the People's Liberation Army Navy in there, too, and he's staging a breakout, which sweeps Jack up: the general wants some of Jack's codes and passwords. We find out that Faux-Jack managed to salt Kim away as a hostage, so Jack has to cooperate for now. By the end of the episode, he's on a jet plane on it's way to meet a small fleet of submarines. Meanwhile, Faux-Jack has managed to blame Curtis' death on bad guys, but eventually tips Chloe and company off that he's not on their side, but not before uploading a virus into the Navy's networks, stopping them from communicating with their own submarines.

I have vague ideas on the rest of the day, but that's enough for now, I think.

Random Lines. DC Challenge #6

2006-04-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

"Why bother? Rann is doomed! There is nothing we can do!"

"Flux? Such vords from a boy!"

"Look at the United Naitons building! Swastikas! All over the place! Something is very, very wrong here!"

Random Lines from DC Challenge #5

2006-04-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

"Blast it, Tabu, I said it, and I mean it! I'm never putting that costume on again! Civilization has made its bed--now let it lie in it! I'm through with it!"

"Pathetic Humans! You gather 'neath that guady cloth, as though it will offer some protection...This is how much protection it affords!"

"Bueno. Bueno. She eat all her farina today."

(Sure, another cheat from an ad from a much better comic. But this is Mike W. Barr's issue, and he didn't go over the top as much as the other writers.)

Random lines from DC Challenge #4

2006-04-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

"You didn't think we'd ignore out leader's summons, did you, cutie? Besides, I haven't been to Egypt for years and the sight-seeing's great!"

"That's idiotic--how can some nuclear weapons be working simply because they're being used at night?"

"I'm with you, Olsen--hopelessly confused--but with youuuuu..."

Random Lines from DC Challenger #3

2006-04-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

"The appelation is Cuthbert J. McGonigle."

"Turn on your friends and yourself with Elvira, the Hottest Hostess of Macabre!"

"Great Thanagar! Look! There's a tiny man trapped inside this shard!"

Sing for the president sing for the terrorists sing

2006-04-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

(Left as an exercise to the increasingly hypothetical reader whether this post is about 24, Yes Virginia, or both.

Tax Day Special

2006-04-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd get around to the whole 'reasons why taxing income is a bad idea in the first place' post. So here it is.

1. If part of the entire tax concept is to do some redistribution of wealth, then why not tax wealth, rather than income. Taxing income just gives an advantage to old, ossified money (which, in sufficient quantities, can provide more than enough tax-free income to live extravagently on) over new money.

2. General economics says that taxing anything will get you less of it. But we really want income-generating economic activity, considerably more than we want, say, wealth, or consumption, being the other possible candidates for revenue taxation.

3. Really, the government has no business knowing how much money any given person makes. So getting rid of a system that requires it to be that fantastically nosy about everyone would be a massive blow for privacy.

Random Lines from DC Challenge #2

2006-04-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

"Poor Benjamin Franklin! If he'd but known the trouble his discovery would one day cause us..."

"Ah jest Gota stop drinkin' thet cheap rotgut on an empty--"

"Last time I saw him he was chasing a smurf"

Random Lines From DC Challenge #1

2006-04-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

"It says here it has something to do with the phases of the moon...which is as good a place as any for my next stop."

"J. Wilbur Wolfingham has sold the Earth!"

"A graphic novel set on an earth with a dying human race and a man with a mission!"

(Okay, the last two were from the DC Check List. But anything it the book is fair game for this 'feature')

One more Hugo Nominees Thought

2006-04-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

...now that I've finished Learning the World:

Neil Gaiman was robbed. [Twice, actually, since Mirrormask didn't get nominated either.]

Not that Learning the World (and, for that matter, Old Man's War) were remotely bad books; this was a very strong year in general. It's just that Anansi Boys was without doubt better than either of those and in close competition with the rest of the field.

Man, those Hugo Nominators sure don't like comedy, do they? (To Say Nothing of the Dog is the only comedic book ever to win one, and one of the few ever to be nomiated. Douglas Adams never got a best novel nomination.)

On Learning the World: An interesting book, certainly. The ending struck me as a bit odd, leading me to wonder if it's the naivety of the characters or the author at play here: a universe selected for cosmogenic star-drives isn't particularly likely to have bunches and bunches of intelligent life coming into being at the same time; all it really needs is one, maybe one per galaxy. The universes where life evolves intelligence at roughly the same time in fairly close, cosmically speaking, proximity, is one that's been selected for (even more efficiently?) cosmogenic weapons.

24: New Worst Plan Ever...

2006-04-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like last year's "Hold up the gas station to delay the suspect" plan now has competition in the "Worst Plan Ever" department, with "Call in a few dozen LAPD to walk right into an ambush to provide you with a diversion."

Apparently absent this season: strong motifs, the Chinese, a bad-guy plan that makes any kind of sense. And Mandy.

Return to Television/DVD blogging: Time Warps

2006-04-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Fairly recently finished off Stargate SG-1 Season 8, which managed to be fairly comprehensible despite the fact that I've only seen a tiny smattering of Atlantis episodes to this date, with the pilot not among them. A very good season. And ending in an excellent two-parter, Möbius, which would work so well as a series finale that it's almost disappointing that there are at least two more seasons beyond it. Except that, after using the 'abortive crossover' intro twice, leaving that undone would be fairly criminal.

Also starting to watch Scrubs, which is extremely funny but seems to exist in a very odd time-warp, since the characters exist in the present day, are considerably younger than I am, and yet seem to exist in a pop-culture world that's slightly older than mine...

...And a little more Infinite Crisis #6

2006-04-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Earth-154 isn't Generations-Earth as such, but rather the Super-son's earth, which debuts in World's Finest #154. Earth-97 is the Tangent Universe, which was published in 1997. Earth-247 is, of course, Legion Earth.

Earth-898 is still a bit unclear. 1898 was the year of the Spanish-American war on our Earth, of course, but Mexico was independent by then and so to have a battle at the ruined Alamo as part of that conflict (with all of the DC western characters present) requires a bit of historical finagling. I guess that's what's going down, though, with the guy on the horse being Zorro most likely...

And that leaves Earth-462, with the Teen Titans fighting Nazis, possibly in Washington DC. Still not sure what the number means there. Adventure 462 was the Death of the Earth-2 Batman; the other books that reached 462 didn't having anything of note happen in that issue.

Minor Infinite Crisis #6 Geekery

2006-04-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

Earth-247. Heh. I approve.

But is there a similar in-joke connecting John Byrne's Generations Earth to the number 154?

Any IDs for Earth-97 (Female versions of main heroes), Earth-898 (Western characters havinga Crisis at the Alamo) or Earth-462 (Which appears to be an Earth-X scenario-WWII still being fought in modern times, that is-but with analogs of the JLA, or maybe the Teen Titans, instead of a Freedom Force). Earths -0 annd -S are, of course, easy.

Wonder how many search hits these Earth names will end up getting me...

UPDATE
Oh, and the "New Earth" page is muy interesting. If these shards are all elements going into the new Earth...well, we have Superman having adventures of some kind when he was a boy. We have Phantom Zone Criminals. We have a white-hair-sideburns Superman involved somehow. We have Joe Chill known to be the Waynes' killer from the very beginning. We have Wonder Woman as afounding member of the JLA, and possibly Batman as well. Which would come awful close to fixing all of the mistakes made in making the first New Earth back at the end of the first Crisis...

This better be good...(24 Tuesday)

2006-04-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

I mean, even I, master rationalizer that I am, haven't been about to figure out a talkaround to get me to just what the hell Logan stands to gain through this entire exercise...

The Armies of Memory, with spoilers

2006-04-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, well, first things first: I was mainly right in my Merchants of Souls comments. Not completely, of course, but mainly. I was certainly right that there was a posthuman civilization out there, even if I was wrong about where it was. I was right about some of the genetic engineering business being conspicuously absent, although that one got more papered over than addressed head-on. (There's still the question of why there isn't a full-out extropian movement going on on the fringes, but that's not nearly as glaring.)

Strongly, strongly hope that the marketing people are wrong and A Far Cry will still eventually exist. Because the story isn't over.

Barnes' other main sequence of books is, one notes, in close to the same position: there's a big, big battle just over the horizon in which the white hats are making a last stand of unknown but not-all-that-good odds. It will be interesting, eventually, to see how he does the actual climactic conclusion thing. So far, though, no sign of what he has coming next, whether it'll be A Far Cry, more Meme Wars, or something else entirely. (Igitatur!?) No sign at any of the usual suspects right now...

Hm.

2006-03-31T12:44:00.000-08:00

Finished Armies. More extensive post coming later. Shorter version: It's good. I hope it isn't actually the conclusion.

Thousand Culture Update

2006-03-30T10:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have got John Barnes' The Armies of Memory. Haven't finished it yet, so holding back comment. Notice that the top of it announces it as "The Climactic conclusion of the saga begun with A Million Open Doors", which bodes ill for the future existence of A Far Cry, to say the least.

So when Kim Stanley Robinson's Sixty Whatever Whatever (Feet of Ice? Years of Winter?) comes out, will it be billed as a Climatic Conclusion? It should be.

Mini-Memetics

2006-03-29T16:33:00.000-08:00

So, what with all the to-do in congress about immigration reform, the old memetic debate over whether to use "undocumented workers" or "illegal aliens" is rearing it's shop-worn head yet again.

Me, I don't like either term. In both cases, the proponents are trying to use the associations of the noun to bring in general connotations through a linguistic backdoor: either a hidden appeal to the nobility of labor or to xenophobia.

My alternative: "immigration criminals."

24: C'mon, Audrey

2006-03-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Who on this show hasn't slept with someone who turned out to be a traitor?

Speaking of Strange loops:

2006-03-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

Another glimpse into the future care of Amazon: coming this July, a new book from Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am A Strange Loop.

Post that will make no sense whatsoever unless you came from here.

2006-03-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

It's hard out here to pimp a bee.

Strange Loop

2006-03-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

There will be no post today. Thank you.

Hugo Nominees released

2006-03-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

Check them out here.

Commentful threads here and here, too.

Argh.

2006-03-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

Missed 24 yesterday. So can't say much, although, after having read the recaplet on TWOP...

Audrey?

(Also, hope there aren't any cougars in those woods...)

Brief Comment on Steven King's Cell

2006-03-20T13:50:00.000-08:00

Preface: I've actually never read The Stand.
But I just finished (the audiobook version) of Cell. And found it fairly compelling. Although, having read Dies the Fire and subscribed to the S. M. Stirling email list, I was constantly wondering about the lurking food production issues...although the numbers of surviving 'normies' are probably small enough that canned food would be an option, I don't see how the flocks could have every begun to survive the winter even without interference or degeneration...

Anyhow, if I can come up with a plausible scenario for the collapse of civilization that manages to leave the internet more-or-less intact, I'll probably try and write it...

Law and Order SVU Season 2

2006-03-17T20:24:00.000-08:00

Finished the second season of SVU the other day on DVDs. In spite of fixing the 'problems' with the show (by cutting back drastically on the Worlds Most Boring Family in favor of a new DA who actually brings a 'law' component at least some of the time), it managed to start off poorly with some very weak episodes, but toward the end, was up to about as good as such a show can manage to be.

Still was sliding towards a status as 'Law and Order: Criminal Underuse of Richard Belzer', though.

Political Web Toy

2006-03-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Gerry index: see how gerrymandered your congressional district is.

(hat-tip: David Brin)

Gnomic Political Post

2006-03-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

The desire for socioeconomic equality of outcome is nothing more than the reification of envy.

24: There is no way...

2006-03-14T09:03:00.000-08:00

...no way in hell that I'll believe that Tony's really gone without having gotten a silent countdown. Uh-uh, no how.

Speaking of the future...

2006-03-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

...here's a link to S. M. Stirling's official site, where you can find preview chapters of A Meeting at Corvallis and The Sky People.

And Another

2006-03-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

While I'm on the subject of books of the future, I notice from Amazon that Larry Gonick will have The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Volume I coming out in early October. Excellent. Looking forward to it, although wondering why it isn't called "The Cartoon History of the Universe, Volume IV" instead...

2006, The Year in SF

2006-03-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, Locus's website updated it's Forthcoming books page.

The highlights (in my opinion, that is)?

Next month we get the multiply abovementioned Armies of Memory, as well as A Dirty Job from Christopher Moore.
In May, a new Julie Czernada (Regeneration; I really ought to take another run at the second in that series; it was entertaining in a bland and innofensive Robert Sawyer-esque way), Charles Stoss's The Clan Corporate, and Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End .
Nothing in June that catches my eye, but in July, Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear , and Steven Baxter's Emperor. And another Charles Stross; Glasshouse.
In August, a new Steven Brust (Dzur), Tim Powers (Three Days to Nowhere), and Harry Turtledove (Settling Accounts:The Grapple).
September brings S. M. Stirling's A Meeting at Corvallis, Steven Baxter's Respendent, and something called The Disunited States of America from Turtledove.
Out in the more sketchy last few months, a new Pratchett (Wintersmith), Richard Morgan (Black Man), Orson Scott Card (Empire), and Katherine Kurtz's Childe Morgan...

It's okay, I shot above the knee, so It'll still be able to post.

2006-03-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

Double-length episode of 24 this monday. Single-length (if that) blog post about it.

So, Palmer==no silent countdown of death. Michelle==still no silent countdown. But Edgar gets one?

And since a new Kim boyfriend has shown up, it's time to play "guess which major appendage this guy will lose before season's end". I'll take 'left foot at the knee', myself.

Brief Thoughts on Robert Charles Wilson's Spin

2006-03-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

I. The day that a bunch of Alien Space Bats make the Earth subject to local changes in the laws of physics for their own inscrutable purposes, I'm going to be calling them Alien Space Bats, and that's that. No way 'Hypotheticals' is ever going to catch on.

II. Otherwise, a fine book. The book that Chronoliths was trying to be, I think. Better than that one because the characters are simply more interesting and their lives more tightly linked to the SF-nal changes in the world.

III. I'd love to read a sequel to this book, about what happens as people begin to explore the post-Spin worlds(s). But that book, if it existed? ("Arch"?) Probably not a Robert Charles Wilson kind of book.

John Barnes' The Merchants of Souls, Part 2

2006-03-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

So, where was I? Oh, right, Girault Leones as unreliable narrator. In addition to the technological issue discussed above, he's also deeply unreliable on a moral matter: the moral status of the human/aintellect relationship.

It is certainly interesting to watch him agitatedly ponder the 'peculiar institution' for humans in Frieport, then, shortly after, go into the necessity of keeping the machine brains well and truly shackled, and, of course, the cherry of hypocracy on the ice-cream Sunday is the bit where he appears confused at how the aintellects can't intuitively grasp the wrongness of slave labor...

After that, the drunken robot abuse scene with Shen is really just gilding the lily.

Even the central problem that they're trying to avoid by keeping the mechanicals enslaved is one of slavery more than anything else: it's only because they are programmed to fulfil human desires that they can fall into the trap of wanting them all in the box with their pleasure centers constantly stimulated. Hypothetical free aintellects who had merely the hardwired burden of respecting the rights of human beings rather than subservience wouldn't particularly want to do such a thing.

Anyhow, after the first time I read Merchants, I thought that book four would be contact with the aliens, and then in book five Addams comes back into play, and on Addams they have a transhumanist society with aintellect citizens and advanced human genetic engineering that turns out to be considerably more alien than the aliens themselves. We'll see...

Infinite Crisis #5/Birthright Geekery

2006-03-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

Not going to go page by page this time, but rather going to posit a theory about what's going on and how it could end up resolved.

Immediately after the crisis, Superman was the Earth-1, planet-juggling Krypton-visiting, silver-to-bronze-age model. Along with the rest of his cast. Then, he changed, into the Byrne version. Why? (In-world explanation, that is.)

Suppose he did it himself. Most of the Byrne changes are ones that he might well have made in the process of building a 'better' superman: Krypton isn't so painful a loss, his parents survive through his adulthood this time, Lex Luthor is no longer a friend-turned-bad, Lana Lang gets over him and moves on, allowing Lois a clear field. The only major change that doesn't fit that pattern is the absence of a superboy career. So maybe that's the thing that motivates the change in the first place: he learns that, in the future, the greatest danger to the new universe will be from (a) Superboy.

So, having replaced himself, Superman-1 then can retire, living on as a sort of guardian spirit of the universe.

The next reality shift is with Hawkman, as the Earth-8 Katar and Shayera Hol are knocked into the DCU probably by Superboy-Prime's first attempts to break in. They later get folded back into the current (Earth-2-based) Hawkman and killed, respectively.

Then, Superman dies fighting Doomsday. This sets into motion a chain of events that lead to the creation of a new Superboy, which alerts Earth-1 Superman to a problem. Still being Earth-1 Superman, he can't kill Superboy, so instead he brings Superman back from the grave to hopefully serve as a mentor and stop him from going bad.

This also sets into motion another chain of events leading to Hal Jordan getting possessed by Parallax. Across dimensional boundaries Alex Luthor manipulates the already conflicted Hal/Parallax, putting the idea of restoring the multiverse into his head, but that doesn't work out so well, although the resolution of the Crisis in Time does cause a bit more shifting of reality about.

Then, somewhere fairly recently, we get another reality shift, in which the carefully constructed Superman is subtly replaced with the Earth-8 version (the Birthright version, in other words), and along with that, Superboy's parentage changes to being a blend of Superman and Luthor DNA. This increases Superman-1's suspicion of the kid, and keeps him still distracted from noticing/thinking about Superboy-Prime.

So, if I'm right, Superman-1's return will be the deus ex machina that beats Superantimonitorboy...

(Anyone else think stories of Earth-8 would be fun? A world where Kyle was Earth's first Green Lantern; where Luthor is both rich and a scientific genius...)
More respectable SF blogging tomorrow

John Barnes' The Merchants of Souls, part one

2006-03-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

"The whole problem with the artistic project of creating a better human future is that our medium has to be human beings, and they are the most plastic and the most rigid medium there is." ---Dji

There is always a danger in looking into voids in science fiction: drawing inferrences from technologies that are not discussed in the context of the book. But in this case, the book appears dance so carefully around the topic that one really has to wonder.

The topic, in this case, is human genetic engineering. Not only does there not seem to be any in the Thousand Cultures future, but the very concept seems almost literally unthinkable. And John Barnes appears to be deliberately making the reader think about it even while his narrator cannot.

Consider: we have, in a very early scene, uplifted seals that are capable of mimicing complex physical activity. We have, long established in the series, a process of cloning human beings with somewhat accelerated growth that implies a rather healthy understanding of the human genome, as well as the fields related to the neuroscience behind the psyphix. We have vastly intelligenct AIs able to solve technical problems at the drop of the hat, and to go beyond and develop new science and solutions.

And yet: Dji's culture, devoted to creating a genetically pure form of humanity, does all of its work through eugenics rather than doing any DNA editing. And yet: Laprada is born with a chemically (which is to say, genetically) based form of depression: they're not even doing pre-conception genetic screening. And when they start the new clone body, the idea of fixing the broken gene doesn't even get thrown up to get knocked down.

(Incidentally, I've seen some blurb-like text that claimed that The Armies of Memory is going to be the last in the series. I certainly hope that it's as inaccurate as blurb-like text usually is and we are going to see A Far Cry eventually. At the least. Because we still have to see the aliens and the cultures of Addams, about which more speculation in part two.)

Tuesday 24-ery

2006-02-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

Well, less of the set-piece motorcade ambush than I thought. Instead we get Lynn getting ousted by the CTU's equivalent of the 25th amendment and Logan making the case that the real thing ought to be tried. Who is Logan's VP, anyhow?

And, of course, Jack demonstrating by-negative-example key rules of villany. You lock the hero in the escape-proof bunker or you blow him up, not both. And when he flat out tells you he's going to be making some phone calls when you've cut the lines, don't be so leisurely about detonating aforementioned bomb...

Too Busy...

2006-02-27T15:54:00.000-08:00

To type up anything more substantial than this. But expect 24blogging tomorrow and Merchants of Souls blogging Wednesday. Currently reading ~~Colin~~Robert Charles Wilson's highly recommended Spin.

More Thousand Cultures Blogging

2006-02-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

So, in the middle of re-reading John Barnes' The Merchants of Souls, I had a sudden realiztion about the enitre series: the entire series can be read as a critique of Utiltarianism. The first book (A Thousand Open Doors) has it all out in front, showing the problem with classifying some desires as non-rational in order to make the balances work, and the third (Merchants) is a reducto in the other direction, with multiple digressions on the bad consequences of a utilitarianism that allows consideration of any old desire or pleasure. Between them, the second (Earth Made of Glass) is all about the problems introduced by other-regarding preferences...

Much more on The Merchants of Souls to come.

Lazy Blogging 102

2006-02-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

In which the author lists recent search terms to turn up in his referrals.

McGillicutty Moonlighting
Coyote Frontier
Hootenanny
Lost "second season opener" walt hatch
remmington steele plot
"24 season 4"

Nothing particularly interesting, is there? I guess I should be talking more about fetish gear or Kerr Avon-Ramna Saotome crossover slash fanfic or something to get the really amusing refers, right?