Category: science fiction

Bradbury’s Big Ideas

I’m teaching The Martian Chronicles again, something I haven’t done for almost a decade. I think the last time I taught a science fiction novel of any kind was 2014 or 2015 when I read Fahrenheit 451 with an Honors American Lit class (you can see my affinity for Bradbury).

Of course, the first comment I received from the students this year was, “This is WEIRD,” and yes, kids, it’s weird. It’s SCIENCE FICTION. I would think that in 2023, in America, in which we are ruled by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and in which new Star Wars and Star Trek shows spring up like daisies), a science fiction novel wouldn’t weird these students out.

But it has. We are about a third of the way through, and while they are starting to groove to Bradbury’s particular brand of magic stardust, they are still a little befuddled and bewildered by the strangeness of things. I mean, it IS a strange book, but that’s part of the fun! Science fiction’s strangeness is part of its charm, part of why I like to read it.

As I keep reminding the students, science fiction is a genre of ideas. It’s all about the Metaphors (as Bradbury liked to call them). About the Big Questions. About life and death and God and the meaning of time and the power of memories and the ways in which our imagination can wield incredible, life-altering power. It’s about the eternal stuff, the primordial stuff. The point and purpose of life.

And things have to get a little weird if we want to get to these big ideas. When we ride on Bradbury’s rocket ship, we have to be ready for wonders. After all, life and death and God are all pretty strange things. Think about them for a moment and wonder: Why did life even begin? Why did the universe become the universe? Why must things die, why not infinite growth, infinite life, etc.? Why did God make all this (if you believe in God and his creative spirit)? And if there is no God, why not? What is the meaning of things without him?

And even the more practical questions: Why do we hope to find life on other planets? Why do we want to go to other planets? What will happen if we ever meet an alien species? How will we save our own planet from the destruction we’ve wrought against it? Can it be saved? What will we do to the other planets in our solar system? What will we do to ourselves in pursuit of these things?

What is happiness? What is love? What is memory? What is time?

To play in these fields of wonder, Bradbury must write with fire and rocket fuel. I am loving the experience of rereading the novel, and I’m also enjoying how my students are reacting to it. Despite all the science fiction television and movies around them, this almost-seventy-year-old book is still knocking them around, still peeling back the layers of metaphor and thought to reveal hard questions underneath.

The Golden Age of Geekdom

thI decided to set my series, Merlin’s Last Magic, in the 1980s because, for me, the 1980s were the “golden age” of fantasy-related stuff: Conan. Red Sonja. Labyrinth. The Dark Crystal. The Last Unicorn. The Neverending Story. Ladyhawke. Dragonslayer. Legend. The Dragonlance Chronicles. HeroQuest.

I grew up in the 80s, and because fantasy seemed to be everywhere during that decade, my imagination was fertilized by all of these movies, books, and board games. In writing Merlin’s Last Magic, I wanted to give a little nod to the decade that nurtured me.

But as I was preparing to write this post, I realized that perhaps the 1980s weren’t really the golden age. Or, if they were the golden age, then perhaps they’ve given birth to an even more exciting and fertile age for fantasy genre stuff: Right now.

I contend that perhaps it wasn’t the 80s at all that were THE decade for fantasy lovers; perhaps that time is now. Perhaps we are living in the true golden age at this very moment (the Platinum Age, perhaps). Just look around: fantasy and science fiction have never been more mainstream or popular, from HBO’s Game of Thrones to the Marvel movies to fantastic writers like Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and Neil Gaiman (all of whom are being courted by Hollywood for big-budget adaptations of their work).

Being “Geek” is cool. Nerds no longer hide their obsessions but display them proudly. San Diego Comic-Con (not to mention the dozens of other conventions that have gained prominence in the last decade) has become Mecca not just for comics nerds and sci-fi geeks but for big-name celebrities and the mass media at large. When I was twelve, I tried to hide my love for J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-Earth; when I turned twenty, Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring was debuting in theaters, and suddenly, I didn’t have to hide anymore.

I think this new geek renaissance can be credited to both Jackson’s films and the Harry Potter phenomenon. Without either of these two creations, my fellows geeks and I would most likely still be part of a niche genre, something that the “wider world” looks down on with slight disdain. But because Jackson’s movies were incredible international hits, and because Harry Potter continues to be a straight-up juggernaut in the film and literature worlds, suddenly being “geeky” was cool. The media at large (and the people who consume it) are always gravitating towards what makes money, what sells. And starting with Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings movies, fantasy started to sell, and sell hard.

The success of the Game of Thrones TV show has cemented fantasy as a genre that adults can and should enjoy. Now we have TV shows like The Magicians, Vikings, and American Gods, (not to mention the Marvel and DC superhero shows), and no one is hiding their fandom for these SFF stories anymore. We are allowed to like (and even love) fantasy and science fiction in a way that was just not possible in the 1980s.

But we can’t dismiss the decade of my childhood. The golden age of geekdom that we are experiencing now is a direct result of the fantasy and sci-fi of the Reagan Decade. What do so many of today’s popular novelists, showrunners, and screenwriters have in common? We came of age in the 1980s (or at least, many of us did). We grew up soaking in the realms of Krynn and Fantasia and Thra. Our heroes were Conan and Molly Grue. We played endless hours of D&D and HeroQuest and Warhammer and turned all of those adventures into our first, fumbling stories and novels. Without the incubation of the 1980s, the golden age of today wouldn’t have happened.

For my own part, The Thirteen Treasures of Britain and the Merlin’s Last Magic series wouldn’t exist without the countless hours I spent reading Rosemary Suttcliffe’s Arthurian books, watching Excalibur when I was probably too young to be watching it, and playing Pendragon role-playing game (which, technically, I first discovered in 1990, but who’s counting). I learned to tell stories — and I learned to love telling stories — from reading MERP and RuneQuest and other fantasy RPGs, and then creating my own fantasy worlds in which to role-play. I fell in love with the realms of heroes by devouring books by Raymond E. Feist and Tracy Hickman & Margaret Weis. I became lost in the kingdoms of Faerie by watching Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and  Willow like they were on an unending loop.

The stories I write now are the children of the stories I wandered in during my childhood. We are in an incredibly fertile age for fantasy and science fiction. But we cannot discount the debt we owe to the 80s. The cheesy special effects, the cliche story lines, the underground and misfit-like nature of these movies and books are there for us to see, in the hindsight of 30+ years. But these things do not diminish the magic and sway these stories still hold over us. If the future looks bright for SFF, it’s only because our destinies were forged in the fires of the gloriously geeky 80s.

The Force Awakens Retells A New Hope (and that’s a good thing)

SPOILERS AHEAD

First of all, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is good. I needed a second viewing to tell if it was truly good, or if it was just my Star Wars excitement that made it seem good. My second viewing confirmed it: the movie is very good. I was entertained and emotionally invested in the story and characters. This was not something I could say about The Phantom Menace.

But one thing I’ve noticed in reviews and reactions to the new movie is that people feel the need to mention that The Force Awakens is basically a retelling of Episode IV: A New Hope. This mention is made with a bit of a sigh, as if it’s a knock against the new film.

But it shouldn’t be a knock against it. The Force Awakens DOES retell A New Hope’s story, and that’s a GOOD thing. I’m not breaking any new ground by writing this, but A New Hope was successful in large part because the story Lucas wrote followed the Joseph Campbell/Hero with a Thousand Faces/Hero’s Journey thing to perfection. That is why the story resonated with so many people. It’s one of the classic narratives. I won’t go so far as to say it really IS the monomyth or whatever, but it’s a strong narrative structure that storytellers throughout the ages have returned to again and again. In copying A New Hope, The Force Awakens has tapped into one of the greatest story structures in human history.

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So where is my finished rough draft?

Yeah… not done yet. New deadline! January 13. (This is the nice part about being my own publisher…)

But…

I’m probably not gonna make that January 13 deadline either. It’s a busy time for me at work: Midterms. So that means I might have to reschedule this new deadline…

I am apparently the worst at meeting deadlines. The worst part of all is that I don’t feel like I’ve been goofing off (she said as she wrote this not-her-novel blog post). I’ve been doing work for my “real” job, taking care of my family, doing as much limited house cleaning as I can sneak in, eating. There haven’t been a lot of random Lord of the Rings marathons (okay, maybe one…), or binge watching Orange Is the New Black (which is what I was doing last year in January when we had an epic amount of snow/freeze days at my school) (I have been binge watching Comic Book Men, but that’s usually when I’m feeding my infant or playing with her on the floor, so it’s not like that’s interfering with my writing time).

I suppose I need to have more realistic goals. I have to face the fact that I’m not gonna be Johnny and Sean and write a zillion words this year. My original publishing plan for 2015 was to release three full-length novels plus a few short stories. I’m fearing this will not happen. I hate taking it slow; I want to get my stuff out there! But maybe the more realistic goal is to go at the pace my life allows. And my life right now does involve taking care of and raising a human being, so that’s kinda important.

2015: The year I try to live with more realistic goals.

New rough draft deadline: January 20

I am not a fan of Christopher Nolan’s movies…

1406280448_Christopher-Nolan-Interstellar-2014-Movie-Wallpaper

…and yet I really want to see Interstellar. The only Nolan movie I really like is Memento; Batman Begins is okay, but I’ve found no desire to revisit it since seeing it in the theater.

What’s crazy about my desire to see Interstellar is that it sounds like it commits some of the same “over-explaining” sins that drove me crazy about Inception (a film I found to be utterly unpleasant to watch). And yet, the siren call of Interstellar keeps drawing me towards it. I love that it sounds like an old-school science fiction story — shades of Arthur C. Clarke and the great science fiction of the mid-2oth century.

I love Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, and from some of the reviews I’ve read it seems like Interstellar explores some of the same territory as Martian Chronicles. I enjoy space travel stories that have a sense of awe and wonder about them.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably see the movie and end up disappointed — which is often my reaction to any Nolan film. He promises such heights, and yet never quite delivers. And yet…

Interstellar_trailer2

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