I live in the Seattle area, and I was surprised that most of
the people I told that there would be an eclipse today didn’t know about it. I
used my NASA-approved dark plastic lenses to watch. It started out looking like
a chunk had been taken out of the sun. At the maximum, 95% of the sun was
covered. I definitely felt the wind pick up, since the decrease of heat in our area
of the atmosphere caused unequal air pressures.
I tried a few times to get a picture, but my phone would just
show a bright blur of light—that’s how bright the sun is, even during a partial
eclipse. I finally got a picture. But it looked impossible. The eclipse was
reversed! How could that happen?
I first thought the phone had somehow picked up a reflection
of the dark lenses I was using. But the camera was aimed away from me, at the
sun.
I finally realized it was some internal reflection inside
the camera, caused by the brightness of the sun. The blur in the upper right is
the real eclipse. The image in the lower left is the internal reflection.
But that was my fun in the partially-eclipsed sun.
Winds of Marque Bennett R.
Coles (HarperCollins Publishers 9780062820358, $16.99 pb. 368 pp) April 2019.
Bennett R. Coles
is known for his brutally realistic military science fiction. In his Virtues
of War trilogy and a short story in the same universe in the Infinite
Stars anthology, he describes not only hurtling through atmospheric entry
and small group tactics, but also needless intragroup conflict and questionable
civilian casualties.
In Winds of
Marque Cole throws all that aside and just has fun. The ship use sails
whose masts are often in danger of breaking. They use the solar winds to
travel—faster than the speed of light? The main weapons are cannons that use
gunpowder in the vacuum of space. How does the physics of all this work? It
doesn’t. This is a fantasy world in space.
Subcommander Liam
Blackwood is a fearless officer. One might even say he is dashing. He accepts a
commission from the Lords of his empire to be the executive officer on a ship
sent without any support to a distant sector of space. Their mission is to
clear out the pirates who are cutting off supply lines. If they fail, they will be
denounced as mad rogues. But if they succeed, they will be granted prize money
from the cargo they seize from the pirates—enough to make each crew member
rich. He is aided by the hyper-efficient Quartermaster Amelia Virtue. She
happens to fall into his arms when a ship is shaken in an early adventure. We
definitely see where this is going.
Their society is
highly structured. Pampered royals often wreak havoc when in command of ships in
the Imperial Navy. Fortunately Blackwood and Virtue have a competent captain for
their pirate raids, though she is enigmatic and never explains her perplexing
orders to Blackwood. That is her prerogative, but eventually the crew loses
confidence in her. They’re also saddled with a spoiled brat of a royal cadet,
whose sheer obstinacy almost ruins the mission.
The battles are
savage when they board pirate ships. Many of the crew on both sides get cut
down by swordplay. (Blackwood has the only pistol, which only fires four
shots.) Virtue, although a quartermaster, is right there in the swordfights. An
interesting alien race are reptiles that can wield swords with their prehensile
tales, which ends up being a problem for Blackwood.
Fantasy aside,
Coles includes enough pragmatic elements to give the story a realistic feel.
Bottlenecks in the loading of cargo threatens the ship’s ability to leave
incognito, so even Blackwood and the ship’s doctor lend a hand. When asked if
the boarding party is ready, Virtue delays answering while doing a calculation
in her head for rigging the boats for assault and equipping fifteen sailors in
armor and weapons. She says it will take over an hour. With only enough water
left for a one-way trip to a pirate base, the captain gambles that they will
win and find the water to return home. (They don't recycle water. Fantasy, y'know?)
Although Blackwood
is a royal himself, he does not fully understand his society’s unwritten rules.
He and Virtue have a growing affection for each other. Then he gets furious
when he sees her and the royal cadet kissing. Later, Virtue explains
angrily that she had to play along. A royal could rape her and not be punished
for it. This does make their society less likable, but it is somewhat akin to
preferring the British Empire to the pirates they fight.
Fraternization is
frowned on, so Blackwood’s inner conflict is to not let his growing love for
Virtue adversely influence his decisions concerning her and the rest of the
ship. Virtue really doesn’t have much inner turmoil to work through—she mainly
reacts to what happens.
Overall, Winds
of Marque has good tension and intense fight scenes. If one can accept
old-style ship action set in space, the story flows nicely.
Star Splitter. Matthew J.
Kirby (Penguin Young Readers Group 9780735231665, $18.99, hc. 320pp) April
2023.
Seventeen-year-old
Jessica Mathers wakes up in a body printer. This is the fastest way to travel
from Earth—to have her data transmitted and assembled. But something has gone
horribly wrong. No one is there on the spaceship in orbit of a distant planet to
help her recover. She finds blood on a console and a bloody handprint in a
corridor. Then she realizes she is not on the spaceship, but in one of its
landers that crash-landed on the planet. Outside, she finds the graves of the
crew members. Then she meets herself—a Jessica who was printed earlier, but
whose explanations of what happened seem a little too pat.
The structure of Star Splitter
is deceptively simple: The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of the before
Jessica, whose narrative begins days earlier, and the after Jessica, whose
narrative begins after the crash. The before Jessica woke up on the spaceship,
and her parents were printed two days later. This is where we discover she is
lying to the after Jessica, since she tells her their parents never printed.
#
“And Mom and Dad
are …?”
“Like I said, they
never arrived.”
“Can we pull up
their data? What if we just establish them here?”
“I thought about
that … I checked the printer … It’s dead.”
#
The time
difference between the two viewpoints is meant to build tension as the before
Jessica reconnects with her parents, the reader knowing the entire time that
some disaster will happen. It can be a little tedious, but the after Jessica
goes through harrowing adventures, from being swept away by a river to making
her way through endless underground tunnels.
Although they are
the same person, the before Jessica is rather sulky—she hasn’t seen her parents
in six years, since they decided to explore space without her. She spirals into
an odd love/hate relationship with them. The after Jessica grows by overcoming obstacles.
She is rather plucky and does not quit, no matter what. Kirby aptly explores
both teenage paths.
Ultimately the
reader will be satisfied or dissatisfied with Star Splitter based on the
explanation of what happened, and the fates of the two Jessicas. I found the
disaster not explained convincingly. As for the Jessicas, it is ambiguous as to
whether it is a happy ending or not.
As a side note,
the first chapter is more of a prologue. It is somewhat gross and unnecessary, so
it is best to skip it.
Barbie. Directed and written by Greta Gerwig. Starring
Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Ariana
Greenblatt, Will Ferrell. Rated PG-13 for suggestive references, brief
language. Runtime 1 hr. 54 min.
Never before have I seen a movie with so much pink in it.
Barbie is a mostly successful comedy combined with
surprisingly deep introspection. First, to get some stupidity out of the way:
There is no map showing China’s nine-dash claim to the South China Sea. It is simply
a child’s version of the world, with multiple dashed lines showing the path to
the Real World. The movie does not have constant lectures bemoaning the
patriarchy, nor does it do a triumphant smackdown of the supposed American
patriarchy. There is no grooming of children. In fact, middle school girls tell
her they haven’t played with Barbies since they “were like five years old.” There
is no trashing of the U.S. Supreme Court. Barbie simply sees a billboard of an
all-female band and mistakes them for the Supreme Court in Barbie Land. All these
accusations were from people who had not seen the movie or saw it through some
weird political lens, thus beclowning themselves. It’s a doll’s view of
reality, okay?
Our story follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) as she goes through
an epic journey of self-awareness. Barbie Land is filled with every Barbie you
have ever seen in real life, and more. Barbie can be a physicist, a doctor, a
writer, an astronaut, the president, etc. All the Barbies smile and wave in this
cartoonish land. They dance every day. Every day is perfect—for the Barbies.
Kens are simply sidekicks. Our Barbie’s Ken (Ryan Gosling) can only have a good
day so long as Barbie looks at him. She is easily distracted.
Barbie’s crisis begins when she has thoughts of death. Then
her feet go from stereotypical high heel position to flat. Horrified, the other
Barbies scream “FLAT FEET!” She seeks out Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), whose
hair was cut off and face was drawn on by her human girl. Weird Barbie tells
Barbie she must go to the Real World and find the human girl whose troubles are
affecting Barbie.
So she goes on her pink journey, with Ken tagging along. In
Barbie Land, Ken had wanted to stay the night, but was too innocent to know
why. In the Real World, construction workers make salty remarks at her. In
Barbie Land, they never had to buy anything. In the Real World, they end up
stealing clothing. Most importantly, Barbie sees sadness around her.
More importantly for Ken, a woman asks, “Sir, do you have
the time?” No one has shown him respect before. He then leaps into a belief in
an exaggerated patriarchy, where men hold all important positions. Enlightened,
he rushes back to Barbie Land.
Meanwhile, Barbie has made the appropriate connection to a female
in the Real World, and returns with mother and daughter to Barbie Land. There,
they find it has been changed into Kendom, with the Kens acting out extremely
exaggerated machismo—lots of beer and Ken wearing a fur coat?
Barbie is mostly a successful movie, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling looking every inch like a Barbie and Ken. It would have been
so easy for Margot Robbie to overact the part, but she never does. She gives a
surprisingly deep performance when Barbie is shocked by the Real World, and
then by having everything taken from her. Unfortunately, the movie fails in
what is traditionally called the third act, with a mess of a conflict between
the Barbies and Kens.
This movie is a labor of love, years in the making by
director and screenwriter Greta Gerwig. I have to rely on collectors to vouch
that every accoutrement in the movie is authentic, but life-sized. They even briefly
showed Midge, Barbie’s pregnant girlfriend. They even more briefly showed Sugar
Daddy Ken (that was a thing?). On the flip side, a middle school girl goes on a
tirade, saying Barbie ruined women’s lives, and calling Barbie a fascist.
Barbie also has outstanding dance scenes. The one towards
the start of the movie is a showstopper, with imaginative choreography and highly
skilled dance moves, and lots and lot of pastels. The one towards the end, which
features the Kens all dressed in black, is just as imaginative and skillful,
but too artistic for this movie. Also, I was shocked at what a great singer
Ryan Gosling is.
So overall, Barbie is a fun movie. It does have some amusing
cultural comments. But just enjoy it as a Barbie movie.
Bonus feature: The characters are clearly based on archetypes,
most famously found in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
The characters can slide around from one archetype to another.
Barbie is certainly Alice. Weird Barbie, who gives Barbie
two choices, is the caterpillar, who offered two sides of his mushroom. The mother
and daughter are mostly the white rabbit that Alice chases. They are sometimes
Tweedledee and Twedledum when they argue. The insane CEO and his board (which I
did not mention in the above review) are the mad hatter and his tea party. Allan,
Ken’s friend (again, not mentioned), who mischievously fights for Barbie, is
the Knave of Hearts. Ken starts out as the Cheshire cat, someone who is in and
out of Barbie’s life. He becomes the Queen of Hearts, dominating Barbie Land.
Last night I dreamt of a school of bright orange fish in the
deep blue sea. A solitary fish joined the school.
A cutaway view of a submarine showed a school of orange fish
swimming inside it, though the sub seemed to be functional. The same solitary
fish joined them.
The scene changed to what looked like a Middle Eastern
countryside. It was the kind of place where ex-patriates from Europe might
luxuriate in indolence. It felt like a previous generation.
A young woman with dark hair ventured out in a lacy white
dress. She rode a donkey with a man escorting her. She reached out to a tree
branch on a short slope. She leaned against it for the sheer joy of it, not
caring who saw her.
The scene changed to a large plain hotel room. A couple of
men and the young woman lounged there. A number of ex-pats could come and go as
they pleased.
A man in a fez hat told at length to an ex-pat the names of
all the corrupt people in the city. The ex-pat listened with interest. The man
in the fez hat obviously hoped the ex-pat would act on the information.
After the man in the fez hat left, the ex-pat considered for
a while. Then he decided, “Why not?” He gave a list of all the names to the
authorities.
More time of indolence passed. Then a thirtyish ex-pat n a
casual but neat suit came in from the ornate lobby, angry. He said to me,
“Brown, you fool! The authorities arrested about a quarter of the men on your
list. But didn’t you realize that the authorities enjoy doing business with the
rest?”
He pointed at the young woman, concerned for her safety.
“Get her out of here!”
It turned out I was Brown. I was the one that the man in the
fez hat spoke to. I was the one who had accompanied the young woman. I was the
fish who had joined the other fish in the sea.
I grabbed the young woman by the arm and got her out to the
hot countryside, hoping to find some transportation.
I dreamt that I was at a convention with a workshop on
writing, similar to Norwescon or Worldcon. The woman leading the workshop
emphasized everything that needs to go into a novel. I had with me a manuscript
for a long novel (for a beginner). It was written in four parts. As the woman
continued to speak, I realized that what I had was actually four short stories,
not a novel.
I had a meeting set for Wednesday, when a number of us could
present our manuscripts for a professional to look at it. This would be a prime
opportunity. But since what I had was not really a novel, I knew it would not
work out. I cancelled my part in the meeting.
When I woke up, I knew the manuscript I had with me in the
dream was for a science fiction novel I had written, with main character Ensign
Tica Manus. What I had dreamt was true: This was not a novel, but four short
stories. (They are actually more like novellas or novelettes.) I will polish
them up and submit them to magazines.
In the nineteenth century, the German organic chemist
Friedrich August Kekule tried to puzzle out the structure of the benzene molecule.
He came up with a circular model of self-linking carbon atoms. His work revolutionized
organic chemistry. In a famous speech, Kekule said he came up with the idea after
having a daydream of a snake seizing its tale.
Paul McCartney composed the song “Yesterday” in a dream. I have
heard more than one version of this story. In one version, he rushed to write
it down. In the other, he had the song going through his head for much of the
day, not recognizing it. He finally realized he had composed it in a dream,
then wrote it down.
The Flash. Directed by Andy Muschietti. Starring Ezra
Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel
Verdu, Ben Affleck. Rated PG-13 for partial male nudity, violence, foul language. Runtime 2 hours 24 minutes.
After the obligatory action scene at the start (and who
doesn’t love a superhero who saves babies and a dog), we move on to the central
angst for Barry Allen aka the Flash (Ezra Miller): He is worried for his father,
who is falsely imprisoned for the murder of Barry’s mother when he was a child.
Overwrought, the Flash runs wildly fast and finds he traveled a short distance
into the past.
Naturally, he wants to go back in time and prevent the death
of his mother. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) cautions him against this, saying he
could destroy everything. Barry says he could also save Bruce’s parents. Bruce
wisely says “these scars we have make us who we are." The emotional tug is too
strong for Barry, so he goes back and does save his mother.
The way he saves her is reminiscent of the Isaac
Asimov novel The End of Eternity, when a time traveler moves an ordinary-looking
can and changes the course of a civilization. In this case, Barry has somehow removed
the metahumans (Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman). What we have left is Batman,
an ordinary human. Michael Keaton fills the cape in this alternate universe,
and it’s a hoot seeing him as a burnt-out Bruce Wayne who no longer wants to
fight the good fight.
Most of the dialog and character interplay are between Barry
and a younger, pre-Flash version of himself. Because he didn’t quite come back
to the present, the older, driven Barry has constant arguments with the
college-age, carefree, obnoxious Barry. Ezra Miller is more than capable of
filling both roles. While I was watching the movie, I wasn’t conscious of the
fact that it was the same actor playing two characters; they seemed to be two
different people.
Sasha Calle is a revelation as the anti-hero Supergirl. (Remember,
Supergirl arrived on Earth after Superman, and that's why she exists in this universe.) This Supergirl brutally kills several bad guys. But at first she
stays aloof from a world-threatening invasion. As she points out, she’s a Kyptonian,
not a human.
Overall, The Flash is a treat for superhero fans. Although, the outfits are too tight in the loin area, if you know what I mean. One
does not have to be a geek to recognize a number of multiverse cameos. And the
plot holds up. They avoid the futility of endless cycles of endless multiverses,
as well as the simplistic idea of always going back in time to fix things when something
bad happens. This is more of a cautionary tale than just a show of superpower.
Agnes at the
End of the World. Kelly McWilliams (Little, Brown 978-0316487337, $9.99,
pb. 448pp) June 2021. Cover by Tom Bagshaw.
Agnes at the End of the World features Agnes, a young woman who
has been raised in about the worst cult you can imagine. Most of the adult men
(patriarchs) have multiple wives. It’s also a doomsday cult, with the
leader—the Prophet—predicting the end of the world, hence the title. They are
forbidden from having contact with the Outside, since all Outsiders are evil
treacherous people. Agnes begins to doubt their teachings because her little
brother Ezekiel has diabetes. She sneaks out to the cemetery once a month at
night.
Holding
a flashlight and blue picnic cooler, she hurried towards the small collection
of headstones that rose from the ground like rotten teeth. The grass was
velvet, the moon a white slice.
There, amidst
the graves, a nurse gives her a supply of insulin. This nurse has only been
kind and compassionate towards her.
The story is mostly from Agnes’ viewpoint, though sometime it’s from the
viewpoint of her fifteen-year-old sister Beth. Agnes has been the model of a
compliant girl, while Beth is more saucy (for a cult member). When the Prophet
declares a revelation that Agnes is to be wife number six for a white-haired
patriarch, she hesitates out of care for Ezekiel. The patriarch is sure the
Prophet will get another revelation that he should marry Beth instead. Agnes
has the stunning realization that the cult has been run on lies.
When Agnes finally escapes to the outside world, she finds a plague has
ravished much of the world’s population. The story’s copyright is 2020, so
McWilliams must have written it without being influenced by the COVID controversies
and shutdowns. This pandemic is a nasty one—both animals and humans develop
hard red carapaces, with bristles that can infect others. After a while, they
gather into Nests—javelinas (feral pigs) together, crows together, humans
together, etc. They are grotesquely intertwined with each other but still
alive, though showing no intelligence.
Nothing is easy for Agnes, as she seems to have escaped from a bad world
to a worse one, all while having to adjust to the Outside. McWilliams does a
fine job with her up-close descriptions of Agnes’ constant dilemmas, having
been taught that obedience is all and questioning is sin. When she takes refuge
with others in a library, she is astonished that a teenage boy there just wants
to play games on his device. Meanwhile she hauls water from a well, cooks, and
cleans—not even half as much labor as she is used to. And she refuses to shed her prairie
dress for a T-shirt and short pants, since she feels naked in them.
The character of Beth is problematic. She comes off as a
bratty teenager who happened to be raised in a cult. And some things about
Agnes do not fit. She often uses God’s name in vain while thinking, which does
not match her upbringing. She learns to drive in one afternoon and escapes the
cult by driving down black asphalt in the dark at eighty miles an hour for
miles without crashing! She was only allowed to read the Bible and a few crude books
for children. But she easily uses words like “illimitable,” “Gordian knot,” and
“crypt keeper.”
Agnes’ most important internal conflict involves what she calls her “prayer
space.” At first it seems to be a sense of peace she experiences. But she can
use it to sense things and people beyond her sight. Outside the cult, she can
sense things miles away. And it is not just an internal sense; at one point she
uses it to ward off an infected javelina that charges her. Eventually, the
prayer space helps her to sense that God is a fluid that permeates all things. Sometimes
God tells her to do things, sometimes she can “use” it. This will be
disappointing to readers who were hoping she could tease out the difference
between the cult teachings and her core biblical beliefs. Others will find it
an interesting science fictional element, somewhat akin to the Force in the Star
Wars franchise.
McWilliams is a lyrical writer, going from scenes of twisted beauty to
gritty details of survival. Be prepared for several pages at a time dealing
with the prayer space as the voice of God. This is an original story, and
readers should look at it carefully to see if it is their cup of tea.
In the past, I’ve said this is not a negative blog. I’ve
tried to avoid making negative comments on books and movies. This has prevented
me from reviewing some books, because to be honest I would have had to say some
negative things. From now on I’m going to give the sort of reviews one might
read in magazines, which discuss both strengths and weaknesses.
Also, I’m not going to give a SPOILER alert anymore.
Obviously, I will not try to spoil a book or movie for anyone. But the reader
should be able to sense that the farther one reads a review, the more that might
be revealed.
So this is still not a negative blog. But the style will
change to be more in conformity with professional reviews.
