Monday, January 03, 2005

Richard Dengrove, Alexandria Virginia USA

About Greg Benford's "The Real Future of Space," I was wondering if economic systems make things possible, or is it people who make things possible? My years in government have taught me the obvious: it is people. If people don't like a system or can't understand it, they go around it. In other words, if you re-organize idiots, you still have idiots.

I realize my experience is with a single organization, a government agency, rather than an entire nation. By my thinking, however, a nation, free from a conqueror, would reflect even more its people than its blueprint. As a cog in the bureaucracy, we are not free of overlords.

Anarchism, where everyone was cooperative, may be possible some day if people are in the right mindset. On the other hand, anarchism, where everything is in chaos, is an altogether too real prospect in the right mindset. Also, the same is true of all the systems in between, like libertarianism, socialism and state capitalism. They depend on the right, or wrong, mindset.

About Mike Resnick's "Why Carol won't sit next to me at science fiction movies," I think, being a science fiction writer, he is a little bit too harsh on movie illogic in science fiction films.

Regarding Star Wars, I didn't mind the replacement of the Emperor with Princess Leia. In most Americans' thinking, it is true there is little difference between absolute monarchs and absolute monarchs.

However, Star Wars is basically a fairy tale – in a planet a long time ago and far far away. Fairy tales have always been monarchist. And, yes, there is a great difference between the Emperor and Princess Leia. The Emperor is evil while the Princess Leia is good.

Regarding Blade Runner, I didn't mind the illogic there either. It is a premise we are asked to accept, that the androids will die in several weeks time yet the police have still decided to hunt them down anyway. Once we accept it, Mike admits we get a pretty darn good movie. I cannot say a realistic movie, but a pretty darn good one.

Of course, some films I am going to defend because I am wondering why Mike had expectations for them at all.

Regarding E.T., it is a kids' film. I don't know why adults were gushing over it. The central characters, except for E.T., are all kids. I would not hold too much of a candle for logic in a kids' film. That's not what they're interested in. Adults are little enough interested in it.

I am not going to defend Signs. While I thought the character development was great, the plot was heavier handed than a sledgehammer. Mike is right that aliens had come all the way across the stars for a snack. I guess the thinking was that's what happens when you hear about a good restaurant.

I am not going to defend League of Extraordinary Gentlemen either. However, I have to say one thing for it. Nemo could have been an Indian prince. I hear the graphic novel was taking from an earlier draft of 20,000 Leagues when France was anti-England. Later, when Verne put the novel in final form, France was anti-Russian. That is the only thing I am going to say for The League. After what you tell about it, it is no wonder every critic and everyone who saw it panned it. It sounds like it makes the old Buster Crabbe Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe look like Citizen Kane.

About Albert Hoffman's "The Night I Saw Death," no, I can't explain his vision of death and someone dying. Of course, I can't explain most of life.

On the other hand, I know this. The way to tell a hypnopompic experience is that it seems completely real. More real than everyday life. That is very scary because we usually distinguish reality from illusion by how it feels.

About Dr. Craig Hilton's "The Resident Patient – a Medical Opinion", I think maybe he is seeing too much in Conan Doyle's "Resident Patient." Unlike Dr. Hilton's painstaking analysis, I hear Conan Doyle just dashed his Sherlock Holmes tales off. They would fall if our only criterion was deep logic. However, there are other, more pressing reasons why we like them.

About your "Strange Schwartz" stories, so Julie's work as an agent for science fiction writers held him in good stead in editing Superman, Batman and the Flash. There are lots of crossover occupations you would not think are crossover.

Norman Maurer went in the opposition direction. He was writing comic books, and Moe Howard, his brother-in-law, said that was great preparation for producing Three Stooges movies. Apparently Moe was right: Maurer produced the best Three Stooges movies.

Finally, I have some comments about people who commented on my article last Challenger, "Evil Aliens and H.G. Wells."

  1. I would like to thank Robert Kennedy for praising it.
  2. Joseph Major asks who would want to sin with creatures with one eye in front and one in back. Most certainly other creatures with one eye in front and one in back.
  3. Jerry Kaufman says my article had an interesting topic but he struggled with all the sentence fragments. That phase has passed. Now something else has to arise to ruin my writing style.
  4. E.B. Frohvet believes Andre Norton anticipated with her Baldies the large headed, weak bodied alien archetype. I'm sure she did. However, I know of an earlier example. Harry Bates did the same in "Alas, All Thinking", Astounding, June 1935. Still, I am wondering whether there are not still earlier examples.
I know Edgar Rice Burroughs, in Chessmen of Mars (1922), wrote about Martians with only a head and appendages, the Kaldanes. However, they have greater similarities to the Martians in War of the Worlds than the later archetype.

Check out the photo of Rose-Marie with aliens in my Noreascon photo report!

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