Month: October 2005 (Page 2 of 3)

Scott Bieser posts hot news about L. Neil Smith and Rex F. May’s new novel, Roswell, Texas, to be published as a graphic novel as web-installments, and possibly a print version if there’s enough market demand. The premise certainly is enticing…

Imagine a world in which Texas never joined the United States, NAZI Germany conquered England but was held in check by a nuclear-armed Irish Republican Army, the Catholic Church has moved its headquarters to Brownsville, Texas, and Mexico is ruled by a neo-Aztec emperor in partnership with French colonial bureaucrats-in-exile.

In this Texas-that-might-have-been, residents are required to have permits not to carry firearms. The Federated States of Texas includes most of what we know as New Mexico and Colorado, as well as Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Missouri. Not to mention Alaska, Cuba, Venezuela, most of Central America, and the Phillippines. Its currency is based on petroleum, and its limited government is financed entirely by a monopoly on garbage collection.

And in 1947, Texican President Charles A. Lindbergh was faced with a most amazing, and potentially world-changing, situation — reports of a flying saucer crash in far west Texas, near the town of Roswell.

NY Times reports on the effort to “recalibrate” comic book heroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman for “a grittier century.” Damn, and I thought the last century was gritty. What do they know that we don’t?

Wally Conger mentioned recently at his blog, out of step, news about Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels coming to the big screen. I grew up reading ERB’s books on Tarzan, Venus, Mars, and Pellucidar, lending credence to the statement that the Golden Age of science fiction is twelve. (Personally, the Pellucidar novels were my favorites, under the Ace imprint from the 1970s.) I am somewhat leery of this cinematic effort, though. One fascinating tidbit I take away from director Jon Favreau’s interview linked at out of step is the fact it’s taken 75 years to get this close, and the script isn’t even ready yet! Much easier for Tarzan, which arrived in cinemas almost before the print dried.

An interesting choice for this year’s Nobel Prize. I was not aware of Harold Pinter’s poetry as much as his plays, nor his recent political stance against the Iraq Invasion. Julian Sanchez over at Reason Hit and Run seems more amused by the fact that Pinter was born in Hackney, although this bio mentions Pinter’s recent anti-war book of poetry, as well as this interesting quote: “Pinter’s early fascination with politics was also evident in The Hothouse (1980), a bilious black comedy set in a state-run hospital in which nonconformists are classified as mental patients. Written in 1958, it was never publicly performed till 1980.” In a subsequent sentence, however, it just seems like Pinter copies Henrik Ibsen’s play, The Wild Duck, in discussing The Caretaker, which is “about power and pipe dreams: about the desire for domination and about the human need for illusions.” The Nobel Price tends to result in an upsurge of sales for the winner, and often puzzlement at the selection by critics. Earlier this week the Nobel Prize for literature received another type of attention when a judge denounced last year’s selection and quit the panel.

UPDATE: Just read a comment over at Libertarian Samizdata calling Pinter an apologist for Slobodan Milosevic, “Europe’s most prolific socialist mass murderer since Joseph Stalin.” Pinter else has been ridiculed as a “Champagne Socialist” and hypocrite for declining a knighthood by a conservative government and accepting state honors from a social democractic one. Perhaps this award is a good thing after all, as it will shine the light of truth on its recipients.

Can’t help myself. This is too damn funny. (But don’t click unless you’ve seen the movie.)

Conservatives must have relaxed the drug laws slightly to come to this conclusion, that penguins somehow represent conservative values. Earlier in the Fall, the New York Times also mused on the rise of conservative movies, wondering whether a few recent movies viewed as having conservative values should be “interpreted as peace offerings in the culture wars, or as canny attempts to open a new front in the endless battle for the soul of the American public?” Since most American media members see the world as liberal and everything-not-liberal-as-conservative, lumping The Incredibles as a “conservative” movie demonstrates a Procrustian worldview. And yet, there is a conservative movement out there, far-reaching and ambitious, that could co-opt or take down libertarian ideas entirely in the public’s mind. Witness Libertas, which throws around the word “liberty,” yet also advertises itself as a “forum for conservative though on film.” No wonder the modern left sees libertarians as part of the conservative movement: no one talks liberty as much and loudly as the conservatives, while trampling gleefully on individual freedom at the same time.

Today I received in a mail a copy of 3000 Years, a novel by Richard Mgrdechian published this year. I plan on digging into the book right away, posting a brief review here, and then probably a longer review in the print edition of Prometheus in a few months – yes, hard to believe in our internet age, but print newsletters still exist. Published quarterly, at around 16 pages per issue, Prometheus has been around under various editors since 1982, nearly 25 years now. The Fall newsletter should be in the mail to LFS members, subscribers, and friends Any Day Now. Send me an email if you’re interested in getting a sample copy.

Another entry from the “books not yet read” department, Michael L. Wentz‘s new novel (published October 6, 2005), Resurrection of Liberty. The description makes it sound like a space opera/young adult adventure story amid a background where “freedom has been leached from the galaxy, replaced with slavery, oppression, and destruction.”

By strange coincidence (see earlier post) I came across this article from the 1997 edition of the first ever issue of The Heinlein Journal. Sf critic Farah Mendlesohn places some comments about Heinlein’s “feminism” in context, and provides insight into the decline of strong female roles in sf during the 1940s and 1950s. One can argue that this falls into a greater social contraction in media with the rise of movie Production Codes, strict editorial guidelines, and crackdown on comic books. Heinlein appears to emerge as the only writer of that era to grant his female characters greater roles, but no doubt there are others out there, too.

[cross-posted at Liberty and Power] Thanks to David Beito for the guest blogging opportunity.

With the Heinlein Centenary celebrations scheduled for July 7, 2007, more and more stories about sf writer Robert A. Heinlein will start to surface. Long criticized by liberals, Heinlein (seen by many fans, writers, and critics as the first libertarian sf writer), gets a nod over at the New York Times (registration required) for his radical ideas instead of the usual reactionary claims. M.G. Lord’s essay hints that Heinlein’s radical ideas about women found better expressions in his earlier works, especially the less serious juvenile stories. Lord even praises parts of Starship Troopers, often mis-read as a “fascist” and “militaristic” work. Several of Heinlein’s young female characters indeed appeared more capable and individualistic than their male counterparts, and tended to remind me of Harper Lee’s Scout, from To Kill a Mockingbird. This may be a matter of opinion, but I tend to agree with the contrast between Heinlein’s earlier and later books; works published after 1970 grew longer and more complex, but at the same time less interesting.