Shackleton

Sometimes, critics point to certain types of fiction as being different from realism in the way that everything is bigger and more extreme than real life. The characters are more capable, and the main character can have a driving personality that overcomes everything. Characters live through impossible situations and manage impossible feats. The plot has event after event, with more things piled on that would occur in real life. Yet, sometimes real life surpasses the most elaborate adventure, giving us characters managing impossible feats and surviving against impossible odds, and events that seem to pile on incident after incident in a way that, if encountered in a novel, might have you saying to yourself “well, this author has gone just a bit too far.” Such was the case of the Ernest Shackleton, particularly the story of Endurance expedition to Antarctica.

Shackleton had been one of Scott’s companions in the latter’s first attempt to make it to the pole. He then led his own expedition to the pole, getting within 90 miles before turning back when he realized that, even though he could now make it to the pole, he and his companions would then starve to death on the return trip. He was in Europe, lecturing on his expedition, when word arrived first of Amundsen’s successful trip to the pole, then of Scott’s death on his return from the pole. But Shackleton still believed that there was more to do, and proposed a trans-polar expedition. It took him years to put the financing together, but, in 1914, just as Britain was entering World War I, he managed, and left of Antarctica aboard the aptly-named Endurance.

Stopping at South Georgia Island on the way, he got his first bad news: the whalers told him the sea ice was particularly bad that year, stretching farther north than usual. Shackleton, though, knew had to push on. He didn’t have the finances to wait a year, and had he returned home, the war would have ended any chance for a further expedition for at least a few more years. So he pressed on, trying to make his way through the icing maze. But then the first bit of the disaster stuck. Endurance became trapped in the ice. He and his men had to spend the Antarctic winter in a boat slowly being crushed by the ice flows.

Eventually, he had to move his men onto the pack ice, along with supplies and three life boats. They soon, led by Shackleton, had to begin a cross-ice trek toward the open sea. Their only hope would be a hazardous cross-sea journey, back 1000 miles toward South Georgia Island. It was hellish journey, and they kept going mostly due to Shackleton’s force of will. Battered, they made it to the sea, where things continued to get worse. They first had to make the Elephant Island, part of the South Shetlands, and headed toward it. At this point, it was over a year since Endurance had been frozen into the ice, and by the time they made Elephant Island, it was their first step onto dry land in 497 days. The journey had been horrific, in open boats, getting drenched with ice-cold salt water. May of the men were sick, and some developed frost bite. But they thought things were getting better.

They weren’t. Elephant Island had no good shelter, and they still had no way to get a message to the outside world. Shackelton decided to have most of his men remain their while he and give others attempted the near-impossible 800 mile journey to South Georgia Island. The journey was incredibly difficult – again rough, icy seas, but this time for a much longer trip (over two weeks). Moreover, they had to attempt to navigate by finding the sun; had they not managed this difficult feat, they would have been lost in the South Atlantic. (Elephant Island, by contrast, had been within site of the pack ice when they traveled to it.) But again they managed.

But again, things got worse. They had landed on the wrong side of the island, and a mountain range that had never been crossed was between them and the whaling station. Moreover, they had not survival gear for a multi-day mountain trip, so they would have to make this difficult trip without sleep. Shackleton took two men and set off. Of course they made it (with some harrowing moments, including sliding down a slope when they weren’t sure they wouldn’t be sliding over a cliff), reached the wailing station, and eventually rescued all of Shackleton’s men – all of them!. Despite the dangers they all faced, all came back alive, in large part due to the leadership and drive of Shackleton.

This whole story is told in a wonderful 2002 television film starring Kenneth Branagh as Shackleton. Branagh does an incredible job of capturing all sides of Shackleton. He was a complex man – he loved his wife yet also saw another woman. He was very compassionate and could relate to all of his men, yet he could also be very authoritative. He was often kind, yet also had, at times, quite a temper. Branagh does a superb job showing us all these aspects of Shackleton, but in particular he really captures his skill as a leader and how he got his men to follow him. One great speech in fact reminds me of speeches he gave in Henry V.

The supporting cast is also quite good, ranging from veterans to relative newcomers. The production values are astounding for a TV film (the break up of the Endurance is very convincing); they are on par with what one would expect from a big budget film. Adrian Johnson’s score is also quite good. All in all, this is a nicely done telling of the Endurance story.

The DVD set also includes several specials, including a detailed history of Antarctic exploration.

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

As you can tell from my review of Casino Royale, I’ve been a James Bond fan for years. I’m also a fan of the subgenre of espionage fiction that involves the supernatural – ranging from Hellboy to Tim Powers’s brilliant Declare to Charles Stross’s The Atrocity Archives. I was thus quite delighted by Stross’s latest book – The Jennifer Morgue – a sequel to The Atrocity Archives and one that overtly plays off on not only the Lovecraftian mythos but also the James Bond mythos.

In the universe of The Jennifer Morgue, magic is tied to information science and algorithms can cause breaches between universes, allowing truly nasty creatures – including brain eating zombies – into our universe. Moreover, in true Lovecraftian fashion, there is a much older race (codenamed BLUE HADES) living beneath the sea, in a state of truce with humanity (lucky for us, since they could wipe us out) only as long as we leave the very deep sea to them and as long as we don’t wake some of the even more ancient evils that inhabit the universe. Various secret service organizations across the world secretly deal with the supernatural, including the British “Laundry,” for which Bob Howard works. Howard was a geek who had stumbled onto one of the algorithms that could cause a dimensional breach and was given a choice – come work for the laundry or be terminated; he chose the former.

In the prologue to The Jennifer Morgue, several human agencies tries to raise a sunken Soviet sub which had also been searching for a Cthulian artifact far beneath the sea. The attempt is stopped by BLUE HADES, who objects to humanity coming into their territory. Humanity smartly backs away, not wanting to risk a war that could kill everyone, until, years later, billionaire Ellis Billington attempts to recover the artifact. To protect himself, he has surrounded himself with a geas that causes any agents that approach him to fall into a Bond pattern – only an agent that can follow such a pattern can get close, and Billington controls – or thinks he controls – the geas.

The Laundry sends Bob Howard after Billington, but first mentally entagles him with an assassin from the US equivalent of the laundry, the Black Chamber, named Ramona Random, who isn’t fully human. Bob and Ramona must penetrate Billington’s operation, and as they do, the Bond geas gets stronger, making for plot twists and character actions right out of the Bond mythos, including a monologuing vilian and his pet cat.

As with The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue also has lots of amusing geekiness. This includes a look at the true dangers of PowerPoint (mind-eating zombies that break into our universe during certain slide presentations), various critiques of Windows, a hero who caries around Linux and lots of wonderful utilities on his disguised USB drive, etc. It’s well done and quite funny in parts. As in the previous book, Stross uses the geekiness as well as some pokes at the bureaucracy (though there is less of that in this book) to balance the more serious and often much nastier moments. The Jennifer Morgue is somewhat lighter than The Atrocity Archives – the Bond thread guarantees that – but there are some disturbing, sobering, and even somewhat frightening parts. It’s a worth successor, and I hope Stross writes more here.

The Jennifer Morgue also includes a minor but fun short story, “Pimpf,” in which Howard has to stop a threat within a virtual gaming world, as well as a good afterword on espionage fiction in general and the Bond series in particular.

Casino Royale

I’ve been a fan of James Bond – books and movies – since the late 1960s, when a theatre in downtown Pittsburgh ran a triple bill of Dr. No, From Russia, With Love, and Goldfinger. What a way to spend a Saturday! A few months later they ran a double bill of Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, so in two afternoons I was able to see five of the six best Bond films. At this point, I also picked up the books and made my way through the entire series. Since then, I’ve gone to see every Bond film as they’ve come out. They never again really reached the level of those first five (well, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service did, though George Lazenby’s Bond wasn’t up to Connery’s), but by and large all have at least been watchable and some have been a lot of fun.

But what’s been missing in most of the Bond films since at least You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was an underlying seriousness. The gadgets, snide remarks, double entendres, and jokes dominated. Gone were the tight thrillers of the From Russia With Love and Goldfinger days, to be replaced by films that mostly built on the over-the-top scenes of You Only Live Twice (which managed it better because it balanced such scenes better with the story). Now, we have a new Bond and a new Bond movie, and I’m happy to say that it harkens back to the days of From Russia, With Love. Most of the gadgets are gone (given cell phones, PDAs, GPS systems, etc., Bond doesn’t need Q as much as he used to), as are most of the sillier jokes (think of the chases in Roger Moore’s early films). Instead, we have a more serious, more realistic (though not realistic in the John Le Carre sense) spy thriller, but one that keeps the essential spirit of the best of Bond.

The movie is a new beginning for Bond. It’s Bonds first major mission, and since it’s set in our time, my assumption is that this is a new series, not a sequel to all the previous films. Bond (Daniel Craig) pursues someone who is bankrolling terrorists and other nasties around the world. As part of this, he is sent by M (a great performance by Judi Dench, who has more of a role in the early parts of this film than she’s had in the other recent Bond films) to take part in a poker tournament to try to win money from Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre has been taking money from various criminals and investing it to make more, but he’s lost much of it (due to another exploit by Bond) and must win it back in poker. M feels that if Bond can beat him and take his money, Le Chiffre will have no choice but to seek asylum from the British in exchange for information, since his various clients will kill him if he admits to not having their money.

In the novel, they play baccarat rather than poker and I saw one reviewer complain about this change. Actually, I think it worked well. Poker has more overt strategy and more emphasis on reading your opponent – something Bond has to do with his opponents including Le Chiffre. The whole poker sequence in fact works quite well.

Craig does a great job as Bond, playing him as a more rounded, developed character than in any film since perhaps the early Connery films. His Bond is very good at his job, but also new at some parts of it, and makes mistakes. He puts on a tough exterior, but there are depths of feeling that haven’t yet been eroded away by his profession. As I mentioned early, Judi Dench is wonderful as M. Eva Green does a good job as Vesper, Bond’s love interest, and a somewhat complex character in her own right. Le Chiffre is played by Mads Mikkelsen, who seems to have done very little in English before this role. He is a creepy, if somewhat subdued villain, and works pretty well for this film.

As always, the setting are great, the stunts are fun to watch, and the action engaging. The soundtrack, but David Arnold, feels like imitation John Barry in many spots – which is a good thing. Over the years, the only truly great Bond music has been that created by Barry, and Arnold manages to capture the feel of Barry.

The films only weakness is that it is somewhat overlong. It’s about 2 hours and 20 minutes, and could have been 10-15 minutes shorter. Some of the end sequences go on for a bit too long, as does the big chase early in the film. But despite this, it’s quite a good film – not quite at Goldfinger level, but worthy of standing alongside the half-dozen or so best Bonds.

Science Fiction Book Club all time top 50

Janice Gelb, in her Live Journal, listed and commented on the SF Book Club's all time top 50 list.

I'll follow her convention to use bold to list books I've read, asterisks to mark ones I've loved, strike through ones I hated, and italic for ones I started but didn't finish. Also, I'll add comments in square brackets.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
[Good, but overrated. I'd have instead picked Double Star, Citizen of the Galaxy, or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.]
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke [Another good but overrated book. My favorite Clark
novel is The City and the Stars.]
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick [There are better Dick novels, but since Bladerunner, this one gets all the attention.]
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe *
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.*
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish *
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett [Another problem with this list
is the tendency to pick the first book in the series. Discworld started out slow, but
got much better.]
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison [Important, certainly, but if we're listing
anthologies, why not Adventures in Time and Space or one of the major
Conklin anthologies.]
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison [Good collection, but there are several better
Ellison collections.]
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany [I'd rank Nova higher.]
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling [Good, but later books
in the series are better.]
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice [This doesn't belong in the top 200,.
let alone top 50.]
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin * [But The Dispossessed is better.]
31. Little, Big, John Crowley [I really need to read this one.]
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny*
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick*
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement*
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon*
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith*
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute [Another one I really need to read.]
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien*
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester*
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

There is a lot missing. Janice noted the lack of Silverberg, for example. Poul Anderson also is not represented.

And how about:

A Fire Upon the Deep Vernor Vinge
The Doomsday Book Connie Willis
Red/Green/Blue Mars Kim Stanley Robinson
City by Clifford Simak

And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

Judas Unchained by Peter Hamilton

Judas Unchained is the second half of the very long space opera Peter Hamilton bean in Pandora’s Star. Like the first part, it is a detailed, imaginative, richly textured – and at times overlong – novel, intertwining numerous plot threads and featuring many characters, both human and alien.

In Pandora’s Star, humanity, which had settled numerous planets tied together via artificial wormholes (a technology invented by Ozzie Isaacs and Nigel Sheldon), builds its first FTL starship and sends it to explore one of a pair of worlds encased by energy barriers. The explorers turn off the barrier (accidentally, it seems at the time) and release the Primes, extremely hostile aliens intent on being the only species in the galaxy. (Hamilton gives a good biological explanation for this mindset, so that they aren’t simply typical motivation-less evil aliens). The Primes eventually attack, taking over numerous planets, and are only slowed by Nigel who beats back a major part of the attack by manipulating wormholes to prevent the Primes from using their own wormholes. But everyone knows another, bigger attack will come, so the race is own to develop weapons that can stop the Primes.

Intertwined with this is the story of the Starflyer – the name given by the Guardians of Humanity, a group of people to on the planet Faraway (the most distant planet in human space) – to the alien they claim survived the crash of an old starship found on the planet. They claim this alien is infiltrating humanity and was responsible for releasing the Primes so that humanity and the Primes would wipe one another out. What seems like a crackpot idea at the start turns out to be real, and a major thread of the second novel is the search for the Starflyer’s agents (modified humans), while another thread involves the attempt to stop the Starflyer from making it back to Faraway and its starship.

There is so much here – so many threads, so many characters, so many settings, and so many great scenes – that it’s hard to touch on more than a little of it here. The society is complex. There are several interesting aliens species. There are several incredibly exciting moments, such as the second Prime attack, when humanity must first stop the Primes’ new weapon (the flare bomb, which can cause a star to flare, making planets in the system uninhabitable to any life but Prime) with their own new “quantum busters,” then race against time to launch a new model starship to take out Hell’s Gateway, the Primes’ wormhole staging planet, before their overwhelming attack completely defeats humanity.

There are also moments where Hamilton seems to channel space opera writers of old:

Five hundred thousand kilometers in front of the sleek ultra-black ellipse of the frigate, the Dark Fortress writhed in electromagnetic agony. Beneath the outer lattice sphere a dense typhoon of radiant amethyst plasma was beset with eruptions and upsurges of copper and azure gyres. The unstable surface spun out tumescent fountains. As they lashed against the outer lattice sphere they triggered snapping discharges deep within the struts causing them to glow with ethereal radiance.

Add to this Ozzie Isaacs and friends as they explore a incredible artificial world, a “dirty-dozen” like group of criminals sent off to fight first the Primes, then the Starflyer, and political intrigues of various sorts and you get some feel for the complexity of the novel.

As I said, though, it is overlong. At a whopping 1235 pages (I have the UK paperback), it would have been better at 1000 pages. I found some of the sections centered on the Guardians of Humanity to be overlong; the Guardians are important to the plot, but we see to much of several Guardian characters, and some of these scenes could have been chopped or much reduced. The final chase on Faraway also goes on for far too long. And finally, I really got tired of hearing about the sex life of Melanie Rescorai (reported and agent for the vast AI called the SI).

Another problem is that Hamilton has created a society in which almost everyone is essentially immortal. People can be rejuvenated. Most everyone has an implant which keeps a backup of them, from which they can be “relifed.” And if that fails (for example, the implant is destroyed or lost), there are secure, offsite backups. This was a good way for Hamilton to keep several of his major characters like Nigel and Ozzie around throughout Commonwealth history. But it also takes away some of the impact and importance of some of what happens. Does it matter that much if a Starflyer agent kills hundreds of people if they can all be relifed and thus aren’t really dead? It lowers the stakes.

In the end, though, I liked this novel quite a bit despite these flaws. The flaws will probably keep it off of my Hugo ballot, but it’s just below that level. And I think over time I’ll like it even more as I look back on it. I’ll remember Ozzie and Paula Myo (the obsessed Investigator” and the attack on Hell’s Gateway, and the Dark Fortress, and the attempt to stop the Starflyer and the Primes and many other great moments and details. And the memories of the scenes that felt padded and the silly sex scenes and Tiger Pansy (don’t ask!) will fade.

Stranger Than Fiction

Harold Crick (played by Will Ferrell) is a rather boring man. He is an IRS auditor, who lives alone, and is very meticulous. He wakes, eats, and sleeps at the exact same time every day. He counts the strokes as he brushes his teeth and counts the steps as he walks. He is moving through this rather pointless life when suddenly, as he is brushing his teeth, he hears a female voice narrating his life. He first thinks someone near him is talking, but soon figures out it’s in his head, and it disturbs him since he can’t concentrate on the numbers he really cares about. But it really gets to him when the narrator, after a few days of this, says “little did he know” that his imminent death was fast approaching.

At this point, Harold first goes to a psychiatrist, who as would be expected, tells him he has mental problems. He insists that he does not, that he is somehow stuck in a story. In exasperation, the therapist tells him that perhaps then he should see a literature professor, not a therapist. Harold, of course, takes her advice,

The literature professor , played superbly by Dustin Hoffman, is wonderful. He takes Harold seriously, and makes up a list of ten questions to try to help him. “Have you had any gifts left for you – chocolate, wooden horses. …” “Do you have any body parts that aren’t your own?” “Are you king of anything?” Harold, exasperated, asks why he is asking questions that seem to have nothing to do with his situation. Hoffman replies that it’s a process of elimination, that he is trying to determine what stories Harold is not in, and has now ruled out numerous Greek works, fairy tales, Hamlet, and Frankenstein. By sessions end, he tells Harold that he must figure out whether he is in a tragedy or comedy, and Harold, true to form, keeps notebook, where he tallies the numbers of events that would make him conclude “tragedy” vs. those that would make him conclude “comedy.”

Meanwhile, write Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson, who also gives a great performance) is suffering from writers block. She has been working for years on her new novel Death and Taxes, but is stuck. She is known for always killing off her main character in the end, but is unsure how best to kill off Harold.

This is a delightful movie on several levels. I love works that mingle fiction and reality (for example, I like Jasper Fforde’s novels), and Stranger Than Fiction does a good job at this, playing with literary conventions (and with literary figures – both authors and academics). It also features a rather sweet romance, as Harold, in the midst of all of his problems, changes his life and becomes attracted to a young woman who he’s supposed to be auditing. This is predictable, perhaps (but then again, it’s predictable that Elizabeth Bennett will fall for Darcy), but no less effective for all of that.

I was pleasantly surprised by Will Ferrell’s performance. He is not a comedian I usually like, and is not in movies that I usually like, often playing characters who are simply dumb and annoying (in movies that are childish and simplistic). But here he does a great job as Harold, both the boring Harold at the start, and the Harold he turns into as he opens up. And of course, as I said above, Hoffman and Thompson give great performances, as expected.

The movie is well edited and well directed. Unlike so many movies that seem to go on too long, this seemed to strike the right balance – including all it needed to seem complete but not feeling padded anywhere.

In the end, it all works, though there never is any explanation of the whys of all of this (which is all for the best, since any such explanation would probably be rather silly). Just take the situation for what it is, and enjoy.

One final note: in a year that’s had very few good SF and fantasy movies, it’s good to find a film I can include on my Hugo ballot. So far, this and V for Vendetta are the only two long works I’ve seen worth consideration.