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Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

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Star Trek 4 The Probe-small

I’m not always the most attentive or detail oriented movie watcher. So, as I came to the end of The Voyage Home, the fourth of the original cast Star Trek movies, I realized that I still didn’t know exactly what was going on with those whales.

After movie three — The Search For Spock — the crew of the late starship Enterprise (watch the aforementioned for more details on that) are laying over on Vulcan, getting their commandeered Klingon ship up to speed when Earth finds itself menaced by a Big Dumb Object of some sort. It demands that it be paid a tribute of whales – or something like that — or it will wipe out the Earth in dramatic fashion. Our heroes enact that time honored SF convention of slingshotting around the sun to go several centuries back in time (with keen precision, I must note) and pick up a few whales, which they spirit off in a hastily built whale tank in the Klingon ship.

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Faren Miller Reviews The Brotherhood of the Wheel at Locus Online

Faren Miller Reviews The Brotherhood of the Wheel at Locus Online

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The Brotherhood of the Wheel-smallIn my previous article on R. S. Belcher’s The Brotherhood of the Wheel, I called it “the opening volume in a new urban fantasy about a mysterious society of truckers.” Faren Miller over at Locus Online can do much better than a one-sentence description — and she does, with an enthusiastic review.

Though Tor calls R.S. Belcher’s The Brotherhood of the Wheel an ‘‘urban fantasy,’’ it also describes the novel as set on ‘‘the haunted byways and truck stops of the US Interstate Highway System.’’ Roads – both real and metaphorical – are crucial to this dark fantasy, focusing and expanding the power of magics that range from the latest trends in ghosts and weird critters discussed on bad-ass websites, to entities transplanted to the New World from pre-Christian Europe and points beyond.

We begin with big rig truck driver Jimmie Aussapile, one of what proves to be a won­derfully miscellaneous bunch of people who oppose the forces of evil in tense scenes that gradually reveal connections between events in towns, suburbs, and cities of the Midwest and the South: Illinois, Kansas, Tennessee, Louisiana. Appearing near the mid-point of Belcher’s previous novel Nightwise, Jimmie, his tractor trailer, and a passing mention of the Brotherhood prompted Belcher’s literary agent to urge him to write more about them, as noted in the Acknowledgements here. I’m delighted that he followed her suggestion, in his own devious way. He has a masterful ability to move between assorted viewpoint characters in multiple plotlines kept separate long enough to become distinct: just hinting at links that may strengthen, but don’t become full alliances until hard action with shared danger breaks down the barriers between them.

The Brotherhood of the Wheel was published by Tor Books on March 1, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition. See Faren’s complete review here

Analog, February 1972: A Retro-Review

Analog, February 1972: A Retro-Review

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Analog February 1972-smallNot long ago I wrote about one of the last issues of Analog with John W. Campbell’s name on the masthead, along with a fairly early Ben Bova issue (November 1971 and October 1972). Here’s another issue from that period, officially Bova’s second. But Bova started work in November (I am told), so in all likelihood none of these stories were chosen by him. They must be among the last Campbell selections. (By the way, I earlier speculated that Kay Tarrant or someone else might have chosen a few stories from the slush pile between Campbell’s death in July and Bova’s hiring, but Mike Ashley assures me that no stories were bought in that interregnum.)

This issue has a cover by John Schoenherr. Interiors are by Schoenherr and Kelly Freas. The editorial is by Bova – his first. (The January issue, officially Bova’s first, had a guest editorial by Poul Anderson.) It’s called “The Popular Wisdom,” and it celebrates Campbell’s tendency to dispute conventional answers.

The Science article is also by Bova, “When the Sky Falls,” about exploding stars and even galaxies, and neutron stars, quasars, and black holes. P. Schuyler Miller’s Book Review column, The Reference Library, begins by discussing the increased attention academia was paying to SF, and recommends Thomas Clareson’s collection of non-fiction about SF: SF: The Other Side of Realism. The other books he covers are Isaac Asimov’s second Hugo Winners anthology, Abyss by Kate Wilhelm, Android at Arms by Andre Norton, and Gray Matters by William Hjortsberg. He liked them all, but chides Hjortsberg a bit for his lack of knowledge of real SF. The letter column is absent.

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Vintage Trash: I Was A Teeny-Bopper For The CIA by Ted Mark

Vintage Trash: I Was A Teeny-Bopper For The CIA by Ted Mark

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i-was-a-teeny-bopper-for-the-cia-movie-poster-9999-1020429335Many, many years ago I worked at a used bookstore called Bookmans in Tucson. Everybody from Arizona knows Bookmans. They have several stores around the state and they’re all as big as supermarkets, filled with used books, music, and games. Most books are half cover price, and employees got a 50% discount. Sometimes the manager would be like, “You did a good job today, Sean, take a book.”

I realized that I would never get another opportunity like that in my life and took full advantage. My library exploded with books on every topic imaginable. I also learned the joy of collecting vintage paperbacks, with the added joy of getting them for next to nothing.

So when I came across Ted Mark’s I Was A Teeny-Bopper For The CIA I just had to get it. I’d never heard of the title or author before (I wasn’t about to forget that title!) and figured this would be something I’d never see again. I was right, I’ve never seen that book again, and now, 20 years later, I finally got around to reading it.

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March Short Story Roundup

March Short Story Roundup

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ssm50March has come and gone and now it’s time for the short story roundup. It was a nice month for short swords & sorcery storytelling. Not a spectacular month, but a nice one.

I’ll start with Curtis Ellet’s Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Issue #50. Now in its fifth year, SSM, like most low-paying publications, is a hit-or-miss proposition for readers. Both of #50’s stories are hits.

“The Altar of the Toad” by Davide Mana is a simple and solid story with just enough characterization, world building, and action to serve as a perfect example of the minimum of what I want from the genre. I don’t need every S&S story to be a staggeringly brilliant literary achievement, only for it to take me away from the blacktop and the sounds of honking horns for a little while.

Aculeo, an ex-legionary, and Amunet, an Egyptian sorceress, make a tremendous mistake when they respond to a plea for help from a blind woman:

“I prayed for delivery,” she said, her head tilted to one side. A strand of stringy hair had come loose from her coif, and brushed her wrinkled cheek as she spoke. “I prayed for warriors, to deliver my daughter from the mouth of the Toad.”

In this genre that sort of request is bound to bring trouble. It does, and with more than a hint of Lovecraft Mythos terrors. Even though there are plenty of intimations that “Altar” is part of a larger narrative, it stands perfectly well on its own, something I prize highly. Mana has self-published several other stories of Aculeo and Amunet and I am very curious how they stack up against this one.

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Watching the Prince of Darkness Do His Work: Hard to be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Watching the Prince of Darkness Do His Work: Hard to be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

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Hard to be a God-small Hard to be a God-back-small

Throughout much of the staggering medieval fantasy Hard to be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the characters live as actors. Don Rumata, the protagonist, acts as an arrogant nobleman in order to conceal his true identity. In reality, he is a scientist visiting the distant planet of Arkanar from Russia.

Arkanar has halted its development in the Middle Ages. As a consequence of an evil overlord’s actions, the planet has descended into hellish chaos. Though he lives as a nobleman with all the power the fragile planet can offer, Don Rumata can do nothing but watch the Prince of Darkness at work from on high, as would a God.

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A Helluva Detour: The Mysterious Island

A Helluva Detour: The Mysterious Island

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Mysterious Island poster-small

The Mysterious Island (1961)
Based on a novel by Jules Verne
Directed by Cy Endfield

It wasn’t my intention to watch a bunch of adventure movies lately that all dated from the early Sixties. It just worked out that way. As coincidence would have it, the three I watched shared a similar theme — that of being stranded. The Lost World (1960) found a group of adventurers stranded on a high plateau in South America. In Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), well, you can figure that one out. In The Mysterious Island (1961), a group of Union soldiers and a Confederate find their balloon swept way off course, all the way from Virginia to a point located somewhere in the South Sea Islands of the Pacific Ocean. Which is a helluva detour, by my reckoning.

Like The Lost World, which was based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Mysterious Island is an adaption of a work by a well-known author of yesteryear. Jules Verne’s first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was published in 1863 and in the next decade or so he turned out a number of books, including Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days. He returned to balloon adventures in The Mysterious Island, which was published in 1874. But it was hardly the end of the line for the prolific Verne, who had written his best known novels by this time, but who turned out many more novels before his death in 1905.

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The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

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oie_41116gM9IFpIH                                                                                                             who is thu

                                                                                                             who is thu i can not cnaw

                                                                                                             what is angland to thu what is left of angland

                                                                                                             i specs i specs

                                                                                                             but no man lystens

                                                                                                                                                  from The Wake

For nearly four hundred pages Buccmaster of Holland, protagonist of Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake, speaks — first warning against impending doom, then trying to rally his fellow Englishmen against their Norman conquerors, and always trying to explain and justify himself. Though most people he meets — his tenants, his family, even his fellow guerillas — don’t listen, I did.

Even though he speaks in an amalgam of Old and contemporary English, he speaks forcefully, and I listened to every word, every mad thought, every angry conversation with gods, and every poetic meditation on England. Numerous times I found myself speaking his words aloud, falling into a cadence at once alien and familiar. Alien because it’s an English stripped of nearly every non-Germanic accretion. Familiar because the author’s invented Saxon vernacular feels like it’s exposing some ancient rhythm that’s encoded into the very syntax and syllables of English. This is one of the most immersive and enthralling books I have ever read.

NOTE: Since readers here don’t have the benefit of the book’s glossary and pronunciation guide, I heartily recommend reading out loud the passages I’ve included in this review. Words that look odd will be immediately familiar when spoken aloud.

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Deep Space Scavengers, Pirates, and a Space Witch: Rich Horton on Great Science Fiction Adventures

Deep Space Scavengers, Pirates, and a Space Witch: Rich Horton on Great Science Fiction Adventures

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Science Fiction Adventures December 1956 Science Fiction Adventures January 1958-small Science Fiction Adventures June 1958-small

Over at his personal blog Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton takes a look at the 1963 anthology Great Science Fiction Adventures, which collects three novellas and a novelette, all from the late-50s magazine Science Fiction Adventures. The stories are:

“The Starcombers” by Edmond Hamilton (December 1956, above left; cover by Emsh)
“Hunt the Space-Witch!” by Robert Silverberg (as Ivar Jorgenson; January 1958, above middle; cover by John Schoenherr)
“The Man from the Big Dark” by John Brunner (June 1958, above right; cover by Emsh)
“The World Otalmi Made” by Harry Harrison (June 1958, above right; cover by Emsh)

Coincidentally, the January 1958 issue also includes the novella “One Against Herculum,” by Jerry Sohl, which was eventually included in Ace Double #D-381 in 1959, paired with Secret of the Lost Race by Andre Norton (which we covered here.)

Not too surprisingly, of the stories in the anthology, Rich prefers the Brunner.

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That Movie About the Guy Who’s Stranded on Mars

That Movie About the Guy Who’s Stranded on Mars

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Robinson-Crusoe-on-Mars-poster-small

Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Paramount Pictures, 1964
Directed by Byron Haskin

(There will be spoilers.)

So there’s this movie about a guy who finds himself in the rather grim position of being stranded on Mars — all by his lonesome (more or less – but we’ll get to that).

I think you probably thought you knew the one, but it’s actually not that one. Robinson Crusoe on Mars debuted about a half century before that other, more popular, “guy stranded on Mars” movie. I haven’t seen The Martian or read the book, so I can’t compare the two. I’ll confine myself to commenting on the earlier movie.

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