Dum dum dum!
After weeks and weeks of preparing (and oh so much painting) it's finally time for INSURV. The odd thing is that this gives me a tiny bit of down time, since there's nothing much I can do while waiting.
They're downstairs right now in radio, checking all the communications equipment. And I'm up here in my radar shop, waiting for the monster to arrive.
It's going to be a long week. But then it'll be done, and I can catch up on my reading list!
Monday, August 27, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
The Belated Berserkers
Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series- a space opera about ancient, automated warships that relentlessly seek to destroy all life- would make a lot more sense if its characters didn't have faster-than-light travel. The death machines are 50,000 years old; they range around the galaxy at FTL speed; they've never been stopped.
They should have found us a long time ago. After all, they have automated factories making new Berserkers, so it's not like their numbers are limited. It really shouldn't take that many centuries to survey the entire galaxy, especially since some stars are much better life-targets than others.
By the time they discover humanity, we haven't just achieved spaceflight, we've spread out so far that there are entire space kingdoms and empires. I guess this is possible- the galaxy is a really, really big place- but it would be a lot more plausible if there were no FTL travel, and it took thousands of years to cross space.
It's not like hyperdrive is necessary to the plot- quite the contrary, most of the stories involve an isolated world or colony facing the Berserker threat. I can't think of a single reason to use it. Except, I suppose, the fact that it's an sf staple; and those things are hard to get rid of.
They should have found us a long time ago. After all, they have automated factories making new Berserkers, so it's not like their numbers are limited. It really shouldn't take that many centuries to survey the entire galaxy, especially since some stars are much better life-targets than others.
By the time they discover humanity, we haven't just achieved spaceflight, we've spread out so far that there are entire space kingdoms and empires. I guess this is possible- the galaxy is a really, really big place- but it would be a lot more plausible if there were no FTL travel, and it took thousands of years to cross space.
It's not like hyperdrive is necessary to the plot- quite the contrary, most of the stories involve an isolated world or colony facing the Berserker threat. I can't think of a single reason to use it. Except, I suppose, the fact that it's an sf staple; and those things are hard to get rid of.
Nostalgia For Freezing
I've got a cold, and I'm really congested. What's peculiar is this: at odd moments, it gives me flashbacks to boot camp.
Maybe that takes some explanation. Boot camp is a kind of accidental paradise for germs: you bring people from all over the country (i.e. with all their regional germs) to one central location, where they live together in an enclosed space under high-stress conditions that lower their immune systems. The result is a little-mentioned fact of life about boot camp: you're always sick. Everyone is sick. It's just one more unhappy detail.
So being severely congested keeps giving me vivid little reminders of boot camp: what particular buildings looked like, what the food tasted like, how cold Chicago can get in the winter.
(That last is particularly funny, since it's murderously hot right now, and those memories are paradoxically refreshing. Ahh, trying to get to sleep in a room whose open windows allow the snow to come in!)
Maybe that takes some explanation. Boot camp is a kind of accidental paradise for germs: you bring people from all over the country (i.e. with all their regional germs) to one central location, where they live together in an enclosed space under high-stress conditions that lower their immune systems. The result is a little-mentioned fact of life about boot camp: you're always sick. Everyone is sick. It's just one more unhappy detail.
So being severely congested keeps giving me vivid little reminders of boot camp: what particular buildings looked like, what the food tasted like, how cold Chicago can get in the winter.
(That last is particularly funny, since it's murderously hot right now, and those memories are paradoxically refreshing. Ahh, trying to get to sleep in a room whose open windows allow the snow to come in!)
The Space Gods, (Not) Revisited
As I mentioned a little while back, I haven't had much reading time lately. But I had to make time for a recent Amazon arrival, Neil Gaiman's Eternals.
Gaiman is one of my favorite comics writers; he reintroduced me to comics with his landmark work on Sandman. And I have a love of Kirby's Eternals from way back. So I delved into this with great eagerness.
I can't say that I really liked it.
I'm trying to figure out the nature of my dissatisfaction. I now notice something that I never picked up on before: Kirby's Eternals may have been the title characters, but the comic wasn't thematically about them. It was about the Space Gods, the Celestials, and the mysterious Space God things they were doing on Earth. All the really interesting and awesome moments were about them; which is why it doesn't surprise me to read that Kirby got the idea from Erich Von Daniken's fantasy-archeology bestseller Chariots of the Gods.
The Eternals and Deviants were just a sort of clunky interface with the conventions of superhero comics- good handsome superpeople vs. bad ugly superpeople. They were necessary in the practical sense that all comics were superhero comics, but I can't recall either race being that important to the plot. The Space Gods had come back, and were going to do whatever they were going to do; this was the real thrust of the series.
I suspect that if Kirby had done the series a few decades earlier, when there were still other options for comics, the Eternals and Deviants might not have appeared at all.
So- to work my way very roundabout to the point- my problem with Gaiman's work is that it's all about the Eternals. And they were actually the least interesting part of the book. It's not especially Gaiman's fault, I guess: the whole Celestial thing was wrapped up in Thor, around issue #300, which didn't leave that much more to do.
But if you're going to give up the appeal of Kirby's title- the images of awesome unstoppable giants, the mystery, the sense of impending cosmic judgement- you need something really good to put in their place. And while the writing is decent, there's... just not that much here.
Gaiman is one of my favorite comics writers; he reintroduced me to comics with his landmark work on Sandman. And I have a love of Kirby's Eternals from way back. So I delved into this with great eagerness.
I can't say that I really liked it.
I'm trying to figure out the nature of my dissatisfaction. I now notice something that I never picked up on before: Kirby's Eternals may have been the title characters, but the comic wasn't thematically about them. It was about the Space Gods, the Celestials, and the mysterious Space God things they were doing on Earth. All the really interesting and awesome moments were about them; which is why it doesn't surprise me to read that Kirby got the idea from Erich Von Daniken's fantasy-archeology bestseller Chariots of the Gods.
The Eternals and Deviants were just a sort of clunky interface with the conventions of superhero comics- good handsome superpeople vs. bad ugly superpeople. They were necessary in the practical sense that all comics were superhero comics, but I can't recall either race being that important to the plot. The Space Gods had come back, and were going to do whatever they were going to do; this was the real thrust of the series.
I suspect that if Kirby had done the series a few decades earlier, when there were still other options for comics, the Eternals and Deviants might not have appeared at all.
So- to work my way very roundabout to the point- my problem with Gaiman's work is that it's all about the Eternals. And they were actually the least interesting part of the book. It's not especially Gaiman's fault, I guess: the whole Celestial thing was wrapped up in Thor, around issue #300, which didn't leave that much more to do.
But if you're going to give up the appeal of Kirby's title- the images of awesome unstoppable giants, the mystery, the sense of impending cosmic judgement- you need something really good to put in their place. And while the writing is decent, there's... just not that much here.
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