The Poet as God: The Fantasy Poetry of Clark Ashton Smith

I read a lot of literature. Of the literature I read, much of that literature is of the "fantasy" genre. And of the "fantasy literature" I tend to read, the vast majority of that is "narrative prose" or novels.

To my embarrassment, I rarely read poetry. And I never read what I would call "fantasy poetry." When I do read poetry--usually it's because I'm teaching it--the poetry I read is "hyper-canonical," major stopping points on the tour path of Western Poetry of the English Language: the Beowulf poet, Milton, Shakespeare, the Romantics, the Modernists. In spite of the fact that my wife is a poet, I rarely read contemporary poetry.

But lately I've been trying to do some serious thinking about poetry, particularly in the context of fantasy. Why?

Recently I've been working on a chapter in my dissertation focused on the fantasist, Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). Those of you who know a little about CAS know that before he was publishing in Weird Tales alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, he was publishing poetry in Poetry Magazine alongside W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Although Clark Ashton Smith was a pulp writer who wrote genre fiction, there's an argument to be made that he was, at least earlier in his career, also a Modernist poet.

I was reading from a wonderful anthology of Clark Ashton Smith's "Fantastic Poems" that I recommend to you. It's titled, The Last Oblivion: Best Fantastic Poems of Clark Ashton Smith (New York: Hippocampus P, 2002), and it's edited by S.T. Joshi and David Schultz.

The opening of Smith's poem, "The Hashish Easter; Or, the Apocalypse of Evil" struck me. Here's how the poem begins:


Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million colored sun
 Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume
The spaceward-flown horizon infinite. (15)

Here Smith has created a character, "the emperor of dreams." I'm inclined to believe the "emperor of dreams" is a kind of imaginary poet figure, an archetype or symbol for all poets.

The Poet with a capital P wears a sun as a crown and the sky as a robe. And further, the Poet illuminates the heavens. In this vision of the poet, Smith has imagined the artist as the basis of reality. It's not as if the artist is erotically fusing with nature, an earlier idea from the Romantic period. The artist is not simply coming to terms with the world "out there" and then fusing with it. Rather, the artist is the world. The artist not only creates or organizes being. The artist becomes being as such.

I find this idea so intriguing. I reminds me of that movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. In that movie, the implication is that there is this little old man whose simple mind sustains all being. In the reality of this movie, all consciousness somewhat dwells within the wide space of this little old man's mind.

Smith seems to be offering a similar vision here. The poet doesn't stand off away from being and thereby change reality; rather, the poet becomes the very "stuff" of reality. The poet is a god not in the sense of a center of consciousness that stands out of being; rather, it is the poet who is the basis of being.

Review of Peter Jackson's *The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey*

Reviewing Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will prove a challenge for me. Although I don't believe in such a thing as "objectivitiy" in these matters of movie reviews, I do believe one should at least try to limit their bias--i.e. keep a general audience in mind--when it comes to reccommending a movie. With this film, I just can't do that! I love The Hobbit! Book, radio drama, animated film, live action film -- whatever. This novel was the story that revealed faerie to me.

The consensus at this point seems to be that the film is good but not amazing, that it satisfies the Tolkien fan more than a generic audience. That may be true, because I'm a Tolkien fan and I was blown away by the film. The cinematography was beautiful! The acting was great! The special effects were amazing! The narrative of The Hobbit was not only accurately related but it was invigorated through thoughtful and respectful embellishment!

Of course there were a few things I want to quibble with. Although I ended up liking the film's version of Thorin Oakenshield as the film progressed, I felt as though his character was initially portrayed as too young and not elegant or "kingly" enough. I really liked the portrayal of the dwarves in general, however. I like how all the dwarves had unique characteristics and how they all seemed to be--at least visually--distinctive characters. There is the "Dungeons and Dragons" fantasy stereotype of the dwarf: huge beard and mustache, short, axe, chainmail. I like how the film makers pushed against this. I really liked the portrayal of Fili and Kili. There is a single line in The Hobbit where they are referred to as the youngest of the dwarves, and Jackson really picked up on that.

One of the great things about Jackson and his fellow film makers is their capacity to take minor references by Tolkien and to amplify and foreground them. They did this with Aragorn and the Path of the Dead in the Lord of the Rings film. And they definitely do it throughout this film.

I wish the eagles would have talked. As a kid, reading that novel for the first time, I was so intrigued by how the eagles began talking after they rescued the dwarves. I thought they were portrayed quite beautifully in the film, but the character of Gwaihir, king of the eagles, was so impressive to me as a child reader (this is one element the Rankin and Bass cartoon definately has over the film). I love the exchange between Gandalf and the eagles after the eagle's drop the dwarves off on the edge of Mirkwood forest. Maybe they'll include that in the next film.

I really liked how the film was tied into Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I loved the beginning where Frodo makes a cameo, where he pins the "No Admittance" sign on the gate, takes a book, and goes to a field to wait on Gandalf in order to surprise him. I've seen the Peter Jackson films so many times, it was wonderful to see them directly tied into this film.

I know the meeting with Radagast was a major embellishment on Jackson's part; however, I couldn't help but like it. I found that quirky character hilarious. The idea--that he would be dragged around by a band of rabbits on a sled--is hilarious! The way he was portrayed--a kind of forest hermit--resonated with me for some reason. I love the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, the mythology surrounding the books, and so any effort to visualize the full depth of Tolkien's world and to tell stories about it --whether the media be film or pastiches--I'm a supporter of. I want to know more about Middle Earth, and seeing the brief reference to Radagast from The Lord of the Rings made into a living, breathing character was great.

All in all, this was a great film! I'm eager to see it again.

Two Visions of the Racial Politics of *The Lord of the Rings*

I was sitting in a coffee shop this morning getting my daily dose of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings when I came across this passage from The Return of the King. Some context: the battle of the Pelennor Fields is waging and the battle rage of the Rohirrim has been stoked due to the death of their king and Eowyn, a princess of Rohan. The Rohirrim ride forward and confront many "evil" races of men who serve Sauron in the War of the Ring. Here is how they are described:

"Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues" (132).

This description is disturbing for its overt racism. We have here non-European races allegorically figured as evil. From the east, from the south, dark-skinned: any "man" who is other is here part of the "evil" host. And even more disturbing, they are compared to monsters with the simile "like half-trolls."

Passages like this are disturbing and difficult to wrap my mind around as a modern. Obviously, I cherish The Lord of the Rings, but passages like this--which are undoubtedly blots--give me pause. The allegorical logic is laid bare here that transmutes orcs and trolls into other human beings. The City of the White Tree, fighting the dark masses of the east, takes on a different connotation in light of this passage.

Such passages are indeed sad reminders that the writers and artists we love were living in a time of great misunderstanding, when other human who looked and lived differently (who were outside of their lived experience--at least on an intimate level) scared them.

I wonder if rather than see a passage like this as confirmation that Tolkien was a racist (a kind of low blow, I think) we could see it more constructively, as symptoms of an ideologically troubled modernity that was demanding that intelligent people come to terms with multi-valence, poly-vocality, and the juxtapositions of many worlds. Let me explain. At the same time Tolkien is writing of "half-troll" black men he is also writing about the relationship of Gimli and Legolas, their coming to terms with cultural/racial differences. In contradistinction to the passage above there is a later passage that becomes relevant. Commenting on the city of Gondor, Gimli the dwarf states,

"'There is some good stone-work here,' he said as he looked at the walls; 'but also some that is less good, and the streets could be better contrived. When Aragorn comes into his own, I shall offer him the service of stronewrights of the Mountain, and we will make this a town to be proud of.'

'They will need more gardens,' said Legolas. 'The houses are dead, and there is too little here that grows and is glad. If Aragorn comes into his own, the people of the Wood shall bring him birds that sing and trees that do not die.'" (163).

So, in opposition to the overt comparison of black men to half-trolls, we have this image of multiple races making plans to bring together multiple cultures to create a better community. To compare these passages is to remind me that these works are "undecided" on the level of ideology. They are not decided on "race" or "cultural hegemony." Rather, they are sites where racial contradictions are considered, negotiated, and ultimately are tested and solved and hopefully brought out of the fantasy world and into the real world to make things better.

Scaling Down War: the Narrative Function of Hobbits

I was reading  The Return of the King this morning and I came upon a passage that I believe demonstrates a key narrative strategy if not pioneered at least put to good work by J.R.R. Tolkien, namely, the act of suturing together two distinct narrative scales: the epic and the mundane. Consider the passage. Pippin is conversing with a guard of Minis Tirith, Beregond, and he's complaining about his serving duties to Denethor, Steward of Gondor:

"I have kicked my heels at the door of my master's chamber for many slow hours, while he has debated with Gandalf and the Prince and other great persons. And I'm not used, Master Beregond, to waiting hungry on other while they eat. It is a sore trial for a hobbit, that. No doubt you will think I should feel the honour more deeply. But what is the good of such honour? Indeed what is the good even of food and drink under this creeping shadow?" (89, Ballantine Trade Paperback).

I love this image of Pippin standing off as Denethor absently eats a spread of delicious food amid an important conversation with Gandalf. I imagine a look of sincere frustration on the poor hobbit's face.

We have here two separate worlds brought together through the experience of the hobbit: (1) the epic world of politics and cities and dark lords and armies being debated by Denethor and Gandalf, and (2) the quotidian world of food and drink and boredom experienced by Pippin. We have here two scales brought in contact with each other: the global-political and the local-experiential. Denethor and Gandalf are concerned with politics and the logistics of fighting a war; Pippin is concerned with grabbing an ale and some food. But both Gandalf/Denthor and Pippin are reacting to the same historical situation, the coming of the great war of the ring.

This juxtaposition of multiple narrative scales in the same scene makes, I think, Tolkien's portrayal of the experience of war--in spite of it being fantastical--somewhat realistic. In reading these novels, you're not simply dwelling on the level of the epic, a narrative mode that somewhat cruelly relates the death of thousands and political backs and forths with scant a comment. You also get to connect with the participants in the war on the level of their personal experiences. For example, the reader is introduced to Beregond's son in the previous chapter. He is not simply one of the many guards of Minis Tirith who die in the approaching seige.

To put it simply: Tolkien uses the mundane perspective of the hobbits looking onto great things, important meetings, in order to "humanize" the experience of the war of the ring, to scale it down to an accessible level for his reader.

A Book Review of Lin Carter's *Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers* (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976)

I've recently been reading Lin Carter's famous essay collection about the pioneers of sword and sorcery, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976). It's a fun book, a relaxing read, but in terms of analysis, it falls short. It's more and less a biographical reference guide for a variety of heroic fantasy writers. I came to it specifically because of the chapter on Clark Ashton Smith. I'm trying to write a chapter in my dissertation about Smith, and locating basic biographical material has been difficult.

The most interesting essay in the anthology, I think, is the opening one: "The Sword of Faerie." In this essay, De Camp surveys imaginative literature from its mythical "origin" to its most recent incarnations. He effectively binds together the classical manifestations of heroic fantasy like Ancient Greek and Anglo-Saxon epic poetry to the modern manifestations, e.g. Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Further, he binds together the Gothic novel, the historical novel, the novel of romantic primitivism, in an attempt to portray imaginative literature as a kind of thread running through literary history.

Other essays are worth reading for their information but I was reluctant of some of the analysis. The one on Robert E. Howard offers an unsympathetic view of the writer's life and deals in suspicious armchair psychology. Of particular note is Carter's essay on J.R.R. Tolkien. He states that the The Hobbit comes close to "universal appeal" and rightly observes that "few works can be read with pleasure" by both adult and young readers (224). I completely agree. To corroborate Carter's idea, I'll say that The Hobbit was a profound experience for me as a young kid. I read it in the 5th grade and have had a habit of reading and re-reading it since. I return to the book often.

Carter also claims that Tolkien was what he calls a "rurophile," a worshiper of an idealized vision of nature. He states that, for Tolkien, "life in the Industrial Age had some of the qualities of life in prison" (234). I find that intriguing, this notion that a sense of the cruelty and inhumanity modern life shades Tolkien's work; however, Carter seems to criticize or at least poke fun at Tolkien for his apparent negative vision of modernity. There's a strange propensity in Carter's work to interpret or morally censure the personalities and lives of the writer's he is studying (writer's he ostensibly enjoys).

This is a classic text, I'd say, worth the money and the time; however, Carter's style of literary criticism is just strange. It hybridizes basic historical literary research with psychological case studies. At the same he's relating for you essential information about these writers--in bald "info-dump" fashion--he's also "judging" them, speculating about whether they were psychologically sound.

To an extent, as a literary criticism, it's kind of a parody of the Freudian psychoanalytical literary criticism that was vogue in the 40s and 50s.

December and the Tolkien Ritual

December brings with it a desire to read Tolkien. For years now, a holiday season ritual of mine has been to return to The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings.

I think this began in December of 2001 when Peter Jackson's films began to come out. I was a freshman at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio at the time, but I was home for break. Everyone was still reeling from the September 11th horror. I remember I saw the first Peter Jackson adaptation with my father, uncle, and brothers. The sequence of Gandalf the Grey seemed to key into so much of my anxiety at the time, centered not just on 9/11 but on my still fresh new experiences as a college freshmen. This image of a solitary grey pilgrim standing before a smoking demon gave simplistic allegorical shape to what I was feeling like at the time.

After watching the movie--which blew me away--I started reading through the books, book I hadn't read since early high school. I don't think I finished reading The Lord of the Rings, stalling somewhere at the point after the Battle of Helm's Deep and the beginning of the domestication of Gollum. But of course I made my way through The Hobbit. It's such a quick read! An elegant little book!

The following year, when Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers came out, I felt compelled to try the cycle again. This time I finished in full both the LOTR and The Hobbit. I saw the second movie. I was thrilled by the battle of Helm's Deep. And I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I had established a kind of tradition. The following December, as the release of Jackson's Return of the King approached, I re-read LOTR and The Hobbit. Since then, I've read this books every December.

It is very satisfying, going on this journey over and over. I don't know why. People who have "high" literary tastes will probably raise an eyebrow at this need to read and re-read, at this this spiral that might appear to be a pathological compulsion to repeat and experience something over and over. How many times does the One Ring need to destroyed until we've vanquished the Dark Lord?

In any case, the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has become associated in my mind with December, with the end of a long year. When Frodo and Sam and Gollum finally reach the crack of doom, my year is over, and it's ready to return to the Shire and start the whole thing over again.

Art, Drugs, and Religion: Clark Ashton Smith's "The Disinterment of Venus"

So I've revving up my engines to prepare for writing my next dissertation chapter. This chapter will focus will on Clark Ashton Smith (13 January 1893 – 14 August 1961), a poet and writer of fantasy fiction who published in Weird Tales alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. I wanted to discuss one of this stories here, "The Disinterment of Venus." Published in Weird Tales in July of 1934, it appeared alongside the famous novelette, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," a collaboration between H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price.

The story takes place in Smith's imaginary French province of Averoigne, at a 16th century Benedictine monastery. While the monks are digging in their garden, they come upon a giant statue, "the grimy head and torso of what was plainly a marble woman goddess from antique years." The statue is revealed to be somewhat supernatural. It evokes in people who look upon it deep desires. These desires are animal in nature: lust, hunger, the desire for alcohol. To a large extent, the statue emanates a kind of vice aura that contaminates those who look upon it. As the story progresses, the statue turns many of the otherwise god-fearing monks to sin. Eventually, one monk decides he has had enough. He approaches the statue with an intent on destroying it, with a heavy hammer. He is found the next day in the hole from which they exhumed the statue. The statue has crushed him to death, is on top of him, and it seems as though--even in death--he is embracing it.

Though this story didn't "scare" me, I found it extremely intriguing. I think allegorizes a certain kind of relationship to art, to drugs, to religion. In this story, an art object becomes monstrous. It becomes a kind of narcotic, something the monks become addicted to. And it leads to their ruin. I think this comparison between art and addictive drugs quite intriguing. Both drugs and art are reagents to ostensibly expand one's consciousness, yes? And furthermore, both drugs and art are sometimes offered as substitutes for religious experience. In this story, you have a drug-like art object set in a monastery, a place of worship. For me, this temple place with a goddess statue that attracts like a drug is a kind of "bridge point" between this world and other worlds. It is a kind of precipice that the monks throw themselves into in order to escape mundane existence in the seeking out of other worlds.

I think there is an ever prevalent attraction to the idea of "escaping" the world through art, through drugs, through religion Clark Ashton Smith's oeuvre as a whole.

Review of *The Walking Dead* Episode 1, Season 3

What a great episode!

Let me just say, I am an enthusiast of both the show and the graphic novel version of The Walking Dead. And I don't prefer one over the other. The show has its unique pleasures for me; the graphic novel is a source of delight in other ways. I wanted to start with that little disclaimer because, often times, when I talk about this show with friends, the conversation quickly becomes something like this: which version did it better? Were the prison sequences better in the show than in the graphic novel? Did I like how they changed the story? Or not? I want to table all of those questions for a couple of reasons. Let me explain.

To an extent, I think "characterization" in the show is aided and intensified by the talented actors and their performances. I can connect with the live actors portraying the characters in a more intimate way than with the characters as they are portrayed through the comic book.

The comic book characters, however, never fully come alive for me. And yet, the breakneck speed of the narrative pace of the graphic novel is much more enjoyable than the slow pace of the show. I can read through a hundred pages of the comic and actually see real narrative movement: people die, the party moves around, their environment changes, and so forth.

But let me focus on the show, on the first episode of season 3, which is the goal of this post.

I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen the first episode, but the ending was great! I think the intensity of that moment (you know what I'm talking about -- axe *cough*) will linger with me for a while. I really like the way the characters are evolving. Everyone seems to have become less hopeful, more cynical, and even more exhausted. Not only do the costumes portray the idea that these folks have been living in this "post-Apocalyptic" scenario for a long, long time, the performances of the actors truly drums up this idea: they just all seem exhausted, their nerves on edge, frustrated, angry, and nearly crazy.

One of the cool elements of this show's version of zombies is how they seem to use both the "fast zombie" and the "slow zombie," a characteristic that this episode highlighted. I've heard a lot talk about the distinction between the two, about which "type" of zombie shows up in AMC's The Walking Dead.

I think the producers of this show use both types in accordance to what their narrative demands. In other words, if they want the scene to be charged with energy and danger, they might use a hoard of fast-moving zombies; if they want to evoke the idea that their characters are moving through a routine situation, they might use one or two slow-moving zombies. In other words, the speed of the zombies are altered in accordance to the dramatic scenario. Hmm...

Can't wait for more!

The American Space: Percolating the Genres in the Pulps

I'm revved up to attend PulpFest 2012 in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. I'm really interested in connecting with the pulp magazine collecting community. As a genre fiction enthusiast / aspiring writer / scholar, I often take for granted the real material origins of the genres we take for granted. I have to remind myself that science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror didn't emerge, fully formed, from our culture like night mushrooms. They slowly but surely evolved out of many different contexts, one of the major ones (dare I say *the* major one) being American pulpwood magazines.

Sure, sure: modern supernatural fiction or "weird literature" can be linked to the British Gothic novel; science fiction can be connected to the science romances of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne; modern fantasy can be said to be fully founded or at least fully outlined by J.R.R. Tolkien. The British Isles can claim, indeed, to be a major "ur" location for the supernatural genres we love. And yet--something happened to these genres when they were "percolated" through the pulp magazines. The American pulp writers drew from this old world traditions and began to add to them, to change them.

In comparison to H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and J.R.R. Tolkien, I offer Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard. Generally speaking, all of these writers--all six of them--have mass appeal. Their work--which the clever genre historian has firmly situated within the history of the modern supernatural genres (the "weird" genres, as I like to call them)--was read and continues to be read by a lot of people. But there are characteristics that flag Burroughs, Lovecraft, and Howard as being in distinct camps from Wells, Shelley, and Tolkien: distinct shifts in tone, content, character, style, narrative structure, etc.. It just may (just *may*) be useful to attempt to map these shifts along national grounds. Hmm... A major project.

A distinct characteristic, I'm thinking, inherent in the pulp versions of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror is the presence of, simply, a lot of geographical space. In Burroughs Mars stories, for example, you have Barsoom, a new world to explore and discover, to fight in and conquer, to organize. In Howard, you have the great vistas of Hyborian Age--all the many kingdoms, cities, dread ruins, and wilderness expances plumb, explore, conquer, organize. In Lovecraft, nothing less than the entire cosmos are unflung for the characters to experience, meditate on, and finally recoil from.

This is just a start, a tentative "toe-dip" along this line of thought. But it may be a fruitful road, I'm convinced: a major distinction between pulp versions of genre and their corresponding British representatives, it seems to me, is something as simple as space, more space: in the pulps the narratives are set against a lot of room for the characters to move around in, to adventure in. Hmm...

The Utopic Impulse of E.A. Burroughs *A Princess of Mars*

I just finished reading Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars (1917). The version I read was a 1973 printing by Ballantine Books; however, the book was originally a serial story published in 1912 from February to July in All-Story Magazine, one the first if the not the first American Pulp Magazines. I'm not sure if there were any major changes from the serial to the novel manuscript. From my perspective, this novel (novella, really--159 pages) read like a fully connected, organically conceived novel.

What struck me about this story was the narrative pace. Events unfold at breakneck speed. One moment the protagonist, John Carter, is riding along the desert in Arizona on Earth; the next moment, he's on Mars. There is one chapter that begins with him a destitute fugitive from justice. This chapter ends with him as a warlord who is leading a great host to capture a city.

This sort of intensity of narrative pace is becoming, to my mind, a characteristic of "pulp fiction" generally (a term I don't usually like to throw around).

Another intriguing element of this novel is how it clearly connects the Western, frontier story with the science fiction. It begins as a traditional Western story--complete with Native Americans and a frontier setting and scenario. And, after some metaphysical convolutions, it transforms into a kind of science fiction tale with an emphasis on adventure. A lot of folks label this as a "science romance," and this term, I think, refers to the casual approach to scientific knowledge/theory characteristic of the narrative.

I'm not sure about the contemporary usage of the term "science romance," and I'm not particularly interested--at this point--in charting its no doubt rich and interesting genealogy. Nevertheless, I think it's important for current writers trying to create a new kind of "science romance" or "science fantasy" to takes these terms/categories seriously. I'm not that person.

For my money, I think considering Burroughs A Princess of Mars as a kind of "liminal" sci-fi/western or a "proto" science-fiction gets some interesting thoughts churning. Native Americans become Martians in this allegory; the White Men become Red Men. At the end of the novel a kind of reunification/reconciliation between the White Men and Native Americans is effected. The city-state of Helium and the horde of Tars Tarkas become political allies and close friends. Hmm...

There's a scholarly tradition that understands science fiction as characterized by a "Utopic Impulse," i.e. a desire for a better world. Here we have an reconciliation, albeit an allegorical and somewhat fantastical one, of the White and the Red. Hmm...

I'm planning on reading much more Burroughs for my dissertation, so I'll leave these thoughts ill-formed right now.

An Homage and Critique of Michael Saler's *As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality* (Oxford UP, 2012)

I'm reading a book of literary history, As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality  (Oxford UP, 2012) by Michael Saler. He treats the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. To really simplify his argument: he is pushing back against literary historians/critics who see genre fiction (i.e. mystery, science fiction, and fantasy) as problematically escapist, as completely severed from this reality. He asserts that these writers created alternative worlds that allowed readers to come to see their own realities as contingent, as "fictional" in a way. He attempts to make a case that the fictional worlds created by these writers opened up a space for their readers to imagine Reality with a capital R as malleable, as subject to change.

Let me just say, I loved Saler's book! For all intents and purposes, this is an homage to Saler's book! A recommendation for you to buy it and read it!

His reading of H.P. Lovecraft's biography and its relationship to the overarching thematic trends in the Cthulhu mythos is very convincing and compelling. I am so inspired by the idea that such an intelligent and serious scholar has turned his sights on Doyle, Lovecraft, and Tolkien. He even talks about Dungeons and Dragons in this monograph, something that delights considering it was published by the Oxford University Press. As a researcher struggling with many of the issues broached in this book, I can truly say it put wind in my sails. And, admittedly, there's a lot in Saler's book that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.

And yet--

I get the sense Saler wants to see genre fiction and the alternative worlds that emerge from them as pseudo-"didactic" texts, texts that teach a lesson. I don't think he sees genre fiction as didactic in a direct, allegorical way (e.g. the orcs of Middle Earth aren't supposed to represent fascist Germany; Cthulhu is not supposed to be an alienating modernity; Sherlock Holmes is not performing as a perfect modern citizen, etc.). Saler is much more subtle. However, in spite of his subtlety and very convincing analysis (as well as the obvious respect he has for genre), I find his overarching framework slightly unpalatable. He seems to be describing (in a highly sophisticated way) what genre fiction allows its readers to do.

I guess a part of me doesn't prefer thinking about genre fiction in an instrumental context, as if its only worth studying because it serves an important social function. It's seems an obvious, kind of "throwback" argument. "Reading pulp fiction will rot your brain!" says the elitist. "You should read mature art that's truly beautiful." "No," responds Saler, "pulp fiction will make me a better person."


I think all art serves a social function. From an anthropological perspective, art is function. For me, that's a given. But by focusing on this function, some very important elements of art are thrown out of focus. How do I want to approach science fiction, supernatural horror, fantasy?

Uhh... let me get back to you on that.

My Theory of Ridley Scott's * Prometheus*: Liquid Extra-dimensional Gods and Flesh-Portals

So I reviewed Ridley Scott's Prometheus--loved it--but I haven't stopped thinking about it. As I said in my review, I think the film purposefully ends with a bunch of unanswered questions. I don't see that as an aesthetic flaw. It actually one of the elements of the film that satisfied. Indeed, in terms of the theme of the film, the unanswerable nature of cosmic questions is the point!

Anyhow--a past-time around the blogosphere lately has been to offer theories about the film, to attempt to answer some of those questions raised by the movie: who are the Engineers? What are they doing? Where to the Xenomorphs fall into this pseudo-prequel? Well, I'd like to offer a theory.

I'm under no delusion that this is the "correct" theory. I'm not convinced that the film makers have thought that far ahead, and I don't fault the writers for leaving threads untied. That's what brings a story to life! Once you've written everything, have all the "kinks" worked out, it's over. Anyhow, here's some thoughts I have, my vision of what the film's questions answered...

Who are the Engineers? Or, Liquefy Yourself Before Traveling Between Dimensions

The Engineers are android-like creations akin to David the android. They were created by the Xenomorphs to serve them. In the same way David the android serves humanity, the Engineers were created to serve the Xenomorphs. Accordingly, the Xenomorph ship where a lot of the action takes place: this is not an Engineer vessel. No. It's a Xenomorph vessel. All of funerary-looking jars filled with the black goo: those are holding tanks for the Xenomorphs's consciousnesses, the true lords of that ship. We humans, when we want to travel long distances across space, we freeze ourselves in hibernation tanks. The Xenomorphs, though, they turn themselves into a black goo. The liquefy themselves and their consciousnesses into a black goo that has to then be downloaded into organic vessels.

Who are the Xenomorphs? Or, Extradimensional Aliens in Search of a Body

In my theory, the Xenomorphs are extra-dimensional creatures of extreme, inhuman intelligence. They come from another dimension completely distinct from our universe, a place where the laws of science are different: energy, space, matter, consciousness--all of these things are different in their dimension. None of our physical laws apply there. Hence, their strange traveling strategy. Unlike the Engineers and humans, which are creatures of this dimension, they Xenomorphs are traversing not just galaxies and star systems; no. They're traversing the dividing line between different dimensions. Creepy, huh? Why are they leaving their dimension behind? Hmm...

Who are the Humans? Or, Can a Body Be a Portal?

Humans have been grown in order to serve as the "organic vessels/ flesh portals" for the Xenomorphs. In other words, the Xenomorphs need a body of the cognitive and physiological capacity of a human to "port" themselves into this dimension. And so, they had the Engineers create the humans on Earth. They allowed us to multiply until there were enough of us to occupy, to "port" through. As of the late melennium, there are enough of us to bring on the Xenomorphs. The human race has "incubated" or "cooked" long enough. No w that there are enough of us, it's time for the Xenomorphs to finish their trip from their dimension to ours. In this theory the Engineers become a kind of taxi-ing service for the Xenomorphs. Humans are mere vessels/portals that the Xenomorphs will use. They have every right to, of course, because they created us. When they get to earth in goo form, they'll "face hugger" us, incubate in us, and then burst out into our dimension having successfully crossed the dividing line separate their dimension from ours.

What is the Meaning of Human Life?


Here's the horrifying answer furnished by this theory: human life was created to allow a extra-dimension race of inhumanly intelligent alien-gods entrance into our dimension so that they can exploit all of its resources.

***

I struck on this idea by considering the opening montage, when David is caressing all the hibernation chambers of human ship-mates. And then I thought about the parallel between David and the only surviving Engineer. They wake him up, David attempts to talk to him, and then the Engineer rips his head off.

I found this exchange so disturbing. Why would the Engineer do this? Why would he attack David? Kill the humans? The Engineer just woke up and found himself surrounded by humans asking him, "What were we made for?" How does he respond? What could his answer possibly have been? Here's a guess:

"Uhh... you were made so that extra-dimensional Aliens can impregnate you and then make their way into this dimension. You are mid-wifes to our creators, our Gods, who will ill-use you in their attempt to come into this world.

Not the best thing to hear. I assume the Engineer thought to himself that, considering their linquistic skill, the humans and David had discovered what they were and that they were there to stop the long surviving Engineer from "taxi-ing" the Xenomorphs to earth, to complete their transference to this dimension. Hmm... He was going to pour the goo that is the Xenomorphs into the ocean that is the earth's Ecosystem to bring about a new age, the coming of the Engineers's dark gods

But there's a kink...

Why were the Engineers running? What happened? What was chasing them in those holographic displays? Hmm...

I think there were two types of Engineers. (1) Engineers who were loyal to the Xenomorphs; and (2) Engineers who rebelled, if you will. Those were the Engineers who were created by the Xenomorphs who were "eager to kill their parents."

What do you think?

*H.P. Lovecraft's, Book of Horror*: Arthur Machen's, *The Great God Pan* (1894)

A few days ago I discovered a very interesting fiction anthology at my local Half Price Books. It's titled, H.P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror and its edited by Stephen Jones and Dave Carson (New York: Fall River Press, 2008). It's a really interesting idea for an anthology.

It opens with H.P. Lovecraft's famous 1927 survey essay of weird literature, titled, "Supernatural Horror in Literature," and then it proceeds with a story from most of the writers Lovecraft highlights in this essay. So, basically, the anthology starts with a survey of what HPL thought was the best weird literature of his time; and then it gives you a taste of those writers (some forgotten), that he analyzed in his essay. In a way, you're reading the weird literature of the early 20th century with H.P. Lovecraft as your guide. Quite interesting.

I purchased the anthology for a specific story, Arthur Machen's proto-science-fiction / horror novella The Great God Pan (1894) which is widely considered to be a major influence for H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." I read it and I want to share a little about it. Here's some plot:

Plot

It concerns a scientist by the name of Raymond. He has discovered a surgical means by which to allow an otherwise invisible realm of reality to be perceived by the human sensorium. A minor surgical modification of the brain, he has discovered, will allow a human subject to glimpse "the great god pan." I won't give away what that means. Let this suffice: after Raymond performs the surgery on his ward, what she glimpses does not result in something favorable.

Narrative Structure

The story is written quite well. What really strikes me about it is its narrative structure. The story is not related from the perspective of one character; rather, the plot unfolds through the points of view of many different characters, each with their specific knowledge and their specific ignorance. From the reader's perspective, you become privy to certain information as you pick out patterns that other characters, embedded in the storyworld, cannot hope to see. A consequence of this narrative structure is that you, the reader, are the one making all of the connections even as the characters struggle to make the connections. And as these patterns begin to reveal themselves, the horror begins to mount.

Theme

In terms of theme, there's a lot in this story going on with gender and sexuality. The "villain," if you will, is a woman who is strongly implied to be sexually promiscuous. And a component of the horror, it seems, is the idea that she would let so many gentleman into her bed and body. It's strange. As a modern, this obviously doesn't stir as much as it would for, say, a contemporary reader. And yet--there is nevertheless something powerful about the story.

The Danger of Asking "Cosmic" Questions: A Review of Ridley Scott's *Prometheus*

This blog post contains spoilers for the film Prometheus. If you haven't seen the film and intend on seeing it--and you don't want your experience marred--I recommend you stop reading.

***

Recently I saw the Ridley Scott's science-fiction horror film, Prometheus. I loved it! I left the theater with a sick feeling that has been lingering for a couple of days, but it was an experience. And so, I highly recommend it.

It's a beautiful, sublime film in the spirit of such science-fiction / horror classics as Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), and Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon (1997). As in all of these films, the tone of cosmic vastness pervaded by horrible, indifferent and god-like creatures suggests to me H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. As in the work of H.P. Lovecraft, in these films (Prometheus specifically) existential questions about the origins of life, the meaning of the universe, the relative location of the human world are audaciously braved. And--*gulp*--answered.

The unifying structure that combines all of these films is that the answers discovered in the course of the narrative are, in a word, horrifying. In Prometheus, however, this theme is taken to a new height. In answer to such cosmic, existential questions as, "What is the meaning of life? Was humanity created? Why was it created?" the film responds with a resounding, hostile, scream-like gargle: there is no answer to these questions! Don't go looking for such answers! Die! 

Weyland Meeting His Maker

Indeed, one of the most powerful scenes in the film was when the explorers have located one of the ancient engineers who is still alive but in suspended hibernation. They wake him up. The elderly Weyland is there, having traversed a great expanse of the galaxy, to ask a question of his maker: "Why did you make us?" After a strange moment where the Engineer-creature caresses the robot creation of Weyland (the android David), he kills the old man.

This exchange--existential question asked, horrible answer given--epitomizes what is going on in a specific tradition of science-fiction founded, I think, by the work of H.P. Lovecraft: cosmic horror. If you go to the stars looking for answers to existential questions, all you will find is horror. Sure, you might discover god, but you might not enjoy just what you discover god to be.

This is why I find the critical reaction to Prometheus somewhat frustrating. Consider the consensus review on RottenTomatoes.com, which rates that film a 74%:

"Ridley Scott's ambitious quasi-prequel to Alien may not answer all of its big questions, but it's redeemed by its haunting visual grandeur and compelling performances -- particularly Michael Fassbender as a fastidious android." (my emphasis)

It's so obvious to me that a major theme of the narrative is that certain cosmic-level, existential questions cannot be answered and should not, perhaps, be asked. The point of the film is that some questions--these cosmic questions--don't have answers; or, rather, the answers are of a scale beyond naive human understanding. Anyway...

To reiterate: I loved Prometheus. I find this kind of story intriguing. It stirs me intellectually and emotionally. But I need to qualify some things. The feeling it evokes is very modern. The reason it satisfies, I think, is because it names a demon, a feeling that many of us "sensitive folks" living in Modernity struggle with: the feeling of oppressive insignificance, anonymity; the unshakable sadness associated with the idea that perhaps life means nothing, that we human beings are just chemical accretions that slop around a rock for a brief span of time, eating, excreting, eating, excreting, multiplying, multiplying. Indeed, I find this kind of story intriguing. To reiterate again: I loved Prometheus. But let me be back off a little bit and say that, although I enjoyed the film--it entertained me--it didn't give me pleasure. The horror genre rarely gives pleasure. The pleasure it gives--if you can call it that--is the pleasure of picking at a wound, or massaging a canker sore in your mouth, or that terrible burn after shooting some liquor. It's the "pleasurable pain" of a horrible feeling confirmed. And so, as much as I liked Prometheus, I liked it conditionally.

On the Origins of the Term "Science Fiction"

I find myself wondering when the term for the genre of "science fiction" emerged. Lord Wikipedia seems to suggest that, in the American context at least, Hugo Gernsback's preference for the term "scientifiction" stands as an inaugural gesture. Gernsback founded the pulp magazine, Amazing Stories in 1926. And so, it seems that "science fiction" as a distinct genre might be argued to have emerged in 1926. But "scienctificion" is not "science fiction." Hmm...

My gut impression of "science fiction" is of something that achieved "critical mass" in the early to mid twenties. But the term used to describe the work of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle, makes me question this. Their work was labeled "scientific romances." Were they advertised as "scientific romances"? When did Wells, Verne, and Doyle cease to be writers of "scientific romances" and begin to be considered "science fiction" writers? That's important. 

The issue for me is that of tradition and community. When did the tradition of "science fiction" become firmly established in the popular lexicon? 

The first entry of its use in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1851 from a book by W. Wilson titled,  Little Earnest Bk. upon Great Old Subject. He writes, 

"Campbell says that ‘Fiction in Poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanting resemblance.’ Now this applies especially to Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given, interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and true—thus circulating a knowledge of the Poetry of Science, clothed in a garb of the Poetry of Life." (OED).

The next entry comes from 1929:

"The editor of this publication [sc. H. Gernsback] addressed a number of letters to science fiction lovers. The editor promised to pay $50.00 for the best letter each month on the subject of ‘What Science Fiction Means to Me.’"  (OED).

So, we glimpse the first reference to "science fiction" in 1851, and the next official reference to it in 1929, 78 years later. I'm interested in the strange alchemy that took place over those 78 years, as the idea of "science fiction" evolved, become firmly established, and basically came to become what it is we know and love.

Hmm...

Serialized Pulp Novel: The Rogue and the Merchants (Part 26)

It's been quite a long time. The last time I did some transcribing was back in February. Well, my dissertation prospectus is written, and I find I'm looking for things to take my mind off the project after a day's work. And so, don't be surprised if these serials become a daily thing again. One of these days I'll finish the transcription of this novel manuscript.

In any case, here is serial 26 of my pulp novel, The Rogue and the Merchants. As usual, here is a link to the full transcription, thus far, if you want to know more about the project, the source of the manuscript, or the story of the novel's genesis. Also, all of the illustrations I've been composing are there as well: Pulp Novel Project: The Rogue and the Merchants


***

The Rogue spoke on. He told of how he had deceived the first of the folk he had encountered with a self-inflicted wound and his acting skills and he asked that, when they all arrived to the strange village, they would restrain themselves and refrain from misrepresenting him to the people of the village. He spoke more of the villagers, emphasizing the taboo their leader, the greybeard, had voiced to him: the black-brick ruins that lingered above and beyond the village were sacrosanct. None should approach them.

After summarizing his experiences, it was well into the night, and the Rogue was eager to break away in order to make sure the four warriors from the village were still waiting. The merchants did not want him to leave--all were craven, except for Brol, whose closeness to death and fierceness in battle had stirred some courage in him: "Let him go, you cowardly fools! If those red monsters return, we know the truth now! The demonlings are cowards, nothing more! An old merchant with a quick temper routed them, and it cost but an eye! Cut one of their numbers down, and they'll fly away, screaming like little, frightened children!" He ended his speech with a rasping cough and wiped greenish-red blood from his chapped lips. He needed healing, indeed, thought the Rogue.

Before leaving the Rogue helped Rew and Tauos coordinate the packing up of the camp, and he ordered the still-panicked Paj--in spite of his mental state--to tend to the ailing Brol. The merchant assented quickly, nodded humbly. The Rogue thought it strange when he reflected on how he was, by the law of their homeland Stoh, their property, their servant, their slave; and yet, they responded to his orders now as if he was their master. Helping Brol seemed to level Paj. He helped his leader carefully and deliberately. He dabbed his forehead with a rag, wrung water into his dry mouth.

In any case, the ten remaining merchants--except for Brol and Paj--were busy organizing their departure when the Rogue left them to meet up with the five warriors.

He found them lounging just outside of the hillock upon which the merchants were bivouacked. He used as many non-verbal cues as he could muster to tell the old greybeard's son--the son who wore the wolf-cloak--that they, the merchants--had been informed and were coming back to the village with them. He was eager to discuss the demonlings with the villager-warriors, who he thought might have encountered them before--but their lack of a common language frustrated his curiosity. After he confirmed the warriors knew what was happening, he left him, returning to the merchants. They were finishing packing their horses, tying their parcels and belongings to their saddle. Rew was dousing the fire coals when the warriors and the Rogue strode into the camp's light.

*The Picture of Dorian Gray*: Literary Aesthetics, Fantasy, and the Undecided Text

A couple of days ago I tried out a book club on the West Side of Cleveland. Here's their webpage on meetup.com:  a ne{o}lit book club. The book club was great, and for my part (if you live in the Cleveland Area) I highly recommend coming to a meeting.

The book they were discussing was Oscar Wilde's famous, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). I've always loved this book! I find it really intriguing because, like Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (a ghost story), it is a text that is generally categorized as "literature" while at the same time it has many genre or weird elements.

Intuitively, I jump to describe The Picture of Dorian Gray as a fantasy. Not a "second world fantasy" like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It's definitely a fantasy, though.

Consider the premise: there's a magical/supernatural painting the preserves and extends the youth of a young man. All of his horrible actions--all the stains on his soul--appear on the painting rather than on his body. The painting is a kind of "objectified soul" that Dorian can look on and meditate on. This is fantasy! Wilde has definitely deviated from the reality principle here.

It's so interesting, though, that folks rarely file this novel under the rubric of fantasy. This novel seems to announce itself as literature, as high literary art. In fact, the preface to the novel is often cited in anthologies of literary criticism and aesthetic philosophy as inaugurating or at least anticipating the highest of the high literary art: aestheticism or High Modernism. Very often, folks who believe in the importance of aesthetics and literature hearken back to this preface and cite it as a kind of articulation of first principles. Here's a link to the full manuscript of the preface: The Preface to Dorian Gray. See if you disagree with me.

I'd like to highlight a brief passage from this preface: "They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty." Why is this significant here? Well, genre literature--or "weird literature" (science fiction, fantasy, supernatural horror)--has often been criticized and dismissed by literary scholars because of its apparent disregard of "literary beauty." Genre writers, the argument goes, write in a pulp style. Genre writers aren't concerned with form, only content. They don't experiment with literary aesthetics. Unlike High Modernists writers, genre writers aren't concerned with experimenting with the capacities of literary art (e.g. poetic language, narrative, genre, etc..).

I'll be honest. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. As much as I love weird literature, there's indeed something to this knee-jerk argument. There are lots of genre writers who just don't give a fig for literature as "art." Their project, their productions, the commitment is first and foremost to entertainment--to spinning a good yarn. To be more specific, genre writers seem more concerned with creating an emotion, what literary critics might call an affect (i.e. the fantasy stirs wonders, the horror stirs horror, the science fiction stirs feelings of the sublime or vastness).

The reason why I find The Picture of Dorian of Gray so interesting it that it seems to disrupt this clean framework: (1) genre writers are clumsy writers who aren't concerned with art; (2) high modernist writers are concerned with art and their concern with art can be glimpsed in their focus on language and form.

Dorian Gray is a fantasy, an example of what I like to call "weird literature." And yet--it tends to be framed in a way that runs contrary to how genre literature--fantasy, specifically--is often described, as aesthetically naieve, as pulp. Hmm...This is why I think it's "undecided."

Dr. Moreau and Hubris: A Critical Reflection on the Character of the Mad Scientist

Yesterday I read H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau. I found it really intriguing. It brought to mind some thoughts about the recurring science fiction character archetype, the "mad scientist." This is such an interesting and persistent character trope throughout science fiction. Considering this kind of character makes me wonder who the first "authentic" mad scientist was: Dr. Frankenstein? Hmm...

Well, before we can even begin to answer that question, we probably need to develop a working definition of, precisely, what a "mad scientist" is.

A primary attribute of the mad scientist, it seems to me, is that they are a scientist. But what does that mean? To be a scientist? Is to say someone is a scientist also to say they have an academic position? That they lead a lab? Or, is it much less specific than that? Do non-professional researchers who understand scientific theories--are they scientists by virtue of their knowledge? Hmm... I don't think so. I think it takes more than a knowledge base to be considered a scientist. It think there's an ethos to being a scientist, and that ethos goes something along these lines: in order to be a scientist you have to be driven to understand or to know or to fill out a theory or hypothesis that stirs your imagination or captures your curiosity. 


So we figured out what the scientist part of "mad scientist" means. How about that term, mad? What does it mean to be "mad"? Mentally deranged? Well, "mad" comes from the old English word gemædde which means, "out of ones mind." It's a hunch of mind that the "mad" in "mad scientist" is more than just being irrational, insane, demented. There's so much more to it than that. I think this is the case because, on the surface, mad scientists rarely seem insane. Sure, occasionally they laugh maniacally in the worst science fiction; occasionally they indulge in eccentric behavior. But there's more to their behavior than that. This is where the word "deranged" comes in. "Deranged" comes from the old french and means "to throw out of order." No this feels right! Mad scientists are deranged. What do they throw out of order? The natural order. In the case of Dr. Moreau, he throws the natural order out of order by bringing animals out of their primal state into a perverse, civilized state. He flagrantly disregards human morality by engaging in the living surgery of animals.

So here's our new, working definition of "mad scientist":  A mad scientist is someone who is driven to understand or to know or to fill out a theory or hypothesis that stirs his or her imagination, and as a result of this impulse/obsession they upset the balance of the natural order.

It's strange. In other Wells science romances, science and technology seem to offer the promise of turning humans into gods. For example, the time machin allow the time traveler to witness time on a cosmic, semi-divine scale. Scientific theorizing and fact also carries with it risks: consider the horror of the Morlock and Eloi evolutionary fork.

The mad scientist, it seems to me, appears to be the agent, the active "reagent," if you will, of the "rising humanity to the level of gods" promised by science and technology. The mad scientist is the human, equipped with scientific theory, who would play god. Who would be a god. They're not unlike, say, the ancient alchemists who searched for the power to turn basic elements into gold and for the secret of immortality.

Like the alchemist, the key feature of the mad scientist key, their major sin, turns out to hubris.

H.G. Wells's *The Time Machine*: Amplifying Human Perception

I recently read H.G. Wells's famous novella, The Time Machine (1895). It stirred in me an interesting notion that may apply to a large portion of science fiction. In The Time Machine technology is used to amplify the human sensorium to cosmic /divine levels.

Let me explain. In the opening scenes of The Time Machine a bunch of fellas are sitting around, discussing theories of time with the Time Traveler. The Time Traveler suggests that time is a dimension not unlike width, breadth, and length; time is a "fourth dimension" we cannot perceive. He then makes another point: human subjects are limited to certain spatial dimensions. For example, height. We can walk north, south, east, and west as much as we like. We can't, however, move vertically to our pleasure because of gravity. We can, of course, jump, but the force of gravity pulls us down. This is where flying machines come in. Flying machines allow us to transcend that particular spatial dimension our particular embodied situation limits us to: "horizontality". In other words, the "flying machine" technology allows us to transcend a human limit, i.e. the ability to travel vertically.

The drama of The Time Machine turns on a very specific kind of technology, a time machine. What does this technology do? Not only does it allow humans to transcend their particular embedded nature in a specific time dimension, it allows them to do something else, something entirely different. It allows humans to perceive time on a vast, cosmic scale. This, I think, is the understated element of this story: the time traveler's ability to see all of time. He is able to travel far, far into the future, witness the fate of human civilization; further, he is able to witness the final fate of our planet. Put another way, he's able to perceive time as an eternal, omnipresent demi-god or god would percieve time.

And so, my suggestion is that technology is doing something very interesting in this novella: it's amplifying human potential in a vast way. This isn't, of course, all that can be said about this story. There's plenty to say about the ethics of expanding human potential. There's plenty to be said about the experience of expanding human consciousness--amplifying the human sensorium--and how that experience effects the Time Traveler (he doesn't seem to particularly enjoy the experience (i.e. the insights it affords him)). But because Wells is such an foundational writer for all of SF, I think it is important to point this out: in this story, technology expands human consciousness/perception to a god-like scale.

The "Humane" Narrative Pacing of George R.R. Martin's *A Game of Thrones*

Biographical aside: I finished my writing my dissertation prospectus, had it approved by my advisory committee, and then I circulated my approved document to my department. And so, that means I'm pretty much "go for launch" as far as my dissertation is concerned. This feels really good.

To celebrate, I allowed myself to fully indulge in a long fantasy novel, George R.R. Martin's, A Game of Thrones. I've been spending about 2 or 3 hours a day reading this monster. And, in spite of that, I'm still only about two thirds of the way through it. The slow pace by which I'm moving through A Game of Thrones has given me pause. Thus, I want to reflect this morning on "narrative pacing" in the "contemporary" fantasy novel (i.e. mid-1990s to today).

Fast and Slow Narrative Pacing

What do I mean by "narrative pacing"? I mean, the speed by which the narrative of the novel is related. Better to just give some examples of what I'm thinking: a fantasy novel with fast narrative pacing would have lots of crisis events very quickly. For example, in the first 3 pages there might be a fight; or the villain might make an appearance; or the major psychological conflict of the protagonist might be related. A fantasy novel with slow narrative pacing would have very few crisis events in the opening pages. Lots of time would be spent on characterization, the description of environment, the establishment of ambiance.

This distinction between slow narrative pacing and fast narrative pacing is very simplistic and I'm not suggesting we can easily fold any book into this framework. It is useful, I think, to consider how quickly a story is told. To do so throws into focus something very interesting George R.R. Martin does.

I'm not done with the novel yet, but I can tell you this: its narrative pace is very, very slow. The predominant narrative mode of the story is what I like to call the "cafe scene," by which I mean a scene that consists of a lot of folks talking about what's happening, very often over beverages (tea, ale, coffee, etc.) Indeed, the vast majority of the plot in A Game of Thrones is related, I think, through dialogue among the characters. You learn who each character is, what kind of character they are, what their desires are, where they are going, etc. etc., through their spoken words, their "direct discourse" (as narrative theorists would call it). Indeed, we might think about A Game of Thrones as a collection of dialogues as opposed to traditional novel.

There's something interesting about dialog, and this is connected to temporality. Dialog unfolds in a kind of "real time." Let me explain by highlighting an extended passage. Tyrion Lannister is yelling at his nephew Joffrey for not offering condolences to Catelyn Stark:

"You get yourself to Lord and Lady Stark, and you fall on your knees in front of them, and you tell them how very sorry you are, and that you are at their service if there is the slightest thing you can do for them or theirs in this desperate hour, and that all your prayers go with with them" (88, Bantam Edition)

As you read this the scene is mentally actualized in your mind in a specific temporal fashion: you're forced into the role of the "listener" of this dialog; thus, you, as reader, are forced into same temporal positon as the two folks having dialog, Joffrey and Tyrion. Let me try to make things clear by offering a contrast. You won't find this line in A Game of Thrones:

"Tyrion chastised Joffrey for 10 years. The boy grew up to hate him."

The temporal perspective here is much wider. The amount of years that are narrated are not connected to a basic human perspective. Here we've adopted a kind of "historical" stance.

Conclusion

What strikes me about A Game of Thrones is how it always seems anchored in that specific, human temporality. The events unfold--this is a strange way of putting things--in real time. We become "embedded" in the human perspectives of the characters. Martin does this very well. But, I think this is a narrative characteristic of much of the contemporary fantasy coming out now. That's why these novels are getting to be so very huge.

Ghost in the Shell: Meditating on the Soul-as-Software

I'm in the midst of teaching William Gibson's Neuromancer in my novel class. And so, I'm kind of on a "cyberpunk kick." Thus, suffering from some insomnia, I decided to re-watch a great anime cyberpunk from 1995, Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell.

I like anime a lot. I think the animation of many Japanese animators is startlingly beautiful. And yet, I don't go to an anime film (at least primarily) because of the medium. In other words, I generally am attracted to anime films and shows not because of the art but because of the narrative. That's not to say, of course, that often I "come" for the narrative and stay for the "art." As I watch Ghost in the Shell, it's difficult to even separate these two sources of pleasure: (1) the cyberpunk alternative future and scenarios being related and (2) the beautiful artwork and cinematography that brings it alive.

With that said, I don't have much to say about the style of the film, other than that I think, stylistically speaking, the film is gorgeous. I do want to share some thoughts, some meandering associations, that emerged as I considered what I think are some of the themes of the film. 

A major technology in the narrative is the ability for computer hackers to "hack" brains, to erase memories from human brains, and to introduce new memories into them. In this framework the brain becomes a kind of computer hardware and, accordingly, all of our experiences and personality and memories (our ghost, if you will) becomes a kind of software. 

I find this concept of the soul-as-software very intriguing. Some of what I've read has inclined me to be suspicious of this concept of soul-as-software. And yet, I find the idea intriguing nevertheless. Why so? Hmm...

In this framework of soul-as-software, who you are has become figured as a "quantity" of data. What does that mean? It means that the singularity that is you or I is something that is simply pointed to through a complicated chain of "in not this, then this," or binary logic. We become so many 1's and 0's. It's strange to think about a soul like that, as if it is so many "bits" of information. I struggle with this idea because I'm inclined to believe we're constantly changing, ever-evolving. This idea of the soul-as-software suggests, it seems, that at any given time we can be "carbon copied" or isolated as existing in a stable state. We all know that old adage that goes something like this: "we live and die every second." In other words, we're constantly in a state of creation and recreation. The film seems to suggest this isn't the case. Let me explain.

In the film there's a trash guy who gets hacked and his memories are erased; accordingly, he gets an entire new "software" installed on his brain. He comes to believe he has a wife and a daughter when in fact he's a bachelor. When he finds out all of these memories were artificial--when he finds out his entire personality was illusion--he cries. I find this one of the most interesting moments in the film. But it gives me pause. It makes me raise a series of questions: 

(1) If all of our memories are erased and nothing in left in their place, what does that leave us as? A instinct-driven animal? A zombie? 

(2) If our soul is a kind of software that may or may not be downloaded onto computers (let's imagine the technology exists), on what basis can we claim that it has authenticity over, say, an artificial and synthesized set of memories? In other words, when souls become software, on what basis can we claim that this soul as authentic and that soul as artificial?

The Status of Nature in Williams Gibson's *Neuromancer*

I'm teaching a "History of the Novel" class this semester. And I decided to end the class with William Gibson's Neuromancer. We began with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and now we're ending with a cyberpunk. "What a strange juxtaposition!" you might say. Indeed. Why did I decide on this?

Well, here's my thought succinctly: I'm intrigued by the "status of nature" in both of the novels; more specifically, I'm interested in how the "status of nature" has changed from Robinson Crusoe to Neuromancer.

In Robinson Crusoe nature is something that the protagonist stands off from. Robinson finds himself thrown into nature after a shipwreck. He's trapped in a context that the novel figures as being outside of civilization.The island is a natural space untouched by man, a kind of primal/edenic space unsullied by any sort of cultivation. When we focus on the "status of nature," the narrative of Robinson Crusoe comes to resemble the story of a man-engineer-artist domesticating, changing, organizing, cultivating nature. Not only does Robinson adapt to his island, he makes the island adapt to him through the art of agriculture, engineering projects, the organization of social orders (e.g. his relationship to his "savage" servant Friday).

In Neuromancer nature has a completely different status. It's almost "choked out" by the industrial civilization of Gibson's imagined dystopic future. Nature has somehow disappeared and the mechanized system of human society has been completely swallowed up by it. The world has become a technological system that folks navigate like a macro-computer as users rather than, say, as in Robinson Crusoe, a space of unknown limits pervaded by mysterious unexplored regions. Consider how Case, Molly, and Armitage get around: they shoot from one continent to another on sub-orbital jets; they "tube" from one side of the sprawl to another; the leave the "gravity well" behind and linger in a totally artificial satellite-resort. Indeed, "nature" in Neuromancer has been reduced to a kind of non-entity, completely submerged in the industrial civilization.

Or has it?

I'm questioning this framework now. Why? I'm thinking of Freeside, the satellite resort where the Villa Straylight is and where the "climax" of the action takes place. On Freeside, if you remember, they have grass and gnarled trees; the food they serve in the restaurants here is not cheap "synth" material but actually real (I'm thinking of the passage where Molly criticizes a hung over Case for not eating his "real and expensive" steak). Hmm... It's interesting. To an extent Freeside is the most artificial of spaces in Neuromancer: a satellite created by humanity. It's fully artificial, an arcology, i.e. an artificial ecology. And yet! It's on Freeside where Case actually encounters nature. He smells fresh cut grass for the first time; he sees trees; he eats real steak. Hmm...on Freeside is where this hacker has a visceral confrontation with nature as such.

Could it be that the transformation of the "status of nature" we glimpse in these two novels represents something like the traditional problem of mimesis? When does artistic representation become so accurate, so fully realized, that the philosophical/metaphysical distinction between imitation and original stops making sense? Stops being useful. 

Has authentic nature in Neuromancer become just as artificial as the computer intelligence that structures and conditions the narrative? Perhaps.

A. Bertram Chandler's *The Road to the Rim*: Affect and Inverse Space Opera

I recently started reading science fiction writer A. Bertram Chandler. The novel I read was The Road to the Rim (1967). It was an interesting read. What I found most interesting about it was how it seemed to participate in a particular science fiction genre. My reflex is to call it "space opera," but further meditation makes me realize how incorrect that is. Why? My general impression/definition of space opera tends to sync with the one on Wikipedia:

"Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities."

This definition emphasizes the emotional element of space opera--melodrama, romance, adventure! This feels right for me. Of all the texts I've read or watched that folks have labeled "space opera," this intensity of emotion seems to be present. I'm particularly thinking of--of course---the original Star Wars Trilogy. Consider the bombastic music; the revenge plot; the love triangle; the epic military struggles. These are occasions for showcasing great emotional outpourings.

Disclaimer: I know "space opera" is just a useful categorizing tool and that we should use it loosely, as a kind of heuristic device for throwing into focus elements of certain science fiction narratives that we may or may not see; and so, I'm in no way trying to put forward an argument for a "definitve" definition of space opera. But, for me, it feels correct to associate space opera was an intensity of emotion.

This intensity of emotion is definitely not present in A. Bertram Chandler's The Road to the Rim. Indeed, it can be defined by a lack of emotion. Sometimes this lack of emotion, I'd say, borders on the pathological. There is a notable lack of affect in both the narration and in the characters's behaviors.

I find this so intriguing. I can see why folks would be inclined to describe this novel as a "space opera," considering it takes place completely in outer space. Also, there are space pirates, battling starships, love affairs, etc.. But the world is presented in what I would suggest is almost in "greyscale." The human emotion seems to be quite absent.

I get the sense there is a conformity in tone between the narrative as such and the military lifestyle / scenarios depicted in the novel. The protagonist is one soldier in a great space fleet and a major theme is his relationship to procedure, policy, protocol, etc.. The meticulousness of the narrative style mirrors the meticulousness of the protagonist's behavior and thought patterns.

The term "hard science fiction" might apply. "Hard" might refer to the novel's inherent masculinity, it's emotionless element; and yet, "hard" is generally used to refer to the way scientific theory in framed in a science ficiton narrative. This novel, I'm convinced, is decidedly not faithful to scientific theory.

And so, considering how I've set space opera up here--a science fiction narrative set completely in outer space that showcases great human emotional outpourings--I've decided to call A. Bertram Chandler's The Road to the Rim an example of inverse space opera. Hmm... Does this label fit?

The Zombie Apocalpyse (Post 2): A Review of *The Walking Dead* Compendium 1

After reading The Walking Dead Compendium 1 (that's issues #1-#48), I was inspired to think about the "generic" status of the "zombie apocalypse" genre. It struck me as a very interesting, liminal genre that isn't quite a fantasy, isn't quite a science fiction, and isn't quite a supernatural horror. If you're interested, here's the post: Defining the Zombie Apocalypse

There's lots more to be said about this interesting issue. And yet--I wanted to do something a little less abstract today.

I want to review The Walking Dead issues #1-#48, something useful for a change. I want to make a case for why you should invest in a copy of the compendium and take the time to read it.

But first, a brief reflection about my relationship with comic books...

I've never been much of a comic enthusiast. I guess this is because the image and character of the super hero never stirred me. I don't know why. I can't say why.

There's nothing about the over-the-top hyper-masculine  hero with super powers that I find intrinsically distasteful (hell, one of my favorite characters of all time is Conan of Cimmeria--a kind of "superhero," although he doesn't have super powers).

I just couldn't get into Spiderman or the X-Men or Superman. The comics I read when I did read them were more D&D or sword and sorcery derivative: The Savage Sword of Conan, Conan the Barbarian (Marvel); and The Warlord (DC) were and still are my favorites (I have a fair collection of them).

Once I started graduate school, some friends of mine who shared my genre interests introduced me to what they described more "artistic" comic books, which folks tended to call "graphic novels": Alan Moore's The Watchmen, Charles Burns Black Hole.

Sidenote: I think this term, the "graphic novel" is kind of funny. It's my sense that the term "graphic novel" is meant to portray the idea of these work's aspiration towards artistic seriousness. Historically, of course, novel, was a kind of artistic pejorative word, detonating a type of colloquial writing in contrast to verse. It's a kind of "validating term" enthusiasts use in order to claim some artistic credibility. Science fiction enthusiasts do a similar move when they refer to their favorite genre as "extrapolative fiction" or "speculative fiction."

My favorite validating term for comics term is "sequential art," which connotes the theoretical and formal.

And now, my review of The Walking Dead...

Long story short: I was first introduced to The Walking Dead as a graphic novel. Little did I know, it was actually a monthly comic and what I had been given was a compendium of many issues.

This is where I'd like to begin: reminding folks that Walking Dead: Compendium 1 is not a single novel. It wasn't written, I don't think, as an overarching narrative (I could be wrong--this is a critic's hunch).

It feels as if the narrative unfolds as you read it. In other words, it seems to respond and adapt to previous events. You get the sense you get with other serialized narratives (I'm thinking of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) that the writers are exploring and tracing characters, subplots, and scenarios as you are reading.

With that said, there's a quality to The Walking Dead I'd like to call "narrative vitality." The story seems alive. What do I mean by this? Well, as I read, I don't get the sense that the writers know precisely where the narrative is going, i.e. whose going to live, what's going to happen. I find this as the primary source of the narrative's pleasure. Often times, when you turn the page and are surprised to see one of your favorite characters (who you thought was a main character) being eaten by zombies, you get the sense that the writers were just as surprised as you.

The narrative is just great. It possesses a kind of adaptability, as if at the end of each issue the writers had no idea what was going to happen. And, more importantly, they seem to have been open to the development of any scenario. This is what keeps you reading, this idea that anything could happen.

O.k.. Enough about narrative. What about the style?

I'm not as qualified to discuss in any substantial way visual art. I just don't have the vocabulary for the conceptual tools. With that said, let's give it a try!

First off, the art does change throughout the compendium. They change artists. From issues #1 to #6 the artist is Tony Moore; and at issue #7 the artist changes and becomes Charlie Adlard.

I really like Moore's artwork; however, I absolutely prefer Adlard's. There's something visceral and dark about Adlard's work that conforms so wonderfully to the dark world related by the comic book.  I would describe Adlard's work as beautifully manipulating dark and light shapes. It's tends towards "evocative two dimensionality," I think, and relies less on shading and more on high contrasts between black and white. It's so interesting.

Summary: if you like the AMC show, The Walking Dead, I highly recommend you read this, the comic that inspires it. It's just as mature and exciting and intriguing as the show; at times, it much more intense than the show. The Walking Dead is a comic book at it's best.

It beautifully probes how the struggle to survive intensifies and modifies our sometimes dark, sometimes inspiring, human nature.

Defining the Zombie Apocalypse (Post 1): Not a Fantasy, Not a Sci-fi, Not a Horror

Yesterday I finished reading Compendium 1 of Robert Kirkman's comic, The Walking Dead (issues #1-#48).

First off, I really enjoyed it! I have some minor resevervations that I'll explore in a later post. But, in general, if you haven't read the comic book and love the show (this was how I came to it), I highly recommend it to you. It's so interesting.

But, before I get into discussing specifically The Walking Dead (this will come in a later post), I want to explore some thoughts about the "zombie apocalypse" genre.

It was a strange realization, but when I started seriously considering "the zombie apocalypse" sub-genre, I realized I don't know how to describe it.

Is the "zombie apocalypse" a fantasy?

Well, the dead rising is a common theme in modern fantasy. The icon of the sword wielding hero fighting an animated human skeleton is a common trope in modern fantasy (sword and sorcery specifically). And yet, in many zombie apocalypse texts there is a tendency to attempt to describe the phenomenon of the dead rising in terms of scientific theory. E.g. it's a disease; it's a new micro-organism; it's the result of the earth passing through a comet, etc..

This seems to disqualify it as a fantasy for me, which seems to turn, specifically, on how fantastic phenomena are treated. In fantasy, the appeal is always to magic, the inexplicable. A key element of fantasy is, to my mind, the thesis that all is not explainable through recourse to the observable world.

And so, is the "zombie apocalypse" a science fiction?

Hmm. The appeal to science to explain the phenomenon of zombies seems to make it conform to the conventions of hard science fiction. It is a kind of "extrapolative" genre. It's kind of a thought experiment based upon the initiating question: "what if all the dead rose up?" And yet--it feels wrong to call the "zombie apocalypse" a science fiction as it doesn't manifest any of the familiar tropes of the genre.

The key source of drama in a zombie apocalypse is always the struggles of the survivors. The story seems to emerge from a conflict with Nature (i.e. "Nature" designated as a world filled with zombie). And so, the zombie apocalypse seems to have more in common with the naturalistic survival stories of, say, Jack London, than the speculative stories of H.G. Wells.

Is the "zombie apocalypse" a horror?

Hmm. This feels the most intuitively correct. I'm sure lots of folk would be happy just filing the sub-genre away after glimpsing the gore, the undead, etc.. I'm not willing to do that. There's something about the "zombie apocalypse" that disqualifies it as a horror to me. Before you call BS on me, let me try to make a case for it.

In a "pure" horror tale, the key aesthetic effect is the experience of horror. Thus, the monster (or the ghost, or the demon, or the alien) emerges as a kind of negativity, something that cannot be fully represented or described: you see a flash of a tail, a pair of eyes, some teeth, etc.. The "experience of horror," according to many theorists of the genre, is that moment when our language breaks down, when we can't describe what - that - thing - is. In the "zombie apocalypse," you always know precisely what the horror is: zombies. And in these zombie apocalypse tales, very often the characters become somewhat desensitized to the sight of zombies and move among them, somewhat un-fazed (although their guard is always up).

So, we're back to where we began: how do describe the "zombie apocalypse" genre. I have a working answer. I don't have time to write it up just now. Tomorrow I'll pick up where I left off.

More Human than Human: The Replicants of Ridley Scott's *Blade Runner*

Last night my wife and I watched the 2007 Director's Cut of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). This is in my top 5 favorite science fiction films. And the 2007 director's cut is so beautiful and a great improvement on previous versions. I highly recommend it.

In the summer of 2011, I taught a class, titled, "Visions of Delight, Visions of Horror: Technology and the Cultural Imagination of the 20th Century," and Blade Runner was a major text of that class (by the way, I've blogged about that class. Here's a link to the first post, if you're interested: Post 1). In this post, I'd like to pay homage to this film and perhaps speculate on some of its important themes that were brought up last summer.

First, let me say something about the cinematography: in terms of imagery, this film is beautiful. I'm always struck by how colorful and "busy" the shots are, by the vast amount of stuff that is forced into the "mis-en-scene": empty coffee cups, ash trays, banzai trees, photographs, flashing neon signs, garbage, chopsticks, musical scores -- it's as if the camera is trying to show you everything. Really: there are moments where I just glory in the sensitive eye of Ridley Scott. For example, there's a shot where Deckard--having received a beating--takes a sip of alcohol from a clear shot glass, and as he pulls the shot glass away from his mouth, the crystal clear liquor has become clouded with a crimson swirl of blood. So beautiful. This sort of attention to fine detail--the very surface texture of the imaginary world--is a characteristic of Scott's style that attracts me to his films.

O.k.. Enough about the style. Let's move on to theme.

Generally speaking, this film engages with a theme that recurs throughout science fiction, namely, our ambivalent relationship to technology.

More specially, however, this film engages with another recurrent theme running through science fiction texts that incorporate technology: the idea that technology, as it advances, becomes more and more human: in the form of robots, anthropromorphic A.I.s, androids, cyborgs. 

Very often this technology-become-human is misanthropic, as in the case of The Terminator, The Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica. Alternatively, in other texts, as technology approaches becoming human, it becomes benevolent and helpful to humanity: consider Lieutenant Commander Data in Star Trek: TNG, Terminator 2, Bicentennial Man, the character of David in Spielberg's A.I. (2001).

What makes Blade Runner so interesting a text in consideration of this theme is how the Replicants not only become human, they become more than human. Technology not only approaches becoming human; it surpasses humanity in every category that counts: mortality, emotion, hubris.

Let's think about what makes the Replicants more human than human.

They are more mortal than humans. They only live four years. Thus, their lives are lived at breakneck speeds and they experience everything more intensely because of this. There's a theme in literature that suggests, with immortality, everything "becomes as dust" (consider the bored Vampire characters that pervade Anne Rice's vampire novels). The inverse of this idea is true: with more mortality, everything becomes even more intense and exciting. This is what the Replicants experience.

They experience strong emotions; they aren't objective, unemotional robots. Even though they are technological by nature (they are machines and they are "retired" rather than killed), they are driven by sentimentality, fear, anger, and love. Consider Roy Batty's lamenting of Priss at the end of the film; consider his rage when he finds out he cannot live and murders his maker, Dr. Eldon Tyrell. In spite of the fact that they struggle with human emotions--they are emotionally under-experienced--there's a way to suggest the Replicants are over-emotional.

Here's the big one: hubris. The Replicants manifest a very human kind of arrogance. They try to live forever. And, unlike us, they are able to confront their maker and question him. Indeed, Roy Batty, in approaching Dr. Tyrell and interrogating him, is like a great poet who laments to god and the universe how horrible mortality it.

With the Replicants the traditional theme of technology-becoming-human is intensified to the extent that technology in this film surpasses humanity, becomes humanity with the volume turned up.

A Colorful Dystopia: Review of *The Hunger Games*

Last night a whim took my sister-in-law, wife, and I to see The Hunger Games. 

I hadn't read the book. I didn't know anything about it, other than that it was a movie based on a novel about a dystopic future. A gallon of soda and a bucket of popcorn later, I am happy to have seen it and am eager to read the novel.

Let me be clear: there are elements of the story and plot that I might criticize. For example, I couldn't help but dwell on the obvious structural crisis that pervades the narrative: the protagonist, in order to be the hero, must refrain from killing sympathetic characters in a battle where only one person survives; thus, though an corollary narrative logic, any sympathetic characters have to die unfortunately, on accident, or murdered by one of the bad guys. This seemed a little forced to me.

But what did I expect? Should the protagonist have taken out a sympathetic character? The audience would have had a very different, vexed relationship with her then.

Anyhow, with that aside, this was a really, really interesting movie.

Of primary interest to me was the setting. This dystopic future was so intriguing, visually and conceptually. Visually it was intriguing because you had such intense contrasts in terms of the many layers of society: the rural and naturally simplistic district 12 that suggested an idyllic, Appalachian village in early America; the urban, cosmopolitan, technological, and decadent Capital where all the folks were dressed in crazy colors.

This visual contrast suggested a conceptual one: you see the late post-industrial civilization at every level, from the rustic base of production upward and trough the highest level of society, the decadent and perverse aristocrats. Thus, the film encapsulates a "totalizing" impulse: in the manner of a secondary world fantasy, it wants to "map" a complete society.

Another issue. I was really intrigued by the relationship between the female protagonist and the male protagonist. I read a lot of pulp adventure, and always, always there are scenes where the huge-thewed male hero rescues the scantily clad female "prize-wife" from trouble, who then lolls like a rag doll in his arms, all hair and limbs, as he bumps along and slays with sword and gun.

Here--this did not happen. The main protagonist was the female; the person who needed her help and protection was the male. I know this is not so unique these days; it is, however, exciting to see this narrative structure exhibited in a mainstream Hollywood film. That's worth something.

The last thing I want to note was the image of technology in this film. Technology was presented as being so very powerful in this film, almost to the level of magic; and yet--(and here it where things get weird and interesting)--the technology presented didn't seem to me to be very implausible. All of the over-the-top technology--even the arena where the distinction between the natural and the virtual collapses--didn't feel to me to deviate from a "reality principle" too very much. What does that say about me?