A. Betram Chandler and the Alien Encounter

I just finished the short story collection, The Hard Way Up (Ace 1972), by A. Bertram Chandler. I really enjoyed it. I had pigeonholed Chandler as a military space opera writer who was using the back drop of outer space to tell military and political stories of intrigue and adventure; however, after having read this short story collection, I admit he is more than this. He is a genuine Science Fiction writer with a capital S and F who doesn't just use the stereotypical tropes of the genre--spaceships, laser guns, robots, aliens-- to spin yarns. He also utilizes science fiction's speculative and extrapolative philosophical structure to engage in rich "thought experiments."

A story that illustrates this point, I think, is "The Wandering Buoy," which was originally published in Analog in September of 1970. The story is very intriguing, very suggestive. It concerns a strange encounter John Grimes has as he and his crew are wandering through interstellar space in their Adder class space ship on a routine mail courier mission in which they encounter a strange, unidentifiable sphere. The source of the drama in the story is the struggle of the crew and Grimes to "domesticate" the strangeness of this sphere. They launch various probes at the sphere, and these are repelled by an unknown force. They then try to communicate with the sphere, thinking it a kind of ship, through electronic and psionic means, but they fail to make contact. Eventually they come to understand the nature of the repellent force that keeps them at a distance from the sphere, and they suceed in exploring it. I don't want to give away what they discover in the sphere, but suffice it to say it's very interesting.

On the surface, this story seems to be re-telling of Arthur C. Clarke's famous short story, "The Sentinel," which was published in the Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader in 1951. In Clarke's story a space survey crew discover a strange pyramid on the moon which turns out to be the herald of an alien race who nurtured humanity in its youth. Famously, Clarke expanded this story into 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrick. But in some very distinct parts, Chandler puts unique "spins" on this narrative. The Sphere is distinct from the pyramid in Clarke's story and the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey in some very important points.

And yet, I'm less concerned with their differences than their similarities. I find it so intriguing that science fiction narratives gravitate toward this interesting "encounter" plot. It's as if a major cognitive affordance offered by science fiction is that it allows us to imagine encounters with strange, Alien entities that challenge our notions of who we are and where we came from.

A. Betram Chandler's *The Subtractor*: The Cozy Interior of a Star Ship

Last night I had trouble falling asleep and so I picked up some light literature, a series of short stories by military space opera writer, A. Bertram Chandler. Recently I re-read Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and so that put me in the mood for some more "military themed" space opera, i.e. starships, galactic empires, cloak and dagger conspiracy on an outer space canvas. I have an Ace Double edition of two of Chandler's famous John Grimes stories, The Road to the Rim (a novel), and The Hard Way Up (short story collection). I read the second short story in The Hard Way Up, titled, "The Subtractor," and I wanted to comment on it.

First, some brief summary. The story relates the first command of John Grimes, a member of the Federation Science Survey, the military of a futuristic intergalactic union of humanity. He gets command of a small but fast ship that functions as a V.I.P. courier for the military. The narrative of this story is pretty straightforward. Grimes and company pick up a suspicious V.I.P. by the name of Alberto, a clean-cut yet mysterious official sort of person. He couriers the V.I.P. to a planet on the border between the Federation and two other alien empires, and then conspiracy and espionage ensue. I don't want to give about the interesting plot twist at the end, but I do want to comment on the effect of the story.

For me, the most interesting element of this story was the atmosphere of the interior of spaceship flying through space. The majority of the story relates scenes that take place within the tiny ship as it hurtles through space to its destination. Not much happens on the ship in terms of plot progress, but the atmosphere is vivid and satisfying. You get that since of intimate isolation among the crew members who find themselves in this small environment in the middle of the vast emptiness that is outer space. Because of this isolation and monotony, they are realistically concerned about minor things, like their meals and how to pass the time, e.g. drinking cocktails and playing chess. To an extent, the environment related is, cozy, fundamentally social, and in spite of the fact that very few things happen on the ship, a sense of adventure is nevertheless palpable. In terms of tone, the story relates the destination-focused experience of sailors on a great journey, or of submariners doing a long tour underwater, but the context has been switched to outer space.

I haven't read much of A. Bertram Chandler, but my recent re-read of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy inspired me to stick with space opera a little bit longer. I think I may review one or two of his stories in the following days. In any case, this one was great!

Isaac Asimov's "The Mule": Intergalactic Demagogue

I'm almost finished with my re-read of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I realize now that I prefer the first book to the latter two. The first book is more widely historical in range. It doesn't feel to me to be a sustained, novel-length narrative, which these days I have less patience for. In my own writing, I try to maximize narrative potential with as little words as possible. The first book, The Foundation, feels to me more a collection of loosely knit short stories than two serialized novels, which is what I think the latter two novels are: two longer narratives sutured together.

Don't get me wrong. I still appreciate Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. I'm particularly intrigued by the character of "The Mule," the mutant military dictator who is able to manipulate emotions. I'm going to focus on him in this post.

It's intriguing to me, this idea that one person can influence history drastically. "The Mule" is a kind of wild card, a variable not accounted for in Hari Seldon's plan for the establishment of a Second Empire. I love the symbolism derived from The Mule's incognito persona, the court clown "Magnifico Giganticus." "The Mule" is wearing motley and is parading around as a clown. He is literally the joker thrown into the deck of playing cards that is history.

I think Asimov's portrayal of The Mule syncs with some very genuine fears that Americans had about political leaders in the late 40s and early 50s: hyper-charismatic demagogues who had set themselves up over the masses had whipped whole populations into an emotional ecstasy/frenzy. Some were eager to interpret such large personalities as the cause of WWII, a horror that the world was still very much recovering from when Asimov was writing his story.

I wonder if The Mule can be seen as an allegory for interwar political leaders--deadly speakers, deadly showman--like Mussolini, Stalin, FDR, Hitler, Churchill, Huey Long, and so forth.

But strangely, the ability of The Mule to manipulate the emotions of large swaths of humanity is a power that is not necessarily evil in and of itself. The true evil, rather, is the Mule's psychological problems. These make his ability to manipulate others dangerous. Because of his childhood, his experiences connected with his deformities, his alienation from the rest of humanity, he becomes an antagonizing ego-maniac who resents the rest of humanity. The Second Foundationers change his mind so that he becomes, in the end, a benevolent dictator. But this plot point carries with it an implication: the ability of a leader to manipulate whole groups of people is not intrinsically evil or suspicious; rather, it's this rare ability married with a the wrong psychological makeup.

In any case, The Mule is an interesting imaginary version of a category of political leader--the charismatic great leader who seems to be able to channel history--that intrigues us, disturbs us, frightens us, and enchants us.

Karl Edward Wagner's Morally Mature Sword and Sorcery

I just read the story, "Undertow," by Karl Edward Wagner, which I found in The Sword and Sorcery Anthology published by Tachyon Press, 2012. The story was original published in Whispers #10, August 1977. It is worthy example of sword and sorcery in that it relates a story structured by a sophisticated morality: at the end of the story, you cannot categorize categories as either "good" or "bad." Accordingly, it has a quality of tragedy about it in that you feel sorry for every character.

Generally speaking, I really enjoyed "Undertow." The fantasy setting is a dark city, lorded over by a sorcerer/swordsman, Kane. The protagonist is a girl who is cruelly claimed by Kane against her will. She hates him and wants to run away from, but his sorcery power is such that she is afraid to defy him. Kane continuously forces the girl to drink a strange potion, the function of which is a mystery for the whole of the story. At the very end, however, you realize that the potion was somewhat necessary for the girl's survival. In a strange way, her captor was preserving her. Hmm...

The ending haunted me because I didn't really know whose side I was on. Throughout the story, Kane is, for the most part, an absent character, a bogeyman talked about by people in low voices. Occasionally you get glimpses of him in flashbacks, but, for the most part, he is more legend than reality. The strangeness of the story's ending adds a level of moral complexity to the story. There is really no good or bad characters. They all make mistakes, they all have strange motivations, and they all suffer in this way or that.

This kind of moral complexity/maturity is an quality of sword and sorcery I've always admired. Sword and sorcery has a propensity to make the moral world of its fictional setting so many shades of gray as opposed to the black and white of epic fantasy.

I've haven't read much of Karl Edward Wagner's work before. If you don't now anything about him, let me briefly fill you in. One of his major accomplishments, from my perspective at least, was his publication of a three-volume set of the original Conan the Barbarian stories by Robert E. Howard. He edited The Year's Best Horror Stories from 1980 until 1994, when he died from his battle with alcoholism.  Reading through his wikipedia article, he seemed like he was a pillar in the science fiction, fantasy, horror community as well as a prolific writer. Oh, and he wrote Conan pastiche, a novel about Conan's bucaneering days, Road of Kings (Bantam 1979).

The Literary and the Popular Versions of Conan the Barbarian

I recently purchased a book of academic essays focused on Robert E. Howard's famous Conan the Barbarian character. The title is Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian (McFarland 2012) edited by Jonas Prida. I haven't began reading the essays just yet, but I did read the introduction. Prida offers a very insightful heuristic for literary approaches to all sorts of "genre" and/or "popular culture" texts, and he came to this insight, it seems, because of a problem that confronts anyone who wants to study Robert E. Howard and/or Conan the Barbarian.

The problem can be put this way: is the character, Conan the Barbarian, kitsch or art, a literary character or a mere pop culture icon?

To a lot of Robert E. Howard fans, Conan is a character who derives specifically from Robert E. Howard's original short stories published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales that feature as their main character, Conan the Cimmerian. From this perspective, later works based on this character--pastiches, comic books, movies, video games, etc..--aren't particularly worth considering. Some are invalid. Others are are impostors.

For example, there is an animated series based on Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Adventurer, that ran for 65 episodes from September 12, 1992 until November 22nd, 1993. I remember this series, and for the longest time this was linked up to my young mind with Conan. In this series, Conan is a clear-cut good guy. He has friends he makes chivalric sacrifices for them. He has a lovable pet phoenix. He's always learning lessons and changing and growing (yes, this is an animated series for children). I loved the series as a little kid.

To a lot of people, from the perspective of the "literary Conan," this is an impostor text, a merely commercial affair that exploits Howard's artistic creation and, worse, denigrates it. Howard's moral world was so many shades of gray, violent, unforgiving, but structured around a multiplicity of codes of behavior, some of which Western readers have to struggle to understand. Of course none of this moral/cultural complexity appears in the cartoon.

I had also seen the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film directed by John Milius. I loved that movie. When I saw it around 9 or 10, I was cognizant enough to realize that the cartoon version of Conan was much nicer, less violent, and involved more "good" characters than the movie, but I never thought in terms of "authentic Conan" or "false Conan." Having no literary precedent to go on, this film was Conan. To this day the soundtrack of that film--which is awesome--is one I listen to as I run or work out.

To a lot of people, from the perspective of the "literary Conan," this is an inaccurate text. Sure, it's not nearly as much of a travesty as the cartoon, but it nevertheless deviates from the literary text to the extent that it seems distasteful.

In 2005 I was introduced to Conan the Barbarian as a written narrative in prose. My first literary encounter with Conan was, strangely--and this is difficult to admit--the novelization of the Milius movie, written by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and Catherine Crook de Camp. I was visiting my girlfriend in Indiana and we happened upon a used book store. Tucked away among the older, slightly musty fantasy novels was this film adaptation. On a whim I bought it. It was less than 200 pages, featured lots of bloodspilling action, and I was struck by the setting. But what really lingered with me was the introduction. In the introduction there were continuous references to this Robert E. Howard guy (of whom I had no knowledge).

This pastiche of literary Conan is considered by many just as much an impostor as the previous two examples. But it was through this strange pastiche that I came in contact to the original, literary texts.

By this stroke of luck, I was set "right." I learned who Robert E. Howard was, I read the original texts, and learned to sympathize with the purists. There is a level of seriousness, an aesthetic complexity, a surprising philosophical denseness to Robert E. Howard's work that is obscured by these more "pop culture" uptakes of his most famous creation, Conan. Nothing drove this home for me more than the most recent movie, the 2011 Conan the Barbarian movie directed by Marcus Nispel, which was a disaster.

But the clarifying and insightful point that Prida makes in the introduction to this anthology is that it's not just me or other Howard fans or even Howard himself (if he were alive, of course) who can determine who or what Conan is or will be. We can tirelessly labor to direct the discourse, but Conan has become larger than the original texts that featured him. And I think that's a good thing. He's been immortalized.

The concept of Conan as Cultural Production as opposed to Conan as a literary character is so useful because it constructively reframes the issue: it stops being about separating the chaff from the wheat (a silly exercise, to my mind) and more about the specific conversations people want to have.

If you want to talk about the influence Robert E. Howard has had on popular culture, then you're talking about "cultural production." If you're concerned about the aesthetics of the original literary work, well, you're talking literature.

These are simply two separate conversations.

Isaac Asimov's *Foundation*: Reconciling the Macroscopic and Microscopic

I started re-reading Isaac Asimov's famous novel of galactic empire, Foundation. I love this novel.

Asimov's Foundation epitomizes the "space opera," a sub-genre infamously difficult to pin down. Of course, there are other versions of the "space opera" that predate Asimov's Foundation series that only vaguely resemble it (the key family resemblance being, of course, that they are all, loosely defined, adventures in "outer space"). There are C.L. Moore's "interplanetary" stories of Northwest Smith of Earth (1930s), and, of course, there are Edgar Rice Burroughs's popular "Barsoom" stories, which were originally published in the all-fiction Munsey magazine, The All-story in February of 1912.

These older "space operas" are much more "operatic" than Asimov, which is less concerned about human interest and more concerned with sociological issues: the rise and fall of governments, the emergence of specific cultures, the effect of technological change on material economies, and so forth. Foundation has more in common in terms of genre with Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire than with Moore or Burroughs, to an extent.

In another post about my favorite Asimov short story, "The Last Question," I wrote, "Human beings, in this narrative, are less individuals and more a flowing force of energy, like the molocules of water in a river." As far as Foundation is concerned, this is overstatement. In Foundation, human beings are a force, are referred to as a "conglomerate" whose actions can be predicted with some accuracy based upon statistics. This is Hari Seldon's famous "psychohistory," a kind of super-mathematical historiography that doesn't only deal with the past but makes predictions about the future.

The interesting thing that Asimov does in these Foundation stories, to my mind, is to imagine a reconciliation between that age-old historical question: does history move forward because of significant figures (e.g. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler); or, does history move forward because of sociological/economic laws that disregard individuals. In other words, he uses literature to negotiate the apparently incommensurate "mascoscopic" approach to history (sociology, economy, ecology) and microscopic approach (biography, great persons).

That's what good literature does: it allows us to think things hitherto unthinkable.

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.