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!

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.

Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question": The Potential of Science Fiction Narration

One of my favorite Isaac Asimov short stories is "The Last Question," published in 1956 in the pulp science fiction magazine Science Fiction Quarterly. At just under 4500 words, it tells the story of the fate of humanity, the cosmic intelligence humanity creates, and the entire life and death of the universe.

Think about it: 4500 words and the entire story of the cosmos is related to you. This is truly astounding, a word etymologically linked to the latin extonare (which means to be struck with lightning). It not only "makes you think," but it blows up your mind, if you will.

Some summary: the story opens and some computer engineers are celebrating together because they have just built a supercomputer that has been able to solve all of humanity's problems. Economic scarcity, political differences, production, everything: all these crises have been solved by the computer called Multivac.

In spite of their happiness, however, they start thinking about the far future. In conformity with scientific law, they hypothesize, the universe will and has to end entropically. It will simply fade away. This is the famous problem of entropy that shows up throughout a lot of the science fiction of the 1960s and 70s and onward.

In spite of their happiness, these engineers can't stop dwelling on the fact that they have just saved a world that will necessarily be destroyed. In fact, destruction, according to their hypothesis, is a physical certainty.

And so they ask their computer a question: "How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?" In other words, how do we stop the universe from being destroyed. The computer's answer. Five words: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER. The story proceeds and more and more computers are made throughout the many eras of the universe until, finally--can't help but spoil it--an answer is found for this question.

There's a lot going on in this story. I want to highlight two elements I find interesting.

First element: this story paints an interesting picture about humanity's relationship with technology. In large part, technology is painted as a kind of savior of humanity. Without giving away the end of the story, the computers continue to grow and human interactions with computers become more and more intimate; eventually, computers and humanity are inextricably bound together in a kind of "erotic" union. This is the story of human's merging with computers and technology, a story told over and over in science fiction in the form of cyborgs, androids, intelligent machines, etc..

Second element: we have in this story a powerful demonstration of the potential of science fiction narration. Incorporating the mythology of science into its narrative logic, science fiction texts are able to represent not only the human world--which is somewhat limited (in space, in time--a city, a nation, a planet)--but the entire cosmos. Let me be clear: there are no pychologically nuanced characters in this story. Human beings, in this narrative, are less individuals and more a flowing force of energy, like the molocules of water in a river; nevertheless, this sort of macro-perspective is something science fiction really does well.

If you haven't read this Isaac Asimov's, "The Last Question," it's available online for free. Here's the link: "The Last Question."

The Animation Masterpieces of Rankin and Bass (Part 3 of 3): The Flight of Dragons

So, today is my third and final post of "The Animation Masterpieces of Rankin and Bass." This evening I conclude with reviewing The Flight of Dragons. If you're interested in my previous reviews, then here are the links!


The Hobbit (1977)
The Last Unicorn (1982)

And now--The Flight of Dragons

Of the three Rankin and Bass animation masterpieces I’ve reviewed over the past days, this is my favorite.

Unlike The Hobbit, which was a made for television movie, or, The Last Unicorn, which was released in theaters, The Flight of Dragons was released straight to video in 1982.

I find this intriguing because you would think the best of the three would have the widest public release. Not so. According to my personal opinion, it’s the other way around.

Unlike The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn, this film isn’t based on a single work. It doesn’t have a “primary text,” if you will, to accurately relate or deviate from. It’s based on other works, but it is a mixture of two: (1) the “speculative natural history” book titled Flight of Dragons (1979) by Peter Dickinson, and (2) the novel, The Dragon and the George (1976), by Gordon R. Dickson. I’m not familiar with either of these works (though I wish I was). Needless to say, the narrative of this film is unique and not one that precedes its production.

Some brief plot summary: the film concerns the adventures of a former biology student turned fantasy novelist / fantasy game maker. He creates a very “Dungeons and Dragons” type game and a world to go along with it. And, through some various magical happenings, he gets whisked away to the fantasy world he created. There he finds out that he is the champion of this world. He has to fight an evil necromancer named Ommadon (voiced by James Earl Jones). The story is filled with dragons, elves, rangers, knights, magical spells, fairies, slime worms, dreary taverns, etc..

On the level of plot, it’s very thrilling.

But the plot is not the only thing that endears me to this film. Let me just list some of the elements that make it a masterpiece.

The animation style: Rankin and Bass’s unique animation style comes through here. Slightly strange, borderline grotesque, the artistic style creates a tension between the real world elements the drawings are derived from and the abstractions the drawings are supposed to represent. Thus, there is a kind of rawness / baseness to it.

The drawings are stylized, for sure, but the nature of the stylization is such that it might even be described as a resistance to stylization. In other words, the artists strived for reality while realizing that reality was beyond the pale of animation. In other animated films, artists seem to abstain from any ambition to “realistically” represent something. And in this way you get the “four-fingered” hands of so much animation / cartoons.

The voice acting: There is some strange voice acting in this film, but it endears me to it. Particularly, the voice actor who plays the voice of the Princess character, Millisande, is quite awkward yet completely satisfying for its mystical, almost recitative quality. Also, the voice actor who relates the character of Smrgol the Dragon—James Gregory—is brilliant! He’s an old dragon, tired out by life, and the husky voice no-nonsense delivery completely communicates this. John Ritter does the voice of the main character, Peter Dickinson, and he ramps up the nerdy quality of his voice to the extreme. And, of course, James Earl Jones as the archvillain is just brilliant. He evil laughter is pure art.

The thematic content: For a kid’s film, this flick engages with some serious philosophical issues. Ultimately, this film is about the conflict between magic and science, empiricism and emotion, two fundamentally distinct ways of understanding the world. Without giving away too much of the plot, the main character becomes the avatar for reason and logic, science and math; thus, the baddies become the representatives of superstition, magic, fear, and other emotional ways of coming to terms with the world.

Spoiler alert: It’s a strange twist, but the main character’s quest ultimately preserves “the magical realm,” which is an absolute incongruity considering his way of understanding the world necessarily undermines it.

But I forgive this film this as it really begs the question, “Are our imaginations and flights of fancy, our impulses toward wonder and beautiful ignorance necessarily incompatible with the scientific endeavor? Is there something worthwhile is hearing “a god’s anger” in the thunder rather than, say, “the manifestation of a meteorological phenomenon?” Is there something lost when we “unweave” the rainbow?

The film doesn’t answer this rich question. It’s the source of its aesthetic power is that is even raises it.