Weird Kitties Reviews, Batch Two (Frankenstein, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Full Disclosure, The Race for Space)
I do not anticipate needing any more Best Dramatic Presentation reviews in the immediate future.
Frankenstein, by the Mechanisms
Reviewed by William Shaw
Eligible for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, and available here.
If you’ve ever thought that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein would have been better as a prog rock ballad, this new song from the UK-based steampunk folk band The Mechanisms looks to have you covered. Retelling the classic gothic tale as a ten-minute song about a rogue AI, Frankenstein, while perhaps the least grandiose of the Mechanisms’ projects to date, is still a wonderful piece of work, and crackles with the same energy as their lengthier albums.
The story is told in one long song, with linking narration putting one in mind of a geekier version of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. The tale concerns a far-future world where a scientist named Victoria Frankenstein creates a revolutionary AI, and… honestly, you know how the story goes from there.
Initially it might seem a bit of a disappointment, after three albums of giddy textual play in established musical genres and mythical traditions, to see the Mechanisms doing a straight pastiche of a specific text. But the band, to their credit, seem to realise the dangers of this approach, and turn them to their advantage. At ten minutes long the song is tight and focused, avoiding the slightly slipshod nature of their longer and more complex albums, and dialling back a bit on the usual self-indulgence. There’s also a genuinely clever twist at the end, which manages to convey a sense of shock as well as ironic inevitability.
But what really sells it is the technical side of things, which is excellent. The singing and instrumentation are both top-notch, with the shifts in tone handled deftly by the introduction of new musical techniques as the song goes on. As ever, the Mechanisms manage to turn what could easily have been a one-gang premise into magnificent entertainment by sheer skill and chutzpah.
This is a song which has clearly had a lot of thought put into it, as well as an awful lot of effort and talent And it’s that sense of passion which makes this song such a worthwhile piece of storytelling. These a clearly a group of people who care deeply about what they do, and long may they continue to do it. 
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky
Reviewed by James Wylder
Eligible in Best Novel, and available here.
Fanfiction as a genre is barely appreciated as an art form, so its hard to go too far stating exactly how Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality needs to be read and appreciated, as it has opened up the genre in a bold new way. Eliezar Yudkowsky has crafted a massive work that redefines the relationship of fanfiction to the work it stems off from in exceedingly fascinating ways.
The premise: that Harry Potter is not raised by the abusive Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, but by Petunia and a different man she married: an educated man well versed in science, who does not mistreat Harry, but provides for him as well as instilling the scientific method deep into his worldview. Harry’s character, shaped very differently by nurture, is utterly analytical and curious and upon his arrival at Hogwarts begins to excel at Magic at a rate far beyond any one else by applying the scientific method to figure out its inner workings.
The result is a work that is beautiful in its quantities: the limits and ranges of magic become a prismatic river of data, and there is a sheer joy and perversity in watching the magical world dissected the way it is. Yudkowsky’s writing is at its best when it is away from human interaction, it blossoms in the finite, and one can’t help but wait for Harry’s thoughts to be alone on the page and the measurements and calculations to begin.
In taking apart the Harry Potter series using the polar opposite of magic, this story manages to create something wholly original, and yet completely dependent upon its parent. This story could not work with the names filed off, re-purposed and repackaged as its own work. The power in it comes from Harry Potter, from being able to take things millions of readers around the world have peered at through a crystal ball, and put a scalpel to it. In doing so, it enhances the work it was built from, making you question that work without anything so bitter as cynicism.
The work has built a new kind of fanfiction, off of the backs of many fanfics before it certainly, but here it has come into its own. To recognize it for its greatness, well, it would only be rational.
Full Disclosure, written by Raven Molisee and Paul Villeco and directed by Hye Sung Park
Reviewed by Sean Dillon
Eligible in Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, and available on iTunes and Amazon.
Steven Universe is a show about a young boy named Steven who is raised by the Crystal Gems: a group of rebels space gems named Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl who were once lead by Steven’s late mother, Rose Quartz, until she died giving birth to Steven. Together, they go on adventures across the world, searching for artifacts and corrupted gems from a war, thousands of years old, which Steven’s guardians fought in. The war in question was one against a group known as the Homeworld Gems (so named due to their allegiance to the gem home world) and it ended with a lot of death and scars on both sides. But more important to the show’s ethos than all this silly science fiction nonsense, is Steven’s relationship to the town in which he lives in. Be it to his father, Greg, his best friend, Connie, or his pet lion, Lion, Steven will always try to have a fun time and make the best out of whatever situation he finds himself in… at least, until the story I have chosen to discuss in this review: Full Disclosure.
Released on March 13, 2015, Full Disclosure is the second season premiere. As with most science fiction season finales, the show ended on a narrative collapse and a cliffhanger. And as with most premieres for those kinds of shows, the story is about resolving that cliffhanger. However, the cliffhanger in question is a phone call Steven received from Connie, who wants to know what happened to him and his fellow Crystal Gems that had him tell her they might all die. The events in question, being the aforementioned narrative collapse, involved Steven and the Crystal Gems being utterly demolished by the Homeworld Gems, to the point where Garnet, the strongest of the gems, is killed right in front of Steven’s eyes. The collapse is resolved by revealing that Garnet is, in fact, two gems fused together and powered by their lesbian love at the price of one of the gems having to be trapped under the ocean as a ticking time bomb of an unhealthy relationship. And thus is where the meat of the episode comes from: the decision whether or not to tell Connie about last night.
As one would expect from this genre, Steven decides to not tell Connie. This decision doesn’t come lightly, as he spends the entire first half trying to figure out how to tell her what happened (and after being given a lecture about the virtues of being a brooding loner who looks down upon a city that cannot comprehend the horrors he sees in his day to day life and suffers quietly and alone), and we get this amazingly melancholy musical number with a deceptively up beat tempo. This is, of course, typical behavior of a character in a science fiction property with a big dark secret and has been seen on numerous other shows. Unlike those other shows, we are shown how this decision is hurting Steven as a person. And not just in the typical “I see you happy when I am miserable because my happiness would be bad for some reason” bullshit, but in how his decision to repress everything is highly unhealthy. For example, look at the framing of the shot right after the big musical number. The other Crystal Gems are looking at one another while Steven is not only looking away from them, but also is actively separated from the group. Furthermore, there’s the lack of emotion within his voice when he talks and even the words he speaks, highlights someone who could be described as a person who stands alone, above the people he protects, to brood about the difficulties of his life. And, of course, there’s his reaction to the best joke in the entire episode, which is an expression of annoyance at the childish behavior of his fellow gems (reminder, Steven is about 10. His fellow Gems are thousands of years old).
When Steven explains why he’s behaving this way and how he plans on ignoring the problem of Connie forever, the Gems are naturally concerned. In particular, Pearl, who is perhaps the Gem with the least amount of understanding towards humanity and has the most inner turmoil, raises an eyebrow at the prospect of Steven running away from his problems. But, regardless of Steven’s plans, Connie wants to know what’s going on a goes straight for the source (i.e. Steven’s House).
What follows is a literalization of the internal struggle Steven has been going through over the course of the entire episode, in that he is literally running away and hiding from Connie. Here we get one of many amazingly designed shots of the episode as the chase brings them through the alien architecture of the crashed ship which, through its use of color, exudes an eerie atmosphere to the scene despite being a familiar corridor chase scene. Eventually, Steven reaches a point where he can’t run anymore, and he decides to just lie to Connie to get her to go away. At first, he sends her an impersonal text, claiming he doesn’t want to be friends. She immediately calls him, to which he says some things that really hit right into the core of Connie’s insecurities, just so that she’ll go away. It’s easier to be the brooding hero, who cuts themselves off from the world to protect those closest to them when they do not see those closest to them react to their actions. Being a fantasy nerd, Connie knows this and calls Steven’s bluff, telling him that she’ll only go away if he says it to her face. If he says all those cruel, mean things to her directly, she’ll leave. And we see Steven climb up the remains of the alien architecture, draped in shadows. And, for a brief moment, we believe he’ll do it. This is, after all, a science fiction series with a debt to anime, comic books, and video games. So a main hero who broods alone and hurts those closest to him wouldn’t be out of the question.
And yet, he can’t do it. Steven isn’t some brooding anti-hero who hurts others to push them away. He’s not Batman. And this isn’t a show about that kind of character either. And so all of his repressed emotions come out in a beautifully ugly flood of tears. And it is here, in these final moments, that we see what is at the core of Steven Universe. Not giant space battles, or brooding heroes, or even comedy and musical numbers. No, what’s at the core of Steven Universe is a story about people who have been hurt by many things, be it the prejudice of their culture, the nature of their existence, or the loss of someone they love. And more importantly, it’s about those people, and many others, helping others heal and allowing themselves to heal.
And out of all the episodes, I think this episode shows that core through the simple fact that it’s about Steven being healed. Healed from idea that being a grown up means that you have to repress your emotions away, only letting them out when you’re alone and brooding, and you must keep secrets from those closest to you in order to protect them (as an aside, is it just me, or does Steven Universe look a lot like a famous Science Fiction writer named Steven). But the fact is, that’s an unhealthy way to live. Closing yourself off from those closest to you only hurts you and them even more. And so, as with the ending of the episode, we must give full disclosure to those closest to us, so that they can help us heal and become better people.
There are, perhaps, better Steven Universe episodes, but this is the one that I find myself going back to again and again. This is an amazing show with a cast of fantastic characters who we see grow and change throughout the series. The problems they have don’t go away overnight, but nonetheless, they are healing. And this episode highlights just how amazing it’s characters are all the while deconstructing negative tropes and behaviors in favor of ones that promote ones of joy, optimism, and the desire to help others in this strange world of ours. I heartily recommend this series to anyone who thinks these stories are worth telling.
The Race for Space, by Public Service Broadcasting
Reviewed by Nicholas Caluda
Eligible in Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, and available on Spotify here.
This is not, properly speaking, a “science fiction” album. That would kind of go against Public Service Broadcasting’s whole shtick, which is basically what their name implies – they use found sounds and pre-existing recordings to create the “lyrical” content of their pieces.
But something about this album feels fictional. It’s as though it’s from some alternate future where the space program is still a part of everyday life. Sure, the Mars missions were exciting when they were first announced; but as soon as the target date of 2020 hit people’s iPhone screens, the vast majority mentally checked out. Space just doesn’t matter to us the same way it did in the late 1960s.
Ok, not really a new observation. Peter Harness would probably have a few words to say on the subject. But this album takes a slightly different approach than “Kill the Moon” did. It reshapes the supposed mundanities of the space program into something exciting. It shows us the amount of work that went into those first space flights. It pays tribute to the cosmonauts, astronauts, and engineers involved in the process. And it does all this through incredibly danceable funk workouts, (the super catchy and dangerously groovy “Gagarin”) modern EDM tracks (the riff-laden, slow-building “Go!”), and gorgeous choral experiments (the title track and the forever-ascending “Valentina”).
I could go on about how clever the album is with connecting its music to its spoken word content – the repeated choral melody towards the end of “Valetina” never moves downward, even when it makes more melodic sense, because the track is about ascension. “Tomorrow” recasts the musical themes of “Go!” in 5/4, creating both a sense of unfamiliarity and restlessness – a feeling we should still have for the vast expanse around us that we so often take for granted.
So, though this album isn’t necessarily science fiction, it contains many of the genre’s best elements. It reminds us how exciting space travel really is for humanity, even in its mundanity. And it does so by using our own words. It points us towards a better future by reminding us how excited we once were about that future. It shows us that our destiny is in the stars; we should damn well go search for it.
Just as long as we bring great funk tunes with us.
September 13, 2015 @ 12:58 am
The best thing about HPMOR will probably be the slate voting.
This drove the author into a still-continuing fury. Wonder how he'll react to more general literary criticism.
Did you make it all the way through? I rambled a bit about it here. tl;dr it's pretty darn good for a fanfic, but that's not saying so much.
September 13, 2015 @ 6:01 am
From what I've read of the novel, it was quite good. And yet, I it's not going to turn into my favorite fan fic or even my favorite Harry Potter fan fic when I finish it. (for the record, Outrage of the Zygons and Path of Decision respectively)
September 13, 2015 @ 7:33 am
There are lots of great Steven Universe episodes, but Full Disclosure is not the one I'd have chosen. Rose's Scabbard or The Return/Jailbreak or Sworn to the Sword all stand out as far better episodes (Full Disclosure is still good mind, but it's very much a 'season finale aftermath' episode)
September 13, 2015 @ 7:43 am
I felt the episode was a perfect summation of the themes and Ideas of the series and it's core ideology which highlighted what the show is about best. Plus I know someone else is going to do The Return/Jail Break (and most likely better than I) and I can't talk about an episode about Pearl because she hits way too close to home for me.
September 13, 2015 @ 8:17 am
Oh, yikes. That is some horrendously clunky dialogue. And that rape thing is "My Immortal (Fanfic)" levels of problematic.
September 13, 2015 @ 8:44 am
Since Phil asked for positive reviews, I kept the problems I do have with the piece out of my review. The dialogue can indeed get pretty bad, and really the book is at its best when its entirely within Harry's head. It would have worked better in the first person.
But I hold unflinchingly that it is an important and groundbreaking work this year, and deserving of consideration. There are plenty of highly flawed works that do something innovative and nifty, and hey, this is one of them.
I was in the middle of reading it when Phil asked me to review it for this, so yeah I skimmed and then skipped to the end :P.
I should also add that I think "pretty darn good for a fanfic, but that's not saying so much." Isn't fair to quite a lot of fanfic. There's plenty of fanfic out there that is truly wonderful, and a few pieces from various fandoms I've thought were better than the source material (and no, I don't think this is better than the source material).
September 17, 2015 @ 5:53 pm
I’m of the opposite opinion: HPMOR is very indulgent from Harry’s perspective, and is when the fic is most referential to geek culture. It’s when we get into Hermione or Draco’s heads, or glimpses into how cultural upbringing contorts what one considers rational in the first place, that HPMOR transcends its “Harry/Naruto/Shinji gets a spine” power-fantasy fanfic roots.
It’s much like the Monogatari anime series: when arcs center around main protagonist, Araragi, things can be really fun, but self-indulgent. (The tournament arc of HPMOR is one of my favorite bits of fanfic, period, and much of it stems, as you noted in your review, from binding itself throroughly to the source material implications.) It’s the arcs where the other characters get their turn narrating, that the work’s worth as a great piece of media is secured. (I have no desire to reread the Hermione anti-bullying arc, but it’s so important, critical to making this fanfic worth remembering.)
September 13, 2015 @ 8:52 am
The more I think about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that Fan Fiction is based on whether or not a property is in the public domain. I mean, I have yet to read a serious review/interview that calls Sherlock, Wicked, or the aforementioned Frankenstein album fan fiction.
September 13, 2015 @ 8:57 am
September 13, 2015 @ 8:57 am
Essentially, yes. I'd utterly agree with that in terms of the public viewpoint of fanfics Sean. Though to me I see Sherlock and Wicked as being very much fanfiction, without that being a negative.
Being able to dissect cultural icons before the whole 70's years after death thing in prose should be taken more seriously as a whole, IMHO.
September 13, 2015 @ 8:59 am
"HPMOR starts very promising and goes not so good after 20-30 chapters, hence me asking if the review is based on getting to the end."
Ah. Well, that's awkward. 😛 I did enjoy the ending though… But yes I skipped several hundred thousand words to get there.
September 13, 2015 @ 10:03 am
Agreed about preferring Rose's Scabbard, Jailbreak, and Sworn to the Sword, but I can see why you went with "Full Disclosure" – it's, as you say, a wonderful deconstruction of harmful tropes. That said, as good a song as "Steven's Lament" is, it can't match "Do it for him/ her", at least for my money. Honestly, I think that might just be the most melodically intricate pieces of songwriting Rebecca Sugar has done – it has so many wonderfully deft little touches.
Incidentally, I loved the analysis of the "Narrative Collapse" structure of The Return/ Jailbreak.
September 13, 2015 @ 10:07 am
"as an aside, is it just me, or does Steven Universe look a lot like a famous Science Fiction writer named Steven?"
It's not just you:
http://doctorwho.tumblr.com/post/12840526660/young-steven-moffat
The similarities are striking. With that said, I don't think Steven Moffat had a magical pink pet lion.
September 13, 2015 @ 10:14 am
This is the real sort of question people need to be asking him. "Did you have such a lion? Why can't I pet the lion? Why is it pink? LIONS STEVEN!?!?"
September 13, 2015 @ 10:27 am
September 13, 2015 @ 10:29 am
I'd already indicated to said someone else that I was interested in the Return/Jail Break review when I got Sean's, so I'll make the exception when it gets in.
I mean, I'll be running twelve Doctor Who reviews, in a sense. (Not that I'll Weird Kitty brand those, but.)
September 13, 2015 @ 12:17 pm
I should talk more fully about the problem with fanfic.
The problems are that even good fanfic is frequently:
* an unedited first draft (run by betas maybe, but mostly unedited)
* a serial
* longer-winded than it should be
* often has the "writer never kills their darlings" problem, where they put in every idea they think of
* stalls at 150k-200k words as the writer realises just how many balls they have in the air
and that's the good ones, the ones that a fandom talks about a lot. I could reel off endless examples in Worm, but Worm itself is a 1.7 million word novel so the fic writers don't ever wonder to themselves when they're approaching a megaword with no end in sight.
HPMOR falls afoul of all of these. It's got a great idea and it makes a lot of promises, then it sort of runs out of energy and goes weird. The author did just stop writing it at all for years. Then picked it up again and finished it, to his credit. But it's bloated, rambling and seriously needs to be about half to two-thirds the size.
So HPMOR is a good example of a style with a tendency to particular structural problems.
Some fics are great. Given I'm complaining so much, I should recommend something: If you've read Worm, you really should read the Memorials series (Cenotaph/Wake/Legacy), which is tightly-written and in-character and is generally held to be The Best Worm Fic. It also doesn't fall afoul of the fandom's tendency to logorrhea.
September 13, 2015 @ 12:50 pm
I was also somewhat disconcerted by the reactions to perfectly ordinary literary criticism of HPMOR. This is someone writing a completely normal analysis of the main character as a narcissist … apparently without realising the degree to which HPJEV is a self-insert. Note the special pleading in the comments from readers. Death of the author? Never happened.
September 13, 2015 @ 3:14 pm
Is it worth noting here that Yudkowsky is basically a cult leader who gets all his money through the largesse of a crazy libertarian billionaire?
September 14, 2015 @ 1:24 am
For the present context, I think that (and that HPMOR was openly and expressly written as publicity material for the author's ideas and organisation) would be one of those fascinating metafictional tidbits that make a work just that much more fun to discuss 😉
September 14, 2015 @ 2:43 am
"Though to me I see Sherlock and Wicked as being very much fanfiction, without that being a negative."
ISTR Moffatt was once asked what he thought about Sherlock fanfic, and he responded with a story about how when he was a kid he was disappointed Watson got married off-page, because he reckoned Holmes must have been the best man, and that would have been hilarious, concluding that yes, the whole of Sherlock was his Sherlock Holmes fanfic.
September 14, 2015 @ 2:56 am
I eagerly anticipate much discussion of mirrors/reflections and ascension! Though no chairs, sadly…
September 14, 2015 @ 3:23 am
I hadn't even realised that music could be eligible for a Hugo, but as a space geek who was already a fan of Public Service Broadcasting I've been loving The Race For Space.
The track "The Far Side" featuring audio from Apollo 8's first pass behind the moon is a particular favourite, a great tune and a strong theme.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8LlUrT7MFo)
September 14, 2015 @ 6:22 am
All of Western culture is Epic of Gilgamesh fanfic.
September 14, 2015 @ 7:03 am
Nah, the epic is just fanfic of the original Sumerian Gilgamesh poems.
September 14, 2015 @ 8:06 am
HPMOR is something I've always read in fragments, and I have nothing but seething contempt for it, general because Harry lacks something every good scientist needs: a sense of wonder. On seeing the impossible, his instinct is to deliver a lecture on why the phenomenon is stupid and impossible when he ought to get a gleam in his eye and a desire to analyze everything that just occurred. 'Shit, that guy levitated: I am going to do everything in my power to fit that into conservation of energy, and if I can't than the only rational conclusion is that the theory is incomplete."" Really the work should be fuelled by Clarke's Three Laws, but – and, admittedly, I've not read the work in full – it just comes off as the smarmy counterpoints of a Big Scientist.
September 14, 2015 @ 1:05 pm
If by "all of Western culture," you mean "John Peel's Timewyrm: Genesys." Which, I mean, fair enough.
September 14, 2015 @ 1:07 pm
It probably gets slightly more interesting when you realize that Yudkowsky isn't just a smarmy Big Scientist, but an actual straight up nut job.
September 14, 2015 @ 1:08 pm
You vicious sneer culturist, you.