Eruditorum Press

Post-Geek

“Portrait of a frightened man”: Realm of Fear

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“Realm of Fear” has always been memorable to me for two reasons: Being my favourite Reg Barclay episode (I’ve always hated “Hollow Pursuits”, was skeptical of “The Nth Degree” and forgot he was in “Ship in a Bottle”) and being a great example of a solid, all-bases-covered Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. It’s been ages since I last saw it though, and considering how much this project has made me come down with self-consciousness and self doubt about my own taste-making abilities, those positive memories could be meaningless.

Happily past me did well this time: “Realm of Fear” is great, and this season is off to a strong start so far.

This episode is pretty obviously about a fear of flying. It’s kind of hard to read it any other way when Geordi tells Reg “transporting really is the safest way to travel”, and writer Brannon Braga (who suffers from mild aviatophobia himself) freely admits that was the impetus. Simple as the concept may be, that’s a legitimate fear many people face, and it’s a fitting thing for Star Trek: The Next Generation to look at. The primary thing that makes “Realm of Fear” so successful is that this is the rare occasion where all the different little stylistic sub-genres this show can effectively play with come together harmoniously: Given its cut-and-dry brief, you could potentially read this as a mild “Issues” story and the inclusion of Barclay gives the story’s dramatic focus to a guest star, which worked to great effect in stories like “Half a Life” and Separation Anxiety and means the show doesn’t have to cripple one of the mains by writing them bizarrely out of character.

(Braga also admits inspiration from the famous Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”: I’d never thought of that before reading that, but it does make sense. I suppose this means you could also read “Realm of Fear” as a “Let’s Do” story too, though Michael Piller says he felt it was important to downplay any such comparisons.)

Again like last time, and fittingly given this is a Brannon Braga story, “Realm of Fear” is also a decent tech mystery. Some might argue there’s an overabundance of technobabble here, especially during the last act, but frankly I don’t have a problem with that. The way I see it, the technobabble in Star Trek: The Next Generation serves two purposes at this point. Firstly it serves as window dressing to reassure a certain subset of obsessive viewer that the Star Trek universe obeys its own scientific rules (regardless of whether or not those rules map on to anything remotely resembling any real world science) and makes the constructed world feel richer and more believable, which is what it’s always done. But now it fulfills a secondary role in the narrative, which is giving each member of the crew a chance to show off their unique skillsets: Beverly gets to solve a life sciences mystery while helping to save Reg’s life, Deanna offers her psychology expertise, Will and Worf offer Reg support and encouragement and Geordi, Miles and Data come up with a technical solution to save the day while helping guide Reg through his anxieties and apprehensions.…

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Shabcast 11

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Here’s Shabcast 11, featuring myself in conversation with Phil Sandifer.

This was recorded before Eruditorum Press went live, so events have overtaken it somewhat.

We discuss Doctor Who (before the start of Series 9), Susan, Gareth Roberts, Thomas Ligotti, God, Alan Moore, H.P. Lovecraft, Jimmy Saville, Frank Miller, Vox Day (because Phil just can’t help himself), Hegel, Marxism, technological determinism, the Situationists, Engels, evolution, revolution, the Anthropocene extinction, Jonathan Jones, and the existential terrors of the Right.

But the main attractions of the podcast are our discussions of Hannibal (which had just ended when we taped), True Detective, and the life and crimes (artistic and otherwise) of John Nathan-Turner.

Chatting about Hannibal, we coin the term ‘hannibalism’, decide how to do Buffalo Bill in 2015, and come to the conclusion that Hannibal himself is a Miltonic Lucifer in a gnostic universe created by a deistic god and, possibly, Hannibal himself.

Be aware of spoilers and triggers (note the references above to Jimmy Saville and JN-T).

*

P.S. – Phil’s mention of “the fucking Thales idiot” refers to a passing right-wing pillock calling himself a ‘Philosopher DJ’ with whom Phil (and, to a lesser extent, I) had an argument on twitter, during which I (somewhat sarcastically) asked him what he thought about the tripartite anatomy of the Doctrine of the Notion to be found in Hegel’s Logic, whereupon he responded (after a few days) with some vague stuff about Hegel’s dialectic (which is a distinct thing), which is why Phil asks me about the tripartite anatomy of the Doctrine of the Notion during the course of the conversation (a question I don’t get around to properly answering, tragically for all of you Hegel-fans listening).…

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Ars Specula: Humans/Ex Machina (plus Mr Robot)

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Artificial (adj.)

  1. made by human skill
  2. imitation; substitute
  3. pretended; contrived; feigned
  4. lacking in spontaneity; affected
  5. (biology) relating to superficial characteristics not based on the interrelationships of organisms

— from Latin artificialis, “of or belonging to art,” from artificium (see artifice).


Artifice (n.)

  1. a clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device
  2. crafty or subtle deception; trickery; guile
  3. ingenuity; skill; inventiveness

— from Latin ars, “art,” + facere, “do, make”

 

As Above, So Below

Ex Machina, written and directed by Alex Garland, is a slick and intellectual film that charts the journey of Caleb Smith, a computer programmer for a Googlish company who’s won a “lottery” that grants him an invitation to the northern retreat of the company’s founder, the grotesquely hypermasculine (and misogynist) Nathan Bateman. Nathan wants Caleb to perform a Turing Test over the course of one week on his latest creation, an android named Ava who seemingly possesses artificial intelligence. Each day, Caleb interrogates Ava in a numbered “session,” made apparent to us through the use of interstitial title cards. Caleb dutifully examines Ava, then reflects afterwards with Nathan, conversations which serve to flesh out some of the film’s themes, ranging from art to human nature.

Humans, on the other hand, is the first season of a British/American adaptation of a Swedish TV show, Real Humans. Set in the near future, “Synths” have become a ubiquitous labor force around the world, seemingly human but lacking the consciousness typically associated with “humanity.” Well, except for a select few, who are on the run from the ruthless hunter Hobb, a former engineer on the Synth project now employed by capitalist patrons. Humans charts the intersection of these conscious Synths with the dysfunctional Hawkins family, with a particular focus on the mother, Laura, the emotional heart of the show played brilliantly by Katherine Parkinson.

Even though both shows are rather different on the surface — one is practically an arthouse movie, the other an ongoing serialized drama that’s still got at least one more season up its sleeve — they do share much in common. In particular, the construction of their narratives reflect their conceptions of Artificial Intelligence.

In Ex Machina, the emphasis of artificial intelligence is on artifice and rationality, a thinking movie about thinking. It introduces its themes by posing the question of whether Ava can “pass” the Turing Test, which is typically conceived as an interaction between a human and a machine where the human never realizes they’re speaking with a machine. The very idea of the Turing Test is based in language, equating the manipulation of words and symbols with “intelligence” and hence sentience. Here, though, there’s a twist: Caleb is fully aware that Ava is a machine, which makes the challenge even greater – can she convince him of her sentience despite this disclosure?

This stripping away of artifice is reflected in the aesthetics of Ava’s special effects. We see through her limbs and torso that there’s machinery inside; Ava is made not just of metal, but glass and translucent plastic.…

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The Twin Book Launch

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Eruditorum Press is pleased to announce the release of TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 6: The Peter Davison and Colin Baker Years.

You can get it in the following editions at these links:

US Print ($17.99)

US Kindle ($4.99)

UK Print (£13.99)

UK Kindle (£3.99)

Other eReaders/Smashwords ($4.99)

Here’s what this one’s got:

  • Revised editions of every TARDIS Eruditorum post from the Peter Davison and Colin Baker eras.
  • A book-exclusive Pop Between Realities, Home in Time for Tea essay on the musical Time, an oft overlooked influence on Trial of a Time Lord, and the expansion of another one to include Box of Delights and Robin of Sherwood.
  • New essays in praise of Tegan, addressing the stuff left out of my Enlightenment essay, exactly and precisely whose fault the cancellation was, and a completely rewritten essay on “A Fix With Sontarans.” 
  • New Time Can Be Rewritten essays on Burning Heart, Dave Stone’s Doctor Who/quasi-Judge Dredd mashup, Peri and the Piscon Paradox, Nev Fountain’s two-Doctor timey wimey fish farce, and The Holy Terror, Rob Shearman’s first-ever Doctor Who story.
  • A pair of Now My Doctor essays looking at the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras as wholes.

And last but most certainly not least, a massive nearly forty page long interview with Rob Shearman about his work with Colin Baker at Big Finish and his genuine love for the Eric Saward era.

Thanks to our very own Jane Campbell for copyediting and transcribing the Shearman interview, and of course to the inimitable James Taylor, whose vintage covers are frankly better than the books; the back cover on this one features screenshots from a non-existent Doctor Who video game. He talks about his design process here, and it’s fascinating.

But most of all and as always, thank you. Your generosity supporting this site and buying these books is humbling and an honor. And thanks especially to those who spread the word, who recommend the books to friends, who leave reviews on Amazon, and without whom this entire mad scheme wouldn’t work. Thank you for your support, I hope you enjoy this one, and I’m pleased to say it’s not going to be our final release of 2015 either.…

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My Feet Erase the Path of All Arrivals (Soul Blazer)

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Soul Blazer forces us to confront a simple question: is it better to have a world or not?

At its most elemental level, this is a simple question of whether existence is desirable. This is also easy to answer: of course it isn’t. Non-existence does not long for existence. It does not long for the continuation of its non-existence either, it is true, but it is… content. It wants for nothing. Existence, meanwhile, wants non-existence. It may evince a certain contentment with its existence, and even a sort of crazed and paranoid desire to cling to this state of affairs, but its actions over the long game reveal a clear desire for annihilation. Such is the way with games; they constantly work towards their own end.

But this is not the question Soul Blazer asks. Indeed, it’s a meaningless choice, offered only to God on the occasion of the Big Bang. The reality is that existence has been chosen for us. The cartridge has been jammed into the top-loading slot of the universe and the power switch has been thrown. We may prefer otherwise, but it is not so. The only version of the question that can be asked given that is whether the continuation of existence is desirable. And given the nature of existence, this question is in practice whether the world should be destroyed or not.

At first glance this would appear to also not quite be the question Soul Blazer asks; the Freil Empire has already fallen to Deathtoll in it, after all; the world’s destruction is as inevitable as its existence. It would also appear that, despite this, the game has a straightforward answer: Deathtoll is, after all, named Deathtoll, and is the unambiguous villain of the piece. His consumption of the world is presented as an act of evil to be undone. The world, evidently, should not have been destroyed. But this is not as obvious as it might seem.

In truth, much as existence is generally a process of protesting one’s desire for existence while working inexorably towards its termination, Soul Blazer, for all that it suggests destroying the world is wrong, is fundamentally a game about doing so. The main action of the game is the systematic clearing out of six dungeons; dungeons that are created by Deathtoll as an alternative world to the one he destroyed. This already calls the straightforward analysis into question; Deathtoll is as much creator as destroyer.

But more than that, it casts the player as world-destroyer. A dungeon is just as much a world as a town, after all. Indeed, the main mechanic of the game – monster spawning tiles that the player must seal – combined with a sword swing that takes the side-swiping of A Link to the Past even further – means that dungeon clearing becomes a sort of tactical assault. One explores the dungeons and unlocks paths while endlessly finding places to stand whereby monsters can safely be picked off as they emerge.…

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“Trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them”: Time’s Arrow, Part II

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I’ll be honest. I do not get the criticism of “Time’s Arrow” and “Time’s Arrow, Part II” at all.

As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the most solid and effective stories, two-part or otherwise, Star Trek: The Next Generation has done on TV in a very long time. This makes me doubly happy, as “Time’s Arrow” and “Time’s Arrow, Part II” together also make up one of the most iconic stories in the series to me and a personal favourite, and I was delighted to see it completely lived up to my memories. As I get further and further entrenched in the process of coming to terms with how much I’ve projected onto Star Trek: The Next Generation over the course of doing this project, it’s nice to get the occasional reminder that there really is genuinely something about Star Trek, and this version of Star Trek in particular, that stuck with me and inspired me to project my imagination in the first place.

For me, part 1 was more about mortality, with Data’s predetermined death being treated as a touching metaphor for terminal illness. There’s a sense of always wanting to live in the moment, and mortality returns as a theme here when Captain Picard is temporarily stranded alone in 19th century San Francisco after the rest of the crew chase the Devidian hunter back to the 24th century. Part 2 shifts the narrative focus a bit, however: One thing it does do is double down on the time travel mechanics and bootstrap paradox plot points introduced in the first part. I suppose you could read this as overly self-indulgent and gimmicky Hard SF speculative trickery that has little to offer beyond its own cleverness. I think there’s more you could tease out of the story than that though: Although a stable time loop is by definition anticlimactic (as all Star Trek time travel at this point must by necessity be, although even now forces that lie beyond the pale outside of history conspire to change all of that), the time travel in this story seems to exist more for the purpose of avoiding material death.

For time is not, in fact, an arrow, even in this story: It’s a circle (as Guinan said in the last part, things have come “full circle”), perhaps even a spiral or a Möbius strip. Materially, this manifests itself in the text’s own existence: “Time’s Arrow” and “Time’s Arrow, Part II” came about as a direct result of a perceived ontological threat in the material realm of production, namely, the existence of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. With the new show’s premier officially slated for January, 1993, there were widespread and persistent rumours that Star Trek: The Next Generation would end in June, 1992. So the producers commissioned a cliffhanger finale, even though one wasn’t originally planned, to reassure audiences that this wasn’t the case. So in effect, the “Time’s Arrow” two parter becomes partially a performance about Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s longevity and continued lasting influence in the face of an expected slide into irrelevance.…

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I Wanted To Save The World: Mr. Robot

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It is almost possible to dismiss Mr. Robot. It’s on USA, a honed brand of basic cable drama that used to summarize itself as “Characters Welcome,” a tagline that more or less accurately described the set of cookie cutter House-style eccentric genius procedurals that it churned out. It features an ugly and pointless fridging at its midpoint, a crass angst-generating murder of a female character by a guy previously implied to have raped her that is as contrived as it is pointless. And its big reveal is that Mr. Robot, the eponymous revolutionary leader played by Christian Slater, is in reality a figure of the main character’s imagination – a hallucination in the shape of his father. It should, in other words, be a show that’s very easy to get a handle on and put into a box, so much so that even its pleasantly anti-capitalist leanings feel staged and fake; anarchism recuperated into just another demographic.

And then, in the ninth episode, something incredible happens. The show has just revealed Mr. Robot;s identity. Following this Elliot, the hacker main character played by Rami Malek (a longtime supporting player making his debut as a leading man here), is quasi-kidnapped by the closest thing it has to a straightforward antagonist, the sociopathic tech executive Tyrell Wellick, who demands to know his plan. A simple two-note piano line begins playing. The scene cuts to the Coney Island headquarters of Elliot’s revolutionary hacker group, fsociety. The lights go on, and a series of brightly lit old arcade games illuminate: Skeeball tables and Space Invaders cabinets. The piano moves to a different chord. Elliot is about to tell him everything; his whole plan to erase the debt record of the world. And then you realize what the music is; a chintzy piano version of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”

It is, of course, one thing to crassly rip off Fight Club. It’s quite another to nick its musical cue while you’re at it. It’s the fine line between eyeroll and raised eyebrow. The former is depressing in its obviousness. The latter, on the other hand, is intriguing in its brazenness. Much like Fight Club itself (which really pioneered the sort of high-engagement visual style that’s become the signature of the Golden Age of Television that we are mercifully just past) it feels deliberate and thought about. It ostentatiously announces itself as a conscious dramatic decision, as does everything else in Mr. Robot. Indeed, so did its Tyler Durden reveal; “you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you,” asks Elliot in voiceover before the actual line, one of the many voiceovers intriguingly framed as direct addresses to the viewer, whom Elliot invokes before the show has even had its first image, saying, “Hello friend” and explicitly establishing that we are an imaginary friend he will be talking to.

“Hello Friend,” of course, is itself a play on “Hello World,” the first program anyone writes in a given computer language. That’s savvy.…

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Weird Kitties Reviews, Batch Three (The Vorrh, The Goat Variations, Aurora)

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 The Vorrh, by Brian Catling
Reviewed by Phil Sandifer
 
Eligible for Best Novel and available for purchse here. 
 
In many ways, I just want to link to Alan Moore’s introduction, since it is not as though I’m going to write a better review than it. And if one wants to be brief about it, “the sort of novel Alan Moore would call ‘the current century’s first landmark work of fantasy'” serves as a perfectly good description.
 
Which is to say that this is dense, literary fiction. It is tempting to call it magical realism as opposed to fantasy. But this would obscure more than it reveals. Its main plot (although it has many subplots) is the story of a man with a magic bow who is trying to cross the enchanted forest of the Vorrh. Its world is flecked with reality – another major character is Eadweard Muybridge, whose life plays out mostly as in our world – but is unmistakably a fantastic landscape, a world anchored by the hallucinatory forest and the monstrosities within.
 
What makes the book remarkable is in many ways the juxtapositions within it. The Vorrh is both medieval forest and colonial jungle, and the book draws from both iconographies, giving it a vibrant and intriguing heft. It is a book where things never quite become clear, and are all the more enticing and rewarding for it. It is labyrinthine and strange.
 
Catling is a sculptor by trade (The Vorrh is his debut novel), and the book has the heft and weight one would expect from this. It is intricate and carved prose that rewards attentiveness. This can make slow going at first, although the book becomes faster and easier once the vagaries of its structure and approach are known. It never becomes a page turner, but is instead one to savor; a structure of shifting viewpoints makes it easy to read one or two bits a night, allowng its strange tapestry to unfold. It has much to reveal. 
 
The Goat Variations, by Jeff VanderMeer
Reviewed by Eric Rosenfield
 
Eligible for Best Short Story and available here.
 
Jeff VanderMeer’s story “The Goat Variations” fuses together some fairly hoary science fictional tropes: the government keeps psychics alive in dream states to predict the future (ala Minority Report), a time machine, a man who sees versions of himself across alternate realities. As with much fiction, originality is produced by the peculiar alchemy of how the tropes are mixed, melded and remixed, and this is a stellar example of how that is done.
 
Told chiefly in half-scenes and flashbacks, we find a strangely familiar president ruling over Anglo-America (the touch of his crown during coronation like an  “iron kiss from the mouth of God”), reading to children in a dilapidated school while his country is attacked. It is not Islamic fundamentalists attacking, however, but Christian ones in the rebellious heartland of the country. The president can’t focus, does not know what to do.
…

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The Magician’s Apprentice Review

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Well, you can see why the promotional campaign was structured like it was. There’s really no way to describe The Magician’s Apprentice without just calling it a trailer. It’s a forty-five minute slab of raw plot designed to set up whatever The Witch’s Familiar is going to be, which looks like something involving Davros setting up a trolley problem with Missy and Clara on one track and every Dalek ever on the other.

In one sense, then, it’s a pretty faithful imitation of Dark Water. But where Dark Water was a moody eleventh episode think piece that got to pay off a season’s worth of character and theme, The Magician’s Apprentice has to basically start from scratch. Accordingly, it’s built almost entirely out of bombast and spectacle. To say that the episode is stuffed to the gills is an understatement: six Doctors (unless they used a McGann Big Finish bit I missed, which at this point you wouldn’t bet against), Missy, UNIT, Davros, every Dalek ever, the Maldovarium, an Ood, the Shadow Proclamation, Karn, and a joke about the different versions of Atlantis.

This is a familiar approach for Moffat at this point, and one he’s good at. Sure, those inclined to play “spot the recycled bits” will not be short of options, but there’s no inherent reason to focus on the fact that the setup is just The Impossible Astronaut with a hint of Name of the Doctor over the fact that a guy who’s made of snakes, hand mines (what the actual fuck), and all the planes stopping are all new and clever ideas. As is the guitar/axe battle, although I think you’d be hard-pressed to say that scene worked. (Still, Peter Capaldi as Doof Warrior is one of those things you don’t want to argue with as such.) It’s not the best iteration of this particular style of everything and the kitchen sink setup that Moffat’s done, but it’s not the worst either.

I recognize that my tone here is that of a long lead-up to a paragraph beginning with the word “but,” but that’s unfair. The “but” I’d build to is simple enough: that this is basically raw spectacle with minimal actual substance. And it’s not that this is untrue (although I’m sure Jane will come up with some spectacular stuff); it’s just that it’s more than faintly ridiculous to ask anything else of a season premiere. Its job is to bring back the state of being where one thinks of every day of the week primarily in terms of its proximity to Saturday. And so this sort of massively high-speed tour through the series’ strengths and default tropes works.

But it is, necessarily, more a summary of what the show’s strengths are than a demonstration of what it has to offer going forward. And for the most part, those strengths come in the form of the cast. Jenna Coleman, for instance, is at this point reaping the full benefit of being the most richly characterized companion in the history of the series.…

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Weird Kitties: Best Graphic Story Open Thread

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It looks like I forgot to actually name this week’s category last week, so let’s do a fairly easy one, at least in terms of this site’s readership: Best Graphic Story. 

This is the category I’ve got the most locks in already – with the publishing calendar pretty much set for the year, I’ll be nominating The Wicked + The Divine, Bitch Planet, Crossed +100, and Questionable Content for sure. I’m still not sure about the fifth slot. The frontrunner is probably Trees, but I mean to go actively looking for work by people who aren’t white before I commit to that.

Here’s the Hugo Nominees 2015 Wikia’s list of eligible stuff. So, what are you thinking you’ll nominate?

And tune in tomorrow for another batch of reviews, including one from me of Brian Catling’s The Vorrh. Still room in that batch, so feel free to lob something to snowspinner at gmail.

Next week, let’s discuss… Best Professional Artist. That’s a fun one. 

Oh, and there’s apparently some TV show about a magician and his apprentice on tonight? I dunno. Check back later today I guess. …

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