I Am One With My Past, And My Past Is With Me.

Movies-- and all media, really-- reflect what we bring to them. They follow their own plots, their own stories, their own rules. But experiencing media is a solitary thing that hinges on what we bring with us along the way. Søren Kierkegaard says: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” I think that plenty of time gets dedicated to discussing the manner in which this is true of poetry, of art, but less so of movies and other modern media. The things that are so prevalent that it gets forgotten they’re art as well. We expect them to be universal and all encompassing, to tell one story that we can all get behind and understand in exactly the same way. I have some opinions on that, but maybe they're better served for a different day.

Anyway, what’s the point?

I saw Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and I think-- Scratch that. I know that my opinion of the film is a direct response to my sense of my past.

First things first: I really liked Rogue One. As anyone familiar with this blog will remember, I love Star Wars. Love it like I cannot even begin to describe or explain. Love it in a manner that makes me defend the prequels, obsessively study Expanded Universe texts, and tattoo my body with its images. I think Rogue One succeeds in retrieving the aesthetic of the original trilogy, something that’s very important for this universe. It shows the audience a side of the Rebellion that isn’t often focused on. The two trilogies are so focused on prophecies and Jedi and the Skywalker family that it becomes easy to imagine the Galactic Civil War as somehow… small scale. Now we have Rebels, and Rebels like we’ve not really gotten a chance to see them before. Rebels who aren’t always walking the high road.

There is a realistic sense of determination and grit to the characters of Rogue One. Cassian’s sense of selling himself piece by piece for a cause that’s taken control of his very soul. Baze’s lost faith in the Force and reliance on violence to make sense of universe that has no answers for the peaceful. Galen’s skill and intelligence being twisted and his knowledge that if he does not create this technological terror that someone else will because the Empire is unceasing.

And Jyn Erso’s discovery that loss and pain are a part of life, that a person can’t live in hiding just because they’re afraid of getting hurt, that sometimes it’s better to feel than to wither beneath an armor made of apathy.

What made this movie so evocative for me was not merely the Star Wars storyline which, don’t get me wrong, is entertaining and well-crafted. There isn’t anything here that someone who likes the other movies wouldn’t want to see. It probably works as an entry point in the series as well, though obviously I’m not really the person to ask about that. I’ve been watching Star Wars pretty much my entire life. Which brings me to my point…

For me, Star Wars could be the very definition of nostalgia of my childhood. You could set a time lapse video to show me growing up and it wouldn’t be inaccurate to have me sitting in front of a television watching Star Wars. I took those years and years of watching these movies in with me when I sat down to watch Rogue One. I took every conversation I’ve ever had about it, every book I’ve ever read about it, every video game I’ve ever played about it, and every friend I’ve ever made through it. That last one is important because generally the most emotional part of the Star Wars movies for me has always been the friendships formed. But this time… this time it was a little bit different.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has a narrative that builds off of a father and daughter relationship. Galen Erso is the scientist building the Death Star. Jyn Erso is his estranged daughter, strong-armed into helping the Rebellion locate him.

Full disclosure? My father died almost six years ago. He died suddenly and he died while we were not on speaking terms. I’m able to look back on him now with love and kindness and forgiveness, but at the time of his death I was a mess of confusion and anger and bitterness. We had not had a good relationship for a long time. We had not spoken in nearly a year leading up to his death. At the time I could only see his flaws-- of which there are many-- and the damage he had done to who I felt I was as a person. Before he died I thought he had ruined me and after, for a while, I was very certain of it because I was swallowed by a grief and regret I didn’t understand. How do you grieve a person you hate? A person who made your life so difficult? A person who you couldn’t even be certain loved you? I didn’t know then. Sometimes, I don’t know now. For the most part though (due to the help of people who I am sure love me) I’ve moved beyond my pain and found a tentative middle ground where love and critique manage to coexist.

So, for me, this story of a lost girl forced to find her father resonated. There is a moment when she is asked where her father is that she replies: “I don’t know. It’s easier just to pretend he’s dead.” (paraphrased) and I felt for her. I felt for her and I wasn’t ever able to stop. Because Star Wars has always been “my thing” and suddenly there was a character here that spoke to me more fully than any of my previous favorites ever had. I’ll never be a cool, smooth-talking smuggler or a Jedi Knight or a hot-shot pilot with an endless stream of witty comments. I have been an angry, defensive young woman trying to bury her heart beneath anger because it’s easier than muddling through anything worthwhile however.

Do you know who showed me Star Wars? Who is integrated beyond all recognition in all my memories of these movies? Who took me out of school to see Episode 1? Who went with me at midnight in costume to see Episode 3? I’m sure you guessed it, but I’ll say it anyway.

My father.

I said that Star Wars is “my thing”, but maybe I should say it was “our thing”.

I won’t go into any of the memories that jump to mind because I don’t trust myself not to cry while typing them out. But, yeah, so Rogue One got me hook, line, and sinker when it put a plot point on a broken father-daughter relationship. Broken in a vastly different way than my own since my dad didn’t build a planet destroying spaceship and I think most of his bad, hurtful decisions weren’t done with the threat of his own life. And, sure, maybe it makes me an easy mark. Maybe it means I bought into something cheap and that I looked passed flaws that other people less emotionally wrought over these characters were able to see. I can see that being possible. Nonetheless, it spoke to me in a way that I understand it didn’t speak to everyone because not everyone’s past in my past.

It is mine, though, and it's what I brought with me into the theater and it's what the screen reflected back at me. There's nothing I can do about that except embrace it.

But, hey. If I can cash in on a shitty point in my life so that Cassian looking at Jyn and saying “Your father would have been proud.” makes my chest swell and tears form in my eyes then sign me up.

The Men In The High Castles.

Breaking months of radio silence here!

I mentioned in a previous post I had read The Man In The High Castle this year and was blown away by it. I’m always borderline overwhelmed by the amount of books I want to read. Sometimes it gets pretty hard for me to just straight up choose a book. I finally bit the bullet and read The Man In The High Castle because Amazon had released a pilot for it. The pilot was AWESOME, and it encouraged me to get off my buns and check this book out before the whole season aired. Well, mission accomplished on that front. The show launched Friday and I had that book finished months ago. The show consisted of 10 1 hour episodes.

…and I watched them all between Friday and Saturday.

Some might call binging on a show for 10 hours crazy, a waste of time, really bad for my health. I wouldn’t disagree with any of that, but I would like to say one thing in my defense. THAT SHOW WAS FANTASTIC. It’s very, very different from the PKD novel (but when watching adaptations of PKD you’ve got to expect that sort of thing) but it’s different without being an offense to the source material. Let me try to elaborate on this.

PKD’s novel The Man In The High Castle takes place in an America that lost WW2. Germany and Japan share control of the country – east coast Germany, west coast Japan. The world building is subtle. PKD never really hits you over the head with the differences in the culture. It’s all just there in the text and understood as being the normal way of things, because in this world it is. However, like most PKD novels there’s something about the reality of it all that just doesn’t seem right. One of the main plot points is the circulation of a book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy which is written by The Man In The High Castle. It tells the story of an America that beats the Axis in WW2. The novel, obviously, is considered dangerous propaganda literature and sought out to be destroyed. There’s more to the book than that though. There’s something about it, something that seems unexplainable, which brings a sort of hope into the lives of the people that read it. It feels more real than a book should be and a question starts popping up: How did this man come up with this story and make it feel like so much more than fiction? It goes on and on and I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone. Needless to say if you’re familiar with PKD’s work than you can be comfortable expecting some of the same stuff he likes to go into. Mass hallucinations, reality being a construct of the mind, governments being untrustworthy scum.

The show is different. While the characters in the book are just regular people living in this occupied country, the characters in the show are much more active players. Spies, resistance fighters, enemies of the state. The stakes feel much higher here, and I understand the necessity in making that sort of change. People sitting around with the I-Ching for chapters on end wouldn’t make for very interesting television. The changes that have been made—specifically with the character of Joe Blake who is only the briefest shadow of Joe Cinnadella from the book—left me on the edge of my seat. The show is tense in way the book wasn’t. It’s much more an action show, dealing with the way that fascism has changed our country and the fact that people just go with the flow of the government no matter what their moral reservations are. Of all the things that are different though the subtly of the world remains. That subtly is really what gives the show its power. It’s all about the little things: the swastika on the telephone, the unease on the idea of hospitals, the celebration of VA Day. The smallness of the differences in our world and this one and the way the characters have accepted their fates is so unnerving that it’s wonderful.

There’s talks of a second season, and the way it ends clearly leaves it open for more adventures. But I’m happy with this has a standalone one shot sort of deal. Yes, there are questions that are unanswered and yes, there is a pervading sense of hopelessness by the last episode. They only very briefly touch upon what might be going on with The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (a film in the show rather than a book) and the notion of reality vs realities, and that is something I’d like to see resolved… But if it never comes to be, well, I wouldn’t consider this weekend a waste. 

Just check out this opening:

Golden Age Garage Sale.

On days when I have nothing to do I like to walk to the park in my neighborhood to read. Depending on my mood I’ll either take the direct route or I’ll amble around slightly, taking my time and letting my mind wander. The other day I was doing just that when I walked by a garage sale. There was a table of books and, well, far be it from me to pass by a table of books without a second glance! Mostly it was old cookbooks and school books that I had no interest or need for (I’m trying to be less of a pack rat). However, stuck amidst those things were two old, yellowed science fiction paperbacks.

• Earth’s Last Citadel by C. L. Moore & Henry Kuttner (1943)
• The Book of Van Vogt by A. E. van Vogt (1972)

Reader, I bought them. 

The woman only charged me $1.50 for both, which is pretty close to the prices they had listed on them anyway. I asked if she had anything else like them and she told me she didn’t. Apparently they had been left behind by whoever had lived in the house before. Looking at them later when I had finally got to the park I found it hard to believe that they had just been carelessly forgotten. They seemed well-worn from multiple readings. The spines were broken, the pages thin and fragile, the covers bent. They reminded me of the collection of Conan books my dad left behind when he passed away.

I was excited to find them, mostly because I like the way old genre paperbacks look, but also because these are some serious Golden Age authors.

C. L. Moore was one of the first women to become prolific in the science fiction and sword-and-sorcery genres. Often she published under pseudonyms or simply with her initials because it wasn’t easy to get published as a woman at the time. She met her husband Henry Kuttner, also a science fiction writer, because he wrote her a fan letter while under the impression that C. L. Moore was a male writer like himself. After they were married they wrote most of their work collaboratively. If anyone has seen the movie The Last Mimsy it’s loosely based on one of their better none short stories together.

A. E. van Vogt is one of those science fiction names that you know even if you haven’t read anything he wrote. He’s big, though people’s opinions of him are varied. Some consider him to be a master, one of the most influential people writing during the Golden Age. And some people think he’s a hack. I’ve only read one short story by him so I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m excited to see what this collection of short stories has to offer.

For me, this is one of the most engaging things about being a science fiction fan. There is such a rich, storied history of work that is never pressed upon you in school. Finding these sorts of books is an adventure in and of itself.

Most of the science fiction that forms the basis for my personal canon is mostly from the New Wave movement. I very rarely dip back down into things from the Golden Age. It isn’t that I don’t have the interest but rather because there is just so much to catch up on from the era that I find most comfortable to new books that are being published every day. These are the books that the authors that inspired me were inspired by. These are the books that form the basis of the personal canon of the people who fill my own. Here's Isaac Asimov (who we all know and love!) talking about the Golden Age of Science Fiction:

 

Now, I’m sure that there’s going to be a plethora of problematic things to work through in these stories. C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner were both friendly with H. P. Lovecraft who’s kind of known for being a big ol’ racist. A. E. von Vogt helped L. Ron Hubbard with Scientology back in the 50s. But I’m positive I’ll find things of value and worth in the texts as well because people I admire found value and worth in them. People whose texts weren’t filled with racism or sexism or anything else that society has finally realized sucks. Things change and people grow and that’s exactly what science fiction is talking about anyway.

I doubt that these books will make it into my personal canon (which is how I refer to the texts that have shaped me as a science fiction reader and writer), but I’m sure that they’ll provide me with something. Even if it’s just some insight into the thought process of the people that have shaped me. I also just find it interesting to see what people from different generations thought about when they thought about science fiction and the future and what tomorrow might bring. It’s fascinating to see people outside my own contemporaries puzzling through social issues or big philosophical questions. I believe I mentioned that interest in my first post.

Time moves on.

Society changes.

But good writing and creative ideas… They stay important.

How Cyberpunk Changed My Life.

Everyone has things that have changed their lives. Movies, people, television shows, days, etc. I imagine most people have books that have changed their lives as well. I know I certainly do. Heck, I have several. But there’s one in particular that I think applies most to my “adult” life. That book is Neuromancer.

I was sitting in my friend’s basement which served as his private pseudo-apartment in his parents’ house. We were watching bad stand up, messing around on the internet, and (full disclosure) drinking cheap bourbon mixed with copious amounts of honey to help it go down.

It was summer.

It was hot.

I’m not a typically sweaty person so I was relieved of the humiliation of melting even as the fan made its desperate attempt at circulating air. Whether it was the stand up, the bourbon, or the stifling heat I can’t be sure, but we had become rather stationary as people. We were dulled by it all. Laughing intermittently when something was actually funny but more often than not laughing when it was ridiculous how unfunny a joke was.

I leaned back and looked at the ceiling, looked at the door, and then looked at the precariously stacked tower of books on side table. “Anything good in there?” I asked, half to imply that he didn’t read anything good and half out of genuine curiosity because I knew that we read the same sort of thing.

“Ever read Neuromancer?” He responded without looking away from what he was doing. I shook my head and I don’t really know how he knew but I guess that’s the sort of thing friends know. “I’m trying read it now. Having a little bit of a problem. But I like it. I want to get through it really badly. You should read it so we can talk about it.”

“Okay,” I agreed because I’d heard of Neuromancer and I was always looking for books to read anyway. I didn’t need much convincing passed the fact that it was paperback and wasn’t a romance. I was kind of a cynic back then and would’ve scoffed if anyone tried to pawn a tawdry romance paperback off on me. Like, who did they think they were talking to? I was tough.

I picked up Neuromancer the next time I was by a bookstore. It wasn’t too much later. My friends and I had made Union Square our typical meet up spot and since I was always early and they were always late I spent a good amount of time browsing Barnes and Noble and the Strand. I don’t remember which store I bought it in. Probably Strand just because I didn’t have a job and was pretty much 100% broke 100% of the time. That was fine though because I was punk rock and not having cash is essentially part of the ethos.

When I say that I devoured that book I mean I devoured it. There was very little in my life up until that point that had so expertly combined all of my relevant angst and anger. Science fiction? Hackers? Drugs? Violent women kicking butt? It was everything I could have wanted. The prose was sparse, the tone dry, the characters the murkiest sort of grey.

It was my first introduction to cyberpunk and I never looked back. Up until then my favorite subgenre had been post-apocalyptic and dystopian. I liked things needlessly dark and without hope. Honestly, I still look for that in my entertainment. I like dark and gritty and tough. Neuromancer combined it all for me with the added bonus of sparking an interest in hard-boiled detective fiction.

So, yeah, one summer day a friend offhandedly suggested I read a book he was having trouble getting through… and it was a big moment for me. I began reading every cyberpunk thing I could get my hands on. I even switched the kind of short stories I was writing until slowly it wasn't atomic wastelands but urban sprawls with no morals. 

I Am The Law.

Last week I had to go to jury duty. It was the first time I had ever been called so there was a quickly fleeting moment of excitement. Then, like most Americans, I found it a real drag. All those hours spent sitting and waiting around did get me thinking. Is there a better system?

Now, I’m not saying that the Judge system is the better option we’re all looking for. I’m just saying that it’s an option. A really bad option. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the Judge system here’s a brief rundown. The Judge system appears in the Judge Dredd comics (and movies). In the future there are “street judges” who are given the power to arrest, convict, sentence, and execute as they see fit. They’re like a combination police force, judge, jury, and executioner. The system has been put in place to help avoid legal battles that might take a long time and waste city money. 

If this sounds like a little too much power then you’re a smart person. The Judges eventually stage a coup and take over the government. But that’s a story for a different blog post.

People have a fascination with cops. There are so many cop shows and movies and books out there. I guess it has something to do with the appeal of seeing some tangiable form of truth, justice, and the American way. People also have a fascination with brutal dystopias where the government is essentially a military dictatorship. It only makes sense that someone would combine the two. 

Judge Dredd has been in publication since 1977. What I particularly like about the comic is that Judge Dredd, the main character, has been aging the whole time. It isn’t like Spiderman where the character is constantly getting rebooted straight back to high school. Judge Dredd is getting old and even though you never see his face it’s obvious.

I don’t think that Judge Dredd is a household name. People who aren’t interested in the comics might not have ever heard of him before. However, he is popular enough to have gotten two movies made. One in 1995 with Sylvester Stallone and one in 2012 with Karl Urban. 

I won’t get into which one is better because things like that are a matter of taste.

Do I prefer the 2012 movie? Yeah, sure, I’ll admit that. It’s more true to the tone of the comics. 

Would I ever refuse to watch the 1995 one? No way. It’s still a fun movie even if there’s some interesting interpretations going on. 

What I like about Judge Dredd (and please don’t judge me) is the intense and ridiculous level of violence and disturbing imagery. It is super gross. Eyeballs popping out and entrails splattering all over the place level of gross. Stuff like that is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. You don’t get a lot of that in the movies because they have to appeal to a broader audience. However, they’re still interesting to watch based on the premise of a police officer in an uber-violent future city taking criminals to task.

Like I said, I don’t think the Judge system is the answer to jury duty. But it was a fun way to pass the time.

Take Me Out To The Future Ball Game.

Anyone who knows me will be quick to tell you that I am not a sports person. Up until a few months ago I thought that the term was “pitch hitter” instead of “pinch hitter” and I was confused because the whole point of baseball is hitting pitches.

My husband loves sports. He has season tickets to the new NYCFC that plays at Yankee Stadium. Needless to say I’ve seen more sports than ever recently. I couldn’t tell you most of the rules or any of the players’ names really, but I’m there. I’m eating sports food. I’m clapping.

We went to a soccer game today and NYCFC (finally) won! So it got me thinking. There’s sports in plenty of science fiction. Here’s a list of the ones that I think are the most entertaining!

• Rollerball – Based on a short story called “Roller Ball Murder” and made into two movies. This sport is violent. In the “not too distant future” corporations that control most of the world have made war a thing of the past. Instead, they use the super violent rollerball to settle disputes.
• Transcontinental Death Race – This sport is the premise of Death Race 2000 which was based on a short story called “The Racer”. I love this movie. I didn’t see the remake but that doesn’t really matter. In this there’s just a violent race going across the country and boy oh boy is it a hoot.
• Blernsball – From Futurama (my husband’s favorite sci-fi thing). It’s essentially just baseball except the ball is on a string. I don’t know what it is but I find it way more entertaining than actual baseball.
• Obstacle Golf & Centrifugal bumble-puppy – These are from Brave New World. There’s not really a lot of details given about them in the novel, but the names themselves raise a few interesting ideas. 

There's a general theme that crops up when you come across sports in science fiction which is that the government/corporations that are all powerful fund these games to distract the population from how terrible their lives are. It's pretty much Rome and the Coliseum all over again. I think Blernsball is the only one of the few listed that doesn't take place in a world state of that kind. 

Chatting With Gary K. Wolfe.

I work in an office during the day and I spend a lot of time filing paperwork. Usually when I’m filing I’ll put a podcast on my phone and listen. There’s a couple that I frequent regularly: Flophouse, How Did This Get Made, Nerd Poker, and most importantly (for this post at least) The Coode Street Podcast.

The majority of those podcasts are essentially straight comedy. One is a D&D campaign but it’s played by comedians so I count it as comedy. The Coode Street Podcast has actual substance which is nice when you’re mindlessly putting paper into folders. It’s hosted by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe. They talk about science fiction, mostly in a literary sense, and always have some very interesting things to say or points to make. They’ll have authors on as well to talk about their works. My favorite episodes have been this one and this one where they talk about the idea of a science fiction canon and the idea of a personal canon. They’re both very well spoken men without coming across as stuffy and boring. There’s humor in their conversations and for the most part I agree with a lot of their opinions (always helpful when listening to something).

The other day I had the intense pleasure of speaking with Gary K. Wolfe and asking him some questions.

Interview with Gary K. Wolfe

Me: You’ve been writing for Locus Magazine for a long time. You’ve won awards, been nominated for Hugos, and are generally considered kind of an expert in the science fiction field. It’s obvious to anyone who reads anything you’ve written or listens to you speak that you have a great love for the genre. Where did that come from? What sparked your interest in science fiction?

Gary: That’s an interesting question. I think it comes from the same place as lots of young readers where I was looking for something that was more interesting than what I was being given in school. I liked science and was fascinated by astronomy. I was interested in these books that had more to do with the changing world.

Me: Where did you find the books to read? I remember the first book that I read that was distinctly science fiction in my mind my dad gave me. It was one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Venus Stories. I just remember reading it and thinking it wasn’t like anything else I had ever experienced. I was, like, eleven.

Gary: That’s the story of a lot of precocious readers. A parent who’s a reader gives them books. I didn’t have that experience. Mostly I went to the library, and you could also find paperback pulp novels fairly easily back then. The first book I remember buying for myself was a paperback copy of The Illustrated Man. Mostly it was the library. I remember having a fight with my father over getting permission to go into the adult portion of the library.

 

Me: As someone who has been a part of the science fiction community for awhile now how would you say the community has changed over the years? Or does being a science fiction fan feel the same as it did when you first started going to conventions and such?

Gary: Well, I was never really a part of the community as a fan. My first conventions were academic like the Science Fiction Research Convention. And maybe you’ve noticed it but that tends to be the way that science fiction works. The science fiction fandom is a relatively small portion of the community itself. It’s a lot of authors who have never really participated in fandom until their own works come out. But, and Jonathan and I have spoken about this on the podcast, the thing that’s changed the most is diversity. There’s more women and people of color and gay and trans people. It’s not just a bunch of middle-aged white men anymore which is good.

Me: I was reading “The Cold Equations” the other day and was, like, totally blown away by it. Like, I expected there to be some sexism and stuff because it’s an older work. But the main character was so distraught and didn’t know what to do because he was going to have to kill a girl but he would have been fine killing a boy. I was like “wow”.

Gary: That story suffers from a lot of other things as well. It was considered the definitive for hard science fiction because it was this cold, compassionless pure logic thing. But the original ending, which was changed thankfully, actually has the pilot saving the girl or something. There’s some good critiques about it online.

Me: Yeah, I read the critical essays before reading the story which I guess is the backwards way to go about it but they are good.

Gary: If you want something even worse and more sexist you should listen to the radio adaptation.

Me: You’re a professor at Roosevelt University's Evelyn T. Stone College of Professional Studies. I’m currently finishing up my undergrad at Fordham University’s college of professional and continuing studies myself. Working in academia as you do have you found that there are negative preconceptions of genre fiction?

Gary: Absolutely. I think things have gotten a little better. But I suspect that if I had started out regularly in the English department it would have been extremely difficult for me to switch into science fiction. I suspect the bias comes from the fact that dramatic realism is still the expected technique. Everyone is still caught up with the Victorian standard of the novel. Even in creative writing programs in universities you’ll have professors stating specifically that they don’t want to see genre fiction, no science fiction or fantasy or horror or romance.

Me: That’s definitely the case. I was in a creative writing class for poetry and when I wrote science fiction poems they were not readily encouraged.

Gary: Some universities cater to this more and more but they’re still the outliers. Everyone still just wants writing that looks like it belongs in The New Yorker.

Me: Are there specific books or even films that you recommend to combat this attitude?

Gary: Probably Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s a little bit different with film though because if you look at all the top grossing movies most of them are science fiction! But you rarely, if ever, see any science fiction books on bestsellers list.

Me: I was just talking to someone about this! How people will see these really popular movies—like Jurassic Park—and won’t call them science fiction because they’re “popular and good” but it’s like… um, that’s fictional science.

Gary: What? Oh wow. I mean, I could find some science fiction writers who wouldn’t want to call it science fiction just based on how bad the science alone is. But there is this idea that science fiction isn’t something you can take seriously. People don’t even like to consider Star Wars because it’s more space opera and has fantasy elements. And it gets hard when you’re trying to rectify how the Force works versus actual science.

Me: I consider Star Wars science fiction. It takes place in space. It’s a simplification but… it’s science fiction. And I think that it’s a really good place for introducing people to the genre. Especially like kids or something. One of my first memories is watching Star Wars. I mean, I was like three so I didn’t understand it but I remember the droids. I remember watching the droids.

Gary: See, I think you’re unusual in that. A lot of people who are watching the movies aren’t also reading the books. There’s this gap where people will watch these things but they won’t pick up books about them because books are still supposed to be serious.

Me: That’s true. I’ve noticed it especially with adaptations of science fiction books to movies. Like, things get changed a lot of the time. The tones are all different.

Gary: You take the two Total Recall movies and after the first ten minutes the Phil Dick story is over! They’re just taking the settings of the stories and using them for what they want. I stumbled across an adaptation of Radio Free Albemuth and it was probably the most true to work thing I’d ever seen adapted from his stuff. Of course, that just raises the question of should you really be adapting a Phil Dick story so faithfully.

Me: There are lots of things in modern society and culture—particularly technologically speaking—that are practically torn from the pages of science fiction. This interview right now is a good example of that. This is a “world of tomorrow” kind of instance that has become extremely common place and mundane for us. Do you feel that science fiction of the past that didn’t succeed in predicting our today has less value because of that? Or can something that totally missed the mark still provide something important?

Gary: No. I don’t think any science fiction writer ever set out thinking they were going to predict the future. And certainly no one talks in terms of their success by keeping track. Science fiction is always more concerned with the time period it’s being written in. These things come across as being predictive but they’re really just stories about what people were worried about at the time. Questions about just what it is to be human. The Space Merchants written in the 50s talks about advertising agencies that control the world and that’s what they were worried about happening back then. The Machine Stops was written in 1909 and it’s about a society living underground communicating, essentially, with Skype and video calls and such. A Logic Named Joe takes telephones and typewriters and television and combined it all together and formed a story that was about the internet before it was ever an idea. There aren’t a lot of stories back then that came up with the internet. The predictions are accidental.

I had a really enjoyable time speaking with Gary. Obviously because I was talking about the stuff I love talking about the most, but also because he was very easy to talk to. It’s always a relief when people more established in the fields you’re interested in wind up being friendly people.