Fantastika

Equal Rites — Terry Pratchett

Published on October 25, 2012Leave a comment

Cover of Equal Rites

Equal Rites
Terry Pratchett
283 pages
published in 1987

With the third novel in the series, Equal Rites, it became clear that the Discworld was more than just the sum of its characters. Gone were Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage, as an entire new setting and cast turned up. This wasn’t something that had been done much — or ever — in fantasy before, not often done after either. It must’ve seemed a bit of a gamble at the time, but this freedom to change protagonists and settings is what made the Discworld series, what has been keeping it from going stale for so long. If you don’t like one particular subseries, there are several others that you can read. Of course it also helps that Pratchett has been such a good writer for so long…

Equal Rites is the first Witches story, though the Granny Weatherwax that shows up here isn’t quite the one we get to know better in the later novels, differing somewhat even from how she’s portrayed in Wyrd Sisters three books onwards. The plot of the story is all about how if you’re a wizard on the verge of dying and looking for an eight son of an eight son to hand your staff over to, it helps to not be too hasty and check that eight son of an eight son isn’t actually a daughter…

The Light Fantastic — Terry Pratchett

Published on October 24, 2012Leave a comment

Cover of The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic
Terry Pratchett
285 pages
published in 1986

The Light Fantastic is of course the second Discworld novel and a direct sequel to The Colour of Magic starting in media res with Rincewind having fallen off the Disc. To his own amazement he does not actually fall to his death, but is saved by the Great Octavo Spell that had taken up residence in his head. It turns out that this hadn’t actually been an accident all those years ago that had gotten it in his head and all other magic spells afraid to stay near it, but had been in preparation for just this moment. The Discworld is heading towards a huge red star and unless the spell and its seven counterparts are said at exactly the right time, the world will be destroyed…

There’s three years between the publication of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic and it’s noticable in Pratchett’s writing, which has improved a lot between the two novels. It’s also much less parody orientated, but still nowhere near the Discworld we’ve gotten to know and love. We do get a first glimmer of some of the subjects that Pratchett would engage more fully in later novels, including his humanitarianism. For the moment however, the Discworld is still much closer to a standard fantasy world than to what it would later become.

The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett

Published on October 22, 2012Leave a comment

Cover of The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic
Terry Pratchett
285 pages
published in 1983

The days are getting shorter, the nights are longer and I got the desire to reread some old favourites. It’s the time of year for comfort reading, as you may notice in my reading patterns from year to year and this time I wanted to lose myself in something actually good, rather than going for something mindless. Which is why I decided to reread the Discworld series from the beginning, though I won’t guarantee I’ll finish the series.

Which brings me to The Colour of Magic, the very first Discworld novel. Over the years it has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation amongst Pratchett fans as not being up to the standards of the series, not being as funny or interesting, not a good place to start the series as a new reader. All of which has a kernel of truth, but at the same time it was the novel that kickstarted the whole series and if it really had no merit, it would’ve been the last book in the series. It is rough and ready, it doesn’t quite fit in with the Discworld as it would evolve over the course of the series, but it still has a certain charm.

When Tiptree was still a man

Published on October 17, 2012Leave a comment

I’m sort of reworking a MetaFilter comment into a post here, so bear with me, as I got a brainwave after some chance remarks about James Tiptree, Jr. As you know Bob, James Tiptree was in reality Alice B. Sheldon, who spent over a decade pretending to be a male writer and who during that time was feted as one of the few male science fiction writers actually able to grok women. Somebody asked why it was that so many people believed Tiptree for so long and whether this was all sexism, which somebody else said it was pure sexism and ignorance.

That too dismissive a response crystallised something for me, as I realised it wasn’t so much that these old time science fiction authors like Ellison or Robert Silverberg just couldn’t bring themselves to believe somebody who was that good a writer could be anything other than a male, but that they wanted to believe that it was possible for a male author to portray a female point of view and female characters so well as Tiptree did. Even in the early seventies there were female sf authors, even if they often had to hide between male sounding names (Andre Norton) or the careful use of initials (C. L. Moore), so that really couldn’t be the problem people had with Tiptree.

In fact, debate about his gender had been raging for years, with quite a few people convinced he was a pseudonym for a female writer, while others, like Silverberg, continuing to see something ineluctably masculine in him. What helped confirm the latter camp in their beliefs was that quite a few of them had had personal contact with Tiptree, writing lettres to each other, in which he presented the same as he did in public, so how could he be a woman?

But of course he was, which may have come as a disappointment to some people, who had hoped that it was possible for a writer with such an insight into, such empathy for women to be male, who saw Tiptree as a male counterpart to a Joanna Russ or Ursula LeGuin. Sadly, it wasn’t the case and somebody else had to prove that it was not impossible for a male science fiction writer to write about “womens issues”…

I feel the need to who-viate

Published on September 23, 20122 Comments

Of course Doctor Who is no more than it wants to be, light Saturday evening sci-fi entertainment for the whole family, glitzy and fun, good enough for the hour it takes to watch it. Worrying about whether it should be anything more than this, at this point in time, is useless; it’s pretty clear its creative staff isn’t really interested. Therefore this post is really only for my own amusement, a short examination of what’s wrong with New Who without any expectation that it will ever change.

Last night’s episode was emblematic of New Who’s failings. It had an intriguing premise (little black cubes show up in their billions all over the world simultaneously, then do nothing. The doctor is intrigued, then bored, buggers off to go gallivanting across the universe, leaving the Ponds to deal with Real Life as opposed to Doctor Life, then almost a year later Things Start to Happen and the alien invasion really starts, only it turns out to be more of a weeding than an invasion, with some new alien baddy wanting to get rid of the human plague. In other words, starts off interesting, ends up being yet another overtly complicated alien plan easily spoiled by the doctor waving his sonic screwdriver around for a few seconds.

It’s also fairly incoherent, as the promise made in the trailer above, of the doctor coming to stay for a year just isn’t true, while the plot depends on some fairly big coincidence (the human transmitter needed to boast the signal from the alien ship to the cubes just happens to hang around the very same hospital as Rory works) to resolve itself and some of the bad guys’ actions (kidnapping people into their ship) just don’t make sense if their aim was extermination in the first place. All the fx, banter, witty asides and clever touches do only so much to cover this up even when watching.

In that regard it’s almost the opposite of the old Who, which for the most part was stodgy rather than glitzy, with low budget wobbly sets and cardboard monsters being made up for by good writing and acting, as well as more room to tell a story, not having to depend on just a one hour show to tell it, but being able to take four to six half hour episodes instead. that way the suspense of the little black boxes could’ve been build up and resolved more gradually, more in the background while the doctor went on other adventures, dealing with life on Earth while waiting for them to do their stuff…