The Five Best Realistic Science Fiction Films in the Past Five Years

written by Maria Isabelle

There was a time when science fiction films consisted of more fiction than science, but as mankind grows more intelligent about the scientific forces that control the universe, our need for more believable science fiction also grows stronger. Here are some recent and realistic depictions of science and technology in film:

Gravity (2013)

When their shuttle is destroyed, a medical engineer and an astronaut must work to survive in space as they are adrift in orbit. This has become one of the most famous movies in recent times to be completely picked apart by modern rock star scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The physics is a little hit-or-miss, but there are times when Gravity did capture the zero gravity feeling, according to Buzz Aldrin. Other realistic additions include special props used by astronauts, correct alignment of buttons and controls, and the growing problem of space debris in Earth’s orbit.

Her (2013)

In this sci-fi dramedy, a man falls in love with an intelligent operating system named Samantha. Not the only film on this list to deal with man falling in love with a machine, Her is steeped in something a little closer to reality. More recently, humans have developed a growing trend of being attached to our technology at all times. How many people never leave the house without their cell phones or take them to bed with them? For some, it also seems that communicating remotely via email or messaging could make it easier to form more personal bonds. Perhaps in the future, when more sophisticated technology is developed, the prospect of relationships with artificial intelligence won’t seem so crazy.

Interstellar (2014)

In a far out scenario, a team of space explorers must travel through a wormhole to save mankind. Even though the premise is a little insane, there is a lot of sound science fact in this film. Using all available information, most scientists agree that the black hole and wormhole in the film are as close to real as we can imagine right now. Another fascinating aspect of correct science is the different aging rates of the cast. The gravitational pull of the black hole would, in theory, slow down time on the planet closest to the black hole.

Ex Machina (2015)

Ex Machina sees a man falling in love with an AI robot. Unlike Her, the AI machine here is an actual robot with a very realistic human face. The entire film is centered on the Turing Test, a way of testing AI against the realities of human intelligence. It seems that we may be way off until the technology depicted within the film but we’ve still made some small but great strides in advancing it: smart lights and appliances, remotely controlled home security systems, and even software that actually passed the Turing Test.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

In a far off dystopian future, two people fight to restore balance and order. This film made the list, not for its great technology, but for its realistic depiction of our bleak future. After global climate change and increasing worldwide violence, the Earth is now barren and devoid of any similarities to our modern society in this film. There has been a breakdown in our culture and things such as water and gas have become the top commodities. It isn’t pretty, but close to our reality if we aren’t careful.

Although sci-fi films can sometimes be a bust, they key is to depict relatable and realistic stories in an imagined world. Let’s just hope the tragedies and violence surrounding these technologies and science in film never make it to real life.

Maria is a writer interested in comic books, cycling, and horror films. Her hobbies include cooking, doodling, and finding local shops around the city. She currently lives in Chicago with her two pet turtles, Franklin and Roy.

Anime Review: Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works

written by Laurie Tom

fate stay/night: ubw Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is based on the Unlimited Blade Works storyline from the adult-rated Fate/stay night visual novel. Unlike in the US, it’s not unheard of for erotic games to be repackaged for a broader audience with the explicit scenes removed and for an anime to use the cleaned up version of the storyline.

In the world of the Fate series, there is a tournament held every few decades where seven Masters summon seven Servants and battle to obtain the Holy Grail, which will grant the winners a wish. The Masters are all supposed to be powerful wizards in the present day world, and the Servants are legendary heroes from across time. Each Master and Servant pair work as a team towards their goal and each of them will get their own wish.

The battles don’t need to be to the death, but the only way to eliminate a Master from the tournament without killing them is to kill their Servant, but because the Servant is typically the more powerful of the two, killing the Master is considered easier.

The story revolves around Shirou Emiya, a teenager with some weak magus blood in him that by rights shouldn’t be enough for him to summon or sustain a Servant, but for reasons unknown he manages to summon a Saber-class Servant (considered the strongest one) completely on accident.

When his schoolmate Rin Tohsaka (also a magus) brings up him to speed on the purpose of the tournament, he decides to participate, because really, he doesn’t have much choice. Outsiders are supposed to be killed for witnessing any battles.

I suppose this is how magic stays hidden from the general population, though the series never comes out and says it. Considering the widespread destruction some of the battles cause I’m rather surprised magic has managed to stay hidden at all.

Though well-intentioned, Shirou tends to come off as a bit of a chauvinistic moron. Saber is clearly capable of fighting. The fact she is a Servant means that she was one of the greatest warriors of myth and legend, but he spends a lot of time trying to protect her and Rin (who is a much more powerful magus than he is), even when it doesn’t make sense and results in him just getting the way.

Shirou is the kind of guy who will throw his life away because he thinks it’s important to have made the gesture. It’s sort of a headbanger how idealistic he is, but instead of being endearing it just makes him look stupid.

But even if Shirou’s characterization is its weakest component, and the storyline itself sometimes stretches the bounds of believability, Unlimited Blade Works shines when it comes to its battle scenes, which are gorgeous. Clearly all the attention went to giving the audience a spectacle to remember and the final battle in the last episode does not disappoint.

I admit I don’t quite understand why the Fate series is so popular considering that Fate/stay night is presumably the one that inspired them all, since it’s not all that strong and many times characters do not get a full story arc. I recognize that’s probably a holdover from the game, where some characters get more to do in one storyline than another because of player made decisions, but it doesn’t feel like even the main plot of UBW entirely comes together.

For instance, it’s not until episode 22 (of 24) that the real villain’s name is spoken for the first time. It’s not that it was supposed to be a secret, we’ve seen him lurking around since the first half of the show, but when it finally comes out, he’s not even on camera so if I hadn’t been browsing a wiki for more context I might not have even connected the two of them.

The series suffers a little bit from expecting the audience to already be familiar with the franchise, and to some degree that is probably not surprising. The Fate storyline of Fate/stay night was already animated back in 2006 and the prequel Fate/zero was animated in 2011, and Unlimited Blade Works itself had been done as a movie in 2010, but I still feel that as a storyline based on the original game that started it all, Unlimited Blade Works the TV series should have been understandable and self-contained on its own.

The plot does get more engaging overall in the second half though, because Shirou and Rin eventually start working together instead of passive-aggressively trying to keep each other out of the way, and because by then the other Masters have started falling. It’s clear who the frontrunners are for winning the Holy Grail, and it’s not them.

I do have to mention though that Fate/stay night is not kind to its female characters. There are some creepy male gaze scenes when Rin and Saber are captured at different points in the series and though both of them are portrayed early on as competent and fully capable of looking after themselves, their roles are vastly reduced in the final third while Shirou gets the opportunity to come into his own.

Overall I wouldn’t say Unlimited Blade Works is a bad series, but it’s not a particular good one either, and it’s most saved by its animation quality. I like Rin as a protagonist, and would have been much happier if the series had been following her story rather than Shirou’s. She has a much more realistic outlook than he does while still remaining a person with a good heart.

Number of Episodes: 25

Pluses: gorgeously animated fight scenes, interesting world building

Minuses: treatment of female characters in the second half, plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, most characters aren’t well fleshed out

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is currently streaming at Crunchyroll and Hulu and is available subtitled. Aniplex has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

Summer 2015 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

Unlike summer on American TV, new anime debuts year round with every season, and this summer in particular looks like fun times, with multiple shows I’m interested in following. It’s like winter 2015 all over again, where there’s more than I can keep up with, but this time there are no returning series vying for my attention and all of the interesting things are new.

It’s going to be hard to limit my viewing pool to my preferred cap of three shows! There is one exception though, due to a very special bonus show I’m including at the bottom.

Aoharu x Machinegun

aoharu x machinegun

Why I Watched It: Cross-dressing girl ends up entering a survival game where it’s assumed that she’s male. I like the character designs and I’m fond of genderblender characters in anime. Hotaru’s same design could be a male character voiced by the same actress in a different anime and actually be male due to the fact teenage boys are frequently voiced by women, so it’s extremely easy to buy into her ability pass.

What I Thought: Hotaru is a hot-blooded class president who for reasons unknown, prefers dresses in the male school uniform. Most people who don’t know her assume she’s male. This is even more obvious in Japanese where her word choices indicate a very masculine speaker. She also shouts a lot and is willing to beat up people for social infractions, which makes her pretty fun to watch. It turns out she’s really good at reading people in a fight, so when a misunderstanding leads to her wrecking a host club she gets press-ganged onto a survival game team to pay off the debt.

Verdict: I’d like to watch, but this season is pretty crowded with good stuff. Hotaru’s short fuse is a bit much, but I like that (so far) she just seems to be a girl who likes to wear the male uniform and there’s no tragic backstory to it, and her personality is not one that girls are frequently allowed to have as a starring protagonist. I’m a bit disappointed though that the survival game appears to be paintball or airsoft as I thought it was going to be a more literal survival.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Charlotte

charlotte

Why I Watched It: The latest series from the writer and character designer behind Angel Beats. Writer Jun Maeda is known for pulling on the heartstrings so there will probably be a lot of light-hearted moments before ultimately delving into a tissue box at the finale.

What I Thought: I usually don’t like jerk protagonists, but Yu is the creative kind. In middle school he discovers that he can possess other people for 5 seconds while his own body falls comatose, and as expected for his age, he decides to use his power to get back at other people and also to cheat his way into an elite high school by temporarily possessing other students who are smarter than him so he can read their answers while taking exams. He might not be book learned, but he’s definitely clever and incredibly manipulative. His shenanigans catch up with him though and he is forcibly transferred to another school that is intended for people with powers like him, where he presumably will turn out to be a better person by the end.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. Given the series’ pedigree and the similarly stunted powers the other students have (being invisible to only one person at a time, superspeed without the ability to slow down equally fast) it looks interesting.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

GATE

gate

Why I Watched It: A generic-looking medieval fantasy world invades modern day Tokyo and Japan needs to fight back. Normally I wouldn’t be watching, but the protagonist is a 33-year-old fanboy who also serves in the Japanese Self Defense Force, and getting a thirty-something protagonist in an anime is pretty rare!

What I Thought: In some ways better than expected. I like that it’s an anime that actually includes the appropriate military response when invaded by another dimension and an appropriate timeline for Japan to send invasion forces of their own in reply. On the other, it looks like the thirty-something fanboy soldier is going to gain a trio of teenage fantasy world inhabitants for traveling companions and they’re all girls. That’s going to look creepy. He’s not the only one sent through the gate though so it looks like we’ll get to see a modern army vs. a medieval fantasy army.

Verdict: Going to pass. Looks like it has the potential to be fun, but there’s more than enough going on this season to keep me occupied.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Monster Musume

monster musume

Why I Watched It: I was not going to watch this one on account of it being a harem show (one male character surrounded by multiple love interests vying for his affection), but I had heard from other women who had watched it that it’s unusual for its kind, and not just because all the girls are monsters.

What I Thought: It’s a raunchy romantic comedy with an unfortunate put-upon human male who, no matter what, must avoid having sex with his hot female lamia housemate who was unexpectedly assigned to him as part of a species exchange program (otherwise she will be deported and he’ll be arrested). She doesn’t take the threat seriously though, and really, really likes him. Monster Musume asks questions like, how does a lady who is half snake use a toilet and does she wear underwear? It was surprisingly funny and I felt a little sorry for protagonist Kimihito because Miia is a constrictor so she kinda likes crushing him in her affectionate coils.

Verdict: It’s funny, but I’ll pass. I’m sure the tone of the story will change when more monster girls are introduced, and there will be the usual lack of relationship progress to keep open the possibility that Kimihito could end up with any of them (next episode promises a centaur and a harpy), but it’s a cut above the usual for it’s kind.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Overlord

overlord

Why I Watched It: This was a moth towards the flame sort of attraction. Though I’m tired of stories where people find themselves living inside of a video game or a video game-like world, this one twists a little differently in that there’s only one person left in the game and he’s not your typical hero-type.

What I Thought: Overlord surprised me with its first scene past the opening credits. Guild leader Momonga’s sadness over the shutdown of his favorite MMO and memories of all the good times shared with his guild are instantly relatable to anyone who has gone through something similar. I also didn’t expect that Momonga would be a working adult in his real life (that we don’t see). Given his weariness towards his day job, it’s not entirely surprising when he wonders if he would want to leave this new reality he’s in, supposing he could even find a way out now that the game controls and any ability to contact the GMs have disappeared. Momonga was previously a max level player and in charge of a massive fortress (built collectively by his guild), and now that all the NPCs have come to life, he has a small army of monsters at his command. They treat him like an overlord, but he’s not really. He just plays one.

Verdict: I’d like to find some time for this, at least long enough to see where it’s going. I particularly like the disconnect between Momonga’s internal thoughts, rendered in a normal voice, and his external ones, which are voiced like you would expect from a skeleton lord. He’s very concerned about staying in character in front of his underlings.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace

ranpo kitan

Why I Watched It: Ranpo Edogawa is one of the classic mystery writers of Japan. 2015 is the 50th anniversary of his death and in honor of that, Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace is a series inspired by his body of work, which is still read today.

What I Thought: The first episode is based on one of Edogawa’s stories, “The Human Chair,” that will likely end up as grisly as it sounds. Middle school student Kobayashi is an unusual POV character and I’m not even sure he’s intended to be the main character. He wakes up holding the weapon responsible for his homeroom teacher’s murder with no memory of the crime or even how he got into the classroom where it happened. He’s oddly plucky for someone accused of murder, and readily accepts the challenge set by irritable teen detective Akechi (based on Edogawa’s most famous detective character, who was not a teen in the original) to clear his name and catch the real criminal.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I love a good mystery, and while Kobayashi doesn’t do anything for me, I’m really interested in Akechi who seems to have some malady that requires him to regularly take painkillers. Akechi might be a detective, with special dispensation from the government to work as one on account of his age, but he’s clearly willing to bend his commitment if it suits him.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers

rokka braves of the six flowers

Why I Watched It: Pleasing art style and I read that the premise involves a slight problem in that the Goddess of Fate had chosen six heroes to save the world, but seven people have answered the call.

What I Thought: The Mesoamerican setting is unfortunately just superficial window dressing as everyone’s names feel more at home in the Old World, and the costuming of the main characters, judging by the opening credits, follows typical anime conventions in that they dress however they want and Mesoamerica is not what I would have guessed. Adlet Mayer’s interruption of the holy ceremony at the start of the show feels especially egregious in that you have a pale person with a European-style name ruining the local ceremony run by brown people (not to save a life, but because he wants to be the chosen one), and he’s the hero. It probably doesn’t play out with the same racial implications in Japan, but as a PoC in America it’s rather cringy.

Verdict: Going to pass. I don’t like Adlet, or the hare-brained princess who’s taken a shine to him. If the Mesoamerican setting was more involved I’d be inclined to give it another shot, but since they’ve left the city at the end of the episode I think it’s going to look more like a generic fantasy from here on out.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Snow White with the Red Hair

snow white with the red hair

Why I Watched It: Not based on the Snow White of European fairy tales. This Snow White is a healer with unusual red hair, caught between two suitors with nary an evil queen in sight. Clearly looks like a romance/adventure story.

What I Thought: When Prince Raj requests Shirayuki (literally translates into “Snow White”) for his concubine, she doesn’t meekly give in. Shirayuki runs away to the kingdom’s border and through luck meets up with a young man named Zen and his companions. The show plays on the fairy tale a bit with poisoned apples showing up to show Shirayuki that she hasn’t escaped Prince Raj’s notice, and Raj is the one who asks a “mirror” about the fairest in the kingdom, but otherwise the story doesn’t care much about the original. While I like the chemistry between Zen and Shirayuki as romantic leads, I dislike that the climax of the episode still relies on Zen saving Shirayuki from Raj. It’s a good play on Zen’s part that hinges on the reveal he’s also a prince of a neighboring kingdom, but I wish that Shirayuki had been able to get out of the problem herself.

Verdict: I’d like to watch, but I’m probably going to wait due to the other shows this season. As far as fantasy romance goes though, this looks like a good bet.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Ushio and Tora

ushio and tora

Why I Watched It: Ushio and Tora was one of the first anime I watched, and was the very first manga I ever bought, even though it was in Japanese. It’s a buddy adventure story between a middle school kid and the demon who wants to kill him (seriously!). Since the first anime was only a direct to video release of some of the early story arcs and the manga went untranslated I was disappointed that I never got to experience the whole thing. That’s changed now!

What I Thought: The opening plays out a little differently from what I remember back in the 90s, but doesn’t deviate from familiar territory with the same antagonistic dynamic that will eventually become a budding friendship between the human Ushio and the demon Tora that makes the series what it is. It covers how Tora got impaled with the Beast Spear and offers a compelling reason for just why Ushio would free a human-eating demon. No effort has been made to update the art style, making it look a little dated, but it has all the story bits in the right places and Ushio’s brash personality is one that we rarely have in protagonists these days.

Verdict: I will be watching! Definitely looking forward to more adventures with these two. The show plans for an eventual 39 episodes broken into two parts, and they’re going to cover the entire manga!

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Bonus!

The following is not an anime, but is based on a popular manga, and thus likely to be of interest to anime viewers. Other people might have heard of this series but just can’t get into watching animation or reading comic books, in which case, this is also for them.

Death Note

death note live action

Why I Watched It: Death Note has been one of the most popular series in recent years, featuring a protagonist who discovers a supernatural notebook that allows him to kill people by writing their name in it. The original manga and popular anime series tells the story of the cat and mouse game between Light Yagami and the people trying to catch him as he tries to change the world for the better by murdering criminals. The new live action series promises an alternate storyline featuring the same characters, most likely because Death Note has already been adapted as a live action movie before, and this offers viewers something new.

What I Thought: I like the new Light, who despite all his murders, is a much kinder, more sensitive person than the original, though it’s harder to buy into his first attempt to kill the detective, L, because of it. Death Note lives or dies by its protagonist, and I was concerned about changing Light from a brilliant high school kid to an average university student, but surprisingly it works well. The original Light (for all his brilliance) was pretty arrogant and willfully made mistakes to rub his rival’s nose in it. New Light makes the same mistakes, but it’s because he’s not two steps ahead of the game. His struggle makes him more relatable, but also makes me wonder just how well he’ll be able to hold off L, who is clearly still a genius. Since the show is live action the shinigami are portrayed through CG, which is kind of janky since it’s not running on a Hollywood budget and so far is the weakest part of the production as the show doesn’t seem to be able to use Ryuk very well.

Verdict: I’ll be watching it. Though circumstances have been rearranged, all the major story beats from the early part of the manga are still there so it’ll be interesting to see new interpretations of them. Light has always wanted to make the world a better place, even in the original, but the original crossed the moral horizon and accepted his role as judge and executioner very quickly. I’m looking forward to a Light who will struggle longer.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

DP FICTION #6: “The Superhero Registry” by Adam Gaylord

“What about ‘Copper Penny’?” Lois spread her hands out in front of her like the name was on an old Hollywood marquee.

The square-jawed applicant sitting across the desk arched an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Sure! Just think of the potential catch phrases. Your arch-nemesis monologues about how you’ve yet again foiled his or her plans and you say, ‘Of course. I’m Copper Penny. I always turn up.’”

She could tell he was tempted. She tried to sweeten the deal. “Plus, copper is very valuable right now.”

He frowned. “It’s just, it’s a little feminine, don’t you think?”

“No way! I think it’s very masculine.” She batted her eyelashes a little. Anything to get this guy to settle on a name so she could go to lunch. Copper Penny was a bit of a stretch as far as the rules went but she was pretty sure it would pass muster because of his natural red hair.

“Hmmm. No. I just don’t think it’s right for me.”

Lois sighed. They’d been at this all morning and he was no closer to making a decision. Working in the Registry was usually fun. She got to meet the new class of superheroes before they got famous and occasionally she’d even help one pick a name, which was usually a blast. A few of the more appreciative heroes even kept in touch. She was supposed to have lunch with The Valkyrie Sisters next week.

But every once in a while she got one of these fellas. No creativity, no initiative, just expected to have the work done for them. Pretty bad traits for a superhero, in her opinion.

He leaned back in his chair. “Can you go over the rules one more time?”

It was the third time he’d asked and she was tempted to shove her coffee cup down his throat, but the agency had been pushing customer service lately. “These are tomorrow’s superheroes,” the memo said. “We need to establish a strong working relationship from day one.”

So she smiled, brushed her curly blond hair aside, and explained again. “Your name has to have something to do with your super power and/or your look. But, you can only base your name off the latter if you already have a look established, not the other way around.”

“But why? Why can’t I pick a name and then build a look around it?”

She shrugged. “Honestly, it doesn’t come up that often. Most heroes base their costume off something pretty significant like a traumatic childhood memory or the blanket their foster parents found them in. And of course, many heroes are actually green or blue or made out of rock or whatever, so that’s easy.

“But I just look like I always have.”

“Right. So we have to pick a name based on your powers. Now, your fists turn into metal, right?”

“And my forearms.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Right. And your forearms. Is that it?”

“What do you mean, ‘Is that it’?” He stood, rolling up his sleeves to show off his shiny metallic appendages. “I can crush cinder blocks with these things.”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. “They’re very impressive.”

He sat down, apparently placated.

“Let’s use that. What else smashes cinder blocks?”

His eyes lit up. “’The Sledge Hammer’!”

She checked the database. “Sorry, that’s taken.”

“What about just, ‘The Hammer’?”

“Nope. Taken.”

“Hmmm… ‘Iron Hammer’?”

“Are your fists actually iron?”

“I’m not sure. Still waiting on lab results. They said it might take two weeks, but I want to get started now!”

“Well, we don’t want to register you as iron if they turn out to be tin or aluminum, do we? I only suggested copper because of your hair color.”

He looked at his hands. “I don’t think they’re aluminum.”

She clicked away at her keyboard. “What about ‘Hard Hand’?”

“Hmmm…kinda catchy.”

“Or just ‘The Hand’?”

“Perfect!”

“Excellent!” She quickly entered the appropriate information into the database before he could change his mind.

“Talk about catch phrases!” He stood and pantomimed shaking someone’s hand. “No worries officer, I’m always happy to lend a hand.” He punched an invisible assailant. “Sorry, I guess I was a little heavy handed.” He thrust his chest out, hands on his hips. “No criminal can outrun the long hand of the law.”

“Arm”, she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She hit the enter button and the successful registration confirmation message flashed on the screen. “Congratulations Hand, you are now a registered superhero. I will forward your information to one of our case managers and he or she will contact you within seventy-two hours to discuss training opportunities and duty assignments.”

“Wait, aren’t you gonna help me with my look?”

She handed him a fistful of colorful pamphlets she had at the ready. “There are dozens of costume consultants that can craft you the perfect super-ensemble.”

“Oh, okay. So, a case manager will call me?”

“Within seventy-two hours.”

“Okay.” He sat looking at her for a long moment. “Okay, well thanks for your help. If you ever need a superhero, look me up.”

Lois waited a full five count after he left, then scurried for the break room. They had a running over/under board for what superheroes would make it past their first year and she wanted to be the first to lay money on “under” for The Hand.

Author’s Note: I love epic action and harrowing plot twists as much as anyone, but often it’s the everyday interactions of the worlds we create that really fascinate me.

Adam Gaylord lives with his beautiful wife, daughter, and less beautiful dog in Loveland, CO. When not at work as a biologist he’s usually hiking, drinking craft beer, drawing comics, writing short stories, or some combination thereof. Check out his stuff at http://adamsapple2day.blogspot.com/ and www.hopstories.com.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the earlier story offerings:
DP Fiction #1: “Taste the Whip” by Andy Dudak
DP Fiction #2: “Virtual Blues” by Lee Budar-Danoff
DP Fiction #3: “In Memoriam” by Rachel Reddick
DP Fiction #4: “The Princess in the Basement” by Hope Erica Schultz
DP Fiction #5: “Not a Bird” by H.E. Roulo

Hugo Novel Review (Partial): Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu)

written by David Steffen

I’ve been reading as fast as I can before the Hugo voting deadline on July 31st, but there’s been a bunch of things competing for my time and so I haven’t been able to read as many of the nominees as I like. I am only part way through The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu, published in English by Tor Books, but since the Hugo voting deadline is almost here I wanted to give a partial review–I’ll give a complete review when I have had the time to finish the book.

The story starts in China in 1967, during the Cultural Revolution (a social-political movement started by Mao Zedong whose stated goal was to preserve the “true” Communist ideology from the corrupting influences of capitalist and traditional elements from society. Ye Zhetai is a physics professor at the time, trying to teach his students without coming under the ire of the movement, but in a debate about relativity he is struck dead. His daughter Ye Wenjie follows in his footsteps, becoming a physicist as well, and ends up being recruited for a top-secret research project.

In the present day Wang Mao, a nanomaterials researcher, is called into a meeting between top researchers and military officials, where a list of physicists who has committed suicide is revealed, each for apparently the same reason, leaving long essays as suicide notes. It has something to do with the organization called Frontiers of Science which are considered radical by the rest of the scientific community, to answer the question: “What is the limit of science?” The implication seems to be that something about what they have found in their research is driving them to kill themselves. He starts seeing elements pointing to a countdown in impossible places. A countdown to what? Wang Mao takes a position at the Frontiers of Science, and he sees fellow researcher Shen Yufei playing a game called The Three-Body Problem, which is based in a fictional world where there is no discernable pattern to the seasons and the challenge of the game is to find some pattern so that a civilization can be established in a stretch where the weather is favorable.

And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my reading.

The novel is very slow to begin. It seems like half of what I’ve read so far didn’t have much relation to the other half, but I’m still in the first quarter of the novel so at this point I’m assuming it all ties together to justify that slow start. I also figured that there might be some cultural differences about the expectations of story structure so I didn’t want to give up on the story until I’d given it a good long time. I really felt like I got hooked as he was playing the Three Body Problem game, the details of that game and the strange challenges were interesting and caught my attention. The problem of the physicists committing suicide has a bit of a Lovecraft feel to it–forbidden knowledge that drives one mad, though in general it feels more science fiction-y than horror-y.

Anyway, I’m interested in how it turns out, I’m enjoying the read, but without more pages consumed, I can’t say overall whether I like it or not. I’ll let you know soon.

Why do I Value the Hugos?

written by David Steffen

I’ve been following the Hugos closely for several years, trying to read and review as many of the nominated works as I can digest between the announcement of the ballot and the final deadline. I also follow the Nebulas, and I glance at the results from other SF genre awards, but for me the Hugos take up most of my attention come award season. With this eventful Hugo year, it crossed my mind to wonder why the Hugos specifically, and whether I might perhaps be better off devoting more of my attention to awards that don’t collect controversy the way the Hugo Awards always seem to do, and in escalating fashion these last few years.

1. The Hugos are Fan-Based.

Specifically, they are based on the supporters/attendees of WorldCon, which is certainly not an exact representation of fandom as a whole. But what I mean by this is that the fan-based nature differentiates it from juried awards or the Nebulas which are voted by SFWA members, which gives that award a very different feel.

I do like the concept of the Locus Awards, since those are available for anyone to vote online, so have a broader voting audience–maybe I’ll try to pick them up next year.

2. The Hugos Have a Long Reading Period

The Nebulas and the Locus awards have very short reading periods (the period of time between the announcement of the ballot and the voting deadline) of only about a month. If I want to read as much of the fiction as possible, that’s not nearly enough time–I can’t finish all the short fiction, let alone start the novels. The Hugo ballot is announced around Easter weekend (usually early April or so) and the voting deadline is at the end of July, so there are nearly four months to try to do all the reading. The Hugo Packet isn’t released right at the beginning of the reading period, but usually enough of the short fiction was published in online venues so that I can fill my reading time with Hugo material.

3. The Hugos Have Instant Runoff Voting and No Award

The Nebula ballot for each category is a set of radio buttons–you can only choose one winner. On the Hugo ballot you can give a numeric vote from 1 to N, where N is the total number of nominees (usually 5). All of the voters first choices are tallied, and the story with the lowest votes is eliminated–all of the ballots which had the eliminated story as the top vote slip down to their second choices, and so on, until there is a winner. I like this because it’s a very common situation where I like more than one of the nominees a great deal, and this lets me give support for more than one instead of having to choose. This is also beneficial if the same author has more than one story in a category because they don’t self-compete.

There is also a No Award vote that lets you differentiate between items you don’t care about and items you strongly feel should not win. If there is a large enough portion of No Award votes, no awards will be given for the category, which gives a recourse in the case that you think a category has nothing worthy.

4. The Hugos have a Graphic Story Category

I love graphic stories, but I have not been very good at keeping up with them. The graphic story category gives me a sampler of what the graphic stories that people loved the most so that I can catch up a bit, maybe even consider picking up a subscription. This year’s category was especially stellar, with three comics that I’d consider picking up–which I reviewed here a few weeks ago.

5. The Hugos Have WorldCon

I made it to WorldCon 2012 in Chicago, and had a really great experience there. That was before the launch of the Submission Grinder, so less people knew who I was, but I still knew a lot of people from Writers of the Future and Codex. There were a lot of my favorite writers and editors there, probably partly due to the Hugos drawing them to the award ceremony. I also thought it was fun to go to the award ceremony itself.

6. The Hugos Have the Hugo Packet

A lot of the short fiction is available for free without actually becoming a Hugo voter–a lot of it was published for free online to begin with, other publishers (like Analog) post it there for the readers to see. But most of the ones that aren’t available for free are in the packet, and most years most of the novels have been included as well.

This is based on kind of an odd dynamic. The Hugo packet is only a few years old, so it’s a nice convenience. If the Hugos were less notable, the publishers probably wouldn’t participate. If the Hugo voting audience was huge, the publishers might be reluctant to give away that many free copies. So it works in kind of an odd middle space where most science fiction and fantasy readers are aware of the award, enough that pasting the name on a book cover can encourage sales, but not so many actually participate (even though they all can) to deter publishers.

7. The Hugo Rules/Categories are Chosen By Fans

OK, this one is alternately a benefit or a detriment. A benefit because as new formats of science fiction and new publishing technologies become popular, the award can expand to include those things, and theoretically phase out those things that are outdated. A detriment because it can sometimes end up with some long-lasting categories that don’t make a lot of sense, or new categories thrashing out of momentary conflicts. But I like the idea in theory anyway.

Hugo Novella Review: “Flow” by Arlan Andrews, Sr.

written by David Steffen

“Flow” by Arlan Andrews Sr. was published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Analog published it free to read online as part of the Hugo season.

Rist and Cruthar live with their people in the Tharn’s Lands where the world exists in unending hazy twilight. They make their living by riding icebergs that break off from the greater ice mass to sell them to warmlanders further south. In this story Rist takes his first berg-riding trip to the south, where the sky is blue and the light burns brightly in the sky. They are only meant to take the iceberg as far as the ice broker, but Rist gets the idea to ride the iceberg further south, and so he and the more experienced Cruthar go on to the strange lands of the south for an adventure. People from different lands have lived separately long enough to gain differentiating racial features, including extreme farsightedness so that none can see things clearly up close in favor of far vision. The people of the Tharn’s Lands used carved figurines for writing, and Rist keeps a journal of everything he does, and everything he learns to share with his family (both on a philosophical level and things that might have applications in their merchant business).

For me this story brought a lot of the good old “sense of wonder” of golden age science fiction. Both the Tharn’s Lands and the warmlands are foreign and interesting, and because the character is learning about the warmlands as the story goes on and contrasting it with his home, the story gets a lot of this comparison in. As the story goes on Rist keeps his journal, and I find his insights about the other world interesting, to reinforce his worldview that is very different from mine–even considering the sun and the moon to be foreign concepts because of the haze of the Tharn’s Lands.

The only part that got a little bit annoying was that Rist repeatedly went on about the breasts of the women of the warmlands–it makes sense in some fashion because apparently the Tharn’s Lands women don’t have prominent breasts (another genetic differentiator like the eyesight, though it wasn’t clear why this particular thing would differentiate while leaving the two races sexually compatible) but it felt rather random and distracting in a story that I otherwise thought was quite solid. It also struck me as unimaginative in an otherwise imaginative story that, of course a man who has never seen breasts would find them attractive, when really there could be a variety of reactions that would be more interesting–concern about her health, wondering if they hurt all the time, or being put off by their strangeness since to him they may not seem natural. But, really, that was the only sour note in the whole thing for me, and a pretty minor one at that.

A note at the beginning of “Flow” indicates that the characters were first seen in “Thaw, which was previously published in Analog. I could definitely see the shape of that other story, with some references to past experiences together in this one, but I thought this story stood well enough on its own, and I always felt like I had enough information.

I quite enjoyed this story and I recommend it for those who like a little longer stories with a sense of adventure and exploration of one fictional culture from the perspective of another fictional culture. It has my top vote in the Novella category.

Hugo Novelette Review: “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” by Rajnar Vajra

written by David Steffen

“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” by Rajnar Vajra, published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, is nominated for the Hugo Award this year in the novelette category. Analog has posted this story for free for the voting period.

The protagonists of this story are a trio of Exoplanetary Explorers: an earthling, a silver Venusian, and a golden Martian. They get in a bar fight, which puts them on thin ice with their commanding officers. Their punishment is to be assigned to a mission doomed to fail–there is a planet on which they wish to establish a colony, where they have learned that the residents are intelligent but have failed to establish true contact with them. Priam, the Martian, raises the stakes by promising that they can establish contact and offering up their jobs if they fail.

I am not the audience for this story. It does evoke a sense of golden age SF, but not in a way that I found appealing. The conversational tone of the narrator only came across as irritating to me, right from the first lines: “A silver Venusian, a golden Martian, and an Earthling walked into a bar. Sounds like a joke, right? Nope. Actually an unfunny blunder the three of us made that Friday evening.” I didn’t care about the fate of any of the characters, and Priam who is portrayed a the smartest of the trio, I found particularly annoying in his thoughtless raising of the stakes for all three of them based on his own arrogant assessment of his own intelligence which, because this harkens back to golden age SF, is of course completely justified in the end because the smart character always wins the day. It was kind of interesting to try to figure out the mystery of the intelligence, but as tends to happen when a story tries to put together a puzzle that is set up as being unsolveable by most people, it didn’t actually succeed in convincing me that it wouldn’t’ve been solved before this point. The stakes of the story were entirely unimportant to me, or rather I was more rooting for them to be kicked out of the Exoplanetary Explorers but also had no doubt whatsoever that smart Priam would save the day because the shape of the story was so familiar.

So, as I said, I’m clearly not the target audience for this tale.

Hugo Novelette Review: “Championship B’tok” by Edward M. Lerner

written by David Steffen

“Championship B’tok”, written by Edward M. Lerner, published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, is nominated for this year’s Hugo Award in the Novelette category. Analog has posted this story for free online as part of this Hugo season.

I generally start these stories with a synopsis, to give a sense of what the story was about. For me to be able to write a meaningful synopsis I need to be able to get some cohesive sense of what the story was about. I had trouble discerning that for this particular story, so this is not so much a synopsis as a list of story elements. The story starts with pilot Lyle Logan playing chess against his ship AI, and then the scene ends very abruptly in a way that’s never adequately explained and these characters never appear again in the story, nor have any other appreciable effect. We’re introduced to an alien race known as Snakes, among other things. There are also a mysterious race of beings (Interveners) that can apparently mimic the appearance of either humans or Snakes–these beings are not at all well-understood but they believe that the beings sparked the explosion of life in the Cambrian Era and that they steered the social/technological development of the human race. The story mostly circles around two characters: a snake named Glithwa and a human named Corinne, and a human Carl. Glithwah represents the ruling Snakes, digging for information about what might be human sabotage. The titular game, b’tok, is played during the story, which is supposedly as much more complicated than chess as chess is more complicated than rock-paper-scissors.

As you might’ve gathered from the scattered, rather long and directionless synopsis, I apparently did not really get the point of this story. What was that first scene there for? What do the Snakes have to do with the Interveners? Who am I supposed to root for? Why do I care about any of this? I found some references on the Internet that this might be part of a series of stories involving the InterstellarNet. If so, maybe I’m just missing some important information, but there was no information attached with the story that suggested it wasn’t a standalone, so I’ve got to judge it on its own merits.

One of the issues with the story was that it claimed that B’tok was so incredibly complicated, but it seemed like a pretty straightforward battle simulator, something we have many variations on even now. Not only that, but some of the reals were just nonsensical, that rather than making it incredibly impressively complicated like it was apparently meant to be, it just came across as a poorly designed war sim. That’s the trouble with trying to write a story about a game that was so complicated humans wouldn’t grasp it well, I guess.

I thought this story was all over the place. I was not interested in any of the characters, or what happened to them, and the point of major reveals was often not particularly clear–the throwaway initial scene certainly did not help any of this.

Hugo Novelette Review: “The Journeyman: In the Stone House” by Michael F. Flynn

written by David Steffen

“The Journeyman: In the Stone House” by Michael F. Flynn, published in Analog, is nominated for this year’s Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Analog has posted this story as a free read as part of the Hugo season.

This is part two of the Journeyman series of stories. I have not read the first part of the story, so I am extrapolating a bit. Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand and Sammi o’ th’ Eagles are in the midst of a journey that began in the previous story, where they were sent on a quest by a ghost that resided in a crashed vessel from the sky (presumably an AI residing in a starship) to find particular settlements for the star-men to salvage from the remains. As well as the quest, they are also trying to stay ahead of Kalakaran Vikaram who is looking to avenge his brother that Teodorq killed. As they are trying to cross a territory toward their destination, they stop to examine a stone building and they wonder how it was constructed (the technology level of the setting is mostly like a Medieval level, but with the remains of higher tech scattered about it’s clear that this occurs in the future after a technological collapse of some kind). They, as well as their pursuer, are captured. To continue their quest they must somehow escape their imprisonment.

The most interesting thing about this story was the use of language. The two protagonists are from different cultures that speak different languages. This means that to communicate directly with each other they have to speak in a broken pidgin dialect. Each has vastly different views of life and death and everything that surrounds it, and this comes out in various conversations throughout the story. At the same time I found some of the dialect rather distracting because, well, I just wasn’t all that interested in the outcome of the story, and the dialect was more absorbing than the events.

Maybe I would feel more absorbed if I had read the first story in the series. Maybe if I had seen the conversation with the AI I would have a clear idea of the stakes at hand here, and I’d be more emotionally invested. As it was, I was never confused by what was happening, I didn’t feel like it left out too much detail at least to explain events, but I didn’t really care what happened either and the story dragged as a result. The characters could succeed, they could give up and go home, they could die in the attempt, and it wouldn’t make much difference to me–not that I really had any doubt that they’d make it through this alive. When I read a story I want to feel connected to it, either an emotional connection with the characters, or at least some kind of thematic or intellectual connection. I want to understand the stakes, what will happen if they fail in their mission, and I didn’t really feel like I got any of that.

And then the story just kind of ends at a pretty much arbitrary point, clearly just leading on into the next one, but without any kind of satisfying tying off. Maybe these stories as a whole make a compelling story when combined together, but when a story is up for a Hugo as a standalone I’ve got to judge it based on what I see, and to me this is a not-very-compelling story fragment with some interesting dialect. Maybe I would’ve liked it better if the Journeyman series as a whole were nominated for a novella or novel award, rather than this segment being nominated for the novelette award (that’s no longer possible with this nomination, a part of a whole cannot be nominated and then the whole also be nominated). So this one was a miss for me.