THE MT VOID
12/02/22 -- Vol. 41, No. 23, Whole Number 2252
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
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Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
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Topics:
What Are Your Passenger Rights in Space?
Mini Reviews, Part 5 (GOOD NIGHT OPPY, HOLD YOUR FIRE, COW)
(film reviews by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
MEMORY'S LEGION: THE COMPLETE EXPANSE STORY COLLECTION
by James S.A. Corey (audio book review
by Joe Karpierz)
Vampires (letter of comment by John Sloan)
This Week's Reading (THE QUATERMASS CONCLUSION)
(book and film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: What Are Your Passenger Rights in Space?
Summary quote: "Space tourism experts say passenger rights are
anything but standard. No federal agency appears to be in charge
of regulating customer service issues for space travel. Delays,
cancellations and refunds are left to the space travel companies to
determine. But change is coming."
Full article at <
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/16/ space-flight-passenger-refunds-cancellations-delays/>
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 5 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)
This is the fifth batch of mini-reviews, all documentaries.
GOOD NIGHT OPPY: GOOD NIGHT OPPY is a documentary about the Martian
rover Opportunity, from the original concept through its landing on
Mars on January 25, 2004, its activities on Mars, an up to its
final shut-down (or death, as many of the support team thought of
it) on June 10, 2018, 5111 sols later. (A sol is a Martian day,
and is 24 Earth-hours, 25 Earth-days, 29 Earth-seconds long.
Opportunity's planned mission was 90 sols, or 92.5 Earth-days.)
At first it seems like just an exercise for computer special
effects, since there are no actual pictures of Opportunity and its
sister rover Spirit. (Well, there is a final selfie of
Opportunity.)
Just when you thought that after all the documentaries that have
been made of our space program, there was little new that would be
created, and that space documentaries could be very similar, GOOD
NIGHT OPPY proves you wrong.
This is a very different style of documentary than the
documentaries made by NASA (though it uses archival footage from
NASA and JPL). It helps that the project team chooses humanized
names for the project landers rather than just letters and numbers,
which makes their purpose more clear for the terrestrial observers,
and It does help to make the story more exciting and entertaining.
(However, picking the song "You Are Not There" is the opposite of
the image they probably wanted to project.)
Released theatrically 4 November 2022, and on Amazon Prime 23
November 2022. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14179942/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_night_oppy>
HOLD YOUR FIRE: HOLD YOUR FIRE is a documentary about a 1973
robbery/hostage situation in Brooklyn that began the process of
using "hostage negotiation" rather than brute force to resolve
these sorts of incidents. In addition to having people describe
the process used, the filmmakers also interviewed some of the
police officers involved (both directly and indirectly), hostages
(or their families), lawyers, and so on. What results is, among
other things, a totally contradictory account of what happened,
what was said, what attitudes there were at the time, and so on.
(For example, one policeman said there was no racism in the NYPD at
the time, while one of the robbers said the police were always
harassing African-Americans.
Released theatrically 20 May 2022; available on various streaming
services. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15196796/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hold_your_fire_2021>
COW: COW is a cinema verite documentary that follows the life of a
dairy cow in England. From the first scene, where we welcome a
calf to a life of pain, and watch the calf taking in information
about its strange new world, director Andrea Arnold gives us almost
entirely close-ups and handheld camerawork. (The calf is not the
title character; its mother is.) The film has no real dialogue; it
is strictly in terms of what a cow would hear, as the herders talk
to the occasional vet or give brief commands to the cows. The
young calves show some vitality and life while the older cows and
bull stand around and look stolid.
We do not really learn much from the film. It took scientists a
while to realize that cows make friends with other in much the same
way that humans do, and that does not come out at all. We see a
lot of unexplained operations, e.g., putting blue liquid on a cow's
head, planing off the bottoms of its hooves, etc. (It turns out
the blue liquid was part of a de-horning process, at least
according to one review.)
This is the bovine version of THE TRUMAN SHOW, though the
environment is real rather than artificially created. The handheld
camera work has been ((accurately) described as "nausea-inducing",
and the overwhelming impression the viewer is left with is just
that cows lead boring lives.
(Arnold has said this was not intended as a pro-animal-rights film,
though many people see it that way.)
Released theatrically 8 April 2022; available on various streaming
services. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11548822/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cow>
[-mrl/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: MEMORY'S LEGION: THE COMPLETE EXPANSE STORY COLLECTION by
James S.A. Corey (copyright 2022, Orbit, $28, Hardcover, 418pp,
ISBN 978-0-316-66919-1; 16 hours, 22 minutes, ASIN B09Q81W6Z,
narrated by Jefferson Mays, Daniel Abraham, and Ty Franck) (audio
book review by Joe Karpierz)
James S.A. Corey's "The Expanse" novels and stories (and, to be
honest, the television series as well) are arguably one of the best
things that have happened to science fiction in the last decade.
From 2011's LEVIATHAN WAKES (nominated for the Hugo Award for Best
Novel in 2012) through 2021's LEVIATHAN FALLS, the novels of The
Expanse have told a story of adventure, political intrigue, and
humanity's drive to explore via excellent writing and story telling
with believable and well thought out characters. But while Corey
(the pseudonym of the writing team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck)
was writing the novels (and eventually working on the
Hugo-award-winning television show), he found time to write short
fiction set in The Expanse Universe, stories that filled in the
gaps for some characters, that were off the path of the main
narrative of the novel series (which did win the Hugo Award for
Best Series in 2020), or in the case of "The Sins of Our Fathers",
shed some light on a what happened to a character after the events
of LEVIATHAN FALLS. All of these stories are collected in
"Memory's Legion: The Complete Expanse Story Collection". While
I'd read a few of these stories over the years, I hadn't read them
all in any kind of order, so for me "Memory's Legion" was a
welcome addition to and completion of The Expanse story.
Three of the stories take place before the main novel series begin.
"The Drive", the first chronological story (but not the first
published), relates the creation of the Epstein Drive by Solomon
Epstein. He didn't know that's what he was doing, but it was
fairly evident that he wasn't going to survive to see what resulted
from his invention. I'd read this in its initial appearance in
Jonathan Strahan's "Edge of Infinity" anthology back when that
anthology was published. The next story is "The Churn", which on
the surface provides the backstory for Amos, but it is a lot more
than that, as most of these stories are. It is a very dark and
difficult story to read (or in my case, listen to), and there are
many twisted things going on here. Some events from this story are
referred to in the Season 5 episode of the TV show, "Churn". The
third story to take place before the novels begin is "The Butcher
of Anderson Station". Fred Johnson was a UN Marine colonel who
killed an entire station of protesting miners at the direction of
his bosses, no matter that they were attempting to surrender. It's
the story of the killing of the miners, of course, but it's more
than that, telling of Johnson's remorse and feelings of guilt for
something he really didn't want to do.
Perhaps my favorite story in the collection is "The Vital Abyss",
told from the point of view of Dr. Paolo Cortazar. It is once
again a very complex, dark, and disturbing story, wherein we learn
about the experiments that led to the releasing of the
Protomolecule early in the book series. As with all the other
stories in the collection, there is more to it than that, but it's
fascinating to me to discover not only how and why the
protomolecule got released, but also to learn about the people
involved in that project.
"Gods of Risk" is an interesting character study (well, kind of--it
does have a plot) of David Draper, a gifted chemistry student who
gets involved in some drug running when try to rescue a young
friend of his. There is much to be learned from this story about
societal pressures on youth, education pressures to get into the
best program at university, and social pressures of caring for
someone who in the end really doesn't care for him. Complicating
David's life is his aunt Bobbie--yes, THAT Bobbie Draper--who is
dealing with her own difficult circumstances at the time. This
story is touched upon from a different view in the Season 4
episode "Jetsam".
"Strange Dogs" is the most recognizable story from the television
series, as it made up a more than passing portion of each episode
of Season 6. The titular creatures are able to "fix" things that
are broken, including a bird, a drone and, eventually a young boy
named Xan, who dies in an accident. Xan's sister Cara, the one to
discover the Strange Dogs, asks them to fix him, and they do, but
then everything has changed. It is a story of gain and loss,
trust, and discovery of the unknown. Once again Dr. Cortazar makes
an appearance, as does Admiral Duarte. Cortazar, Duarte, Cara, and
Xan play important parts in the final three Expanse novels.
Auberon is the tale of a Laconian citizen appointed to be the
governor of the planet of Auberon, and strategic planet as it is
one of the first of the new worlds on the other side of the ring
gate. Govenor Rittenaur has come to the planet with his wife Mona
to bring order to the planet. But the society that is already
established there has other ideas. The Auberon underworld--for
lack of a better term--is led by Erich, whom we first met way back
in "The Churn". It's a story of a proud man who must compromise his
values so that he can bring order to the new world.
The final story takes place after the end of LEVIATHAN FALLS, the
final Expanse novel. "The Sins of Our Fathers" tells the story of
Filip Nagata--or as readers know him, Filip Inaros--as he tries to
live a new life on Jannah, one of the planets isolated after the
ring gates shut down during the events of LEVIATHAN FALLS. Filip
tries to distance himself from his past with the name change, of
course, but that past keeps coming back to haunt him. The sins of
the father is a biblical reference to the sins of one generation
passing to another, and Filip really can't avoid those sins in the
end. A fascinating tale of one of the more than one thousand
inhabitable worlds on the other side of the ring gate that were cut
off from each other and have to survive on their own.
Abraham and Franck have written author's notes for each story.
Each of the notes relates some fascinating pieces of information
about the stories. My favorite anecdote comes from the author's
note for "The Churn". The character of Timmy--who we eventually
learn will become the character Amos--has the potential to be
severely damaged psychologically by some of the events in the
story. Wes Chatham, who played Amos on the television series, took
the story to a psychotherapist to discuss what kinds of things
could happen to a kid being brought up in this environment.
Finally, what more can be said about narrator Jefferson Mays? His
narration has been awesome from beginning to end, and his reading
of these stories is nothing short of magnificent. Abraham and
Franck alternate their readings of the author's notes, but it is
Mays who leaves his mark on The Expanse. To me, he was as
important to The Expanse as any of the characters were, maybe even
more so, since he made them all come alive.
I'm going to miss The Expanse, whether it be the novels or the
short stories, and I'm sure going to miss Jefferson Mays.
"Memory's Legion" makes a fitting conclusion to the series. It is
terrific, and no fan of The Expanse should miss it. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Vampires (letter of comment by John Sloan)
In response to the comments on vampires in the 11/25/22 issue of
the MT VOID, John Sloan writes:
Peter Watts' novel BLINDSIGHT [Tor, 2006] has, as a background
detail, vampires as an apex predator species that went extinct
before human recorded history. They were resurrected through
genetic engineering (in a kind of nod to JURASSIC PARK) because of
their ability to survive suspended animation for long space
flights. Watts' vampires were kept from wiping out early humans
completely due to a cognitive "glitch" that causes them to have
grand-mal seizures when they see right angles (which tend to not
occur in nature). Watts' space traveling vampires depend on
anti-Euclidian drugs to suppress the glitch. (One imagines that as
humans began to build habitats, predation became harder and harder
for vampires until they eventually starved to death.) [-jls]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book and film comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
Our book-and-film discussion group chose THE QUATERMASS CONCLUSION
(a.k.a. QUATERMASS) for December, just barely making it into Nigel
Kneale's centenary year.
The television play QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, the third Quatermass
story, was shown on the BBC in 1958 and to nearly nobody's surprise
it was greatly admired for the sophisticated ideas it contained and
presented. In the late 70's Nigel Kneale was convinced to do one
final Quatermass TV play and did THE QUATERMASS CONCLUSION (about
3-1/2 hours long), this time for ITV. This time it was not
separately adapted into a film, but was edited into a
feature-length story of the same name (90 minutes long when shown
in Britain, but variously described as 100 or 105 minutes in the
United States).
Sadly, THE QUATERMASS CONCLUSION borrowed from the previous story
and even managed to be a bit distasteful. London has collapsed
into a battlefield for gang wars. Quatermass has come looking for
his missing granddaughter, who may have joined the cult of the
Planet People, who seem to be similar to the Heaven's Gate cult
(founded in 1974, and possibly an inspiration for Kneale's cult).
Kneale wrote both scripts (the four-part serial and the
feature-length film), as well as the novelization. There are a few
plot differences between the two visual versions besides the
obvious cuts, but Kneale said the novelization was his preferred
version. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors
got together and said: If we're going to charge $10
an hour, we can't call it jumping up and down.
--Rita Rudner
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