Is it a good cover just because it looks good? I'm sure Dominic Harman's "Mermaid" took a lot of hard work and skill to paint. Maybe someone would love to have a copy hanging on their wall, but it's not what I look for in a cover.
A cover should be more than a pretty picture. It should seize your attention, and compel you to pick up the magazine. It should make you want to read and find out what's going on or what's going to happen. The cover is supposed to fight for attention because in a magazine rack it has to compete with dozens, maybe hundreds of other magazines to attract new readers or casual buyers who pick up an issue now and then.
Maybe artists and art directors get caught up in things which only people who really know art will notice. They lose sight of cover fundamentals.
1. Grab attention! Your cover has to compete with lots of other covers, lots of other choices.
2. Intrigue people. Tantalize them so much that they want to read the magazine. Stories need a hook to pull readers in. The cover is the hook for the whole magazine.
This cover doesn't do any of that. Other than having fantastical subject matter, it has nothing else to do with the contents.
It looks nice though.
For more of Harman's work see http://www.dominic-harman.com/ Maybe you can get a nice print of "Mermaid" without all the words and titles, right?
Shawna McCarthy, Douglas Cohen, and Warren Lapine know more about running a magazine than I do. So, I'm not writing this to tell them how they should do covers. As a customer though, I enjoy covers that achieve those traditional cover goals.
A lot of the advertisements are for books which are a hybrid of fantasy and romance. Hey! Let's make male readers feel unwelcome. It makes me wonder if I'm part of Realms' target audience. Then again, if these are the companies willing to buy ads . . . well, hey! Why should Tir Na Nog turn down revenue which can help the magazine stay afloat? Still . . . reading this in the break room at work, for instance, risks a deluge of derisive comments from co-workers.
Realms contains lots of nonfiction. It has a games column. I'm not a gamer. I don't care. That's six pages I could do with out. I'm sure a lot of fantasy fans are gamers, so it makes sense.
I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but I've enjoyed the movies, and maybe I'll try Rowling's books some day. I enjoyed Resa Nelson's piece about the new Harry Potter movie.
As for the "Folkroots" column, I like music, but this section didn't grab my attention. Another eight pages I could do with out.
Karen Haber's article about artist Michael Hague interested me more than the "Folkroots" column.
Of the non-fiction departments, I liked the book reviews most. I discussed Warren Lapine's note last time, and I'll discuss Shawna McCarthy's editorial later in this post.
Now, on to the fiction. Often when people think of fantasy, they think of stories set in an imaginary land, in a pre-gunpowder age where magic works. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Robert E. Howard's Conan stories serve as prime examples. Both can fit under the banner of heroic fantasy. However that's not the only type of fantasy. I just want to say that because this issue contains no heroic fantasy. That's disappointing because I'd love to read some newer sword & sorcery like Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber wrote.
This issue's closest stories to traditional heroic fantasy are Tanith Lee's "Our Lady of Scarlet" which has a medieval European setting and Bruce Holland Rogers's "Well and Truly Broken" which has a generic fairy tale (RE: medieval/ early Renaissance European) setting.
Andelm, the protagonist of "Our Lady of Scarlet", is a scholar. A plague ravages the city. Andelm privately rejects Christianity while maintaining a public pretense of respect. He trusts only in his own intelligence and learning. It disturbs Andelm when his landlady starts a cult to a false idol, The Red Virgin.
Lee creates a creepy atmosphere as Andelm realizes the newly spawned deity stalks him. Nor is The Red Virgin the only being who stakes a claim on Andelm.
Dennis Danvers's "Healing Benjamin" won't get confused with heroic fantasy. It's also an excellent story, following a man and a very long lived cat named Benjamin who can talk and successfully invest in stocks. (We could use more cats like him these days.)
The cat isn't the only member of the duo with peculiar abilities. See, the man and the cat grew up together, and the cat was normal until he died at the ripe old age of seventeen. - - Then the man brought him back to life.
The story follows the man and Benjamin through their lives which they mostly live while keeping some distance between themselves and others. They keep the cat's unnaturally long life a secret until the man starts dating a certain someone.
Complications follow . . . .
Ian Creasey's "Digging for Paradise" occurs in the distant future when the world has stopped turning. The characters come from a culture with advanced machinery powered by magic. Sorcerers are celebrities and seem like politicians or perhaps mob bosses.
A sorcerer named Ren Gessel hires Hadro, the story's narrator. Hadro is an archaeologist. Hadro is desperate because a sorcerous despot has imprisoned his wife and sent lackeys after him. Hadro plans to bribe the lackeys with his earnings. He didn't know that Ren Gessel intended to put him in stasis for eons, and that he'd wake up long after his wife and everyone he knew except Gessel and Gessel's servants had died.
In the story's world, sorcerers can draw power from power stones which they sow and which soak up magical power until the sorcerers collect them years later. Gessel decided that he and a few key helpers, including Hadro, should stay in stasis for thousands of years by which time the stones could have absorbed almost infinite power.
Gessel promises to share the power and entices Hadro by saying Hadro could restore his wife to life. Would she really want that though? Having suffered under a sorcerous tyrant, Hadro wonders if he should trust anyone with virtually unlimited power. There may be a way to stop Ren Gessel, but should Hadro do it?
There are times when this story threatens to devolve into a shrill political screed. Creasey succeeds in portraying the conflict and maintaining suspense. Blindly trusting others with power can have horrific consequences, but does too little trust pose problems too?
Bruce Holland Rogers's "Well and Truly Broken" reads like a fairy tale. Three sisters wander into a forbidden forest and gain something to aspire to . . . if they can ever truly reach it. I wondered if there was a classic con happening here, where the con artist uses a mark's greed and willingness to deceive others against the mark.
In her editorial, Shawna McCarthy makes a case for the importance of genre magazines like Realms and why genre readers should support them. She argues that they serve as training grounds for up and coming writers on one hand. On the other hand, they serve (along with book publishers) as gatekeepers who save readers from having to sort through all the drek to find the good stuff. She contrasts this to certain Internet and print on demand venues with no quality checks.
With my less than stellar proofreading skills, I really shouldn't complain about all the typos, but . . . Dang! They distracted, especially during Tanith Lee's story.
Douglas Cohen (who I gather served as kind of a first reader even though he is the nonfiction editor) and Shawna McCarthy did an excellent job selecting stories. I enjoyed them, but if I wasn't a subscriber, I probably wouldn't have bought this issue if I saw it on the newsstand. First, would I have browsing time left after looking at competitors with more intriguing covers? (Again, I don't have a problem with the artwork. It's just that nothing about it makes me say, "Whoa! I need to read that magazine to see what that's all about.)
If I had enough time, or no one else had a cover which screamed for more attention, I'd still have problems. The magazine is eighty-two pages long, but for me, fourteen of them, the gaming and "Folkroots" column, are a waste. Do people really buy this magazine because of the gaming column? It seems like gamers could spend their money better on the magazines devoted specifically to gaming. (Just like fans of fantastic fiction could get more bang for their buck by buying magazines which devote more space to stories. Get the picture?)
I will read stuff like the Harry Potter and Michael Hague articles if they're in magazines I got for other reasons. (On the other hand, if it was a Hal Foster article with lots of stuff I didn't know about Foster, I'd be more intrigued. Still, that's not my point.) I liked the book reviews, and they at least show fantasy readers where they can find more fantasy to read.
That brings me to my main problem. Cohen and McCarthy picked excellent stories, but I want more of them. Remember those eighty-two pages? They only contain twenty-four pages of fiction, plus four full page illustrations accompanying the stories. I didn't include full page ads when counting story pages. (There was at least one page divided half and half. I counted it as a story page.)
For a few dollars more, I could buy a standard paperback containing far more fiction. What's the better deal?
At the newsstand, instead of Realms, I'd spend my money on something with more story content. As a subscriber, I'd like to see Realms replace some of the departments with more fiction.
For Realms 's website, go to: http://www.realmsoffantasymag.com/
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Realms of Fantasy (August 2009) OR The Return of Warren Lapine.
Something seemed strange.
Last Saturday I checked the mail and found the latest issue of Shawna McCarthy's Realms of Fantasy. Hmmm . . . That's weird.
No.1 - - I wasn't a subscriber.
No.2 - - I thought it got cancelled.
I explained those away. I figured I'd heard wrong about the cancellation, and maybe it was a promotional copy. You know, a sample to get me hooked. I didn't know I was in for an even bigger surprise.
I was just finishing The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 which reprinted stories from 1999. I decided, "Hey! Now I'll review something current!" So, I opened Realms and saw something that nearly floored me.
The publisher's name.
Warren Lapine.
According to his account in Chronicle #233 (February/March 2003), Lapine started publishing in 1993 with a small press science fiction magazine called Harsh Mistress. Lapine walked into a bookstore and saw it shelved next to Hustler. He decided he needed a new name, and he settled on Absolute Magnitude. Among the stories published there was the Hal Clement story "Exchange Rate" which I discussed in my Year's Best Science Fiction review.
He met and married Angela Kessler. Together they started Dreams of Decadence, a magazine of vampire fiction and poetry. Lapine had teamed with Edward McFadden, editor/publisher of Pirate Writings, and decided to buy out McFadden. Then Lapine went a step further and changed Pirate Writings' name to Fantastic Stories after the famous SF/fantasy digest.
Buying established magazines and using established names became a pattern with Lapine's DNA. (BTW, he gave credit to various partners through out his tenth anniversary account of DNA's history.) For instance, Owlswick, had been publishing a revival of the renowned pulp Weird Tales. The revival was on the brink of collapse and had even lost the rights to the title Weird Tales. Lapine bought the magazine and got the rights to the title back. He seemed like a monopoly player using all his cash early on to buy every property he landed on.
I bought copies of the DNA Weird Tales and the occasional Fantastic Stories at the Holyoke, Massachusetts Barnes and Noble.
I'd subscribed to Andrew Porter's genre news magazine, Science Fiction Chronicle since 1992. DNA bought it from Porter and took over with #207 (August/September 2000). Lapine announced big plans, and in the early days he carried them out. Here are only a few examples most noticeable to me as a reader. Starting in 2001, Lapine switched the magazine back to a monthly schedule and got it out on time. The switch to glossy paper wasn't a big deal for me, but yes, he switched it to glossy paper. He also shortened the name to Chronicle. I wasn't too keen on that last one.
Porter was supposed to stay on as editor for a short time, but then he appeared to abruptly depart earlier than expected.
However, the issues came out monthly and on time. Plus, I enjoyed reading them.
Then signs of trouble appeared. I still bought Weird Tales at Barnes & Noble. One issue, I saw an announcement that Weird Tales was going monthly. The issue carrying the announcement was the last I ever saw at Barnes & Noble. It could have been just a single store changing its buying policy, right?
In 2004, DNA launched a magazine devoted to the rock band Kiss. Was DNA overreaching? Was it losing focus? Lapine already had another non-genre magazine. He'd bought and remade the floundering Whole Cat Journal.
I often wondered how Weird Tales was doing after it disappeared from the local Barnes & Noble. I kept thinking I should subscribe. Errr . . . well . . . Then I got Chronicle #261 (July 2005). Lapine announced that he'd sold Weird Tales to Wildside Press.
What was going on? Wasn't Weird Tales a core title, a prestigious name for someone building a small press genre empire?
I kept receiving Chronicle for a few more months, but they started arriving late. The last couple seemed downright irregular. Then they stopped arriving at all.
I wondered, had there been some kind of snafu with my subscription? I tried contacting DNA. No luck there.
Well, I figured that's one of the hazards of subscribing to small press magazines. Publishers burn out and disappear from the scene, or they run out of money. After all, a lot of these things do well if they just break even. For most fan publishers, it's a hobby. If they can minimize the losses enough to keep putting stuff out with money earned at a "real job," they keep going until enthusiasm runs out.
I was surprised it happened to Science Fiction Chronicle, (sorry, but that's the title by which I'll always remember it) but I harbored no ill will toward Lapine. I know many people didn't share my opinion, and that writers, artists, editors, and business associates had bigger stakes than I did. I resigned myself to thinking I'd lost my subscription money.
So there I was looking at Warren Lapine listed as Realms' new publisher. He called his new company Tir Na Nog. I think that's Gaelic for "Land of Eternal Youth."
I flipped to the publisher's note to see what was going on. Lapine glossed over DNA's collapse. Turns out that there had been a Facebook campaign to save Realms just when Lapine was returning to magazine publishing. Rather than revive Fantastic Stories first as planned, he bought Realms.
Then I found out why I got an issue of Realms. Lapine said, "Some of you've received Realms unexpectedly. You received it because you had unfilled subscriptions to the magazines that I used to publish- Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadence, Fantastic Stories, and SFC. You'll get one copy of Realms for each issue you were owed. We're also seriously considering reviving several of those titles. If we do you'll still get the full amount of those magazines that you were owed, so ultimately you may get two issues for each one you paid for."
Maybe some of us who subscribed to those other magazines won't like the substitution.
Me?
I wish Science Fiction Chronicle was still going, but Realms intrigues me. I like fantasy. Plus, I'm at least getting something for the money I paid.
I'm glad Warren Lapine returned to genre publishing. Maybe he's learned some painful lessons and gained some knowledge which will help him to do better this time.
Welcome back, Warren.
Last Saturday I checked the mail and found the latest issue of Shawna McCarthy's Realms of Fantasy. Hmmm . . . That's weird.
No.1 - - I wasn't a subscriber.
No.2 - - I thought it got cancelled.
I explained those away. I figured I'd heard wrong about the cancellation, and maybe it was a promotional copy. You know, a sample to get me hooked. I didn't know I was in for an even bigger surprise.
I was just finishing The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 which reprinted stories from 1999. I decided, "Hey! Now I'll review something current!" So, I opened Realms and saw something that nearly floored me.
The publisher's name.
Warren Lapine.
According to his account in Chronicle #233 (February/March 2003), Lapine started publishing in 1993 with a small press science fiction magazine called Harsh Mistress. Lapine walked into a bookstore and saw it shelved next to Hustler. He decided he needed a new name, and he settled on Absolute Magnitude. Among the stories published there was the Hal Clement story "Exchange Rate" which I discussed in my Year's Best Science Fiction review.
He met and married Angela Kessler. Together they started Dreams of Decadence, a magazine of vampire fiction and poetry. Lapine had teamed with Edward McFadden, editor/publisher of Pirate Writings, and decided to buy out McFadden. Then Lapine went a step further and changed Pirate Writings' name to Fantastic Stories after the famous SF/fantasy digest.
Buying established magazines and using established names became a pattern with Lapine's DNA. (BTW, he gave credit to various partners through out his tenth anniversary account of DNA's history.) For instance, Owlswick, had been publishing a revival of the renowned pulp Weird Tales. The revival was on the brink of collapse and had even lost the rights to the title Weird Tales. Lapine bought the magazine and got the rights to the title back. He seemed like a monopoly player using all his cash early on to buy every property he landed on.
I bought copies of the DNA Weird Tales and the occasional Fantastic Stories at the Holyoke, Massachusetts Barnes and Noble.
I'd subscribed to Andrew Porter's genre news magazine, Science Fiction Chronicle since 1992. DNA bought it from Porter and took over with #207 (August/September 2000). Lapine announced big plans, and in the early days he carried them out. Here are only a few examples most noticeable to me as a reader. Starting in 2001, Lapine switched the magazine back to a monthly schedule and got it out on time. The switch to glossy paper wasn't a big deal for me, but yes, he switched it to glossy paper. He also shortened the name to Chronicle. I wasn't too keen on that last one.
Porter was supposed to stay on as editor for a short time, but then he appeared to abruptly depart earlier than expected.
However, the issues came out monthly and on time. Plus, I enjoyed reading them.
Then signs of trouble appeared. I still bought Weird Tales at Barnes & Noble. One issue, I saw an announcement that Weird Tales was going monthly. The issue carrying the announcement was the last I ever saw at Barnes & Noble. It could have been just a single store changing its buying policy, right?
In 2004, DNA launched a magazine devoted to the rock band Kiss. Was DNA overreaching? Was it losing focus? Lapine already had another non-genre magazine. He'd bought and remade the floundering Whole Cat Journal.
I often wondered how Weird Tales was doing after it disappeared from the local Barnes & Noble. I kept thinking I should subscribe. Errr . . . well . . . Then I got Chronicle #261 (July 2005). Lapine announced that he'd sold Weird Tales to Wildside Press.
What was going on? Wasn't Weird Tales a core title, a prestigious name for someone building a small press genre empire?
I kept receiving Chronicle for a few more months, but they started arriving late. The last couple seemed downright irregular. Then they stopped arriving at all.
I wondered, had there been some kind of snafu with my subscription? I tried contacting DNA. No luck there.
Well, I figured that's one of the hazards of subscribing to small press magazines. Publishers burn out and disappear from the scene, or they run out of money. After all, a lot of these things do well if they just break even. For most fan publishers, it's a hobby. If they can minimize the losses enough to keep putting stuff out with money earned at a "real job," they keep going until enthusiasm runs out.
I was surprised it happened to Science Fiction Chronicle, (sorry, but that's the title by which I'll always remember it) but I harbored no ill will toward Lapine. I know many people didn't share my opinion, and that writers, artists, editors, and business associates had bigger stakes than I did. I resigned myself to thinking I'd lost my subscription money.
So there I was looking at Warren Lapine listed as Realms' new publisher. He called his new company Tir Na Nog. I think that's Gaelic for "Land of Eternal Youth."
I flipped to the publisher's note to see what was going on. Lapine glossed over DNA's collapse. Turns out that there had been a Facebook campaign to save Realms just when Lapine was returning to magazine publishing. Rather than revive Fantastic Stories first as planned, he bought Realms.
Then I found out why I got an issue of Realms. Lapine said, "Some of you've received Realms unexpectedly. You received it because you had unfilled subscriptions to the magazines that I used to publish- Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadence, Fantastic Stories, and SFC. You'll get one copy of Realms for each issue you were owed. We're also seriously considering reviving several of those titles. If we do you'll still get the full amount of those magazines that you were owed, so ultimately you may get two issues for each one you paid for."
Maybe some of us who subscribed to those other magazines won't like the substitution.
Me?
I wish Science Fiction Chronicle was still going, but Realms intrigues me. I like fantasy. Plus, I'm at least getting something for the money I paid.
I'm glad Warren Lapine returned to genre publishing. Maybe he's learned some painful lessons and gained some knowledge which will help him to do better this time.
Welcome back, Warren.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Part IV and Conclusion: The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 (Stories From 1999)
The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 (Stories from 1999) Reviewing pages 383-625
Charles Sheffield's "Phallicide" (Science Fiction Age September 1999) is set in southern Utah, an area I've visited. The setting includes St. George where my wife went to college and a fictional town called Bryceville.
The story walks a fine line as far as promoting negative stereotypes. Although The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) banned polygamy over 110 years ago, an alarming number of people still ignorantly believe that Mormons practice it. Mormons make up close to 70% of Utah's population and 90% of southern Utah's. There are polygamist groups in Utah and elsewhere who ARE NOT Mormons. Sheffield does establish that the polygamist group lives in and controls Bryceville and that it regards St. George as the outside world. Still, there are many readers who will see that the story is about polygamists in Utah and who will ignorantly assume it's about Mormons. It would have been better if Sheffield had clearly spelled out the difference.
"Phallicide" is narrated by Dr. Rachel Stafford, a brilliant scientist in her late 20s who also belongs to a polygamist sect, The Blessed Order. In her early teens she won a science contest in a fashion that showed so much genius, that a pharmaceutical company negotiated a deal with the Order for putting Stafford through school and then putting her in charge of a lab in St. George. She's supposed to be sharing everything with the company, but she secretly works on projects requested by the Order's leadership. While in her early teens, Stafford had a daughter, Naomi, and the Order's leadership uses Naomi for leverage over Stafford.
When Stafford learns that a man in his 60s, the son of the Sect's Prophet, intends to marry Naomi, now 13, she devises a plan to rescue Naomi and sabotage the Order.
At times it seems like Sheffield just saw a Dateline Special about modern polygamists, and is regurgitating the message, but in the end "Phallicide"'s message is ambiguous.
Walter Jon Williams's "Daddy's World" (Not of Woman Born, ed. Constance Ash) starts off in a surrealistic fashion, until we learn the true nature of Jamie, the main character, and the world he lives in. It's almost a Garden of Eden like story where a Golden Age is destroyed by forbidden knowledge.
I don't know Williams's intent, but I suspect we're supposed to see Jamie's father, who tries to preserve his son's innocence and keep his family together, as a bad guy. It's hard to see it that way though, since Jamie was happy and enjoying life until he learned the truth. Afterward, he was angry, miserable, and depressed.
You could read this story as a struggle between a child and a parent who doesn't want the child to grow up. Of course, we all need to grow up and achieve independence from our parents eventually.
Or maybe the story is attacking the traditional family, consisting of a mother, a father and their children. References to "normal family life" come across as patronizing, sarcastic, disparaging, or chilling depending on the character's viewpoint and the context. In modern culture we get this attitude, "Gee, some awful stuff happens in some families, and no relationship between spouses, siblings, parents, and children is 100% harmonious all the time. Therefore all families are dysfunctional." It's like, "Since no one is like the Cleavers from Leave it to Beaver, let's just be disillusioned about families and scrap the whole concept."
Throughout human history, there have been all kinds of family arrangements. There are situations where single parents raise kids, grandparents raise grandchildren, aunts and uncles raise nieces and nephews. There have been step parents, foster parents etc., etc. In recent centuries there have been orphanages. There have been couples who don't have children. Lately though, the media goes out of its way to attack the set-up where a mother and father raise their children. Sometimes the relentless crusade gets tiresome.
Kim Stanley Robinson's "A Martian Romance" (Asimov's October/November 1999) takes place on a Mars that's an alternate vision of the Mars from Robinson's series about terraforming Mars. In this story, terraforming appears to have failed. Is all hope really lost though? Robinson wrote this story is the present tense, and the prose is beautiful.
Tanith Lee's "The Sky-Green Blues" (Interzone April 1999) feels like it's set in colonial south-east Asia during Japan's World War II invasions. It actually takes place on an alien world at war. The main character travels there to interview a great writer only to learn the true extent of his talent.
Hal Clement's "Exchange Rate" (Absolute Magnitude Winter 1999) displays a few rough patches early on when Clement has characters tell each other things they already know in order to explain things to the reader. Clement's storytelling and characterization soon won me over though as he develops a mystery, resolves it, and then leads us through the reaction and final resolution. The story tells about the interaction between a group of humans stationed on a planet with an extremely inhospitable environment and their interaction with the intelligent alien life form they meet there. Given the miscommunication and misunderstanding between human and alien throughout the story, I was disappointed that the humans didn't emphasize the issue in the debate among themselves leading to the resolution.
Geoff Ryman's "Everywhere" (Interzone February 1999) shows a Utopian future through the spectrum of a grandson's relationship with his grandfather. We get an appreciation of the wonders and the progress made and simultaneously see those same wonders accepted as just a plain old part of everyday life.
Mike Resnick's "Hothouse Flowers" (Asimov's October/November 1999) shows a nursing home in the future when lifespans have expanded greatly, but quality of life hasn't kept pace. In someways, it presents an exaggerated version (the exaggeration being that someone is over 150 years old instead of 98, and there's a huge percentage of patients in vegetative states) of situations that arise today. Oh, and in this future euthanasia is banned. One patient attempts to bait an attendant into ignoring his training to preserve life at all costs.
Resnick sets up a situation that only shows the ill-effects of not allowing euthanasia. It doesn't allow for considering the danger that voluntary mercy killings might lead to some "voluntary" killings which aren't so voluntary after all. A look at the plight of the old and infirm today offers chilling possibilities. After all, how many of the elderly in a nursing home are really there voluntarily?
Sean Williams's "Evermore" (Altair #4) takes place on a space probe containing artificial intelligences which are the recreated consciousnesses (engrams) of various brilliant people. An accident has crippled the probe, sending it far off course. A thousand years have passed with no sign of rescue. The engrams confront the possibility of altering their own programing so they can change, adapt, and resolve their problem rather than remain stagnant, unable to drift too far from their originals.
Robert Grossbach's "Of Scorned Women and Casual Loops" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction January 1999) involves a detective questioning a scientist about not totally unforeseen side effects of time travel. Even though the title mentions loops, the actual side effect isn't a time loop, a paradox, or an alternate reality. It's a problem I don't remember ever seeing in a time travel story before. Just when I thought I'd seen it all, someone comes up with a new twist.
The book's final story also involves time travel. Kage Baker's "Son Observe the Time" (Asimov's May 1999) superficially reminds me of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore's "Vintage Season." (It appeared in 1946 under the pseudonym "Lawrence O'Donnell.") Where "Vintage Season" is about time tourists who visit a city and interact with people whom they are forbidden to warn just prior to a disaster, "Son Observe the Time" is about a cyborg sent with other cyborgs to San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake. The cyborgs are humans augmented by machinery and they still have emotions and morals. The company which turned them into cyborgs sends them to places just prior to disasters to recover artistic, scientific, and historical treasures which were lost in the disaster, so that the company will be able to display the items in future museums and exhibitions. Like Kuttner and Moore's tourists, Baker's cyborgs can't save the people with whom they interact - - well, they can't save most of them. They can save children who match the physical requirements for becoming cyborgs and working for the company. As cyborgs they become virtually immortal.
The main character, a cyborg named Victor, represses his true feelings and motives. He's dishonest with others and himself. Perhaps it's his way of dealing with people he knows are doomed and with situations he finds morally difficult.
Disguised as a day laborer, he pretends to befriend (at least he tells himself he's only pretending) a fellow day laborer named Francis O'Neil. While Victor is forbidden from helping O'Neil, his wife, and two of his three children, he discovers that O'Neil's son, Donal, meets the requirements for transformation.
Victor's attempt to rescue the boy leads him to confront some troubling aspects of the company he works for.
This is the first volume of Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction which I've read. In Part I of this review, I said the format reminded me the most of Datlow and Windling's volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Although, in retrospect it also reminds me of anthologies like The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. I noted that Dozois's year in review was shorter than Windling and Datlow's (I've yet to read the volumes published after Windling stepped down), but I found it more readable.
I also noticed that Dozois's stories selections came from less diverse sources. If someone had subscribed to about three of the better known science fiction magazines in 1999, they already would've had most of the stories here.
They're good SF stories though and all worthy of preservation in book form. I liked that Dozois favored classically structured stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. The occasional literary experiment is fine, but sometimes there's a few too many of those in Windling and Datlow's volumes along with too many vague and inconclusive endings. That sort of thing can be refreshing when it's a change of pace, but it gets annoying after awhile.
Combining the 625 Arabic numeral pages with the 53 Roman numeral pages of the year in review section, this book comes to 678 pages of material. I read it straight through. While I love Windling and Datlow's collections, I get bored part way through, and I usually put them aside for a few months a time or two before I get interested in finishing them. That wasn't a problem here. Even though I didn't agree with the messages of some stories, I found them thought provoking, and I enjoyed reading them all.
Charles Sheffield's "Phallicide" (Science Fiction Age September 1999) is set in southern Utah, an area I've visited. The setting includes St. George where my wife went to college and a fictional town called Bryceville.
The story walks a fine line as far as promoting negative stereotypes. Although The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) banned polygamy over 110 years ago, an alarming number of people still ignorantly believe that Mormons practice it. Mormons make up close to 70% of Utah's population and 90% of southern Utah's. There are polygamist groups in Utah and elsewhere who ARE NOT Mormons. Sheffield does establish that the polygamist group lives in and controls Bryceville and that it regards St. George as the outside world. Still, there are many readers who will see that the story is about polygamists in Utah and who will ignorantly assume it's about Mormons. It would have been better if Sheffield had clearly spelled out the difference.
"Phallicide" is narrated by Dr. Rachel Stafford, a brilliant scientist in her late 20s who also belongs to a polygamist sect, The Blessed Order. In her early teens she won a science contest in a fashion that showed so much genius, that a pharmaceutical company negotiated a deal with the Order for putting Stafford through school and then putting her in charge of a lab in St. George. She's supposed to be sharing everything with the company, but she secretly works on projects requested by the Order's leadership. While in her early teens, Stafford had a daughter, Naomi, and the Order's leadership uses Naomi for leverage over Stafford.
When Stafford learns that a man in his 60s, the son of the Sect's Prophet, intends to marry Naomi, now 13, she devises a plan to rescue Naomi and sabotage the Order.
At times it seems like Sheffield just saw a Dateline Special about modern polygamists, and is regurgitating the message, but in the end "Phallicide"'s message is ambiguous.
Walter Jon Williams's "Daddy's World" (Not of Woman Born, ed. Constance Ash) starts off in a surrealistic fashion, until we learn the true nature of Jamie, the main character, and the world he lives in. It's almost a Garden of Eden like story where a Golden Age is destroyed by forbidden knowledge.
I don't know Williams's intent, but I suspect we're supposed to see Jamie's father, who tries to preserve his son's innocence and keep his family together, as a bad guy. It's hard to see it that way though, since Jamie was happy and enjoying life until he learned the truth. Afterward, he was angry, miserable, and depressed.
You could read this story as a struggle between a child and a parent who doesn't want the child to grow up. Of course, we all need to grow up and achieve independence from our parents eventually.
Or maybe the story is attacking the traditional family, consisting of a mother, a father and their children. References to "normal family life" come across as patronizing, sarcastic, disparaging, or chilling depending on the character's viewpoint and the context. In modern culture we get this attitude, "Gee, some awful stuff happens in some families, and no relationship between spouses, siblings, parents, and children is 100% harmonious all the time. Therefore all families are dysfunctional." It's like, "Since no one is like the Cleavers from Leave it to Beaver, let's just be disillusioned about families and scrap the whole concept."
Throughout human history, there have been all kinds of family arrangements. There are situations where single parents raise kids, grandparents raise grandchildren, aunts and uncles raise nieces and nephews. There have been step parents, foster parents etc., etc. In recent centuries there have been orphanages. There have been couples who don't have children. Lately though, the media goes out of its way to attack the set-up where a mother and father raise their children. Sometimes the relentless crusade gets tiresome.
Kim Stanley Robinson's "A Martian Romance" (Asimov's October/November 1999) takes place on a Mars that's an alternate vision of the Mars from Robinson's series about terraforming Mars. In this story, terraforming appears to have failed. Is all hope really lost though? Robinson wrote this story is the present tense, and the prose is beautiful.
Tanith Lee's "The Sky-Green Blues" (Interzone April 1999) feels like it's set in colonial south-east Asia during Japan's World War II invasions. It actually takes place on an alien world at war. The main character travels there to interview a great writer only to learn the true extent of his talent.
Hal Clement's "Exchange Rate" (Absolute Magnitude Winter 1999) displays a few rough patches early on when Clement has characters tell each other things they already know in order to explain things to the reader. Clement's storytelling and characterization soon won me over though as he develops a mystery, resolves it, and then leads us through the reaction and final resolution. The story tells about the interaction between a group of humans stationed on a planet with an extremely inhospitable environment and their interaction with the intelligent alien life form they meet there. Given the miscommunication and misunderstanding between human and alien throughout the story, I was disappointed that the humans didn't emphasize the issue in the debate among themselves leading to the resolution.
Geoff Ryman's "Everywhere" (Interzone February 1999) shows a Utopian future through the spectrum of a grandson's relationship with his grandfather. We get an appreciation of the wonders and the progress made and simultaneously see those same wonders accepted as just a plain old part of everyday life.
Mike Resnick's "Hothouse Flowers" (Asimov's October/November 1999) shows a nursing home in the future when lifespans have expanded greatly, but quality of life hasn't kept pace. In someways, it presents an exaggerated version (the exaggeration being that someone is over 150 years old instead of 98, and there's a huge percentage of patients in vegetative states) of situations that arise today. Oh, and in this future euthanasia is banned. One patient attempts to bait an attendant into ignoring his training to preserve life at all costs.
Resnick sets up a situation that only shows the ill-effects of not allowing euthanasia. It doesn't allow for considering the danger that voluntary mercy killings might lead to some "voluntary" killings which aren't so voluntary after all. A look at the plight of the old and infirm today offers chilling possibilities. After all, how many of the elderly in a nursing home are really there voluntarily?
Sean Williams's "Evermore" (Altair #4) takes place on a space probe containing artificial intelligences which are the recreated consciousnesses (engrams) of various brilliant people. An accident has crippled the probe, sending it far off course. A thousand years have passed with no sign of rescue. The engrams confront the possibility of altering their own programing so they can change, adapt, and resolve their problem rather than remain stagnant, unable to drift too far from their originals.
Robert Grossbach's "Of Scorned Women and Casual Loops" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction January 1999) involves a detective questioning a scientist about not totally unforeseen side effects of time travel. Even though the title mentions loops, the actual side effect isn't a time loop, a paradox, or an alternate reality. It's a problem I don't remember ever seeing in a time travel story before. Just when I thought I'd seen it all, someone comes up with a new twist.
The book's final story also involves time travel. Kage Baker's "Son Observe the Time" (Asimov's May 1999) superficially reminds me of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore's "Vintage Season." (It appeared in 1946 under the pseudonym "Lawrence O'Donnell.") Where "Vintage Season" is about time tourists who visit a city and interact with people whom they are forbidden to warn just prior to a disaster, "Son Observe the Time" is about a cyborg sent with other cyborgs to San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake. The cyborgs are humans augmented by machinery and they still have emotions and morals. The company which turned them into cyborgs sends them to places just prior to disasters to recover artistic, scientific, and historical treasures which were lost in the disaster, so that the company will be able to display the items in future museums and exhibitions. Like Kuttner and Moore's tourists, Baker's cyborgs can't save the people with whom they interact - - well, they can't save most of them. They can save children who match the physical requirements for becoming cyborgs and working for the company. As cyborgs they become virtually immortal.
The main character, a cyborg named Victor, represses his true feelings and motives. He's dishonest with others and himself. Perhaps it's his way of dealing with people he knows are doomed and with situations he finds morally difficult.
Disguised as a day laborer, he pretends to befriend (at least he tells himself he's only pretending) a fellow day laborer named Francis O'Neil. While Victor is forbidden from helping O'Neil, his wife, and two of his three children, he discovers that O'Neil's son, Donal, meets the requirements for transformation.
Victor's attempt to rescue the boy leads him to confront some troubling aspects of the company he works for.
This is the first volume of Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction which I've read. In Part I of this review, I said the format reminded me the most of Datlow and Windling's volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Although, in retrospect it also reminds me of anthologies like The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. I noted that Dozois's year in review was shorter than Windling and Datlow's (I've yet to read the volumes published after Windling stepped down), but I found it more readable.
I also noticed that Dozois's stories selections came from less diverse sources. If someone had subscribed to about three of the better known science fiction magazines in 1999, they already would've had most of the stories here.
They're good SF stories though and all worthy of preservation in book form. I liked that Dozois favored classically structured stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. The occasional literary experiment is fine, but sometimes there's a few too many of those in Windling and Datlow's volumes along with too many vague and inconclusive endings. That sort of thing can be refreshing when it's a change of pace, but it gets annoying after awhile.
Combining the 625 Arabic numeral pages with the 53 Roman numeral pages of the year in review section, this book comes to 678 pages of material. I read it straight through. While I love Windling and Datlow's collections, I get bored part way through, and I usually put them aside for a few months a time or two before I get interested in finishing them. That wasn't a problem here. Even though I didn't agree with the messages of some stories, I found them thought provoking, and I enjoyed reading them all.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
"Hey! Sci Fi Channel! Thanks for Making The Twilight Zone's 50th Anniversary So Special!" He Said Sarcastically.
This year, the Sci Fi Channel ran marathons of the 1980s Twilight Zone and the original Twilight Zone back to back. If they ever include the Forrest Whitaker version, I'll run from the TV screaming.
Sci Fi considered it all one marathon, but I consider it two different ones. I liked it, but I'm glad that all the 80s stuff ran in one block and the original stuff all in another.
I hadn't seen most of the 80s episodes in over 20 years. I know Chiller has been showing them, but I usually don't watch, or only catch part of an episode over there. I loved the 80s version when CBS broadcast it though, and I remember many episodes very well despite not seeing them for decades. I haven't noticed any of my favorites when I channel surf through Chiller.
The 1985 and 86 stuff held up well. I missed "A Message From Charity," the episode which made me a fan of the 80s show. I did see some long remembered favorites like "The Shadow Man," and enjoyed them just as much as the first time I saw them. Most of the 1987 episodes I saw were weak. The best I one I noticed from 87 was "Shelter Skelter." I've heard people rave about the ending, but I wasn't all that impressed. Besides, the guy wouldn't have survived the blast at all if he didn't have that bomb shelter. Man! Was he dumb or what? (Hint: The question was sarcastic.)
As far as the old shows, the strongest sustained stretch came between 6:00 PM and around 11:00 PM on the 4th itself. When any of the episodes which ran between those times comes on and I'm able to watch them, I watch them. I also love "Death's Head Revisited" which ran at 11:00 PM, but I don't rank it quite as high as the episodes which ran before it. The 11:30 episode, "The Hunt," is one which I like, but I can skip it if there are other things to do like putting out the trash and cleaning up around the house. I'd do stuff like that during an episode like "The Hunt" if they need to be done. With episodes like "The Howling Man," "Where is Everybody?" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," I'm glued to the screen.
A few things disappointed me. This year marks The Twilight Zone's 50th anniversary. Obviously, this excludes "The Time Element," regarded by many fans as an unofficial pilot. "The Time Element" (which I'd love to see in a marathon) aired in 1958. The official pilot, "Where is Everybody?" aired in 1959. And, of course, "The Time Element" was really an episode of another anthology show after all. Anyway, other than running a little banner on the bottom of the screen announcing that it was The Twilight Zone's 50th Anniversary, Sci Fi didn't do anything special to commemorate the milestone.
If anything, Sci Fi made this marathon less special than others. In recent years, Sci Fi has been running uncut versions of many episodes. At the moment, I don't remember why the episodes were cut, and a quick search didn't bring up the information. Was it because commercial breaks increased between the time the show originally aired and when it aired in syndication? I can't recall. Suffice it to say, the shows got cut. When Sci Fi started running uncut episodes, they hyped it a lot. They still ran plenty of cut episodes, but between certain times, they showed the uncut stuff. Between that and my DVDs, I got used to seeing the original versions of many episodes. Judging by the odd running times of some episodes during the most recent New Year's Marathon, they were still running some uncut episodes, but they didn't hype it in their promotional spots. I don't know what Sci Fi's schedule claimed, but, judging by the run times of this marathon's episodes, none of them appeared to be uncut.
With my DVDs now, and after a few years of even seeing uncut versions on TV, I've noticed how hacked up some of the best episodes were. I've been spoiled watching the uncut stuff. One that made my jaw drop was "Third From the Sun." There's some great stuff missing from that episode. Not spectacular action stuff. Just great character and storytelling bits. The kind of stuff that still makes The Twilight Zone shine even in this age of special effects spectacles.
It would have been nice if Sci Fi had aired some interviews and some sort of documentary material. In recent years when Sci Fi ran some episodes uncut, they also aired commercials for the "Complete Definitive Edition" Twilight Zone DVDs. These often had snippets of interviews and other extras on the DVDs so that the commercials actually enhanced the marathon. Unfortunately, none of those commercials ran either. So besides losing the uncut episodes, we fans also lost out on little bits of behind the scenes commentary.
But wait! Sci Fi didn't stop there. They excluded all the hour long episodes too. Originally, Serling wanted hour long episodes. CBS insisted on half hour episodes though. Serling soon realized that the half hour length was perfect for what he wanted to do. A few seasons later, CBS changed its mind and wanted hour long episodes. Serling fought the change. Despite that, some of the hour long episodes were terrific. I love "He's Alive!" Plus, no Twilight Zone marathon feels complete without "Miniature" and "Printer's Devil." Well, too bad. Those are all hour long episodes. (Note that the run times aren't an hour, but with commercials, they're meant to fill an hour on a TV schedule.)
Oh well, at least we can be thankful that The Sci Fi Channel still runs the marathons. With the way the channel operates sometimes, I wonder how much longer the marathons will last.
Speaking of the Sci Fi Channel, changes are afoot. Starting this Tuesday, July 7th, they're changing the spelling of their name. From now on it will be"Syfy." Now my first thought was that they're widening their appeal to include semiliterates who can't read anything more complex than a text message.
Well, it turns out thatSci Fi has lots of marketing gibberish to explain the change. For instance, they thought Sci Fi was too technical and that it prevented more women from watching the channel. Wow! That's why they pay those marketing whizzes the big bucks. Their strategy for getting female viewers flocking to the channel is insulting women. See, I would have never thought of that.
However, I think all that marketing gibberish is a bunch of BS. No, there's something else spokespeople have mentioned, and I think that's the real reason for the change. What is it? Well, they couldn't trademark theterm Sci Fi. They wanted to trademark their name. Well, heck, we know the results are always awesome when lawyers and accounts jump into the creative process, right?
Oh, well. A lot of science fiction fans view theterm Sci Fi as a slap in the face anyway. Harlan Ellison said it should be pronounced as "skiffy." Now we can pronounce Syfy like "siphy."
Well, whatever they call it, I'll keep watching as long as they do those marathons. Disappointed as I was in the lack of something special for the 50th anniversary, the lack of uncut episodes, and the lack of hour long episodes, it's still a whole bunch of episodes from one of my favorite shows running one after the other. I still enjoyed watching them, and I still enjoyed that communal sense that others out there were watching them along with me.
Okay, now that the marathon is over, I'll go back to the once a week blogging schedule I started in June. Plus, I'll finish (hopefully) my discussion of The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 with stories from 1999.
Sci Fi considered it all one marathon, but I consider it two different ones. I liked it, but I'm glad that all the 80s stuff ran in one block and the original stuff all in another.
I hadn't seen most of the 80s episodes in over 20 years. I know Chiller has been showing them, but I usually don't watch, or only catch part of an episode over there. I loved the 80s version when CBS broadcast it though, and I remember many episodes very well despite not seeing them for decades. I haven't noticed any of my favorites when I channel surf through Chiller.
The 1985 and 86 stuff held up well. I missed "A Message From Charity," the episode which made me a fan of the 80s show. I did see some long remembered favorites like "The Shadow Man," and enjoyed them just as much as the first time I saw them. Most of the 1987 episodes I saw were weak. The best I one I noticed from 87 was "Shelter Skelter." I've heard people rave about the ending, but I wasn't all that impressed. Besides, the guy wouldn't have survived the blast at all if he didn't have that bomb shelter. Man! Was he dumb or what? (Hint: The question was sarcastic.)
As far as the old shows, the strongest sustained stretch came between 6:00 PM and around 11:00 PM on the 4th itself. When any of the episodes which ran between those times comes on and I'm able to watch them, I watch them. I also love "Death's Head Revisited" which ran at 11:00 PM, but I don't rank it quite as high as the episodes which ran before it. The 11:30 episode, "The Hunt," is one which I like, but I can skip it if there are other things to do like putting out the trash and cleaning up around the house. I'd do stuff like that during an episode like "The Hunt" if they need to be done. With episodes like "The Howling Man," "Where is Everybody?" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," I'm glued to the screen.
A few things disappointed me. This year marks The Twilight Zone's 50th anniversary. Obviously, this excludes "The Time Element," regarded by many fans as an unofficial pilot. "The Time Element" (which I'd love to see in a marathon) aired in 1958. The official pilot, "Where is Everybody?" aired in 1959. And, of course, "The Time Element" was really an episode of another anthology show after all. Anyway, other than running a little banner on the bottom of the screen announcing that it was The Twilight Zone's 50th Anniversary, Sci Fi didn't do anything special to commemorate the milestone.
If anything, Sci Fi made this marathon less special than others. In recent years, Sci Fi has been running uncut versions of many episodes. At the moment, I don't remember why the episodes were cut, and a quick search didn't bring up the information. Was it because commercial breaks increased between the time the show originally aired and when it aired in syndication? I can't recall. Suffice it to say, the shows got cut. When Sci Fi started running uncut episodes, they hyped it a lot. They still ran plenty of cut episodes, but between certain times, they showed the uncut stuff. Between that and my DVDs, I got used to seeing the original versions of many episodes. Judging by the odd running times of some episodes during the most recent New Year's Marathon, they were still running some uncut episodes, but they didn't hype it in their promotional spots. I don't know what Sci Fi's schedule claimed, but, judging by the run times of this marathon's episodes, none of them appeared to be uncut.
With my DVDs now, and after a few years of even seeing uncut versions on TV, I've noticed how hacked up some of the best episodes were. I've been spoiled watching the uncut stuff. One that made my jaw drop was "Third From the Sun." There's some great stuff missing from that episode. Not spectacular action stuff. Just great character and storytelling bits. The kind of stuff that still makes The Twilight Zone shine even in this age of special effects spectacles.
It would have been nice if Sci Fi had aired some interviews and some sort of documentary material. In recent years when Sci Fi ran some episodes uncut, they also aired commercials for the "Complete Definitive Edition" Twilight Zone DVDs. These often had snippets of interviews and other extras on the DVDs so that the commercials actually enhanced the marathon. Unfortunately, none of those commercials ran either. So besides losing the uncut episodes, we fans also lost out on little bits of behind the scenes commentary.
But wait! Sci Fi didn't stop there. They excluded all the hour long episodes too. Originally, Serling wanted hour long episodes. CBS insisted on half hour episodes though. Serling soon realized that the half hour length was perfect for what he wanted to do. A few seasons later, CBS changed its mind and wanted hour long episodes. Serling fought the change. Despite that, some of the hour long episodes were terrific. I love "He's Alive!" Plus, no Twilight Zone marathon feels complete without "Miniature" and "Printer's Devil." Well, too bad. Those are all hour long episodes. (Note that the run times aren't an hour, but with commercials, they're meant to fill an hour on a TV schedule.)
Oh well, at least we can be thankful that The Sci Fi Channel still runs the marathons. With the way the channel operates sometimes, I wonder how much longer the marathons will last.
Speaking of the Sci Fi Channel, changes are afoot. Starting this Tuesday, July 7th, they're changing the spelling of their name. From now on it will be
Well, it turns out that
However, I think all that marketing gibberish is a bunch of BS. No, there's something else spokespeople have mentioned, and I think that's the real reason for the change. What is it? Well, they couldn't trademark the
Oh, well. A lot of science fiction fans view the
Well, whatever they call it, I'll keep watching as long as they do those marathons. Disappointed as I was in the lack of something special for the 50th anniversary, the lack of uncut episodes, and the lack of hour long episodes, it's still a whole bunch of episodes from one of my favorite shows running one after the other. I still enjoyed watching them, and I still enjoyed that communal sense that others out there were watching them along with me.
Okay, now that the marathon is over, I'll go back to the once a week blogging schedule I started in June. Plus, I'll finish (hopefully) my discussion of The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 with stories from 1999.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
July 4, 2009 Twilight Zone Marathon: The Original Series
This year's July4th Marathon starts on Friday July 3rd at 5:00 PM. At least the marathon of the original series. Prior to then, Sci-Fi Channel has a marathon of the 1980s series going.
Today, I did watch a few of the 1980s Twilight Zones. I didn't get home in time for "A Message from Charity." I did see "The Shadow Man." I didn't quite get the quote right this morning. The episode still holds up though.
This morning I said that I don't remember the Sci-Fi Channel running 1980s TZ episodes before the original series previously. Today I saw commercials advertising the 80s episodes as part of the marathon. That seemed really familiar. Like I suddenly had a vague memory of them doing it before, but I didn't watch the newer ones at that time. Some of the 1980s episodes are really good, but it's the original series that I'm addicted to.
Okay. On to the original series. I noticed a few things about this marathon. They're not running any of the hour long episodes this time. So far the listings show everything starting and ending right on the hour and half hour marks. That seems to indicate that they're not using the "uncut" versions this time.
Now for the line up I got from the channel guide.
Friday July 3, 2009
5:00 PM "Probe 7: Over and Out"
5:30 PM "The Last Flight"
6:00 PM "A Kind of Stopwatch"
6:30 PM "The Little People"
7:00 PM "Nightmare as a Child"
7:30 PM "Night of the Meek"
8:00 PM "Walking Distance"
8:30 PM "Stopover in a Quiet Town"
9:00 PM "A Game of Pool"
9:30 PM "One for the Angels"
10:00 PM "The After Hours"
10:30 PM "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"
11:00 PM "Mirror Image"
11:30 PM "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"
Saturday July 4, 2009
12:00 AM "The Old Man in the Cave"
12:30 AM "Mr. Bevis"
1:00 AM "The Changing of the Guard"
1:30 AM " The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms"
2:00 AM "Dead Man's Shoes"
2:30 AM "Mr. Denton on Doomsday"
3:00 AM "Hocus Pocus and Frisby"
3:30 AM "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain
4:00 AM "Mr. Garrity and the Graves
4:30 AM "Escape Clause
5:00 AM "The Grave"
5:30 AM "Nothing in the Dark"
6:00-9:00 Infomercials
9:00 AM "A Hundred Yards over the Rim"
9:30 AM "Nick of Time"
10:00 AM "A Most Unusual Camera"
10:30 AM "The Bewitchin' Pool"
11:00 AM "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
11:30 AM "The Dummy"
12:00 PM "Long Distance Call"
12:30 PM "I Sing the Body Electric"
1:00 PM "Little Girl Lost"
1:30 PM "Third From the Sun"
2:00 PM "It's a Good Life"
2:30 PM "A Piano in the House"
3:00 PM "The Midnight Sun"
3:30 PM "The Invaders"
4:00 PM "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
4:30 PM "The Hitchhiker"
5:00 PM "The Masks"
5:30 PM "The Obsolete Man"
6:00 PM "The Howling Man"
6:30 PM "Living Doll"
7:00 PM "Where is Everybody?"
7:30 PM "A Stop at Willoughby"
8:00 PM "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
8:30 PM "Time Enough at Last"
9:00 PM "The Eye of the Beholder"
9:30 PM "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"
10:00 PM "To Serve Man"
10:30 PM "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
11:00 PM "Death's Head Revisited"
11:30 PM "The Hunt"
Sunday July 5, 2009
12:00 AM "Two"
12:30 AM "People Are Alike All Over"
1:00 AM "A Penny for Your Thoughts"
1:30 AM "Night Call"
2:00 AM "A Nice Place to Visit"
2:30 AM "Twenty-Two"
3:00 AM "Queen of the Nile"
3:30 AM "The Rip Van Winkle Caper"
4:00 AM "The Lonely"
4:30 AM "In Praise of Pip"
5:00 AM "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"
5:30 AM "I am the Night, Color Me Black"
THE END
Today, I did watch a few of the 1980s Twilight Zones. I didn't get home in time for "A Message from Charity." I did see "The Shadow Man." I didn't quite get the quote right this morning. The episode still holds up though.
This morning I said that I don't remember the Sci-Fi Channel running 1980s TZ episodes before the original series previously. Today I saw commercials advertising the 80s episodes as part of the marathon. That seemed really familiar. Like I suddenly had a vague memory of them doing it before, but I didn't watch the newer ones at that time. Some of the 1980s episodes are really good, but it's the original series that I'm addicted to.
Okay. On to the original series. I noticed a few things about this marathon. They're not running any of the hour long episodes this time. So far the listings show everything starting and ending right on the hour and half hour marks. That seems to indicate that they're not using the "uncut" versions this time.
Now for the line up I got from the channel guide.
Friday July 3, 2009
5:00 PM "Probe 7: Over and Out"
5:30 PM "The Last Flight"
6:00 PM "A Kind of Stopwatch"
6:30 PM "The Little People"
7:00 PM "Nightmare as a Child"
7:30 PM "Night of the Meek"
8:00 PM "Walking Distance"
8:30 PM "Stopover in a Quiet Town"
9:00 PM "A Game of Pool"
9:30 PM "One for the Angels"
10:00 PM "The After Hours"
10:30 PM "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"
11:00 PM "Mirror Image"
11:30 PM "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"
Saturday July 4, 2009
12:00 AM "The Old Man in the Cave"
12:30 AM "Mr. Bevis"
1:00 AM "The Changing of the Guard"
1:30 AM " The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms"
2:00 AM "Dead Man's Shoes"
2:30 AM "Mr. Denton on Doomsday"
3:00 AM "Hocus Pocus and Frisby"
3:30 AM "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain
4:00 AM "Mr. Garrity and the Graves
4:30 AM "Escape Clause
5:00 AM "The Grave"
5:30 AM "Nothing in the Dark"
6:00-9:00 Infomercials
9:00 AM "A Hundred Yards over the Rim"
9:30 AM "Nick of Time"
10:00 AM "A Most Unusual Camera"
10:30 AM "The Bewitchin' Pool"
11:00 AM "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
11:30 AM "The Dummy"
12:00 PM "Long Distance Call"
12:30 PM "I Sing the Body Electric"
1:00 PM "Little Girl Lost"
1:30 PM "Third From the Sun"
2:00 PM "It's a Good Life"
2:30 PM "A Piano in the House"
3:00 PM "The Midnight Sun"
3:30 PM "The Invaders"
4:00 PM "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
4:30 PM "The Hitchhiker"
5:00 PM "The Masks"
5:30 PM "The Obsolete Man"
6:00 PM "The Howling Man"
6:30 PM "Living Doll"
7:00 PM "Where is Everybody?"
7:30 PM "A Stop at Willoughby"
8:00 PM "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
8:30 PM "Time Enough at Last"
9:00 PM "The Eye of the Beholder"
9:30 PM "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"
10:00 PM "To Serve Man"
10:30 PM "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
11:00 PM "Death's Head Revisited"
11:30 PM "The Hunt"
Sunday July 5, 2009
12:00 AM "Two"
12:30 AM "People Are Alike All Over"
1:00 AM "A Penny for Your Thoughts"
1:30 AM "Night Call"
2:00 AM "A Nice Place to Visit"
2:30 AM "Twenty-Two"
3:00 AM "Queen of the Nile"
3:30 AM "The Rip Van Winkle Caper"
4:00 AM "The Lonely"
4:30 AM "In Praise of Pip"
5:00 AM "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"
5:30 AM "I am the Night, Color Me Black"
THE END
A New Twilight Zone Marathon: Episodes of the 1980s Revival
Maybe the Sci-Fi Channel has done it before, and I just didn't notice, but starting this morning and running until 5:00 PM tomorrow, they're having a marathon of the 1980s' version of The Twilight Zone. Back in the 1990s when 11 Alive from New York City ran the July4th and New Year's Twilight Zone marathons, there was a time or two when they threw in a block of episodes from the 80s revival. I can't quite recall if they ended with a bunch of the new ones late at night/ early in the morning, or if they ran a bunch in that time frame and then showed some more of the original shows.
There are a few remakes here like "The After Hours" and "The Night of the Meek." There were also episodes unique to this series. I haven't seen many of these in something like 23 years (Yes, I don't watch the revival over and over and over like I do with the original series), but I still remember them very well.
"The Shadow Man" is an example. "I'm somebody else's shadow man." "A Message From Charity" is another episode I remember. A 20th century boy exchanges messages with a girl from 17th century Salem. I did see part of a re-run of it sometime in the 90s, but I haven't really watched the entire two part episode since the mid-80s. At the time, I loved it, and it was one of my favorite episodes. It's what hooked me on watching the 80s series. I don't know how well it holds up today. If I get a chance, I'll watch it again, and see if I still like it. It depends on if I get out of work on time.
Also, while the concept seems really old now, and it's been done to death (or living death as the case may be), episodes like "Monsters!" introduced me to the idea of good vampires. "That's when the real monsters come out." I still like that story even if the current flood of "good" vampire stories makes me want to gag. (I'm not saying "Monsters!" is the first story about good vampires, it's just the first one I ever saw, and it seemed really new at the time.) "Red Snow" about vampires in Siberia was memorable too. Hmm . . . an arctic setting with long periods of dark . . Wonder if anyone will ever use that concept again? LOL.
Listings on the channel guide aren't always 100% accurate, but here's what the guide lists. I notice that sometimes there are two stories in one half hour episode. The Night Gallery did that a lot, but the original Twilight Zone didn't.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
8:00 AM "Night Crawlers"
8:30 AM "Wordplay" / "Personal Demons"
9:00 AM "Little Boy Lost"
9:30 AM "Teacher's Aide" / "Children's Zoo"
10:00 AM "A Little Peace and Quiet"
10:30 AM "Misfortune Cookie" / "A Small Talent for War"
11:00 AM "Shatterday"
11:30 AM "Act and Break" / "Lost and Found"
12:00 PM "Chameleon"
12:30 PM "Healer"
1:00 PM "The Burning Man" / "The Elevator"
1:30 PM "Gramma"
2:00 PM "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium"
2:30 PM "Her Pilgrim Soul" (2 part episode?)
3:00 PM "Her Pilgrim Soul" (2nd part?)
3:30 PM "Dealer's Choice"
4:00 PM "The Leprechaun Artist"
4:30 PM "A Message From Charity" (Part 1?)
5:00 PM "A Message From Charity" (Part 2?)
5:30 PM "Ye Gods"
6:00 PM "If She Dies"
6:30 PM "Dead Woman's Shoes"
7:00 PM "Opening Day"
7:30 PM "Paladin of the Lost Hour"
8:00 PM "The Shadow Man"
8:30 PM "Night of the Meek"
9:00 PM "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty"
9:30 PM "The Beacon"
10:00 PM "Monsters!"
10:30 PM "The Little People" / "A Matter of Minutes"
11:00 PM "Quarantine"
11:30 PM "Tooth and Consequences" / "The Wish Bank"
Friday, July 3, 2009
12:00 AM "But Can She Type?" / "The Star"
12:30 AM "To See the Invisible Man"
1:00 AM "Welcome to Winfield"
1:30 AM "Cold Reading" / "Uncle Devil Show"
2:00 AM "Button, Button"
2:30 AM "Profile in Silver"
3:00 AM "Dead Run"
3:30 AM "Red Snow"
4:00 AM "Grace Note"
4:30 AM "Need to Know" / "The After Hours"
5:00 AM "Shadow Play"
5:30 AM "Take My Life, Please" / "I of Newton"
6:00-8:00 Infomercials
8:00 AM "The Last Defender of Camelot"
8:30 AM "The Once and Future King"
9:00 AM "Saucer of Loneliness"
9:30 AM "The World Next Door"
10:00 AM "Voices in the Earth"
10:30 AM "What Are Friends For?"
11:00 AM "The Storyteller"
11:30 AM "Aqua Vita"
12:00 PM "Time and Teresa Golowitz"
12:30 PM "Private Channel" / "Dreams for Sale"
1:00 PM "Song of the Younger World"
1:30 PM "Nightsong"
2:00 PM "The Convict's Piano"
2:30 PM "The Card"
3:00 PM "The Road Less Traveled"
3:30 PM "The Girl I Married"
4:00 PM "Shelter Skelter"
4:30 PM "Toys of Caliban"
THE END (The marathon of the original series begins at 5:00 right after "Toys of Caliban.")
There are a few remakes here like "The After Hours" and "The Night of the Meek." There were also episodes unique to this series. I haven't seen many of these in something like 23 years (Yes, I don't watch the revival over and over and over like I do with the original series), but I still remember them very well.
"The Shadow Man" is an example. "I'm somebody else's shadow man." "A Message From Charity" is another episode I remember. A 20th century boy exchanges messages with a girl from 17th century Salem. I did see part of a re-run of it sometime in the 90s, but I haven't really watched the entire two part episode since the mid-80s. At the time, I loved it, and it was one of my favorite episodes. It's what hooked me on watching the 80s series. I don't know how well it holds up today. If I get a chance, I'll watch it again, and see if I still like it. It depends on if I get out of work on time.
Also, while the concept seems really old now, and it's been done to death (or living death as the case may be), episodes like "Monsters!" introduced me to the idea of good vampires. "That's when the real monsters come out." I still like that story even if the current flood of "good" vampire stories makes me want to gag. (I'm not saying "Monsters!" is the first story about good vampires, it's just the first one I ever saw, and it seemed really new at the time.) "Red Snow" about vampires in Siberia was memorable too. Hmm . . . an arctic setting with long periods of dark . . Wonder if anyone will ever use that concept again? LOL.
Listings on the channel guide aren't always 100% accurate, but here's what the guide lists. I notice that sometimes there are two stories in one half hour episode. The Night Gallery did that a lot, but the original Twilight Zone didn't.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
8:00 AM "Night Crawlers"
8:30 AM "Wordplay" / "Personal Demons"
9:00 AM "Little Boy Lost"
9:30 AM "Teacher's Aide" / "Children's Zoo"
10:00 AM "A Little Peace and Quiet"
10:30 AM "Misfortune Cookie" / "A Small Talent for War"
11:00 AM "Shatterday"
11:30 AM "Act and Break" / "Lost and Found"
12:00 PM "Chameleon"
12:30 PM "Healer"
1:00 PM "The Burning Man" / "The Elevator"
1:30 PM "Gramma"
2:00 PM "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium"
2:30 PM "Her Pilgrim Soul" (2 part episode?)
3:00 PM "Her Pilgrim Soul" (2nd part?)
3:30 PM "Dealer's Choice"
4:00 PM "The Leprechaun Artist"
4:30 PM "A Message From Charity" (Part 1?)
5:00 PM "A Message From Charity" (Part 2?)
5:30 PM "Ye Gods"
6:00 PM "If She Dies"
6:30 PM "Dead Woman's Shoes"
7:00 PM "Opening Day"
7:30 PM "Paladin of the Lost Hour"
8:00 PM "The Shadow Man"
8:30 PM "Night of the Meek"
9:00 PM "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty"
9:30 PM "The Beacon"
10:00 PM "Monsters!"
10:30 PM "The Little People" / "A Matter of Minutes"
11:00 PM "Quarantine"
11:30 PM "Tooth and Consequences" / "The Wish Bank"
Friday, July 3, 2009
12:00 AM "But Can She Type?" / "The Star"
12:30 AM "To See the Invisible Man"
1:00 AM "Welcome to Winfield"
1:30 AM "Cold Reading" / "Uncle Devil Show"
2:00 AM "Button, Button"
2:30 AM "Profile in Silver"
3:00 AM "Dead Run"
3:30 AM "Red Snow"
4:00 AM "Grace Note"
4:30 AM "Need to Know" / "The After Hours"
5:00 AM "Shadow Play"
5:30 AM "Take My Life, Please" / "I of Newton"
6:00-8:00 Infomercials
8:00 AM "The Last Defender of Camelot"
8:30 AM "The Once and Future King"
9:00 AM "Saucer of Loneliness"
9:30 AM "The World Next Door"
10:00 AM "Voices in the Earth"
10:30 AM "What Are Friends For?"
11:00 AM "The Storyteller"
11:30 AM "Aqua Vita"
12:00 PM "Time and Teresa Golowitz"
12:30 PM "Private Channel" / "Dreams for Sale"
1:00 PM "Song of the Younger World"
1:30 PM "Nightsong"
2:00 PM "The Convict's Piano"
2:30 PM "The Card"
3:00 PM "The Road Less Traveled"
3:30 PM "The Girl I Married"
4:00 PM "Shelter Skelter"
4:30 PM "Toys of Caliban"
THE END (The marathon of the original series begins at 5:00 right after "Toys of Caliban.")
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)