Bad SciFi Movie Night

A year or so ago, I posted up on Facebook that I had finally gotten a chance to watch Tron, and asked people what movies were worth looking into. The response was overwhelming, and I've come up with a long list of films that I should watch, along with some of my own research into cult classics and gems from the science fiction / fantasy genres. When Megan moved in to my apartment, we began what we jokingly referred to 'Bad SciFi Movie Night', running with the idea that most of the films from that time period are bad films.

It's entertaining, that whenever I post up something about Bad Scifi Movie Night, there's an inevitable flood of replies that the films that I'm watching *aren't* bad. It's true: while there have been some films that I've come across that have been hard to get through, most are outstanding. So, here's an explaination to what I can point to.

So far, Megan and I have run through an excellent list of films:

12 Monkeys, 2001, 2010, Alien*, Aliens*, Alien Nation, Batman, Blade Runner*, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind*, Dark Crystal, Dune, Enemy Mine, 5th Element*, Forbidden Planet*, Jason and the Argonauts, Gattaca, Highlander, Last Starfighter, Logan's Run, Omega Man, Outland, Planet of the Apes, Predator, Silent Running, Starship Troopers, Supernova, Soylant Green, The Thing, Tron, Total Recall and Westworld. (* indicates that I'd already seen and owned it, but rewatched it.)

Of those, there's some real classics that I've really, really loved: Alien, Alien Nation, Omega Man, Outland, Silent Running and Soylent Green. Others, I didn't like: Enemy Mine, Dark Crystal and Supernova. Win some, lose some.

What I'm enjoying about this watch-list is that it's an excellent opportunity to go through some of the roots of science fiction classics. Movies such as Alien, 2001, Blade Runner, Forbidden Planet and a couple others are real classics in the genre that have absolutely shaped the films that come after it. Part of this came out of my love for the film Moon, by Duncan Jones. In some of the interviews and commentaries that I've read/listened to, he's cited films such as Silent Running and Outland as direct inspirations for his first, brilliant film.

As a historian, my instincts are to look at the roots of what form the present. The films of the 1950s through the early 1990s form the basis for movies and popular culture of today - it's easy to recognize the phrase 'Soylent Green is People!', but it's also important to see some of the roots and themes of the stories from these movies. Understanding the past is important to understand the present, especially in something such as popular culture.

So, while Bad SciFi Movie Night is titled as such, it's not reflective of the quality of the films that we're watching: if anything, the films that we've gone through are just as good - better in some cases - than films that are coming out today.

Military Science Fiction is Soldier Science Fiction

Author Michael Williamson recently came across my article on io9, and posted up his own response. He makes some good points, but I wanted to address some of the areas where I disagree.

I have a couple of counterpoints to this that I'd like to address. I haven't had a change to read through all of the comments and address them individually, but I'll try and point out a couple of things that I think need corrected from the article above and my own on io9.

The first, major point is that no, I don't want Clausewitz to write science fiction. After reading his works for my Military Thought and Theory course (I've received an M.A. in Military History from Norwich University. For my own disclosure, I work for the school and that specific program as an administrator for the students, but the Masters degree really pushed me in terms of what I knew and how I understood the military), I think he's one of the more dry reads that I've yet to come across, and that while there is a lot of outdated information in the book, given the advances and changes in how militaries operate, there are some elements that I feel work well, conceptually.

The main point in the article wasn't written to say that military science fiction had to be more like a Warfare 101 course in how future wars should be fought - far from it - but that military science fiction could certainly benefit from a larger understanding of warfare. As you note, there's a lot of military themed SF stories about the people caught up in warfare, ones that examine how they perceive warfare, and how warfare impacts the individual in any number of ways. This comes in a couple of ways, one story related, the other more superficial.

There are very few  (I can't recall any that specifically look to this) military SF novels that look at warfare in the same context. While I agree that stories are about characters, it's also the challenges and the subsequent themes that embody their struggle that makes a story relevant and interesting to the reader. This, to me, as a reviewer and reader, is the element that will set up a book for success or for failure. Characters, the story/themes/plot, and the challenges that face him all work together to form the narrative. What the characters often learn from their challenges is what the reader should also be learning, and this, to me, is a missed opportunity for some elements of military science fiction. A majority of the Military SF/F stories out there have the characters impacted, but warfare is generally painted as a element of the narrative, not something in and of itself that can be learned from.

Superficially, wars are incredibly complicated events, and often, I don't feel that they're really given their due in fiction. There are a couple of points that I want to make in advance of this – this doesn’t mean that I want or require more detail on every element of warfare, from how the logistical setup for an interstellar war might be put into place, or how the X-35 Pulse rifle is put together to best minimize weight requirements in order to be effectively shipped through lightspeed. Those sorts of details aren’t important to the character’s journey in this, and they add up to extra fluff, in my opinion. Weapons and systems put into place for warfare are great, they sound great, and the same arguments are put into place in politics today. What makes the better story, in my opinion, is a better understanding of the mind behind the sights, from that individual soldier’s motivations to his commanding officer’s orders and training, and how war is understood on their terms. In a way, world-building for any story should firmly understand just what warfare is, or at least come to a consensus within the author’s mind as to how it will be approached.

Oftentimes, generals are accused of fighting the wars gone by. That’s certainly true in the ongoing conflict in Iraq/Afghanistan, and why there was quite a bit of resistance in shifting the military’s focus over to a counter-insurgency war, rather than one of armored columns and maneuvers: generals fight with what they have, and what they’ve trained for, and changes come afterwards. Starship Troopers, The Forever War and Old Man’s War all do the same thing, and that’s not really what I’m arguing against – the authors wrote what they knew – Heinlein, undoubtedly from his experience with the Second World War, Halderman from his own experiences in Vietnam, and Scalzi from observation and research. Science fiction looks to the future, but unless you’re a dedicated expert in a think tank, there’s really no expectation that these books will be predictors of the future, but also aren’t necessarily going to be good at the military thought and theory behind the battles on the pages. Will the individual soldier know anything about logistics and engineering solutions? Probably not, but those things certainly will influence how that soldier is operational on the battlefield, which will undoubtedly affect his view and outcome on the battlefield. While these elements might not surface in the text, they should be understood.

Art is formed within the context of its formation.  I don’t believe that a book written in the Post-WWII world should be really in depth on theoretical warfare on the character level, nor should it look beyond what the audience and writer really understands. However, as times change, context changes, and books are understood differently. There is no doubt in my mind that we will see science and speculative fiction stories in the next decade that are directly impacted by our understanding of the world since 9-11 and the warfare that has come as a result, because the current and budding writers are also changing their views on the world.

I see most military science fiction like I see some types of military non-fiction. Stories like Starship Troopers are like Band of Brothers. They’re fun and good character stories, but anything by Stephen Ambrose is certainly not serious military nonfiction, and isn’t something that I would use to better understand the nature of the Second World War. Looking at a similar book, The First Men In, by Ed Ruggereo, is a better example, (one that I recommend highly, as a counterpoint), but that tells a good character story AND looks at the strategic nature of Airborne operations during Operation Overlord.

Military Science Fiction can best be summed up as soldier science fiction, with the characters learning much about themselves and society – that’s never been in dispute from me. What I would like to see someday added to a field is a novel that better understands the nature of warfare, and extrapolates some of the lessons that can be learned from it.

Military Science Fiction Isn't Military Science Fiction

On Thursday, io9 published a piece by me entitled Your Military Science Fiction Isn't Military Science Fiction, which garnered a number of e-mails, praise, rejection and a lot of conversation about the thesis that I posed: Military Science Fiction is essentially Soldier Science Fiction, in a way that a Stephen Ambrose book isn't really Military History. The elements are there, but when it comes down to it, there's a lot of military science fiction out there that really looks to things other than warfare. Starship Troopers is about politics, the Forever War is about how societies change with time, and so forth.

While the premise sounds ridiculous on the first glance (It's got soldiers, of course it's about the military), the intentions behind this idea go a bit further. While stories incorporate the military within their plots and environments, there's very few military science fiction (or speculative fiction or space opera, if you wish) stories that really makes sense within their finer details, such as tactical and technological ones, to larger elements of the worlds, such as the military thought and theory that goes behind the stories. In a number of cases, the stories look back on wars previously fought, such as the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam and so forth.

My argument stems from both issues. Military experiences are largely evolutionary, and the experiences that are borne out of one war are often applied to another, but not universally. Not only does theory change with the new information, the situation on the ground also changes. From my own readings of the straight-up military science fiction genre, there's very few books that get this right - more often than not, these books take the visible aspects of recent wars or notable ones, and applies them to space. While the translation isn't exact when it moves to science fiction novels, it's a fairly close approximation, with smaller changes cropping up where needed.

One major tendency is that technology itself isn't a silver bullet when it comes to military theory and practical combat operations. Amongst military historians, there is a 'Western' style of warfare, of which, there is a technological element, but one that contributes. Technology alone is rarely an element that dictates the successes of a mission, but its usage and integration into regular military formations, is. The lines here blur when it comes to far more modern technology, and it can be argued that the Cold War was entirely dictated by technological advances, and that major elements of the Gulf and Iraq Wars were likewise won because of superior technology - this is not the case. Within military science fiction, the technological aspect often takes precedent, whether it's superior bombs, combat suits, guns or ships, but oftentimes, the surrounding culture and background history isn't as well thought-out as to the implementation of such advances, which then pairs superior technology, but in situations and tactics that are largely borne out of older wars.

This line of thinking isn't necessarily a condemnation of these older books, and they're certainly not held to any sort of predictive level - their view and existence is about other issues, decidedly not about where the future of the military will lie. However, they do act as a good sort of test case and examples of what can be done to do such a novel: the worlds behind these conflicts needs to be sought out and thought out. Readings of military theorists, such as Clausewitz and others make for good starting points, and within that context, an author can put together a background history that provides an environment for military operations that makes far more sense. There's no need for a futuristic treatise on military thought and theory (On War was exceedingly dull - a sci-fi version of it would be only just a little less so), but within the proper context, there could be some fantastic books out there.

To be fair, there are a number of books out there that do have a number of elements that work extremely well - Dune, by Frank Herbert, provides such a look, but others, such as Nancy Kress's Probability Trilogy, Charles Stross's Singularity Sky/Iron Sunrise duo, Karen Traviss's Wess'Har Wars, as well as a couple of others, which represent a certain amount of good thinking and conceptualization behind the worlds in which they exist, and tend to fall in more of the military science fiction realm, rather than the soldier science fiction side of the house.

This isn't to say that the works out there are bad. I greatly enjoyed John Scalzi's Old Man's War, Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Joe Halderman's The Forever War. They're enjoyable, entertaining, and provide a good line of thinking behind their respective stories, but in a lot of ways, they represent a very different line of thinking than the military side of the house.

Veteran's Day

Today is a day to remember the sacrifices of those who had died for one's country. In the United States, November 11th has been designated as a day to reflect and celebrate the sacrifices of American Servicemen, while in the Commonwealth, Remembrance Day likewise commemorates the those who made the ultimate sacrifice. November 11th was selected because of a worthy anniversary: the end of the First World War, on November 11th, 1918, the conflict that had shocked the world so much, that many hoped that it would be the last.

Sadly, this never came to fruition, as humanity has continued their destructive streak across the century, and will likely to far into the future. In many ways, the trials of soldiers in the far future have provided some of the more interesting science fiction tales.

When thinking to military science fiction, the first book that often comes to my mind is Starship Troopers. Robert Heinlein's masterpiece has the right tone and the right messages throughout about not only the plight of the soldier, but the responsibility and honor that veterans upheld because of their service. In one particularly early scene in the book, when Johnnie and Carl go to join the service, they are bluntly told that military service isn't the romantic adventure that seemed to have been the perception. This doesn't come too much as a surprise, as Heinlein himself was a Veteran, having graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1929, and served as an officer until 1934, when he was discharged. As the Second World War roared into the lives of Americans, Heinlein worked once again for the military as an aeronautical engineer, alongside two other notable science fiction authors, Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. Starship Troopers realistically and in a relatable fashion, sums up the soldier's experience in wartime, and demonstrates that Science Fiction can be used as allegory in a number of instances.

Another remarkable example of military science fiction is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and related books that take place during and after. Card's character, Andrew 'Ender' Wiggen, a tactical prodigy and statistician, is a prime example of a soldier who has a varied experience with warfare - and a mixed legacy in the years following his and humanity's successes over the Buggers at the end of the book - a nearly complete and utter destruction of the alien homeworld. Ender's Game is brilliant in its use of characters - Ender proves himself in Battle School, where he uses unconventional tactics to ultimately succeed and demonstrate that he has a superior mind for this style of warfare. A second series of supposed tests are designed to prepare Ender for the invasion of the Bugger's homeworld, only to find that there was no tests - his battles were real, and he was ultimately responsible for the destruction of an entire race. Ender's story is an interesting one, compared to other soldiers, in that he never hit the front lines - rather, he was orchestrating the war from light-years away. Despite this, the war had a profound impact on Ender for his actions - a similarity that is shared with American soldiers who pilot UVAs, according to P.W. Singer in his book Wired for War.

The franchise that embodies warfare in space is Star Wars. Love it or hate various elements of it, I've been greatly impressed with the stories that have been told about the Grand Army of the Republic, through a couple of different sources. The first is the Clone Wars television series, for really emphasizing on the troopers who fought on the part of the Republic. However, the real person who deserves attention for the portrayal of the troopers is Karen Traviss, with her fantastic Republic Commando series. Traviss had quite a lot of experience with the military to draw upon. As a result, Traviss goes far more into the mentality and motives of the soldiers, bringing them far more into view as people, not merely clones. Even better, the events of Order 66 seem very relevant throughout, and Traviss works hard to not only ensure that their motives for following those orders are explained in a logical fashion, but as to the intentions of the soldiers entire existence. The Clones are in a unique position here - bred only for the purpose of war fighting. For them, they're not volunteers, and they aren't expected to live beyond the war - something that the TV series touches on a little bit as well.

While thinking of Traviss's Star Wars books, another good look at war comes with her book City of Pearl and the follow-up novels in the Wess'Har Wars, which examines interstellar conflict over several systems and many thousands of years. Two of her races, the Wess'Har and the Isenj, have been at war over conflicting lifestyles - the Isenj are rapid colonizers, due to a high birthrate, and did so at the cost of their environment, while the Wess'Har believe heavily in the natural world and literally applied a scorched earth policy to planets that they felt were out of line - there's a heavy environmental message here, but it does help to reinforce a point that theorist Carl von Clausewitz made, that Warfare is an extension of policy, and thus, fought on the terms of one's society. The soldiers here are deeply affected by the conflict, as several are essentially immortal, because of a parasite that they had picked up, one that ensures their survival. The long term toll of warfare on these soldiers is an interesting one, and several are noted to have killed themselves (prior to the events in the books) because of the stresses associated with their condition.

When it comes to interstellar warfare, as well as the potential for long term and dedicated purpose, John Scalzi's Old Man's War is another prime example of this sort of Science Fiction. This book, the first in a series (I have the follow up book, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet), sees a world where old men and women are taken, because of their life's experiences thus far, and had their minds transferred to a new, enhanced body. There are many similarities to Starship Troopers and The Forever War (another one that I have, but have yet to read), and Scalzi has an interesting take on the enhanced soldiers and their purpose. One argument in the novel is that these soldiers have been given an artificial lease on life - the best that they can do is to continue to fight. However, in this instance, they aren't necessarily fighting for any particular cause, just the broad, overarching idea of 'humanity', as their citizenship on earth has been terminated by joining the fight in space. This somewhat bothered me, and a couple of the main characters, but highlights another, important aspect in warfare - soldiers, foot soldiers, are trained to fight for one another, to preserve their squad and fellow soldiers, and that message rings heavily through Old Man's War.

Timothy Zahn has also addressed the idea of enhanced soldiers, through his books Cobra and Cobra Two, where a group of soldiers have been enhanced with a number of internal improvements - better skeletons, weapons, a sort of commando unit that are nearly unstoppable in urban combat on alien worlds. However, what really struck me with these books is that the focus is not necessarily on the fighting, but the lives of the soldiers afterwards - these soldiers, with permanent enhancements, had to adapt to civilian life where they were mistrusted and abused because of their abilities, enough to cause conflict in their homes and enough to force the entire Cobra population off world to better offerings.

Military Science Fiction has its share of veterans, and examines, as a whole, not just the cool elements of science fiction, such as powered armor, lasers, epic ship to ship combat and the like, but also the impact, and continued impact that warfare will have on those that are asked to do the fighting, for whatever reason. The concept is such a large one that it is interesting to find a number of different themes - all of which might be found with any given soldier in a real military - have essentially been separated out amongst a number of novels, and examined in depth. The overall message that can be taken from this is that the hopes following World War I were unrealistic, and that humanity will continue to fight - wars large and small will continue, and no doubt, that will continue when we reach the starts. However, it is important to remember the human cost of warfare, not just on society, but upon those who ask to serve their countries, or even worlds.