Hull Zero Three

Greg Bear's book Hull Zero Three opens much the same way as any number of science fiction thrillers: someone awakes, enclosed in a stasis booth, and finds themselves in a strange situation. Pandorum, Avatar, Pitch Black, Supernova and others all have this as a bit of a start to the film, to varying degrees, a cold open to the story. This book is no different, and our main character is ripped from his dream-state and out into a cold and hostile environment. The resulting book is straightforward, fast and overall, a decent read.

Hull Zero Three was a book that I've been interested in reading, if anything because I've never read a Greg Bear book, and it represented a bit of a change of pace compared to what I've been reading recently. This book falls between the space opera, hard science fiction and horror as the protagonist, simply known as Teacher. He meets up with a strange assortment of fellow characters as they escape through the ship to find out not only what the ship's purpose is, but what theirs is as well.

The easiest comparison can be made between this book and the film Pandorum, where the book gets all of the things that the film missed. Where the film missed huge plot points that could have made it a great film, Hull Zero Three gets them, in a way. The ship (known only as Ship) is a generational ship, one designed to seed a far-away star with life. The reasons are never really disclosed, but they don't matter here - the ship is moving forward, and along the way, problems crop up.

This is where the book is at its best, with some of the exposition and background to the story. The ship was created, sent out to the Oort Cloud to capture a moonlet, and then off to a far off world in which to continue earth-based life. Somewhere along the way, it's discovered that the planet is inhabited, and this is where the fun begins: do you colonize the planet at the risk of overcoming the life that's already there? In this case, the civilization on the planet attacked the ship, damaging it and setting much fo the story into action.

At points, I was confused as to what was happening throughout the story. Bear pulls the reader through as one fumbles through a tunnel. There's no frame of reference for the main characters or the reader, and that adds a certain thrill to trying to find out what's happening with the story as a whole. Many of the interesting parts of the book happen before the story actually takes place, and we're left with a glorified hunt and search on the part of our characters to learn what their purpose in life is.

The interesting part of the story doesn't come until the end, after Teacher and the other mutated and purposed people discover the dangers of the ship, and come across a power-struggle that seems to have caused additional damage to the ship between Mother and the Destination Guidance team, who saw conflicting interpretations of their orders: preserve human life. One saw their best option as the selected planet, while the other wanted to go on and try somewhere else. The result is a civil war on the ship, and the book comes down to one of its fundamental points: how do you program ethics?

Teacher, and all of his companions were produced and copied from Mother. In the case of some of the people, they were designed with very specific purposes - teaching, cleanup, killing, protection, etc. While they are designed specifically for a purpose, there are gaps where they question their own existence and purpose. It's an interesting element to the story, and while it was a bit of unexpected depth, it wasn't enough to really dazzle me as a brilliant story. At the end of the day, Hull Zero Three was a fun, light read, one that is a better version of similar stories, but one that I found myself wishing that other parts of the story had gotten more attention.

The Dervish House

Last year, I picked up Ian McDonald's fantastic science fiction novel River of Gods and loved his take on an India of the future. With his latest book, The Dervish House, McDonald relocates to Turkey of 2027. Rarely do I come across a book that absolutely floors me, and where River of Gods really impressed me, The Dervish House completely bowled me over with its interconnecting storylines, fantastic prose and wonderful characters.

Set in Istanbul, the book starts off with a literal bang as a suicide bomber blows her head off. The only casualty, the bomber seems to have failed, and the attack starts off a week that sees a heat wave over the city. There are five separate story lines to keep track of throughout the book: Can, a young boy with a heart condition who's treatment leaves him deafened and sequestered away at home, Georgios Ferentinou, a retired professor of experimental economics, who sees danger in the growing nanotechnology revolution, Ayşe, an arts dealer set off on a quest to find a legendary Mellified Man, Yasar Ceylan, a businessman working to build a start-up nanotech firm that has the potential to revolutionize civilization and Necdet, a former drug addict who sees a woman blow her head off and begins having strange visions around him. Together, these stories interlock over the course of a week.

The principle innovation here in McDonald's world is nanotechnology (where in River of Gods, it was Artificial Intelligences), and while this is clearly a futuristic world, it remains firmly grounded in what's likely one of the more realistic science fiction stories that I've read thus far: the rules are still the same. Throughout, McDonald covers a lot of territory: grey goo scenarios, market manipulation, fundamentalism and mysteries. Istanbul, it would seem, is the perfect location for such a story, with an ancient history behind it, helping to set up a juxtaposition between the future and the past.

In particular, I was blown away by the vivid nature of the book. Like his other book, I had to take my time with this, getting into the right mindset, and absorbing the story as it came along. The payoff is incredible: entire sections come across fully realized, and I couldn't help but wonder what a film adaptation would look like (and I would absolutely love to see this film translated into a motion picture someday). While it’s dense and occasionally wanders (there are a couple of plot points that help to support, but only just) the book is rich in detail and in its prose. There are only a couple of books out there that I've loved for the same reasons: Suzanne Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell comes to mind, as does J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Comparing these books is a non-starter (I’m not saying that this is better or worse than any of those), but coming away from this story left me with a similar impression: I got quite a bit out of this book, on all levels.

Of all the stories that the book goes through, the two that hit me the most was Can and Ayşe’s own story arcs. Can, armed with a modular robotic toy that can take several shapes (Bird, Snake, Rat and Monkey), fancies himself as a Boy Detective, and from the safety of his home, he attempts to piece together the bombing that his witnessed through his robot, uncovering clues and going after Necdet after the man is kidnapped. This storyline shone above all, and Can is possibly catapulted himself to become one of my favorite fictional characters – masterfully crafted and characterized, McDonald does everything right with his storyline, capturing the enthusiasm, optimism and creativity of a young boy with an impressive imagination.

Ayşe’s storyline is also an impressive one, as she’s tasked with tracking down a Mellified Man – a mummy preserved in honey, used for healing – This is a real legend, but it’s unclear as to whether there’s actually any basis in truth for it. Ayşe takes us throughout the city and through parts of its history on her search, reminding me a little of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, at points, abit one where the characters work off the books and with fewer Nazis.

The other storylines are all important, on a number of locations, but none struck me quite the same way as the aforementioned do. But, as a whole, the weave together an interesting book that is rooted in reality, and gets a lot of things dead on in conceptualization, particularly when it comes to fundamentalism and terrorism. McDonald appears to realize that the conflict between fundamentalism and a liberal society are political issues that will continue onwards far into the future, but also understands the downsides of terrorism: killing people typically turns people against one’s cause, and the world presented here seems a bit more peaceful with that realization, although the goals might still be in the same place. One of the plots involves the distribution of Nano-agents to a larger population through gas pipelines, agents that will effectively turn people into fundamentalists. It’s a frightening scenario, one that brings up some questions: can faith be imbued in someone artificially? The book doesn't quite go on to use that more than a plot point, but its existence that is just hinted on is interesting, and McDonald steers clear of delving too much into the theoretical, leaving that up to the readers and the character’s own speculations.

At the end of the book, I was reluctant to put it away on the shelf: The Dervish House was easily one of the best books that I’ve read in the past year, up there with last year’s favorite reads: The City and The City by China Mieville, and Horns by Joe Hill. If I’d finished a month earlier, it would have been a grand way to round out 2010. Instead, it’s set an incredibly high bar for 2011 - not a bad way to start the year.

Two Speeches, Two Messages

This week marks the 50th anniversary of two important speeches in recent United States history, President John F. Kennedy's Inauguration Speech on January 20th, 1961, and President Dwight Eisenhower's final farewell to the nation on January 17th. One reflects the honest assessment of a president unchained and free to speak, the other constrained by politics and optimism. In a large way, each speech speaks to one's supporters, but also to the base elements that helps define the right and the left in the United States, and in a very real way, provide an excellent primer on not only the environment of the Cold War, but also some of the roots of political speculative fiction and ideas that helped to define an generation and an art that they consumed.

Eisenhower's speech is best known as the one where he warns against the establishment of a 'Military-Industrial Complex', famously stating:

"American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations."

There are some dense concepts and history behind this statement. The role of the United States and its relationship around the world was drastically altered in the years following the First and Second World Wars. Untouched by direct war on its borders, the United States, through the intense demands of warfare found itself an industrial, political and social savior of the world, and it remained through to the Cold War, with a conflict just five years later in Korea. Warfare on the scale of the Second World War has not been seen since, despite the rise of a second superpower in the form of the Soviet Union, a power that would directly impact the stance of the United States.

It would be interesting to see some form of alternate timeline, one where the Soviet Union didn't rise as it did, to see if the arms industry in the United States would continue onwards. The rise of a permanent arms industry and the rise in perceived threats against the United States and its interests are interlinked. This is not to say that there aren't grave threats against the country at that point in time - there were - but the way in which those threats were addressed were impacted by hostilities.

Kennedy seems to understand this in his own speech three days later, and opens with the following:

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet, the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."

This felt strange to me, and it feels off when compared to the more memorable point in Kennedy's speech: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

The differences between Eisenhower and Kennedy's speech are markedly clear, and are completely at odds with one another, something not entirely surprising, considering the two men come from very different political backgrounds, and entered the executive branch with very different goals. Kennedy, a Democrat, sought to use the abilities of the government to help the people. Eisenhower sought to rein in what he saw as extensive governmental control over the country following the World Wars, feeling that government held back the country's abilities to grow and prosper. Put simply, both goals are exceedingly noble, good and helpful in different ways.

The roots of their political philosophies, however, spell some different futures and implications. Eisenhower presided over a point in time where the world faced a very real and credible threat from the Soviet Union, and ourselves during the Cold War. In a large way, his efforts to scale back the federal government and the spending that it incurred went towards efforts to scale back the conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and to let free market capitalism take the reins:

"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partially because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. "

This is a republican idea, in its purest form, and one that has several strong points to make: without the help of the federal government, how much would be different in the scientific progress of the United States? Certainly the development of rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles would be changed, but as such, so to would scientific wonders such what programs such as NASA accomplished over their own histories. Eisenhower also ignores, to an extent, the reach at which industry has a hand in directing such scientific research, and I'm not sure that there's any different at times between a country that's governed by an overarching Federal Government and a strong corporate society.

Kennedy, on the other hand, looked towards the future with a stronger government leading the way and helping those in need, the ideals of the Democratic side of the coin together. A stronger government would help protect the nation against those who sought to do it harm (and we're ignoring here the idea that part of the problem is ourselves and our actions) and at the same time, support those in need, around the world. This, in a large way, is a reversal of what Eisenhower sought to do with his presidency, by reducing the need for the United States to combat communism around the world in small engagements by creating an arms race set to deter the Soviet Union. Kennedy's speech is one that is full of optimism, promising to combat "the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself". Noble goals, but ones that, in unrestricted form under his beliefs, ultimately lead to fascism, where Eisenhower's, taken to extremes, lead to an absolute libertarian and anarchist state.

This is where both speeches feel as though they are prime grounds for speculative fiction: in the extremes. "Where Kennedy states: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," many took it as a call for well intentioned public service, and went on to do this, while others could very well interpret that as a call for the citizens to serve the state absolutely. After reading Brave New Worlds, it's the start of a thought that could potentially lead to a very dark place for the country, and the very opposite of what is intended. (Note, I don't believe that this is what Kennedy intended - we're speaking in hypothetical terms here.) At the same time, Eisenhower notes "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations and the power of money is ever present and gravely to be regarded.", and is as far away from what Kennedy noted just days later as Eisenhower was interested in going to the Moon. At the same time, while warning against the union of Government, Military and Industry, it's clear that he felt that a stronger corporate culture would help to guide the country to a better place, both leaving the people themselves to be free on their own (a good thing) but at the same time, slaves to a consumer culture. (This is also not to suppose that this was Eisenhower's intentions either).

Both Presidents stood in 1961 at the edge, looking into a murky future that held no clear answers for either philosophy that guided them. Their speeches are ones of optimism, importance and of warnings for the future. Of the pair, I believe that Eisenhower's was by far the most honest, tempered with experience and the freedom of being released from the requirements to help his successor into office. Kennedy spoke to his constituents, noting the troubles ahead, and emphasizing that they were the ones who made up the future, and that they, as a whole, could help make the future a better place.

The Decemberists' The King is Dead

"Beneath this bold and brilliant sun!," sings Colin Meloy in the opening track of The Decemberist's latest album, The King is Dead. It's a surprisingly upbeat and bright feel for what typically comes from the group. Their last couple of releases, such as The Crane Wife, had dead Civil War soldiers, heartbroken lovers and mass murderers throughout the tracks, while The Hazards of Love was a gloriously dark affair throughout, with a sound to match. The King Is Dead, however, has a far more upbeat and sunny disposition.

The King is Dead is a fantastic collection of tracks from the group, one that breaks out of some of the more intense elements of their recent work, which saw complicated stories and themes throughout, and gives them a chance to scatter a little and enjoy themselves. This is a fun album, from the opening track Don't Carry It All to Rox In The Box to the fantastic Down By The Water and This Is Why We Fight. Tracks such as June Hymn and Dear Avery both have their own nostalgic, '70s feel to them that reminds me the most of Gordon Lightfoot and other folk-singers from the same point in time.

The end result is a different album than I'm largely used to from the group, reminding me the most of their collection of singles, Always The Bridesmaid from a couple years ago, to Picaresque from 2005. But, where the group had a really eclectic sound from their earliest albums, they've taken the tone and feel of their later efforts and combined this with what's truely made the group a great one: their focus on the songs, lyrics and style. Their strange sound that they started with was one that I've never been a huge fan of, and it was really only with 'The Crane Wife' that I was able to get into their music and enjoy the stronger parts of what they've released, and most of everything since then.

Albums such as The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love both blew me away with their overarching storytelling (The Hazards of Love moreso), but The King is Dead comes as a welcome change in style, at least for now. The newer sound is excellent, and the group feels like it is exploring some of their deeper roots and are working on material that they weren't able to do for a while. It's refreshing, as is the sound and tone of the entire album, and it's an album that I'll be listening to for months as spring comes to Vermont. I can't think of a better album to drive to when the temperatures begin to rise and summer returns.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part I)

The first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows opens with a bang as a wizard instructor, tortured and begging for her life drops to the table, surrounded by jeering Death Eaters as she’s killed by the story’s main protagonist, Lord Voldemort. This sets the tone for the best Harry Potter film to date, one that is both a superb adaptation of the novel that it’s based upon, and a solid film in and of itself.

Starting with the books, I’ve long found the film adaptations of each to be lacking when comparing one another. The first and second films get the story across in a decent manner, but miss out on the real essence, look and feel of the novels. The third one had an exceptional look and feel, capturing the story in a condensed manner, while four and five likewise got elements of the tone, but not the story across to audiences. Generally, storylines were dropped or hinted at, while scenes that showed off the skills of the computer programmers filled in for unnecessary moments. Coming out of The Deathly Hallows, I found that I really couldn’t criticize the film for the few elements that they had dropped.

If time is the key element here, the move to split the book into two separate films is proof positive that the penultimate film uses its time well: the story, themes and characters are on screen, almost perfectly making the transition over. The final novel of the series is itself a superior read because of the depth and ground covered in the story: as Lord Voldemort rises, the Ministry of Magic topples as it’s infiltrated. More than just a fantasy novel, J.K. Rowling uses her time well to create a fantastical dystopian fiction, while the film enhances much of what she wrote by background visuals: guards at the Ministry are dressed in black, with red arm bands while wizards in the ministry work to root out undesirables in a fashion reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. This is underscored by the puppet Minister of Magic stating in the early parts of the film: ”If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. It’s dark territory to go to, and the film tackles it well.

In a way, this film should be one of the more dull entries in the Potter franchise. Much like the first book, it’s set away from Hogwarts, focusing intensely on Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley as they escape from Voldemort’s forces in the Ministry and vigilante bands wandering the countryside. As a juxtaposition from the dystopian feel, the film also incorporates a number of vaguely post-apocalyptic scenes as they travel across burned out villages, abandoned fields and structures in a number of hauntingly beautiful scenes while searching for the remaining horcruxes. The film maintains a sense of urgency throughout the two diverse elements, from their raid on the ministry to their escape across England, and director David Yates demonstrates a mastery behind the camera for everything that’s on the screen: the action scenes caught my breath in my throat, and even though I’ve recently read the book, I found myself at the edge of my seat with anticipation for what comes next.

At the heart of the entire film is the three characters that we’ve grown to love since the first books and films came out so long ago. Watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time in years recently, I marveled at how young the entire cast looked, and how they have changed. This film serves as an intense character moment for the trio as they embark on their last adventure against the world’s darkest threat. Tempers flare, moods turn to despair and emotions deepen as they wander. I’ve often wondered if Rowling was somewhat reluctant to let the characters go at points, but returning to the source, I’ve realized that the vast change in tone and style for this last story was one of necessity, one that required the time to uncover things at a natural pace. It suites me just fine, and where the book served as the perfect coda for the series, this film does as well, before the last decent into what will ultimately be a packed and exciting conclusion with the second part this July. Where the first half of the book is a bit sedentary, the second half is the direct opposite, with an intense finale that both ties together numerous sections of the story together and leaves it with a satisfying conclusion.

After watching the first part of the last film, the last film is already set up to a stellar ending, and I hope that it will live up to the excellence of its first half. Part 1 has set an incredibly high bar, but this was the easier part to adapt, and the next installment has a lot of material to take in. For this outing, however, it's as perfect an adaptation as could be expected, and a fitting take on Rowling's fantastic story.

Grey, by Jon Armstrong

A recent book caught my eyes in the bookstore the other day: Jon Armstrong's second novel, Yarn, with a gorgeous cover and an interesting looking storyline. In the midst of deciding which book to get, two others won out, and it was returned to the shelf. Followup research showed that I should have gone for it, and further searches in nearby stores came up empty.

Over the course of reading up on Yarn, I discovered that the author's first book, Grey, was set in the same universe, setting up Armstrong's particular brand of fiction, labeled 'Fiction-Punk'. Better still, the publisher, Nightshade Books, had an advance reader's copy of the book up on their website, for a free download. (You can get it here.)

Grey is a quick, funny read, with a couple of caveats and assumptions to go along with that. Set in a near future dystopia, Michael Rivers is the son of a family member, part of the elite, in a world where pop culture and consumerism has run amok, in the most ridiculous fashion possible. While reading the book, I'm operating on the assumption that this book shifted more towards the satirical than rational. Rivers is a celebrity, and where reality television runs every day, with talk show hosts and talking heads talking nonstop to his own egotistical father who has a documentary filmed of his life as he's living it, reediting it as he goes.

Fashion takes a front seat in this book, and Armstrong's descriptions of the fashion of this world is a fun one. Despite the book's title, there's multiple colors everywhere, with people wearing some of the strangest things throughout, at least in the expensive and livable areas. It's not an area where one will think about science fiction, but it's clear that there's a lot of inspiration taken from the costuming of numerous films here, and if anything, this film breaks the reader out of the mold that this book is merely a continuation of suburban America.

Despite the label 'fashionpunk', this book isn't really about fashion: it's a fairly acute look at the direction of a consumerist culture. Once the absurdity is stripped away from the book (mainly in the language of most of the characters), it's a downright scary look at how things could be several decades from now. Some things remain very much the same: an obsession with celebrity and instant gratification, where companies live and die by their ratings and public perception, rather than their actual internal workings.

This is an entertaining book - one that was a bit of fun to read, although I do hope that Yarn (which I now have) turns out to be a bit better. The plot for this story was rather loose at times, and there are some elements (Michael's origins - cobbled together from parts from his numerous sibblings comes to mind) where I thought there should have been more emphasis, and there's a bit of wandering here and there as the book progresses.

But, Grey is an entertaining, with some very dark undercurrents to it, and some very fun parts (Who wouldn't enjoy professional ironing championships in a fashion-oriented world?) as well. I'm even more excited about Yarn after finishing it.

Brave New Worlds

John Joseph Adams has distinguished himself in the past with outstanding speculative fiction anthologies, from Wastelands to The Living Dead and others. His latest volume, Brave New Worlds, is perhaps one of the finest sets of short fiction that I've ever read, with a stunning table of contents and authors to tell their stories of oppression.

Brave New Worlds is a complete turnaround from Wastelands, an anthology that looks at humanity after the demise of civilization. Here, the focus is on societies where government has not only remained, but strengthened to the point where the people themselves become the enemies of the state. It's an incredibly frightening future, and one that feels far more relevant to today's world than most works. The argument between Republicanism and Federalism is a familiar one to anybody who has tuned into the news over the past couple of years.

Indeed, this anthology came to me at a time of personal political crisis. The past couple of years have been ones of discussion, learning and thinking about the differences in political parties, and what these sorts of things mean at the end of day and down the road. The idea of an overly strong state that impinges upon the rights of its citizens is something that is undesirable to me, and what our country represents. Numerous actions taken by the government have had a speculative-fiction feel to it, such as the detainees in Guantanamo Bay and the kill order against a radical cleric overseas, to the authority of the Transportation Security Administration following some terrorist attacks. It is a frightening future, but one that also needs to be balanced against the idea of a libertarian world where little order or government control exists to keep people from killing or harming one another. As such, Brave New Worlds is scary much in the same way that Wastelands (of what I've read and heard of it) was scary: it exists at the other extreme end of the political spectrum.

There are a good number of fantastic stories here. The anthology starts off with Shirley Jackson's classic story The Lottery and continues to tell a great number of tales such as S.K. Gilbow's Red Card, where people are assigned by their state randomly to kill lawbreakers, Ten With A Flag by Joseph Paul Haines that sees citizens given rankings based on their potential and Geriatric Ward by Orson Scott Card, which sees people who have vastly accelerated life spans. One of my absolute favorites is Jordan's Waterhammer by Joe Mastroianni, a tale of miners valued only as tools. Many of the stories here were fairly new to me: I'd either heard of them by reputation or read them once long ago, while there were also a fair number of stories that I have read before, such as Carrie Vaughn's Amaryllis (published on Adam's online science fiction magazine Lightspeed), Philip K. Dick's Minority Report and Paolo Bacigalupi's disturbing Pop Squad. There are few of the stories that I didn't get into, such as The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin and O Happy Day! by Geoff Ryman, simply not suiting my own tastes for any number of reasons, but these were few and far between.

What impressed me even more than the excellent lineup of stories and authors was that the anthology didn't feel repetitive. There are plenty of short stories and novellas that fall into the dystopian category, but one could have easily told story after story of an intrepid citizen standing up and fighting the power, so to speak. That certainly happens, in their own ways, but there's a broad spectrum of stories to be told. Jordan's Waterhammer is a story that I expected to see more often in the anthology, but stories such as Amaryllis, The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away (Cory Doctorow) and the funny Civilization by Vylar Kaftan (a choose your own adventure style story) shows a diversity in the story types, but also the morals and themes behind the stories. While Brave New Worlds is scary, it goes out of its way to demonstrate the numerous ways in which fascism can manifest itself in society, in any location.

One of my favorite stories here was Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report, which I first read in the theater waiting for the movie to begin. Of all the dystopian stories that I can think of, the story and the film both demonstrate the core themes for any type of dystopian story: which is the greater evil, protecting the people from themselves, or allowing them to come to greater harm?

One particularly striking story that helped define the anthology was Tobias Buckell's story, Resistance, on an asteroid colony that adopted techno-democracy, where everybody can vote on every decision. When the time required to vote becomes to much, their voting habits are taken over by a computer, which in turn creates a leader for them, based on their desires. The story demonstrated to me that in all cases, governance is the product of we the people. Society can certainly back the wrong people, as history has seen from time to time, with figures such as Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini, but rather than a universal evil, supporters remain, for whatever reason: fear, threads, naïveté or blind obedience. Despite the uproar online over the TSA screening procedures enacted around the holiday period, a majority of Americans supported them.

Brave New Worlds isn't a book that's appealing because I see some imminent threat of a governmental implosion or change (although some might view it that way), it is appealing because it recognizes and points out that fascism is a continual threat to society from a particular political philosophy of a strong state, while the opposite philosophy spells danger in much the same way - presumably what Wastelands will tell a reader. The threat is present within us all, through our overreactions and our indifference to the world around us, and for that, I think Brave New Worlds presents us with a stunning cautionary group of stories that shows the limits of what people will tolerate. As it stands, it remains an exceedingly relevant and poignant book that should be an essential addition to any speculative fiction fan's personal library.

Books To Read in 2011

With the new year upon us, I've wrapped up my list of what I've read all of last year, and taken the books that I've got sitting on a shelf waiting to read for the next 365 days. I've got no illusions that I'll get through this entire list in one year - there's certainly books that I had planned to read in 2010 that I never got around to, but it's a starting point, to be sure.

The Dervish House, Ian McDonald I'm currently working my way through The Dervish House, a near future tale set in Turkey. It's a dense, fascinating read, one that I'm trying to take my time with before finishing.

Hull Zero Three, Greg Bear A man wakes up cold and alone on board a space ship, completely disoriented. I've wanted to get this book for a couple of weeks now, and it looks like a fun story, and I hope that it turns out better than Pandorum did.

The Habitation of the Blessed, Catherynne M. Valente I thought this book was due to come out this year, but happily, I picked it up over the weekend. It's a strange book thus far, a fictional take on a myth, and its rich story and prose is intriguing.

Grey, Yarn, Jon Armstrong Yarn has caught my eye over the past couple of days from its gorgeous cover, and while reading up on it, I found that Grey, Armstrong's first book, is available for free as an online read from Nightshade books. I can't wait to read both.

At the Queen's Command, Michael A. Stackpole My last encounter with Michael Stackpole's books was his 'When Dragons Rage' cycle was published a couple of years ago. This alternate history take on colonialism looks like a fun romp.

Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal Kowal's first novel has been described as a sort of Victorian story, with fantastic elements, and so far, I've liked what little I've read of it. It's on the sidelines for the moment, but I look forward to picking it up again.

The Unincorporated Man, Dani and Eytan Kollin I know very little about this book - I've heard little buzz, seen no reviews or talk about this book or its follow-up, but it looks like a neat read, and it'll be refreshing to go into a book with little context or bearings.

Spook Country and Zero History, William Gibson I read the first book in this loose trilogy, Pattern Recognition, earlier in 2010, and really enjoyed it. I've since picked up the two follow-up novels, and I'd like to get around to them at some point in the year.

The Handmaiden's Tale, Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood did a number on fanboys with her definition of science fiction a while back, which provides a good lesson in genre classification. Clearly, her books are speculative fiction, and according to a bunch of people, they're really, really good.

Masked, Lou Anders I started this last year, and never got around to finishing it. I'll have to pick away at the stories over the year.

Nights of Villijumar, Mark Charan Newton Another book that I started last year, but haven't finished, Newton's book is a good one thus far, but it's been slow going, and I had to put it aside to meet a couple of deadlines.

Blackout, Connie Willis Time-traveling historians. This book looks awesome to the military history masters recipients with a geek background crowd.

Machinery of Light, David J. Williams David J. Williams has finished out his intense Autumn Rain trilogy with Machinery of Light, and I'll be interested to see where he goes next with it. The first two were an experience, that's for sure.

Kraken, China Mieville I loved The City and The City when I read it last year, and Kraken, ironically, was a book that I was thinking of getting to first. No matter, this year will be the year. Hopefully, I'll get it done before Embassytown comes out later this year.

Undoubtedly, this is an ambitious list of 16 books, in addition to the growing list of books that are coming out this year that I'd like to get to. If anything, it speaks to a goal to read more. Hopefully, I'll be able to top my reading list of 43 books for 2010.

2010 Reading List

This was a great year for reading. A lot of excellent fiction was released, and I felt like I got a lot of good out of my year from the books that I picked up. Here's what I read.

1- A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, Neil Sheehan (1-14) This was a fantastic history on the Cold War, one that I wish I'd come across while I was working on my project. I've revisited it a couple of times since the start of the year for other projects.

2 - The Forever War, Joe Halderman (1-28) This was a book that had come highly recommended for years, and I really enjoyed how it was more about people than guns and brawn.

3 - The Monuments Men, Robert Edsel (2-8) During the Second World War, a team of specialists were dispatched around Europe to save art from the effects of war, the focus of this book. It's a little uneven, but tells an astonishing story.

4 - We, John Dickinson (2-19) This was a crappy book. Amateurish and poorly written.

5 - Coraline, Neil Gaiman (2-24) I watched the movie around the same time, and I've long like Gaiman's works. This was an excellent YA novel.

6 - Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, John Scalzi (3-4) Scalzi's Whatever blog is always an entertaining read, and this collection takes some of the better entries into a book of short essays. Thought-provoking, interesting and well worth reading.

7 - Shadowline, Glenn Cook (3-6) With all of my complaints about military science fiction not being all that accurate or conceived of, Shadowline is one of the few books that have made me eat my words - there's some well conceived ideas here, and this reprint from Night Shade Books was a fun read.

8 - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jeminsin (3-19) N.K. Jemisin's first novel came with a lot of buzz, and I really enjoyed reading it from start to finish. It's a very different blend of fantasy than I've ever read.

9 - Spellwright, Blake Charlton (3-29) Spellwright was probably one of my favorite reads of the year - it was fast, entertaining and thoughtful - a good fantasy debut, and I'm already eager for the sequel.

10 - The Gaslight Dogs, Karin Lowachee (4-21). Karin Lowachee's Warchild was a favorite book from my high school years, and I was delighted to see her back after a long absence. This steampunk novel is an unconventional one, and a good example for the rest of the genre to follow.

11 - The Mirrored Heavens, David J. Williams (5-17) David J. Williams contacted me after I wrote an article on military science fiction, and I went through his first book with vigor - it's a fast-paced, interesting take on military SF and a bit of Cyberpunk.

12 - Third Class Superhero, Charles Yu (5-28) Charles Yu distinguished himself as a talented writer with his short fiction, and his recently released collection shows off some great stories.

13 - Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (6-1) Bacigalupi goes to Young Adult fiction with Ship Breaker, an excellent read set in a post-oil world. He gets a lot of things right with this: the surroundings and trappings of the world aren't always important, but the characters and their struggles are timeless.

14 - Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (6-8) This much-hyped book was one that I avoided for a while, but I blew through it after I picked it up. It's a fun, exciting read in the quintessential steampunk world that Priest has put together. I love this alternate Seattle.

15 - To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck (7-15) Steinbeck's book is a dense one that took me a while to read through while I was reading several books at one. It's an interesting take on biblical themes and on faith itself.

16 - American Gods, Neil Gaiman (7-25) This was a book that was a pick for the 1b1t movement on twitter (something I hope returns), and I was happy for the excuse to re-read this fantastic novel. It's one of my favorite books of all time, and this time around, it was fantastic to have that reaffirmed.

17 - The Burning Skies, David J Williams (7-25) The followup to the Mirrored Heavens, this book took me a while to get through because it was dense and intense. A decent read, but it proved to be a bit of a chore to get through.

18 - How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu (7-30) This was probably one of the best science fiction books that I've read in a long time. It's brilliant, well written, interesting and part of the story itself. It's an outstanding take on time travel as well.

19 - River Of Gods, Ian McDonald (9-2) I've long heard of Ian McDonald, but I hadn't picked up any of his stories before now. His take on a future India is a fantastic one, and can't wait for more of his stories. River of Gods broke the mold when it comes to western science fiction: the future will be for everyone.

20 - Clementine, Cherie Priest (9-3) This short novella was a bit too compact for the story that it contained, but it demonstrated that The Clockwork Century is something that can easily extend beyond Boneshaker.

21 - Pattern Recognition (9-11) William Gibson's book from a couple of years ago, taking science fiction to the present day in this thriller. It's a fun read, and I've already got the sequels waiting for me.

22 - New Model Army, Adam Roberts (9-22) This military science fiction book had an interesting premise: what happens when crowdsourcing and wikiculture comes to warfare. The book is a little blunt at points, but it's more thought provoking than I thought it would be.

23 - Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman (9-26) An excellent anthology of short stories from all over the speculative fiction genre. There's some real gems in there.

24 - Andvari's Ring, Arthur Peterson (9-26) A translation of norse epic poetry from the early 1900s, this book looks and feels like a book should, and is one of those bookstore discoveries that I love. This was a fun book that has roots for a number of other stories in it.

25 - The City and The City, China Miéville (9-30) One of my absolute favorite stories of the year came with this book, my first introduction to Mieville. This murder mystery set against a fantastic background has some great implications that go with the story.

26 - Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigaulupi (10-22) A paperback version of Bacigalupi's stories was released towards the end of the year, and I have to say, it's one of the more disturbing reads of the year, but also one of the most excellent.

27 - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (10-31) I did a little reading on Washington Irving and found an e-book of this while I was going through a bit of a fascination on the gothic / horror genre. This book does it well. Hopefully, I'll be able to do a bit more research on the author and his fiction this year.

28 - The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman (11-8) The television show was an interesting one, and I finally was able to catch up on the comic that started it. They're very close to start, but that changes after a couple of episodes. Some of the characters were spot on.

29 - Baltimore, or,The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola. (11-8) This was a fun read: Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden both have some great storytelling abilities when it comes to horror fiction, and their take on vampires is an excellent one.

30 - Dreadnought, Cherie Priest (11-10) Cherie Priest had a really good thing with Boneshaker, but Dreadnought was a bit of a disappointment. It didn't have the same flair or feeling that the first book did, but it did do some things that I'd wanted to see in Boneshaker. It's an interesting series, and I'll be interested to see what happens next.

31 - Lost States, Michael Trinklein (11-13) This was a fun book that I came across in a local store on states that didn't make it. It's a fun, quick read with a number of fun stories.

32 - The Jedi Path, Daniel Wallace (11-14) While I thought this book wasn't worth the $100 for all the frills and packaging, this is a really cool read for Star Wars fans, going into some of the history and methods of the Jedi Order.

33 - Horns, Joe Hill (11-22) This was the other absolutely fantastic book that I read this year (reading it as an ebook and then from the regular book) from localish author Joe Hill. The story of a man who sprouts horns and a small, emotional story about his life. It's an astonishing read, and one that will hopefully be up for a couple of awards.

34 - Doom Came to Gotham, Mike Mignola (11-24) This was a fun, alternate take on the Batman stories in a steampunk world. Batman + Mignola's art = awesome.

35 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling (11-28) 36 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling (11-29) 37 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling (12-1) 38 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (12-3) 39 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling (12-12) 40 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (12-15) 41 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, J.K. Rowling (12-18) I'm not going to talk about each Potter novel in turn, but as a single, continuous story, Rowling has put together a hell of a story here. Outstanding characters and storylines, and the works as a whole are greater than the sum of their parts.

42 - The Magicians, Lev Grossman (12-27)

The logical book to read after the Harry Potter series was Lev Grossman's novel that can be described as an anti-Harry Potter. It's a fun novel the second time through, and good preparation for his followup this year.

43 - Brave New Worlds, John Joseph Adams (12-31)

The review for this book is coming shortly, but I have to say, it's one of the best anthologies that I've ever read.

On to 2011!

Geek Things of 2010

This was possibly one of the best years that I’ve had in a long time. There were geek things abound, in all facets of life: in literature, film, current events, science, music and people. 2010 was a fantastic year for me. In roughly chronological order, here are the notable geek moments of the year:

This year seems to have been the year for newly-published authors. Nora Jemisin exploded out of the gate with her book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first of a trilogy in an excellently conceived of world, one where gods and humans interact and where there are consequences for those who were chained, and those who held the chains. I was particularly blown away by this book, and look forward to diving into book two: The Broken Kingdoms sometime in 2011.

Canadian Science Fiction author Peter Watts became a bit of a martyr in the eyes of many in the science fictional world when he was thrown into jail for resisting arrest at a border crossing earlier this spring. News of his imprisonment and the details of his predicament spread like wildfire, spurring outrage. Watts has since been convicted and released, and won't be able to travel into the U.S..

I trooped in February with the 501st in New York City to support a product launch. What a surreal day: who would have thought of the combination of Star Wars, Snoop Dogg and Adidas?

The long-running UK show Dr. Who saw its latest rejuvenation in the form of Matthew Smith this year, along with show runner Steven Moffat, who's penned some of the best Dr. Who episodes that I've seen in the latest run. I only was able to catch a couple of the new episodes, but what I saw, I really liked.

One of the films that was a sure train wreck from the trailers was Clash of the Titans. It's decent, mindless monster porn with action and special effects, but for a regular movie? It was pretty bad, and the slapped together 3D helped show audiences that it's a stunt on the part of movie studios to rake in more money per ticket. Where 2009 saw Avatar as the big bright moment for 3D, 2010 saw that it was only good when natively filmed with the extra dimension, rather than slapped on with additional CGI.

Another new author broke into the ranks of the published, author Blake Charlton, with his first novel, Spellwright. While the novel wasn't perfect, it was enjoyable, and I've had the good fortune to talk extensively with him over the course of the year (while he splits writing time with his medical education). This book in particular draws upon Charlton's own experiences with Dyslexia, which allows the book a unique feel when it comes to the mechanics of world building and magic. Bring on book two, Spellbound, due out this year. !

One of my favorite authors from high school / camp, Karin Lowachee, returned from several years of absence for a new book titled The Gaslight Dogs, one of the better Steampunk books that I've read thus far. Set in an unconventional world to the North, Lowachee weaves together some interesting characters and settings in an entertaining novel. I eagerly await the sequels for this planned trilogy.

Earlier this year marked a major uproar when amazon.com attempted to flex its muscles against Macmillan publishers, who had been pushing for higher prices for its new hardcover books. Amazon pulled the books from the publisher, which outraged a lot of people - authors who found that their books weren't being sold for a couple of days before they were all put back into place.

April 20^th saw a massive explosion on the Deep Water Horizon oil rig when a plume of natural gas came up the well that they were drilling. The resulting oil spill lasted for three months and involved a major engineering and environmental effort to cap and contain the oil spill. Undoubtedly, the effects will be seen for years to come in the environmental and economic health of the region. The containment of the well itself is an achievement in and of itself, with an apt description of the process as similar to the Apollo 13 rescue.

Vermont singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell gained quite a lot of attention with her concept album Hadestown, a post-apocalyptic folk opera retelling of the legend of Orpheus. It's a mouthful, but an extensive cast of notable singers (such as Bon Iver and Ani DeFranco) join her in an impeccable work of music, story and art. This album was absolute perfection.

In July, at the urging of a former college professor, I drove down to ReaderCon, a regional science fiction convention that boasted an impressive list of authors and fans. Unlike most of the conventions that I've been to, this was devoted extensively to literature, and while there, I was able to meet a number of authors that I've long admired (and learned of there) such as Charles Stross, Allen M. Steele, Elizabeth Hand, Blake Charlton, Paolo Bacigalupi, David Forbes, N.K. Jemisin, and quite a few others. I had an absolute blast this year, and I'm eagerly awaiting the trip next year. Hopefully, I'll be able to visit some other similar cons this year.

I didn't catch this until later in the year, but Predators was a film that was released that had been one that I'd wanted to see in theaters. Where the first film was an 80s action film with too much brawn and no brains, this film was a smart, dynamic science fiction thriller, one that vastly improved the franchise. As io9 said, it's the perfect B movie. I'm inclined to agree.

While it was a sparse year for good genre films, one stood easily out amongst the others: Inception. It was a fantastic balance between action and story, with a thought-provoking storyline that dips its feet into the science fiction pool just as much as needed to push the story forward, exploring the mind and the possibilities of imagination. It’s on my slowly growing list of top science fiction films ever.

1B1T proved that Twitter could be more than mindless, as Wired Magazine ran a poll to see if they could get all of twitter reading the same book. The result? Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, broken down into an easy reading schedule – it made for a great excuse to re-read the book and talk to a number of people on a global scale.

Another new author, Charles Yu impressed me with his short story collection, Third Class Superhero this past spring and doubly so over the summer with his book, How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe, a brilliant time travel story that stands out from most books that I read this year. Yu's book becomes part of the story itself, and can easily be compared to the works of Douglas Adams with its dry humor.

Last year, Paolo Bacigalupi blew me away with his novel The Windup Girl, and this year, his follow-up YA novel Ship Breaker could easily fit into the same post-oil world. Global warming is rampant, people are exploited, and with that in the background, there's a very basic and interesting story that pulls the reader through. Bacigalupi's a guy to watch, and this book demonstrated that he's no one hit wonder.

Apple launched their new device and product category this year, the iPad, and when a really good deal came through earlier this year, I bought one, something that I wasn't expecting to do. So far, it's easily the best thing that I've bought all year long. It's an amazingly good computer, and it works very well with what I've long used a computer for, while being more convenient than a laptop. It's a multi-purpose device that I've been able to use extensively over the course of the year, for writing, reading, web work, music and games. For my first Apple early adoption, it's come off far better than my first iPod.

This year's Hugo Awards presented a rare event: a tie for Best Novel: Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl and China Mieville's The City and The City (more on that in a moment) both received the award in addition to every other award that they scooped up along the way. (Quite a few!). Moon also picked up the movie award.

The animated Star Wars Clone Wars TV show has been popular, but for me, up and down in quality. The opening episode was impressive, but from everything that I've seen beyond that, it's become an exceedingly boring show. When the ads point to the passage of an arms bill in the Republic senate as the exciting bits, you should probably reevaluate. Hopefully, it'll get a bit better soon.

When it came to television shows that disappoint, LOST came to an end is year with a finale that ended the show, but one that didn't wow me like it should have. There was too much lost when it came to possibilities, and it felt more like an ending and an epilogue that wasn't needed.

Masked is a superhero anthology, featuring a number of authors taking on the super powered and the caped. I've yet to finish it, and while I've been enjoying most of it, there are only so many stories of a Batman clone before I have to question the need for the story to be included.

One of the better anthologies that I read all year, Stories: All New Tales, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio is an impressive book that looks to the idea that stories should be things that demand that you turn the page to find out what happens next. This collection of stories, which boasts an impressive list of contributors, is one that I really enjoyed reading through - there's a bit of every genre here, from science fiction to fantasy to horror to crime fiction. Worth picking through and reading for all of the excellent stories.

Military science fiction stories are fascinating reads - I've read a number of them this year, and by far, the most thought-provoking was Adam Robert's New Model Army. The premise is one that's very modern: what happens when the wiki-culture moves into warfare? While I think that a lot of what would have happened in the book would never come to pass, it does have some interesting ideas behind it, and by far, was one of the better books that I read all year.

Iron Man 2 would have done well to capitalize on the military science fiction stories that the first was known for: a tight, interesting and well conducted special effects spectacular. The trailers looked awesome, but the film just fell flat: it was overblown, nonsensical at times, and not nearly as good as the first one. It did have its good parts, such as Sam Rockwell's zany character, and some fun action scenes.

Kirby Krackle completely rocked my world this year. Their sound is pretty basic when it comes to the actual music, but they rocked it pretty well. In a world where there a few songs that are so passionate about Green Lantern or zombies, their album E for Everyone really stood out for me, and it's an awesome bit of music to bounce around to. These guys are the new voice of fandom.

The first big cancellation from SyFy earlier this year was Caprica, which launched with a great cast of characters and a whole lot of potential, this precursor to Battlestar Galactica was a show that really needed to be trimmed down and to find its focus a bit. Numerous storylines, characters and themes all running together worked well, but the writing was on the wall early on: the show could have been just as good or better than BSG, (and was, at points), but its ratings couldn't sustain it. It's a real shame: the show could have been better than BSG.

In it's second season, Stargate Universe continued to impress me, and it's recent cancellation has me far more upset than the axing of any other television show that I've watched (even Firefly, although I saw that post-cancellation). A step up for the franchise as a whole, this season of Universe was brilliant, well acted and had a lot going for it, and I hope that the next ten episodes will see some good closure and storytelling. Still, maybe it'll be one of those shows that was awesome and never had a chance to get bad, much like Firefly.

One of the absolute best books that I read this year was China Miéville’s The City and The City, which was up for a number of awards this year, including the Hugo. I picked this up after the hype started to go, and it lived up to, and exceeded my expectations by a long margin. Wonderfully plotted in a well thought-out world, Miéville crafts a murder mystery with a fantastic background, and puts to paper one of the best books of the year.

The mathematician who was responsible for some major advances in mathematics and theory died earlier this year, Benoit Mandelbrot. Also the subject of a Jonathan Coulton song: Mandelbrot Set.

Stephen Moffat ruled the Dr. Who universe for a while now, but I liked his take on Sherlock Holmes far more. Set in the modern day, Sherlock is a retelling of the story, with Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. A far better take on the character than Robert Downey Jr.'s in the film adaptation (which was also quite fun), Sherlock was fantastic from start to cliff-hanger. I already can't wait for Series 2.

In the wake of Sherlock, Martin Freeman was selected to play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, which is finally moving forward, along with what looks like a great cast. It’s still a shame that Guillermo del Toro isn’t directing though.

Zombies have been all the rage for a while now, and (no pun intended) have been done to death. The Walking Dead falls into a couple of categories with me. The pilot episode was fantastic - one of the better takes on a man waking up to find civilization gone, but it's a story that really doesn't add much to the canon, and while it had its interesting points, it's something that I'm more or less indifferent to. We'll see how Season 2 goes.

While Zombies have been very popular, 2010 saw a bit of a decline in the hysteria over Vampires, while Steampunk came in as a solid genre. The Steampunk craze has gotten some major attention: Sherlock Holmes took on a couple of Steampunkish elements, while Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) in the show Castle became a convert as publishers such as Pyr and Tor have published a number of books in the genre. It's something that's here to stay, that's for sure.

When it comes to Pyr books, one of their offerings for the year that I read earlier this was Ian McDonald's River of Gods, which took place in a futuristic India. The Dervish House is his latest book, taking place in a futuristic Turkey. I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm loving its rich attention to culture and interconnected storyline.

Going back to geek music, a friend of mine, John Anealio, turned me towards Marian Call earlier this year at ReaderCon, and when she came through Vermont on her 49 state tour this year (an impressive feat in and of itself), I was able to catch her at Montpelier's Langdon Street Cafe for a geeky set of music and a couple of quick words with Marian. She's a lovely singer, one who's popular for all of the right reasons. Geek music was something that I focused on quite a bit this year, putting together a playlist that's almost 700 songs long, and while doing so, came across a strange trend with some of the more higher-profile stuff that trends more towards Geek Pop music. Songs like G33ks and G4m3r Girls by Team Unicorn were almost unlistenable earworms, laundry-lists of popular geek things without the real soul of "geek" stuff to begin with. It'll be interesting to see if there's more of it as geek stuff gets more and more popular.

Speaking of John Anealio, he's someone to keep an eye on, and someone that I befriended earlier this year at ReaderCon. John's an excellent geek musician, with some fantastic songs released earlier this year, such as 'Stormtrooper for Halloween' and 'I Should Be Writing'. Kirby Krackle might speak for fandom, but Anealio speaks for the fans themselves. I can't wait to see what he comes up next.

Another outfit to keep an eye out for is Symphony of Science, which continued to release a number of tracks of auto tuned scientists (namely Carl Sagan) with a wonderful collection of music that speaks to science and the wonders of the universe.

One of the films that I'm practically drooling over in anticipation for is Battle: Los Angeles, which can best be described as Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down. The early buzz from San Diego Comic Con was good, and the trailer showed that there was going to be some excellent looking action. The film is due out in March of 2011, and I really hope that it'll live up to my expectations.

While I panned iFringe when it first came out, but I've grown to love it and really rued my words: with Stargate Universe off the air, it's easily the best science fiction show on TV right now, and while its ratings have dropped and it's been moved to Friday nights, I'm hoping that the show will continue onwards. This season has seen less of the blood and gore, but has an excellent alternate universe storyline that's heating up. I can't wait for new episodes starting up later this week!

One of the coolest things to happen in the realm of space exploration happened was the Deep Impact Probe, launched on 2005 to take a look at the 9P/Tempel comet. The probe released an impactor earlier this year and took a number of high resolution pictures as it passed by and analyzed the impact to see what it was made of.

The other top book of the year was easily Joe Hill's second novel, Horns, mixing popular culture, horror iconology and religious allegory together in a story that absolutely gripped me and blew me away while I was reading it.

It was a sad day in December when Leslie Nielsen passed away. Airplane is one of my favorite comedies, while Forbidden Planet is easily one of my favorite science fiction films. He will certainly be missed. Right on the heels of Nielsen was Irvin Kershner, who directed the greatest of the Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back. It's a shame that his work was never quite matched with the franchise. Ironically, his film was one of 25 preserved by the Library of Congress's National Film Registry.

On December 9th, the private space firm SpaceX made history when it launched it's Falcon 9 rocket into orbit carrying a dragon capsule. It became the first private firm to orbit the earth and safely return, joining a small number of countries who have accomplished the same thing.

When it comes to dragons, a film released this year that I only just caught was How To Train Your Dragon, a great kids film with a fun story and some good graphics. At the same time, I can also recommend Toy Story 3 for many of the same reasons - excellent storytelling and a positive end for that franchise.

Wikileaks occupied most of the news coverage for the last part of the year as they released thousands of diplomatic cables in addition to their leak of classified military dispatches written over the course of the Iraq / Afghanistan war. The leaks demonstrated the power of the internet: and the necessity to keep secrets a bit more secure. Given the lack of ability of the British government to keep track of their own files, I'm surprised that they haven't been the target of more leaks.

I first saw the original Tron earlier this year in anticipation for Tron: Legacy, and I came out of the theaters with a film that met my expectations. It was a blockbuster that was fun, but it could have been so much more than it was. With Disney working on sequels and a television series, I'm not sure that the franchise is going anywhere, but box office results have been somewhat lax, given all the advanced hype and marketing for the film.

That ends out the year. It’s been an impressive one, and one that marked a couple of milestones for me: I’ve written, talked to, read and watched so much in the speculative fiction genre, and I’m loving the immersion. There’s a long list of people to thank for it: Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, John DeNardo, John Anelio, Patrick Hester, Aiden Moher, Blake Charlton, Charles Yu, Paolo Bacigalupi, David Forbes, Jim Ehrman, N.K. Jemisin, John Scalzi, David J. Williams, Christie Yant, John Joseph Adams, Karin Lowachee, Megan Messinger, Bridget McGovern, Brit Mandelo, Scott Eldeman, Blastr, everybody at io9, SF Signal and Tor.com, people who commented and e-mailed me because of what I wrote and everyone who encouraged my writing and reasoning over the year. Most of all, Megan, for everything. It’s been the best year for me to date, and I’m looking forward to an even better 2011.

2011 Books

As 2010 closes out, there's the inevitable looking forward to the new year. There's already a small, but growing list of books that are coming out that has been percolating in the back of my head. Some of these are authors that I've never read before, some are ones from familiar people, but all looked interesting to me. Here's what I've got thus far:

Hull Zero Three, Greg Bear

This is actually a 2010 release, but by the time that I buy it, it'll be well into the new year. A man awakes on a far out spacecraft from hibernation and takes stock of his surroundings. It looks like a fast-based, stripped down sort of novel. Hopefully, it'll be better than Pandorum.

The Habitation of the Blessed: A Dirge for Prester John Volume 1, Catherynne M. Valente

I'm not usually moved by covers (There are some exceptions, like The Windup Girl), but this one looks interesting, and the blurb hasn't deterred me at all:

This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, twelfth-century document which captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings for centuries. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a poor, broken priest once stumbled past its borders, discovering, not a Christian paradise, but a country where everything is possible, immortality is easily had, and the Western world is nothing but a dim and distant dream?Brother Hiob of Luzerne, on missionary work in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the eighteenth century, discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit.

Spellbound, Blake Charlton

Spellwright, by Blake Charlton, was a fun read that I came across earlier this year, and from the early (and now cut section) look that I had earlier, this looked very interesting, and a cool continuation of the world that he's set up. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Leviathan Wakes, James A. Corey

Another one where the cover grabbed me, this start to a series looks to interstellar space, colonies, and ancient secrets lost in the solar system. Looks like it could be a promising romp in science fiction. Blurb:

Humanity has colonized the planets – interstellar travel is still beyond our reach, but the solar system has become a dense network of colonies. But there are tensions – the mineral-rich outer planets resent their dependence on Earth and Mars and the political and military clout they wield over the Belt and beyond.Now, when Captain Jim Holden’s ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the attack, stop a war, and find the truth behind a vast conspiracy that threatens the entire human race.

Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi

John Scalzi's an author that I've followed quite a bit over the past year, and while I haven't read his followup books to 'Old Man's War' (have them, haven't gotten to them yet), Fuzzy Nation is probably going to jump to the front of the list. It's a reboot of a hugo-award winning novel, Little Fuzzy, something he doesn't think has happened before. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that, and there's no doubt in my mind that Scalzi can put together a fun tale.

Embassytown, China Mieville

The City and The City is one of my favorite books that I read over the past year, and as he turns to science fiction and aliens, I'm confident that he'll be putting a unique twist and look on the genre. In the meantime, I've got Kracken to read.

Bright’s Passage, Josh Ritter

I actually don't know anything about what this book will be about. But, it's by Josh Ritter, one of the best singer-songwriters out there, and if this is anything like his music, it's going to be a very good read indeed.

The Magician's King, Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman blew me away with The Magicians last year, and this followup to the book has me really intrigued. Where the first one could be described as the anti-Harry Potter, I have a hard time seeing how this one could play out. The ending moved to a bit more of a traditional fantasy novel, and if he can craft something in the same vein, that should be interesting indeed.

Unknown, Austin Grossman

Brother of Lev Grossman, Austin is known for his fantastic novel Soon I Will Be Invincible. Nothing much has come from the author since that was published a couple of years ago, but reportedly, he'll have something coming out. I'll be checking it out as soon as I get more information on it! Of course, all of these books could be horrible. They could be brilliant. Time will tell, but I can't wait to find out. Hype in any form is a dangerous thing for a book: it can raise expectations beyond what is reasonable, or it won't be enough for a brilliant book to get off the ground. Things like cover art, while cool, aren't the literature world equivilent of trailers, although they're hyped up to be, and while I do love great cover art, it doesn't always pay off by translating into a good book. Most of the authors on this list are ones that I've known and read before, although there's a couple of newcomers. Fortunately, this is a small risk to take. I can buy a book based on the cover and advance reviews, and hope for the best. In some cases, it's paid off. In others? I have a book that sits on my shelf, looking nice. Here's to hoping that 2011 will be as good of a year as this year was.

Revisiting Harry Potter

In 2007, I worked at the Berlin Mall Waldenbooks branch as a bookseller. In July of that year, we were able to take part in what was probably one of the biggest literary launches to date: the release of the final volume of Harry Potter, The Deathly Hollows, a highly anticipated book that had people lining up down the mall, and which saw an arrival of hundreds of sturdy white and red boxes with special tape to prevent theft or tampering. In my short time as a bookseller, I've never seen the same fervor or attention placed on a novel's release. My sister, dressed up as Luna Lovegood for the line, purchased our family's copy just after midnight, and returned home to start it. The next couple of days saw us stealing the book from one another, reading it chapter by chapter while we pretended to be ready to release spoilers for the parts that each other had yet to read. We both finished the book, and moved on to other things.

In fact, I only owned a UK edition of The Order of the Phoenix, really only as a curiosity because of its fantastic cover, rather than with plans to read through it any time soon. I fostered my memories of the books, slightly disappointed with the ending, and planned in the back of my mind to eventually buy all the books and re-read them at some point in the future. While browsing through a bookstore in Montpelier earlier this fall, I came across a cheap, used hardcover in excellent condition, and bought it. I kept my eyes out on my frequent bookstore visits, and soon, I had all of the books in hand (All hardcover, in good condition, like I had as a kid.)

With all of the books in hand, and needing to read something I didn't have to pay as much attention to, I reread the entire series in twenty days, or 3853 pages at just under 200 pages a day. It's a pace that I haven't read at for a long time, as the books that I pick up have changed and my education has brought my reading speed down. It was refreshing, exhilarating and fun and a good opportunity to pull in the entire Harry Potter story within a small amount of time.

The Harry Potter books were something that I had picked up early in High School. Around 2001, the books had become incredibly popular, I found myself borrowing out the first two the day before a snow storm. With a snow day right after, I was angry: I'd read through both books, and had to wait for a full day to borrow out the latest book, the Prisoner of Azkaban, still one of my favorites. The fourth book came while I was working at Camp, and the fifth was snatched up by my sister while I went on a graduation trip with my classmates in 2003. Books Six and Seven came out while I was in college, and for the most part, were completely unmemorable.

As I blew through the first four books in the series, I was reminded of why I loved these books so much as a high school student. Despite the drawbacks when it comes to the writing style (there's a reason why I can blow through each book quickly) and some of the more less-nuanced parts of the stories, Rowling has put together an incredible series, one that certainly appealed to my high school imagination, and its grown up counterpart.

What struck me, on this read through, was at how well each piece fits together at the end. While the first three books really function as their own separate pieces, book four introduces some of the major plot elements that stretch through to the end. Pieces of the first book return to impact and flesh out the events of the last. It's a clever bit of retrocontinuity, or some incredible planning on Rowling's part, or a bit of both, but after taking a break from the books for the better part of three years, returning felt like putting a pair of fresh eyes on the story as one continuous unit, rather than taken in piecemeal over the seven or so years that I read the books as they came out.

Where I was disappointed with The Deathly Hollows before, I was blown away by it this time around. While the book has its problems - the first half feels like filler, while the last half feels like an information dump - it accomplishes what some books have a very hard time doing: saying goodbye to a longstanding story and tying it up in a satisfactory way. The ending is happy, perfect, while major themes on good vs. evil, destiny vs. self-determination and friendship vs. enemies all play out around this. Young adult fiction has been a growing market for both youths and adults, and after reading through the seven books here, it's easy to see why: it's a perfect balance between entertainment and morals. While they seem to shuck some of the subtlety that I appreciate in some of the upper echelons of genre literature, these offer much the same end result.

Megan

This is Megan.

We met in 2009 at Norwich, where we were classmates in the Military History program. During the our residency week in June, we met, found that we had a lot in common and began to date. She left, then she drove back up to Vermont. I drove down to Pennsylvania. She came back up, and I spent the New Year's with her, and drove down again a week later after her father passed away to be with her during the funeral. We talked every night on the phone, even when we had nothing to say. I gave her books, and she surprised me with cards in my mail box.

In May, I somehow convinced her to move up to Vermont, where she worked at Residency with me for a couple of weeks. We drove to work together, and then she found a job working at a school nearby. Her parents visited us over the summer, and we stopped by my parents house to visit my family's dog, Fionna (and my parents). My dad pulled me aside during one visit, and told me that while he didn't know what my plans were, she wasn't someone to let go. I agreed.

Megan moved in, prompting a flutter of change and movement around my life. My apartment was rearranged, our floors are groaning under the weight of our combined bookshelves. I've learned to cook for two people, and we take walks up and down the street or around the city every night. We rent movies together and surprise one another with a hug or a kiss when the other isn't expecting it. We've gone swimming in the local rivers nearby and we drive up to Burlington on a whim for Christmas shopping or a movie when the mood strikes us.

I've never, ever been as happy as I've been since she entered my life a year and a half ago.

I've asked her to marry me. She said yes.

Tron: Legacy

I first watched the original Tron earlier this year based on several recommendations from friends, and was really hooked on the film. The 1982 film was one that was a neat balance between advanced effects (now very, very dated), action and a decent storyline that had a lot of potential. When the first promotional clips were released of the new Tron, it looked like it would be an interesting update of the franchise. Tron: Legacy is a fun science fiction film, and while it has its shortcomings in the plot, the visuals and excellent score make up for it.

Taking place nearly thirty years after the events of the original, Legacy has aged real time. Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) rose to the top of the tech industry and then vanished, leaving behind his Son, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund). The majority share-holder of Encom, Sam plays a minimal role in the company, stopping by to prank the board, before encountering Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), who tells him that he received a page from his long-lost father's office at the arcade. The younger Flynn is sucked into the Grid, and finds that his father had literally disappeared for the past thirty years, and that his creation has grown beyond its creator harboring some greater ambitions for the real world.

Tron: Legacy serves as a good action film, with top-notch visuals and action that shows just how good the last thirty years have been for the film industry. The effects of the original, now quaintly dated, held up nicely for what they were (and as a sort of period science fiction film), and the new entry in the Tron universe has brought together a sleek glass and light environment with better costumes and more exciting and dynamic action sequences. The eye candy alone is worth the price of admission, and on one level, the film is a fun action film that does well for what it is.

Plotwise, the film falters more than I would have liked. Inception this isn't, and while I can make a case for some strong points for stories and allegorical undertones to the original, the fact remains that these films were designed to be crowd pleasers, not something to ponder for years to come. As such, the plot moves from point A to point B pretty quickly, expediently and predictably.

Looking back at the film, there's quite a lot that could have been done: the most frustrating element here is the wasted potential that a film such as this could have offered. Like the original, there's some powerful material here that relates to religion and creationism, for we see Flynn creating his own world from quite literally nothing, alongside CLU and TRON, according to some plan of perfection. Along the way, we see the introduction of ISOs (Isomorphic Algorithms), who manifested themselves out of nothingness. The potential for some very interesting storytelling is there, and ultimately, never followed up on to any great deal of satisfaction. The big problem here is that these elements are all touched on: the father / son angle, the deity angle, the understanding of perfection vs. imperfection angle and so forth, but once touched on, they dissolve into the background as one thing leads to another action scene. To turn this into a truly extraordinary movie would have been a huge leap of faith by creating a radically different film from what we've seen in the franchise thus far, and it's clear that Disney was content to keep this as a sure money maker, rather than a risky investment. Critical acclaim is certainly nice, but it's not bankable.

Disney has a number of plans for the rebooted Tron, with an additional two sequels planned, and a ten episode television series coming up next year, the franchise is something that the company is looking to for revenue for the future. Rather than going the smart route, they've gone the Star Wars route: merchandising, sequels, continual updates and inclusions into the franchise. The TRON world seems like it would be a good one to try out, given the potential that exists with some elements of the plot. The ending of Legacy certainly leaves the door open for some future films and stories to be told.

There's other flaws with the film as well. The director, Joseph Kosinski, is out for his first time with this one, having directed some critically acclaimed shorts such as the 'Mad World' Gears of War and Halo 'Starry Night' commercials, but his style here left some of the action and transitions between scenes flat, slowing down the pace of the film at points, something that shouldn't happen in any sort of major film.

But, this doesn't ruin the film. The pieces are there in the background, and there's a balance between action and story that makes this a film that can exist on a couple of levels. There's far more logic and interest to the film than some of the other science fiction blockbusters out there, and the combined effort of the actors (Michael Sheen is especially excellent as the zany manager of the nightclub End of Line) who bring about some decent performances - I particularly liked Olivia Wilde as Quorra, Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn and Bruce Boxleitner, reprising TRON and Alan Bradley briefly. Quick eyes will pick out Cillian Murphy in the opening of the film as well. Plus, Daft Punk helped to put together an amazing soundtrack that helped push the film along where needed, and the duo show up a couple of times in the club. One might think that that's their natural habitat.

More so than the story or the actors, Tron: Legacy has done an excellent job updating the Tron world from the 1980s on a visual and social level. I've liked what the original did to conceptualize computer programs as people within their own little world (which in and of itself has some towering philosophical threads) and it's been used in other works to great success, such as in Ian McDonald's 'River of Gods'. Legacy opens up this world a bit more under Flynn's Arcade, and the territory is ripe for new ideas and directions.

Tron: Legacy was a film that I enjoyed watching. While it didn't move me to want to go back and watch again right away like Inception, Moon and District 9 did, it didn't make me regret that I'd spent the money and time watching it in the first place. While not the smartest science fiction film out there, it's certainly far from the worst that I've ever seen, and I'll be interested to see what will come next for the Tron franchise.

Battle of the Bulge: Phase II

On December 17th 1944, from what I can tell so far, the 100th Infantry Division was ordered to the Bastogne, Noville, and Bras areas to stop the sudden attack by German forces. The 28th Infantry division found itself on its second day fighting for its survival as their entire divisional front was under attack, and member of the division, 1st Lt. Carl Hughes of the 102nd Cavalry Recon Squadron continued to make his way through enemy lines. The Battle of the Bulge was in full force in Germany and Belgium, and would continue to rage on for over a month.

The anniversary of the beginning of the battle saw the start of the second phase of my project documenting the Norwich University alumni who fought there. I had hoped to have finished the writing by this point, but that hasn't happened yet, but the research and collection of raw data has largely wound down for the project. From the data that I was able to collect, I've assembled a list of just under a hundred and fifty people from a variety of sources: publications, records, mentions, with thirty people confirmed with sources that they were present at some point, another 73 people who might have been there based on their unit, ten people who can be written off, with a further 30 people who may or may not have been there, but with very little to go on, other than a country reference.

This collection of raw data has some additional bits of information that goes along with each student: their rank, unit, whether they were wounded or killed, what medals they earned, and any other additional notes. As a whole, it's a wealth of information that only tells me a couple of certain points that help lead to the next stage.

Raw data by itself is somewhat useless. I can tell you ten things about Carl Hughes. He was a first lieutenant in the 28th Infantry division with the 102nd Cavalry Recon Squadron, that he graduated from Norwich in 1942, that he received the Bronze and Silver Stars in addition to a purple heart, and that he walked through enemy lines for three days following the attack when his unit was surrounded. The next step involves adding context to the situation.

Going unit by unit, this next step involves adding that context. With it, I've learned that the 28th Infantry Division had taken the first impact of the German advance on December 16th, along a 25 mile stretch that enveloped the division, and that from the 16th through the 22nd, the unit was involved in heavy fighting before pulling back on the 22nd to Neufchateau to reorganize. This additional layer helps to put the individual experiences of the soldiers into better context.

With rare exceptions, student information on their individual experiences during the battle are rare, and in those instances, I have a paragraph at the most, or a brief sentence at the least that indicates that an alum was present at any part of the battle. The additional information as to what the units as a whole were up to help to fill in the blanks and gives me a general idea of what any given student might have been doing at the time. Furthermore, the individual data points that make up Norwich Students on the timeline helps to etch out a clearer understanding of how the battle worked: it was complicated, with numerous fronts, battles and units involved. Approaching the battle from the people who studied at Norwich also helps to demonstrate the impact that Norwich itself played during the battle, much like I discovered with the Operation Overload paper that I wrote in 2007. There was a collective Norwich experience that was widespread throughout the conflict.

This next step is far from done - quick passes through the Army Historical blurbs allow me to pin point some key dates for units, and a second pass will help to put in more detail for some of the larger units, such as the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions and the 17th Airborne Division, which seems to have a larger collection of Norwich men within it. With a codified timeline in place, the events of the battle can be put down into more detail, and a larger story of the Battle of the Bulge will appear, seen through the eyes of the school's alumni.

It's an exciting bit of work as I am able to gather more and more information on individual units and to see the battle emerge from the raw data points that I've collected. One thing is for sure so far: Norwich University was present on the front lines (and in one case, above them) and undoubtably, given some of the notations, medals and units that these men earned and occupied, it had some hand in the outcome of the battle, providing a basis for the actions of the men who fought in 1944 and 1945.

The Way of the Firefly

The Syfy channel, via Craig Engler, has just announced that they're ending Stargate Universe after they finish out the next ten episodes of the current season, effectively stopping the franchise on the television. It's a shame, because SGU has rapidly become one of the more interesting and compelling science fiction dramas on television, and it was doing good things for the franchise, taking it in a very interesting direction.

Unfortunately, it's also not a surprise. Going out on a short limb, the ratings for the show have been pretty low, on par with what Caprica was getting, and it seems that unlike in prior years, with a solid block of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica, the combined efforts of Starate Universe and Caprica on a Tuesday night didn't have the same effect on audiences.

There's a recurring lesson here: the reasons for a show getting cancelled are generally up to audience numbers, and fans, just as much as the channel are on the hook. In every instance of a cancelled science fiction show, low ratings have been generally been a universal factor: Firefly, Life on Mars (US), Stargate SG-1/Atlantis, Kings, Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse are all examples. Off the top of my head, the only shows that haven't been canceled only because of ratings was Babylon 5 (which almost didn't make it) and LOST, (which saw its release altered to lower numbers of episodes per season). The circular logic kicks in as fans don't stick with a show, and the home channels don't do enough to keep them.

In this instance, Stargate Universe had an incredible uphill battle to keep going for even a season. The show as a whole is very much against the grain when it comes to the style of shows that its predecessors were, and opted to go for the darker, edgier route that Battlestar Galactica had gone. It's increasinly appearing that Battlestar was an oddity, which has darker implications in and of itself. Given the dropping ratings and low audience numbers for the show, I can't get too angry at SyFy for cancelling the show. Like any channel, it's a business, and when things get unprofitable, it's impossible to keep them going in that type of environment. For all of the arguments about new media such as Hulu, on demand viewing and the like, Engler has talked a lot on his twitter feed about how there's no model yet for payment, and that a lot of these types of things are still playing out. This is all within an increasing environment where piracy is on the rise, which further impacts a show's audience. (I think that this is a bit of a lesser degree than argued though).

Stargate's long been a favorite franchise of mine, and Universe especially so. They've done some cool things with it: brought on John Scalzi as a creative consultant, brought in a very cool cast, and told some stories that are amongst the best that I've seen in the franchise. There's some great, real-world science things brought in, and a take on military science fiction and characters that makes quite a lot of sense to me. Even the visuals have been fantastic.

The moral of the story comes down to the fans. For all of the rage that's directed at the SyFy channel, it's a bit misguided: they're certainly not going out to cancel major projects that they've sunk a lot of money into. At the same time, as the channel works to put on more and more B-movies for their weekend shows and fairly mindless shows such as Warehouse 13, Sanctuary and Haven, I wish that they would find a way to make some of their investments work better for today's audiences, and use these new means to bring better, compelling and interesting science fiction to the small screen.

The next one on the horizon is Fringe, moved ominously to Friday night (and which moved episode is titled 'Firefly'), which has also seen diminishing numbers. Hopefully, with ten episodes to go, SGU will be able to end on a good note, with a bit of proper closure. Hopefully, they'll get home and remain as brilliant as they've been for the past two years.

Good Leadership means Continued Learning: ADM Thad Allen at Norwich University

Last night, Retired Admiral Thad Allen talked before a group of Norwich University students and Northfield residents for the latest entry in the Todd Lecture series, with a talk titled 'Leading Through Crisis and Times of Change'. Adm. Allen is uniquely qualified on this particular subject, having served as the person in charge for the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita cleanup just after the storm destroyed parts of New Orleans, the Haiti Earthquake and as the National Incident Commander for the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. Each disaster was an unprecedented event that warranted extraordinary response measures, and in each case, the issues that

Leadership was the focus of the talk, amongst the times when leaders were most needed to complete and correct the problems that have typically faced the country. While Allen's experiences are monumental, major disasters, much of what he had talked about were very applicable lessons for everyone: ways to confront challenges in the workplace, in the community, and if needed, on a state or national level. Over the course of its history, the country has tackled a number of challenges and problems facing it, and there is no doubt that there will be plenty more in the future. One of the key things that I've found in both my education and employment at Norwich University (more so with my employment) is that leadership is an incredibly important thing when it comes to any organization.

When Katrina and Rita hit New Orleans, Allen likened it to the effect of a weapon of mass destruction, without the criminal element, and then response to the problem. Had the city been hit with a nuclear weapon or something that could produce a similar effect, a vastly different response would have been put together. A key element in leadership is the people in place who can reconcile both competency and opportunity in the face of a situation while seeking the appropriate outcome. The major issue with the Katrina disaster was that the people in charge of the recovery at first didn't understand what the problem was. There was a broken link between understanding what the priorities were, and applying the resources accordingly. When he arrived eight days after the storm, a different problem had to be tackled, with authorities operating without a clear chain of command. They broke the city up into different sections, with various organizations such as the Marines and 82nd Airborne taking control of specific tasks. First responder teams worked to provide logistical, security and rescue support for each house in the city, with the members of these teams given the authority to work under the Mayor of the city.

The thing that struck me the most was how much of leadership consisted of problem solving, and just how profound the realization was that problems changed dramatically while they're playing out, and that the best response often comes beforehand, with people under one's command / supervision who can be used to deal with problems as they arise. When it came to Haiti, Allen likened it to Katrina on a much larger scale, and with other, additional problems. While the country's leaders had survived, the UN mission found itself without leadership when their building collapsed, causing problems interfacing between the country and the rest of the world. As what had been found during the Katrina response, a clear, unified command wasn't present in the country. Many of the lessons that were learned during Katrina were applied in the response to Haiti, to the effect of where U.S. command and control infrastructure was packed up into a C-140 and flown down.

Haiti was devastated, and once again, relief efforts had to utilize the resources at hand. Port du Prince was destroyed, Allen said, due to engineering and the magnitude of the quake, cutting off the only major way to receive large amounts of materials. As a result, the air space was restricted, and a large-scale effort was put into place to bring in supplies by air. At the peak of the air operations, 160 flights per day were landing, helped by several years of work from the 1st Air Force and lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. NGOs on the ground were also used, because the people on the ground knew the people that they were delivering relief to: a human response to the human problems was needed, and helped in a lot of ways.

The next major issue was the one that is still in the news: the Gulf Oil Spill. Allen was very clear on a couple of points: despite the controversy over BP’s role in the spill, his attention was on the parts that needed to be taken care of right away: containing the spill, capping the well and killing it. Despite the fact that the oil company had a hand in the disaster, they made incredible efforts to kill it, and faced enormous technical and engineering problems that resembled more of Apollo 13 than the Exxon Valdez.

Additionally, there wasn’t an apparent role for the federal government: this started off as a private sector problem, and BP wasn’t seen as a responsible party because they weren’t answerable to the general public.

The oil spill was incredibly complicated. The spill had to be stopped, and three missions emerged: the technical problems with stopping hot hydrocarbons gushing out at 12,000 psi into a cold environment, an oil spill on the surface that changed every day with the wind, and protecting the coastlines. The scale of this disaster dwarfed the response plans currently in place, and was so different (aimed towards something along the lines of a tanker spill than a blow out) that it required a new way of thinking. Once the response came under way, a massive job was undertaken to coordinate the efforts: all efforts needed to be coordinated in order to bring about the best results: boats on the water cleaning oil and the shorelines, and when an organization becomes complex in ways such as this, some things break down.

One thing was transparency, which Allen noted was essential in this day and age. People are armed with cameras, social media, and are willing to use them, and in this instance, while responsible parties can work on coordination and delegation, people on the ground need to be included, with the assurances that what they’re doing will be backed up by the people in charge. A transparent organization works the best, because it tends to be self-correcting. It was noted that the decision to put up cameras was a positive one, because people could see what was going on, and when things were starting to get better. Requests to put a time delay on the video were denied, because it would damage perceptions that the company and cleanup efforts were honest and doing what they were supposed to.

Coming out of these three disasters, Allen imparted several key things when it came to leadership. The first is that anyone can be a better leader, and that the best leaders never stop learning. They continue to learn and adapt to the situation, and from prior disasters or incidents, lessons can be learned. Lessons 9/11 informed Katrina, which informed Haiti, which in turn informed the Gulf Oil Response.

Second, leaders cannot lead from the top down, the bottom up or from the center: they lead from everywhere. The human element of any response is a key thing, and people who are working to address a problem need to be empowered to do their jobs, with someone backing them up from the top. According to Allen: “To be a better leader, you must become a better person,”

What strikes me as most relevant to these points is not that they are only applicable to major disasters, but to any number of instances that most people face, and the key to this talk was that leadership can be found everywhere, in everyone: people need to recognize when actions are needed, by managing the appropriate resources available in the proper way.

What struck me the most was how focused Adm. Allen was throughout the talk, especially when he spoke about social media and the 24/7 newscycle that we now have in the country. They key element seems to be to adapt and work with people on the ground who want to help, but to remain focused on the task at hand, regardless of perceptions, pundits and political elements who have their own agendas. His view of BP clashed with the perceptions of the public and that of the media, and while he noted that they had their own issues in their image, they approached the problem with the best of intentions where it was needed: without the resources and expertise that BP provided and applied to the spill, the crisis would have been much worse.

In the future, he noted, there needs to be a better doctrine to shift from short-term solutions to long term recovery for places such as Katrina, Haiti and the Gulf, which in and of itself will require new ways of thinking about problems. In the meantime, lessons need to be learned for how to tackle the next unforeseen problem that will face the country: natural disasters, attacks, industrial mistakes, and so forth are all possibilities, and the only sure solution will be someone who can find an effective way to recognize the problems and apply the proper response needed. Such effective leaders should empower those under their supervision, and will be ones who will learn from the experiences and lessons of the past.

The Start of Something Fantastic: SpaceX Orbits the Earth

Yesterday, at 10:43 in the morning, a Falcon 9 rocket carried a Dragon capsule into a low earth orbit, where it circled the Earth twice before splashing down on target 500 miles off the coast of Southern California. This marked the first time that a private commercial firm has accomplished such a task, joining only a handful of countries (The United States, Russia, China, India, Japan and the European Space Agency) by going into the skies above. By doing so, it has marked the start of a new age in space travel, one that is independent of governmental agencies. Even more astonishing, this comes from a company that was founded a mere eight years ago.

The rise of SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) comes during a time of stagnation in space exploration. The last manned mission to the moon occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17, with Skylab crashing down to Earth in 1979 while Russia's Mir Space Station followed in 2001. The American space shuttle was first launched in 1981, heralding in its own age of scientific exploration by launching satellites, conducting repair and resupply missions and generally serving as an orbital laboratory for scientific project, and sees its own mission end early next year with two final flights. Finally, the International Space Station, a testament to international cooperation and scientific endeavor, was launched in 1998, and is scheduled for completion next year. In spite of the numerous accomplishments that NASA and other space agencies have achieved over the last three decades, their efforts have gone unrewarded by the general public and political elements, who see the efforts as a waste of money and time on behalf of the people.

Space and operations in orbit are something that will continue in the near future, and the introduction of a commercial firm is something that will help to supplement the people in orbit. Commercial firms also have the ability to break the monopoly that governments are able to hold on space operations by opening up access to Earth's orbit for not only people, but additional platforms in the skies for businesses and travel.

That future is still something that is far off, and will require an immense amount of preparation, coordination and regulation in order to become fully viable, safe and profitable for interested parties. There is a growing problem with objects in Earth's orbit, which caused collisions and dangerous conditions for astronauts and hardware, while the expense for trips into orbit is high. (SpaceX charges upwards of $43.5 million for up to 3,000 kg) Space is still something outside of the general public, and like any big, complicated, dangerous activity, it'll take a while for the prices to go down to a more affordable level, and for an entire industry to take form to support it.

An independent, forward-thinking and rational commercial future for space allows for a great deal of independence. Companies won’t be constrained by political whims and budget shortfalls, but by economic pressure to succeed amongst a pack of competitors. There will be a regulatory body to keep the conduct of these companies in check (and when you’re talking about the risks of spaceflight, this is something that will be needed), and companies will be able to expand and explore new possibilities and ventures much faster than a governmental body, and the advances that they find and create can translate into new opportunities for those of us on the ground.

As the United States grapples with economic problems, Space should be the next frontier and direction for U.S. business interests to move forward to. Long-term efforts into space bring about the possibilities of incredible exploration, scientific discovery, mineral wealth and virtually unlimited space for growth and real estate. The United States maintains a massive advantage over other countries, and would do well to foster the development of a space industry within the United States to help better its own economy (think of the requirements for skilled labor and jobs that such a line of work requires) and to bring humanity further into the stars.

The futures that have long been seen in science fiction novels, television shows and movies are still a long way off, but the steps taken by SpaceX, and the other private firms that are sure to follow over the next couple of decades make me hopeful for the futures that we might have in orbit and beyond. Maybe, just maybe, within my lifetime, I'll be able to look down on the Earth and smile.

2010 Film Recap

After last year, with some excellent films like District 9, Moon (and less excellent, but still fun to watch, like Avatar), 2010 felt downright dull when it came to the genre films that came out in theaters. So far this year, I've only watched a couple, in and out of theaters, although there are a couple that are currently available to rent through a local Red Box, which I'll likely do over the next couple of days.

Of all of the films that I've seen thus far, Inception is by far the best, not only of the year, but it's going onto my 'Top genre films' list, which includes films like Moon, District 9, Solaris, Minority Report, and others along the same caliber that I’ve enjoyed. Inception worked on almost every level for me: it had a compelling, interesting and relevant plot, was excellently shot and directed, and has a fantastic soundtrack that I’ve listened to a lot. It’s a film that I’ve been eagerly anticipating seeing again after I saw it in theaters, and I was particularly happy to see a film that was not only smart and interesting, but that caught with a broad appeal and actually did quite well at the box office.

How to Train Your Dragon was a film that I saw recently that really surprised me. Megan and I rented it on a whim, and we both really enjoyed it. It’s a standard pre-teen action/adventure animated movie, with a focus on the fighting and happy ending, but it’s a fun little story of friendship and doing the right thing. And there’s dragons, some funny moments, quite a bit of action, and some excellent voice acting. Apparently, there’s a sequel coming in a couple of years, and I’ll certainly make it a point to see that one.

Along with How to Train Your Dragon, we rented Toy Story 3, which was a great capstone to the first two films, although given how long it’s been since I’ve seen the 2^nd one, it’s hard to compare them in terms of quality. This new addition holds up wonderfully to the first film, something I consider a formative film in my own childhood, and treasure it deeply (along with the lessons learned there: treat your things well). #3 felt very dark at points without going overboard, but retained the charm of the first two films. Beyond that, it aged well, with Andy headed off to college, making this film a very different one in tone, and not just a rehash of the first two.

Daybreakers was another surprise, and while people seem fixated on the horrors of the sparkly Vampire novels and urban fantasy, this film makes its own departures and is able to retain some of the more horrific and over the top elements nicely. There’s an overt political and environmental message embedded in the story, but it fits well. The story of vampires running out of blood and mutating was a fun one, with some over the top elements, some neat science fictional ones, and Sam Neill being creepy.

Iron Man II was a letdown after the first Iron Man movie. Where the first was a fun, concise story that rolled together the military industrial complex and the wars in the Middle East, the sequel attempted to do the same thing, while also setting up the upcoming Avengers movie, juggle multiple villains and the Demon in a Bottle storyline. It’s a case where they should have picked one or two and focused on those, but despite the glaring problems, the film is a fun one, with action, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. Hopefully, they’ll get the 3^rd one right when that’s released in a couple of years, and I’m guessing that many of the problems are due to studio interference, rather than the people who actually filmed it.

Clash of the Titans was a bomb: a big, stupid fun bomb that was pure popcorn fare. Not worth picking up by any stretch of the imagination (I ended up winning a copy), but it’s worth watching for the overblown effects, crappy acting and monsters going around eating / killing / maiming people in various ways.

I couldn’t even get through The Book of Eli. A coworker of mine told me the ending afterwards, and I’m not missing anything after falling asleep while watching it. There were some interesting action sequences and a cool premise, but it just couldn’t hold my attention.

There were a bunch of films that I wanted to see, but simply haven’t had the chance or time to do so yet: Wolfman (despite the horrible reviews), Green Zone (Jason Bourne lite?), Social Network (Aaron Sorkin is one of my favorite writers), Kick Ass (Which looked like an incredible amount of fun), Splice (which was apparently a well acted, scripted and shot film), Predators (which looked like fun), The American (Artistic spy film?) and the recently released Black Swan, (which looks and sounds incredible). A couple of these, like Predators, Splice, Kickass, Green Zone and Wolfman are all available to rent, so I might end up going that route before buying any of them.

And, of course, there’s a couple of films out there that are about to be released: True Grit, a Coen Brothers western, which looks like it could be an interesting one, based off of the original John Wayne film, while I’m also interested in the last Harry Potter film, The Deathly Hollows, Part 1 (I’m rereading all of the books now). The last film of the year that I’m eagerly awaiting, Tron: Legacy, for some pseudo-Cyberpunk blockbuster action is out next week. I loved the original Tron when I saw it earlier this year, and it’s one that I’m already anticipating for the big screen.

After this year, there’s a couple of films that I’m looking forwards to for 2011: Battle: Los Angeles is going to be a certain theater visit for me, The Adjustment Bureau, based off of a Philip K. Dick story, as well as Sucker Punch, which looks like pure male fantasy (and every geeky trope lumped into one story). Source Code, Duncan Jones’ second film is also to be released (I loved Moon, so I’m hopeful for this one.) and the summer, with Thor (Maybe), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides (Sure), X-Men: First Class (Yep), Super 8 (J.J. Abrams film), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Maybe?), Captain America (Maybe), Harry Potter 7.2 (depends on the first one), Cowboys and Aliens (Yes!), all looking like a bit of fun. The fall will also bring in the first Tintin movie, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, which I’m eagerly awaiting. There’s also a second Sherlock Holmes film in there somewhere, which might be fun.

2010 felt like a bit of a lax year – there were some other genre films that came out, but there really wasn’t anything that caught my eyes or attention beyond the films that I saw (or otherwise listed). Between ’9 and ’11, there are quite a few interesting things set to film, and if anything, it’s a reaffirmation that Science Fiction and Fantasy are both still pretty popular when it comes down to the wire. Except this year, for some reason.

Defending Korea & Continual Conflict

Korea has been at the forefront of the news over the past couple of weeks as violence has begun to escalate between the North and the South following a North Korean shelling of the South Korean island Yeonpyeong in response to a series of planned military exercises. The escalation of violence seems to have been rising, when an attack on a South Korean warship left almost fifty sailors dead. Indeed, the two countries seem to be a rapidly drying powder keg with a new South Korean leader, and with the expected promotion of Kim-Jong Il's son, Kim Jong-un at some point in the near future. With almost 30,000 American soldiers just to the south of the 38th parallel, an outbreak of war in the country is something that will heavily impact the United States. With two major conflicts on their way out the door, the prospect of another confrontation abroad is a sobering one.

In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower became the 34rd President of the United States, where he had campaigned on countering Communism, Korea and Corruption. Despite leading the Allied military against Adolph Hitler and his allies in Europe, Eisenhower sought to bring down the national budget on a platform of fiscal conservatism, bringing about deep cuts in the military budget and recognizing a new philosophy and approach to the United State's presence in the world.

After visiting Korea, Eisenhower sought to bring the United States and its efforts to an end, and with a cease-fire (although no resolution) to the conflict, was able to fill a major campaign goal that aligned with his beliefs: the United States did not, and could not fight in every battle across the world with a massive standing army, able to engage in more conflicts such as the one just waged in Korea. Under his 'New Look' plan, approved in 1953, which allowed the U.S. to utilize technology and America's atomic stockpile as a means to deter open aggression from the Soviet Union from directly attacking the U.S.. The policy was designed to rein in defense budget spending on a massive conventional force, while spending less on a more technologically oriented one that wasn't necessarily required to do anything but exist.

The recent troubles in Korea bring to mind some of the issues that have been ongoing in the political and military scenes recently. As the country begins to move in the direction of less spending (at least the attitude is there, somewhat), reducing the fiscal situation of the United States will require something along the lines of what Eisenhower had envisioned for the country half a century ago: reductions on all fronts, including military spending. The policies that were put into place were engineered with the fear that the country's financial footing had a corresponding impact on the nation's national security standing in the world. America, with a growing economy, population and budget, could face major problems as it was, and potentially, with the added need of continual fighting abroad in conflicts that were similar to Korea, the country’s stability could be at risk.

In a large way, the series of conflicts that followed September 11th fall right into what Eisenhower feared for the country: exceedingly high defense budgets for an expensive war where the United States has gotten its hands dirty in areas perceived to threaten the country’s security. Eisenhower had pushed against full American engagement in Vietnam, and it wasn’t until after his term in office that the conflict escalated for several Administrations, from which point the U.S. was able to stay out of major engagements until 1991, for Operations Desert Shield and Storm. Here, the theory of technological warfare as a superior form of conventional warfare was validated: for the 372 coalition soldiers killed as a result of the conflict, around 30,000 enemy soldiers were killed.

The fight in Afghanistan and Iraq are different: the U.S. has been slow to adapt to the new environment of warfare, plunging in with certain assumptions and coming out with an entirely different experience than was expected. Continual fighting in small conflicts will cause further problems for the country, especially if such conflicts are not properly understood and the ways in which to fight them are imperfectly realized.

The Eisenhower administration’s plans to deter fighting against the country worked, in part. The threat of massive retaliation faced its biggest test in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and demonstrated that the threat of assured destruction of both countries (not to mention everyone else caught in the crossfire and were downwind) was enough to force both players back down. At the same time, it hasn’t been able to prevent warfare outright: Vietnam was a war in which the nuclear issue was largely side-stepped, and would cause problems years down the road, while American involvement in areas such as Haiti, Panama, Somalia and other smaller countries and conflicts have not been decreased, although their significance doesn’t approach the scale of something like the current fights in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are both abnormal conflicts, and two fights that signal some frightening precedents for the future. Already into its 9th year, the combined conflicts have cost an estimated $1.1 trillion, for a conflict that seems to run counter to the vision that Eisenhower had hoped for and seems to have done precisely what Eisenhower feared such battles would do to the country’s financial status. In the future, what conflicts does the United States have in store, if it can enter into a war-like state whenever it sees reason to do so?

The prospect of renewed war in Korea only adds to the fears of a continued lack of restraint when it comes to spending. Political elements in the United States have called for fiscal restraint, but the exception seems to be the money that pours in for the military. While the front-line soldiers need the financial support in order to accomplish the mission in front of them, the country needs to adopt a mindset of reducing the need for the soldiers to be requiring that money in the first place: avoiding costly confrontation across the world by recognizing which conflicts should be fought. The practice of deterrence will likely not work in this new environment of war: multinational political groups are harder to deter. Deterrence in Eisenhower’s day was the best means to contain spending and effectively protect the country from those who wished harm against the country. In the present day, we need to do much the same: figure out the best way to defend the country without oversight and restraint.

Should the tensions between North and South Korea break, the United States will likely have some hand in the issue, and we could find outselves in a third major conflict at a time when we can't afford to become entangled.