The Letters to the Editor department is intended to be a forum for our readers to express their own opinions and ideas. While we appreciate the many complimentary letters we receive each day, you won't find them on this page. Instead, you will find letters that go beyond or even contradict what we have written, letters that offer a different perspective and provide a different view of science fiction. If you would like to submit a letter, please use our feedback form or send a message to scifiweekly@scifi.com.
-- Editor
Recommended Reading For Voters
I'm surprised by how close the balloting is for your Hugo award poll. I love Lois McMaster Bujold and her Miles Vorkosigan series--and I think A Civil Campaign is one of her best and funniest books in the series. Nonetheless, I think Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky blows away all the competition this year in its rich detail, intricate plot and believable, sympathetic alien cultures. I hope those who voted in the category, will not do so until they've read Vinge's book. I think it is definitely destined to be a classic in the genre.
C. Douglas Baker
cbaker8887@aol.com
Lexx Love-Slave Evolves Logically
I would like to respond to Tammy Smith's Issue No. 173 letter "Can A Lexx Wish Come True?" I disagree about it being love-slave centered. I think the character of Xev evolved logically, while remaining true to the original Zev. She learned things, and perhaps is less childish. I think there were plenty of interesting things going on with Kai and Stan. The guest characters were a real treat, too--so wonderfully warped. I also enjoyed the story immensely. The Mantrid story arc was, to say the least, different. Series 2 has a lighter tone, with more robot-head humor, which I found completely delightful.
As much as I loved the original movies, they've been done already. I applaud Lexx's creators for having the guts to try something new, and again in the new season beginning this week, something new yet again!
Kari Olsen
olsenk@peak.org
Hollywood Can't Add SF's Distinctiveness To Its Own
I have to comment on Evan Moore's provocative Issue No. 173 letter, "The Trouble With Drivel."
"Let's face it, for all their fun, comics are literary drivel."
Yes, there is a lot of drivel that passes for comics these days. There's a lot of drivel in any entertainment form one cares to name. As Sturgeon's Law reminds us, 90% of everything is crap. I hardly think a blanket statement that all comics are "literary drivel" is justified, though. The only counterexample that comes immediately to mind is the "Monsieur Jean" story in the latest issue of Drawn & Quarterly, but I'm sure that with a few minutes' rummaging through my comics I could come up with others as well.
"Where are the Lensmen? (E. E. "Doc" Smith)"
There was a Japanese animated feature from many years back but, quite frankly, the less said about it, the better. If you haven't seen it, you're not missing much.
"Where is the Ringworld? (Larry Niven)"
I'm with you on this one. I think SFX technology has arrived at the point where a bang-up version of this novel could be filmed. One of my favorite daydreams involves seeing a preview of the movie in which they show the scene of night falling on the Ringworld. Show the sun disappearing behind the shadow square. Cut to character's reactions as they see the line of darkness racing across the ground toward them. Cut to sun disappearing behind the square and the arch appearing. Reaction shots of Nessus and Chmee and Louis ... Heck, just that one scene would probably break box office records.
"Why don't we see these true sci-fi classics hitting the big screen? Do authors have to die before we can see their work come to the screen? Starship Troopers (Heinlein), Battlefield Earth (Hubbard), Bicentennial Man (Asimov), Dune (Herbert) have all been poorly received--and all their authors are dead."
You said it yourself: the movies were poorly received. What's Hollywood's incentive to take more chances? And there are living SF authors who've had work adapted: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Clarke) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury) both spring to mind. I'm sure there are others. Wasn't John Campbell still alive when The Thing was made?
Hollywood tends to make movies that are like other, successful movies. Since part of what makes a good SF novel or short story memorable is that it's usually unlike anything else that's come before, I suspect that Hollywood won't change their ways vis a vis SF anytime soon. Doesn't alter the fact that it's a sorry state of affairs.
Stewart Tame
sbt@ans.net
Fly-Overs Demand Respect
I have to agree with Lukas Mariman's Issue No. 173 letter "Learn Drac By Watching Movies." If "foreign" moviegoers are so dim, why do
films from other countries end up in art theaters in the
U.S.? I had to go to an art house just to see Henry V and
Much Ado about Nothing in my city, never mind The Hidden
Fortress and Like Water for Chocolate.
I think it has more to do with the notion that those in the
studio system, generally MBA types who relate more to
numbers than to people, believe that those of us in the
non-coastal parts of the U.S. can't manage the daunting task
of watching the action and reading the subtitles
simultaneously. In short, they've decided we're all
unintelligent hicks who wouldn't know culture if it bit us
on our overalled behinds.
Exhibit #1: When was the last time a TV or movie character
coming from anywhere other than the East or West Coast
wasn't depicted as an unsophisticated boob? The only time
you don't see this are when the creators and writers are
from these areas.
Exhibit #2: The false idea that any material not pandering
to visceral emotions will "never play in Peoria."
Advertising is to blame for this one. The knee-jerk
reaction to what's on the screen will sell product and
propaganda faster than appeals to our rational side. That's
one of the reasons why Lexx and Voyager get more
attention than better-written programs like Babylon 5 and
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Kleitman's statement, that "to make heaping gobs of money
from an international release, the first things to go are
subtlety, intricacy and intellectual innovation," is very
likely less true than the fact that the entertainment
"business" has little respect for writers, who are paid a
fraction of what the actors hired to speak the lines they
write make. It's also easier to work with a simple plot
that can edited without losing any of the salient points in
the story. Which would be simpler to purge scenes from:
Starship Troopers or My Dinner with Andre?
Linda Stoops
jassmoris@yahoo.com
France Rejects Dumb and Dumber?
I am responding to Lukas Mariman's Issue No. 173 letter "Learn Drac By Watching Movies." He felt insulted at my comments about Hollywood dumbing down its material because of foreign markets. His indignation is justified.
Firstly, dumbing down material because of foreign markets is something I have heard repeatedly from Hollywood professionals in magazines, on television and in books about writing screenplays. It was not a matter of my personal opinion. Furthermore it is an attitude I strongly deplore.
Secondly, I was not saying that foreign-speaking people are dumber in any way. The vast majority of foreign films that come into America are far more complex and subtle, not to mention more daring, than those produced here in the States for mass consumption.
Many have noticed a general dumbing down of American culture over the last 20 years and don't like our exporting that to other countries via our mass media. France took measures to prevent this perceived threat to their culture by restricting the showing of American films (whether this is right or wrong, who knows?) and many governments subsidize film production. So I am not alone in my observations.
The current attitudes in American professional media production have an adverse effect upon intellectual and cultural diversity, which I was decrying in my letter.
This is changing with the development of the Internet and independent film. You don't need to make a movie "for everyone" to make a good movie. You just need to make a movie for yourself and the world will beat a mousetrap on your door, or something.
Jesse Kleitman
kleitman@aol.com
Remember Gattaca
I enjoy many types of science fiction, and, because of that, many types of science fiction films. I'm irritated by letters on the subject of hard versus soft sci-fi. The comments are generally short-sighted and elitist. First, movies like The Matrix have a place in the science fiction world. Sure, it had only enough plot to hold the fights together, but it entertained. The world is not diminished because entertaining science fiction exists. It is not a corruption of the genre to cater to the emotional rather than the intellectual. As for the intellectual purists, the mental stimulation you receive from hard sci-fi is no more or less important than the emotional, roller coaster response from mainstream movies.
Second, the "make it and we will come" attitude is naive. Does anyone, anywhere, remember Gattaca? This was intellectual science fiction at it most pure. The world created was logical, consistent and meticulous in its detail. It took a contemporary idea, the mapping of the human genome, and extrapolated it, mixing it with human nature, free will and racism. The characters, the action, the plot and subplots were all born from the idea. The world described the concept, the concept created the world, and both made comments about humanity. This is the highest and most difficult form of science fiction.
And it was here and gone in something like two weeks. No one goes to movies like that. Only the smallest percentage of people who read science fiction would be interested in that kind of fiction, and they rarely go to the movies. They're usually at home reading. Only a very small percentage of us enjoy both.
So where was this support you claim you'll give? You never went to The Puppetmasters either, and that was a lot truer to the source than Starship Troopers. The answer to the missing audience is simple. Intellectual movie-goers look down on science fiction, a curse of the genre. Readers of intellectual science fiction look down on the movies. How many people will go see an intellectual science fiction film? Count the number of names on this page and divide by two.
Todd Caldwell
Khaliban@wauknet.com
"I've Got A Vampire Friend ..."
I have not personally played Vampire the Masquerade--Redemption but I am a regular on
the Compuserve Gamers Forum, where there has been lots of
discussion of the game by hard-core gamers. In answer to
Mark Walker's comment ("I don't get it--it's a well-balanced [albeit challenging] title, with excellent ambience"), their take admits the ambience, but doesn't like the game play. They say it has a terrible combat system and an extremely linear plot, and they hate the transfer from past to present, in which most of the hard-won loot stays behind. However, most agree it has great graphics, music and "atmosphere." Probably a B--no way is it an A, at least for hardcore gamers.
Dave Konkel
75320.473@compuserve.com
What Linearity Means To Me
In his review, Jeff Quick states that Diablo II, "like nearly all computer RPGs, ... is relentlessly linear." I'm wondering what the author's definition of "relentlessly linear" is. I will easily grant that Diablo II is a very linear game, but it's not fair to group it with the vast array of other roleplaying games available for the PC.
All successfully-structured RPGs, in any medium, are essentially a story. A character, or group of characters, pursues some ultimate end. The classic example of this are the AD&D add-on modules, where characters play through the module with a specific quest in mind. Computer adaptations of RPGs, especially the large number of AD&D adaptations out there, typically take this same strategy. However, you would be hard-pressed to find a majority of PC RPGs that are "relentlessly linear." For examples, I cite Baldur's Gate, Fallout I and II, numerous Ultima incarnations, other AD&D PC adaptations too countless to name ... If there is ever a problem I run into while trying to play the average PC RPG, it's that the game isn't linear enough and I'm left groping for the next step.
You can easily make a argument for linearity in the console RPG segment of the market. Squaresoft's Final Fantasy series--really, anything by Squaresoft--and games by Phantasy Star, et al. are all easily classifiable as linear. There is little in the way of side quests or flexibility; there is character building but rarely a character creation process; and the story advances fairly rigidly. Still, many console RPGs have alternative endings (a feature I've found lacking in PC RPGs.) Try playing a game of Final Fantasy III versus a game of Fallout--both excellent RPGs, but one is thoroughly linear and story-driven, whereas the other is as open-ended an RPG as you'll typically find.
If you want an example of an utterly non-linear RPG, take a gander at EverQuest or Ultima Online. Of course they're not linear--there's no central storyline! Alternatively, perhaps the closest single-player parallel would be the classic space-trading sim Elite, or one of its many derivatives, where trading can continue during the story and after it is resolved (Privateer I and II, X: Beyond the Frontier, etc.). But I would never play a single-player or small group RPG devoid of story--it's all well and good to run around completing quests, but unless you have a lot of other people to run around doing it with (as in EverQuest), what's the point?
I believe that the "relentlessly linear" RPG has its place, and I'm a fan of both the linear style and the more open-ended type. But to call most computer RPGs relentlessly linear is absurd. In all fairness, I've played pen-and-paper AD&D once, and the experience was very unsatisfying. Nonetheless, Quick's classification of PC RPGs is unfair; at the very least, it might help to simply treat electronic RPGs as a different beast than more traditional pen-and-paper RPGs.
Brian Guthrie
Radagast4@home.com
