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
Send us your letters!
Got a gripe about something going on in the science fiction world? Want to call attention to an overlooked genre gem? Do you disagree with one of our reviews? Would you like to tell the editor of Science Fiction Weekly what a great job he does? Write a Letter to the Editor and send it in! You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your letter will be read by thousands of SF fans. Doubtless, fame and fortune will follow (fame and fortune not guaranteed).
Thinking Is The Hardest Step
must give three cheers and a 21-laser salute to Susan Conner ("Protect
SF--Join The PTA," Issue No. 179). I am a lifetime Christian and science
fiction reader. I have never found that it damaged my faith. For me,
questioning my beliefs makes them stronger.
I have always treasured science fiction for its ability to help people
understand life better by disguising what would ordinarily cause people to
refuse to listen. Racial nonsense is one excellent example. Bigots of both
sides refuse to read, watch or listen to anything pertaining to the other
"race." Yet how many of them watched the Star Trek episode with the
two bi-colored men--white on one side and black on the other, whose people
destroyed their civilizations over the difference of which side each color
was on--and thought they were stupid? Next, we have to point out the
similarities in the situations, but the first and hardest step has been
taken--getting them to think about it logically. It is this quality
of science fiction I love most.
I, too, am Baptist. My father was a Southern Baptist preacher. Yet, for
all the hard-headedness of the denomination, some of my earliest memories
involve watching the Star Trek and Planet of the Apes TV
series with my father.
Not everyone puts religiousness over true faith.
C.L. Hight
hudsons_babe@yahoo.com
TV Execs Shouldn't Dis Sci-Fi
h,
yet another ignorant Hollywood producer explaining why his project is not
really of the ghetto world of science fiction...
Dark Angel Executive Producer Charles Eglee says, "I don't really
look at it as science fiction... I don't know anything about science
fiction..." and then he quotes James Cameron as saying, "What science
fiction really gives us here is a setting. It allows us, first of all, to
use our technological present as the narrative future. And it allows us a
prism to look at contemporary society. ... It also gives us a venue for the
storytelling." Oh good. Someone who needs the very concept of why Science
Fiction exists explained to him is running the show. Bodes well, doesn't it?
(Sarcasm intended.)
This undoubtedly means once Cameron's less involved in the project it
will devolve into a rehashing and retelling of every old sci-fi cliché in
the book, as we've seen happen to sci-fi projects in Hollywood's hands so
many times. Eglee's ignorance breeds my contempt. Is it any wonder so many
real science fiction fans lament the loss of Babylon 5 and
Crusade? Listen to Jerry Doyle, JMS, bring it back, please, in some
form. What else are we gonna watch--Andromeda? The new Dawson's
Trek (you know that's where they're going--read between the lines)?
Just another bitter and bemused science fiction fan...
Mike Luoma
glowindark@adelphia.net
Revive Irwin Allen's Worlds
ene Roddenberry must be very happy up there somewhere. Not only
is his Star Trek still going stronger then ever, with the plans of a
fifth show in the works, but now he has two other shows on the air with his
hit Earth: Final Conflict and now his Andromeda!
I hope that more Roddenberry shows like the Questor Tapes and
Planet Earth 2, etc. will be coming on too. Now maybe some smart
person will do the same with Irwin Allen's Lost in Space and The
Time Tunnel as well as his never-done projects Man from the 25th
Century and City Beneath the Sea.
James Cash
Quake700@aol.com
Is Dark Angel's Future Dark?
watched the premiere of Dark Angel last night and I was greatly
disappointed. It appears to be Fox's answer to WB's Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. Instead of a short, blond, wisecracking supervixen we have a
short, brunette, wisecracking supervixen. The similarities don't end there.
In Buffy, we have Giles as an off-limits, sterile, father figure who
more or less directs Buffy on certain missions. In Dark Angel, we
have the TV guy rendered paralyzed and sterile in a wheelchair who directs
Max on certain missions.
Jessica Alba is attractive enough in a skinny soulful eyed kind of way,
but is not the raving beauty some of the males keep telling her.
Personally, I am often annoyed by the stupid retorts Buffy utters, but at
least the show is often funny.
Dark Angel isn't and soon it will set into a tired routine of Max
righting wrongs, the bad government guys almost catching her, and the TV guy
tantalizing her with bits of info about her siblings, all with an air of
incredible ennui. James Cameron, tell me it isn't so!
Hannibal Gay
Hannibal@Hotmail.com
Bad Adaptations Can Harm Sci-Fi
've recently read that Philip Jose Farmer's River World
is going to be filmed in Australia. If so, I have sincere concerns about the
quality of the movie. River World contains a complex story which
would take excellent writing, directing and acting to convey. It would be so
easy to make a bad version of River World that I hope the producers
try for as much excellence as they can. They have a magnificent story to
tell, and I, for one, want to see it done well! (When River World was
published, I bought the hard cover book and took it with me everywhere I
went and read it as much as I could.)
I criticized the movie version of Heinlein's Puppet Masters
because there were minor differences between the movie and the book. I
repented this when I saw what an abortion the movie version of Starship
Troopers was; the director took too many liberties with the story.
I talked my family and in-laws into going to Herbert's Dune. My
wife, my father and I had read the book so we understood what was supposed
to be happening. None of the rest of the family had and I got harassed
afterwards the next time I suggested a movie to go to. I listened to Frank
Herbert talk at Oregon State University in 1975 and he talked about one
script for his movie could have been called The Worm That Came From The
Desert (Japanese monster movie producers).
For some reason I am hopeful that the Sci-Fi remake of Dune will
be a good one. Well, we'll see...
Michael Bell
mwbell@pld.com
Is Asimov Too Good For Hollywood?
don't think a Caves of Steel movie is a good idea. It seems to me it
will prove extremely difficult to translate Asimov's vision to the screen
with any measure of honesty, because his robot novels, especially the first
ones, lack many elements which today's movie-going audience take for
granted. As a result, much of the book will probably be altered, and surely
for the worse.
Asimov's classic robot novels have an early SF charm about them which
goes against everything that modern science fiction movies (with very few
exceptions) rely on for success. They're cerebral exercises in sophisticated
science fiction detection that rely heavily on an extremely clear writing
style (adhering to story-telling norms of four decades ago), and I think
even slight tampering with the original material will probably result in a
very stilted, uneven movie. On the other hand, if the movie is made and is
made faithfully, it'll probably turn out to be a dismal failure at the box
office and turn people away from Asimov and SF in general. Hence my
pessimism.
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
alvaro_z@hotmail.com
Martian Gothic--A Movie Awaits
eing a huge sci-fi/horror fan of both books and movies, I want
to say that the new Playstation game Martian Gothic is off the hook!
Based on a rescue mission to Mars after mysterious events, including a loss
of contact with the first colony, the game is a multicharacter game--but
it's best not to bring your characters anywhere near each other, or else!
There is contact with Martian life (in bacterial/viral form) and the
discovery of what really happened to the surface of Mars.
This game is scary and would make a great movie--the next Aliens
for sure!
Theodore Wilczynski
toysoldiers2001@yahoo.com
