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rarely respond to reviews of my books, but I did want to offer a clarification in response to Paul Di Filippo's review of The Consciousness Plague here last week:
Di Filippo starts by identifying The Consciousness Plague as a "sequel" to my first Phil D'Amato novel, The Silk Code, and concludes with a complaint that the new novel presses the "reset" button and scarcely references, let alone builds upon and incorporates, elements of the first novel.
I'd like to point out that The Consciousness Plague is not a sequel to The Silk Code—meaning, it in no sense continues the story of the first novel (which indeed has enough loose ends to warrant a sequel, perhaps someday). But The Consciousness Plague is not it. Yes, it fields the same central character (Dr. Phil D'Amato) along with a few supporting characters from The Silk Code, and it clearly takes place after that first novel, but otherwise it pursues a different story—much as forensic detectives usually investigate unrelated cases as they go on with their lives.
Now, Di Filippo is entirely within his rights as a reviewer to wish that I had indeed written a sequel to The Silk Code, and to regret that The Consciousness Plague is not that sequel. But that's quite different from painting The Consciousness Plague as a sequel which is not.
All best wishes,
Paul Levinson
PaulLevinson@compuserve.com
Paul Di Filippo responds:
I regret giving the impression in my review of The Consciousness Plague that I was seeking to impose my desires or expectations on the direction the plot took. There is certainly no reason why an author cannot continue the adventures of his characters sideways or backwards in books that follow one another. Michael Moorcock has backfilled Elric's biography a dozen different ways, the books bearing publication dates that do not reflect internal chronology. Nonetheless, in a novel that picks up a
character's life directly subsequent to events that shook the world and completely revamped mankind's conception of the species' place in history, one would expect a tad more respect for the past events other than to say, "Oh, well, that was last week's adventure, what's up today?"
Best,
Paul
ntil five years ago, I was not a huge video game fan, but Resident Evil and Tomb Raider changed all that. As time went on, I also got into Dino Crisis and Silent Hill. My initial hatred of video game systems came from Nintendo and its constant need to change formats. The Playstation was my very first system and had it not been for Resident Evil: Code Veronica X and Silent Hill 2 I might have passed on the PS2. I've stated all of that to say two things: The Resident Evil movie was great. Couldn't have asked for a better movie based on a popular video game. They managed to introduce a prequel storyline that meshed well and stayed true to the general themes and ideas of the game series (although a Raccoon City
newspaper reveals it being 2002, the game took place in July 1998). I only wish they might have at least given us a glimpse of Wesker Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield or at least S.T.A.R.S. They didn't even once mention that Milla Jovovich character's name was Alice. Where I'm really upset with Resident Evil altogether is its new contract to re-release all its games on the Nintendo Game Cube as well as future
releases.
T.W. Wallace
scribals_75@yahoo.com
have been watching Mutant X since its inception, and this is one show where the writers don't have a clue. The basic premise is that a group of young people were victims of DNA experiments when children and now possess amazing mutant powers. A quasi-government organization wants to use the mutants for its own nefarious purposes that are never fully explained. The heroes are a group of mutants who fight to identify and rescue other mutants and whisk them away to a safe mutant underground.
The problem with this show is the writers basically have one script. The bad guy leader, who is doing his best to look like Elton John, complete with wig and horn rimmed glasses, is neither very scary or apparently very smart. Week after week he hears about a new mutant, sends out his goons who either capture the mutant and get their collective butts kicked, or don't capture the mutant and get their collective butts kicked.
Our stalwart leader [played by John Shea] of the free mutants usually comes up with an inane plan that involves a lot of whirl kicks and manages to save the captured mutant or his own mutants menaced by "Elton John." All of the same every week while there is a constant parade of young, mediocre Canadian actors who bumble their way through incredibly inane lines.
I know this is a comic-book type of show. But c'mon! If the writers can't come up with anything more, replace them with people who can. Or better yet, cancel the wretched thing and bring on a better show.
Quite frankly, if the leader of a group was trying to kill me and my people and I knew who he was, the sensible solution would be to blow his white-haired head off, ending his threat. While that would be the end of a mediocre show, in a split second it would be more satisfying than watching several months of this stuff.
T. Hannibal Gay
Hannibal@Hotmail.com
love Babylon 5 and the brilliant mind that created it [J. Michael Straczynski]. What an amazing story line! I've watched the show beginning to end several times, and for me it never gets old.
I was very much saddened by the short run of Crusade. The actors and the characters they portrayed were most interesting. As a classically-trained musician I am also very fond of the excellent music used in Crusade.
I support Mr. Straczynski's stand against the tyranny of commercialization on TBS.
All I can add is that I feel a terrible void where the story line of Crusade was cut short. I want to know more about the fate of those characters and Earth following the Drakh plague. Galen was a magnificent character. At least I have been able to read about him and other technomages in the three books recently published.
Please, if there is any possible way, let Mr. Straczynski finish Crusade.
Michael Malloy
malloy.2@osu.edu
've been a member of Science Fiction Weekly for a few months now, but only recently started to read the Letters page. I'm a very, very big fan of Babylon 5 and one thing I've noticed about the letters is [that] everyone has there own opinion of the show; so I thought I'd give mine.
Babylon 5 is the greatest science fiction show ever made. The story lines were excellent, the
people ... you just fell in love withn them (Especially Ivanova, or was that just me?) And for the first time in sci-fi history, the ships moved like they would in real space. (Star Trek fans: It's physically impossible for a ship to bank in space).
I would like to settle one thing with Mark Bergman, who sent a letter in the other day ("B5 Lost in Hyperspace at Season 2"). Like you, I was disappointed to see Sinclair go, but as for the Sheridan/Delenn love story being forced on us: In the original script Sinclair and Delenn would have ended up together anyway so there wasn't that much of a change.
Craig Burn
Burnie@bushinternet.com
had elected not to see the recently released version of The Time Machine. I'm tired of reading and watching science fiction precisely for the reason Marian Powell ("Time Machine Unstuck in Time") dislikes the 21st-century version, classifying it as anti-science fiction. I don't agree that sci-fi needs to address social or political issues. Can't science fiction just be entertaining?
Star Trek, a great series of series, has gotten away from moral dilemmas, which can be thought provoking and fun subjects for debate, to one-sided lessons in morality. The writers take for granted they know what's best and how people should behave. Do I need to be constantly told that recycling is good, global warming is bad or that Native Americans are somehow more spiritual than any other group on Earth?
[The book version of] The Time Machine is considered the great original time-travel story because readers at that time (and still are) were fascinated by the idea of time travel and the highly descriptive writing style of H.G. Wells, and while it can't be denied socialism was the motivation for H.G. Wells' work, it isn't the reason the book was a bestseller. Wells, along with George Bernard Shaw and the rest of the Fabian Society, were elitists; if they were around today they'd probably be writing Star Trek. That Britain's underclass would eventually evolve into Morlocks is less likely than a catastrophe involving the moon in the future. Morlocks and the Eloi are closer to fantasy, while a lunar cataclysm is as near to reality as sci-fi gets. If you need the best real science of the day, didn't an errant chunk of space rock come dangerously close to the Earth and moon around March 8th? So what if the moon doesn't reflect a social predicament? I'm glad the new movie doesn't address any social problems. Who made up the rule that sci-fi must include social issues anyway? It's not what makes science fiction great.
If Marian Powell's assessment of The Time Machine is accurate, and it really is well done and well acted, count me in. By the way, can anybody recommend some good anti-science fiction?
Thomas Sunich
t_sunich@hotmail.com
s you read these words, imagine hurtling through space at more than 10 times the speed of sound, going "where no one has gone before." Truth be told, you are—aboard spaceship Earth into the future.
For science fiction writers and fans, that's hardly fast enough, and in only one direction. That Hollywood overstuffed Wells' century-old novelette comes as no surprise. George Pal's production and even the Classics Illustrated version leaves out the ending when the time traveler journeys to the end of the Earth, millions of years hence.
But who can forget that magic moment near the end of the 1960 production when the intrepid Rod Taylor looks up to the innocent Yvette Mimieux and utters one of the great lines of sci-fi cinema: "I'll be back." (Ironically, his timing was off.)
Time travel keeps coming back. Critchton's Timeline is being filmed and Fox is threatening to bring back Time Tunnel, Irwin Allen's ridiculous TV series from the sixties. Voyagers!, Sliders and Quantum Leap took us back and forth through the centuries, but the most successful time-travel TV series of all was Star Trek. Not the isolated episodes featuring time travel or Star Trek IV, but the series itself. Check your stardates and you'll find that in Enterprise's quest "to seek out new life and new civilizations," the
crew encountered gangsters from the roaring '20s, Nazis, Romans, cowboys, Greek gods and Native Americans alive and well in "real time" in the distant cosmos. Seems the further you go into the future, the more you explore the past.
We can explore the past ourselves without a Time Machine on television, on the Internet or in books. Why read a cliche novel or endure yet another lame sci-fi treatment when all history awaits our curiosity?
Perhaps the definitive statement on time travel was made in that immortal classic, Plan Nine from Outer Space: "I'm very interested in the future. I plan to spend the rest of my life there."
May we all make the most of it.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
thought that The Faculty was the best movie I ever saw. I was very disappointed when I saw that you rated it a C-. It should be an A. I have seen tons of movies and they don't come close to this one. I think that you should rate it again. My compliments go to the actors in The Faculty because they couldn't have done it better. They were fantastic in this movie. Good job to the crew, too. As for the people who rate this movie, you should reconsider what you rated this movie before. Thank you.
Marie
kittykat_416@hotmail.com
f anyone ever wonders why sci-fi is in such a rut, re-reading their posts would be a good start. Complaining about little nonsensical things and blowing them out of proportion is what is killing the genre. How many letters have I read regarding the sex on Buffy ("Censorship Doesn't Solve Problems", "Sex Is SF Special Effect" and "Television Is Not Essential")? Enough to make me wish some people didn't talk at all. Why? Because Buffy was never meant for ten year olds or any children for that matter. If someone is sitting their child down in front of a show, that has makings of one big nightmare. Secondly, I am 23 and I started watching the show four years ago. If not for the more adult content, I would be sitting through a Dawson's Creek with monsters, which is what Buffy could have been if parents had their way. Some shows are just meant for those who can understand them. Not casual viewers who should be watching The Teletubbies. Another point I would like to make is that sex and sci-fi are inevitable. Just as horror and sex are inevitable. Why? Because after a while, depending on the writers, sex is the only thing that'll save the story. There are many exceptions, but that is when the contradiction comes in because the X-Files lasted without sex or much hint to sex and what happened ... fans complained all the way to the bank. Not enough love. Too much angst. This is how a genre becomes a joke, when people fail to look beyond the little unimportant aspects of a story long enough to see it through to the actual point which is: Science fiction is fiction ... there's always more sex in fiction than in real life. So get a grip.
Samantha Pinchot
Xbat1003@aol.com
know that everyone is probably tired of cranking out an old subject, but please bear with me. I am a mother of a two-year-old toddler, who has found pleasure in both fantasy and science fiction. For some of those who wrote your letters about children and television for them with a science
fiction/fantasy twist ("Censorship Doesn't Solve Problems", "Sex Is SF Special Effect" and "Television Is Not Essential"), I must have one question to ask: Where have you been? Yes, there are already programs and movies available for kids (and parents/guardians) of all ages to watch. It's just knowing where to find them via PBS, Nick Jr. on Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Boomerang, The Cartoon Network, Fox Kids, The WB and other stations that I haven't even listed. Parents need to take time to explore what is on television and discuss with them what they watch.
However, I also agree that children need to be regulated in what to watch. Children need the time to play, sing, read, dance or participate in some activity that builds their interest. The greatest crime is not to allow the fullness of their child's abilities to be explored. Too many children sit at home fixated in front of a television screen and becoming more controlled by what they watch instead of controlling what is being watched. A well-rounded child depends more on their own ability to be creative without the artificial stimulation of a television or movie screen to give them the impetus for their own ideas. Great thinkers require some form of self-motivation to blossom those budding minds into an action that can be useful to society. Without some form of self-expression, a child can die inwardly as well by the lack of apathy from an unconcerned parent/guardian.
So if a child wants to find a cardboard box and make it into his/her own personal spaceship, time machine, castle in the sky or a shed to keep out the big bad wolf, my suggestion is to take some time out to find some crayons, paint or markers, work on coloring it together and let the games begin! The beauty of a child's imagination is the greatest adventure ever to experience. (Hey, not bad for the one who plays the Big Bad Wolf, huh?)
Lisa Reber
saasaa01@yahoo.com
he current Buffy story makes a lot of sense, within the context of who she is now, and where she is in her life. Spike, is the best available choice as a lover and companion. Even though, like all choices, there are consequences and nothing is ever risk free. By including this very adult-minded theme, Buffy is portraying a situation from which younger viewers can learn. Particularly young female viewers, many of whom will encounter at some point boys or men who are mad, bad and dangerous to know. What Buffy is challenging us all to think is, are such relationships always wrong, or are they inevitable? What is the price of passion when it's out of control?
With regard to Spike, the story is about how the power of love can sometimes win over evil, and the draw that sex at its best represents to most adults. Spike is a real character, with centuries of experience.
Unlike the plastic pretty-boy Angel, or the all-American meathead that was Riley, Spike, is Buffy's most grown-up relationship to date, and obviously the best shag she's ever had! All of this is normal progression, which has to be better than keeping her as some kind of artificial, Lolita/Britney figure. Now that would be perverted.
U.S. TV is among the most censored in the world, so the actually depiction of sex scenes is very tame. It's the kind of thing where if you understand what's going on, you have no business complaining about it,
'cause you ain't that innocent.
Nathan Brazil
nathanbrazil@freeuk.com
turned 50 this past year and I too have seen and felt great sadness and great joy in my life. My parents were raised by strict religious families who thought exposure to sex education, card-playing and other "sinful" activities would cause those behaviors to happen. Both parents learned the hard way that ignorance is so much worse than informed knowledge.
My father had a subscription to Playboy and my mother owned a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover. Both were freely accessible in our house, and I read both.
I have two sons who always know the difference between reality and non-reality. Their father has a chronic illness which causes him great pain and multiple hospitalizations—that is reality. Grandma and Grandpa died as a result of smoking—that is reality. Their beloved cousin was killed with a loaded hand gun, improperly stored by the child's father—that is reality. Religious zealots killing innocents—that is reality.
Buffy stabbing vampires—not reality. Harry Potter performing magic—not reality. Sex as shown on most TV shows—not reality. ("Censorship Doesn't Solve Problems", "Sex Is SF Special Effect" and "Television Is Not Essential")
We record everything on tape and watch with the children. We are big sci-fi fans; if we think something may not be wise for the boys, we watch it alone first. Many, many important principles can be taught through TV, if parents take the time. I made personal sacrifices to stay home with my children, so
I would know what they were watching on TV, and could explain.
Both boys know I do not approve of violent video games, do I forbid them? No, but they also are sensitive to the fact that I do not want to see or play them. If I see increasing aggression from them, the games are removed for a time.
The boys are 13 and 17, the younger won't watch Buffy because he does not like it and it gives him nightmares. The older watches with his Dad.
My boys know the difference between right and wrong, and that there are gray areas that are not so clear cut.
We have taught the boys to respect other people. To respect other people's things and feelings. They are wonderful, sensitive caring human beings.
Parents are responsible for their childrens' behavior until the child is old enough to comprehend and be responsible for that behavior.
Time to get off my soapbox and back to my laundry!
Reality comes to call.
Judi Gordon
judi_gordon@yahoo.com
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