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.
— Scott Edelman, Editor-in-Chief
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was searching for something else when I ran across [Science Fiction Weekly's] review of The Forever War. It's also one of my favorite books, and I'm re-reading it
right now for probably the 20th or 25th time ... I've lost count. Anyway, I love your site, and I'm not sending this letter to be a critic, or argue any points you've made.
Why I am sending this, is because I'm hoping you may be able to answer a question. I have heard the rumor that the SCI FI Channel might be doing The Forever War as a miniseries. Do you know if there's any truth to that? Not that they'll do it justice, but I'd probably rent it on video after it's aired. I refuse to watch them anymore since they removed Farscape. I don't know if you're a fan or not, but that was the only new show they were running that had any substance. Thanks for letting me rant, and I'd love to hear back from you, if you know anything about them making a TV version of The Forever War.
Joe G.
Faust99999@aol.com
Assistant Editor Brian Murphy responds:
The SCI FI Channel is, indeed, making a miniseries based on Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. The latest news on this project was posted on our sister site, Sci Fi Wire, in April. Click here for the full story.
Best,
Brian
m I the only fan of Battlestar Galactica who is mightily confused right now? I've been looking forward to the SCI FI Channel's Galactica remake this December, but for the past few days there have been stories all over the Internet about Edward James Olmos (the new Commander Adama) ragging on his own show. At the recent TV Critics Association press conference, he's
quoted saying:
"If you're a die-hard fan of the original Battlestar Galactica, please don't watch. SCI FI Channel wants you to think everyone will like this. They won't! So please, don't watch!"
So, as a fan of the original, I'm not supposed to watch?! I don't get it. Why don't they want die-hard fans like me watching? I'm assuming I must be the audience they're going after. If not me, who? Or maybe it's just press-conference nerves? Whatever is going on, I'm willing to bet that Edward James Olmos never sold encyclopedias. Or anything else.
Fullen Andrews
RGame3@yahoo.com
'd like to put my two cents in on this stupid "Princess Di shouldn't be made a superhero" controversy ("Diana Was a Wonder—But Not Like This").
Get real! I didn't see anybody cry foul when Saturday Night Live created The X-Presidents. Are you gonna tell me that you were genuinely offended to see Carter, Reagan, Ford and Bush Sr. turned into superheroes? Were you offended to see the X-Pres. fighting aliens while Mr. and Mrs. Bush "got it on" in a hammock or a hot tub? Were you disgusted to see "SuperNixon" and his sidekick Checkers (complete with a permanent doggy erection) burst out of their coffins, to help the X-Presidents out? Are you saying that in 5 or 10 years, when Reagan passes away from
Alzheimer's Disease, you're going to stop laughing at The X-Presidents, because to laugh would be offensive?
Of course you won't. Why? Because it's a spoof. And so is X-Statix.
If people are so offended by spoofs, then why did Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Top Secret, Loaded Weapon 1, Fatal Instinct, Silence of the Hams and other spoofs do so well at the box office? Because spoofs rely, at least in part, on one fundamental axiom: "Impression is the sincerest form of flattery."
So Marvel isn't soiling Di's memory, they're honoring her! They're saying that Di was such a wonderful and perfect human being, that the only way she could've been more perfect, is if she were a superhero. We should all be so lucky, as to receive such a compliment.
Adam Boudreaux
TrekAdamG@webtv.net
've been visiting and posting on Science Fiction Weekly for a couple of years now and while I am thankful for the opportunity to put in my two cents on the past, present and perceived future of sci-fi, I am always looking for your battery of sites "to boldly go where no other site has gone before" What do you expect? I grew up on this stuff; the mindset comes with it.
However timely and accurate your SCI FI Wire may be, too often it is incomplete or merely a mirror of other news sites narrowed down to the sci-fi bandwidth. Granted, this is your mission, but often I (and probably others) have sent you documented tips that don't make the site. Each, of course, is your call, but months ago I sent you info on Clarke's new novel, Last Theorem, and it went unposted. (I'm a lit agent and it's my job to know this stuff.) Maybe this latest confirmation will make SCI FI Wire. Marvel's decision to spike Di Another Day also was ignored. What was the call on that?
What's missing from your sites is the search for the cutting edge of sci-fi. Is it out there? What tiny little splash today will create ripples that will resonate throughout the genre for years to come? I remember teaching a history class—everyone had the same answer dutifully copied word for word from the text. When I asked: "What does that mean?" the students became angry. They had the right answer. They didn't have to know what it meant!
What's sorely needed in sci-fi is insight to go with the info. Yes, while that sounds ideal, too often it can translate into fanboy rants whining at the wind, but surely there's a ground somewhere and a standard to be set for a stand to be made.
SFW book and movie reviews are, for the most part, honest and accurate, but stop short of looking at the big picture or the lack of one. While it may not be the present function of the reviewer to "push the envelope," loosening the editorial reins a bit might add a much needed depth to the site.
What frustrates me the most is the constant flow of puff pieces from a staff (including yourself!) who seem content with stating the obvious based on their expertise and experience. Shouldn't your combined talents and credentials be utilized to stir up the all too-steady state of the sci-fi universe?
Unlike drama, comedy, romance and mystery, sci-fi comes with an innate obsession to "step out" into new concepts, stories and formats. To simply keep its fans up to date goes against the very soul of sci-fi itself. Until the combined SCI FI Web sites are imbued with the ambition and the courage to confront the Powers That Be responsible for its present condition, those who might reinvigorate our beloved genre will only contribute to its stagnation.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA@aol.com
SCI FI Wire News Editor Patrick Lee responds:
As you know, SCI FI Wire is a digest of the most important and newsworthy news about SF, fantasy and supernatural horror entertainment news from other sources, as well as from our web of correspondents and original reportage by your truly. The decision about what to include and not to include every day is based on a variety of factors that may seem mystifying to the outsider untrained in journalism, but there is a rhyme and reason for everything we do. As for news tips, we check out each one and run them if we can confirm them in a timely manner and feel they warrant coverage. As a helpful guide to anyone sending in news tips: Please cite the original source of your tip, and, if possible, a phone number or link.
As for Mr. Ahearn's prodigious tips, I can only speak to a couple. The tip about Arthur C. Clarke came to my desk only a couple of days ago. It didn't say where it was from or what the source of his news was. We couldn't verify it by the time we went to press. As with all tips, we continue to try to find an alternative source for the news, and as soon as we're comfortable with the sourcing, we'll run it.
We will be running a news item on the "Di Another Day" decision shortly.
As for SCI FI Wire's mission? To print all the genre entertainment news that fits. Not to advocate, not to forward an agenda, not to offer an opinion. We leave that to people like Mr. Ahearn.
Best,
Patrick
n response to casting ideas for a new Batman movie ("Batman Must Decide on Campy or Dark", "Gibson Should Prowl Gotham"), I'd like to throw my two cents in and hope that they go with someone less known for the part. I think the biggest problem with the movies is that they spent so much time and effort casting and advertising the villains, that the heroes always get lower billing. Not that I was tremendously keen on the choices at first for
Batman (it took some time to accept Michael Keaton as Batman), but from the actor's perspective, why should he take second billing when they are a well-known actor and the hero of the flick?
A lesser-known actor might be more willing to A) deal with a lower billing and B) have a stronger commitment to the role. Just a thought.
On another note: I have seen rumors that David Boreanaz (a.k.a Angel on the WB) may have a chance at the part. I think that would be a fantastic choice. An actor who is less known to most America, but has proven that he can be heroic, evil, dark and dare I say, campy (his rendition of "Mandy" for karaoke on Angel was tantamount to the Bat Dance).
Tom Nguyen
tnchief@mindspring.com
hat fate sci-fi? Enterprise—T'Pout proving that silicon is indeed a universal element. Still I'm learning to like her—and the show. Buffy gone and Angel aging. The best and the brightest of the new shows (Firefly) gone before they could find an audience. The SCI FI Channel showing phoney Scare Tactics (They put you in jail—or lawsuit city—for doing that stuff to people without a signed release). Or just goofy John Edward. Stargate is bearable as long as they let their actors ad-lib most of their dialogue.
SPOILERS: This summer's movies...
T3 is like Alien3—it makes everything everyone did in the first two movies (you know, suffering and death) for nothing.
Hulk was good (and sad) and I liked the new green guy. Thing is... it was too long and serious for kids and should have been advertised more as a dark drama.
Still they were better than Charlie's Angels and 2Fast, etc., [and other] movies, that at the end, when you see the writer's credits, you say, "Somebody wrote that?!"
Nancy Myers
crowswork@yahoo.com
t amazes me that whether there can be Christian sci-fi is even in question! ("The Good Book Offers Good SF Stories", "Christian Fans Aren't Left Behind", "Religious SF Is Indeed Possible", "Sci-Fi Is an Enlightened Product") C.S. Lewis, besides The Chronicles of Narnia, wrote The Space Trilogy. J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle was originally released by a Christian publisher ... not so odd, considering he's a Christian. I personally have a large number of sci-fi and fantasy books written by Christians on my bookcases right along with my Asimov and Doctor Who novels.
To name a few: Sigmund Brouwer's Magnus, a fantasy adventure set in the Middle Ages. Robert Don Hughes' The Fallen, about aliens manipulating events on Earth. Michael R. Joens' Twilight of the Gods, series, set in the Dark Ages. Cristopher A. Lane's Eden's Gate, a very Indiana Jones-like story. Twenty different fantasy and sci-fi books by the aforementioned Stephen R. Lawhead. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time series. Some very disturbing, dark fantasy novels by Presbyterian minister George MacDonald (whom C.S. Lewis considered a mentor), such as Lilith and Phantastes. Paul L. Maier's A Skeleton in God's Closet, another Indiana Jones-type book. Katherine Paterson's Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knight. Twelve Frank Peretti books, not the least of which is the very creepy Visitation. Sword-and-sorcery novel The Falcon and the Serpent by Cheryl A. Smith. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, arguably the most widely
read fantasy books ever. Seven dark fantasy novels by Charles Williams... master of the bizarre ...
and, his epic Arthurian poems; "Taliessin through Logres," "The Region of the Summer Stars" and "Arthurian Torso." Paul J. Willis' No Clock in the Forest, and it's sequel, The Stolen
River. Think fundamentalist Christians can't be environmentalists? Read these books!
And I could go on for a lot longer! If people haven't heard of most of them, it's because the Christian content is too obvious and regular publishers won't touch them ... but for someone looking for it, it exists in plenty!
Mikal Johnson
dalekhunter.removethis@adelphia.net
s a peripatetic heathen of no fixed abode, I'm more than slightly bemused by John Enfield's narrow
Christian focus ("The Good Book Offers Good SF Stories"). I think that by and large, science fiction is, by inclination if not by calling, the domain of pathological apostasy—as it should be. Even if I'm overstating my case, what science fiction
explicitly isn't is the handmaiden of any single religion. So, asking for science fiction to pay
especial attention to Christianity, for whatever reasons—and I doubt if I'd be wrong to surmise that Enfield's reasons are more personal than literary—smacks of a crusaders zeal.
Science fiction is the product of a century that will forever be defined by its singleminded drive to corrode all shibboleths, to question everything—from the nature and role of religion, the self-belief of science, the parameters of individualism, the absurdity of absolutism, the limits of relativity, scientific and otherwise. Most serious science-fiction buffs wouldn't have it any other way. The time is long gone when almost all art harnessed inspiration from and genuflected to religion: the last century of the previous millennium saw all the many arts become less and less representational of what we can only call overt reality and turn interpretative and iconoclastic.
Perhaps Mr. Enfield should return to the Bible—like the scriptures of every single one of the world's mass religions, it is rich in fantasy, metaphor, indomitable faith, the cozy warmth of intellectual hibernation, and comfort. As for the rest of us—what we seek of science fiction is synaptic tweaking, and if that comes with discomfort, even—the gods forbid!—damnation, so be it. What use is a literary genre that only preaches to the converted?
Kajal Basu
kajalbasu@yahoo.com
was surprised to see a number of letters decrying the lack of SF by Christian writers ("The Good Book Offers Good SF Stories", "Christian Fans Aren't Left Behind", "Religious SF Is Indeed Possible", "Sci-Fi Is an Enlightened Product"). Even a fairly casual perusal of the field turns up the names of many SF writers who have indicated in one way or another that they
are Christian. If you include those who are Mormon (and I leave the debate as to whether Mormonism is properly included with Christianity for others to argue), the list grows longer. Here are a few off the top of my head: Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Ann Tonsor Zeddies, Jame MacDonald and Debra Doyle, Orson Scott Card, Kathy Tyers, R.A. Lafferty, Walter Miller Jr., Jeffrey A. Carver (yours truly), David Trowbridge and Jerry Pournelle.
There are lots more; those are just the ones who popped into my head this minute. (And there are, of course, many writers working from the perspective of Judaism, which isn't the same question but is related.) I haven't noticed many of those authors shying away from difficult questions, or even depicting religious dogma in a negative light when it deserved it. (See Connie Willis' Doomsday Book for a good example.)
Now, it is true that often Christian writers weave their stories without overt reference to theology or organized religion; most of my own stories have, at most, glancing reference to Christianity per se. Speaking for myself, it's at least in part because I have no interest proselytizing or claiming to have the whole truth; I'm much more interested in planting seeds of thought, posing questions and exploring possible answers. But the world view that informs my writing is always there; I couldn't be true to myself and not write from that perspective. (See my Dragons in the Stars or The Chaos Chronicles.)
I grant there's an irony in the fact that much of the SF that derives directly from the Bible seem to be written by rabid anti-Christians (James Morrow, Damon Knight, etc.). I don't have a good explanation for that, except that maybe it's easier to take a story that's already been told and "debunk" it than it is to rewrite or expand it while remaining true to the original.
In any case, there's still plenty of room for new work. I take heart in that.
Jeffrey A. Carver
jeff@starrigger.net
must admit that I watched maybe a handful of episodes during the two-year run of James Cameron's Dark Angel, and that wasn't because it wasn't good or impressive—it was the fact that the name "James Cameron" wasn't enough to get me to ditch another show I was already a loyal, if not die-hard, fan of—Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was only during reruns when I'd switch over to Fox and catch a few impressive episodes here and there of Dark Angel.
Sadly, it wasn't until the tragic ending of both shows that I really was able to get into DA. A friend of mine pointed out two books written by Max Allan Collins. One called Before The Dawn, a Dark Angel prequel and Skin Game, a series continuation of the cliffhanger series ending. Both were compelling and great but left many questions which then prompted me to buy the Dark Angel season one on DVD in May. And I truly love it. This past week I was surprised to discover a final book for Max Allan Collin's Dark Angel trilogy called After the Dawn. It is a great book and manages to be just as good and compelling as the first two, while answering many questions and holding my attention for this "movie" version of Dark Angel that James Cameron has said he wants to make. I just wanted to say that when series use creditable/established writers, it works to draw new fans in. I hope the Dark Angel novels continue.
T.W. Wallace
followthewhtrabitt@yahoo.com
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