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
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). If you would like to submit a letter, please use our feedback form or send a message to scifiweekly@scifi.com.
egular TV viewers are probably not aware of a real gem of a sci-fi comedy airing in places other than the SCI FI Channel, so I thought this would be a great forum to introduce folks to the British comedy My Hero.
My Hero stars Ardal O'Hanlon (Who's Line Is It Anyway?) as George Sunday, who
is really the super-hero from Ultron, Thermoman. He rescued Janet, played by Emily Joyce, from a deadly fall in the Grand Canyon and instantly fell in love with her. They now share a flat in the British Isles.
The program has four series in the can which equals 24 episodes and two specials. Currently, BBC America is running the first season, but you can expect to see the others soon if the ratings hold up.
This is one of the funniest programs I have seen in a long time. The writing is clever and the situations they find themselves in week after week are hilarious. The supporting cast is also first-rate.
For all interested parties, this show can been seen every Wednesday on BBC America, along with classic sitcoms like Keeping Up Appearances, Coupling and others.
My Hero is on BBC America on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. CDT. And repeats throughout the week.
There are not very many clever and witty sci-fi comedies around, but this one really deserves a chance. Check out Thermoman in My Hero!
David Marshall
chappai@tenguweb.net
hris M. Barkley's summary ("Original Battlestar Was Bad TV") of the original Battlestar Galactica was a blast of honesty. But what he said in his last paragraph got me thinking along more positive lines. Would it be possible, given free rein, to turn the sow's ear into a silk purse? Here's what I came up with for a "reimaged" show.
Premise: Galactica was a 50-year program, intended to culminate in Earth's first manned interstellar exploration. Galactica was also the name of the first manned ship capable of reaching another star. The truly international crew of 23 were a mixture of scientists, academics
and military, all of whom had been deliberately altered using advances in nanotech biological augmentation. The public were told that the crew were immune to all known diseases, and able to withstand the kinds of radiation commonly found in deep space. Less widely know was the fact that
their cells no longer degraded and were self-repairing, effectively making them very long lived, perhaps even immortal—though not invulnerable, or capable of anything superhuman. Hours before launch of the Galactica, the Cylons invaded the solar system. They quickly established a large base on Mars, then attacked Earth directly, crushing the opposition and subjugating the population by use of a genetically tailored weapon. Earth, its resources and population, were marked for harvest. The Cylons themselves were biotech horrors, like a mixture of Predator and Terminator, with a dash of Ron Perlman. Indeed, he would star as Abraxus, the lead Cylon.
Only the enhanced humans of the Galactica project were able to resist the subjugation plague spread by the Cylons, which altered brain chemistry. Nine of them took the Galactica, renamed it Battlestar, and blasted their way to freedom. Their intention being to locate the Cylons home world, and use nanotech against them. A division of Cylons set off in pursuit. The remaining crew spread out, to organize resistance on Earth, using their skills to reverse the effects of the plague, town by town. The resistance fights the occupying forces with
weapons systems based on both nanotech designs, and Nikola Tesla's almost-forgotten science.
Rough edges aside, isn't that better than a tin-can mumbling, "By your command," that bloke from the A-Team with his dental perfection, the other one who looked like Englebert Humperdink's love child, and the old geezer from Bonanza?
Nathan Brazil
nathanbrazilREMOVETHIS@freeuk.com
he Cassutt Files ("Are We All Crazy?") was fairly amusing. I remember reading a book about the Futurians or Philip K. Dick and thinking "these people are nuts, but I like their stuff."
Still, are they really crazier? I think writers, on average, are all quite odd. I am certainly quite odd, and having most of my stories be in Bewildering Stories might bear that out. However, in seriousness, look at Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickenson, Franz Kafka, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, etc.—all had varying degrees of mental problems. On the fringes, you can find your Rimbaud or Mishima's whose insanities make most SF one's pale into insignificance. Even someone like Louisa May Alcott came from, for the time, a very bizarre upbringing which affected her life.
Among modern authors, several are open about being institutionalized. More often they freely discuss their mental illnesses. Even more severe ones like BiPolar Disorder or Schizophrenia.
However, the idea toward the end of it that SF authors might have different kinds of eccentricity has merit. I'll take "divine discontentment" to mean the more grandiose nature of some SFers' eccentricities. Discontent with the world or society is far from unique to SF authors. Even alienation is a standard theme for most writers. However SF authors are perhaps more willing
to go further. Finding discontent and alienation with humanity as a species or even the universe as a whole. This kind of grandiose eccentricity can happen elsewhere. I think Nietzsche went insane in almost Dickian proportions in his final years. Actually, considering Nietzsche lived first, maybe that should be reversed. Still the greater ability to see humans as just another species on a dot in a vast universe makes the madness of scientists or science-fiction writers seem much more disturbing than the madness of most other groups.
Hmm ... this is sounding harsher than I intended. Personally, I think SF authors are as sane as most other types of artists. Certainly as sane as painters or poets. I think SFer eccentricities are just harder for most to understand or relate to. That sense of uniqueness is part of the fun. Although, in truth, for a few it has also been very isolating.
Thomas Ranquin
TRanquin@bewilderingstories.com
read in SCI FI Magazine that the new Twilight Zone has been canceled after only one season. That is a shame. Forest Whitaker was an excellent host. And the episodes were impressive in some ways.
Arguably my favorite episode from the original Twilight Zone is "Two" starring future TV star Elizabeth Montgomery and future film star Charles Bronson as forcibly unalone soldiers in a world decimated by war locked together in a love-hate relationship. It is certainly one of the best happy endings that science-fiction anthology television has ever bestowed upon its audience.
The remake of the "Eye of the Beholder" episode for the new Twilight Zone episode was just as suspenseful as was the original Twilight Zone episode. It remains today one of the best "twist-endings" in science fiction lore and deservedly so. It is probably the most successful episode of the new Twilight Zone and could have easily persuaded the creators to
remake more original episodes.
One remake I would like to see is that of the William Shatner episode "Nightmare at 40,000 Feet" for which the 1983 film version with John Lithgow was outrageously blown over the top. No disrespect intended to the powers that be.
I would like to see the new Twilight Zone series come back to prime-time television with Forest Whitaker as the worthy host. I think the franchise still has potential in this new millennium.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil@sympatico.ca
hen all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, will Arnold Schwarzenegger become California's liberal Republican governor?! ("President Arnold Could Happen Here", "California Must Say 'Hasta La Vista'")
With wealth, power, and prestige—and the alliance of the two greatest American political families—the Kennedys on the left and the Bushs on the right—and the Grand Patriarch of money management—Warren Buffet—along with the glamor and stardust of Hollywood ... Arnold has certainly an awesome display of firepower to shake-up California's political scene. Win or lose, this is going to be good TV. And like the great entertainer Arnold is—what more can we really ask for?!
Can Arnold arm-wrestle with Adam Smith's invisible hand of supply and demand—bringing wealth and prosperity into the small nation of California's economy?! Or will it be a rush for fools gold of legendary proportions—where, not since Attila the Hun, were such stories told around the campfire, of young Austrian boys who reached for their dreams so bold.
When all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, will Arnold pull an extraordinary power play?!
George Person
phxrox2002@yahoo.com
n regards to Science Fiction Weekly's review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic]:
The player's character eventually ends up becoming a Jedi, but it is completely up to the player whether the character becomes a light or a dark Jedi.
Ha ha ha. That's funny. ... Choose the Dark Path at the Star Forge and the game totally freezes, no matter what. This game is plagued with a ton of obvious bugs, and locks up if you take the side journeys through the Dark or even slightly Grey side of The Force. Almost as if the only portion ever to pass through the QA department was the goodie-two-shoes Jedi-wannabe portion.
Even LucasArts is starting to post requests for all input [from players] to try and figure out what is the case of all the bugs. For now, they blame clock settings on the Xbox. I am sure they will resort to the ever popular, "Hmmm, must be something in DX" for the computer users that start having issues. And while at some point the PC users might actually get a patch ... the console users are left hanging out in the Dark Side, their anger fueling the reminder that they just wasted $50 on what would have been a great game if it had just been tested properly. I didn't even mention the bad voice-overs—the sync of these reminded me of a Godzilla movie played backwards. Ciao.
Jonny [last name withheld]
sithboy@hotmail.com
athan Brazil has brought up an important point about Star Trek ("Star Trek Reinforces One-World Gov"). In earlier
letters, I wrote about the fact that Star Trek promotes a sort of communism. Not communism as the Soviets had it, but a more liberal form. That debate went on for weeks.
However, I don't believe that there's any conspiracy going on. I just think that Star Trek has managed to get stuck with an increasingly implausible ideology. As Nathan pointed out; centralized states have a habit of becoming tyrannies, or end up getting overthrown by angry tribal or religious rebels. In the '60s, when Star Trek first came out, the idea of the human race uniting under one leader was seen as a highly plausible, even inevitable, solution to the world's problems. But as time goes by, the wool has fallen further and further from our eyes. We are beginning to see the world as it really is.
This means that Star Trek's idealism is the very thing that's making it look more and more dated. So, what can be done? For me there are two answers:
1) Be brave, and break with tradition. Change the ideology to match today's wisdom. Mainly by removing most of the socialist aspects of the show. Also, Paramount should lose the PC scripts, and replace them with stories of genuine human anger, envy, hate, love, satisfaction and guilt. Don't be afraid to offend.
2) Keep the present ideal, but rethink how humanity got to that conclusion. Star Trek needs a definitive history. Especially one that includes events that sound more plausible to modern ears. Such as religious terrorism, tribal guerillas, China as the dominant nation, exploration of Mars, technological challenges, etc., this will make the Star Trek future look more realistic.
Darren Simpson
darrensimpson10@hotmail.com
s the SCI FI Channel confused lately? I see some disturbing things that are happening over there.
Let's start with the new "original" SCI FI movies. We have Deep Shock which you can tell greatly borrowed from The Abyss. You have an undersea base near a trench, alien lifeforms trying to survive, and even the heroes were the same as Abyss, they were separated. I'm surprised James Cameron hasn't written yet.
Then we have the upcoming Bugs. From the synopsis and the commercials, it looks like a rip-off to Mimic. You have the subways, sewers and giant bugs out to get humanity. Where's the originality and creativity? At least Mimic 2 did something to separate itself from the original, but left enough of the original for continuity.
Now, we have the Labor Day Weekend movies. It was advertised that there would be three recent Godzilla movies [on SCIFI.com]. Even the cable menu said Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla was the 1993 version, but hey ... we got the 1974 one instead. I looked forward to watching the newer one with my daughter. All we got was the Godzilla vs. Baragon, Mothra and Ghidorah for a new movie. What happened here? Where was the '93 vs. Mechagodzilla and the vs. Space Godzilla we were promised?
What happened to original movies like New Eden? There were such good ones that SCI FI had with Parker Stevenson as an abductee and Mark Hamill as a time traveler. These were good original movies, with original stories. I miss Dr. Franklin Reuhl, I miss Harlan Ellison and the show he did the commentary on. Why did you do something dumb and drop Farscape? Why did you
kill Sliders? Where are the older SCI FI Saturday-morning 'toons like Transformers, Robotech, Mystery Island, etc? SCI FI has so much potential, but nobody there wants to put an effort into it.
Todd R. Behrmann
weyrleader@charter.net
he weekly poll at SCIFI.com asks which [Ray] Bradbury book, now under production as a movie, are we most looking forward to, and it dawned on me, it's getting more and more difficult to classify Fahrenheit 451 as science fiction. It's become too eerily close to reality.
Before 9/11 it was prescience of America, mostly clueless as to how the rest of the world thought about us. It reflects the current culture of big-screen televisions and reality shows for the masses to escape to rather than deal with declining conditions.
And you can see roots in our current society to a future society like the one depicted in the book. Our freedoms have not been reduced as much as theirs—but we're on our way—see the ACLU commercial with the Constitution. Our "book burnings"—Harry Potter, Dixie Chick's CDs—which represent a desire for curtailment of free thinking and of truth—is on an upsurge: "If you're not for this war, you're un-American."
The producers of the Fahrenheit 451 movie have some interesting choices to make: The story will have a very different impact if it's set in 1950, the time of its writing, versus today. If it's set in present, without changing the tale, the story could have a couple extra layers to show where we all may be heading all too soon.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll@comcast.net
F Wire reports that, on August 23, Ray Bradbury said to the Planetary Society:
The thing I dream is this: That some night, a hundred nights, a hundred years from now, there will be a boy on Mars reading late at night with a flashlight under the covers. And he'll look out on the Martian landscape, which will be bleak and rocky and red and not very romantic. But when he
turns out the light and lies with a copy of my book, I hope, The Martian Chronicles, the Martian winds outside will stir, and the ghosts that are in my book will rouse up, and my creatures—even though they never lived—will be on Mars. And that's the dream I have."
Does anybody else think this is somewhat inconsistent? The Martian Chronicles is basically an allegorical retelling of the American frontier, with humans (who are 100 percent American citizens, I recall) stealing Mars from the Martians much as Europeans stole America from the Native Americans.
In The Martian Chronicles, the astronauts are almost all fools or boobs. The Martians die out from a human-born plague, and then the handful of survivors are killed. The small-minded humans build hot-dog stands under the shadow of noble Martian ruins.
Then there's a nuclear war, and everyone gets homesick and idiotically rushes back to Earth so that they can be nuked.
Only two families return to Mars—and they decide that it would be best if space travel was abolished forever.
Now what part of this story would a Martian colonist of 100 years from now find to be inspirational? The part where astronauts and other Mars explorers are belittled? The part where they're held responsible for killing off an entire alien race? The part where humans turn to crass commercialism as their primary contribution to the Martian landscape? The part where settlers realize that life on Earth is so infinitely preferable to life on Mars that they go home to Earth to die in a radioactive firestorm rather than stay on Mars and live?
Or would the Martian colonist find the most inspirational part of the story to be where the Martian settlers decide that space travel is evil?
As an allegory condemning the invasion and slaughter of Native Americans, The Martian Chronicles has earned a place of high regard in the annals of modern literature. But as inspirational literature on behalf of space colonization, it is nothing of the sort. It is probably the most anti-space colonization book ever written. It probably will not be popular among Martian-colonist children 100 years from now—unless they're into self-loathing.
Joe Schembrie
joeschem@hotmail.com
Back to the top.
