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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have followed Stan Lee's work. However, when was [there a] mention of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko when he created his empire [during the interview on 60 Minutes]? Not even a mention? Or a simple comment how Jack Kirby helped him co-create and visualize the most popular Marvel characters? If I remember the Marvel method, the artist would draw the story from Stan's plot, and he'd later add in the dialogue. Steve Ditko was the one to help Stan Lee to define the character.
I know Stan did not get caught in the moment of a 60 Minutes interview. This was not the first time he was under the camera. I can believe, without a doubt, that what the artists say about Stan is true. He is taking credit for the entire creation. Was he there with Len Wein to create Wolverine? How about Dave Cockrum and Chris Claremont? Lee was not a sole creator of the new X-Men on the screen.
R. Lloyd
[address withheld by request]
've got a 'tude going about Fox. After screwing more good science fiction shows than the rest of the networks combined—VR-5, The Lone Gunmen, Dark Angel, Firefly, John Doe, renewing Tru Calling and then reneging on it, I'll be damned if I'll even check out Point Pleasant. First, they put it in Tru's timeslot—what nerve! That alone incensed me and started the thoughts of boycott, but it also brought me to my senses. Burn me once, shame on you, burn me five more times, shame on me. So, no more. When Point Pleasant hits the dust, I won't care. I won't have been watching.
Fox: Stay out of science fiction. You've blown all credibility in the genre, and I'll never trust you to do right by any SF show again.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll(at)comcast.net
enjoyed [editor Scott Edelman's] column ("Why Great Explorers Are Still To Come—And Why I Won't Be One of Them") very much.
Antarctica has fascinated me since my 20s and Mars since my 30s. Like you, I would imagine what I would do as a member of a crew headed for either location. I've never been able to really explain what about these places drew me, and I want to thank you for putting it into words for me. I'll never be a crewmember, but I will continue to fantasize.
Caroline Conery
cityfish4(at)verizon.net
egarding Scott Edelman's editorial ("Why Great Explorers Are Still To Come—And Why I Won't Be One of Them"): "... as I lay there, I had to come to terms with the fact that I would now never willingly be one of them [interplanetary explorers]."
"Never?" Never's a long time, my friend. A little genetic therapy, a little nanotechnology, you might end up being around for another 100 or 150 years—maybe longer! Throw in some nuclear propulsion, a thriving Mars colony ...
Never? Ya sure about that?
David A. Young
drruser10(at)cfl.rr.com
oaded up my weekly dose of sci-fi with the latest issue of Science Fiction Weekly, saw the interview with Alastair Reynolds and thought, "Great! I love Reynolds' work! This should be a good interview." But, to my dismay, spoilers for books I haven't read yet! What happened to issuing a spoiler alert?! Shame on you, Science Fiction Weekly.
Nelson Stanley
ntstanley(at)gmail.com
opic: bathrooms. Yeah, the Stargate Atlantis newsgroup has been trying to figure out where, or how there, could be a bathroom on the puddle jumpers. No one has come up with a decent answer, and though it sounds silly, it makes a lot of sense to question the topic. Even the actress who plays Talya in SGA had that question asked of her on "lowdown", but we never got an answer.
So, how about it writers? Where the heck are the bathrooms on these shuttles? On the most recent show, "Defiant," the crew traveled 19 hours. Now, let's face facts, there has to be some place for human comfort. Sure, the Ancients, while ascended, would not need such comforts, but they were in human bodies when they occupied Atlantis. They used the puddle jumpers as SGA is doing.
Curious people want to know!
Miki Casalino
ccabek(at)comcast.net
efore Trekkers everywhere begin a flurry of Internet and media campaigns to "save" the most successful and longest-running franchise in TV history, be advised that the cancellation of Enterprise ("UPN Cancels Enterprise") was the second-best thing ever to happen to Star Trek.
The best thing was the first cancellation nearly 40 years ago. Resurrected after a furious and unprecedented letter barrage, Star Trek was seemingly permanently canceled in the middle of its third season. True believers blamed the abrupt end on a bad timeslot and a shrinking budget. Both were factors, but Trek's five-year mission to "seek out new life and new civilizations" was cut short because Star Trek itself had abandoned its own mission. Remember some of those episodes? Native Americans, Romans, Roaring '20s gangsters, cowboys, Nazis, yanks and commies. Old life and old civilization was more like it. Fortunately, Trek was not allowed to stray even further from its mission to descend into cosmic soap opera and eternal doom.
At the very core of science fiction lies the vision of its creator. Betray that vision and all the special effects in the universe cannot save the work from spiraling into the dustbin of sci-fi trivia. When the classic Star Trek stopped "boldly going where no man had gone before," it was gone.
Enterprise was doomed for the very start. Not because of its cast and crew, its timeslot or its cable channel. Enterprise failed because it was about Star Trek instead of being what Star Trek was about. Where Enterprise was boldly going, Star Trek had already been. Stripped of [Gene] Roddenberry's vision by its own backstory concept, Enterprise had nowhere to go and very few who wanted to go with it.
Is this then the final finale? To paraphrase Churchill, "This not the end or even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning."
There will be another Star Trek only when its inheritors understand that its dynamic vision can never again be compromised. Star Trek is more than just a show about spaceships and space people. It is the spirit and the soul of every viewer who ever dreamed or imagined what life could be like on Earth and in the farthest reaches of the universe.
We all need more of that.
Kevin Ahearn
KEVTOMA(at)aol.com
see on SciFi.com that Enterprise has been canceled ("UPN Cancels Enterprise"). Bummer, but what do you expect when those running the series don't know what they're doing!
[Rick] Berman and [Brannon] Braga are two of the biggest dumb-dumbs in Hollywood. Paramount
should have fired them years ago! They thought they could just ride the Star Trek pony to the bank and not bother to write good stories. I honestly think they thought people would buy whatever crap they put out, as long as it had the Star Trek name on it. They drove the Star Trek franchise right into the ground ... at warp speed!
Who at Paramount kept these guys in charge of the franchise?
The last season of Enterprise was OK ... just okay. Better than the first couple of seasons, that's for sure. This year has gotten better, with Manny Coto as an executive producer, but UPN's decision to air Enterprise Friday nights against Stargate SG-1 has to be one of the most idiotic moves in TV history! Stargate SG-1 is a great show that has been on for eight seasons, and scheduled for a ninth, Enterprise can't compete with that!
It is the fourth season of the show and Archer hasn't even begun to "play a critical role in the creation of the Federation," as the show told us he did/does. How can you go four years into the series and not get to that plotline?
The Nemesis movie tanked because the entire movie is a ripoff of Star Trek
II: The Wrath of Khan! They also cut out all the scenes people wanted to see! What the f--- happened to Troy and Riker's wedding? It is my understanding the original end of the movie had a scene with Riker taking command of his own ship, the Titan. Dr. Crusher was going off to Starfleet Medical, a scene with her and Picard saying goodbye to each other would have been nice. It is my understanding a scene was shot of the new first officer of the Enterprise-E reporting for duty. That also would have been nice to see.
Berman and Braga keep rehashing the same old stuff. You want Star Trek to succeed? Fire Berman and Braga and bring in new blood. Look what Manny Coto, a fresh face, has done this season. The show is better than it has even been. Unfortunately, most of the fans have given up at this point. What a shame, the show finally starts to get good and they cancel it. Figures!
Kyle Tompkins
Kyle.Tompkins(at)staples.com
wo things I'd like to mention: First, regarding the "first" SF novel ("Sci-Fi Is Indefinable")—I would suggest the roots of SF go a lot further back than Frankenstein or H.G. Wells. There's Utopia by the unfortunate Thomas More (beheaded by Henry VIII in 1535), and even before that, there's Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. Not only is it one of the classics of Western literature, it can also be seen, as mentioned in Peter Nicholls' The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, as a form of "proto-SF." Dante had envisioned in great detail of what the worlds of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory could be like—to put it bluntly, Dante's take on speculative fiction. There's a wonderful book by [Jerry] Pournelle and [Larry] Niven called Inferno, a writer's journey to Dante's Hell.
Second, is anyone familiar with a series that ran on CBC Television, and apparently later in syndication in the late '60s, called Strange Paradise? Apparently it was the Canadian response to Dark Shadows.
Sue Hickey
shickey(at)advertisernl.ca
oogeyman, in my opinion, succeeds where others in the past months have failed. It is dark and creepy thriller that goes back to basics and improves on them. I think it is the best effort since The Grudge, and Barry Watson is the best lead for this genre since Sarah Michelle Gellar. Boogeyman convinces me that the thrillers of the 21st century have a chance of succeeding where many classics from the 20th century have endured and flourished. This one deserves a 9 out of 10.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil(at)sympatico.ca
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