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 send a message to scifiweekly@scifi.com.
ou had a review of Amber in [last week's] issue. That is great, but rather limited, view of the scope of this story.
Now that there are new, sophisticated techniques available with computers, it's time for a movie that could never have been done before. This would be an awesome movie, with the journeys through shadow being a fascinating experience for any moviegoer. This will interest sci-fi, fantasy, action, cloak-and-dagger and surreal audiences.
Please consider talking someone into doing this movie. If it is successful, they have a full series of 10 books to write movies. Since Zelazny is dead, this is the only way to see more of his work.
Melinda Davis
pharmacistfox(at)hotmail.com
've just finished [reading] a classic fantasy, and if Peter Jackson is still up to doing remakes after King Kong runs its course, I think he should try his hand.
The book: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Screenwriter: Harlan Ellison (self-proclaimed fan of the books).
Lead: She might be too old now, but I was thinking Hallie Eisenberg as Dorothy.
Scarecrow: Brent Spiner.
Lion: Sean Connery or Robin Williams.
Glinda (Witch of the North): Natalie Portman.
Witch of the West: Maggie Smith or Judi Dench.
Monkey King: Hugh Grant or Alan Rickman.
Wizard: Possibly Robert De Niro?
(For those who don't know the book, there was no Mrs. Gulch or Professor Marvel, and there were no farmhands.)
The whole book, although short, is so detailed that the entire thing might take as long as five hours to run all at once. The original movie was perhaps two-thirds of the book.
Any other ideas?
Henrik Harbin
kirneh001(at)yahoo.com
watched Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia, which is misnamed, by the way. It should be The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but whoever said that Disney was a bastion of accuracy, right?
Anyway, I remember watching a televised version in the mid-1990s on PBS that was better in some ways than the Disney version. It was from the BBC, and was very well done. It suffered from a lack of special effects that we expect now, but some of those effects were either brand-spanking-new or weren't invented yet. But the acting made up for that, and that's why I think it is better than the movie version. The Disney actors seemed kind of stiff sometimes, sort of uncomfortable or something. The BBC actors seemed comfortable in their roles, as if they were really in Narnia.
The BBC took the series to two more adventures before dropping it, which is a shame. I think there are six or seven stories altogether, which makes a nice book collection. However, the last book would be very hard for either the BBC or Hollywood to do because of the ending of the series.
[Warning: Spoilers follow.]
The people of Narnia, and the associated children, follow Aslan into "heaven" as the world collapses behind them. All I can imagine is a quick ending where Aslan leads them into green pastures with a thundering ending theme and then the credits. But ... would the bad guy get carried away by a demon? Who knows! I have a feeling that wheels are turning in Disney; we might be seeing more from C.S. Lewis.
But one thing for sure, Disney can never replace the "Puddleglum" character that was in one of the BBC's stories. He was played by Dr. Who.
Larry Ray
cookies5(at)sbcglobal.net
lthough John Thiel is correct in his description of Amazing Stories as the first science-fiction magazine ("Science Fiction Is Not Science"), he is incorrect about Edgar Rice Burroughs' placement in that magazine. ERB's first sale—"A Princess of Mars" as "Under The Moons of Mars"—saw publication in Argosy's All-Story Magazine for February 1912. In fact, very little of his work appeared in Amazing. The only stories I could find in a brief Web search showed "Savage Pellucidar" in the early 1960s and "The Master-Mind of Mars" in the only Amazing Stories Annual back in the late 1920s.
David Crowley
sgtcuvie(at)aol.com
ith news traveling the fastest it has ever traveled these days, one seldom reads the actual newspaper. They just go online and there it is ... whatever they are looking for. But I am one of the seldom few that does glance, from time to time, at a newspaper. That is how I found out that the Doctor is coming to the SCI FI Channel in March.
Am I excited?
Does a Dalek call the Doctor his (or is it her—got you there, ha!) enemy? Is a Cyberman silver? And shouldn't there be a new reunion with the Doctor and the Brig? What's that you say? You don't know who the Brig is?!
Here is a super suggestion: While the big fans of Doctor Who wait with great anticipation for the new season to come, why not introduce the flock to some of the older versions of the Doctor? Why not show the following episodes: William Hartnell in "The Daleks," Patrick Troughten in "The Ice Warriors," Jon Pertwee in "Ambassadors of Death," Tom Baker in "Genesis of the Daleks," Peter Davision in "Mawdren Undead," Colin Baker in "The Twin Dilemma," Sylvester McCoy in "Battlefield" and, as a special night of movies, place the eighth Doctor (can you guess who he played—I did the homework for the first seven Doctors, you do the math and get the eighth right—hah!). They would be a great send-off for the 10th Doctor in July, don't you think?
Bruce Dodds
BruDod3(at)aol.com
es, it's disappointing that Joss Whedon doesn't know how Serenity works and hasn't given it much thought. But there's a reason for that. ...
In sci-fi, space is the final frontier and we are used to spaceships that Boldly Go. We've all grown up on Star Trek, and in Star Trek the good ship Enterprise was as much a character in the story as the people were. Think about it.
In the original Star Trek series, the Enterprise was Kirk's ship and it was a metaphor for Kirk's state of mind. When the ship was "healthy," Kirk was all set for action. When the ship was broken, Kirk was depressed. It reflected his moods and state of being.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the ship was Picard's big, shiny, souped-up toy. Ooh, it could go warp 12. Ahh, the saucer section could separate. Wow, look at that holodeck! The interior decor was all tasteful pastels, and it had a spacious and luxurious bar. It looked more like a cruise ship than a warship or an exploration vessel.
On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine we had a big space station, and it was weird alien tech that worked when it wanted to, a cranky baby that O'Brien seemed to spend as much time psychoanalyzing as fixing. And they also had the Defiant, a lean, mean fighting machine that was all speed and stealth and teeth, ready to rip the throat out of any unlucky Cardassian or Jem Hadar vessel it came across.
Then there was Star Trek: Voyager. Voyager was Capt. Janeway's home, a thin skin of warmth and family that was all that separated her and her crew from the cold, cruel harshness of the Gamma quadrant, where all the aliens were really alien—and not too friendly.
I never watched Enterprise, but from what I understand of the show, the Enterprise was cutting-edge tech and they were testing it out as they went.
But Firefly/Serenity was Mal Reynold's story, and, for him, his ship was not a metaphor or a toy or a cranky baby or a war machine or experimental tech. Maybe he thought of it a little bit as a home, but mostly it was a truck. He used it to smuggle illicit goods and take him from planet to planet, where he could rob banks and pull off con jobs.
If I wrote a contemporary screenplay about a modern-day disreputable drifter and his friends who used a truck to smuggle goods and transport them from town to town so they could rob and steal, nobody would think it odd if I never included a word about how the truck worked. Even if, for story purposes, the truck broke down and left them stranded in the desert or made them miss their rendezvous with mobsters, nobody would expect me to spend pages of dialogue on pistons and spark plugs. And if I did, no competent television director would ever shoot it. How the truck works just isn't important!
For Joss Whedon, how Serenity works just isn't important because it's just a truck. And his story isn't about trucks.
Kara Stern
[email address withheld by request]
ately, there's been a spate of letters harping on the need for "science" in science fiction and the lack thereof ("Don't Dismiss "Science" Fiction", "Science Fiction Is Not Science", "Genre Infighting Is Pointless", "Remember the Real Sci-Fi", "Everyone Defines SF Differently", "Science Fiction Should Feel Real"). While this is praiseworthy, with tongue placed firmly in cheek, one might ask, "Why?"
I know some readers just sat up straight in their desk chairs and began reaching for pens, pencils, keyboards, nuclear weapons, blasters and other weapons of mass distraction to retaliate against my slur.
Don't get me wrong! Personally, I believe that science fiction deserves science to validate it. If you read the term "science fiction," it's right there, immediately before the word "fiction." That's the whole point, right?
That is what most of us think, yet if the fiction is bad fiction, then what is the point of adding starships, lasers, atomic engines or even large Egyptian circles with wormholes inside of them? Hmmm, that's a tough one, isn't it?
Gene Roddenberry once stated that he didn't believe in science fiction, just good fiction, and that's the point. Most of what is being masked as science-fiction television is just fiction with some science being tagged on, almost as an afterthought, and what is tragic is that in many cases it's not very good fiction to begin with.
Rather than worrying about whether there's enough "science" in a story or television show to validate it being "science fiction," why not insure that it's good fiction first, then validate the science imbedded in the story, then present it to the public?
Oh, and just because it's popular doesn't make it good. There are a lot of genre TV series that I've loved and books that I've truly enjoyed that were very, very popular but were simply terrible pieces.
Those fictional pieces that are both good and popular are the true gems.
Oh, and don't forget the "science."
Keith Kitchen
Boyoklaatu1(at)aol.com
h, my.
Seriously; to some of the "answers" ("Science Fiction Is Not Science", "Genre Infighting Is Pointless", "Remember the Real Sci-Fi", "Everyone Defines SF Differently") to my post ("Science Matters Most of All"), I feel the urge to roll
my eyes. So let's just skip that and answer them all with one letter, and one giant point.
First, Dark Griffin in "Don't Dismiss "Science" Fiction" has completely
misunderstood me. I never said anything about time travel, faster-than-light travel and so on being bad and more fantasy than science fiction. When I talk about grounded in present-day science I'm not talking about it having to follow every single scientific theory present now; I'm talking it needs to work on a basic scientific level—and the author needs to put some thought behind it. For example:
We know we can't go faster than light by just simply putting on a bigger rocket booster and pushing harder. We know we need to do something "special." A story containing travel faster than light would have to have something "special" to require it. This special can be as grounded
in present-day science as using subspace from superstring physics, or bringing up a whole new science that says our science was hopelessly primitive and wrong. It has to be grounded in something scientific, something logical: not ridiculous and pulling something out of thin air
without giving it any thought.
Which brings us back to Joss Whedon's Firefly and his little comment about not coming to him with science because he doesn't know anything about it. It shows he didn't bother with any research in the subject, he just pulled something from thin air and was done with it. The livestock versus technology is the perfect way to illustrate this:
1. Unlike correctly designed technology, livestock can not be folded up and tucked together in a nice package. Nor can they be stacked on top of each other. Thus the transport vessel has to be much bigger to transfer livestock for a colony, than a few machines. Sending livestock is more expensive.
2. Machines do not require life support; livestock does. Thus, the ship I need to send my stuff to the designated planet requires extra energy expenses to keep my livestock alive. Nor do machines require food, or some sort of suspended animation during the trip, which again adds to
the complexity and construction of the ship. Sending livestock is more expensive.
3. Machines could simply be dropped from the sky in a minimal protection coating; livestock will have to be sent gently down, either in shuttles or the ship has to land. A ship capable of landing and taking off, again adds to the size and complexity of the ship, not to mention the huge extra amounts of fuel required for landing and takeoff. Adding shuttle(s), a shuttle bay and the fuel for the shuttle(s) adds the same size and fuel extras. Sending livestock is more expensive.
4. Combining the above four advantages of machines means you can send machines ahead in an unmanned ship dedicated to taking just the machines. This ship can travel faster, with less fuel, can simply dump one set to a planet, move on to the next, dump more machines and onward. Thus, using more complex ships only for people transport, while you needed just one ship to transport all the equipment to multiple planets. Sending livestock is more expensive.
5. Combining the above four yields that the chance something goes wrong with the livestock during transport is much higher than something going wrong with the machines. Many more critical systems to fail. Sending livestock is more expensive, and more risky. What are you going to do, arriving on a planet and the livestock is dead?
6. Finally, on the planet, we get a whole range of new problems: animals can get sick, die, etc. Now, machines can break down, but you had plenty of room to send a good number of replacement parts: They can be repaired in no time. Sick animals need to heal longer. Should they die, new animals need to be expensively transported—entire animals. Should one day your spare parts run out, you only need to transport new spare parts, not entire machines. Using livestock is more expensive, as well as more risky, especially seeing as there might be a disease around that can't infect you but can infect your livestock, and then mutate easier to infect you.
7. Machines only need power, most likely in the form of electricity/batteries. Livestock eats your food, which you might desperately need to eat yourself. Closely related: Using livestock as food source is not very smart. It takes six times more plants to feed people on a diet including meat, than on a vegetarian diet.
In short: Using livestock is far more expensive as well as more risky to the colonizers. And thus—Dennis O'Grady ("Science Fiction Should Feel Real")—livestock is not a poor man's machines not having enough cash for nifty gadgetry machines; it's the exact other way around. Livestock is for the filthy rich people who actually made it, who have a stable and more than high-enough food production to support animals, and somehow got a extremely high income to say amongst each other: "You know what, I think I'd once more like a nice juicy steak now and again; we have enough money to transport them here and produce enough food for us to breed a good number. What do you say to getting that luxury?"
And that is one of the main reasons why Whedon's Firefly makes no sense and isn't science fiction—which incidentally completes this little circle.
J.G. te Molder
jg.temolder1(at)chello.nl
cience Fiction Weekly's Letters column has becoming boring. "Sci-Fi Needs to Be Revamped," "Sci-Fi Is OK," "Don't Dismiss Science Fiction," "Science Fiction Is Not Science," "Everyone Defines SF Differently" and on and on and on. Come on, people, get a life. Science fiction is simply escapism. Sometimes it highlights current events, sometimes it predicts the future, sometimes it just stinks. But in the end, it's just a fictional story. Quit complaining and enjoy the story. Or not.
Joe Castleberry
[address withheld by request]
fter reading about Lost stars Cynthia Watros and Michelle Rodriguez and their DUI arrests, I must express my harshness toward the fact that too many actors and actresses have, over the years, been inexcusably negligent in this disregard that is still plaguing society. Drinking and driving is always inexcusable. But being a popular actor who is part of a popular franchise casts a most depressing shadow on fans. This cannot go on! It is already too tragic that drinking and driving is still a severe threat to human life. But famous actors should be in the perfect position to behave responsibly and set the best example. The day that we can eliminate the threat of DUI will depend in great part on those who can use their popularity wisely. Popularity is also a responsibility. Let us all work to use it wisely.
Michael Anthony Basil
mike.basil(at)sympatico.ca
egarding the game review of F.E.A.R., I noticed no mention of how short the game is. I played it on the medium difficulty and beat the game in less than 24 hours of real time. I played about four hours on Friday night, and then from about 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday. Obviously I took breaks, but I was really amazed at how short the game was. Also, the storyline seemed OK (though a bit weird) right up until the end. I never did really figure out what the story was with the psychic mother/lady that was in the metal spinning ball thing (the one whose baby was taken). Also, no mention of how the ending of the game leaves the possibility for a F.E.A.R. 2 as an almost certainty. I wonder how much of this game was actually played by the reviewer, since none of these pertinent facts were in the review. You may wish to update the review with these facts.
Walt [last name withheld]
H8RED(at)comcast.net
Reviewer Matt Peckham responds:
Different play-styles (run-and-gun vs. cautious delving) tend to yield different play times, and I certainly wasn't the only one to find F.E.A.R. challenging enough to yield a solid 10-12 hours, which is on par with other mainstream shooters, like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2. I was personally a little disappointed by the predictable turnabout plot, but wanted to note (by comparison) that it fares better than average for an action-shooter.
Game developers, driven now more than ever by shallow omnivorous publishers, are still trying too hard to imitate B filmmakers instead of exploiting the truly awesome synergistic potential of interactive storytelling. F.E.A.R. was an easy finish for me, but I tend not to discuss endings (unless they're exceptional—or exceptionally awful) to avoid indirect spoilers. And regardless of the ending, did anyone think for one second that we wouldn't see a F.E.A.R. 2?
Best,
Matt
Back to the top.
