wisb-Guardian-Express

Anthony Stevens was kind enough to ask the following question my Google+ page:

When are the mass-market paperback publishers going to outgrow the cute-young-thing-with-the-tramp-stamp-and-a-sword/pistol/flaming-ball-of-plasma cover art? What comes next to catch our eye?

By "Extended Cut" or "Special Edition," I am referring to any DVD release which includes additional footage in the movie itself or special features which otherwise are not available in previous versions.

And what is it that I want from these special editions? The Theatrical Version!

One of the things that drives me up the wall with DVDs is when the extended cut doesn't come with the original theatrical release. If you go mucking about with a movie, I still want to be able to enjoy the film as it was seen by movie-goers. Star Wars fans were pissed off when George Lucas released the original trilogy on DVD without the original versions; we didn't want the Special
Editions that were released in the late 90s, and we definitely didn't want a heavily edited Special Edition (remember Hayden Christensen put in place of Sebastian Shaw?).

Every time I read an urban fantasy, I remind myself that I am not the primary audience.  After all, much of what I dislike about urban fantasy are the very things I dislike about bad books.  Stereotypical characterization, repetitive narratives, and repetitive tropes (if I see one more tramp stamp cover I'm going to blow a gasket).  But Rhiannon Held's Silver bucked the trend, taking what should have been yet another stupid werewolf novel and turning it into a rigorously constructed sociological foray into a potential werewolf culture.

The novel's focus, oddly enough, is on Andrew Dare, not the character from which the novel draws its title.  A werewolf pack enforcer, Dare discoveres Silver wandering in Roanoke territory, seemingly delirious and injected with, well, silver (the connection to her name is explained in the novel).  Silver's condition reminds Dare of a past that he would rather forget, and one which we
discover through him as he battles against the memories.  Working to uncover those responsible for Silver's torture, Dare must confront the demons that make him anti-social and unwilling to lead.

Because everyone is poking fun at Prometheus, I've decided to join in on the festivities.

Here goes:

1. Only an American-based expedition could be based solely on the personal beliefs of someone claiming themselves to be a scientist.

After all, the pod in Prometheus can already perform the necessary surgeries on a female body anyway, just not under the appropriate surgical subheading.

3. Scientists are incompetent in the future.

The Evidence: The geologist uses several orbs to map out the interior of the alien ship, but is completely incapable of using that map to find the exit. This is necessary for the plot, in which the geologist and his not-really-a-friend scientist buddy get lost and are then destroyed by evil alien snakes from hell.

Likewise, there's Holloway and Shaw, who refuse to observe quarantine procedures. Worse yet, Holloway decides that because the air appears to be breathable inside the alien ship, it is perfectly reasonable to remove his helmet. No worries about microbes. No attempt by an authority figure to reprimand him. In fact, it doesn't seem like anyone put much thought into this mission at all.

Oddly enough, the only technologically competent people in this movie happen to be the captain (Idris Elba) and his mini-gang of ship people. All three can read the geologist's map, pilot the ship, use little computers and gizmos with expertise, and so on. But, hey, when you put together a mission based solely on the whims of a bunch of new age archaeologists, I guess you can't expect to nab a few decent scientists to tag along.

4. Humanity hasn't learned anything from all the science fiction stories they've written.

The Evidence: Thousands of movies and books and short stories have been written in the last 100 years alone about robots, androids, and other synthetic beings going slightly mental, and yet we have not taken any of that into account in the world of Prometheus.

Case in point -- David (Michael Fassbender). Here's what he's responsible for doing in the movie:
a) Invading the dreams of humans in suspended animation.
b) Infecting Halloway with an alien sludge, resulting in Shaw's impregnation with a mutant alien baby from hell and the death of Halloway.
c) Denying Shaw the right to terminate her mutant pregnancy by using medicine (drugs) against her.

Why? I don't know. The movie never tells us his motivations for any of it. So either David is just naturally curious, and therefore dangerous to human beings, or he's insane. Neither of those options sounds good to me.

5. The Roman statues were based on aliens.

The Evidence: The Engineers (Space Jockeys) are all white as stone, perfectly sculpted, and surprisingly shaped like this guy:

Some have criticized the film for its strange magic-Aryan-sperm-seeds-the-Earth ideology. I think it's weird enough that humanoid aliens shaped like Roman statues could only seed other planets with their DNA goop by committing suicide. Seriously? You're an alien race capable of interstellar travel and you can't figure out how to stick your DNA into the lifeless streams of Earth without killing yourself?? You've got hands...just sayin'.

(Yes, I'm aware that the concoction the Engineer drinks probably does something to his DNA. It's still stupid.)

6. There are no female aliens.

The Evidence: There are no female aliens. Seriously. None. Not a single one. Unless Scott is suggesting these nearly-human aliens reproduce asexually, like bipedal amoeba, then what we're left with is an alien race that believes its lady aliens need to stay home and do whatever it is lady aliens are supposed to do. They don't eat food, so maybe they just tend to the house (or whatever they live in). Why are there no lady aliens? Seriously. Are the man aliens the only ambitious and batshit crazy, dickish members of their species?

7. Two obviously different species can be the same species.

The Evidence: We're told in Prometheus that the Engineers are us, and we are the Engineers. On top of that, we're shown it on a screen, where two strands of DNA (human and Engineer) are matched up. And guess what? We're 100% the same!

Wait, what? Have you seen an Engineer? They're two or three feet taller than us, naturally muscular, and slightly off looking. Just look at him:

He's like Eugen Sandow on PCP!


If that isn't enough evidence, then perhaps the prologue of the film, in which an Engineer sacrifices himself so his DNA can seed the Earth, will do. Only we had to *evolve* from that DNA, over a long span of time. Unless the Engineers have magically learned how to control evolution through DNA alone (which I doubt -- see #5), this is simply impossible. We cannot be exactly like the Engineers. We can be surprisingly like them, but the same species? Nope. Even a .01% difference should matter.

8. Nobody keeps track of long-distance spacecraft in the future.

The Evidence: Since we've seen the other films in the Alien franchise, we know that nobody went looking for the Prometheus, let alone seemed aware that the Prometheus had actually set of to find aliens.

This seems unrealistic on a number of levels. Take, for example, the level of control placed on airline travel. You cannot build an airplane and take it for a joyride without letting someone know. Why? Because there's lots of crap flying up there, and it's kind of important to know who's flying where. Space travel is even more restricted. Even with the private sector getting involved, it's all heavily regulated. Don't tell me some rich billionaire can build a huge spacecraft to search for aliens and nobody knows about it. Human beings are stupid, but we're not that stupid.  If we were, we'd have hover cars by now...

9. Infecting someone with alien goo means their sperm becomes super-alien-sperm.

The Evidence: Holloway is infected by David with alien goo, which can apparently be transmitted through alcohol (mind you that alcohol sterilizes surfaces). While going about in his douchebaggery way, he manages to seduce Shaw, his presumed girlfriend, and they have wild space sex. The result? Not only does his newly-infected magic sperm cure Shaw's apparent (and rather sudden) barrenness, but it also infects her with a fast-growing alien parasite. All in a matter of hours.

Remember, these are the same aliens who hadn't figured out how to seed other planets with life without committing suicide, but they've easily solved the problem of quickly mutating other life forms with a single drop of alien goop. Hilarious.

10. The weather will make no more sense to us in the future than it does to us today (well, assuming by "today" we mean "1910").

The Evidence: Our crew lands on an alien world, semi-psyched to discover some alien nonsense. A few hours later (thirty minutes for the audience), a scary sandstorm shows up out of nowhere, threatening the crew. I'm sorry? You didn't see this sandstorm coming? Super advanced humans have figured out how to put people in stasis, create humanoid synthetic lifeforms and long-distance space craft with anti-gravity floors, and so on and so forth, and yet they have not learned how to monitor weather patterns on planets, alien or otherwise? Really?

But then I keep forgetting: all that is wrong about this movie are necessary for Ridley Scott's (and Jon Spaihts' and Damon Lindelof's) convoluted, nonsensical plot. Monitoring weather patterns? Nah. Let's just have the weather fuck things up for our heroes. Stick with basic rules of biology? Nope. Alien goo = super sperm. Medical pods for everyone? Hell no. Women got vaginas, and those things are weird alien monstrosities!

I think Prometheus would be a really great movie if you could watch it without thinking about. Sort of like a 3D Disney ride; you sit there and enjoy the pretty visuals without recognizing that there's a story somewhere in all that mess.

What are some things you learned from Prometheus?

Thus far this year, I have seen the following movies:
Chronicle
The Hunger Games
The Avengers
Prometheus
John Carter
Snow White and the Huntsman
American Reunion
The Cabin in the Woods

Not many, I know.  Most of them are genre fiction, minus American Reunion.  There are two proper science fiction movies (The Hunger Games and Prometheus), one that could very well be science fiction, but treats its universe like a fantasy one (The Avengers), and some that are technically science fiction, but really fantasy with some technological wonders (John Carter and The Cabin in the Woods).  The last is a pure fantasy (Snow White and the Huntsman).

The movie I liked enough to see it twice falls to one film: The Avengers.

The movies I thought were quite good: Chronicle (one of the few good uses of shaky cam I've seen), The Hunger Games (solid acting with a cool, slightly used-up idea), The Avengers (so far the best movie of the year -- Joss Whedon at his best), John Carter (beautiful film with a decent little story), The Cabin in the Woods (Joss Whedon at his best again, ripping apart the tropes of the horror genre).

The movie that were better than I expected: Snow White and the Huntsman (some really nice twists on the classic story). 

The movies that were so-so overall: Snow White and the Huntsman, American Reunion (they tried to take us to a new level, but didn't quite get there; still, it was a fun movie).

The greatest disappointment: Prometheus (in fact, the more I think about this movie, the more I really hate it)

Have you seen any of these movies? If so, place them in the categories I've given above and let me know what you think!

While listening to SF Squeecast's discussion of Kameron Hurley's novel, God's War, I was struck by the suggestion that the novel's perceived faults were forgivable because it is a first novel. Not having read God's War, I cannot speak to the accuracy of the suggested faults, and therefore cannot directly discuss Hurley's novel. However, the question raised by the hosts compelled me to consider my own position on first novels. Are mistakes in first novels forgivable? If so, when do we start to fault an author for not being up to par?

There are no quick and easy answers to this question for me, in part because I don't think a first novel is a relevant starting point for the discussion. What matters, in my mind, is the reader's first experience with an author, which may occur with that author's first novel, or may occur at any other point in the author's career. From my own experience, once I've read a bad book by an author, it casts the rest of their work in a different light. If I happened to have started with better work, then I can probably forgive that author for a crummier novel, regardless of when it arrives
in their career. But if I started with a crappy novel, it becomes very difficult to convince me to try something else, perhaps because my experience has already been tainted by a negative. There is always the chance that I'll try something else by that author, but perhaps only with a lot of prodding. After all, there are so many good books already out there -- waiting to be read. 

For proper first novels, the process is largely the same for me. If your first novel is crap, then it's not likely I'll return to your work. But so far in this post, I've taken as a given that the negative experience is the result of a truly awful novel. Can I forgive minor mistakes if the overall product is good? I don't know. Maybe? That might depend on the author. Myke Cole's first novel, Shadow Ops: Control Point, is far from a perfect novel, but you'll be hard pressed to convince me to ignore anything else he writes (unless he turns into some kind of foam-at-the-mouth crazy person who thinks we should cut off the left foot of every first born son or whatever).* How much do I care about the flaws in his work? Where is the line between "reasonable flaw" and "complete disaster"? I'm not sure I can define the line at this moment; I'm still stewing over the idea.

In other words: it really depends on the situation. Are first novels forgivable? Maybe. But that probably depends on the answer to this question: What makes the novel needing of forgiveness? If the writing is atrocious, then forgiveness may not be forthcoming. Minor plot holes? Who knows...

What do you all think about this? 

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*Control Point is a pretty good book. Lots of action. A nice take on superhero abilities, and so on. Plus, Myke is a wonderful human being, as I discovered when Jen and I interviewed him here and brought him on for a discussion episode here.

Note: I'm using "forgive" rather liberally here for lack of a better word. There are very few instances when a bad book causes offense. So take my use of the word lightly.

Today's post is based on a question from Dirk Reul:

What is it that people find fascinating about gritty fantasy compared to the classic story types like The Hero's Journey?

George Bush is in the HBO production of Game of Thrones (season one).  Not really.  A replica of his head was dressed up in a manky wig and put on a spike to represent one of the heads King Joffrey lobbed off towards the end of the first season.  Said replica was on the screen for such a short amount of time that nobody figured it out until someone made a passing comment in the commentary on the DVD suggesting as much.  Oh.  My.  God.  The world has just ended.  It's over.  Hollywood wants to kill George Bush.  It's finally true!  The liberals have come to kill our babies and eat our brains using parasitic tube monkeys.  And then they're going to cut off George Bush's head and put it up on a spike with a nasty black wig!

None of that is true.  Well, except everything before "Oh.  My.  God."  In truth, this is one of the stupidest things people have gotten upset about in Hollywood this year, let alone this decade (and the one before it).  There are a lot of more important things to get pissed about.  Such as how women are portrayed in films and TV.  Or representations of people of color.  Or the fact that most of the crap they put on TV looks like it was written by a 5-year-old missing half a brain.  But this?  Please.  Grow up.

And, yes, contrary to what some of a different political persuasion than myself might say, I would not have cared either if the bust was Barack Obama, except for the fact that there are almost no black people in Game of Thrones (season one) to begin with.  Putting him up on a spike wouldn't make any sense, and I might get a little annoyed at that if I actually noticed it.  But would I have?  No.  I didn't notice George Bush either, and I don't even like him as a President.

That said, I don't really know where I stand with the producers' rational for why they used a replica of his head.  Is it possible they couldn't afford to rent or make a whole bunch more body parts and heads?  Maybe.  Could it also be a veiled political statement?  I guess.  But that would assume David Benioff and D. B. Weiss are stupid enough to a) put it in their movie knowing some place like Big Hollywood will scrutinize everything they do, and b) mention doing so in the commentary.  If you wanted to make a political point, I'd think you'd take the moment to say something in the commentary.  Maybe they're that dumb, but I find that hard to believe, and I don't feel like making that judgment right now.

So I will officially file this in my "stupid crap that the world got upset about" bin.  Do with it what you will.

Paul Weimer (who podcasted a review of Prometheus with me about a week ago) was kind enough to ask the question in the title, perhaps in some vain hope that I actually know what I'm talking about.  I'll start by first saying much of what follows is uneducated speculation, in part because predicting trends in SF is a crapshoot (remember when Mundane SF was the "next big thing"?) and in part because I am not familiar with all the SF novels being published (traditionally or otherwise) simply because it is not my job to be familiar, and I've got 20 other things going on -- some of them actual jobs or job-related.

That said, one of the curious things about this question is that it wasn't immediately clear to me what Paul meant by "Space Opera."  As a narrative tradition, Space Opera has been identified as the "high adventure" genre, often coupled, in some ways, to Planetary Romance (Burroughs, for example), but with greater reach, greater inherent optimism, and an extraordinary love affair with the infamous "sensawunda" (also:  colonialism, but you can read John Rieder's book for that).  It's a
genre that reminds us at once of the great history of SF and all that is wrong with it.  But Space Opera does have a newer face.  Some call it New Space Opera -- a crummy term, to say the least, but effective enough.  I see this new type of Space Opera as a more serious version than its predecessor, not in the sense that old form SO lacks seriousness, per se, but more in the sense that New Space Opera, insofar as it exists, seems to be constructed on a frame of complexity and rigor.  You might also say that NSO has a serious tone that seems absent from SO, though I am not altogether convinced that this is necessarily true, particularly since some authors identified with NSO, such as Tobias S. Buckell, seem to draw heavily from old SO.  In other words:  NSO may or may not exist, though there is probably something going on in SO that is distinct from the older form.  The community should probably discuss this trend at length (maybe it has).

I say all this as a way to attempt to explore Paul's question, which seems to hinge on a concern with definitions.  Since SF based in the solar system (that is, SF in which humanity moves about the solar system instead of remaining stuck on Earth or going elsewhere) has usually remained the domain of hard SF (not exclusively -- Burroughs again), I suspect that SO which takes on the traditional narrative forms are unlikely to sustain a movement in solar system SF (these titles are getting ridiculous, I know).  It's not that there can't be sensawunda and adventure in our solar system; quite the contrary.  Rather, it seems to me that SO has a tendency to look to far off, practically unattainable futures in which interstellar travel is a given, aliens (or human factions) are plentiful, and the wonder of exploration to alien (not extraterrestrial, per say) worlds is practically a necessity to narrative.  That's what the community has made SO into for so long, to greater and lesser degrees (for taste, of course).  My gut tells me that SO which clutches to local concerns will invariably collapse back into hard SF, though I cannot as yet explain why in any intelligent manner.

That doesn't mean SO in the SS won't exist -- a stupid position to take.  It means that such writing won't take over the traditional form.  There's something else in store for SO.  Something that NSO, existing or otherwise, must be leading to.  But I have no idea what that will look like in the end.  Do you?

The Fifth Element is one of those films that the genre community loves not because it is a good film, but because it's actually pretty awful, and intentionally so.  At least, that's how I interpret it.  It has always seemed like a film that deliberately sought out science fiction's pension for high-flying, mythological fantasy (in space).  In some sense, it's the opposite of Starships Troopers, released in the same year.  Both films are satires:  Starship Troopers a more socio-political satire of the military industrial complex, and The Fifth Element a satire of genre -- or what I call the  "legacy of camp."

For the curious, I've been doing irregular live-writing sessions for a short story to appear on this blog called "Lendergross and Eaves" (a weird fantasy crime noir involving a toad-person drug lord and a female police inspecter--the latter of these is to be played by my friend Jen).  Live-writing is more or less like it sounds:  I create a Google Doc, share the link with everyone, and then for 30 minutes do nothing but write while random strangers watch me and read up on my progress.

Thus far, the experiment has been fantastic.  I've written a considerable amount (about 2,000 words in two sessions) and have decided to open up the comments feature so people can ask me questions while I'm writing.  In other words, I'm loving it.

For anyone interested in watching me work, or seeing my progress on your own time, all you have to do is go to this link.  I will announce live-writing sessions on my Twitter and Google+ pages.  And if you show up during one of those sessions, feel free to leave a comment with a question!

Anywho!.

Spoiler Alert:  the following podcast contains spoilers for the film being reviewed; enjoy at your own risk (or something like that).


Paul Weimer was kind enough to spend a little time with me talking about the release of Ridley Scott's long-anticipated Alien prequel, Prometheus.  If you've seen the film and want to offer your two cents, feel free to do so in the comments.

You can download or stream the mp3 from this link.

I've decided that I'm going to start hosting a regular Google+ Hangout for the purposes of stimulating writing -- technology permitting, of course.  How regular these will be depends on a lot of factors, such as who is interested, schedules, and so on.  These hangouts will be done alongside my live writing feature, both of which I'll announce on Twitter when it goes live.

For those that don't know anything about the writing hangouts, they are pretty simple:  for about 15 minutes, everyone talks about whatever floats their boat, giving people time to get into the room and settle into their writing mode; after that, everyone writes, usually for 15 to 30 minutes, sometimes more.  The hope is that these little hangouts will progress into cyclical writing binges for an hour or so, but we'll see.

If you're interested in participating, leave a comment with your weekly schedule!

In a recent episode of Read It and Weep, one of the hosts criticized urban fantasy's strange habit of ignoring what I call "the big question."  The criticism was fairly light -- being a humorous podcast and all -- but it convinced me to blog about it here.

First, the big question:

Why do so few urban fantasy novels explore the spiritual, religious, and historical impacts inherent in discovering the existence of the supernatural?

I've argued before that science fiction is a naturally optimistic genre.  One of the main reasons for this is the fact that SF almost always imagines a future in which we still exist.  While watching Sunshine, however, my position became more nuanced.  It's not that we are still alive; it's that we've survived.

Sunshine is one such movie.  Set in a future in which the Sun has prematurely begun to die out, humanity has been given the seemingly impossible task of jump-starting the gas furnace of the Sun and save Earth.  Impossible is an understatement, really.  It's pretty clear from the start of the film that humanity has not progressed all that far from our present in terms of technology.  We've mastered a few more stages of spaceflight, put bases and communication arrays on the moon, managed to solve gravity issues on long-range spaceships, figured out how to maximize oxygen production, plant growth, etc., and built ships large enough to house multiple humans and to protect them from radiation, the Sun's heat, and so on.  None of that should inspire confidence in our ability to control stars.

And as the opening moments remind us, this is more true than we can possibly know.  The first
jump-start spaceship, Icarus, disappeared on its way to deliver its payload, leaving us with the Icarus 2, which, we're reminded, is the product of Earth's now limited resources.  All of these facts are given to us in the earliest moments to remind us how dire the situation really is.

But they also tell us something else:  we're survivors who can somehow manage amazing things in the darkest of times.  After all, we've survived plagues, viruses, weather, and all manner of obstacles thrown at us by our ecosystem.  And we've survived ourselves for centuries.  Sunshine is yet another reminder of this:  we are not dead from a nuclear war -- as the Cold War Era thought we would be -- or biological agents -- human made or otherwise.  Rather, our obstacle is a seemingly natural one.  The Sun is dying and we've got to do something to fix that.

But the kicker is the solution:  impossible technology.  The energy needed to successfully jump-start the Sun should be beyond us -- should be unattainable.  A science fiction trope if there ever was one.  But somehow we've managed it in Sunshine.

For me, the ability to imagine humanity beating the worst odds imaginable is a kind of optimism that cannot be outmatched.  It is only in darkness that we can see the light, as they say, and so it is with Sunshine, wherein humanity bands together to defeat the greatest of foes:  nature.  It doesn't seem terribly important to me that the technology in this movie is largely imaginary -- after all, how exactly are you supposed to restart a star with little more than what can be found on Earth and some almost-magical-hand-waving?  But that, to me, is a kind of optimistic notion, too -- when handled correctly.  That humanity can, in a science fiction universe, discover the means to solve a seemingly impossible problem reminds us how remarkable humans can be.

One of the interesting things I did with my friend Adam last year was a collaboration in which we more or less wrote a story live. While that story didn't pan out (still have it and think it's a wicked piece of work that we should one day finish -- Andy Remic would love it), it made me think about how I might use Google Docs to let people sneak a peak at my writing process. Google lets you share a document with anyone, and it shows updates more or less as they are happening.

Since I'm working on WISB-related stuff, I thought some of you might like to see me at work (and to see the rough drafts as they come into being).  I could select a time (maybe a daily time or something) and give the link out on my blog.  Even if you couldn't make it to the live event, you could still check in on the progress.

Would any of you be interested in this?  Let me know by clicking on the little poll.

I recently re-watched the 1998 film adaptation of Michael Crichton's Sphere (starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson, among others).  What fascinated me about the film was that despite all its flaws, it is still an example of science fiction doing what it does best:  explore the big ideas (Wikipedia tells me this is also true of the book, but since I haven't read it, I can only comment on what is in the film).

For those that have not seen Sphere, I suggest you watch it before reading beyond this point, because I'm going to ruin the ending.  Starting now...

The big idea in Sphere is a twist on the traditional "first contact" story.  A ragtag bunch of scientists (and a psychologist played by Hoffman) are brought in secret to an underwater facility by the U.S. military.  There they learn that the military has discovered a 300-year-old spacecraft, which they suspect to be alien.  It turns out, however, that the craft is neither 300-years-old nor alien; rather, it is of American origin and from the future, having crashlanded in Earth's past after a brush with a black hole.  To add to the mystery, the characters discover a strange sphere inside the ship (nobody knows if it's alien or not, and no answers are ever actually given).  Eventually we discover that all those who go inside the sphere gain the ability to bring their thoughts to life.

In the concluding scenes (inside a decompression chamber), the surviving members of the team consider the implications of what they've learned.  Hoffman's character rightly concludes that humanity is too primitive for the kind of power granted by the sphere, as their nightmarish foray in the underwater facility shows (they all more or less bring their nightmares to life).  And so all three characters decide they will use the power to forget what happened, thereby denying humanity access to the information.

What I find compelling about this ending is how it fulfills its own prophecy.  Because the ship is from the future, we're drawn to the realization that the choice of the characters to forget means that the mistakes which led them to this realization must always happen.  It also means that humanity never actually learns the lesson that these individuals do, making it impossible for any kind of species-centered growth -- there will be no forewarning of the dangers, no future-reversion, in which technology from the future influences the technology of the past, leading us to that future point (yay, a paradox!).  But the paradox lies in that problem:  if the spacecraft has no record of what the scientists discovered in the past, then something must have happened to prevent that information from reaching the authorities.  We're led to believe that this means nobody is meant to survive, but the truth is that the information is destroyed, making certain that nobody knows and that everything proceeds in blindness.  Anyone thinking about this problem knows that something must happen or the whole world collapses (which is a problem for Sphere, a serious film, but not really one for Back to the Future, a humorous film).

That idea -- of meeting our future head-on and grappling with its implications, both technologically, socially, and psychologically -- is what SF does best.  It doesn't really matter if Sphere is a great movie on its own; what matters is if its ending compels one to think -- and ask the big questions.  How do we grapple with technology that makes the "dreams come true" idea a reality?  What do we do when we know our own future, and it's immediate ramifications?  And is it really possible to forget such power and history?  And if you don't forget, does that mean your future changes?  Do we fall into one of those weird Back to the Future paradoxes?  Would you know if things changed?

And, of course, there's this one:  What is the sphere?  Where did it come from?  Will we ever know?

I'll leave it there for now, because I want to see what others thought about the conclusion of Sphere.  How did you interpret the paradoxes and ideas presented in those final moments?

(These are my early "just got home from the movie" thoughts.  They do not represent my final verdict on the film, which will come when I've had time to let things stew.  That said, I don't expect my opinion to change terribly much over time, as they did for The Happening, which I would now give a 1/5 if I were to review it again.)

Here goes:

1) How the heck do I write a mystery story involving a framing of a drug dealer in a fantasy world?

2) Is it possible to have a continent that spirals out from a central point with three arms (kind of like a galaxy), or is that just fantasy nonsense? Something like this: