Just The Caffeine Talking

Movies I Want (Part 2)

A while back I listed five classic science fiction novels that I'd like to see made into films. Here is a second list of five. I'm trying to limit myself to stories which could easily survive the Hollywood process and still retain some of their original appeal.

• Ringworld, by Larry Niven. The story is properly film-like in structure (Niven himself has said he realized after the fact that it hews closely to the storyline of The Wizard of Oz), and would have plenty of amazing visuals. I believe this one has been "in development" for decades now.

• Santiago, by Mike Resnick. This is a great picaresque story about space bounty hunters, crooks, and various colorful characters. Again, the pitch would be easy: "It's Boba Fett in The Big Sleep."

• The "Berserker" series by Fred Saberhagen. This would require a bit more effort from the screenwriters, as the Berserkers themselves show up best in short stories. I think the short story "Goodlife" could be the spine of a really excellent movie.

• The Titan series by John Varley. One could either do a straight-up adaptation of the first novel, or try to compress the trilogy into a single film. Given Mr. Varley's rocky relationship with Hollywood in the past, this is probably the least likely of the bunch to ever reach the screen.

• Tuf Voyaging, by George R.R. Martin. Again, the book is actually a collection of short stories, but they do form an overall narrative. Since Mr. Martin is currently one of the gods of television, I wouldn't be surprised if there's already a script treatment for this one floating around.

On Camping Out Indoors

We got sick of the grubby linoleum, the decaying cabinets and counters, and the lack of a proper stove vent, so we're redoing the kitchen. Actually, that's not true: we're not doing much beyond writing checks. A professional contractor and various skilled subcontractors are redoing the kitchen. When they're finished (in another couple of weeks, if all goes well) we'll have more counter space, more cabinets, more power outlets, and more light. It will be a much better cooking environment.

Of course, during the past four weeks, we've also demonstrated that this whole process is completely unnecessary. With the kitchen torn up and all our gear packed away in the basement, Diane and I have been doing all the cooking with about three pots, a little charcoal-fired Webber grill, one knife, a spatula, and a corkscrew. During that time we've made quiches, cookies, flamenco eggs, gazpacho, chicken Creole, various salads, hamburgers, and other good things.

So . . . why do we need the kitchen?

It comes down to three reasons, I think. The first is convenience. Yes, we can prep food on the dining-room table and run up and down the basement stairs when we need something, but it's tedious. Having everything at hand and accessible will definitely be an improvement.

The second reason is that one can put up with temporary difficulties which would be intolerable if they were permanent. I can eat off paper plates while the dishwasher is disconnected, but I'm not about to do that forever. This stay-at-home camping trip has been fun, but people who spend their lives camping out are called "homeless" and our society spends large sums trying to help them stop camping. There are many fun activities which turn nightmarish if you can't stop. 

And finally -- and, I suspect, the most important -- the kitchen is a symbol. Remodeling our kitchen into a bigger and more useful cooking environment is a statement. We're putting up a sign in our house that says "we enjoy cooking and are serious about doing it well." Which is true, but will the food taste any better when the new counter-tops are installed?    

Work In Progress: Corsair (Part 4)

Well, it's done. I beefed it up by nearly a third and sent it out to my agent. I hope it finds a home.

One thing which expanding Corsair has allowed me to do is to give the minor characters more spotlight time. One of them -- Anne Rogers -- got promoted from a secondary role to one of the three leads. She gets to serve as the moral center of the story, calling out both David and Elizabeth when they're being too amoral or ruthless.

We also get to see more of FBI Agent Yu, and the sinister Colonel Ghavami.

But the real treat was that I got to weave in an entirely new character. I realized that David needed a foil, so I created Halfdan. He has all of David's flaws cranked up past 11: he's even crazier, even more solipsistic, and even more amoral. I liked (or enjoyed loathing) Halfdan so much I made sure to have him survive in case I want to revisit these characters again.

I already have some ideas along those lines, and the real world has conveniently handed me Planetary Resources and their asteroid-mining scheme, so that it doesn't require nearly as much handwaving as I thought it might to justify space commerce and piracy less than a generation from now.  

The next progress report on Corsair will be the pop of a cork if it sells, or sullen silence if it doesn't. We shall see.

Movies I Want (Part 1)

Science fiction has won the battle. Until the 1980s, big-budget science fiction films were few and far between. Now SF movies make up a significant fraction of the movies released by Hollywood. It's a safe, dependable genre, like romantic comedies or thrillers. Legions of effects creators, makeup artists, and prop builders can earn steady incomes working on science fiction movies.

We won.

Except . . . that we didn't. Because as I'm sure anyone who has ever listened to a science fiction fan ranting about the latest Hollywood blockbuster is aware, movies are doing a great job of doing science fiction badly. For every Blade Runner we get a dozen Spacehunters. For every Wrath of Khan we get . . . well, all the other Star Trek feature films. 

And yet, and yet . . . I do not abandon hope. Because there has been an encouraging trend visible in superhero films which could well creep over into their science fiction siblings. That trend is "respect for the source material." It's not widespread; not yet. But the huge success of The Avengers and other Marvel Studios films may finally get the message to studio bosses: you make lots of money if you make movies that respect and make use of the source material.

Eventually, someone's going to apply that lesson to science fiction. They're going to notice that there's a huge backlog of entertaining and innovative science fiction novels out there, and that decent adaptations of them would make extremely effective motion pictures. They'll make good SF movies -- imagine that, for a moment!

So: what books would make the best movies? Some of the classics of the genre might not actually work as well as one might think. Sure, we'd all love to see Stranger in a Strange Land on the big screen . . . except that it would mostly consist of naked people having conversations about the nature of reality. Not boffo box office. 

Anyway, here's the first five. Readers are encouraged to add their own.

• One of Poul Anderson's stories of Dominic Flandry. Not sure which one, possibly A Stone In Heaven. The elevator pitch should be an easy sell: "He's James Bond in the Star Wars universe." It's not quite accurate, but close enough. One could do it as a fun romp in the Star Wars vein, or amp up the Spenglerian gloom of Flandry fighting to preserve an Empire that's already well on the way to falling.

• A Life for the Stars, by James Blish. Obscure nowadays, and undeservedly so. The visuals of New York City flying around the Galaxy inside its force-field bubble alone should sell the movie, and as a bonus there's actually a pretty good coming-of-age plotline and some vivid characters. It might be more entertaining to combine the main antagonists (the city of Scranton) with the more baroque "Interstellar Master Traders" of Earthman Come Home. 

• Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke. Just film the book; it'll be fine. Do it in 3D IMAX format and nobody will mind that there's none of that character development stuff in it. I understand this one has been "in development" for years, so there's hope. Hell, it only took John Carter a century to go from novel to motion picture. Rama could probably get to the screen by the mid-2020s.

• To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer. The first book of the Riverworld series, in which every human who ever lived is reborn along the banks of a river which winds across the surface of an alien world. For the movie, I'd kit-bash it together with The Fabulous Riverboat, but that's because I kind of like Mark Twain better than I like Sir Richard Burton. (I've just discovered that the SyFy Channel did this as a TV movie in the hope it would lead to a series. Apparently not.)

• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein. Unlike his earlier work, it hasn't gotten dated, unlike his later work it's not too self-referential. The story itself is strong and simple: a revolution on the Moon. I've seen a proposed screenplay for this one floating around on the Web; one version is linked here.

That's the first five; more will follow when I think of them. 

A Message To Rock Musicians Everywhere

I have a particular handicap: I listen to song lyrics. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not one of those people who thinks long and hard about the profound and secret meaning of song lyrics. (No, Charles, I don't think that's what "Helter Skelter" is supposed to be about.) But I do pay attention to them. 

Among other things, this means I find songs with grammatical errors almost painful to listen to. I don't mind a little colorful down-home "ain't no" or "don't got none" (even when it's written and performed by a Cambridge grad). But Jim Morrison ending a line ". . . for you and I" makes his song "Touch Me" grate on my ears every time I hear it.

But over the past few years I have discovered another trope in pop song lyrics which is almost as bad. I refer to the micro-sub-genre of rock singers writing rock songs about how hard it is to be a rock singer. 

There are surprisingly many examples of this, from the self-parody of Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good," to the fairly good-natured "Stay" by Jackson Browne. But for sheer solipsistic whining I don't think any pop song can approach Bob Seger's "Turn the Page." Seems like everybody with a guitar and a contract has to do one number about how hard his life is.

I can't think of any other creative endeavor with so many examples of blazing self-pity on the part of the creators. Playwrights don't write plays about how hard their lives are, moviemakers make pictures about how shallow and conceited moviemakers are, but they don't complain about the work itself. (Even science fiction writers are more inclined to depict ourselves as goof-offs or eccentrics than as victims.)

It's particularly weird because rock stars are about the most glamorous thing out there right now. They're our society's Dionysian avatars. They get worship, they are free to indulge in all excess, and they are tacitly held exempt from the normal standards of behavior. Which means that complaining about it is like bitching because your gold bars aren't shiny enough.

A bit of unsolicited advice for all you rockers out there: stop it. Don't write any more songs about how rough it is being a rock music star.

Because if being a rock musician is such an ordeal there's a really simple way to solve your problem: get a real job. Become a roofer, or a farmer, or an oilfield roughneck, or a chicken processor. Then you can complain. But doing something millions of others dream about -- and then whining about how hard it is -- makes you look like a bunch of jerks.

Oh, and learn some goddamned grammar!