Welcome to The Tinder Box! This is a new weekly column here at TheTorchOnline.com, appearing every Friday. In it, we editors can give our opinions on the week’s big stories in fantasy entertainment, spill some insider-y scoops and gossip based on recent tips and interviews, and also tell you whatever the hell else happens to be on our minds.
Because it’s not like you already get enough of our opinions, what with my Ask the Oracle column and all the articles, essays, and reviews we churn out every day!
The column is called The Tinder Box; the name of the site is TheTorchOnline.com. Get it? A tinder box lights the spark that lights the torch?
Okay, moving on!
STEVEN SPIELBERG TAKES ON PIRATES
It looks like the late Michael’s Crichton’s last book, Latitudes, a pirate novel coming this fall, will end up a movie, possibly directed by Steven Spielberg.
Incidentally, that’s a great title for a pirate novel.
I used to be a big fan of Michael Critchon, back before he started writing books like Prey.
Worst. Book. Ever.
In my mind, State of Fear didn’t help either. Critchon’s dead — he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of the fact that he was almost certainly completely wrong about global warming being no big deal. But thanks to all the publicity that book got, we probably lost about five years in our fight against it.
WAIT. I THOUGHT WRITERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART
There were two big stories last week regarding gay people and their place in genre of fantasy/science fiction.
Earlier, we covered the controversy around and would-be boycott of a new video game, Shadow Complex, based on the work of Orson Scott Card, an increasingly outspoken anti-gay bigot.
But I’m not quite sure what to think of the even more bizarre tale of fantasy author (and Nebula finalist) John C. Wright, who responded to the news that the SyFy Channel, after years of ignoring gay and lesbian characters, was going to try to be more inclusive, with a blog-screed that read, in part:
The Sci-Fi Channel … has recoiled in craven fear and trembling when lectured by homosex activists, who gave the SF channel an “F” rating on their political correctness. Alas, the thoughtcrime! Not enough perverts on TV! The children have to be indoctrinated!
I am hoping, of course, that future shows will also portray sadomasochism and bondage in a positive light — we are all looking forward to FLASH GORDON’S TRIP TO GOR, I hope. Love affairs with corpses, small children, and farm animals will also be on display in a natural nonchalant fashion in the new raft of progressive shows, titles such as I DREAM OF STINKY, PEDERASTY JUNCTION, and OLD MACDONALD HAD A SHEEP — but no Mormons, whose moral standing we all abhor. The only good thing about Mormons, as we all know, is their polygamy. That we can approve of. Anything that offends the Patriarchy, we like. Evil is our good.
The post has since been taken down (which says something about the courage of his convictions), but it, and a non-apology now on his site in which he refers to “characters of any description, gay or straight (or practitioners of sexual habits as yet undreamed by modern men),” pretty much sums up his logical mistake: he sees gay people in terms of sexual acts (and thinks of us as “perverts,” apparently).
Yes, the editor of this site (me!) is gay, and has long been annoyed by how gay people in fantasy are virtually always (a) non-existent, or (b) villains.
Anyway, it’s like Wright has never met an actual gay person, or maybe he didn’t pay attention when he has. Does he really not understand that being gay, especially the “public” part, is about relationships — that it’s ultimately about love? What sort of person equates that with having sex with children, or animals, or S&M?
I confess, this stuns me. It’s not that I didn’t know there were folks like this in the world; someone is watching simple-minded television idiots like Glenn Beck.
But I guess I thought Orson Scott Card was an exception. How can you be an adult of education and intelligence in 2009 — a writer, no less! — and be this uninformed about gay people and, frankly, this stupid?
Yes, yes, his problem is not with “gay people,” he says — why, some of his best friends are gay! — but with “gay activists” and the forces of “political correctness.” But herein lies still more astounding ignorance: “activists” are responsible for literally every social change since the dawn of history, including every positive recent change for gay folks (like the fact that we’re no longer thrown in mental institutions or jail). The majority has literally never granted an oppressed minority rights and freedoms without agitation — usually intense agitation.
In fact, I’ve covered the story of gay inclusion on SyFy (extensively), and I know for a fact that, on this subject, they’ve pretty much had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century — just as all previous networks had to be dragged forward in terms of more enlightened portrayals of women, racial minorities, and, yes, even Christians and other religious groups.
And who was doing all that dragging? Activists.
I’ve never read John C. Wright. Now I guess I never will.
SPEAKING OF BOOKS…
…here are two that were surprisingly easy to put down.
I really enjoyed The Outstretched Shadow, the first book in The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. It wasn’t the most sophisticated fantasy, but it was extremely readable.
But last week, I finally put the sequel, To Light a Candle, down in frustration, and I was only 50 pages from the end. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life.
In short, Kellen’s magic had become so powerful, what with visions of the past and future and a magical “rage” that enabled him to defeat virtually any enemy, that the book ceased having any tension at all.
Even more disappointing was Fatal Revenant, the second book in the Third Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson. While I adored the first two trilogies (they’re among my favorite books of all time), I was very disappointed in The Runes of the Earth, the first book in the third trilogy.
But I so love The Land and its characters, so I slogged through it.
Fatal Revenant lost me in the first 50 pages. The book seems so over-written: does nothing happen in The Land that isn’t the most extreme emotion imaginable? Every conversation — and there are a lot of them, since the book so far is conversation after conversation — has someone “falling into a pit of endless despair” or being “engulfed in a tidal wave of nausea.”
Does no one ever just feel slightly annoyed? Or feel a little bit queasy?
Were all the Covenant books written like this, and I just didn’t notice because I was 19 years old?
I can’t talk about what little plot there is without giving away a major spoiler, but suffice to say, it had me even more intensely frustrated.
I will force myself through this book and review it eventually.
But lest you think I’m a complete crank, I am reading several books I love — and those reviews will also soon follow.
THE TINDER BOX TAKES ON THE IDIOT BOX
I’m way behind on my TV-watching, but I just watched the fourth episode of Being Human (the season finale of which airs tomorrow, Saturday, on BBC America).
Man, I wish I’d seen this episode before I wrote my review (I only had screeners for the first three episodes, which were really just “introductions” to the characters).
This is a terrific show! I’m so used to American television where the plot-twists are telegraphed and obvious. But this fourth episode of Being Human did some things that completely surprised me.
I wish I could say there’s more “must see” fantasy TV in the week ahead, but … there really isn’t.
But I am looking forward to the season premiere of Dexter on Sunday.
THE TINDER BOX AT THE BOX OFFICE
Two fantasy-esque movies opening in theaters today: The Final Destination — how many installments have their been now? — and Halloween II.
Speaking of Halloween II, earlier this week, we asked, “Is Michael Myers Supernatural or Just Really Motivated?”
In any event, these both look like Netflixers to me, which is why there are no reviews of either.
No new fantasy/sci-fi movies out on DVD this week, but I did watch — or rather I tried to watch — last spring’s Alien Trespass
Wow, what a bad movie. It was a reasonable accurate homage, but someone forget to tell the filmmakers that no one wants to watch a mere homage for two hours.
Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so critical and cranky.
Oh, who am I kidding?
