Follow Friday - At Twenty-One, the Follow Friday Can Drink Now

It's Friday again, which means it's time for Follow Friday. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host (Parajunkee) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Rhiannon Paille.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Genre Wars! What's your favorite genre and which book in that genre made it your favorite?

I will shock absolutely no one by saying SCIENCE FICTION! I also love fantasy fiction, but science fiction will always be my first love. But I have been reading science fiction for so long I don't actually remember what book it was that I read that made it my favorite, but it was almost certainly a book written by Andre Norton. It might have been Exiles of the Stars, or maybe Judgment on Janus or Moon of 3 Rings. Possibly Star Guard or Quest Crosstime. I can't remember which specific book did it for me, but my love of science fiction, my love of reading in general, and the eventual existence of this blog, is pretty much Andre Norton's fault.

Go to Previous Follow Friday: D&D Characters Can Buy Arrows by the Score
Go to Subsequent Follow Friday: Twenty-Two Is the Same Backwards and Forwards

Follow Friday     Home

Review - Sunrise Alley by Catherine Asaro

Short review: An evil genius creates the next stage in human evolution.

Haiku
Is Turner human?
That is the question for Sam
If she falls in love

Full review: Sunrise Alley is a near future cyberpunkish romance featuring cybernetics expert Samantha "Sam" Bryton and recently dead human-machine hybrid Turner Pascal as the focal couple. The story follows two broad and mostly intertwined plots, the first involving Turner's flight from and conflict with the shadowy villain Charon, and the second involving Sam and Turner's budding romance which is complicated by the fact that Turner may not be human, and at many turns clearly does not behave like a human, points that are clearly difficult ones for Sam to overcome. Connecting the two plots is the question of whether Turner is a human or a machine - is he merely property, as Charon regards him, or is he a sentient and free-willed individual with the right to be treated as such, as Turner himself insists.

The story starts with Bryton living in semi-isolation in her cabin and its beach front property, having given up a high paying job as a developer of AIs and EIs ("Artificial Intelligences" which are capable of independent thought, but are not sentient, and "Emerging Intelligences", which are independent and at least plausibly sentient) over ethical concerns. While she is walking on her beach, a half-dead unconscious man washes by, who she promptly rescues. She quickly learns his name is Turner Pascal, and he was not merely half-dead, but he had recently recovered from being wholly dead. And then she learns that he was reconstructed as a cyborg human-machine hybrid by an insane and cruel genius Pascal can only identify as Charon, and that Turner intentionally sought Sam out after escaping from his imprisonment because she had been publicly sympathetic to the rights of EIs in the past.

But Turner insists that he is neither an AI or an EI, and is not a human-form android, or, in the vernacular of the story, a "forma", but is rather a human and fully entitled to all of the rights of a human. After some negotiating, Sam agrees to try to get Turner to safety and first contacts an academic friend of hers with expertise in EIs as well as an Air Force General who has been a kind of surrogate father to her after her own father's death and who happens to be in a command of the Air Force that is tasked with dealing with issues related to artificial intelligence. But no sooner than they leave to travel to the airport in Sam's souped up car, but they find themselves pursued by unknown forces, presumably working at the behest of Charon, who Turner is convinced can track the entire world "mesh" (a sort of advanced form of internet that permeates the daily lives of just about everyone on the planet) and thus was able to locate him as soon as Sam began making calls about him. Much of the tension in the book is driven by the unknown nature of Charon - neither Turner nor Sam know who Charon is (in fact, Sam has never heard of him, which surprises those she comes into contact with, and becomes a minor, although not very convincing plot point later in the book), and neither know exactly how long his reach is. Because of this, Sam and Turner never know who to trust, as anyone they try to seek aid from could be the nefarious Charon, even those that Sam thinks are her closest friends.

Though Charon is a background menace for much of the book, lurking in the shadows and operating through others, it is his relationship with Turner, contrasted with the developing relationship between Turner and Sam that drives the interesting question of the book. Turner is legally dead. Much of his body has been replaced by cybernetics. His vastly increased power needs are satisfied with an implanted microfusion reactor. His brain has been replaced by a distributed network of neural circuitry. In short, just about the only parts of Turner that remain "Turner" from before his death are his memories. So the obvious dilemma is how much of a man can be replaced before he is no longer a person? Charon seems to consider Turner to be property, whereas Sam in interacting with Turner comes to regard him as not merely a person, but as a potential partner. The only real weakness in this storyline is that Sam's infatuation with Turner seems somewhat less than convincing - other than the fact that Sam thinks Turner is pretty, and he makes for a fascinating science project for her, there seems to be little connection on a romantic level between the two characters.

And in a world in which we can already implant devices to keep our hearts going, and replace lost limbs with electronic ones responsive to nerve impulses these sorts of questions are likely to loom large. I have no idea if we will ever be able to replace a human brain with a copy that has been placed into some sort of computer driven memory, but it is not entirely implausible. And then those who believe in qualia or other theories of transcendent consciousness will have the dilemma of whether someone whose claim to identity rests upon the stored memories of a person is still that person, or whether something irreplaceable was lost in the transition from biological machine to electronic machine. And of course, that's exactly the situation Turner is in Sunrise Alley. Complicating matters is the fact that in the transformation Turner has acquired some decidedly non-human characteristics: He is able to transform himself, and goes so far as to reform his hand into an eight-fingered metal interface early in the book. But this change is only the outward manifestation of what is a more significant change - Turner chose to reform his hand into an eight digit member because he was more comfortable thinking in hexidecimal. Over and over again the change in Turner is highlighted, and throughout Turner insists that he is still himself despite these changes.

The story draws the reader along, exposing the changes in Turner step by step, peeling back each layer of the differences between Turner and a natural human progressively. And each step of the way Asaro reveals just enough to allow Bryton (and thus the reader) to become comfortable with the idea that despite his changed nature Turner is still human. Eventually, Turner and Bryton seek refuge with "Sunrise Alley", a mythic organization of escaped and "free" EIs, bringing them into an environment made by machines for machines, with no reference to any human concerns, extending the question of what constitutes a person to its furthest possible point. But even this refuge is fraught with danger, both because it is possible that it exists merely as a front for the evil Charon, and because even if it is not, a paranoid inhuman intelligence afraid of being discovered may not be kindly disposed to the human Bryton and the presumed human Turner. But at the same time, the story makes the case for even this possibly malignant, completely machine driven intelligence, being a sentient being that should be treated as a person.

The story progresses towards its multiple resolutions - Charon is confronted, Sam and Turner's nascent relationship develops, the question of Turner's status is brought to the fore, as is the status of the now-revealed Sunrise Alley. And each of these elements intertwines with the other, some in interesting ways: Charon's claims to ownership of Turner are somewhat ironic given the revelations of Charon's own nature that come to light. And Turner's claims to autonomy and personhood form a stark contrast to Charon's - while Turner shows he can at least manifest the appearance of empathy and love, Charon seems to be incapable of either, raising the obvious question of which one is more human. But even after the thriller portion of the plot is resolved, the characters don't ride off into the sunset to a happy ending - Asaro then brings the very real questions concerning the legal status of the characters into focus.

Sunrise Alley is an interesting look at the nature of what makes someone human. Exactly how much of a person can be replaced and have the result still be regarded as that person? With the exception of the somewhat weak nature of the romantic storyline and a wholly unconvincing and mostly extraneous memory-loss subplot that crops up late in the book, the book is well-executed, with a strong story full of intrigue, dramatic tension, and a fascinating exploration of what counts as human, or more broadly, what counts as a person.

Subsequent book in the series: Alpha

Catherine Asaro     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Follow Friday - D&D Characters Can Buy Arrows by the Score

It's Friday again, which means it's time for Follow Friday. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host (Parajunkee) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Nicki J. Markus.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: The magic book fairy pops out of your cereal box and says "you and your favorite character (from a book of course) can switch places!" Who are you going to switch with?

These questions are always hard for me to answer, because so many of my favorite characters are also characters that I would never want to be. I love Paul Atredies from the Dune series, but knowing how his story turns out, I'd never want to be him. I like Hari Seldon from the Foundation books, but I'd never want his life. Severian from the Book of the New Sun is a character I enjoyed reading about immensely, but once again, not someone whose life I would care to have. I think that most of the characters that I like feature in my favorite books have crappy, difficult lives, and often they end up dying in sad ways.

Even though her story is somewhat less than happy, I think I'd go with Leisha Camden from Beggars in Spain as the character I'd like to be. She is one of the Sleepless, a human genetically engineered to never need to sleep. I am always running on a sleep deficit because I'm trying to keep up with all the projects I want to get done. Having those extra hours in the day, and never feeling too tired to use them effectively would be perfect. Add in the fact that the genetic modification seems to make the subject smarter and possibly better athletically, and you have a combination that I would love to have.

Go to Previous Follow Friday: Does Anyone Else Remember the Song "Nineteen"?
Go to Subsequent Follow Friday: At Twenty-One, the Follow Friday Can Drink Now

Follow Friday     Home

Review - The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card

Short review: The United States has collapsed after a nuclear attack, and the Mormons get to run things. Naturally, they are insufferably pious when doing so.

Haiku
After America
The Mormon rule commences
And they are tyrants

Full review: The Folk of the Fringe is a collection of five shorter works mostly set in post-apocalyptic America and detailing the travails of Mormons struggling to survive in the face of some religious bigotry and the harsh new landscape. One thing that is interesting about the stories is that despite having suffered at the hands of intolerant non-Mormons, when they get into the majority, the Mormons in the stories are more than willing to engage in some religious bigotry of their own. Overall, four of the stories form a decent (although somewhat scary) narrative showing how a small religious group could survive the collapse of society, while the fifth seems to me to have been tacked on with little regard for continuity.

In the first story West, Mormon refugees from North Carolina head west to the promised land of Utah following the collapse of society after some sort of apocalyptic event. (It is never revealed exactly what the trigger for the collapse is, but it is hinted to be some sort of limited nuclear exchange triggered by a weak U.S. President confronted by a strong-handed Soviet dictator). This seems a little autobiographical, as Card had taken up residence in Greensboro, and makes the events the precipitate the story a little bit creepy. One wonders if Card imagines that his non-Mormon neighbors are just itching to round up the Mormon and slaughter them, although this kind of persecution paranoia seems to run through a lot of Mormon fiction. Granted, Mormons were persecuted . . . in the 19^th century. I doubt anyone still cares nearly as much as Card imagines they do. Even so, this triggers the events of the story, without which there wouldn't be much in the way of a book, so it can be overlooked. Along the way, the Mormons, who demonstrate themselves to be pretty lousy at traveling in a post-apocalyptic world, meet up with a guide who helps them out, and inspired by their obvious goodness, duly converts and leads them west (hence the name of the story).

West leads more or less to Salvage, in which a minor character from the previous story becomes the central character. Even though he has been raised since early childhood in the Mormon promised land of Utah, Deaver Teague has somehow avoided becoming Mormon himself, which doesn't seem all that unusual until one begins to note just how oppressively religious the post-apocalyptic Mormon society has become - swearing has become a criminal offense, as has premarital sex and pretty much all of the other minor peccadilloes of modern society that Card usually rants about. Poor and with limited prospects (as a result of not being Mormon), Deaver cooks up a plan to make himself wealthy that, in the end, serves to demonstrate just how pious and wonderful the Mormons really are.

The Fringe is a story connected to the others in the book, but none of the characters from West, Salvage, or Pageant Wagon appear in it. Card includes a central character with cerebral palsy, an affliction that is clearly of interest to Card due to his own son having it. In this story, the necessity and virtue of living under the thumb of the local Mormon clergy is explored, with the caveat that there need to be spies to make sure the clergy is honest in their heavy handed rule over the colonies on the fringe of arable territory. The story includes some discussion about how the Mormon's have been systematically reclaiming arable land from the desert, which counts as science fiction, but the central thrust of the story is that a command economy run by pious Mormon leaders is necessary to make this system work.

Finally, Pageant Wagon sees the return of Deaver Teague, who runs into a traveling family of performers who make the rounds of the communities on the fringe providing more or less approved entertainment. While most of the stories about the Mormon enclave in post-apocalyptic America make Mormon rule seem quite heavy handed, and this story is no exception, Deaver finds the one more or less socially acceptable exception to this rule (although there are definite limits on what even the pageant wagon families are allowed to do). With respect to religion, this story seems almost thematically the opposite of West, as now that the Mormons are in charge, they are insufferable to non-Mormons. They don't treat outsiders as brutally as the non-Mormons in North Carolina treated Mormons, but when religious law and temporal law become one and the same, tyranny is not far behind, and it shows in the story.

The final story in the volume is America, which doesn't really fit the rest of the collection. It is supposedly the first chronologically, and draws heavily upon Mormon theology. In the story, a young Mormon boy sent to live in South America with the father he despises for being a lying, cheating, non pious sinner spends his time in the company with an older Native-American woman. He, of course, ends up sleeping with her, but its okay, because it is more or less divinely ordained that he should and that she will have a child who is marked for greatness. It doesn't fit the rest of the collection because the explanation it gives for the fall of the Westernized nations in the Americas is at odds with the story that is given in those stories. This story really amounts to little more than Mormon wish-fulfillment, and as anything other than a view into the strange world of Mormon theology and prophecy, it isn't very good.

If one is interested in reading a Mormon fantasy, then this set of stories would certainly fit the bill. I am unsure whether Card was parodying his own faith to a certain extent, or if he truly thinks that marrying religious and civil law together in a kind of religious police state is a good idea. If his intent was the first, then he didn't make himself clear. If it was the second, then this story is even scarier than I had originally thought. Either way, it is worth reading if for nothing else than to get a look into how a Mormon thinks Mormons would behave if left unfettered by silly impediments like secular law.

1986 Locus Award Nominees
1987 Locus Award Nominees
1988 Locus Award Nominees
1990 Locus Award Nominees
1986 Hugo Award Nominees
1986 Nebula Award Nominees
 
Orson Scott Card     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - The Veiled Web by Catherine Asaro

Short Review: Lucia explains what the Internet is, gets married by accident to a Muslim millionaire, gets involved in intrigue over who controls the world.

Haiku
Lucia, Rashid,
Islamic and Catholic,
Struggle to find love

Full Review: The Veiled Web is one of Catherine Asaro's few novels not set in her Skolian Empire series. It is a frustrating story that has flashes of brilliance in a somewhat sprawling tale that seems almost too big for a single novel. The story is a mashed up agglutination of cyberpunk, techno-thriller, and romance elements. As a result, it is somewhat less than focused, as it tries to cram too much into its pages, veering from sweet love scenes to cultural conflicts, software development sequences, and car chases and gunfights. Further hampering the novel is the fact that the male romantic lead seems to be a misogynistic douche bag. Despite these flaws, the novel is still quite good, with an enjoyable techno-thriller story about control over developing technology.

The main characters of the story are Lucia del Mar and Rashid al-Jazari, a Catholic professional ballet dancer and a Muslim multimillionaire software developer. The novel opens up with Lucia completing a special performance at the White House before attending a special reception and dinner where the cast of characters is introduced; a Colonel with a mysterious job in military intelligence, some luminaries in the field of software development, and the mysterious Rashid who has a conversation with Lucia that flusters her before the events of the official function separate them and she ends up being politely interrogated about him by her Colonel friend. It turns out that Lucia, despite having little formal education, is fascinated by computers and the Internet, and everyone at the dinner is talking about a rumored new "virtual reality" way to access the Internet called the "Duke's suit", although no one knows any details about it, or even who the "Duke" is.

The novel moves on and Lucia heads off with her dance troupe to Italy. It turns out that Rashid is a smitten fan who more or less stalks Lucia until she leaves a poorly progressing rehearsal and "accidentally" runs into him on the street. I say "accidentally" because Rashid later reveals that he had been following Lucia around like a puppy hoping that he would run into her. And when she does he asks her to dinner and offers her a ride back to the rehearsal. But then the techno-thriller plot intersects with the romance plot and the two get drugged and kidnapped. As part of their escape, they get married without Lucia really realizing that is what is happening, and she ends up sequestered in Rashid's father's home with Rashid's extended family.

The novel consists of two intertwined stories. On the one hand there is a cross-cultural interfaith romance in which Rashid and Lucia attempt to reconcile their differences and come to some sort of arrangement that will allow them to stay together as man and wife. On the other is a story about the development of a revolutionary new software and hardware package and the intrigues surrounding the attempts by nefarious forces to control it. The second story is pretty good, although somewhat dated. The first story isn't a bad story, but it is marred by the fact that Rashid is, for most of the story, such a misogynistic jerk that it is difficult to understand what Lucia sees in him, or for the reader to want the two to reconcile their differences and end up together.

The primary difference between Lucis and Rashid is religious - she is Catholic and he is Muslim, but each also comes from fairly different cultural backgrounds as she grew up in rural New Mexico with parents of Spanish descent while Rashid grew up wealthy in Morocco. This religious and cultural clash between the two forms the core of the love story, but time and again Rashid proves himself to be entirely unsympathetic. He brings Lucia to his family home, where we learn that the women are all sequestered from the world in a Harem, a particularly reactionary social arrangement even by Moroccan standards. When the women leave the house once a week, they must all veil themselves. This serves to isolate Lucia with Rashid's mother, older female relatives, a group of young girls and Rashid's sister-in-law Khadija, the only woman who is similar in age to Lucia. And Khadjia is a particularly sad character, since she so desperately craves female companionship from a woman her own age, but the isolation imposed upon her by Rashid's reactionary family has prevented her from maintaining any healthy adult relationships. At every turn Lucia finds herself restricted by Rashid's disapproval, from her "provocative" dress to her desire to continue her dancing career to her wearing of a crucifix to symbolize her own faith. Although Rashid talks about his vision of cultures and religions meeting at a crossroads and working together, it is clear that he doesn't actually feel the need to put this into action in his own life, as he is singularly unwilling to compromise on almost any point in his relationship with Lucia.

Time and again rashid uses the lame excuse that these limitations on women are simply "part of his culture". But it seems clear that for the most part the extreme restrictions that Rashid expects Lucia to live under are not part of his culture, and to the extent they are, are rapidly being eroded. Rashid has two sisters who are referenced in the story, but both left the family house and live lives as independent and modern women. As he admits, the harem-based isolation of the women in his family is unusual even in Morocco. And so on. But even if it were part of Rashid's culture to isolate and control women, why would that make one sympathetic with him? The men in Rashid's family are certainly free to do whatever they choose to do, and Rashid was perfectly willing to ogle Lucia in her skimpy outfits when she was a professional ballet dancer. However once he is married to her his attitude changes completely, as he disapproves of her wearing anything more revealing than an ankle length neck-high dress even around the family home. Presumably his brothers would lose control of themselves if they saw her in anything more revealing. This double standard makes Rashid seem entirely unlikable, and throughout one wonders what Lucia sees in him that makes him attractive as a potential mate other than his handsome face. Granted he is wealthy and a computer genius, but Lucia clearly has had many opportunities to acquaint herself socially with men who have those qualities and chose not to avail herself of them. As a result, Lucia seems quite shallow, swallowing a pile of restrictions because a handsome man has stalked her and then married her.

And we learn that Rashid had been previously married and divorced to a fellow student when he lived in Britain to earn his advanced degrees in the study of computers. In his previous marriage his wife apparently did not accept the restrictions Rashid seeks to impose on Lucia, and Rashid did not attempt to impose them upon her. But Rashid also says they fought constantly. Rashid also says he is unsure around women, and inexperienced. And it is at this point that the reader understands the source of Rashid's creepy controlling behaviour: he and his male relatives are terrified of women. A woman who is independent and has a mind of her own is simply too frightening for them to deal with. So they hem the women they allow near them in with restrictions and limitations. And Rashid is spectacularly inflexible, refusing to allow even small deviations from the accepted rules, and even refusing to consider a compromise where they would live part of the year in Morocco and part of the year in the United States. In short, through the novel Rashid behaves like a petulant spoiled child, and one wonders why Lucia wastes any time even considering staying married to him.

Running in parallel to this dysfunctional romance is the story of Rashid's creation Zaki. It turns out that Rashid is fabulously wealthy, at least in part because he designed the interactive web browser software known as "websparks", which is widely used, and in fact used by Lucia at the start of the book. Websparks seems to be a learning piece of software that adapts itself to its user's preferences by learning from what the user does and guiding the user through the Internet. As an aside, the elements of the book related to the Internet reveal the dangers of writing a science fiction book set in the near future, as they have become horribly dated. At one point the narrative explains to the reader what the World Wide Web is, an explanation that was probably only marginally necessary in 1999 when the book was published, and seems almost ridiculous now. The book dates itself even more when explaining how Lucia cruises around the web linking up with long-dead services CompuServe, Prodigy, and GEnie even though the book is ostensibly set in 2010. Not being able to predict the future is not a failure on the part of an author, but it does make the book age poorly, and in this respect this book suffers in that regard.

Once Lucia awakens at Rashid's family compound, she discovers that not only is he the fabulously wealthy developer of websparks, but that he has been working on a new sort of interactive web interface software that provides an artificial intelligence to act as a virtual tour guide for the user coupled with a virtual reality suit to insert the user into an artificially created web reality. It turns out that Rashid, through a bit of rhyming slang, is the "Duke", and Zaki is the software that is supposed to power the "Duke's Suit". Unfortunately, Zaki is also unstable, making the Duke's Suit unusable and consequently unmarketable. While Rashid jaunts off to take care of family business on a regular basis, leaving Lucia isolated in the al-Jazari harem, Lucia sneaks into his computer laboratory and tries to figure out what is wrong with Zaki that causes the program to collapse intermittently. But Lucia's efforts reveal more about Rashid, and what is revealed does not make him seem any more attractive.

One reason for Zaki's stunted growth is apparently that Rashid has limited the access the program has to the Internet. This has prevented Zaki's self-learning program from assimilating the information necessary to develop properly. But because Rashid is apparently a control freak, he seems to have not considered turning Zaki loose on the web on his own. It is up to Lucia, bored out of her mind while stuck living in the claustrophobic confines of the harem, to circumvent Rashid's disabling of Zaki's access to the web and allow him to develop towards becoming a fully functional artificial intelligence, or at least towards being a self-learning web browser that doesn't routinely crash. Apparently it takes Lucia, a self-taught computer aficionado with no formal training to figure out the problem that has stumped Rashid, supposedly a computer genius with a doctorate in the study of artificial intelligence, which seems mostly explainable by Rashid's inability to give up any control at all. This dovetails with Rashid's character traits revealed in the romance storyline, but it also raises the question as to whether Rashid is the sort of person that one would want to have this sort of technology.

And this is an important question, because the intrigue portion of the novel involves mysterious forces trying to seize control of Zaki and use him for nefarious ends. But despite his lip service towards harmony and understanding, Rashid seems less than capable of actually putting those ideals into practice. And his controlling nature, combined with his culturally driven misogyny makes him seem like a less than appealing character to be the person who influences the entire web. Lest one think that these factors don't really matter, it is clear that Zaki has internalized Rashid's own prudish medieval attitudes towards women, refusing to work with Lucia until she convinces him that as Rashid's wife, she is essentially his mother. But if Zaki internalizes an aversion to working with women on his own, this would seem to severely limit his usefulness as a web browser, or tour guide for half of the population of the world. And if exposure to Rashid has caused Zaki to internalize this sort of reactionary attitude towards women, one wonders what other less than desirable character traits the program had also picked up. And as a result, when the shadowy villains show up to try to wrest control of Zaki away from Rashid, it doesn't have quite as much impact as one might think, because in the back of the reader's mind, one is wondering whether they are any worse than Rashid would be.

One might think that a story in which the male lead engenders such ambivalence would be a poor book. One would be wrong. Despite the fact that for much of the book one is rooting against Lucia and Rashid ending up together, mostly because it is clear that he is clearly a poor choice for Lucia as a partner, The Veiled Web is a well-written exploration of cultural conflict and how that affects both interpersonal relationships and the potential interconnected world that the web might create. Though I think that Asaro was trying to show what a world in which Western Christianized culture and Middle-Eastern Islamic came to a mutual compromise to forge a future in which the two sides could coexist successfully, she portrayed the reactionary and objectionable nature of Rashid's viewpoint so effectively that I was left wondering why any woman would willingly consent to living in a draconian regime like the one endured by his mother and sister-in-law, and which he seeks to persuade Lucia to accept. In the end, Rashid has something of an epiphany, but is seems unconvincingly motivated, and even the compromise he comes to accept seems to be hypocritical at best, and impinge upon what should be the norms of how women are treated in a modern society. The intricacies of the romance is coupled with the fight for control over the future of the web to demonstrate just how critical the parameters of what is socially acceptable truly is - if Lucia and Rashid, who are falling in love, must navigate a minefield of cultural differences and misunderstandings before ultimately coming to what I regard as a dangerously reactionary compromise, then it is apparent how critical it is that the rest of us preserve our rights in the face of those who hold views inimical to them, and who might seek to limit our freedoms, both the obvious, such as the villains of the story, and the subtle, such as the superficially benign Rashid. Asaro has highlighted that whoever controls the culture that drives access to the Internet will determine the culture of the world in the future, a potentially frightening thought. Like most good science fiction this story raises a multiplicity of questions, but provides very few answers, resulting in a troubling but quite interesting reading experience.

Catherine Asaro     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Follow Friday - Does Anyone Else Remember the Song "Nineteen"?

It's Friday again, which means it's time for Follow Friday. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host (Parajunkee) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Amy from Backseat Reader.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question:  What are you doing to prepare for an upcoming zombie apocalypse and/or the return of Mel Gibson to the silver screen? (Both of which could be terrifying.)

Well, I live in Virginia, so I could buy a gun a month, and since we should be preparing for the zombie apocalypse, I suppose I should be stockpiling shotguns. However, I have been very remiss, and I don't actually have any guns, so I'm unprepared on that front. I do have an axe though, and that should come in handy for lopping off zombie heads. I also got a heat gun for stripping paint, which is sort of like a hair dryer on steroids. It theoretically can put out a stream of hot air heated to eight or nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit, which should be enough to melt any zombie pretty handily. So long as the electricity stays on, I should be good.

I suppose the heat gun would be useful for Mel Gibson too. After all, film melts pretty easily, and if we got all the copies of his upcoming movie together in a pile, we could melt them down pretty quickly. I would consider it a service to humanity. Then we could all go watch one of the good movies he made before we all knew he was batshit insane, like Mad Max or Road Warrior.

Go to Previous Follow Friday: Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses
Go to Subsequent Follow Friday: D&D Characters Can Buy Arrows by the Score

Follow Friday     Home

Random Thought - A Massive Sidetrack

So this past Saturday I acquired a massive diversion that will likely slow my reading and posting rate down to a crawl. I went to the semi-annual Purcellville Library Book Sale and, as I usually do I headed straight for the science fiction and fantasy section to begin hunting through the offerings with the aim of filling a couple of boxes with books. While I was busily pulling out piles of books and tossing them into my bags, one of the volunteers working the sale walked up to me, and we had basically this conversation:

Her: "We will sell the fantasy and science fiction books for one dollar a box."
Me: "One dollar a box? You mean one dollar for the little boxes?"
Her:"No, one dollar for any box, including those bigger pallet boxes."
Me:  Blink
Me: "How many boxes can I buy?"
Her: "As many as you want."
Me: "I'll take all of them."
Her: "You're kidding."
Me: "No, I'm serious. Just figure out a total while I pull my car around."

And so I bought every science fiction and fantasy book they had. Well, almost. Another science fiction fan came up when I was getting things together and was a little disappointed that I was taking all the books. So I gave him two boxes of books and one box of magazines. I love books, but I'm willing to share the love with other fans. Even so, I ended up with the haul of books in the picture. After I got them home and was able to count them up, I found out that I had acquired 1,297 books. For thirty-four dollars. Which works out to 0.26 cents per book. Breaking it down by type, the pile includes 47 hardbacks, 5 trade paperbacks, 1,148 mass market paperbacks, and 98 genre magazines (mostly old issues of Asimov's Science Fiction, and Fantasy & Science Fiction).

But now I need to sort through these, clean them, remove all the stickers and price tags, and then catalog them. I know for certain that some of these books are duplicates of books I already have in my collection, but I'm sure I'll find them good homes. But this is going to take a while, just getting them all into alphabetical order is going to take a couple days. Getting them cataloged in my preliminary list will take a while, let along getting them listed in my comprehensive database. This means that I will be side tracked for the next two to three weeks at least, which will cut into me reading and reviewing time, which will slow me down even more than my current glacially slow pace. On the flip side, I'm in between the spring session and summer session of classes, so that frees up a fair amount of time per week for the next few weeks. I'm not complaining. I'm going to be spending many hours with these books in the next few weeks. Other bibliophiles will certainly understand that this is a prospect that I am looking forward to.

Random Thoughts     Home

2011 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Washington D.C.

Comments: By 2011, the Nebula Awards had taken their modern shape. At least if you call the form they took by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century their "modern" form. Given the somewhat chaotic state the awards have been in, and their ambivalent relationship with filmed science fiction, only time will tell if the current arrangement with young adult novels honored by the officially non-Nebula Andre Norton Award, dramatic presentations honored by the officially non-Nebula Ray Bradbury Award, and the Nebulas themselves being handed out for novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories.

The Nebulas also seem to have matured somewhat in the areas of gender and racial equity, although much is still to be desired in those areas. Women are well represented among the winners and nominees (despite being conspicuously absent from the nominees for the Ray Bradbury Award), and non-Causcasian authors are common enough to be noticed in the ranks of the nominees.

Best Novel

Winner:
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

Other Nominees:
Echo by Jack McDevitt
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
The Native Star by M.K. Hobson
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Best Novella

Winner:

The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window by Rachel Swirsky

Other Nominees:
The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi

Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance by Paul Park (reviewed in Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume 118, Nos. 1 & 2 (January/February 2010)

Iron Shoes by J. Kathleen Cheney
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

The Sultan of the Clouds by Geoffrey A. Landis (reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 34, No. 9 (September 2010))

Best Novelette

Winner:

That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone (reviewed in Analog Science Fiction and Fact: Vol. CXXX, No. 9 (September 2010))

Other Nominees:
The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara by Christopher Kastensmidt

The Jaguar House, in Shadow by Aliette de Bodard (reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 34, No. 7 (July 2010))

Map of Seventeen by Christopher Barzak
Pishaach by Shweta Narayan

Plus or Minus by James Patrick Kelly (reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol 34, No. 12 (December 2010))

Stone Wall Truth by Caroline M. Yoachim

Best Short Story

Winner:
(tie) How Interesting: A Tiny Man by Harlan Ellison
(tie) Ponies by Kij Johnson

Other Nominees:
Arvies by Adam-Troy Castro

Conditional Love by Felicity Shoulders (reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 34, No. 1 (January 2010))

Ghosts of New York by Jennifer Pelland
The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar
I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftan

Ray Bradbury Award

Winner:

Inception by Christopher Nolan

Other Nominees:

Despicable Me screenplay by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul; story by Sergio Pablos; directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud

Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor written by Richard Curtis; directed by Jonny Campbell

How to Train Your Dragon screenplay by William Davies, Dean DeBlois, and Chris Sanders; directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World screenplay by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright; directed by Edgar Wright

Toy Story 3 screenplay by Michael Arndt; story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich; directed by Lee Unkrich

Andre Norton Award

Winner:

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Other Nominees:
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
The Boy from Ilysies by Pearl North
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
White Cat by Holly Black

Go to previous year's nominees: 2010
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2012

Book Award Reviews     Home

Review - Farscape: Thank God It's Friday . . . Again (Season 1, Episode 6)

Digging for space turnips

"Today is the last day of the work cycle. Tomorrow is a rest day" - Ka D'Argo

Short review: D'Argo takes up the life of a farmer, Rygel begins exploding, Aeryn has to do some sciency stuff, and Crichton has to figure out why everyone seems to be going insane.

Haiku
After hyper-rage
Kha D'Argo works and parties
It's Friday again

Long review: This sixth episode of Farscape opens with yet another alien quirk: D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) is in the midst of hyper-rage, a condition that leads him to want to kill Crichton (Ben Browder). One of the great elements of Farscape is the fact that the aliens are alien in their physiology. So far we have learned that Sebaceans cannot regulate their body heat, Hynerians fart helium when they are nervous or angry, Delvians can accelerate their actions to incredible speeds, and Luxans must bleed clear to prevent infection and now, they fly into a hyper-rage every now and then. The list of alien biological quirks is stacking up fairly quickly. They may look kind of like humans, but they are definitely not like us.

Unable to find Crichton, D'Argo apparently sets off to a nearby planet, but since Crichton doesn't know this he keeps hiding. While showing John video of enraged D'Argo Aeryn (Claudia Black) points out that they couldn't find him for three days after the Luxan left the ship, and comments upon how he must have had a lot of practice hiding. This is the first of Aeryn's quick-witted lines, and while we've seen glimpses of the sardonic and sarcastic side of her personality this is the episode where she really starts to come into her own. When Crichton wonders why he was the target of D'Argo's hyper-rage, Zhaan (Virginia Hey) says it was because he was the only other male, prompting John to ask the obvious question: "Well, Spanky here's male. I think, sort of. I mean, how come he's not after you?", in reference to Rygel (Jonathan Hardy). Other than Rygel growling "D'Argo knows better", there isn't much of an answer to this, one of the few times the series sort of ignored the fact that Rygel is supposed to be a full-fledged character. But I love every instance in which Crichton calls Rygel by the nickname Sparky, so that can be overlooked.

In search of D'Argo, and hoping that his hyper-rage has dissipated, the four mobile members of Moya's crew head off to the planet that he absconded to. We get a short view of the area they are landing in, which looks like a giant office building surrounded by not much of anything. Once on the surface, they find the planet hot, even though it is night, to such an extent that concern for Aeryn's well-being is immediately voiced. Upon seeing the red-clad, heavily tanned and blond natives, Crichton has to make an Earth-reference, bringing up Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, or at least Mel Gibson and Tina Turner, which is very apropos as Farscape was filmed in Australia as well. Deciding that the best place to find D'Argo is at a party, they stroll into an intergalactic rave, complete with generic television dance music.

Once inside, John comments on how the natives appear to be Sebacean, a suggestion to which Aeryn reacts quite negatively. John retreats to calling them kissing cousins to the Sebaceans, "just like humans", which drives Aeryn to hyperbole, stating that if it is ever shown that human are related to Sebaceans she'll let Palmolian meat hounds tear all the flesh from her bones. Well, maybe not Aeryn. Another funny little element in this scene is that Aeryn carries a pulse rifle with her the entire time. Not only does no one stop her, including the rather effeminately dressed guards in black mosquito nets standing by the entrance, no one even seems to notice she's packing a military rifle to a party.

Crichton notices D'Argo dancing along with the rave just as D'Argo notices him, and begins to run away as D'Aargo chases him. Once he catches Crichton, D'Argo begins to give him bear hugs, leading to Crichton to wonder "This is the end of hyper-rage? I get hugged to death?" And then the opening credits roll. One thing that should be clear now that the show is hitting its stride is that Farscape packs a lot into each episode.

As the group assembles around the now-found D'Argo, the wayward Luxan informs them that he is happy and wants to stay with the Skyarans (as the locals are called) and has taken up a life as a laborer. In the three days he's been away from Moya it seems that D'Argo has sunk some pretty deep roots. Aeryn reacts badly to D'Argo's new found love of farming, asserting that he's a warrior and not a laborer - a glimpse into Aeryn's view of the world, and coincidentally of her place in it, both of which will begin to be seriously challenged in this episode. D'Argo reminds her that he has been a prisoner and a fugitive for longer than he was ever actually a warrior, which is an interesting angle as well, since much of D'Argo's time as a fugitive seems to have been spent fighting threats to Moya and her crew, which one might think would count in the "warrior" column of the ledger. D'Argo heads off with one of the very blond, very attractive Skyaran women. As he walks off, Aeryn voices her belief that D'Argo has lost his brain, which seems to be her thinking any time a man of her acquaintance is in pursuit of sex. On the other hand, as this episode comes right on the tail of Back and Back and Back to the Future in which D'Argo admitted that he pretty much did lose his ability to exercise any kind of judgment over a woman, she does have a point.


I'm really pale. I'm totally stoned.
I'm also in charge. I think. Maybe.

Since a motley assortment of a half-dozen aliens wouldn't be unnoticed on a planet with a seemingly homogenous population, the remaining crew get a visit from Volmae (Angie Milliken), the pale and seemingly stoned out of her mind leader of the Skyarans. Later we learn that the Skyaran leader was supposedly picked at random, but seeing Volmae, who, with her white skin, white hair and red eyes, appears to be an albino amidst a society of tanned people living on a hot and sunny planet, I wonder if that is true. If she actually is an albino, Volmae certainly would have a difficult time participating in the everyday work that most of the populace seems to engage in harvesting tannot root under the harsh and unrelenting sun. her appearance does certainly mark her as different than all the other inhabitants of the planet, as do her all white clothes which stand out in the sea of red outfits that surround her. Zhaan takes the lead here, engaging in a little personal diplomacy, and introducing all of the other crew members each of whom responds in their own idiosyncratic way: Crichton flashing a peace sign, and Rygel pausing from stuffing his face only long enough to belch. Volmae's words are welcoming, suggesting that the travelers are welcome to stay as long as they wish, but her mannerisms are so creepy and off-putting that Aeryn tries to use a human colloquialism to express her thoughts, with humorous results:


A woody? Did you really just say that?

Aeryn Sun, "She gives me a woody. Woody. It's a human saying. I've heard you say it often. When you don't trust someone or they make you nervous, they give you-"
John Crichton, "Willies. She gives you the willies."

With that, the party breaks up and the crew heads outside. While everyone else is paying attention to other concerns, Crichton is accosted by one of the local women and told that he must stay on the planet. Aeryn voices the opinion that since D'Argo wants to stay, they should leave him, return to Moya, and head elsewhere. Crichton rejects this idea, saying they have to get D'Argo back. But other than the meta reason that Anthony Simcoe is a regular cast member on the show, one has to wonder why. Unlike in Throne for a Loss where recovering Rygel was necessary to recover the part of Moya he had absconded with, there is no real compelling reason why getting D'Argo back on Moya is required. The only connection between them is a few months on Moya, Crichton and Aeryn don't even have the shared experience of Peacekeeper incarceration with him. This is one of the instances in which the characters on Farscape seem to behave like a typical group of role-playing game characters: D'Argo is part of the group designated as special, so they must get him back. No other reason need be given. This sort of clannish behavior on television shows often takes place, but usually they have some reason to be together, which at this point in the show is more or less absent.

Meanwhile having gorged himself to bursting, Rygel heads off to relieve himself and promptly finds himself in the middle of an explosion. He claims that someone tried to assassinate him, but Aeryn, continuing her barrage of sarcastic biting commentary, snaps "No one knows you here. Only the people who know you want to kill you." The crew then agree to split up, with Zhaan and Crichton staying planetside in order to try to get D'Argo back, and Aeryn and Rygel leaving to go back to Moya and the B-plot.

Zhaan and Crichton quickly locate D'Argo's new home, pointing out the rather obvious fact that as the only Luxan around he stands out among his neighbors. Zhaan and Crichton try to convince D'Argo to come back to Moya, but he asserts that he is content. What makes this conversation unsettling is that in the three days that he has been on Skyara D'Argo appears to have picked up the same speech mannerism displayed by Volmae. D'Argo cuts the conversation short, telling his crew mates that the next day is a rest day and he will be able to show them the wonders of Skyara in the morning. He apologizes for only being able to offer them the floor to sleep on, which is odd, since he pulls down a Murphy bed as he says this, which means they aren't actually going to sleep on the floor. He then opens his bedroom door and we get an idea of what D'Aargo's priorities for the night are as the lovely blond he left the party with is busy stretching in the bedroom. It seems that the "long time" that D'Argo brought up in Back and Back and Back to the Future has ended. One thing that rearranging the order of the shows did was move Back and Back and Back to the Future from episode five in the season, which placed it directly before this one, to third in the season, which meant that Throne for a Loss and PK Tech Girl came between the two in the inexplicably reordered original airing of the show. As a result the longing expressed by D'Argo in Back and Back and Back to the Future was distanced from the events of those taking place in Thank God It's Friday. . . Again, diminishing the connection between D'Argo's desire and the fulfillment of those expressed desires.

Left alone, Zhaan and Crichton bed down for what seems to be an incredibly uncomfortable night for Crichton. Zhaan, being an overtly sexual being, is clearly unashamed of nudity, or intimate closeness with a friend. Crichton, on the other hand, carries the baggage of human culture around with him, and is clearly uncomfortable sharing a bed with Zhaan. And even more so when her hands wander as she sleeps. So Crichton is visibly relieved when Aeryn calls in with an update on the B-plot. While Zhaan and Crichton have been trying to convince D'Argo to leave Skyara and spooning, Rygel continued to periodically explode despite being returned to the presumably safe environs of Moya. Aeryn quickly figures out that Rygel's bodily fluids have turned explosive, leading to her call to John for help. He tells her to deal with it, and offers the advice that she shouldn't let Rygel eat or drink anything, which makes the gluttonous Hynerian whimper. Aeryn, for her part, is trepidatious about doing what she calls "tech stuff", a clear connection to her disdain for D'Argo's new found fondness for "labor" expressed at the beginning of the episode. With no one available to help her save for Pilot (Lani Tupu), Aeryn is forced into a role she does not want.

I am the Resistance!
I am armed with worms
and I'm not afraid to use them!

In the morning, D'Argo tells his confused crew mates that he has to go work. Apparently the new day is the last day in the work cycle and the next day will be a rest day. Given that the previous night D'Argo had told them that this day would be a rest day, both John and Zhaan both find this odd. Given that this episode is supposed to follow on the heels of the time looping events of Back and Back and Back to the Future, the seemingly artificially induced Groundhog Day effect is an interesting thematic contrast when juxtaposed with the real time travel of the previous installment of the series (which is of course lost in the stupidly reordered arrangement of the opening episodes). Following D'Argo to work, they find themselves in a crowd of Skyarans walking to the fields grabbing packages of fairly unappetizing looking food along the way. Once in the fields, under the bright sun, one begins to wonder: If the Skyarans are supposed to be related to the Sebaceans, why aren't they affected by the heat? For that matter, how did the Sebaceans, with their ridiculously exploitable vulnerability become a military power? For example, even if Peacekeepers wanted to rule over Skyara, they could not conduct a military campaign in the daytime. In any event, Crichton sees the woman that accosted him the previous night and follows her, and is then grabbed, dragged into a railroad car, and has a worm the size of a corn dog stuck through his navel. (I have to question the insertion of objects into people via their navel. Television shows seem to use this as a catch all "get into the character's gut" avenue, but the last time I checked, it really wasn't an orifice). He is then told that he must eat, if he tells anyone that he has a worm inside him that Volmae will have him killed, and is then abandoned. We then get a somewhat psychedelic scene as Crichton rolls around looking distraught and trying to eat. Though we only saw Browder's "Crichton going insane" face for the first time in the previous episode, it shows up again here. For anyone who has not seen the series, I'll just say that you should get used to this look. While Crichton suffers from the effects of having a giant worm crawling around his stomach (and wait, how did it get into his stomach through his navel, maybe we shouldn't ask some kinds of questions . . .), Zhaan spends the day with D'Argo digging up what look like the largest turnips in the universe. Zhaan describes her own decision to become a Pa'u, comparing her rapid decsion to enter the priesthood with D'Argo's apparent snap decision to devote himself to farming root vegetables. But as the conversation progresses Zhaan becomes more and more enamored of the work D'Argo is doing, and by the end of the day she too is a convert to the wonders of digging in the mud on Skyara.


Peace out bro'

This presents a problem for Crichton as he now has no one on the planet he can confide his new wormy state to, for fear of being turned in and killed. Instead, they all head out to the nightly rave party, where Crichton is introduced to his Skyaran worm-providing friends. Actually, they introduce themselves by putting a gun to his back and marching him over to their leader, a turban wearing man named Hybin (Ken Blackburn) whose daughter Tanga (Tina Thomsen) had been Crichton's first contact. Exposition flows heavily in this scene as Crichton is informed that the tannot root that they spend all day digging up is the cause of all the weirdness around him: It makes most of those who eat it more pliable. And all of the food on the planet is made with tannot root, so except for those who have "the worm" and those rare few who are naturally immune the broadcast instructions direct their daily activities, including apparently the repeated instruction that tomorrow will be a rest day. Hybin instructs Crichton that he has to act like he's affected by the root or he will be killed, repeating his earlier admonishments, which leads to a hilarious scene with Crichton and Volmae where he clumsily tries to conceal his non-drugged state (which she leads off by clumsily flashing a peace sign at him, in imitation of his similar greeting at the opening of the show), and she clumsily tries to interrogate him. Crichton proves to be laughably awful at acting the part, but it is okay, because Volmae is pretty bad at questioning him, whether this is because she's just dimwitted, or because she is drugged in some way, or because she is just used to everyone following her orders is not clear. In the end, Crichton manages to not get himself killed and lives to go to bed when the party ends.

Rygelsicle. At least he won't blow up.

Back in the B-plot on Moya, Aeryn has flash frozen Rygel to keep him from sweating - and frozen Rygel is pretty ugly and cute at the same time. After Aeryn accidentally breaks off one of Rygels frozen whiskers, Pilot suggests that Aeryn shouldn't touch any of Rygel's other protuberances. Umm, thanks Pilot. I suppose he is going for the title "Captain Obvious". Aeryn is frustrated, as she claims she has no affinity for science, turning to Pilot and insisting that he is more skilled at doing this sort of work than her, which brings a somewhat unexpected revelation: Pilot says that although he is the navigator of the ship, and responsible for maintaining all of its functions, he is not particularly good at scientific research. Pilot, via Moya, has access to large databases of scientific information, but admits that he is unable to understand more than a small fraction of it, illustrating the difference between cataloging and comprehending. This is an interesting revelation about Pilot's knowledge and also an important point in the developing relationship between Pilot and Aeryn, as he notes that he trusts her. And as Farscape is built on the personalities of the characters and more importantly on the relationships between the characters, this is one of the critical sequences in the episode. Punctuated by a few calls to Crichton for moral support of dubious quality, Aeryn tackles the problem, eventually figuring out what is causing Rygel's sweat and other bodily fluids to explode, but more importantly overcoming her hesitation about doing "tech" work. To a certain extent, this character development for Aeryn parallels the character development experienced by Rygel all the way back in I, E.T. where he had to overcome his fear of failure to help Moya except that this time it is Rygel in need of aid, and another individual must step out of their comfort zone to render it. Rygel later complains about Peacekeeper's being killers, which results in Aeryn snapping back that "a Peacekeeper saved your life". Maybe so, but on the run, and under the influence of her crew mates, Aeryn is becoming more than a Peacekeeper. One can only speculate what the Sebaceans could achieve if they were freed of their apparently harsh police state existence.

Look at my giant space turnip. Isn't it lovely?

Back on Skyara, Crichton wakes to the now familiar refrain that "this is the last day of the work cycle and tomorrow is a rest day". Seeking answers, he Shanghai's Tanga for a heart to heart conversation and discovers more about the tannot root: it was brought to Skyara from another world, its cultivation was forced upon the Skyarans, and they ship most of each crop off world twice a year. The root is apparently also destructive - whereas the Skyarans once planted a variety of crops and their world was a lush, green place, they now plant nothing by tannot and the world is slowly turning into a wasteland. When Crichton questions how Volmae could have allowed this to happen, Tanga points out that she is under directions from the outsiders, and she would be killed if she refused to obey. Despite being creepy and weird, it seems that Volmae is as much an enslaved victim as the rest of the populace. With the plot needing to move along, we get a scene between Volmae and Crichton where she escorts him through the warehouse district of Skyara. After asking him some questions about space, revealing her provincialism and the yearning to escape her dying world, Volmae reveals the vast storage area filled with tannot root and asks if Moya could carry it all. What she also inadvertently reveals is a huge collection of Peacekeeper banners, finally solving the mystery of exactly who the outsiders are who have imposed their will upon Skyara. Volmae demands that Rygel and Aeryn return to the planet and they commence loading Moya full of tannot, deducing that if the root has value to the outsiders, it must have value elsewhere. Despite her apparent dippiness, Volmae is at least a little bit clever.

Smile, we're arguing.

Crichton calls in the troops, bringing Aeryn and Rygel to the surface as Volmae asked. Once down, Crichton and Aeryn have an argument over how to handle the situation, but since they are both supposed to be under the influence of the tannot root, and therefore happy and cheerful they are forced to wear fake smiles through the altercation. In the end, Crichton's plan wins out, a plan which consists of taunting Volmae into the street and having Rygel pee explosive urine all over the place. And with that the A-plot and the B-plot come together: it turns out that tannot root is useful for making chakin oil, a necessary component of the ammunition for Peacekeeper pulse weapons, and coincidentally what Rygel's body naturally processed the tannot root he consumed into. So added to the list of strange elements of alien physiology we have the Hynerian quirk that when they consume tannot root their body makes rifle ammunition. Once Crichton presents this information to D'Argo and Zhaan, they immediately change their minds about staying, which is understandable. Volmae takes a little more convincing to persuade her that her plan of loading up Moya with as much tannot root as it can carry and zipping away is a poorly thought out one. Instead, Crichton offers her the much more insane plan of making weapons using tannot root and fighting the Peacekeepers, which Hybin endorses and Volmae signs up for.

Negotiation by means of explosive urination.

Having set the denizens of Skyara on a suicidal course for confrontation with the Peacekeepers, the crew of Moya return to their ship. Aeryn, exercising her freshly acquired medical skills removes the worm from Crichton. One question that pops to mind at this point is why Zhaan doesn't perform this procedure? Aeryn has demonstrated some skills in basic science, but she's still an amateur who was pressed into service by exigent circumstances. Zhaan, on the other hand, is an expert in this area. Having Aeryn do the work is more or less like having an EMT perform surgery when you have a surgeon on hand. EMTs are good at what they do, but when you have the expert you go with that option unless there's some compelling reason not to. In the course of her work, Aeryn expresses the opinion that she is not a scientist, but that she is, inf fact, superior to the other members of the crew.

And what is Zhaan doing while Aeryn is performing shuttle bay surgery? She's talking to D'Argo about his dreams. It seems that D'Argo harbored two dreams before his incarceration. In the first he was a warrior performing deeds worthy of memorializing in song. In the other he was a family man with a wife and children living a simple life. D'Argo confesses that Skyara was so attractive to him because he thought he might find a way to fulfill the second dream there. D'Argo also expresses that while on Skyara he felt an attraction for Zhaan, which she states that she would have reciprocated. She also consoles him saying that his dreams are not out of his reach. The interesting subtext here is that unknown to Zhaan or any of the other members of Moya's crew D'Argo already had fulfilled one of these dreams before he was imprisoned, and he will essentially fulfill the other before the end of the series. As usual, this episode of Farscape ends on a reflective note, building the relationship between Zhaan and D'Argo.

Viewed in the correct order, Thank God It's Friday . . . Again is a strong link in the chain of episodes developing the individual characters of Moya's crew and their web of interrelationships. Coming on the heels of the actual time looping in Back and Back and Back to the Future the false time looping makes for an interesting thematic contrast. When viewed in the correct order the reappearance of the Peacekeepers after two episodes in which they were absent makes the revelation of their banners in Volmae's stockpiled tannot root an unexpected development. But the bizarre reorganized order in which they shows were aired throws all of these elements away. Because I, E.T. was shown after this episode, all of the character development in this episode and all the previous ones evaporates and the characters go from working together more and more closely to acting like they don't know each other at all. And all of the character development in this episode between D'Argo and Zhaan which is reflected in their close working relationship in PK Tech Girl is wasted, because PK Tech Girl was aired before this episode. In short, by airing the episodes out of order, the SyFy network executives decided to make the early parts of the show make no sense. Aired in proper order this is an interesting and entertaining episode. Aired out of order, it is far less so.

Previous episode reviewed: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Subsequent episode reviewed: PK Tech Girl

Previous episode reviewed (airdate order): PK Tech Girl
Subsequent episode reviewed (airdate order): I, E.T.

Farscape, Season 1     Farscape     Television Reviews     Home

Follow Friday - Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses

It's Friday again, which means it's time for Follow Friday. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host (Parajunkee) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Ninja Girl from Ninja Girl Reads.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Circle time! It's circle time. Time for us to open up and share. Can you tell us FIVE quirky habits or things about you? We all have them . . .

1. I am ridiculously optimistic about my ability to get things done. As a result I usually take on more projects than I can possibly complete in a reasonable time frame. I know that I am too piled high with commitments already. And yet I continue to take on new ones. This may indicate that I am slightly insane. (By the way, sorry I have been so slow responding to your questions Logan, I will send you my answers soon. I promise).

2. I get so many periodicals (The Economist, National Geographic, Locus, Science News, Poets & Writers Magazine, Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Realms of Fantasy, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) that it is a constant struggle to keep up with reading them quickly enough to leave time to pare down my mammoth mountain of books in my "to-read" stack.

3. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my blog, but I am ridiculously verbose when I write. This is unintentional. Every time I sit down to write something I fully intend to write something short and quick, but as I work at it I always find I have just one more thing I want to say, and then one more, and then another. And then I find that I have written have six more paragraphs than I thought I was going to write. I know - its a sickness.

4. I don't like pickles. Any time I order food that has pickles on it, I give them to my wife, who loves pickles. But if she's not with me I will eat the pickle myself. At McDonalds, for example, I will take the pickles off of their burgers and eat them separately (so as not to ruin the enjoyment of the burger with pickle flavor). I paid for the pickle. I'm not going to throw it away. I'm going to eat it even though I don't like it. I'm weird like that.

5. Even though I am a huge science fiction and fantasy fan, I don't believe in the supernatural. At all. I know this makes me kind of a downer, but I simply don't believe that there are spirits living in your attic or there are angels guiding your destiny. I don't believe people have telepathic or telekinetic powers. I think con artists who claim to be able to contact the "other side" like John Edwards and Sylvia Brown are vile boils on the ass of humanity. I think the best way to tell of a self-professed psychic is lying is to check to see if their lips are moving. I really don't believe that there are sexy shirtless vampires brooding over their lost humanity and wondering whether to ask you to be their girlfriend. Sorry.

Go to previous Follow Friday: Seventeen Is a Prime Number
Go to subsequent Follow Friday: Does Anyone Else Remember the Song "Nineteen"?

Follow Friday     Home