July 2021 SideTrekked

 A publication of Science Fiction London - 2

Issue #64

SideTrekked is the official journal of Science Fiction London

ISSN 0715-3007

Science Fiction London meets in London, Ontario, Canada www.sflondon.ca [email protected]

The front cover image was created by tonobalageur and the closing cover image was created by 3dsculptor. Both were obtained via www.123rf.com

The logo on page 8 was designed by Ana Tirolese

The image on page 12 was created by Robert Walsh

This edition was edited by Stephanie Hanna and Mark C. Ambrogio 3

Book Review: Daphne du Maurier’s The House on the Strand

The House on the Strand, a novel Daphne du Maurier, author Victor Gollancz, 1969 Kobo Edition: Little, Brown Book Group, 2012

Daphne du Maurier is probably best known for her gothic and haunting Rebecca (1938), a novel which has remained in print for decades and been adapted multiple times for film and stage. Many of du Maurier’s other novels, such as Jamaica Inn (1936), Frenchman’s Creek (1941), My Cousin Rachel (1951), and The Scapegoat (1957) have also received film or stage adaptations. The House on the Strand, first published in 1969, is somewhat less well known among du Maurier’s works, but might be of interest to SideTrekked readers, since it displays not only du Maurier’s notable grasp on character and suspenseful pacing, but also an interesting (if fairly light on the science) foray into science fiction.

The novel follows our narrator, Dick, who is spending the summer in Cornwall, at a home belonging to his friend Magnus. Dick is a bit adrift in life at the moment that readers first meet him. He is between jobs, and his wife of three years, an American, is trying to convince him to leave England and take a position in her brother’s New York publishing firm, a prospect Dick doesn’t seem to relish.

Magnus’ offer of the use of his Cornish home for the summer seems like a much- needed reprieve. But Dick’s relationship with Magnus, dating back to their school days, is complicated, and Magnus’ offer turns out to come with some strings attached.

Magnus is brilliant, a professor of biophysics, and he’s been working on a new experimental drug, one he would like Dick to try out during his holiday stay. When Dick (who is, perhaps, not the world’s best decision maker) agrees to try a dose of Magnus’ new invention, he finds himself in the same place but in a different time. Suddenly, the world Dick sees around him is that of the fourteenth century. Dick can watch the lives of those who inhabited the area long before his own time, and gain a fascinating glimpse into their world. He quickly discovers, though, that he cannot interact with that world. While his mind roams around a Cornwall of a previous era, his body remains firmly in the twentieth century. He can observe the world of the past, but he’s relegated to the status of an observer, with no power to act or change things. 4

Daphne du Maurier; 1907 - 1989

As Dick tries Magnus’ drug again and again over the days and weeks that follow, returning repeatedly to the fourteenth century, he becomes increasingly drawn to those living in the past and less and less interested in returning to and living in his own time. While life in Cornwall’s past was difficult and dangerous, it was also simpler and somehow more vivid than the twentieth century life in which Dick feels increasingly unhappy and trapped. And as Dick’s obsession with his time in the past grows, his life in the present starts to unravel.

The House on the Strand is an interesting blend of historic and science fiction, and it presents a captivating world and story while grappling with issues of psychology and addiction, the complexity of human relationships, the struggles of modern life, and the problems that have stayed with us through the centuries.

- Stephanie Hanna 5

An Analysis of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed: Part One

The Dispossessed, a novel Ursula K. Le Guin, author Avon Books / Harper & Row, 1974

Some context

So far, SFL has covered Ursula K. Le Guin's classic novel The Dispossessed twice: once in 1990 and, more recently, at our October 2020 meeting, at which yours truly presented.

An author of wide acclaim, Le Guin (1929–2018) won the Gandalf Grand Master Award by the World Science Fantasy Society in 1979; won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1995; and in 2003 was named the 20th Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America – in addition to many other awards and prizes for specific novels.

Published in 1974, The Dispossessed was released not too long before some of those lofty awards were named, doubtless helping to shape the favourable regard with which her corpus was regarded. Along with The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969, The Dispossessed is one of two seminal novels in her Hainish Cycle – a long-term creative project (or, to put it Biblically – a series of smaller projects) that is quite distinct from a series.

Readers are accustomed to the traditional linear sequence of a series. For science fiction fans, a relatively recent example – and one that garnered mainstream attention – would be The Hunger Games series of novels and films. Published in 2008, the first novel in the series was appropriately named The Hunger Games. This was followed, shortly thereafter, by Catching Fire, published in 2009. And then, without missing a beat, came Mockingjay, in 2010. Each of these novels had a film interpretation released, of the same name – except for Mockingjay, for which two films were released. These films were released between 2012 and 2015. More recently, a prequel was published in 2020, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Most properly, if one wanted to take a “deep dive” into The Hunger Games world, one would read each novel sequentially and then, if still wanting more, one would read the prequel. And, of course, watching the corresponding films, along the way. A slightly heterodox reader may read the prequel first, before the trilogy itself – an approach for which there would be some merit. Otherwise, though, the order of the series would need to be respected, for it to be appreciated. 6

Such is not the case with Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle. Although there are connections between each novel in that cycle (referring to some common fictional elements), they may also be read independently – hence the use of the term cycle, rather than series. Therefore, this analysis of The Dispossessed will focus on this novel as its own work, without referencing the broader Cycle.

The beginning: setting

On the first pages of The Dispossessed, readers are shown very simple images of two planets: Annares and Urras. An impatient reader would want to know why – what is the significance of two planets? Why two? How do they relate? A more patient approach would be required, as Le Guin teases out the images a little more slowly and thoughtfully; otherwise, what would be the point of the novel in the first place, if everything is explained to us all at the start? Instead, Le Guin asks us to explore, along with the novel's characters.

Before exploring, though, one must first orient oneself, which is what Le Guin invites us to do. If one is walking through the crowded basement of a house – imagine being surrounded by boxes of old books and worn clothes – when the power and lights go off, one will want to first orient oneself. What is around me? And then, when one has one's bearings, one can start to walk towards the stairs and ascend them towards light, assuming it is daytime. That is what happens on page one; however, instead of old boxes in a basement, Le Guin shows us a wall:

“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it.” (page one)

So, we are shown what sounds like a simple wall, one that could be easily traversed, such that in some spots, the wall is even more notional than it is physical:

“Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of a boundary.”

At this point, the reader may assume that what is being described (this wall, this boundary) may not be of too much importance; otherwise, why have a wall if one could easily step over it, or simply walk over a line?

Such is not the case, though, Le Guin tells us:

“But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall.” 7

So, we are shown a wall that could be easily traversed, as if the demarcation was a pure formality, but whose existence is important (very important!), suggesting that it is not normally crossed – or at least not casually.

One may ask if the wall is there to keep others out, or if it is there to keep those on the inside in. Either / both, suggests Le Guin:

“Like all walls, it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.”

At this point, readers may wonder what, exactly, Le Guin is saying, but with some patience a reader will see the profundity in what is gently being teased out. We learn that the wall “enclosed a barren sixty-acre field called the Port of Anarres.” And from the opening images, we learn that there are two planets – Anarres and Urras.

Cover of the 1974 Avon Books edition 8

Logically, therefore, we are on Anarres. And the name of this port “the Port of Anarres” (emphasis added) suggests it is the only point of entry or departure from Anarres; otherwise, there may be a Northern Port, or a Southern Port – or some other way of describing a specific port, to distinguish this port from the others. But there is just one port – a walled-off port.

Le Guin suggests that for the people of Anarres, the wall keeps the outside world away from them: “It enclosed the universe, leaving Anarres outside, free.” (page two)

For those outside of Anarres, though (the people of Urras?) the wall serves a whole other purpose, keeping Anarres isolated, suggesting that it (the wall) could be “looked at from the other side,” rendering Anarres “a great prison camp.”

Thus far, Le Guin has not so much recounted facts (i.e., “Anarres has a population of ____;” “Urras has a square mass of ___”), as she has shared qualities and hinted at perspectives. This may not be as precise a way of introducing two separate but connected planets as some may want, but the reader learns more this way than had they been given facts without context, suggesting that meaning and impression may tell us plenty. At least in the beginning.

- Mark C. Ambrogio 9

From the Archives: SFL’s topics from 1991

Here are the list of topics that Science Fiction London (SFL) covered thirty years ago, in 1991.

January:

Shadow of the Torturer; a novel by Gene Wolfe, published in 1980

February:

Robot Dreams; an anthology of short stories, by Isaac Asimov, published in 1986

March:

Brain Wave; a novel, by Paul Anderson, published in 1954

April:

Folk of the Fringe; an anthology of short stories, by Orson Scott Card, published in 1989

May:

Pavane; a novel, by Keith Roberts, published in 1968

June:

Nightfall; a film, directed by Paul Mayersburg

July: planning meeting

August:

“The Last Thrilling Wonder Story;” a short story, by Gene Wolfe, published in his 1989 anthology Endangered Species 10

September:

Solaris; a novel, by Stanislaw Lem, published in 1961

October:

When Gravity Falls; a novel, by George Alec Effinger, published in 1986

November:

Gulliver’s Travels; a novel, by Jonathan Swift, published in 1726

December:

The Void Captain’s Tale; a novel by Norman Spinrad, published in 1983

With thanks to all who helped maintain SFL’s list of past meeting topics; including Rebecca Senese, Joe Belliveau, and Reinhardt Christiansen.

Ron, Jennifer, Afsha, Josie, & Albert November 2020 meeting - continuing to enjoy the “Halloween spirit” (others attended remotely) 11

Wren’s Alibis (beware)

Editors’ note: the following expository text and the video (see the link following) are a creative project by one of SFL’s members.

If our ancestors hadn’t laid the groundwork on this planet, from the war hundreds of millions of years ago, cleaning out the other races, who had wanted these resources for their own, we would have been crowded out. These slaves would all be taken, by someone else’s programming.

If only it hadn’t been a suicide mission, the victorious dying at their own hands, in the aftermath of the bomb that it took to wipe out all contenders for the throne and leave the landscape looking not worth the trouble of sending further scouts into it, for a very long time after the chemical sluice had cleared. There would have been nobody here but ourselves.

Ha-ha! You make no jest. And what a chance discovery it was that the life they call bracket and fungal, and plant could be so hardy, as to reinstate itself. One wouldn’t have suspected.

The neurology of the root bearing ones is, if not the most flexible, or fast, very conveniently interspecieal in its reach and, though not very forceful on its own, much more predictable and submissive than the fungi.

Yes, and the rise of animal life, another surprise, we found out about here, 250 millennia back, during another emergency stop in the middle of the third galaxial disagreement, over free trade and the genetic revolution. But none of us could have imagined the variety that would eventually come from this very lucrative hunting planet.

Not even you?

Well, now. I fancied, a little, then.

No, you know everything, my most amazing, most vital, program coordinator. There are none like you, anywhere. You surpass all imagination.

Good. You see as I see, what I want you to. So, tell me, how is the work, so far? Have the greening alternative intellects been accommodating our new mosquito electrical impulses, and to our experimental programming from the sedentary generator?

Yes, the dead will dance tonight, in celebration of the dawning of our new day! Come into the primary lab, my beloved general. See for yourself, how well they get along. The soft green ones, they even repel our engine’s enforced tensions, 12 which is inconvenient, of course, but very easily remedied. Oh, and thrilling. Who would have thought?

Well, no one, not our own, at any rate, had you not stepped up the juice, and will the wonders never cease? Hurrah! We’ll have to hurry though, there are still others sending scouts down from year to year. If we don’t follow through, they’ll be clouding the sky.

What do you plan to do?

I’m going to broadcast a television program, reality tv. The slave race will watch slaves interact, under our high beam influence. One by one, we will collect a global nation of soldiers, loyal to my, as of yet unnamed, corporation. Help me think of a name, one that flies under the radar well, and we’ll start connecting these newly programmed communication roots to the web-wires! Can you tell one of the plants to create an advertisement for me? We can start with a portrayal of the slave culture youth, writing love letters to one another, and poems, to celebrate the things they think life and death are for.

And video clips of our crew above ground.

Whatever it takes. https://youtu.be/cU7hKwpt7J4

- Jennifer Wren

13

Star Trek: Discovering Discovery

(originally posted online at Everything2.com)

Star Trek: Discovery, a TV series Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, creators Paramount/CBS, 2017 – present

Star Trek has spawned numerous spin-offs and continues to be popular with a diverse audience. Despite many of its underlying concepts being rooted in the mid-1960s and a continuity that has experienced numerous revisions and re- envisionings, it remains one of the most successful SF franchises of all time.

In 2005, Star Trek: Enterprise ended a problematic but successful run. A new series of movies began in 2009. These action-oriented films take place in an alternate timeline, and do not directly affect the rest of the franchise. For several years, fans had no licensed dramatic presentations that took place in the canonical universe or connected definitively to the Star Trek they knew and loved.

In 2017, Paramount released Star Trek: Discovery. It drew new viewers and divided old ones. As of this writing, it is poised to begin its fourth season, and thus will last longer than the iconic original show. 14

The first season showed the kind of representative cast that the original series only hinted at and showcased production and effects about which previous shows could only dream. It also took on a more contemporary sensibility, with a less cohesive crew than we’ve seen in the past. (They also use swear words).

The show takes place about a decade before the original series, at a time when the Enterprise was already flying under Captain Kirk’s predecessor, Christopher Pike. The Federation may be boldly going, but the Klingon Empire wants war.

Although it’s fair to say the show features an ensemble cast, the stories (and much of the cosmos, it would seem) often centre on someone other than the captain: Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), a human raised on Vulcan as Spock’s hitherto-unmentioned adopted sister. Other characters include Doug Jones as a rather fascinating alien named Saru, the problematic first captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Issacs), Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts), Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo), Gen Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon), R.A. Bryce (Ronnie Rowe), Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), Nahn (Rachael Ancheril), Airiam (played by both Sara Mitich and Hannah Cheesman), and the enigmatic Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh).

Not everyone would make it through the series.

Season One: Growing Pains

Some people took to the show immediately. It grew on others. A sizable faction, however, immediately rejected it, often rallying around Seth MacFarlane’s Trek tribute series, The Orville, as the true successor to Gene Roddenberry’s vision.

Complaints fell into four broad categories:

1. Aspects which reasonably might be regarded as flaws and missteps. 2. Aspects that contradicted established Trek canon and expectations. 3. Aspects that intentionally contradicted established canon and expectations, and were actually clues to mysteries that were a part of the first season’s story arc. 4. Whiny rants about “teh SJWs” taking over Trek. 15

I will attempt to address each, briefly:

1. The characters, in particular, experience growing pains, and it was hard, initially, to like anyone. Ensign Tilly, written as socially awkward, initially comes off as annoying, and not someone you’d want on a starship. The tensions created on the ship by certain aspects addressed under #2, meanwhile, also created problems. Burnham, meanwhile, commits mutiny, plays no small role in starting a war, and still gets reinstated.

2. The show takes place at the same time as the Christopher Pike Enterprise, yet the design of the uniforms and ships does not match. We see advanced holographic and robotics technology beyond anything evident in the original series, and it gets used routinely on board. Discovery has an experimental drive based on, uh, space fungus and tardigrades, that works far better than anything we’ve seen, even in spin-offs set generations later. The Klingons receive yet another redesign: hairless, with more prosthetics and skin-colors than previous incarnations.1 Burnham has her strong familial connection to Spock that, apparently, no one felt the need to mention in any of his appearances. Fan favorite Harry Mudd turns up, retroactively a vicious and nearly-psychopathic criminal instead of the comic relief grifter depicted previously. Some changes in design and sensibility reflect the era in which the show is made, and make sense when viewed in this way. Other changes occur for no intrinsic reason. The revised appearance of the Klingons and the uniforms, for example, baffled long-time fans without adding anything.

3. Several characters act in off-putting ways, not suited to Starfleet officers. I don’t want to give spoilers. We’re supposed to notice these things. The story’s planned twists address these matters. However, they tried the patience of fans who hadn’t seen a new Trek series in a while, and wanted Federation heroes boldly going and upholding the show’s values. Those who stayed with the show at least saw some complex plotting beyond anything even arc-heavy Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had attempted.

4. Women and men received equal representation, and we saw greater diversity than in past series. At the same time, of the most prominent white men, one was a complete jackass (see point #3), a second behaved suspiciously (see point #3 again), and a third had a husband (some fans could apparently accept aliens but not queer folk). The main character, a Black woman, was a wild card with a male name. 16

Viewers convinced that Social Justice Warriors and "wokeism" are the root of all evil clutched pearls, especially online. Manly heterosexual pearls, of course.

The first season ended better than it had started, but I would have to call it, at best, uneven. The series fired its showrunners after one year, replacing them with Alex Kurtzman.

The show also birthed Short Treks, a fascinating, ongoing series of stand-alone stories set throughout the Trek-iverse. Many of these tied in directly with Discovery; others did not. That series has several advantages. The episodes are short and, so long as one has some acquaintance with Star Trek or at least SF concepts, they need not worry about the time-commitment. Since the stories often focus on original or secondary/tertiary characters, outcomes remain uncertain. It remains one of the more original things Trek has done.

Alex Kurtzman

Season Two: Boldly Going

The second season features some essentially stand-alone episodes with conventional Star Trek plots. It spends a good deal of time, however, on a story arc involving Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck) and a strange angel-like figure, and addressing retroactive continuity. It also includes guest appearances by the U.S.S. Enterprise, then under the command of Christopher Pike. Anson Mount plays Pike to perfection; Rebecca Romijn plays his "Number One" and the pair demonstrate exactly the chemistry one would want between a Captain and Second-in-command.

Along the way they address several continuity issues. It turns out that the Enterprise, being a flagship, received the new uniform design ahead of others, 17 which is why the Pike-era crew wears familiar TOS uniforms while everyone else has the ones created for Discovery.2 The Klingons of the era shaved before going to war, and are now regrowing their hair. Complications caused by the elaborate holo-system lead to the Enterprise deactivating their version of it, some years before Kirk takes the bridge. The Discovery’s unique drive and the crew’s involvement in certain activities has to be kept a secret for specific reasons, and the ship itself goes missing in time at the season’s end.

New characters include comic and actor Tig Notaro as Jett Reno. Sara Mitich returns in a new role (one requiring far less make-up), Nilsson. David Benjamin Tomlinson begins turning up as a Saurian named Linus.

The pre-Kirk Enterprise crew, meanwhile, proved so popular that Paramount greenlit their own series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Delayed by the COVID- 19 pandemic, it hopefully will fulfill the interest of many fans, whether pro- or anti-Discovery, who would prefer to watch the retro-futuristic voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Bryan Fuller

Season Three: Back to the Future

Many people had complained that the original season might have made more sense if set in the future of Trek, rather than pre-Kirk. Season Three pushes them into the far future, post-Federation. Earth has become an insular backwater. An alliance of Andorians and Orions holds considerable power. Complex holographic technology may be found everywhere but dilithium crystals are rare, limiting transwarp travel. The crew of the Discovery takes a lead in reuniting the Federation, thus revisiting the premise of Gene Roddenberry’s other space- exploration series, Andromeda. The changes provide a stage to space frontier 18 adventures more typical of Star Wars, but underpinned by the ethics of the original Star Trek. New characters include David Ajala as Cleveland "Book" Booker, Blu del Barrio as non-binary Adira Tal, and director David Cronenberg as the mysterious Kovich.

The third season has its flaws, but it works better than the first two. What Season Four will do remains, as of this writing, unknown, though -- if continuity counts -- we know from Short Treks that the Discovery will end its voyage at some point in this distant future.

1. The show’s limited budget is the reason why Klingons exist at all. "Errand of Mercy," their first appearance, allegedly had been conceived as a Romulan episode, and it certainly plays like one. However, the first season’s budget, already stretched, could not easily accommodate the make-up for quite so many Romulans. They decided on another race who would just look kind of "Oriental." John Colicos, who played Klingon governor Kor suggested they be made to look like alien versions of Ghenghis Khan and the Mongols. Later incarnations added the forehead ridges and gave the Klingons a preference for heavy metal biker hair. That look defined the race; when Kor and other TOS Klingons turned up in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, they had bumpy foreheads and Steppenwolf coiffures. Discovery’s redesign, given that it takes place a short time before the original series, seems utterly bizarre. Allegedly, intervention by corporate higher-ups mandated that the show look less like the original series to avoid “brand confusion.” They also insisted the Klingons look more alien. (Information for this footnote comes from the Orion Press fanzine, Matthew Kadish’s “Star Trek’s Civil War: How Infighting, Corporate Rivalry & Incompetence is Destroying the Franchise,” and conversations with Larry Nemecek).

2. Fans love to nitpick, and who am I to ignore tradition? They still got the uniforms wrong, and not because of the slight redesign to better reflect the show’s twenty-first-century visual style. They got them wrong because they based them on the familiar TOS uniforms. However, as all fans know, the familiar TOS crew’s first appearance in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and the flashback to the Pike-era Enterprise in "The Menagerie" both use a noticeably different design. Properly, they should have based Pike and crew’s uniforms on those. https://www.youtube.com/user/Potemkin1711/videos

- JD DeLuzio