I think I learnt my morals from sci-fi...

The last few days haven't really been much fun. I've been wrestling with the unpleasant situation two of my closest friends have put me in and it's made me realise a lot of things not only about them but about myself too.

Friend one is my flatmate and closest friend. Friend two is a fairly new friend but also close. Friend one and friend two have hooked up on a couple of occasions now. Not a problem. Except friend two has a girlfriend already and friend one knows this. Yet she's let this continue knowing full well that friend two is unavailable. Not cool, I said. Not cool at all.

I don't want to bore you with any more detail (there's a lot of detail). My main problem with this is the cheating bit. Yep, it makes me pretty angry. Not "Hulk smash!" angry. But angry enough. And the reason for this? They don't really see too much of an issue with it. And don't really want to do much about it.

This all led to a big argument between me and friend one. I mean an hours-long argument. It sucked but did make me realise how different my morals are from other people's. Especially friend one's morals as it turned out. And I came to a conclusion as to why this might be. I seemed to have learnt my morals from sci-fi.

I tend to see things in a very black and white way. Right and wrong. If you doing something right - YAY, the Earth/universe is safe again! If you do something wrong, you need to fix it. If you've wronged someone, you need to fix things with them, either with the truth or by finding some way to right it. These are simple rules and if you look at a lot of sci-fi this is what you see. Even if the righting part isn't easy or means some sort of self-sacrifice. In Stargate, the main characters are forever sacrificing themselves so the world can stay saved. In Star Trek, Janeway enforces the Prime Directive even when her crew is thousands of light-years away from the Federation. In comics, superheroes stand for everything that is right and yes they get it wrong sometimes but they will always endeavour to right that wrong. In Doctor Who, the Doctor is always urging us to do the right thing.

So I guess my question is, why is it so wrong to think like this? Why can't we apply these kind of rules and morals to our real lives? People will say that things aren't as simple as that, that you can't be that naive but I say why not? If you do something to hurt someone, make it up to them. Be honest as much as possible. Don't intentionally set out to hurt people in the first place.

Of course we always have our morally questionable heroes in sci-fi - Mal Reynolds for one. But isn't he always as honourable as he can be? He does bad things but he either rights that wrong or owns up to it. The example that's really sticking in my head at the moment is Kara and Lee in Battlestar Galactica. We are desperate to see them get together but when they eventually do get some action it's when Kara and Sam are together and Dee and Lee are too. So they are both cheating. Is it ok for them to be together because we know they're in love? No is the short answer but we're happy for them none the less. Until Kara gets an attack of conscience and runs off and marries Sam. She does the right thing so I'm happy for her, there's even a bit of sacrifice we all know it's wrong for her and Lee. But it doesn't stop there, they carry on cheating until it comes to the point of them needing to leave their partners to continue their relationship guilt free. Things do stop though when Kara admits she doesn't believe in divorce and Lee won't cheat on his wife anymore. We want them to get together but understand that their morals won't let them. And let's face it, BSG was about the best sci-fi show around for showing humanity in all its glory. Or not.

This question obviously extends into other areas as well, not least religion. And it has been dealt with in various ways but that's not my point.

I want to know why friend number one thought I was being judgmental for thinking about what they'd done by my own set of morals. I think I was waiting for some sort of reaction from them that would show me that they regretted what they'd done and had realised what a horrible thing it was. But I haven't got that reaction from either of them. And because of this, my view of them both and their morals has shifted. Probably towards the worse. 

I'm sorry for the ramble but I needed to say this. I will continue to try and do the right thing in my life. I hope you do to.

Spinward Fringe and a New Tattoo.

I bit the bullet. I was so taken with the kodama tattoo idea that I went ahead and did it. Here's the result:

I'm really happy with it and think it's very very cute. This one hurt a lot more than my previous one. There were points when I was very glad I was lying down. The after care is a bit more awkward with this one as well. I had some funny incidents today at work when I was sat with my trouser leg rolled up and various people walked into the office. I can't say that the placement of the little guy was my idea. It came from an image I saw on Google so all credit goes to whoever put that up. Yay!

I wanted to write a little bit today about a series of books that I've been reading for about a year. They're called Spinward Fringe (there's a blogspot here) and are written by an author going by the name of Randolph Lalonde. If that's his actual name then I am seriously impressed. The books are all available for a very low price on most e-readers and some of them are available in print but cost a lot more. The first three books are free as the collection "Origins". The series then goes on as Broadcasts 1,2,3... up to 6. The books are in sub-trilogies as well. I'm currently (very eagerly) waiting on Broadcast 7 which wraps up the Rogue Element Trilogy. The interesting thing about this series is that they have been pretty much only published off the author's own back. And they have been consistently on the sci-fi top-sellers list on Amazon.

As books they are seriously addictive. I gobbled them up as quickly as I could when I first read them. The plot whisks you along quickly from book to book and before you know it you're at the end waiting for the next book. Like I've been for the last year. The characters are engaging and well written, with a strong leader in Jonas Valent and enough love interests and character interaction to keep everyone happy. The baddies are bad and the goodies are ultimately good but not without a few moral wobbles along the way. The sci-fi aspect is pretty standard with bits and pieces inspired from various other movies, TV series etc etc. But in a good way, they're not copied, they're just made use of in the background to enhance the action.

I think the thing I really enjoy about this series is the normality of parts of it. There are some lovely stretches of the books where the crew is training or building up a new ship. These are the bits that get glossed over in series or films. But because they're books, we get to see all the day to day stuff; where the characters sleep, how they work together, how they relax together. I miss these scenes in TV series and films. It's almost as if these bits are fanfic of the main story. We get to see couples yelling at each other, making mistakes and living. The characters aren't perfect heroes and they don't always behave how the stereotypical characters in some shows or films do. They feel very real to me and I love them for that. I love Ayan's intelligence, I relish all the fights between Stephanie and Frost and the build up of Laura and Jason's relationship. There are some HUGE twists as well. You are always kept guessing.

This series proves what can be done when someone is truly talented but maybe hasn't quite been found by the big publishers yet. The rise of e-readers has something to do with it. The internet a lot to do with it. But it's wonderful none the less. Some of the production value is lost yes, but the fact that the author can keep writing these books is fantastic. It would take a lot for me to stop reading them, even the occasional spelling and formatting error haven't put me off.

The books are easy to read and follow. There are a few big issues raised but they don't quite hit you in the face like in some other sci-fi series. They're there if you go looking; corporate greed, what counts as human and the question of artificial intelligences, but you don't need to think about them if all you're looking for is a good story. And a good story it is.

The Dreaded Fanfic Rewrite...

The time has come for me to stop avoiding the task of rewriting my first fanfic. Granted I've only written 3 so far and first stories are never meant to be good, but I got to the point where I couldn't bear to have it against my name (or pseudonym). So I removed it from fanfic.net (shameless plug, sorry) and decided that I wouldn't repost it until I was happy with it. This has turned out to be an epic feat of procrastination - I was a student just last year - and it seems I haven't lost any of my skill in its practice. I've been through the story and marked the bits that need work which is the easy part. It ranges from odd words here and there to huge great swathes of prose and plot points that are disastrous. I wrote it with a vague idea of where I wanted the plot to go and from there wrote chapters at a time. This led to some 'interesting' situations with massive errors that I made in one chapter and having to rectify them desperately in the next chapter. It wasn't pleasant and meant that I have always researched EVERYTHING that I use in a story since. Thankfully the person who had noticed a massive mistake I'd made in the background to the story was kind enough to PM me about it rather than writing it on the reviews page, for once my embarrassment was avoided in public.

My idea is to work round these points and work some things into the story in a slightly different way. There are also some character points that need work. It's an interesting aspect of fanfic writing - do you write it all beforehand and post periodically or do you wait to see people's reactions and ideas in order to continue the story? For me, I wasn't sure people were even going to read my story and to be honest I really didn't know where it was really headed. I knew what I wanted to achieve with it but getting there was a whole other ball game.

I was watching the first show of Sword and Laser on the Geek and Sundry channel on YouTube this afternoon (really fun and light-hearted show about sci-fi and fantasy books) and the author Scott Siegler they were interviewing was discussing his new book. He'd originally released it as a chaptered podcast and written it week to week. He said he really enjoyed going back and working all of story into a novel as it allowed him to write in a load more foreshadowing and to play with the plot. I immediately thought of my rewrite and how it would let me tweak until I was really happy with it. If, I can move my ass into gear to DO it! The trouble is I'm not quite sure just yet how to tweak it. I'm still really happy with the length and the general feel of it (vague points I know but there has to be something positive right?) but the characterisation and background just isn't quite there and I think I'm waiting around for inspiration to strike. Which might not ever happen. Guh. But then I'm waiting to do this to get my juices flowing to write my next fic as the muse (as they say) is being particularly churlish and uncooperative at the moment. It's a vicious circle.

So I think I've said about as much as I can for this procrastination effort. I'm going to write now. Honest. Right now. This minute.




Oh look something shiny...



Frak.

Robocop!

Haha, that title makes it sound like a musical. "Robocop!" coming soon to a theatre near you...

I went to an Edinburgh Science Festival event last night which was a screening of the '80s classic "Robocop". There was a short Q&A session before with a science fiction writer called Justina Robson. I personally had never seen this film before so I was quite curious.

The atmosphere was great when we walked into the cinema, the Filmhouse in Edinburgh is great for stuff like this, the old-style screens are wonderful. Plus the fact that you can take alcohol in is always a plus.

It was so much fun. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. I mean, up until about 2 hours before we went I was sure that it was Arnie who was in it. The blood and guts was great with so much sugar syrup. I was also really impressed with the make-up - even with the resolution of a modern projection system the make up for Murphy still held up to scrutiny. The moment when the baddy had his arm blown off didn't though. There was some serious arm pumping = arterial fountain of blood. Still we were all laughing so much by this point it didn't matter. Another interesting thing to see was some stop motion animation. The robot that tries to take down Robocop was animated this way and it was a little jarring but surprisingly, looked kind of wonderful. There were lots of intricate bits that were working in unison on the model. The stop motion used at the end for a certain character's death however did not look good, and earned a huge cheer and clapping from the audience.

My friends and I were a little baffled by how they were going to have a discussion about the human/cyborg issue as the plot isn't the most complex (neither are the characters) but I guess it does deal with some interesting issues in terms of (and my English lit teacher will be so proud of me for this) man's inhumanity to man. The baddies are completely ruthless and there are a lot of times when people die and other, supposedly, normal people really aren't that fussed. Is this the future we're heading for? But we do see a nice turnaround when the police start standing up for Robocop when he's being attacked by the hit squad. That scene is interesting for me too in that as soon as we get a glimpse of Murphy's eye under the vizor of his helmet, we immediately start feeling sympathy for him and scared for him. Before that point he is just a cyborg, we struggle to see the humanity or something we recognise about ourselves in him. As Justina Robson pointed out before the film started, there is a fantastic scene where Murphy takes off the vizor to reveal what's underneath and Lewis (his female partner) doesn't flinch or shy away as his face is revealed. She just sees him and the humanity that his face represents.

Speaking of Lewis, she is one kick ass female character! And we all know how I feel about strong female leads! She is defeminised a lot in this film, made to seem like one of the boys in the precinct but she is wonderfully strong and funny. Most of the female characters in the film are either whores, winos, horrendously vacuous or working for the baddies - something else that Justina pointed out. At the beginning of the film she is the hard, slightly cynical one out of herself and Murphy (who's optimistic and cares for his family hugely) but by the end he is the one devoid of emotion and she is the one who cares for him and looks out for him. For me, that character development is wonderful.

So I think I've prattled on long enough. It really was a lot of fun to watch, it would be great to watch more films like this in a cinema with an audience, it really adds a lot to the experience, I would recommend it to anyone if they get the chance. My friend and I were saying it would be fantastic to watch "Alien" in a setting like that. Watch this space...

Hunger Games and New Tattoos

I finally got to see the Hunger Games last week which was as good if not better than I was expecting. I would even go as far as to say I thought it was better than the book. Shall I explain why?

For me, the book came across as typical teen-fic/angst fare. Let me be clear, this is not a bad thing. But sometimes it feels a little bit like fanfic where two characters are kind of forced together. In the book, there is a huge emphasis placed on how Katniss feels about Peeta (and Gale). This is understandable after the author decided to go with the first person present perspective. What the film allows for is room for the themes and societal injustices to come through. For me, in the book, their relationship was cloying, it was too much and overshadowed everything else that Katniss should have been feeling going into the Games. Jennifer Lawrence, in the film, allows the other fears Katniss has to come to the fore; will Gale be able to look after Prim, what will happen when she enters the Games, etc etc. The particular scene that has stuck with me since seeing the film is when she sees Cinna for the last time before entering the arena. You could see her physically shaking and there was no other indication of her fear but that action struck me as being more powerful than anything she could have said.

The themes raised by the books are valid ones, of course they are. BUT, the teen angst present in the books swamps these themes, making them seem trivial in comparison to the romantic feelings that Katniss is struggling with. Using the medium of film, the audience can see the backdrop more prominently to the Games. The massive social inequality, the ridiculous lives of the people of the Capital and the true ruthlessness of the President.

I thought the acting in general was fantastic. Jennifer Lawrence was the epitome of Katniss. She was stronger if anything, she didn't seem to have the self-doubt that troubles Katniss through the book but I think that's probably because we don't get the inner monologue present in the book.

There was one bit that had me lol-ing though (and I wasn't the only one in the cinema); when Katniss decides to find Peeta, she finds him "camou-ed" up and hiding in the stream, which should be quite a touching reunion, except the make-up is hilarious. I audibly snorted in the cinema earning myself some rather unhappy looks from the nearest fangirls. No disrespect to my own kind of course. Further to this incident I refer you to this meme.

Leaving The Hunger Games on a light note...

I've been starting to think about getting another tattoo. I got my first one a few months ago and it's very small:

But I'm really happy with it. I got the symbol for infinity as a reminder to myself of infinite possibilities and that I can do anything I put my mind to. Also it's nice and geeky although I'm starting to get sick of all the people who ask me what the number 8 means to me...

Anyway, I've been thinking for a while about another tattoo on my other wrist. As I may have mentioned before, one of my favourite books is "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. After finishing the book, I couldn't get the image of Easter's tattoo out of my head. She has a tattoo bracelet of forget-me-nots on her wrist and I love this idea. Of course in the book it's ironic, because she's the god that is almost forgotten, overshadowed by the Jesus fest that goes on in Spring. I was looking into the roots of the word 'easter' and found out that it comes from the Germanic god of fertility and spring. She was worshipped as she brought new life and vitality in the springtime. i.e. eggs and baby cute things. It's really funny that it should have been smushed together with the religious symbolism. Easter really is the most mixed up holiday there is. Anyway, after looking into this a bit more, it really cemented my thoughts on getting this tattoo as I know it will remind me of this kind of symbolism (fertility, rebirth and life NOT the religious zombie stuff) as well as the wonderfulnous that is the Gaiman. So without further ado I give you the rough design I drew a couple of weeks ago:

I would prefer the blue to be more like this but I didn't have a pen that was the right colour. I'm not sure when I'll have the nerve to do it. Or the money for that matter, but I'm hoping it will be soon. It's going to be very visible which is my main issue, I need to get over the fact that my parents/grandparents/possible employers will be able to see it.

On top of this idea, I was watching Princess Mononoke today (go and see it NOW, it's wonderful and beautiful and great in general) and I got the idea that the little 'kodama' spirits would make a very cute tattoo too.

So that might happen too. This tattoo thing is horribly addictive.

That's it for now I think. I might try and post on a more regular basis but my travel planning is stepping up so I might not have the time. I hope people enjoy these rambles. I do.

The Gorn, Spiderman shower puffs and Doctor Who Monopoly.

I wanted to write a quick piece about a few things that have happened over the last couple of weeks. I feel like I should be writing more but I seem to barely be finding time to myself at the moment. But that's boring - on to more interesting things!

It was my birthday last week and my friends, as usual, came up trumps with the geeky stash. Over the past few years I have received David Tennant as Doctor Who posters, Star Trek (TOS) keyrings and many other exciting things. This year I got my very first Star Trek TNG comic.

As you can see it's a late TNG storyline. It's set before Nemesis as far as I could tell because Data was present. I don't read a lot of comics but the characterisation as far as I could tell was not brilliant. It was a bit typical of the later movies actually; a lot of focus on Data and Picard with the other characters reduced to parodies of themselves. Riker in particular. As I've said before, I don't like bashing things so we'll move swiftly onto the positives. The artwork in this issue was beautiful, as you would expect in the first issue of a series. There was a brilliant little 'case file' in the back of the comic that explained how the creator had gone about drawing the Gorn and building up the mythology of the race and the background. Clearly, a lot of thought had gone into it. This made me enjoy it all the more. Going into the Gorn aspect in more detail, my friends hadn't heard of the infamous Gorn fight scene in TOS. This is alluded to in the comic and I loved that. Here's the clip if you've not seen it:

This is just a taste but as you can see it has to be one of the worst fight scenes in sci-fi history. The scene has been alluded to numerous times by various other shows (including Star Trek:Enterprise, see the episodes "In a Mirror, Darkly"). Anyway, the creator of this comic creates a whole back story to the Gorn species which makes the whole thing seem not so silly. I'm very appreciative of that and I think it works.

Other geeky things that have occurred this week:

I got a new shower puff:

You like? I do feel a little bit weird using Spiderman to wash myself but oh well, it was like 50p or something!

I got a retweet! Yay! By the lovely Geek Syndicate. (I'll add there website to the list at the side when I've finished writing this.) I used my personal account so I won't go into too much detail but I was excited. Those guys are lovely.

I'm getting WAY too excited about the Hunger Games. I've promised my flatmate that I'll go with him to see it next Saturday but I might have to go for a sneak peek on Friday. SFX have been running daily interviews with cast and crew, you can find them here. I have tended to scoff Twilight fans (which is what many are comparing this to) but NO LONGER. I have officially turned into a fangirl when it comes to this film. Although it seems I've become obsessed with Jennifer Lawrence as opposed to a male lead. This was proven in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago when she was the answer to a question and I was the only one who knew that. Out of all the people on all the teams. Not a fangirl wannabe for nothing you know.

I played a lovely game of Doctor Who Monopoly with friends the other night. We had extra points for DW references made throughout the game. Someone suggested adding an infinity mirror to the inside of the box to make it look (altogether now) bigger on the inside.

I finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds as well. The ending was breath-taking in its scope and themes. I was blown away and when I find the time, I promise to put up a short post/review about it. I'm trying to find the time to write a review for The Time Traveler's Wife as well but that's for other reasons.

Fun and geeky japes this week. Apologies for dodgy photography, it's really not my forte.

Til next time folks, keep squeeing!

(Don't worry that's not a catch-phrase and it definitely won't be used again. I promise.)

Twitter! Being Human! Revelation Space! Everything's more exciting with an exclamation mark!

So I've entered the Twitter-sphere (see left), this account will follow lots of cool sci-fi people (from Star Trek cast members to Simon Pegg). I have become a big Twitter addict over the last few months (on my personal account) and I think if it's used by the right people it's a great way of working out who's fun and keeps you up to date with things in a variety of genres/areas of life in general. I'll also be following a few people who I really respect from GW. They tend to be people who are great writers. As I've written about before, I dabble in the fanfic arena to some success (I'm definitely getting better) but there are others out there who consistently blow my mind with their story-telling abilities. People who dismiss fanfic writers as crazies are missing a trick. Some of the detail and imagery that people create in their stories is unbelievable. I have heard a couple of success stories of people being picked up by TV shows as writers, but these are VERY few and far between. So go out and read some fanfic, there is a lot of stuff out there that isn't so good (like mine) but there is also some gorgeous stuff. Writers tend to crave validation so leave a review if you liked something. Try http://www.fanfiction.net/ to begin with. It's definitely not perfect but there's a huge amount of material there and you will find something from your favourite show. So give it a go, you never know, you might like it.

On to TV. This week I've been watching Once Upon a Time, Being Human (the British version) and The Walking Dead. Last week's episode of Once was wonderful. Robert Carlyle FINALLY got to stretch his acting legs in an episode that took a twist on the story of Beauty and the Beast. This episode was produced (or directed) by Jane Espenson - of Buffy fame - and if you knew where to look there were clues all over the set and story. There were also lovely little jokes alluding to the Disney version of this story as well, like the chipped tea cup. Carlyle's performance was mesmorising and this episode reaffirmed my faith in the series. But, and it's a big but, this week's episode was awful! The fairies and Grumpy storyline was incredibly weak. And I don't like bashing things so we'll leave it at that. The real question this week was what has happened to Prince Charming's ex? And why is the Queen trying to incriminate him? Over the last few episodes I have been really enjoying the little glimpses of Jack's cabin (from SG1 and of particular importance to S/J shippers). First time I saw it there was a loud "squeeeeee" and then of course I had to rewind the scene over and over to 'check' that it actually was the cabin *sigh*

I have been enjoying Being Human quite a lot this season. I haven't taken the time to watch the American version yet. It does have Smallville and BSG-alumna Sam Witwer in but that doesn't necessarily make me want to like it any more. The British version is full of dark humour and some brilliant pieces of casting. Even with the monumental shift in characters for this season, I think the writing is speaking for itself and the fact that the new characters are so original means that it doesn't feel tired. Tom McNair (Michael Socha) is particularly good. The actor's sister (Lauren Socha) is in Misfits and it seems the acting ability is hereditary as the guy who plays Tom is fantastic. He has these great dead-pan moments that work very well with the writing. The story arc for this season has to do with the new baby and an older version of herself trying to kill her from the great beyond. Add to that the fact that the prophesied nemesis of the baby could already be in the house and you get a season that is leading towards a fantastic series of twists and turns before its end. I cannot wait.

I'm still catching up on The Walking Dead. I have stints of watching two or three episodes at a time as they are usually too angst-filled for me to last much longer. Even though I love the angst. Ohhhh yes. However, this does mean that after the particularly good episode yesterday that I couldn't read my Twitter feed this morning as it was too full of SPOILERS! Grrr. I hate it when people do that on Twitter/Facebook. Have some respect people! Rant over. Anyway, another thing I love about TWD - Bear McCreary's music. He is a genius.

Moving on. I've been reading the first in Alastair Reynold's Revelation series of books - "Revelation Space". It has been a great read and as I haven't got to the end yet that is all I will say for now. I'm planning on writing a review when I'm finished. This book is about 2000 pages long and I'm pretty sure the other 5/6 books in the series are about that length too so they will keep me going for a while. Good thing I have a Kindle. I wouldn't have room in my flat for all of them!

That's it for today's ramble. Follow me on Twitter for little nerdy gem.



 Do it... Do it... Do it!