Torque Control

Ken Slater 1917-2008

Sad news this morning, as reported on the BSFA website. Ken Slater, who was closely involved in the founding of the BSFA, has died at the age of 90. I’m going to repost the website’s notice in full:

In 1947 Ken founded Operation Fantast, ‘a very loosely organised group of fans who all wanted to “do their own thing” in various ways, and found that OF offered a sort of umbrella or shield which enabled them to do these things.’ By 1950 membership had reached 800 people worldwide. In 1948 he used OF to help spread the word about the Whitcon, the first post-war British SF convention and now generally regarded as the first of the Eastercon series. Military service was to keep him away from the convention itself, although he sent along money to buy a round of drinks for everybody attending.

His fannish achievements and contributions were recognised in the UK and internationally with the Doc Weir Award in 1966 and the Big Heart Award in 1995. He was a guest of honour at the 1959 Eastercon and also, with his late wife Joyce, at the 1987 Worldcon in Brighton. At the first Hugo Award ceremony in Philadelphia in 1953, Forrest J Ackerman won the trophy for #1 Fan Personality, but Forrie said at the time that the award should have gone to Ken.

Throughout the decades, though, Ken was known to thousands of SF readers and fans as a man who sold and traded science fiction books and magazines, and along the way he was to lead many hundreds of people to science fiction fandom. His energy and enthusiasm never abated: last year he attended a convention in Poland and was still running a sales table at Novacon, although in the last two or three years he had reluctantly conceded that he needed a bit of help with carrying boxes.

His influence on British science fiction fandom is incalculable and he will be missed by many, many people within the science fiction community. The BSFA sends its condolences to Ken’s family.

I never met Ken, though I was looking forward to doing so — he was scheduled to be the guest at the London Meeting this April. We did correspond briefly, though, when I was putting together Vector 250 and soliciting contributions from earlier editors. He was charming, and helpfully put me in contact with several other people I needed to get in contact with. So it seemed appropriate to reprint his recollections here today.

“A lifetime ago? Perhaps not quite, but it was around 1948 I started thinking that Britain should have a national science-fantasy society. The account of my rather off-hand editing of one issue, and joint editing (with Doreen Rogers) of, I think, two other issues of Vector has been worn thread-bare in the telling, so this time I am using my mental time machine to retrace some of those events. Actually, you will find a lot about those events on the web, if you look, but for the record that is mostly recounted by other people. We don’t all look at things from the same angle, do we?

“I never used to distinguish between British and American science fiction, or even the author until I had finished the book or the story; so far as possible this removed ‘expectation’ from the equation. As writers such as Ian Watson, James White, E.C. ‘Ted’ Tubb and others started writing tales the differences twixt the American and British styles decreased, anyway. But in terms of fandom at that time, in the States there was the N3F (National Fantasy Fan Federation) and in Britain there were only a few small regional or ‘town’ groups — mostly very small — except for the folk in London. Basically, London’s fans had no need for organisation; anyone who cared could attend a meeting every week, and so could anyone from out of London who happened to be visiting. Easy and anarchistic – but not really helpful if anyone had a ‘project’ in mind. I had spent a fair amount of time bombarding British fandom with letters, one-shot fanzines, and even physical visits when I was in England on leave. Finally I talked Vince Clarke, Owen Plumridge and some others into forming the society that was called ‘the British Fantasy Society’ — really original! — which survived a couple of years, and was outlived by the fanzine originally published in its name. At this point I more or less gave up. I had left the army, and was struggling to convert parts of ‘Operation Fantast’ into ‘Fantast (Medway) Limited’.

“This was the time of the Cytricons in Kettering, and at the fourth one of those, in 1958, my dream came true. The formation of the BSFA took place. Unfortunately, I was not there. I can no longer recall why — maybe I was ill, or my wife was. But the first I knew about was a letter from (if I remember correctly Ted Tubb) telling me of the formation, and informing me I had been made founding member number six, in view of my past efforts. Note, therefore, that I did not join the BSFA. I was conscripted!

“I must admit that I did not take a very active part in the proceedings; I contributed an item to Vector as requested which was a sort of catch-all column titled ‘General Chuntering’, and would help out with other things if/when asked. But things seemed to continue on a reasonably smooth course — the odd stagger occurred, but there were always enough of us helpful folk around to grab hold of the organisation by the collar and put it back on its feet.

“A very good Vector was being produced, and there seemed to be a reasonable number of people joining the BSFA. But then at the AGM at Yarcon it was revealed that the financial position was far from good; there was a fair possibility that the Association was bankrupt, although the accounts were unclear. What was clear was that the cost of the publications was taking too much of the income, and although there were new people joining, they were not renewing memberships when they expired. So everything was put on hold, and people were appointed to consider how bad the position was, and what should be done.

“Well, most of you probably know the following action. The BSFA became ‘BSFA Ltd.’ so that officers had a legal responsibility, we produced some duplicated (and self-typed) Vectors as a stop gap and information line, and then I resigned — not for any particular reason, except that I felt I had done enough — and was made Life member Number Four. Go onto the web and dig if you wish to know more — it is all there; and much more as well! There is an industrious group of fans from the 60s or thereabouts who are industriously putting all things fannish into electronic format. Even all the book reviews I wrote for Nebula Science Fiction, and the issues of Ron Bennett’s excellent Skyrack fanzine. If anything, I guess the Skyrack issues contain more “historical” fannish data than anything else I can think of, and I was pleased to learn that they were widely available before Ron’s regrettable death. Perhaps increasing records of that sort is something the BSFA might care to engage in.”

On James Wood

An interesting review of James Wood’s new book, How Fiction Works. I think it accurately diagnoses most of Wood’s weaknesses (“Wood is at his best when either microscopically close to a text or expounding it from a magisterial distance. In the middle ground, where plots and contexts lurk, he sometimes gets things wrong”), but made me think in a new way about Wood’s style:

Wood became famous by taking reviewing very seriously, an attitude that — for a number of reasons, not all of them sinister — is less widespread than you might think. Intelligent, well-read and extremely confident, he wrote from the beginning in a style that suggested he’d put some thought into questions concerning verbal surfaces. By the time he was starting out, the witty changes of register associated with the New Review and the New Statesman in the 70s had degenerated into a reflexively jokey high style in the hands of many journalists. In academic criticism, on the other hand, the enthusiasm for theory that peaked in the 80s had often resulted in curdled writing and an avoidance of “value judgments”. Wood responded by fashioning a critical voice that’s serious but opinionated, heavily stylised but not slick. He shares Martin Amis’s taste for coining paradoxical metaphors, but not for the quasi-laddish diction with which the novelist once brought aesthetic judgments down to earth.

As a result, Wood’s writing sometimes seems to issue from a world of rather dandified beautiful letters. Unafraid of sounding like an connoisseur, he’s entirely comfortable, say, describing Pushkin’s stanzas as “little private carriages of plush”. Nor is he afraid of sounding faux-donnishly lofty. Yet few books would get reviewed if critics agreed to a total ban on elevated language. Wood thinks that some writers worry about stylistic excess in the same way that some actors worry that their job isn’t manly, and his style is in part a stand against that tradition.

We hear writers talking about the importance of voice frequently and at great length. We hear much less (grumbling about John Clute aside) about reviewers’ voices, but I think the truth is that how something is said about a book is almost as important as what is said. Let’s have reviews with a bit more conscious control of their personality, in other words. (Of course, by no means have I fully worked out what I want to sound like when I write a review.)

The Last Enemy

Well, I thought the first episode of The Last Enemy wasn’t bad at all. A near-future political thriller, the first episode sees mathematician Stephen Ezard returning to the UK for his brother’s funeral, after several years working in China, where as far as possible he lived the life of a recluse. This is of course conveniently creates plenty of opportunities for other characters to explain to him the developments in the UK political landscape that he’s missed — although pleasingly it’s assumed that some events, such as the “Victoria bomb” that killed 200-odd people and seems to have been a motivating factor behind the rapid introduction of ID cards, penetrated even Ezard’s veil of seclusion.

On his return, Ezard is recruited as a spokesperson for a private firm developing a system (known as TIA) that links up all the existing population databases to allow total surveillance. We’re told that the legislation needed to introduce TIA is pretty much a sure thing, and that Ezard is just wanted to smooth things over; after initial reluctance, he’s persuaded to help out, not so much because he thinks TIA is a good thing, or even because he’s mercenary enough to do it for the three years’ funding he’s offered in exchange, but because he wants to use TIA to do some searching himself. Specifically, he needs to find his brother’s wife, who’s vanished in mysterious circumstances; she may be connected to the appearance of a deadly (possibly weaponised) virus in Afghanistan.

That’s an extremely top-level summary of a rather twistily-plotted ninety minutes of television, and it’s fairly obvious we don’t yet know where all the connections being set up are really leading. What’s good about The Last Enemy as a drama is the direction, which manages to make any amount of staring at computer screens interesting, and the acting, particularly from Benedict Cumerbatch as Ezard — he’s convincing as a man distinctly uncomfortable with much social interaction, yet nuanced enough to avoid cliche. And what’s good about The Last Enemy as science fiction is that it doesn’t try to do too much, that it follows the implications of its idea through quite thoroughly but (for the most part) doesn’t try to sensationalise them. Whether this will last is an open question: the producer has described the series as a “cautionary tale”, which rather suggests the ending will be exactly what you expect it to be, ie that the introduction of TIA is thwarted at the last moment, while recognising the irony that it’s helped to stop whatever dastardly plot is afoot. We shall see.

Tangentially, in the same press release I linked above, writer Peter Berry says that The Last Enemy is “predictive, rather than science fiction”. This is clearly rubbish, but I’m not noting it in an as others see us way per se. What interests me is that (I assume) Berry said it because he felt the potential audience for his show was those who watched State of Play, not those who watch Doctor Who, and the question of whether or not that justifies his comment. I want to compare it to something John Jarrold said elsewhere, regarding publicity materials that pushed a debut sf novel (by one of his authors) as worthy of attention because the author is a woman (which is apparently rare and sure to see the book appear on sf award shortlists). What Jarrold said is:

most of these proofs will go to people who do not know the genre and its history as well as you and I do; they are largely meant for the general bookshops and mainstream reviewers. And I can tell you from my own experience that if you have ANYTHING that can be used as a hook to interest the Head Buyer of SF at W H Smiths, who purchases every SF and Fantasy title that appears in WHS across the UK, and can also gain interest in the world outside the SF coterie, you use it. Both those points — Jaine’s gender and the possibility of awards — are exactly that.

To me, what this attitude says, in both cases, is that it’s ok to say dumb, or misleading, or outright insulting things about a work if they result in attention being paid to the work itself. It also says that the people who are annoyed or insulted don’t matter, because they’re not the target of the remarks in question, and they’ll watch or read the work anyway. I can believe this is true — after all, I’ve just watched The Last Enemy, and I plan to read Principles of Angels — but I can’t help finding it a bit depressing.

Orbital Schedule

In honour of the draft programme for this year’s Eastercon being released, here are the panels I’ll be on:

With Friends Like These …
Friday, 15:00. Fandom often criticises authors who publish SF novels outside the genre. Are the authors really to blame, or should we admit that perhaps we can’t claim everything just because we like it? (Moderator)

The UK short fiction market
Friday, 21:00. We’re far from the heyday of Interzone and the British Boom, SF short fiction mags in the US have declining subscriptions, Hub tried to launch and ended up internet-only. Is the short fiction market dying, and what can be done to revitalise it? Do we want to? (Panellist)

Everyone’s a Critic
Sunday, 19.00. Everyone can post their own reviews online. How does this affect more professional websites and magazines? Are reviews posted on your blog “proper” reviews? (Panellist)

It was ten years ago today (BSFA 50)
Monday, 11.00. One of five linked panels exploring what it was like to be an SF fan during the different eras since the BSFA was established, in this case 1998. The other items will be based around 1958, 1968, 1978 and 1988. (Moderator.)

As Others See JG Ballard

For many readers, Ballard is the author of the controversial novel Crash (1973), a surreal exploration of sexuality and the motor car. But before Crash, and before his wife’s death, Ballard’s novels had begun to shape a unique suburban dystopia. In its time, this vision was categorised as science fiction. Now we can see it more clearly as deeper, darker and more prophetic.

Riiight.

Cloverfield

I didn’t enjoy Cloverfield in most of the ways I think the writer and director expected me to enjoy it. The characters, though not quite as two-dimensional as advertised, were bland enough that their deaths didn’t mean a whole lot — although that said, I didn’t find myself as irritated as Roz Kaveney, since yes, the characters are mostly dumb, but (a) they’re disaster-movie dumb, (b) they’re clearly meant to be completely unprepared, practically and emotionally, for what’s happening to them, and (c) the whole film moves along at such a clip that you don’t notice most of the dumbness while it’s happening.

I wasn’t particularly gripped by the story per se, and I especially wasn’t gripped when it was being a New York Story. Although it’s impossible to watch Cloverfield without thinking of 9/11, as Richard Larson points out it’s actually handled with a remarkably light touch; where I disagree with Richard, probably because I don’t live in New York (but bear in mind that’s going to be true for the majority of the film’s audience) is that I think the most effective sequences in the film are those that don’t use the New York setting in any way. I’m thinking of the generic horror/disaster-movie sequences, like the journey through the subway tunnels or the rescue from the collapsing skyscraper, that could be happening in any modern metropolis. Aside from that shot of the Statue of Liberty’s head, I don’t think any of the glimpses that Cloverfield offers will stay with me as New York Images — for comparison, I found the empty vistas of I Am Legend rather more powerful.

I didn’t even get the “hey, that was awesome” buzz that I expected to get from watching a rampaging monster. At least not much. It turns out that not-quite seeing a monster stomping buildings and military vehicles to junk is, for me, much less viscerally satisfying than seeing the carnage full-on. I think Howard Waldrop alludes to the reason in his comments for Locus Online: for a dumb movie, Cloverfield makes you use your brain too much. It’s a bit too artfully casual, for instance; I never really believed that this was found footage, as opposed to a director trying to imitate found footage. All the odd angles and fleeting shots of shoes and legs in the world couldn’t save it from seeming staged.

Which, you would think, doesn’t leave much for me to like, yet I do find myself turning the film over in my mind. I think what interests me is not so much the effect of it being presented as found footage as the logic behind Matt Reeves and Drew Goddard’s choice to do so. As Mark Kermode quite reasonably pointed out in his review on Radio Five, this is hardly a new technique, but the combination of subject matter (by which I mean “New York disaster”, not “monster movie”) and style and timing amount to an argument that more than ever, this is how the world is reported to us. One of the things I liked about the pilot of The Sarah Connor Chronicles was that the first way it signalled its protagonists had time-travelled ten years into their future, to our present — not a huge distance, on the face of it — was to have someone immediately start filming them with a cameraphone. Cloverfield takes this to the nth degree — it’s not just the protagonists who are running around with a camera, seemingly half the people caught up in the attack are using their phone or their camera to capture the event as it happens, giving us not so much user-generated content as victim-generated content. And the film never breaks this reality. Nobody ever explains what really happened, or indeed what happened next, and though there are some obvious concessions to disaster-movie plotting, there’s also a satisfying sense of arbitrariness to some of the deaths. Once again, there’s nothing about this that succeeds in drawing me in and making me feel; but it tickles my brain. So despite the fact that Cloverfield largely fails as a film, I think it succeeds as an artifact.

Celebration

celebrationwraparound

This rather handsome picture is a piece of original artwork by Vincent Chong. It’s going to be the cover of an 80,000-word anthology of original fiction, edited by Ian Whates, that the BSFA is publishing to mark its 50th anniversary. And here’s the table of contents:

Celebration, ed. Ian Whates

The BSFA – An Appreciation – Pat Cadigan
“The Jubilee Plot” – Stephen Baxter
“Wilson at Woking” – Ken MacLeod
“The Killing Fields” – Kim Lakin-Smith
“Having the Time of His Life” – Ian Watson
“The Dog Hypnotist” – Tricia Sullivan
“The Crack Angel” – Jon Courtenay Grimwood
“Keep Smiling with Great Minutes” – M. John Harrison
“Living with the Dead” – Molly Brown
“Next to Godliness” – Brian Stableford
“Mellowing Grey” – Dave Hutchinson
“At Shadow Cope” – Liz Williams
“Peculiar Bone, Unimaginable Key” – Brian Aldiss
“Deciduous Trees” – Martin Sketchley
“Soirée” – Alastair Reynolds
“On the Sighting of Other Islands” – Ian R. MacLeod
“Fireflies” – Christopher Priest
“The Man of the Strong Arm” – Adam Roberts
An Afterword – Ian Whates

So, see you at the launch event at Orbital?

Ooh

Guillermo del Toro will be directing The Hobbit.

Guillermo del Toro has officially signed up to direct The Hobbit, according to reports leaking out from a film premiere in France. The Pan’s Labyrinth creator will oversee a double-bill of films based on JRR Tolkien’s fantasy adventure, which paved the way for The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson, director of the Oscar-winning Rings trilogy, will serve as executive producer.

Interesting choice. I can actually see this being better than if Jackson was directing, in some ways.

P.S. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles — best new show of the 07/08 tv season? I love me some Pushing Daisies, but Sarah Connor is actual science fiction, so I am biased towards it. Particularly when they have John Connor mention the singularity.

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