I am tired, brain-stuffed, geeked-out, hugely inspired, and incredibly happy.

This despite the fact that there was so much more I wanted to do but simply wasn’t able to get to. Oh well…next  time :)

Declaration

It is now one of my life’s goals to attend every single Worldcon and win at least one Hugo award.

Sessions Attended on Day 5

Today’s program changed quite a bit – I think the Hugo winners were doing interviews while the Hugo nominees were sleeping in! – so I attended the following sessions:

High stakes: the television world of Joss Whedon

• There are lots of good things about Joss Whedon’s shows: great writing; smart dialogue; excellent humour (i.e. the show doesn’t take itself too seriously); a sense of family; good, strong characters (particularly women); complex characters; damaged characters are fabulous; great character growth (e.g. Wesley, Fred/Illyria, Drusilla, Topher, etc.); a consistent and well developed world; great stories (some of which may make you uncomfortable); brilliant story arcs; letting the actors inform their characters; and the show doesn’t fall apart when a character’s love interest is realized (and later falls apart catastrophically!)
• There are plenty of bad things, too: some of the fight scenes (particularly early Buffy ones) could have been better; the cast is too racially white; and some issues are handled naively (e.g. Inara as a Companion and the implications of her profession and position in society)

Losing the plot: plotting in advance vs writing as you go

• When approaching the plot for a story, writers range from gardeners (they see how things grow as they write their story) to architects (they plan everything in advance)
• Television writing is very architect-oriented while book writing appears to be more gardener-oriented
• Most authors seem to have a general beginning, middle, and end in mind when they start to write their story
• The ‘middle’ often consists of milestones or tent pole events in the plot
• Plot outlines can be useful, particularly in complicated stories
• Plot outlines can help you write faster and more efficiently

Reading: Charles Stross

This was a great reading. Stross read from his upcoming book, ‘Rule 34’, that’s due out in July 2011.

Hand-waving, rule-breaking and other dirty tricks of hard sf

• Unless they belong to the mundane SF movement, most hard SF authors are okay with bending the rules if the science gets in the way of their story (e.g. faster-than-light travel)
• They will, however, take pains to be internally consistent with the changes that they have made – even if they don’t actually address how the new science/knowledge works (e.g. they won’t explain the workings of an FTL engine in a space ship in the same way you wouldn’t explain the workings of an internal combustion engine every time you talked about a car)
• Remember Clarke’s Three Laws 
• Hard SF stories that use current knowledge that is later found to be incorrect do get dated but this doesn’t mean those stories will no longer be read (take, for example, H.G. Wells and all his stories that were based on the science knowledge and theories of his time)

Fantasy fiction and the Bechdel Test

• The ‘Whores and virgins: finding roles for women in fantasy fiction’ session was cancelled so I went to this session, instead
• As it happened, because of all the schedule changes that took place today, the panelists for this session didn’t turn up (they’d either left or didn’t know they were on this panel)
• Fortunately, the thirty of us who did turn up made a circle of chairs and did the session ourselves :)
• The Bechdel Test, which was created for movies & television, can also be applied to fantasy fiction books, comics, anime, and video games
• Most early books don’t pass this test while many newer ones do
• The test is, of course, an awareness-raising tool so it has its limitations and can’t be applied universally
• It is useful in pointing out blind spots to authors, though

Closing Ceremony

• Aussiecon 4 was awesome – thanks to everyone (organizers, guests, and attendees alike) for making it so much fun

What Next?

When one Worldcon ends, another one begins. Aussiecon 4 is dead. Long live Renovation!

The 69th World Science Fiction Convention, called Renovation, will be held in Reno, Nevada, USA from 17-21 August 2011.

I will do my best to be there.

Concluding Thoughts

John Scalzi, Charles Stross, Gail Carriger & Melinda Snodgrass are awesome.

I have craploads of books to read. I have lots of stuff to write. I have many magazines to subscribe to. I have a bunch of fan clubs to join.

I have autographs from Gail Carriger & Charles Stross. I also have photos of them (from their readings) and with them.

Here’s Carriger:

Here’s Stross:

And here’s me with Stross (somebody asked if I was his stunt double!):

All in all, it’s been a fabulous five days.

Now back to the real world…

Sessions Attended on Day 4

I made a few changes to the sessions I attended today, which ended up being:

Novellas: the perfect format

• I attended only half this sessions because Gail Carriger’s reading started on the half hour
• Novellas (a manuscript that’s 17,500-40,000 words in length) used to be harder to sell: you can’t sell them as standalone books and, though they’re featured in some SF magazines, there’s only one per issue
• They’re becoming easier to sell thanks to the rise of e-books and publishers that are publishing two-for-one novella books or novella anthologies
• Authors generally know, when a story comes to them, what its length is going to be; i.e. whether the idea will work best as a short story, novella, novelette, or book

Reading: Gail Carriger

• This was a really fun reading from Carriger’s third book, ‘Blameless’, followed by a quick Q&A session
• Fun tweet: @gailcarriger: Heard at #worldcon #aussiecon4 "I love Gail’s fans all the men are quiet and gentlemanly and all the women are bold and obstreperous." 

How to review

• There is a difference between ‘reviewing’ (with answers the basic question of “should I spend my hard earned money on this book?”) and ‘critiquing’ (which is a more in-depth, in-context analysis of a piece of work)

The short half-life of strange television

According to the panel and audience members, the following good TV shows were cancelled before their time:

• Max Headroom
• The Middleman
• Joan of Arcadia
• Beauty & the Beast
• Carnivale
• Dead Like Me
• Blake’s 7
• Wonderfalls
• Special Unit 2
• Prey
• The Chronicle
• Invader Zim
• Alien Nation
• FlashForward
• Birds of Prey
• Brimstone (though the same idea has since been repeated, though in a more mundane way, in the shows Reaper and Chuck)

Science fiction and the television industry

• SF in the TV industry is complicated
• For more about the entertainment industry listen to the podcast, The Business

The future of gender and sexuality

• There are lots of speculative science fiction works in which authors have talked about possible gender and sexuality futures (including post-gender, post-human, post-sex-for-reproduction types of futures)
• Some of these authors explicitly talk about the impact of such futures (including, for example, reactions and counter sexual revolutions) while, for others, the future gender and sexuality situation is part of the backdrop of the world they’re describing (so future earth is described much like an alien culture)
• Unfortunately, this session ended up being more of a topic-raising discussion as opposed to a good topic-analysing discussion so I left halfway through
• And, while author Cristina Lasaitis did have some really great things to say, sadly the level of conversation was too basic for her to have a good discussion about it

Taking it on the chin: authors and reviewers

• There are three kinds of reviews – overly positive ones, overly negative ones, and properly considered ones – and authors should ignore all but the last kind
• Negative reviews shouldn’t make you feed bad: you can’t (and shouldn’t try to) please everyone all of the time
• Ignore reviews in which the reviewer is only using you or your work to promote their own agendas
• There’s a difference between a bad review and a negative review
• Never respond to a review

The Hugo Awards

• The Hugo Award ceremony was really fun.
• I’m really glad that Charles Stross won for ‘Palimpsest’ in the Best Novella category. That novella really blew my mind, as have all the other works of his that I’ve read.
• The only other author that blows my mind as much as Stross does is Vernor Vinge

Sessions for Day 5

Here are the sessions I plan to attend tomorrow, which is the last day of the convention:

• High stakes: the television world of Joss Whedon
• The Grandfather paradox
• Book signing with Charles Stross
• Hand-waving, rule-breaking and other dirty tricks of hard sf
• Whores and virgins: finding roles for women in fantasy ficition
• Closing Ceremony

This con has been a blast so far and tomorrow shouldn’t be any different.

The best part is that, even after three whole days of awesomeness, there are still two more days to go!

Gail Carriger: Book Signing & Photo

Today was particularly fantastic because I went to Gail Carriger’s book signing at which she signed my copy of her third book, ‘Blameless’ :)

I also got my photo taken with her:

:)

All three of her books – ‘Soulless’, ‘Changeless’, and ‘Blameless’ (collectively known as the Parasol Protectorate series) – are really good, by the way. They’re fun, funny, and creative and they feature Alexia Tarabotti who has quickly become one of my favourite science fiction characters.

These books, if I could describe how they feel, are like chocolate cake without the calories: they’re delicious, decadent, lots of fun, and you don’t feel guilty about gorging on them.

Maybe at the next Worldcon, instead of wearing my ‘What would Ripley do?’ t-shirt (as I am in the photo above), I might have to make and wear a ‘What would Alexia do?’ t-shirt, instead.

Sessions Attended on Day 3

I attended the following sessions today:

Copyright in the 21st Century

• Copyright is complicated
• At a very basic level, you have to ask yourself: “What is the purpose of copyright”? and
• How much of it has to do with protecting and/or recognizing intellectual property?
• How much of it has to do with the economic benefits of creative work flowing to authors?

The best SF novel you have never read

As if I didn’t already have a huge list of books to read, I now have more; including:

• ‘Feed’ by M. T. Anderson (Wikipedia)
• ‘Soon I Will Be Invincible’ by Austin Grossman (Wikipedia)
• ‘The Brief History of the Dead’ by Kevin Brockmeier (Wikipedia)
• ‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde (Wikipedia)
• ‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman (Wikipedia)
• ‘The Fortunate Fall’ by Raphael Carter (Wikipedia)
• ‘Ascent’ by Jed Mercurio (Wikipedia)
• ‘Sun & Moon, Ice & Snow’ by Jessica Day George (Good Reads)
• ‘Blindsight’ by Peter Watts (Wikipedia; free Creative Commons download)
• ‘Lint’ by Steve Aylett (Wikipedia)
• ‘Sorcery and Cecilia’ by Patricia C Wrede & Caroline Stevermer (The SF Site)
• ‘The Carhullan Army’ by Sarah Hall (Guardian)
• ‘Starpilot’s Grave’ by Debra Doyle & James D. MacDonald (Powell’s)
• ‘Knowledge of Angels’ by Jill Paton Walsh (Wikipedia)
• ‘Carbon Diaries 2015’ by Saci Lloyd (The Age)
• ‘The Native Star’ by M. K. Hobson (Wikipedia)
• ‘Ysabel’ by Guy Gavriel Kay (Wikipedia)
• ‘Blue Silence’ by (Not Free SF Reader)
• ‘Aberystwyth Mon Amour’ by Malcolm Pryce (Everything2)

I also have a book that was published as a podcast series to listen to:

• ‘Union Dues’ by (review; download from Escape Pod)

The James Bond enigma

• James Bond is the only spy movie franchise to have survived the decades (for a number of reasons; one of which is that it keeps adapting to the needs of that particular decade)
• It is being threatened by the Bourne series of movies
• The reboot is great because it’s now gone back to its old, darker, more character driven, and less gadget focused style

Melinda Snodgrass: writing for television

• Melinda Snodgrass is really cool (Wikipedia)

Kim Stanley Robinson’s guest of honour speech

• Robinson interviewed himself; it was a really good speech

Cyberpunk and the city

• Cyberpunk as a political movement is dead but it remains alive as a stylistic movement through fashion and iconography
• It has evolved to what is sometimes called ‘post-cyberpunk’ (until someone comes up with a better name for it) in which the protagonist is often trying to fix a dystopian work by building instead of by tearing down
• It has a sub-genres, such as biopunk

Just a Minute

• This was a fun SF-oriented quiz show based on the famous and long running BBC Radio show of the same name
• It featured Paul Cornell (as host), Jennifer Fallon, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Chine Mieville, John Scalzi, and Catherynne Valente
• It started late and ran over time so I missed the end but I’m pretty sure Scalzi won hands down :)

Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism in women’s fantasy

• This was my favourite session of the day and, for more, I suggest you read Tansy Rayner Roberts’s blog post on it (BTW, I left the ‘Capes and skirts: the plight of female superheroes’ talk that she mentions in her blog post because it became clear pretty early that, sadly, it wasn’t going to be worth it.)
• I highly recommend you read the books written by Gail Carriger, Glenda Larke, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Catherynne M. Valente, and Alaya Dawn Johnson (BTW, Johnson was also fantastic on the ‘These are not the people you are looking for: race in SFF’ session on Day 1)

Masquerade

• The masquerade was fun; some people make awesome costumes

Sessions for Day 4

Tomorrow I’m planning to attend these sessions:

• The problems with first contact or Film Program: International Animated Shorts
• Do you want to be in our club? or Far future: where fantasy meets SF or Anachronistic fiction: successors to steampunk
• Readings: Jason Nahrung, Gail Carriger or 3D cinema: revolution or novelty? or Editing the novel or The case for a female Doctor or Novellas: the perfect format (this is going to be a difficult choice!)
• Great women of science fiction or, if I can make it, a kaffeeklatsch with Charles Stross
• The short half-life of strange television
• Science fiction and the television industry or The limits of science
• The future of gender and sexuality or Norman Cates’ WETA digital presentation
• Mary Poppins: from the Outback to Cherry Tree Lane or Build a LEGO Dalek (for adults) or Boxcutters present: writing Doctor Who
• The Hugo Awards

It should, again, be an awesome day – by the end of which we’ll find out who’s won this year’s Hugos :)

Today I:

• bought a book: Singularity Sky by Charles Stross (which I will ask him to sign tomorrow)
• ordered three t-shirts: one for Nadia, two for me (including the official con t-shirt)
• attended a number great sessions

Sessions Attended on Day 2

These are the sessions I attended:

The Last Airbender: race and Hollywood cinema

• We talked about a lot of stuff, most of which is covered on Racebending.com

Making a living: Professional writing for speculative fiction authors

• Great session and I got to hear both John Scalzi (Wikipedia) and Cory Doctorow (Wikipedia) talk! :)
• Most writers of speculative fiction (or fiction of any kind, really) need to think, work, and act like freelancers, entrepreneurs, and sole traders
• Important things to do/remember:
• have multiple income streams (including fallback streams)
• day jobs can be very useful to have
• save all the money you can
• be good at scheduling your time
• write every day (this is important)

The future of privacy

• This was another great session and, in this, I got to hear Charles Stross (Wikipedia) talk! :)
• Privacy is complicated and our concepts of privacy are changing very quickly
• Technology is moving much faster than the cultural shifts needed to use it well

Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings

• This is my favourite session of the con so far
• Everyone in the room loved Tolkien, knew a lot about him and his books, and spoke very intelligently about the books and the Peter Jackson movie trilogy
• We talked mostly about Eowyn, Sam, and Faramir

To the stars: the never-ending history of Star Trek

• This was an excellent session as well, especially since it included Melinda Snodgrass (Wikipedia) on the panel :)
• The new Star Trek film was shot using the script’s first draft because it was shot during the Hollywood writer’s strike

Academic Panel: These are not the people you are looking for: race in SFF

• This was a good panel with some brilliant panelists, including China Miéville
• I can’t write all the awesome stuff that was discussed so, instead, I suggest you read the article that this session was inspired by: ‘Racism and Science Fiction’ by Samuel R. Delany in the The New York Review of Science Fiction

Sessions for Day 3

Tomorrow I’m planning to attend these sessions:

• Copyright in the 21st Century
• The best SF novel you have never read or Capes and skirts: the plight of female superheroes or QF (the SF version of Stephen Fry’s quiz show QI) – I’m having a hard time making up my mind!
• The James Bond enigma
• Book signing with Gail Carriger followed by Did the future just arrive? The e-book and the publishing industry
• Cyberpunk and the city or Vote #1 The Thing for President: how cult films are born
• Thinking in trilogies or Micro-audience and the online critic
• Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism in women’s fantasy
• The Masquerade Ball

It should be awesome :)

Today was the first day and, so far, it’s been awesome.

Choices, Choices…

The biggest problem with conventions like these are that there are multiple sessions running concurrently (in multiple rooms, of course) so you have to choose which one of those you want to attend.

The organizers do, however, try to make your life a little easier by dividing sessions into topic streams – such as kids, young adults, academic panels, academic papers, writers workshops, film programs, signings, talks from guests, and so on. That way, if you have any special overarching interest in one streams, it makes it a little easier for your to make your choices.

Sessions Attended on Day 1

Today, aside from the opening ceremony, I attended the following sessions during which I learnt the following things (though, of course, this is just a small sample of what was discussed there):

Breaking the fourth wall: Supernatural and its audience

• There are two kinds of ‘fourth walls’:
• one in which the show’s authors are influenced by the fans (e.g. the killing off of Bela in Supernatural season 3) and
• the other in which the show’s characters interact with the audience during/through the show (e.g. the bit after the credits in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).
• Fan influence can be both to the show’s benefit and detriment. In the case of Supernatural the consensus seems to be that the latter occurred.
• It can sometimes be hard for a show’s authors to figure out whether the feedback they’re getting from their fans is:
• just the loudest people trying to get them to write the show they really want to see (e.g. this must happen in the next season because I think that would be awesome!) or
• a genuine fan pointing out a flaw or blind spot in their story or show choices (e.g. all the show’s characters happen to be Caucasian…wtf?).
• American TV networks seem to be shifting the way in which they source and plan for serialized shows. The original model was, for example, a show that had a 5-year storyline with defined milestones for each season. The newer model seems to be the British one of shows being sold with 1-year plans and, if they do well in that first year, being picked up for subsequent seasons.

Perfectly packaged: designing and marketing science fiction

• A book’s cover image should tell you what it feels like to be reading that book
• Some manuscripts are really easy to pick covers for while for others (such as cross-genre one) it’s a much harder exercise
• ‘Less is more’ in book covers and one of the most effective covers is one with big lettering for both the author’s name and book’s title and with only a small image/illustration
• Publishers try to avoid people’s faces on book covers because it leaves more to the imagination
• Black book covers with a single, coloured high-contrast image in the centre (i.e. the Twilight style) is very last year

Things to do in Melbourne when you’re geek

• There’s lots to do in Melbourne when you’re a geek
• Street art is cool, there are lots of bars, and you really should visit the Queen Victoria Market and State Library of Victoria
• Good geeky places to visit in the CBD include:
• Minotaur (“the pop culture megastore”)
• Outre Gallery
• Of Science & Swords (book shop)
• Sticky (‘zine shop)

Sessions for Day 2

Tomorrow I’m planning to attend the following sessions:

• When history becomes fantasy: artistic license and historical cinema
• The Last Airbender: race and Hollywood cinema
• Rethinking SETI: 50 years on – though this has been rescheduled so I’ll have to change my plans accordingly
• The future of privacy or, if I’m one of the first ten to sign up, a kaffeeklatsch (i.e. small group discussion) with Gail Carriger
• Shaun Tan Guest of Honour Speech
• Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings
• To the stars: the never-ending history of Star Trek
• Academic Panel: These are not the people you are looking for: race in SFF

I’ll also go check out the dealer’s room and go to the Friday Night Filking session (which should be lots of fun).

2012

I recently watched Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster movie, ‘2012’ and quite enjoyed it. My favourite reviews thus far have been:

• ‘2012: The Greatest Review You Will Every Read’ by Rebecca Watson [Skepchick]
• ‘The Mayans Warned Us: Don’t Trespass in Yellowstone’ by Calla Cofield [Cocktail Party Physics]
• ‘Vlog 11-15-09 – 2012’ by Noah Antwiler [The Spoony Experiment]

Twilight: New Moon

Now I am considering watching the film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s second book from the Twilight series, ‘New Moon’.

However, these reviews are making me think twice (FYI: the second review is a lot shorter):

• ‘Vlog 11-22-09: New Moon’ by Noah Antwiler [The Spoony Experiment]
• ‘New Moon’ by by Douglas “Darien” Walker [That Guy with The Glasses]

So I’ll probably will till it comes on pay-per-view cable next year.

Speaking more generally about the Twilight books, you really should watch/read the following:

• ‘Twilight: To Read, Or Not To Read?’ by Lizz [Sister Salad]
• ‘How Books get into our Brains’ by Lizz [Sister Salad]
• ‘If I could review ‘Twilight’ (the book) in three letters, they would be “WTF”’ by A.V. Phibes
• ‘If Twilight the Book was WTF, Twilight the movie was FTW’ by A.V. Phibes
• ‘Twilight: a Different Perspective’ by Erin O’Brien

These are some organizations whose websites you should explore:

• The James Randi Education Foundation (JREF)
• Australian Skeptics
• The New England Skeptical Society

Here are some good blogs to read:

• The multi-author Skepticblog
• Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog
• The official SGU blog, The Rogue’s Gallery
• The New England Skeptical Society’s Neurologica blog
• The Science-Based Medicine blog
• Michael Shermer’s Scientific American articles
• Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog
• PZ Myer’s Pharyngula blog
• Richard Wiseman’s blog
• The Skepchick blog
• Karen Stollznow’s Skepbitch blog
• Kylie Sturgess’ Podblack Cat
• Rachael Dunlop’s The Skeptics’ Book of Pooh-Pooh
• The Young Australian Skeptics blog
• The UK Skeptic’s articles and commentary section

There are many, many more out there and they’re very easy to find.

You need to listen to the following podcasts:

• Skeptoid
• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe (SGU) and the SGU 5×5
• The Skeptic Zone

Also check out Hunting Humbug, Skepticality, and the Pseudo Scientists.

The following are excellent resources on critical thinking and logical fallacies:

• Here be Dragons: An Introduction to Critical Thinking by Brian Dunning
• Episodes 73 and 74 of the Skeptoid podcast
• The SGU 5×5 and Hunting Humbug podcasts
• Humbug! The Skeptics Field Guide by Theo Clark and Jef Clark
• Wikipedia’s articles on logical fallacies and cognitive biases

Here are some excellent general resources on skepticism:

• The New England Skeptical Society’s list of articles
• The UK Skeptic’s list of articles
• The Cleveland Skeptics’ Critical Thinking 101 resources
• The list of links and resources listed on Wikipedia’s skeptics page
• The Skeptic’s Dictionary
• What’s the Harm?
• Information on Skeptical Activism
• Kylie Sturgess’ list of educational resources (also check out her tips and tricks on how to avoid scams and her list of essays)

These are a few good YouTube channels to subscribe to:

• James Randi Foundation
• Michael Shermer
• The Bad Astronomer
• The Skeptics Guide
• Philosophers and Critical Thinkers in Senior Schools (PACTISS)

Here are some magazines worth subscribing to:

• The Australian Skeptic’s The Skeptic magazine
• The US-based Skeptic magazine
• The US-based Skeptical Inquirer magazine

And, finally, here are a list of books worth reading (all but one as suggested by Dunning in Here be Dragons):

• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
• Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions by James Randi
• Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena and Skeptoid 2: More Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena by Brian Dunning
• Humbug! The Skeptic’s Field Guide to Spotting Fallacies in Thinking by Theo Clark and Jef Clark (eBook version that you can also download as a PDF)
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (also available as an eBook from Project Gutenberg)
• Also check out Kylie Sturgess’ excellent reading lists for skepticism

If you can think of any other resources that are worth adding to this list, please let me know. Thanks.

Anyway, Ahmad was recently in Australia, which is how I first heard about him. Now, though, he’s driving around the US doing a book tour which you can read about in his recent BBC article ‘Hello America, I’m a British Muslim’. He’s also writing about his travels on his blog and that’s always worth a read (even though his blog posts are rather lengthy).

Enjoy :)

Unfortunately the director they have chosen to do so is Roland Emmerich. Now Emmerich isn’t a bad director – ‘Stargate’ (1994), ‘Independence Day’ (1996), ‘Godzilla’ (1998), ‘The Patriot’ (2000), and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (2004) are all good films – but the ‘Foundation’ series is much too awesome to be made into simply a good series of films. And thus I am…concerned.

That said, what is cool about Emmerich’s films is that they manage to depict very well the epic scale of the stories being told. Further, the epic nature of these stories is brilliantly supported by superb special effects that don’t get in the way of the storytelling (think: ‘Star Wars’ prequels as a case in which the CG got the better of the story being told).

What all of those movies lack, then, are deep, complex, meaningful characters that you find yourself caring about…well, with the exception of Benjamin Martin’s character (played by Mel Gibson) in ‘The Patriot’. Okay so the characters aren’t all that bad (you could even say that some of them are good) and, yes, you do end up sympathizing with them (and the predicaments they find themselves in) but they are pretty one-dimensional. Indeed, most of the conflict that makes Emmerich’s films interesting occurs, not because of the way the characters are written, but because of the stories themselves.

*Realization dawns on Ameel*

Ah.

Which is why, I suppose, that Emmerich is the perfect director to tell Asimov’s stories. Why? Because Emmerich makes the kinds of stories that Asimov writes.

Let me explain: Asimov was never good at writing characters that were deep, complex, and meaningful – indeed very few science fiction authors are – but he did tell awesome stories on a very grand scale.

For example, the Foundation series – which spans a period of about 500 years – contains only one deeply-written (though not very complex) character in Hari Seldon and only one complex (though not very deeply-written) character in Golan Trevize. What you get instead is an excellent, nay mind-blowing, story that is worthy of the the special “Best All-Time Series” Hugo award. And since this matches so well the types of stories that Emmerich likes to make into films…this could actually work really well!

And thus I am now…excited :)

Here are three posts to get you started:

• The universe makes a lotta gas
• I hear the mermaids sing
• Does science fiction matter? At all? Even a little?

Good stuff.