Science Fiction

Hines’s ‘The Unseen’ Is Worth a Look

February 10, 2012
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Hines’s ‘The Unseen’ Is Worth a Look

I think I'll just start my review by saying that T. L. Hines's The Unseen is one of the most impressive thrillers I've read in some time—not just among Christian books, but among thrillers in general. I liked Hines' first novel, Waking Lazarus, quite a lot. This book—in my opinion—knocks it out of the park. It works on many levels, not only as a straight thriller, but as a cultural metaphor.

Lucas, the hero, is not strictly a part of the normal world. He moves from place to place in Washington, DC—abandoned buildings, service tunnels, even the sewer. He lives to watch other people, from hiding places he sets up behind walls and ceilings, “between the seams of society.” He's not a voyeur in the ordinary sense, however. He watches people in public places, or at work. He imagines what their lives are like. Lucas's watching obsession obviously mirrors various pathologies in modern society, from which (I suspect) few of us are entirely free. . . .

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Pulped! — Reading Just for the Fun of It

January 26, 2012
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Pulped! — Reading Just for the Fun of It

"I’m on a crusade to prove that entertainment has value in itself, not just as a dose of sugar to help audiences swallow more important themes. Entertainment allows us to temporarily shut down our brains and waken later with emotions refreshed." - Hannah Sternberg

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Van Damme Cinema: Meaningless, Silly, Senseless . . . in a Word, Priceless!

January 25, 2012
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Van Damme Cinema: Meaningless, Silly, Senseless . . . in a Word, Priceless!

The young crime-fiction aficionado Patrick Ohl writes: I have a confession to make. I love action movies, especially all those movies from the 80s and 90s starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, or any one of their rivals with the general exception of Steven Seagal. Dumb and derivative they may be, but I have plenty of fun watching the creative action, well-choreographed fights, and terrible acting. But above all, my guiltiest pleasures are watching Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.

I cannot explain this love of mine in any rational terms. Van Damme was at one point in his career considered Arnold Schwarzenegger without the price tag— like Arnold, he was consistently passed off as an American despite the heavily accented English, and his acting was almost always laughably bad. That being said, there are many minor gems in Van Damme’s career.

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The Little People Who Weren’t There

January 6, 2012
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The Little People Who Weren’t There

If the answer is "42," what's the question?

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‘For Conspicuous Valor,’ a Conspicuously Good E-story

November 11, 2011
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‘For Conspicuous Valor,’ a Conspicuously Good E-story

A novelty in publishing which has come in with the e-book, almost unremarked, is the e-story. Where we used to go to the pulp (and slick) magazines for our short science fiction, today we can often find such stories at low prices for downloading to our Kindles or Nooks. The downside is that, in the absence of traditional editorial apparatus, we're often not sure whether we'll be getting good work or vanity-published dreck.

"For Conspicuous Valor," by Darwin Garrison, is good work.

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The Next ‘Blade Runner’ — Prequel, Sequel, or Remake?

November 5, 2011
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The Next ‘Blade Runner’ — Prequel, Sequel, or Remake?

'Blade Runner' initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film performed poorly in North American theaters but, despite the box office failure of the film, it has since become a cult classic. 'Blade Runner' has been hailed for its production design, depicting a "retrofitted" future, and it remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre.

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The Unsubtle Gay Subtext of the X-Men Movies

November 3, 2011
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The Unsubtle Gay Subtext of the X-Men Movies

For many it comes as no surprise that one of Hollywood's priorities is to mainstream homosexuality. So, few should be surprised when a series of fantasy adventure films promote the gay agenda. X-Men is supposed to be the superhero series that secretly took gay issues into massive mainstream territory. Since the comic appeared in the '60s, pop-culture critics have drawn parallels between the mutants’ struggle to gain wider acceptance for being genetically ‘different,’ and the gay community's struggle for acceptance and recognition.

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‘Temporary Duty’ Is an Extended Pleasure

November 2, 2011
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‘Temporary Duty’ Is an Extended Pleasure

I have good and not-so-good things to say about Temporary Duty, but I'll start with the good.

Considering its length and its price ($2.99 for the Kindle book), Temporary Duty is one of the best reading entertainment values you'll find today. It's quite long, and it's simply lots of fun. If you go back far enough to remember the sheer pleasure of the old space opera novels, like Heinlein's juveniles, that same pleasure is here in abundance—the wonder of space, the fascination of exotic aliens and strange cultures, the excitement of human ingenuity applied to interstellar challenges. You'll have a good time reading this book.

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Cusack-Poe Movie: Maddest Thing Ever?

October 20, 2011
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Cusack-Poe Movie: Maddest Thing Ever?

The upcoming theatrical film The Raven, evidently based verrrrrrrrry loosely on the stories and poems of the brilliant nineteenth century American writer Edgar Allan Poe, and starring John Cusack as Poe, looks as if it could be very good fun or just poopawful. Certainly it looks like quite possibly the maddest thing ever, which is saying a lot these days. Based on the trailer, however, I find myself strangely interested in seeing the great American writer battle evil on the mean streets of antebellum Baltimore even though I don’t like Cusack and never have. (That’s not a criticism of him or his movies, just a personal reaction.) See the trailer, and decide for yourself—if you dare:

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Film Trailer: “The Whisperer In Darkness”

October 4, 2011
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Courtesy of Furious D, here’s a little film trailer for a low-budget production of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer In Darkness.” Honestly, isn’t that a great trailer? Aren’t you interested in seeing this movie? I know I am, and–here’s the thing–I hate H. P. Lovecraft’s body of work. All that nihilism, and the whole the-universe-is-more-horrifying-than-you-can-imagine Cthulhu Mythos, is to me not only depressing and demoralizing, but full-out blasphemous. But this trailer is irresistable. The people who made it (and, we assume, the film) are having so much fun, first in telling a story they enjoy, and then in re-creating the whole atmosphere of a 1930s horror film, that all their love shines through (which is ironic when you’re dealing with Lovecraft material). Bravo.

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Vampire Culture

September 6, 2011
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Vampire Culture

How does one explain the efflorescence of the vampire in popular culture? David Solway has an idea: One can’t help but notice the growing prevalence of the vampire archetype in contemporary fiction and film, corresponding to the popular fascination with the Titanic story. The vampire and the Titanic constitute cultural paradigms, aspects of the subliminal awareness of deep social currents, suppressed forces, and nocturnal apprehensions expressed as aesthetic configurations. It used to be “sympathy for the devil.” Now it’s sympathy for cognizable evil: The premonition that something is awfully wrong haunts the imagination, although much of the time we cannot isolate precisely what it is that lurks in the shadows of our doubts and misgivings. Terrorism and a revived Islam, for example, clearly stalk the collective psyche. According to ancient lore, the vampire must first be invited into the premises he subsequently terrorizes, and this is certainly the case with the Islamic demographic. At the same time, all too many of us refuse to consciously acknowledge the threat and strive instead to prettify the image of Islam as a “religion of peace” — just as the modern vampire tends to be nipped and tucked into a cosmetic semblance of nobility

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‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Mashup Notable for Flaws, Saving Graces

August 1, 2011
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‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Mashup Notable for Flaws, Saving Graces

By S. T. Karnick The general rule for mixed-genre fictions is not that you can expect to interest fans of both genres, but instead that you end up only with those who like both genres. That, I suspect, is a central reason why so few are attempted and even fewer are successful with audiences or critics. That seems to be what’s happening with Cowboys & Aliens, which opened to less-than-enthusiastic reviews and lower-than-expected first-weekend ticket sales even though it finished first at the U.S. box office. That would explain the unexpectedly weak performance during the film’s first weekend. What’s likely to suppress its box office appeal in the coming weeks, however, is the film’s lack of a strong story line and dearth of appealing characters. Directed by Jon Favreau (the Iron Man films, Elf, Zathura) from a script by multiple hands, Cowboys & Aliens has plenty of energy and action and is basically enjoyable, but it suffers from a curious lack of interesting plot twists and a rather glaring casting mistake. Most classic Westerns, contrary to contemporary beliefs, were given excellent, complex plots with strong character motivations. Unfortunately, plot is the great weakness of Cowboys & Aliens. We know from

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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