2011 Not-a-Hugo Nominee: Dram. Pres., Short Form CAPRICA

Caprica was a fascinating show. Its ideas and themes were fascinating, how it presented them was fascinating, and its utter failure was perhaps most fascinating of all.

Let me start out by saying: I like Caprica. I wasn’t always sure that I did, but, in the final analysis, I liked it a great deal. Here’s the shocker: I liked it better than Battlestar Gallactica, and I’m more likely to revisit it in the future.

Caprica takes place some seventy years before the Battlestar reboot, and it tracks the creation of the robotic cylons. The series follows three families connected by terrorism. Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) runs the massive corporation that makes highly popular virtual reality goggles. His daughter Zoe (Alessandra Torressni) is a genius who designs an artificial copy of herself. His wife, Amanda (Paula Macolmson), gets into some zany hijinks over the course of the series. The Adama family are immigrants to Caprica from Tauron. Joseph (Esai Morales) tries to assimilate while his brother Sam remains involves in Tauron crime family activities. Joseph has a son named William, a name that should be familiar to BSG fans. Zoe, and Joseph’s wife and daughter Tamara, are killed in a terrorist attack on a shuttle orchestrated by monotheists. Clarice Willow (Polly Walker) is the local monotheistic mastermind; she’s part of a large polygamous family. Zoe was a devotee of Clarice, and her surviving friend, Lacy (Magda Aponowicz), ends up getting drawn into Clarice’s plans as well.

That was probably hard to follow if you haven't seen the show - basically, it's an exploration of robotics and VR in a society riven with decadence and religious conflict. It’s also sprawling family drama with a meandering plot. It doesn’t have the clear-cut character and plot hooks of BSG, where humankind is running for its life and most of the characters are obsessed, crazy, and/or take-no-prisoners badasses. Caprica is more complex, which is why I liked it better, and probably why it failed. On top of that, you have BSG fatigue (that last half season was weird), and the overall change from an action show to a highly speculative family drama. Prequelitis shouldn’t really be a factor – we know so little about the start of the cylon war that there’s plenty of surprises possible, and the character you’re least likely to think can die actually does. Still, the show has so many strikes against it, it’s failure seems like a foregone conclusion in hindsight.

Not to mention the fact that the show is far from perfect. The first half can move extremely slowly, while the second half (with cancellation looming) zooms at an insane pace. The plots, as I mentioned, seem to wander around randomly. Amanda’s story is especially indicative of this – she’s with Daniel, then she’s not, then she is again. She hates Zoe, she loves Zoe, she has to expose Zoe, she has to save Zoe. She’s suicidal. She’s dead? She’s an undercover agent? Paula Macolmson is a trooper through it all, but the character really is a trainwreck. There’s a similar stop and start/back and forth with Joseph Adama and the avatar of his dead daughter Tamara. And, they can’t seem to decide if Daniel is pure evil or misguided and overconfident.

So, it does go off the rails on occasion, but the show has a lot to offer. The VR culture is interesting and compelling, and this may be the finest realization of cyberpunk themes on television ever. The show also does much more to establish the twelve colonies setting in one season than BSG did in four. One of my biggest complaints about BSG is that it never felt like a coherent universe. The twelve colonies on Caprica are still a bit too similar to our own Earth, but at least we get some more details about the different ethnicities and their traditions. The look of the show is fantastic as well.

Recommended episodes:

“Pilot” – The show is heavily serialized, so you have to start at the beginning. I also think that this is where the show went wrong with the audience, who were expecting something different. If you go in with an open mind, I think the show’s potential is clearer. Grade: A-

“There is Another Sky” – My favorite episode of the series explores the virtual version of Caprica City for some cyberpunk action. Grade: A

“Dirtearters” – An exploration of Tauron history through Sam and Joseph’s childhoods. This episode really offers that grounded exploration of ethnicity that I found lacking in BSG, which was more likely to bring up characters ethnicities out of the blue to serve melodramatic one-off plots late in later seasons. Grade: B+

“Here There Be Dragons”/“Apotheosis” – The premature conclusion of the series does its best to tie up loose ends and bridge the gap with BSG. It works surprisingly well, and the ending montage is especially effective. Grade: B+

Overall series grade: B

2011 Hugo Nominees: Dram. Pres., Short Form - “The Lost Thing,” written by Shaun Tan and “F*** Me, Ray Bradbury,” written by Rachel Bloom

Let’s begin with the sexually-charged paean to the ninety-year-old science fiction writer by a young parodist of Britney Spears…….

….it’s cute. And somewhat clever. That’s about all I have to say about it. It’s nothing particularly meaningful and important, and it’s not trying to be. I wouldn’t have nominated it for this award, and it certainly shouldn’t win, but I did chuckle the first time I saw it. I’m tempted to launch into a discussion of third-wave feminism, but that seems silly, and I’m saving my long-winded, over-analyzing tangent for the next nominee.

Shaun Tan’s “The Lost Thing” already won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, but I’m sure Tan would rather have this Hugo. It’s pretty clear that this category was designed for tv, but it is ideal for short films, and I’m surprised they haven’t done better here, especially with the profusion of animated short films in the past decade plus.

This sixteen-minute computer animated feature follows a narrator in a dystopic world. He finds a strange creature on the beach; it’s a ceramic-steampunky-tentacled-crab thingie that can’t really be categorized. He tries to find it a home, but no one really wants anything to do with it. The soulless bureaucratic world just wants to bury it.

The message of this film is a bit amorphous. Over the course of this blog, I’ve decided that there are two main types of dystopia: let’s call them social dystopias and cultural dystopias. Social dystopias look at what could go wrong with the societal issues we face: ecological limits, overpopulation, totalitarianism, economic divides, etc. Cultural dystopias look at worlds destroyed by reality tv or people not reading novels as much as they used to. Every dystopia is a little bit of both, but the origins tend to lie in one or the other. 1984 give us the culture of doublespeak, but it all springs from political trends that Orwell absorbed from his contemporary world. Meanwhile, Fahrenheit 451 (speaking of the oh-so-*bleep*able Mr. Bradbury) shows us a totalitarian world that springs from addiction to daytime soaps. I really prefer the former examination of societal issues than the complaints about cultural trends. I mean, I really hate those Real Housewife shows, but I don’t think they spell the end of civilization as we know it. And, once upon a time, people thought novels were low culture.

What’s my point? I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to say that the film’s condemnation of conformity, bureaucracy, and consumerism felt trite and pointless, as such things usually do to me. That’s not to say that I didn’t like it though. The designs are fantastic; the bland dystopia is wonderfully conveyed in the art direction, and we see all sorts of great, oddball creatures, especially the titular Thing. It is a very cute film, and I’m glad it was nominated. I hope more short films get nominated in the future, and I’m a little worried that this only made the cut because the previous Wondercon was held in its originating nation of Australia.

Grades: “Bleep Me, Ray Bradbury” B-

“The Lost Thing” A-

2011 Hugo Nominee: Best Dram. Pres., Short - Doctor Who: "Christmas Carol"; "Pandorica/Big Bang," Steven Moffat; "Vincent & Doctor" by Richard Curtis

After a disappointing set of specials dominated this category last year, it was to be expected that the strong fifth season would do well. I’m actually a bit disappointed that season opener “The Eleventh Hour” and the Angel two-parter didn’t get nods…not that I was rooting for a category sweep. Lots has changed since those specials. The Doctor has regenerated into a new body with a slightly different personality, meaning that young actor Matt Smith is playing him rather than David Tennant. Smith’s Doctor is more awkward, eccentric, and all around geekier, though my wife swears he’s cuter than Tennant’s. I’m not sure I like Smith as much as Tennant, but that in itself is quite a compliment, as Tennant has probably done more to define the role than anyone since Tom Baker. We also have a new showrunner in Steven Moffat. Moffat wrote most of the best episodes of the previous Russell T. Davies (and picked up four Hugo nominations and three wins for his four stories). People expected Moffat to do great things, and he more or less delivered (though for some people, expectations may have been too high). Finally, and not to be underestimated, we have a new companion in plucky Amelia Pond (Karen Gillan), who is engaged, but also manages to sexually harass the Doctor a few times.

The highlight of “Vincent and the Doctor” is first time Doctor Who writer Richard Curtis. Curtis is more famous for his very British film comedies like Four Weddings and A Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually (Hugh Grant is not in this episode for some reason). The Doctor and Amy are viewing a Van Gogh exposition when they notice a monster’s head portrayed in the window of a cathedral in one of his paintings. So, being time travelers, they zip back to 1890 and ask him about it. They learn that Vincent is tormented by an invisible chicken monster that only he can see, and they spring into action. It’s very unusually paced for a Doctor Who episode; the monster fighting is a small part of the episode and is resolved early. Most of the episode is given over to quieter, reflective scenes and some light comedy, and that fits nicely into the overall arc of the season, considering that something tragic happens in the episode before. And, the invisible monster is an effective metaphor for Vincent’s mental illness (he committed suicide in 1890). This is not mind-bending speculative fiction…there’s not much new in here at all in fact, but it is very well executed.

The next two nominees are both Moffat-written, and I think they illustrate both his strengths, and some of his tics, which have become clearer as he writes more episodes. “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang” is the big season finale that ties together several running plotlines. We’ve seen cracks running through space and time in several episodes – in this one, the Doctor’s enemies believe that he is responsible, so they attempt to imprison him, but the universe explodes anyway. Oh well. So, tic #1: Moffat is great at coming up with cool images and catch-phrases (“don’t blink,” “cracks in the universe,” gas mask kid, etc.) and he seems to build episodes around them. For me, “The Pandorica Opens” is a giant exercise in this. We get a flashy beginning that runs through several guest characters and across space and time to get a simple message to the Doctor, then we get aliens versus Romans at Stonehenge, the greatest prison in the universe, the Doctor threatening a horde of circling spacecraft, and the universe exploding. Yeah. A lot of big, impressive stuff happens…but I’m not sure there’s enough story there to hold it all together. Then, “The Big Bang” has the unenviable task of dealing with the fact that the Doctor was defeated and the universe exploded in the previous episode. There’s no way fixing all this isn’t going to feel like a cheat, and it more or less does, but it’s a good, exciting cheat. Previous showrunner, RTD, was often derided for his “clap you hands if you believe Doctor” deus ex machine season enders. We get much the same thing here, without all the complaints. Maybe people just aren’t as sick of Moffat yet…or maybe Moffat just does it better. I tend to favor the latter theory. Moffat keeps things small and character focused (it looks like most of the budget went into the “Pandorica” half, as we spend most of this episode in one location, and there’s really only one physical villain). “Pandorica” is exciting, but it feels dangerously over-the-top; “The Big Bang” is quieter, and gets progressively calmer. The two episodes balance each other out nicely, though they also leave behind a lot of big questions that are still unresolved, half-a-season later.

Finally, at the end of 2010 we got the usual Doctor Who post-season Christmas special. I liked “A Christmas Carol” very much, but I got the feeling that general reception was not so positive. It does fall prey to Moffat tic #2, he does repeat himself sometimes. There are motifs he likes – shadowy figures in space suits ("Silence in the Library," "The Impossible Astronaut"), monsters talking in crackly radio voices of dead friends ("Forest of the Dead," "The Time of Angels"), and the Doctor meeting someone several times throughout their life in rapid succession ("Girl in the Fireplace," "Eleventh Hour"). “A Christmas Carol” does the latter, and the set-up to get there is pretty contrived as well. But, those two flaws aside, I think this may have been the finest hour of Doctor Who in a very strong year. The Doctor’s companions and thousands of others are in a crashing space liner, but the Scrooge-like plutocrat Karzan Sardick (the great Michael Gambon) that runs the planet below refuses to save them. The Doctor decides to make Sardick a better man by time travelling to every Christmas of his youth and giving him a better childhood. Young Sardick finds a tragic love along the way. Yes, we see some repetition of themes, and yes, the plotting can be a bit ham-fisted, but the fine performances and the sweet holiday story made this a favorite of mine.

It was an excellent year for the Doctor. I don’t know how long this show can dominate this category without some sort of backlash developing. I also haven’t been as fond of season 6 as I was of season 5 so far. I guess we’ll see what happens next year.

Grades: “Vincent and the Doctor” A-

“The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang” B+

“A Christmas Carol” A-

2011 Hugo Nominee: Novelette Wrap

What really jumps out at me in this category is how much it leans towards old-fashioned, straight-laced sf. It’s like we’ve gone back to before the New Wave. Hell, “Eight Miles” is back with Jules Verne. The one exception is probably “The Jaguar House, in Shadow.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it also hangs behind a set of stories that I otherwise really liked. To be fair to de Bodard, it was also the story that I had the highest expectations for, and that may have played a role. I was pleasantly surprised by everything else, but I wanted more from an Aztec-themed alternate history.

As we get into the next decade’s worth of Hugo winners, I’ll have some things to say about the state of science fiction. Certainly, hard sf and space opera have looked kind of sickly from both a sales and an awards perspective. I think that perhaps what those genres need are more straightforward stories like these, which focus on character, plot, and relevance, rather than a parade of showy ideas stacked precariously on top of each other.

Anyway, other than “Jaguar House,” this is virtually a four way tie. I think, my vote will go like this (but I might change it at the last minute):

"Emperor of Mars"

"That Leviathan..."

"Plus or Minus"

then, "Eight Miles"

2011 Hugo Nominee: Novelette - "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made" by Eric James Stone (Analog, September 2010)

This is another sort of old-fashioned space opera story. We even get exposition describing simple elements of the world from a first person narrator, which most authors seem to bend over backwards to avoid these days. I’m fine with this; I’ve always found being forced to puzzle out the ground rules more distracting than the illogic of a person describing what should be a familiar environment.

Harry Malan leads a branch of the Church of Latter Day Saints on the sun. Most of his congregation is made up of “swales,” alien beings that live in stars and build star gates between them. Malan has conflicts with local scientists studying the swales, especially Juanita Merced, whom he also happens to have a crush on. He comes into conflict with the swale elders when the mores of the church begin to conflict with swale culture. The story raises some interesting ethical issues, and it presents a simple but fun space opera world, something that I feel has been missing of late.

This is clearly from Malan’s perspective, and Stone is also LDS, but I (decidedly not a Mormon) usually found the presentation balanced. A lot of the reaction from other reviewers whose blogs I follow has been intensely negative. I think you could view this story as a manipulative justification of missionary work. As a historian, I’ve done a great deal of work on the Franciscan missions of California and the Protestant mission in Hawai’i, and both cases are fraught with violence, sexual repression, and appalling death rates. I’d be one of the last people to defend missionary work as a general principle, but I do think the story gets more complex when you bring it up to the present. In the modern world, there are clear points of conflict between universal humanist values and respect for cultural diversity. Religion, of course, complicates these conflicts, and in this story, so does the fact that the other culture is non-human. All of this makes for a fascinating read. What’s really missing here, and what undermines the metaphor to a large extent, are the power dynamics that are usually present in missionary work. Malan is often in danger from powerful alien beings. Historically, missionaries were also often in danger, and many were killed, but missionaries were almost always backed by some sort of imperial power, and disproportionately violent retribution often followed martyrdom. It's almost always been more dangerous to be the object of missionary work than to be a missionary. If Stone really wanted to explore these dynamics, his swales should have been more vulnerable.

Still, I really enjoyed this story. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and it’s not shooting for a PEN/Faulkner award, it just presents an interesting concept in a simple, entertaining way. I see why some people were offended, but I did think it had a lot more nuance and evenhandedness than, say, Speaker for the Dead (which makes me a little bit angrier every time I think about it).

Grade: B+

2011 Hugo Nominee: Novelette - "Plus or Minus" by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's, December 2010)

This story follows the crew of a grungy 22nd-century asteroid-mining ship ironically called the Shining Legend. We spend about half the story meeting the crew, especially the point-of-view character, a teenage girl named Mariska Volochkova. In the second half, something goes wrong with over a hundred days left in their trawl through the solar system, and the crew has to come up with a way to conserve oxygen.

The “technical problem in space” is a classic hard sf plotline. So much so that I get a little nostalgic whenever I read a story in this mode (come to think of it, “For Want of a Nail” qualifies as well). There are some new things here – most of the crew are clones genetically engineered for space travel, and everyone can link their thoughts, or “mindfeed” (I’m assuming through some sort of wireless implants).

Still, the technical details are all pretty boilerplate, so the story’s success or failure rests on characters and atmosphere. Luckily, both are pretty darn good. Mariska is solid enough, and her relationship with her boss, mother, and flirtatious coworker all worked for me. And, the ending worked quite well to boot. A very solid story that's familiar in a good way.

Grade: B+

2011 Hugo Nominee: Novelette - "The Jaguar House, in Shadow" by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov's, July 2010)

I’m a sucker for Mesoamerican stuff, and I like the idea of mashing that intriguing material into speculative tales. It makes for a cool aesthetic at the very least. So, this was one of the more highly anticipated reads for me this year, but I’m not sure the story fulfilled its promise.

The plot is fairly simple, though its telling is more complicated. The Mexica Empire of an alternate reality Earth has become corrupted due to a despotic, demagogic figure called the Revered Speaker. The titular Jaguar House consists of elite Mexica special forces. One of these Jaguar Knights, a woman named Onalli, attempts a rescue mission for her friend Xochitl. That missions serves as a framing story for Onalli remembering her history with Xochitl and the corruption of the Jaguar House that jumps backward in time, first months, then years.

I don't see, in the end, what the backwards chronology brings to the story. I didn’t really learn enough about the characters or the world to be stunned by any of the revelations that come from slowly unveiling the backstory. I’m not sure that much is done with the setting either. Considering that the setting was my favorite part of the story, this was problematic. I learned more about it in the one sentence introduction from Asimov’s than from the rest of the story, though there was some strong material on the cultural relevance of sacrifice.

In other words, I had the same problem that I had with Paul Cornell’s story last year – this is part of a series of stories that I’m unfamiliar with, and I’m not convinced it works on its own. Maybe that suggests that I might enjoy a novel or short story collection set in this world, but I think Hugo-winning stories should stand as independent pieces.

Grade: B-