Like Tears in Rain: Meditations on Science Fiction Cinema

by Alex Kane

  While we are made to empathize with his hatred toward human beings, Reeves ultimately shows us that Koba is incapable of devotion to anyone or anything beyond his own selfish hunger for vengeance, given the harm inflicted on him in the past. And this is an important and understated facet of warfare in the modern age: Our cultures and nations are hesitant to cop to anything resembling forgiveness for the crimes and injustices of the previous century, and it eats at our global civilization like a cancer.

  Caesar, by contrast, is steadfast in his belief that peace is the solution to most of our problems—and no wrongdoing is so severe that an entire race should be made to suffer for it. No doubt the third film in this newly rebooted incarnation of the Apes saga will present a far more cynical version of the creature Andy Serkis has portrayed twice with such groundbreaking skill and finesse. Along with the apes who stand beside him—Maurice, Rocket, his own growing family—Caesar represents the very antithesis of the human-loathing, slavekeeping apes first seen in Franklin J. Schaffner’s original 1968 masterpiece. I fear the weary leader shall eventually be made to suffer for the goodness in his heart.

  Overall, the film is an emotional and technical marvel. Its visual effects are used sparingly in light of the MoCap work done by Weta Digital on Serkis’s and the other apes’ performances. Several tense fight sequences serve as tentpole moments to delineate the quieter, more universal tragedies and debates that propel the plot along—but audiences can rejoice at being spared the kind of ludicrous, explosion-riddled battle scenes that plague most summer blockbusters of late.

  Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Gary Oldman, and Kodi Smit-McPhee (no longer the child actor you remember from The Road and Reeves’s own sublime horror film Let Me In) round out a stellar cast that nevertheless surrenders most of its camera time to the scene-stealing apes. I dare say that Dawn can easily be called The Empire Strikes Back of this generation, and, outside of a few high-concept outliers like Source Code and Inception, is perhaps the single greatest science fiction movie of the decade.

  My Dream Anthology

  Recommended Reading (Short Fiction) for SFSignal.com’s Mind Meld

  Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I’ve always felt that the literature of science fiction and fantasy—or fantastika, to employ John Clute’s simpler, far more inclusive-sounding term—ought to make us feel uncomfortable in some way. Unsettled. At the very least, a reader of fiction should be left with an experience worth remembering; and an idea presented in a way that’s strange or inobvious is going to stay in the mind much longer than a story told via the path of least resistance. Certainly a work of fantasy should get us thinking about the world in fresh, unfamiliar ways—even, I’d argue, if it makes us feel slightly disturbed.

  Consider Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Is there any greater conversation-starter for the topic of social responsibility, or the ethics of suffering, in literature? And I’ve always felt a profound sympathy toward Bradbury’s tragic Leonard Mead, who went out for a peaceful walk in the nighttime air and found himself declared a criminal. The short-story form is a graveyard packed full of these kinds of dystopian injustices.

  I once caught an episode of the Outer Limits reboot, circa 2000, about a scientist who uses the preserved consciousness of his dead son to build an android replacement. The acting and writing were pedestrian, at best, but the quietly horrific nature of the grieving man’s ambition, coupled with the dissatisfying end result of his efforts at resurrecting his lost child, is ultimately an unforgettable piece of storytelling. Not that I wouldn’t prefer to forget it; I simply won’t.

  This technique made Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” a canonical piece of writing. Call it “shock value,” if you like. But it so often defines whatever genre makes proper use of it. Flirting with human deviance and taboos; exposing the faults in all our technocultural hive-making; not to mention the use of nightmarish imagery to evoke a more visceral reaction in the reader. . . .

  Science fiction often becomes a study in contrasts, painting for us a clearer picture of what it means to be human by filling the negative space with a reality we’d rather not experience ourselves. There is a perceived dichotomy among critics—between fiction that holds scientific progress in a high regard, and that which shows it to be inherently dangerous or wrongheaded. But I sincerely doubt that any writer working in the field of SF believes that science or invention is a thing to be feared; instead, it seems that the literature concerns itself first and foremost with maintaining the humanity in our global society.

  Whether holding to light the frightening metaphysical implications of idealism, as with Dick’s “The Electric Ant,” or showing us just how utterly different we may one day become in our unending quest for immortality through advancing biotech, as with “Married,” “Jenny’s Sick,” or “The People of Sand and Slag,” fantastika is becoming increasingly more imaginative and diverse. More dreamlike. And I think that notions of genre will prove just as elastic in the years to come, whether the intent is to elevate scientific progress, to terrify the reader, or both.

  A Study in Contrasts: Fantastika in All Its Forms

  • “The Electric Ant,” Philip K. Dick, F&SF (Oct. 1969)

  • “Jenny’s Sick,” David Tallerman, Lightspeed (Dec. 2010)

  • “Liking What You See: A Documentary,” Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

  • “Married,” Helena Bell, Upgraded, ed. Clarke (2014)

  • “A Touch of Strange,” Theodore Sturgeon, F&SF (Jan. 1958)

  • “The People of Sand and Slag,” Paolo Bacigalupi, F&SF (Feb. 2004)

  • “Real Artists,” Ken Liu, TRSF (Oct. 2011)

  • “Significant Dust,” Margo Lanagan, Cracklescape

  • “The Pedestrian,” Ray Bradbury, F&SF (Feb. 1952)

  • “Anuta Fragment’s Private Eyes,” Ben Godby, Shimmer no. 18 (Feb. 2014)

  • “The Brave Little Toaster,” Cory Doctorow, TRSF (Oct. 2011)

  • “She Unnames Them,” Ursula K. Le Guin, The New Yorker (Jan. 1985)

  • “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy),” Geoff Ryman, F&SF (Oct. 2006)

  • “All My Princes Are Gone,” Jennifer Giesbrecht, Nightmare (Aug. 2013)

  • “Of Time and Third Avenue,” Alfred Bester, F&SF (Oct. 1951)

  • “Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland,” Gwyneth Jones, Off Limits, ed. Datlow (1997)

  • “A Jar of Goodwill,” Tobias S. Buckell, Clarkesworld (May 2010)

  • “Resurrection Points,” Usman T. Malik, Strange Horizons (Aug. 2014)

  • “Fragments of a Hologram Rose,” William Gibson, Unearth 3 (1977)

  • “You Will Hear the Locust Sing,” Joe Hill, The Third Alternative no. 37 (2004)

  • “Six Months, Three Days,” Charlie Jane Anders, Tor.com (Jun. 2011)

  Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut

  The Other Mecha Space Combat Simulator on Xbox One

  Xbox One owners ought to be able to use their hardware for more than just its Blu-ray capabilities and video streaming apps like Twitch and Netflix. It’s been more than seven months since the system’s launch, yet outside of titles like Titanfall and Battlefield 4—arguably two of the best current-gen multiplayer experiences available, granted—and the near-faultless remake Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, the console seems to lack the considerable games catalog that made its predecessor such a success.

  Part of that void, made ever larger given the 360’s continued claim to what Microsoft calls its Xbox Live Arcade, can be chalked up to the lack of small, independent games available for the Xbox One (unless you’re a big fan of Peggle—then rejoice in the coming of Peggle 2!).

  There is one shining ray of light in all that wasted potential, however, and that is the crowd-funded Kickstarter success Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut. Having raised over $170,000.00, the developers at Born Ready Games brought aboard a team of artists, designers, musicians, and a composer—most of them from acclaim
ed projects like Homeworld, Appleseed: Ex Machina, and Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino—to bring their vision to life. The marketing folks behind the game inform us, “This Is Space Combat Reborn,” and for the most part they don’t disappoint. Strike Suit gets off to a slow start with a tutorial mission that features a non-mecha player object, but once the story and transformation game mechanics kick in at the start of the second level everything comes together quite nicely.

  The game’s physics feel real even as the graphics and other production values are highly stylized; it takes its inspiration from properties like Robotech: The Macross Saga and Gundam Wing unabashedly, and the result is pretty incredible, far as this mecha fanatic is concerned. Most importantly, the game manages to be quite graceful about spaceflight. Because up and down are relative in zero-g, you never feel the need to worry about what direction you should be facing, or whether you have to come toward an objective from a particular angle.

  Strike Suit lets you focus on what matters: taking out enemy ships. And enemies pose a real threat—they’re not the slow-moving slouches common among so many classic arcade shooters and modern FPS titles. If you don’t reach nav points in a timely manner and take out oncoming bogeys, your allies will perish and so will you.

  Occasionally, the sound mix makes voiceovers difficult to hear and therefore objectives become unclear, or the story feels a touch rudimentary—but the voiceover performances, the design work, and soundtrack are endlessly compelling. If the game’s imperfect or lacks innovation, this does nothing to diminish the sheer replayability and “cool factor” that pervade it once you advance past the opening tutorial. In truth, I find it to be nearly as fun as Titanfall. Something both games have in common is a passion for the familiar: Neither game strives to unveil some grandiose piece of worldbuilding that its audience has never seen before—they just try to give the player a fun experience, some interesting if forgettable characters, and the nostalgia that one can’t help but feel in the presence of classic-style “mobile suits.”

  A new indie-publishing platform for Xbox One, billed as ID@Xbox, has been announced, but at the moment pickings appear rather slim. This particular game is a nice change of pace, for one—and Max: The Curse of Brotherhood appears to be worth checking out in the near future—but I can’t help but lament the lack of selection. Meantime, it seems we’ll just have to make do with fun but mindless games like Titanfall and Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut until Bungie’s MMO role-playing shooter Destiny rolls out in September.

  Karmic Demons and the Power of Compassion

  Buddhist Philosophy as a Basis for Modern Myth

  I would put forward that the next thing is going to be a story, because right now, people really don’t have a big story, a big software. . . . They don’t have a big meta-narrative story; they don’t have a big story like Christianity was a big story. So right now, we need a really big story. And that story doesn’t have to be in conflict or in reaction to the current story, because I would say, right now, you don’t change anything by protesting anything. . . . You give people a more effective way of living their lives, they won’t give a shit about foreign oil, you know? You give them the right story, and you make their cars obsolete, it’s gonna be like, “We are just swimming in oil. What are we going to do with all this oil?” And you can do that within the culture without reacting to the government, the war, whatever. Because in a way, by reacting to it, you’re wasting energy. You are making it stronger by giving it this token little resistance, keeping it in place. So your job, I would say, is to come up with a story like that, that makes all of the things we worry about so much right now completely beside the point. We won’t even think about them, because your story will be so incredible. I don’t know what that story is, but that’s why . . . if I can make my case, somebody’s gonna come up with that story.

  —Chuck Palahniuk, Postcards from the Future

  Palahniuk’s words are inspiring because, as readers and storytellers, we would like to imagine that our most beloved fiction could somehow transcend its obligations to be merely entertaining and truthful; that a story could have such profound ideas, and be told in such a monumental way, that we could feel its impact throughout global society in the form of positive change. Embedded in Palahniuk’s lecture is the notion that whatever the earth-shattering myth of tomorrow proves to be, it will have to resemble in no way the current model for human life. It will have to be recognizable right away as something wholly new, that both challenges the current sociopolitical system and calls readers to action—compels them to live as few or none have lived before.

  David R. Loy and Linda Goodhew, authors of The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy, argue that “Traditionally the most important [stories] have been religious. According to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, religion is the metaphysics of the masses, but it is just as true to label philosophy the religion of intellectuals” (2), and also note that within the context of religious teachings, “it is chiefly the stories that we find meaningful, because stories speak to us and move us in ways that concepts do not” (2). In other words, Palahniuk’s argument makes sense because for most of us, raw ideas in dogmatic form have little or no appeal, whereas a narrative gives readers a blueprint for living their own lives. Stories give us a means by which to understand ourselves and the world.

  One criticism that many have toward a lot of commercially successful fiction being published today is, despite the obvious resonance and rapport between author and reader, far too often the ideas and morality presented by the work are, frankly, too comfortable. Too safe. They tend to reinforce, rather than challenge, the status quo.

  Books that confront the ills of modern civilization, that expose tyranny and dispel its illusions, have always been the ones to endure through the ages: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Moby Dick, The Catcher in the Rye, 1984, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men. These sorts of books outlive their authors precisely because of the authors’ desire for subversion.

  So what would be the most controversial philosophy to put forth in contemporary fiction? What could possibly have the kind of effect on today’s consumer-driven, individualistic world that those novels had in their own time? Well, how about a philosophy that claims the physical, observable world is empty and impermanent; that says we have no essences or souls, and can therefore not be seen as individuals in any important sense; and that says our only hope for salvation, for enlightenment, is to free the mind of our worldly desires and attachments—to let go of our possessions and loved ones for the sake of purifying our consciousness?

  On the surface, Buddhism sounds more radical than almost any other system of belief, in stark contrast to notions of egoism and the individual put forth by works like Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but within Buddhist thought are some of the most powerful and resonant truths on Earth. Glimpses of ideas like selflessness, compassion, karma, and nonviolence can even be found in countless works of Western literature, in fact. As Loy and Goodhew point out, while Buddhism may not be the primary source of truth in most contemporary English-language novels and short stories, “it makes their Buddhist resonances all the more interesting and important” (7).

  One exception would be Paolo Bacigalupi’s short story “Pocketful of Dharma,” a gritty post-cyberpunk work set in Chengdu, China, whose title explicitly denotes the teachings of the Buddha. In this story, a desperate beggar-boy stumbles into possession of a “blue datacube” (6) that is eventually found to contain the computerized consciousness of the Dalai Lama. After witnessing the murder of a foreigner by a Tibetan criminal, the beggar, Wang Jun, is asked to deliver the victim’s datacube to “the Renmin Lu bridge across the Bing Jiang” (6) in exchange for the pair of light amplification glasses the dead man had been wearing.

  With money in his pocket for what seems to be the very first time, Jun stops at
a street restaurant and orders “Mapo dofu, yu xiang pork, two liang of rice and Wu Xing beer” (9). Soon after, the cube’s buyer shows up and demands that Jun give it to him. Wang Jun hesitates, and the foreigner threatens to harm him. Jun reaches for something silver he spies in the buyer’s pocket, and pulls out the Tibetan’s severed finger, “its tarnished silver and turquoise ring still on it” (10), and, deciding that the foreigner is likely to make good on his threat, shoves “a handful of scalding dofu . . . full of hot chilies and peppercorns” (11) into the man’s eyes.

  Free to do what he pleases with the cube, Jun takes it to a black-market salesmen called Three-Fingers to find out what it contains. After Three-Fingers attaches the datacube to an appropriate adapter cord, the computer speakers boom with the voice of “Naed Delhi, the nineteenth Dalai Lama” (14). The story then transitions from a primarily socioeconomic journey to an examination of the nature of identity. The Dalai Lama’s voice proclaims, “I am not software. I am the Dalai Lama of the Yellow Hat sect. The nineteenth to be reincarnated as such” (14), adding that he is skeptical of his situation: “How do you know I am in a computer?” (15). He describes this bizarre new existence as “Terrible and still” (15), and explains that “I don’t remember anything until now. But it is very still here. Deathly still. I can hear you, but cannot feel anything. There is nothing here. I fear that I am not here. It is maddening. All of my senses are lost. I want out of this computer. Help me. Take me back to my body” (16).

  Wang Jun is then confronted by a woman in white gloves, who he quickly realizes was the intended recipient of the cube—the man at the restaurant had apparently intercepted the information that Jun was to deliver it to “the person who wears white gloves” (6). Her “foreign companion” explains that the Dalai Lama’s body is no longer viable, as “either the Chinese or the Europeans blew his head full of holes” (20). As a hostage, however, he is no longer deemed to have bargaining power, as intended by his enemies. The woman’s companion explains that “The Tibetans want us to destroy him. Keep whining about how his soul won’t be reborn if we don’t destroy it” (20). When she suggests that they map the Dalai Lama’s consciousness—his stolen “identity matrix” (16)—onto a new body, her companion replies that he will no longer be recognizable, and will no longer have a following (20).