Poetry Friday

I feel a bit like I'm cheating doing another Poetry Friday. I've been bad about posting recently and poems are generally easy. But then I thought...hey it's my blog. And I want to post a poem.

I love Neil Gaiman. I love his stories, I love his blog, and I love his poetry. I've only found one thing he's written that I didn't like and considering how much he's written that's pretty incredible. This poem makes me giggle so of course it makes me ridiculously happy.

The Day the Saucers Came
by Neil Gaiman

That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
and the people of Earth stood and stared as they descended,
waiting, dry-mouthed to find what waited inside for us
and none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow,
but you didn't notice it because

That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
was the day that the graves gave up their dead
and the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
but you did not notice this because

On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
a ship built of dead-men's nails, a serpent, a wolf,
all bigger than the mind could hold, and the cameraman could
not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
but you did not see them coming because

On the saucer-zombie-battling gods day the floodgates broke
and each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
and charm and cleverness and true brave hearts and pots of gold
while giants feefofummed across the land, and killer bees,
but you had no idea of any of this because

That day, the saucer day the zombie day
the Ragnarok and fairies day, the day the great winds came
and snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day
all plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
computers turned, the screens telling us we would obey, the day
angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
and all the bells of London were sounded, the day
animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
the fluttering capes and arrival of the Time Machine day,
you didn't notice any of this because

you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not even reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,
wondering if I was going to call.

Where No Man Has Gone Before

I have to admit that I always thought that NASA would have a shuttle program. I took the launches for granted having grown up well after a man had walked on the moon. We sent up astronauts. On a regular basis. That is just what we did.

So yesterday feels a bit like an end of an era. With the last launch of a space shuttle for the foreseeable future, I feel a strange sense of loss. Like the future that Science Fiction writers have predicted for decades just won't be coming true. When SciFi writers in the 50s started writing about space travel it was because it was becoming a possibility. When writers talked about long distance space travel or space station living, it was because those things were on the horizon. In a way this end of the program, induced by budget cuts, feels like the end of those dreams. What will we shoot for now?

I know that budgets are finite. I know that cuts have to be made or taxes raised (I'm all for taxes by the way). What I wonder is why we make the cuts we do. I know that NASA's program seemed less immediately necessary. But I still can't help but lament the death of dreams. Will children still grow up wanting to be astronauts? Will we still look to the stars and hope to reach one? Will we ever find the cold still expanses of space? I know I'm being melodramatic. But space made me dream. I grew up on the words of Bradbury and Niven and Roddenberry. I grew up with dreams of new life and new civilizations. And today the universe feels a little more closed off.

Alice

I'm a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland. I've read the books (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass) multiple times, which is saying a lot. I've watched and own most film adaptations of the story. I've bought video games just because they are based on the character. I've even purchased figurines from the Disney film and Robert Sabuda's amazing pop-up book of the story. I love the story, the characters, and the setting. In short I love everything about those books.

That said I should have hated the new Alice miniseries done by the SyFy (or as I prefer SciFi) Channel. I should have been upset by the fact that the series never really touched on the original story. I should have hated that the characters are so loosely based on the book's characters that the only thing they have in common is the names. The Hatter is not mad, the White Knight doesn't move backwards, and The White Rabbit isn't really a rabbit at all. I should have hated it. But I didn't. Apparently I'm easily seduced.


Similar to SyFy's (back when it was SciFi) Tin Man, while I bristled at the license taken with the characters and story, I found the tone to be spot on. The premise of this story is that Wonderland is run by the Queen and King of Hearts (so far so good). They maintain peace in the kingdom by providing their subjects with liquefied emotions (ummm what?) particularly good emotions. In order to get the emotions, the organization called White Rabbit sneaks through a looking glass into the modern world and steals people, who they call oysters. The oysters are then kept happy while the emotions are drained from them. Alice, following her boyfriend Jack, stumbles into Wonderland in possession of a ring of power. The Queen will stop at nothing to get the ring back. Alice, with the help of Hatter (a street wise hustler character) and the White Knight (who's crazier than "a box of frogs"), set out to save Jack and bring down the Queen's reign. That's the story in a nutshell but there was far more going on.

As expected the setting was incredible. Wonderland's city is an odd mirror of the real world except that most of the action takes place in the buildings or on narrow ledges. The Queen's palace (Hearts Casino) is an elaborate house of cards. The settings themselves are beautiful and over the top. Which is what drew me in. SyFy, both literally and figuratively, gave Wonderland an edge. And not just the edge where the action takes place. It is a beautiful place but also incredibly deadly. The grit of the city and its maze-like buildings made sense to me. The fact that Alice would be guided through this chaotic urban world by a street hustler makes even more sense that way. And I liked the comparison of the urban grit with the polished atmosphere of the casino. The setting really made this for me.

The character of Alice is also a bit different from what you are used to. In this adventure Alice is the major butt kicker. She's a blackbelt in Karate and can easily defend herself physically. What she can't seem to do is defend herself emotionally. She is easily misled and is constantly trusting the wrong person. Her character is afraid of heights (which is never explained) leading to some annoying hysterical scenes. Hatter on the other hand is a much more enjoyable character to watch. He alternates between menacing, cocky, charming, pitiable, and sweet. I was seduced by his understated charm, his puppy-dog loyalty, and his hat tricks. He's a manipulative character but with a solid core. Kathy Bates is a fabulous Queen with just the right amount of anger and self-righteousness. She's vain and over-the-top in just the right way. And to balance all the grit and menace of the others is The White Knight, who is seriously crazy. His constant singing, his useless showmanship, and his wild facial expressions made him seem more like the book's character than anyone else.


The one issue that I had with the series was that the plot tried to do a little too much. It tried to work in characters that shouldn't be there. It tried to add family drama in the form of Alice's father who was dragged into the world decades ago and brainwashed. Most of the scenes with Doctors Dee and Dum were too bizarre, even for Wonderland. Where Tin Man followed one story much more successfully, this miniseries is like a juggler keeping way too many balls in the air.

I'm sure most people will disagree with me on most of this review. Those who really enjoyed it will say that most of those extraneous parts are needed. And those who hate it will say that it was too far from the story to even be considered an Alice in Wonderland adaption. I myself will simply say that I'm infinitely seducible. I went in with a vague curiosity based on images and ended up enjoying it. I won't be rushing out to own this Alice, but I won't turn it down if I find it at a reasonable price. A dark story with some bizarre twists and turns that made for an entertaining, if not over the top, Alice. And a very different take on the story.

Ender's Game

Of course last week I didn't write anything about anything because I was reading Ender's Game and that was filling all my time. I finished Ender's Game Friday night but couldn't write about it. It was too fresh, too powerful. I just wanted to bask in the wonderfulness that is the book. Saturday I got entranced by a new art blog lines and color and of course had to go through the nearly 5 years of archives to find artists I like. I filled four notepad pages with just artists names who's work I want to explore. This meant that I had no time for writing a review. Today I'm back at work and suddenly feel like writing. So without further ado, Ender's Game.

Mention the book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card to almost anyone who's read it and their eyes will light up. When I mentioned I was reading it, I had a ton of people who told me how much they loved the book. And I can see why. The story follows Andrew "Ender" Wiggins, a young boy who could be the greatest military strategist of all time. At least that's what the government thinks. At six years old he is taken from his family to train on battle strategy games. The commanders set him up as the greatest, alienating him from his classmates, and Ender performs. He rises quickly to the top of his class and graduates well early from the Battle School he attends. At 11 he is moved from Battle School to Command School and is trained on a simulator. He quickly proves himself to be the best at the simulator winning every battle against the alien species called "buggers". But the game is driving him crazy. I won't tell you the ending. Somethings are best discovered individually. But they real question is whether Ender's fragile psyche can hold out long enough for him to lead the troops into battle.

This book was a stunning and somewhat brutal looking into a military society. Ender, young and sensitive, is driven to the point of madness by commanders who are trying to see if they can crack the boy. They need to prove that he is the best general ever but watching them push this fragile young boy is very painful at times. The moment Ender gets comfortable and becomes happy, he is moved from his situation. He is never allowed to keep friends for any length of time and must fight his own battles, often with his own survival at stake. And all the time the military watches him. The description of the battle games, particularly the zero-gravity games, was fascinating. Ender's strategies are constantly evolving and we are given a chance to see his brilliance regularly. But we also see how much pain he is being caused.

I actually picked up this book at Jeff's insistance. He had picked it up last time we were at the bookstore and when he was finished, had left it on the table for me with one simple word. "Amazing". I couldn't agree more. Card's writing is fast paced and this book flew for me. Of course that could be because I couldn't put it down. I was interested in the school strategies and the interactions between the students. I grew to love the character of Ender and hate the military commanders. I cried at the end for reasons I won't disclose. This book touched me and angered me and thrilled me. A wonderful combination of action and emotion. And one of the best SciFi novels I have read in a long time. The next time someone mentions that they are reading Ender's Game, my eyes will light up and I'll start spouting about how much I loved the book.