Vale, Frederik Pohl

We hoped he'd go on forever, but Frederik Pohl has just passed away at the age of 93.

As someone who regularly popped across to read his posts at The Way the Future Blogs and marvel at the way he was still participating in political issues and not holding back on what he thought, I'll miss his insights, and great example. Aging, he showed us, does not necessarily mean a diminishing of one's passion for social justice or a brain that slows down (he was onto the fracking debate recently, and was definitely not in favour of it). Whenever one of the acknowledged SF Greats died, his was the blog to head for because he would tell immensely entertaining tales about that person from the good old days. Who will now do the same for him? I'll miss his posts. 



With his seminal books, which include The Space Merchants, Man Plus, Jem, Gateway and the other Heechee novels, and all his many, many short stories, the legacy he leaves spans the universe. Thank you, Fred.

Frederik George Pohl, Jr

November 26. 1919 - September 2, 2013

Legend of the Luminous Last Lines

There was a book sale in town today. I almost bought The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson but opted for a couple of more modern tomes instead. Coming home tonight and finding out that the great man himself  had just passed away, I wished I had bought it.

Silly me. Tomorrow I'll go back and remedy my mistake. In the shop, leafing through it, I read again that almost last, tragic but full of wonderment, bittersweet-with-a-touch-of-hope line, which always gets me:

"If nature existed on endless levels, so also might intelligence."

Then there's the kicker of a very last line, but I won't spoil it for those who haven't yet dipped into this classic yet.  

He did last lines well. I cannot even begin to guess how many times I read I Am Legend. I loved the entire book (let's politely ignore the movies for now), but I mostly reread it just to relive over and over the full impact of that final prison scene and the very last, now very famous words which, when I first read them as a teenager, completely blew me away:

 ...a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.

 Some writers fudge endings. Not Richard Matheson. Just as you (if you hadn't read his work before) with the last page turned, might have been winding down, he slammed an image or an idea or a possibility right into your brain, and there it stayed put, sending your thoughts skittering off into multiple, deep, dark, moving and twisty philosophical places. All that, and frightening and touching and entertaining too! I loved his books. I loved his Twilight Zone episodes. And who wasn't scared out of their wits by every passing truck for at least a month after watching the movie Duel?

Thank you, Richard, for all those great stories.

Richard Matheson

1926-2013

R.I.P.

Vale, Iain Banks

We knew it was coming, but we, I, thought, well, as we always do in such cases, for sure he'll be around for a few more months... He was such a force... Over at Banksophilia, where you can read the overwhelming love and respect that so many people felt for him and his work, he seemed perky enough... I meant to leave a comment myself, to tell him how much I loved his books, but I didn't... I was still composing it in my head, trying to make it special... Now I wish I had just written a simple 'thank you'. Why do we always wait too long?

I'm floundering in ellipses because it's impossible to absorb that he's really gone, and so soon.

Iain Banks
 

16 February 1954 - 9 June 2013

R.I.P.

 

*** Neil Gaiman shares a few wonderful memories of Iain over at his blog in a piece titled 'Iain. With or without the M.'

 

Vale, Neil Armstrong

So I woke up to the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away at the age of 82, and thought not another one. It seems that the members of a certain generation of space dreamers and inspirers and adventurers and doers are leaving us one by one, and one is left with an uneasy feeling that we might not be worthy of their legacy, might not be up to the task of exploring those distant and dangerous frontiers that await us. But thank goodness we were privileged to know them for a while.

Neil Alden Armstrong was a Navy pilot (he flew 78 missions over Korea), test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, university professor, husband, father and grandfather, and, from all accounts, a truly nice guy. And he liked horses. He was also, of course, a legend - the first human to walk on the moon. The man and the dream are hard to separate, especially for those of us who sat enthralled in front of our TV sets on that memorable July day in 1969 (we knew it had to be a seriously important event because they let us skip class and sent us home from school) to watch a shadowy image transmitted from a place far beyond Earth. After that, anything seemed possible. The sky was not the limit and humankind was headed for greatness, and we couldn't have had a better figurehead to herald in that era than Neil Armstrong. He never let us down, even as those around him let the dream drift, and he never grubbied that special moment in history with his subsequent behaviour. For his whole life, he remained that rarest of things - a genuine hero that we could safely admire and be inspired by.

His first spaceflight was the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, when he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft. His second and final spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. What a pity we didn't get the chance to witness a third spaceflight and take up his offer in 2010 to be commander on a Mars mission. His life was full and amazing enough, but still, Neil Armstrong on Mars - can you picture it? And see how, with that one remark, he once again prodded our imaginations.

Vale

Neil Alden Armstrong

August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012

 

"I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer."

-Neil Armstrong, 2000.

R.I.P. Harry Harrison

I read yesterday morning about the death of Harry Harrison, another master writer of SF lost to the ranks, but I didn't have time to pay my respects then. However, this did give me all day to contemplate the great man and just how much I owe him. So many hours of entertainment, so many adventures, so many thoughts, so much fun. My special favourites are, of course, special favourites the world over, but that doesn't make the experiences I had any less personal or any less unique, for such is the magic of books.

My very first Harry Harrison obsession was the Deathworld series (so yes, when the military crew cut guy in  'Avatar' started to spout about how dangerous the planet beyond the perimeter was, I had definite Deathworld flashbacks. Sparkling Pandora, of course, was a milksop of a world compared with Porgorstoraand.) I chewed my nails anxiously as I read of carnivorous plants and such, for Jason dinAlt was up against a real killer of a world, but fortunately his gambler's ingenuity knew no bounds.

My second great Harry Harrison love was the ever popular series that gave us James Bolivar diGriz, alias Slippery Jim, alias (sound the trumpets, please) The Stainless Steel Rat. Just saying it makes me grin. I have to confess though that once Slippery Jim married the homicidal maniac Angela, I became a bit concerned that Harry might tame Angie, stick an apron on her and have her discover the delights of baking space cookies. I needn't have worried. For me, one of the very very best things about this series is that Angela so competently combines being a wife, and later a mother, with banter and shootouts, and that The Rat has to constantly bring her down a notch or two. They were always my idea of the perfect couple. When the twins, James and Bolivar diGriz, were born, again I was a mite concerned, but as soon as Angela took to concealing weaponry in their pram, I knew that all was well. Thank you, Harry, for not domesticating Angela. And for not turning The Rat into an imperious Dad. The love was always there, but the diGriz family never went all Fifties on us, and oh, how I wished I could be a part of their rambunctious household. By the by, in this world, the SSR series helped me to convince my two brothers when they were way young that reading need not be a dreary school exercise and might actually have something going for it. Thanks to Harry, they both went on to read many other books in their own time just for fun.

The Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero showed me that SF could be fun, but Harry was no slouch at deep and serious as well. Make Room! Make Room! gave me the heebie jeebies for years and was one of those influential books that shaped the way I, and many others I'm sure, think. I thank Harry for providing that brain furniture too.

R.I.P

Harry Harrison

March 12, 1925 - August 15, 2012

He Made Our Hearts Sing

R.I.P

Maurice Bernard Sendak

June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012

Thank you for the stomping, frenzied, howling rumpus.

And he sailed off through night and day
and in and out of weeks
and almost over a year
to... 

R.I.P. Paul

Paul Richard Haines

8 June 1970 - 5 March 2012

His name was...

Bob Anderson, and if you thrilled to the swordplay of Darth Vader, Aragorn, Inigo Montoya and Dread Pirate Roberts, then you knew him well.

The Princess Bride, Highlander, The Lord of the Rings (apparently he read LOTR and then developed different sparring techniques for each culture based on Tolkien’s descriptions of them - that's the kind of perfectionism that separates the true genius from the 'this'll-do' people) Pirates of the Caribbean, the original Star Wars trilogy - where would those films have been without his unique skills? And before that, he put the derring in Errol Flynn's considerable do. As a grateful movie audience, let's all put our hands together now in applause. Thank you, Bob.

You can link to The Princess Bride fight scene, and Viggo talking about this legendary sword master, medieval weapons expert, fight choreographer, and stunt performer here.


Swashbuckle in Peace.

Bob Anderson

1922-2012

Vale, Christopher Hitchens

In Memoriam:

Christopher Eric Hitchens
1949-2011

Love him or hate him, this hard-living contrarian, who passionately crossed intellectual swords with both the flabby and rigid minded, was never boring or safe. The world sorely needs more such informed literary provocateurs who do not shy from a rousing stoush with orthodoxy.

Vale, Anne McCaffrey.

R.I.P.

Anne McCaffrey

1926-2011

I can't even begin to guess how many hours I've spent reading and rereading her books. She caught my imagination hook, line and sinker. The Crystal Singer, The Ship Who Sang, The White Dragon, Get Off the Unicorn, To Ride Pegausus... I'm so sad she's gone, but so happy she gave us so many wonderful, memorable characters - Helva, Nerilka, Moreta, Killashandra, the Rowan, Sara, and all the other McCaffrey non-simpering, many-dimensional, independant but fallible heroines.

I must give a special mention to her very first novel Restoree, which one site states was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in s-f novels in the 50s and early 60s. All I know is that I still have the copy I bought as a young gal, and that I absolutely adored that book in my teens. There was a time when I read it about every six months, and could quote lines from it. But then I also read The Ship Who Sang so many times and wept with every, single reading, and bought one Pern book after another in quick sucession back in the eighties, and enjoyed The Tower and Hive series and the Petaybee books and...

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Anne.

Vale, Sara Douglass

This is the news I've been dreading for the past few weeks:

Best-selling Australian fantasy writer Sara Douglass has died. Douglass, 54, died from ovarian cancer at 5am Tuesday 27 September 2011.


R.I.P. Sara.

You're already greatly missed.

Sad facts

I had a note in my diary to check up on Maria Gomes Valentim. Born on 9th July 1896, she would have been 115 years old today. Unfortunately, she died 18 days ago on 21st June 2011 (which I must have missed in the end of June rush). Still, 114 years and 347 days is a good haul. What an amazing chunk of history she witnessed.

Because I also read a review of Nagasaki: The Massacre of the Innocent and Unknowing by Craig Collie this morning, I automatically linked the two events and worked out that Maria was 49 years old when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan 6/8-1945 and 9/8-1945. 49! I wonder how aware she was of what had happened, how horrified or not she was when word, and finally images of the dead and dying people, trickled out. These days, drenched as we are in instant updates, I don’t think we can really grasp how long it used to take for information to reach the general public. And even then, how much of that information was just self-serving propaganda?

Apparently Craig’s book tackles a lot of the mythologies about the bombings, and he writes that most Japanese people remained largely unaware of what had happened because of the strict censorship, and even the people in charge didn’t fully understand what had occurred. Because the world seems so small and fast now, it’s hard for us to imagine that such an epic event, seared into our psyches by decades of investigations and countless images from movies and such, wasn’t instantly perceived by every single person on the planet. We imagine the ground shook. But the world is a big place. And no-one tweeted about Fat Man or Little Boy.

Other sad facts stand out. Harry Truman didn’t authorise the dropping of either bomb. An unelected military officer – General Thomas Handy – gave the formal orders. After Nagasaki, Truman insisted any further bombs would require his authority, which put a stop to the military experimentally dropping a third bomb on Tokyo. And in another of Time’s vaggaries, the original target for the first bomb was the industrial town of Kokura, but the elements and mechanical failures conspired to necessitate a change of course mid-fight, and Nagasaki was enveloped in the nightmare instead. But Kokura was saved.

How do you get your head around that? A bit of bad weather and you get vapourised. Or not. Life. Luck. Wow.

Thank you, Joanna Russ

R.I.P.

Joanna Russ

1937 - 2011



"Long before I became a feminist in any explicit way, I had turned from writing love stories about women in which women were losers, and adventure stories about men in which the men were winners, to writing adventure stories about a woman in which the woman won. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life." — Joanna Russ

"There are plenty of images of women in science fiction. There are hardly any women." — Joanna Russ

Adieu, Diana, and thank you.

Diana Wynne Jones

1934-2011

La Liz

The one and only Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, has moved on to that exclusive resort in the sky for screen legends.

I have many fond memories of La Liz. She was a mainstay of my mother’s generation, and I remember listening to the mums sitting around many a kitchen table discussing Liz's latest escapades and mentioning things that I vaguely knew about but, in those distant, pre-Google days, did not yet have an in depth knowledge of – poor Mike Todd, poor Debbie Reynolds, whisper, whisper Eddie Fischer – but always the conversations came back to Liz and Richard, back to the parties, the boozing, the glamour, the clothes, the jewellery, the outrageous behaviour, the passion. The mums, I could tell, were breathlessly excited by the whole swoon-inducing business.

For me, however, La Liz was the star of National Velvet. If I’d been given a dollar for every time I watched that movie as a horse mad tot, I could have bought myself a tiny training diamond by the time I became a teenager. What’s not to love about it? A girl saves a beautiful horse, a horse which she knows deep in her heart is a champion. The girl defies the odds and risks social censure to follow her dreams. The girl gets to thumb her nose at boys by doing brave, physical stuff that the boys say girls can’t do and yet remain a polite, well-spoken and well-dressed miss. The girl and the horse win! So thank you Liz for that sterling adventure.

Another of my favourite Liz films is the much maligned Cleopatra. I saw this first at the drive-in when I was knee-high to a Nubian slave, mostly because Mum wanted to see Liz and Richard I suspect, and I remember being blown away by the spectacle of it. In the years that followed, I forgot most of it, and I heard and read so many bad reviews about it, everyone focusing on how much it cost and how much it didn’t take at the box office etc, all of which affected my perception of it. I probably wouldn’t have watched it again if I hadn’t recieved a DVD of it as a joke Xmas present many years ago. The next day, stuffed to the gills, lethargic and in the mood for a cheesy Hollywood spectacle, I settled down for a Boxing Day veg out to watch it and was, much to my surprise blown away by the sets and story. It's one of my favourite movie time sucks now. And I think I owe Liz for my love of court dramas like Rome and The Tudors.

So vale, Liz, thank you for inspiring young girls, and for brightening the days of many a house-bound mum, and for making fine movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and for flashing your diamonds, and helping chartities, and for just being you.

For Lucy

My sister's dog for what seems like forever.

Such a sweetie.

R.I.P. old girl.

R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen

While others will wax lyrical about the Naked Gun series, for me, Leslie Nielsen was first and foremost the dashing space ship commander in Forbidden Planet. He was, I thought, everything a dashing space ship commander should be - handsome, brave, and able to shepherd a screaming woman through a collapsing mad scientist's lair.

I saw this movie at the drive-in when I was a wee, scifi loving sprog, and it scared the crap out of me.

But oh, how I longed for my very own Robby the Robot - sort of the olden days version of getting your own Arnie-Terminator to perform feats of abject subservience (and possibly payback on mortal enemies a.k.a school bullies). Ah, the power!

Thanks for the memories, Leslie.