Torchwood: Children of Earth was something of a disappointment, but that’s not worth a blog post (or at least, my opinion of it isn’t worth a blog post). What may be worth a blog post (you be the judge) is how uncomfortably British the miniseries is, particularly in portrayal of its lead character, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). (I won’t spend too much time summarizing the plot. See the Wikipedia page for a full episode-by-episode plot summary.)

Let’s start with all the ways Children of Earth is affirmatively British (from the perspective of this American science fiction fan, anyway). Like other Torchwood stories, Children of Earth hinges on the interaction between elected officials, civil servants, and quasi-governmental governmental officials (like Torchwood Cardiff). The elected officials, particularly Prime Minister Brian Green (Nicholas Farrell), are almost laughably self-serving caricatures; the civil servants, in the words of one exemplar in the miniseries, “the cockroaches of government,” are dedicated to consistent if morally gray service to Queen and Country; and the quasi-governmental officials are necessary for the darkest needs of the State but ultimately expendable. Civil servants are also expendable, but only to especially cynical elected officials. The civil servants, moreover, become the most interesting and quintessentially British aspect of the series. A long-time bureaucrat in the Home Office, John Frobisher (Peter Capaldi), protects a terrible secret—that the British government surrendered 12 childrent to the 456 in 1965—for decades. When the 456 return, he demands that the previous exchange be taken off the record to protect the Prime Minister and his country’s reputation. Frobisher is then tapped to negotiate with the 456, because the government does not want blood on its hands again. When the 456 demand 10% of the world’s children for their horrifying drug trade (children are morphine to this race), Frobisher is tasked with implementing the plan. And finally, the Prime Minister demands that Frobisher sacrifice his own 2 daughters for the sake of encouraging other parents to do likewise. Frobisher takes a terrible via media, killing his daughters, wife, and self rather than allow his family to be used as political pawns or his children as living drugs.

I spend so long on Frobisher because he is (simplistically, a critic might say) compared in Children of Earth to Captain Jack who, in the miniseries’ climax, uses (and thereby kills) his grandson as a weapon against the 456. That the weapon works in expelling the 456 is not especially important—Captain Jack’s use of his grandson, against the will of his daughter, is supposed to make us uncomfortable. We’re supposed to think of him as morally gray, sincerely working for good but able to do evil when the stakes are high enough. There is a sense in which this is British and unamerican, namely in the sense that Captain Jack is willing to sacrifice the individual for the good of society. Individual liberty is more valued in American than Britain or Europe generally, perhaps because this country was never forced to sacrifice its land and entire generations to its national defense. I think the writers of Children of Earth intend Captain Jack to be a synecdoche for the perpetual national debate between promotion of individual and corporate liberty and security. But they miss the mark.

I read Captain Jack, especially in Children of Earth, as an awkward parody of American rugged individualism. Of course, the character is deliberately constructed as such—the bisexual (tending toward gay) kickass action hero who can cry is most certainly a playful rebuke to John Wayne, Bruce Willis, et al. In many episodes, this works especially well; “Captain Jack Harkness” from season 1 of Torchwood is among the finest TV episodes in the science fiction genre because of this rebuking play on the action hero. Children of Earth, however, shows the limitations of the character, particularly in how he has developed over the past 2 Torchwood seasons. Which is to say, he hasn’t really developed at all. At the series’s worst, Torchwood is driven by Captain Jack’s melodramatic shifts between weakness and brutality, sacrificial kindness and blunt cruelty. The reason that Children of Earth is so overwrought is that these shifts occur minutes apart in nearly all the episodes. This is exemplified by the miniseries’ climax, during which he goes from demanding the government fight back, to weakly resigning to the demands of the 456, to heroically pursuing a way to destroy the aliens, to coldly sacrificing his grandson. I think we are supposed to respect the consistency of the Brit Frobisher and experience discomfort toward the quasi-American Captain Jack, but I just ended up exhausted by the melodrama.

Now I have to bring up the Doctor (warning: I’m referring only to Doctors 9 and 10). It’s not entirely fair to critique Captain Jack by saying he’s not as good or fun or interesting a character as the Doctor, because the latter has had 40 years to develop and the former only 2 years plus 1 miniseries. I do think it’s fair, however, to use the Doctor as a barometer for evaluating whether Captain Jack is at all an effective character. My criteria are debatable, but I think the question is primarily settled by reference to the characters’ national identifications: the Doctor is quintessentially, comfortably British, and Captain Jack (as stated above) is an awkward parody of American action heroes. There is a place for parodies of pop culture, but I find myself drawn to Doctor Who precisely because the character is so well-defined and therefore both compelling and surprising. I agree with Toby Hadoke: the Doctor’s Britishness is defined by his refusal to use blunt instruments (guns, for example) to make arguments. I would add to that, the Doctor understands the need for sacrifice and its resulting sorrow, but he never gives up his principles as a matter of principle (as Captain Jack does ad nauseum). Instead, we find the Doctor making poor choices and learning from them: “Human Nature”/”Family of Blood,” for example, ends with a character’s accusation that the Doctor’s chosen hiding place cost the lives of several innocents, innocents that went unconsidered when he chose to endanger them by his presence. Though his actions are humanly inconsistent, they are characteristically consistent, that is, in terms of the pre-established limitations and expectations of the character. Captain Jack, by comparison, is melodramatically inconsistent, predictably tearing at our heart strings but rarely asking us to think. Not never, but rarely.

I haven’t renounced Torchwood, and I do hope it returns. It’s fun to watch, but it’s not great science fiction. It will be forgotten one day as an interesting but limited experiment alongside the high science fiction giant, Doctor Who. And Children of Earth is further evidence that I’m right in my prediction.

…seen the Alamo Drafthouse decked out like Hogwarts for 5 midnight showings of Harry Potter Part the Fifth…

…then drank an alcoholic butterbeer and eating treacle fudge…

…then watched a superb “wizard rock” performance by the Remus Lupins…

…then watched the best Harry Potter movie of the bunch.

We have tickets for the 11:50 showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and we may catch a glimpse of the Remus Lupins before the event. I must say that although I’m not a Potterhead (you won’t see me costuming for any book, no way, no how), Pottermania is rather contagious. I think I’ve taken to it so well because it’s mania over a literary universe. It’s not like The Da Vinci Code (based on myths and half-truths) or Left Behind (based on bad writing and bad eschatology)–those enamored by Rowling’s novels do not pretend that the series has any truth to it. People are into Harry Potter because the books are fun to read, the movies are fun to watch, and the universe is complex enough to discuss.

The very nature of the fan base, in fact, refutes the prudish religious attacks on the books. This is not a people who are practicing spells on each other or cursing others; this is a people who really want the answers to questions that are, in the end, meaningless. Is Snape good or evil? Will Harry snuff it, and will he take Voldemort down with him? Do McGonagall and Dumbledore have a secret affair? Any proper examination of the Harry Potter fan base must take this into account: though they may take it too far sometimes, these people are not taking these books seriously. It’s entertainment they’re after, not deep truths.

So I look forward to enjoying Harry Potter the Fifth with other fans, reveling in unreality for two hours and hoping to God that I can wake up in time for work tomorrow morning.

I’ve never been a fan of the short story. I’m still not–I’ve read only three Flannery O’Connor stories, preferring her novels. I’ve always felt that fiction should stretch out over a few hundred pages; short stories have always seemed like a waste. I’ve read hundreds of novels, and often in record time–Bel Canto by Ann Patchett in one night, Prey by Michael Crichton in one night, The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho in three hours. But I absolutely drudge through any collection of short stories–I haven’t even finished Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, though I’ve had it for months.

But Escape Pod has completely changed my perception of the short story. I’m not going to try to tackle O’Connor anytime soon, but I’ve gained a profound respect for the SF* story over the past few months of listening. For example, I can finally say that I’ve actually finished an entire Asimov story.**

One particular aspect of the SF short story that audio seems to emphasize is an internal universe. My first real education in SF was Orson Scott Card’s old standard, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I think that’s where I first learned that writing an SF** story of any length is an act of world creation. And like the real world, created worlds must have rules. Readers can believe the impossible, but that suspension of disbelief is broken if the story is internally inconsistent. Setting and following rules is an essential component of drafting and revising.

But a wholly original SF short story presents an interesting problem. In a novel, the rules can be weaved in over tens or hundreds of pages. In an established universe like D&D, Star Wars, and Star Trek, the rules are preset by precedent, and the writer can rely on readers to know those rules. But an original short story must impart the rules quickly, clearly, and subtly. The rules cannot be listed in a straightforward, clinical manner unless there is some stylistic reason for doing so (think Asimov’s robot laws).

Writers have responded to this challenge, it seems to me, by weighing how much disorientation is necessary before everything is made clear. Consider the following passage from Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “Start the Clock”

The real estate agent for Pirateland was old. Nasty old. It’s harder to tell with Geezers, but she looked to be somewhere in her Thirties. They don’t have our suppleness of skin, but with the right oils and powders they can avoid most of the wrinkles. This one hadn’t taken much care. There were furrows around her eyes and eyebrows.

Rosenbaum plays with disorientation by capitalizing “Geezers” and “Thirties.” These are proper nouns, but we don’t know why. We get a bit more a few paragraphs on:

I put my hands in my pants pockets and picked at the lint. “So this is pretty much all Nines?”

The Thirtysomething Lady frowned. “Ma’am, I’m afraid the Anti-Redlining Act of 2035 –”

“Uh-huh, race, gender, aetial age, chronological age, stimulative preference or national origin — I know the law. But who else wants to live in Pirateland, right?”

By now we’re pretty clear that something has stopped the age of these characters. Finally, he makes it all clear:

Frankly, we were excited. This move was what our Pack needed — the four of us, at least, were sure of it. We were all tired of living in the ghetto — we were in three twentieth-century townhouses in Billings, in an “age-mixed” area full of marauding Thirteens and Fourteens and Fifteens. Talk about a people damned by CDAS — when the virus hit them, it had stuck their pituitaries and thyroids like throttles jammed open. It wasn’t just the giantism and health problems caused by a thirty-year overdose on growth hormones, testosterone, estrogen, and androgen. They suffered more from their social problems — criminality, violence, orgies, jealousy — and their endless self-pity.

What impresses me about this story (featured in Escape Pod 99 and posted on Rosenbaum’s website) is the gradual amount of information we get. But even though it’s gradual, it’s made reasonably specific before we’ve read a third of the story.

I’ve been trying to use this gradual technique in my own writing. And that, really, has been the major fruit of all my hours listening to Escape Pod–it’s made me aware of subtle techniques for writing good SF. I’m glad it’s out there. Go and take a listen.

*By SF, I don’t just mean science fiction as we normally conceive of it; here I use it to mean stories of the fantastic, including fantasy, horror, and magical realism.

**Yes, listening to an audio version of a story is the same as reading it, no matter what Harold Bloom says.

I’m up way too late, but that’s life…

I recently had a very interesting conversation about the characteristics of magical realism–a genre, it should be noted, that is often applied to literature by critics rather than by authors.*  The distinction between fantasy and magical realism is shaky, but a work is generally put in the latter genre if it is set in the real world (or in a realistic motif) but interacts with fantastic elements.  These fantastic elements can be magical, supernatural, preternatural, or mythological (not a complete list, mind you).

 Harry Potter, it was argued in this conversation, should be considered magical realism** because each novel begins and ends with the "real world."  We pondered this idea for a while, and I’ve been pondering it ever since.  I’ve heard the HP-as-MR argument before, but I’ve never been completely convinced by it because Rowling relies (how’s that for alliteration?) on too many stock fantasy conventions to be considered magical realism.

It occurred to me tonight, however, that the interaction between the muggle world and magical world in HP is more pervasive than I had considered before.  In the early books (at least the first two, possibly the third), the two worlds are, for the most part separated completely.  Their only interaction is by way of contrast.  In the third book, though, we begin to see wrinkles in the magical world’s system–notably, we meet Cornelius Finch.  The fourth book features a great deal of politics–the Crouch family and the house elfs, for example.  The central conflict of the fifth book is entirely political, and there’s a very odd paragraph in the beginning in which Harry reflects that the intrusion of the dementor has broken the barrier between the two worlds.  The sixth book also features a fair amount of politics, though they on the personal rather than national level (consider the Slug club, for example).

The point being, of course, that the central conflict of these books tends to be influenced by (directly or indirectly) the extent to which the magic world is similar to the muggle world.  In most fantasy books, the magical world has a distinct society with its own set of problems.  Bureaucracy, cronyism, and subtle racism are not typically problems of fantasy novels; or, if they are, the problems are distinctly other-worldly.  The magic world in HP, on the other hand, has problems which parallel the muggle world.

Of course, the whole issue may be irrelevant depending on how one feels about the magical realism genre.  I have a deep suspicion of any label for the fantastic that is not part of the SF/F/H triad (triumvarate?).  More and more, I think people want to invent new labels for SF/F/H because they want it to be "acceptable," whether for personal or academic reasons.  I tend to feel that magical realism is distinct enough as a movement or genre that we can talk about it with some legitimacy.  My only concern is that the powers that be should accept HP into the fold of magical realism if, in fact, it meets the criteria set up for the genre.

As for Rowling, she probably just thinks of herself as a writer.  That’s probably best, in the end. 

*Neil Gaiman, I think, is one of the exemplars of magical realism, but he’s never identified himself as such. 

**By scholars who hold that magical realism exists, that is; he urged, essentially for consistency.

It’s hard to tell exactly what Alessandra Stanley sees in Lost and Heroes that signals the decline of American society.  She starts by complaining about the series’ paranormal* underpinnings but ends by complaining that the shows, Lost in particular, have large and devoted fan bases despite weaknesses in plot (or, perhaps, they have weaknesses in plot because the writers pay attention to the desires of the fan base; there’s sort of a "chicken-and-the-egg" problem).  There are also some unwarranted swipes at fans of the fantastic, for whom the shows "provide an alternative society for those who don’t fit comfortably into their own."  A particularly nasty parenthetical further describes these unenlightened people as such: "That is to say, smart, socially awkward adults and all 12-year-old boys."  In this way, Stanley goes beyond complaining about the individual shows and on to complaining about fantastic fiction and comic books.

Are we listening yet?  Fans of the fantastic are maladjusted to reality; they’re acting out ridiculous fantasies–fantasies to which Stanley, television reviewer for the New York Times, is immune.

I think all of us who patronize fantasy and comic books should offer Stanley a word of thanks.  Thanks for showing us the err of our ways.  Oh, we thought we were broadening our minds, exciting our imaginations with stories we knew to be false (yet somehow truthful under the surface), assuming that the interaction of word and visual artistry is a valid form of storytelling.  Thank you, oh New York Times writer, our savior from ourselves, for your rich analysis of our psychology ("The fans of these kinds of serialized thrillers are unusually passionate and devoted, carrying a clout not unlike that of anti-abortion activists — their intensity is in some ways more powerful than their numbers").  We will burn the comic books, turn off our television, and get to reading the Skeptical Enquirer and other sources of entertainment that will not dull our poor, though college-educated minds.

Anyone with me? 

*N.B. I say "paranormal," not "supernatural."  The latter refers to divinity (e.g., God parting the Red Sea is a supernatural event), while the former refers to events that can’t be explained by empirical meethods and aren’t typically explained by religion.