I finally managed to get to see the final part of the BBC’s Worlds of Fantasy series (thanks Nadine!). The program was a bit mixed. There were a lot of good bits, including appearances by a very shaggy-looking Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, and Guillermo del Toro. Much of the content focused on Terry Pratchett because he is, after all, guilty of literature. (He also has an amazing office – I wish I had a bank of screens like that.) And towards the end it actually mentions the term “New Weird”, thereby legitimizing the movement (anything that has been on the BBC being automatically “real”). Doubtless Jeff VanderMeer will be very happy.
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TV
Worlds of Fantasy II
Well, The Guardian was right, part 2 of the BBC’s Worlds of Fantasy series was much better than the first. Indeed, I’m almost moved to suggest that they were written by two different people, because the first program claimed that fantasy literature was invented in the 19th Century whereas this one traces it all the way back to Beowulf.
The program looks solely at Tolkien and Peake, which is a very reasonable thing to do, and it makes all of the usual arguments about the differing styles of the two men and their worlds, about the influence of the 20th Century’s great wars on their lives, and about their legacy in fantasy fiction today. I was pleased to see Tom Shippey get a chance to talk about Tolkien. Diana Wynne Jones (who apparently attended Tolkien’s classes at Oxford) gets interviewed in what looks like Wookey Hole. There are good contributions from China (again), from Joe Abercrombie (who looks like he’d make a great con panelist) and Joanne Harris. Toyah Wilcox also makes useful contributions, but my favorite guest slot came from John Sessions who playfully compares the House of Lords to Gormenghast.
All in all I’m now rather sad that I won’t get to see part 3. Hopefully someone out there will watch it and report on it.
BBC Peakes?
It sounds like the BBC series, Worlds of Fantasy, is looking up. Or at least The Guardian is less upset about the latest episode. I was watching football when it was on, but will try to find time to watch the episode on the iPlayer over the weekend.
Reading Olivia Lang’s review reminds me that there are a lot of interesting things that can be said about Titus Alone. Here’s David Louis Edelman doing just that. However, I can’t help but note that Lang doesn’t go into much detail, but rather spends more than half of the review going off on a tangent that apparently has very little to do with the piece of TV being reviewed. Is that the sort of thing that reviewers should do? Discuss.
“Drink!”, “Arse!”, “Feck!”, “Girls!”
Yes, you are right, it is a Father Ted convention.
Where was that hierarchy of fandom chart again?
BBC on Fantasy
I have finally got around to watching the first part of the BBC’s Worlds of Fantasy series (first mentioned here). I have to admit that the first few minutes of the program were one of the most patronizing things I have ever seen on TV, and I can’t blame anyone who turned it off very quickly. However, the rest of the program was more interesting, if very confused.
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Visions of the Future
Having been prompted to check my BBC iPlayer account today, I discovered that a few programs I had downloaded were about to expire. So I have been watching TV. A particular series I’d like to share with you was broadcast on BBC4 in January. It is called Visions of the Future, and it is a 3-part documentary series fronted by Michio Kaku. I didn’t find out about it in time to get the first program, which is about AI, but I’ve seen the second and third. Part 2 is about genetic engineering and is very solid, but part three is spectacularly wide-ranging.
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BBC Looks Down Nose
It appears that the BBC has begun a series about fantasy literature. Over at The Guardian’s book blog, Damien G Walter complains that the first program in the series is unimaginative and patronizing, and gives the impression that fantasy literature is only for kids. Gee, what a surprise. I suppose I should be outraged, but actually I’m just bored. Finding minorities to patronize is what the media does. It would be nice if the BBC did an intelligent series about the work produced by people like M. John Harrison and Rob Holdstock (to pick just two high profile British names), but they’ll get much bigger ratings for a program that is about JK Rowling and Philip Pullman and which suggests that anyone over the age of 10 who reads that stuff is a pathetic geek. Still, mustn’t judge without seeing it. Episode 1 is still available on the iPlayer, and it has a brief clip of China in it. I’m happy to watch it just for that.
Truth in Advertising
So there I am watching Discovery Channel and in the ad breaks they are pushing a new reality TV show. Except this isn’t “reality” TV, this is “actuality” TV, because the things the programs show actually happen, without being scripted.
So tell me, is this a cynical attempt to fool the jaded viewer, or a consequence of the writers’ strike? (Or both.)
Travel: Present and Future
So here we are back in California’s Central Valley, delivering Christmas presents to Kevin’s family. These trips always remind me of Ringworld. The land is very flat, and in the north-south direction it seems to go on forever. It certainly stretches much further than the eye can see. From where we started out it was maybe 100 miles north, and several hundred miles south. To the east and west, however, can be seen the Spill Mountains, which mark the rims of the ring. And as Kevin noted, the Sutter Buttes are presumably Fist of God. The only thing we can’t see is the other side of the ring glittering in the sky above us. (There’s also no sign of Speaker-to-Animals, which is probably just as well.)
There are times when we think it would be nice to live out here. Land is plentiful and cheap (at least compared to the Bay Area); so is the food (all-you-can-eat seafood buffet for $8); and the weather is generally good. But we’d miss the action. To return to the theme, we’d need a transporter booth so that we could get back to San Francisco quickly to go shopping and see our friends.
And then, because you always need something to while away the hours on a long road trip, we got into a little thought experiment about transporter booths. Suppose that the technology did exist; but suppose also that it was quite expensive. You, as President of Earth, have managed to secure sufficient funding to build 10 of the things for the entire planet. Where would you put them? Answers in comments, please. Let’s see if you come up with the same answers as we did.
Holiday Travel
I get regular emails from United advertising cheap weekend flights from the Bay Area. On most weekends there is a wide variety of places that you can go. But the weekend of Nov 25/26 is a little busy travel-wise. There is only one place in the whole US of A to which United is prepared to offer cheap flights over Thanksgiving. It is Beautiful Downtown Burbank.
To which one can only say, “Very interesting, but stupid!”
Cats 1 Lobsters 0
Yum! I knew there was a good reason to come to Boston. The world is safe from giant crustaceans for another month or so.
Talking of saving the world, the trailers for this year’s Halloween edition of The Simpsons look rather interesting, decidedly science-fictional, a very funny. “We still have the hearts and minds of the people,” – chortle!
Brin TV
David Brin writes to tell me that he will be on TV tonight. The show he is part of, The ArchiTechs, airs on The History Channel at 11:00pm with repeats tomorrow at 3:00am and the 14th at 11:00am. (I’m assuming the scheduling is fixed to air the shows at the same time in all time zones, but David may be quoting West Coast times). Apparently David is one of a group of experts who will be called upon to have clever thoughts about engineering and stuff. More details here. As I don’t get to Boston until late on the 14th I’m expecting a report from someone, please?