A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Published in 1959, this novel is what I would call an accidental science fiction classic. By accidental I mean that it mainly a thought-provoking, philosophical drama dealing with the pride of mankind and our self-destructive natures which happens to accomplish the task using great characters, vivid imagery, keen insight and a futuristic setting. In other words, the author is more interested in telling a great story and dealing with difficult issues than he is with writing science fiction. And that is why I believe it may be one of the best science fiction books I’ve ever read.
For me, great science fiction – whether in print or on screen – uses the future as a mirror to reflect back on us our own failures and foibles of character. By putting modern concerns in the distance, and dressing up our present in the clothing of tomorrow, it allows us to consider our current situation and imagine a better future for ourselves.
This book is spread over a period of a few hundred years time and sectioned off into three parts: “Let There Be Man”, “Let There Be Light” and “They Will Be Done”. In each of the three sections we are told the story of mankind after the first nuclear devastation nearly obliterates mankind. Man’s greatest knowledge is scavenged and cataloged by the monks at what will soon become the abbey of Saint Leibowitz. While most of the survivors, self-proclaimed as “Simpletons”, rage against any sort of wisdom from before the nuclear holocaust, the monks must protect the “Memorabilia” from those who are dedicated to its destruction.
But the novel, a Hugo Award Winning work of masterfully written fiction, is about so much more than this. Here we have a book that hints at the wasteland we have come to know from films like “Road Warrior” and games like “Fallout 3”, but instead gives us ordinary people who simply try to live their lives and fulfill their vows to God, and to humanity.
Miller deals with the conflicts between faith and politics, science and religion, suffering and euthanasia, survival and compassion – all without ever losing sight of his ultimate storyline which is about mankind itself.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, is easily comparable to a handful of other great science fiction novels, including “Fahrenheit 451”, “Brave New World”, and “1984”. It is thoughtful, poignant, and subtle, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks, and consider the future, in sobering visions of what could be, and what we hope might never be.
From the Amazon.com review:
Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized.
--Paul Hughes
**
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
TIMECRIMES: A REVIEW OF THE FILM
TIMECRIMES - (2007), Directed by Nacho Vigalondo. Starring Karra Elejalde
I cannot say enough how intriguing and entertaining and genuinely well-done this little independent foreign language film really is. No really. I can’t. Because to say too much is to give away this ingeniously planned story and twisty-turning plot.
The director, in an early interview, cited the fiction of Philip K. Dick as his inspiration for this film, and it really shows. The storyline turns in on itself over and over again, telling, and then re-telling the story in overlapping layers as the main character travels through time – again and again – attempting to correct his mistakes and set everything right. He must outsmart himself and anticipate his own actions and reactions in order to avoid a catastrophe that threatens to ruin his life.
Some have compared this film to that other time-travel film, Primer, and while both are low-budget, cerebral sci-fi dealing with time travel, this film is a much better execution of the concept. In fact, not only did I not enjoy Primer, I found the narrative got bogged down in attempting to explain how the time travel was accomplished rather than in telling a compelling story. This film succeeds by avoiding the “how” of the science of time travel in favor of telling an intriguing story.
This is a great little film. It will have you guessing, and then make you pause the film to stop and think about it a bit more, before you reach the end.
Highly recommended.
From the description of the DVD on Amazon.com:
The Oscar-nominated Vigalondo's first feature has elicited comparisons to time-travel movies from Back to the Future to Groundhog Day, but in its reliance on clever plotting over special effects, his thriller has more in common with the low-budget Primer. At the time of its release, United Artists announced that David Cronenberg would be handling the English-language remake, which is sure to offer up its own unique twists and turns. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this jigsaw-puzzle picture calls for multiple viewings to make all the pieces fit.
--Kathleen C. Fennessy
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
THE ART OF DYLAN LEE GILES
THE ART OF DYLAN GILES
I will admit, I am a biased art critic when it comes to my 14 year old son, Dylan. I’ve watched him blossom from an infant with a crayon and a toddler with a watercolor brush, into a young man whose imagination is barely contained by his ability to breathe life onto a page.
When he was four years old he painted something so gorgeous that I cannot – to this day – recreate it on my own. By the time he was in first grade he had created his own fictitious publishing company (Squishball.com) and designed the logo.
Today, his art style is highly detailed and more than a little inspired by the likes of Moebius and Geof Darrow, but I have a feeling that even this latest style of art is only a brief layover into exponentially greater realms of creativity to come.
Just check out these insanely detailed drawings he’s produced over the last month or so.
[CLICK TO ENLARGE]
His main blog is
HERE
I will admit, I am a biased art critic when it comes to my 14 year old son, Dylan. I’ve watched him blossom from an infant with a crayon and a toddler with a watercolor brush, into a young man whose imagination is barely contained by his ability to breathe life onto a page.
When he was four years old he painted something so gorgeous that I cannot – to this day – recreate it on my own. By the time he was in first grade he had created his own fictitious publishing company (Squishball.com) and designed the logo.
Today, his art style is highly detailed and more than a little inspired by the likes of Moebius and Geof Darrow, but I have a feeling that even this latest style of art is only a brief layover into exponentially greater realms of creativity to come.
Just check out these insanely detailed drawings he’s produced over the last month or so.
[CLICK TO ENLARGE]
His main blog is
HERE
MOON: A Review of the film
MOON – (2009), Directed by Duncan Jones .Starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
This film intrigued me long before I ever saw it on screen. The murky, reality-bending previews promised a very mind-twisting and cerebral sci-fi experience. I was salivating in my imagination with every teaser image and cinematic trailer. Then came the word of mouth and the reviews, which were all quite positive and only helped to reinforce the illusion that this was a thought-provoking, intelligent bit of science fiction storytelling.
They lied.
Whatever your first guess might be in the very early frames of this film about where the plot is going will most likely be 100% correct. Once the story catches up with your initial theory, a few seconds later, the story really doesn’t take you anywhere unexpected or interesting. I was, to say the least, disappointed.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
If you’ve seen the film, you probably had an idea early on in the story that Sam Rockwell’s character was a clone. Sure enough, once he goes outside and finds his own body at the scene of the accident, your suspicions are confirmed. After that, it’s all falling action (as we say in the fiction writing business), and that takes up about two thirds of the film.
I kept expecting another twist to the story. Perhaps when the two clones are scouting around they come upon another base just like their own, and they discover a third clone of themselves? Or perhaps when the rescue team arrives they overpower them and take their shuttle to return to Earth? Or perhaps the rescue team is another set of clones just like themselves? Or maybe when he called his daughter on Earth we get to see the original version of our astronaut character and he’s crippled, in a wheelchair perhaps, or maybe he looks into the video screen and realizes that they cloned him without his knowledge? I don’t know….but anything other than the straight ahead, deadly obvious storyline we got in this film would have been an improvement.
This film could’ve been fascinating. It could’ve played with whether our main character was insane, or actually a clone, for a bit longer before the reveal. It could’ve pulled back the curtain and revealed that this was an elaborate experiment back on Earth to test the mental stability of these clones under stress.
But no. Instead, we get a story that feels like it was written in one sitting over pizza by a pair of junior high kids who are more easily amused, and mentally stimulated, than I am.
This film intrigued me long before I ever saw it on screen. The murky, reality-bending previews promised a very mind-twisting and cerebral sci-fi experience. I was salivating in my imagination with every teaser image and cinematic trailer. Then came the word of mouth and the reviews, which were all quite positive and only helped to reinforce the illusion that this was a thought-provoking, intelligent bit of science fiction storytelling.
They lied.
Whatever your first guess might be in the very early frames of this film about where the plot is going will most likely be 100% correct. Once the story catches up with your initial theory, a few seconds later, the story really doesn’t take you anywhere unexpected or interesting. I was, to say the least, disappointed.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
If you’ve seen the film, you probably had an idea early on in the story that Sam Rockwell’s character was a clone. Sure enough, once he goes outside and finds his own body at the scene of the accident, your suspicions are confirmed. After that, it’s all falling action (as we say in the fiction writing business), and that takes up about two thirds of the film.
I kept expecting another twist to the story. Perhaps when the two clones are scouting around they come upon another base just like their own, and they discover a third clone of themselves? Or perhaps when the rescue team arrives they overpower them and take their shuttle to return to Earth? Or perhaps the rescue team is another set of clones just like themselves? Or maybe when he called his daughter on Earth we get to see the original version of our astronaut character and he’s crippled, in a wheelchair perhaps, or maybe he looks into the video screen and realizes that they cloned him without his knowledge? I don’t know….but anything other than the straight ahead, deadly obvious storyline we got in this film would have been an improvement.
This film could’ve been fascinating. It could’ve played with whether our main character was insane, or actually a clone, for a bit longer before the reveal. It could’ve pulled back the curtain and revealed that this was an elaborate experiment back on Earth to test the mental stability of these clones under stress.
But no. Instead, we get a story that feels like it was written in one sitting over pizza by a pair of junior high kids who are more easily amused, and mentally stimulated, than I am.
Monday, February 1, 2010
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