OFF: Misc. ranting...

[M Holmes]

Henderson Keith writes:

> P.P.S.  I'm *almost* finished reading the Red Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley
> Robinson.  Intriguing many times, but man, can he bore the pants off you.
> Christ, am I supposed to be impressed that his geologist wife (who once did
> a post-doc here at EAWAG in Zuerich, a 'co-institute' of ETH just like
> 'mine,' which is why the book has so much Swiss trivia in it, though he got
> some of that wrong, even!) coached him on how to sound plausible in every
> little detail about how the 'world' works?  I mean, it's *fiction,* I don't
> really care as long as it isn't ridiculously *im*plausible.  If I wanted to
> learn that much about *science* here in my spare time, I'd have read a damn
> *science* paper, and I get paid for that anyway.  And then, how many times
> does he have to club us over the head with anecdotes that show us that
> certain characters have certain personality characteristics (this one moody,
> this one vindictive, this one reserved, this one subversive, etc.).  Uh,
> this epic story could have been done in less than half the 4,142,045 pages
> that are there.  I guess Jim Cameron has the rights to do a movie about it.
> (?)  Man, he'll need to do 10 movies to get all this crap in there.  Still,
> I didn't give up 'cause there are a few interesting things there that are
> more hopeful than what the human race is currently doing.  But winning two
> major awards for the first two books?  Don't see how.

Mostly agree, though the versimilitude of the first book did appeal to
me. Mostly it's just part of his style. His "Antarctica" is big on
geological detail and a kind of history geekdom of antarctic exploration
stories. He's a nice guy though. I had dinner with him when he was
plugging "The Years of Rice and Salt" and chatted about his trip to the
Antarctic station for research. That book BTW is a very readable
alternative history (white europeans are totally wiped out by the Black
Death) with little geekery in it.

My hope is that due to all the high geekery in the Mars books, maybe the
movies will have some good scientific accuracy rather than turn into
Wagon Train on Mars or somesuch.

As for the movies: I don't really rate Star Wars or Close Encounters,
but I'd have had "Colossus/The Forbin Project" in there. That's one
scary movie and was effectively an early version of Terminator.

On a good day I'd have Demon Seed in there too.

FoFP