Classic Sci-Fi Book Cover: “The Deathworld Trilogy”

Cover art by David Egge

Harry Harrison’s Deathworld trilogy kept me sane during one long-ago summer when I was bored and lonely. As I recall, my father gave it to me, having bought it in an airport bookshop after a long trip. (Yes, he was a good dad.) 

Harrison is most famous for his Stainless Steel Rat series, but I liked these books better. As in all of Harrison’s work, the Deathworld stories center around a trickster anti-hero—in this case, Jason dinAlt, a smart, conniving rogue who is also telepathic. (He uses his E.S.P. to cheat at cards and thus travels from casino-to-casino, and planet-to-planet, having adventures but never a real job.) 

Looking back on it, I would bet that this cover by illustrator David Egge, depicting dinAlt in futuristic battle gear, had a lot to do with further popularizing the military science fiction sub-genre, of which Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is the best-known example. (Current examples are too numerous to name.) In fact, the Deathworld books are not military sci-fi. The characters dress like soldiers because they live on a very dangerous planet named Pyrrus (as in pyrrhic; get it?) where every living thing from plants to animals is lethal to humans. Indeed, the entire ecosystem of Pyrrus seems determined to kill all the human colonists, for reasons that dinAlt will try to discover using his telepathic powers as well as his finely honed survival skills.

The Deathworld books are just fun, well-plotted, fast-paced adventure stories, reminiscent of science fiction’s Golden Age—albeit with a bit more wit attached to them than the average sci-fi fair. Moreover, Harrison should be lauded for the series’ strong ecological message (well hidden, at first, but definitely in there), which was usual at the time, especially in “guy’s” books. 

Check them out…

Friday Night Rock-Out: “How to Save a Life”

I’ve been reading a fine biography of the great country singer Johnny Cash, and in its pages I learned that Elvis Presley (who befriended Cash when they were both starting out, both men having been discovered by the legendary Sam Phillips) could play the piano. Not as well, obviously, as Phillips’s other phenom, Jerry Lee Lewis, but well enough for Cash, Lewis, and Carl Perkins to sing a few songs together while Presley was tickling the ivories. (That impromptu harmony session was recorded by a quick-witted studio technician and has since become known as The Million Dollar Quartet.)

 As I learned about this, I was struck by the notion that most people don’t realize the outsized role that the piano, as an instrument, has played in the history of Rock and Roll. When people think of rock music, the probably think of guitars first, and then (maybe) drums. Somewhere along the line, keyboards some into, but probably the electronic kind. (Think of great synth work by The Cars or Steve Winwood or Gary Numan.) But the piano? The piano?

Yes, the piano. I would argue that it has been almost as influential as the electric guitar in the development of rock. Starting with Jerry Lee Lewis, the story goes to Elton John and Billy Joel, to Christine McVie and even Freddy Mercury. 

The 21st Century has, of course, seen a resurgence of the great piano-players in rock. Foremost among this has been Chris Martin of Coldplay. But for my money, The Fray is, in its best moments, just as good a band as Coldplay. Take this little, mournful, piano-driven gem, which is one of my favorite songs of the last twenty years.

Rock on…

What I’m Reading: “The Future Was Now”

In the summer of 1982, I was a very unhappy boy. Being a nerd in an upper-class high school full of preppies and jocks, I didn’t fit in very well. I hated most of my classes. I had a few good, close friends (including some jocks), but that was it. As one would expect, I spent a lot of time in my room reading sci-fi novels and typing short stories on the typewriter my mother had bought me. 

The only thing that kept me sane was movies. Fortunately, 1982 turned out to be the most incredible time in cinematic history to be a nerd. A string of classics came out that summer including Blade Runner, The Thing, The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Max Max II), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, Tron, Conan the Barbarian, and (the 800-pound gorilla) E.T. Even at the time, I was cognizant that this bumper crop of cool films, all coming out within a few weeks of each other, was a very unusual, almost magical development. I spent many hours on the bus with my friends going to and from the local cineplex, where we watched many of these films over and over. 

For forty years, I labored under the delusion that this rapid series of classics was just a lucky coincidence. But while reading Chris Nashawaty’s fine nonfiction book, The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982, I learned otherwise. A good historian will reveal that any event, no matter how seemingly incredible or unlikely, actually emerges logically from previous events. That is, the seeds were planted years or even decades before. And in 1982, main seed was a little film called Star Wars. As Nashawaty explains:

There’s an unwritten rule for reporters and trendwatchers who cover Hollywood that if you want to know why a movie—or a particular group of movies—was made, all you need to do is look back and see what was a hit at the box office five years earlier since that’s the typical gestation period for studio executives to spot a trend, develop and green-light an imitator, push it into production, and usher it into theaters. And the summer of 1982 would prove no exception, coming exactly five years after Star Wars. What seemed underreported, however, was how this new wave of sci-fi titles had been conceived and carried out. It is a wave that we’re still feeling the aftereffects of, for better and worse, today.

Continue reading “What I’m Reading: “The Future Was Now””

Orlando Trip De-Brief (with a Bit of Synchonicity)

Me with Danni and Michelle of the BCAD Podcast at the Barnes & Noble on Colonial

Well, Cathy and I got back from Orlando on Thursday, and this is the first chance I’ve had to write a post about it. All in all, it was a fine trip! My book talk at Barnes and Noble went well, mostly due to Danni and Michelle, the hosts of the excellent podcast Book Club After Dark, who were nice enough to interview me. They asked great, insightful questions, and I had a lot of fun. The turn-out was modest, but the people who did show up seemed really interested. They asked some great questions, too. It was especially nice to see my old friend Norm, who came to the event to cheer me on. He also snapped the picture above. 

Afterward, Cathy and I had a great dinner and some fine beers at the Harp and Celt Pub downtown. The next day, we did a driving tour of Orlando, Noland Twice’s home turf, refamiliarizing ourselves with our old stomping grounds. As one might expect, parts of the city seem completely different from when we lived there, while other parts seemed exactly the same. Overall, O-Town still feels like two cities. There’s the lovely, old, Southern city, with its tree-shaded streets and gorgeous houses from the 1930s and ‘40s. Then, there’s the litter-on-a-stick, urban sprawl of Generica, with its strip-malls and fast-food shacks and liquor stores. And traffic. Lots of traffic. The really sad part about Orlando is that you have to drive through the nasty bits to get to the nice, old, quaint bits. But oh well. I still love the city.

Catchup by the Pool by Slim Aarons (snapped from my phone in Orlando)

When we were done exploring, Cathy and I drove down Mills Avenue and visited the Mennello Museum of American Art, which is perhaps the best small museum I’ve ever visited. I was especially taken with their current exhibit, entitled Pool Party, which had lots of amazing photos and paintings of American pool culture from all over the country. I was especially taken with this 1970 photo, above, by former combat photographer Slim Aarons. It’s titled Catchup by the Pool, and it seems to encapsulate the entire upper-class, White, suburban culture of the U.S., right on the cusp between two equally garish decades. And yet, it’s also kind of…sweet. I find myself wanting to go to this party.

Screen Grab of a Random Speechify Ad from my Youtube Account

And then, just this morning, in one of those instances of synchronicity that seem to happen fairly often to me (and which I blog about, a lot), I happened to be presented with a YouTube ad (for Speechify, of all things). Before the skip button came up, I had to leave the room, so I paused the ad so I wouldn’t miss the beginning of the actual video I was waiting for. (Just to prove I wasn’t crazy, I did a screen grab, above left.)

When I came back, I noticed that there was something weirdly familiar about the freeze-frame that I happened to pause on. If you look at the background, on the wall of whatever apartment or motel room the ad was apparently filmed in, you can see—lo-and-behold!—the same photo by Slim Aarons. 

What are the odds? Like, a bazillion-to-0ne! Talk about synchronicity-on-steroids!

Anyway, it seemed like a magical end to a good trip. 

Perfect Films: “Manhunter”

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

As any old movie buff knows (and many younger ones, too), crime thrillers in 1980s almost constituted their own sub-genre. That is, they had their own special vibe. Slick. Stylish. Erotic. Typically, they boasted good-looking actors with great 80s hair, wearing garish 80s clothes and doing dangerous things. These were exotic and entertaining films, usually set in one of two environments: a dark city landscape (i.e. L.A.) or a gorgeous, sun-drenched beach (i.e. Miami). 

And then there was the soundtrack. Synth-heavy, but punctuated with propulsive rock songs from the era—usually something from Genesis or Phil Collins. Take 1984’s Against All Odds, for example, starring Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward. Collins wrote and sang the theme song for that one, garnering him an Oscar nom. (And, yes, that movie was set against a dark L.A. landscape and a gorgeous beach.)

But my absolute favorite 1980s crime thriller, by far, is a movie almost no one remembers: Michael Mann’s 1986 serial killer flick Manhunter. I saw it when it first came out in 1986, and then saw it again, quickly, before it vanished from the cineplexes forever. In the forty years since, the film has gotten almost no respect, except from a few cinephiles like me. (Quinten Tarantino is a famous booster; he put Manhunter on his list of favorite 1980s films.) 

I’ve often wondered why Manhunter is so underappreciated. It probably has something to do with its lame title, which the studio forced Mann for reasons too stupid to discuss here. The original working title was, of course, Red Dragon, taken from the source novel by Thomas Harris. I often think that if the studio had stuck with that title, the film would have been a hit. Another reason is that the brilliant soundtrack, which mostly samples great songs from the era but includes great original music from The Reds, was soon deemed as “dated”. (It has actually come back into fashion thanks to the rise of the Synthwave aesthetic.) 

Continue reading “Perfect Films: “Manhunter””

Heading to Orlando…

I’m heading off to O-Town tomorrow (yes, the setting for Twice the Trouble) to hold an author talk at the Barnes & Noble on Colonial. If you’re in the area, please come! Danni and Michelle, the hosts of the excellent Book Club After Dark podcast will be presiding.

(This is a ticketed event, so please click here to get your ticket.)

Friday Night Rock-Out: “Plush”

Stone Temple Pilots was one of the best—perhaps the best—band to come along in the second generation of Grunge. They were also the most metal, thanks to brilliant guitar work of lead guitarist Dean DeLeo. But it was really the vocal work of lead singer Scott Weiland that made the band great. Otherworldly. Exhilarating, yet chilling, all at the same time.

My favorite STP song is this one, “Plush”, which has one of the most remarkable tempo changes in the history of rock. It never fails to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. 

And Weiland’s enormously powerful singing was, as was typical of grunge music in general, completely raw. Naked. Unguarded. This was one reason that, when I heard of his death by drug overdose in 2009, I was saddened but not really surprised. Like Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell and so many other artists, he seemed to feel things too intensely to handle this crazy thing we call Life on Earth.

Or maybe that’s B.S. Maybe he just had an addiction and couldn’t get the right help for it. I don’t know.

Anyway, rock on…

R.I.P. Terance Stamp

Stamp in “The Limey”

There is a scene in Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 noir thriller The Limey when the main character, Wilson, a career-criminal and generally scary guy, is questioning a woman in her house about a man named Valentine. Wilson (played with enormous power by Terance Stamp), is looking for the man who killed his daughter, and Valentine is his prime suspect. The woman, naively, offers to give Wilson Valentine’s phone number, at which point Wilson smiles wickedly and says, mostly to himself, “I’ve got his number.”

It’s a great, almost chilling moment. What we, the viewers, know (and the woman doesn’t) is that Wilson has already killed five men to get Valentine’s “number”, every sense of the term. And Stamp’s delivery of this line speaks volumes about Wilson’s character—his steely-eyed determination, his courage, and his constant, barely controlled rage. 

It’s a great moment in a great movie, which marked one of several come-backs in Stamp’s long career. His filmography is so great and varied that one must divide not in stages but in ages. First, there was Stamp the movie star, an epically handsome, Angry-Young-Man who got the lead in several fine, gritty films in the 1960s, including William Wyler’s The Collector and Ken Loach’s Poor Cow. But he never really clicked as a leading-man, either in England or in Hollywood, and his next big break didn’t come until 1980’s Superman II, in which he reprised his role as the evil General Zod (a.k.a. the chief of the three baddies whom Superman’s dad banishes to the Phantom Zone in Superman.) 

To this day, Stamp is best remembered for this one, silly role, Zod—at least, in America. But film nerds such as myself admired his work in many other small, supporting roles throughout the 80s. My favorite was his scene-stealing cameo in 1987 Wall Street, playing a redoubtable corporate raider who has reformed his ways and stands in opposition to the evil Gordon Gekko. 

Then, in the 1990’s, Stamp had his next, and greatest, comeback with his role as transexual woman in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which remains one of my favorite films of all time. Stamp was nominated for a BAFTA for that one, and he should have been nominated for an Oscar, too. But no matter. The role is a classic, and it re-introduced him to American audiences.

This led to Stamp’s last leading role in a major motion picture. This was, of course, The Limey, and it is perhaps his greatest performance, in part because he was able to leverage his own, real-life history as 1960s hipster in the role of Wilson, who was a master thief in 1960s England. Indeed, Soderbergh sampled black-and-white footage of Stamp from Ken Loach’s Poor Cow to use in flashbacks of Wilson’s earlier life—a daring artistic choice which, although done with permission from Loach himself, remains controversial to this day. However one might feel about this cinematic cribbing, though, Soderbergh made one hell of a good movie—a genuine classic—in which Stamp finally got a chance to shine in the lead, one last time. 

Terance Stamp passed away on Sunday, at the age of 87. Not bad, for such a hell-raiser. I’ll miss him.