Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The House of the Scorpion vs. Blindsight: paratext

Upon starting Nancy Farmer's young adult novel The House of the Scorpion, I was taken aback by the wealth of information. Not at the end of the book, but at the beginning appears a short appendix: a cast of characters and family tree.

This immediately made me think of Peter Watts' Blindsight, another sci-fi book with this sort of paratext, albeit much more in-depth. The House of the Scorpion is intended for "ages 11 and up;" it's preparing middle school kids for books like Blindsight later on in life.

Once I made this connection, more paratext similarities began to appear (by the way, I'm reading the 2004 paperback edition of The House of the Scorpion, and I've got the 2006 paperback edition of Blindsight). Despite having different publishers, both books are nearly the exact same dimensions, and the title pages of both books feature words in black lettering with an accompanying design in gray.

What is the purpose of appendices in books? Why do they appear in science fiction so often, both adult sci-fi and sci-fi for kids? Perhaps it's the very definition of science fiction that we grapple with so often: supernatural worlds justified through specific explanations. Unlike fantasy, science fiction seeks to have rational reasoning for everything going on.

But arguably the most famous appendices for a work of fiction appear at the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the quintessential fantasy epic. In fact, Tolkien explains nearly everything in his world; his description of Elvish languages are so detailed that there are people who study it and have learned to speak it in the real world.

Does this make The Lord of the Rings science fiction? Probably not. But it's fun to think about.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Acknowledgements in the Second Person

"Blood makes noise."
-Suzanne Vega

Imagine you are Peter Watts.
     Blindsight is your first novel-length foray into deep space--a domain in which you have, shall we say, limited formal education. In that sense the book isn't far removed from your earlier novels: but whereas you may have not known much about deep-sea ecology either, most of us knew even less, and a doctorate in marine biology at least let you fake it through the rifters trilogy. Blindsight, however, charts its course through a whole different kind of zero g; this made a trustworthy guide that much more important. So first you can thank Prof. Jaymie Matthews of the University of British Columbia: astronomer, partygoer, and vital serial sieve for all the ideas you threw at him. You can also thank Donald Simmons, aerospace engineer and gratifyingly cheap dinner date, who reviewed your specs for Theseus (especially of the drive and the drum), and gave you tips on radiation and the shielding therefrom. Both parties patiently filtered out your more egregious boners. (Which is not to say that none remain in the book, only that those which do result from your negligence, not theirs. Or maybe just because the story called for them.)
     You'd scream if you had the breath.
     David Hartwell, as always, was your editor and main point man at Evil Empire HQ. You suspect Blindsight was a tough haul for both of you: shitloads of essential theory threatened to overwhelm the story, not to mention the problem of generating reader involvement in a cast of characters who were less cuddlesome than usual. You still don't know the extent to which you succeeded or failed, but you've never been more grateful that the man riding shotgun had warmed up on everyone from Heinlein to Herbert.
     Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was normal for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if that absurd aversion to right angles hadn't done them in at the dawn of civilization. Maybe they still can.
     The usual gang of fellow writers critiqued the first few chapters of the book and sent you whimpering back to the drawing board: Michael Carr, Laurie Channer, Cory Doctorow, Rebecca Maines, David Nickle, John McDaid, Steve Samenski, Rob Stauffer, and the late Pat York. All offered valuable insights and criticisms at your annual island getaway; Dave Nickle gets singled out for special mention thanks to additional insights offered throughout the year, generally at ungodly hours. By the same token, Dave is exempted from the familiar any-errors-are-entirely-yours schtick that you authors boilerplate onto your acknowledgments. At least some of the mistakes contained therein are probably Dave's fault.
     You think: That can't be right.


Professor Sample told us to re-write an important scene in Peter Watts' Blindsight from a different character's perspective. I suspected most of the class would either do a scene from the very beginning of the novel, or the very end. I spent forever trying to figure out how to do something different.

One of the most notable aspects of Blindsight is the extensive background research Peter Watts did for the book. The novel's notes and references section looks like it came straight out of a science textbook.

It reminds me of the painstakingly detailed appendices at the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was not only a novelist: he was a philologist at Oxford. Middle-earth is so convincing in his works because it's rooted in Tolkien's deep interest in language and history.

In that same vein, Peter Watts' rich world in Blindsight is rooted in the mountains of scientific research he did beforehand. You don't need to read any of it to enjoy the book--just like you don't need to read the appendices of The Lord of the Rings to appreciate Tolkien. But it adds an element of believability and fullness to the world of the fiction.

So I knew I had to tackle Watts' research for this assignment. But what other perspective could I use?

Another of Blindsight's peculiarities is its strategic use of second-person narrative. Often reserved for Choose Your Own Adventure books, second person aims to immerse the reader more in the story. What better way to approach the research of Blindsight?! I combined the first few paragraphs of the book's acknowledgments section with snippets from the opening second-person narration of Blindsight's actual story.

Despite the commanding "You" article, second person seems more stream-of-consciousness to me than Watts' first-person, even though most of the words are identical. With the perspective flipped, Watts' humble self-effacing comments come off as much more melancholy instead of humorous. The ominous lines from the beginning of the novel add to that.

On a completely unrelated note, this all made me think about second person in video games: is it possible? In a game where you play as not a defined character but a blank slate of a re-nameable, customizable avatar, could you argue it's second-person storytelling? You're not playing as Mario or Master Chief. You're playing as you.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Portal is Metroid

My last posts were about how similar the beginning of Portal is to Lilith's Brood.
As I got to the end of Portal, I realized how similar it is to another important work of sci-fi: Nintendo's 1986 Metroid.

Metroid is notable for being the first major video game with a female protagonist, although this is not a major selling point like it is for a game like Tomb Raider. Main character Samus' gender is not revealed until the very end of the game, when she takes off the helmet of her space suit to reveal that she's a woman.

Samus is a silent protagonist in an orange suit, dropped into an unfamiliar landscape with minimal exposition or context. She treks deeper and deeper into the underground tunnels of the Space Pirate base on planet Zebes. In the final boss battle, she encounters Mother Brain, hooked up to the core of the station and controlling it all. When the antagonist is vanquished, the entire station self-destructs and Samus barely escapes.

When playing Portal with developer commentary, the developers say an original prototype of antagonist GLaDOS was... a floating brain. And then it all clicked.

Chell is a silent protagonist in an orange suit, dropped into an unfamiliar landscape with minimal exposition or context. She treks deeper and deeper into the underground tunnels of the Aperture Science laboratories. In the final boss battle, she encounters GLaDOS, hooked up to the core of the station and controlling it all. When the antagonist is vanquished, the entire station self-destructs and Chell barely escapes.

In class, we talked about how notable it is that Portal is one of the first major games with both a female protagonist and a female antagonist.


Metroid famously has a female protagonist, too, and although brains are fairly genderless, Nintendo felt the need to name the game's antagonist... "Mother" Brain.

Metroid precedes Portal by over two decades.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

One last note on Portal & Lilith's Brood

After I posted my piece on the incredible similarities between Portal and Lilith's Brood, another thing hit me:

Neither Chell nor Lilith can exit their prison cell. They must wait for their captors to open doors or walls for them. Eventually, their captors give them this ability, but it's still limited compared to what the captors can do. Even with more "freedom," they're still both trapped.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Lilith's Brood through the portal of Portal

Alive!
Still alive.
Alive... again.

Are these the opening lines of Lilith's Brood? Or are they lyrics from iconic Portal theme song "Still Alive"? As I opened the book, all I could think about was Valve's sci-fi masterpiece. Little did I know these similarities were more than just skin-deep.


Lilith's Brood is about a strong female character held alone in confinement in a pristine cell by unseen, technologically advanced captors who she initially hears only through some sort of public address system. She begins the story by waking up from slumber--she can't remember how long she slept or how she got to this place. She wears clothing given to her by her captors. As she learns more, she discovers her captors are using her as an experiment, and already surgically "enhanced" her body before her journey even started.

Portal is about a strong female character held alone in confinement in a pristine cell by unseen, technologically advanced captors who she initially hears only through some sort of public address system. She begins the story by waking up from slumber--she can't remember how long she slept or how she got to this place. She wears clothing given to her by her captors. As she learns more, she discovers her captors are using her as an experiment, and already surgically "enhanced" her body before her journey even started.

The stories diverge slightly after the first few chapters, but these similarities are uncanny.

I can't wait to dicuss Portal in class.