The Postman Persists… and delivers…. (plus more SF news...)

Let me remind you that my post before this one - about looming clouds of war -- remains pertinent and important. The best way to prevent it from coming true is by making as many as possible aware of how many of the world's despots want this. These things tend to shrivel when everyone is looking! I'd rather prove wrong and a "Cassandra" than right, looking out my window at ruins.

== Speaking of "posts" amid the ruins... ==

From fiction to reality… a lot of people emailed me about this! The Postman delivers....

“Drone captures eerie footage of USPS truck delivering mail to still standing mailboxes on the street in a devastated Santa Rosa neighborhood burned down by fire.” - with footage by drone operator Douglas Thron.

And while we’re on the subject… I’m putting out a call! If any of you know genius cinematographer Stephen F. Windon, or genius cinematic composer James Newton Howard, I’m hoping to invite them to a special, 20^th anniversary screening of The Postman at UCSD's Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. Whatever its faults, the film is musically and visually one of the dozen or so most gorgeous films ever made. (With a small but growing cult following.) 

I’d invite Kevin Costner – who certainly gets some credit for that beauty - and screenwriter Brian Helgeland too - (or any of the younger Costners in the film) because I think the flick had more heart that any other from that era. Alas, no method I've researched seems to penetrate the Hollywood protective barriers, not even for Mr. Windon. And Tom Petty is now beyond reach, alack.

If you'd like to delve into the novel again, my website has a Reading Group discussion guide with questions to ponder.

== Will we transform? Bring some thought to it ==

A French journalist recently asked me: - "As a futurist, do you think transhumanism describes a future bound to happen, especially the Singularity? Does humanity really have the need to enhance itself to fight the exponential development of AI?" 

My reply starts with perspective: there have always been human beings who were dissatisfied with the ‘hand we’re dealt’ in life, who preached that we can get a better deal. For most of history and pre-history, these transcendental mystics proclaimed that the method for achieving this better deal would be through incantations of magic or faith, because words and thoughts were the only means they had, to effect change among the most powerful beings around them — the lords and kings and priests.

Scroll forward to the 19th Century and the same mystical thinking focused on sociology. The notion that a better society might be achieved through revolution, or through a “natural” progression of class struggle. Then Freud unveiled the sub-conscious and the locus of transformation shifted, again.

In the 1980s, many of the same personality types were obsessed with space colonies. Then came the computer-internet age, and artificial intelligence seemed more plausible. And Vernor Vinge coined “the Singularity” to stand for a transformation that we might soon achieve through science and technology.

I do not say all of this to deny the possibility of a coming transformation. Indeed, one form or another of “singularity” is clearly coming. Whether it will be a “hard-landing” arrival of super-AI, with organic humanity left behind or crushed…or a “soft-landing” in which we get enhanced and can come along as transformed beings, or something else… is another story that I explore in these videos:

(1) The “Neo” Project aims to create a vividly beautiful film, combining science and art with optimism. They feature my blather about peering into the future. Vivid imagery and remarkable sound editing. 

(2) Video of my talk on the future of A.I. to a packed house at IBM's World of Watson congress in Las Vegas, October 2016. A punchy tour of big perspectives on Intelligence, as well as both artificial and human augmentation. 

(3) At the Smithsonian - "Will we diversify into many types of humanity?" 

But in this Q&A I focused on the fact that we have heard such promises before. The personality type that propels such promises has always been there, with only the details of transcendence changing, from one generation to the next.

== Speaking of pertinent media ==

You podcast viewers should see these guys! John Michael Godier and Isaac Arthur.  Their casts are great, very detailed, fascinating, logical and comprehensive, regarding all sorts of mind-expanding topics from spaceflight to the Fermi Paradox. In this collaboration, Arthur does part one of an extensive appraisal of the concept of Uplift, and Godier concludes in part 2. Of course, I kept coming up with quibbles… half of which they answered before each episode ended. An admirable score!

Want a show with brains? You might enjoy “Novum,” the science fiction podcast produced by Ari Brin. 

Stephen Spielberg is reviving his ‘80s anthology series Amazing Stories for Apple. The deal is for 10 episodes at a budget of more than $5 million per episode.    

Terrific Sci Fi Short by Andrew Finch: The lone survivor of the first mission to Mars uses his last moments to pass the torch of inspiration. 

A young, pre-Trek William Shatner stars in that weird film INCUBUS, with dialogue entirely in Esperanto. Now available on YouTube! 

== Science Fiction Miscellany ==

My novel Kiln People made ComputerWorld, in an article about future mobility and many ways that we might become bigger and greater than we are.   

The Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University is seeking submissions for its second climate fiction contest. First prize: $1,000 | Deadline: February 28, 2018. Judged by science fiction legend Kim Stanley Robinson  

What if the pandemic you thought would kill you made you more intelligent instead? In David Walton's The Genius Plague, a fungal infection grants astonishing powers of communication, memory, and intellect. But is the human race the master in this symbiotic relationship, or are we becoming the pawns of a subtly dominating and utterly alien species? Read an excerpt here. 

In order to read this printing of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, you have to heat the pages to guess what temperature?

Let Go is a web comic that earnestly takes us to a darker Jetsons’ future. Not a dystopia, as such, but a family groping their way forward through technological unemployment, video addiction and dominance by social scoring. A sincere effort to peer ahead a few years. Here’s the sampler & kickstarter. 

Adam: The Mirror: a gorgeous – if clichéd – robotic morality tale intro to Neill (District 9) Blomkamp’s new science fiction film.

== Women propel sci fi! ==

Amazon has made Linda Nagata’s new book THE LAST GOOD MAN - a very near-future, high-tech thriller with a military theme - a “monthly deal” in the US and Canada. Science Fiction was poorer when Linda tapered her career and we’re richer now that she’s back in such a big way. 

Romania has always been crazy for science fiction. At the recent Sci+Fi Fest in Bucharest, Ona Frantz won top honors for the translation of my novel Existence. Congratulations! 

Farah Mendelsohn’s new critical new book, a study of the work of Robert A. Heinlein, will be published by Unbound, in 2018. E-book £12; Hardback + e-book, £35.  Pre-order at  https://unbound.com/books/robert-heinlein

Oh, a quirky thought. I propose we nominate - for the short subject media Hugo - this fun tribute to the indomitable and remarkable Mrs. Emma Peel. In her day, no concept was more science fictional than a woman protagonist who was fully equal to the hero (and then some!) in all ways, and who could both solve mysteries and utterly kick-ass. The true fore-runner of Gal Gadot. And the quality of this video, down to the last nugget and musical riff and snip of editing, is terrific. 

And now back to our weird - (I hope it's a simulation) - world.

Freedom in Belarus... inspired by The Postman...

Sometimes we make a difference!

Okay, I admit that it can happen even to me. Every now and then, I feel drawn by the sick-sweet allure of cynicism. Look around. I mean is anybody listening to the good ideas? Ain't it tempting to think that it's all just useless? That you might as well turn inward -- take up carpentry and let the world go to hell on its own?

Isn't the whole modernist-democratic experiment getting pounded down, the same way it happened in Periclean Athens, by the combined forces of mysticism, egotism, oligarchy and war? History shows what a narrow renaissance we've been lucky to live through. The Pragmatic Enlightenment always relied upon a brash and rather unnatural sense of confidence in the future. And now that its enemies have figured out how to undermine that confidence, that belief in negotiation and problem-solving, is there really much chance of preventing a return of the old ways that dominated every other culture? Especially the pattern that is preached in popular fantasy tales -- rule by coalitions of aristocrats and clerics.

Certainly, my own efforts, yammering and tossing bricks in ALL directions (contrarianism) would seem likely to achieve just one long term effect. I am giving our future masters (whether they arise from either left or right) plenty of quotables to snatch out of internet archives and cite (out-of-context) during my show trial! Shortly before they resume the traditional methodology practiced by nearly all other human societies, dealing with gadflies by the simple expediency of immolation

Only then, just when it all seems futile, there comes a hint that I really am part of something bigger. Moreover, maybe I'm even helping in some small way.

For example, now comes word from Belarus, an ex-Soviet republic that has spiraled into pure dictatorship, that the democracy and human rights movement over there is making use of a symbol, an archetype, that may be familiar to some of you.

"Kobets told me that Belarus's democratic activists took their inspiration from the unlikeliest of sources: a Kevin Costner film. "The Postman," adapted from a novel by David Brin in 1997 and critically panned, depicts an apocalyptic America where the remnants of civilization live in terror of a brutal army headed by a sadistic general. Costner's character, a drifter, delivers a bag of old mail ‹ information ‹ and becomes a symbol of hope for those hoping to restore their American democracy."

(For the whole article, see The New York Times --with thanks to Kathryn Myronuk)

Well now, that's nice. Though, in fact, the message about turning away from neo-feudalism and discovering true patriotism - about an America that restores itself and the world through communications - was originally intended to be absorbed by... well... Americans. (The reason I have long been "surprisingly forgiving" toward Costner is quite simple. Somehow, amid the uneven muddle of that film this message is the one part of the story that he absolutely nailed.)

Ah well, one takes what one can get. Go Belarussians! Struggle and prevail.

Watch my “other” (awful) movie adaptation

Want the good news first, or the bad news?

On Tuesday night, the FX cable channel will air my “second movie”... and one that makes Costner’s adaptation of The Postman look like Casablanca.

I am talking about the 2003 B-classic The Core -- about a crew of brave aesthenonauts who board a new style of submersible and dive through solid rock down to the superheated belly of our world, in order to set off a few well-placed bombs and restart the circulation of Earth’s core. (Kind of like using a cap pistol to budge an aircraft carrier, but ah well.)

Yipes! And yes, it really is that bad. Alas, though, it gets worse. For the producers and director blatantly ripped off two much better books, either of which would have made terrific films. And maybe someday they will! Because The difference in quality is so great that I doubt the well is poisoned at all.

What two novels are those?

Well, first, a comment on how Hollywood steals from authors, nowadays. What they do, in order to evade legal action, is take a Chinese Restaurant approach. Grab a little from column A and some more from column B and so on. Spread it around.

Hence, my friend Paul Preuss -- author of a wonderful book titled CORE -- has more to complain about than I do! Not only is the title thing pretty glaring, but the whole premise -- intervening to reverse a slowdown in the deep convention currents driving Earth’s protective magnetic field -- is a direct “borrowing” from his vision. Of course, Paul deals with this problem in his book by offering something remotely plausible, a deep drilling project that does not try to put human beings down where the pressures and temperatures turn steel into the consistency of boiling pudding! Yes, in film you must put characters in jeopardy. But there are better ways to do that. Better than... well, just watch, Tuesday night.

Oh, it goes on. Both Paul’s novel and the movie screenplay have as subplots the military use of earthquakes as weapons; in both, spies for the military are part of the drilling operations. (In both, the spies are even of Slavic origin!) This strains coincidence. The entire sequence of a dive into a deep trench in the Western Pacific, including underwater earthquakes, whale sightings, etc., was taken from the novel in a way that cannot plausibly have had a common, independent origin.

So why am I calling this my “second movie”?

Just watch, while remembering your last reading of my novel Earth. Recall the female shuttle pilot, struggling to save her spacecraft after it is damaged by a wave of something emanating from the Earth’s core? Also overlapping is the shuttle pilot's subsequent role as the co-protagonist, co-survivor, and love interest of the male scientist lead.

My novel Earth partly involves the unprecedented and innovative idea of interacting with the planet on the level of software. In publicity for The Core – though not in the released version of the film – a character relates that he is "going to computer-hack the Earth". Further, in the Preuss novel, the initial calamity was natural. In the Brin novel, and in the movie The Core, catastrophe was triggered by a human-made object dropped deep into the Earth, requiring human intervention to correct and eliminate the first cause. Previews of the movie tell of a mission to eliminate the deep manmade object causing disaster on the surface.

Other overlaps with Earth include the theme, at the end of both the novel and the movie, of fighting the fallacy of government secrecy by releasing all information onto the internet. And... oh, the list goes on and on.

Fortunately, Earth is so full of great stuff (ahem) that this ankle-biting won’t damage its genuine film prospects, over the long haul. (Who can beat the image of several good and evil powers fencing each other with gravity lasers within the Earth itself, blasting whole city blocks into space! Makes those Jedi light sabers look like harmless pinking shears!)

Why am I laying all this out right now? Well, I suppose I’m doing it in part to distance myself from the bad bits of the film you’re about to watch, and to wax philosophical about what kind of minds would throw away great dramatic elements in order to turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear.

On the other hand, one grows a thick skin, a capacity to shrug. Hell, I grew up in Hollywood. You gotta be a realist.

I suppose I’m telling all this because - all told - it’s good publicity even to have been ripped off even to make an awful film. In Hollywood, if it is widely known that you are the kind of guy with ideas worth stealing, others in town will muse that you also have ideas worth buying. And indeed, I can tell you that a major studio recently purchased a nice option on one of my other books, which a top screenwriter is currently adapting! I cannot say any more. But hope springs eternal. There is a chance that justice and good art may prevail.

Want irony? I’ve always considered myself to be a team player, not a prima donna -- at least about movie adaptations. After snubbing me  at the beginning (a Hollywood tradition that I did not take personally), Costner’s folks expressed delighted surprise when I backed the film and helped in all sorts of ways.

See an article on my website about my personal response to Costner's movie adaptation of The Postman.  And still, I defend it, to this day, as a flawed and slightly dumb work, that is nevertheless visually stunning, rambunctious, hugely unabashed and as bighearted as all outdoors. The Postman has grown on people over the years. (See my next posting for more about this.)

But that won’t happen with The Core. All I can do is milk this doozy for all the sympathy that I can get.... and let’s all hope for better things in years to come.

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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