Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 31 - 1997

 A reminder that science fiction still knows how to go big. Really big...

1997:

The trivia:

• Reverend Robert Shields from Dayton in the USA developed an extraordinary compulsion to document *everything* about his life. Between 1972 and 1997 he kept a diary of every five minutes, including recording his body temperature, blood pressure,  when he changed the light bulbs and even his bowel movements. Nothing was too trivial. By the time he stopped due to ill health, the diary amounted to 37.5 million words and filled 94 boxes. After his death in 2007, the full archive was donated to Washington State University. But Shields himself insisted that the material should not be opened until 50 years after, meaning the diaries will remain sealed until 2057.

• As part of his High School science class, 14-year old Nathan Zoner convinced 43 out of 50 classmates to vote to ban the chemical "Dihydrogen Monoxide", citing its many negative effects on the environment.  He presented real facts - that it erodes rock, causes severe burns in its gaseous state, is found in cancerous tumours, and kills thousands of people every year. Many people panicked. He won first prize at the Greater Idaho Science Fair for his project, because it proved that the use of true facts can sometimes lead the public to a false conclusion. Because "Dihydrogen monoxide" is of course...water.

• In April of 1997 the Hale-Bopp comet was at its brightest as it passed close to the Sun, and it continued to be visible in the night sky until December. This lengthy visibility and the extensive coverage in the media and on the internet made it the most observed comet in human history. But it also became infamous when 39 members of the "Heaven's Gate" religious cult committed mass suicide - all in in order to reach what they believed was an extra-terrestrial spacecraft hiding in the comets trail.

The memory:

The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton

 If the "Lensmen" sequence of novels by E.E. 'Doc' Smith had instilled in me a love of grandiose space opera as a youngster, then this massive series (in both page count and scope) proved that the SF sub-genre was still alive and kicking and in *very* good hands.

It's worth admitting here that I'm breaking my own internal rules slightly, because the first volume in the trilogy - "The Reality Dysfunction" - came out in 1996, but I didn't discover Mr. Hamilton's work until book two - "The Neutronium Alchemist" was released in 1997. I really wanted the saga to have the top spot somewhere, but since 1996 and 1999 (when final volume "The Naked God" came out) are already allocated, it seemed to fit best here. Anyway, let's dive in...

In the 27th Century, mankind can travel to the stars and has colonised over 900 worlds, plus numerous asteroids and space stations. However, although humanity is united under the auspices of the 'Confederation' (which includes two alien species - the Tyrathca and the Kiint), it has split into two distinct factions - the religious "Adamists", who use machine based nanotechnology and see themselves as "true humans", and the progressive, genetically modified "Edenists" - who have embraced biotechnology (bitek) and can telepathically communicate with their living wormhole-creating vessels (known as Voidhawks). The "Edenists" can also avoid death, by transferring their consciousness into their sentient giant habitats. Plus they dominate the economy, because they harvest 'Helium 3' from gas giant planets - and this is the primary fuel source for all "Adamist" starships.

Against this backdrop we are introduced to a vast array of characters, amongst them: The imprisoned terrorist scientist Dr. Alkad Mzu, designer of the outlawed antimatter super weapon "The Alchemist". Space trader Joshua Calvert, who made his fortune from the sudden discovery of artefacts from an extinct alien species. The fiery "Edenist" Syrinx, who forms a telepathic bond with the bitek starship 'Oeone' and now competes against Joshua in the lucrative shipping industry between worlds. And lastly, the charismatic but sadistic Satanist, Quinn Dexter, leader of a group of revolting convicts on the tropical settlement planet Lalonde.

It's on Lalonde where the main plot really kicks in. While Quinn Dexter is engaged in torturing a local law enforcer, an ancient alien known as the Ly-cilph, which is observing the conflict, notices the dying policeman's energy signature leave his body. It  follows this energy to another dimension (later named 'the Beyond'), which contains the "souls" of human-kind's long dead - billions of them. Unfortunately this brief contact ruptures the barrier between 'the Beyond' and our dimension, allowing the souls to begin to escape and posses the bodies of the living. Many have been driven insane after centuries of imprisonment, as they could sense the "real" world but not touch it. It seems Dexter is just the first possessed of millions to come...

The 'reincarnated dead' find that they can allow more trapped souls through *and* they can harness energy based powers, both as an offensive weapon and to reshape local reality. However, this prevents them from using use any form of advanced electronics. Consequently, Lalonde is quickly over-run and many of the possessed (including Quinn, who has regained control of his body, but kept the powers) leave in spaceships to spread to the wider Confederation.

If  this all sounds a bit like the beginnings of a zombie outbreak in space, well that's true, in a very limited sense - but the trilogy is so much more than that. As possession spreads throughout the Confederation like a virus, the viewpoint continues to switch, so that we see the unfolding chaos across the known galaxy. Individuals battle for survival. Governments and even planets fall. There are massive space battles and exploding stars - and across it all Quinn Dexter prepares to unleash his final apocalypse on Earth. It's exhilarating stuff. Even something that might sound hoary - like bringing in Al Capone and Fletcher Christian as two of the possessing souls - works, because Hamilton's characters have weight and history and depth. They act like real people, not movie cliché cut-outs, and we care about their fates. Key plot reveals also feel earned, because characters discover them by detective work and sheer bloody survival.

The horror elements (and the books don't shy away from graphic violence) blend seamlessly with the more serious military science fiction and space opera themes, and events have real consequence. Plus Hamilton takes the time to examine the philosophical and metaphysical sides of the conflict. For example, how does the existence of "the Beyond" change humanity's views on religion and the afterlife? Yes, there are a vast array of multi-layered subplots, which can be challenging to keep up with - this is certainly not a story that you can skim - but Hamilton is a master juggler, and knows exactly how to keep all the planets in the air, when to ratchet up the suspense, and when to pull back the curtain.

This huge trilogy is also where a lot of Hamilton's core ideas - which he returns to in slightly different forms in subsequent novels - are first brought into the light. Humans enhanced by integrated technology. Vast man-made habitats. Innovative ways of crossing huge galactic distances. Aliens that are truly nothing like us (no bumpy foreheaded bipeds here). The fact that no matter how far out into the universe we go, we just take our prejudices and limited ways of thinking with us.

If I have one criticism, it's that the ending of the whole saga slightly falls short of the immense build-up. It's innovative, and there's a logic to it - and it all fits together in a massively complicated tapestry - but after three enormous volumes of escalating scope and imagination, I was perhaps hoping for something just a little...more. But that's nit-picking.

It’s not just the scale of his fiction that sets Hamilton apart, but the confidence with which he handles it - the ability to weave together dozens of plotlines, hundreds of characters, and entire worlds, and still deliver a story that feels coherent and compelling. The "Night’s Dawn" trilogy remains one of the best examples of what he can do - a work that is as imaginative as it is ambitious, and as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. It’s not perfect, but it’s exactly the kind of imperfect that comes from trying to do something genuinely enormous. And for me, that’s what makes it so rewarding. 

To my mind, after reading this series, there's space opera, there's epic space opera, and then there's Peter F. Hamilton - and no one else even comes close.

Honourable mentions:

• Contact - Starring the always excellent Jodie Foster, this is one of those rare things - an intelligent, thoughtful science fiction film that dares to ask big questions about science, the universe and faith (in all senses of the word). When radio astronomer Ellie Arroway discovers radio transmissions coming from Vega, it leads to the building of a gigantic machine - one that may just take mankind to it's first extraterrestrial encounter. What will the occupant find at the other end of their journey? Is it real? Is it the biggest hoax ever perpetrated? The film doesn't give all the answers, and it's all the better for it.  It should come as no surprise that I love the film so much when you learn that is was written by one of my personal heroes - scientist Carl Sagan - and was directed by Robert Zemeckis, responsible for the almost perfect "Back To The Future Trilogy". A seemingly forgotten classic, 

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - It's difficult looking back now to really appreciate how much a ground-breaking impact "Buffy" had on genre television. The show had a powerful female heroine, witty and intelligent scripts - that combined fantastical elements will the real world trials of the average teenager (or twenty-something) - and a cast of interesting and relatable characters (even the evil ones).  It really brought fantasy television to the attention of the masses. Although it wasn't the first show to use season long plot arcs, it certainly re-popularised the idea - and phrases such as "Big Bad" to refer to the ultimate season villain, have become part of modern TV language. I first discovered it in the familiar BBC2 evening slot (where some episodes were cut), but my fascination really took off when I started buying the VHS video releases. It was also one of the first programmes you could buy in "box set" collections (albeit each season was split into two releases of three cassettes each). I bought them all, before upgrading to the DVD complete collection. It's a few years since I've watched any, but any show that can consistently produce excellent episodes week in week out for seven years  - and also deliver stories as emotionally rich and diverse as "The Body", "Hush" and "Once More With Feeling" will always get my vote. 

• Star Trek: New Frontier -  I love "Star Trek" in all its various TV and film incarnations, but I've never really been one for diving into the novelised adventures of Kirk, Picard, Sisko et al. Although Pocket Books started releasing new stories in the early 80s, they didn't make their way to UK shores until around 1987, when I started seeing them in places like Forbidden Planet - but they were nothing more than a curiosity. Then in 1997 along came comics writer Peter David, who began to develop his own little corner of the "Trek" universe, using a combination of new characters and minor background players from the various TV series. "New Frontier" concerned the adventures of the reckless Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the oddball crew of the Federation Starship 'Excalibur', as it explores Sector 221-G, home of the recently fallen Thallonian Empire. Intrigued by the concept, plus being aware of the quality of David's extensive comics work, I decided to take a chance and picked up the first couple of books - and that was it - I was hooked. Apart from the interactions of the unique crew and their adventures, my primary reason for enjoying the books so much was that you genuinely never knew what direction things could go in. Unlike Kirk and Picard, who (of course) would always survive, David might kill off a prominent character, or jump forward in time or just throw in a real plot curve ball - it was that unpredictable. Between 1997 and 2006 David wrote sixteen full novels plus the "New Frontier" crew made appearances in a number of  other book mini-series, anthologies, and even their own comics. Things then tailed off and there were only two new books in the next six years, before a final trilogy of e-novellas in 2015. I bought them all, and to my mind they are some of the very best tie-in books to come out of the mega franchise. Well worth a read even if you are only a casual fan.

• The Fifth Element - It's wild, it's wacky, I'm sure certain parts don't make a whole lot of sense - but I just can't help but love Luc Besson's 23rd century science fiction action extravaganza. Even if it is clearly influenced by the French SF graphic novel series "Valerian & Laureline", you have to admire it's sheer imagination and ambition. Amongst the special effects, and a story of a once-every-5,000-years cosmic alignment, Besson weaves an all-star cast. Bruce Willis as world weary and cynical cab driver, Korben Dallas. Ian Holm as a nervous priest who knows the truth behind the elements. And Gary Oldman chewing the scenery with absolute gusto as Jean -Baptiste Emanuel Zorg - the villain of the piece, with his half shaved head, bizarre Southern accent and dog-faced henchmen. Plus of course Milla Jovovich as the strange, ethereal Leeloo. Less successful is Chris Tucker as the garish DJ Ruby Rhod - his high pitched fast-talking schtick wears thin very quickly. But that's the one small fly in the ointment of of an otherwise riot of a film.

• Teletubbies - The brightly coloured forms of Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa, Dipsy and Po were *everywhere* in 1997, as what was conceived as a fun, educational series for pre-school children caught the imagination of the general population of Great Britain.  It even resulted in four characters who only communicate in gibberish having a number one hit single! For me as the father of a one-year old daughter who loved the show, I became very familiar with the repetitive surreal world, and bizarre things like the Noo-noo and the Voice Trumpets. My wife even turned my daughters room into Teletubbyland, complete with rolling green hills, a grass carpet, paper sunflowers on the walls  and the rays of the Sun Baby shining out from the corner. Goodness knows what the people who lived there after us thought of it !

• Hanson - Mmmbop - Okay, so this one is a real guilty / secret  pleasure. The three young Hanson brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma had been making music since the early 90s, but exploded on the music scene with the release of this single, which reached number one in 27 countries  - and went on to sell over 700,000 copies in the UK alone. Even those who said that they hated it couldn't help secretly singing along to the infectious albeit nonsensical chorus. Sure it's bubblegum pop aimed at a teenage market  - and I was certainly outside that demographic - but what can I say, I like good pop music no matter my age and even when it's not "cool" to do so. Subsequent single releases hit the top ten too (even though people seem to remember Hanson as a one-hit wonder), and piqued my interest enough to shell out for the whole album, "Middle of Nowhere", when I saw it at a bargain price. Despite a few cheesy ballads, it's a selection of cheerful, supremely catchy melodies mixed with modern slick production values. People seem to remember 1997 as the year of Oasis, Radiohead and The Verve, but at a time when my personal life was going through a series of enormous highs and lows, I just remember the music that made me smile...

• The Game - This is probably the film directed by David Fincher that very few people have heard of, let alone seen - yet strangely for me it's one of the most rewarding. Michael Douglas is wealthy investment baker Nicholas Van Orton who is given an usual present for his birthday from his brother: a ticket for a "game" that he promises will change his life. I can't say too much more for fear of spoiling the enjoyment, as your work your way through the labyrinthine plot and its unexpected twists and turns - but hell is the payoff worth it. I love twisty-turny films like this, and the first time I saw "The Game" I sat with my mouth open as Fincher slowly opened up his puzzle box. To be honest it's a trick that probably only works on that initial viewing, but boy, is it worth it.

• Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - Who? Never heard of him...