Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 31 - 1997

Memory-wise then, we're still in the difficult 1990s, but at least we've reached:

1997:

The trivia:

• Reverend Robert Shields from Dayton in the USA developed a kind of 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. By the time he stopped due to ill health, the diary amounted to 37.5 million words and filled 94 boxes.
• 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 won first prize at the Greater Idaho Science Fair for his project which proved that the use of true facts can lead the public to a false conclusion, since "Dihydrogen monoxide" is actually...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 of that year. This lengthy visibility and the extensive coverage in the media and on the internet made it the most observed comet in human history. It also became infamous when 39 members of the religious cult "Heaven's Gate" committed mass suicide in order to reach what they believed was an extraterrestrial spacecraft hiding in it's 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) were 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 also 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) - not to mention avoid death by transferring their consciousness into their sentient giant habitats. Edenists also dominate the economy because they harvest 'Helium 3' from gas giant planets, which is the primary fuel source for all Adamist starships.

Against this backdrop we are introduced to a vast array of characters  including: 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 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 mans energy signature leave his body and follows it to another dimension (later named "the beyond"), which contains billions of "souls" of human-kind's long dead. Unfortunately this contact ruptures the barrier between the beyond and our dimension, allowing the souls  - many driven insane after centuries of imprisonment, where they can sense the "real" world but not touch it -  to begin to escape and posses the bodies of the living. Dexter is just the first of millions to come.

These reincarnated dead find that they can allow more trapped souls through to posses others and harness energy based powers both as an offensive weapon and often as a way to reshape local reality  - although this prevents them from using use any form of advanced electronics. Although possession has to be with the consent of the host, this can be overcome by various torture methods. 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 sound 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 Dexter Quinn 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 cliche 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, there's a logic to it - and it all fits together in a massively complicated tapestry, but I was perhaps hoping for something just a little...more. But that's nit-picking when a story with this sheer scale, innovation and complexity is 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...

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 the big questions about science, the universe and faith (in all senses of the word). When radio astronomer Ellie Arroway discovers radio transmissions comic from Vega, it leads to the building of a gigantic machine 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 - the scientist Carl Sagan - and directed by Robert Zemeckis, who was 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's 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), played by a bunch of great actors 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) before diving in and buying the home video releases - which was where my fascination with the show really took off. 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 in 2005. It's a few years since I've watched an episode, 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 -  Now I do like "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. I can distantly remember seeing the numbered Bantam episode adaptations by James Blish in bookshops in the 1970s, along with the curious 'Fotonovels' which contained stills from the episode along with dialogue balloons in a curious mash-up of live action and comics - but they didn't appeal enough to me to actually buy them. 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 (I guess to co-incide with the transmission of "The Next Generation") - but again they were nothing more than a curiosity. Then in 1997 along came comics writer Peter David, who began to develop his little corner of the "Trek" universe with its own continuity, using a combination of new characters, ones he had created for other novels 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 explored Sector 221-G, home of the recently fallen Thallonian Empire.

• In a neat marketing strategy, Pocket Books released the first story in four slim volumes at a lower price. Intrigued by the concept, plus being aware of the quality of Peter David's comics work from his 12-year run on "The Incredible Hulk", plus "Dreadstar" and "The Atlantis Chronicles", 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 decide to 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-book novellas in 2015. I bought them all, and to my mind they (plus David's other "Trek" work) 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 love Luc Besson's 23rd century science fiction action extravaganza, if for nothing else than it's sheet imagination and ambition - even if it is clearly influenced by the French SF graphic novel series "Valerian & Laureline". Amongst all the special effects and a story of a once every 5,000 years cosmic alignment, Besson weaves an all-star cast - Bruce Willis is world weary and cynical cab driver, Korben Dallas, Ian Holm is a nervous priest who knows the truth behind the elements and Gary Oldman chews the scenery with 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 it'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, kind-of-educational series for pre-school children caught the imagination of the general population of Great Britain and resulted in four characters who only communicated in gibberish having a number one 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 a 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 bit of a guilty / secret  pleasure. The three young Hanson brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma had been making music since the early 90s, but exploded on the popular music scene with the release of the single "Mmmbop", which reached number one in 27 countries and went on to sell over 700,000 copies in the UK alone, where it was constantly on the radio. 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 10 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 remember the music that just 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 really only works on that initial viewing, but boy, is it worth it.

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

Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 14 - 1980

We move into a new decade, I become a teenager, and an album featuring the *other* composer with the initials JW becomes my favourite of the year...

1980:

The trivia:

• A satirical group known as the Rhinoceros Party, received over 1% of the popular vote in the 1980 Canadian elections, despite campaigning to repeal the laws of gravity and build taller schools to provide 'higher' education. 
• Photographer Robert Landsburg spent many weeks photographing the Mount St. Helens volcano in the lead up to it's huge eruption. When the mountain exploded on 18th May, he was only a few miles from the summit and realised that he would never escape the rapidly advancing ash cloud. Winding his camera film back into it's case, he put it into his backpack and then lay on top of it in attempt to protect the contents. Seventeen days later his body was found buried in the ash and the film was later developed.
• In 1980 the first ever 1 GB hard drive weighed an astonishing 226 kilograms and cost nearly £ 18,000

The memory:

Sky 2

No, not the television channel from the Murdoch media empire but the second album from the quintessential classical / progressive "supergroup".

Sky were formed by the coming together of five musicians at the top of their game:

• John Williams - one of the most acclaimed classical guitarists in the world, probably most famous for "Cavatina" - the theme from the movie "The Deer Hunter".
• Herbie Flowers - a former member of "T. Rex" and an incredibly busy session bass player who appeared on albums with Elton John, David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Paul McCartney. He also played the prominent bass line on Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side" *and* worked with Jeff Wayne on his musical version of "War Of The Worlds".
• Tristan Fry - a drummer and percussionist on (amongst many other things) the Beatles "A Day In The Life" and was the timpanist for the "Academy of St Martins in the Fields" chamber orchestra. He also played at the weeding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
• Kevin Peek - an Australian guitarist who for many years was part of Cliff Richard's regular backing band. He also played on many film soundtracks, including, "The Long Good Friday", which was written by:
• Francis Monkman - founder member of pioneering psychedelic band "Curved Air", he was an accomplished harpsichord player and a fan of free-form musical composition techniques.

Williams, Fry and Flowers had been friends since the early 70s when they had performed together (along with others) on Williams' non-classical release "Changes". They stayed in touch over the years and when Francis Monkman joined them on the 1978 album "Travelling", they realised that they wanted to set up their own full-time cross-genre band, combining pop, classical and rock elements. Recruiting Kevin Peek (fresh from working with David Bowie), the quintet was complete, and Sky released their first self-titled album in  1979 to much success and critical acclaim. Sell out concerts followed.

I knew none of this at the time though. I had a growing interest in pop music, but I also really enjoyed instrumental albums - the disco-style versions of classic film and TV science fiction themes by Geoff Love were some of my favourites. Plus Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" had clearly been my passion and hardly off my turntable in the year or so since it's release. But I had been too young for the peak years of the prog rock explosion  - and classical music? Well up til now, 99% of that left me cold as it seemed to be the stuff for ancient granddads who liked listening to the eternally dull BBC Radio 3.

Then on an episode of "Top of the Pops" in May 1980, I saw Sky perform the track that became their most well-known and successful single - "Toccata" -  which eventually reached number five in the charts. This was an arrangement of Bach's famous "Toccata and Fugue in D minor", but with the usual organ and orchestra replaced by synthesizers, frantic drums and electric guitars. Now this was classical music I could get into to! They also seemed to be having a lot of fun, perhaps hardly able to believe that they were on the BBC's flagship pop music show. See for yourself:

Intrigued by the performance, I ambled along to my local record store in search of more music by the band, and there, still in the top 10 was their second album "Sky 2" - a double LP no less. Thankfully I had enough pocket money saved up from doing odd jobs around the house that I could afford to buy it. Eagerly I took it home, opened the gatefold sleeve and placed the first vinyl record on the turntable.

The first disc is made up of original Sky compositions - and some lengthy ones at that. Jeff Wayne aside (and that's a special case I think), I was used to the more traditional three or four minute pop /  novelty songs of my early childhood. The jaunty  "Dance of the Little Fairies" was fairly brief, but two tracks ("Hotta" and  the Arabic-influenced "Sahara") were around seven or eight minutes long. What's more, the fourth, "FIFO" - a four movement ode to computer programming no less -  took up the entire B side, effectively one seventeen minute prog rock opus. That was my first real exposure to this kind of thing and I immediately fell in love with it.

The second LP began with live novelty favourite "Tuba Smarties", showcasing Herbie Flowers and his brass instrument. I seem to recall seeing Herbie perform this on later occasions dressed as a kind of gnome, his tuba bedecked in multi-coloured fairy lights. Following that were several fairly traditional versions of classical pieces from Praetorius, Rameau and Vivaldi, before Mr. Fry had his own turn with the percussion focused "Tristan's Magic Garden" ( I particularly liked the use of the vibraphone) and John Williams worked his Spanish folk magic on "El Cielo". The final side saw Sky's own take on the Curved Air barnstormer "Vivaldi" before the wonderful twelve minute "Scipio", that allowed everyone to get in on the action. The closing track was of course "Toccata".

Okay, so maybe it's true that the music was not going to set the world alight or create a cultural revolution and maybe it's true the five members (apart from Monkman with his long hair) looked like the kind of respectable people that your grandma might approve of, but for some reason their music really spoke to me. Millions of others obviously agreed because "Sky 2" was immensely popular, topping the charts - and the band made regular appearances on television. I had friends at secondary school who were also into the band, and we regularly talked about our favourite tracks.

The other thing that made the album stand out was the fact that it had liner notes from all the members of the band (another first for me), talking about the pieces and the music they had written. These were written in a jokey style, gentle taking the mickey out of each other and it really felt like Sky were connecting with the audience. On weekends I read these brief notes while I played the two LP's over and over again at as loud a volume as my parents would allow.

Sky's popularity continued to grow and their 1981 tour culminated with the first ever rock concert performed at Westminster Abbey in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Amnesty International. It was recorded and shown later as a special programme on BBC1, and I remember watching the show, as it was the first time I had seen Sky live in proper concert mode, instead of on something like "The Val Doonican Show"

Francis Monkman had left the band by this point and been replaced by Steve Gray. The Westminster Abbey concert was also the first time that many tracks from the new third album were played to the public -  and Grays involvement moved them away from the more psychedelic sound of some of the music on the first two albums. I think I bought "Sky 3" as soon as it came out and although there were some great compositions and I did play it regularly, it just didn't feel quite as important to me. My brief passion for the band was beginning to fade. I think part of it might have been that my tastes were expanding and changing and I had discovered the electronic musical genius that is Jean-Michel Jarre when a friend lent me his copy of "Magnetic Fields".

But that's another story...

Honourable mentions:

• The Adventure Game - The immensely popular science fiction game show where celebrities had to solve a series of puzzles to get back to Earth, and clearly the inspiration behind "The Crystal Maze". Although most people now seem to remember it for the "Vortex" game at the end where contestants could be evaporated (which didn't come in til series 2), I personally liked the more cerebral tasks such as figuring out which of the "Drogna" shapes could be stood on based on a scientific mnemonic, the backwards talking alien ("Doog yrev") or using a creaky BBC micro to negotiate a pitch black maze. The fabulous "Den of Geek" website has a lovely look back at the series here. Wonderful stuff which is finally getting a DVD release in 2017.

• Flash Gordon - As much as I adore the black and white Buster Crabbe serials that were endlessly shown on early morning television during school holidays, the 1980 Dino De Laurentiis rightly sits there alongside them. Yes it's tongue in cheek, but pretty much everything is perfect - the casting, the visuals and not forgetting the Queen soundtrack. It's cheesiness it part of the charm. Brian Blessed has spent the rest of his career bellowing two words at the world with great relish and find me a heterosexual teenage boy who didn't have indecent thoughts about Onella Muti as Princess Aura...

• Cosmos - By rights this ground-breaking science series should have run away with my personal memory top spot for 1980. It's thirteen peerless episodes affected me in ways that have reverberated down the decades and I learnt so much from Carl Sagan that I wish I had had the chance to meet him and thank him for all that he did for me. When we talk about personal heroes, Carl Sagan's name is in the top three. The amazing journeys into outer space echoed the wonder I felt the first time I saw "Cosmic Zoom" - and that was without the electronic beauty of the music of Vangelis. I bought the music soundtrack, the accompanying book, the original and "special edition" VHS videos, and the DVD's (twice). I never get tired of watching it and Sagan's opening narration is ingrained on my brain forever. So why isn't it up there instead of "Sky 2"? Well partly that's because I'm trying to pick things that are slightly different instead of the most popular for each year and partly because "Cosmos" is *so* important both personally and culturally that it deserves much more space devoted to it. It'll probably have to wait til much later, but I want to look back at each episode separately and in detail. Something to look forward to then...