John C. Wright's Journal

In AD 1950, Robert Heinlein in an article titled "Pandora’s Box" made several predictions for the year 2000. He noted where his predictions were still accurate, admitted where they were wrong, and waffled and excused and gave additional thoughts on the matter in an amended list of predictions in his 1966, "Where To?". Finally, in 1980 he wrote additional after-afterthoughts on the matter, as collected in "Expanded Universe."

Being equal to Mr. Heinlein in loudmouthedness, albeit far inferior to him in foresight and other talents, I would like to take the opportunity to overmatch Mr. Heinlein’s foolhardiness with my own, and make predictions parallel to his.

Instead of making the obvious admission that it is impossible to predict the future, even in the short term, due to the chaotic nature of history, let me just say that Science Fiction writers are storytellers, and our ability to predict the future is equal to that of mystery writers, romance writers, or writers of samurai vampire pirate stories Read the remainder of this entry »

… To utter these words, instead of any mere trite phrase:

O, were mine eye-balls into bullets turn’d,

That I in rage might shoot them at your faces

Would that I could write lines like that. Or, better yet, shoot bullets from my eyesockets! Or, best of all, do both!
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Flamingphonebook writes in with some comments re my recent denunciation of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. My reply is overlong, so I put it here under its own entry:

“I don’t see why the escapism of science fiction–works with premises contradictory to physical reality–is an honorable pursuit, but works with premises contradictory to moral reality are not.”

That I can explain quite simply. The science fiction in a science fiction story is labeled as fiction. No one is trying to sell me a flying car.

The immorality of moral relativism, on the other hand, is labeled and sold as truth, not as an amusing counter-factual speculation.

It is dishonorable because people — to be precise, people like me — are deceived by the message Heinlein is preaching, and for many years bought into it. Some people ruin their lives. I almost did, and the fact that I was spared is through no merit of my own.

So I hate the man who deceived me, and I condemn his work of deception.

Now, you can say it is my fault I was deceived, and in a way you’d be right. Of course, everyone who is deceived is victimized precisely because he trusts someone who betrays his trust. You can blame the truster for his gullibility, but you cannot excuse the deceiver for his deception.

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For those of you who are new readers, or old readers with bad memories, here are a few comments (I cannot call them book reviews) I did while I was rereading some famous and beloved Heinlein juveniles. I was curious to see what they looked like through grown-up eyes.

Tunnel In the Sky
Podkayne of Mars
Have Space Suit, Will Travel (first sci fi book I ever read ever.) 
Farmer in the Sky
Door Into Summer
Citizen of the Galaxy
Starship Troopers
Between Planets
Starman Jones

And one nonfiction book
A Tramp Royale (short version: surprisingly charming.)

My comments on Heinlein’s Famous Predictions (short version: surprisingly accurate).

And my rather harsh review of Spider Robinson’s noble but failed attempt to write a posthumous Heinlein collaboration: Variable Star (short version: It stinks.)

Reader axiem writes in and says: "Really, though, the movie I’d want to see done right if they could do it is Stranger in a Strange Land (my introduction to Heinlein). Barring that, I would love to see the Moon is a Harsh Mistress. If they could do it right, and keep Heinlein’s political contemplation."

My comment: Of course, since I hate STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND as much as Verhoeven hates STARSHIP TROOPERS, I would rather not see a good (meaning persuasive) movie made from the book. Movies are the most powerful propaganda tool the human race has ever devised. The point of STRANGER was to mock and belittle monogamy and monotheism, and replace it with what we now call cultural relativism (To be against cannibalism in this book is depicted as a sign of intolerable parochial bigotry! Cannibalism fercrhissake!!). That is not a point I would like to have more people persuaded to support. It is a suicidal idea for any culture.

This book takes a perfectly fine libertarian-type idea, "Let us all be independent and live and let live, without trying to run and ruin each other’s lives" and rides it hell-for-leather off the edge of the Cliffs of Insanity "Let us do Evil, and call it good, and we shall become as Gods! Thou art god!"

Mike the Martian makes a piss-poor messiah.

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Here is one movie I would pay not to see: a remake of a beloved 1950’s sci-fi flick DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

They could have made FOUNDATION or MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS into a film for the same budget, or CHILDHOOD’S END. If you are going to remake SF films, why not a remake of STARSHIP TROOPERS or WIZARD OF EARTHSEA?

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I just found this at Amazon.com. I have not seen this version of the cover before.

Comes out in June 2009.

http://www.amazon.com/Null-Continuum-John-C-Wright/dp/076535537X/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228881484&sr=1-12

 
Read the whole thing. http://robertaconnor.blogspot.com/2008/12/to-whom-much-is-given-surviving.html

I wonder how the scenes would have played out if all the men had been armed, as had been until this century the norm for a gentleman traveling abroad. Ah, but our socialist masters would never permit that, would they? Not even in war time. An armed man is a wolf. A man who lets himself be disarmed is a sheep. The fate of sheep is mutton.

Raised on a Science Fiction diet of Robert Heinlein and A.E. van Vogt and E.E. Doc Smith, I was caught by surprise the first time I went to a science fiction convention, and found that the modern science fiction readership and writership (if I may coin that word) are overwhelmingly left-of-center, and a high number of them are partisans favoring disarming the population.

Heinlein in RED PLANET gave his opinion of the Sullivan Act: ‘"Sir, it is not the natural limitations of this globe that I object to; it is the pantywaist nincompoops who rule it- these ridiculous regulations offend me. That a free citizen should have to go before a committee, hat in hand, and pray for permission to bear arms – fantastic! Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats." A.E. van Vogt in THE WEAPON SHOP made the gunsmiths of the future the check against a complex imperial bureaucracy: “The Right to Buy Weapons is the Right to Be Free.”

Such themes run throughout the science fiction stories of the Campbellian Golden Age.

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I have a novella called “Twilight of the Gods” slated to appear in an anthology called FEDERATIONS John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com.), editor (to be published May 2009 by Prime Books)

The book description:

From Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea of vast intergalactic societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations will continue that tradition.

What are the social, religious, environmental, or technological implications of living in such a vast society? What happens when expansionist tendencies on a galactic scale come into conflict with the indigenous peoples of other planets, of other races? And what of the issue of communicating across such distances, or the problems caused by relativistic travel? These are just some of the questions and issues that the stories in Federations will take on.

I am very happy I sold this story to him. It was an awkward length, but one that was very near and dear to my heart, starring a particular favorite character of mine, Hans Valdemar.

John Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, Seeds of Change, and The Living Dead. He is also the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and is the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire.

Below is an interview he did with me. Read the remainder of this entry »

stigandnasty919 is pleased that I salute the priests of Islam who deny their terrorist coreligionist a proper Islamic burial. He writes:

I confess I do not recall you ever voicing this criticism to me. Nor do I recall ever having written anything that would justify your conclusion.

On the other hand, it depends on what we mean by "taring all Muslims with the same brush." I am not one of those who says Islam is a religion of peace. I am not one who believes Islam is being hijacked by the Islamic Fascists among them, or, if it is being hijacked, I have yet to see a Todd Beamer rise up from his seat.

So to a degree perhaps I am indeed guilty of this, because I do indeed expect the followers of Islam to be loyal (if only tacitly) to the principles of that violent, simple, manly religion. (I also expect these infidels to be more pious than we are: I do not pray my rosary every day, much less pray five times a day, which is a norm in the Dar el-Islam.)

To a degree. I am sure there are peaceful Mohammedans, willing and able to coexist in peace with other religions.

I am also sure that those peaceful Muslims, if they speak out, run the risk of being murdered, them and their family, by the Jihadists.

But–

I am also sure those peaceful Mohammedans will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to how the Terror War plays itself out, and will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the ultimate fate of their religion in world history.

They don’t matter. They don’t mean anything.

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From the London Times:

hat tip to m_francis 

For those of you who are curious, here is a picture of his face.

"The 2-year-old orphan found drenched in the blood of his parents at the besieged Jewish center in Bomby left India on Monday on an Israeli Air Force jet, accompanied by the Indian woman who rescued him."

He looks like my kid. I cannot dry his tears.

How long, Saint James Matamoros? How long before we take this war seriously?

So far, only the soldiers are fighting it. We all must fight, every free man in the West, for this war is a purely psychological war, a purely spiritual war, and there are no front lines. The next battlefield could be the hotel where you are, the skyscraper, the underground in England, a train in Spain, a nightclub in Bali.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/01/six-degrees-of-imran-khan/

On the evening of Nov. 26, the biggest names in Bollywood walked the red carpet at the Bombay premiere of “The President Is Coming,” a comedy about six 20-somethings vying to win the right to shake hands with President Bush.

Among those in attendance at the star-studded premiere Wednesday evening was Bollywood’s “new heartthrob” Imran Khan, who proudly posed for paparazzi donning a T-shirt with Mr. Bush’s face sandwiched between the words “International Terrorist.”

Mr. Khan – a member of India’s Muslim minority – chose not to mock international terrorists who kill in the name of Allah. He and his co-religionists know the deadly results for those who do.

At the precise moment Mr. Khan and hundreds of others making their fortunes in the multibillion-dollar Indian movie business were watching “The President Is Coming,” only a few blocks away, 10 20-something Muslim extremists began a horrific three-day terror spree.