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Good to see [i]The Whispering Sea[/i] is released. I have been looking forward to this one. I just ordered a copy and ones of two other books I unfortunately do not have yet.
[quote=”blatham” post=2952]
At long last, Shepherd Moon is now available on Amazon — do us a favor and review, review, review! The Forsaken should also be available shortly once Amazon figures out what to do with two books with different ISBN numbers (at which point the old reviews from the first printing will hopefully be merged with the new book).
[/quote]I’m curious about but not quite following: “two books with different ISBN”. Same novel has two different ISBNs? I assume two different novels always each have a different ISBN as a matter of course. Just curious what I’m missing or forgetting here.
[quote]
Mr. Latosa and yours truly occasionally stare each other down over the North American continent saying: “You know, we could kill people off and then bring ’em back with Balor blood.”
[/quote]
Sounds like…. Staring at a tempting reset button located somewhere in the middle of the continent…. “Just leave it there.” “Leave it.” Then… “Oh, okay, now we can just toss it in the Mississippi River.”
:whistle:(Sorry, the staring across a continent metaphor was hard to resist. :))
Zack,
Interesting questions about events surrounding Breakaway, in regard to lunar population. Steve pointed out scenario 4a, which does start with 11 less (i.e. 300) as a starting point with the idea that maybe the 11 deaths that had occurred recently [i]before[/i] the Breakaway event may not have been reported to the media. This is possible, yet so is 311 even if Simmonds were holding back to a degree. Various possibilites regarding both, now that I think about it more.
311 Scenario I: Simmonds and the ILC have been reporting deaths all along but holding back on details, knowing it is difficult to hide the fact of deaths (families to notify, or even delaying that, the presence of rumor mills).
311 Scenario II: Simmonds and the ILC have not been reporting deaths leading up to before Breakaway, but right after Breakaway, release a number reflecting those pre-Breakaway deaths. At first, the big news would be about the Moon — and Earth-side damage — as a whole. Maybe in those days, the ILC could inform the individual families of the pre-Breakaway 11 fatalities about their prior deaths — when most of the media focus is elsewhere. How long the media would take to piece together all of this about the pre-Breakaway deaths, who knows, but in general, this creates another layer of scenarios….
311 Scenario IIa: Spin the earlier fatalities into something that sounds related to the later Breakaway disaster but avoiding any appearance of improper conduct on the part of ILC. In this scenario, perhaps they could even try to make Simmonds (and thus the whole ILC) sound non-culpable.
311 Scenario IIb: If it had been just Simmonds holding back, the ILC could describe that up front (i.e. lay the blame on him).
311 Scenario IIc: If it had been more people than Simmonds, the ILC could (1) sack them early on, then point that out later (i.e. lay the blame on both Simmonds and them), or (2) not fire those people, hide their involvement, and try heaping extra blame on Simmonds.
Still, there are certainly ways to support the accurate number being 300 just before the Breakaway, despite GTV’s report….
300 Scenario I: The ILC, in the initial post-Breakaway chaos, fails to give the accurate number and GTV mistakenly reports 311, and….
300 Scenario Ia: They correct this afterwards, but too late for the audience (us!) to hear a correct number reported. What other details there are may be similar to several of the 311 scenarios, I suppose.
300 Scenario Ib: The ILC totally cover up the 11 pre-Breakaway deaths. Whether or not such a cover-up remains successful, especially under likely very detailed Earth-side investigation of lunar events pre-Breakaway, I leave for others to speculate.
This all is not even covering another pair of scenarios, labeled 3a and 3b at Metaforms, that in the initial chaos, GTV may have simply had outright bad information, from an innocent mistake anywhere along the chain. Perhaps the population was (e.g.) 334 moments before Area Two started blasting the Moon out of orbit.
Regardless, unless I am missing something (certainly possible), I am not sure we the audience have sufficient information to determine a clear answer, leaving us free to speculate and choose a “most likely” scenario accordingly.
🙂—-David
P.S. I’ve long thought that pre-Breakaway events, the GTV number, and Y1 events leave a lot of room for population speculation before reaching the next lower bound (at Arkadia) and hard number (at Psychon). These latter two numbers are close together and not hard to bridge, and from there, the number at Entra is also not that far apart and not that difficult (IMO) to bridge. It is getting from pre-Breakaway/GTV/Y1 to Arkadia/Psychon numbers that leaves lots of open room, I think.
Steve,
I do have it in mind to run an analysis of numbers suggested by events and background presented within the Powys Media novels, as another population scenario to add. At the time I ran the analysis leading to the existing scenarios, I had probably only read one or two of the novels by that point, and did not want to start a scenario based on incomplete information. I am curious to eventually look at that scenario, though.
Also note that the link you cited has changed after the reorganization of Space: 1999 Net several months ago (each site became its own subdomain, so that altered the overall URLs). New location of the cited KB entry is:
http://metaforms.space1999.net/kb/1m/pop.htm
—-David
I agree with slindvall’s assessment on the strength of John Kenneth Muir’s characterization, at least from what I saw in the [i]The Forsaken[/i]. That novel was strong in characterization, plot, and theme. My favorite Powys novel so far (though I sadly [i]still[/i] have some catch-up), and simply one of my favorite novels overall.
So for those and other reasons, I have definitely been looking forward to his early-Y2 bridging novel :), even more after re-reading the interview for the first time in awhile. I’ll just remain patient.
—-David
P.S. I am glad to see this site is back up, too. Merry Christmas!
[b]mateo wrote:[/b]
[quote]One day a Powys fan in their Powys logo’d garb will be at a science fiction convention, and they’ll see across the room another person adorned with the Powys “P” (yes, it’s actually a “P”), a kinship will be recognized, a conversation started, [/quote]
🙂Also, I chuckled when you mentioned the logo letter. I was just wondering about the logo (again) a couple days ago. At that time, it suddenly clicked that it was the letter ‘P’ — though I was at a bit of a loss as to the rest of the shape.
I kept looking at the large image of the mug with logo on the front page, with the black background and the boundary outside of it, and then I thought maybe there was a black ‘M’ surrounding the P (if one pictures the logo as ending right at the base of the ‘P’). Powys Media, then?
This morning, it struck me that there is also a ‘V’ right in plain view too. ‘P’ and ‘V’ — Powysverse?
So… P, M, and V inside/outside the same symbol? Powys Media’s Powysverse? Or is this a stretch on my part?
🙂
Thank you. 2010 was quite the year around here. I started hearing some news, some time back, and suddenly, I discover there is lots of new stuff. It looks like 2011 is starting out busy too.
Regardless, Happy New Year to you as well.
Dang, I bought this back when, early on, and started reading it, but lost track of it during a move early in reading. I’ve been doing some cleaning recently and found it in a long overlooked box :(, so I put it in a bookcase next to the other Powys books that I’m currently reading. 🙂
–DW
[b]mateo wrote:[/b]
[quote]You didn’t mention the entirely rewritten explanation as to why the Alphans are advised NOT to show violent emotions, and the revision of the idea that the androids CANNOT kill because they don’t understand violent emotions. It always bothered me–no violent emotions are needed to kill.[/quote]
Mateo,Huh, you are quite right that I apparently entirely missed a more major revision point. Well, before I go looking, I will say that you reminded me this aspect of the episode did bother me too in the past. In fact, it is probably one gap that is to at least a small degree responsible for my lower estimation of this episode.
However, as a partial fill-in, I long figured the androids still not knowing the emotions of love and hate, they were seeking not just actions that can be related to hatred, but to understand enough of the feeling itself. In this, I had probably picked up some thematic cross from other series’ stories regarding androids’ mental abilities, which are sometimes posited in their “universes” (e.g. Mr. Data in TNG) as being so advanced as to blur the lines between “computation” and “thinking” — or at least arguably so.
One thing that had bothered me too (and it resembles one of your points too) was how the Vegans were causing the slow loss of Alphan life support, and again led me to assume it wasn’t “merely” the actions they were seeking to assimilate but a “stronger” and wider [i]range[/i] of such actions, under the heading of hate. Same for the stated history of the androids ripping off the masks of the “Numbers.” Grasping at enough of the [i]backing[/i] of the emotion of hatred could be seen by the Vegan androids as a fuller grasp on the emotive ability and thus giving them a larger range of actions they could use in more varying situations where they felt they might need this perceived “strength.”
These quick fill-in assumptions of mine have apparently become so ingrained in my thinking, perhaps starting with my 1992 viewings, that I apparently entirely missed these Omnibus revisions somehow, even though I usually am aware of these assumptions and am curious to seek out alternate “explanations” — as I am now curious to backtrack and see what I missed in this case. Sometimes I miss the obvious. 🙁
However, one more thing before going back to both versions to review more carefully, namely:
[quote]Human minus head = death.
Human minus air = death
Human minus water = death[/quote]
Okay, I’ll grant the last two as having a relatively “low” — almost “passive” — level of violent action. Arguably, the word “violence” could be extended to include anything intending to do such harm, however much or little action; but in this context that is splitting hairs, and I agree with the intent of your point. I’m dubious of the first example, however, because more action (and rather bloody at that) is still needed in that case. Even if taken on in a machine-like manner, it isn’t that much different than other violent deaths. Still, minus that, your other examples correspond to more of my initial misgivings too, and are part of why I made an assumption about the motivation being deeper than the literal words.This was not the first time, in either season, I had to do something like this, unfortunately.
[quote]The new version of the novelized episode makes this issue much more logical and was one of the first major revisions made.[/quote]
Alright, let’s see…. Long pause as I take both novel versions outside to re-read relevant chapter sections in in the waning sunlight of a nice day and in light of your points….Yes, I can see the changes. The original dialog was crippled by focussing on just the actions more than the emotional backing, even though Love and Hate were mentioned and the latter pointed to as something the androids saw as “strength.” The Omnibus has switched this to keep focus on the emotions, the feelings, even while keeping it clear that the actions would contribute to gaining the understanding. The changes are clearly visible to me now in at least two places especially: when “Number 8” is explaining the androids to Tony and Helena, and then when Tony is explaining them to John and Maya. One extra facet this makes me notice also is that it more neatly bridges to Helena pressing Zarl to feel what love is. She’s focussing him on that emotion even as Zamara vainly tries keeping him focussed on hatred.
Okay, a case where my post-viewing assumptions were so ingrained I glided right past the Powys changes without noticing them. Alright, you got me there, that I missed the fixes to a rather major flaw that had bothered me more, years back. The more assumptions I have to make under the heading of “suspension of disbelief” the more my opinion of the particular episode (or situation, or whatever) is lowered — and some things I just can’t cover with speculative assumptions. Regardless, I see it is a lot less necessary to make such assumptions reading this, because the core situation has been improved greatly!
Alright, I admit this is an oversight on my part, and I will likely go back to my webpage and add an Important Addendum or similar post-revision.
Along the way of more closely analyzing the above, I caught a couple other changes….
A minor but for some reason good change was the door swinging open after Tony shoots it is changed to sliding open.
Also, I don’t know how I missed mentioning this, since I brought up a semi-related topic in reviewing “The Exiles” and there was alll the related and tangential discussion which followed. Some rather anachronistic references in the original OMOH novelization were fixed in the Omnibus. It is actually a rather curious case….
I admired (and still do) the OMOH episode in its presenting something which nowadays resembles in form and presumed function a miniature compact disk. What OMOH showed presented something that as far as I know was still about a decade away at the time of production.
It is rather curious that the 1970’s novelization instead used “cassettes” and “microtape” made of “celluoid” instead of the disks shown. I first read these novelizations around 1994 or 1995, and was baffled by the nature of this change, and eventually settled on assuming that the novelist was either working off scripts that described them differently than what Keith Wilson or someone assembled just before filming, or that the scripts were not specific enough and Michael Butterworth had to improvise (perhaps under time pressure). I don’t know what the case actually is. (Mateo? Anyone?)
What could perhaps be added to the puzzle is “The Exiles” — then near the end of the third of the six 1970’s Y2 releases — actually [i]did[/i] refer to disks being used. Of course, there is nothing too terribly unusual about having multiple media at all, at any point in time, with some being treated as old and new, and some perhaps being seen as similar complexity levels. In fact, I rather like that at different points, square mini-disks were being used (e.g. BOW) “alongside” round mini-disks (e.g. Exiles, OMOH), both of which still look more advanced than cassettes and celluoid microtape. So the OMOH and Exiles cases are arguably a false case of inconsistency; but it is still an observation. Anyway, getting back on point to wrap it up….
The Powys OMOH revision thankfully just sweeps the cassettes, microtape, and celluoid references (which are really dated now) away, “restoring” the original then-forward-thinking design element that just so happens to look rather familiar to us now. 🙂
It took me awhile, unfortunately, but I finally posted [url=http://www.space1999.net/~metaforms/oth-revu/y2omni03.htm]a detailed review[/url] of “One Moment of Humanity” — lightly revised this afternoon — as well as this summary review here in this forum. It’s not that it was a long review, just slow getting it wrapped up.
The broadcast episode is one of my least-favorite episodes of Y2. It is not the worst of the season in my opinion, and it has many scenes and elements I like; but is still among the lower five for me. I’ll get into why as I go along here. This is a shorter review than the prior two, in part because I did not notice a lot of changes between the 1970’s novelization and the 2000’s revision thereof. Thus, this is more of a review of the Omnibus version vs. the episode, unless noted otherwise.
Resource and social issues get some notice early on, with tiranium getting noted, as well as a noticeable uptick in social events. The former is a typical pressing point for the mostly-moonbound Alphans, but then again, the latter is important too. People cooped up for a long time have to find some outlets in activities, have to climb out of the potential depression that could suck everyone in. Not that it is going to be an even and orderly climb or anything. Despite the OMOH novelization being moved up from the last story of the second of six books to the third episode novelized in the Omnibus, this social reassertion works well in either spot. A related one, maybe not, of everyone having gone through all the movies a “dozen times already” — though since the dates are not explicitly mentioned in the Omnibus, maybe it still works or the reviewer is taking it too literally.
Helena has previously acted subtly as a go between a little for Tony and Maya, and she’s already “half expecting” an engagement announcement soon. She may be seeing more than there is, and even she thinks in terms of “half” anyway; but as I said for the prior chapter, there is some better characterization set up here than in the original novelization.
When the crisis soon hits, it is Sandra who has been written into Command Center in place of Yasko in the earlier novel. I wonder, is this simply because in the episodes, Yasko doesn’t appear (get promoted perhaps) until later? Maybe we see Yasko “introduced” later in the Omnibus.
The Alphans are immobilized, and I find it interesting the author posits they are aware — something I had wondered about from the episode. Yet the novelizations lack Zamara studying the still figures, and does not see Tony and Helena in contact (in support as they started getting hit with dizzyness or such). This seemingly eliminates Zamara perhaps choosing them as a perceived couple, and makes her choice in the novelization a little more murky. Yet curiously, this still works, but more as a minor mystery. When the novelization reaches her finding [i]Othello[/i] and asking some questions about it, now she thinks she has more leverage. Backing up, though….
Something added to the Omnibus is a minor continuity bit, of Tony thinking, [i]Here we go again,[/i] when he and Helena are chosen by Zamara. This bit is good because given the Omnibus using the DAB ordering (even if not the numbers themselves), these same two characters were just kidnapped by the Exiles. There are some other subtle additions and changes which are good, such as replacing “radio” with “communication system” and “girl” with “woman” instead. Kept unchanged is a great bit of foreshadowing: that Zamara’s smile is “coldly artificial” — how little the characters know at that point.
While Butterworth does not have Zamara observing Tony and Helena before choosing them, he instead adds observations by Helena of how, after she has been clued into what the Vegans really are, she thinks Zarl seems to show a bit more than mere mimicry of emotions. While this observation is not “necessary” for understanding the events at the end in the episode, it is a nice addition in writing.
Soon, we all reach one of the longer scenes, of the Moonbase copy. A clever idea by the script writer, I think — but one I thought came off disjointed on screen. Perhaps it lacks a sense of duration, and that absence makes the character motivations a little more muddy. There is a line in the novel that seems to add some clarity; and it all comes out better in writing than on screen. The new novelization also tones down a line about Tony’s perception of Maya, by eliminating “his beloved Psychon” phrase present in the older version, as this would have been premature here given the reorder and the more subtle approach taken.
I always liked the next scene, of John, Alan, and Maya confronting Zamara, the last gaining new knowledge, John’s ploy to get Maya on planet, regardless of her feelings or the accuracy (or lack there)of his statement about her and Tony. Once there, it seems Zamara is thinking too much of the likely success meddling with John and Helena’s relationship (leaving Maya and Tony as Zamara’s backup plan, I gather), and does not notice Maya slipping away. It is good that this is pointed out. Of course, Maya can’t help in the end, other than providing information that the alien computer (which “looks” different in the novels than in the episode) cannot be attacked without killing everyone.
Before that point, John is forced to watch Zarl dancing with Helena. However, on screen, this falls flat. It succeeds in feeling awkward for the reason Zarl is trying to coerce Helena, which is also an act trying to coerce John into a violent response. That is supposed to feel wrong to the viewer, and it succeeds; but it feels like the scene itself is just completely awkward. Maybe it is the length of the scene, or the music (my least favorite, and the most screechy, track in Y2), or the choreography maybe (though I’m no judge of such), or something. It is just a difficult scene to watch, not just for the intended reasons, but unintended ones, I think. However, the scene works far better in writing, feeling more to the point and putting more focus on reaching the thematic point of the eponymous metaphorical change in Zarl, that ends up dooming his fellow androids and himself. The last was clear in the episode, but comes across more strongly in the novelization, as does the subsequent challenge in front of the real humans of Vega.
Finally, what I thought a distractingly flawed point added to the original novelization was removed in this one: what felt like the very rapid arrival of an Eagle.
In the end, the novelization is actually a distinct improvement on the episode. The changes between versions of the novelization are mostly subtle, but still welcome; and only one bit of seeming hyperbole remains (perhaps with more metaphorical than literal intent), that I noticed.
–DW
For whatever it is worth, in case anyone reading this thread is not aware, there are plot summaries of the six original Y2 novels from Germany, and in the case of the first three, [i]partial[/i] translations — namely of the first one to two dozen pages of each. These can be found from the latter half of [url=http://www.space1999.net/~mondstation/mondstation.html]a page[/url] at the [url=http://www.space1999.net/~mondstation/]Mondstation 1999[/url] website.
Note: As far as I can tell, however, there does not appear to have been further translation work for some time.
–DW
