Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  The final, but not least new show of the year was The X Files. Built around two present-day FBI agents who investigate only weird cases that no one else deems worthy, some pure SF episodes were self-contained, and some were part of an overall story arc concerning alien presence and influence on earth. Creepiness and paranoia ruled over all. From the start the show developed a huge cult following, and Fox Mulder and Dana Scully became household names. It ran for nine seasons on Fox Network, at the time the longest-running SF series ever in America.

  In 1995 the new UPN network made its debut with the second Next Generation sequel, Star Trek: Voyager. The show had an interesting premise (a Starfleet ship transported 70,000 light years from home and likely not to make it back in the crews’ lifetimes), and a female captain. Production values were of the usual high quality, but the writing, especially in the early seasons, was uneven at best. The show was very popular during its seven seasons, but for my money it offered little that hadn’t been seen before. I loved it anyway.

  Also in 1995, Showtime Network launched a revival of The Outer Limits, which ran for six years there and then an additional original season on the Sci-Fi Channel, for a total of 154 episodes. Leslie Stevens, the original creator of the 1963 show, and Joseph Stefano, its original line producer, were consultants for the first season of the revival. There were many adaptations of stories from respected writers, and some episodes were successful. With high production values and stories that tended to illustrate some scientific idea and its effects on mankind, the show was moderate hit for its entire run.

  The 2000s have been dominated by supernatural, not SF, series. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampires, and zombies rule. But SF cannot be killed. The final (so far) Star Trek series, Star Trek: Enterprise, premiered on UPN in 2001, and ran for four seasons. It concerned Earth’s first warp-drive spaceship, and took place about 10 years before the United Federation of Planets was formed. Most die-hard Trekkers loved it, seeing it as an attempt at a throwback to the original ’60s series, but it never garnered the strong ratings or fan support of the other Star Trek series.

  The one network that has developed a reputation for launching new SF series, Fox, has also developed a reputation for doing little to help build a viewership for these series, and then canceling them during the first season. The prime example is Firefly, probably the most popular SF series of the decade despite the fact that only 11 episodes were broadcast in 2002 before it was canceled. Its gritty, down-to-earth setting and characters—the crew of a small transport ship trying to survive on the “frontier” fringes of a large planetary-system-wide society—proved very popular with young adult viewers, popular enough to make feasible the production of a feature film two years later. Another Fox show, Dollhouse, lasted less than a year in 2009. It had its rabid fans, but critics generally thought the show was “muddled and pretentious” at first, although most thought it was starting to improve as the season progressed. However, it was canceled before it was able to show what it could do. Fox did manage to sustain one SF series, Fringe. In many ways reminiscent of The X-Files, though not nearly as atmospheric, it did create some SF interest during its third season when it introduced the concept of a similar, parallel universe that has developed “cracks” through which people and things can pass from one universe to the other, and the problems this is causing. However, as of January 2011, Fox has rescheduled the show from its popular Thursday time slot to the Friday night “death slot,” probably signaling its imminent cancellation.

  The most noteworthy SF series of the decade was a recasting of the story of Battlestar Galactica. In this version, which ran from 2004–09 on the Sci-Fi Channel, some types of Cylons had evolved into humanoid android form, and the emphasis was on the growing awareness among both humans and Cylons that their constant state of war can only end in the destruction of both. The two sides finally merged in the end. A great critical success, the show won some prestigious awards, and provided the Sci-Fi Channel with its best-ever ratings for an original series.

  As for the future of SF television? Well, this is SF: The future is our business. I’m sure there are many more original, high-quality shows in the works. I can’t wait.

  * * * *

  Jim Davis has taught literature and creative writing at Troy University since 1985, and has taught an SF lit course since 1989. He is currently Fiction Reviews Editor for the SFRA Review.

  JOE HALDEMAN

  (1943– )

  By the first time I met Joe Haldeman, I felt like I knew almost too much about him: His life story has been a deeply public one, and intensely connected to his writing. While in a sense all writers write about themselves, Joe has been very open about how his experiences in Vietnam, including his devastating injuries, color much of his writing.

  Born in Oklahoma City, Joe traveled a lot as a child, living in Alaska, New Orleans, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and Maryland. After earning a BS in astronomy from the University of Maryland, Joe was drafted into the Army. He served for two years as a combat engineer in Vietnam, until he sustained severe injuries when a booby-trapped pile of artillery exploded. After more-or-less recovering, Joe attended graduate school for math and computer science, but dropped out to write. His first short story sale, “Out of Phase” (1969, Galaxy) was initially written for a creative writing course in school.

  Joe’s first novel was War Year (1972), inspired by his experiences in Vietnam. The book was published with the help of Ben Bova, who Joe met at the Milford Writer’s Workshop. Joe earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa and moved to Florida where he could write full-time. By the mid-1970s he was successful at it, producing a terrific string of strong short fiction and influential novels like The Forever War (1975) and Mindbridge (1976). He’s won five Hugos and five Nebulas, starting with The Forever War (which won both) and most recently a best novel Nebula for Camouflage (2005). In 2010 he won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award

  Joe teaches writing at MIT in Massachusetts every fall and spends winters in Florida. Health problems in recent years have slowed down his travel schedule, but he still turns up to major events and seems very much himself. He has been married since 1965 to Mary Gay Potter (who everyone calls Gay).

  The novella “Hero” was later incorporated into the first part of Joe’s brilliant The Forever War, written very much as a response to Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959). While both were deserving Hugo winners, the two books have, it’s safe to say, divergent views of military bureaucracy. “Saul’s Death” won a Rhysling Award for best long poem in 1984.

  HERO, by Joe Haldeman

  First published in Analog, June 1972

  1

  “Tonight we’re going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.” The guy who said that was a sergeant who didn’t look five years older than I. Ergo, as they say, he couldn’t possibly ever have killed a man, not in combat, silently or otherwise.

  I already knew eighty ways to kill people, though most of them were pretty noisy. I sat up straight in my chair and assumed a look of polite attention and fell asleep with my eyes open. So did most everybody else. We’d learned that they never schedule anything important for these after-chop classes.

  The projector woke me up and I sat through a short movie showing the “eight silent ways.” Some of the actors must have been brainwipes, since they were actually killed.

  After the movie a girl in the front row raised her hand. The sergeant nodded at her and she rose to parade rest. Not bad-looking, but kind of chunky about the neck and shoulders. Everybody gets that way after carrying a heavy pack around for a couple of months.

  “Sir”—we had to call sergeants “sir” until graduation—“most of those methods, really, they looked…kind of silly.”

  “For instance?”

  “Like killing a man with a blow to the kidneys, from an entrenching tool. I mean, when would you actually just have an entrenching tool, and no gun or knife? And why not just bash him over the
head with it?”

  “He might have a helmet on,” he said reasonably.

  “Besides, Taurans probably don’t even have kidneys!”

  He shrugged. “Probably they don’t.” This was 1997, and we’d never seen a Tauran: hadn’t even found any pieces of Taurans bigger than a scorched chromosome. “But their body chemistry is similar to ours, and we have to assume they’re similarly complex creatures. They must have weaknesses, vulnerable spots. You have to find out where they are.

  “That’s the important thing.” He stabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s why those eight convicts got caulked for your benefit…you’ve got to find out how to kill Taurans, and be able to do it whether you have a megawatt laser or just an emery board.”

  She sat back down, not looking too convinced.

  “Any more questions?” Nobody raised a hand.

  “O.K.—tench-hut!” We staggered upright and he looked at us expectantly.

  “Fuck you, sir,” came the tired chorus.

  “Louder!”

  “FUCK YOU, SIR!”

  One of the army’s less-inspired morale devices.

  “That’s better. Don’t forget, predawn maneuvers tomorrow. Chop at 0330, first formation, 0400. Anybody sacked after 0340 gets one stripe. Dismissed.”

  I zipped up my coverall and went across the snow to the lounge for a cup of soya and a joint. I’d always been able to get by on five or six hours of sleep, and this was the only time I could be by myself, out of the army for a while. Looked at the newsfax for a few minutes. Another ship got caulked, out by Aldebaran sector. That was four years ago. They were mounting a reprisal fleet, but it’ll take four years more for them to get out there. By then, the Taurans would have every portal planet sewed up tight.

  Back at the billet, everybody else was sacked and the main lights were out. The whole company’d been dragging ever since we got back from the two-week lunar training. I dumped my clothes in the locker, checked the roster and found out I was in bunk 31. Damn it, right under the heater.

  I slipped through the curtain as quietly as possible so as not to wake up my bunkmate. Couldn’t see who it was, but I couldn’t have cared less. I slipped under the blanket.

  “You’re late, Mandella,” a voice yawned. It was Rogers.

  “Sorry I woke you up,” I whispered.

  “ ’Sallright.” She snuggled over and clasped me spoon-fashion. She was warm and reasonably soft. I patted her hip in what I hoped was a brotherly fashion. “Night, Rogers.”

  “G’night, Stallion.” She returned the gesture, a good deal more pointedly.

  Why do you always get the tired ones when you’re ready and the randy ones when you’re tired? I bowed to the inevitable.

  2

  “Awright, let’s get some back inta that! Stringer team! Move it up—move up!”

  A warm front had come in about midnight and the snow had turned to sleet. The permaplast stringer weighed five hundred pounds and was a bitch to handle, even when it wasn’t covered with ice. There were four of us, two at each end, carrying the plastic girder with frozen fingertips. Rogers and I were partners.

  “Steel!” the guy behind me yelled, meaning that he was losing his hold. It wasn’t steel, but it was heavy enough to break your foot. Everybody let go and hopped away. It splashed slush and mud all over us.

  “Damn it, Petrov,” Rogers said, “why didn’t you go out for Star Fleet or maybe the Red Cross? This damn thing’s not that damn heavy.” Most of the girls were a little more circumspect in their speech.

  “Awright, get a move on, stringers—Epoxy team! Dog ’em! Dog ’em!”

  Our two epoxy people ran up, swinging their buckets. “Let’s go, Mandella. I’m freezin’.”

  “Me, too,” the girl said earnestly.

  “One—two—heave!” We got the thing up again and staggered toward the bridge. It was about three-quarters completed. Looked as if the Second Platoon was going to beat us. I wouldn’t give a damn, but the platoon that got their bridge built first got to fly home. Four miles of muck for the rest of us, and no rest before chop.

  We got the stringer in place, dropped it with a clank, and fitted the static clamps that held it to the rise-beams. The female half of the epoxy team started slopping glue on it before we even had it secured. Her partner was waiting for the stringer on the other side. The floor team was waiting at the foot of the bridge, each one holding a piece of the light stressed permaplast over his head, like an umbrella. They were dry and clean. I wondered aloud what they had done to deserve it, and Rogers suggested a couple of colorful, but unlikely possibilities.

  We were going back to stand by the next stringer when the Field First—he was named Dougelstein, but we called him “Awright”—blew a whistle and bellowed, “Awright, soldier boys and girls, ten minutes. Smoke ’em if you got “em.” He reached into his pocket and turned on the control that heated our coveralls.

  Rogers and I sat down on our end of the stringer and I took out my weed box. I had lots of joints, but we weren’t allowed to smoke them until after night-chop. The only tobacco I had was a cigarro butt about three inches long. I lit it on the side of the box; it wasn’t too bad after the first couple of puffs. Rogers took a puff to be sociable, but made a face and gave it back.

  “Were you in school when you got drafted?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Just got a degree in Physics. Was going after a teacher’s certificate.”

  She nodded soberly. “I was in Biology.…”

  “Figures.” I ducked a handful of slush. “How far?”

  “Six years, bachelor’s and technical.” She slid her boot along the ground, turning up a ridge of mud and slush the consistency of freezing ice milk. “Why the hell did this have to happen?”

  I shrugged. It didn’t call for an answer, least of all the answer that the UNEF kept giving us. Intellectual and physical elite of the planet, going out to guard humanity against the Tauran menace. It was all just a big experience. See whether we could goad the Taurans into ground action.

  Awright blew the whistle two minutes early, as expected, but Rogers and I and the other two stringers got to sit for a minute while the epoxy and floor teams finished covering our stringer. It got cold fast, sitting there with our suits turned off, but we remained inactive, on principle.

  I really didn’t see the sense of us having to train in the cold. Typical army half-logic. Sure, it was going to be cold where we were going; but not ice-cold or snow-cold. Almost by definition, a portal planet remained within a degree or two of absolute zero all the time, since collapsars don’t shine—and the first chill you felt would mean that you were a dead man.

  * * * *

  Twelve years before, when I was ten years old, they had discovered the collapsar jump. Just fling an object at a collapsar with sufficient speed, and it pops out in some other part of the galaxy. It didn’t take long to figure out the formula that predicted where it would come out; it just traveled along the same “line”—actually an Einsteinian geodesic—it would have followed if the collapsar hadn’t been in the way—until it reaches another collapsar field, whereupon it reappears, repelled with the same speed it had approaching the original collapsar. Travel time between the two collapsars is exactly zero.

  It made a lot of work for mathematical physicists, who had to redefine simultaneity, then tear down general relativity and build it back up again. And it made the politicians very happy, because now they could send a shipload of colonists to Fomalhaut for less than it once cost to put a brace of men on the Moon. There were a lot of people the politicians would just love to see on Fomalhaut, implementing a glorious adventure instead of stirring up trouble at home.

  The ships were always accompanied by an automated probe that followed a couple of million miles behind. We knew about the portal planets, little bits of flotsam that whirled around the collapsars; the purpose of the drone was to come back and tell us in the event that a ship had smacked into a portal planet at .999 of the speed of l
ight.

  That particular catastrophe never happened, but one day a drone did come limping back alone. Its data were analyzed, and it turned out that the colonists’ ship had been pursued by another vessel and destroyed. This happened near Aldebaran, in the constellation Taurus, but since “Aldebaranian” is a little hard to handle, they named the enemy Taurans.

  Colonizing vessels thenceforth went out protected by an armed guard. Often the armed guard went out alone, and finally the colonization effort itself slowed to a token trickle. The United Nations Exploratory and Colonization Group got shortened to UNEF, United Nations Exploratory Force, emphasis on the “force.”

  Then some bright lad in the General Assembly decided that we ought to field an army of footsoldiers to guard the portal planets of the nearer collapsars. This led to the Elite Conscription Act of 1996 and the most rigorously selected army in the history of warfare.

  So here we are, fifty men and fifty women, with IQ’s over 150 and bodies of unusual health and strength, slogging elitely through the mud and slush of central Missouri, reflecting on how useful our skill in building bridges will be, on worlds where the only fluid will be your occasional standing pool of liquid helium.

  3

  About a month later, we left for our final training exercise; maneuvers on the planet Charon. Though nearing perihelion, it was still more than twice as far from the sun as Pluto.

  The troopship was a converted “cattlewagon,” made to carry two hundred colonists and assorted bushes and beasts. Don’t think it was roomy, though, just because there were half that many of us. Most of the excess space was taken up with extra reaction mass and ordnance.