I enjoy collecting obscure science fiction merchandise. Over the years I have acquired what I hope is a fairly valuable collection of models, posters, mugs, videos, pens, T-shirts and fanzines. The other day I picked up an issue of a Chinese SF magazine. I can't tell you what the bold red characters on the cover mean, but the English subtitle is Science Fiction World. Inside are pictures of cyborgs, sea monsters, mecha, some recent Western SF movies, and a manga-like comic strip. China has not been known as a society in which science fiction is especially popular, but it just goes to show how internationally pervasive the genre now is. Maybe I'll learn Chinese one day (as soon as they bring out learning chips that I can plug into my skull), and then I'll tell you what the magazine is all about.
Issue 13 is a more literature-oriented issue of Ibn Qirtaiba than usual, but issue 14 will more than redress the balance for fans of media SF. Amongst the features in issue 14 will be an exclusive world-first review of the new Doctor Who telemovie which is scheduled to screen in the United States in May. I have it on good authority that the opening scene of the telemovie will show the Doctor reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. You can do the same, after reading this issue's Fiction Archives review and downloading the novel from the Net.
Suggestions, letters to the editor, submissions and nominations for the Coolest SF Sites are always welcome. Email the editor and I'll include your contribution in the next issue.
Fiction
Archives: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Since the opening of the Fiction Archives three issues ago, the novels reviewed have tended to be of fairly recent vintage: one from the seventies, one from the eighties and one from the nineties. This issue's choice is also from the nineties - the 1890s, to be precise. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells was chosen for review for two good very reasons. First, Wells is acknowledged as one of the very first science fiction writers, and The Time Machine is probably his finest work. Second, you can read the entire novel for free on the Internet, or download a compressed copy to your PC, thanks to the industrious folk at Project Gutenburg.
Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 and died in 1946, the same year that Mensa was established. At the time he wrote, a few authors had experimented with what was then known as "fantasy fiction", but Wells was probably the first to take it seriously as a literary form, equal to the more established genres of his time. Unlike Verne, for instance (although like Mary Shelley), his novels always contained a measure of social analysis and criticism, in addition to the healthy escapism they exhibited on their surface (see Science Fiction: History and Criticism).
Early science fiction writing was a product of the
industrial revolution, and the concept of "future" that
accompanied it. In the 19th century when Wells wrote, astonishing
inventions such as the light bulb, telephone and wireless were
changing the world's lifestyle, and for the first time it was
apparent that things were not going to continue on the way they
always had. Technological change meant that the world of future
generations could well be completely different from what had ever
been before.
So at first, science fiction concentrated mainly on visions of the future world, which had never previously been done in literature, because writers had previously had no reason to expect the future to be so different from the present. The Time Machine is a perfect example of this attitude displayed in imaginative fiction: if we have electric light bulbs today, how long can it be before time machines are invented?
Wells' theory of the nature of time, explained at the beginning of the novel, is intriguing and surprisingly consistent with Einstinian physics:
There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.
The idea of a machine from the 19th century able to travel through time is made slightly less absurd by this explanation of the true nature of the dimension. It is not taken to be necessary, as in more recent SF, to pass out of the normal universe and into the space/time continuum in order to move from time to time. Rather, the time machine simply accelerates its movement forward or backward through time, through some scientific mechanism that Wells does not disclose. The machine seems to "dematerialise" simply because its existence in the intervening points of time between its arrival and destination is so fleeting.
I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind.
Like most 19th century novels, The Time Machine is written in the first person. Unlike in most such novels, it has two separate narrators - one, a friend of the Time Traveller, and the other the Traveller himself (neither are provided with names). The Time Traveller narrates the bulk of the tale around the dinner table, but since his words being relayed to us by his friend, open quotation marks precede each paragraph.
In a sense there is a third narrator - Wells himself. His social and political views are never far from the surface in his novels and short stories, and are explicit in much of his non-fiction. At the time he wrote The Time Machine, Wells had became pessimistic about mankind's ability to manage his long-term future. This, rather than the possibilities and paradoxes of time travel, composes the theme of the novel.
This theme was to recur even more strongly with the advent of the two world wars and the development of the atomic bomb (which Wells, incidentally, predicted in The Shape of Things to Come). When World War II began Wells announced that he had already composed his epitaph, and it was "God damn you all: I told you so". He even wrote in Mind at the End of its Tether (1945) that "the end of everything is at hand and cannot be evaded." Wells might have been speaking of himself when the narrator of The Time Machine states,
He, I know - for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made - thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end.
His socialist leanings are also given vent in the novel, although he was clearly no utopian. (In a letter to the Daily Worker in 1945, Wells said that he was "an active supporter of the re-constituted Communist Party".)
At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque enough to you - and wildly incredible! - and yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way.
The plot of The Time Machine is straight-forward. The Time Traveller embarks on his machine's maiden voyage to the year 801,701, where he finds a decadent society of puny, dimwitted humanoids, the Eloi. He concludes that after millenia of stagnation their society has begun to fall into decay. Disillusioned, he considers visiting another time period, but is impeded from doing so by a plot device that, although not ingeniously contrived, serves as the premise for most of the balance of the novel.
I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.
He soon discovers that another race of humanoids - the Morlocks - have evolved to fill an altogether different niche in society. It is difficult to guage whether the narrator's xenophobic reaction to the Morlocks - primarily based on their physical appearance - represents Wells' own attitude to his creations, which strikes the modern reader as unsympathetic at best. To Wells' credit, however, the characters and motivations of each race are never categorically explained. Our perceptions of them continuously alter as the Time Traveller reassesses his early assumptions. Even his eventual horrified discovery of the truth behind the Morlocks' lifestyle remains mere postulation on his part.
From the year 802,701, the our hero travels still further into the future - 30 million years further, give or take. Wells doesn't do things by halves, and his description of the slow death of the future earth is as bleakly emotional a description of that event as I have read.
Wells' writing style, while unavoidably quaint to modern ears, is expressive and involving - if occasionally clumsy at times ("But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful.") Furthermore, although early SF writers possess some immunity from allegations of cliché, The Time Machine contains occasional scenes and plot elements that must have seemed unoriginal even the first time they were used. For example, a museum containing artifacts from his own time period is a little too convenient a resource for our hero to believably stumble across.
Nevertheless The Time Machine is well worth a read even a century after its first publication. The pace of the narrative kept me intrigued about what adventures were to befall the Time Traveller next, although I was familiar with the story beforehand. On a deeper level - if you need one - it can also provide food for thought. The Time Machine is a short novel that can easily be read at a sitting. For the price, I certainly recommend it both as an enjoyable read in its own right and as an interesting glimpse into the past of the genre it helped establish.
Here am I, brain the size of a planet, and I'm Junior's clock
radio on wheels.
Damn that first law of robotics...
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Dear Jeremy,
We believe that the acknowledgement of ourselves as citizens of the earth is a concept in direct conflict with the 20th century western "philosophy" of egotistical self-importance, which to a large degree precludes compassion for others. We think this same premise inhibits our ability to look beyond the familiar boundaries of reality to which we cling so desperately. By even acknowledging the reported accounts of human-alien interaction as possible, it must be considered how closely these events mirror man's own treatment of other members of the world's community, as well as the planet itself. We believe that the alien phenomena is yet another wake up call to our own humanity.
"The inescapable profundity of the alien
presence has become a source of social pathology in our time. As
a culture, we have not yet learned how to tell the truth about
something so huge, so strange, and so unexpected. Individuals who
make an honest effort to deal with it often discover that their
personal stability is at risk. Consequently, the alien presence
requires us all to grow, to become stronger and clearer, and to
help one another to find our way in a genuinely new world."
- Michael Lindemann (futurist, author and UFO investigator)
ADVOCATE DISCERNMENT - REPRESENT TRUTH
Say NO to deceptive alien entities.
K2
Stanwood, Washington, USA
Ed: K2 has supplied me with some further information and some stickers to give away to readers who are as intrigued by the above letter as I am. If you are interested either email the editor or send a self-addressed envelope with stamps or an International Reply Coupon to V2, Box 911, Stanwood, WA 98292 USA.
Dear Editor,
I would like to share with you a recent discovery... While reading a book - The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception; by M. Baigent and R. Leigh; Simon & Schuster: New York, London, Sydney, etc.; 1991 - I was startled to see that the young Palestinian Arab shepherd who first discovered the scrolls in the caves of Qumran was named, "Muhammad adh-Dhib" [Muhammad the Wolf]. In a photograph, the young Muhammad is shown with a fierce moustache, Arab garb with a western-style suit-jacket, and a curved dagger at his belt.
I feel this must have been Frank Herbert's inspiration for Paul Atreides tribal-name, "Muad'dib." Herbert drew upon the Bedouins to conceive the Fremen of Arrakis. A bigger question is this: did Herbert see, in young Muhammad adh-Dibh, a prototype for young Paul Atreides? Or had he already conceived his character and just found, in the Qumran saga, another name for Paul... In any event - In a delightful ironic twist - he wrote his word "dib" to mean "mouse," instead of the Arabic, "wolf."
Do you recall the dialog from the movie, Dune?... It went something like this:
STILGAR: You must have a Fremen tribal name... What do you choose?
PAUL: What do you call the little one who scampers about in the dark night, among the rocks?
STILGAR: We call that one, "muad-dib."
(With apologies to David Lynch for minor inaccuracies)
As I read the name of the young shepherd, I felt as if I were standing in the footsteps of Herbert, the master storyteller. It seems likely to me that he read about the Dead Sea Scrolls before he crafted his novel, Dune... I felt that I was seeing what he had seen.
Perhaps, Herbert's notes will allow a future literary scholar to determine the source of the name, "Muad'dib." Until then, my discovery provides for me a logical and pleasing fantasy about my favorite science fiction novel and its fabulous character.
Frederick Rustam
Washington, USA
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| 1 | Project Gutenburg | H.G. Wells isn't the only science fiction author represented at this ever-growing electronic library. You'll also find novels by Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Macdonald, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker and even a non-fiction book by Bruce Sterling. |
| 2 | TV Bytes: science fiction TV theme songs | Another treasure trove for the science fiction fan - this time an auditory rather than a written record. Includes Alien Nation, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Blake's 7, Earth 2, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Lost in Space, The Outer Limits, Red Dwarf, Space: Above and Beyond, Space Precinct, The X Files and many more. |
| 3 | VRML USS Enterprise NCC1701D | With a VRML viewer such as VRWeb you
can pretend to be a cloaked Romulan Warbird zooming
around the Enterprise. Alternatively, you can do
something productive with your time. |
| 4 | X-Files Uncovered - An Investigation by Andrew Denton | Yes, the Rolling Stone feature with Mulder and Scully in bed together on the cover. It sold out on the news stands within weeks, but is preserved here for posterity - complete with those photos! |
| 5 | TimeTravel | This excellent feature on time travel in fiction and non-fiction comes from a very strange magazine entitled Strange Magazine. |
| 6 | SMASH! Magazine | Comics, trading cards, science fiction and gaming. You can always find something interesting to read here. |
| 7 | I Hate Star Trek Page | Just in case you can't think of enough reasons of your own, here is a page full of things to hate about Star Trek. You can even add your own abusive comments to the page. |
| 8 | William Gibson's original screenplay for Alien3 | The production charade that led to Alien3 began with this draft screenplay from William Gibson. Virtually nothing of his story remained, but it would have been a cracker if it had seen the screen. |
| 9 | Cybersphere MOO | Set in America of 2025, this is a cyberpunk role-playing game replete with violence, mutants and apocalypse. |
| 10 | SF Art of Slawek Wojtowicz |  |
Each installment of IQ's Coolest SF Sites is preserved for posterity here, along with a host of other useful and/or interesting links.
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The story so far: Mark Heydon was about to transmat from Perth to Singapore when the operator of the transmat started shooting at him and was killed by Heydon in the ensuing fight. At the same time as he fled from the scene, he appeared to be in Singapore, and was questioned there by police. The two Heydons met and the Heydon from Singapore explained that in a transmat malfunction his body had been transmitted to its destination without the original copy in Perth being destroyed. This Heydon, having been charged with the murder, entreats the first Heydon to surrender. He refuses, and now horrified by transmat technology, tells his tale on current affairs television. A radical anti-technology group takes up Heydon's cause, and he unwittingly joins them in blowing up the transmat terminal. The other Heydon helps the police to find his double, who is wanted for the bombing. This infuriates Heydon, who knocks his double out while they are alone in his police cell, and escapes custody by impersonating him. Heydon is pursued by the police and his double the next morning, but they are caught in an anti-transmat demonstration, where the double is freed from the police car and the police officers are killed. Back home with his wife (who believes him to be the double), Heydon plans to leave town. Meanwhile the demonstrators (who believe the double to be Heydon) force him to join them.
The whine of sirens and the buzz of a helicopter signalled the arrival of police reinforcements, which inflamed the ire of the turbulent crowd.
"It's time for our demonstration to move on," Dr Asqui announced at once. He raised his megaphone to address the masses. "Everyone, to the train station! Mr Heydon has decided to teach his soulless brother a lesson, and we're going to help him. We're going to Mark Heydon's house!" The crowd roared and quickened its pace.
Heydon shoved the megaphone away from Dr Asqui's face. "What are you doing? I don't want you attacking my house - my wife's in there! Give me that megaphone."
Dr Asqui held the megaphone away from him. "We can't stay here, and your house is about the only target we have left. Besides, your soulless brother needs to be taught a thing or two about loyalty, and if your wife's been supporting him then so does she."
"But these people don't have anything against my other self, it's Instransit they're angry at. They won't want to go all the way out to Joondalup just to wave some placards outside a house."
"The League will go wherever I tell them to go," Dr Asqui retorted. "As for the others, half of them have been paid to tag along, and the others are putty in my hands. Especially with you on my side."
"Who said I was on your side?" Heydon objected. "I can just yell out, and these people will listen to me instead of you. I'm a hero to them."
"Try it," Natasha Morris hissed in his ear, as her grip on his arm tightened. They entered the train station without another word.
Heydon had located the problem in the computer he was working on, and a work-around cache array was slowly growing from culture in his desktop NanoForm. In a few years, no doubt, the price of replicators would fall sufficiently that he could replicate spare parts instead, and soon afterwards he would be unable to imagine how he had managed without one. The thing about technology, he thought, is that things you once never knew you needed tended to become indispensible very quickly. Dr Asqui was right about that, at least.
Leaving the NanoForm to its work, Heydon left the room to look for Penny. He found her in the living room in front of the television. She had called up an archive of Heydon in front of the transmat terminal just before the explosion. As he entered the room she paused the footage in mid-sentence: "Well, two friends of mine have gone inside the building..."
Trying to ignore the gaping face on the screen, he breezily announced, "I'll be done in another couple of hours. Have you had any ideas about where we're going tomorrow?"
"I'm not sure we should go, Mark," she replied, staring at his face on the screen.
He was afraid that she would take that attitude. She didn't want to leave the outcast Mark Heydon behind. At least that suggested she wouldn't reject him when she found out who he was; but she was bound to have to make a choice between them eventually, and he wanted to delay that moment for as long as possible. "He'll be all right, Penny, trust me," he assured her. "We can't help him by hanging around here."
"Did he do it, Mark? Really? Tell me what you honestly think."
He was about to lie to her, but her earnest eyes condemned him. He had to tell her what had really happened. "No, Penny, he didn't. It was the Libertarian Humanists who blew up the terminal. He was tricked into joining them that morning, but he ran away as soon as he knew what they had done."
"How do you know?" she asked with astonishment.
"He told me," Heydon replied flatly. "When he... when I visited him at the police station."
Penny said nothing for a long time, but stared at Heydon's slowly reddening face. "You're him, aren't you," she stated at last, pointing at the man on the screen. "You're the man under arrest for murder."
The game was up, and Heydon knew it. "You got me, Penn. I swapped places with my other self at the police lockup. I was going to tell you..."
She drew away from him. "You pretended to be my husband, the man I've been living with this past week. You tricked me."
"I am your husband, Penny. The original, the flesh and blood you married."
"You were going to leave him in jail, while you took me away on holiday," she exclaimed with mounting disgust.
"Just until things cooled down a bit," he mumbled.
"You deceived me! How could you do that?"
"If I had told you the truth, you might have reported me to the police, just like he did. I didn't know whether you believed what people were saying about me or not."
Without another word she ran out of the room, and Heydon heard the front door slam. He ran to the door and called out to her in the driveway, "Where are you going?"
"I've got to find him," she replied sternly. "Don't try to stop me."
She was about to unlock the car when she stopped to listen to a noise that seemed to be coming towards them from near the top of Lafayette Street. Heydon could hear it too. A mob were hollering slogans as a man with a megaphone goaded them on. Before long the leaders of the procession appeared at the top of the street with banners aloft. Heydon's heart raced. His deception had backfired again. The demonstrators had come to get him, thinking he was the soulless monster who had taken over his double's life.
He recognised Dr Asqui at the front of the crowd, yelling something about "unrepentant Judas" and "reconstituted zombie". Some of the demonstrators bent to gather objects from the side of the road and adjoining gardens as they marched. As they drew closer, Heydon saw that his other self was also with them, marching arm in arm with Natasha Morris. Bastard! Why did that man have it in for him so vehemently? It was as if the two of them were polar opposites rather than genetic twins. Penny saw him too, and called out to him and waved. Her call brought a tide of jeers from the crowd.
"Penny, get away! Get back in the house!", the other Heydon yelled back at her. Confused, she looked over her shoulder at the doorway, but Heydon still stood in it, so she stayed where she was.
As the mob drew level with the house, someone shouted, "Kill the freak!" and threw a rock at the front door. Heydon ducked, and it smashed a mirror inside. A second rock sailed through the air. Penny opened her mouth to scream a moment before it cracked against her forehead. She fell backwards, and a second crack rang out as her head hit the brick path.