Science Fiction Wishlist (A Grabbag) — Part Three: Spaceship

     At this point, I have a lightsaber on my hip and the ability to get around (on the ground, in the air, in space) with my VF-1J Veritech Fighter.  Now I need – as much as any fanciful, hypothetical Science Fiction wishlist can have any element of need – a spaceship with which to get around.  Sure, you can do Sci-Fi without a spaceship.  But there is something about the ability to safely travel between the stars that opens up the possibilities of a Sci-Fi universe, and if I am going to be even half-way serious about putting together the wish list, I am not going to leave spaceships off of it.
     Lets start with the rejects, the ships that no sane person would ever take as their first choice.

The Millennium Falcon

   Luke was right in that the thing was a piece of junk.  Seriously, it has exposed bits that should cause the whole thing to explode (or at least suffer meaningful structural damage) upon atmospheric entry.  It has the weird cockpit mounting – I'll leave it to the individual viewer to decide what happens to those guns that are mounted above it for one scene in the Alderaan system – that ensures that it is going to take a long while to learn how to do any precision repulsorlift maneuvering (you know, like landing on a small pad or inside a relatively small landing bay on Tatooine).  It also clearly has substandard wiring and faulty systems.  Sure, some of this could be chalked up to disputed owner/operator Han Solo; it is entirely possible he was spending to much time on his hair and practicing his lopsided grin to keep the ship in good working order.  Indeed, isn't almost all of the appeal of the Millennium Falcon rooted in the desire to be (or be like) Han Solo?  And if we were just talking A New Hope Solo, I'd agree.  But Solo doesn't get better as the universe expands and his ship really is the Sci-Fi equivalent of a 1977 Ford conversion van (complete with pilot's chairs).

Serentiy

      This is another instance of a ship being less than optimal.  The bulk of the appeal – to my understanding – of the Firefly class ships was that they could be made to keep flying with basic maintenance.  They were never going to be the best of anything, but there was some level of reliability.  So, if the Millenium Falcon is a conversion van, Serenity is like a Beetle Cabriolet.  It looks cool, and it probably could be maintained (to a degree) with the same level of know-how it takes to fix lawnmowers, but it isn't big, fast, or all that safe.  The appeal of the Serenity largely derives from it being captained by Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion, before his head started looked like it belonged on Frankenstein's monster) and his "crew" largely being good looking people.  Beyond that, it is just a strange looking craft with an internal layout I've never been able to figure out and too little cargo space to make it a good freight hauler.  There is also the problem that it is meant to operate in a single solar system.  Since I want a possibility of Earth still being a home base, the Serenity doesn't do me a lot of good.

Space Battleship Yamato

     I don't think there is much need to kill this idea.  It really is just the IJN Yamato scraped off the ocean floor, fixed up, and launched into space.  Okay, there is more to the story than that, but it was – at heart – an effort to recapture some of the national pride Japan lost after getting their asses kicked in WWII (and there are versions of it that severely amp up the Sci-Fi look of it).  I'm not saying that Star Blazers (the TV version I knew as a child) is without merit; I enjoyed it.  But I am not taking an Imperial Japanese ship as my primary.  Or secondary.  Yeah, I don't want it.  Not anymore than I would want a space version of the Bismarck.

Discovery One

     The computer will kill you.  Oh, and it doesn't have a lot of the cool bells-and-whistles one would want given the infinite possibilities the genre allows.  But the computer will kill you.  It also is meant for in-system use, but I am not cooling on the killer computer.  Yeah, HAL has a soothing voice (far better than Majel Barrett-Roddenberry's).  But HAL wants to kill you.  And me.

TARDIS

     Yeah...I hate Doctor Who.  With a passion.  Probably because I was made to watch the show in the early 1980s and I know how much it sucks.  Even without the £500/episode budget for set design and effects, the show is bound to suck.  And not just because it can just reset things whenever it wants with a new Doctor, because they can all travel through time and muck things up.  No, wait.  That is why the show sucks so much.  It demands no continuity.  It is the on-going version of a perpetual Marvel What-If universe, where the "what-ifs" in question can always be changed.  I hate Doctor Who more than I hate the JJ Abrams version of Star Trek (which I do not consider to be Star Trek, and I hate like Fred Phelps thinks God hates homosexuals).  Having written all that, I'm sure the ability to travel through time gives the TARDIS some virtue.  But apparently you can just fly around the Sun and travel in time.  Or through some weird Borg energy pulse.  Or you can microwave a container of JiffyPop near a Supernova.  Besides, there is the moral imperative to not time travel (as it almost guarantees invalidating the choices and actions exercised by other individuals).  Besides, no matter how big the TARDIS is on the inside, it would be a nightmare to dock the Veritech to it.  Now, were it stocked with infinite fresh cookies...well, I'd still hate Doctor Who, but I'd take the TARDIS and then just sell the cookies.  I'd eat many more than I should, but I'd go into the cookie selling business and give up the notion of exploring the galaxy.

Imperial Super Star Destroyer

     The ship is 19 kilometers long.  That is just too damn big.  I don't care how many of those little MSE droids you have running around, something 19 km long is going to require a fair amount of human labor just to keep it looking decent. Seriously.  I'm not saying I want a ship where I can be alone (actually, we'll address that later), but I certainly don't want a crew of thousands I have to oversee.  Well, actually the Captain would have to oversee them, but given that I am not considering any ISF Captains to command my ship (take that, Lorth Needa!).  Besides, Star Wars technology – despite the very loud ignorance of the Lucasites – is inferior to everything in the Star Trek universe.  Hell, the only threat the Super Star Destroyer would pose to a Federation Runabout would be the tractor beam.  Which means that it would lose a fight to the school bus of UFP ships.  I like the fighter compliment, but  not if they have to be TIE fighters (even if they are Interceptors).

Moya

     She is a living ship.  Not really sure why that would be appealing, except for the ideal that she could heal damage.  That isn't how it works, though, because she gets sick.  She gets infections.  She is afraid of fire.  And...she can get pregnant.  She has no weapons and her best defensive maneuver effectively wipes out her navigational orientation.  Add to the fact that she was a prison ship (so no luxuries), and she is just a terrible choice.  Not that I don't want the DRDs or translator microbes.  I want those.  I just don't want Moya.

Klingon Bird of Prey

     On the outisde, there is a lot to like about the Bird of Prey.  But then TNG and DS9 (and, if we are going to be honest, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) ruined it by repeatedly showing that Klingons don't believe in any kind of amenities.  They don't believe in good lighting.  And it is sure to be stocked with Klingon food and drink, which isn't appealing.  Does the Klingon smell come out?  Yes, it has a cloaking device, but it does not operate when firing weapons.  Besides, I like the idea of the Bird of Prey as an enemy ship, and Klingons are the enemy.  At all times.  And every single one of them.  Don't every forget it.

The Event Horizon

     I'm not sure if it is that the ship is cursed or that Laurence Fishburne is going to show up at some time that keeps this ship from consideration.  Or that it didn't really work.  And I hated the movie.  But it looked okay.  I just cannot imagine anyone choosing it as their one spaceship.

Maybe the INSS Lenin

     So what ships are worth considering?  Probably a lot more than i could ever think of.  The INSS Lenin seems like a fine choice, but I would be more in favor of the MacArthur (had it not been destroyed).  Oh, and I have no idea if the model I found on the internet is an accurate representation of it.  Hard to choose a ship if you don't know what it really looks like.  It certainly has some degree of ass-kicking ability, but the hard science fiction of The Mote in God's Eye is going to leave it severely underpowered against the more fantastical craft available.  Besides, the Lenin needs a huge crew as well.

Planet Express Ship

     Maybe it is because the ship reminds me of an old, yellow pencil topper I had in second grade.  Maybe it is because Futurama produced the single saddest episode of television, ever ("Jurassic Bark").  Okay, probably not that.  But the Planet Express Ship is like the Firefly class ship from the Whedonverse, except that it doesn't have to make sense.  It is largely idiot-proof (Fry), and does not require much in the way of a crew.  Sure, there is no place to dock the Veritech with it, but if Pazuzu can hold onto the landing bay and survive in deep space...I don't know where I'm going with that.  I really just want to point out that the gargoyle survived hard vaccuum. 

NSEA Protector

     Talk about an idiot-proof ship – even Fred Kwan could make it work.  Well, that is one of the advantages of having fans of the TV show build the ship.  I'm not really sure why this isn't my ultimate choice.  It has effective weaponry, travels, fast, has transporter-like technology, and apparently can send people across the universe by use of some kind of goo and a wormhole.  It also has the most ridiculous lay-out (because of the fidelity to the fake TV show).  If it comes with Gwen DeMarco, it may become my back-up choice.

USS Sulaco

     Actually, we don't know that much about the Sulaco from the movie Aliens.  Like most ships of that universe, it doesn't seem to need much of a crew to operate its transit from system to system.  It also may not carry much in the way of supplies since it freezes the crew instead of keeping them awake for a couple of weeks.  Maybe that is just a plot device, a way of keeping consistency between the films.  I don't want a ship that forces people to doze through the journey.  If I wanted that, I would have taken the ship from WALL-E.  But the Sulaco does have armament, has dropships (and a nice comfy bay where I can put my Veritech fighter), and came from Earth.  It hits a lot of the right buttons.

Corvette Transport

     More of a troop transport than anything else, the Corvette Transport from Starship Troopers is one of the cooler looking ships out there.  Half ocean going freighter, half warship, it looks like someone took the time to make it look just plausible enough to be real.  And in a Verhoeven film, plausibility is not something that is easily to come by.  Why is it so high on my list?  I mean, it has a large crew, doesn't have kick-ass weaponry or defenses, and it doesn't have a great pedigree.  But Denise Richards (or more appropriately, a character she played) almost died on one.  Any ship that makes an effort to kill Denise Richards needs to be considered.

SDF-1

     In almost every way, the SDF-1 is what I want.  With the Prometheus attached, there is not only not a shortage of space to dock the VF-1J, but plenty of extra Veritech fighters (be they 1A, 1D, or 1S).  The Daedalus can be made into a punching-fist so the Destroids within can shoot the hell out whatever ship we decided to punch.  It has...okay, had, the ability to travel via inter-dimensional hyperspace fold.  Cannot say enough about how cool fold technology is, but the SDF-1 has to give it up in order to put a city in the middle of the ship.  It is also, as far as I know, the only transformer in contention here.  Not that I wouldn't prefer the regular looking configuration to be able to fire the Main Cannon, but one cannot always get what one wants.  Given the immense power of the Main Cannon – it could essentially shoot a hole through the Death Star – it would be sheer folly to not take the SDF-1.
     It also has one of the better stories associated with it.  Alien command ship crashed on Earth (which forces a global war to come to an end), gets rebuilt and (maybe) improved, inadvertently fires the first shot in a war that destroys more than 80% of the planet and has to keep thousands of civilians safe inside after accidentally transporting an island with it to Pluto.  It is the only reason humanity survives the conflict.  We'll just all agree to ignore its ignominious end.

Intrepid Class Starship

     Yes, I went with the class because if I came out and said the USS Voyager, well I wouldn't expect anyone to take me seriously.  Voyager may not be as generally disliked as Enterprise (and for good reasons), but it certainly is not super-loved, even in Star Trek circles.  That is really neither here nor there when it comes to the ship, though.  It has pretty much everything that makes UFP ships kick ass: phasers, photon torpedoes (even quantum torpedoes), transporters, warp drive, replicators, and – most importantly – holodecks.  As a matter of fact, the lack of holodeck and cramped quarters is why the USS Defiant didn't make the list.  The Defiant looks awesome and has unbelievable killing power.  It even had a cloaking device for a while.  But it is just a warship, and I want more.  So why something that is essentially the Voyager instead of any of the Enterprises?  First, I really do like the look.  There is something fake looking about TOS's Enterprise, and while that is understandable, it isn't something I want.  Sure, the Planet Express Ship is about as fake looking as possible, but it is from a cartoon.  The Enterprise-D looks a little better and has all of the amenities, but it has that ridiculous saucer-separation thing going on.  I really am not in favor of that.  No, the Voyager can land on planets.  Boom!  It's huge to me.  The Intrepid Class ship has enough room for the Veritech fighter (good-bye, one set of less than cool shuttlecraft), which is a plus.  Now, I do want to get rid of those stupid bio-neural gel packs (since they can get infected and replacements cannot be replicated).  It also has the EMH.
     Now I never understood how it was that the Sick Bay could be fitted with holo-emitters but nobody ever thought to put them anywhere else.  This is my cheat around having to have a large crew.  If we accept that the mobile emitter cannot be replicated because it is too technologically advanced (despite the fact that DS9 establishes that replicators can duplicate a device without any understanding of the device being necessary), why not just place holo-emitters on the bridge and engineering?  It cuts down on the need to have real people in positions to do the important things.  There cannot be a huge difference in power usage for running the emitters versus food replicators, sonic showers, and life support for real crew members.  I would want the option the have a lot of holo-crew members is what I am saying.  And not just because then I could guarantee that I'd never end up with a Wesley Crusher-type person anywhere important.  Because it would just be programs in all the important posts.  Maybe.  But definitely no whiny teens. 
    So, yeah.  I want a craft that can land, doesn't destroy space by going to warp, has good weaponry, the ability to manufacture just about anything necessary, and multiple holodecks.  And, for my money, there isn't much that does all of that better than the Intrepid Class.

Science Fiction Wishlist (A Grabbag) — Part Two: Personal Craft

     At this point, wish-fulfillment 'me' has a lightsaber slung to his belt in some unnamed Sci-Fi universe.  Or stashed in a coat pocket.  Have to figure that one could easily hide either a lightsaber or one of the garage door opener looking phasers in just regular clothing.  The lightsaber doesn't look like it is anything more than a poorly designed flashlight.  Now I need a way of getting around.
     What should I use?
     There are more choices, I'm sure, than I could ever reasonably think of in short order.  Would I want something as simple as Luke's landspeeder from Star Wars?  Have the wind whipping through what is left of my hair?  Would I want the BattleMech I used as my command vehicle for six years (and three different campaigns), the Catapult?  Well, if I could be guaranteed it would be the CPLT-27 version I put together with scavenged Clan tech – two LRM 20s, four Medium Pulse Lasers, double heatsinks, and more armor – for Captain Jonathan Alexander Frost.  But it is a 65 ton Mech, or about the weight of an M1A1 Abrams, and I see there being some serious problems getting it around most places.  Add in the fact that those long range missiles have a maximum range of about half a mile and it just seems so far from optimal.  Cool looking, but not optimal.

     How about VR-052 Battler Cyclone power cycle? You get all of the coolness of riding a motorcycle with extra safety equipment and all of the utility of a suit of power armor with forearm mounted mini-missiles and an EP-37 Beam Rifle at hand.  It runs on protoculture (or a distilute of the essence of the Flower of Life, since the series was pretty clear that they can run out of fuel after a few months of constant use), so gas prices aren't an issue.  It even folds into a small(ish) box when not in use.  The downside?  Well, there is the matter of how I feel about motorcycles.  The more pressing one would be that when being used as power armor it requires the user to carry most of the weight of the vehicle.  And how do you explain to the cool Sci-Fi heroes why you have wheels sticking out behind your head?
     Besides, I have a feeling that the personal craft should be one that can fly.  And not just fly in an atmosphere or space, but both.  And it should look cool.  Maybe like the old Cylon Raiders.

 

I had the toy for the Raider that actually shot the missiles.  Actually had a couple of the Vipers – word to the wise, the stickers on them held up much worse to the bathtub than did those on the X-Wing – but the Raider was always one of the favorites.  Maybe because it had that creepy mix of flying saucer design to go with its Luftwaffe gray color scheme.  I think it had more to do with the fact that not only did it fire two missiles (as opposed to the Viper's one), but it was pretty accurate out to about ten feet.  Great for shooting my brother.  

Pretty sure the missiles on ours were yellow, but this is what the toy looked like.

     Still, love of the toy should not be the deciding factor.  

     I guess my runner up would be the SA-23J Starfury "Thunderbolt", the improved version of the human fighter pods from Babylon 5.   Never mind how ridiculous the notion of fighters for space combat.  If we paid attention to practicalities, I wouldn't have a lightsaber swinging from the hip.  It fulfills the desire to have the presumed daring-do of WWI era dogfighting in a Sci-Fi universe, just as the lightsaber brings swordplay out of the Medieval and Renaissance tales.  And the Thunderbolt version of the Starfury looks like a cross between an Anime style fighter and the X-Wing.

It is even a little reminiscent of the craft from The Last Starfighter.  But where I want to give the B5 team credit is in giving at least a small acknowledgement to the physics of space combat.  The Starfuries spin about on thrusters, and moving in whatever direction is necessary instead of just away from engines.  Besides, given all of the B5 bashing I am going to be doing next week (maybe in two weeks, we'll see), I should give the series some degree of credit.

     No, if I can only have one personal vehicle, I am going with the VF-1J Veritech Fighter from Robotech/Macross.  Not only is it clearly a rip-off of the F-14 Tomcat (which was largely obsolete when Maverick made flying it look cool in Top Gun), but it turns into a giant robot fighter.  Well, first it turns into something that looks like this:

This is known as either the Gerwalk or Guardian mode (depending on what level of purity one chooses as the source material).  It allows for flying around like a jet (sort of) with all of the fun of wielding a gun and punching things like a robot.

      It looks like the figure above when in battloid mode (NOT GOING TO CALL IT BATTROID).  Perfect for fighting giant aliens or just menacing anyone else.  It is the versatility of the craft – along with how cool it looks, and my enduring love of Robotech – that makes it a clear winner.  It can carry loads of long range missiles (which means that they can go about 1,000 miles) with Reflex warheads (all the blast of nuclear weapons, none of that worrisome lingering radiation).  It can fight in space and the atmosphere.  And it will run for close to 15 years before the power gives out.  

     Plus, it doesn't need a droid plugged into it for the pilots to kick ass.

If only there were a chance of them being real.  Or at least getting proper big screen treatment.

Science Fiction Wishlist (A Grabbag) — Part One: Weapon

     I have taken a very long break from the blog.  Longer than I wanted to, sure, but not so long as I could just convince myself to never put anything up on it again.  So rather than subject anyone – I do have an idea of how miniscule even the potential audience is here – to the fiction with which I still not happy, I decided to write a few notes on my favorite little bits of science fiction (TV & Film).

Part One: Weapon

     This really should be a no-brainer.  The best Sci-Fi weapon that comes to my mind is the phaser from Star Trek.  Not the mini-vacuum cleaner looking models from TNG onward (though I would want the versatility of those models), but the classic one seen above.  There is something comforting in its almost pistol-like qualities (though it also looks a little bit like a hot glue gun).  More than that, it is the weapon Kirk used while he was kicking ass across the galaxy – at least when he wasn't using his hammy fists or constructing a bamboo cannon to shoot rocks at a rubber-skinned lizard.
     It is also the weapon that can vaporize the cover your enemy wants to hide behind.  Not that the Federation forces used it to its full advantage most of the time.  Need to kill somebody?  The phaser willcut through nearly everything to get them killed.  It can vaporize a building or a boulder.  Hell, you can use it super-heat a pile of rocks (in lieu of a campfire) without risking the rocks exploding on you.  You can also set it to stun if you feel like it.  I guess it is possible there would be a situation where killing the enemy wouldn't be necessary.

The various mini-vac looking phasers (and one that looks like a garage door opener).

     But as much as I like the phaser – and my strong preference for Star Trek over Star Wars – the weapon I would take over any other would be the lightsaber.  I mean, come on, its a fucking laser sword.  Who doesn't want a laser sword?  And one that, with the proper training (and a little luck) can be used to deflect all those little red bolts of light people might be wanting to shoot at you.  Never mind the whole Jedi/Sith mythos – the lightsaber kicks ass because it demands the user to get up close and personal.  It means the wielder means business.  Plus it can apparently cut through anything (given enough time). 

     Is it as versatile as a phaser?  Hell no!  As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the hand phaser could vaporize Vader as easily as it would anyone else.  But the hand phaser is kind of like a smart phone in that it is the technological tool that can be issued to everyone.  The lightsaber is a badge of honor, or at least the mark of a dedicated warrior.  Compare it to the ridiculous Klingon Bat'leth, the go-to melee weapon of the Star Trek universe.  Are you done laughing?  How about now? 
     The lightsaber is one of those things that I think so many people would love to be real that if one were to see one if use right before their eyes the reaction wouldn't be that can't be real because lightsabers are from the movies but rather Holy shit, that guy has a lightsaber!.  No one is going to have that reaction to a phaser.  We'd sooner expect William Shatner to win an Oscar than to see somebody shooting beams of phased whatever at anything in the real world.  But there is a real hope that somebody would make the lightsaber.  Almost as much as we would all love to have the Predator's personal cloaking device.

Planet of the Apes (1963)

     I have to wonder what it would be like to be able to read Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes (1963) in its original French.  Knowing only enough of the language to be able to fumble my way through the label on a package of cheese (this actually was useful at the previous job), it would be impossible for me to be able to handle something as simple as a picture book in French.  Actually, in most any language other than English.  Still, there is an air of something – a kind of self-possessed importance – that permeates the book, both in the overstated purposeful way that space-faring journalist Ulysee Mérou carries his indignation and in the general attitude that Boulle seems to have towards mankind's achievements in general.  In my limited experience, this feels very French.
     From the format that apes the Victorian through Pulp-era adventure stories to the experience of a learned man stranded amongst alien others (and cared for by a wise and kind female), much of Planet of the Apes comes off like a refutation of the points made in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915).  The French are not renowned for being progressive (as a society) in regards to gender roles – see Sartre's commentary on how women tricked men into running the world – and Boulle repeatedly hammers home the superiority of man the gender (perhaps man the species as well, at least when compared to apes).  Naming the planet Soror (Latin for sister...thanks, Wikipedia!), Boulle is not trying to hide the parallels.  Instead, he paints a horrific vision of general society and what happens when one is pulled from the top level of civilization.
     Other than struggle with his commentaries on humanity, the false promise of feminine progressiveness, and the existential quandaries that come from being forced to doubt one's place in the universe, Boulle manages a rather decent piece of low-action adventure science fiction.  I suspect that enough of the rhythm of the language is lost that is seems more pedestrian in English, but that is a guess.  I'd like to think it was more profound, more earth-shattering in its unique vision when it first was published.  It seems that Boulle wants to hint at and dance around the issues rather than confront them, even in an oblique manner.
     Now, I am extremely biased on the subject.  Franklin J. Schaffer's Planet of the Apes (1968) is one of my all-time favorite films, one that is direct and forceful in the many commentaries it fires at the audience.  It also has a much more American hero, one who is easy to hate while impossible not to view as humanity's most unlikely champion.  That isn't what is embodied in the novel, and while part of me knows this is for the best, it left me feeling that Boulle did not completely capture the possibilities of his own story.  At the same time, the many people who have adapted the "Apes" movies and TV series did their best to draw out the elements Boulle included.  Indeed, the much despised shock-ending of Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes (2001) – one Kevin Smith stupidly claimed as having originated – is presupposed in the novel.
      Planet of the Apes will never replace the 1968 film in my heart.  But I am glad that I took the time to read it.  There is something worthwhile buried within it, sure, but it is (even as a translation) a fine book to read to break up the more serious titles.

John Carter (2012)

     I get it now.  I understand how Disney's John Carter (2012) failed to resonate with audiences and ended up as the most costly film venture in recent memory, surpassing Waterworld (1995) but not Heaven's Gate (1980) (because Disney still exists) when it comes to huge budget disasters.  There was much chatter that if Disney had simply gone with Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (1917) as the tile and advertised it in a serious manner (just where did Disney spend $100 million when the supposed target audience was barely aware of the movie, and not at all of its premise).  I think the fundamental flaw with John Carter is that so many other films have already borrowed from the concept that it cannot help but look and feel derivative.
     Now, I am not a Burroughs fan.  According to Dean R. Koontz (from his 1972 book Writing Popular Fiction), Burroughs was the most translated author of the 20th Century (again, through '72), so there were undoubtedly fans out there at one point.  My exposure to him has been having the first two Tarzan books read to me (it was the whole class who got this treatment, and it happened in the 6th grade, so I still find it a little creepy) and the various film and TV incarnations of Tarzan.  I am aware of much of the art inspired by the John Carter stories, and people started making Tharks, thoats, white apes, Dejah Thoris, and John Carter animations for use in Civ III in coincidence with the movie's eventual release (most of these being converted from an existing game it seems).  There should have been an interest in the character, but it also appears that people who are into the stories that brought adventure Sci-Fi into the 20th Century are about as numerous (and as self-important) as diehard Jazz enthusiasts.  It is cool to see the futuristic fantasy images in a painting (I have not added any of the Barsoomian units to my Civ III games, though I have thought of using Dejah Thoris animation for the king unit for my civilization of Amazons), but I don't know how smart it is to design a film around of couple of cool images.

Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris

     To be fair, when those shots to pop up in the movie, there is some undeniable charm and simultaneous cool factor immediately accessible to the viewer.  In brief snippets, director Andrew Stanton and the thirteen person art direction team have provided a glimpse into not just the soul of the story, but why it should be so appealing to everyone.  However, these are just snippets, and largely supplied by Lynn Collins ability to give the impression of a painting come to life (though not forced to wear a metal bikini or go topless – not unsurprising for a Disney release).  These cannot overcome the obvious weaknesses the keep showing themselves.
     Let us first consider the casting of Taylor Kitsch.  I am willing to admit my complete unfamiliarity with him prior to seeing John Carter, but with this, Battleship (2012), and the minimally viewed Friday Night Lights (2006-2011) as his major roles, I am hoping that his days as a forced-upon-the-audience-leading-man are over.  He isn't a very good actor (not terrible or irredeemable), and spends much of John Carter fighting against a wig that changes color and looks like somebody glued rough shorn  doll hair to his head and asked him to let it lifelessly dangle whenever possible.  It is also readily apparent that Kitsch did a lot of working out during the length of filming as his musculature changes depending upon when the scene was shot.  This isn't a huge deal, but many directors and actors learn to hide the early stages with less definition with clothing.  Stanton decides to put a fit (but not yet buff) Kitsch into the shirtless scenes right off the bat.  I found it a little distracting, but at the same time I am willing to admit this is a nit that needs no picking.  Had I any rooting interest in the actor, I am sure I would have ignored it.  But because I found Kitsch to be unable to make Carter a compelling character (I am going to have a few things to say about the writing in this regards), his shortcomings screamed out to me. 
     Next, let us ponder why the need to insert Edgar Rice Burroughs as a character in the movie.  Having not the books, I have no knowledge of whether this is appropriate.  It didn't feel like it was, and the result is the forcing the obvious fiction into the reality of the man who wrote the story.  Add to that that Burroughs seems like a bit of a geeky loser who would not have anything in common with his brooding uncle (yet the two somehow share a close relationship?).  Burroughs the character seems to exist as an excuse to have the story related (this is more appropriate to late 18th and early 20th Century fiction, but keeps cropping up in recent films as screenwriters apparently feel that a story cannot exist on its own), and then to set-up the least exciting climax possible.
     Stanton had help writing the screenplay for John Carter in the form of Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon.  Andrews also has a credit on Pixar's upcoming film Brave (2012), which may be more his speed as he largely has worked in animation.  Chabon is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of books like Wonder Boys (1995) and The Yiddish Policeman's Union (2007; I started this book in 2008 and quickly abandoned it, wondering what the critics, and my brother, saw as being so praiseworthy).  I blame Chabon – without any evidence beyond my brief exposure to him – for importing the tropes and clichés from other science fiction stories into John Carter.  I am sure that the thought was to make a more mature but relatable tale, but it felt more like an unholy amalgam of ideas that didn't quite work in other films.  From Therns that closely resemble the Necromongers of The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), to the battle in the Thark arena that looks like it was excised from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), and awkward sky-bike piloting that borrows first from Return of the Jedi (1983) and then Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).  At some point it doesn't matter if Burroughs had these moments in the original story or not; good screenwriting, in combination with effective direction, would ensure that the movie would aspire to do more than to ape that which has gone before.  If you can look at the moving city of Zodanga and not immediately form an unfortunate associate with Wild Wild West (1999), then you are carrying less film-viewing baggage than I am.
     The John Carter character retains his service to the Confederacy, which may be the kind of fidelity I could have done without.  If one is unaware of the popularity of the the post-Civil War rebel turned anti-hero, I would direct you towards the legend (largely through the dime novelization) of Jesse James.  Joss Whedon milked the same teat in coming up with Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly (2002-03).  Personally, I am about as anti-CSA as one is going to get.  The idea of Southern honor is a joke that too many people appear to take seriously.  I can't fault the writers for not taking liberty with this aspect of the story, but my preference would have been to just make him a Civil War vet and leave it at that.  But then we wouldn't have the least funny and most repeated joke in the movie, where Carter is referred to as Virginia. 

Woola

     Since it is a Disney film, there has to be at least one part of it that screams for merchandising.  That would be the Barsoomian lizard/slug dog, Woola.  Much like Teddy in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) or Muffit II from the original Battlestar Galactica (1978-79), Woola seems like the toy/pet that everybody would want to have.  Despite myself, Woola was the character I cared most about in John Carter.  Perhaps it is because their is no fake political machinations or manufactured angst driving the little beast.  Woola, despite seeming to exist wholly in the realm of computer constructed pixels, felt like the most honest of all the films inhabitants.  It also had the cute factor dialed to maximum, and that should appeal to all but the most hardhearted.
     Now, I have spent several paragraphs bitching about the problems with John Carter while giving it little praise.  I feel this is where I should point out the strengths (other than Woola).  It is a serviceable movie.  It looks good, better than most of the other movies set on Mars made in the last 20 years.  Strange that all of those movies lost money, because I would think it would discourage studios from revisiting it with inflated budgets.  The main fault is that it doesn't feel like something that one would think much of a week after having seen it.  Part of that is the result of the Blockbuster-ization (and now Netflix-ization) of movie watching.  Even mega-blockbusters are treated as being disposable, and when films become cotton candy instead of food, they achieve the result of momentary distraction with no lasting value.  John Carter doesn't carry the weight it should because, it would seem, Stanton and the rest of the crew only know how to do big and familiar.  Had most of the movie been done on a smaller, more intimate scale (it would still need a huge budget and lots of special effects), then the larger moments would be intensified.  As it is they play out as filler pieces, killing time until a predictable battle that itself feels more like how the House Harkonnen assault on Arrakeen would have looked if there had been a budget for it in any adaptation of Dune (1965). 
     Too much seems borrowed (even what may have been original to the story in 1917) to make John Carter feel like its own movie.  And if it isn't its own movie, then it cannot succeed as a momentary blockbuster.  So, I get it.  I get why it didnt draw a large audience.  But I am sure that the curious will give it a chance at home.

Chronicle (2012)

     I am not much for the found footage approach to assembling a movie.  Rarely do I think it serves the story, nor does it do much to cover up when the tactic is employed to hide the smaller budget.  That being said, I am not against its existence.  Much of Chronicle (2012) works because of the lean approach the a found footage take on the story dictates.  Conversely, other than a handful of exceptional visuals, there isn't any real reason for Chronicle  to be anything other than a straight ahead, lower budget (for a studio film) teen actioner.
     There is too much focus on the emotional disconnectivity of Andrew (Dane DeHaan).  Rather than let a few stark examples stand as the emblems of his unhappy existence, writer Max Landis (famous for having a famous father and getting other famous people to appear in his video deconstruction of "The Death of Superman") and director Josh Trank hammer the point home again and again.  Essentially, they are trying to make the would-be school shooter a sympathetic character.  That is probably not a good route to go, and it doesn't help the story here.
     The other glaring problem, imposed by the found footage approach, is that the other characters who appear on screen do not much development.  Trank is forced to resort to cheats – cameras of all sorts are rolling everywhere, sometimes without sound – to keep the story going in a coherent manner.  Sometimes this is done in a mildly clever fashion, such as having Casey (Ashley Hinshaw) wandering about with a camera of her own.  Too often, however, it feels like more of a distraction than a means to become immersed in the story.  Casey is allowed to have some personality because she has a camera, and therefore a point of view.  Matt (Alex Russell) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan) are just somewhat mouthy guys playing at being somebody's (Landis) idea of teenagers, but only as they are seen by others.
     Now, I did actually enjoy Chronicle.  I think it has the best superhero fight ever put on film (and Landis has established his credentials with his comic book geekdom well before this), feeling all the more real because the characters seem to finally be having reasonable emotional reactions (for being teenagers) to what is going on.  I just think that it tries to make the kid who is going to kill everyone because he was bullied/beaten/ostracized the hero – or at the very least the emotional center of the film – before waving a hand and declaring that uncontrollable emotion is bad.  I think this would have been much stronger with a more traditional approach that had a few cut-ins from Andrew's and Casey's cameras rather than pretending that this wasn't an arduously plotted and shot production.

A War of Gifts (2007)

     One of the benefits (for lack of a better term) of reading lots of shorter books is that I don't mind taking a chance on random ones picked up at the library.  Well, not exactly random.  These books tend to comes from the single aisle of Fantasy and Science Fiction – because apparently there is no difference between the two.  To date, this has not been a rewarding way to select reading material in terms of personal satisfaction but it has helped in racking up the titles read.  It also lets me ease my way in to authors who many of my peers are quite familiar (whereas I had retained my ignorance of their works).
     I am going to assume that A War of Gifts (2007) is not a proper introduction into Orson Scott Card's multi-book saga about Ender Wiggins.  It seems like some fleshed out background material that passes as a decent (if short) novella to a neophyte, whereas a person immersed in the larger story would feel that Card is giving many (I assume) of the characters a richer backstory.  I see it – in my admitted ignorance – as a reward for those who have read and loved the previous novels.
     There isn't much science in this Science Fiction story, other than the general setting.  Instead, it places the themes of religion (does it have a role in military exercise?), camaraderie (on what basis is it extended?), and opposition to stifling authority in very common situations by having it be explored by children with little control of their lives.  Sadly, Card doesn't really have much to say on the subjects that stirs too deeply.  Maybe he does in the full-blown novels and simply repeating it here would have been tedious.
     It isn't a bad book.  In fact, I was happy to enjoy it given the disappointments other blind grabs have been.  Card is much more glib that I expected him to be with his dialogue. However, the only characters who come off as not being worthy attention are Ender and Zeck (the nominal main character here).  I am somewhat confidant that I will never get around to reading the rest of the saga, but I have finally (at least) acquainted myself with Card as a writer.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971)

     I remember the first – and to that point, only – time I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971).  It was well after Don Bluth's animated adaptation, The Secret of NIMH (1982), at least as how time is seen to a child.  To my knowledge, I was the last of my friends to actually read the book; I distinctly remember asking Joel Tysiak for the title of the book so that I didn't end up reading something nobody else had.  I can't explain why that last part was important because I still don't know.
      As a child, I don't know if I got beyond the simple narrative of the story.  It certainly was more tame than the movie.  No magic.  There isn't some sinister force working against the good rats.  It certainly didn't seem all that heroic.  The best thing going for it – it seemed – was that it had talking animals. 
     Giving it another pass as an adult, I was struck by O'Brien's economy of language.  He doesn't draw this tale out to preposterous lengths, choosing instead to keep the story continuously moving forward with only the necessary descriptive adjectives and adverbs.  He certainly challenges the vocabulary of the average 10 year old with it (I don't know the target audience, but it feels like it is pre-tween), but not in an aggressive or impolite manner.  Indeed, I can imagine children gleaning most of the meaning from context and happily turning to the (online) dictionary for any words beyond them.
     It has at its core an interesting concept for a children's book.  It is about the everyday heroics of parenting made manifest in the quest to keep a child safe.  The good relationship the late Jonathan Frisby built with the Rats (and how well he was regarded by other various creatures) allow for Mrs. Frisby to seek out allies and do right for her children.  She cannot do it alone, but she is not so obstinate as to even try to forgo seeking help.  She is also a good enough soul to offer help to others when she is in position to do as much.
     In an animal world where most of those she encounters are smarter than she is, Mrs. Frisby isn't rejected or looked down upon.  She is different, but she is still valued.  Largely treated as an equal by the Rats (who know she is not), she becomes a keeper of their history for their time on the Fitzgibbon farm and the informant who keeps them from being exterminated.  That O'Brien could do all of this with a gentle yet engaging tone, one that has certainly made many a young reader strive to find out what comes next without fretting about the lack of control the mouse has in a world of Rats, men, owls, and Dragon (the cat). 
     Mrs. Frisby is the ultimate mother-as-hero, but she is presented also as how a child would be among adults.  Her actions have merit.  She matters.  O'Brien makes it happen through the story, not as some tagged on lines to reassure the little ones that she is like them and they like her. 
     I certainly don't read much in the way of books aimed a children.  Hell, until recently, I could be said to not be doing much in the way of reading.  But I glad I gave this book another look.  It is a great example of how to write – and do so exceptionally well – for children.

How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (1987)

     How should I describe How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (1987)?
     Dated?  Sure, to a degree.  Unlike Crawford Killian's Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998), it doesn't waste time with instructions on how to set up a web browser.  It does, however, include at least separate cautions against submitting dot matrix printed manuscripts.  I can view this more nostalgically since I was stuck with a dot matrix printer into the late 1990s.  And while I had no qualms about submitting school work from it (stupid me), I would like to think I would have popped for the $6 to have a decent print job from Kinko's if I were submitting a manuscript from that era.
     The contributing authors, all of whom were members/contributors of the Writer's Digest classes or workshops, were surprisingly willing to demean and criticize not just the work of other authors (and most certainly filmmakers), but those writers themselves.  This strikes a much different note from more recent books that stress such concepts as not looking down on (other) published authors.  Apparently, in the early-to-mid 1980s, it was fine for there to be pure way to write horror – which is the primary format in which the contributors worked – and it was different from the way all those successful, mass market appeal authors.  Except for when they wanted to sing the praises of a Writer's Digest member who also sold a lot of books.
     There wasn't much in practical advice in terms of how to develop horror, fantasy, or science fiction.  I guess that is kind of par for the course with these books; an assumption that one writes in a genre because they have a deep and abiding love of it and can draw from their experiences of what other writers have done with it.  Sure, How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction does encourage prospective writers to read both good and bad genre writing.  How else is one supposed to know what to avoid?  More than that, one is supposed to gain a perspective as to which ideas have been ground into lifelessness – relying on an acceptance of cliché rather than anything the author could shape on his or her own.
     Even with its somewhat nebulous advice, I still found myself believing that I was better informed about different approaches to writing.  It is not filled with writing exercises that bog down writing classes (which have disputable positive impact beyond forcing one to write something), nor is it the how to format your manuscript book (very general advice on that topic).  It is mostly a varied group of authors – some quite famous – being somewhat joyful on the subject of writing.
     It is in giving me some insight into some of the published authors of the era (many of whom I had never heard of, let alone read their material).  As someone who is way behind in terms of his overall familiarity with what has been written – which comes from taking a decade long break from serious reading – I can use something like this as both a resource and a kick in the pants.  
     Now, for the quotes:

          "Technology poses no threat to the future of the book," said a 1984 

           report from the Library of Congress; but dull, uninspired or safe 

           fiction does. – p. 22, J.N. Williamson
     It is funny not just because technology is kicking the printed book's ass, but also because also because how how poorly the book was doing in Orwell's 1984.

           As with introducing a human character, you will need to bring out 

           the oddities of your alien gradually; remember that long strings of 

           adjectives are more like inventories than descriptions. – p. 58,
           Ardath Mayhar
     I would love for someone to print this out and paste it to the keyboards of certain writers.  Henry Lopez comes to mind.  "Heavy is the Head" is a prime example of a violation of this general principle.

          Don't mistake action for suspense.  A good novel must be filled 

          with action, and the characters must be kept in meaningful motion; 

          however, a tale can be composed of one gunfight and wild chase 

          after another yet be totally lacking in suspense.  Action becomes 

          suspenseful only if you write with a full understanding of the 

          following two truths: (1) suspense in fiction results primarily from 

          the reader's identification with and concern about lead characters 

          who are complex, convincing, and appealing; and (2) anticipation 

         of violence is infinitely more suspenseful than the violence itself.
         – p. 60, Dean R. Koontz

          There is nothing wrong with [daydream fiction].  (The only people 
          opposed to escape are jailers.) – p. 81, Darrell Schweitzer
     I just really like this general idea.  That fantasy (however one applies the term) is not inferior because it is fantasy.  It can only be inferior if it is written worse than the alternatives while having less to say.

          No writer has orchestrated terror in prose more carefully than 

          Lovecraft, but you won't learn how to write dialogue or deal 

          with character from him. – p. 97, Ramsey Campbell
     And now I understand why I don't think much of H.P. Lovecraft as an author.  Because I am all about character and dialogue (usually to the point that the plot gets washed away, which is a problem); I want those elements to be strong in what I read.

          Always have a rough idea of your first paragraph before you sit

          down to write, and then you won't be trapped into fearing the 

          blank page. – p. 99-100, Ramsey Campbell
     This may be the best general advice on how to proactively deal with writer's block.

          Unless you're fairly sure that you have an unstoppable need to 

          write, you're probably better off putting this book down and 

          going about your business. – p. 147, Alan Rodgers
     No need to sugar coat it, right?  Seriously, the contributors make quite a few efforts to let the reader know that the life of a writer may not be a great or profitable one.  Indeed, one of them died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his mobile home (using a gas powered generator for electricity because the power had been turned off).

The Darkest Hour (2011)

     Wasting little time establishing characters or their lives, The Darkest Hour (2011) does everything it can to get right to its alien invasion and special effects.  Then, surprisingly, the aliens are largely relegated to the background and the characters who haven't been developed are left to wander through largely undamaged Moscow.  And it is a Moscow full of clean streets – except for people-ash – and upscale shopping malls.  The shots of Red Square essentially scream out "Come visit Moscow, Western tourists."
     Despite its many flaws (some of which I will address), I mostly enjoyed The Darkest Hour.  Even with the cast seeming like they were left on their own, I thought they did a serviceable job in moving the story along with something resembling a human element.  Director Chris Gorak (I've seen both of his feature films!) may have been more concerned with his camera angles and lighting than consistent emotion, but I suspect that the underplaying of the obvious end of the world fits with the target audience's attitude about everything that isn't them. 
     The Darkest Hour rates ahead of many other films that have been set behind the old Iron Curtain, not in small part because it had a decent production budget.  However, the limits of that budget can be seen a little too often.  There is the time killing not-quite montage that lets us know the prospective heroes have spent five days in a storeroom (that always has light, even at night, despite the fact that the electricity wasn't working at the time), the complicated overuse and under-use of the aliens making electronic devices function just by being near them (we all know that when a cell phone powers up, it rings...right?), and the very disappointing reveal of the aliens once they are made visible – it is not as awful as the CGI shark that eats Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea (1999), but it is not much better.
     There is some poor understanding of history (or at least the presentation of it) with the Russians who will not retreat from their homeland and who will battle the aliens no matter what.  Then again, I have no idea what kind of factual history was taught during the waning days of the U.S.S.R., so maybe this is a good representation of what those characters would believe.  Of course, the story also features a pack of characters who are in Moscow (on purpose) who cannot speak nor read Russian.  But rather than have this contribute to the strangeness and sense of danger or doom, most of the Russian characters can speak English so as to move the story along.
     I do like that the film doesn't mind killing its characters, but there is one character who was screaming to be killed (in gloating over the aliens) and it didn't happen.  That kind of bummed me out, but I guess whether that death happened or didn't, it would be the same cliche.  The Darkest Hour doesn't run from cliches, but it does try to keep them in their place; they help establish the world more than the expectations of the story.  Okay, the entire plot is essentially a kind of cliche by now, but wholly reworking it would just be an avant-garde experiment. 
     Gorak tried a little bit of that in his first feature, Right at Your Door (2006).  It felt forced there, and I would like to think he thought that being more traditional approach would be more palatable.  What I think he needed was a larger cast of starting characters, and for those characters to have been developed.  The Darkest Hour is, essentially, a disaster movie.  The formula is to get us to care about the characters and their situations, and then to watch their struggles after the disaster.  Like in The Grey (2011), it is acceptable to slowly kill off those characters.  Actually, it would make a hell of a lot more sense to do it in an alien invasion movie than a trek-through-the-wilderness-while-not-being-smart-enough-to-make-spears-to-fend-off-the-wolves movie.
     The Darkest Hour – it doesn't require much thinking or commitment to its characters, not does it have the best effects (but the people turning to dust it cool), but it is a fun diversion. 

The Box (2009)

     At 2009's Flashback Weekend (a Chicago area horror convention), I was afforded the opportunity to see The Box (2009) for free.  I declined the offer.  Much like with Dolph Lungren's I Come in Peace (1990) – which at the time was titled Dark Angel – it seemed like the offer didn't merit the time investment (because it would mean having to go somewhere else to go and see it).  The Box had the additional burden of having a director who had yet to put together a coherent film. 
     That trend continued.  Unlike his nearly unwatchable Southland Tales (2006), there is no sense of fun or enjoyment going on in which the audience can coach the experience.  Indeed, Richard Kelly seems to have aimed at delivering as much of a straight-ahead story as he can manage, and he does that for about thirty minutes.  Not incidentally, this is the best portion of the film.  Then, as he always does, Kelly descends into some sort of dream version of reality where connections don't matter and time is frangible.
     While most of the minor players are so poorly handled that it must have been by design (Kelly appears to be going for a creep factor that arises from how un-creepy his automatons are), the real problem lies with Cameron Diaz.  While I can honestly say that I have only seen her give one performance where she added rather than detracted from the final project, she is such a black hole here that I found myself wondering if her involvement (and the reason she wasn't replaced after shooting started) was because people believe that she will draw people to the theater.  If Frank Langella were not in the film, I never would have given it a chance.  I spent my time wondering how much better Langella's (and Marsden's for that matter) performance could have been if he weren't forced to interact with the human equivalent to a block of wood that is Diaz.
     There is no point to The Box.  Fine.  But I'm positive that Kelly thinks that he made one.  That is a problem.  He is like a writer who is sure he is a genius author, but is instead just scribbling just-above-nonsense into countless notebooks.  This film is an abject waste of time.  Not unpleasant, but very unrewarding.  And as intellectually immature in regards to a take on morality as I can imagine.

Fast Ships, Black Sails (2008)

     I'm not sure why I chose to read Fast Ships, Black Sails (2008).  I certainly don't have a history of reading a lot of pirate-themed tales.  But I have been trying to work at crafting better short stories, and reading some more contemporary ones – I cannot stick with reading ones that are almost exclusively from the 19th Century – should give me a better idea as to where to contemporary market is.  Several of these authors are, apparently, more than a little successful.  It couldn't hurt to take a look.
      Having written that, Fast Ships, Black Sails is a very odd collection.  More science fiction and fantasy stories with sea-going (or space faring) elements grafted on than tales of pirate living (and pirate dying) than I expected, that is sure.  I would suspicion that editors Ann & Jeff VanderMeer did not have a wealth of choices when they put this together, but also that their collective taste is quite broad.  The only author whose name I recognized was Michael Moorcock (I've noted previously that I had never read anything by him), but some have had quite a lot of success it would seem.
     Some of the stories – "Boojum", "Pirates of the Saura Sea", "The Whale Below", and “Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar Pirates of Sarsköe” – felt like they were conceived as novels or novellas and condensed in order to find publication.  This isn't much of a complaint, but rather an observation that there seemed to be much more in the backgrounds that the authors wanted to write about, and that the pacing may have been better if they were allowed to run more than 50 pages.
     Some of the stories were just horrible.  Waldrop's "Avast, Abaft"  steals from Gilbert & Sullivan, has no narrative flow, and (worst of all) has no fucking point.  Moorcock's "Ironface" felt more like a couple of pages of notes with the veneer of prose to hide the fact that he had nothing going on.  Thanks for the notes on a guy in a setting, Mike, but where was the story you were going to submit?  "Pirate Solutions" has the less than savory pirates=hackers theme, but it also has odd jumps in terms of whose narrative it is and a total lack of concept for what is propelling the activity (or, if there is one, it is completely at odds with the rest of the tale).  Connell's "We Sleep on a Thousand Waves Beneath the Sea" is a poorly written story that seems to fight having any sense of self until the very end, and not because the author was trying to be clever. 
     You want something even worse than horrible.  Okay.  When anyone asks me what the worst thing I’ve ever read (that wasn’t self-published), I will point to Aylett’s “Voyage of the Iguana”, an unfunny, mostly unwritten, yet terribly long excuse of a story.  Just a piece of shit.  I'm sure he thought it was smart, clever, and sly.  It isn't.  It is the equivalent of used toilet paper: it is shit on the page.
     There were some stories that just weren't what I thought they'd be.  Barnhill's “Elegy to Gabrielle, Patron Saint of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves” never comes together as a story (which I thought it would), remaining a shadow of someone retelling a tale.  Howe's "Skillet and Saber" gets a little too caught up in the dread of forced sodomy, decides that a lot of the characters don't need to be developed, and the ending should try to work in a staple of the pirate mythos.  Freer & Flint's "Pirates of the Saura Sea" had some good elements, but felt like they were more interested in the setting than the story. Blaschke's "The Whale Below" tried to mix technologies (airships and flintlocks) to poor effect and was overwrought with the author's need to make the crew as Spanish (or maybe Portuguese) as possible, but there was a rather decent story trying to escape those traps.  Swirsky's “The Adventures of Captain Black Heart Wentworth” was much more straightforward than I expected; you give me rats as pirates, firing guns at ducklings, and I am expecting it to be much more tongue-in-cheek. 
     So, what really worked?  Hughes' "Castor in Troubled Waters" has nothing to do with pirates and everything to do with British pub humor.  I know only a little of that brand of storytelling, but this short story was witty and winning.  Vaughn's "The Nymph's Child", while a little too friendly with its dragon fantasy element, is well written and engaging.  Batteigger's "A Cold Day in Hell", where Ice Pirates (1984) meets...well, pirates on the ice.  A good example of how to sell a setting with little notes through the story rather than trying to hammer it out in huge chunks.  And, of course, Nix's “Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar Pirates of Sarsköe".  So much of the setting is missing (the characters in this story apparently have appeared in a novella prior to this adventure, so I'm betting he felt it was as developed as it needed to be) as to make the reader curious more than frustrated.
     Overall, I don't think I can recommend Fast Ships, Black Sails.  But how many collections of short stories are full of must read writing?  There are some good stories, and it is certainly telling how some people approach telling stories in a shorter format (and that the editors let them get away with it; Naomi Novick, I'm referring to you and your blatant abuse of the comma).  For the regular reader of Sci-Fi and fantasy, most of these will be in your comfort zone.  But there isn't a lot of examination of what it means to be a pirate, or the life of a pirate.  And I was kind of hoping for a little of that.

▸    “Boojum” by Elizabeth Baer & Sarah Monette
▸     “Castor in Troubled Waters” by Rhys Hughes
▸    “I Begyn as I Mean to Go On” by Kage Baker
▸    “Avast, Abaft” by Howard Waldrop
▸    “Elegy to Gabrielle, Patron Saint of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves” by Kelly Barnhill
▸    “Skillet and Saber” by Justin Howe
▸    “The Nymphs Child” by Carrie Vaughn
▸    “68̊ 07'15"N, 31̊ 36'44"W” by Conrad Williams
▸    “Ironface” by Michael Moorcock
▸    “Pirate Solutions” by Katherine Sparrow
▸    “We Sleep on a Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars” by Brendan Connell
▸    “Voyage of the Iguana” by Steve Aylett
▸    “Pirates of the Suara Sea” by David Freer & Eric Flint
▸    “A Cold Day in Hell” by Paul Batteiger
▸    “The Adventures of Captain Black Heart Wentworth” by Rachel Swirsky
▸    “Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphridrake” byy Naomi Novik
▸    “The Whale Below” by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
▸    “Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar Pirates of Sarsköe” by Garth Nix