Time Changer - A Belated Review

 

Those of you who visit here, or have looked at the books I have written, you’ll realize that I’m a sucker for time travel stories. I consider them to be fantasy because, by the definition that Bob Tucker, Bob Cornett and I agreed on decades ago, science fiction dealt with what was possible at some point but fantasy was, well, just that.

So, when I saw a movie called Time Changer that was described as a professor from the 1890s traveling into his future, which would be, of course, our present, I thought I would take a look at it. Time After Time, that Nick Meyer movie of decades ago had, sort of, the same thing going on.  There we had H.G. Wells traveling into modern San Francisco, though now, it was a couple of decades ago. The sense of wonder and the fish out of water aspect of that movie was part of the enjoyment.

Here, we are treated to a professor, Russell Carlisle (D. David Morin) as the time traveler. He has written a book dealing with modern morality, that is, that morality in 1890. He needs the approval of a committee at his college so that his book might be published. All by one, Norris Anderson (Gavin MacLeod), are on board, but Anderson objects.

His quibble is over a single paragraph that seemed to remove Jesus Christ from the discussion. Anderson believed that this was an important omission and refused to endorse the book without some modification. Here we delve into a rather protracted discussion of morality and the place that Christianity has in the discussion. By leaving that out, by calling on humanity to maintain moral standards, the importance of religion is ignored.

I thought the discussion went on longer than necessary, but then it was setting up the story because Anderson had a time machine. Anderson attempts to get Carlisle to visit him at home to carry on the discussion, but Carlisle doesn’t believe it will do any good.

As you can imagine, given the title of the movie, Carlisle does visit Andernson, and is eventually convinced that he needs to travel into the future. The trip is on with very little instruction from Anderson, although Anderson does provide Carlisle with some money from 1890 and suggests that he sell those coins to a coin dealer in the far future. While a good idea, it relies on the idea that all coins from more than 100 years ago would be extremely valuable, but you can find, today, many coins selling for twenty or thirty dollars. Rarity is important but it seems that no effort is made to find coins that would be worth a great deal based on rarity.

I’d go into greater detail with this problem, but it is just a small part of the movie. Carlisle, then moves around the modern world but there isn’t much in the way of a sense of wonder. He seems to understand television and cars and probably flight. True, in the 1890s these things were discussed or envisioned but he is just too comfortable with them

Then there is a scene that would have gotten him arrested. A little girl, what 10 or 12, steals his sandwich, and he is off, chasing her through the park. No one seems to worry about this adult male chasing a female child. No one makes an inquiry about it.

And then, we are treated to more philosophical discussions of religion and its importance in living our lives. It becomes ham-handed and it is clear that the message of this movie is that religion, or rather Christianity, is an important part of a good life.

This is where I break from the movie. While the earlier discussion sets up the reason for the time travel, now it is just tedious. I wanted to shout at the TV, “I’ve got it. Move on.”

Carlisle returns to his own time automatically and his view of the world altered by what he had seen. The preaching continued but it was not very subtle, unlike some of the other Hollywood productions in which the message is somewhat disguised, though Time Changer probably isn’t a standard Hollywood production.

I’m rather ambivalent about this movie. I don’t plan to watch it again and those movies I like, I tend to review them periodically. Who can’t watch The Thing from Another World with Ken Tobey or the original The Day the Earth Stood Still more than once? Time Changers isn’t one of those.

I suppose I’ll just say, if you have a couple of hours to waste, don’t waste them here. Find one of the classic, 1950s or 1960s science fiction films. They were well craft, well written and well-acted. This one just sort of hangs there with its flaws for everyone to see. As I say, I think I’d have avoided it had I known a little more about it.

For those who like these things, the movie was released in 2016 though seems to have a copyright date of 2002. It runs an hour and thirty-five minutes and had an estimated budget of $825,000. There are several actors, with minor roles, who are well known including Hal Linden and Jennifer O’Neill and the above mentioned Gavin MacLeod.

Kill or Be Killed

(Note: Bob Cornett and I wrote this story decades ago. I don't know who wrote what parts or whose idea it was. I can tell you that on the manuscript, Bob's name was first, but the story was typed on my typewriter (which, of course, gives you an idea of the age because I have been using a computer since 1985). The return address on the manuscript is mine as well. What this means is that here is a story for which both of us are responsible, written at the beginning of our collaboration. We wrote it prior to starting Seeds of War, which also puts it in the 1980s.)

Captain Robert Tucker, Air Force Public Affairs Officer, stood blinking at the studio lights behind the TV cameras in the crowded press room. He waited for a moment, as the last of the reporters sat down and got out their handheld cameras and their cell phones to record the event.

“Gentlemen and Ladies,” he said, clearing his throat.

When there seemed to be no reaction, he said it again but louder, “Gentlemen and Ladies.”

As the last of the noise died, he began. “I’m sure that all of you have heard by now, and are a bit confused by, all the reports of aerial combat that occurred this evening over downtown Galveston, Texas. We’re here to clarify the situation and to let everyone know that no one on the ground was at risk at any time during the dogfight.”

There was a murmur that seemed to travel around the room. When it fell quiet again, Tucker continued, “At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Major Charles Caldicott McKuen, the squadron commander of the First Sub-miniaturized Bravo Defense Force, and the first pilot to successfully engage, in aerial combat and destroy a killer bee.”

That last bewildered the reporters, but rather than shouting questions and demanding attention as they usually did, they sat quietly. It might have been respect for the military officers present, instructions given to them as the entered the press room, or just confusion about what was being said.

Tucker gestured to his left and said, “Major McKuen, if you will.”

McKuen moved to the center stage, stopped behind the lectern and then adjusted the microphone to his satisfaction. He was in his mid-thirties, about 5 ten, with dark hair cut so short it looked like a shadow on his head. He was wearing a sweat stained flight suit that might have been more for show than necessity. Normally, those at press briefings were in Class A uniforms, complete with awards and decorations and qualification badges. He stood straight, with both hands gripping the sides of the lectern. He surveyed the audience as if waiting for something or maybe expecting an assault.

A woman, in the back, stood and without being recognized shouted, “Major. Sally Behr, Fort Worth Evening Press. I have a question that I’m sure everyone else has. Just what in the hell is the First Sub-miniatured Bravo Defense Force?”

McKuen grinned, as if asked an easy question, and said, “To start with, I think we should go into the sub-miniaturization process itself, and then perhaps a brief history of the enemy, which brought about the first practical use of the sub-miniaturization process in aerial combat.”

One of the reporters for a television or cable station, standing next to her camera, shouted, “Is this some kind of secret project?”

McKuen asked, “Is there another kind?”

When the laughs died, he continued. “Approximately twenty years ago, a team of government physicists, working in the strictest secrecy at Los Alamos, became interested in the possibilities of utilizing the excess space that exists between various subatomic particles that make up the atom. The theory was put forward, at that time, by a scientist who wished to remain anonymous, that it might be possible to squeeze these elements together, thereby compacting the atom without altering its properties. The theory proved to be totally wrong, but it did lead to work in a related area which suggested that it is possible to actually shrink the atom rather than merely compacting it. This process resulted, not only in a reduction in size, but in a reduction in weight as well. The nature of the process is, quite naturally, classified for reasons of national security. Suffice it to say that it does, in fact, work, and subsequent tests proved it safe for use on organic creatures, as well as inanimate objects?”

“What good is that?” asked a reporter who didn’t bother to identify himself.

McKuen looked at the audience and spotted a man in the middle of the crowd. He was glaring at McKuen as if McKuen had called him a dirty name and slandered his family.

McKuen said, “Well, if you wanted to put a colony on Mars, and you could reduce the crew and colonists sufficiently, then you have the ability to send a great deal more food, equipment and colonists than you would if everything and everyone remained at a normal size.”

“How small?”

“There is a limit to the process. I can say that it is possible to shrink a human to a height of less than a millimeter.”

“Is that what this process, as you call it, was created to do?”

McKuen took a deep breath and said, “We are getting off topic here. I wanted to…

Another voice yelled, “You just said that we could reduce a human to something that is nearly microscopic and I assume all the food and equipment needed to build a city on another world. But it seems to me that a raindrop would be of sufficient size to crush your human or drown him.”

“You would enlarge him to normal size at the other end. There would just be many more humans available, and all their equipment and food could be carried in the rockets that are available to us today. We just need to design the proper capsule for them. But again, we are getting off topic here.”

“Are you telling us that we have already launched such a mission?”

“No. NO! Let me finish.” McKuen surveyed the crowd and then continued. “As you are aware, entomologists in this country have been concerned about the advance toward our southern border of a deadly strain of killer bees. These are even worse than those that arrived a couple of decades ago. It all started from genetic experiments in crossing a strain of the African bees with the more passive South American bees, which would create a docile bee that would produce more honey. Well, the experimental bees escaped and weren’t quite as docile as everyone hoped. Now, the original, more aggressive, and somewhat larger bees have also escape and are at our southern border. This is a threat greater than that posed by the original Africanized bees and one that we were tasked with neutralizing.”

He hesitated and then said, “The First Sub-miniaturized Bravo Defense Force, then, is an elite Air Force unit created specifically to deal with the bees on their own terms.”

Another voice interrupted. “Howard, Smythe, The Times, London. If I follow you Major, you actually miniaturized a whole squadron of Air Force fighter planes and sent them out to kill bees.” It sounded as if he couldn’t believe that he had heard what he heard.

“Well, I didn’t miniaturize them myself…”

When the laughter died, he added, “But we did go out to kill bees.”

“Isn’t that a bit drastic? Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply spray them with Raid?”

“We couldn’t find a can big enough,” said McKuen and then, “Actually, this strain of bee is resistant to most pesticides. The concentration needed for a lethal dose would have been ecologically and environmentally unacceptable, and we worried about persistence of the chemicals in the environment. Since we had the technology to reduce sophisticated warplanes to a level where they would be effective against the bees and since no other means could be found to deal with this particular menace, the decision was made, at the highest levels of our government, at the civilian end I might add, to proceed with the formation and then activation of the First Sub-miniaturized Bravo Defense Force.”

He looked out at the reporters who now seemed to be somewhat reserved, as if stunned by the direction the conference had now taken or maybe believing that this was some sort of joke, though they couldn’t see the purpose. Filling the silence, McKuen said, “Not lost on the Pentagon brass, however, was the training benefits. Out pilots could build dogfighting skills by engaging the bees without a great deal of danger to themselves.”

McKuen pointed to another reporter who said. “Karl Harbstreet, host of the Weird Things Podcast. Can you describe the battle as it occurred?”

“I can do better than that. Lights, dim.”

Responding to the command, the lights dimmed and curtains descended, shutting out the sunlight.

“Replay, initiate.”

A solid ball of light appeared in front of the reporters, hovering five feet in the air. It fractured into a thousand bits which spun around rapidly, finally coalescing into a static display made up of tiny representations of the F-45 fighters, and the black and brown killer bees.

McKuen began his narration. “I was leading a squadron of eight sub-miniaturized fighters. We had been scrambled from Bowie Air Force Base about an hour earlier, when a spotter from the reactivated Ground Observer Corps reported contact with a swarm of killer bees approaching Galveston from the South. Our sub-miniaturized squadron had been carried aboard a modified Cessna mothership. I will note here that mine was not the only squadron carried into the battle, nor was our mothership the only one.”

McKuen allowed the display to advance, showing his squadron diving toward the bees. He said, “Our target, meaning my squadron’s, was the queen and we went after her as the other flights engaged the bees surrounding her. The bees formed a cocoon around her, rotating slowly in a clockwise direction. As you can see, as we approached, a force of bees broke away to intercept us, but they were attacked by the supporting squadrons.”

Now everyone had his or her attention fixed on the swirling mass of tiny points of light as they gyrated in the glowing cloud spinning above them. One of the fighter’s lights winked out as bees attacked it with their stingers but it was the mass of bees that overwhelmed the plane, knocking it from the sky. The fighters used their machine guns to engage the bees, the nearly invisible lines of tracers looking like tiny rays from some sort of futuristic battle. Bees began to fall but their images disappeared before they hit the floor. The fight turned into a giant furball as the opponents engaged.

McKuen said, “We had opted for gun pods rather than missiles. We weren’t sure the heat seekers would be able to home in on the bees, and the radar guided missiles might be lost in the bees’ stealth capabilities.”

A reported shouted, “You are saying that the bees had created way to defeat radar?”

McKuen smiled. “Not at all. They are soft targets without the solid surfaces that the radar required. Their bodies, covered with fur were theorized to have a stealth capability by absorbing the radar signal rather than reflecting it. Besides, we could not carry enough missiles to be practical. Twenty-millimeter cannon were a more effective weapon to use against them.”

He waited to see if there would be a follow up question and when there wasn’t, he said, “We selected the gun mode on the fire control system, and attacked.”

The glowing ball that had been showing the whole engagement, narrowed the focus to the bees that were surrounding the queen, and the tiny jets that were attacking. Dodging right and left, with all the fighters in his squadron aiming for the same target, they closed on the largest of the bees.

McKuen began his narration. “After missing on our second pass, my wingman and I executed a high-speed yo-yo maneuver.”

Although McKuen was gesturing with his hands, the display showed his aircraft, along with the wingman completing the maneuver. He said, “This brought us out high and to the rear of the queen. We pushed into a vertical rolling scissors, and snapped out of it just on the tail of the queen. At this point, my wingman had to peel off to deal with the stiff resistance on the drones nearest to the queen. I continued to close and when in firing range, squeezed off a short burst from the Vulcan cannon, shredding the queen’s wings and her body. She disintegrated in front of me and the rest of the swarm, without a leader, just scattered.”

There was a shout from the back. “This is quite obviously an experience that no one has had before, Major. How did it feel?”

“I guess it’s like warfare has always been.”

“What do you mean, Major.”

“Killer Bee, killed.”

 

Bob Cornett, My Friend is Gone

 

Just yesterday, April 1, Robert Charles Cornett, “Bob,” sometimes known as R C Squared, passed away. Bob and I had been friends for nearly a half century. We met while we were both taking Air Force ROTC at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. We shared an interest in science fiction and writing and a few other things.

Bob had originally majored in both physics and Russian which seemed to be a very difficult path to follow. Eventually, he changed majors, and we both graduated in 1975. Bob remained in Iowa City.

It was in 1975 that I learned the Project Blue Book files had been declassified and were open for public scrutiny at Maxwell Air Force Base. Bob and I drove to Maxwell and began a search of those records. We might have been the first two outsiders to see those records. At the time, the names had not been redacted and we spent two days going through the index, writing down the names of all the witnesses for the unidentified sightings. At the time, this was a unique record but today the information is available on the Internet. That search translated into a few magazine articles about Project Blue Book and sparked Bob’s interest in UFOs.

Writing had always been one of his goals, though I suspect he was more interested in writing science fiction than he was in writing about UFOs. We had written a book of science fiction short stories that was never published, but some of them have been posted to www.thesciencefictionsite.blogspot.com.  

Bob had suggested that we talk to James van Allen about UFOs because he, Bob, knew van Allen. I thought it was just that Bob had taken a class from van Allen and it was a sort of nodding friendship. But, one day, in the Physic Building, van Allen got on the elevator with us. Van Allen looked at us and said, “Hi, Bob.”

And Bob said, “Hi, Van.”

Van Allen sat down with me for two hours to talk about UFOs. Bob missed the meeting for some reason but it would not have happened had he not known van Allen. That van Allen would talk to me about UFOs said something about Bob.

Bob doing UFO research in Colorado.

We did investigate cattle mutilations for APRO. Jim Lorenzen had called me, asking me to look into them. With Bob, we went to Minnesota and spent a week to ten days there, learning what we could. We had been told that these mutilations were part of Satanic rituals, but we found no evidence to support that claim. Nor did we find anything to suggest that UFOs had anything to do with it.

All this resulted in Jim Lorenzen introducing Bob at a UFO convention as one of his top investigators. The irony was that Bob belonged to the rival NICAP. But the recognition did help Bob place some stories about UFOs in the magazines that were popular at the time.

We began to attend science fiction conventions with an eye to meeting the editors working for publishers. We thought that if we met them, if they knew who we were, then we might have a leg up when a manuscript was submitted. I’m not sure if that ever worked in our favor, but we did meet Sharon Jarvis, an agent looking for writers. She recognized our military connection and one day called, wondering if we could write books about the Green Berets in Vietnam. We said yes and set about creating those books, now all recently republished under the banner of Vietnam Ground Zero. This did not erase our quest to write science fiction, and I don’t know if those books helped or not, but we did finally publish science fiction.

I was at home one night when Bob called and told me he had started a novel that dealt with a war in space. We planned to meet the next day and he suggested that I bring along something. His “chunk” of the book, as we came to call them, was in the third person but mine was in the first person. Before we were done, the book, Seeds of War, had five first person narrators, not all of whom survived the conflict, and the third person beginning in which Earth declared war on another planet. I mention this only because we used Lyndon Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin speech as the basis for the one in the book. We didn’t have do change much. It was a commentary on war. It was a strange attitude for us because of our connections to the military.

Bob and I attended many science fiction conventions, even after we had books published. At a party hosted by Berkley Books, we ended up as volunteer bartenders about two in the morning. A very drunk science fiction fan wanted a Scotch, but we had run out of Scotch. He was so drunk that we didn’t think he would know the difference, so we made some Scotch for him, using gin, Pepsi, some wine and worked hard to make it look like Scotch. The man took it away happy.

Bob was popular on the science fiction circuit. I think it was a combination of things, including some of the stories that he wrote. He would do readings periodically, and I noticed that the fans sat quietly listening to his stories. He was sometimes slow in getting the story written, but it was always a good one. He was an imaginative writer, with a keen ear for human speech.

He was habitually late for nearly everything. We were to meet in Iowa City one day but I got interested in a movie and figured that Bob would be late. So, I watched the end of the movie and was more than an hour late. Bob showed up about twenty minutes after I got there.

Bob eventually left Iowa City, moving to Moulton, Iowa, and our writing sessions waned at that point. We did a number of limited series, including one about time travel that started with Remember the Alamo, in which the time travelers return to 1836, to win the battle for the Texicans by using modern weapons.

Bob with a UFO witness. Bob's in the raincoat.

But with the move to Moulton, our contacts, lessened. I became involved in UFO research and Bob stuck closer to the science fiction. I think the last science fiction convention we attended together was in 1991, about the time of the Gulf War. We hadn’t writing much together by that time. The Vietnam Ground Zero series had wound down and we didn’t have any contracts for science fiction novels.

Bob, had trained as an EMT while living in Moulton and at some point, had become a letter carrier. With his wife, MaryAnn, he eventually moved to Albuquerque where they hosted a few conventions.

Bob was interested in firearms and had a massive knowledge about them. Some of the writing about Vietnam showed just how much he knew about weapons. He was very good at describing the combat of the time. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force and later the Marines.

He was a very good friend and I wish that I had been a better friend to him. I knew that his health had been poor these last few years. I had him on the radio version of A Different Perspective, and was sadden by what I heard as we talked about UFOs. He just wasn’t as sharp as he had been when he was younger. You can listen to that show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19655144

In the last several years, maybe the last couple of decades, he had lost his fire for writing. Bob Tucker, who turned out to be a good friend, had said in his later years that he had retired from writing. Neither Bob nor I could understand that attitude… but sometimes writing is a very difficult task. I think Bob retired from it without really saying that he was retired.

I had thought of writing a tribute to my friend, but this turned into more of a remembrance. I’m surprised by how much I miss him.

He was only 69.

11.22.63 - A Mini Review

 

Yes, yes, I know that I have been delinquent in posting here, but I had three books due in the last few months and have been struggling to get them finished. No, none were science fiction, unless, of course, you consider UFOs to be in the realm of science fiction rather than reality. That’s an argument for another time.

This will be a couple of thoughts about 11.22.63, the mini-series that is available on Hulu, which I just joined the other day. This is the time travel tale by Stephen King about the Kennedy assassination. When it popped up, as I was scanning what was available on Hulu, I immediately clicked on it to see if it was what I thought it was. Having read the book, I knew the story.

And then I almost turned it off when I noticed that J.J. Abrams was one of the executive producers. I had seen what he had done to wreck the Star Trek franchise and knew that he just didn’t get some of the finer points. But then Stephen King was also an executive producer and I figured that King might have held some of Abrams’ radical ideas in check. The story might just follow the book.

In that opening chapter, when Jake first returns to 1960 (rather than 1958 as in the book), I saw all the old cars parked on the street and driving by. Of course, they weren’t all that old for 1960, but something bothered me about them. Took a moment to realize they were all in pristine condition, looking as if they had just driven off the showroom floor. Of course, they would have been found in the hands of automobile collectors and they were all beautifully restored… not a dent, not a sign of rust, and no mud or dirt anywhere. Not a big deal, just something I noticed.

I will also point out that in some of the reviews I read about the mini-series, it was suggested that those who had read the book would be disappointed. Well, not me. I understand that the book will be filled with richer detail and that time limitations would dictate the construction of the movie. They just couldn’t go through some of the problems that Jake ran into as he worked to complete his mission.

So, no, I wasn’t disappointed, though I would have liked for there to be a second season of the mini-series. The story here was just a little more linear than it was in the book, but that was understandable. Instead of multiple returns to the past, there was but a single trip and I don’t think I’m giving away any spoilers here. Besides, the copyright date on the series of 2016, so it isn’t a new show.

Anyway, for those who have read the book, I don’t see why you’d be disappointed in 11.22.63. It’s well done with careful attention to detail (except for all those clean cars, some of which show up in Texas after we’ve seen them in Maine). If you have the chance, have Hulu and have the time, this is well worth it.

The Demolition Man - A Belated Review

 (Blogger's Note: Yes, I have been a little lax in posting here but I've had three books due this fall. Two are now completed and the rough draft of the third is almost done.  In other words, I'll have more time to devote to this site... I have notes for two short stories in mind that are somewhat intriguing. I'll try to get those done soon. And, for those interested, two more of the Jefferson's War novels have been published.  The cover to the first it on the right... You can find them at Amazon a ebooks... Take a look.)

Just the other day I happened to see The Demolition Man, that Sylvester Stallone movie from the late 20^th century. While it is a fun film with some predictions that are frighteningly close to the mark in the world today (language monitored with fines levied for the use obscene words) there were others that were way off the mark. There was, for example, no huge earthquake in California in 2010 and there was no Nine Years War (I think that was what they said).

There were a couple of flaws that inspired me to comment on them. Things that the writers and the director should have thought of as they made the film. One of the minor points was Simon Phoenix, the really bad guy, was working some sort of computer station that had a keyboard but no letters on that keyboard. He was approached by a number of police officers who, if some in our world had their way, would be more social worker than law enforcement, he saw one of those officers standing near a wall. Phoenix attempted to activate the anti-graffiti electrodes. He was told that there was a human too close by but Phoenix was able to override that inhibition. The electrodes activated, killing the police officer.

Here’s the point. Why would Phoenix be able to override the safety command? There is no positive benefit for the ability to override that system. It was system was designed to prevent injury. Overriding it could, and in fact, did result in the death of the police officer.

But that’s not the problem that caught my attention. Simon Phoenix, and by extension, the hero, John Spartan, needed to find firearms. Of course, in the world of The Demolition Man, no one has firearms and everyone is somewhat docile. They don’t swear, they sing along with mini-tunes which we think of as advertising jingles, and they don’t seem to have a bad thought in their barbecued brains. Why, they don’t even swap bodily fluids in the course of what we think of as normal activities… You know, they don’t kiss and use a machine to engage in sexual intercourse (can you say Sleeper?).

Both Phoenix and Spartan realize that there will be guns in the museum (though in that world I’m not sure why they’d have a Hall of Violence). Here, on display are all sorts of weapons from hand guns to howitzers. There are “modern” weapons that include some sort of laser weapon that fires explosion bolts of light. There are machine guns and hand grenades and all sorts of ammunition for the various weapons. My question is “Why?”

I can think of no reason that a museum would have, on display, weapons that were still functional. For the rifles, they could have removed the bolts, or at the very least, the firing pins. Why wouldn’t the barrels of the weapons be spiked so that even if they could be fired, the projectile would not leave the weapon.

And all the displays of the ammunition should have been rendered inert. That means that you could have the bullets and the shotgun shells and the artillery shells but there would be no explosives in them.

In fact, you wouldn’t even need to display the real weapons. Mock ups and replicas could serve the purpose and even if someone stole one, it would be of no use to him. The look and feel of the weapons could seem to be real when they were just models to show what the things looked like.

Or, in other words, the weapons wouldn’t work.

To find weapons, Phoenix and Spartan, would have to find another source. There is one, of course. In the movie, there is an underground world. Those who don’t wish to have their lives regulated to the extent those living on the surface are. They have hamburgers, or rat burgers, they live in the squalor of that lower level, and they have all sorts of weapons.

This does lead to another problem and it is Taco Bell, the winner in the “franchise wars.” We’re told that all restaurants, in 2032 are Taco Bell, but Taco Bell is part of Yum Brands that include other restaurants such as KFC (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken) among others. Yum! won the franchise wars so wouldn’t some of the restaurants be KFC or other franchises owed by Yum!

I will note here that, like all movies set in the future, they get so much wrong. I won’t go into all that but instead mention couple of things that seem to be coming. There were the self-driving cars and I think, but 2032 we might have those all over the roads.

They don’t like gasoline, though at one point in the film, it seems that gas makes up an important component of the plot. They’ve done away with toilet paper and replaced them with the three sea shells. I don’t see that happening, and just like John Spartan, I don’t know how they work.

Of course, we must remember that the movie was not made to please me, but to appeal to a wider audience. There are the required fight scenes and the big gunfights. There is some humor that those in the future wouldn’t understand but we do… I’m thinking of the mini-tunes.

I could nitpick the film from this point by why? I enjoyed it and I overlooked the big weapons grab in the museum. I stumbled at that point, but that doesn’t change my impression of the movie. It was a fun film with some nice little insights into the future and some frightening predictions that seem to be coming true… I think “cancel culture,” and the attempts to grab and maintain power by manipulation of the system. It seems to be warning us about those who see the world in one way and wish to impose that vision on the rest of us. You must do this or… well, you’ll find yourself in some sort of trouble because opposition, no matter how well intentioned must be eliminated.

But I digress into political commentary, which, by the way, is one of the aspects of good science fiction. Provide a look into the future, or an alternative future, that is predicated on where we are and where we might be going.

Anyway, if you have an hour or two, and haven’t seen it, The Demolition Man is a fine way to spend a little time. Turn off your brain to ignore the frightening implications of our future and watch Stallone and Wesley Snipes battle one another while the San Angeles police and others watch in horror.

Science Fiction and UFOs

 

Here’s something that I have said for years. When a technologically superior civilization encounters a technologically inferior civilization, that technologicalyl inferior civilization ceases to exist. We have seen numerous examples of this through the course of our history. We don’t have to look very far into the past to see it.

Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man warned the Lakota to leave everything on the battlefield after the defeat of the five companies with George Custer. His point was that they, the Lakota, did not have the technology to reproduce those artifacts, whether they were guns, steel axes and knives, or even the cooking utensils. He knew that an iron pot was better for cooking than a clay pot and a steel ax was sharper than one created from stone. He knew that the Lakota would become dependent on those things and that would alter their society… probably not for the good.

It was in 1960, I believe, that the Brookings Institute published a document in which they made this observation. The superior technology would overwhelm the society without the technology and that would doom that technologically inferior society.

I mention all this now because I just reread a book that my mother bought for me when I was ten. It was a Fawcett Gold Medal science fiction novel entitled Four from Planet Five. It is about four children who arrive at an Antartic research station in what seems to be a spaceship. Clearly, anyone with a spaceship, back in the middle of the twentieth century anyway, had a superior technology.

Normally, this wouldn’t be of interest to anyone into UFOs, and one or two of the things in the book wouldn’t be of interest to those who read science fiction. However, there was something I found on page 59 that might be of interest to both groups.

To quote from the book:

And he had an immense, a fascinated yearning to work with the innumerable possibilities the technology of the children’s race suggested.

“I don’t like any of this,” he commented to Gail. “If they children’s people find out where they are I don’t see how we humans of Earth can survive the contact with so superior a culture. The American Indians collapsed from meeting a civilization not nearly so far ahead of them. The Polynesians died of mere contact with a whale-ship culture. But we’ve got to face something a lot more deadly.”

You can argue that these examples aren’t just of contact but of warfare. Yes, there was fighting between the expansion of the Europeans into the native territories, but it was the superiority of the technology that actually doomed the indigenous peoples. The rifle and pistol were superior to the bow and arrow but the Indians couldn’t make them. They had to rely on the technology of the Europeans and the Americans for those items.

And it wouldn’t have been just weapons. All sorts of items would be introduced and even if the contact had been benign, the end result would have been pretty much the same. The technology would have won.

But the real point is that this concept, which I have quoted often in the past, was out there, in the world of science fiction before the academics had put it down on paper. Oh, there might by other examples of this in the anthropological history of the human race. I just found it interesting that the concept was part of a science fiction novel published in 1959 that has an impact on the world of the UFO.

Four From Planet Five - A Book Review

When I was a kid, only ten or eleven, I was interested in science fiction. While at the super market one day, on one of the racks of paperback books that held genre novels including westerns, mysteries and romances, I spotted Four From Planet Five. I asked if I could have it and my mother agreed. It was only 35 cents, which in those days was a nice bit of money for a book, but she agreed. I have long since decided that she agreed because she wanted to read it too.

Now, for decades, I have hauled that book around. It has followed me as I moved from one state to another, which is to say that I still have it. True, the clue is given away because, as you can see the cover isn’t pristine, but I do have it.

I mention all this because I just reread it after all these years. I remembered nothing about it, except that the kids were supposed to be telepathic. Of course, you could learn that by reading the cover blubs, so that was no big deal.

Clearly, the book, by Murray Leinster, was written quickly. It is fairly short and tells us the story rather than show us much of it. The science is late in the 1950s. The children, that is, the four from planet five, identify Jupiter, not only by its size but by the twelve moons that orbit it. We’re much smarter today because we know the number is 79 plus a couple of moonlet, but I didn’t really care about that…

The children are horrified by the craters on our moon, suggesting that the destruction there was caused by the destruction of the postulated planet in orbit between Mars and Jupiter. The children can’t speak English, of course, and none of the adults can speak their language so there is a communication problem.

Their ship arrives with a sudden burst of static, so powerful, that it is heard on radios and televisions all around the world. I’m not sure about the science here but it sounded something like an electromagnetic pulse which would be more or less line of sight. In other words, the radios and televisions on the other side of the world might not have been affected but that’s just a minor problem.

The main male character, Soames, a scientist, laments that he will never earn enough to support the journalist, Gail Haynes, but that doesn’t stop him from wishing. Of course, that is all turned around when the ship bursts into the airspace over the Antarctic where they both happen to be working. Soames, who is also the helicopter pilot, flies her out to look for the object they are sure is down somewhere near their outpost. It gives him an excuse to hang around with her.

It is clear to me that Leinster knew nothing about helicopter operations, given the way he described the flight. That’s really no big deal, but since I am a helicopter pilot, I spotted this right away and, of course felt the urge to mention it.

Wilson "Bob" Tucker with his
ever present bottle of Beam's.

As an irrelevant aside, Bob Cornett and I wrote a science fiction novel, Seeds of War. We kept getting it rejected. Well, not always. One editor was going to buy it, but he got fired and the book was returned. He tried to buy it at his new publisher, but got fired again. Bob and I knew Wilson Tucker who had published some 25 very good but underappreciated science fiction novels so we asked him to take a look at it. When we visited him at his home, one of the first things he said, “Which one of you is the helicopter pilot?”

I hadn’t thought there was anything particularly insightful about the way I had described the helicopter operations, but Bob (Tucker, aka Wilson and not Bob Cornett) knew that one of us was a helicopter pilot… but I digress.

We learn that the cause of the big static burst was an alien ship that crashed. Flying over it, they saw four children, hardly dressed for the cold, outside the ship. They looked human, but, of course, they couldn’t be.

Here, we see the first of the scenes in which we are told more than we are shown. No big deal, but it was something that I noticed throughout the book.

Sure, the story was okay, but I thought some of the developments in the book were not properly set up. The romance between Soames and Haynes developed a little too quicky. People do fall in love at first sight, but this just seemed rushed to me. Almost within hours, they’re talking about marriage.

And we have the military man… well, woman, Captain Moggs… really, we couldn’t give her a name that was somewhat more attractive. Moggs, of course, isn’t all that bright but is following her orders, such as they are. She is not a nice person, but given the name, what would you expect?

Within a few pages, we have the world on the brink of atomic war because the Americans have access to the children, with the technology that seems to be far superior to anything on Earth. True, Fran, one of the children, blew up the remains of the ship to keep it out of the hand of we savages, but that didn’t stop the rest of the world from believing that Americans had access to all that technology.

Soames makes a few deductions based on very thin information that turn out to be correct. Again, I didn’t think that sufficient evidence was supplied for him to leap to the conclusions that he did because the theory is so radical that I’m not sure it would cross the mind of a scientist. On the other hand, I suspect a science fiction writer would leap to it because it is much more fun than interstellar travel.

There is a sort of nice twist at the end of the book, but I won’t go into that because I see that you can buy the book on Amazon if you’re so inclined. Spoilers, you know.

I will point out that the book felt rushed, meaning that I think Leinster wrote it for the bucks in a hurry. I think it was one of the old-time mystery writers who said that he once locked himself in a hotel room for a weekend to knock out a book. Needed the cash.

It’s a nice story though, but it just isn’t as developed as it could have been. I believe that given that it was Fawcett Gold Medal Book, and since it was a paperback to being with, back in the days when most people looked down their noses at paperback books and paperback writers, I don’t think anyone took the care with it that they would have taken with a hardback.

 That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. I had no trouble getting through it. I saw the flaws and just ignored them. It was a fun story with a hint of romance and a world that was about to go up in flames but then the world is always about to go up in flames. It’s just not a Nebula or Hugo worthy book, but then it wasn’t meant to be. It was designed to appeal the science fiction audience, and that it does. It was designed, I believe, for the quick buck. It’s not a masterpiece but it is a serviceable story. Let’s say three stars, maybe three and a half out of five.