The Rev-Up Editorial Archive
1998
I'm no expert. I've no formal qualifications in English Literature beyond GCE 'O' level. I'm not particularly well-read -- I don't have time to be. But I am fussy about what I read. I don't read fast (I once timed myself reading a novel -- it worked out about 10,000 words an hour). My reading time is precious, so I choose carefully what to read, basing my choices on recommendations, reviews and past experiences of an author's work.
And recently I've reviewed what I've read. That's why The Rev-Up Review Pages contain reviews of books by famous authors, even though a particular book may be the only work of that author I've read. I like to think, therefore, that I come to these works fresh, without prejudice, and I try to be as honest as I can in my reviews.
Inevitably, as I'm choosy about my reading, I'll more often praise a book than slate it. I probably won't read a book of which I've no prior knowledge, nor will I read one that's been universally declared a turkey (unless paid to review it).
Usenet is a rich source of opinions on the worth of any published work; one only has to ask about the book in question in a relevant Newsgroup to receive much (often conflicting) advice. And of course there are the 'review websites' -- of which Rev-Up is just one of many.
This is the last Rev-Up editorial of 1998. To everyone who has dropped in to The Rev-Up Review Pages: Good luck for the coming year, the last of the millennium. Make it special.
Copyright © 1998 Paul S. Jenkins
We're all doomed! Doomed, I say!
At midnight on December 31, 1999 the world will end. Or at least come to a standstill. Or some of it will.
That's what we're led to believe by the Year 2000 computer-bug Cassandras. Many of these doom-mongers are going around, in the throes of pre-millennial tension, telling us it's already too late.
They may have a point. The small business and the home user can easily check their systems -- any device using a two-digit date can be temporarily advanced to check for correct rollover to January 1, 2000, and for correct rollover to leap-day and the day after. This of course applies to computers too. Software that does calculations with dates can be checked with dummy data. Patches for most modern PC applications are freely available if required.
Home users can therefore verify their own systems without recourse to expensive consultants. The banks and utilities, however, are different. They are perhaps the most vulnerable, as are hospitals, but this is something the private user can do little about. All major service-providers are proclaiming they will be Year 2000 compliant, but they'd be unlikely to announce they've got problems even if they had them. And there's no way the public can check for itself.
So, fix what you can at home -- the big stuff will either be okay or it won't; there's nothing you can do about it anyway.
Why worry? As the Cassandras are warning us, it's already too late.
Recently I went to see The Phantom of the Opera -- the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical. I saw it in Toronto, though I understand the production is the same world-wide. The irony of flying half-way across the globe and seeing a production that originated in my home country was not lost on me.
Phantom is very popular and we were lucky to get tickets at very short notice. I had, of course, heard about the chandelier.
The first act started with an auction -- the disposal of notorious artefacts from the famous opera house -- and then the scene was set, immediately launching from the drab, dust-sheet-covered stage, into an astonishing flashback where the opera house came alive again, drapes hauling roofward in their former glorious colour, props uncovered in pristine clarity, and the enormous chandelier gathering itself up -- flickering lights persisting to a steady glow -- rising majestically upwards and outwards over the stalls, ascending in glory to its rightful place at the very top of the Pantages auditorium. All this to splendid rousing orchestration. Oh yes! What a beginning! We're in for a treat tonight!
Or so I thought. There were two other scenes of similar quality to that remarkable opening coup de theatre: One when the diva was lured away by the Phantom, traversing an inclined catwalk back and forth as it zig-zagged its way above the stage; the other a scene where the Phantom punted the diva across a mist-shrouded river, as a myriad of what appeared to be lighted candles arose from the deep. This scene was repeated in the second half. In another colourful scene everyone wore elaborate, intricate and unique costumes and pranced up and down a wide staircase. As for the chandelier -- it crashed onto the stage just before the interval. Or rather, it descended gracefully and landed like Dumbo-on-a-hovercraft. They couldn't crash it, of course, else they'd have to re-assemble it every day (and twice on Saturdays). After the splendid opening this was a serious anticlimax, and yet we were only half-way through.
But in fact it was already over by half-time. I've seen a fair number of shows, including Les Miserables, Guys and Dolls, Show Boat, Starlight Express, amongst others, and more recently a London revival of Oklahoma!; I was expecting great things from Lloyd-Webber, especially as Phantom is so well reputed, and because I've enjoyed more than one production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I know that Lloyd-Webber can write a good tune.
The Phantom of the Opera suffered from extended stretches of banality, and though it had three truly stunning set pieces, including a magnificent opening, the rest of the evening failed to deliver on their promise.
Copyright © 1998 Paul S. Jenkins
I've always liked autumn -- or 'fall,' for you folks across the pond. The sight of Mother Nature battening down the hatches, preparing for the coming onslaught, has always exhilarated me.
The new spring is all very well, but by then the hard work's done. The year's rebirth is a wonder of the natural world, but it's an achievement bought by nature's careful husbandry: the meticulous preparations of autumn.
The first chill, sunlit morning, icy air clear to the horizon, reminds me of the things I need to do, people I need to see, letters I need to write -- as if the winter's preview is a benign memento mori, hastening me to completion. I love it.
But now, on to fictive speculation...
What is SF? -- Drawing the line
SF, by which I mean speculative fiction, as distinct from that other stuff -- mainstream or literary fiction -- defies absolute definition. "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it," Damon Knight famously said. The same holds true for the wider field of speculative fiction, though quite how wide that field is, I'll be coming to.
Defining SF is like defining 'art' or 'games' -- it's an amorphous arbitrary area. In my opinion, it can't be defined. Some have argued there's no such thing as speculative fiction as a separate genre. I go along with this -- but in reverse: there's no such thing as mainstream as a separate genre.
All fiction is, to a degree, speculative. Any that isn't speculative ceases to be fiction and becomes fact. Fiction involving imaginary characters, for example Thomas Hardy's Wessex stories, is speculative -- he changed the names of places he knew, peopling these real settings with characters he'd invented, in the process creating an alternative Dorset, albeit very like the real one.
Publishers and booksellers like to draw lines -- romance here; crime here; sci-fi (that means Star Trek, mostly) here; fantasy here; horror there. It's reassuring to go into a bookshop and know where to look for a swords-and-sorcery epic, if that's what you're after. Suppose, however, you're looking for a famous novel about how an experimental surgical technique affects the life of its subject? For fiction about medical science you might try looking in the science fiction section. You're more likely to find Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon shelved near Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. No robots, spaceships or ray-guns (and no virtual reality), so it can't be SF.
The Rev-Up page will contain reviews of speculative fiction. By my reckoning all fiction is to some extent speculative, so you know what to expect.
Copyright © 1998 Paul S. Jenkins
Well, here it is at last -- something I've been meaning to do for some time. It's an ego-trip, pure self-promotion, of course, that's led to the Rev-Up reviews page...
Welcome to the first Rev-Up editorial, a monthly (or thereabouts) rant wherein you'll find opinionated ramblings by the Rev-Master, on any subject that takes his fancy.
The Rev-Up reviews page is now live. There are only a few book reviews so far, but more are on their way, as well as reviews of magazines, films, TV etc. The Rev-Up reviews page will cover the broad genre that is speculative fiction, and though this includes science fiction, fantasy and horror, as well as their various sub-genres such as dark fantasy, alternat(iv)e history and the rest, and those cross-genre works loosely called slipstream, it's likely that some reviews will fall outside all these categories. (And why not? For an interesting on-line discussion of the 'literature of the fantastic' see the Shadowlink website at http://members.aol.com/ttaldyer/index.html.)
If the Rev-Up reviews page is successful -- although I'm not sure how I'll gauge that -- I may introduce a guest page, where reviews by people other than the Rev-Master (that's me, in case you hadn't realised) will appear.
If you have any comments, feel free to email the Rev-Master. A selection of responses may (or may not) appear in the Rev-Up reviews page (the Rev-Master will assume that emails are available for posting on the website unless they state to the contrary).
Copyright © 1998 Paul S. Jenkins