Out Of The Cylon Planet

On the second attempt, I finished reading Out Of The Silent Planet, the unnecessary first book of C. S. Lewis' unnamed science fiction trilogy. The hero is kidnapped, and taken to a mysterious planet by an evil scientist and his preppie. He escapes, and discovers that every other sentient life form in the solar system lives a good and righteous life except for man. Then, he gets sent back to Earth and complains that the story you have just read left out all the best parts.

This might very well be the weakest book in the trilogy, for all I know. However, the weakest book in the Chronicles of Narnia features a giantess using a steel girder as a club. In contrast, Out Of The Silent Planet climaxes with an astronaut complaining how hot it gets in space.

If I'm going to talk about the science fiction religious allegories of yesteryear, I should also talk about Battlestar Galactica. I have a working theory that any time a mystery is presented to the viewers, it's the show's way of saying that they don't know either. What is the connection between the barely explained human religion and the utterly unexplained Cylon religion? You can be assured that your guess is exactly as good as the writing staff's. After two and a half seasons, all I know about Cylon Jesus is that he doesn't like people very much.

And that's why you should never admit the full extent to which you're making up the story as you go along. In a book, when the scene switches to the main villain's perspective and he thinks about his master plan in the vaguest of terms, I'm only annoyed at the bad writing. It never occurs to me that perhaps Jeffery Deaver doesn't know what's going on, either.

Running Late, Again

I’ve been reading Out of the Silent Planet at work. So far, I can barely remember a damn thing about it, and most of those are the notes the book’s previous owner left for me.

“Ransome examines space."
“This seems like a flimsy excuse for Ransome to stay.”
“Background Information.”

Still not as amusing as the copy of The Runes Of The Earth I read, which begins with book-report style margin notes, and eventually degrades into swearing whenever Linden Avery does something stupid. Which, being a Thomas Covenant novel, is fairly often. (If the protagonist endangers the arc of time, take a drink.)

Meanwhile, I’ve started playing video games again, after a one year hiatus. Which means that I’m now buying video games again. While the sales clerks are more desperate than ever to super-size my purchase, they don’t seem to understand that I need to be bribed. Purchasing the right to purchase an item when it comes into the store doesn’t do much for me. However, I was the bewildered owner of a “Viewtiful Joe” bobblehead for a time.

As I recall, the bobblehead was in my possession for longer than the game was.