How J G Ballard Invented 'Waterworld'

If You Want To Define 'Production Hell'

'Waterworld' is your go-to film.  Kevin Costner learned a very expensive lesson in why shooting films at sea is always tricky, not to mention costly, and that you cannot control the elements.  The original set sank, having to be replaced at considerable cost, there were delays imposed by re-writes of the script, , the production cost ballooned to $175 million and the world press jumped on it before filming finished as 'washed up'.  Art!

     It made $132 million at the box office, but before you jeer or cheer, it did make an eventual profit when released on video and then on television.  

     What does an Hollywood blockbuster have to do with Ballard, one of the most depressing authors in sci-fi?  O, I thought you'd never ask!  

     In case you missed it, we are now back into the final Intro dealing with '68 Philosophical Sci-Fi Books That Will Melt Your Mind' from the Youtube channel 'Sci-Fi Odyssey'.  Art!

     At No. 8, meet The Drowned World, By J G Ballard, arch-miserablist (1962).  The title says it all: protracted and violent solar storms have affected the Earth's ionosphere, allowing far more solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface, resulting in the sea levels rising enormously.  Some 70 years after this catastrophe, a scientific expedition from the North Pole - now temperate and livable - attempts to catalogue the flora and fauna that inhabit a vast lagoon covering London.  They find a landscape turned tropical, with giant alligators and iguanas holding sway.

     If this sounds exciting, sit back down.  Ballard is more interested in the psychological breakdown suffered by expedition members than anything that might raise your pulse.  Despite being recognised as the primary work in climate change sci-fi, it's never been filmed or televised, because who would want to watch 90 minutes of people having a mental breakdown and psychological regression?

No. 7: Midshipman's Hope by David Feintuch (1994).  Another Nope.  Let me dig.  Ah, a member of that subset known as 'military science fiction'.  In this case, the ascension to command of a starship by the 17-year old Midshipman Nicholas Seafort, after a series of unfortunate events - hmmm that sounds familiar - kill all the other officers.  Art!

     FYI, a Midshipman was the lowest form of officer on a Royal Navy warship, worth considerably less than the experienced petty officers, since he was there to - you may be ahead of me here - gain experience.

     Sounds like the complete counterpoint to Ballard.

No. 6: The Hidden Girl by Ken Liu (2020).  Yet another Nope.  Urgh, the blurb claims that it's a work of 'speculative fiction', which always makes Conrad shudder in distaste.  If it's sci-fi, CALL IT sci-fi and don't be so Dog Buns pretentious.  A collection of short stories.  Art!

     I can see her pretty plainly, but perhaps that's just the new varifocals.

     ANYWAY because it's a short story collection, any descriptive blurb is terse and economical with the words.  It seems to be highly contemporary, dealing with issues such as cryptocurrency and AI, the first of which is a scamble and the latter possibly Hom. Sap. creating it's own demise.

No. 5: Axiomatic By Greg Egan (1995).  Him again! and another Nope.  Let me go trawl teh Interwebz.  Oho and aha, another short story collection, stuff he wrote in the late Eighties and early Nineties.  Art!

     Mr. Egan is known for his 'hard sci-fi' narratives, meaning that what he writes is scientifically plausible, coherent and consistent.  No light sabres or anti-gravity, sorry.  The blurb does mention brain implants and dolphins speaking in limericks.  Flipper heck.  I shall nick a bit of the expository on teh Interwebz:

Explores the nature of reality, identity, free will, and the impact of technology on humanity. 

     Nothing too heavy then.

No. 4 - 1:  Downbelow Station; Merchanter's Luck; Cyteen; Regenesis By C J Cherryh  (1981, 1982, 1988, 2009)

Yes, I'm cheating here by doing 4 at once.  Sue me, see if I care.  The only one of this quartet I've read is DS, probably 40 years ago.  Her actual surname - gasp! another female sci-fi author! - is 'Cherry' but she added the extra 'H' because her editor said her real name sounded like a woman who wrote Mills & Boon books.

     ANYWAY IIRC DS is another military sci-fi subgenre entry.  Art!

     The novel is set in a future where Earth and it's rebellious colonies are waging war on each other, and the station of the title is a strategically important space station orbiting the planet Pell's World in the Tau Ceti star system.  I seem to recall the narrative point of view jumping around a lot and <ahem> skipped the more boring chapters.

     AND with that I am done.  You can look those 3 others up, I've gotten the Word Count up to 800 and we can now move on to other topics for Intros.  You're welcome.

I Hope You Have A Strong Stomach

Conrad does.  I still remember Francine saying I ought to leave my body to science, as only then would the world discover my secret for not dying from food poisoning.  

      ANYWAY AGAIN, as you may remember I have been Bookmarking a few of the truly hideous photos of Donold Judas Trump on Twitter, and recently came across one that is new to me, which I will share with you.  Art!

     He looks as if he's chewing a lemon filled with broken glass and urine.  Also, who is that character from 'Preacher' he reminds me of?

     Ah yes that's the one Bottomholeface.  Who is actually a sweetie on the inside, which is not what you can say about King Piggy.

     Never mind 5 years of social media posts, a single week of BOOJUM! would get me permanently barred from South Canada.

How Very Apt!

Yesteryon we published a picture by Terence Cuneo, of a De Havilland Vampire jet fighter undergoing maintenance.  Today we have another of Tel's paintings, titled 'Construction Of The Manchester Metrolink', done in 1991.  Art!

     I think Tel has taken a bit of poetic licence here, as it's dry, bright and sunny, three words that tend not to apply to Gomorrah On The Irwell.   From the background detail, I think this is the Great Bridgewater Street Bridge.  Art!

Complete and from the opposite side

More Gentle Shoeing

Maybe not so gentle.  Sarah Paine, eminent academic and historian, was having a chat with Pyotr Kurzin on Youtube and gleefully wondered at what chance there was of Bunker Gargoyle Midget dying of a heart attack or stroke, due to the immense pressure he's under.  A non-zero chance, I assert.  If you catch him minus the makeup and special lighting, he looks haggard and ten years older than he really is.

     ANYWAY ANYWAY Art!

     "Pressurize Moscow", to round it off.  $22 per barrel is about half of what it costs to actually extract Urals crude.  Wowsers, this is bad for Mordorvia.  Their state budget for 2026 relied on oil selling for $59 dollars per barrel and now they're getting almost a third of that.  Someone in Moscow is going to be jumping from a window, or sipping on a tasty cup of polonium tea, even though everything is going according to plan.

     In a further note, I saw a news item saying three major Ruffian construction companies had gone bankrupt, and I wondered if there'd been a typo in the headline.  Art!

     Do they mean £900 million, perhaps?

     Nope.

SC Donstroy in the city of Rostov-on-Don collapsed into bankruptcy after accumulating a debt of 11 million rubles (£105,000).

     

    This is bonkers!  £105,000 is peanuts for a major business organisation, yet it goes toes-up without being able to refinance or negotiate credit or work out a payment plan or sell off some assets?  Things are indeed bad in Mordorvia.

     Which is great for me, it creates lots of content!

Finally -

More from my "QI Book Of Banter", which I like to sprinkle amongst the Biercisms.  

"Laws are like sausages.  It is better not to know how they are made." - Otto Von Bismark.  Ha!  Who would have thought that the Teuton's Iron Chancellor had such a sense of humour.