The Crown season 3: Outstanding Story, Worthy Chapters

The Crown is back on Netflix with a third season, and almost a completely new cast, with Olivia Colman as Elizabeth, Tobias Menzies as Philip, etc.  I liked the cast and the episodes even more than I did the first two seasons.

Among favorite storylines as episodes -

• Prince Charles (very well played by Josh O'Connor) had at least two episodes devoted to his growing into full adulthood.  One finds him in Wales learning the Welsh language.  The other has him back in England, falling in love with Camilla Shand.  In both cases, we find Charles to be more thoughtful, almost philosophic and tender, than we might have thought.  And the second episode shows Elizabeth at first not against Charles marrying Camilla.  It's only when she learns that Camilla's other boyfriend, Parker Bowles, also slept with Princess Anne, that Elizabeth joins the rest of her family in opposing the marriage.  All in all, very sensitively portrayed.
• Speaking of philosophy, there's an outstanding episode portraying Philip's reaction to the Americans landing on the Moon in 1969.  This event is expertly woven into Philip's midlife crisis, more specifically into Philip's need to find some greater meaning in life.  His idea that the astronauts, having been off this planet, may have experienced some greater meaning, and could convey it to Philip, makes perfect sense, and was the motive for my own anthology, Touching the Face of the Cosmos.  And it also made a different kind of sense that Philip, disappointed with what the astronauts told him, found a spiritual satisfaction of sorts right here on Earth.
• The literally political stuff was also excellent, with Elizabeth adopting to and herding changes in Prime Ministers, from Churchill to Wilson to Heath to Wilson.  But where were the Beatles, and their "Uh oh, Mr. Wilson, Uh oh, Mr. Heath"?
• Margaret, played to the saucy hilt by Helena Bonham Carter in two episodes, one bonding with the coarse Lyndon Johnson, the other trying to divest herself of her philandering husband, was also top drawer.
• And, just good measure, let me throw in what a good job Charles Dance did as Mountbatten, first almost pulling off a coup, next steering Charles away from his true love.

So The Crown season 3 was outstanding in all kinds of ways, moving Elizabeth's story along - I forgot to say how effectively she was portrayed in the Welsh mining disaster, finding her tears and heart, at long last - and telling individual stories about love, philosophy, and politics which are worthy on their own.  I heartily recommend it.

See also  The Crown season 1: Peerless ...  The Crown season 2: Standing Ovation

Falling Skies 4.9: To the Moon, Anne, To the Moon!

The big story development in Falling Skies 2.9 - the second good episode in a row - is the discovery that the Espheni are controlling their operations from a base on the moon - on our moon, that is.  This leads to a good rendition by Tom of JFK's exhortation that we'll get to the moon by the end of the decade - the 1960s - except, of course, that Tom wants to start working on this right away.

Anne, sometimes the voice of reason, thinks it's a crazy, unworkable idea.  But Tom talk her into it, even before they're formally married, in a nice ceremony performed old reliable Weaver.   But it's good to see the moon brought into Falling Skies.

The moon, unsurprisingly, has been the focus of some of the best science fiction ever written, ranging from Robert Heinlein's Moon is Harsh Mistress to David S. Michaels and Daniel Brenton's Red Moon, the best science fiction novel that you probably never heard of.   And what's not to like about the moon as part of the story of Falling Skies?  It's a great locale because, after all, we indeed actually set foot on it in 1969, and a few times after, though nowhere nearly enough.

Indeed, the Espheni use of the moon can be seen as a good argument for us to get cracking as a species and get ourself on the moon in a more permanent way.   If we had actually done that by now in our reality, we might have seen the Espheni approaching before they wreaked havoc on us, and might have even be able to take out their base.

But, then, there would gave been no Falling Skies, and though I wouldn't have missed the show all that much earlier this season, it's finally come alive in the month of August.   Looks like some good episodes ahead this season and next.

See Red Moon: The Best Novel You Likely Never Heard Of

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling ... Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy ...Falling Skies 4.7: Massacre Indeed ... Falling Skies 4.8: Spike ... Falling Skies Espheni: How to Pronounce?

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

#SFWApro


no moon, no aliens, but other strange stuff

get Season 4 of Falling Skies on

Mad Men Mid-Season 7 Finale: Telescope vs. Television

A thoroughly excellent, even inspiring, mid-season 7 finale of Mad Men tonight, in which my favorite scene was the boy showing Sally the heavens through the telescope, which he correctly says is much better than watching the Moon landing on television.   The reason, unstated but profound, is that what we through the telescope is real and unedited, in contrast to what we usually see on television, which when not outrightly fiction is heavily edited and lacerated with commercials.

This serves as a good metaphor for everything that Mad Men is about, the difference between reality and edited reality, and the role of edited reality in selling.   Peggy does a masterful job at this as she comes through brilliantly at Burger Chef.   And Don does the same when he talks Ted into staying with the company - crucial in Roger's deal to save the company and Don's job.

I'd expected Joan to support Don, especially after Bert's death, but she didn't quite, and I don't quite get why she didn't.   But it was a pleasure indeed to see Roger put it all together and run with it to success when he was given the opportunity.

Bert will be missed.  Even tonight, he thinks Don is "a pain in the ass," but is more angry that his name was put to Jim's decree without Bert's permission, so he voted to keep Don in the firm.  That kind of quirky but incisive reasoning was a quality in short supply with these characters.



And Bert's curtain call, as a figment of Don's imagination, was just the thing, and a great way to end this demi-season.   Robert Morse was a song and dance man, and he sang and danced just great tonight. This episode was fittingly the best of this season, and I can't wait to see the final seven in 2015.

See also Mad Men 7.1: Vignettes and Playboy ... Mad Men 7.2:  Flowers and the Hung-Up Phone ... Mad Men 7.3: "Lunch with Rod Serling" ... Mad Men 7.4: Computer! ... Mad Men 7.5: Retrofit Paranoia ... Mad Men 7.6: The Dance

And see also Mad Men 6.1-2: The Lighter and the Twist ... Mad Men 6.3: Good Company ... Mad Men 6.4: McLuhan, Heinz, and Don's Imagination ... Mad Men 6.5: MLK ... Mad Men 6.6: Good News Comes in a Chevy ...  Mad Men 6.7: Merger and Margarine ... Mad Men 6.8: Dr. Feelgood and Grandma Ida ... Mad Men 6.9: Don and Betty ... Mad Men 6.10: Medium Cool ... Mad Men 6.11: Hand in the Cookie Jar and Guy de Maupassant ... Mad Men 6.12: Rosemary's Baby, Dick Cheney, and Sunkist ... Mad Men Season 6 Finale: Beyond California

And see also Why "You Only Live Twice" for Mad Men Season 5 Finale ... Mad Men Season Five Finale

And see also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party  ... Mad Men 5.3: Heinz Is On My Side ... Mad Men 5.4: Volunteer, Dream, Trust ... Mad Men 5.5: Ben Hargrove ... Mad Men 5.6: LSD Orange ... Mad Men 5.7: People of High Degree ... Mad Men 5.8: Mad Man and Gilmore Girl ...Mad Men 5.9: Don's Creativity  ... Mad Men 5.10: "The Negron Complex" ... Mad Men 5.11: Prostitution and Power ... Mad Men 5.12: Exit Lane

And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..." 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback  ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ...4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking!  ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ...Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ...Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

  

The Best Novel You Likely Never Heard Of

No, it's not one of my mine.   And I do this every few years - blog about a novel that's not only one of the best you likely never heard of, but, for what it's worth, is one of the best I've ever read.  I guess I should also mention that the novel is science fiction - which means, it's not competing with Austen or Dickens or Tolstoy or Hemingway.   But I should also say that I think science fiction always has a leg up - a page up? a screen up? - on all other kinds of literature, because science fiction deals with makes us quintessentially human, which I take to not just accept what the universe deals out, not just cope with it, but strive to change the universe itself.

The novel is by David S. Michaels and Daniel Brenton.

You never heard of them, right?

They published a novel, in the year 2000, entitled Red Moon (not to be confused with Michael Cassutt's novel of same name published around the same time, and the half a dozen other novels by the same name published since then). Cassutt's novel is good. Dave Michael and Daniel Brenton's is among the best three or four novels I've ever read, period - as I already said.

The background of the novel: I've always been fascinated by the collapse of the Soviet space program in the 1960s. The Soviets jump-started the space age with Sputnik in 1957. They got the first animals and then the first people up into space. They sent spacecraft – with no people – to the moon. They were on the verge of getting people there.

They inspired John F. Kennedy – in the senses of both wonder and security – to put the U.S. on a course to send a human to the moon and safely back by the end of the decade. Which we did.

But the Soviets never made it. Their move into space hit a strange stone wall. And the lack of continuing competition between the Soviets and us was likely the most significant factor in the fizzling of our own efforts in space.  Forty-five years later, and we have yet to set foot on the moon again, or anywhere beyond the space station.

What happened to the Soviet space program? The death of its mastermind, Sergei Korolev in 1966, no doubt was a grievous blow.  But… I don't know… there were a lot of other talented people working in the Soviet space program. The death of one man, however important, should not have led to the crash of the entire program.

Red Moon provides some breathtaking science fictional answers.

How I found out about the novel: It was at a reading I was giving at a science fiction convention – Balticon (in Baltimore) in the Spring of 2001. David S. Michaels came up to me after the reading, with a copy of my novel, The Silk Code, for me to autograph. Then he pulled a 600-page book out of his backpack, and asked me to please accept it, as a gift.

I wasn't sure what to say. First, traveling back from Baltimore to New York by train (I love driving, but trains even more) is no fun with a heavy bag of books, which I already had. Second, as a writer, I find I don't read as much fiction as I would like – if I'm writing a novel, which I usually am, reading someone else's can throw me off course. But ...

There was something about Dave, and I was already keenly interested in the subject, so I thanked him for the present and added it to my bag (it was filled with non-fiction books, by the way, which I do read when I can).

It was well into June before I had a chance to open Red Moon. And when I did – well, I couldn't put it down. It might as well have been a new Foundation novel. The subject, the plot, the characters, the writing was brilliant. I contacted Dave right away, told him how much I enjoyed the novel. It had been published by a very small press. I told him I would try to get it to the attention of a bigger publisher.

Which I did… But all of this was right before September 11, 2001, when lots of things changed in the publishing world (most of which is headquartered in New York City). And in the aftermath, at least the publishers that I had been in contact with were doing other things, and cutting back their acquisition lists.

And so, nothing more happened with Dave Michaels and Daniel Brenton's Red Moon. I listed it as my #1 favorite first science fiction novel on a list I started on Amazon. (It's a pretty exclusive list. I'd highly recommend Bob Katz's Edward Maret, which is #2 on the list. Wen Spencer's Alien Taste and Larry Ketchersid's Dusk Before Dawn are there, too.  I've put up and expanded the list on Goodreads, where you and everyone can add books and vote on their ranking.)

Amazon's Kindle revolution now has given Red Moon a new life. (I also have a reader review of the novel there.)  Kindle has been doing this for lots of novels, including many of mine.   (The Red Moon paperback is still available.)

If you're at all interested in the space race, what could have been, why what happened — and didn't happen – happened, the extraordinary human struggle to reach the cosmos, give yourself a treat, and get a copy of this novel. Trust me – you'll be caught up in an adventure, in an intrigue of alternate and real history, that you'll never forget.




#SFWApro

Mad Men 5.7: People of High Degree

Well, Megan's father certainly has one, formally - as we find out in Mad Men 5.7, he has a PhD - but as for his humanity, and most of the rest of the characters, we get another stellar performance to the contrary, in this fine, feisty episode.

Back on the "beans, beans, the musical fruit" front, Megan comes up with a great idea for pain-in-the-ass Heinz: a commercial that will show families eating Heinz throughout the ages, from prehistoric times to the present and on to the Moon in the future.   It's a sad note, to my eyes - that the Moon was still a symbol of the future in the 1960s - and the client loves it.   Megan, actually, is a person of high degree, as Don is beginning to more fully realize.

So is Peggy, who truly congratulates Megan, even after Peggy failing with Heinz as we saw previously.  And so is Joan - which we already knew - who congratulates Peggy after Abe asks her to "shack up" with him, a little less of a proposal than Peggy was hoping for after Abe had invited her to a special dinner just the two of them.  But as Joan wisely says, this does show how much Abe cares about Peggy.

Not so Peggy's mother, one of the most horrible characters in the series, who walks out on dinner with Peggy and Abe after they tell her the news, and then lectures Peggy on Abe's using her.  Peggy has struggled with her mother most of her life.   And in one of the best scenes in a night of excellent scenes, Peggy asks her mother if she wants her to be lonely.   Peggy's mother answers: if you don't want to be lonely, get a cat.  (This, I guess, being the embittered in love equivalent of if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.)

Sally has a good night - Don lets her accompany Megan and her parents and Roger to the award ceremony (which Don is receiving for his anti-smoking screed) - until the end of the evening, which I'll get to in a moment.   At the ceremony, Megan's father expresses his disappointment in her - not a very nice father  - while her mother, aware of her husband's transgressions, winds up in a back room pleasuring suave Roger.   This is what Sally sees at the end of the evening.   It's been quite a year for her along these lines, having seen Megan somewhat naked in bed in the morning earlier this season.

But in many ways the worst blow is taken by Don, who finds out near the end of the evening that the people at the awards ceremony - people whom Don sees as potential clients - really hate him for his anti-smoking declaration, because it showed that Don could turn turncoat on a client.  It's an apt lesson in a show about selling, and resonates with Matthew Weiner's work on The Sopranos, where anyone who was applauding you could just as likely be enemy as friend .   Not likely to be the case, though, with fans of Mad Men, including me.

See also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party  ... Mad Men 5.3: Heinz Is On My Side ... Mad Men 5.4: Volunteer, Dream, Trust ... Mad Men 5.5: Ben Hargrove ... Mad Men 5.6: LSD Orange

And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..."  4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback  ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ... 4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking!  ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Good for Gingrich Talking about the Moon

Newt Gingrich has received considerable ridicule and flack for his statement that we would have a permanent base on the Moon by the end of his second term as President, and when the Moon attained 13,000 permanent settlers, it could become another U.S. state.

I say, good for Gingrich for thinking so big.  We need more of that.  One of the reasons our efforts in space have stagnated is because no one after JFK had the requisite vision to see us get off this planet in a sustained way.

The fact is that we are citizens of the cosmos, not just this Earth.  We'll never truly understand who we are, what we're doing here, from a vantage point stuck down here on this planet.   Carl Sagan got this.  Isaac Asimov understood this.  Unfortunately, not enough politicians and Presidents.

Although I expect to vote for Barack Obama in this election, as I did in 2008, I was never happy with his weak position on space.  Obama has been no better on space than his predecessors after JFK, and in some ways worse.

Conversely, I'm not likely to vote for Gingrich (though, if I were a Republican, I would over Romney).  I get that he's presumtuous about the second term. I get that he's grandiose.   But sometimes, as in the grandeur of space, that could be a good thing.

Forty Years from the Moon, and Still Counting

Forty years since we humans walked on the Moon - on July 20, 1969.

I was thrilled at the time, and still am, but I already could tell then that it would be a long time before our species got much farther. Lots of people, even back then, didn't seem to care all that much about this extraordinary accomplishment - the most extraordinary, in many ways, in our history.

Some said, back then, that it was the Vietnam War - that it soured many people on anything connected with the military. But it was more than that. I think there are some people, many people, who just didn't and still don't see the big deal about getting off this planet and out into space.

For me, it's always seemed crystal and pressingly clear. And the reason is not just scientific, or economic, though they play a part.

But the main reason is simply this: we'll never know truly who we are from our vantage point down on this planet. We live on a planet that is part of an immensely larger universe. And until see some more of that, first hand, we'll be lacking a crucial piece of our self-awareness and discovery. To borrow from Socrates, we'll never be able to truly know ourselves from just on this planet.

And once, against all odds, we did make it off this planet, and more than once. But we followed up with missions, which though heroic and valuable, have not really pushed the human envelope beyond the Moon.

Where will we be 40 years from now?

I hope further than where we were 40 years ago, and where we still are today.




5-min podcast about the Moon