About Bob Dylan's Science Fiction Novel

@bobdylan

Bob Dylan on Instagram

Dylan posted the above on Instagram yesterday (my son Simon Vozick-Levinson alerted me to it this morning). On Instagram and Reddit, and probably in other places, people are speculating that if Dylan did write it, he used AI to write it. I’m no expert on AI, but I’ve been listening to Dylan’s lyrics since the 1960s, and the excerpt he posted certainly seems consonant with the style and content of his lyrics. 

 Lyrics often repeat ideas and feelings — indeed, that’s what choruses explicitly do. And the ideas and emotion presented in this excerpt feel like a lyric — a song without music, lamenting, protesting, objecting to the danger, the destruction of our democracy that we see happening all around us, every day. I’m glad to see a man who actually won the Nobel Peace prize come out and assess this, decry this, in his own inimitable way. 

His novel/lyric aim in particular at universities who acquiesce, crumble under the pressure of the Trump administration and his allies. I’m looking at you, Columbia University. 

And, by the way, Dylan’s no stranger to science fiction. His Frankenstein-like song, "My Own Version of You" in his Rough and Rowdy Ways LP in 2020, is a funny, great little piece of science fiction, in one of his best albums. We the people who believe in freedom and democracy need all the help we can get in these desperate days, and it’s welcome indeed to have Dylan stepping up and in any way he can.

See also Dylan's Murder Most Foul: From Then To Now

The Copenhagen Test: Don't Try to Pass It, Watch It

Binged The Copenhagen Test -- eight episodes -- on Peacock the past the two nights.  It's billed as a spy thriller, which it certainly is.  But in as much as Alexander Hale (powerfully played by Simu Liu, pretty much first time I've seen him, ok I saw him in Barbie) is a spy who discovers he's been hacked -- everything he sees and hears is streamed by his brain to whomever has the receiver -- I'd say The Copenhagen Test easily qualifies as cyberpunk, a well-known branch of science fiction.  I mean, I guess this kind of neural hack is related to Elon Musk's Neuralink, but that's a very first step, and the hack in The Copenhagen Test is already serious big business for the Orphanage, the US spy agency that monitors the CIA, the FBI, etc.

Now, I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot, because one of the many strengths of The Copenhagen Test are the twists and turns which multiply faster than Frank the Bunny in Donnie Darko.  Indeed, just when you think you've been told the whole story, you're dealt another curve ball, and the only way to really know the story is over is when the eighth episode is completed, and even then, well ,,,

Along the same lines, the morphing of heroes into villains and vice versa is the most I've seen or read in any story.   But it all makes pretty much sense in the end, and my only regret is that The Copenhagen Test didn't have the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains" as its theme song.

About the acting:  As I said, Simu Liu was superb.  So was Brian d'Arcy James as Peter Moira, someone pretty high up in the Orphanage, whom my wife immediately recognized from The Family McMullen, which we saw last week.  Sinclair Daniel and Melissa Barrera were both indelible in their parts, and you can't go wrong with Saul Rubinek, especially when there's so much action in his character's restaurant.

And trust me, if you're a fan of spy narratives and cyberpunk, even if you're not, you can't go wrong with The Copenhagen Test.

 

Science fiction sampler

Thanks Bob Hutchins for the soundtrack via Udio AI

Kindred: A Slice of Roots, with Time Travel

Just binged Kindred on Hulu the past two nights.  It's a time travel story unlike anything I've ever seen or read (I haven't read the Octavia Butler* novel from which it's adapted).  And it's powerful, beautiful, tender, and tough, and altogether superb.

*Back in 2000, I drove down to Philadelphia to personally give M. Night Shyamalan the Science Fiction Writers of America award for best movie for The Sixth Sense (I was President of SFWA then). I met him on the set -- a comic book store -- where he was filming his next movie, Unbreakable. Samuel L. Jackson, starring in the movie, was on the set. After I gave Shyamalan the award, Jackson asked me, "when are you going to give the Grand Master Award to Octavia Butler?" I told him the award recipient had already been selected for the following year, and my term as SFWA President was ending. But Samuel L. Jackson was surely right!

But back to Kindred the TV series [some general spoilers ahead ... ]

It's the kind of time travel story in which there are no machines or devices to cause the travel, which makes Kindred science fantasy not science fiction.  Time travel that's science fiction descends from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine; time travel that's science fantasy from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  A more recent example is Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife.  In these kinds of stories, the time traveler is pulled backwards or forwards in time by some mysterious, inchoate force.  Usually, often, the pulling is beyond the time traveler's control.  But if the time traveler understands what is happening and maybe why, there's a chance he or she can get the better of it, or at least to some extent control it.

In Kindred, Dana (perfectly played by Mallori Johnson) from 2016 America is pulled back to Maryland in the early 1800s, way before the Civil War.  She gradually comes to understand the rules of this involuntary sojourn.  She has to save a boy Rufus, who, she eventually learns, is one of her ancestors.  Same for Alice who creates Dana's line with Rufus.  There's one other thing:  Dana is black, Rufus is white, and Alice is black. 

Though we learn the significance of Alice at the very end of the final (8th) episode, relationships between the races are the heart and soul of this story. Kevin (also very played, by Micah Stock) in the present is white, and he and Dana bond and start to fall in love, as Kevin accompanies Dana when she's pulled back in time because he's holding her.  (An important metaphysical rule in this time travel is the time traveler takes with her anything that's she's holding -- which creates another good reason for Dana and Kevin to stay together). Thomas (good performance by Ryan Kwanten) is a slaveholder who first takes in Dana and Kevin -- thinking Dana is Kevin's slave -- and Thomas turns out to be as vicious and cruel as they come, an articulate monster.  As a story of plantation life, Kindred almost seems at times to be a slice of Roots in an alternate world in which fantastical time travel is possible, and maybe that's what Kindred in fact is.

Eight episodes are definitely not enough to contain and present this wonderful, heart-wrenching and heart-warming story, and I'll be watching the next season the day that it's up.  Hats off to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for bringing this ever more timely story to television. 

 ***Note added January 30, 2023: The Hollywood Reporter reports that Kindred was cancelled by Hulu/FX. I very much look forward to it showing up and thriving on another streaming network.

                 

Science Fiction and Fantasy Song playlist

Enjoy!

Interview with Sergio Pistoi, Author of DNA Nation

Among the topics Sergio Pistoi and I discuss in this wide-ranging interview: DNA and social media, DNA and the criminal justice system, DNA as a predictor of health, genotype vs phenotype, COVID-19 pandemic, DNA and science fiction.

• My written review of DNA Nation
• More about Sergio Pistoi's DNA Nation: How the Internet of Genes is Changing Your Life
• More about The Silk Code (discussed in this interview)

Complete Run of All My Science Fiction Podcast Episodes

 reviews of TV series and movies, readings, songs, interviews ...