Fringe February and Teleportation

Two good Fringe episodes in February, which moved the series along for its return for seven more episodes in April...

Here's what we have -

1. Olivia, last week, has run her course with John. No more adventures in the tank, no more mind melds, no more seeing John from the inside of her mind every now and then.

2. Jones, the teleporter, moved around a whole bunch of intriguing things tonight. We had seen him teleport from Germany to here, in an episode in the Fall, and tonight we see that again, and then some of its consequences.

A word about teleportation. It's had a colorful history in science fiction. Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, one of my top ten all-time favorite science fiction novels, did a great job of "jaunting" - "Gully Foyle is my name, Terra is my nation..." Star Trek's beaming made an indelible contribution to the teleport genre. Last year's Jumper - based on Steven Gould's novel of the same name - got mixed reviews, but I liked it just fine. And then there's Hiro in Heroes...

Back to Jones - it certainly takes a toll on him, much more than most of the Star Trek beamers. Gully Foyle was a junkie - and jaunting may have helped in that regard.

3. A typewritten manuscript which may explain a lot of what's going on has surfaced - it's decades old - and it was typed on Walter's typewriter.

4. And, of course, Olivia is a key part of this, and not because she's an FBI agent investigating these strange affairs.

And so, the stage is still set - better than in the Fall. And like the eternal bald observer who shows up in every episode, we witness and wait for more...



See also Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 15. Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Observer

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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

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Fringe 10: Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Time

Anyone who thought that Fringe was just milling around, taunting us with disparate slivers that would never come together, needs to see tonight's Episode 10, in which

1. We learn what is the likely the main thing that Walter was inventing years ago - a device that can pluck anyone or anything through space and time. Except, Walter never got to finish and test his device, but

2. This apparently is the bigger picture behind the apples through steel we saw a few weeks ago. Moving objects through solid steel is just one aspect of Walter's unfinished, untested device. Tonight it moves far more than applies, including

3. A nasty scientist or some kind of intense dude from that German "Wissenschaft" prison (means, science, as in Einstein) we also saw a few weeks ago. And before he takes his teleporting, steel melting leave, he kills his lawyer, last seen on The Tudors as Thomas Cromwell and earlier on 24 as Audrey's husband (not Jack, the British guy - well played in all cases by James Frain). The prison traveler also tells his guys on the outside, back in the US, to

4. Kidnap Olivia - who is indeed kidnapped - because

5. Massive Dynamics is finally getting a clue about Olivia and John Scott - she's drawing on some of his memories, which she acquired when she wasn't completely nude in that tank (though the script was sounding like she was supposed to be) (did Fringe or Fox make that scene a little more tame, because of the FCC?) (never mind, I don't want to start rambling off like Walter). But, yeah, Massive D is on to the danger that Olivia poses to them, and

6. Don't hold your breath for any more, because that's it, until Fringe returns in January.

But I'm thinking Fringe has really begun to prove itself, the pieces are beginning to make much more sense, and we have a fine science fiction show for at least the Spring ahead...



See also Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind

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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

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Jumper: The Movie Reached Much Higher than Critics Admit

I finally got a chance to see Jumper last night. Contrary to critics and many posts on the web, I liked it.

First, a disclaimer. I have a business relationship with one of the movie's executive producers - Ralph Vicinanza's agency represents my novels (I have five published so far). Plus, I've worked with Vince Gerardis, also an executive producer of Jumper. And Steven Gould, an acquaintance, wrote the novel of the same name upon which the movie was based.

So, take my praise of Jumper with the above grains of salt if you like, but I nonetheless liked the movie - a lot - and here's why:

It was an unusual and therefore refreshing mix of scales in a movie. In part very personal, in part global, it was not quite like anything I've ever seen before. The story is also a rare one, for both written and cinematic science fiction: teleportation. The hero, David Rice played by Hayden Christensen, jumps around not in time but anywhere from one place on the planet to another. The golden age of science fiction, in the magnificent, classic work of Alfred Bester and his character Gully Foyle, set up a great tradition of teleportation. But it was never developed, and was largely absent everywhere until Hiro appeared as a space/time continuum traveler in NBC's Heroes in 2006.

David is much less comic-bookish than Hiro, and I found him an appealing, believable character. The drama comes from a group bent on wiping out the Jumpers, and their relationship to the personal life of David forms the plot of the movie, as well one nice surprise twist at the end.

The special effects are good, the action is brisk, so why did the movie apparently disappoint so many people?

I would say it's an unfamiliarity with the trope of teleportation, and therefore unclear expectations as to what impact it should have on the world. In contrast, changing of history via time travel is a much more fully explored and therefore better appreciated path of fiction.

But teleportation has its own unique appeal. And I predict that, whatever Jumper's current reception, it will go on to take its place as at very least a minor and perhaps a major cult classic.