I recently finished reading One Fat Englishman, by Kingsley Amis. It was a decent read – but it was one of those works where my reading plodded along, drawn more by the thought of finishing the book than by anything in it. I did enjoy the study of the main character Roger, especially because he was such a difficult and unpleasant person, and the book had some great lines, mostly of a misanthropic theme … “It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children.” That was from page 162 in my volume.

Of course if you are to read anything by Kingsley Amis, read Lucky Jim.

The short story “Songs Like Rusty Cage“ is obviously inspired by Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral.” The connection didn’t hit me when I first started writing it, but it was obviously somewhere in the back of my head. Once I realized the connection, I added the opening scene as an homage and to acknowledge my debt to Carver. Does that exonerate me from accusations of plagiarism? Well … at least I am not pawning off the story as if it sprang Athena-like from my forehead.

Still, I doubt “Songs Like Rusty Cage“ could be published anywhere, but I like the story for its wistful tone and its theme of knowing. Not so much how well do you know other people, because we know it’s not much, but how well do other people know you? How much of what they know (or they think they know) is just a patchwork of random impressions and over-emphasized events? I continue to edit this story on occasion, mainly because I am still uncertain how much to emphasize these themes … and that is one advantage of having your stuff on the Internet. Sure, it’s free, but nothing is permanent.

I guess posting complete stories online for anyone to see (which has always been the purpose of SpinachChin.com) devalues the work, at least according to Harlan Ellison. He posed the question – what value does our work have if we give it away for free? Easy for him to say, since the financial status from his work is “not inconsiderable” (according to his intro to Astro City: Family Album, which for me was the weakest of an otherwise exemplary series).

But ideas have cachet too – and we have been recycling those for years. How many times have episodes from The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits been recycled into movies? You know M. Night is trolling the archives, desperate for a hit. Maybe he should try a “remake” of A Boy and His Dog. It would be easy for him to repackage it as his own brilliant creation. That would really piss off Ellison.

I have seen Supernova twice. Those who have seen this sci-fi abomination from 2000 (with James Spader and Angela Bassett) – or at least know about its history – understand the depth of depravity in that admission – how it is not so much a statement but a cry for help. And I watched it again not for the movie’s gratuitous nudity or its decent spaceship exterior designs. It is because the ending is so perfectly awful. I will warn you that spoilers are to follow – although given the quality of the movie, I don’t know exactly what I would be spoiling.

In the original ending, the surviving crew members set off an alien bomb to kill the antagonist and propel them back home. Once this act is done, their on-board computer – the world’s worst ship’s computer (named Sweetie, quite possibly the dumbest, most ineffectual on-board computer in cinematic history) – states that the resulting supernova will reach Earth in 51 years, and it will either destroy life on Earth … or … OR … enable humanity to achieve a new level of existence. Cake or death, anyone?

What kind of supernova would bring a new level of existence with it? Granted, the bomb is sort of like a Genesis Device, creating new stuff in the wake of great destruction, but it’s nice to know it might, just might, let us live. If given the choice, I would probably go with … new level of existence. But that’s just me.

Sweetie’s prediction gets even more bizarre when you consider the deleted scenes, which includes an alternate ending. In the theater, just before the credits roll, we got the warm fuzzies upon discovering Angela Bassett is pregnant. So we really hope Earth won’t be destroyed. Think of the children! But in the alternate ending, which I would guess was the actual original ending, we discover that the crew, by setting off the alien bomb, has destroyed the whole universe. The reaction from the alien bomb will destroy all “third-dimensional matter” in the universe – and it will reach Earth in 257 years, 49 days.

So in one ending, we have a pregnant woman and a possibly benevolent supernova. That’s good. Alternatively, we have the destruction of all matter in the known universe. That’s bad.

So why give this silly movie any ink at all? It’s a warning, a symbolic warning, to keep a grip on your story (something I didn’t do with Martin Garvin). Not that the alternate ending for Supernova would have made the movie any better – but at least it felt more genuine. Big explosion, end of the universe, credits roll. Not many movies can hang their hat on that kind of ending.

Also, there were deleted scenes with a giant, living fetus and a more graphic image of Lou Diamond Phillips getting his face punched in. Again, not great scenes – but they would have at least added character to this otherwise flat, uninspired movie.

Why the changes? Well, the film apparently had three directors/editors and an unhappy studio. Too many chefs, etc., etc. Maybe there was groupthink, with people taking out or putting in pieces here and there, without any thought to the complete picture. The original ending is too depressing? Then tack on a happy ending. Or at least a less devastating one. Drop in some new CG and an alternate computer voiceover and viola – there’s (more than) a sliver of hope in the supernova coming to engulf our planet!

My question is, why mention the destruction of Earth at all? If you’re gonna go happy, why not go all out – the alien bomb goes off and it spews rainbows, bunnies, and endorphins throughout the universe. Every planet, every being, sentient or otherwise, gets its good vibes, and it is the end of war and jealousy and bad feelings. What’s with the cake-or-death option, a tacked-on, wishy-washy, on-the-fence ending that makes absolutely no statement about the movie whatsoever? If this film was supposed to be “Hellraiser in space,” then you should probably show the fountains of blood from Lou Diamond’s face.

In the end, the Supernova warning is this – know what kind of story you are trying to tell and commit to it. And it also shows that some people in Hollywood are paid way too much.

Why this obsession with printers, you ask? Well… It relates to resource management, which ties to the environment, which ultimately touches on the old overpopulation theme, one that’s popped up in a few places lately (for me, probably not for you). It was all the rage in sci fi a few literary generations back, with Soylent Green, The Bladerunner, to name a few. Then it went away. Our new fictional future had fewer people and plenty of open spaces to run and hide from the killer robots.

The romantic notion of a barren world beset by apocalyptic forces has smitten even me. Who doesn’t want to write about the lone survivor, in the desert, fighting mutants or zombies or rabid wolverines? And we don’t want to think of a future where we don’t have any place to put our elbows, at least not in America.

But also people have been scared to talk about overpopulation. It elicits fears of a Malthusian-type policy. It is an area so “safe” for outrage that Ben Stein feels comfortable getting on his high horse about it, even though everyone’s favorite pop-culture economist doesn’t know anything about biology and even less about Darwin. Maybe he thought Soylent Green was a documentary – and that it showed the short trip down the slippery slope, from the mere mention of an overpopulation problem to an evil government devising a delicious yet draconian response. He might be right. How often do we solve a problem by shoving something in our mouth?

But these days the enviornment is really on the skids, and species are disappearing faster than we can count them, all while the earth is lousy with more and more humans. We need to be worried about overpopulation – mainly because we are always making more people and these people have to eat and drink and sleep – and we can’t provide for the people we have already. Yeah, overpopulation is one theme due for a resurgence in sci fi, if not literature as a whole. We need to make it safe to talk about this stuff once again.