Science Fiction Quote of the Week

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
--H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

That's Funny. She Doesn't Look Latina: Parte X

Yvette Carmen Mimieux (1942- ). Daughter of a French father and a Mexican mother. She is best known for her role in 1960's The Time Machine, in which she played an Eloi. Admittedly I find it quite ironic that such a role was played by a person of Mexican descent since I had no idea that was so when I wrote this.

Cuento de Mi Id

“Does the Word Morlock Mean Anything to You?”

September 21. It’s raining again today. I like it when it rains.

Sister Natalie once asked me why I like to see rain, and I told her about how it drowns the ants. She said that it was a bad thing to like things like that. Ants have the same right to live that we do, she told me, and it is not right to wish bad things about them.

I tried to tell her about how the ants came into my old house one time, but she wouldn’t listen. She said the only reason the ants would have come into my old house would have been because they’re hungry, and it’s not right to wish bad things about a living thing just because it’s hungry.

I wish I could make her understand just how icky ants really are, but it’s hard work making the Sisters understand anything.

Sometimes I wish my parents would come back from camp so I wouldn’t have to stay with the Sisters. We could go back to our old house and stay there and live like we used to live before the War. I wouldn’t mind living that way for a while -- even if my house did have ants. I wouldn’t even mind if we had to live in an attic again.

My friend Bobby says the Sisters aren’t really sisters. They just call themselves that because they want to look nice.

I told Bobby I already know that, but he never listens.

He’s always reading stuff the Sisters tell us not to read. Then he tries to tell me about it and get me in trouble.

I don’t know where he finds this stuff because the Sisters are supposed to have thrown all the bad stuff away.

But he does.

He’s always reading these old books full of bad words and pictures of people with no clothes on. He tried to tell me how grown-ups make babies, but I refused to listen because the Sisters say we should not talk about that kind of stuff.

Lately he’s been telling me about this book he read called “The Time Machine.” It’s a book the Sisters specially don’t want us to read because it was written by a bad man and it tells a lot of lies about history and stuff.

Bobby says that’s not so. He says that the guy who wrote it was a good man and that “The Time Machine” was a good book. He says it’s all about the future and how this man from the past goes there in a special machine. In this future, he says, there are no Sisters or camps or houses or anything. Just two tribes -- the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are the good people. The Morlocks are the bad. The Morlocks are always killing the Eloi, but the man from the past doesn’t like this, and he helps the Eloi defeat the Morlocks.

I told Bobby this was a strange story and I couldn’t understand why the Sisters objected to it.

Because they’re Morlocks, he told me.

I told him he must be joking.

Bobby insisted he wasn’t. The Sisters were Morlocks, he said, and they considered us all Eloi. And in the book, they ate Eloi.

I told Bobby he was just trying to scare me like he did that time he put that spider down my back.

But again he insisted he wasn’t.

I don’t know what to believe.

***********************************************************

September 22. Bobby showed me his “Time Machine” book during recess today. He said it proved the Sisters really were Morlocks.

I told him he was dumb. The Morlocks shown in the book looked nothing like the Sisters. They were all short and squat and ugly and stuff, and the Sisters don’t look anything like that.

Of course, they don’t, said Bobby. The Morlocks had a chance to read the book.

I told him he was stupid, and I threatened to tell Sister Natalie on him.

He asked me not to. He said what he told me was a secret and that I shouldn’t go blabbing about it to the Sisters.

Suppose I’m right, he said. Then we’d both be in big trouble.

I think Bobby’s just trying to scare me again.

***********************************************************

September 23. I asked Sister Natalie what a Morlock was but I didn’t mention Bobby’s name. She got very angry with me. She told me that Morlock was a bad word, and little girls like me should not be using words like that.

“Suppose someone called you a Spic,” she said. “Or your friend Bobby a nigger. Would you like that?”

“I don’t know what those words mean,” I told her.

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “Because me and the other Sisters have taken great pains to stop our students from using bad language like that. The word Morlock is just the same. It’s a bad word that only bad people use, and I don’t want to hear a student of mine using it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I was afraid to ask her another question after that.

***********************************************************

September 24. Bobby called me an idiot today after I found out what happened between me and Sister Natalie.

“You dummy,” he said. “Now the Morlocks are going to go after you for sure.”

“Go after me for what?” I said.

“For guessing their true identities, stupid,” Bobby answered.

“So what?” I said. “Morlocks are just make-believe. They don’t exist in real life. And even if they did, your book says they lived in the future.”

“My book was written a long time ago,” said Bobby. “For all we know, this could be the future the writer was talking about.”

“You’re an idiot, Bobby,” I said.

“Look who’s talking,” he said.

I ignored him for the rest of the day.

***********************************************************

September 25. It stopped raining today. Today was the first day all week I could see the sun. But it doesn’t seem the same without Bobby.

I asked Sister Natalie about him and she said he must have run away in the middle of the night. He used to talk to me a lot about running away to camp to join his parents. So I suppose that is where he went.

We finally had fresh meat in the cafeteria today. But it doesn’t seem the same without Bobby there to make yukky comments about it.

My friend Indira thinks I’m being silly. She believes Bobby will come back just as soon as he realizes how rough it is on the outside. But somehow I don’t think so.

Sister Natalie kept urging me to eat during mealtime, but I just couldn’t finish a bite. I wish I could eat as much as her and the other Sisters do, but I’m just not in the mood.

Sister Barbara came by during lunch today and said she understood how I felt. She said that Bobby and I will probably be together quite soon and that I shouldn’t worry. I wonder what she meant by that and why she had that strange look on her face when she said that.

Sometimes I get the feeling that she and the other Sisters know just exactly where Bobby went.

But that would be stupid.

Trailer of the Week: The Time Machine (1960)

Please don't sit around this weekend like some Eloi.

Go see a movie before the Morlocks take over.

Movie Quote of the Week

Oh, I suppose not. Only, which three books would you have taken?
--Alan Young, The Time Machine (1960)

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Utopia”

At first I thought this was going to be a rather silly episode, what with the opening sequence which had Captain Jack Harkness hanging on the outside of the Tardis for dear life and the introduction of the Futurekind, a race of futuristic mutants that seemed suspiciously like a ripoff of the Morlocks from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. (I guess if you're going to steal, you might as well steal from the best.) However, it eventually morphed into one of the better episodes of the third season and its ending is hands-down one of the best cliffhangers of both series.

The great Derek Jacobi of I, Claudius fame played the mysterious Professor Yana, who was working on a mysterious project at the end of the universe, a project designed to take the remnants of the human race away from the planet they shared with the Futurekind and towards a mysterious location known as Utopia. The Doctor arrived on his planet along with Captain Jack and Martha Jones and started assisting the Professor on his project. But as they worked together, the Doctor got more and more suspicious of the Professor's past.

Then Ms. Jones unintentionally called attention to a mysterious pocket watch in the Professor's possession -- a pocket watch the Professor never before remembered possessing. Shortly afterward, the Doctor suddenly realized the professor's true identity. At roughly the same time, the professor also discovered his true identity -- but his discovery was not a happy one.

Meanwhile, a spaceship took off with the last remnants of humankind aboard, and the Doctor, Captain Jack, Martha, the Professor and his alien assistant were left behind in a site guarded from the Futurekind by an electric fence. Suddenly some fool started shutting off the electricity to the fence and opening the big metal gates that kept out the Futurekind. Coincidence? Probably not. For at the same time, the same fool locked the Doctor and his crew out of the same lab where the Tardis -- his only means of escape -- was located. And the Futurekind were starting to get in. And the Professor was already in the same lab as the Tardis...

But, ah, I have already said too much. See the episode for yourself. And if you can keep from asking yourself how the heck the Doctor gets out of danger this time, then you are a better man than I, Gunga Din...

All the Classic Movies That I Have Seen

1. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931).

One of the best versions of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella that I have seen thus far. Fredric March deserved his Oscar. Miriam Hopkins was not too bad either.

2. Frankenstein (1931).

Another horror classic. Not much I could say about this that others have not already said but I am still haunted by certain scenes -- the windmill fire scene, for example -- that I remember from my childhood. I wish I could say that I have seen the 1931 version of Dracula as well but I have only seen bits and pieces.

3. The Invisible Man (1933).

Yes, it takes liberties with some of the original novel's plot but it is still a better rendition than one might think.

4. Werewolf of London (1935).

Another movie I saw in my teenage years. I never liked it as much as The Wolf Man but it had its moments.

5. Son of Frankenstein (1939).

For some reason, I never saw half as much of The Bride of Frankenstein as I did this one. Obviously a big influence on Young Frankenstein.

6. The Cat and the Canary (1939).

The Bob Hope version. Actually a lot better than I thought it would be. The fact that Hope had Paulette Goddard of Modern Times fame as his female lead does not hurt either. I have yet to see a film in which Ms. Goddard's presence was not a welcome addition -- she even managed to steal the show from her more famous co-stars in The Women -- and this film is no exception.

7. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941).

Interesting experiment that did not quite work, perhaps because director Victor Fleming overdid the special effects -- especially in the dream sequences -- or more likely because Spencer Tracy was not a very convincing Mr. Hyde. He tried, bless his heart, and of course, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner were quite attractive, but I still prefer the 1931 version.

8. The Wolf Man (1941).

This film always confused me as a young boy because I never quite understood why the filmmakers called the title character a “wolf man” when he so obviously looked nothing like a wolf. I guess “Weird Hairy Man” was taken as a title.

9. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942).

I had seen this when I was a young boy but I don't remember too much about it.

10. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1942).

For some reason I liked this as a young boy but I don't remember why.

11. House of Frankenstein (1944).

Ditto.

12. The Body Snatcher (1945).

Robert Wise does horror. Actually a pretty good horror film as I recall.

All the Classic Horror Novels That I Have Read, Part One

1. Frankenstein (1818) -- Mary Shelley.

The one that started it all -- at least, historically speaking. Ironically, I never read the whole thing until recently but I do remember reading the plot synopsis in my parent's Masterplots collection over and over again.

2. The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) -- Oscar Wilde.

Another book I've read recently. (I did read Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in high school, but unfortunately, it's technically a novella, not a novel, so I can't really put it on this list.)

3. Dracula (1897) -- Bram Stoker.

Another one that I've only recently read all the way through.

4. The Invisible Man (1897) -- H. G. Wells.

Horror novel or science fiction? You decide. One of the few classic horror novels I've read in high school.

5. The Werewolf of Paris (1933) -- Guy Endore.

Yes, I already mentioned it on another list, but it really is a good novel.

6. Conjure Wife (1943) -- Fritz Leiber.

One of the first novels of contemporary horror. Also the inspiration of at least two movies.

7. I Am Legend (1954) -- Richard Matheson.

Another co-mingling of science fiction and horror. This book has been ripped off so often it's a wonder Matheson gets any royalties at all.

8. Psycho (1959) -- Robert Bloch.

Yes, the novel that inspired the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. Definitely different -- and more realistic -- than the movie. Save for that decapitation scene.

9. Carrie (1974) -- Stephen King.

The first book from some obscure writer named Stephen King. Whatever happened to him?

10. Ghost Story (1979) -- Peter Straub.

One of the best -- and most artistically ambitious -- horror novels I've ever read. Also way better than its cinematic namesake.