Science fiction stories are easily done badly. UFOs can be seen dangling from strings, characters blurt out stiff, mechanical lines, and the action can turn upon the thinnest of plot points. You’ve seen them – you may even have a poster of Robot Jox (1990) stuffed somewhere in your old college hamper. But a good science fiction story can recast your assumptions about the way you live, about our purpose, and make you reconsider your own faith. Human rights issues can be placed in a new light, rendering them more accessible outside the parameters of the ‘real’ world. Sci-fi stories can also be inspiring. Consider Michio Kaku, an acclaimed inventor of the ‘theory of everything’ known as string theory. Kaku is a life-long sci-fi lover who credits the genre for his inspiration. A good science fiction story can change your life. It can give you everything, like Kaku, or nothing but a cramp.
What’s the difference between the good and the bad? The Imagine Science Film Festival kicked off with an illuminating panel by leading scientists, filmmakers, and screenwriters who specialize in understanding the role of science in fiction. The panel was moderated by National Public Radio host Ira Flatow at the futuristic office of the New York Academy of Sciences. Ari Handel, neuroscientist and screenwriter of The Fountain (2006), Darcy Kelley, neuroscience professor at Columbia, Sidney Perkowitz, a physics professor and film buff, and screenwriter Billy Shebar all joined in an impassioned discussion about “Science in Fiction”. The panel was as much concerned about the valid depiction of scientists as it was about the quality of the entertainment.
Flatow steered the four experts – between silly puns – into educating us about science’s role in film. But the lessons learned are easily attributable beyond film into fiction in general. Read how to write a sci-fi story in seven easy steps here.
Mafeking Road
by Herman Charles Bosman
Archipelago, 2008. 201 pages.
(First printed in 1947 by Herman & Rousseau)
For it is not the story that counts. What matters is the way you tell it. The important thing is to know just at what moment you must knock out your pipe on your veldskoen, and at what stage of the story you must start talking about the School Committee at Drogevlei. Another necessary thing is to know what part of the story to leave out… And you can never learn these things.
So begins “Mafeking Road”, the title story in a classic collection by the South African writer Herman Charles Bosman. The passage is at once a challenge to aspiring storytellers and a charming exposition of the author’s craft. It’s true, you can’t learn these things. Certainly not by imitation or force of will. But by reading Bosman you can get a whole lot closer. And you’ll do it laughing.
Read the full review here.
Victims of Chadian dictator Hissène Hibré, featured in the film The Dictator Hunter, have initiated an important phase in the fight to hold him accountable for crimes against humanity. The charges represent a vital test of the newly reformed Senegalese legal system. Senegal has offered to prosecute Hibré for the killing of over 1,200 persons. Wealthy and living in exile in Senegal, the trial will cost an estimated 28 million Euros.
The prosecution begs several questions: what is the cost of holding a dictator accountable? At what point should such funds be invested in developing a nation? The argument seems to be that it is possible to accomplish both tasks at once: development and justice.
View the article here.
View our review of The Dictator Hunter here.
The Soccer War
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Translated from the Polish by William Brand
Vintage International, 1992
Travels with Herodotus
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska
Knopf, 2007
This pair of books by the late Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski brims with the creativity and insight of great fiction. The Soccer War details the explorations of Poland’s sole reporter with a ‘third world’ beat, from African independence movements to Cold War flashpoints in Central America. Travels with Herodotus is Kapuscinski’s last work and is more of a meandering memoir about the shaping of a journalist who met dozens of world leaders and thrust himself into the middle of conflicts under the drudge of the pen.
Read the full review here.
What happens when human rights discourse enters political speech? Is it robbed of its meaning?
An article recently posted on the BBC chronicles the difficulty in measuring human rights violations - even when the alleged perpetrator releases ‘official’ statistics. The unfolding conflict in the South Ossetia region of Georgia is one such example. Russia has announced that there are 1,500 casualties, with no meaningful break-down of the numbers.
“The problem here,” the local Human Rights Watch Director is recorded as stating, “is that when Russia puts out a figure like that it does two things - it distracts attention from where there are violations and from the real scale of what is happening.”
Even when investigations are non-fictional, the results can be far from clear.
View the article here.
–Deji Olukotun
