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It took a quarter century, but it looks like we now have a true sequel to Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. Best known to those of us in the states as the first season of Robotech, Macross was a landmark TV series in terms of character arcs, ideas, and gee-whiz animation. Repeating the success of the series has not been so easy. First there was the Direct-to-Video series Macross II, which was relegated to “parallel universe” story status by fans and creators. From what I’ve seen, Macross 7 is essentially a 49-episode music video. The closest we’ve come to sequels have 1994’s Macross Plus and 2002’s prequel Macross Zero, which were stunning, yet all too brief. For a while there it seemed like Robotech was doing a better job of continuing the series by splicing two other anime series into the continuity. But then came Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, and the less said about that again the better. After all that, it seems like we’ve got a series that takes the ideas of the original Macross in new directions while at the same time keeping true to the original. That series is Macross Frontier.

The show takes place 50 years after the original Macross. The human race was almost wiped out in the first series by a war with the Zentraedi, a race of alien giants. After the armistice, the two races decided the most sensible thing to do would be to repopulate the galaxy. The construction of huge colonization fleets began, as well as further military development to keep the fleets safe from rogue Zentraedi fleets, or anything else that might come along. The fleet called “Macross Frontier” is the focus of the show. The protagonist is 17-year-old Alto Saotome, who enrolled in pilot’s school against the wishes of his Kabuki star father. This involves learning to fly in power-suits known as EX-gear, which serve as a basic interface for any aircraft known to man (I want one!). Alto and his stunt flying team end up doing a show for a rock concert starring “Cheryl”, the latest pop idol who’s taking a galaxy-wide tour of all the Macross fleets. During the concert, the fleet is attacked by mysterious bio-mechanical creatures known only as “Vajra”. A few of the space monsters make it back the colony fleet and start wreaking havoc. In true mecha anime fashion, Alto has to commandeer a damaged Valkyrie transformable fighter with his EX-Gear to protect Ranka Lee, the sister of Ozma Lee, the squadron leader trying to protect the fleet. Alto eventually finds out the squadron leader, along with his high school friends are working for SMS, a private military contractor that handles the jobs that the regular military is too hidebound to do effectively. He must make the difficult choice to join SMS and protect himself and his loved ones.

It’s been a while since an anime series has caused me to geek out like this. It was the balance of realism and the fantastic that got me into anime in the first place, which I guess makes me different from the fans who were attracted by the intricate power fantasies of more popular shows like Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon. I’m really glad we get to see how full-grown Zentraedi fit in to this Post-Terran society on the far reaches of space. Private Military Organizations like Blackwater security are active in real war zones today, so transposing the concept to a starship fleet is also interesting. The animation and mecha are bar-none the best I’ve ever seen. The love-triangle storyline of the original is also present, with both Ranka and Cheryl vying for Alto’s attention. Despite his pretty-boy looks, Alto is so typically male that he’ll be able to fuel romantic misunderstandings for the rest of the series.

There are a few nits I’d like to pick though. Some of the characters seem “borrowed” from the original series or other anime series entirely. Alto, Michael and Luca are basically Vermillion Wing from Macross, only prettier. Ozma Lee is essentially the same as Roy Fokker (although fans of the original must have got a great scare when he uttered “I’ve lost too much blood!”. That was how the original character died). I also hope that some of the major mysteries of Macross get solved, such as the fate of the SDF-2 Megaroad, which went missing 6 years after the original series taking most of the original surviving cast with it. Anime Directors have this obsession with ambiguity that prevents them from properly ending series. The term may come to be known as the “J.J. Abrams’ Lost Syndrome”. Despite all of this, Macross Frontier looks like it will be one of best anime mecha series in a long time. It’s too bad that due to some legal SNAFU with the production company it’s not going to be released until Satan skates to work.

Image courtesy of the Macross Compendium
Macross Frontier © 2007 Big West/Macross F Project, MBS

I’ve been checking out the Young Adult genre for the past little while now. Harry Potter and his ilk have completely changed the publishing industry and apparently “saved reading”, so I wanted to find out what the fuss was all about. Harry Potter was okay, but not without certain nitpicking flaws. James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series was so inexcusably bad that I couldn’t make it through the first few chapters. Sara introduced me to another series by Rick Riordan called Percy Jackson and the Olympians and surprisingly, I couldn’t put it down.

It’s the story of Percy Jackson, a dyslexic, ADHD twelve-year-old boy who one day finds out that his long lost biological father is none other than Poseidon, Greek god of the sea and earthquakes. After a desperate escape to a demi-god summer camp in upstate New York, Percy is assigned a quest to retrieve the Thunderbolt of Zeus from the Underworld, which is now in LA (Mount Olympus is respectively now on the six hundredth floor of the Empire State building. It’s a long story, read the book already). It was heavy on action and self-referential humour, but it was complex enough to get me to read all three books in the space of a week.

Now, as I was going through all of these books for “young” adults, I realized I had gone sour on most adult books of the same genre. Truth be told, most of my friends had as well. The Author of Old Man’s War, Jon Scalzi wrote a really neat post on what is happening to the industry. Without mentioning titles, YA Science Fiction titles are outselling adult titles two to one. YA Fantasy outside of Harry Potter is outselling adult Fantasy by four to one.

So, Young Adult authors are moving books like gangbusters, and we can reasonably assume that an increasing portion of that readership is made up of adults (including yours truly). The question is why? It’s not because the books are shorter either. The Harry Potter series topped out at 900 pages. There hasn’t been a Percy Jackson book under 200 pages. The answer then, is hidden in the adult books.

I’ve also been doing a long, painful parallel study into adult science fiction novels, particularly David Brin’s Uplift War, Verner Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky and Greg Bear’s Forge of God. In all three books I found ideas that would blow your mind. A Galactic culture based on cultivating animals into sentient races, 1000-year-old computer programming traditions, and roving fleets of self-replicating killer robots. The problem is that the books are an utter pain in the ass to read.

In all three of these books, the authors seemed more concerned about getting the science and social concepts right rather than concentrating on writing an entertaining novel. The ideas in these books are great food for thought. You could debate for hours on how the societies and technologies in these books actually work. Unfortunately the characters are either unlikable or unremarkable, the language is obtuse and the conflicts are unsatisfying. In Uplift War, everyone except the sentient chimpanzees speak the same “alien” dialect that’s devoid of any slang or color. If you’ve heard Mr. Spock open his mouth at any time you know what I’m talking about. The Qeng Ho space traders in A Deepness in Sky were so insipid that by the time they had defeated the Fascist Emergents, I just didn’t care any more. I feel really bad about Forge of God, because I loved Greg Bear’s Blood Music. But in this book, so many of the characters are just stalwart experts and scientists. I can’t properly tell the astronomer advising the president from the geologist held in quarantine at the Airforce base. The President in this book decided to lay down arms in front of the impending alien invasion, but the description of his thought process was so mushy that I wasn’t aware of the decision for about two chapters.

It’s important to note that all three of these books are Hugo award winners, the top honor among literary science fiction. Some fans out there may scoff my claims, that these books are too advanced for my primitive brain to handle. However, all of these books are guilty of the sins described in George “1984″ Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language”.

In the essay, Orwell writes that difficult prose with too many long words, jargon and adverbs is not only difficult to read, it might as well destroy western civilization. By making political speeches and decrees unclear and lacking of any strong imagery, you can justify any monstrous action you can imagine. Take George W. Bush’s definition of “freedom”, for instance. The same rules apply to fiction, only we don’t use it to pick leaders, we just don’t want to get bored at the bus stop. It’s impossible to enjoy yourself when you’re puzzling over what “circumlocution” means.

It wasn’t Harry Potter who saved reading. That series was only a conduit, a lightning rod for a public that was tired of bloated prose, threadbare imagery and indulging author’s neuroses. We should keep in mind that it’s enough just to keep it simple, stupid. The very best of the genre will walk the edge of pandering and indulgence. Most Adult SF and Fantasy are on the indulgence end of the equation. If the genre is to survive, then this time a little bit of pander is in order.

I admit the idea of a class society has sounded appealing to me at one time or another. Imagine, if you will, being subjected to a battery of tests at a young age, after which you are separated, placed in a special group where your talents are honed to razor sharp efficiency. When you finally leave school and unleash your talents on the real world, you leave with the confidence that you are one of the few, the proud and the brave that can do your special task. You are respected by others because they also are the few, the proud, the brave for their special field, and each of them knows what it took to grind you into your particular niche. No one is held back by the unspecialized majority, and we are only limited by our intellect.

Although I must admit that I’ve never taken the time to explore that idea fully. I’ve checked out some of the secondary literature to Ayn Rand, and I fear if I actually take the time to read “Atlas Shrugged” one of my basic questions about this philosophy will remain unanswered. If smart people are being held back by the unwashed masses, and if that specialized intellect is truly what is necessary to realize a perfect world: why hasn’t it happened yet? If the world could really be run by intellect alone, we’d all be run by a cabal so secretive, so perfect, that even if we were to uncover that democracy was a lie we’d give a sigh of relief that the world was being run by these people and then carry on our merry way.

Still, the case for a council of appointed Philosopher kings mounts ever higher. In the United States, the presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proposed a repeal of some of the Gasoline taxes to reduce the financial burden on “Ordinary Americans”. This proposal, like the decision to revisit NAFTA, would do more harm than help in the end. My friend Erin in Chicago said that if Clinton pandered any harder she’ll need to get a set of Truck Nutz . Personally, I think her next promise will be beer in the water taps.

Stupid people voting for stupid politicians with stupid decisions sounds like a recipe for a country taking a window seat to hell. Anyone who offers an opinion or idea of any appreciable sense gets shouted down as “elitist”. Time for the cabal, I guess. So if we are going to have an appointed council of intellectuals, we have to convince all the little people to accept. There has to be a clear line between who is fit to lead, and who is not. The average man must be made proud of his lot in life, yet forgo any desire to change the status quo.

Hang on, isn’t that exactly what Hillary is trying to do with this gas tax holiday? All this pandering is serving to raise pride in being “the average man” but at the same time cementing her hold on power. The only problem is that it’s just not working.

Hillary’s opponent Barack Obama made a comment about a month back about low-income Pennsylvanians turning to “Guns and Religion” to placate their woes with a failing local economy. The media jumped on this comment, proclaiming that he was going to lose the nomination, he was so elitist, this is what got Democrats in trouble in the last election, etc. etc. Obama’s still leading by 200 delegates as of this posting, and I think I know why. Obama is not operating under the assumption that society is divided into intellectual haves and have-nots. He sounds as if he’s talking to people at his own level. It’s not the adverb-choked speech of the academic, nor is it the laid-back drawl of a Southern good ol’ boy. I’m pointing to the “Guns and Religion” incident not only because he emerged from that situation unscathed, but it was also a powerful and direct image of what Pennsylvanians are going through. Politicians today are so afraid of saying anything negative at the podium. Can you imagine McCain, Clinton or even Bush reciting a speech like JFK’s “The Goal of Sending a Man to the Moon”?He didn’t try to whitewash the fact that the enterprise was going to be expensive, difficult and dangerous. Sure it was awesome, but for a politician to talk at length of the disadvantages of his decision, to actually display a thought process, is unheard of these days.

A politician is just like any other professional. No one cares if their plumber is easy-going enough to have a beer with. We just want our toilets to work, and we want the process explained just enough so we know we aren’t being screwed over. In the end, the fight for political office at any level, in any democracy does not depend how you reach down to the average voter or teach them to fear your humongous brain. The key factor is clear enough communication to provide a conservative estimate, an exhaustive work order, and keep the crap out of the house.