How empires fall

A frequent theme in science fiction and fantasy literature is the fall of a great civilization or empire. Usually there is a young hero involved, someone who helps launch or galvanize a social upheaval against an evil and corrupt leadership and political structure.

In history there are seldom pivotal moments where simple farmers walk away from their former lives and become great war heroes. The ancient Roman general Cincinattus is a rare example of a man who answered the call to duty, performed his duty, and then returned to his former lifestyle.

I recently read an article about the decline of great empires and their militaries but I neglected to bookmark it for future reference. Today I noticed an article on CNN about the United States' increasing dependence upon contractors. I cannot help but think of how the Roman military gradually transformed itself into a non-Roman military organization.

When you think about it, our military is moving away from the classic model of the citizen soldier. We are developing remote-controlled technology to deploy on the battlefield. The CIA and military now regularly use remote-controlled aircraft to attack distant enemies. Soldiers may one day control robots that into battle for them on the ground.

As we combine our use of contractors with technology, we move further into the field of deploying surrogate troops -- which is exactly what the Romans did, although for other reasons.

The British empire went through a similar process. Like the Romans before them, the British built up a huge empire through efficient armed forces that were often outnumbered. But in order to maintain that empire the British relied upon foreign soldiers: Hessian mercenaries who fought against the American rebels, Indian armies that had originally been raised and equipped by the East India Company, and others.

The burden of maintaining vast frontiers becomes too expensive for any empire because frontier lands seldom if ever produce much profit. The Spanish Empire lasted for a couple of hundred years by importing tons of gold and silver from the Americas but eventually the impoverished populations of the Spanish provinces rose up and rebelled.

And now the United States is the last major colonial power on Earth. Our neo-colonialism saps the wealth out of foreign economies and relies upon puppet dictatorships to keep the poor nations under control. Okay, maybe that's how we did it in the 1950s but today we're still paying the price for our colonial policies by having to clean up Iraq and Afghanistan, both nations having once served as U.S. surrogates in foreign wars.

The basic model for imperialism remains the same: a powerful civilization exercises undo influence over its less advanced neighbors, drawing upon their resources for its own benefit and defending those resources against other aggressors. Eventually the imperial power loses the ability to sustain its military and the political will to hang on to the resources.

The United States has yet to achieve anything like a Pax Romana, which lasted about 200 years. During that 200 years people in the Roman Empire knew only relative peace. No major wars burned their fields and villages; their young men grew up, led productive lives, and did not think about the glories of war. The Roman armies gradually became more and more dependent upon foreign soldiers.

But it wasn't all just about the military. The Roman economy also transformed itself. The farmers grew tired of farming and they moved to the cities, where there were few if any jobs. The emperors had to keep the city populations happy so they invested in bread and circuses -- free food and free entertainment for everyone. Roman culture developed the ultimate consumer economy.

Of course, in today's America, we have lost many manufacturing jobs -- and many farm jobs. We still grow enough food for ourselves but we import more and more goods and services (through outsourcing). The self-sufficient America that stood up against the AXIS nations during the second world war no longer exists. Our software -- which we're not allowed to export to many nations -- is often written by people in other countries.

History is repeating itself, and science fiction has already acknowledged that fact with many stories about the decline of the United States (think of James Cameron's Dark Angel, for example). Some people would be quick to say we are already in our decline. But perhaps we are still in our ascendancy. Declines don't happen overnight. Their seeds are firmly embedded in the successes that precede them.

It's something to think about.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Andre Norton Forum

The first Web forum I ever created was called The Witch World Message Board. I felt that Andre Norton's Witch World stories were sufficient in numbers to bring in a lot of Norton fans. To build up our online community I took a risk and collected email addresses from science fiction and fantasy news groups (this was 1997 when the practice was not yet completely frowned upon) for people who expressed love or at least fond memories for Andre Norton's stories.

I sent out a message to a couple hundred people, telling them who I was and where to find the Witch World Message Board. Many of them came and joined our community. I was even told that Andre herself was shown the forum and was quite moved to see so many fans discussing her books.

To the best of my recollection, there has never been a flame war in the Andre Norton discussion community, although I am not 100% certain of that. There was once another Andre Norton discussion group on Yahoo! but I haven't heard about it in years.

We do still keep the discussions going in the current Andre Norton Forum. As I've done for a couple of other forums this week I want to link to some of the early discussions on SF-Fandom in the Andre Norton Forum and then I'll link to some of the most recent discussions.

These discussions began in 2003, when we rebuilt our forum after a server crash.

• Andre Norton Book Collection


• Andre Norton "Ku****e" movie?


• In gathering?


• Not "Going to Graceland"


• Two questions??


• "Magic" colors in the Witch World


• "Star Soldiers"


• I've never heard of Andre Norton


• Elvenbane and Elvenblood

Here are some of the most recent discussions, several of which are ongoing:

• 'Ware Hawk & Trey of Swords


• My best A. Norton's short stories


• Star Flight republished


• New fans discovering Andre Norton


• The birth of the Tregarth triplets


• Seven Riders of Arvon


• (Andre Norton) Audio Books


• Norton Cover Artist and their work

If you have ever read Andre Norton's stories, did you know her fandom is still alive and well? Did you know that Norton books are still being published? Would you like to join us and share your thoughts about her career and stories?

If you have never read Andre Norton and would like to learn more about her work, the Andre Norton Forum is the place you need to be. Come on over and check us out. I think you'll like what you find.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

H.P. Lovecraft Forum

I occasionally do favors for my friends. One friend, whose name might be William Blake Smith (yes, you may have read some fiction by W.B. Smith), is a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft. Being somewhat of a Lovecraft fan myself, I decided on a whim to create a forum for H.P. Lovecraft fans on Xenite.Org in July 1999. I figured Blake would enjoy meeting other Lovecraft fans online.

That was, I think, the last of the old version 1.0 forums we had on Xenite.Org. You can see the H.P. Lovecraft Forum archive that preserves the first 90 messages from the forum before we changed software and formats. Blake actually participated in a few of the discussions.

We have since moved on, however, and I've worked with a couple of other fans to keep our current H.P. Lovecraft Forum active. Lovecraft fans come and go. Mostly they just come and read the news stories we post there.

Here are some of the oldest threads from the forum:

• Call of Cthulhu computer game


• a sketch of Great Cthulhu by HPL himself


• Cthulhu leaps into the 21st century!


• The Horror in the Theater: an H.P. Lovecraft Triptych of Terror


• H.P.Lovecraft Movies


• The Lovecraftian Universe


• SciFi Channel showing "Dagon" on Sunday


• i need help understanding some tales...


• Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu

Some of the more recent threads have been popular reading items but I'll be honest -- they didn't generate much discussion. I would be interested in hearing what H.P. Lovecraft fans would like to see in a forum. Feel free to contact me (Michael) with some suggestions or requests.

• Fall of Chthulhu comic series


• Oscar-winning animator developing Lovecraft biographical film


• New Straits Times on Arkham Series


• How Lovecraft saved role-playing games


• "The Translated Man" Is a Lovecraftian Police Procedural


• The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft

Please drop by and let us know about your passion for Lovecraft. We're really big fans and will enjoy talking about the books, the movies, the actors, the directors, the stories, etc. with you.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Pulp Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Forum

To be honest, I don't recall exactly when we created our Pulp Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Forum. I believe it goes all the way back to 2000, when we first expanded the Xenite.Org forums. We currently only have discussion threads going back to 2003 because we have lost a few databases and changed a few servers and software packages since 2000/2001.

SF-Fandom has added and dropped many forums through the years. I only reluctantly drop them when interest in their topics becomes so small that even the moderators don't look at the threads any more.

Times were simpler in 2003. We had a few threads mostly about Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard's Conan. We've collected many other discussions through the years. I was thinking though that it would be nice to link to some of the older, more interesting threads -- especially some that highlighted other sites.

• Public Domain ERB


• Smithsonian on pulp art (the link in Mark's post should be updated to this)


• Conan movie still in the works? (the movie was never made, but a new "Conan" film is supposedly slated for release in 2010 -- yeah, right)


• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Pulps


• Solomon Kane question


• Info on Frank Frazetta movie (it was called "Frazetta - Painting With Fire" and was released in 2003)


• John Norman's Gor Books (probably one of our longest running if intermittent discussions)

We're currently following news on the upcoming "John Carter of Mars" movie in the Pulp Authors Forum, as well as events relating to the celebration of pulp authors, stories, and characters. Here is a quick rundown of our most recent discussions:

• NEW illustrated editions of the John Carter series coming out


• Taylor Kitsch rumored for lead in "John Carter of Mars"


• French Museum exhibit challenges Tarzan-inspired myths


• Robert E. Howard fans celebrate his poetry this June


• Alex Ross talks Buck Rogers, Issue #0 coming May 2

Drop by the forums and browse our discussions. You may find something you like and a good reason to stay and join our community.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

When fan sites vanish

I found a dead link on a Tolkien fan site and notified the owner. It appears the original site has been taken down, for reasons I cannot fathom.

The old site, http://home.freeuk.net/webbuk2/tolkien-biography.htm, was titled An Illustrated Biography of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Demonstrating no special skill at designing fancy Web sites, the author nonetheless produced a remarkable tribute to J.R.R. Tolkien. You can see one of the last versions of the site here, but only if FreeUK.net doesn't block the archive through robots.txt.

In a relatively short time, many other fan sites will be taken down forever. Yahoo! recently announced that it was discontinuing the Geocities free hosting service. Thousands of science fiction and fantasy Web sites, long abandoned by their creators, will soon cease to exist.

If we're lucky, Yahoo! won't block archive.org from indexing Geocities content, but don't hold your breath.

Seizing the moment, Webring has offered hosting service to GeoCities users. Webring itself started life as an independent service, then was bought by Yahoo!, and was relaunched as an independent service.

If you have favorite Web sites hosted on GeoCities, you would be well advised to save them to your personal drives. You may never see them again. If you know someone who once had a GeoCities account, maybe they'll want to save their work (if they can) and move it to another service.

Many academics once had GeoCities accounts, too. A lot of research -- perhaps only published on GeoCities -- is about to vanish forever.

The loss of intangible value in fan sites and other content will be inestimable and it is unstopable.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Sam Worthington pictures from Clash of the Titans

The original "Clash of the Titans" was memorable mainly because at the time it used state-of-the-art stop-motion photography to simulate large titans and gods. The story was forgettable and the acting was less than inspiring, not mention the dialog and direction.

Okay, it pretty much sucked all around because, frankly, even when I was a kid I kept waiting for someone to improve upon Ray Harryhausen's special effects. Not to take anything away from the man who almost single-handedly made the creation of interesting monster and dinosaur movies possible -- I was just never satisfied with Claymation technology.

And George Lucas didn't do anything to cure me of that disappointment in stop-motion photography.

So now Sam Worthington, the Australian actor who is wowing audiences in the new "Terminator: Salvation" movie as cyborg Marcus Wright, is starring in a new adaptation of "Clash of the Titans". Will I go see it? Most likely. But my expectations are high (and low).

SciFi Wire has a couple of images from the movie. It's too soon to tell if it will be better than the original film, which many people (other than me) actually remember fondly.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

India gets its first SciFi film festival

Screen India is carrying an interesting item about an upcoming science fiction film festival to be held in Mumbai (Bombay) in early 2010.

According to the article, this will be the first science fiction film festival in India. Here's a quick glimpse at the article:

Talking about the response in Mumbai he says, "It has been an encouraging response. I wasn’t expecting people to ask why, but it was great to see people saying why not? I met several people, including those at Fun Republic, Big Cinemas, NDTV Lumiere, FICCI Frames and Tech Fest, IIT Mumbai. As for the plan to host a festival in January, I don’t know whether we will have six or 60 films. But Tech Fest attracts to claim about 50,000 guests. And even if get 5,000 of these to attend the Mumbai science-fiction film festival screenings, it will be a bigger number than what we attract back in the UK."

Film festivals offer new film-makers opportunities to make names for themselves, but even well-established film-makers sometimes try out their less mainstream ideas in film festival venues to see if they can generate some major industry interest. Taking the Indian science fiction experience to the next level seems logical (and perhaps a bit late) for a nation that has more college-educated people than the United States.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Casting info for Thor slipping into place

Movie fans have been discussing the Thor movie at SF-Fandom and we've been collecting some cast names as the weeks have unfolded.

Kenneth Branagh will direct the film.
Brian Blessed will play Odin.
Chris Hemsworth will play Thor (he played Jim Kirk's father in "Star Trek").
Tom Hiddleston will play Loki.

There is a rumor that Samuel L. Jackson will play Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (a long-time Marvel character, Fury was introduced into the Marvel Filmverse in "Iron Man"). Rumor has it that Jackson will also play Nick Fury in his own movie (see here).

Another rumor suggested Natalie Portman might get the lead female role in the movie. I think that would be the goddess Sif (Thor's love) or Jane Foster (Dr. Donald Blake's nurse and a Thor love interest).

MTV is also reporting that Loki may appear in multiple Marvel movies.

Besides good acting and directing talent, the "Thor" movie needs great special effects, scenery, and set design. Jack Kirby left an indelible impression upon Thor's world in my mind and, I believe, many other Thor fans' minds. If the movie fails to make significant concessions to Kirby's imagination, I think people will express some disappointment with it.

Does that mean the movie would fail without Kirby's wild drawings? Of course not -- but it would complete the picture, in my opinion, if they used Kirby's work for at least some of their designs.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Robert Hewitt Wolfe producing "Riverworld" movie

Fans of Philip Jose Farmer were probably a little disappointed with the first attempt to bring the Riverworld books to the small screen. In 2003 Kari Skogland and Stuart Hazeldine brought us a rather forgettable adaptation filmed in New Zealand.

The late actor Kevin Smith (known worldwide as Ares from Hercules and Xena played the villain Valdemar but his voice was dubbed by another actor because his untimely death prevented him from looping his own dialog.

As television movies go this one pretty much sucked, in my opinion. Of course, I'm one of those people who perpetually hopes for some sort of faithfulness to the books and New Zealand just doesn't begin to look like the Riverworld of my imagination.

Nonetheless, the series is rather compelling (at least in the early books) and I felt it was only a matter of time before someone took another stab at the project.

Lo! and Behold! Robert Hewitt Wolfe is coming out with a new 4-hour miniseries based on "Riverworld" in 2010.

Like the first adaptation, Wolfe's storyline takes some liberties with the novel's story, and the lead character in the new show is not (as best I can recall) a character from the books. Two main point of view characters from the books, explorer Richard Burton and author Samuel Clemens (both from 19th century America), appear in the show but are not main characters.

Wolfe does have some ideas for what he'll do if the show becomes a full-fledged series. If that happens, let's hope he has a smoother ride than he did with Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Edward James Olmos talks BSG: The Plan

SciFi Wire published an interview with Edward James Olmos about "The Plan", the much-anticipated Cylon movie that fills in some of the background story for Battlestar Galactica.

"I gotta tell you, not to give anything away, it is exactly what you think it is," Olmos said in a panel discussion Thursday night in Hollywood as part of the Los Angeles Times series The Envelope. "You see the complete opposite of the first 281 days of what we went through, ... seen through the eyes of the Cylons, and it is breathtaking. It's fantastic. It's not fun, but I will say that you will sit there [gasping]."

Battlestar Galactica surprised fans and critics alike by achieving ratings and audience share most science fiction movies and shows only dream about. The world-wide audience was not quite as large as for the 1990s phenomenon of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and its spinoff Xena: Warrior Princess but people were still buzzing about Galactica and the Cylons enough to warrant greenlighting both this movie and the upcoming series Caprica, which takes place on the planet Caprica about 50 years before the Cylon sneak attack.

Think of Caprica as Dallas for SciFi or Dynasty for Geeks and you'll probably be close to what the producers have in mind.

Feel free to drop by and discuss in our Battlestar Galactica Forum.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

Borders launches science fiction blog

To help build its competitive position on the Internet, Borders has launched its own blog called Babel Clash (is the name inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).

Booksellers are feeling the pinch of the recession, too. I know there are a few books I have put off purchasing even though I'm still employed. My secondary income has fallen off a bit in some areas.

Blogs are the new marketing tool de jeur -- meaning that any retailers who start up blogs in 2009 have been missing the boat for the past several years. Playing catchup at this late stage in the game is not easy.

Unfortunately, the early blog posts don't really impress me. They lack substance. It looks like Borders is trying to cash in on the Twitter phenomenon, but now that they have a real blog they should use it for real blogging. Leave the Tweeting to the Twits on Twitter who have nothing more to say about life in general than "Going to the supermarket for mushrooms".

You'll know that Kim Harrison (Borders' blogger) is doing it right when s/he puts at least five paragraphs into a blog post each day.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

New Stargate Universe trailer

Stargate: Universe is starting to shape up as more teaser footage is released. The video below includes some cast moments as well as longer shots of scenes than we have seen before.

Stargate: Universe is the third in the Stargate television series to be spun off from the original "Stargate" movie.

Discuss in our Stargate Forum at SF-Fandom. We coincidentally renamed that forum "Stargate Universe" a couple of years ago before we learned about the new show.



SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.

The death of the fan Web site

In the early days of the World Wide Web people expressed both their passion and their creativity (or lack thereof) by constructing fan sites for their favorite actors, musicians, artists, authors -- even historical people who have been long dead.

Over the past few years, particularly as Google AdSense has become more popular with people wanting to make money off the Internet, fan Web sites have been squeezed out of the search results by commercial Web sites that have pretty much been made for AdSense.

Even sites that were once considered "amateur" productions, like IMDB, Wikipedia, and others have become commercialized and corporate entities. They are not true fan sites, they're just there trying to make a buck (or, in Wikipedia's case, to spread someone's propaganda and misinformation in the guise of being an "encyclopedia") from our eyeballs and clicks.

I picked a celebrity at random that I thought might have a few fan sites. You wouldn't know it from the search results for her name: Rachel Weisz (that's a Google search). Google is particularly bad about hiding good quality sites and flooding the search results with commercial crap that is just monetizing user-generated content.

But there ARE a few Rachel Weisz fan sites (only one or two of which actually appear on the first page of Google's search results). You'd better look quick now because finding these kinds of sites becomes more and more difficult each year. Even if you force Google to search for "rachel weisz fan sites" you'll mostly get commercial made-for-adsense pap (the kind of garbage Web sites that Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt seems to feel will "clean up the cesspool" on the Internet because they have brand value).

So, without further vitriol and hyperbole, here are the last true Rachel Weisz fan sites that I am aware of. I would be glad to learn there are actually more out there. BTW -- those two Geocities sites will vanish later this year because Yahoo! is shutting down the service. Hundreds of thousands of unique fan sites and amateur research sites will vanish when they flip th switch and turn off the service.

• Welcome To Rachel Weisz: The Actress, The Beauty


• Rachel Weisz


• The Unofficial Rachel Weisz Pages


• Rachel Weisz Paradise


• Rachel Weisz: A Fan Site For Rachel Weisz


• Rachel Weisz on Tripod


• The OTHER Rachel Weisz site on Tripod

You're under no obligation to go out and create fan sites but if you've been wanting to and telling yourself it's too much trouble because you don't have the talent, then think again. Great fan sites are not about talent and Web design -- they are about the passion you feel for your favorite topic.

If you're a big fan of Rachel Weisz, tell people. That's what we want to find in the search results.

Screw Google. Back in the day before there was Google we helped each other find cool sites through our links. I'll still happily link to fan sites any day of the week.

SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.