Remakes, Retreads, Repeats (Hugo Cinema 1993)

This blog post is the thirty-sixth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

The 51st World Science Fiction Convention had a more robust media presence than many of its predecessors had.

Special effects legend Stan Winston showed up to promote the upcoming adaptation of Interview With The Vampire. Rockne S. Obannon was on hand to show clips from his new series Seaquest DSV. There were presentations from that autumn’s hot new Superman TV show Lois and Clark. Publicists shared sizzle reels for several of that autumn’s SFF movies like The Shadow, Robocop 3, and Demolition Man.

Given the amount of money spent promoting their wares at the World Science Fiction Convention, it seemed like Hollywood was starting to take science fiction fandom seriously. But most of the films shown at the convention, and many of those on the shortlist in 1993 did not provide much evidence that they took science fiction itself very seriously.

An important exception to this was Babylon 5. The pilot had aired the previous February, and was already hotly discussed in fanzines. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski flew up to San Francisco in person to give fans a preview of the upcoming first season of the show. It garnered rave reviews from fans in attendance, many of whom felt that what was seen at Worldcon looked even better than what had

Alien 3 is pretty bad, but gave us one memorable
image. (Via IMDB)

previously aired. MT Void editor Mark Leeper enthusiastically wrote “I would trade any two episodes of Star Trek for one episode of Babylon 5.”

But Babylon 5 wouldn’t be on the ballot that year, and the shortlist offered a mostly forgettable set of movies that are re-treads of more artistically successful fare.

At a panel discussing the state of science fiction cinema at the Worldcon, attendees griped about the “poor calibre” of the Best Dramatic Presentation shortlist that year. In the end, two of the five finalists (Alien 3 and Batman Returns) were ranked below “no award” — something that had not happened in more than a decade.

Much (and deservedly) maligned, Alien 3 seems like an unusual inclusion on the Hugo Award ballot. “Alien 3 will alienate the hardcore fans of Alien and Aliens,” Hollywood Reporter reviewer Duane Byrge predicted with some accuracy. “It is perhaps the most sterile and mechanical science fiction film in history.” Assigned to first-time director David Fincher, the movie finds Ellen Ripley stranded on an all-male prison planet. Although that set-up might provide an interesting setting for further encounters with the titular xenomorphs, it ends up as mostly a shoddy production that looks and feels cheap. Brian Glover and Charles Dance provide significant charisma, but their contributions feel hollow given the fact that fan-favourite characters Bishop and Newt from the previous movie are killed offscreen before the movie begins.

Even the director of Alien 3 isn’t a fan of the film. "No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me," Fincher later wrote.

The sequel to Tim Burton’s genre-defnining first Batman movie, Batman Returns is one of the most idiosyncratic and strange mainstream superhero films. Mostly ignoring its own title character, the movie meanders between Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) seeking revenge, the Penguin (Danny DeVito) running for mayor, Max Schreck (Christopher Walken) being a generically evil big businessman. It’s interesting to note that Burton deliberately abandoned the Oscar-winning sets from the first movie that had been

Batman Returns asks viewers to accept the idea that
a hideous charlatan with an unnatural skin tone and
improbable hair could be elected to executive office
 thanks to a campaign of lies and demagoguery.
Thankfully that could never happen
in the real-world. (Image via Batman.wiki)

designed by Anton Furst, choosing instead to hire Bo Welch with whom he’d worked on Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Welch’s more gothic and surreal sets in the sequel leave the world more unmoored from realistic worldbuilding, which we would suggest is reflected in the storytelling. Consequently Burton’s penchant for artifice and whimsy is at its height, and his ability to tell a story is at its nadir. The result is a somewhat perplexing mess of a movie filled with moments of genius that don’t add up to a coherent whole. It was, however, the highest grossing movie of the year, so it’s easy to understand why it’s on the Hugo ballot.

Despite being a bit of a hot mess, Francis Ford Coppola’s lush, overstuffed, rococo remake of Bram Stoker’s Dracula deserved its spot on the Hugo Award shortlist. “The film lifts from Klimt, Kupka and Beardsley for symbolist chic, Eisenstein and Kurosawa for the sabre-rattling historical prologue,” Jonathan Romney wrote in The New Statesman. “You can tell Coppola had fun.” It’s overly long, has too many characters, but is also visually compelling and features some first-rate performances. Notably, Winona Rider’s portrayal of Mina Harker gives the character more depth than most cinematic adaptations of Dracula.

The Disney Renaissance was in full swing when the musical animation interpration of Aladdin hit cinemas in November of 1992. The movie was the first the studio had released to feature non-European animated protagonists — though Aladdin was played by the very white Scott Weinger, while Jasmine was played by the even whiter Linda Larkin. The also pale-skinned Robin Williams, who was at the height of his fame, famously improvised his role as the genie of the lamp. By the time it was released, the film already had the first Disney song ever to top the Billboard Hot 100 (A Whole New World, sung by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle). The classic fairy tale about a young man who is granted three wishes by a magic lamp is reinterpreted for a ’90s audience with a wise-cracking Djinn, some pretty kicking songs, and awkwardly

Dracula's demented and obsequious minion Renfield
has rarely been depicted as more vile and disgusting
than he was in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 adaptation.
(Image via New York Daily News) 

stereotyped racial skin tones (all the protagonists have lighter skin than the villains or the guards…). Disney was a studio in transition, increasingly leaning on computer animation, but the line-drawing is not as smooth as some previous movies from the studio. Our viewing group was split on Aladdin, with most declaring it to be one of their all-time favourite animated movies, but others bristling at the tonal mismatch between Robin Williams’ manic performance and the more straight-laced tone chosen for the rest of the movie. Even those who loved it, however, suggested Aladdin doesn’t feel like a Hugo Award type of movie.

There are some notable omissions from the shortlist. Alexandr Petrov’s Dream of a Ridiculous Man (adapted from the short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky) is a visually inventive philosophical fantasy that might have warranted attention. Peter Mak Tai-Kit’s The Wicked City played on the liminal political status of Hong Kong in the 1990s, and did so with style (and a lot of neon lights). And Bill Kroyer’s eco-fable Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest holds up better than you’d expect.

But in 1992, the best screen speculative fiction was happening on television. After an uneven second season, Star Trek: The Next Generation was firing on all cylinders. It seems like just about every other week in 1992, there had been a stand-out episode of the iconic space exploration series: Hero Worship, Conundrum, The Outcast, Cause and Effect, I, Borg, and Chain of Command all come to mind.

Hugo voters nominated only one episode though: The Inner Light. In the episode, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has an encounter with an ancient alien space probe that forces him to experience the life of a member of a long-extinct species. It’s a stand-alone episode with a solid central arc, and offers the classically-trained Stewart an opportunity to flex his dramatic chops. From the perspective of those who do not have a significant investment in the characters or the series, it’s one of the most approachable episodes of the season, though the hard-core Next Generation fans in our group felt there were stronger stories from this season of television. Hugo administrators were surprised — and pleased — to discover that the episode’s director Peter Lauritsen flew out to San Francisco to accept the award at the Hugo ceremony.

Despite a weaker shortlist in 1992, the Hugo Award went to a deserving winner, especially if you count The Inner Light as representative of one of the greatest science fiction television series of all time. 

Divergent Evolution of Television

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, cable television systems moved to digital delivery and expanded

(Image via Pintrest) 

beyond their original constraints of 35 channels. Technological optimists began to dream of a 500-channel universe.

In 1979 alone, ESPN, C-SPAN, Nickelodeon, The Movie Channel, and the USA Network all hit the airwaves. There was to be a channel for every audience, and an audience for every channel. In 1992, American science fiction fans received their own dedicated channel, while the Canuck equivalent began operations in 1996.

Many imagined that this fabled 500-channel universe would provide a practically unlimited number of high-quality television shows. We would be able to flip channels almost endlessly until we found the content we desired. In reality, and at its peak at the turn of the millennium, there were in excess of 68 million cable subscribers in the United States, and in most parts of the country consumers could access a roughly similar platform of 60 or more channels.

There is good reason why this stretch of time saw an equivalent diversification of genre fiction; almost three times as many prime time science fiction dramas premiered on television in the 1990s as had in the 1970s. Throughout this flourishing of genre fiction, the majority of it was broadly available to middle-income American viewers who had a basic cable package that included the Sci-Fi Channel.

Even a show on the Prime Time Entertainment Network (one of the most marginal networks of the day) reached enough viewers to garner a few Hugo Award nominations for J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5.

There were, however, inequities within this distribution model. People living in some remote areas might not have had access to Star Trek: Voyager when UPN started broadcasting in 1995. People living in Canada were largely unable to access the TV show based on the Jean Claude Van Damme movie TimeCop. Among English-language entertainment, British television series remained significantly less

Only nine episodes of TimeCop
aired before Universal decided
to #DefundTheTimePolice.
(Image via YouTube.)

accessible due to differing frame rates and lack of distribution outlets across the pond. Channels were usually bundled rather than being offered à la carte. If you were interested in The Secret World of Alex Mack, you might find that it was on a channel that wasn’t in the same bundle as the channel airing Weird Science: The TV Series.

But despite these relatively small gaps, for the most part there was a common technological platform, media provider, and billing system that handled all media.

The proliferation of streaming services that media consumers are now experiencing is fundamentally different from the growth of niche-content channels in the mid-1990s. It’s worth discussing these differences, as they could be seen to encourage compartalization, and perhaps even a sort of tribalism, across science fiction fandom.

These streaming services should not be compared to individual television channels, but rather to cable packages. Thus, we have not reached the fabled 500-channel universe, but rather a balkanized media landscape made up of a variety of 30-channel universes.

These 30-channel universes are not segmenting the market in the same ways that niche cable channels did; rather they are organized around broad-based appeal, each aiming to build momentum off the strength of three items: a tentpole science fiction series, a relaunch of a 1990s sitcom, and a buzzy prestige drama.

Disney+ was launched on the strength of a new live-action Star Wars show. Apple+ was launched by

How many goodly channels are there here!
How beauteous streaming is! O what a Brave
New World that has such content in it.
(Image via PeacockTV.com)

hiring an acclaimed Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica creative force to craft a much-hyped science fiction project. Peacock was launched with a high-budget star-laden adaptation of Brave New World. Every platform has a band of content for situation comedies, high-brow dramas, reality shows, superhero shows, and cop shows. It is not segmented by interest, but rather segmented by brands that are all trying to compete for all viewers.

It is not reasonable (or for most of us economically feasible) to subscribe to every streaming service that’s offering something we might want to watch. In an average American city, the combined price of Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Disney+, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, basic cable, HBO Max, Showtime, FX, Peacock, and STARZ will exceed $1,300 per year. It is therefore likely that most fans will pick and choose their streaming services based on which tent-pole productions they are most interested in. If The Mandalorian and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are must-haves, then Tales From The Loop and For All Mankind will likely fall by the wayside. It is a sad truth that many technologically adept fans may end up illegally downloading other shows when more moderate, collective pricing might increase both audience and corporate profits overall.

This fragmentation is compounded by the unrelenting deluge of content that is being generated every year.

Ignoring all reruns, in 2009 there were 210 scripted English-language prime-time television series on the air in the United States (a total that fails to include reality shows, daytime dramas, or children’s series). This is an enormous amount of content; it would take you 4,380 hours to watch it all. By 2019, the amount had more than doubled. (It’s worth noting that up until the Pandemic, this growth in high-budget content creation had been mirrored at the movie theatres, with the number of theatrically released movies increasing from 520 in 2009, to 792 in 2019.)

Looking just at science fiction and fantasy, the number of English-language genre shows premiering in a given decade has quadrupled since the 1980s, from 50 to more than 200. When we consider the increasing globalization of science fiction, and the need to include multicultural voices in the awards system, the numbers would be staggering.

The era of “Peak Media” presents a significant obstacle to those who wish to use the democratic forum of the Hugo Awards to celebrate the truly extraordinary storytelling achievements of this era of small-screen entertainment.

One of the great things about the Hugo Awards is the democratic nature of the institution. But access to information is a requirement of a functioning democracy … and in some Hugo categories, access is in decline.

There was a time when it was reasonable to assume that most Hugo voters would have access to a representative sampling of dramatic presentations, either by passive choice or osmosis. Today, it requires more effort, more attention, and more willingness to step outside of our comfort zones.

The increasing segmentation of the television marketplace into streaming fiefdoms is making it more difficult for a worthy series on a less-popular streaming service to break through to broader audiences. No matter how great a science fiction show might be, it has next to no chance of connecting with enough Hugo Award voters to get on the shortlist if it is a Peacock Original.

There is already a significant overrepresentation of well-established franchises on the shortlist for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). By our count in the past decade, more than 70 per cent of finalists in the category have come from long-running multimedia franchises.

It appears that Hugo voters will sign up to Disney+ to ensure they keep up to date on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars Galaxy. There is reason to worry that the award could devolve into “the best show in the walled garden that most Worldcon people subscribe to.”

The evolution of television is diverging. Our collective imagination is the habitat of cultural myths, and as this habitat becomes fragmented, these myths might speciate.

The Movement of Goods In Science Fiction

Space-based science fiction places a lot of attention on the transportation of goods.

The interplanetary transport Pachyderm
from the movie Space Truckers is just
one of many, many examples of how
interstellar civilization is depicted as
being similar to our globalized economy.
(Image via highdefdigest.com)

Whether it’s a Lissepian captain hauling self-sealing stem bolts from Deep Space 9 or the crew of Firefly delivering cattle to the colony of Jiangyin, we are often presented with depictions of how goods are moved from one location to another.

This focus is probably a reflection of the modern neoliberal consensus that globalized trade is a good and necessary thing, and is a trend in science fiction that is worth questioning.

The large-scale movement of goods only makes sense if there is a strong economic incentive; if it is cheaper to build something in one location rather than another, if the skills to build something are only available in one location, or if the resources are only available in one location. When you see the depiction of merchant space ships travelling on regular runs between two locations, it implies that there are entire planets where it is cheaper to build something, and markets looking to buy those things.

Is inter-jurisdictional trade really that scalable? Between real-world nations, whose populations are measured in millions, there might be a specialized need that cannot be filled by the manufacturing base of a smaller nation. But with planets that are often depicted as having populations that number in the billions, it’s hard to imagine a need so specialized that they don’t have the capacity for local manufacturing.

With the exception of newly established colonies, interplanetary trade often seems to happen without the existence of one of the required antecedent factors. If the writer’s intent is to mirror our globalized economy, either for worldbuilding or plot effect, it would be helpful to see the justifications mirrored as well.

Planet-to-planet trade modelled after our globalized economy is a recurring theme in almost every fictional interplanetary community; the Democratic Organization Of Planets in Futurama, the Galactic Empire in Foundation, the Imperium of Dune, the Interstellar Alliance in Babylon 5, the Minmatar Republic in EVE … the list goes on. In science fiction with less advanced technology (no instantaneous transport, no universal replicators) rarity of resources such as dilithium or unobtanium sometimes serves as justification, but this doesn’t explain the overall “globalization” of the economies we see in SFF.

In short, even the flow of Spice can’t entirely explain a complex interstellar trading economy.

In Dune, the need for Spice still can't
explain why they have a trading economy.
 Bene Gesserit sisterhood may not be
exactly as depicted here.
(Image via spicegirls.fandom.com)

As an example, lets look at Star Trek and Deanna Troi’s home planet of Betazed. If Betazed needs self-sealing stem bolts, they could either have a local manufacturing operation, or they could have them shipped to the planet.

While Starfleet ships may travel at higher warp speeds, freight transports are rarely depicted as going faster than warp five. Depending on the Star Trek resource book you look at, this is approximately 200 times the speed of light, or a bit more than a week to travel each way between Earth and Alpha Centauri. The travel time for such a freighter to get from Earth to Vulcan would be more than a month. Even if Betazed is trading with their nearest star system, the cost of transport is going to be significant, to cover ship depreciation, crew salaries, fuel costs, etc. This would demand a high-profit, highly differentiated product — one that is never mentioned.

Conversely, local manufacturing should in fact be economically feasible. In 2372 (when the trading of self-sealing stem bolts is depicted in Deep Space 9), Betazed has a population of more than 5.6 billion people. Even if the self-sealing stem bolts can’t be made by the universal replicator, one would assume that the factory in which the bolts are made could be set up relatively inexpensively, since much of the facility could be replicated. This leaves labour costs as the remaining barrier to production.

We've never heard any Ferengi rules
that prohibit keeping indentured workers
in conditions of absolute destitution.
(Image via memory-alpha.fandom.com)

Globalization works in our present-day economy because capitalism maintains pools of labour in destitute conditions, and is thus able to offer goods at cheaper rates to those in walled-off prosperity zones. By extension, the existence of large-scale systems of transportation for manufactured goods in a science fictional setting implies the existence of planets with populations that are mired in subsistence poverty or slavery.

This relationship between interstellar trade and slavery is occasionally made explicit, though the criticism of such systems is varied. Star Wars has included several depictions of slavery, and the close relationship between that slavery and interestellar trade. Notably, the recent movie Star Wars: Solo. But in Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, slavery on Tatooine is depicted as something tolerable to the upper-class ‘good’ characters Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Cult classic SF TV series Firefly grapples with these issues more successfully in the episode Jaynestown, where we are introduced to disenfranchised indentured workers who mine resources on a slave planet. Likewise Becky Chambers’ A Closed and Common Orbit includes a planet with a slave culture, though a direct link between interstellar trade and slavery is not made explicit. Other reputable characters avoid the planet and express distaste for the practice, but there must be a large enough market accepting or unaware of slavery for the planet to exist. One wonders how many of the goods on Port Coriol have been produced by slaves.

Despite the fact that these systems would be untenable without a large underclass, science fiction spends a lot of time in walled-off prosperity zones. Earth in the United Federation of Planets is a sparkling gem, where there is no want that cannot be satisfied. People might work but only insofar as they want to. Once labour goes from meaningful to menial, they can simply stop and experience no hardship. Compare this to Arvada III where Beverly Crusher developed a passion for medicine as a child when her grandmother was forced to use roots and herbs to treat a medical crisis. The trade that occurs between these planets seems to benefit Earth a great deal while leaving Arvada III wanting. And in such a power imbalance, it’s no wonder that Earth is able to secure advantageous terms of trade. The threat of withholding trade includes the implicit threat of destruction. But the unfairness of this trading relationship is never made explicit, or commented on.

The plethora of cargo transports seen in science fiction is driven in part by a narrative need; transportation by default means characters move around, and this allows readers to explore a broader fictional universe. If you need a young man to go from a desert planet to a lush green planet to meet with a princess, it’s convenient if there is a YT-1300 Corellian freighter on which to book a ride. Blue collar work that is fixed to a specific location — such as most manufacturing or resource extraction jobs — rarely meets the needs of science fiction storytelling.

But that being said, the predominant depiction of transportation as opposed to manufacturing within space opera has implications for the futures we collectively imagine. Because all forms of economic activity have impacts on society, the primacy of transportation within space opera needs to be examined and challenged. 

Labour on screen in science fiction: Fritz to Boots

This is the third of a three-part blog post about the historical invisibility of organized labour in science fiction, as well as recent works that address this absence. In the first two parts, we examined prose works both negative and positive. An additional post includes a list of all labour unions we are aware of in science fiction works. 

Film is a medium that can help construct a tolerant, diverse, and informed society. It’s no surprise, then, that the first shots of the first movie camera were focused on workers and on work. For 45 seconds, director Louis Lumière documented the comings and goings of factory workers in his 1895 movie “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory.”

Workers and labour are recurring themes
in early movies, including the 1927
Fritz Lang classic Metropolis.
(Image via IMDB.com)

Employment has been a ubiquitous subject in film — and in science fiction film — but worker organizing has again been neglected.

Some of the earliest science fiction movies feature clashes between workers and automation. From the now-lost 1895 short movie The Mechanical Butcher to Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis, filmmakers reflected the concerns of an era that was experiencing rapid industrialization as well as violent actions taken against the working class.

Possibly because of political sensitivities, many of these films made no overt mention of a labour union, but in Metropolis, the workers assert their rights through something similar to anarcho-syndicalist collective action, which may make it the IWW of labour movies.

This treatment of labour and labour unions as a source of strife continues in cinema over the next several decades, though overt union representation is rare. Workers might revolt in a chaotic manner in a science fiction film (as in Stargate, Planet of the Apes or Solo: A Star Wars Story), but they are rarely organized — or effective — in their actions.

The first unmistakable labour union in science fiction cinema that we were able to find is the Textile

The Man In The White Suit may be the
first science fiction movie to have been
nominated for an Academy Award in a
major category, earning a nod for
adapted screenplay.
(Image via Guardian.co.uk)

and Garment Workers Union depicted in the 1951 Ealing Studios comedy The Man In The White Suit. The film revolves around the invention of an indestructible fabric by a mild-mannered chemist played by Sir Alec Guinness, and the subsequent attempts by business and labour unions to suppress the invention. The depiction of unions in this movie is broad and largely inaccurate, depicting them as collaborating with management and encouraging industrial sabotage.

Despite these inaccuracies about how unions operate, we will be endorsing The Man In The White Suit for 1952 Retro Hugos, . It is in most ways a superb and thoughtful piece of science fiction about the introduction of a new technology, and is elevated by witty dialogue and star-worthy performances (Guinness was nominated for an Academy Award that year for a different comedy from the same studio).

Most other labour unions depicted on screen in science fiction up until the 1990s relegate the labour conflict to a tertiary storyline. In Robocop, the government’s decision to deploy the title character is driven by a police union strike. In the real world, in most North American jurisdictions, police officers are unable to strike because they are deemed to be ‘essential services,’ but in the dystopian future depicted in Robocop, police services have been privatized and are now run by the corporation Omni Consumer Products. Because the police are no longer public servants, they are able to (legally) walk off the job.

One aspect of Robocop that is worth noting is that the strike has been engineered by the corporation, the CEO of which deliberately withholds adequate resources (police vehicles and equipment) and acts in bad faith when it comes to pensions and wages. The strike is therefore shown as justified, but when push comes to shove, the most heroic police officers Anne Lewis, Alex Murphy, and Warren Reid all cross the picket line.

During the climactic scenes of the movie, the striking workers come to the rescue of Robocop,

To quote the CEO of OCP, "This strike
can be useful to us." Robocop may
not entirely woke to labour rights,
but it does have thoughtful satire
about privatization of public services.
(Image via Youtube.com)

showing that they are more concerned with doing their jobs than they are their own livelihoods. It is unsatisfying that workers’ rights questions remain unresolved in the movie — the strike is ended but wages, pensions, and funding are all unaddressed.

Robocop presents us with a prescient warning about the low-wage agenda that is marketed under the term ‘privatization,’ but its depiction of worker organizing and worker solidarity is sadly lacking.

There are at least two prominent portrayals of labour organizing in mid-1990s science fiction television series: Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. They offered very different — but equally unsatisfying — portrayals of labour organizing.

Babylon 5’s episode 'By Any Means Necessary' shows a labour movement that is belligerent and badly led into a violent dockworkers’ strike — only the unconventional thinking of the station’s military governor prevents the situation’s violence from escalating. 

Two years later, in Deep Space Nine’s episode 'Bar Association,' we are shown an example of solidarity organizing to address the plight of underpaid waiters and waitresses in Quark’s Bar. Once the employer has compromised on wages, however, it is suggested that a union is ‘no longer needed.’ In both of these examples, the labour movement is shown as being an unruly rabble whose actions need to be kept in check.

The low point in televised science fiction’s portrayal of labour may have been 'Dirty Hands,' a third season episode of Battlestar Galactica. The ‘villains’ of the episode are workers who conduct a work

There's a term for workers whose right
to stop working has been taken away
through state-sanctioned violence.
(Image via IMDB.com) 

slowdown in an attempt to negotiate safer working conditions. The episode’s resolution features the ‘protagonist’ Admiral Adama arresting the union leader and threatening execution of non-compliant workers. This protagonist specifically promises that the union leader's wife will be the first one to be 'put against the bulkhead and shot.'

In the labour movement, this behaviour might be described as unfair bargaining practices.

As the product of a collaborative and corporatized structure, television might be a compromised medium when it comes to offering nuanced depictions of class struggle. Published text narratives — though subject to some editorial controls — are usually credited to a single author with a greater level of intellectual freedom and interest in a personal brand. Because a single author is better able to take personal responsibility for their ideas and their words, they are less likely to be constrained in what they say.

Last year, two very different examples of labour union depictions in science fiction hit the screens, and were surprisingly positive portrayals. The last two episodes of South Park’s most recent season 'Unfulfilled / Bike Parade' features a storyline about employees at an Amazon warehouse who decide to assert their right to a safe workplace in the wake of an accident. Although South Park is as irreverent in this episode as you’d expect it to be, the plight of the workers — and the tensions between picketers and picket-line crossers — are handled surprisingly well.

A very different example — but even more satisfying — was Boots Riley’s directorial debut Sorry

Boots Riley's Sorry To Bother You
shows the tensions and conundrums
faced by union members and organizers
while trying to assert their workplace rights.
 (Image via WorkingClassPerspectives)

To Bother You. A surreal workplace comedy with science fictional elements, Sorry To Bother You uses a story about the unionization of a call centre to explore larger themes about worker solidarity, the erosion of middle-class incomes, and the hyper-competitiveness encouraged by corporate culture and capitalism more broadly, pitting one worker against another. This may be one of the finest examples of labour union depiction in science fiction to date.

Overall, society’s (and science fiction’s) failure to imagine new forms of economic organization reinforces the neoliberal paradigm. Given science fiction’s speculative mandate, this is even more pronounced in the genre and especially its cinema and television (which reach a wider audience than literary forms). The marginalization of unions in science fiction is significant — and symptomatic. As Mark McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson argue in their paper Resistance Is Futile, themes that are omitted from popular culture are often consigned to not merely to impossibility, but to unthinkability.

Fleet of Knives: Pacifism Gets Its Due

Overt pacifism is often given short shrift in science fiction, so it is refreshing to see it represented by

(Image Via Amazon.com)

the House of Reclamation that is the central focus of Gareth Powell’s novel Embers of War and its recently released sequel Fleet of Knives.

The House of Reclamation, which operates like a benevolent version of the French Foreign Legion, accepts all those who wish to leave their pasts behind them in order to serve the greater good. The organization operates a network of rescue ships, and dispatches them to various crises with a humanitarian mission to save lives and provide medical support.

This mission and set-up provide an excellent framework in which to tell engaging and personal stories about characters who are atoning for past crimes. One could imagine Powell continuing to mine this premise for numerous novels, much as James White did with his superb Sector General novels.

Much like the Sector General novels, this series seems to be building and strengthening over time.

One of the aspects of the first book that we enjoyed was the way that the universe bled off the edge of the pages. Only those portions of the world that were directly important to the story were fully explained, but there was clearly enough thought given to the setting that there was room in this universe for many stories.

Many have praised Embers of War and its sequel by comparing them to Firefly. However, we think it’s more apt to compare these novels to a different cult television classic: Babylon 5, Much like J. Michael Straczynski’s masterpiece, these novels are set in the wake of a galaxy wide conflict, explore

"Some time ago, Keffer saw or
thought he saw something in hyperspace,
 a ship of some kind." — Lt. Ivanova
(Image via Babylon5.fandom.com) 

how peace is achieved, and feature elder races and ancient interstellar mysteries. In Fleet of Knives, Powell invites this comparison by directly quoting Babylon 5’s tagline “The Last Best Chance For Peace.”

If the first novel was comparable to the first season of B5, then Fleet of Knives offers the narrative bridge of the second and third seasons in which the premise is reinvented, and true dangers are revealed.

There are shadows in hyperspace, and tensions between more established and newer Human settlements. There’s also the question of who created the Marble Armada and what happened to them. Several of those tantalizing hints receive more focus in Fleet of Knives — though to say too much about this would spoil half of the fun.

The character of Trouble Dog — a sentient warship that resigned from the military — continues to be one of the real highlights of the series. Designed and bred to be efficient and task-focused, Trouble Dog’s personality does not correspond to what we would describe as a neurotypical human, and in this she reminds us somewhat of another recent popular SF creation: Murderbot.

Powell clearly knows the genre inside and out, and this deep knowledge helps the work become more than a sum of its parts.

More problematic is the narrative arc of war criminal turned poet Ona Sudak, which almost serves to undermine her character development in the previous novel. The inconsistency of Sudak’s reform and lack of self-awareness did not sit well with us. She might have better served readers if her story had ended.

That being said, the strong narrative arc, the pacing and engaging prose all add up to one heck of an adventure novel. Given our strong penchant for avoiding sequels on our Hugo ballots, we likely won’t have this work on our 2020 nominations list. However, it is almost guaranteed that we’ll be advocating strongly for this to be recognized in the series category in 2021.