Junior novelizations are an odd breed of book. I mean, does one really need to read a 200 page prose version of Adventures in Babysitting? (If you were me in 1987, then the answer is a resounding yes, but I pray that I’m in the minority). Over the years I’ve collected quite a few gems of dubious literary spin-offs—everything from a Where’s Waldo/Street Fighter mash up to the Star Wars Question and Answer Book About Space, which poses such questions as “Are there such things as Moon Creatures?” and “Can Lasers kill people?” (the answers are no and sometimes respectively–sorry, spoilers). One of my favorites is the novelization of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (hint, it’s not by Bram Stoker).
Today let’s look beneath the cover of a real head-scratcher: Blade Runner: a Story of the Future. Is this heavily illustrated 90 page chapter book meant to appeal to the 7-year-olds coming off of The Empire Strikes Back and itching for more Han Solo space adventures, or is it intended to be a low-cost art book for older fanboys? We’ll let the book speak for itself.
He sat alone, looking at the snakes decorating the bar walls, crawling upon the floor, and wrapped around women who were wearing little else. The snakes were replicas, of course – otherwise they would have cost a fortune. But the showgirls were clearly real, their flesh warm against the snakes’ cold scales. Except for one, thought Deckard. One who looked even more enticing than the others. She was billed as Salome, and when she finished her act and went backstage, Deckard couldn’t wait for Rachael any longer. He had a job to do. A skin job.
Actually, that sounds more like the start of a very naughty fan fic.
Skin jobs aside, the author takes a decidedly chipper approach to adaptation. For instance, take Roy Batty’s final lines, perhaps the most poignant point in the film. This:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.
Becomes this:
“You have courage,” Batty said to him. “You are the only human I have met with as much courage as I. Perhaps you have even more. Even I was tempted to beg not to die.” Batty paused as his mind turned feelings into words. “I could not destroy courage like that. It would be like destroying what is best in me.”
Deckard sat beside Batty as Batty stared up at the star-filled sky.
“You know,” said Batty,” I have never spared a life before. I am glad I was able to do it now. I am glad I have been free not to kill at least once before I die.”
Okay, granted the author probably had to write this before the final script, and Batty’s final line was improved, but that sounds more like “Frog and Toad are Replicants” than Blade Runner.
Come to think of it, the book’s final words also have a Frog and Toad vibe:
Deckard had one hand on the controls, the other was around Rachael. “They’ve left it all behind for us,” he said. “We’re heirs to all the earth.”
“But for how long?” asked Rachael.
“How does that old-fashioned vow go?” said Deckard. “For as long as we both shall live.”
I love books. Not just for the words inside, but the way they smell, the way they look on a shelf, the way they sit in your hand… I love old books with illustrations that speak to a different era and new books that use the latest laminating techniques for eye catching covers. Books are pretty great.
Through my teenage years and into my twenties, I never once checked out a library book – why would I need to when I had a veritable library at my fingertips at the bookstore where I worked? As it was a used bookstore, I was allowed to borrow, but I usually bought them anyway. By the time I graduated from college and left retail, amazon.com had trained me on a new way of satisfying my reading itch, sans shipping and sales tax. Working in publishing, even more books came my way – both ones I worked on and the comp copies sent from friends at other companies. It’s only when I moved—eight times in as many years—and had to cart those 20+ boxes of my prized collection, that I regretted my bibliophilia.
A few months ago, I finally swore off buying books impulsively and joined the 21st century by getting a library card. (Seeing as I live within 3 blocks of the San Francisco public library, I no longer had an excuse not to). So much has changed since I was pudgy and wee and checking out books about mice on motorcycles and vampire bunnies. Did you know that you can browse the card catalog…online?! And what more, they’ll even pull the books and have them sitting at the counter all wrapped up for you and ready to go. I know! It’s like all this time, it’s been Max Keebler day and nobody told me!
So far I’ve caught up on Kim Stanley Robinson, saved myself $20 a pop by borrowing the latest from Paul Auster and Murakami, learned about the wonders of tulips and the evils of corn courtesy of Michael Pollan, read about gold farmers, Hadals of the subcontinent, Yzordderrex and expats. On queue, I’ve got Stephenson sci-fi, Sweedish noir and some T.C. Boyle I skipped before.
The freedom offered by a library—no cost, no commitment, virtually no limits—is both exhilarating and intimidating. I’ll discover a hundred new bands in a year and see as many films and I feel pretty well informed about both, but books? As much as I love them, when it comes to reading, I’m still such a novice.
I don’t really have any point to make today—rather, I need to flex my blogging muscles just a little (as I’ve been flexing my poor legs trying to get back into jogging) before I lose all momentum. Consider this a warm up for what will hopefully be a more substantial posting in the next day or two.
I don’t remember learning much from the two years I spent at community college. If I try hard enough, I can vaguely recall testing for mineral hardness, or learning that most archaeologists make a living by inspecting construction sites, not excavating jungle tombs (way to crush my Indiana Jones dreams, Mr. whateveryournamewas!) , but the truth is, I wasn’t that motivated by school anymore. Having sort of sabotaged my academic momentum by not bothering to really apply to universities, I found myself without any real goals or real hope for change.
I found inspiration in the summer of 1996, ironically enough, in astronomy, sociology, geology, anthropology, ecology (and plenty other -ologies)…just not in the classroom. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars 
and its sequels, Green Mars and Blue Mars, opened my eyes to a new kind of optimism. His scientist heroes weren’t trying to take us to “The Future!”—they were trying to build a present that didn’t trip over the mistakes of the past. His books are packed with scientific detail, but they are never about science—they are about people who think scientifically. The Mars trilogy reawakened my pre-teen optimism for a glorious tomorrow, where men and women from around the world could put aside their differences and really change the world for the better! I still didn’t know what my place would be in this glorious utopian revolution, but at least I’d found hope again, and I’d discovered a damn good writer in the process.
Shortly thereafter, when I transferred to USC for film school, I read and enjoyed Robinson’s next novel, Antarctica (I even tried to persuade the development company I was interning with to option it!), but after that, fell out of touch with old KSR. By the time I checked up on him again, he was already 2 books in to his next trilogy, one about global warming. Blue Mars deals with the repercussions of global warming—does my erstwhile favorite writer really need to stoop to Roland Emmerich material now, I thought as I looked at the sensationalist covers that seemed far too Tom Clancy for my tastes. It wasn’t until last month that I finally caved.
Here we were, in the heat of election season, with my now officially confirmed guy talking about change, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe it’s silly, but when I was struggling to get excited about our real world heroes, I looked again to Robinsons’ science heroes for inspiration.
Forty Signs of Rain
, the first of the “Science in the Capital” trilogy starts off slowly to be sure, and chapters dedicated to daddy day care and grant endorsements weren’t exactly reigniting the old flames. It wasn’t until about half way through that you really even have a sense of what this series is really about. And it wasn’t until the second volume, 50 Degrees Below, that I realized how invested I was in the main character, Frank. The more I read, the more impressed I became with how Robinson weaves together threads of bio-engineering, politics, Buddhism, privacy, terraforming, Emerson, homelessness and neuropsychology—he forces you to question what it means to be responsible modern human. In his world, there are no pat answers, yet he isn’t afraid to take a stand. Robinson is, as always, an optimist and an idealist, and while that might at times come of as hokey, I am glad to share in it. Especially now. Welcome back into my heat, Kim Stanley Robinson. I’m sorry I ever took off your friendship bracelet.