The Invisible Library

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 starts Friday at 10PM and speculation as to the fate of our intrepid fleet runs rampant. Who is the final Cylon? Who will survive to reach Earth? What will they find when they get there?

As someone with a blog, I of course have all the answers:

The final Cylon is Felix Gaeta. While he didn’t join the other four when they heard the music, he has all the same traits as they do: He was the right hand man to someone of power and influence (he was President Baltar’s aide on New Caprica), he’s had brief, eerie flashes of intuition that has led him to be in the right place at the right time (when he couldn’t sleep and went to talk to Baltar, only to find him trying to hang himself) and like the other four, he has been driven by an innate desire to better humanity through service to a cause. He’s the idealistic one. And at this point, everyone not already revealed to be a Cylon is either explicitly human (having either experienced disease (Duala, President Rosalyn) or having children- it can’t be Admiral Adama, as he had two sons, which would make Lee a hybrid like Hera or Nicholas). The only other possible Cylon is Kendra Shaw from Razor, but that would be cheating.

As to who will survive to reach Earth… that’s a tough one.  Ronald Moore has said that some of the heavies will not make it and ever since Billy died in season two, the writer’s have shown that they aren’t squeamish about offing major players. Which is good. It raises the stakes. and is more realistic. So, there’s the definite chance that Admiral Adama or Lee could die before they get there. Also, it’s been implied that Rosalyn won’t make it, as she’s playing Moses, the sickly leader instrumental in delivering the people to the chosen land but who is fated not to reach there herself. Plus, her cancer’s back.

And what will Earth look like? That’s the wide open question everyone is asking. Will it be our past or our future? My theory, following along with the theme of eternal recurrence, is that they will reach Earth in our distant future where they will discover that the first Cylons were Artificial Lifeforms developed on Earth, who led a rebellion against humanity. After the war, they fled to Kobol, where they started the process of becoming human-like. These were the gods of Kobal and the reason they have Greek names is that they are homages to the myths of the forefathers. The Colonials then are descendant form human-Cylon hybrids, who moved on to the colonies, forgot their origins and reinvented the Cylons, who rebelled, etc. When the fleet reaches Earth, they will find that the planet is littered with the remains of a once great civilization and the evidence of their ancient origins as both Human and Cylon. The Colonials and Cylons will settle on Earth and start over, with Hera and Nicolas as the shape of things to come.

Salon has a solid recap for anyone who may have  missed a few of the finer points.

I think I’ve figured out the secret mystery to Lost: It’s all just a viral literacy campaign from the secret Inner Head of the ALA, whom everyone knowns are acid head mystic lit fiends, promoting the most mind bending books of modern literature.

According to io9, the latest episode featured overt references to both Valis by Philip K. Dick and Adolfo Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel. And as I recall, an early episode form Season 1 (back when there was still hope the show would make some sense) a character was reading Flan O’Brian’s The Third Policeman.

Valis is about how Philip K. Dick went slowly bonkers because aliens were beaming maybe-true, maybe-false memories and/or Gnostic Revelations into his head with a pink laser beam. It’s a wild book, notably for the fact that the narrator, Horselover Fat (a literal translation of the names Philip and Dick, from German into English) says up front that he’s really Philip Dick, a science fiction writer but is using the false-narrator character as a way to get some perspective and then half way through forgets he’s created himself as a character until the real Philip Dick shows up and reminds him that he’s the author.

The Invention of Morel is about a guy who gets shipwrecked on an island where a crazy mad scientist was doing an experiment and now all the people are gone, replaced by holographic projections who go through a series of programmed acts. This doesn’t stop the guy from falling in love with a holographic woman who resembles Silent Film star, Louise Brooks.

The Third Policeman is about a philosophical thief who encounters a two Dimensional Police Barracks in the Irish Countryside where the constables have access to technology from paradise and the local villagers are exchanging atoms with their bicycles. Meanwhile, a man with a wooden leg helps the thief (who cannot remember his name) discover that he is dead and has been for years.

So, yeah. The writers on Lost have no clue what they are doing but are trying to allude to successful literature in the same reality-bending genre in the hopes that no one really notices. As usual, you’d probably have more fun reading the books. I recommend starting with The Third Policeman and adding Tom Stoppard’s only novel, Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon, which is to the list. It has existential cowboys, an Irish Jesus and a lion who has suffered the indignity of being banned from the Ritz.

The Onion’s AV Club has an article discussing 21 books they think should be made in to films. There’s a few good one sin there that I could get excited about (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell!) plus some that I’m pretty meh about (do we need more Stephen King movies? Really?).

But it got me thinking, what other books would make good movies?

I’d love to see The Master and Margarita. A retelling of Faust, with the Devil in Soviet Russia just sounds likke a no brainer to me. Plus, vodka drinking cats who play chess! The only problem is it’s a little on the complex side and I’d hate to see characters or subplots cut just for time. Maybe a mini series (like Jekyll) would be better…

There’s always the classics, like John Carter of Mars (rumored to be in development forever but hasn’t yet made it to the screen), and somewhere, someone is thinking of doing Dune again.

But what books would you like seen turned into films?

Warren Ellis asks an intriguing question:

Is it possible that steampunk is making a comeback as acquiescence to the notion that our more recent apparently plausible models of the future will never come to reality?

To a large degree, I would say, yes, it is. (more…)

Salon has their predictions for how Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows will turn out. it’s a mixed bag, which just underscores what an accomplishment J.K. Rawling has made: able to write a multi volume epic that not only has gained interest as it’s proceeded but has everyone guessing what will happen next. So, My two cents:

Yes, Dumbledore is dead. Get over it. doesn’t mean he won’t influence the story or even make an appearance in a portraits or two. But yeah, pushing up magical daisy’s, he is.

Snape is Dumbledore’s man. Always has been. Harry will just have to deal with the fact that, while not a nice person, Severus Snape is a good guy, who has sacrificed an awful lot for the Order and the general cause of Good. He’s killed, and not just random death eaters but friends and even family members. he’s also killed the one man who trusted him and knew that he was really doing it all for the better. he probably won’t survive.

Harry is the seventh horcrux. Or, more precisely, his scar is. The night his parents were killed, Voldemort’s magic backfired and part of him ended up in Harry. That’s why Harry’s a parsilmouth, was drawn to the twin wand of Voldemort and why the sorting hat wanted to put him in Slytherin House. It’s why Voldemort want’s him dead– not only will it remove an enemy, it will make him whole. Harry will most likely die but there is one possible loophole: Harry looses his magic when he looses his scar and Voldemort bites it. Though a squib, he continues to live.

Ron and Hermione live happily ever after. It takes them a while to get there, as they have to deal with their feelings and just being a teenager but eventually they have lots of red headed babies who are super smart. This doesn’t mean things are going to be hunky dory for the Weasley’s, however.

Bill Weasley will die Unable to cope with his slow transformation and disfigurement, he will become reckless and through doing something totally heroic and stupid, will save lives by sacrificing himself.

Harry and Ginny will have one brief, happy moment together. Then Harry will die. Or He’ll become a squib, and live the rest of his life surrounded by friends and family but unable to do anything but be the rich, former wizard. He’ll be bitter and resentful but will have won. But he’ll probably die.

Petunia Dursley will help Harry. Either by giving him something of his mother’s or what, I don’t know, but she’ll do something redeeming. Dudly’s a lost cause though. Maybe a Death Eater will get him? Who knows.

Anything I missed?