ASIM issue 55 Page 6
Raised voices, smashing glass. Murray sighed, and looked out the window, down onto Main Street.
Just an edge off, he thought. Just a hair. That’s all anyone needs.
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I Owe it to Auntie
Spec-Fic TV and the Coming of Australia’s ‘Fatty and George’ Generation
…Jacob Edwards
The early 1980s saw child-friendly speculative fiction blow the cinematic box office wide open, with The Empire Strikes Back (1980), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Return of the Jedi (1983), The NeverEnding Story (1984), Ghostbusters (1984) and Gremlins (1984) as well as less profitable but equally ambitious or high-profile films such as Superman II (1980), Time Bandits (1981), Tron (1982) and The Dark Crystal (1982). These movies surely had a great influence in firing young imaginations and steering children towards a love of science fiction and fantasy, but at the same time they were ‘event’ screenings—a cinematic jab of experience followed maybe by a VHS booster shot a year or so later—whereas an equally, perhaps more telling force at work on young Australian minds was the day-to-day, nationally endorsed broadcast of small screen speculative fiction programmes.
Whether because parents were more trusting of its educational leanings, or merely because commercial television was not available in many rural parts of Australia, sackful after sackful of budding couch potatoes settled down after school and peeled their eyes to the ABC. Starting with Play School at four o’clock, with its rocket-ship clock and choice of three windows to gaze through, those who weren’t limited in their idiot box intake could enjoy three straight hours of largely spec-fic content leading up to the distinctive fanfare of the news at seven. Even when newsreader Rod Young came on (in Queensland) and the television was ceded to grownup viewing, bedtime might stil be postponed until after Towards 2000 (1981-1983), a half-hour programme whose mandate was to explore advancements in science and technology.
Preceding the news was the fondly remembered ‘hour of power’, in which minds were fuelled by The Goodies and then, courtesy of Doctor Who, sent spinning off through space and time. Handed down from the BBC and then oft-repeated (more so in Australia than the UK), The Goodies was a madcap satire that touched frequently upon the speculative genre before playing to it more overtly in episodes such as Kitten Kong, Invasion of the Moon Creatures, Clown Virus, Frankenfido, 2001 and a Bit and, most gloriously of all, U-Friend or UFO? —a riotous spoof of contemporary big screen SF. Doctor Who, meanwhile, entered the 1980s in revamped form under new producer John Nathan-Turner. Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) bowed out after a haunting and at times surreal final season (1980-1981), whereupon the space-orientated starburst credits sent Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor) into an increasingly iconic three-year stint of pronounced science fiction adventure (1982-1984).
Most ABC programmes ran for twenty-five minutes in those days, leaving five minutes to the half hour for fillers such as Peter Russell Clarke’s cooking show Come & Get It and—to the incessant joy of young speculative fiction junkies—several less-real-world offerings. Blasting from America came the animated ‘daredevil, flying fool and all-round good guy’ Roger Ramjet (“This proton energy pill will give me the strength of twenty atom bombs for a period of twenty seconds!”), while England offered up stop motion animation classic The Wombles (inventive, furry-nosed litterpunks) as well as cartoons Bananaman (a suburban boy superhero voiced by the Goodies) and Cosgrove Hall offerings Count Duckula (the blood-fearing vampire duck) and ‘the greatest secret agent in the world’, Danger Mouse (who lived in a post-box and flew through science fiction tropes like a shark swimming through custard). Cosgrove Hall also animated Captain Kremmen, a more adult space opera that aired (seemingly with more reprise than new material) as part of The Kenny Everett Show and was much anticipated by kids who were allowed to stay up that late.
Animations were a distinct part of the ABC afternoon landscape, from the five minute fillers through to the ten-minute stop motion oddity The Amazing Adventures of Morph (an Aardman creation, pre Wallace & Gromit, starring a plasticine man who could turn into anything and who rol ed about as a sphere and transformed into a cylinder so as to morph through the floor or ceiling); and then there were twenty-five minute cartoon serials imported from a variety of countries. Flash Gordon told of the eponymous American quarterback-turned-space-adventurer and his quest to free the planet Mongo from the nefarious and much-doppelgängered Ming the Merciless. Inspector Gadget was a French/Canadian production that cast Get Smart’s Don Adams as the voice of a bumbling and often malfunctioning cyborg detective. Japanese/French favourite The Mysterious Cities of Gold was primarily an historical adventure, yet alluded to a pre-Incan nuclear apocalypse, and featured the ‘golden condor’, a solar-powered, almost steampunk-ish mechanical bird that served the protagonists as an airplane. Perhaps most zany of all was UK/Dutch collaboration Doctor Snuggles, which showcased a colonial British inventor (voiced by Peter Ustinov) who hopped about on an umbrella pogo stick and went flying in a wooden rocket-ship named Dreamy Boom Boom! Children who were intrigued and bewildered by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy television adaptation in 1981 often didn’t discover until many years later that Douglas Adams (with sometimes writing partner John Lloyd) had scripted two episodes of Doctor Snuggles—‘The Remarkable Fidgety River’ and ‘The Great Disappearing Mystery’.
Probably the most nostalgically loved of the ABC’s hand-me-down cartoons are the Japanese anime triumvirate: Star Blazers (the funkily scored soap/space opera in which a sunken battleship was turned into a space cruiser and embarked upon a last ditch interstellar mission to save Earth from the ruthless Gamilons); Battle of the Planets (aka ‘G-Force’, featuring 7-Zark-7—a cute/camp cross between C3P0 and R2D2—and five super-powered orphans, who in countering the evil forces of Spectra regularly transmuted their spaceship into the ‘Fiery Phoenix’ while the kids themselves jumped onto each other’s shoulders to form a redoubtable ‘whirlwind pyramid’); and, of course, Astro Boy (a flying robot boy with feet- and bottom-lasers and a terribly whiny voice, who was raised in a futuristic world and fought against all manner of evil). Children of the 80s often may be seen nowadays wearing retro shirts depicting characters from these programmes; either those three or Monkey, the live-action Buddhist adventure that saw Monkey (‘great sage, equal of heaven’) and fellow ne’er-do-wells Sandy and Pigsy accompany the boy/girl priest Tripitaka to fetch holy scriptures from Gandhara. Monkey himself carried a magic wishing staff in his ear, and could summon a pink cloud upon which to fly and do battle with demons. Adding to the show’s enduring charm was the fact that its dialogue (dubbed into English) in no way matched the actors’ facial movements; indeed, British writer David Weir infamously ‘translated’ Monkey from the original Japanese without speaking the language and with only a rough idea as to what each episode was about!
Several other live-action shows sailed from the UK to reach Australia in the early 80s: Worzel Gummidge (the third Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee, brought to life as a tramp-like scarecrow); Traveller in Time (a twentieth century teen found herself back in the 1500s, embroiled in the history of Mary, Queen of Scots); and, in all its sitcom kitsch, the magic, kaleidoscope-eyed robot Metal Mickey (who was hooked on atomic thunderblasters and prone to ebullient outbursts such as ‘Boogie, boogie, boogie’ and ‘Ah, my adorable little fruit-bat’). Then there was Sesame Street, a long-standing favourite from the US, its colourful assortment of Muppets including the rhetorically adamant but otherwise incapable Super Grover, as well as Snuffelupagus—a lumbering, brown, hairy elephant whom only Big Bird could see (until years later when do-gooders from above identified the grownups’ dramatically ironic disbelief in Snuffy as potentially discouraging children from speaking up about real-life abuse). Jim Henson’s Muppets also populated the underground fantasy land Fraggle Rock—a precursor of sorts to their gracing the big screen alongside David Bowie in Labyrinth (1986).
The ABC embraced its imports, linking ma
ny shows under the umbrella programme A.R.V.O. —an ocker abbreviation of ‘afternoon’ and also an acronym for Alexander’s Recycled Visual Offerings. The Alexander in question was a gigantic (and mute) pink bunyip, the outlandish animal friend of presenter Ron Blanchard. The cuddly anthropomorphising of Australia’s mythical (or extinct) marsupial added an injection of national identity to the young viewers’ daily fix of imagination, and this was furthered by the inclusion of some home-grown content. Norman Hetherington’s pencil-nosed puppet Mr Squiggle (‘the man from the moon’, dadah-dadut) by the early 80s was halfway through his forty-year run (1959-1999), accompanied by the ever-grumpy Blackboard, Bill the Steam Shovel, Gus the (television for a shell) Snail, and frequent, flighty calls of, “Spacewalk, Miss Jane! Spacewalk!” Perhaps most defining of all for the generation in question, there was Fatty and George (1981), an all-Tasmanian production where two kids, armed with a crystal that could freeze time, tried to rescue their scientist father from his failed time travel experiment, all the while staying one step ahead of a wealthy villainess, her henchman and a (BMX) bikie gang. Countless growing minds may have forgotten its title, but nevertheless it remained fixed in memory—a glowing ember of self-identity.
There were, of course, many more shows—in different years, in other genres and on commercial stations—and the preponderance of young adult spec-fic films would continue throughout the 80s (and beyond) with big screen eye-openers such as Ladyhawke (1985), Back to the Future (1985), Short Circuit (1986), Flight of the Navigator (1986), Howard the Duck (1986), Project X (1987) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). Yet, the influence of the small screen remains most telling in shaping the early 80s generation of budding spec-fic connoisseurs, and it can be of little surprise that those who grew through these formative years are now collecting DVD box set after box set of programmes they encountered daily on the ABC … and then happily foisting them upon their children—the unwitting but time-honoured progeny of the Fatty and George generation.
At Andromeda Spaceways, we’re opening up new routes
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And we’ve moved with the times with our magazine as well. You can still acquire the crunchy paper edition, or the no-calorie pdf version. But we’ve now released ASIM in ebook format as well, both epub and mobi. You can purchase the latest epub, mobi, or pdf issue for only $4.95AUD, or get a year’s subscription for just $18AUD. (But if you choose to subscribe before the end of January 2013, you can take out a one-year e-subscription for only $12AUD—a 33% saving!)
You know it makes sense. Because when the machines rise up, you’ll want to make sure they share your taste in fiction …
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Hammer Fall
…John Birmingham
Joseph Stalin knew he was being watched. He closed his eyes and adjusted the soft, red blanket that covered his legs, like a child hiding under his bed covers, thinking that if he could not see the monster, the monster could not see him. The sun was warm on his face, and bright, even through his eyelids. Sitting in his wheelchair, his face turned up, eyes closed, it was possible to imagine the whole world was a pink, warm womb.
He let his chin slowly fall to his chest before opening his eyes and turning his glare on Beria. “We are delayed, Lavrenty Pavlovich. To what end?”
He patted his pockets, looking for his old pipe, forgetting that he had not smoked in years. The doctors said it would kill him. Frustrated at the delay, frustrated at the doctors, angry that he could not enjoy a simple pipe, his scowl grew darker. Once upon a time the strongest men in Russia had quailed to see him play with that pipe. To turn it this way and that, to stroke the bowl with his thumb while never moving to pack even one shred of tobacco in there, that was enough to signal his displeasure. Enough to make strong men quiver with fear. Now when he patted his pockets, he just looked like an old cripple, forgetful and failing.
Still, what little colour Beria had in his face leached away at the thunderous look on Stalin’s. That was something.
“No delay. There is no delay, Comrade. Everything is running to schedule.”
The chief of the Functional Project Bureau stammered over his last words and nervously checked the flexipad he carried. A rare and valuable working model salvaged from the emergence of the British stealth destroyer so many, many years ago, it was still sleeker and more powerful than anything the Functional Bureau had managed to produce.
Stalin waved him off with a backhanded gesture. “Gah. Enough excuses, Lavrenty Pavlovich. Begin the demonstration. I have many days of travel to return to Moscow. Push your buttons. Bring down the sky. Be done with it.”
“The satellite is almost in position now,” Beria assured him. “We must retire inside.”
His bodyguard leaned forward, “Vozdh?” Asking permission to move him.
“Yes, yes,” said Stalin, who did not really want to give up his place in the sun. The winters grew longer as he grew older. He was certain of it. Soon the leaves on the small stand of trees outside his apartment back in the Kremlin would turn red, then gold, then brown. He adjusted the blanket again—an old habit, it had not moved—and tried not to let his disappointment show as they wheeled him off the terrace and back into the bunker.
He felt the chill as soon as they passed into the shadows of the deep concrete passageway. Solid iron blast doors rumbled behind him as the small party of high officials, and bureaucrats, and technicians filed in, trudging in procession to the bunker from which they would monitor the test. Moisture leaked from the thick concrete walls, giving Stalin pause to worry about his arthritis. He regretted having insisted on travelling all the way out here to witness the test firing firsthand. Then he smiled to himself. Beria undoubtedly regretted it more, and that was cause for some mild amusement. Stalin knew he would be fretting now, squirming inside like a greasy little weasel, anxious that nothing should go wrong.
The tension in the control room was tangible. He could feel it on his skin, taste it even at the back of his mouth. It was a familiar taste, of a fine vintage. He had been supping on men’s fear for so long now he actually believed he could take some nourishment from it. The scientists and military officers—no they were NKVD Spetsnaz, Beria’s thralls not Red Army, he reminded himself—the technical staff all did their best to avoid catching his gaze. Beria scuttled about, snapping and hissing at them, his spidery white fingers stabbing so hard at the screen of the flexipad that Stalin thought he might punch it to the floor. That would be amusing.
His bodyguard—it was Yagi today—wheeled him past banks of computer terminals, view screens, and control boards dense with flashing lights and illuminated buttons. The supreme leader of the Soviet Union understood none of it. He did not need to. What he knew was that at a word from him, as long as Beria had done his job, the sky would fall in on the world outside this bunker. Yagi brought him to a stop a few feet from the viewing port created especially for him. The slit was only three feet long and about a foot high, and the armoured glass was seven inches thick, they had told him. The reinforced concrete wall of the bunker was at least three feet deep, however. Peering into his personal viewport was a little like looking down a short tunnel. The glass distorted the view somewhat, and gave it a dark green tinge. Steel shutters stood ready to slam down if needed, but he could not see them. Nobody could. Only Stalin and one of the technicians who was a dwarf were of a height to have an unimpeded view through the port. Everybody else had to make do with the view s
creens. There were dozens of them about, but the two largest hung from the wall directly in front of him, above the viewing slit.
The room was chilly, a function of all the infernal computers that always seemed to be in danger of overheating. The cold, stale, recycled air irritated his eyes and seeped into his bones, but it awoke his senses, and he did want to see this. It was why he had travelled so far east, beyond the natural barrier of the mountains.
Involuntarily he glanced upwards, imagining American satellites prowling overhead, peering down on him. But there was only the low ceiling of unrendered cement. And above that tonnes of rock.
“You are sure Kolhammer is not watching this on some television in the White House?” he growled at Beria. “They are always watching us.”
Startled out of some reverie, the NKVD boss jumped a little, and even squeaked. He was more nervous than usual.
“We have done our best, our utmost, to draw their attention away from the proving grounds,” he stammered. “Ten Red Army divisions and fraternal bloc forces are exercising as close to the Oder as we dare. There have been incidents. I made sure of that personally. What satellite cover they do not have watching us there will be trained on Admiral Koniev’s newly unmasked fleet base. This is all settled, Vozdh. By your very self.”
Stalin waved him away again, a stock gesture when dealing with Beria. He knew everything the man had just said, but he wanted him to repeat it. If Beria’s plan to mask the Hammer Fall test failed, Comrade Beria would pay the price. Not Stalin.
Klaxons and sirens began to sound all around them, and somewhere in the distance he heard the deep bass rumble of more blast doors sliding into place. The countdown clock between the two large view screens clicked over to ten minutes.