Posthuman Blues

I've been making a nuisance of myself at Barnes & Noble. First I purchased "Spin State," a promising SF novel that just appeared in mass-market paperback. Then I cashed in "Investigating the Unexplained" -- a thoroughly bad book by a guy called Paul Roland -- for in-store credit. I don't think I've ever returned a book for being awful before, but this one was: comic credulity on one page and haughty knee-jerk debunking on the next, liberally blended with bad science. On one page, Roland casually informs us that the prevailing theory for the rise of homo erectus is mutation via meteor impact. Huh? Interesting concept, sure, but hardly a consensus viewpoint.

In the obligatory pages devoted to mysterious archaeological ruins, Roland includes a matter-of-fact reference to the sinking of Atlantis (evidently off the coast of Mexico). And he assures us, without citing any references, that the Greeks got the idea for their temples from ancient Peruvians. Another "huh?"

But it's the double-standard Roland employs that really bugged me. He writes off the Face on Mars as a "cluster of craters and mountains" -- two geological phenomena you'd be hard-pressed to find lurking atop the Face, regardless if the feature is natural or artificial.

In another chapter, Roland dispels the possibility of weirdness at Roswell by citing the "alien autopsy footage" (incidentally the same technique used by Michael Shermer in his otherwise entertaining "Why People Believe Weird Things"). But Roland doesn't even get his autopsy facts right; in his effort to demolish the footage's credibility, he claims that an anachronistic seal on a film canister label can be seen in the footage itself, thus proving it couldn't have come from 1947, as some have claimed.

Not true -- nowhere in the AA footage do you see the film canisters. The label with the indicting seal was produced by the film's marketer in a rash effort to link the footage with the so-called Roswell crash in time to reap public interest in the incident. It's not actually featured in the film. (And while I'm harping on the issue: Contrary to popular belief, nobody really knows when the "alien autopsy" was filmed or who filmed it. Or, for that matter, if it has anything to do with crashed UFOs.)





So I returned the book and found myself in the novel situation of being required to buy another book worth $7.50, since that's all in-store credit's good for. However, the book I eventually decided on -- "The Bloody Crown of Conan," an omnibus of three original Robert E. Howard "Conan" novels from the 1930s -- cost twice as much as "Investigating the Unexplained" . . . which demanded that I reluctantly cash in "Spin State."

On an unrelated note: While cruising the aisles, the full impact of the "Da Vinci Code" phenomenon really hit me. Spin-offs. Spin-offs of spin-offs. Spin-offs of spin-offs of spin-offs. Mind boggling. I'm convinced that when something is as incredibly popular and trendy as "The Da Vinci Code," it can't possibly be any good. In fact, it's most likely vile and condescending; witness the success of worthless writers like Michael Crichton and Kevin J. Anderson or the inexplicable popularity of Disney movies.