orthogeeks

I have always found intriguing post-apocalyptic worlds, because they are a very unique kind of fantasy. Specifically, during the past century they were in some way the chief fantasy; the chief myth. In the same way the ancient Chinese believed in the Golden Age, people were certain that post-apocalytia was possible and perhaps inevitable. If the nuclear weapon is one of the gods in the pantheon of the modern, then post-apocalyptia is his myth. It seems that in working hard to de-mythologize the past, we’ve succeeded only in mythologizing the future. If ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is not a vision of this very thing, then there is hardly cause to speak of it.

Enter Fallout. It is certain that Fallout is serious story; it’s not a comedy. But yet, at the same time, there is much that is intentionally absurd about it. And maybe this is purposeful; if you take a lot of the conventions of modern cinema, pulp fiction, television and video games seriously, what results is quite delightfully absurd.

Fallout bills itself as fantasy; which is what Post-apocalytic literature is. (There are probably some real exceptions, though.) But yet it does not have the same kind of forced feel of most modern fantasy, which tries to unironically ape Tolkein, Lewis and MacDonald. What is good among it is still good, no doubt, but it lacks the same qualities that Lord of the Rings has. At least in my day when we played D & D we did because it gave us a chance to feel like we were in a Tolkien story. (And perhaps this is why spin-offs are less successful; D&D IS Tolkien; most other settings are recycled Tolkien.)

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Man, do I love Doctor Who.  Just ask anyone, and they’ll tell you, “Man, does Chris go on about Doctor Who.”

It’s true.  There are few subjects that I go on about more often or more interminably than the eponymous Doctor and his mad, glorious, often terrifying and sometimes absurd adventures.

This has been going on since long before the return of the show to television in 2005.  The Doctor and his many companions have been a regular fixture of my life in one form or another since I was about 5 years old (that’s 26 years ago).  It therefore seems meet and right for me to address this most geeky of subjects in my first substantive essay here on Orthogeeks, since it is a cornerstone of my life as a geek, and has to a large extent informed my tastes in the sci-fi genre.

I will begin with a quick description of the show and its main character to provide context.  If you’re in need of a more in-depth description, you should head over to my friend Alan Kistler’s website, where he has written a series of excellent essays on the show.

First, a point of order.  When one is discussing the show, the Doctor is referred to as “the Doctor,” and never as “Doctor Who.”  Moving on.

The Doctor is a time-traveling alien from a society known as the Time Lords.  At press time he is 907 Earth years old.  He is a renegade/exile from his people, for reasons that are never explicitly stated.  It is implied that he disapproves of the stagnation and non-interventionist ways of the Time Lords.  At some point shortly before the beginning of the series, he stole a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) and ran, with his granddaughter in tow.  The TARDIS is his time machine, and on the outside it looks like an old police box, akin to a telephone booth; an outdated piece of pop iconography.  With this device he travels to points across all of time and space, battling evil geniuses and malevolent aliens, usually with a young human companion, through whose eyes the viewer is introduced to the show and its concepts.

Coming soon:  An Introduction to Terror