Science-fictionalisation
Feb. 17th, 2009 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcI've completely forgotten what it was I was actually Googling for, but I've rediscovered this over-a-year-old discussion of SF&F versions of classics, and I thought I'd try and spread the madness here.
Since the topic had moved to musicals by the end (and I'm sorry, but I don't recognise the one about J8 and L2) here's my take on one:
Neo-London 2121. It's the cyberpunk nightmare future, and the largest of the gangs that roam the city is run by JJ Peach. When JJ's daughter marries rival criminal Mak "the Vibroblade" Heeth, he's furious. In the ensuing argument, she accidentally tells him that the reason Mak is never picked up by the city security nets is because the securicorp manager, the genetically-engineered felinoid Sherkan Brown, fought alongside him in the Martian Wars.
Paula tells Mak that her father is trying to bypass Sherkan, and he decides to leave the city. He gives her a datachip with the details of his gang and flees. However, he stops off in CyberSoho to meet a prostidroid named Genna. Genna has been reprogrammed by the Peaches, and sends a signal to their confederates in the securicorp. At the prison Paula and Sherkan's daughter Lockie (another of Mak's lovers, who gets her name from her skill with security systems) meet, and a fight breaks out.
Later, Lockie jacks into the prison system and gets Mak released. JJ warns Sherkan that his gang will destroy Neo-London if Mak isn't stopped. Genna reveals that Mak is hiding out at Glitzy Audrey's Relaxation House until he can get enough body-modification to be unrecognisable. Sherkan realises he has no choice but to send his men after him.
Mak is sentenced to death, and desperately tries to get a bribe together. No-one in his gang has sufficient credits, not even Paula, whose accounts have been closed by her father. Mak is strapped into the disintegration-chair, and the executioner has his finger on the switch.
And then the city computer announces that the film needs a happy ending, so Mak is pardoned and given his own megacorp, the end.
(Just when you thought this concept couldn't get any sillier ... the opening number!)
A cybershark has tungsten teeth, dear,
And it can cause you some harm.
A vibroblade has Mak Heeth, dear,
And it's implanted in his arm.
When that shark's teeth start to rotate, dear,
The blood's seen as it flows.
But when Mak's blade starts to vibrate, dear,
It cauterises as it goes.
On the slidewalk one Sunday morning,
A droid's glowing eyes start to fade.
Someone's sneaking round the corner,
Was it Mak the Vibroblade?
From a skycar in a low orbit,
A nullgrav case, it floats away.
It's the same size as a person,
What was Mak up to today?
Luey Milar dropped off the grid, yeah.
After downloading all his cred.
Now Mak Heeth spends like a spacer,
Chances are that Luey's dead.
Genna Diode, Glitzy Audrey,
Paula Peach and Lockie Brown.
Yeah, the line forms on the right, dear.
Now that Mak Heeth is back in town.
(Apologies for the scansion; I could blame the fact it's a swing standard, so I'm used to the scansion being all over the place, but that wouldn't explain all my other filks...)
Anyone else got one?
Since the topic had moved to musicals by the end (and I'm sorry, but I don't recognise the one about J8 and L2) here's my take on one:
Neo-London 2121. It's the cyberpunk nightmare future, and the largest of the gangs that roam the city is run by JJ Peach. When JJ's daughter marries rival criminal Mak "the Vibroblade" Heeth, he's furious. In the ensuing argument, she accidentally tells him that the reason Mak is never picked up by the city security nets is because the securicorp manager, the genetically-engineered felinoid Sherkan Brown, fought alongside him in the Martian Wars.
Paula tells Mak that her father is trying to bypass Sherkan, and he decides to leave the city. He gives her a datachip with the details of his gang and flees. However, he stops off in CyberSoho to meet a prostidroid named Genna. Genna has been reprogrammed by the Peaches, and sends a signal to their confederates in the securicorp. At the prison Paula and Sherkan's daughter Lockie (another of Mak's lovers, who gets her name from her skill with security systems) meet, and a fight breaks out.
Later, Lockie jacks into the prison system and gets Mak released. JJ warns Sherkan that his gang will destroy Neo-London if Mak isn't stopped. Genna reveals that Mak is hiding out at Glitzy Audrey's Relaxation House until he can get enough body-modification to be unrecognisable. Sherkan realises he has no choice but to send his men after him.
Mak is sentenced to death, and desperately tries to get a bribe together. No-one in his gang has sufficient credits, not even Paula, whose accounts have been closed by her father. Mak is strapped into the disintegration-chair, and the executioner has his finger on the switch.
And then the city computer announces that the film needs a happy ending, so Mak is pardoned and given his own megacorp, the end.
(Just when you thought this concept couldn't get any sillier ... the opening number!)
A cybershark has tungsten teeth, dear,
And it can cause you some harm.
A vibroblade has Mak Heeth, dear,
And it's implanted in his arm.
When that shark's teeth start to rotate, dear,
The blood's seen as it flows.
But when Mak's blade starts to vibrate, dear,
It cauterises as it goes.
On the slidewalk one Sunday morning,
A droid's glowing eyes start to fade.
Someone's sneaking round the corner,
Was it Mak the Vibroblade?
From a skycar in a low orbit,
A nullgrav case, it floats away.
It's the same size as a person,
What was Mak up to today?
Luey Milar dropped off the grid, yeah.
After downloading all his cred.
Now Mak Heeth spends like a spacer,
Chances are that Luey's dead.
Genna Diode, Glitzy Audrey,
Paula Peach and Lockie Brown.
Yeah, the line forms on the right, dear.
Now that Mak Heeth is back in town.
(Apologies for the scansion; I could blame the fact it's a swing standard, so I'm used to the scansion being all over the place, but that wouldn't explain all my other filks...)
Anyone else got one?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 07:17 am (UTC)The trouble with low-bandwidth text communication is that one is often unsure whether irony is being employed...
Anyone else got one?
I have this great idea for a musical! There's this guy, right, and he's really poor -- he works in a skid-row florist's shop, and then one day he finds this strange and interesting plant that feeds on human blood--
Yes, I know it's been done, but my idea is different, because this time the plant is actually an alien, and it's plotting to take over the world!
...oh, that's been done too, huh?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:14 pm (UTC)"It's 108 light years to Canopus, we've got a full antimatter container, half a plaspack of stimsticks, interstellar space is dark and we're wearing mirrorshades."
Related: In the original discussion you[1] mention that Kipling is easy; India becomes an alien planet and then it writes itself. This reminds me that I once read a novel by a Big Name SF Author, which made absolutely no bones about being Kim: The Space Opera. Can't remember anything else about it now, though.
[1]Well, someone called Paul A...
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 01:43 am (UTC)Another musical idea:
It's set on a colony planet, where things are pretty dark, metaphorically -- and literally: due to a blunder by the previous administration the atmosphere is full of particulate matter and nobody's seen the sun in years.
The protagonist is a small android, LTL-RPN-NE ("NE" for short), who due to an odd chain of circumstances winds up a key part of the household of the planet's biggest industrialist, and brings hope to the entire planet. (Mention should also be made of the small but significant part played by the caniform robot SND.)
The big famous song and dance number is, of course, the one that begins "The sun will come out tomorrow..."
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 12:41 pm (UTC)On the subject of Kipling, I'm really tempted to create a DC Comics hero called the Mongoose, who battles the Cult of Kobra. His real name, of course, would be Ricky Tavish.
And after a bit of googling, I think the book I was thinking of was The Game of Empire by Poul Anderson, which has Dominic Flandry's daughter in the Kim role.