Galactic Suburbia 15: live show!
09 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Books, Podcasts Tags: aussiecon4, awards, books, cons, fantasy, feminism, galactic suburbia, panels, podcasts, sf, worldcon
Live from Aussiecon4, speaking from the entirely unsuburban wasteland of downtown Melbourne, Alisa, Alex and Tansy faced an audience of real people, and managed to keep their chatter to a 50 minute podcast. SHOCK. Some awards news, Worldcon gossip, what we are reading and our pet topic: female heroes in SF & Fantasy. You can download it from here or get it on iTunes.
News
World Fantasy Nominations announced.
Sir Julius Vogel Awards.
European SF Society Awards.
Our favourite bits of Aussiecon4 so far.
What have we been reading/listening to?
Alex: Beastly Bride, ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; Legends of Australian Fantasy, ed. Jonathan Strahan and Jack Dann; Secret Feminist Cabal, Helen Merrick;
Tansy: Shades of Milk & Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal; The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins; Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
Alisa: Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson.
Pet Subject: Female heroes in SF/F
As ever, please send feedback to galacticsuburbia@gmail.com or to our Twitter account – @galacticsuburbs. We’d especially love to hear your response to our “live” episode, or your highlights from Aussiecon.
Over the next week we’ll be putting up a series of mini-eps from the convention, including our post-Ditmars round up, our post-Hugos round up, a omg-the-convention-is-over round up, and an interview between Alex and Phil & Kaja Foglio of Girl Genius fame. Was Jake Flinthart correct to accuse her of giggling? Find out!*
On a personal note (stolen from Tansy), thanks to everyone who came to the panel, or talked to us at the con about Galactic Suburbia. We were blown away by how many people have listened to us, bought books we recced, and wanted to say hi. Extra special mention to Celia, who apparently DID have an awesome Worldcon, and to the woman who recognised Alisa & me gossiping in the row behind her at the Hugos, because SHE KNEW WHAT OUR VOICES SOUNDED LIKE.
* the answer is yes
Aussiecon4: Day 5
08 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Books Tags: alastair reynolds, aussiecon4, books, cons, feminism, garth nix, panels, sf, worldcon
By the last day of a con, everyone is starting to get a bit weary, and understandably so. There were a number of people who were particularly… weary… post-Hugos. Me, I was doing fine. So I completed my not-stalking of Alastair Reynolds by going to his book reading, and I’m glad I did because he chose a short story he’d written for Barclays Bank, on the issue of data security, which is unlikely to get much exposure elsewhere. The story was good, but seriously: can you imagine being asked to write an sf story for non-sf readers working in a bank on data security?? Tough gig . Oh, and that came after another little fangirl moment, when I was chatting to Jonathan and got to meet Garth Nix….
The only other panel I got to was the second half of one on maps in fantasy writing, with three writers who all do their own maps. One of them was David Cornish, whom I’d met a couple of days before, having interviewed him for both Snapshot ’07 and Snapshot ’10. The discussion was actually more interesting than I’d expected, about what to include and why, and the sheer number that these three, at least (Cornish, Ian Irvine, and Russell Blackford), produce for their own interests and the sake of the narrative which never then appear in a book. Reading list: The Selected Works of T.S Spivet (which I’ve been meaning to get for ages).
The rest of Monday involved helping Alisa, Terri, and Tehani pack up their section of the dealers’ room, with able assistance from Mitch and Rohan. After the bazillion boxes were loaded up and taken down to the loading bay, and picked up by the freight company, Alisa and I staggered back to Tansy and Finchy’s place with Trent in tow to debrief somewhat, after farewelling Tehani with hopes that she wouldn’t get done for excess baggage. And then I managed to get home not tooo late.
Bonus extra Aussiecon4 day
Although Monday was officially the end of Aussiecon4, Tansy and Alisa and I managed to draw it out for another few hours by catching up on the Tuesday to record some final, face-to-face Galactic Suburbia. So we did a Hugos round-up, like we did for the Ditmars; and then we did a worldcon wrap-up too. Our subscribers are going to be totally overwhelmed….
Aussiecon4: Day 4
08 Sep 2010 3 Comments
in Books Tags: alastair reynolds, aussiecon4, books, cons, feminism, panels, sf, worldcon
Sunday was the biggest day for me in terms of panels I wanted to attend – and because it ended with the Hugos ceremony.
It began with a panel on far future sf, and was framed by Clarke’s so-called law, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. There were some completely different points of view on the panel, which was awesome (although it was made just a little less awesome by the fact that all five were men, and made me wonder: who are the women writing space opera/far future sf? I’m reading Marianne de Pierres’ Sentients of Orion series, and I know there are some women in New Space Opera 1&2, but… I must find more). There was discussion over whether the quote was a sociological comment, whether it becomes a false premise as soon as a culture has a notion of technology, and whether it’s a concept that just keeps getting pushed further and further out by the word ‘sufficiently’. Reading list: Matt Hughes, GD Nordley, Gene Wolf, Robert Reed. (Yes yes, Alastair Reynolds was on this panel; he said great things.)
From this panel there was rushing to a packed seminar room for a panel entitled The Case for a Female Dr Who. One bloke, four women; one anti, four in favour. Paul Cornell is totally up for it, and seemed particularly taken with the idea of Julia Sawalha. Me, I’d like Helen Mirren, or Judi Dench; I am less convinced than everyone else seemed to be by the idea of Emma Thompson. It essentially turned into a discussion of how rather than the why, because most people seemed very comfortable with the basic premise. I do think an older woman would be more interesting, in a whole range of ways, than a younger woman. Reading list: Chicks Dig Timelords. Also: serious Doctor Who Fans are just a tiny bit terrifying. But I didn’t learn my lesson, and also ended up at a panel reviewing the latest season. The panellists discussed what they liked, or didn’t; attitudes towards Matt Smith as the Doctor, and Amy, and River; whether the show is/should be for kids, adults, or ‘family’; and how annoying it is when the sonic screwdriver becomes a magic wand to get the script writer out of any tight spot….
I next attended a panel on the history of Australian women in sf, both in writing and fandom. Lucy Sussex talked a bit about the nineteenth century, then Helen Merrick skipped to the 50s and 60s, then Alisa talked about what she’s found about the last decade or two. Gina Goddard talked about the last thirty years in fandom, and it was a little depressing to hear that while some things have changed – there were kids at almost every panel I went to, and no one seemed to have a problem with that – still some things have not changed. Reading list: Helen Merrick and Tess Williams’ Women of other Worlds; Lucy Sussex generally, plus her edited She’s Fantastic (bought the next day!); Sylvia Kelso; Tess Williams. Also at this panel Tansy and I were inspired to get to Wiscon together sometime in the next 5-10 years, dragging Alisa with us….
The next bit of the afternoon was, if anything, more hectic. I’d been expecting to go off and have dinner by myself and come back for the Hugos, because most of the others had invites to various exclusive parties. But Tehani ended up not going to the Orbit party, so she told me to go in her stead, for which I was humbly grateful although sad for her! So I ducked off to the loos and frocked up (gotta take every opportunity); ditched stuff in the dealers’ room rather than carrying it around, then hared off to a panel on Big Dumb Objects in sf (um, yes, another Alastair Reynolds panel…). This is the sort of sf I really enjoy, tied as it so often is with space opera, and I was really pleased to hear the panellists talking about the character options that are available and interesting to explore when you use a BDO. Reading list: Niven; David Brin?; Ringworld; Riverworld?; Robert Reed, stories about the Great Ship; Pohl; Farmer, World of Tiers; Ken McLeod; Charles Sheffield; Chalker; Larry Gibbon?; Cordwainer Smith; The Wanderer. Again, all of these are male, which makes me even more determined to find the women writing similar sorts of things.
The evening’s entertainment started with a party sponsored by Orbit, which involved Hugo nominees and others swanning around, dolled up, drinking when they could reach the bar and eating a small quantity of food. Again, I got to meet some people, and had other famous people pointed out to me. But really, this was all in anticipation of the main event: the Hugos ceremony.
Terri, Alisa, and I got a good spot from which to watch the ceremony, and Alisa tweeted the entire thing – which led to her missing the cover of Horn flashing up as part of the 2009 wrap up (link), all of which was hugely exciting. Before that, though, the woman in front of us – listening to us gasbag excitedly – turned around and announced she recognised our voices from Galactic Suburbia! Hilarious. Anyway, Garth Nix was a great MC; the ceremony went smoothly, most of the acceptance speeches were short and made the winner look good; most of the winners were ones of which I approved (which is important, obviously). Highlights: Cheryl Morgan liveblogging as she walked up to the podium to accept the Hugo for Clarkesworld’s semiprozine win; Frederick Pohl winning, at 90, a Hugo for Best Fan Writer for his blog (to match Hugos for writing and editing, and his grandson’s Hugo too); Peter Watts accusing the audience of costing him $20 because he lost a bet by winning.
After the Hugos, we brought the party back to Tehani, who had balanced the books while following Alisa’s tweets; we sat around eating junk food for a few hours, just chewing the fat. It was, again, wonderful.
Aussiecon4: Day 3
08 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Books Tags: alastair reynolds, aussiecon4, books, cons, feminism, panels, sf, worldcon
I’d be lying, and everyone who was there would know I was lying, if I didn’t say that the most exciting thing about day 3 was getting to meet Alastair Reynolds. Minor fangirl moment. I got to chat about astronomy with him, as well as about his writing, and of course got his autograph. So that totally made my day week….
The first panel I went to was Tansy’s on the plight of female superheroes. Sadly, it was largely derailed by the bloke on the panel, who somehow hadn’t realised that a panel on that topic might be intended as a feminist critique of the institutionalised misogyny of the comic books industry, as well as other interesting topics. I’m not a comic book reader, although I might be if I thought there were better representations of women; even so this panel was disappointing.
Spent the next while in the dealers’ room, helping a bit but mostly hindering, and meeting more interesting people. Then I went to the Girl Genius radio play, which I’d been a leedle concerned about because all of the roles (except Agatha, played by Kaja, and some random ones played by Phil) were played by con attendees. But I should not have been concerned: they were, largely, excellent. It was hugely entertaining, there was some audience participation (GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!!!), and all in all it was a brilliant part of the con.
I rushed out of there to a panel on feminists writing fantasy, which had a really good range of women speaking: some young writers, and some older; some writing ‘traditional’ fantasy and some deliberately flouting traditions. They talked about female characters, sex scenes, male characters, and their own inspirations. Reading list: Delia Sherman, Alaya Johnson.
The evening’s entertainment was a low-key affair. Alisa and I accompanied Tansy back to her apartment to record a short (for us) Galactic Suburbia ep about the Ditmars. We left Tansy with her loving family and went down to Tehani&Terri’s apartment, for dinner and gossip and general relaxing. It was really really nice.
Aussiecon4: Day 2
08 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: aussiecon4, books, cons, feminism, panels, sf, worldcon
Friday started with Alisa, Tansy and myself walking over to the con and getting our heads around how we could keep a Galactic Suburbia recording to 50 minutes, because we were scheduled to record LIVE as a panel. First time doing it together, and we get an audience! Talk about intimidating. There were about 40 people in the audience, most of whom we didn’t know, so that was simultaneously encouraging and terrifying. We did manage to keep to 50 minutes, mainly because we were ruthless about the news section. It was a lot of fun! And we had matching tshirts courtesy of Finchy. It’ll be up live in the next week or so, once our dear producer gets home, has some sleep, and gets it online.
Next I headed to a reading by Garth Nix, but he was reading a story I’d finished just a few days before and I couldn’t summon enthusiasm. So I ducked out and went to a book launch, which was good to finally put more faces to names.
All of this was a way of killing time before I could go and interview the Foglios, which I was more nervous about than the live recording. I had a chat to young Jake, who gave me some questions to add to my own, and then we waited around… for a while… until Phil came back and we were good to go. The sound quality won’t be great, because we did it in the dealers’ room, and Jake will tell anyone who asks that I giggled too much (I did), but it was a lot of fun to do. It too will be online in the next week or so, once I compress it and get it to the GS producer.
The panel I most enjoyed for the day was on the under-appreciated characters in Lord of the Rings – that is, those whom the narrative underrates. Essentially this boiled down to Eowyn, Sam, and Faramir. The panellists were all excellent, and it was very cool to see other people with the same love of the book as myself. There was a fascinating discussion about the differences between the books and films, and why some of the changes were made, which I really enjoyed – particularly around Faramir and Arwen.
The evening’s entertainment began with a party at Crown for Voyager’s 15th birthday. It was all very swish – Tansy, Alisa and I frocked up in a baby change room/parents’ room we found that had huge cubicles! – and there were ever-so-tasty purple drinks, and little food. Again with the meeting interesting people, hearing interesting news (HarperVoyager to be the international brand), and hanging out with great people. We didn’t stay all that long because we had to hie ourselves back to the con for the awarding of the Ditmars and other Aussie awards, including the inaugural Norma K Hemming Award (the Norma). Reading list: Gene Thieves, by Maria Quinn. Overall we were pleased by the winners, I think – perhaps especially Helen winning the William Atheling Award for criticism, for Cabal.
From the Ditmars we headed back to Terri&Tehani’s apartment, and proceeded to eat a fair bit of junk food, drink some evil mudslides with McD’s softserve icecream thanks to Terri, and make a fair bit of noise. I got to hang out with Rob, meet Trent and Scottish Liz, and generally be with some of my favourite people. It was great… and even when we were told, around midnight, that there were complaints about the noise, it continued to be great, just quieter.
Aussiecon4: Day 1 #2
08 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Books, Movies, Random Tags: aussiecon4, books, cons, feminism, panels, sf, worldcon
I didn’t have the energy to blog electronically during the con. Instead, I kept paper notes (outrageous, I know)…
My Aussiecon4 actually started on the Wednesday, when I hosted a full contingent of Strahans, the Tansy/Finchy mob, Tehani+baby Max, Alisa, Kathryn, and Alan. Half of them arrived at my place from the airport, so apparently having food and beverages on hand was welcome! I rather suspect that the supermarket over my fence was a very large drawcard, too. At any rate it was a marvellous way to start the weekend’s madness, with the people I was most looking forward to seeing.
Thursday started fairly early, heading to the apartments where all but the Strahans were staying to help the crew get boxes into two taxis and thence to the dealers’ room. An early highlight was heading up the escalator as Mondy and Rob Shearman were heading down – so I turned around, obviously, to catch up with them. I hadn’t seen either since Swancon 08, and it was great to see both the first day. Another highlight was helping Alisa, Tehani, and Terri (whom I finally met) in the dealers room, when Tansy’s eldest made a friend to play hide-n-seek with… who turned out to be the daughter of the Girl Genius creators! Minor fangirl moment there.
I flashed my newbie credentials by heading to the opening ceremony, which I quite enjoyed. As I walked in Holst’s Jupiter was blaring, which was a good sign. Someone had put a fair amount of work into a quite awesome series of film clips, which was basically Mad Max with spectacular bits of other movies thrown in and some clever voice-overs. Perhaps my favourite contrast was Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Agent Smith, and his Priscilla character. However, if as the voice-over suggested we’re really relying on Mel Gibson-as-Mad Max to save us all, I think we’re in trouble.
Heading back to the dealers room, I noticed that the Foglios had not brought a whole lot of hardcopy Girl Genius books and they were going fast. Tansy egged me on until I finally went around and bought myself one, complete with personalised sketch of Maxim (I heart Jagerkin) and autographs. Good thing I got one when I did (and one for Alisa’s sailor too), since they sold out in two hours….
Aside from hanging around the Twelfth Planet Press table gossiping, I also went to a panel on motherhood in SF&fantasy. There was some very thorough discussion of representations of motherhood in those genres, both in book and film, especially about the lack of women who manage to do both mothering and adventuring. I particularly liked the discussion of the problematic nature of Ripley and Sarah Connor. Reading list from this panel: Gwyneth Jones, Life; Pat Murphy, The Wild Girls; Eye of the Beholder, by someone whose name I didn’t catch.
The evening’s entertainment started with a book launch for Helen Merrick’s book The Secret Feminist Cabal, which I promise I will get around to reviewing soon. I’d met Helen earlier in the day – another fangirl moment! – so it was great to see the number of people who turned up to congratulate her on such an important work on feminisms and fandom. Plus, she signed the book I’d been carting around all day. ☺
Dinner was with a bunch of people, including Jake Flinthart. At 10, Jake Flinthart is an even bigger fan of Girl Genius than me, so we had a lovely time arguing about our favourite characters and where the plot is heading. I did make everyone walk a little bit too far for dinner, although to be fair their hotels and the convention itself is at the crappy end of town when it comes to food.
Marvellous day! I met heaps of other people, put faces to names, and generally exhausted myself.
Aussiecon4: day 1 #1
03 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Books, Podcasts Tags: aussiecon4, books, cons, fangirl, galactic suburbia, girl genius, helen merrick, panels, sf, worldcon
Just a quick update before I head back in for an exciting second day at Aussiecon4.
My absolute highlights were two very exciting fangirl moments: firstly, I met Helen Merrick, author of the brilliant Secret Feminist Cabal which I really must get around to reviewing. The other came when a little girl introduced herself to a friend’s daughter, and that girl’s parents came along to check everything was ok. Those parents were Phil and Kaja Foglio, creators of Girl Genius! Whom I had emailed about interviewing and was nervous as all get out about introducing myself to! So that was great, and relaxed, and I’m really looking forward to interviewing them now.
I also had a couple of people mention that they knew me from Galactic Suburbia, which was… overwhelming…
Speaking of which, must be off – we’re recording a live episode this morning!
Sunday was good, too
27 Mar 2008 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: church, cons, ditmars, fantasy, friends, panels, party, perth, sf, swancon
Yeh, overloading on the old blog, ain’t I?
Sunday I did not run. I was tired, and wanted to give my knees a rest – having a room on the first floor, and being terrified of the lifts after hearing about them breaking down all the way back at last year’s natcon, gave the knees quite a workout!
I went to another academic panel, On the Historiographic in the Fantastic. It was primarily about the engagement between history and fantasy. The presenter – whose name I’ve forgotten – made an interesting point to begin with: for a genre proud of transgression, it’s also obsessed with its own categories and delineation. Very true. Anyway – she said fantasy is always engaged with history: using ‘real’ historical stuff, and/or making up its own history. Post-Enlightenment, history came to be posited as rationalist, scientific, positivist, etc – in contradistinction to ‘romance’, myth-making, and so on, which is where fantasy is situated (or has been situated). I wrote down a lot more, but won’t put it here because at least some of it doesn’t make sense to me anymore! – suffice to say all this got me thinking about Geoffrey of Monmouth, and those other ‘historians’ whose works we read today as fantasy. Big crossover there.
After the panel I went to City Church of Christ, which was awesome – a very diverse group of people; the minister preached the gospel loud and clear! It was embarrassing to be from an Anglican church, though; there are some vocal Perth Anglicans who don’t believe in the physical resurrection of Christ which is just, like, stupid (if you’re a Christian).
Got back in time to go to Mark Bould’s talk, which I think I will blog separately because it was so damned cool. Anyway – then lunch with , and onto one of the highlights of the con: Rob Shearman and Ian Mond doing a live commentary on the Dr Who episode Dalek! We got front row seats, and it was fantastic. Had a drink with some friends – went to dinner with Kathryn, “MacDog,” and Matt… sorry we stooged you with the bill for a while there, guys!!
Then… oh then, it was Ditmar time. I won two of them! – well, the Snapshot team and my cohorts and I won one. You can see a full list of winners here. My row was the place to be. And didn’t we just love it!
Then, finally, the mother of all room parties. I don’t know how many people there were over the night – lots – probably 20 or 30 at any one time. Sean provided some mighty fine tunes, and someone else provided The A-Team theme. I kicked everyone out, finally, at about 2am. People keep making a big thing of me doing that, so I’m left wondering: do room parties never get moved on by the room’s inhabitants? Or did I do it in a particularly memorable way?
Saturday #2
27 Mar 2008 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, friends, panels, perth, swancon
So after Dedman came Helen Merrick, who was also fascinating, talking about the science in women’s SF – which is something I’m enthralled by, having been a science-y type at school (I struggled all through year 12 over whether to do science or history at uni… no one told me it was possible to do both!). Anyway, to start with she looked at why women write SF in the first place: that many grew up reading it, and also have a background of science. It also allows women to engage with science, and critique it. There’s apparently been very little research done into the science in female-authored SF. Her take, though, is that the science can be liberating for women; it can be critiqued for social/ethical consequences, as well as critiquing the institution, methodology and hierarchy; and show ways of ‘doing science’ differently. In essence, the talk was Cool, and gave me a list of reading I should do….
Then, I ditched the academic programme, and went off to hear about The New Space Opera. Have I mentioned how much I love space opera? I love it. Anyway – this panel also gave me things I need to read, which is so totally fine. Despite not having any time for reading. Possibly my favourite quote of the entire con was Ken McLeod talking Ian Banks: apparently he said he wrote his Culture novels intending to “conquer the moral high ground for the left.” Yeeah! Anyway, a lot of the panel was more about the panelists talking about their own stuff and why/how it’s space opera, which was a bit of a pain when I hadn’t read any of it. Interestingly, you can make heaps more dough in writing fantasy that in scifi; didn’t know that. The panel did, though, pose an interesting question: can space opera survive modern technology and science? It started amidst the optimism about science of the 1920s and 1930s; can the pessimism of the 00s make us set space opera aside? I wonder whether we’ll keep reading it, but with a nostalgic rather than optimistic view.
Then.. oh my! It was our turn to do a panel! Me, Ben, Alisa, and Jonathan (with Tansy a noticeable absence), talking about that crazy Last Short Story thing. People were there! And asked questions! And seemed genuinely interested in the answers…. There were a few odd comments, but that’s ok. It was far more enjoyable than I had expected.
Another book launch that night… Alisa and Kathryn and I went out dinner after, and I had the hottest prawn and onion salad in the entire world. Followed by a reading from Rob Shearman’s new book Tiny Deaths, which I bought and made him write in and am happy to recommend to people having only heard the two stories that he read at the con. The kids roaming the room were a bit of a pain, though. This was followed by heading back to my room (notice a pattern?), and watching Claire McKenna’s movie Liminal, which I saw last year and wasn’t nearly as good on a computer screen sans speakers. Basically we talked over the whole thing, commentating, which was funny in its own way. Once again, I managed to kick people out at midnight.
Saturday #1
27 Mar 2008 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, friends, panels, perth, swancon
… when I went running again, but this time only for 40 min or so because my back started hurting. Hopefully pilates will help with this.
I went to some of the academic panels, and by goodness they were great.
Robert Savage’s “Paleoanthropology of the Future” (which can mean at least two different things, as far as I can read) was awesome – about 2001, and how scifi looks at the development of Human. He made a link between the hero-journey (which I remember from doing classics) and the development of man: needing some sort of external shove, for instance, to get started, and how at the end the hero/man is the same but different. He posited that Moonwatcher, Floyd, and Bowman are all fundamentally the same character, but (I think) different aspects (I could be murdering his whole premise here, of course). Women, in this story and in the story of Man’s Development (in the classic model), are removed – and I hadn’t really noticed that: the three women in the story are a little girls and two stewardesses: they are there to provide comfort and that’s it. The bit I really liked was the idea of how 2001‘s narrative arc follows the arc suggested by paleoanthropology. The latter requires evolution or similar, which doesn’t really fit in with narrative requirements, so Clarke has the extraterrestrial influence, which fits in with the idea of “the donor” from the hero-journey arc. A couple of other interesting points: the development of Dave into the star-child // conception, when the pod goes into the sun (so the hero is the father of the child, and so is still recognisable). Also, that HAL // the leopard in the opening segment as an external motivating influence. And of course, the other possibly conclusion to the story is that HAL goes through the monolith, and comes out as… IBM? 
 There’s also the parallel between HAL being shut down and Dave in the hotel room, at the end, regressing. So Dave and HAL are very similar, even (and this is my take) aspects of the same idea.
(Dr) Stephen Dedman’s talk on Captain America was quite fascinating, too – I know nothing about the superhero, so it was interesting to hear about his development and mutations over time. Especially as he was born out of a Congress request for publishers to put out stuff that was in line with the government’s policy on war! The (ab)use of comics would make a fascinating book, I think. The change from all-American hero fighting the dirty Hun, to whether he should be shown fighting the Vietnamese at all, to finally fighting Americans in thrall to an evil American general is quite some development.
