The Road to a Princess

I am sorry that I have not posted in a while. I was very busy finishing my teaching position in Ulsan, South Korea.


I had promised in a past post that I would tell about the love story with my wife, Kiyomi. Well, the following is the promise kept.


I went on a missions trip to Joetsu, Japan, in June 2005. I spent one day with the oldest of the son of the missionary that we came to assist. We played video games at the local arcade, and rode bikes everywhere in the city. He had told me about a local restaurant that had an antique shop in its basement. He told me that I could pick up a yukata (a traditional Japanese shirt worn during the summer) for 500 yen ($5.50 USD). I did not have any traditional Japanese clothing, so I thought that this would be a great chance to pick up one for a very cheap price.


We were met by one of the waitresses at the restaurant who was named Kiyomi. Kiyomi shook my hand. I felt an instant attraction for her. She helped us around the antique shop in the basement. The owner said that he did not have any yukatas, but he was willing to sell me a men's winter kimono for 1,000 yen ($10.10 USD). It was a little small but did suffice.


For the rest of the trip, Kiyomi and spoke to each other on and off. She had been coming to English classes held by the missionary and his wife at their church. Kiyomi and another waitress from the restaurant came to the church on our last day in Joetsu to give us a very simple version of the Japanese tea ceremony. The type of green tea used in the ceremony was very bitter. Thank God for the sweets that were part of the ceremony, because they had helped to kill the taste.

Here is the first picture that we took together:


After I returned to the States, Kiyomi and I exchanged emails almost everyday. I did not want to get involved in a lost distance dating relationship because I had been hurt on several in the past. One of my pastors in my church and the missionary in Joetsu encouraged me to continue sending emails to Kiyomi with Bible verses. (Kiyomi was not a Christian at this time, but she was interested in God and the Bible.) We did this for over a year.

Kiyomi came to my town, in Illinois, in late December 2006, to visit all of the people who came on the mission trip. During her time with some Japanese Christian women at a Christian conference in Indianapolis, she gave her heart to Jesus. She was baptized in the Holy Spirit the next day. She got water baptized shortly after the New Year in 2007. She returned to Japan a few days later.


Kiyomi and I continued emailing each other. I would send her notes from my pastor's messages every week. I refrained from telling her my feelings for her because I wanted her to concentrate on her relationship with Christ first. I asked in my heart that if He wanted Kiyomi and me to enter into a dating relationship that He would give us the best time to start it.


Kiyomi returned to Illinois in April 2008. I had shared with one of my pastors about my feelings for Kiyomi and that I just did not know what to do with them. (I had been very hesitant about entering into any relationships because I had been hurt very badly in the past.) My pastor stated that I should just ask Kiyomi to date me. (I had been telling him about my feelings for Kiyomi since I had returned from the missions trip in 2005. He had always been praying for me and encouraging me on waiting for the Lord's perfect time in starting a relationship.) Another pastor in my church had asked Kiyomi how she felt for me. She told him that she cared for me to and that she would not mind dating me. I had asked Kiyomi to date me at a nice Chinese restaurant close to my university. She said yes. I told her that we would not be official until I got the blessing her both of her parents. (I had already received the blessing from my father a few days earlier.) Another Japanese friend of mine translated my request to date Kiyomi into Japanese.


Kiyomi went straight to her parents' home after she had returned to her hometown. Her parents gave their blessing to the relationship a week later.


I moved to Ulsan, South Korea, after I had completed my masters degree, in August 2008. I had been employed by the city government to work in a local public elementary school there as an Guest English Teacher. I was assisted in my teaching duties by a Korean English teacher. God blessed me with an awesome church behind my apartment who helped me to adjust to Korean life. Kiyomi came to visit me for four days during my 37th birthday there.


Here is a picture of us sitting in the church dining room after the morning service:


Kiyomi had moved to Niigata, Japan, in June 2008. I went there during Christmastime to meet with her parents and ask them for her hand in marriage. They gave their permission after I had returned to Korea.

I came to Niigata, Japan on September 1 of this year. Kiyomi and I got married on October 10 at Grace Chapel, in Niigata.

My Princess and Me

Well, I kept my promise to tell you how I met and married my wonderful princess. She is doing a wonderful job of training this gaijin in the ways of Japanese life.

Review of The Personfid Invasion

The concept of transferring one's soul into a machine in an attempt at immortality has been an ongoing scene in science fiction for many decades. The example that is most prominent in my mind is the Ghost in the Shell anime series. The series deals with many new issues that come about because of humans having their minds transplanted into a "prosthetic" body. The concept is both fascinating and frightening at the same time. Is it still really "you" when your memories are transferred into an artificial body or is it just a copy?
Almost all of the science fiction that I have read about that theme have pushed a very pessimistic and secular humanist view. I have always wondered what a Christian would have to say on the subject. Would we lose our souls and spirits in the process of soul transference? Would salvation still be possible for a person who had undergone the procedure?
The New Zealand author R.E. Bartlett has written her own answer to these questions. In "The Personfid Invasion," we meet the shy--and very childish--Aphra. She works for a company that has not learned how to scientifically detect the human soul, but also how to transfer it to an artificial body called a personfid. Her bounty hunter brother, Antha, informs her that he has located their long lost sister Ashley. Aphra becomes very excited. She and Antha travel to the city of San Edhem in attempt to find her. Little do they know that Ashley has undergone the procedure to become a personfid. The brother and sister team up with Christians who live in the city to try and rescue Ashley before she is possessed by a group of mysterious beings called Inters. These beings claim to be inter dimensional beings who have to come to Earth to help save mankind from himself. The only problem is that they love to take over personfid bodies with or without the permission of the owner. Antha and Aphra have to race against time in order to get to Ashley before the Inters do.
The story has a lot of action and adventure. I loved Antha's wisecracking nature. (Those kind of characters always appeal to me.) I have to admit that Aphra's constant whining got on my nerves at times, but I have to remember that I resort to that childish state on more occasions that I care to admit. The best part of this novel is that it also tells us that we are never too far from the hand of a loving and caring Savior.
Please stop by Marcher Lord Press and pick up a copy. You can also visit Ms. Bartlett's website to learn more about her.

Interview with Steve Rice

Steve Rice, the author of "League of Superheroes," graciously answered a few questions that I had about his book, his views on writing superhero fiction, and his other works in a brief, but entertaining interview.

What inspired you to write a Christian based superhero novel?

I wrote a few short stories at school with a superhero theme, and certain parts of LoS arose from being annoyed with how superpowers were portrayed in movies and TV shows. For example, Allen's kidnapping dates back to the late 80's, as I recall.

At that point I considered a story about some kids who encountered a supercomputer called Unity Five that somehow gave them superpowers. Unity Five was a holdover from some high school stories: whenever a character or plot required improbably high tech, Unity Five was the source.

But I never developed that superhero storyline. Then, in 2003, I moved to Colorado. I hoped to resolve a family problem swiftly and settle in eastern Colorado, where there are writing and editing jobs, but instead I found myself marooned in western Colorado, where such jobs are less common. I was staying with friends from church with no job in sight, and in January 2004 I had a strong urge to write a story about a mysterious girl named Genie.

I knew who and what Genie was, but I had no clue about the rest of it. I was making up names as I went, and I didn't even know what Charlie's superhero was until I got there. But it flowed easily and quickly; I wrote the first draft in about two weeks, and the story arc changed considerably. When I was plotting it initially, the first story ended much as it does now, but with Tom seeing a young woman who looks a lot like Genie's avatar. She smiles at him and loses herself in a crowd. It was a good ending, but not counter-cultural enough. In _Genie at Large_, something vaguely similar happens ("I turned and once again looked into eyes that God had never formed"), but the whole concept is strikingly at odds with what our secular culture assumes.

What comic book characters are your favorites?

Mom banned superhero comics when I was fairly young, so I didn't get into them much. (This was in the period when they were getting especially weird, so she was probably right.) There were certain ideas that I liked: Green Lantern was imaginative rather than just super-powered--this was the Green Lantern who created things on the fly, not the more recent version. Batman had no actual super powers, though he used gadgets a lot. And while I never read Iron Man, I liked the concept.

In my teens I started reading the old pulps--mostly The Shadow and Doc Savage--and I quickly realized that Batman was the same sort. But I watched some superhero TV shows and sometimes movies later.

What did you admire about these characters?

I generally prefer characters who lean on brains rather than brawn. I also want someone with a strong moral and ethical sense, which is why I tend to ignore the newer superheroes and the movies.

You use a lot of science in your novel. Can you tell me where you do your background research for your book?

Mostly it derives from reading a lot of science books and magazines over the years. My older brother has degrees in physics, math, and so forth, as well as a strong computer-science background, so I picked up a fair amount by osmosis. When researching something specific, I often use Wikipedia as a starting point, though I also go beyond it: the links below the article are there for a reason. I also sometimes find it useful to read the articles in other languages--you can get a different viewpoint and usually different links. But thinking about it--understanding the implications--is probably the most important thing.

Are there any other writers or currently doing Christian themed superhero novels?

There's A. P. Fuchs and his Axiom Man series, though I haven't read it, and Adam Graham does superhero fiction in his Laser & Sword e-zine, some of which I have read.

Are there any other writers in this genre that you would recommend for further reading?

Adam Graham's work is good, and I imagine that Fuchs' Axiom Man is too.

What do you want your readers to get from reading your book?

I hope they gain a vision of what Christianity is supposed to be: not perfect, but serious about pursuing God and thinking biblically. I also hope it builds some bridges between denominations.

What advice do you have for people who are thinking about writing in this genre?

The most important task for any Christian writer is to know the Bible well and always try to think through the implications. But the superhero genre probably has an above-average tendency to conform to secular ideas of right and wrong, so Christian writers must be especially careful there. In the "Pandora's Lamp" sub-series, there's a question only briefly raised in the first story: where does their authority to act come from? The answer grows over time and sometimes goes in unexpected and unpleasant directions in later stories:
"If that's true, then I've just killed a lot of people."
"No, Darklight. I have. Or rather, I have opened a door for the wicked to destroy each other. And believe it or not, I am authorized to do that."--_Dark War_

Will there be any potential sequels or spinoffs from this book? If so, when?

The timing is uncertain, but _League of Superheroes_ is the first installment of the origin series "Pandora's Lamp," followed by other story arcs and eventually culminating with the "Excalibur" arc. The next story is _Genie at Large_.


I want to thank Steve for his time and insightful interview answers. Please check more of his work at http://ansric.pbwiki.com/

League of Superheroes Review

LEAGUE OF SUPERHEROES
By Stephen Leon Rice

ISBN-13: 9781934284056 (Trade Paperback)
168 pages
Pub. Date: October 2008
Publisher: The Writers’ Cafe Press

When I received Steve Rice’s League of Superheroes, I was as excited as a kid on Christmas Day. I was looking forward to discovering if this book would be a good read that recaptured my love of the old superhero stories of my childhood or a major letdown. I am happy to say that it was the former.

The story is somewhat familiar to every boy who harbored secret childhood fantasies of suddenly becoming superheroes. A group of boys are in a meeting of their Mad Scientist Club are rudely interrupted by one of the member’s little sister. She was wanting to give her personal information to someone on her chat line. After the boys fail to convince her of the dangers of doing so, they go and investigate who this person is. The boys question the younger sister’s new “friend.” They discover a mysterious individual who claims to be a preteen girl yet demonstrates a higher intelligence than most college professors do. One of the boys goes against the other’s advice and sends his personal information to the “girl.” The boys also give information on their favorite comic book characters. The story gets more interesting when the group starts receiving power suits just like the ones that the comic characters possess. The big difference is that these work better than the ones in the comics. So, the group is faced with many daunting questions. Who is this mysterious girl named “Genie” who can make comic book like power suits which are well beyond the current science of the day. Who—or what—exactly is Genie? Is she just some super prodigy, or some entity that is more than human?

The story is very well written with lots of good clean fun. There is no foul language.

The story does make the reader question if the gifts that the boys receive from Genie are something that they should even have in the first place. The book also explores the issue of what defines human life.

Even though the book was written like a comic book, Steve manages to include a lot of scientific explanation in the text for many of the heroes' newfound powers. (I have to confess that it took a while to absorb some of it since I am not up on the latest scientific knowledge.) I am amazed how the boys are always staying true to their Christian upbringing and be respectful of their parents. They also choose to use their newfound powers for good instead of mischief and lawbreaking like many of us would be prone to do even as adults. I wished that I could have been as honest and honorable as these boys could when I was their age.

You can read the first chapter here on the author’s personal wiki: http://ansric.pbwiki.com/LeagueofSuperheroes.

The book is available from The Writer’s Café Press. You can check out Steve's blog to learn more about this interesting and complex author

Perry Rhodan

Here is an interesting idea for a science fiction writer. How about creating a series that is going very strong for almost 50 years. The series has a total of 2500 titles and more are being added on a monthly basis. That is beyond the wildest dreams of even the most ambitious writer of any genre. Well, I have just described the Perry Rhodan series from Germany. I know that most of you may have not heard of this series. I learned about the series around ten years ago in an encyclopedia of science fiction odds and ends that I picked up from the discount table at a Borders bookstore. (I had to give up that precious little gem many years ago in order to clear up some space for other important items, mainly myself.) Unfortunately, the entry was very small and only gave very basic information. So I did not give it much thought after that.

I looked up the series last week because I had relearned about during one of my many time killing trips into Wikipedia land. The series was created in 1961 by the German authors Walter Ernsting and K.H. Scheer. They had to take English pen names because German publishers at the time were not publishing any works written by German SF writers at the time.

The basic story is that the crew of the first manned landing on the Moon discovers an alien spacecraft inhabited by two humanoid members of an a race called the Arkonides. One of the Arkonides has leukemia. The mission commander, Major Perry Rhodan, decides to take the alien back to Earth to meet an Australian scientist who has discovered a cure for the disease. Rhodan makes the fateful decision to use the aliens' technology to force the nations of the Earth to unite in order to fight the many hostile races of the universe.

Along the way, Rhodan is granted eternal life by one of the alien species that he meets. This allows him--and the many writers of the series--to continue his adventures of uniting the Earth and turning it into a major galactic power.

This series is definitely an example of the grand epic space opera genre. During his 3000 years of life, he has traveled to faraway galaxies, parallel universes, and back and forth through time. And according to the sources that I have looked at, he will be continuing to mold and shape the universe for many more millennia to come.

I have tried to find out more about the series, but the amount of English language material discussing the series is very few and limited. Most of the material is in German. It has a very large fan base in Europe. I think that it is safe to say this is Germany's answer to Star Trek, but I think that the latter is far to limited in scope by comparison.

I read the Wikipedia entry on it. I have discovered a website where readers have posted reviews of the individual volumes in English, but it is not complete. It gives the newcomer to the series a very good idea about what happens in the series.
There is an English language fan site that gives the reader links to other sites including German language sites. There are very few editions available in English. I think that it might be because it would be a daunting task to get every issue translated into English. That is just my thought.

I will have to contend myself right now with reading just the summaries on the site that I have mentioned above. I am way too slow of a reader to even think of keeping up with this series.

K-20: Legend of the Mask Review

For the few who of you who do read this blog on a regular basis (please leave comments so that I know someone cares!!!), I apologize for the long absence. I finished my master's degree in early August and then I left for Ulsan, South Korea, at the end of that month. I have also started dating a beautiful Christian Japanese woman. She came to visit me in October for my birthday and then I went to visit her and meet her parents during the last week of December. She is an awesome woman who is a strong Christian and who does not mind my like of science fiction.

Just before I left for Japan, I saw an article for a Japanese action hero movie called "K-20: The Legend of the Mask." The full article is available at SciFi Japan website.

The article piqued my interest so I made it one of my goals to see the movie (which had been released on December 20 in Japanese theaters).

Here is the trailer:



I asked my girlfriend if she would be willing to see the movie and she said that she would.

We got a takeout pizza and ate at a park along the main river in her city. Then we rushed off to the movie theater to catch the matinee showing. (It only cost the equivalent of $12 USD a person instead of the regular $18 USD.) The movie was in Japanese with no English subtitles, but the story was easy to follow for someone who has spent the majority of his life digesting truckloads of science fiction, old radio programs, comic books, and assorted other related stuff. My girlfriend translated the parts of the dialogue that I could not follow. (God gave me the best girlfriend in existence!!!)

The story is based on a character created by the father of Japanese mystery fiction Rampo Edogawa. (The actual movie is more based on a new version of the character from a novel by Soh Kitamura.)

The setting is a fictional version of Tokyo, called Teito, in an alternate 1949 that never experienced World War II. The opening sequence is loaded with scenery that reminds the viewer of the old science fiction art and movie serials from the 1930s and 40s. There is even a huge zeppelin that launches Kayaba Ka-1 autogyros. K-20 comes from the combination Kaijin (Japanese for "fiend") and the fact that he is the master of 20 disguises. K-20 is a mysterious criminal who is a master of disguise who looks and acts like a cross between The Shadow and Batman.

After the breathtaking scenery, the viewer is taken to a room where a Tesla Coil is being demonstrated before a group of scientists. The experiment is disrupted by K-20. After this, the police begin looking for him vigorously.

The hero is a circus acrobat named Heikichi Endo who is hired to take some pictures of a photos a lavish engagement ceremony between popular Detective Kogoro Akechi and the beautiful aristocrat Yoko Hashiba. When Heikichi begins snapping pictures using the camera given to him by the man who hired him, explosions violently wrack the building. Heikichi is spotted and accused of being K-20. He is later apprehended and charged with being the notorious criminal. He is able to escape during transit to prison with the assistance of the real K-20. He is able to make it back to his friends and hide in the slums of Teito. He realizes that he had been set up, so he decides to imitate K-20 in order to catch the real criminal.

He later rescues Yoko when the real K-20 tries to kidnap her. He takes her to the slums to hide out. Yoko has spent her entire life living a life of privilege and luxury, but now she comes face to face with the destitute and poor that she had never even known of before. She adapts to life in the slums very quickly and even begins offering to get food for a group of orphans.

The movie ends with a wild showdown between Heikichi and the real K-20 that can literally decide the fate of the world.

The movie is loaded with beautiful scenery, awesome action sequences, cool costumes, and many surprises (you will not believe what Yoko can fly). The only objectionable scenes are where Heikichi is beaten up by the police during "questioning", a scene where Yoko stands up in a bathtub, much to the shock of Heikichi and his friend (only Yoko's upper back is seen. The next scene shows Yoko fully clothed and happily enjoying a meal while Heikichi and his friend are using tons of tissue to stop their nosebleeds.), and another scene where Yoko suggestively unbuttons the top button on her dress in an attempt to keep the man they suspect as the real K-20 distracted while Heikichi and his pals try to recover a valuable painting from the criminal's office.

If you are a fan of the old superhero comics and movie serials of the past and you want a special take on the old theme, this movie is a must see.

Space Stations and Elderly Japanese Salvagers

I reread a short story today that I absolutely love. The story is called "Auriga's Streetcar" by Jean Rabe. The story appears in the anthology "Space Stations" (DAW Books 2004). I have read this story around a dozen times, and I love it more each time I read it.

The story is about a independent space salvager from Japan named Hoshi. She is 84 years old and wants to make one last salvage trip before finally hanging up the space suit. She goes to an abandoned orbiting observatory that is officially called Yerkes-Two. The station was given the nickname "Auriga's Streetcar" because one could view the constellation Auriga from it and the shape of the station resembled a streetcar. The station had been abandoned nine months earlier and its orbit was decaying rapidly, so Hoshi wanted to obtain two large lens from the station that dated back to the 1890s. These lens were from from the original Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin and were placed on the orbiting facility out of tradition.

During what was supposed to be a routine salvage, Hoshi runs into problems when she discoveries that her little orbital skimmer was floating away from the station after docking clamp had been disengaged. She soon discovers that a younger salvager had taken the precious lens from her ship and disengaged her ship's docking clamp. She helps the younger man in order to get a ride back to Earth where she plans to report him to the authorities for stealing her salvage. Everything is going according to the younger upstart's plan until an alien device is discovered on the station. The pair learn that someone (or something) has been using the old station to spy on Earth. Things get really bad when they discovered that the younger man's ship was disconnected from the station. Hoshi manages to work the alien device from its mounting and forced him, the mysterious device, and the two lens into the station's still functional escape pod. Afterward, we learn that Hoshi and that station are being towed away by the aliens' space ships to their home in the Auriga constellation.

I love this story because it talks about a Japanese astronaut who does not give up doing what she loves despite her age. If you get a chance, pick up the anthology at your local bookstore or library and read this story, do so. You will not regret it.