12. Dimension of Wonder
12.1. DIMENSION OF WONDER, by Slade Evergreen. (Ballacourage Books). In a freak physics accident, the Odin-Class cybertank known as “Old Guy” and his friend the Mountain-Class cybertank known as “Uncle Jon” are transported to a dimension where the only things that can exist are freestanding memes in the form of lists of science fiction bestsellers. In order to survive, the plucky duo must reformat themselves into this strange and surprising mode of existence, and overcome encounters with predatory memes from other book summaries. Rip-roaring trans-dimensional cybertank action.
12.2. ALIEN MONSTER, by Vincent Wong. (Apricot Press). The story of Titan robot Ro-Woman Extension XK-47’s mission to Earth to destroy all the humans. She kills all but seven survivors, who have become immune to her brominator death ray. Ro-Woman runs afoul of the hypercomputer ‘The Great Instructor,’ her leader, when she becomes attracted to the human Brad. He is the son of a surviving economist, and Ro-Woman refuses to kill him. The Great Instructor must teleport to Earth to finish what the Titan robot started. Campy fun.
12.3. WHAT THE F**K IS THIS?, by Deirdre Whipple. (Nature Science Fiction). The ancient yet wily Odin-Class cybertank “Old Guy” must use all of his tricks to survive the Dimension of Wonder. Even direct communication with his comrade, Uncle Jon, is impossible, so in order to plan an escape they must exchange messages via book summaries. Can Old Guy and Uncle Jon create a plot summary that will lead them out of this strange and yet oddly affecting dimension?
12.4. IT’S A DIMENSION OF SCIENCE FICTION BOOK SUMMARIES YOU IDIOT, by Charles Yohimbine (Frontiers in Science Fiction). Marooned in the Dimension of Wonder, everyone’s favorite self-aware weapon of mass destruction, the enormous fusion powered cybertank “Uncle Jon,” and his plucky sidekick “Old Guy,” develop a plan to escape via the manipulation of plot summaries, which they hope will react with the memetic nature of their current reality and return them to normality. But, dark forces are gathering. Can our heroes survive?
12.5. ALIEN MONSTER VS. CYBERTANK, by Angus Podgorny (The Bangladeshi Journal of Science Fiction and Textile Arts). Even as the cybertanks Old Guy and Uncle Jon plot their escape from the Dimension of Wonder, evil Ro-Woman Extension XK-47 launches a surprise assault. Will the doughty sentient armored fighting vehicles prevail over Ro-Woman and her world-destroying brominator death ray? Exciting action in this fresh cross-over hit.
12.6. I’M BEING ATTACKED BY A GIANT GORRILLA WITH A DIVING HELMET FOR A HEAD, by I.Q. Passionknack. ( Vanity Press Inc). While heavily damaged by the initial assault of the evil Titan robot Ro-Woman, the cybertanks Old Guy and Uncle Jon rally and press the fight home. It’s plasma cannons vs. death rays, hyperalloy armor vs. imponderable indestructible gorilla fur, and sophisticated combined-arms tactics versus raw robot monster aggression, as the fusion-powered duo bomb and strafe their way across the Dimension of Wonder fighting for truth, justice, and the Canadian way. Meanwhile, Old Guy has a plan for a book summary that just might save them – but only if Zippo the Space Monkey can arrive in time.
12.7. OH STOP WHINING YOU WUSS, by Alan Smithee (M.I.T. Press). The battle between evil Titan robot Ro-Woman and the cybertanks Old Guy and Uncle Jon reaches a new pitch of intensity – and then who should arrive but the Space Battleship Scharnhorst and Zippo the Space Monkey! With their new allies our heroes look set to prevail and finally generate memetic structures that will cause them to be returned to their home dimension… but Ro-Woman has one last trick up her metaphorical sleeve…
12.8. CYBERTANK RESURGENT (in 3D), directed by Michael Bay, reviewed by Yang Xinhai. Rated PG13. Voice talents: Tom Waits (Old Guy), Brad Pitt (Uncle Jon), Louise Fletcher (Ro-Woman), Tom Cruise (Space Battleship Scharnhorst).
Now I’ve read a few of the “Old Guy” cybertank novels, and I’ve found them to be moderately amusing, but when I heard that they were going to be adapted into a big-budget Hollywood movie… well, I approached my review with some trepidation. I mean, the cybertanks I can see, but mixing the genre with the campy faux-1950’s “Alien Monster” series seemed like the sort of thing dreamed up by a committee of producers that had snorted way too much in the way of psychoactive compounds.
The initial part I got, even if it was a little abstract. Apparently the two cybertanks (self-aware armored fighting vehicles the size of small office buildings) had been catapulted into a strange dimension where everything consisted of descriptions of science-fiction best-selling books. They had tried to manipulate the dimension by creating plot summaries in which they would discover a machine that would give them a way home, in the hopes that – in this strange realm of ideas – the thought would create its own reality. They almost succeeded, except that this “Ro-Woman” character intervened at the last moment and shifted them instead into a dimension where reality consists only of reviews of science fiction movies.
The production values are pretty good, and I must admit the CGI scenes of the cybertanks tearing across the war-torn planetscape, treads kicking up clouds of dust and plasma cannons emitting beams to outshine the sun, were impressive. But the contrast with this Ro-Woman character was glaring. There just wasn’t the continuity, and the animation of the gorilla fur in particular was not convincing. Then there was the sudden appearance of the Space Battleship Scharnhorst. I thought he had been reseeded into a Sundog-Class cybertank: is this a reboot of the franchise or just plain sloppiness on the part of the writers? And the “brominator death ray” effect was the sort of thing that would have been rejected from an “Adolescent Mutant Pangolin” movie.
But just when I was about to give up on the movie completely, along comes Zippo the Space Monkey to redeem it. I know, some critics think that Zippo is a little too ‘cute’ and even saccharine, but I for one just can’t resist the little guy. The character is cybernetic, so it’s completely CGI, but the animators have done a splendid job of breathing life into what in lesser hands could have been a boring metal robot. I won’t spoil the plot, but even as the cybertanks and the space battleship are unleashing a crescendo of destruction against Ro-Woman, in the end it’s Zippo who… well, you’ll have to see the movie to find out.
My only complaint is the final teaser – why do so many big-budget movies have to put in a hook at the end for a sequel? I mean half the time these sequels don’t get made anyhow, and if you want to make a sequel, just make the bloody sequel. I am also not at all excited about the prospect of an adventure set in a dimension where everything consists of Haiku poetry.
In the final analysis Cybertank Resurgent is an enjoyable, if perhaps forgettable, escapist science fiction action movie. I was going to give it two stars, but I just love the space monkey so much that I had to give it two and a half.
12.9.
Dimension Transfer
Hard Steel a Dream like the Wind
Treads Crunch Dirt Like Rice
12.10.
I Am A Poem
Thoughts are Soaring Vapor
Dead Swans Lay Rotting
12.11.
Dimension Router
Idea That Becomes Itself
Your Poetry Sucks
12.12.
Something From Nothing
Dimension Router Comes Soon
Your Poetry Sucks
12.13.
I am Evil Ro-Woman Extension XK-47
Prepare to be Obliterated by my Brominator Death Ray
Puny Cybertanks You Have no Chance Against Me HaHaHa
12.14.
Syllables Not Right
Five Seven Five And All Serene
Rain Falling on Fish
12.15.
I am Using a Non-Traditional Form of Haiku you Foolish Cyberthings
Argh! I am Defeated by a Space Monkey
I Did Not See That Coming. Argh!
12.16.
Defying Structure
This Place Rejects Your Essence
Router Powered Full
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Well that was an unusual experience.
“It certainly was,” said Uncle Jon. “But how about we not do that again?”
I think that this time I agree.
After escaping the Dimension of Lists of Best-Selling Science Fiction Books, then making a brief stop-over at the Dimension of Science Fiction movie reviews, we had gotten stuck in the Dimension of Haiku. We had been working on a trans-dimensional router that would become a reality just by making Haikus about it, and then send us back to our own reality. Unfortunately, we had been unable to come up with a suitable word that rhymed with “orange.” However, when the evil Ro-Woman had ended up in the same dimension and insisted on using non-standard metric structures, the very nature of the place tried to edit us out of existence. Fortunately, the nearly completed dimensional router provided a path of least resistance, and the localized reality dyslocation provided the final catalyst for sending us back home.
Our main hulls were intact and resting on a slightly raised bluff: my own svelte 2,000 ton Odin-Class Chassis, and Uncle Jon with his much larger 20,000 ton Mountain Class chassis with the single large forward facing plasma cannon mounted in a ball joint on his frontal glacis. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and in the distance I could make out the form of a gigantic gorilla wearing an antique spherical diving helmet.
Uncle Jon. Do you see what I see?
“I expect that I do,” said Uncle Jon. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Well, if Ro-Woman’s brominator death ray translates into anything near as powerful in this reality as it was in the other ones, we could be in for a fight. We have the home turf advantage, and a lot of allies, so in the long run we would win. But I’m not really in the mood. Maybe I could just talk with her?
“Be my guest,” said Uncle Jon.
I attempted to make contact with Ro-Woman via radio, microwave, laser-link, neutrino-beam… all negative. I guess I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way, via audio-band vibrations in the air. Lucky this planet has an atmosphere. I pumped up my external hull-mounted loudspeakers to maximum and called out to her.
Hello Ro-Woman Extension XK-47! I am Old Guy, and my friend over here is Uncle Jon. It’s a pretty day, and we were wondering if we could, maybe, you know, stop fighting. If you don’t mind.
The gigantic form of Ro-Woman (she stood over 60 meters tall in this dimension) began to raise her brominator death ray. “I am Ro-Woman Extension XK-47,” she said. “The Great Instructor has sent me to Earth to exterminate all the humans to make room for 4,523 other Ro-Women, and I dare not fail in my mission.”
But, this is not Earth. And all the humans are gone.
Ro-Woman hesitated in raising her death ray, and looked around. “This is a strange place, and I do not detect any humans. Perhaps what you say is true. What is this called?”
We call it reality.
Ro-Woman looked about as puzzled as a giant gorilla wearing an antique diving helmet could look. “But reality is where I come from.”
Oh. Right. Well we can discuss ontology another day. I think we can send you back where you belong, but it will take a while to set up. In the meantime, is there anything you need? Would you like a tour?
Ro-Woman holstered her death ray. “I am Ro-Woman and I am completely self-sufficient. But a tour would be acceptable.”
“I think she likes you,” said Uncle Jon.
Oh give it a rest.