Fuzzy Nation

Well this is something you don't see every day. A remake of a novel. Movies get remade all the time, books not so much. There's sort of an interesting mind block about that. Sequels, sure.  Pastiches, are ok.  Parodies are fine if you are into that.  Remakes, not so much.  So, what got into John Scalzi to remake "Little Fuzzy?"

Well, to be fair, it is a novel that has dated quite a bit which many folks consider a bad thing for science fiction.  It's written very much with the culture of the fifties firmly in place even if it was set in the far future.  In between space flights there is always a cocktail hour and it's still clearly a man's world.  Probably, more troubling is that the themes of the novel certainly skirt into uncomfortable territory of colonism and the whole "White man's (human) burden."  The fuzzies are presented as harmless innocents that need the protection of us great and wise humans.  I'm not bothered by either "problem" myself.  I see that the book hasn't so much dated as slipped into the genre of steam punk.  I'd love to make the original novel into a film if I could get the production designers from "Madmen." 

So I still wouldn't have considered remaking "Little Fuzzy," but I will say that if I did I would have considered John Scalzi for the job.  He's a quick, fun writer who's work (Specially "Old Man's War") harkens back to the same era.  Indeed, if I had read this novel under a different name I would have quite liked it.

Unfortunately, this is supposedly an update to "Little Fuzzy," and as such it infuriated me.  It vexed and hexed me, and I considered throwing the book across the room a couple of times.  The problem is simple.  In the original book the character of Jack Halloway was an old, brave, rugged individualist who has fallen to prospecting because it has good hours and kept him away from the general mass of humanity.  Jack Halloway was a straight shooter both with a gun and his mouth, but he never went looking for trouble.  He just knew how to end it.  If I did a film from the book, I'd get Sam Elliot if I could  to play him.  He was an early fictional hero of mine.

In the new book there's a guy named "Jack Halloway," but he's not my Jack.  He's a lawyer who antagonizes everyone he meets.  He has no personal honor of any amount.  He commits perjury several times in the course of the book.  In the end he basically says, "I'm not a good man, but I was the RIGHT man at the moment."  I disagree.  You are no Jack Halloway, and that is that.  Every sour note the main character struck as i read was the hammer blows to the nails of this book's coffin.

There were a lot of nails.

Mr. Scalzi, if by some miracle you are reading this, I do apologize.  You are a writer of class and talent.  I have enjoyed greatly almost every single book you have written.  Just not this one.  I have no idea why you made such drastic changes to the main character of the book.  I like to think the editor's gave you "notes" and held a gun to your head.  In any event, I know I shall enjoy your next book ever so much more.  As long as it's not a sequel to this.