BANDERSNATCHING IN NYC

by Steve Steinbock

I had a great time in New York last week for the Edgars. One of the highlights was the pre-Edgar party hosted by Dell Magazines (EQMM and AHMM). EQMM editor Janet Hutchings announced the winners of the 2007 Readers’ Award. In the top story position were Ed Hoch’s “The Theft of the Ostracized Ostrich” and David Dean’s “Ibrahim’s Eyes.” Ironically, this was the first time Ed Hoch had won the award. As Janet explained, with so many stories nominated each year, votes for Ed’s stories were always spread too thin to get a first place honor.

It was great catching up with people whom I rarely see more than once a year. Here I am with our Commander, James Lincoln Warren. (He’s the one in the white tux).

The Devil in the Details

If there’s a mystery fan out there who hasn’t read John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins (British title The Hollow Man), then as soon as you finish reading this, dash off to the library or the bookshop or Amazon and grab a copy. Note: styles change, and tastes change with them. Readers from 2008 may have to adjust their internal glasses to bring this 1935 novel into focus. But it’s well worth it.

In the novel, the obese and verbose Professor Gideon Fell investigates a series of murders committed in apparently impossible conditions, causing people to think that the murderer is invisible. Two-thirds of the way into the novel, Dr. Fell steps out of the action and speaks directly to the reader in the famous “Locked Room Lecture.” In this lecture, Fell explains the various rational explanations for a “Locked Room” murder. The book is well worth reading for this chapter alone.

In a similar vein, magical theoretician Dariel Fitzkee wrote a book, The Trick Brain (1945), which in effect catalogues the entire world of legerdemain. It’s a taxonomy of tricks. He distinguishes the various types of appearances, vanishes, transpositions, transformations, penetrations, restorations, animations, predictions, and so on that make up a magicians repertoire.

Fitzkee’s book and Carr’s “lecture” are both examples of the same process. I don’t know what to call it. Deconstruction is a nice word, but it already means something else. Reverse engineering? Anyhow, as similar as these processes are, there’s a significant difference. At the end of a mystery story, during the denouement, all the secrets of the story are revealed, and if it’s a really good mystery, the reader slaps his head and says, “I should have figured that out! It’s so obvious now!” In magic, there is no denouement. The magician keeps the secret to himself. Spectators often try to catch the magician, to figure out the sleight or gimmick that allows for the illusion. But, particularly in the case of a really good trick, if a spectator is told how it’s done, she is invariably disappointed.

Why is it so satisfying to learn the solution of a mystery, and so disappointing to learn the solution of a magic trick? I’m sure there’s a sound psychological explanation for this difference, but it’s beyond me.

For a time, whenever I read a good mystery I would take copious notes on the plot structure. I still have those notes somewhere. They aren’t something I’d share, because I think it would spoil a book for anyone who looked at them. But the process of gathering these notes, rather than detracting from the experience of reading, deepened my enjoyment and appreciation, and gave me a valuable insight into plot structure and suspense.

This past week I started doing it again. This time, rather than analyzing novels, I’ve been cataloguing the literary sleights performed by Ed Hoch in his stories. He wrote a lot of them, and so far I’ve only done a dozen or so of his Nick Velvet stories. Like my earlier plot-breakdowns, I have no intention of sharing my Hoch-notes. They wouldn’t do anyone else any good. It’s sort of like exercise. Watching someone else do it doesn’t take off the pounds.

And there’s the irony: Nick Velvet is a thief who only steals worthless items (like a bald man’s comb, or a lopsided cobweb, or an empty paint can). My notes are the very sort of thing Nick Velvet might be hired to steal. They have no value except to me.

Then again, if Nick Velvet were real enough to steal my notes, and saw that they related his exploits, they’d certainly have value to him. But now I digress.

Be back next week for an Appointment in Samarra.

PARTY TIME

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

While we’re celebrating our birthday at Criminal Brief, those who have arrived at the party fashionably late, please take notice of the archives. Did Jim mention these party favors? We’ve plenty to go around, so help yourself. In fact, there are an entire year’s worth for you to choose from. Catch up on any of the articles we’ve posted so far, and of course, re-read those favorites as often as you’d like.

James Lincoln Warren wrote he and I had been corresponding for years, but what he didn’t mention in the birthday celebration post (possibly too much champagne made the thought slip his mind?), we had met via the Mystery Writers of America online group. As you may have noticed, Jim and I both have what we call a wicked — and others may call weird — sense of humor. Jim was putting together a slew of pages on his web site titled Professional Hack Writers RecogniTion Society, better known as PHARTS. The way he presented the idea to our online group made me curious, so I stopped by his web site. When I laughed out loud more than once, I knew I wanted to join and be a Pharter, too. Jim presented me the title of Exalted Czarista of the Damned. Or maybe I gave myself that title. I don’t remember, but I did write a clever “How to Write a Screenplay” book that is published unabridged on the site. I urge you to drop by and read it in its entirety. It will take absolute minutes of your time and worth every penny you didn’t have to pay for the privilege. You’ll see how he and I are when we are left alone to our own devices (and there are other incredible members, too that you’ll want to check out!) Click on the typewriter in the upper left hand column to find the books written by the members.

Some time after PHARTS went public, Jim contacted me about Criminal Brief. He said I’d need a title and I offered several which he turned down. He counter-offered with some I didn’t like. He told me he had given Melodie her name and insinuated she had been happy with his first choice. Jim and my relationship has pretty much been exactly like that since. It is always a tug and pull because neither of us lets go. Maybe it’s because at the core we do respect each other’s work, but we both know we’re right. I’m just pretty and smart.

By the time I suggested Femme Fatale, it either seemed the right choice or we were both tired by then, so when Criminal Brief hit cyberspace, Femme Fatale belonged to Criminal Brief’s ownThursday’s Child, a.k.a. Yours truly.

In his post Jim said I came to the table as an instructor, which is true, but professionally, I consider myself a writer first, a speaker second and an instructor third. I believe every teacher should keep their skills honed if they want to keep up with the class. To do this, I like writing exercises to keep my talons sharp.

Several web sites provide places for writers to play at their craft while honing their skills. Recently, I was told about coolstuff4writers.com which made the 2008 “101 Best Web Sites for Writers” list by Writer’s Digest Magazine. (Thanks, Travis!)

This web site has a monthly contest, a newsletter, articles, interviews and many other interesting things to check out while you’re there. The April contest sounded easy and awarded a cash prize, too.

Write a story using only 13 sentences. The first sentence must begin with an “A,” the next with a “B”, then a “C” until you finish the story with a sentence beginning with an “M.”

Like I said, it sounded easy at first, but it did make me scratch my head a few times. I count that as a good thing. I like to use my brain and think everyone should.

The following is the first — and only — draft of my story. I didn’t enter it into the contest because I didn’t have time to work on it and it definitely is rough. However, it was fun and helped jumpstart my writing for that day. Try constructing one yourself. It’s an interesting exercise and at least a first draft can be accomplished in one sitting.

Heat

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

August’s heatwave drenched everyone in sweat while leaving the ground scorched and thirsty. Being near the ocean only added to the problem as humidity crept on everyone like an itch no scratching could relieve.

Combination of asphalt, concrete and steel skyscrapers held the heat like ovens in Hell’s Kitchen, stinking up the air hanging like cardboard curtains. Doggedly, the temperature rose along with tempers. Every police officer knew the consequences. Fires were a constant worry. Gangs erupted into fistfights and worse. Hate crimes increased a hundred fold. Inmates rebelled in the only way they knew how in the packed-tight prisons.

Julio owned the streets that summer, but his reign was short-lived.

King “Tall-Boy” Richards had slinked into the inner city like butter on hot toast, oozing his charms with Julio’s girls and rousing his boys into seeing things the Tall-Boy way.

“Let’s see what kind of cajones you got, Julio,” Tall-Boy said, lifting his shirt to reveal a snub-nose tucked into low-rider jeans.

Maybe Julio’s movements were too slow or maybe too fast, spooking Tall-Boy to react, but now Julio’s corpse soon would be the coolest thing in the city.

Simple as ABC? Well, if nothing more, it’s an interesting party game. I hope you find favor with it, but if not, please try the appetizers. We want you to have a pleasant time and y’all come back anytime.

TAG, I’M IT

by Robert Lopresti

A year ago on this very date we began our collective folly here at Criminal Brief. Thanks to all of you who have come along for the ride. As a folkie friend of mine says “If you enjoyed the show half as much as we have, then we enjoyed it twice as much as you.”

It seems incredible that I have found something interesting (well, interest- ing to ME) to talk about for 52 weeks in a row. So I decided to find out what I talked about.

Lost in a cloud 

Are you familiar with Tag Clouds? You have seen them on various websites: a box full of words of different colors and sizes. The color and size indicates how often a given word appears in the text that is being examined. The text is usually the tags applied to a website by its readers.

So, what’s a tag? Essentially they are subject headings created by individual users. Librarians call these “folksonomies” and are fascinated by them. After all, catalogers struggle throughout their careers to create and assign subject headings that everyone can understand, and then tags come along and allow each user to choose their own. For a good example, go to librarything.com. You need to register (for free) and click Search. Type in any book title and look at the box labeled Member Tags.

I selected Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. The tags include the predictable: crime, detective, hardboiled, noir,  etc. But there are also ones that readers are obviously using to track their own collections: ebook, library, paperback, read, unread. 

Found in a crowd

Now, here’s the cool part. The website TagCrowd.com allows you to create a tag cloud for any text you choose. So I put in the text of all fifty-two of my columns in order to find out what I was writing about all this time. TagCrowd automatically eliminates very common words (of, the, or …) but it also allows you to create other lists of stopwords that you use often but don’t want to see in the crowd (I eliminated ago, called, going, happened, etc.) And here are the results:

So it turns out that I have been writing about writing murder mystery short stories.  No surprise there. I also talk a lot about librarian, library, university, job, and work a lot. Music and song make the cut but, to my surprise folk doesn’t. And my one column about the word bun was sufficient to propel that modest baked good into the top fifty.

I wrote about TV  more than death, but not as often as about friends. I said bad more often than good. (Isn’t that typical?) And why does years show up so often? I must be getting nostalgic.

Reducing a novel to fifty words

I was having so much fun with TagCrowd I decided to submit the entire text of my novel Such A Killing Crime  and see what the program could make of that. Here is the resulting cloud:

Not surprisingly, the names of my major characters show up a lot. (But not my hero’s last name, Talley.  Most people just call him Joe.) Notice the rather mild swear words that get repeated a lot (and by the way, I keep track of the favorite cusswords of each character.) Appropriately for a mystery set in the great folk scare of 1963, folk, song,  and music make the top fifty. But, my gosh, why do I use the word door so often? Are my characters coming or going?

I have commented before on the behavioral tics I use to punctuate my characters speech and here they are to haunt me: :frowned, shrugged,  and shook (his head).  And again I seem to obsess about years. I suppose that makes sense in a historical novel.

Another writing tool

One clear result of this: Before I send a story or novel to the publisher I’m going to let TagCrowd take a crack at it and tell me which words I might be overusing.

Meanwhile I am starting a new file for the next year of columns. I hope you will continue on the journey James, Melodie, Deborah, Steven, John, Leigh, and I are undertaking. And if you enjoy it half as much as we do… frowns, shrugs, shakes his head.

QUIET PLEASE, WOMAN AT WORK

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Silence. It’s hard to come by in a wired world. We’ve all seen the people in their cars talking on their cell phones. Or the people with a Blue Tooth stuck in their ear walking around looking as if they’re talking to the air. Recently I saw a man standing outside our little post office stomping his feet in frustration and yelling incomprehensibly. I made a wide swath around him, thinking he was another suburban casualty off his meds, when I realized he was angrily talking to someone on his Blue Tooth. Why Tooth? Why Blue? Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. I see young mothers pushing their babies in their prams while talking on cell phones. Do the babies know they’re not talking to them? Do their mother’s voices become white noise to them? What if the baby wants to burble out a new found word? How will the mother hear this newly formed gem if she’s constantly on her cell?

I took a walk the other day and saw a man leaning against a horse. The horse had a big finely carved Western saddle on it. The man’s back was to me. I wondered where he rode his horse. (We’re more countrified than country.) So I thought I would ask him. I walked around the horse and discovered the man was on his cell phone. Before I could open my mouth he pressed his forefinger against his lips and schussed me! It was as if I had entered his office without knocking. We were outside under a big blue sky. Spring flowers were popping up all around us in a narcissistic dizzy. And this man is telling me to be quiet while he is chatting away? The horse looked down his long face at me and curled his floppy lips displaying big yellow teeth. Not a Blue Tooth is his mouth.

These incidents got me to thinking about writing. To write you have to be emotionally connected to your subject, characters and story. To write you have to be disconnected from the noise and chattering minutia of life. You have to put your cell phone down. (I’m reminded of a PBS children’s song with the line, “If you want to play the saxophone, you have to put your rubber ducky down.”) To write you have to pull yourself away from the internet. You have to turn off the blathering TV and the radio. A writer must learn how to sit in silence. The only noise the clattering of the keys on your board. And maybe the sound of the heater going on and off. And in my case, the dog snoring. A writer needs quiet. A writer needs to stop talking and hear what’s going on inside her head. A writer needs to hear what her imagination is telling her. To allow her unconscious to bubble up into reality.

In this wired age, it’s the silence that is more daunting than the empty page for new writers. Or maybe I should say the weight of stillness mixed with the fear of nothingness is more frightening. New writers write too quickly. I think they want to get back to being connected. But of course they’re not connected. They’re only taking their minds off the silence. I use this avoidance as a form of characterization with my character, Diana Poole. She fears the quietness to such an extent that she has a TV on at all times. (Oh, I sold another Diana Poole short story to EQMM titled, “What’s It Worth?”)

Now, I’m not saying that writers can’t write when it’s noisy. I think all of us have experienced writing in coffee shops, on airplanes, sitting in hotel lobbies. Yes, writers can write most anywhere. When my husband was producing records I would sit in the studio and write. The rock n’ roll music was so loud that it enveloped me, tuning out other distractions. Now when I write I’m only able to listen to is Willie Nelson singing Stardust and other standards.

As the writer needs to fill the empty page, the writer needs silence. Stillness. Listen to it. You can almost hear it.

A SHORT YEAR AFTER

by James Lincoln Warren

Pop open a piccolo of champers, unscrew the lid off a tiny tin of caviar, and help yourself to some baby brie on a water cracker.

Today marks the beginning of Criminal Brief’s 53rd week; by the lunar calendar it’s our first birthday. Our solar birthday is on Wednesday, but Rob asked me to do the birthday honors, although I reckon he’ll have something to say about it—who could resist?—so I have obliged. Thus, Criminal Brief Day has become a movable feast, henceforward, the first Monday in May, concurrent with May Day in the U.K. and the Crown dependencies.

A birthday is not just a time for celebration, though: it is a time for reflection. And reflection implies a mirror.

I had the honor of serving as the chairman of the committee tasked with selecting the 2007 Edgar winner and nominees for Best Biographical or Critical Work. In my remarks to the assembled banquet guests last Thursday, I made the following comments (more or less—at least this is what I intended to say, but when the spotlight is shining in your eyes and you are speaking without notes as I prefer to do, that searing illumination can interfere with the connection between brain and tongue somewhat):

Crime fiction is a literature of behavior, and as such, it is a reflection of society; not only of conflicts between individuals, but also of the conflicts between individuals and the very fabric of society. But to truly understand what we see in the looking glass, it is not enough to scrutinize the image before us—we also have to examine the mirror itself. That is the job of our critics and historians. They are the true detectives, the ones who shed light on dark and hidden things and make the obscure clear.

Now, of course I was speaking in the context of formal literary criticism and scholarship, and CB is at heart essentially informal. But the idea of mysteries being a reflection of society applies to every context I can think of, and anyway is hardly original with me—it is virtually a cliché. But clichés frequently survive because they are apt. And in any case, my point was not that mystery fiction is a mirror, but rather how the mirror itself influences the reflection one sees. A concave mirror shows every pore and flaw in one’s complexion. A fun house mirror distorts images in such a way that one sees things, sometimes worrying things, that one never noticed before. A cracked mirror broadcasts several images at once, each a little different than its neighbors, every one with its own perspective. A mirror obscured with dirt or moisture removes edges and blurs colors and hides what is actually there, like a skilled prevarication.

Criminal Brief is about such a mirror, and in one sense, it is such a mirror. For a number of metaphorical reasons which I won’t go into right now, I think short fiction is a compact or vanity mirror, but if this feminine image disturbs our male contributors, then they are free to think of it as a pocket mirror instead.

CB was conceived as a rotating series of daily essays advocating mystery short stories–especially my own stories, he said, blushing madly. I had tried this several times before without notable success. “The Scribbler”, my weekly column, is in its third incarnation under that name, and it had other predecessors as well. The reason it never worked, of course, was a veritable Catch-22: being a short story author meant that my profile was too low to use a web log to raise my profile.

Then the idea hit me that all I really needed was to spread the wealth, to gather together a group of writers whose work I respected, to make a magazine out of it, a collection, an anthology. That’s how short stories are read, after all. It is a strategy that has worked very well for mid-list novelists. Why not us short storyists? So I pitched the idea to Rob Lopresti and we both went to work gathering regular contributors. The next person I asked was Melodie Johnson Howe, a woman I disagree with on almost every conceivable subject but whose writing I worship and adore. Leigh Lundin was next—I had read his comments on The Mystery Place Readers’ Forum and thought that as a novice of great promise he would act as a good balance to those of us with some longevity.

Many we asked declined, most politely pleading lack of time and others candidly stating they had zero interest in the concept, but eventually we put together a group that was about as diverse as possible. (Although I still regret that to this day we have no regular contributor among persons of color, albeit not through want of trying, I assure you.) Obviously, though, four people were not enough for the critical mass we needed.

But then Deborah Elliott-Upton, with whom I had been corresponding for years, came to my consciousness in one of those “I could have had a V-8” moments—she was absolutely made for Criminal Brief—and not only did she improve the male/female balance, but she came to the subject matter with a radically different perspective than the rest of us, being first and foremost an instructor—and I must confess it was not lost on me that she already had something of a fan base.

Now we were five. I figured we needed six and could use the seventh day not so much as a rest from our labors, but as a guest spot. I know many prominent writers and I felt confident I could get them to contribute once in a while.

But who could fill that last slot? Who?

I first met Steve Steinbock at Bouchercon in Chicago in 2005. We were introduced to each other either by Janet Hutchings or Linda Landrigan (with the comment, “You two really should know each other”). We became instantaneous friends, promised to correspond, and of course I immediately lost his email address when I got back to L.A. I didn’t see him again until last year, during the Edgar Symposium, when we both listened to Charles Ardai’s interview with the MWA Grand Master-elect Steven King. Steven (Steven Steinbock, that is) lined up to get King’s autograph and accosted me as I was leaving. I smiled, not really registering who it was, told him how good it was to see him, and walked out. I got about twenty feet away when the penny dropped, and I said to myself, “That was Steve. Steve Steinbock. One of the most erudite and voluminous minds in all of mystery fandom. He knows more than the rest of us combined. As a critic and collector, he’ll see things the rest of us will miss. And I know he loves short stories with a passion. HE’S PERFECT! But will he do it?”

It turns out that he would.

And then we were six. And all six of us are still here.

On Monday, May 7, 2007, we went live. By June, we were getting two thousand hits a day. Our biggest month was last January, when we had 7750 on average every day. These days we usually we get about 5000.

But although the child had been born, it still had to grow up a little.

I soon found that trying to line up a guest column every week was taking up far too much time, and so I asked my partners if they would consent to adding a seventh regular. (I may be a verbose egomaniac, but I am a democratic verbose egomaniac. Nothing, or almost nothing, substantive happens to CB without everyone’s consent, since we all put our names to it.)

Enter Angela Zeman, another friend of mine of several years standing I had somehow overlooked, probably because I stupidly thought of her more as one half of “My Friends the Zemans” than as an accomplished author, even though of course I knew she was an accomplished author. And again, someone who exactly suited our needs magically appeared. Sadly, Angela had to bow out after less than four months because of health problems, but she’s on the mend now and I’ve told her she has a permanent home with us any time she wants. (If she takes me up on it, “The Scribbler” will become an ad hoc feature like “Mystery Masterclass”, although probably more frequent, which might also help relieve some of the stress our stalwart contributors endure while coming up with a column every week, which is greater than you might think.) Her husband Barry, the eminent mystery genre historian, filled in for Angela for several weeks until I could find someone to take over permanently—and by so bravely pinch-hitting, and with such grace and style, Barry also became a permanent contributor as far as I’m concerned.

I was unhappy with the original graphics, featuring a tan background meant to evoke a manila folder with a blood splatter on it, over which I had imposed a 3D logo in a Courier-style typeface. It was too busy, too distracting. So I designed a new, austere one in black and white using my thumbprint and a crude teletype typeface. Much better. Finally, I replaced my original abstract maroon wallpaper with legal pads. Leigh hates those legal pads but Melodie loves them—something we do agree on—and since Melodie is so much better-looking than Leigh, they’re staying. I think that’s fair.

But we were not yet done.

The last brick was put in place when we acquired John M. Floyd as our regular Saturday correspondent. John and I had had stories in a couple magazines together back in the Cathleen Jordan days at AHMM, and I knew he’d shared credit with Deborah in a recent anthology, so there was a slight connection—but what hooked me was his independent writing about the mystery short story at various spots on line. His views were informed, articulate, and tailor-made for our purposes. So I asked him aboard. I was pretty sure he would politely decline—John is nothing if not polite—and I was thrilled when he said yes. It meant that the women were now outnumbered five to two, but that was unavoidable. And anyway they’re smarter than we are.

So that is how the mirror was made, glazed and polished.

But has it worked? Is the mirror any good?

What does it show you?

You tell us. But please, between sips of champagne, nibbles of caviar, and bites of good cheese. It’s our birthday and we’re celebrating, and you’re invited.

Some of you have had trouble posting in the last week for various reasons. Some replies were caught in the spam filter and not retrieved (Terrie and Dale, this means you — I don’t know why), while we also seemed to be having a little trouble with new registrations (everybody please welcome Marianne Logan).

The software engine and various furnishings that drive Criminal Brief have just been overhauled and updated and hopefully these problems will no longer pop up. BUT IF THEY DO —
I’ve added a new “Support” link in what was formerly the “Meta” box and is now the “Admin” box at the bottom of the Sidebar on the right . Clicking on it will take you to a mail form where you can describe the problem and notify me directly.

And now back to our regularly scheduled diatribe.

–JLW

EVILUTION

by Leigh Lundin

Last weekend, friends Steve and Sharon invited me to the movies. Steve suggested Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, saying he’d heard good things about it.

I opened the reviews and was surprised that 91% of professional critics– 30 out of 33– gave it thumbs down, only a little less than the average ‘man on the street’. What was going on? Where were these great reviews?

I dug a bit deeper. Ah! Sean Hannity said Ben Stein’s movie was "awesome". Rush Limbaugh touted it as "powerful", "fabulous", and "blew him away". Glenn Beck promoted it by saying that the New York Times hated it so much, the movie was a must-see. Hmm… I began to see the "no intelligence" part of the equation.

Using a collage of ‘Lord Privy Seal‘ connotations, the movie attacks science, accusing science of everything from godlessness to Communism, Nazism, and underpinning the holocaust. In the past few years, we’ve seen politicians fulminate against the profession. Not so long ago, a number of school boards and even legislators tried to get ID (intelligent design) into schools, prompting a failed lawsuit in Pennsylvania. More recently, we’ve seen diatribes coalescing around global warming.

Scope of Trials and Tribulations

Once again, we’re back to the Scopes trial, attempting to ‘prove’ that the Earth is approximately 6000 years old, that it was created in exactly 144 hours, that humans trod the earth with dinosaurs, and– as proof of religious belief– that God eschewed using evolution as a tool. This is the thrust of Creationism, the impetus behind ID, the agenda behind the film.

Science, I’ll have you know, is the most honorable of disciplines, engaged in a search for TRUTH by following the evidence, like a detective in both the physical and abstract world. Science cannot disprove the existence of God, as some claim it attempts to do. In fact, science suggests the Story of Creation in the Bible is very much on target.

DI and ID

Science doesn’t have a quarrel with religion, but fundamentalists– Muslim, Christian, and Jewish, possibly seeking an opponent to rail against, have taken on science as an adversary. Although English translations of the Bible’s Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek historically have been flawed and our modern understanding is often inadequate, Creationists insist that Genesis depicts the world was created in six 24-hour days.

Personally, I believe ‘day’ is allegorical, figurative as in "modern day", "day of the poodle skirt", and "day of reckoning". I also think that given a tool as powerful as evolution, why wouldn’t God use it, especially if He invented it? But, in the eyes of some religionists, that thought is blasphemous.

Why should this be? Hasn’t history often judged the results of religion denouncing science? The Church insisting Galileo’s model of the Earth orbiting the Sun was sacrilegious? The Church insisting the Earth was flat? That life forms too tiny to see couldn’t possibly cause diseases within the body?

Behind the Creationist uproar is the Discovery Institute, which relates their film to ‘German Darwinism‘ (their term). DI is a Seattle lobbying group and ‘think tank’, identified with its advocacy of intelligent design to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in North American public school science courses. The Discovery Institute has reported much of its funding comes from such wealthy fundamentalists such as Howard Ahmanson Jr, who states his goal is "the total integration of Biblical law into our lives," and the MacLellan Foundation, which insists upon its own interpretation of "the infallibility of Scripture".

Federal courts have found the Discovery Institute, in pursuit of "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions", cooked up the Creationist controversy they want to evangelize by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis", falsely claiming that evolution is the focus of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community.

The Wedge

Revealed in federal court hearings, the group’s manifesto, the Wedge Strategy, defines their religious goal to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a ’science’ consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

Expelled, the movie, in the guise of ridicule, is another of these Wedge missions, an attempt to supplant science with religion. The producers have gone beyond Michael Moore techniques to a new low, using deceit, prejudice, and false premises to reach a false conclusion, that of academic prejudice and a shutdown of scientific debate.

Deserved or not, Moore has a reputation of sloppy research and unfair interviewing in the service of revealing a kernel of truth. That can’t be said about Expelled: Taken to extremes, at the heart of the movie, we find a terrible lack of truth.

Expulsion

Appearances to the contrary, Stein didn’t personally interview all the scientists– his questions were later dubbed in. Apparently without exception, when approaching academicians, producers lied to get interviews, hiding their backing and agenda of the film.

The movie singles out a couple of scientists who happen to be atheists– notably PZ Myers and Britain’s Dr. Richard Dawkins– as if promoters would have you believe all scientists are atheists. Scientists of religious conviction dispute the essential premise of the movie. Interviewees known to be men of faith have stated producers tried repeatedly in multiple ways to manipulate answers to show there was scientific persecution and prejudice.

The same interviewees who appeared in the film were barred from the theater. PZ Myers himself was ‘expelled‘. Dawkins escaped expulsion, having been listed as a guest of Myers. Promoters kept a tight lid on who was allowed to screen the movie, forbidding professional film reviewers to attend. Reportedly, the film company was unhappy that Orlando Sentinel’s Roger Moore managed to slip into a screening.

In contrast, promoters offered up to $10,000 to schools and $1000 to religious groups to fill theaters during the movie’s opening run. The film company arranged a private showing for Florida legislators at the IMAX theatre in Tallahassee, in possible violation of Florida’s Sunshine Laws since press and public were banned.

The great irony of the film is that while it attempts to argue scientific prejudice and persecution, it uses exactly those nefarious techniques in pursuit of its dubious goal. Some Christian groups have derided the film as well, prompting at least one to question the effect upon Stein’s reputation.

As fiction authors, we nevertheless are in search of a kind of truth, using our stories to illustrate real life parables. It’s inexcusable when a purported documentary cannot do at least as much.