-by Soapsuds

My favorite parody of It's A Wonderful Life is "It's A Wonderful Machine", by David Pogue. In it, Steve "Jobs" Bailey spends one Christmas Eve wishing bitterly that he had never invented the Macintosh. He's lost the war--it's going to be obliterated by Windows--and what good was it, after all? In despair, he throws himself into a river, to be pulled out again by the second-class angel Claris and taken on a journey of what the world would be if the Mac had never existed. In Gatesville, personal computers are running DOS 25.01, on state-of-the-art TRS-80s with the latest 5-inch floppy drives. And only 9% of American households have one: "without a graphical interface, computers are still too complicated to be popular." Without a graphical interface, there is no World Wide Web. No dot coms. No digital movies. Magazines--made by pasting type onto master pages with hot wax--cost eight dollars. Steve's little machine had changed the world. There's some hyperbole here, of course, but there's also some truth. In the 1960s, IBM estimated that there was a total market of about ten people for a personal computer. At the time, that estimate was close enough to right. The computer was a geek's toy, with little appeal outside that ten-person niche market, until somebody came up with a variation that caught the attention of the wider market. Pogue would give Jobs and the innovation of the Mac the sole credit for the technological revolution that followed. It might be more accurate to divide the credit between Jobs for the innovation, and Gates for the expansion and dissemination of it. Whoever gets the glory, the fact remains that the graphical user interface changed forever the position of computers in larger society. Most people with office jobs do their work on a computer, rather than on an adding machine, typewriter, or word processor. Forty-six percent of Americans have a personal computer in their home. Most small children can surf the web with the same ease with which they program VCRs. My 94-year-old grandmother sat me down a couple of months ago, with instructions to teach her how to send e-mail. There are still "computer geeks", who appreciate the workings of these things on a different level than the rest of the market. And yes, jocks still shove computer geeks into lockers. But then the jocks go home and send e-mail, without thinking twice about it. The computer no longer belongs to the niche market--which benefits the niche market and the mainstream world in about equal measure. I'm not actually much of a computer geek, although I play one in the five-day-a-week situation comedy that is my job. But I belong to enough other niche markets to fully appreciate the irony and the wonder of the PC infiltration. The first dream of the downtrodden fringe is to laugh all the way to the bank. A more sophisticated dream is to reshape the world so that what is valued by the fringe is valued by the mainstream--perhaps not valued to the same degree, or with the same understanding, but that hardly matters. Increased demand in the wider market has led to greater job opportunities in the software industry, and greater opportunities for further innovation. And this is good for all the mundanes who know how to point and click, and even better for the geeks who passionately care. I myself am a gamer geek--and a consumer and producer of fantasy fiction. As such, I'm quite interested in the model for expanding a niche market into a mainstream market. And I have become convinced that Peter Jackson has given all of us gamer geeks an unprecedented opportunity to do just that. Peter Jackson is the driving force behind the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The first installment, Fellowship of the Ring, far and away trumps any fantasy movie I've ever seen. It should be noted that this isn't hard: most fantasy movies range from the hideous (Dungeons and Dragons) to the mediocre (First Knight, Dragonheart) so that even a competent fantasy film is impressive. But Fellowship is far, far more than competent. It is a beautiful piece of work: stunning to look at; peopled with actors of some renown and clear talent; meticulously detailed; and throbbing with emotion. It is an excellent movie, not just an excellent fantasy movie. Like a geek attempting to interest the rest of the world in his shiny toy, Jackson made some alterations to the story, designed to give the film greater appeal to the wider market. And the ploy worked: Fellowship is doing wonderfully at the box office, and has been nominated for at least one award. It isn't a film just for one niche market. It's "one of the year's best films." And it is bleeding over into mainstream culture. I overheard a middle-aged executive in a suit and tie making a Lord of the Rings reference in a meeting the other day. And with one notable exception, the rest of the attendees knew what he meant. Better still, I'm told that the January 13th  AFC Wild Card playoff game was introduced with a Fellowship-like prologue. Over scenes reminiscent of the trailers to Fellowship, an announcer made reference to "the quest for the one Ring" (in this case, the Superbowl prize). This was followed by dimly-seen riders on horseback, charging down a road with swords drawn. Then the camera panned over maps of NFL cities drawn in the style of the books and the movie. Not only are jocks sending e-mail, jocks are quoting Tolkein. If The Fellowship of the Ring hasn't quite made its way into mainstream culture yet, it's certainly getting close. As a consumer, I'm delighted. The box office results mean that epic fantasy--good epic fantasy--will begin to be perceived as having a good return on investment. The genre will attract investors, and we'll get more good stories and less schlock (and about time). As a geek, I'm similarly delighted. People who describe themselves as "not usually liking that sort of thing" went to see Fellowship because it looked so pretty in the trailers and had garnered so much attention--"might as well give it a try." Some of them were surprised by how much they liked it. "Maybe I was missing something." I actually have had co-workers come to me asking to borrow the second book, because they want to know what happens. If they enjoy it, they may be a little more receptive to the next sample of the genre that comes their way. Anything that stops people from giving me snide looks when they see what I'm reading works for me. And one person after another being just a little more open-minded about the fringe is how the fringe becomes mainstream. Finally, as a writer of the genre, I am ecstatic. That ROI point I made earlier applies even more strongly in this context. If you make it, and they come, it becomes in your best interest to hire people to make more of it. My medium is the written word rather than the big screen, so the positive consequences I'm looking for can only come as a trickle-down effect. Still, J.K. Rowling and Peter Jackson between them may have created the rising tide that will lift my boat and many others. And what can we, the fantasy geek community, do to help the One Ring take over the world? Well, we might refrain from comments like that one. The trick here is to encourage the perception of The Fellowship of the Ring as a slightly quirky mainstream film--"one of the year's best" and "I don't usually like that sort of thing, but I really like this movie." We might recommend it using phrases like "visually stunning" rather than "the Elvish sounded just like I've always imagined it would." We might leave the SCA cloaks and the hobbit feet at home. If we don't stigmatize the movie as being "for those freaks", the perception-conscious mainstream will be more willing to admit they liked it and more willing to see more like it. We have to lead them gently. The response to "You know, I was surprised by how much I liked The Lord of the Rings" is not "Yes, I'm hoping fantasy will take over the mainstream market" but "Really? I'm glad you enjoyed it. You know, I have another book like it that you might enjoy." And then a private smile as they turn away. A grin that Peter Jackson's Ring has drawn them in.