Gregory Benford
"White Creatures"
a short story
from The Best of Gregory Benford
The story begins:
The aliens strap him in. He cannot feel the bindings, but he knows they must be there; he cannot move. Or perhaps it is the drug. They must have given him something because his world is blurred, spongy. The white creatures are flowing shapes in watery light. He feels numb. the white creatures are moving about him, making high chittering noises.
This appears to be an alien abduction story. However, it isn't as straightforward as that. The story has two narratives: one is of Merritt's experiences as a prisoner of the aliens and the second, of his memories that one would expect may explain what caused or led to his abduction.
When the second narrative begins we learn that Merritt is on Puerto Rico and is a technician involved with a seti project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), probably at the Arecibo Observatory, although I don't remember it being mentioned in the story.
While the two narratives alternate between the inexplicable things being done to Merritt and Merritt's memories, something doesn't seem right. His memories cover a considerable passage of time, decades possibly, from his affair with Erika, the seti project's director's wife, to his resignation and subsequent employment at NASA where he becomes immersed in the study of other star systems, searching for those which approximate earth-like conditions.
He is totally dedicated to his work, and the only personal relationship he has is with Erika, the now ex-wife of the project director. She has created a career out of conducting guided tours of young, wealthy businessmen, and whenever she is in town, they get together. Her charm and attractiveness are her strengths, but as the years pass, these begin to fade. Finally she decides on the long sleep, to be awakened when effective rejuvenation techniques are developed.
Merritt doesn't understand her. They live in two worlds: she in the physical here and now, while he in essence lives in the future, absorbed in searching the universe for answers. Centuries ago Merritt might have been a theologian or philosopher searching the heavens for answers to the perennial questions. Or, perhaps a priest/astrologer searching the heavens for signs of or hints from a divinity or divinities. Is his now scientific search for signs of life in the universe that different? What is also surprising is that Merritt never considers going for the long sleep, to be awakened when there is definite proof of intelligent life on other planets. I wonder if, for Merritt, the search is what is important, not the result.
Some years later, seeking something, he visited the Krishna temple. . .they led him through a beaded curtain to the outside. They entered a small garden through a bamboo gate, noisily slipping the wooden latch. A small man sat in lotus position on a broad swath of green . . . Merrick explained his feelings, his rational skepticism about religion in any form. He was a scientist. But perhaps there was more to these matters than met the eye, he said hopefully.
The teacher picked up a leaf, smiling, and asked why anyone should spend his life studying the makeup of this leaf. What could be gained from it?
Any form of knowledge has a chance of resonating with other kinds, Merrick replied.
So? the man countered.
Suppose the universe is a parable, Merrick said haltingly. By studying part of it, or finding other intelligences in it and discovering their viewpoints, perhaps we could learn something of the design that was intended. Surely the laws of science, the origin of life, were no accident.
The teacher pondered for a moment. No, he said, they are not accidents. There may be other creatures in this universe, too. But those laws, those beings, they are not important. The physical laws are the bars of a cage. The central point is not to study the bars, but to get out of the cage.
Merrick could not follow this. It seemed to him that the act of discovering things, of reaching out, was everything. There was something immortal about it.
The small man blinked and said, it is nothing. This world is an insane asylum for souls. Only the flawed remain here.
Merrick began to talk about his work with NASA and Erika. The small man waved away these points and shook his head. No, he said. It is nothing.
(The italicized part above was actually one paragraph which I broke down)
Merrick can not understand the teacher's dismissal of the physical universe just as he didn't understand Erika's immersion in it. He seemed to be somewhere in the middle: the physical universe was important as something to study and learn from. While he went beyond Erika's immersion in the physical universe, he could not leave it behind as the teacher had insisted that he must.
Later, he encounters a woman in the street whom he thinks is Erika. However, when their eyes meet, she shows no reaction, and Merrick realizes that his interest is purely intellectual. That part of his life was over, for he hadn't been with a woman in years.
It is ultimately a sad story, for Merritt has grown old, but he refuses to believe it. He hadn't noticed the years passing by because of his obsession. He doesn't even have the satisfaction of having his abduction prove the existence of aliens, for those white creatures are doctors and nurses, and in his drugged state he doesn't recognize an operating room.
Perhaps I'm going too far here, but it seems to me that differing attitudes to life and existence are presented here. At one end of the spectrum is Erika's immersion in the physical world, while at the other end is the teacher's dismissal of it as unimportant, "it is nothing." Merrick would seem to be in the middle somewhere: the physical world is important, not in itself, but as a means of finding its purpose, its design. But, while it appears that three views are presented, I can't see any conclusion to be drawn from them as to which would be the most fulfilling one.
I am unhappy with my reading of the story. I wonder what I have missed or misread. I shall have to return to this tale sometime to see how it has "changed."
Showing posts with label sf short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sf short story. Show all posts
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Friday, November 10, 2017
Ray Bradbury: "The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind"
Ray Bradbury
"The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind"
a short story
found in Twice 22
This, of course, is a fairy tale, and that means it's not true. This is fortunate because there's a great evil in the story. The problem is that the great evil is what many believe is responsible for the superiority of Western Civilization. Of course, they don't believe it's evil, but a good thing, and if Western Civ were ever to give this up, it would no longer be superior. Anyway, here's the tale . . .
The Mandarin was upset. He had watched the neighboring town of Kwan-Si grow in size so that it was as large as his town. What was worse, now, was that the people were building a wall.
=================================
(from the story)
"'But why should a wall two miles away make my good father sad and angry all within the hour?' asked his daughter quietly.
'They build their wall,' said the Mandarin, 'in the shape of a pig! Do you see? Our own city wall is built in the shape of an orange. That pig will devour us, greedily!'
'Ah.'
They both sat thinking.
Life was full of symbols and omens. Demons lurked everywhere. Death swam in the wetness of an eye, the turn of a gull's wing meant rain, a fan held so, the tilt of a roof, and yes, even a city wall was of immense importance. Travelers and tourists, caravans, musicians, artists, coming upon those two towns, equally judging the portents, would say, 'The city shaped like orange? No! I will enter the city shaped like a pig and prosper, eating all, growing fat with good luck and prosperity!'"
=================================
The daughter has an idea which the Mandarin immediately accepts. He calls the stonemasons together and tells them to rebuild their wall in the shape of a club "'which may beat the pig and drive it off.'"
"Rejoicing, the stonemasons rebuilt the wall." But the celebration was short-lived for the people of Kwan-Si rebuilt their wall into the shape of a great fire which would burn the Mandarin's club. The Mandarin then retaliated with a wall built in the shape of a lake that would extinguish the fire. The people of Kwan-Si rebuilt their wall in the shape of a mouth which would swallow the lake. In short, a wall-shape-race had begun. And so it went, for many months.
Finally it became too much, for the people stopped doing everything except reshaping the wall.
=================================
(the story)
"Sickness spread in the city like a pack of evil dogs. Shops closed. The population, working now steadily for endless months upon the changing of the walls, resembled Death;himself, clattering his white bones like musical instruments in the wind. Funerals began to appear in the streets, though it wads the middle of the summer, a time when all should be tending and harvesting. The Mandarin fell so ill that he had his bed drawn up by the silken screen, and there he lay, miserably giving his architectural orders."
==================================
The race ended. The people could do no more. The daughter told him to send for Kwan-Si. They met; both mandarins were ill and had to be carried to the meeting. The Mandarin's daughter appears and orders the servants to carry the mandarins outside. There she points out several kites.
==================================
(the story)
"'What does it (a kite) need to sustain it and make it beautiful and truly spiritual?'
'The wind, of course!' said the others.
'And what do the sky and the wind need to make them beautiful?'
'A kite, of course--many kites, to beak the monotony, the sameness of the sky. Colored kites, flying!'
'So,' said the Mandarin's daughter. 'You, Kwan-Si, will make a last rebuilding of your town to resemble nothing more nor less than the wind. And we shall build like a golden kite. The wind will beautify the kite and carry it to wondrous heights. And the kite will break the sameness of the wind's existence and give it purpose and meaning. One without the other is nothing. Together, all will be beauty and co-operation and a long and enduring life.
. . .
And so, in time, the towns became the Town of the Golden Kite and the Town of the Silver Wind. And harvestings were harvested and business tended again, and the flesh returned, and disease ran off like a frightened jackal. And on every night of the year the inhabitants in the Town of the Kite could hear the good clear wind sustaining them. And those in the Town of the Wind could hear the kites singing, whispering, rising, and beautifying them."
======================================
Of course, this is a fairy tale, so it is not true. Competition is the great thing, and co-operation is OK, in its place, a small place though. I'm sure most would agree, right?
"The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind"
a short story
found in Twice 22
This, of course, is a fairy tale, and that means it's not true. This is fortunate because there's a great evil in the story. The problem is that the great evil is what many believe is responsible for the superiority of Western Civilization. Of course, they don't believe it's evil, but a good thing, and if Western Civ were ever to give this up, it would no longer be superior. Anyway, here's the tale . . .
The Mandarin was upset. He had watched the neighboring town of Kwan-Si grow in size so that it was as large as his town. What was worse, now, was that the people were building a wall.
=================================
(from the story)
"'But why should a wall two miles away make my good father sad and angry all within the hour?' asked his daughter quietly.
'They build their wall,' said the Mandarin, 'in the shape of a pig! Do you see? Our own city wall is built in the shape of an orange. That pig will devour us, greedily!'
'Ah.'
They both sat thinking.
Life was full of symbols and omens. Demons lurked everywhere. Death swam in the wetness of an eye, the turn of a gull's wing meant rain, a fan held so, the tilt of a roof, and yes, even a city wall was of immense importance. Travelers and tourists, caravans, musicians, artists, coming upon those two towns, equally judging the portents, would say, 'The city shaped like orange? No! I will enter the city shaped like a pig and prosper, eating all, growing fat with good luck and prosperity!'"
=================================
The daughter has an idea which the Mandarin immediately accepts. He calls the stonemasons together and tells them to rebuild their wall in the shape of a club "'which may beat the pig and drive it off.'"
"Rejoicing, the stonemasons rebuilt the wall." But the celebration was short-lived for the people of Kwan-Si rebuilt their wall into the shape of a great fire which would burn the Mandarin's club. The Mandarin then retaliated with a wall built in the shape of a lake that would extinguish the fire. The people of Kwan-Si rebuilt their wall in the shape of a mouth which would swallow the lake. In short, a wall-shape-race had begun. And so it went, for many months.
Finally it became too much, for the people stopped doing everything except reshaping the wall.
=================================
(the story)
"Sickness spread in the city like a pack of evil dogs. Shops closed. The population, working now steadily for endless months upon the changing of the walls, resembled Death;himself, clattering his white bones like musical instruments in the wind. Funerals began to appear in the streets, though it wads the middle of the summer, a time when all should be tending and harvesting. The Mandarin fell so ill that he had his bed drawn up by the silken screen, and there he lay, miserably giving his architectural orders."
==================================
The race ended. The people could do no more. The daughter told him to send for Kwan-Si. They met; both mandarins were ill and had to be carried to the meeting. The Mandarin's daughter appears and orders the servants to carry the mandarins outside. There she points out several kites.
==================================
(the story)
"'What does it (a kite) need to sustain it and make it beautiful and truly spiritual?'
'The wind, of course!' said the others.
'And what do the sky and the wind need to make them beautiful?'
'A kite, of course--many kites, to beak the monotony, the sameness of the sky. Colored kites, flying!'
'So,' said the Mandarin's daughter. 'You, Kwan-Si, will make a last rebuilding of your town to resemble nothing more nor less than the wind. And we shall build like a golden kite. The wind will beautify the kite and carry it to wondrous heights. And the kite will break the sameness of the wind's existence and give it purpose and meaning. One without the other is nothing. Together, all will be beauty and co-operation and a long and enduring life.
. . .
And so, in time, the towns became the Town of the Golden Kite and the Town of the Silver Wind. And harvestings were harvested and business tended again, and the flesh returned, and disease ran off like a frightened jackal. And on every night of the year the inhabitants in the Town of the Kite could hear the good clear wind sustaining them. And those in the Town of the Wind could hear the kites singing, whispering, rising, and beautifying them."
======================================
Of course, this is a fairy tale, so it is not true. Competition is the great thing, and co-operation is OK, in its place, a small place though. I'm sure most would agree, right?
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Gene Wolfe: "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories"
Gene Wolfe
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories"
from The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive
Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction
In spite of the misleading title, this is a short story, and the title does make sense, although in Gene Wolfe's usual quirky manner. As I read this tale, I couldn't help but be reminded of James Thurber's Walter Mitty. While Thurber's Mitty is a middle-aged man, and Wolfe's character is Tadman Babcock, a young boy, both use fantasy to deal with reality. Mitty fantasizes to escape his boring life while Tackie shields himself from his troubled home situation.
Tackie's parents are divorced, and he's living with his mother on a small peninsula in a boarding house run by his mother. There is one boarder (I think he's a boarder), Jason, who has a somewhat ambiguous relationship with Tackie's mother. Tackie's mother has a drug problem. She is also trying to capture a neighbor, Doctor Black, in the bonds of holy matrimony. Several aunts are also regularly present, one of whom is the sister of his father. She is determined to get Tackie's mother married off, so as to reduce her brother's alimony payments, and Doctor Black appears to be a very acceptable candidate.
However, on closer reading, several significant differences between Wolfe's tale and Thurber's tale. Walter Mitty makes himself the hero of his fantasies, the super spy, the brave soldier, etc, while Tackie interacts with the characters in a book he is reading, a book that Jason stole from the store when Tackie asked him to buy it for him. The book is very familiar, although no title is given. It appears to be a revision of two very popular novels. Initially it's the story of shipwrecked Captain Philip Ransom who drifts ashore on an island occupied by Doctor Death and other strange creatures. It seems as though Doctor Death employs surgical techniques on various creatures, one of whom is Bruno, who originally was a Saint Bernard, but is now a shambling hulk, vaguely humanoid in shape. In his first encounter, Tackie doesn't rescue Ransom but does help him to make it safely to the shore.
Captain Ransom manages to escape the good Doctor and at the same time rescue a beautiful young maiden, Talar of the Long Eyes, who just happens to be the queen of "(a) city older than civilization, buried in the jungle here on this little island."
This city, Talar, tells him is the last remnant of the lost civilization of Lemuria. In addition, Talar tells him that he shouldn't be surprised at the degraded appearance of the other inhabitants of the city for they have degenerated from their original appearance while she alone still possesses the original appearance of the founders of their civilization. This is why she was made their queen.
As I mentioned earlier, it does sound familiar. There are at least three stories here: the book that Tackie reads seems to be a combination of two famous novels, while Tackie's situation is the third. One might argue that the reference to Lemuria suggests a fourth, but I'm not aware of any novel that is set in Lemuria, although one might argue that everything said about Lemuria is fiction.
But, as I read I began to realize that this was a much more involved story than that of a troubled boy simply escaping from his home situation. He does not construct the situation in order to make himself, as does Mitty, the hero of the story. Instead, he seems to play the role of a minor supporting character in the story.
My initial assumption was that these encounters took place, just as does Mitty's fantasies, in Tackie's imagination. However, his encounter with Bruno takes place in his own home. One of his aunts sees him talking to Doctor Death, and then Captain Ransom and Talar appear at a costume party, again in his home. And this time, someone at the party sees them waking by and greets them. Wolfe has crossed now into that gray area between consensus reality and fiction, or perhaps the imagination..
At one point, Tackie tells the Doctor that he doesn't want to finish the book because some characters will probably die and others will go away. Doctor Death responds, "'But if you start the book again we'll all be back . . . It's the same with you, Tackie. You're too young to realize it, but it's the same with you.'" Is Doctor Death suggesting some sort of repetitive universe or reincarnation or simply recognizing that Tackie is also a character in a story?
It is true, isn't it? I can reread the story, and regardless of the ending, everything will be as it was when I first read it. Only, I have changed.
It's clear my first take on this story was inadequate. It is much more than the simple escape from mundane reality. I think Wolfe is blurring the lines that separate three different worlds here: the world of the book, the world of the imagination, and the mundane or everyday world.
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories"
from The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive
Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction
In spite of the misleading title, this is a short story, and the title does make sense, although in Gene Wolfe's usual quirky manner. As I read this tale, I couldn't help but be reminded of James Thurber's Walter Mitty. While Thurber's Mitty is a middle-aged man, and Wolfe's character is Tadman Babcock, a young boy, both use fantasy to deal with reality. Mitty fantasizes to escape his boring life while Tackie shields himself from his troubled home situation.
Tackie's parents are divorced, and he's living with his mother on a small peninsula in a boarding house run by his mother. There is one boarder (I think he's a boarder), Jason, who has a somewhat ambiguous relationship with Tackie's mother. Tackie's mother has a drug problem. She is also trying to capture a neighbor, Doctor Black, in the bonds of holy matrimony. Several aunts are also regularly present, one of whom is the sister of his father. She is determined to get Tackie's mother married off, so as to reduce her brother's alimony payments, and Doctor Black appears to be a very acceptable candidate.
However, on closer reading, several significant differences between Wolfe's tale and Thurber's tale. Walter Mitty makes himself the hero of his fantasies, the super spy, the brave soldier, etc, while Tackie interacts with the characters in a book he is reading, a book that Jason stole from the store when Tackie asked him to buy it for him. The book is very familiar, although no title is given. It appears to be a revision of two very popular novels. Initially it's the story of shipwrecked Captain Philip Ransom who drifts ashore on an island occupied by Doctor Death and other strange creatures. It seems as though Doctor Death employs surgical techniques on various creatures, one of whom is Bruno, who originally was a Saint Bernard, but is now a shambling hulk, vaguely humanoid in shape. In his first encounter, Tackie doesn't rescue Ransom but does help him to make it safely to the shore.
Captain Ransom manages to escape the good Doctor and at the same time rescue a beautiful young maiden, Talar of the Long Eyes, who just happens to be the queen of "(a) city older than civilization, buried in the jungle here on this little island."
This city, Talar, tells him is the last remnant of the lost civilization of Lemuria. In addition, Talar tells him that he shouldn't be surprised at the degraded appearance of the other inhabitants of the city for they have degenerated from their original appearance while she alone still possesses the original appearance of the founders of their civilization. This is why she was made their queen.
As I mentioned earlier, it does sound familiar. There are at least three stories here: the book that Tackie reads seems to be a combination of two famous novels, while Tackie's situation is the third. One might argue that the reference to Lemuria suggests a fourth, but I'm not aware of any novel that is set in Lemuria, although one might argue that everything said about Lemuria is fiction.
But, as I read I began to realize that this was a much more involved story than that of a troubled boy simply escaping from his home situation. He does not construct the situation in order to make himself, as does Mitty, the hero of the story. Instead, he seems to play the role of a minor supporting character in the story.
My initial assumption was that these encounters took place, just as does Mitty's fantasies, in Tackie's imagination. However, his encounter with Bruno takes place in his own home. One of his aunts sees him talking to Doctor Death, and then Captain Ransom and Talar appear at a costume party, again in his home. And this time, someone at the party sees them waking by and greets them. Wolfe has crossed now into that gray area between consensus reality and fiction, or perhaps the imagination..
At one point, Tackie tells the Doctor that he doesn't want to finish the book because some characters will probably die and others will go away. Doctor Death responds, "'But if you start the book again we'll all be back . . . It's the same with you, Tackie. You're too young to realize it, but it's the same with you.'" Is Doctor Death suggesting some sort of repetitive universe or reincarnation or simply recognizing that Tackie is also a character in a story?
It is true, isn't it? I can reread the story, and regardless of the ending, everything will be as it was when I first read it. Only, I have changed.
It's clear my first take on this story was inadequate. It is much more than the simple escape from mundane reality. I think Wolfe is blurring the lines that separate three different worlds here: the world of the book, the world of the imagination, and the mundane or everyday world.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Cordwainer Smith: "War No. 81-Q"
Cordwainer Smith
"War No. 81-Q"
from The Rediscovery of Man
In the future, humanity has progressed to the point that, while they can not completely eliminate war, they have restrained it sufficiently, at least in most cases, so that it has become harmless and a game telecast on TV, a spectator sport. War No. 81-Q is an example of this new type of war.
America believes that it has a valid complaint against Tibet and has applied for a license to conduct a limited or "safe" war.
"The Universal War Board granted a war permit, subject to strict and clear conditions.
1. The war was to be fought only at the times and places specified.
2. No human being was to be killed or injured, directly or indirectly, by any performance of the machines of war. Emotional injury was not be be considered.
3. An appropriate territory was to be leased and cleared. Provisions should be made for the maximum removal of wildlife, particularly birds, which might be hurt by the battle.
4. The weapons were to be winged dirigibles with a maximum weight of 22,000 tons, propelled by non-nuclear engines.
5. All radio channels were to be strictly monitored by the U. W. B. and by both parties. At any complaint of jamming or interference the war was to be brought to a halt.
6. Each dirigible should have six non-explosive missiles and thirty non-explosive countermissiles.
7. The U. W. B. was to intercept and to destroy all stray missiles and real weapons before the missiles left the war zone, and each party, regardless of the outcome of the war, was to pay he U. W. B. directly for the interception and destruction of stray missiles.
8. No living human beings were to be allowed on the ships, in the war zone, or on the communications equipment which relayed the war to the world's television.
9. The 'stipulated territory' was to be the War Territory of Kerguelen, to be leased by both parties from the Fourteenth French Republic, as agent for Federated Europe, at the price of four million gold livres the hour.
10. Seating for the war, apart from video rights belonging to the combatants, should remain the sole property of the lessor of the War Territory of Kerguelen.
With these arrangements, the French off-lifted their sheep from the island ranges of Kerguelen--the weary sheep were getting thoroughly used to being lifted from their grazing land to Antarctic lighters every time a war occurred. . . "
As you probably guessed from the list of limitations, no humans were placed in jeopardy. The actual fighting was confined to remote radio-controlled dirigibles, the drones of their day, I guess. Dirigibles were chosen because they moved slowly enough to be visible on TV screens (always an important issue) but complex enough to require real skill to operate. The war was fought in a confined space with spectators. Non-explosive missiles were used for obvious reasons. I am reminded of the games in the Roman Coliseum, only less bloody.
Each side had five dirigibles. The limited number of ships reduced the advantages that large and prosperous countries had over smaller and possibly poorer countries. That a country with a large population would have a greater pool from which to find skillful pilots was still an advantage, although mitigated by the rules which allowed for the hiring of mercenaries.
.The Americans, confident in their pilot, elected for the one-pilot rule. Therefore, Jack Reardon, a very skillful pilot, would control all five dirigibles in the contest against the five pilots controlling the Tibetan ships. It was a risk, but the advantage was this: in this type of contest, all the one pilot had to do was down only two of the enemy ships to be victorious, regardless of the number of ships he had left.
A brief introduction indicates that this situation lasted for a few centuries only. When the population reached thirty billion, war stopped being a game and once again became real--an interesting commentary on the role of war, I think.
"War No. 81-Q"
from The Rediscovery of Man
In the future, humanity has progressed to the point that, while they can not completely eliminate war, they have restrained it sufficiently, at least in most cases, so that it has become harmless and a game telecast on TV, a spectator sport. War No. 81-Q is an example of this new type of war.
America believes that it has a valid complaint against Tibet and has applied for a license to conduct a limited or "safe" war.
"The Universal War Board granted a war permit, subject to strict and clear conditions.
1. The war was to be fought only at the times and places specified.
2. No human being was to be killed or injured, directly or indirectly, by any performance of the machines of war. Emotional injury was not be be considered.
3. An appropriate territory was to be leased and cleared. Provisions should be made for the maximum removal of wildlife, particularly birds, which might be hurt by the battle.
4. The weapons were to be winged dirigibles with a maximum weight of 22,000 tons, propelled by non-nuclear engines.
5. All radio channels were to be strictly monitored by the U. W. B. and by both parties. At any complaint of jamming or interference the war was to be brought to a halt.
6. Each dirigible should have six non-explosive missiles and thirty non-explosive countermissiles.
7. The U. W. B. was to intercept and to destroy all stray missiles and real weapons before the missiles left the war zone, and each party, regardless of the outcome of the war, was to pay he U. W. B. directly for the interception and destruction of stray missiles.
8. No living human beings were to be allowed on the ships, in the war zone, or on the communications equipment which relayed the war to the world's television.
9. The 'stipulated territory' was to be the War Territory of Kerguelen, to be leased by both parties from the Fourteenth French Republic, as agent for Federated Europe, at the price of four million gold livres the hour.
10. Seating for the war, apart from video rights belonging to the combatants, should remain the sole property of the lessor of the War Territory of Kerguelen.
With these arrangements, the French off-lifted their sheep from the island ranges of Kerguelen--the weary sheep were getting thoroughly used to being lifted from their grazing land to Antarctic lighters every time a war occurred. . . "
As you probably guessed from the list of limitations, no humans were placed in jeopardy. The actual fighting was confined to remote radio-controlled dirigibles, the drones of their day, I guess. Dirigibles were chosen because they moved slowly enough to be visible on TV screens (always an important issue) but complex enough to require real skill to operate. The war was fought in a confined space with spectators. Non-explosive missiles were used for obvious reasons. I am reminded of the games in the Roman Coliseum, only less bloody.
Each side had five dirigibles. The limited number of ships reduced the advantages that large and prosperous countries had over smaller and possibly poorer countries. That a country with a large population would have a greater pool from which to find skillful pilots was still an advantage, although mitigated by the rules which allowed for the hiring of mercenaries.
.The Americans, confident in their pilot, elected for the one-pilot rule. Therefore, Jack Reardon, a very skillful pilot, would control all five dirigibles in the contest against the five pilots controlling the Tibetan ships. It was a risk, but the advantage was this: in this type of contest, all the one pilot had to do was down only two of the enemy ships to be victorious, regardless of the number of ships he had left.
A brief introduction indicates that this situation lasted for a few centuries only. When the population reached thirty billion, war stopped being a game and once again became real--an interesting commentary on the role of war, I think.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Gregory Benford: "Nobody Lives on Burton Street"
Gregory Benford
"Nobody Lives on Burton Street"
from The Best of Benford
David Hartwell, editor
a short story first published in 1975
Nobody Lives on Burton Street (1970)
"I was standing by one of our temporary command posts, picking my teeth after breakfast and talking to Joe Murphy when the first part of the Domestic Disturbance hit us.
People said the summer of '78 was the worst ever, what with all the pollution haze and everything was kicking up the temperatures, than '78. Spring had lost its bloom a month back and it was hot, sticky--the kind of weather that leaves you with a half-moon of sweat around your armpits before you've had time to finish morning coffee. The summer heat makes for trouble, stirs up people. . .
. . . .
I turned and walked back out onto the roof where we had our command post.
We knew the mob was in the area, working toward us. Our communications link had been humming for the last half hour, getting fixes on their direction and asking the computers for advice on how to hand them when they got there."
The above quotation from the beginning of the story seems fairly straightforward. The story takes place in an urban setting, a mob is on the loose, and the authorities are getting ready to handle the situation. The mob appears, waving clubs and torches and setting some of the building ablaze.
But then, I get the feeling something was wrong. Those in the command post didn't seem strongly affected when several police officers and firefighters who had arrived on the scene were brutally attacked by the mob. Those in the command center acted as though all was going as expected. In fact the arrival of the police and firefighters was carefully orchestrated from the command center. There was some suggestion that the police squad car was controlled from the command center.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON
All is not what it appears to be. What the reader perceives is not the real situation. This is not an out-of-control rampaging mob but a carefully staged cathartic event.
The reader eventually learns that the mob action is actually a planned event. Citizens can register to take part in an upcoming planned riot, after a psychological screening to determine if they would benefit from participation. Moreover, the command post is not staffed by police officers, but members of the city's public relations department, and the police and fire personnel are androids.
While there's been a long-standing debate on the precise meaning of catharsis, in popular usage today, it usually refers to the purging of strong, possibly disruptive or dangerous emotions through the vicarious experience of similar tragic or violent events. Simply put, it suggests that viewing violent destructive actions will reduce the possibility that the viewer will engage in such actions in the future, an emotional escape valve. This staged riot carries the theory a step beyond vicarious observation. It allows the participants to partake in a riot, although carefully monitored and controlled. The assumption is that participants will have purged the anger, hostility, tension sufficiently to reduce the possibility that they might get caught up in a real riot.
While not brought up in the story, there is an opposing theory--desensitization. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, desensitization actually extinguishes or at least reduces an emotional response (as of fear, anxiety, or guilt) to stimuli that formerly induced it. Consequently, participating in an activity increases the chances that one will engage in it again. As you can see, this directly contradicts the cathartic theory. Not only does it contradict the cathartic theory, but it also insists that putting the cathartic theory into practice will make the problem even worse. Those who take part in the staged riot will be desensitized to the destruction and the killing of the police and fire personnel on the scene and, therefore, are more likely to do it again.
One can wonder whether the cathartic process is actually working, for in the first paragraph of the story, the director of the staged riot remarks that last year was the worst ever for riots and now "it was a year later and getting worse." Does this suggest that the staged and managed riots are making the situation worse?
This is just another example of that short-sighted behavior we humans are not only capable of but far more likely to engage in, instead of intelligent problem solving behavior. As usual, the powers-that-be prefer to attack the symptoms of a problem, rather than the causes.
"Nobody Lives on Burton Street"
from The Best of Benford
David Hartwell, editor
a short story first published in 1975
Nobody Lives on Burton Street (1970)
"I was standing by one of our temporary command posts, picking my teeth after breakfast and talking to Joe Murphy when the first part of the Domestic Disturbance hit us.
People said the summer of '78 was the worst ever, what with all the pollution haze and everything was kicking up the temperatures, than '78. Spring had lost its bloom a month back and it was hot, sticky--the kind of weather that leaves you with a half-moon of sweat around your armpits before you've had time to finish morning coffee. The summer heat makes for trouble, stirs up people. . .
. . . .
I turned and walked back out onto the roof where we had our command post.
We knew the mob was in the area, working toward us. Our communications link had been humming for the last half hour, getting fixes on their direction and asking the computers for advice on how to hand them when they got there."
The above quotation from the beginning of the story seems fairly straightforward. The story takes place in an urban setting, a mob is on the loose, and the authorities are getting ready to handle the situation. The mob appears, waving clubs and torches and setting some of the building ablaze.
But then, I get the feeling something was wrong. Those in the command post didn't seem strongly affected when several police officers and firefighters who had arrived on the scene were brutally attacked by the mob. Those in the command center acted as though all was going as expected. In fact the arrival of the police and firefighters was carefully orchestrated from the command center. There was some suggestion that the police squad car was controlled from the command center.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON
All is not what it appears to be. What the reader perceives is not the real situation. This is not an out-of-control rampaging mob but a carefully staged cathartic event.
The reader eventually learns that the mob action is actually a planned event. Citizens can register to take part in an upcoming planned riot, after a psychological screening to determine if they would benefit from participation. Moreover, the command post is not staffed by police officers, but members of the city's public relations department, and the police and fire personnel are androids.
While there's been a long-standing debate on the precise meaning of catharsis, in popular usage today, it usually refers to the purging of strong, possibly disruptive or dangerous emotions through the vicarious experience of similar tragic or violent events. Simply put, it suggests that viewing violent destructive actions will reduce the possibility that the viewer will engage in such actions in the future, an emotional escape valve. This staged riot carries the theory a step beyond vicarious observation. It allows the participants to partake in a riot, although carefully monitored and controlled. The assumption is that participants will have purged the anger, hostility, tension sufficiently to reduce the possibility that they might get caught up in a real riot.
While not brought up in the story, there is an opposing theory--desensitization. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, desensitization actually extinguishes or at least reduces an emotional response (as of fear, anxiety, or guilt) to stimuli that formerly induced it. Consequently, participating in an activity increases the chances that one will engage in it again. As you can see, this directly contradicts the cathartic theory. Not only does it contradict the cathartic theory, but it also insists that putting the cathartic theory into practice will make the problem even worse. Those who take part in the staged riot will be desensitized to the destruction and the killing of the police and fire personnel on the scene and, therefore, are more likely to do it again.
One can wonder whether the cathartic process is actually working, for in the first paragraph of the story, the director of the staged riot remarks that last year was the worst ever for riots and now "it was a year later and getting worse." Does this suggest that the staged and managed riots are making the situation worse?
This is just another example of that short-sighted behavior we humans are not only capable of but far more likely to engage in, instead of intelligent problem solving behavior. As usual, the powers-that-be prefer to attack the symptoms of a problem, rather than the causes.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Kevin J. Anderson and Gregory Benford: Mammoth Dawn
Kevin J. Anderson
Gregory Benford
Mammoth Dawn
This is a rather unusual book. The core is the novella, "Mammoth Dawn," a collaboration by Gregory Benford and Keven J. Anderson.
Husband and wife geneticists, Alex and Helen Pierce, have developed a method of extracting DNA from the preserved remains of now extinct animals. On their ranch in Montana, they have brought a number of extinct species back to life: dodos, moas, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers. Others are at the development stage.
Of course, there is opposition. One group, the Evos, argue that it was God's plan that these species went extinct and that the Pierces are violating that plan, usurping God's prerogative to decide what species live and which ones die. In addition, it becomes a political, as well as a scientific and religious issue, and Congress becomes involved. Some proposed legislation would stop such research. The Pierces have to defend themselves on two fronts, a dangerous situation to be in.
Unfortunately, the Pierces make a mistake and underestimate the protestors camped outside the ranch's boundaries. One night they pay for this when the Evos mount an armed attack, with disastrous results for the Pierces and their dreams.
The novella, though, is just one of six parts of this book, as can be seen by the "Contents" page.
A. "Introduction: Cloning Mammoths"
The genesis of the novella, "Mammoth Dawn," was a conversation between Keven J. Anderson and Gregory Benford, inspired by the film Jurassic Park, about the possibilities of cloning dinosaurs.
B. "Mammoth Dawn: The Original Novella"
The novella as published in Analog in 2002.
C. "Mammoth Dawn: Full Treatment and Proposal
Benford and Anderson had decided that the short story wouldn't do justice to their thinking on the topic, so they planned to expand the work to novel length. What follows is their development of the ideas about cloning extinct species and a proposal for a full-length novel.
D. "Overview"
"Scientific Basis--Why Mammoths? Why Now?
Self-explanatory-- four pages
What follows is an explication of the proposed novel.
E. "Prologue--The Hunt"
"Part I--Mammoth Ranch"
"Part II--The Resurrection Preserve"
"Part III--Survival of the Fittest"
"Part IV--Pleistocene Rules"
Part I is an expansion of the novella while the following three parts relate the aftermath of the attack on the ranch and its consequences.
The last section of Mammoth Dawn: a discussion of the status of cloning research.
F. "Bringing Back the Mammoths"
"Why?"
"How?"
"When?"
Unfortunately the novel has yet to be written, and sadly, may never be written, for Anderson says in the "Introduction,"
"The novel of Mammoth Dawn would be a huge project, even for a pair of seasoned writers, entailing a great deal of travel, research, and likely years of writing. We loved the idea.
We didn't have time for it, but we meant to."
It's an excellent action-packed short story, but I do wish that, in the near future, they do find the time to write the novel
Gregory Benford
Mammoth Dawn
This is a rather unusual book. The core is the novella, "Mammoth Dawn," a collaboration by Gregory Benford and Keven J. Anderson.
Husband and wife geneticists, Alex and Helen Pierce, have developed a method of extracting DNA from the preserved remains of now extinct animals. On their ranch in Montana, they have brought a number of extinct species back to life: dodos, moas, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers. Others are at the development stage.
Of course, there is opposition. One group, the Evos, argue that it was God's plan that these species went extinct and that the Pierces are violating that plan, usurping God's prerogative to decide what species live and which ones die. In addition, it becomes a political, as well as a scientific and religious issue, and Congress becomes involved. Some proposed legislation would stop such research. The Pierces have to defend themselves on two fronts, a dangerous situation to be in.
Unfortunately, the Pierces make a mistake and underestimate the protestors camped outside the ranch's boundaries. One night they pay for this when the Evos mount an armed attack, with disastrous results for the Pierces and their dreams.
The novella, though, is just one of six parts of this book, as can be seen by the "Contents" page.
A. "Introduction: Cloning Mammoths"
The genesis of the novella, "Mammoth Dawn," was a conversation between Keven J. Anderson and Gregory Benford, inspired by the film Jurassic Park, about the possibilities of cloning dinosaurs.
B. "Mammoth Dawn: The Original Novella"
The novella as published in Analog in 2002.
C. "Mammoth Dawn: Full Treatment and Proposal
Benford and Anderson had decided that the short story wouldn't do justice to their thinking on the topic, so they planned to expand the work to novel length. What follows is their development of the ideas about cloning extinct species and a proposal for a full-length novel.
D. "Overview"
"Scientific Basis--Why Mammoths? Why Now?
Self-explanatory-- four pages
What follows is an explication of the proposed novel.
E. "Prologue--The Hunt"
"Part I--Mammoth Ranch"
"Part II--The Resurrection Preserve"
"Part III--Survival of the Fittest"
"Part IV--Pleistocene Rules"
Part I is an expansion of the novella while the following three parts relate the aftermath of the attack on the ranch and its consequences.
The last section of Mammoth Dawn: a discussion of the status of cloning research.
F. "Bringing Back the Mammoths"
"Why?"
"How?"
"When?"
Unfortunately the novel has yet to be written, and sadly, may never be written, for Anderson says in the "Introduction,"
"The novel of Mammoth Dawn would be a huge project, even for a pair of seasoned writers, entailing a great deal of travel, research, and likely years of writing. We loved the idea.
We didn't have time for it, but we meant to."
It's an excellent action-packed short story, but I do wish that, in the near future, they do find the time to write the novel
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Ray Bradbury: Long After Midnight, "The Blue Bottle"
Ray Bradbury
Long After Midnight
Long After Midnight is a collection of short stories that I had read many years ago, but as usual, I had forgotten what stories it contained. I sat down yesterday and began. What I found surprised me. I am a great admirer of Bradbury's short works, but I missed recognizing just how good these simple little tales are.
Since this collection contains 22 stories, I will comment on a number of them in several subsequent posts. "The Blue Bottle" is the first story in the collection. .
"The Blue Bottle"
This story takes place on Mars. To be sure, I checked my copy of The Martian Chronicles, but it wasn't in there. After reading the story, I wouldn't have been surprised to find it there because it contained elements reminiscent of those tales.
The story begins with two men searching for the Blue Bottle.
"The sundials were tumbled into white pebbles. The birds of the air flew in ancient skies of rock and sand, buried, their songs. stopped. The dead sea bottoms were currented with dust which flooded the land when the wind bade it reenact an old tale of engulfment. The cities were deep laid with granaries of silence, time stored and kept, pools and fountains of quietude and memory.
Mars was dead.
Then, out of the large stillness, from a great distance, there was an insect sound which grew large among the cinnamon hills and moved in the sun-blazed air until the highway trembled and dust was shook whispering down in the old cities.
The sound ceased.
In the shimmering silence of midday, Albert Beck and Leonard Craig sat in an ancient landcar, eyeing a dead city which did not move under their gaze but waited for their shout:
'Hello!'
A crystal tower dropped into soft dusting rain.
'You there!'
And another tumbled down.
And another and another fell as Beck called, summoning them to death. In shattering flights, stone animals with vast granite wings dived to strike the courtyards and fountains. His cry summoned them like living beasts and the beast gave answer, groaned, cracked, leaned up, tilted over, trembling, hesitant, then split the air and swept down with grimaced mouths and empty eyes, with sharp, eternally hungry teeth suddenly seized out and strewn like shrapnel on the tiles."
They were searching for the Blue Bottle, a mysterious Martian artifact which legends claimed that it held that which one most wanted. Craig came along for the ride; it was Beck who drove the two of them from one deserted city to the next. Many had found the bottle, according to various tales, and many had died, but still the Blue Bottle remained elusive.
Beck's search, though intensive and driven, was a strange one: "Only after he had heard of the Blue Bottle. . .had life begun to take on a purpose. The fever had lit him and he had burned steadily ever since. If he worked it properly, the prospect of finding the bottle might fill his entire life to the brim. Another thirty years, if he was careful and not too diligent, of search, never admitting aloud that it wasn't the bottle that counted at all, but the search, the running and the hunting, the dust and the cities and the going-on."
It is Craig who finds the Blue Bottle, but he doesn't recognize it. He opens it to discover that the bottle is filled with bourbon; he takes a drink from it and discards it. Beck, however, realizes what it is and places "it on the table. Sunlight spearing through a side window struck blue flashes off the slender container. It was the blue of a star held in the hand. It was the blue of a shallow ocean at at noon. It was the blue of a diamond at morning."
Beck picks it up and shakes it: Craig hears it gurgle (some bourbon is still in there), but Beck hears nothing. He is about to open it when a man appears with a gun (another fanatic searcher obviously), takes the bottle, and drives off. Beck and Craig give chase. They find him, by the side of the road, his body dissolving away. They see three men hurrying up a hill. Craig decides enough is enough and is no longer interested in the search, but Beck goes on after them. He finds them, dead, their bodies also dissolving. Beck now realizes what is in the Bottle. It is what each searcher most desires, and now he knows what he most desires.
Beck's search for the Blue Bottle reminds me of the Arthurian tales of the Search for the Holy Grail. Those who find it will recognize it, as Beck recognizes the Blue Bottle, his Holy Grail, but that's only part of the story. Why the search that absorbs so many people? The mystery of both is the meaning of the Bottle and the Grail--what the Blue Bottle and the Holy Grail signify and that seems to differ for each searcher.
I think this story could well have been included in The Martian Chronicles. The tone, the setting, the causal destruction of Martian cities and structures by humans, and those strange almost recognizable artifacts that possess an alien aura. In this story it is the Blue Bottle. Blue bottles are not alien to earth cultures, but what it contains may be.
Long After Midnight
Long After Midnight is a collection of short stories that I had read many years ago, but as usual, I had forgotten what stories it contained. I sat down yesterday and began. What I found surprised me. I am a great admirer of Bradbury's short works, but I missed recognizing just how good these simple little tales are.
Since this collection contains 22 stories, I will comment on a number of them in several subsequent posts. "The Blue Bottle" is the first story in the collection. .
"The Blue Bottle"
This story takes place on Mars. To be sure, I checked my copy of The Martian Chronicles, but it wasn't in there. After reading the story, I wouldn't have been surprised to find it there because it contained elements reminiscent of those tales.
The story begins with two men searching for the Blue Bottle.
"The sundials were tumbled into white pebbles. The birds of the air flew in ancient skies of rock and sand, buried, their songs. stopped. The dead sea bottoms were currented with dust which flooded the land when the wind bade it reenact an old tale of engulfment. The cities were deep laid with granaries of silence, time stored and kept, pools and fountains of quietude and memory.
Mars was dead.
Then, out of the large stillness, from a great distance, there was an insect sound which grew large among the cinnamon hills and moved in the sun-blazed air until the highway trembled and dust was shook whispering down in the old cities.
The sound ceased.
In the shimmering silence of midday, Albert Beck and Leonard Craig sat in an ancient landcar, eyeing a dead city which did not move under their gaze but waited for their shout:
'Hello!'
A crystal tower dropped into soft dusting rain.
'You there!'
And another tumbled down.
And another and another fell as Beck called, summoning them to death. In shattering flights, stone animals with vast granite wings dived to strike the courtyards and fountains. His cry summoned them like living beasts and the beast gave answer, groaned, cracked, leaned up, tilted over, trembling, hesitant, then split the air and swept down with grimaced mouths and empty eyes, with sharp, eternally hungry teeth suddenly seized out and strewn like shrapnel on the tiles."
They were searching for the Blue Bottle, a mysterious Martian artifact which legends claimed that it held that which one most wanted. Craig came along for the ride; it was Beck who drove the two of them from one deserted city to the next. Many had found the bottle, according to various tales, and many had died, but still the Blue Bottle remained elusive.
Beck's search, though intensive and driven, was a strange one: "Only after he had heard of the Blue Bottle. . .had life begun to take on a purpose. The fever had lit him and he had burned steadily ever since. If he worked it properly, the prospect of finding the bottle might fill his entire life to the brim. Another thirty years, if he was careful and not too diligent, of search, never admitting aloud that it wasn't the bottle that counted at all, but the search, the running and the hunting, the dust and the cities and the going-on."
It is Craig who finds the Blue Bottle, but he doesn't recognize it. He opens it to discover that the bottle is filled with bourbon; he takes a drink from it and discards it. Beck, however, realizes what it is and places "it on the table. Sunlight spearing through a side window struck blue flashes off the slender container. It was the blue of a star held in the hand. It was the blue of a shallow ocean at at noon. It was the blue of a diamond at morning."
Beck picks it up and shakes it: Craig hears it gurgle (some bourbon is still in there), but Beck hears nothing. He is about to open it when a man appears with a gun (another fanatic searcher obviously), takes the bottle, and drives off. Beck and Craig give chase. They find him, by the side of the road, his body dissolving away. They see three men hurrying up a hill. Craig decides enough is enough and is no longer interested in the search, but Beck goes on after them. He finds them, dead, their bodies also dissolving. Beck now realizes what is in the Bottle. It is what each searcher most desires, and now he knows what he most desires.
Beck's search for the Blue Bottle reminds me of the Arthurian tales of the Search for the Holy Grail. Those who find it will recognize it, as Beck recognizes the Blue Bottle, his Holy Grail, but that's only part of the story. Why the search that absorbs so many people? The mystery of both is the meaning of the Bottle and the Grail--what the Blue Bottle and the Holy Grail signify and that seems to differ for each searcher.
I think this story could well have been included in The Martian Chronicles. The tone, the setting, the causal destruction of Martian cities and structures by humans, and those strange almost recognizable artifacts that possess an alien aura. In this story it is the Blue Bottle. Blue bottles are not alien to earth cultures, but what it contains may be.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Cordwainer Smith: "No, No, Not Rogov!"
Cordwainer Smith
"No, No, Not Rogov!"
from The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith
16 pages
The following quotation constitutes the first three paragraphs of the story.
That golden shape on the golden steps shook and fluttered like a bird gone mad--like a bird imbued with an intellect and a soul, and, nevertheless, driven mad by ecstasies and terrors beyond human understanding--ecstasies drawn momentarily down unto reality by the consummation of superlative art. A thousand worlds watched.
Had the ancient calendar continued this would have been A.D. 13,582. After defeat, after disappointment, after ruin and reconstruction, mankind had leapt among the stars.
Out of meeting inhuman art, out of confronting non-human dances, mankind had made a superb esthetic effort and had leapt upon the stage of all the worlds.
. . .
The golden shape on the golden steps executed shimmering intricacies of meaning. The body was gold and still human. The body was a woman, but more than a woman. On the golden steps, in the golden light, she trembled and fluttered like bird gone mad.
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever," Keats once said. This, of course, frequently leads to those who enjoy quibbling, and the quibbled topic usually is "beauty." Is there some beauty that is recognized by all or is beauty always "in the eye of the beholder"? Part of the debate may involve the issue of the beautiful that appears before its time. Many literary works, musical compositions, paintings, and sculptures are initially rejected or even castigated as ugly and then "rediscovered" a decade or more to be very beautiful. Aside from these issues, I wonder if it is "a joy forever," or even if it is a joy? Could beauty be something else? Is there a beauty that might be so profound that it becomes destructive to the unprepared? Cordwainer Smith explores this idea in this short story.
In spite of the introductory quotation, most of the story is told on a less exalted level. It is set in the Soviet Union, begins during WWII, and continues on through several decades and commissars. It takes place in a research laboratory, and the cast of characters includes Rogov, (the head of the research team), Cherpas (initially Rogov's greatest rival and later his wife), and two observers installed by Stalin. One is Gausgofer (a scientist and a policewoman, whose real job is to watch the scientists), who falls in love with Rogov, and, therefore, hates Cherpas. The other is Gauck (whose real job was to watch everybody, including Gausgofer), about whom nothing is said and who just watches and says little. "Gauck had no friends, no enemies, no beliefs, no enthusiasm. Even Gausgofer was afraid of him."
Their goal was to develop a device that, as a receiver, could read and record the thoughts of people at a distance. In addition, once turned into a transmitter, it should be able to influence the thinking of people at a great distance.
Eventually they focused on the receiver function, but test results shifted the goal from reading thoughts at a distance to being able to see what targeted individuals were seeing. Being able to see, for example, what the US president was seeing would give the USSR a decided advantage in that it could now read the briefing papers given to the president. The USSR would know what the US president knew.
They succeed, but not in the way they expected.
Is there a beauty that is so overwhelming that, for those who haven't been prepared, it becomes destructive?
The final paragraphs:
On the golden steps in the golden, light, as golden shape danced a dream beyond the limits of all imagination, danced and drew the music to herself until a sigh of yearning, yearning which became a hope and a torment, went through the hearts of living things on a thousand worlds.
Edges of the golden scene faded raggedly and unevenly into black. The gold dimmed down to a pale gold-silver sheen and then to silver, last of all to white. The dancer who had been golden was now a forlorn white-pink figure standing, quiet and fatigued, on the immense white steps. The applause of a thousand worlds roared in upon her.
She looked blindly at them. The dance had overwhelmed her., too. Their applause could mean nothing. The dance was an end in itself. She would have to live, somehow, until she danced again.
As in many of Cordwainer Smith's stories, the focus is on the effects of technology and scientific advances on people rather than on the technology or science. People are most important in his stories.
Cordwainer Smith is one of those sadly neglected SF short story writers from the late 1950s through the 1970s. While many of his short works take place in a common universe, and several novels have been constructed by linking his short stories, he never got to the point of writing a series of novels that are so popular today, or perhaps required today.
I hope that maybe some visitors here will take a look at his stories. It will be rewarding.
"No, No, Not Rogov!"
from The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith
16 pages
The following quotation constitutes the first three paragraphs of the story.
That golden shape on the golden steps shook and fluttered like a bird gone mad--like a bird imbued with an intellect and a soul, and, nevertheless, driven mad by ecstasies and terrors beyond human understanding--ecstasies drawn momentarily down unto reality by the consummation of superlative art. A thousand worlds watched.
Had the ancient calendar continued this would have been A.D. 13,582. After defeat, after disappointment, after ruin and reconstruction, mankind had leapt among the stars.
Out of meeting inhuman art, out of confronting non-human dances, mankind had made a superb esthetic effort and had leapt upon the stage of all the worlds.
. . .
The golden shape on the golden steps executed shimmering intricacies of meaning. The body was gold and still human. The body was a woman, but more than a woman. On the golden steps, in the golden light, she trembled and fluttered like bird gone mad.
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever," Keats once said. This, of course, frequently leads to those who enjoy quibbling, and the quibbled topic usually is "beauty." Is there some beauty that is recognized by all or is beauty always "in the eye of the beholder"? Part of the debate may involve the issue of the beautiful that appears before its time. Many literary works, musical compositions, paintings, and sculptures are initially rejected or even castigated as ugly and then "rediscovered" a decade or more to be very beautiful. Aside from these issues, I wonder if it is "a joy forever," or even if it is a joy? Could beauty be something else? Is there a beauty that might be so profound that it becomes destructive to the unprepared? Cordwainer Smith explores this idea in this short story.
In spite of the introductory quotation, most of the story is told on a less exalted level. It is set in the Soviet Union, begins during WWII, and continues on through several decades and commissars. It takes place in a research laboratory, and the cast of characters includes Rogov, (the head of the research team), Cherpas (initially Rogov's greatest rival and later his wife), and two observers installed by Stalin. One is Gausgofer (a scientist and a policewoman, whose real job is to watch the scientists), who falls in love with Rogov, and, therefore, hates Cherpas. The other is Gauck (whose real job was to watch everybody, including Gausgofer), about whom nothing is said and who just watches and says little. "Gauck had no friends, no enemies, no beliefs, no enthusiasm. Even Gausgofer was afraid of him."
Their goal was to develop a device that, as a receiver, could read and record the thoughts of people at a distance. In addition, once turned into a transmitter, it should be able to influence the thinking of people at a great distance.
Eventually they focused on the receiver function, but test results shifted the goal from reading thoughts at a distance to being able to see what targeted individuals were seeing. Being able to see, for example, what the US president was seeing would give the USSR a decided advantage in that it could now read the briefing papers given to the president. The USSR would know what the US president knew.
They succeed, but not in the way they expected.
Is there a beauty that is so overwhelming that, for those who haven't been prepared, it becomes destructive?
The final paragraphs:
On the golden steps in the golden, light, as golden shape danced a dream beyond the limits of all imagination, danced and drew the music to herself until a sigh of yearning, yearning which became a hope and a torment, went through the hearts of living things on a thousand worlds.
Edges of the golden scene faded raggedly and unevenly into black. The gold dimmed down to a pale gold-silver sheen and then to silver, last of all to white. The dancer who had been golden was now a forlorn white-pink figure standing, quiet and fatigued, on the immense white steps. The applause of a thousand worlds roared in upon her.
She looked blindly at them. The dance had overwhelmed her., too. Their applause could mean nothing. The dance was an end in itself. She would have to live, somehow, until she danced again.
As in many of Cordwainer Smith's stories, the focus is on the effects of technology and scientific advances on people rather than on the technology or science. People are most important in his stories.
Cordwainer Smith is one of those sadly neglected SF short story writers from the late 1950s through the 1970s. While many of his short works take place in a common universe, and several novels have been constructed by linking his short stories, he never got to the point of writing a series of novels that are so popular today, or perhaps required today.
I hope that maybe some visitors here will take a look at his stories. It will be rewarding.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Theodore Sturgeon: "Helix the Cat"
Theodore Sturgeon (1918--1985)
"Helix the Cat" a short story
from The Ultimate Egoist: Volume 1, The Complete Stories
This is one of Theodore Sturgeon's short stories, one that I hadn't read before. As usual, it's a bit quirky, as most of his tales are. It is an early story, written in 1939 and rejected at that time and finally published in 1979. Why? I don't know. I think it's a delightful little tale with an interesting cast.
It's a first person narrative, and it takes place in the home of Pete Tronti, the narrator. Pete has a small lab at his place, and that's the cause of what happens in the story. Most of the story happens there.
Another character in the cast is Helix. Pete tells us, "Ah, he was a cat. A big black tom, with a white throat and white mittens, and a tail twice as long as that of an ordinary cat. He carried it in a graceful spiral--three complete turns--and hence his name. He could sit on one end of that tail and take two turns around his head with the other. Ah, he was a cat."
The third character is a soul, the soul of a dead man, Wallace Gregory, and he, or actually his soul, turns up because he was trying to escape from Them, the Soul Eaters! This is why we find Pete in his lab, apparently talking to an empty bottle.
To be brief, Pete has invented a new type of glass and has just completed making a bottle of it. It is a flexible glass that bounces when dropped, and it has other properties, as Pete unfortunately discovers. Wallace, or his soul, explains that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body, and this is when They, the Soul Eaters, enter the scene. They eat the souls of dead humans, but not all dead humans. Something happens to the souls of people who know they are about to die. Wallace doesn't know what--maybe grow a protective cover or something. Any way, They don't go after the souls of those who had known they were about to die.
Wallace explains that he didn't know he was about to die, and therefore his soul didn't have enough time to get protected. They were about to grab him when he spotted Pete's latest invention and somehow realized that the glass bottle would protect him, so he dived into the bottle. As long as he stays inside the bottle, he will be safe from Them. Perhaps some time in the future, he will find a human who is willing to die and let Wallace occupy the now empty body.
All goes well until Wallace gets bored. The thought of spending an eternity in a bottle doesn't excite him any more than it excited the various djinn or genies we hear about in various tales. He is getting desperate trapped there. But, he has an idea. He tells Pete that by making some appropriate changes, he could occupy the body of a small animal, such as a dog or a . . . cat.
Pete looks at Helix and is horrified. " 'You 're being emotional,' said Wally scornfully. 'If you've got any sense of values at all, there'll be no choice. You can save my immortal soul by sacrificing the life of a cat. Not many men have that sort of an opportunity, especially at that price.' "
Pete makes his choice, and sadly, he makes the wrong one. He's somewhat appeased when Wally tells him that Helix's soul is in no danger from Them. His soul will just leave and go where animal souls go. And, since Wally's soul is in telepathic communication with Pete's soul, Helix is unaware of Wally's existence and therefore, Wally's plans for him.
Wally modifies Helix (souls can do all sorts of things that they can't do while in a live body), so that eventually Helix is able to talk and read and write, and now it's time for the Great Transformation.
But, things did not progress as planned, by anybody. This should have been expected since deception was a part of the plan and that never bodes well. In fact, everybody involved was deceiving somebody--the double-cross was SOP in the Great Transformation. Another complication is that several of the cast knew things that the other members didn't know that they knew, but they didn't know everything. The outcome, once again, disproved that old adage, because, let's face facts, "what you don't know CAN hurt you."
But it did show, as usual, that another old adage is true:
"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
(and cats and souls and Them)
Gang aft a-gley."
However, the situation ended, and contrary to Shakespeare, it did not end well.
"Helix the Cat" a short story
from The Ultimate Egoist: Volume 1, The Complete Stories
This is one of Theodore Sturgeon's short stories, one that I hadn't read before. As usual, it's a bit quirky, as most of his tales are. It is an early story, written in 1939 and rejected at that time and finally published in 1979. Why? I don't know. I think it's a delightful little tale with an interesting cast.
It's a first person narrative, and it takes place in the home of Pete Tronti, the narrator. Pete has a small lab at his place, and that's the cause of what happens in the story. Most of the story happens there.
Another character in the cast is Helix. Pete tells us, "Ah, he was a cat. A big black tom, with a white throat and white mittens, and a tail twice as long as that of an ordinary cat. He carried it in a graceful spiral--three complete turns--and hence his name. He could sit on one end of that tail and take two turns around his head with the other. Ah, he was a cat."
The third character is a soul, the soul of a dead man, Wallace Gregory, and he, or actually his soul, turns up because he was trying to escape from Them, the Soul Eaters! This is why we find Pete in his lab, apparently talking to an empty bottle.
To be brief, Pete has invented a new type of glass and has just completed making a bottle of it. It is a flexible glass that bounces when dropped, and it has other properties, as Pete unfortunately discovers. Wallace, or his soul, explains that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body, and this is when They, the Soul Eaters, enter the scene. They eat the souls of dead humans, but not all dead humans. Something happens to the souls of people who know they are about to die. Wallace doesn't know what--maybe grow a protective cover or something. Any way, They don't go after the souls of those who had known they were about to die.
Wallace explains that he didn't know he was about to die, and therefore his soul didn't have enough time to get protected. They were about to grab him when he spotted Pete's latest invention and somehow realized that the glass bottle would protect him, so he dived into the bottle. As long as he stays inside the bottle, he will be safe from Them. Perhaps some time in the future, he will find a human who is willing to die and let Wallace occupy the now empty body.
All goes well until Wallace gets bored. The thought of spending an eternity in a bottle doesn't excite him any more than it excited the various djinn or genies we hear about in various tales. He is getting desperate trapped there. But, he has an idea. He tells Pete that by making some appropriate changes, he could occupy the body of a small animal, such as a dog or a . . . cat.
Pete looks at Helix and is horrified. " 'You 're being emotional,' said Wally scornfully. 'If you've got any sense of values at all, there'll be no choice. You can save my immortal soul by sacrificing the life of a cat. Not many men have that sort of an opportunity, especially at that price.' "
Pete makes his choice, and sadly, he makes the wrong one. He's somewhat appeased when Wally tells him that Helix's soul is in no danger from Them. His soul will just leave and go where animal souls go. And, since Wally's soul is in telepathic communication with Pete's soul, Helix is unaware of Wally's existence and therefore, Wally's plans for him.
Wally modifies Helix (souls can do all sorts of things that they can't do while in a live body), so that eventually Helix is able to talk and read and write, and now it's time for the Great Transformation.
But, things did not progress as planned, by anybody. This should have been expected since deception was a part of the plan and that never bodes well. In fact, everybody involved was deceiving somebody--the double-cross was SOP in the Great Transformation. Another complication is that several of the cast knew things that the other members didn't know that they knew, but they didn't know everything. The outcome, once again, disproved that old adage, because, let's face facts, "what you don't know CAN hurt you."
But it did show, as usual, that another old adage is true:
"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
(and cats and souls and Them)
Gang aft a-gley."
However, the situation ended, and contrary to Shakespeare, it did not end well.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Ray Bradbury: The Lake
One of Ray Bradbury's strengths is that he can take the simplest elements and create a memorable tale from them: two twelve year-old children, a summer at the lake, a half-finished sand castle, a sudden parting and perhaps an equally sudden and unexpected reunion. Bradbury tells the story much better than I can, so I will give you some excerpts from this brief tale, but haunting (that may be a pun, but I'll let you decide) nevertheless.
"The wave shut me off from the world, from the birds in the sky, the children on the beach, my mother on the shore. There was a moment of green silence. Then the wave gave me back to the sky, the sand, the children yelling. I came out of the lake and the world was waiting for me, having hardly moved since I went away.
I ran up on the beach.
. . . . .
It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason. The beach was so long and lonely with only about six people on it. The kids quit bouncing the ball because somehow the wind made them sad, too, whistling the way it did, and the kids sat down and felt autumn come along the endless shore.
All of the hot dog stands were boarded up with strips of golden planking, sealing in all the mustard, onion, meat odors of the long, joyful summer. It was like nailing summer into a series of coffins. One by one the places slammed their covers down, padlocked their doors, and the wind came and touched the sand, blowing away all of the million footprints of July and August. It got so that now, in September, there was nothing but the mark of my rubber tennis shoes and Donald and Delaus Schabold's feet, down by the water curve.
. . . . .
I called her name. A dozen times I called it.
'Tally! Tally! Oh, Tally!'
. . . . .
I thought of Tally, swimming out into the water last May, with her pigtails trailing, blonde. She went laughing, and the sun was on her small twelve-year-old shoulders. I thought of the water settling quiet, of the life-guard leaping into it, of Tally's mother screaming, and of how Tally never came out. . . .
. . . . .
And now in the lonely autumn when the sky was huge and the water was huge and the beach was so very long, I had come down for the last time, alone.
. . . . .
Turning, I retreated to the sand and stood there for half an hour, hoping for one glimpse, one sign, one little bit of Tally to remember. Then, I knelt and built a sand-castle, shaping it fine, building it as Tally and I had often built so many of them. But this time, I only built half of it. Then I got up.
'Tally, if you hear me, come in and build the rest.'
. . . . .
The next day I went away on the train.
. . . . .
I lengthened my bones, put flesh on them, changed my young mind for an older one, threw away clothes as they no longer fitted, shifted from grammar to high school, to college books, to law books. And then there was a young woman in Sacramento. I knew her for a time, and we were married."
There is more to this story--a return to the lake and another half-finished castle and . . .
I won't say any more, but if you are interested--this is a link to an online version of the story. It's a short one.
http://tinyurl.com/puhzqcy
If you read it, come back and let me know what you think of it.
"The wave shut me off from the world, from the birds in the sky, the children on the beach, my mother on the shore. There was a moment of green silence. Then the wave gave me back to the sky, the sand, the children yelling. I came out of the lake and the world was waiting for me, having hardly moved since I went away.
I ran up on the beach.
. . . . .
It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason. The beach was so long and lonely with only about six people on it. The kids quit bouncing the ball because somehow the wind made them sad, too, whistling the way it did, and the kids sat down and felt autumn come along the endless shore.
All of the hot dog stands were boarded up with strips of golden planking, sealing in all the mustard, onion, meat odors of the long, joyful summer. It was like nailing summer into a series of coffins. One by one the places slammed their covers down, padlocked their doors, and the wind came and touched the sand, blowing away all of the million footprints of July and August. It got so that now, in September, there was nothing but the mark of my rubber tennis shoes and Donald and Delaus Schabold's feet, down by the water curve.
. . . . .
I called her name. A dozen times I called it.
'Tally! Tally! Oh, Tally!'
. . . . .
I thought of Tally, swimming out into the water last May, with her pigtails trailing, blonde. She went laughing, and the sun was on her small twelve-year-old shoulders. I thought of the water settling quiet, of the life-guard leaping into it, of Tally's mother screaming, and of how Tally never came out. . . .
. . . . .
And now in the lonely autumn when the sky was huge and the water was huge and the beach was so very long, I had come down for the last time, alone.
. . . . .
Turning, I retreated to the sand and stood there for half an hour, hoping for one glimpse, one sign, one little bit of Tally to remember. Then, I knelt and built a sand-castle, shaping it fine, building it as Tally and I had often built so many of them. But this time, I only built half of it. Then I got up.
'Tally, if you hear me, come in and build the rest.'
. . . . .
The next day I went away on the train.
. . . . .
I lengthened my bones, put flesh on them, changed my young mind for an older one, threw away clothes as they no longer fitted, shifted from grammar to high school, to college books, to law books. And then there was a young woman in Sacramento. I knew her for a time, and we were married."
There is more to this story--a return to the lake and another half-finished castle and . . .
I won't say any more, but if you are interested--this is a link to an online version of the story. It's a short one.
http://tinyurl.com/puhzqcy
If you read it, come back and let me know what you think of it.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Nightfall: Lord Byron, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Silverberg
Lord Byron: "Darkness" 1816, a poem
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Nature" 1836, an essay
Isaac Asimov: "Nightfall" 1941, a short story
Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg: Nightfall, a novel, 1990
LORD BYRON'S POEM: DARKNESS
Near the end of May I visited R.T.'s blog, Beyond Eastwood, which featured a poem by Lord Byron. I'm not a great fan (or even a little fan) of Lord Byron, but I was curious to see what had interested R.T. to post this poem. I got about 4 or 5 lines into it when I had to stop and go back to check that what I thought I was reading was really what I was reading.
In the poem the sun disappears, and chaos follows! I couldn't help but think of Isaac Asimov's most famous short story, "Nightfall." This, then, reminded me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essay, "Nature," and then the expanded version of the short story, Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg.
Following are three works--the poem by Lord Byron, an excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Nature," and a quotation from Isaac Asimov's most famous short story, "Nightfall"-- all of which speculate about the effects of the sudden loss of the sun.
"Darkness" by Lord Byron
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings -the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those which dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire -but hour by hour
They fell and faded -and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash -and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless -they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; -a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought -and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails -men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress -he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects -saw, and shrieked, and died -
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless -
A lump of death -a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge -
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need
Of aid from them - She was the Universe!
To borrow from Spock: "Fascinating"
This is the Wikipedia entry about the poem:
" Darkness is a poem written by Lord Byron in July 1816. That year was known as the Year Without a Summer, because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies the previous year, casting enough ash into the atmosphere to block out the sun and cause abnormal weather across much of north-east America and northern Europe. This pall of darkness inspired Byron to write his poem."
. . .
"1816, the year in which the poem was written, was called 'the year without summer', as strange weather and an inexplicable darkness caused record-cold temperatures across Europe, especially in Geneva. Byron claimed to have received his inspiration for the poem, saying he 'wrote it... at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight.' The darkness was (unknown to those of the time) caused by the volcanic ash spewing from the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The search for a cause of the strange changes in the light of day only grew as scientists discovered sunspots on the sun so large that they could be seen with the naked eye. A scientist in Italy even predicted that the sun would go out on 18 July, shortly before Byron's writing of "Darkness". His "prophecy" caused riots, suicides, and religious fervour all over Europe."
ISAAC ASIMOV'S SHORT STORY: "NIGHTFALL"
From the Wikipedia entry on "Nightfall"
"According to Asimov's autobiography, Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
'If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!'"
--Ralph Waldon Emerson --
from Nature
Campbell's opinion to the contrary was: "I think men would go mad."
Isaac Asimov then wrote the story, which followed Campbell's opinion most closely:
"Theremon staggered to his feet, his throat constricting him in breathlessness, all the muscles of his body writing in a tensity of terror and sheer fear beyond bearing. He was going mad, and knew it, and somwehre deep inside a bit of sanity was screaming, struggling to fight off the helpless flood of back terror. It was very horrible to go mad and know that you were going mad--to know that in a little minute you would be here physically and yet all the real essence would be dead and drowned in the black madness. For this was the Dark--the Dark and the Cold and the Doom. The bright walls of the universe were shattered and their awful black fragments were falling down to crush and squeeze and obliterate him."
-- Isaac Asimov --
from "Nightfall"
As you can easily see, Asimov's story presents Campbell's and Lord Byron's views. In Asimov's story, after the suns have been eclipsed, the astronomers go mad and off in the distance a red glow appears in the sky over the nearby city.
ISAAC ASIMOV AND ROBERT SILVERBERG'S NOVEL: NIGHTFALL
A later collaboration between Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg in 1990 expands the short story into a novel, with Silverberg's contribution being the first and last parts while Asimov's short story with some minor changes, becomes the middle section. The last part extends the story beyond the point where the short story ends and portrays the destruction of civilization after the stars emerge. It is this extension that Bryon's poem could easily substitute for Asimov's or rather Silverberg's depiction of the aftermath.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Man from Earth and "The Gnarly Man"
I just read L. Sprague de Camp's short story, "The Gnarly Man." It's included in The Best of L. Sprague de Camp.
The Gnarly Man is a Neanderthal, about 50,000 years old. He says he was "normal" until struck by lightning. After that he never aged. He was working in a carnival as the Cave Man in the side show when an anthropologist discovered him. At one point in the story, he is being questioned in a room surrounded by a number of anthropologists and historians. This, of course, is the setting of Bixby's The Man from Earth.
Like Bixby's John Oldman, he says that he moves on every ten or fifteen years because he doesn't age and eventually people begin to wonder about his secret, much as one of Oldman's friends, early in the film, commented about his secret of avoiding aging. Both the Gnarly Man and Oldman prefer to keep a low profile. Like Oldman, he really can't help the historians that much, as the centuries tend to blur after a while. One of Oldman's friends asked him what happened on this day hundreds of years ago, and Oldman responded by asking what he had for breakfast several days ago, or some such similar question.
Was Jerome Bixby influenced by de Camp's short story? I don't know, but if Bixby was, then he certainly expanded it far beyond de Camp's tale.
The Gnarly Man is a Neanderthal, about 50,000 years old. He says he was "normal" until struck by lightning. After that he never aged. He was working in a carnival as the Cave Man in the side show when an anthropologist discovered him. At one point in the story, he is being questioned in a room surrounded by a number of anthropologists and historians. This, of course, is the setting of Bixby's The Man from Earth.
Like Bixby's John Oldman, he says that he moves on every ten or fifteen years because he doesn't age and eventually people begin to wonder about his secret, much as one of Oldman's friends, early in the film, commented about his secret of avoiding aging. Both the Gnarly Man and Oldman prefer to keep a low profile. Like Oldman, he really can't help the historians that much, as the centuries tend to blur after a while. One of Oldman's friends asked him what happened on this day hundreds of years ago, and Oldman responded by asking what he had for breakfast several days ago, or some such similar question.
Was Jerome Bixby influenced by de Camp's short story? I don't know, but if Bixby was, then he certainly expanded it far beyond de Camp's tale.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Ray Bradbury: The Kilimanjaro Device
Ray Bradbury's "The Kilimanjaro Device"
a short story found in the collection I Sing the Body Electric
Did the title jog your memory a bit? Perhaps remind you of another story by an American writer? Who does the following quotation from the story suggest?
"Oh, he had readers all right, all kinds of readers. Even me. I don't touch books from one autumn to the next. But I touched his. I think I liked the Michigan stories best. About the fishing. I think the stories about the fishing are good. I don't think anybody ever wrote about fishing that way and maybe won't ever again. Of course, the bullfight stuff is good, too. But that's a little far off. Some of the cowpokes like them; they been around the animals all their life. A bull here or a bull there, I guess it's the same. I know one cowpoke has read just the bull stuff in the Spanish stories of the old man's forty times. He could go over there and fight, I swear."
One last clue: The narrator refers to "the old man" as "Papa." Of course, the style Bradbury adopts in this story is also a clue: short declarative sentences, usually the straightforward subject-verb-object form. Everything is concrete and definite.
But the point of the story is rather unusual, which isn't surprising since it's a tale by Ray Bradbury. The narrator is on a mission, which is why he has come to this small town where the "old man" is buried. He reveals his mission to a local hunter, the one who was quoted above.
"'You been up to the grave yet?' asked; the hunter, as if he knew I would answer yes.
'No,' I said.
'Why not?'
' Because it's the wrong grave.,' I said.
'All graves are wrong graves when you come down to it,' he said.
'No,' I said. 'There are right graves and wrong ones, just as there are good times to die and bad times.'
He nodded at this. I had come back to something he knew, or at least smelled was right.
'Sure, I knew men.' he said, 'died just perfect. You always felt, yes, that was good. One man I knew, sitting at the table waiting for supper, his wife in the kitchen, when she came in with a big bowl of soup, there he was sitting dead and neat at the table. Bad for her, but, I mean, wasn't that a good way for him? No sickness. No nothing but sitting there waiting for supper to come and never knowing if it came or not.'"
As you can see, the story is going in a strange direction. What does this have to do with the grave on the hill that is the wrong grave? The grave is that of Ernest Hemingway, although it is never stated. However, the clues given above clearly suggest it is Papa Hemingway, who committed suicide in 1961 and was buried in Ketchum, Idaho. There's also a time machine involved, sort of a "psychic time machine" that is.
Time machine stories generally fall into two broad categories. There's type in which the time travelers go solely as observers, fearing to do something, anything which would change history and perhaps eliminate them. Frequently though, they end up doing exactly what they feared. Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" is a variation of that type of story. The travelers go back, intending to hunt dinosaurs, but they kill only those dinosaurs that will die within a few minutes anyway, thereby reducing the risk of changing the future. But. . .
The second type of time traveler is the one who goes back intending to change history. There generally two types of these. One type involves those who go back to kill someone who had a major and deleterious effect (in their minds anyway) on history--I have read several stories in which someone goes back in order to kill Adolf Hitler, thereby reducing the possibility of WWII and the holocaust. A second type depicts the efforts of those who attempt to save someone from being killed--Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy, for example.
But, neither of these is exactly what the narrator has in mind.
SPOILER: The following reveals the story and the narrator's mission.
The focus in the story is on dying at the right time. As I mentioned above, Hemingway committed suicide after living several years in pain and ill health, the result of an hereditary disease that affected several members of his family, some of whom either died from the disease or committed suicide. Another contributing factor was the injuries he suffered in two plane crashes. He and his wife had flown to Africa, but the plane crashed on landing. He and his wife survived, but with some broken bones and tissue damage. They attempted to fly out to get medical treatment on the next day, but that plane's engine exploded at takeoff. Again they survived. Eventually they did get the needed medical help, but Hemingway suffered health problems after that.
The narrator has a time machine, but he doesn't intend to use it to stop Hemingway from killing himself, nor does he intend to prevent the two plane crashes. Instead, he goes back in time and meets "the old man."
The narrator explains that the truck can possibly go back to 1954 (the date of the two plane crashes) and possibly can turn into plane. The old man then asks him if he could land the plane a little bit differently, a little bit harder and that he "be thrown out but the rest of you okay?"
The narrator answers, "I'll see what I can do."
The old man "gazed back down the road at the mountains and the sea that could not be seen beyond the mountains and a continent beyond the sea. 'That's a good day you're talking about.'
'The best.'
' And a good hour and a good second.'
'Really, nothing better.'"
Death is inevitable, but there are good deaths and bad deaths.
a short story found in the collection I Sing the Body Electric
Did the title jog your memory a bit? Perhaps remind you of another story by an American writer? Who does the following quotation from the story suggest?
"Oh, he had readers all right, all kinds of readers. Even me. I don't touch books from one autumn to the next. But I touched his. I think I liked the Michigan stories best. About the fishing. I think the stories about the fishing are good. I don't think anybody ever wrote about fishing that way and maybe won't ever again. Of course, the bullfight stuff is good, too. But that's a little far off. Some of the cowpokes like them; they been around the animals all their life. A bull here or a bull there, I guess it's the same. I know one cowpoke has read just the bull stuff in the Spanish stories of the old man's forty times. He could go over there and fight, I swear."
One last clue: The narrator refers to "the old man" as "Papa." Of course, the style Bradbury adopts in this story is also a clue: short declarative sentences, usually the straightforward subject-verb-object form. Everything is concrete and definite.
But the point of the story is rather unusual, which isn't surprising since it's a tale by Ray Bradbury. The narrator is on a mission, which is why he has come to this small town where the "old man" is buried. He reveals his mission to a local hunter, the one who was quoted above.
"'You been up to the grave yet?' asked; the hunter, as if he knew I would answer yes.
'No,' I said.
'Why not?'
' Because it's the wrong grave.,' I said.
'All graves are wrong graves when you come down to it,' he said.
'No,' I said. 'There are right graves and wrong ones, just as there are good times to die and bad times.'
He nodded at this. I had come back to something he knew, or at least smelled was right.
'Sure, I knew men.' he said, 'died just perfect. You always felt, yes, that was good. One man I knew, sitting at the table waiting for supper, his wife in the kitchen, when she came in with a big bowl of soup, there he was sitting dead and neat at the table. Bad for her, but, I mean, wasn't that a good way for him? No sickness. No nothing but sitting there waiting for supper to come and never knowing if it came or not.'"
As you can see, the story is going in a strange direction. What does this have to do with the grave on the hill that is the wrong grave? The grave is that of Ernest Hemingway, although it is never stated. However, the clues given above clearly suggest it is Papa Hemingway, who committed suicide in 1961 and was buried in Ketchum, Idaho. There's also a time machine involved, sort of a "psychic time machine" that is.
Time machine stories generally fall into two broad categories. There's type in which the time travelers go solely as observers, fearing to do something, anything which would change history and perhaps eliminate them. Frequently though, they end up doing exactly what they feared. Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" is a variation of that type of story. The travelers go back, intending to hunt dinosaurs, but they kill only those dinosaurs that will die within a few minutes anyway, thereby reducing the risk of changing the future. But. . .
The second type of time traveler is the one who goes back intending to change history. There generally two types of these. One type involves those who go back to kill someone who had a major and deleterious effect (in their minds anyway) on history--I have read several stories in which someone goes back in order to kill Adolf Hitler, thereby reducing the possibility of WWII and the holocaust. A second type depicts the efforts of those who attempt to save someone from being killed--Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy, for example.
But, neither of these is exactly what the narrator has in mind.
SPOILER: The following reveals the story and the narrator's mission.
The focus in the story is on dying at the right time. As I mentioned above, Hemingway committed suicide after living several years in pain and ill health, the result of an hereditary disease that affected several members of his family, some of whom either died from the disease or committed suicide. Another contributing factor was the injuries he suffered in two plane crashes. He and his wife had flown to Africa, but the plane crashed on landing. He and his wife survived, but with some broken bones and tissue damage. They attempted to fly out to get medical treatment on the next day, but that plane's engine exploded at takeoff. Again they survived. Eventually they did get the needed medical help, but Hemingway suffered health problems after that.
The narrator has a time machine, but he doesn't intend to use it to stop Hemingway from killing himself, nor does he intend to prevent the two plane crashes. Instead, he goes back in time and meets "the old man."
The narrator explains that the truck can possibly go back to 1954 (the date of the two plane crashes) and possibly can turn into plane. The old man then asks him if he could land the plane a little bit differently, a little bit harder and that he "be thrown out but the rest of you okay?"
The narrator answers, "I'll see what I can do."
The old man "gazed back down the road at the mountains and the sea that could not be seen beyond the mountains and a continent beyond the sea. 'That's a good day you're talking about.'
'The best.'
' And a good hour and a good second.'
'Really, nothing better.'"
Death is inevitable, but there are good deaths and bad deaths.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Theodore Sturgeon: "The Heart"
Theodore Sturgeon
"The Heart"
The Ultimate Egoist
Volume I: The Complete Stories
"The Heart" is a quiet little shocker with a warning about getting what one wants. It's also an early tale about the power of hate.
The tale is a nested story-within-a-story. A writer is sitting at a bar when a woman comes up to him and says she knows he's a writer and that, for a drink or two, she will tell him her story.
She describes herself as a plain woman who buried herself in her job as a records clerk in the coroner's office. She meets a man who has serious heart problems (this was written prior to the development of heart transplants). They fall in love. Since he won't, she proposes to him. He says no because she would be a widow in a short time and he doesn't want to put her through that. He then leaves her, saying it is for the best.
She can't let it go like that, so she decides to do something about his problem, something unique and unexpected (at least to me). She tells the writer:
"Hate's a funny thing. I hope you don't ever know how--how big it can be. Use it right, and it's the most totally destructive thing in the universe. When I realized that, my mind stopped going round and round in those small circles, and it began to drive straight ahead. I got it all clear in my mind. Listen now--let me tell you what happened when I got going.
I found something to hate. Bill Llanyn's heart--the ruined, inefficient organ that was keeping us apart. No one can ever know the crazy concentration I put into it. No one has ever lived to describe the solidness of hate when it begins to form into something real. I needed a miracle to make over Bill's heart, and in hate I had a power to work it. My hate reached a greatness that nothing could withstand. I knew it just as surely as a murderer knows what he has done when he feels his knife sink into his victim's flesh. But I was no murderer. Death wasn't my purpose. I wanted my hatred to reach into his heart. sear out what was bad and let him take care of the rest. I was doing what no one else has ever done--hating constructively. If I hadn't been so insanely anxious to put my idea to work, I would have remembered that hate can build nothing that is not evil, cause nothing that is not evil."
In short, she attempts to use her hatred as a kind of a psychic laser which will burn out the diseased cells in his heart.
Spoiler: discussion of the ending
A short time later, the coroner hands her notes from several port mortums he recently conducted. One of them was for Bill Llanyn. The diagnosis was heart failure. The coroner tells her he can't be more specific than that. She should just put down heart failure. When she asks why, he replies that the man had no heart at all: there was nothing there and he wasn't going to put that on the official form.
Was it that her control over her hate powered psychic laser was insufficient to accurately distinguish between the diseased cells and the healthy cells in his heart? Or, were there no healthy cells at all left in his heart? Or, did she subconsciously hate him and therefore killed him? Perhaps she didn't know what was in her own heart at that time. Could this explain her actions after having told her story?
"The woman got up and looked at the clock.
'Where are you headed?' I (the writer) asked.
'I'm catching a train out of here,' she said. She went to the door. I said goodnight to her on the sidewalk. She went down toward the station. I headed uptown. When the police emergency wagon screamed by me a few minutes later I didn't have to go down to the tracks to see what happened."
Guilt? Grief? Both?
It is said that only a thin line separates love and hate.
"The Heart"
The Ultimate Egoist
Volume I: The Complete Stories
"The Heart" is a quiet little shocker with a warning about getting what one wants. It's also an early tale about the power of hate.
The tale is a nested story-within-a-story. A writer is sitting at a bar when a woman comes up to him and says she knows he's a writer and that, for a drink or two, she will tell him her story.
She describes herself as a plain woman who buried herself in her job as a records clerk in the coroner's office. She meets a man who has serious heart problems (this was written prior to the development of heart transplants). They fall in love. Since he won't, she proposes to him. He says no because she would be a widow in a short time and he doesn't want to put her through that. He then leaves her, saying it is for the best.
She can't let it go like that, so she decides to do something about his problem, something unique and unexpected (at least to me). She tells the writer:
"Hate's a funny thing. I hope you don't ever know how--how big it can be. Use it right, and it's the most totally destructive thing in the universe. When I realized that, my mind stopped going round and round in those small circles, and it began to drive straight ahead. I got it all clear in my mind. Listen now--let me tell you what happened when I got going.
I found something to hate. Bill Llanyn's heart--the ruined, inefficient organ that was keeping us apart. No one can ever know the crazy concentration I put into it. No one has ever lived to describe the solidness of hate when it begins to form into something real. I needed a miracle to make over Bill's heart, and in hate I had a power to work it. My hate reached a greatness that nothing could withstand. I knew it just as surely as a murderer knows what he has done when he feels his knife sink into his victim's flesh. But I was no murderer. Death wasn't my purpose. I wanted my hatred to reach into his heart. sear out what was bad and let him take care of the rest. I was doing what no one else has ever done--hating constructively. If I hadn't been so insanely anxious to put my idea to work, I would have remembered that hate can build nothing that is not evil, cause nothing that is not evil."
In short, she attempts to use her hatred as a kind of a psychic laser which will burn out the diseased cells in his heart.
Spoiler: discussion of the ending
A short time later, the coroner hands her notes from several port mortums he recently conducted. One of them was for Bill Llanyn. The diagnosis was heart failure. The coroner tells her he can't be more specific than that. She should just put down heart failure. When she asks why, he replies that the man had no heart at all: there was nothing there and he wasn't going to put that on the official form.
Was it that her control over her hate powered psychic laser was insufficient to accurately distinguish between the diseased cells and the healthy cells in his heart? Or, were there no healthy cells at all left in his heart? Or, did she subconsciously hate him and therefore killed him? Perhaps she didn't know what was in her own heart at that time. Could this explain her actions after having told her story?
"The woman got up and looked at the clock.
'Where are you headed?' I (the writer) asked.
'I'm catching a train out of here,' she said. She went to the door. I said goodnight to her on the sidewalk. She went down toward the station. I headed uptown. When the police emergency wagon screamed by me a few minutes later I didn't have to go down to the tracks to see what happened."
Guilt? Grief? Both?
It is said that only a thin line separates love and hate.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Theodore Sturgeon: "The Other Celia"
This is one of those quiet little stories that Ted Sturgeon does so well. The horror is understated and relates not to Celia, be she an alien or another sentient species in hiding on earth. The only too human Slim is the source of the horror in this story. Slim is the type of person who would tear off the wings of insects or birds. But, he wouldn't do it to cause pain or suffering; he would do it out of curiosity to see how a flying creature would react once it had lost its wings. In fact, if someone told Slim he was hurting those creatures, he would be surprised. That would never have occurred to him, and he would probably stop.
As you can see, Slim is not a very likable person. He is a snoop and insensitive to the feelings of others. At times his behavior crosses the line between normal and pathological curiosity. When he was a child, his mother had to appear several times in Children's Court to explain that he wasn't dishonest, that he was just "curious." While curiosity may be a good thing, it can be dangerous if not kept within reasonable limits. In this story we see a Slim whose curiosity leads him to meddle in another person's life and that meddling results in tragedy.
Slim lives in a boarding house. At present he is on medical leave from his job. He was attacked by a fellow employee who tried to bury a fourteen-inch crescent wrench in his skull. Sturgeon does not tell us why the employee tried to do this, but I suspect he was upset by Slim's snooping. Since most of the other tenants of the boarding house are at work, he finds this an excellent opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime--snooping.
"His current situation was therefore a near-paradise. Flimsy doors stood in rows, barely sustaining vacuum upon aching vacuum of knowledge; and one by one they imploded at that nudge of the curiosity. He touched nothing (or if he did, he replaced it carefully) and removed nothing, and within a week he knew Mrs. Koyper's roomers far better than she could, or cared to. Each secret visit to the rooms gave him a starting point; subsequent ones taught him more. He knew not only what these people had, but what they did, where, how much, for how much, and how often. In almost every case, he knew why as well.
Almost every case. Celia Sarton came."
He waited a few days to see what her schedule was. Were there times he could enter her room and feel safe she would not return? He found that she invariably would leave in the morning and return in the evening, just like the rest of the roomers. Therefore he entered her room, but unexpectedly it was two days after he decided it was safe. He kept forgetting about her.
He found nothing in the room to make her an individual--no photos of family or friends, no keepsakes, nothing that would make her stand out in his mind. Several times he found himself leaving the room without looking around for anything: it was as if it was an empty room waiting for someone to enter it.
It was by accident that he discovered that there was something in the room that made her unique. It appeared to be a second skin. Slim had never seen anything like this before, and his curiosity was aroused as it had never been before. So, he acted, not to harm her, but out of curiosity to see what she would do. Thus the tragedy.
A great short story
As you can see, Slim is not a very likable person. He is a snoop and insensitive to the feelings of others. At times his behavior crosses the line between normal and pathological curiosity. When he was a child, his mother had to appear several times in Children's Court to explain that he wasn't dishonest, that he was just "curious." While curiosity may be a good thing, it can be dangerous if not kept within reasonable limits. In this story we see a Slim whose curiosity leads him to meddle in another person's life and that meddling results in tragedy.
Slim lives in a boarding house. At present he is on medical leave from his job. He was attacked by a fellow employee who tried to bury a fourteen-inch crescent wrench in his skull. Sturgeon does not tell us why the employee tried to do this, but I suspect he was upset by Slim's snooping. Since most of the other tenants of the boarding house are at work, he finds this an excellent opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime--snooping.
"His current situation was therefore a near-paradise. Flimsy doors stood in rows, barely sustaining vacuum upon aching vacuum of knowledge; and one by one they imploded at that nudge of the curiosity. He touched nothing (or if he did, he replaced it carefully) and removed nothing, and within a week he knew Mrs. Koyper's roomers far better than she could, or cared to. Each secret visit to the rooms gave him a starting point; subsequent ones taught him more. He knew not only what these people had, but what they did, where, how much, for how much, and how often. In almost every case, he knew why as well.
Almost every case. Celia Sarton came."
He waited a few days to see what her schedule was. Were there times he could enter her room and feel safe she would not return? He found that she invariably would leave in the morning and return in the evening, just like the rest of the roomers. Therefore he entered her room, but unexpectedly it was two days after he decided it was safe. He kept forgetting about her.
He found nothing in the room to make her an individual--no photos of family or friends, no keepsakes, nothing that would make her stand out in his mind. Several times he found himself leaving the room without looking around for anything: it was as if it was an empty room waiting for someone to enter it.
It was by accident that he discovered that there was something in the room that made her unique. It appeared to be a second skin. Slim had never seen anything like this before, and his curiosity was aroused as it had never been before. So, he acted, not to harm her, but out of curiosity to see what she would do. Thus the tragedy.
A great short story
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Theodore Sturgeon: "The World Well Lost"
Theodore Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost" is an SF short story. The title is taken from John Dryden's play, All For Love; or, The World Well Lost. The subject of Dryden's play is the same as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the love between them that cost one a kingdom and the other an empire. Love's price is high for them, but the title suggests love is worth it. Sturgeon's short story is about another love, a different type of love that at that time had to remain hidden, for the consequences of revealing it would result also in the loss of one's position, and very likely one's family and friends. This story was published in 1953, which makes it remarkable for being written and published at that time.
It is set far in the future when Terra (Earth) had spread its influence throughout the galaxy. However, there were a few holdouts and the planet Dirbanu was one of them. When the initial contact had been made by a Terran ship, Dirbanu had surrounded itself in impenetrable force fields, thus preventing any contact until an ambassador could be sent to Terra. Once there, in spite of numerous and obvious similarities, "the ambassador . . . showed a most uncommon disdain of Earth and all its work, curled his lip and went wordlessly home, and ever since then Dirbanu had locked itself tight away from the questing Terrans."
So it remained until the time when Dirbanu finally slipped from Terran concerns and memory.
Then the "loverbirds" arrived. They landed in a small spaceship, and after disembarking, the taller one of the two threw some powder on the ship, and it immediately dissolved into dust which blew away on the wind. It was clear they planned to stay on Terra, thus giving up their home planet, possibly forever.
They were so wrapped up in each other that the Earth folk were captivated. There were loverbird songs, trinkets, hats and pins, and jewelry. It took a computer, however, loaded with the accumulated knowledge of Terran space exploration to discover where they came from, for they never would say. It was Dirbanu. It was at this time that Dirbanu sent a message, the first one in ages, to Earth. The loverbirds were criminals and the Dirbanu would be most grateful if they were returned.
"So, from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a friendly basis--great Dirbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth could not duplicate, must of necessity, have many other things Earth could use; mighty Dirbanu before whom we could kneel in supplication (with purely-for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to extrapolate the location of their kitchens)."
Sturgeon does not paint a pleasing picture of the Terrans, or, at least, one that doesn't sound very pleasing to me. And later, one of the characters paints an even more dismal picture of Earth culture, which ostensibly is in the future but can be descriptive of many contemporary human cultures and groups.
"A filthy place, Terra. There is nothing, he thought, like the conservatism of license. Given a culture of sybaritics, with an endless choice of mechanical titillations, and you have a people of unbreakable and hidebound formality, a people with few but massive taboos, a shockable, narrow, prissy people obeying the rules--even the rules of their calculated depravities--and protecting their treasured, specialized pruderies. In such a group there are words one may not use for fear of their fanged laughter, colors one may not wear, gestures and intonations one must forego, on pain of being torn to pieces. The rules are complex and absolute, and in such a place one's heart may not sing lest, through its warm free joyousness, it betray one."
The subject, a taboo one when this story was written, and although more acceptable today, but still considered with loathing and fear by various groups for various reasons, is homosexual love. It is one of the first stories I read that portrayed homosexual love as being something other than a perversion or a defiance of natural law. Though it might be banned by various groups today, it still doesn't have the effect it had when it was first published in the early '50s.
Highly recommended: it is a story that makes its point without preaching.
It is set far in the future when Terra (Earth) had spread its influence throughout the galaxy. However, there were a few holdouts and the planet Dirbanu was one of them. When the initial contact had been made by a Terran ship, Dirbanu had surrounded itself in impenetrable force fields, thus preventing any contact until an ambassador could be sent to Terra. Once there, in spite of numerous and obvious similarities, "the ambassador . . . showed a most uncommon disdain of Earth and all its work, curled his lip and went wordlessly home, and ever since then Dirbanu had locked itself tight away from the questing Terrans."
So it remained until the time when Dirbanu finally slipped from Terran concerns and memory.
Then the "loverbirds" arrived. They landed in a small spaceship, and after disembarking, the taller one of the two threw some powder on the ship, and it immediately dissolved into dust which blew away on the wind. It was clear they planned to stay on Terra, thus giving up their home planet, possibly forever.
They were so wrapped up in each other that the Earth folk were captivated. There were loverbird songs, trinkets, hats and pins, and jewelry. It took a computer, however, loaded with the accumulated knowledge of Terran space exploration to discover where they came from, for they never would say. It was Dirbanu. It was at this time that Dirbanu sent a message, the first one in ages, to Earth. The loverbirds were criminals and the Dirbanu would be most grateful if they were returned.
"So, from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a friendly basis--great Dirbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth could not duplicate, must of necessity, have many other things Earth could use; mighty Dirbanu before whom we could kneel in supplication (with purely-for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to extrapolate the location of their kitchens)."
Sturgeon does not paint a pleasing picture of the Terrans, or, at least, one that doesn't sound very pleasing to me. And later, one of the characters paints an even more dismal picture of Earth culture, which ostensibly is in the future but can be descriptive of many contemporary human cultures and groups.
"A filthy place, Terra. There is nothing, he thought, like the conservatism of license. Given a culture of sybaritics, with an endless choice of mechanical titillations, and you have a people of unbreakable and hidebound formality, a people with few but massive taboos, a shockable, narrow, prissy people obeying the rules--even the rules of their calculated depravities--and protecting their treasured, specialized pruderies. In such a group there are words one may not use for fear of their fanged laughter, colors one may not wear, gestures and intonations one must forego, on pain of being torn to pieces. The rules are complex and absolute, and in such a place one's heart may not sing lest, through its warm free joyousness, it betray one."
The subject, a taboo one when this story was written, and although more acceptable today, but still considered with loathing and fear by various groups for various reasons, is homosexual love. It is one of the first stories I read that portrayed homosexual love as being something other than a perversion or a defiance of natural law. Though it might be banned by various groups today, it still doesn't have the effect it had when it was first published in the early '50s.
Highly recommended: it is a story that makes its point without preaching.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Brian Aldiss' "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" --a short story
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" is an intriguing short story by Brian Aldiss for several reasons. First, it's an interesting story in its own right. Second, it has a very interesting Biblical tie-in, and third, it's the basis for Steven Spielberg's SF film, A. I.: Artificial Intelligence. I will focus on the short story now and leave the film for the next post. There's a lot to say about the film, so I don't want to end up with a monstrous post.
Aldiss' story is split into two narrative lines. One is of Henry Swinton, Managing Director of Synthank, who gives a speech at an elaborate luncheon for the company directors, to celebrate the launching of its new product, an intelligent robot.
The second narrative line takes place at Henry Swinton's home, where his wife and his son, three-year-old David, are having problems communicating with each other. Neither seems to be able to get through to the other, which leads to considerable frustration for both.
Spoiler Warning: I will bring up significant plot elements and discuss the ending.
The narrator lets the reader know a few paragraphs into the story just what Monica's feelings are.
"She had tried hard to love him."
She is not a cruel or abusive mother; she just can't love him the way a mother should, or at least the way Monica thinks she should. On the other hand, David finds it impossible to talk to her and attempts to express his feelings by writing to her. He finds that impossible also, and fears that she won't even be able to understand what he has written.
Although Aldiss tends to be a bit ambiguous, the answer to the puzzle is revealed at the end. Monica ecstatically greets Henry when he comes home. They have received a letter from the Ministry of Population. After four years of waiting, they have been granted their greatest wish: they have received permission to have a child. The population is so great that parents have to gain government permission to have a child. Now, they can finally have a child. What is David?
The following conversation comes immediately afterwards:
"'What do we do about them?' Henry asked.
'Teddy's no trouble. He works well.' [Teddy is a walking, talking synthetic toy, in the shape of a teddy bear.]
'Is David malfunctioning?'
'His verbal communication-center is still giving trouble. I think he'll have to go back to the factory again.'
'Okay. We'll see how he does before the baby's born.'"
David is also a super-toy, just like Teddy, and while Aldiss does not spell this out, David appears to be a substitute for a real flesh-and-blood child. Considering the difficulties in communication and the narrator's initial remark that Monica tried hard to love him, I think that once David goes back to the factory, the Winstons will leave him there. Once the desired child has arrived, a substitute becomes a burden, especially if it isn't really appreciated. Even if David remains, he won't be their son, but a super-toy perhaps for their projected child.
This tale, I believe, echoes the Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac. Both Abraham and Sarah are very old, long past the usual childbearing age, yet God has promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great people.
Sarah, despairing of having a child, tells Abraham to go with her servant, Hagar, and get a child. Abraham does and Sarah immediately repents of what she has done. She is cruel to Hagar and God has to intervene, both to tell Hagar to stay and to tell Sarah that she should not mistreat Hagar and to have faith for she shall have a child. Hagar stays and gives birth to Ishmael. Shortly afterwards, Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac. Determined that her son Isaac shall be Abraham's only heir, she tells Abraham to drive Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. Again, a substitute child becomes inconvenient and unwanted.
God == Ministry of Population
Abraham == Henry Swinton
Sarah == Monica Swinton
Abraham and Hagar == Ishmael
Abraham and Sarah == Isaac
Henry Swinton and the company that manufactures super-toys == David
Henry and Monica == their potential child
Aldiss' story provides the basis for the first part of Steven Spielberg's film, A. I. : Artificial Intelligence. Spielberg then moves to a different story for the inspiration of the second part of the film, that of Pinocchio, the story of a wooden puppet who went on a quest hoping to find the Blue Fairy who can turn him into what he most desperately wants to be, a real human boy. But, that's a different post.
P.S.
A comment by Chimpsky, see below, pointed out something I had missed in the story--the irony that not only the flowers in the garden but also the many of the features of the house are also artificial or an illusion, and this is considered normal by both the husband and the wife. The only exception is the boy, whom she tried to love but couldn't. I wonder if this is a holdover from the Frankenstein's Monster theme, in which our creations one day might destroy us.
Aldiss' story is split into two narrative lines. One is of Henry Swinton, Managing Director of Synthank, who gives a speech at an elaborate luncheon for the company directors, to celebrate the launching of its new product, an intelligent robot.
The second narrative line takes place at Henry Swinton's home, where his wife and his son, three-year-old David, are having problems communicating with each other. Neither seems to be able to get through to the other, which leads to considerable frustration for both.
Spoiler Warning: I will bring up significant plot elements and discuss the ending.
The narrator lets the reader know a few paragraphs into the story just what Monica's feelings are.
"She had tried hard to love him."
She is not a cruel or abusive mother; she just can't love him the way a mother should, or at least the way Monica thinks she should. On the other hand, David finds it impossible to talk to her and attempts to express his feelings by writing to her. He finds that impossible also, and fears that she won't even be able to understand what he has written.
Although Aldiss tends to be a bit ambiguous, the answer to the puzzle is revealed at the end. Monica ecstatically greets Henry when he comes home. They have received a letter from the Ministry of Population. After four years of waiting, they have been granted their greatest wish: they have received permission to have a child. The population is so great that parents have to gain government permission to have a child. Now, they can finally have a child. What is David?
The following conversation comes immediately afterwards:
"'What do we do about them?' Henry asked.
'Teddy's no trouble. He works well.' [Teddy is a walking, talking synthetic toy, in the shape of a teddy bear.]
'Is David malfunctioning?'
'His verbal communication-center is still giving trouble. I think he'll have to go back to the factory again.'
'Okay. We'll see how he does before the baby's born.'"
David is also a super-toy, just like Teddy, and while Aldiss does not spell this out, David appears to be a substitute for a real flesh-and-blood child. Considering the difficulties in communication and the narrator's initial remark that Monica tried hard to love him, I think that once David goes back to the factory, the Winstons will leave him there. Once the desired child has arrived, a substitute becomes a burden, especially if it isn't really appreciated. Even if David remains, he won't be their son, but a super-toy perhaps for their projected child.
This tale, I believe, echoes the Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac. Both Abraham and Sarah are very old, long past the usual childbearing age, yet God has promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great people.
Sarah, despairing of having a child, tells Abraham to go with her servant, Hagar, and get a child. Abraham does and Sarah immediately repents of what she has done. She is cruel to Hagar and God has to intervene, both to tell Hagar to stay and to tell Sarah that she should not mistreat Hagar and to have faith for she shall have a child. Hagar stays and gives birth to Ishmael. Shortly afterwards, Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac. Determined that her son Isaac shall be Abraham's only heir, she tells Abraham to drive Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. Again, a substitute child becomes inconvenient and unwanted.
God == Ministry of Population
Abraham == Henry Swinton
Sarah == Monica Swinton
Abraham and Hagar == Ishmael
Abraham and Sarah == Isaac
Henry Swinton and the company that manufactures super-toys == David
Henry and Monica == their potential child
Aldiss' story provides the basis for the first part of Steven Spielberg's film, A. I. : Artificial Intelligence. Spielberg then moves to a different story for the inspiration of the second part of the film, that of Pinocchio, the story of a wooden puppet who went on a quest hoping to find the Blue Fairy who can turn him into what he most desperately wants to be, a real human boy. But, that's a different post.
P.S.
A comment by Chimpsky, see below, pointed out something I had missed in the story--the irony that not only the flowers in the garden but also the many of the features of the house are also artificial or an illusion, and this is considered normal by both the husband and the wife. The only exception is the boy, whom she tried to love but couldn't. I wonder if this is a holdover from the Frankenstein's Monster theme, in which our creations one day might destroy us.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Ray Bradbury: August 22, 1920
Ray Bradbury
Happy 90th Birthday!
SF writers generally deny that they are prophets: they are just trying to write some stories about science and technology and people. As I have suggested before, I see two basic types of SF: the "what if" story and the "if this goes on" story. The first type occurs when the author asks "what if a giant asteroid" were to collide with the earth and tells a story that answers that question. In the second type, the author learns that the human population now takes fewer years to double its population than it has in the past: this would lead to a story that describes what might happen if this goes on for another century. In 1953, Ray Bradbury published a short story titled "The Murderer," which belongs in the "if this goes on" category, and I think he got it right--this is pure prophecy.
The murderer in the story is Albert Brock. He has just arrived at a mental institution and we sit in when he is interviewed by a psychiatrist. Brock is not a serial killer, at least not a serial killer of humans; in fact he hasn't killed a single person. He is the one who insists he is a murderer; his victims are certain types of electronic devices. Keep in mind that this was written in 1953.
His victims are radios, TVs, telephones, intercoms, phonographs, and especially the radio wrist watch, a communication device. As I read the story, my mind insisted on substituting cell phone or mobile phone for wrist radio.
". . . it was music by Mozzek in every restaurant; music and commercials on the buses I rode to work. When it wasn't music, it was interoffice communications, and my horror chamber of a radio wrist watch [cell phone] on which my friends and my wife phoned every five minutes. What is there about such 'conveniences' that makes them so temptingly convenient? The average man thinks, Here I am, time on my hands, and here on my wrist is a wrist telephone [cell phone], so why not just buzz old Joe up. eh? 'Hello, hello!' I love my friends, wife, humanity very much, but when one minute my wife calls to say, 'Where are you now, dear?' and a friend calls and says, 'got the best off-color joke to tell you. Seems there was a guy--' and a stranger calls and cries out, 'This is the Find-Fax Poll. What gum are you chewing at this very instant?' Well!"
. . . . . . . . . .
Desperate, Brock begins by destroying all of the electronic communication devices around him. And then he got his Idea:
"Why didn't I start a solitary revolution, deliver man from certain 'conveniences'? 'Convenient for who?" I cried. Convenient for friends: 'Hey, Al, thought I'd call you from the locker room out here at Green Hills. Just made a sockdolager hole in one! A hole in one, Al! A beautiful day. Having a shot of whiskey now. Thought you'd want to know, Al!' Convenient for my office, so when I'm in the field with my radio car there's no moment when I'm not in touch. In touch! There's a slimy phrase. Touch, hell. Gripped! Pawed, rather. Mauled and massaged and pounded by FM voices. . ."
The last paragraph of the story horrifies me.
The psychiatrist returns to his office. His diagnosis:
"Seems completely disoriented, but convivial. Refuses to accept the simplest realities of his environment and work with them. . .
Three phones rang. A duplicate wrist radio in his desk drawer buzzed like a wounded grasshopper. The intercom flashed a pink light and click-clicked. Three phones rang. The drawer buzzed. Music blew in through the open door. The psychiatrist, humming quietly, fitted the new wrist radio to his wrist, flipped the intercom, talked a moment, picked up one telephone, talked, picked up another telephone, talked, picked up the third telephone, talked, touched the wrist-radio button, talked calmly and quietly, his face cool and serene, in the middle of the music and the lights flashing, the two phones ringing again, and his hands moving, and wrist radio buzzing, and the intercoms talking, and voices speaking from the ceiling. And he went on quietly this way through the reminder of a cool, air-conditioned, and long afternoon; telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio. . ."
Of course, there's no computer and email, Facebook and Twitter, but remember, SF writers really aren't prophets.
Happy 90th Birthday!
SF writers generally deny that they are prophets: they are just trying to write some stories about science and technology and people. As I have suggested before, I see two basic types of SF: the "what if" story and the "if this goes on" story. The first type occurs when the author asks "what if a giant asteroid" were to collide with the earth and tells a story that answers that question. In the second type, the author learns that the human population now takes fewer years to double its population than it has in the past: this would lead to a story that describes what might happen if this goes on for another century. In 1953, Ray Bradbury published a short story titled "The Murderer," which belongs in the "if this goes on" category, and I think he got it right--this is pure prophecy.
The murderer in the story is Albert Brock. He has just arrived at a mental institution and we sit in when he is interviewed by a psychiatrist. Brock is not a serial killer, at least not a serial killer of humans; in fact he hasn't killed a single person. He is the one who insists he is a murderer; his victims are certain types of electronic devices. Keep in mind that this was written in 1953.
His victims are radios, TVs, telephones, intercoms, phonographs, and especially the radio wrist watch, a communication device. As I read the story, my mind insisted on substituting cell phone or mobile phone for wrist radio.
". . . it was music by Mozzek in every restaurant; music and commercials on the buses I rode to work. When it wasn't music, it was interoffice communications, and my horror chamber of a radio wrist watch [cell phone] on which my friends and my wife phoned every five minutes. What is there about such 'conveniences' that makes them so temptingly convenient? The average man thinks, Here I am, time on my hands, and here on my wrist is a wrist telephone [cell phone], so why not just buzz old Joe up. eh? 'Hello, hello!' I love my friends, wife, humanity very much, but when one minute my wife calls to say, 'Where are you now, dear?' and a friend calls and says, 'got the best off-color joke to tell you. Seems there was a guy--' and a stranger calls and cries out, 'This is the Find-Fax Poll. What gum are you chewing at this very instant?' Well!"
. . . . . . . . . .
Desperate, Brock begins by destroying all of the electronic communication devices around him. And then he got his Idea:
"Why didn't I start a solitary revolution, deliver man from certain 'conveniences'? 'Convenient for who?" I cried. Convenient for friends: 'Hey, Al, thought I'd call you from the locker room out here at Green Hills. Just made a sockdolager hole in one! A hole in one, Al! A beautiful day. Having a shot of whiskey now. Thought you'd want to know, Al!' Convenient for my office, so when I'm in the field with my radio car there's no moment when I'm not in touch. In touch! There's a slimy phrase. Touch, hell. Gripped! Pawed, rather. Mauled and massaged and pounded by FM voices. . ."
The last paragraph of the story horrifies me.
The psychiatrist returns to his office. His diagnosis:
"Seems completely disoriented, but convivial. Refuses to accept the simplest realities of his environment and work with them. . .
Three phones rang. A duplicate wrist radio in his desk drawer buzzed like a wounded grasshopper. The intercom flashed a pink light and click-clicked. Three phones rang. The drawer buzzed. Music blew in through the open door. The psychiatrist, humming quietly, fitted the new wrist radio to his wrist, flipped the intercom, talked a moment, picked up one telephone, talked, picked up another telephone, talked, picked up the third telephone, talked, touched the wrist-radio button, talked calmly and quietly, his face cool and serene, in the middle of the music and the lights flashing, the two phones ringing again, and his hands moving, and wrist radio buzzing, and the intercoms talking, and voices speaking from the ceiling. And he went on quietly this way through the reminder of a cool, air-conditioned, and long afternoon; telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio, intercom, telephone, wrist radio. . ."
Of course, there's no computer and email, Facebook and Twitter, but remember, SF writers really aren't prophets.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Combination Plate 14
I will be bringing up significant plot elements and episodes as well as revealing some of the endings.
George Eliot, "The Lifted Veil," a short story
Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, a novel, mystery
Iron Man, a film, superhero genre
Cherie Priest, Boneshaker, an SF novel
George Eliot
"The Lifted Veil"
a short story
I've read a number of Eliot's novels, but few of her short stories, so I can't judge "The Lifted Veil" in comparison to others by her. But, this short story certainly is quite different from the novels I've read. It might almost be classified as SF if it had been written a century or so later. As it was published in 1859, it might certainly be the first or one of the first stories to incorporate certain elements that are frequently found in SF or fantasy.
The plot is rather typical. The narrator is Latimer, the weakly second son of a wealthy landowner. His older brother Alfred, on the contrary, is tall, strong, and athletic. He is, naturally, his father's favorite and the heir presumptive to the family fortune and estate. Moreover, Alfred is engaged to Bertha, the neighborhood charmer, with whom Latimer also is hopelessly in love.
Latimer is sent to Geneva to finish his education, and while he is there, he has several visions of events that occur shortly afterwards. He has become a clairvoyant, or able to see in the future. One of his visions is of Bertha. She is speaking to him, and it is clear that it is years in the future for she appears to be much older. What she tells him makes it obvious that they have been married for years now, and that she has always hated him.
At this time, he also begins to be able to gain impressions of what others are thinking at that time. What he learns about many others depresses him, for he now sees others as full of hypocrisy, selfishness, and deceit. But, there is one person he can not read--Bertha. For some inexplicable reason, she remains a blank wall.
Shortly before the wedding, Alfred is thrown from his horse and is killed instantly. Latimer and his father slowly become attached to one another. Perhaps the father is encouraged in this when he sees that Bertha seemingly is now attached to Latimer, after a suitable mourning period, of course. As his vision had foretold, Latimer and Bertha marry. The effect of his visions and his telepathic powers turns Latimer almost into a recluse.
Why does Latimer marry Bertha when he knows how it will eventually turn out? He hopes that she really does love him at first, and it is only over time that her dislike develops. In addition, she is the one person he can not read; therefore, there is a silence not found with others when she is in the room.
Eliot also includes a brief incident involving phrenology, which she was apparently interested in at one time. Near the end of the story, is a truly bizarre scene depicting the effects of a blood transfusion on a dead woman which could have come straight from Edgar Allan Poe. As Poe died some ten years before this story was published, it is doubtful that Eliot influenced Poe.
Overall Rating: a fascinating story that includes the earliest mention of telepathy and precognition as common ongoing events and not just as one-time-only episode in a highly dramatic scene. I've only read the story once, and my suspicion is that I'm missing a lot. "The Lifted Veil" is definitely worth a second reading.
===============================================
Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish, a mystery novel, first in a series
Setting: Absaroka County, Wyoming
Time: contemporary
The Detective: Sheriff Walt Longmire
Mystery type: Police Procedural
Perhaps this might better be called a sheriff procedural since Walt Longmire is not the typical hard-bitten, cynical, streetwise cop so popular today. He's within a year of retirement and only wants a quiet period before he hangs up his badge and gun for good. Naturally, he's not going to get his wish.
Longmire might be called an accidental sheriff. He ended up in the Marines during the Vietnam conflict, and the needs of the service put him in the military police. After his discharge, he returned home and, having lost interest in his pre-Vietnam plans, put in for the deputy opening in the sheriff's office. Longmire and the sheriff got along, and he became the favored son when the sheriff retired. He has been winning elections since then. Now it was his turn to pass on.
Normally I feel that domestic dramas involving the law enforcement officers in mysteries should be kept to a minimum, for I can always find other works that focus on those issues if I'm in the mood for that type of work. A mystery should focus on the mystery. In this novel, domestic issues play a significant role. Walt's wife had died a short time ago, and he is still mourning her. It has reached the point when friends and relatives were shaking their heads and suggesting that "he get out a bit more." He does, and while the relationship turns tragic, he has "gotten out a bit more."
Longmire, as I said earlier, is just hoping for a quiet end to his term. So, when he gets a call about a body found outside of town, he doesn't bother to check it out himself, but sends Vic, his chief deputy, out there. It is probably a sheep. She calls back; it isn't a sheep. It's a two-legged critter that's spread out on the ground.
He goes, reluctantly, and when he sees who it is, he knows this is going to be messy. The victim is Cody Pritchard, and he has a record. Several years ago, he and three others raped a young Cheyenne girl who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and was slightly retarded. Longmire had arrested the four, and they were tried, convicted, and given suspended sentences. None of them went to prison for the rape.
Was this a revenge killing by one or more of her Cheyenne relatives or friends, or was this the result of something else Pritchard was involved in? Then, a second one of the four was found dead. That answered the question. It looked as though someone, a bit more than two years later, had started taking revenge.
The novel moves on from that point, rather as one would expect. It's not very complex, but Johnson tells the story well. Longmire is a rather casual, easy-going fellow, much as one would expect from a sheriff who's been in the job for almost 25 years. He knows the people, and they know him.
Johnson has also created an interesting supporting cast for Longmire, and I hope they return in subsequent novels. First is Ruby, the lovable? office tyrant, who takes no nonsense from anyone, especially from Longmire. She ran the sheriff's office before he got there and probably will run it for his successor.
His chief deputy is Vic (Victoria) Morretti, from South Philly where her father, uncles, and brothers were cops. Her husband, however, was a field engineer for a mining company and had gotten transferred out here. She reluctantly left and applied for a position with Longmire when a deputy position came open. She's the streetwise, cynical, tough cop in the story.
Longmire's closest friend, and major problem in this case, is Henry Standing Bear. Henry had also been in Vietnam, working behind enemy lines with a special forces unit. He had been trained to kill quietly and efficiently, and he just happened to be the uncle of Melissa, the young Cheyenne girl who was the rape victim. Longmire didn't believe he was the killer, but he had to admit that Henry sat on top of the suspects list.
Overall rating: very good first novel. I like the relaxed atmosphere and the setting, far from the mean streets of the usual urban setting, or even a quiet, tame, and civilized suburban area with a murder every week. I found the second in the series, Death Without Company, and I'm looking forward to settling down some evening with this one.
===============================================
Iron Man, a film
based on a superhero comic adventure
I'm no expert in the area of superheroes, at least not in the past 60 years or so. I used to read comics back then, but moved on to print tales. However, it does seem to me that there are two broad categories of superheroes. One consists of those that possess powers or abilities not given to us normal humans, Superman or Spiderman or any of the more recent heroes, the X-Men. These generally run the range from a crippled newsboy to an alien from another planet to a scientist who got in the way of an experiment. That which changes them could be the gods themselves, an alien environment, a new chemical, or radiation exposure.
The second type are those whose powers are not organic or physiological but technological. Although there are exceptions, this type of superhero is frequently a technical wizard, who is wealthy and is able to afford to hire engineers and technicians who research and develop the various gadgets. Bruce Wayne/Batman is my prime example of this type of superhero.
Tony Stark fits into the second category. He is an extremely wealthy and brilliant weapons inventor, whose lifestyle is reminiscent of Hugh Hefner. At least it was until he unwisely took a trip to do a weapon demonstration for NATO troops in Afghanistan where he is captured by insurgents. There he discovers that weapons produced by his company are getting into the wrong hands and are being used to kill American troops. He escapes and informs all that his company is getting out of the weapons business.
While a captive, he fooled the insurgents into thinking he was building his latest weapon for them, but instead he developed an armored suit that had various built-in weapons, computer guided and operated naturally. The suit reminded me of the combat suit created by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel, Starship Troopers. I haven't seen the film version, but I have read the novel, and Stark's suit certainly resembles Heinlein's creation.
Stark decides to develop the suit for the forces of good and decency which will make them superior to anything the enemy can throw against them. It means the end of war. However, as his chief foe points out in the last climatic struggle, Stark wanted to create something that would ensure peace and instead created the most deadly personal weapon yet known.
The only real surprise in the film was Stark's public announcement at the end of the film when he revealed himself to be Iron Man. Usually the character tries very hard to keep his identity as the superhero a secret--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman . . .
Overall Rating: I'd give it three stars on a five star scale. The special effects, animation, etc. were competently handled, although the struggle at the end between the two suits looked a bit catoonish to me. Will I see the sequel, Iron Man 2, which has recently appeared in the theatres. Maybe--If I'm browsing the DVDs and I don't have anything at home to view, I may take it out.
=============================================
Cherie Priest
Boneshaker, an SF novel
Seattle
Time: 19th century
The reader must not be too insistent upon historical accuracy in this novel. Priest herself admits that she's taken considerable liberties with US history, including a Civil War that has lasted for over 20 years and an Alaskan gold rush that begins several decades early. It's probably best to think of this as an alternate history novel and read on.
Shortly after the start of the Civil War, gold is discovered in Alaska. Russia, which had been thinking of unloading the frozen wasteland, now has second thoughts. Gold? Russia then offers a large bonus for anyone who can build a machine that can break through the frozen ground and get at the gold. Leviticus Blue invents such a device and decides to try it out in Seattle before bringing it north.
Something goes wrong and it destroys downtown Seattle. What is worse, its digging has uncovered and released a toxic gas which kills immediately if exposed to a sufficient quantity. If it doesn't kill immediately, it turns the victims into zombies, hungry for human flesh. Naturally, those bitten by a zombie soon becomes a zombie also.
The stricken part of Seattle is quickly walled off to prevent the gas, which is heavier than air, and the zombies from escaping. Leviticus Blue is presumed dead. His wife, pregnant at that time, escapes to the outskirts of Seattle, changes her name, and attempts to lead a normal and quiet life. Her son Zeke, however, is determined to clear his father's name and heads for the walled part of Seattle. Briar Wilkes (Wilkes is the name she adopted) goes after him.
I almost gave up on the novel for the pacing in the first half was extremely slow. Moreover, I thought her editors should have done a better job in tackling the wordiness of the first part. Since it was a book group selection, I decided to skim through the novel so at least I could participate in the discussion. However, about half way through, I found that I had stopped skimming and was actually reading it.
As usual, the group reactions varied from those who thought there was no pacing problem at all, to those who liked the first part but weren't that happy with the second part, to me who had problems with the first part but found the second half much more readable.
What most bothered me about the work was the revelation of an important bit of information at the end. This was known by Briar, who was the major POV character, and though the reader was in her head numerous times, she did not reveal her secret until the end. I thought this was cheating on the author's part. While this was important, it wasn't significant enough to ruin the story for me. It was just a letdown at the end.
The story ended somewhat ambiguously as it was never very clear whether Briar and her son Zeke would remain behind the walls or would go back to where they were living or even leave the Seattle area completely, as had been hinted at earlier in the novel. The fate of several of the characters was unknown at the end. This leads me to suspect a sequel should be expected some time in the future.
Overall Rating: a decent read. Will I read the sequel if one appears? Possibly.
George Eliot, "The Lifted Veil," a short story
Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, a novel, mystery
Iron Man, a film, superhero genre
Cherie Priest, Boneshaker, an SF novel
George Eliot
"The Lifted Veil"
a short story
I've read a number of Eliot's novels, but few of her short stories, so I can't judge "The Lifted Veil" in comparison to others by her. But, this short story certainly is quite different from the novels I've read. It might almost be classified as SF if it had been written a century or so later. As it was published in 1859, it might certainly be the first or one of the first stories to incorporate certain elements that are frequently found in SF or fantasy.
The plot is rather typical. The narrator is Latimer, the weakly second son of a wealthy landowner. His older brother Alfred, on the contrary, is tall, strong, and athletic. He is, naturally, his father's favorite and the heir presumptive to the family fortune and estate. Moreover, Alfred is engaged to Bertha, the neighborhood charmer, with whom Latimer also is hopelessly in love.
Latimer is sent to Geneva to finish his education, and while he is there, he has several visions of events that occur shortly afterwards. He has become a clairvoyant, or able to see in the future. One of his visions is of Bertha. She is speaking to him, and it is clear that it is years in the future for she appears to be much older. What she tells him makes it obvious that they have been married for years now, and that she has always hated him.
At this time, he also begins to be able to gain impressions of what others are thinking at that time. What he learns about many others depresses him, for he now sees others as full of hypocrisy, selfishness, and deceit. But, there is one person he can not read--Bertha. For some inexplicable reason, she remains a blank wall.
Shortly before the wedding, Alfred is thrown from his horse and is killed instantly. Latimer and his father slowly become attached to one another. Perhaps the father is encouraged in this when he sees that Bertha seemingly is now attached to Latimer, after a suitable mourning period, of course. As his vision had foretold, Latimer and Bertha marry. The effect of his visions and his telepathic powers turns Latimer almost into a recluse.
Why does Latimer marry Bertha when he knows how it will eventually turn out? He hopes that she really does love him at first, and it is only over time that her dislike develops. In addition, she is the one person he can not read; therefore, there is a silence not found with others when she is in the room.
Eliot also includes a brief incident involving phrenology, which she was apparently interested in at one time. Near the end of the story, is a truly bizarre scene depicting the effects of a blood transfusion on a dead woman which could have come straight from Edgar Allan Poe. As Poe died some ten years before this story was published, it is doubtful that Eliot influenced Poe.
Overall Rating: a fascinating story that includes the earliest mention of telepathy and precognition as common ongoing events and not just as one-time-only episode in a highly dramatic scene. I've only read the story once, and my suspicion is that I'm missing a lot. "The Lifted Veil" is definitely worth a second reading.
===============================================
Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish, a mystery novel, first in a series
Setting: Absaroka County, Wyoming
Time: contemporary
The Detective: Sheriff Walt Longmire
Mystery type: Police Procedural
Perhaps this might better be called a sheriff procedural since Walt Longmire is not the typical hard-bitten, cynical, streetwise cop so popular today. He's within a year of retirement and only wants a quiet period before he hangs up his badge and gun for good. Naturally, he's not going to get his wish.
Longmire might be called an accidental sheriff. He ended up in the Marines during the Vietnam conflict, and the needs of the service put him in the military police. After his discharge, he returned home and, having lost interest in his pre-Vietnam plans, put in for the deputy opening in the sheriff's office. Longmire and the sheriff got along, and he became the favored son when the sheriff retired. He has been winning elections since then. Now it was his turn to pass on.
Normally I feel that domestic dramas involving the law enforcement officers in mysteries should be kept to a minimum, for I can always find other works that focus on those issues if I'm in the mood for that type of work. A mystery should focus on the mystery. In this novel, domestic issues play a significant role. Walt's wife had died a short time ago, and he is still mourning her. It has reached the point when friends and relatives were shaking their heads and suggesting that "he get out a bit more." He does, and while the relationship turns tragic, he has "gotten out a bit more."
Longmire, as I said earlier, is just hoping for a quiet end to his term. So, when he gets a call about a body found outside of town, he doesn't bother to check it out himself, but sends Vic, his chief deputy, out there. It is probably a sheep. She calls back; it isn't a sheep. It's a two-legged critter that's spread out on the ground.
He goes, reluctantly, and when he sees who it is, he knows this is going to be messy. The victim is Cody Pritchard, and he has a record. Several years ago, he and three others raped a young Cheyenne girl who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and was slightly retarded. Longmire had arrested the four, and they were tried, convicted, and given suspended sentences. None of them went to prison for the rape.
Was this a revenge killing by one or more of her Cheyenne relatives or friends, or was this the result of something else Pritchard was involved in? Then, a second one of the four was found dead. That answered the question. It looked as though someone, a bit more than two years later, had started taking revenge.
The novel moves on from that point, rather as one would expect. It's not very complex, but Johnson tells the story well. Longmire is a rather casual, easy-going fellow, much as one would expect from a sheriff who's been in the job for almost 25 years. He knows the people, and they know him.
Johnson has also created an interesting supporting cast for Longmire, and I hope they return in subsequent novels. First is Ruby, the lovable? office tyrant, who takes no nonsense from anyone, especially from Longmire. She ran the sheriff's office before he got there and probably will run it for his successor.
His chief deputy is Vic (Victoria) Morretti, from South Philly where her father, uncles, and brothers were cops. Her husband, however, was a field engineer for a mining company and had gotten transferred out here. She reluctantly left and applied for a position with Longmire when a deputy position came open. She's the streetwise, cynical, tough cop in the story.
Longmire's closest friend, and major problem in this case, is Henry Standing Bear. Henry had also been in Vietnam, working behind enemy lines with a special forces unit. He had been trained to kill quietly and efficiently, and he just happened to be the uncle of Melissa, the young Cheyenne girl who was the rape victim. Longmire didn't believe he was the killer, but he had to admit that Henry sat on top of the suspects list.
Overall rating: very good first novel. I like the relaxed atmosphere and the setting, far from the mean streets of the usual urban setting, or even a quiet, tame, and civilized suburban area with a murder every week. I found the second in the series, Death Without Company, and I'm looking forward to settling down some evening with this one.
===============================================
Iron Man, a film
based on a superhero comic adventure
I'm no expert in the area of superheroes, at least not in the past 60 years or so. I used to read comics back then, but moved on to print tales. However, it does seem to me that there are two broad categories of superheroes. One consists of those that possess powers or abilities not given to us normal humans, Superman or Spiderman or any of the more recent heroes, the X-Men. These generally run the range from a crippled newsboy to an alien from another planet to a scientist who got in the way of an experiment. That which changes them could be the gods themselves, an alien environment, a new chemical, or radiation exposure.
The second type are those whose powers are not organic or physiological but technological. Although there are exceptions, this type of superhero is frequently a technical wizard, who is wealthy and is able to afford to hire engineers and technicians who research and develop the various gadgets. Bruce Wayne/Batman is my prime example of this type of superhero.
Tony Stark fits into the second category. He is an extremely wealthy and brilliant weapons inventor, whose lifestyle is reminiscent of Hugh Hefner. At least it was until he unwisely took a trip to do a weapon demonstration for NATO troops in Afghanistan where he is captured by insurgents. There he discovers that weapons produced by his company are getting into the wrong hands and are being used to kill American troops. He escapes and informs all that his company is getting out of the weapons business.
While a captive, he fooled the insurgents into thinking he was building his latest weapon for them, but instead he developed an armored suit that had various built-in weapons, computer guided and operated naturally. The suit reminded me of the combat suit created by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel, Starship Troopers. I haven't seen the film version, but I have read the novel, and Stark's suit certainly resembles Heinlein's creation.
Stark decides to develop the suit for the forces of good and decency which will make them superior to anything the enemy can throw against them. It means the end of war. However, as his chief foe points out in the last climatic struggle, Stark wanted to create something that would ensure peace and instead created the most deadly personal weapon yet known.
The only real surprise in the film was Stark's public announcement at the end of the film when he revealed himself to be Iron Man. Usually the character tries very hard to keep his identity as the superhero a secret--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman . . .
Overall Rating: I'd give it three stars on a five star scale. The special effects, animation, etc. were competently handled, although the struggle at the end between the two suits looked a bit catoonish to me. Will I see the sequel, Iron Man 2, which has recently appeared in the theatres. Maybe--If I'm browsing the DVDs and I don't have anything at home to view, I may take it out.
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Cherie Priest
Boneshaker, an SF novel
Seattle
Time: 19th century
The reader must not be too insistent upon historical accuracy in this novel. Priest herself admits that she's taken considerable liberties with US history, including a Civil War that has lasted for over 20 years and an Alaskan gold rush that begins several decades early. It's probably best to think of this as an alternate history novel and read on.
Shortly after the start of the Civil War, gold is discovered in Alaska. Russia, which had been thinking of unloading the frozen wasteland, now has second thoughts. Gold? Russia then offers a large bonus for anyone who can build a machine that can break through the frozen ground and get at the gold. Leviticus Blue invents such a device and decides to try it out in Seattle before bringing it north.
Something goes wrong and it destroys downtown Seattle. What is worse, its digging has uncovered and released a toxic gas which kills immediately if exposed to a sufficient quantity. If it doesn't kill immediately, it turns the victims into zombies, hungry for human flesh. Naturally, those bitten by a zombie soon becomes a zombie also.
The stricken part of Seattle is quickly walled off to prevent the gas, which is heavier than air, and the zombies from escaping. Leviticus Blue is presumed dead. His wife, pregnant at that time, escapes to the outskirts of Seattle, changes her name, and attempts to lead a normal and quiet life. Her son Zeke, however, is determined to clear his father's name and heads for the walled part of Seattle. Briar Wilkes (Wilkes is the name she adopted) goes after him.
I almost gave up on the novel for the pacing in the first half was extremely slow. Moreover, I thought her editors should have done a better job in tackling the wordiness of the first part. Since it was a book group selection, I decided to skim through the novel so at least I could participate in the discussion. However, about half way through, I found that I had stopped skimming and was actually reading it.
As usual, the group reactions varied from those who thought there was no pacing problem at all, to those who liked the first part but weren't that happy with the second part, to me who had problems with the first part but found the second half much more readable.
What most bothered me about the work was the revelation of an important bit of information at the end. This was known by Briar, who was the major POV character, and though the reader was in her head numerous times, she did not reveal her secret until the end. I thought this was cheating on the author's part. While this was important, it wasn't significant enough to ruin the story for me. It was just a letdown at the end.
The story ended somewhat ambiguously as it was never very clear whether Briar and her son Zeke would remain behind the walls or would go back to where they were living or even leave the Seattle area completely, as had been hinted at earlier in the novel. The fate of several of the characters was unknown at the end. This leads me to suspect a sequel should be expected some time in the future.
Overall Rating: a decent read. Will I read the sequel if one appears? Possibly.
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