Book #14, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, John Kessel

My review of this masterful collection, Book #14 read during 08, is now up at The Fix.

When valor preys on reason...

...It eats the sword it fights with. That's from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, which I finished reading last night -- Book # 13 read during this year. Enjoyed it enormously. Was pretty slow-going because I read history notes on the period to get a better sense of motivations, political context etc.

We went to the movies and watched The Visitor, which was well-crafted (great performance by Richard Jenkins) and much fun to watch from a technical standpoint but which I found, on the whole, somewhat affectless and dramatically inert (compared to what the very positive reviews stated). Perhaps not watching movies for a while has something to do with it.

Finished the story after two more rewrites, but have now discovered that it will be unpublishable for legal reasons. In trying to pay tribute to a classic story, I may have unwittingly produced a story which overlaps with the definition of "fan fiction" and could therefore be construed as too derivative of the original. The exercise was still a fantastic experience in terms of learning about story construction. Certainly an eye-opening experience. I'll be filing the story away in a deep dark place and will start planning the next one today.

Beautiful day, and after a late lovely breakfast there's much to be done, as always, and much enjoyment to be derived from doing it. In the words of Mark Antony, "Let's mock the midnight bell."

Third Suite

Finished the first, second and third drafts of the new story. Revised some sections ten times. I'm going to let it rest today and go over it again over the weekend, hoping I'll essentially just be tweaking it at that point.

My mom is staying over! All the way from Spain!! Only seven days in all, but it's still hella cool. Our plans do not include any daring feats of extreme sports, but are more inclined towards the simple fun and the comfy. Yesterday we watched the Bonus DVD that comes along with this outstanding cd. Astonishingly beautiful.

April's fitness goals achieved! Tasting a diversity of foods yesterday was like taking my taste buds on an excursion to the zoo -- and then getting to open up the cages and gobble all the specimens! Sorry for the cruelty of that image. Besides, I would never eat the Hippo. I couldn't, not after reading Ford's "After Moreau."

Looks like I may be work-traveling to Bellevue, Washington sometime during May, so I get to add that to my 08 travel tally.

Pretensions of Cleverness

Funny that I just read Ted Chiang's excellent novelette a few days back in catching up on Hugo nominees, for looky here, now he gone and won the Nebula! Darned greedy, I says, som' dem writers! :-) It's a well-deserved win. In old news, the winners were:

NOVEL - The Yiddish Policemen's Union , Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)
NOVELLA - "Fountain of Age", Nancy Kress (Asimov's Jul 2007)
NOVELETTE - "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", Ted Chiang (F&SF Sep 2007; Subterranean Press)
SHORT STORY -"Always", Karen Joy Fowler (Asimov's Apr/May 2007)
SCRIPT - Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro
ANDRE NORTON AWARD - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (Scholastic)

I've almost finished the first draft of a new story I've been working on since last week, a few hundred words to go. Then, in accordance with my new ideas on personal craft, I'll be revising, editing, revising and tweaking over the next week or so.

This is SuperGeek fun:



A ton of great speculative fiction is newly free online (including Baxter's "The Last Contact.")

Am I pretentious when I write reviews of fiction? How about when I write my own stories? No better way to find out than to read Hal Duncan's two recent insightful-as-always posts on pretentiousness and more pretentiousness.

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, Ted Chiang

Opening: O Mighty Caliph and Commander of the Faithful, I am humbled to be in the splendor of your presence; a man can hope for no greater blessing as long as he lives. The story I have to tell is truly a strange one, and were the entirety to be tattooed at the corner of one's eye, the marvel of its presentation would not exceed that of the events recounted, for it is a warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.

My name is Fuwaad ibn Abbas, and I was born here in Baghdad, City of Peace. My father was a grain merchant, but for much of my life I have worked as a purveyor of fine fabrics, trading in silk from Damascus and linen from Egypt and scarves from Morocco that are embroidered with gold. I was prosperous, but my heart was troubled, and neither the purchase of luxuries nor the giving of alms was able to soothe it. Now I stand before you without a single dirham in my purse, but I am at peace. Read more...

Capsule: What a wondrous arabesque of a time-travel tale! I won't say much more than that, except to point out that the causality loops (inspired by Kip Thorne's work, according to Chiang's notes in the hard-printed version of this story) are couched in sumptuous period detail and characterization, and that the "lesson" learned by the teller of the tale is a fine one indeed.

This piece is currently a 2008 Hugo award nominee in the "Best Novelette" category.

Glory, Greg Egan

Opening: An ingot of metallic hydrogen gleamed in the starlight, a narrow cylinder half a meter long with a mass of about a kilogram. To the naked eye it was a dense, solid object, but its lattice of tiny nuclei immersed in an insubstantial fog of electrons was one part matter to two hundred trillion parts empty space. A short distance away was a second ingot,apparently identical to the first, but composed of antihydrogen.

A sequence of finely tuned gamma rays flooded into both cylinders. The protons that absorbed them in the first ingot spat out positrons and were transformed into neutrons, breaking their bonds to the electron cloud that glued them in place. In the second ingot, antiprotons became antineutrons. Read more...

Capsule: From an exchange that occurs in the fourth section of this novelette:

“There's more to life than mathematics,” Joan said. “But not much more.”

Amen to that. Obviously, there's at least theoretical physics as well, given the start of Egan's fine space opera outing ... but, of course, Egan knows this and a whole lot more.

I really enjoyed the premise of this story: a technologically advanced society, part of the Amalgam, engineers (and how!) a trip to a cusp society to rescue ancient artifacts of a far older people that lived on the same planet and dedicated three million years to studying pure mathematics. Why did the ancient Niah become extinct, and what can be learned from their mathematical insights? The Seeker/Spreader dichotomy provides food for thought but I didn't buy into this simple dual classification, and I wasn't entirely convinced by Joan's final musings and course of action pertaining to it. I also would have loved to see some kind of link between the Niah's Big Crunch and the Cataract... But the technology and discoveries were definitely nifty enough to keep me entranced, and again there was a fantastic amount of carefully worked-out detail behind the obvious events of the story.

This piece is currently a 2008 Hugo award nominee in the "Best Novelette" category (Egan is competing against himself with "Dark Integers," which I preferred.)

Dark Integers, Greg Egan

Opening: “Good morning, Bruno. How is the weather there in Sparseland?”

The screen icon for my interlocutor was a three-holed torus tiled with triangles, endlessly turning itself inside out. The polished tones of the male synthetic voice I heard conveyed no specific origin, but gave a sense nonetheless that the speaker’s first language was something other than English.

I glanced out the window of my home office, taking in a patch of blue sky and the verdant gardens of a shady West Ryde cul-de-sac. Sam used “good morning” regardless of the hour, but it really was just after ten a.m., and the tranquil Sydney suburb was awash in sunshine and birdsong.Read more...


Capsule: This is one of the most conceptually dense and ambitious sf stories I've ever read. The type of conceptual density I'm referring to is not the accretion of detail that follows from a carefully thought-out construct (a la Hal Clement or Niven-Ringworld, for example) nor a hard sf Ferris wheel which spins Big Concepts like quantum uncertainty, exotic particles, spacetime foam, superstring theory etc. from a cosmic perspective (Baxter et al). The conceptual extrapolation relies on abstract notions, and touches on many different branches of understanding, primarily higher mathematics, epistemology, computation, theoretical physics, and information theory. Egan seamlessly blends fascinating, challenging ideas from all these fields to support his premise of a "border" between different levels of reality and how the knowability of mathematical propositions interfaces with the phyisical processes they describe in a way that actually changes the very definition of what is being described. And that's just the start!

A few paragraphs into Egan's story I knew I was reading something Special. There was a plunge, a leap, an intellectual sweep that few stories are audacious enough to attempt. I went back in an effort to localize the exact moment of revelation, the precise instant of narrative magic that might be the adult version of senseawunda. In re-reading I discovered where this had happened for me.
The following exchange takes place shortly after the above introductory paragraphs:

Sam said, “Someone from your side seems to have jumped the border.”

“Jumped it?”

“As far as we can see, there’s no trench cutting through it. But a few hours ago, a cluster of propositions on our side started obeying your axioms.”

That's the moment when it hit me, the sense of the new, the thrill of the possible, the rush of imagination. But my reaction didn't end there. Consider the next few lines:

I was stunned. “An isolated cluster? With no derivation leading back to us?”

“None that we could find.”

I thought for a while. “Maybe it was a natural event. A brief surge across the border from the background noise that left a kind of tidal pool behind.”

The fact that the protagonist is comfortable speaking in these terms, that he not only follows but is familiar with this language of ideas, told me that there was an unusual confidence at work in the story.

As the story progressed, Egan did a marvelous job of tying the super-abstract layers of discovery back to the real world and realistically describing the emotions and domestic situations of the characters involved. Every possible concern or question I could come up with regarding plausible consistency, plot logic, tone, motivation etc. he addressed, and often before I could even articulate it. It's incredible that such a cerebrally tickling story is also so emotionally involving.

There are some shades of familiarity, for example in the "cabal" situation, the lying to the girlfriend to protect her, the intel-gathering. But they don't detract from the experience of the story. In fact, I think an argument can be made for how they enhance it. By grounding nearly incomprehensible events and ideas in more familiar material, the net effect is to still keep us involved. A story which went so far out on the conceptual limb as to barely let us follow and also made the social dynamics so profoundly alien at the same time would probably end up being altogether too alien for us to keep interested. While the originality and the creativity might be higher, the distancing of the reader would make the construct less successful as an interactive narrative experience.

This piece is currently a 2008 Hugo award nominee in the "Best Novelette" category.

Book #12, Illuminations, edited by Paul Graham Raven

My 4,300 word review of the sixty-six flash pieces that comprise the anthology Illuminations is now up at The Fix. And yes, I actually review each story separately.

I didn't think it was a very uniform anthology (really wide range in quality) but some of the best pieces were pretty darned fine indeed. Based on this critical reading, I think I've come away with a deeper understanding of what makes a flash story work--or, at least, what appeals most to me about the aesthetic possibilities of the form.

Distant Replay, Mike Resnick

Opening: The first time I saw her she was jogging in the park. I was sitting on a bench, reading the paper like I do every morning. I didn’t pay much attention to her, except to note the resemblance.

The next time was in the supermarket. I’d stopped by to replenish my supply of instants—coffee, creamer, sweetener—and this time I got a better look at her. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. At seventy-six, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. Read more...

Capsule: There's high polish at work in this tale by Resnick about the encounter of a seventy-six year old man with a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his wife--as she was forty-seven years ago. The dialogue is sparkling and Resnick manages, almost exclusively through it, to address all the natural questions that come to the reader's mind in a way that does as much to reveal the character's personalities as it does move forward the plot. The High Concept works, and the resolution is elegant, though in my case it didn't deliver an emotional punch.

This piece is one of the 2008 Hugo Award nominees in the "Best Short Story" category. Curiously, it's not on the LRSFL.

In the Shadow of the Future

Watched the stunning documentary In the Shadow of the Moon yesterday. It's the best docu I've ever seen on the manned missions to the Moon.

Other docus:

BBC Space, made up of six 30-min episodes. Fun themes and neat graphics, but there was way too much emphasis on the "coolness" of the presentation, at the cost of the show's content. Sam Neill's narration/hosting was effective. Unfortunately, the script often presents the viewer with generalizations so broad they're not very useful, and sometimes of questionable accuracy.

BBC Ocean Odyssey, which follows the eighty-year journey of a bull sperm whale. There was heavy CGI work in this one but it was really well-done. A must for anyone interested in the world beneath the waves.

Earth is the feature-length docu film associated with the rightly famous Planet Earth series. It contains some of the most captivating shots I've ever seen of various habitats in our little globe. Plus we get Patrick Stewart's narration.

Peters Canyon, No Glimpse of Mary

Yesterday a friend and I completed a loop around Peters Canyon, opting for the trails with the steepest inclines. It was a great workout, all in all close to 6 miles.

Today at the gym my body seemed to respond to yesterday's change in pace. I found running on the treadmill easier than other days, and completed 4.5 miles in 46 minutes.

Keeping busy working on the next set of story reviews (flash fiction this time), reading and working on my own fiction. Eleven more days to go as far as my physical challenge for April is concerned; I'm stoked to have gotten this far.

Amazingly, John Kessel's new short-story collection The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories is available as a free Creative Commons dl at the above link, as well as through regular fossil channels. Haven't read it yet but I'm well ready to make an investment.

Though I haven't yet worked my way through the complete 07 LRSF (but I haven't forgotten about it, either!), another list has recently been posted which contains recommended 2007 short fiction. It is Dave Truesdale's 2007 SF & Fantasy Recommended Reading List, and well worth checking out.

White Noise and Black Static

My review of Black Static #4 is now up at The Fix.

I'm wondering why I don't have a subscription to this excellent magazine. The last issue is impressive, in both the fiction and non-fiction departments. Time to take action!

Midmonth Victories

• Fitness goal achieved. Went to the gym every day since the start of the month. Strength continuing to increase, mildly, but all progress is good. Body fat decreased by 1.3% during the last 15 days. Cardio resistance noticeably increased. Started with 1.5 miles on the treadmill; up to 3.5 miles today, with longer sustained bouts of high cardiac activity and much less effort.
• Caloric restriction achieved. Haven't exceeded the 1,700 calories any day, and I've stuck strictly to the sources of sustenance I'd planned.

In other news:

• My review of Tall Tales on the Iron Horse received some positive feedback, which was really nice. Any feedback on reviews by readers is appreciated.
• Work is underway on a new story. Last week entailed some close study of a classic tale by Robert Sheckley for technique. I then spent several hours thinking through my idea, and planning out each scene. I'm not intending to rush this one, and am ready for multiple rewrites. From studying Sheckley's story I was able to identify several areas where I tend to "mess up" in my own work. Hopefully it will turn out a little better this time.
• Working on the next review for The Fix.
• Am looking forward to some time off at the end of this week and a visit that should be fun.

Random:

• I love the "Tangiers" action sequence in The Bourne Ultimatum. Bit weird that I'm so enthralled by it, since I scoff at most action movies. I also haven't seen any films in 2008. But I love that sequence, g-damnit!

All The Right Words

Here is my 3,500 word review of Tall Tales, published over at The Fix.

Strong collection.

Book #11, Tall Tales on the Iron Horse, Colin P. Davies

Finished this collection of nineteen speculative tales by Colin P. Davies today. Review to follow.

After Moreau, Jeffrey Ford

Opening: I, Hippopotamus Man, can say without question that Moreau was a total asshole. Wells at least got that part right, but the rest of the story he told all wrong. He makes it seem like the Doctor was about trying to turn beasts into humans. More...

Capsule: Ford does a lot in these nineteen-hundred words. He gives his first-person narrator, Hippopotamus Man, a distinctly telling voice that does more showing than telling. The non-exposition exposes a tightly constructed panorama in which all kinds of details regarding the aftermath of Moreau's experiments are brought to somatic life through consistent Hippo-lens.

When I started this story I was immediately cautious that Ford's prose might contain some kind of Noble Savage Message, and to my great relief it didn't. (It also didn't contain the equally odious Ignoble Savage Message.) True to form, there is no Message except that revealed by the actions and emotions presented in the story. There's a certain sense of post-modern detachment to the viewpoint construction, and Ford's version of the modified beast's Seven Precepts ("1. Trust don't Trust 2. Sleep don't Sleep" etc.) neatly inserts an existentialist note (it brought to my mind Beckett's "I can't go on. I'll go on."). The ending establishes narrative plausibility while at the same time tying the story perfectly back to those irresistible first few lines and providing emotional depth.

Ok, so Dr. Moreau is a character invented by Wells, and other characters in Wells' story are now telling us, through Ford's story, what really happened after Moreau's death, and how Wells got it wrong. There are also references to subsequent adaptations of Wells' story. But Ford has this material under such tight control there isn't the slightest sense of convolution or cutesy in the narrative framework. It goes beyond meta-narrative, since it's recursive as well. It's a genetic narrative in flux. And, like one those injections, it leaves us transfigured, a little closer to an interior understanding of Coleridge's reconciliation of opposites.

(Ford has stated in his blog that " 'After Moreau' is one of a series of stories I've been writing recently I'd like to collect some day under the title Lives of the Mad Scientists." Bring on the mutations!)

Restrictions

Today marks the fourth day of my physical experiment, which is to last the thirty days of the month of April, Eliot's "cruelest month."

I'm limiting my caloric intake to 1,700 calories a day and going to the gym every day for a mix of cardio and strength training. All my calories are delivered in the form of five daily protein shakes of soy protein mixed with non-fat milk, and an assortment of fresh vegetables. That's it. I'm also going heavy on nutritional supplements and antioxidants.

Four days in I can feel a few changes. My energy levels are more consistent throughout the day, for one. There is some muscle soreness, as was expected. My sleep, on the whole, is improved. My flexibility has also improved slightly.

I've also been afflicted by bouts of insufferable grouchiness, so no changes there!

Book #10: Sons and Lovers, The Release

This novel (1913) by D. H Lawrence, originally titled Paul Morel after the main character, certainly contains a language "elusive and vague," as noted in the Introduction by Victoria Blake, specially when describing the spiritual aspects of sexual union.

The emotional complexity of this novel is staggering. I found the reading experience dense, often uncomfortable in the depiction of household violence and the central sweeping current of Paul's Oedipal love for his mother. Also, as noted in the introduction, D. H. Lawrence's writing can be heavily symbolic. There were passages I had to re-read several times. While I would not argue against the novel's immense artistic merits, I found that this writing style did not appeal to my aesthetic sense nearly as much as some of the other classics I've read so far this year (Hardy, Crane, Greene). At times I felt like Lawrence's efforts to describe the unnameable experiences of emotion were too constrained by his choices of extreme tonal states; Paul "loves" and "hates" with such intensity and such frequency during two thirds of this four-hundred and fifty page novel, for instance, that we must learn to read these words in a new way or quickly become de-sensitized to the intensity and subtlety of his experiences, his longings and passions and confusions. I found the first and final sections most gripping, and became a little exhausted with the emotional meanderings in the central part.

There is certainly enough here for me to return to Lawrence in his later-period, more accomplished, masterpieces, but some time will probably pass before I do.

Here follow, from my reading notes, some selected passages I particularly enjoyed, and which may help to give a sense of the style.

"Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over." (p. 8-9)

"There were many, many stages in the ebbing of her love for him, but it was always ebbing." (p. 52)

"Now, when all her woman's pity was roused to its full extent, when she would have slaved herself to death to nurse him and to save him, when she would have taken the pain herself, if she could, somewhere far away inside her, she felt indifferent to him and to his suffering. It hurt her most of all, this failure to love him, even when he roused her strong emotions." (p. 97)

"A thin moon was coming out. His heart was full of happiness till it hurt." (p. 141)

"He kissed her, and went. She raked the fire. Her heart was heavy now as it had never been. Before, with her husband, things had seemed to be breaking down in her, but they did not destroy her power to live. Now her soul felt lamed in itself. It was her hope that was struck." (p. 146)


"She suddenly became aware of his keen blue eyes upon her, taking her all in. Instantly her broken boots and her frayed old frock hurt her. She resented his seeing everything. Even he knew that her stocking was not pulled up. She went into the scullery, blushing deeply. And afterwards her hands trembled slightly at her work. She nearly dropped all she handled. When her inside dream was shaken, her body quivered with trepidation. She resented that he saw so much." (p. 162)

"Recklessness is almost a man's revenge on his woman. He feels he is not valued, so he will risk destroying himself to deprive her altogether." (p. 210)

"And after such an evening they both were very still, having known the immensity of passion. They felt small, half-afraid, childish and wondering, like Adam and Eve when they lost their innocence and realised the magnificence of the power which drove them out of Paradise and across the great night and the great day of humanity. It was for each of them an initiation and a satisfaction. To know their own nothingness, to know the tremendous living flood which carried them always, gave them rest within themselves. If so great a magnificent power could overwhelm them, identify them altogether with itself, so that they knew they were only grains in the tremendous heave that lifted every grass blade its little height, and every tree, and living thing, then why fret about themselves? They could let themselves be carried by life, and they felt a sort of peace each in the other. There was a verification which they had had together. Nothing could nullify it, nothing could take it away; it was almost their belief in life." (p. 385)

"He shook hands and left her at the door of her cousin's house. When he turned away he felt the last hold for him had gone. The town, as he sat upon the car, stretched away over the bay of railway, a level fume of lights. Beyond the town the country, little smouldering spots for more towns--the sea--the night--on and on! And he had no place in it! Whatever spot he stood on, there he stood alone. From his breast, from his mouth, sprang the endless space, and it was there behind him, everywhere. The people hurrying along the streets offered no obstruction to the void in which he found himself. They were small shadows whose footsteps and voices could be heard, but in each of them the same night, the same silence. He got off the car. In the country all was dead still. Little stars shone high up; little stars spread far away in the flood-waters, a firmament below. Everywhere the vastness and terror of the immense night which is roused and stirred for a brief while by the day, but which returns, and will remain at last eternal, holding everything in its silence and its living gloom. There was no Time, only Space." (p. 455)

Things You Should Not See

At the gym, of all places, I happened to glance at one of the HD displays and I believed that I had entered a PKD Moment of sickening impact. I was running on the treadmill and the juxtaposition of what I saw with what I was doing delivered a blow to my guts. I thought it would be a PKD moment--but it was worse.

Someone's idea of a gorgeous woman riding a mechanical bull while eating a F**k You W**res Pray To The Motherf***ing Gods of Morbid Ob*s*ty For Only Six D***ars Burger showed me Things. I lost sight of the images on the screen because I had entered the false PKD Moment. Here is what I saw while the ad played against the retina of my consciousness, attempting to rape me with its jackhammer-subtle evasion of all things real:

I saw Testosterone (it was yellow, in my vision) and Righteousness and perhaps a glimpse of God. I saw soldiers who lost their legs in Iraq, mothers who lost their sons and themselves. I saw soldiers whose lives were lost (the lucky ones) in Vietnam, and soldiers in the Persian Gulf, and in Cambodia, and in Lebanon, and in Somalia. I saw sores and boils and anthrax (I saw this). I saw a man raping a five year-old girl, but that was just an apéritif; I saw a mother who severed the arms of her ten-month-old daughter and let her bleed to death; I saw the tumor that may or may not lurk inside this woman's cranium, and I felt the texture of that tumor, as though pressed up against my face, my tongue, my gums. I saw a porn star suffering from rectal prolapse, from a little too much extreme anal fisting, but the woman smiled at me and said she didn't mind; let it all hang out, she told me.

And I realized this was the same woman who, in another ad, inserted her fist into her mouth to demonstrate the oral capacity and appetite required for Obliteration.

I hope you don't see these things the next time you glance up at this or similar ads. And if you do, drop me a line, and we can grab some burgers and talk about it.

What Does This Mean?

My story "The Filigree" was reviewed at The Fix, and the reviewer thought it suffered from "incomprehensibility" and "paradox."

I'm excited for the story to have been reviewed.

Of course, if you really want to determine whether you agree with the review or not, you're going to have the read the story, ain't ya? Excellent....

Captain's Lament, Stephen Graham Jones

Opening: My name is Quincy Mueller, but since the merchant marines I've been known almost exclusively as Muley. It has nothing to do with my character, however. Far from being obstinate or contrary, I'm in fact liberal and engaging. A more enthusiastic conversationalist you're not likely to find; sailors are lonely, I mean, and hungry for company. If anything, I suppose—and this just because I'm honest to a fault—I err toward the overbearing, as isolation is something I've had my fill of.


Capsule: Early on in “Captain’s Lament” by Stephen Graham Jones the first-person narrator informs us that we “already know” his story, that we in fact “likely grew up with it.” This builds suspense immediately and sets the stage for the surreal behind-the-urban-legend-story that follows, involving a merchant marine by the name of Quincy Mueller and the mysterious nurse, Margaret, who tends to his recovery and eventual ejection from the hospital fourteen months after the near-fatal accident that lands him there.

The story moves at a quick clip, which is a credit to Jones, since for about half of it not much happens. The initial dynamic between nurse and convalescent sailor seems a little humdrum but Jones adds enough narrative hooks to keep us from drifting. The dreamy atmosphere and obsession/metaphor with the sea are conveyed potently, and there are captivating images.

Other aspects were not as compelling for me: the voice of the narrator seems over-educated and homogenous--more like a third-person voice transliterated to the first person--than what we might expect for the “salty, fully-bearded” sailor, and there doesn’t seem much foundation, psychological or otherwise, for the relationship between him and the nurse. In addition, though the ending explains the urban-legend perspective, it introduces a fantastic element which feels a little out of odds with the earlier proceedings. A warning about the violence, too.

Overall, this feels like a mixed success: after reading, we have an idea of the words that accompany the captain’s lament, but feel little for his plight.

Trying To Escape

My 2,500 word review of the thirteen stories in the second issue of Escape Velocity has just been published at The Fix. Yay :-)

Book #9: Candide, And The Best of All Possible Worlds

I never thought that reading Voltaire's Candide (1759) would be such a blast! I cracked up hard during several passages of this rich, swift work of genius satire. It feels fresh and contemporary (in substance, if not in the details): Voltaire's wit reaches effortlessly across the centuries to tickle us and make us groan with its deadly, mordant accuracy. I unreservedly, unabashedly recommend this classic.

Also, from a science-fiction perspective, this puts into perspective some of the comments made by celebrated speculative writers about the works of Robert Sheckley, one of my all-time favorite sf short story writers. In the oft-quoted asssesment of Brian Aldiss, "Sheckley at his best is Voltaire and Soda" and according to J. G. Ballard "[Robert Sheckley is] witty and ingenious... a draught of pure Voltaire and tonic." The depth of these comparisons has now been revealed to me. Ironically, being well-versed in Sheckley, I put Voltaire to the test by reverse comparison, and he passed with gloriously flying colors.

And now, let us continue to "cultivate our garden."

How To Build a Human

BBC's 2002 four-part, four-hour How To Build a Human still provides great information and makes for some riveting viewing in 2008.

The first and fourth episodes were the strongest, centering on human cloning and longevity respectively. The first episode is truly enthralling: it presents the first human embryo ever cloned, and the makers of this documentary had exclusive access to this historical experiment.

The episodes on genetic traits (predisposition) and sex had interesting moments but were mostly a retread of things we know and weren't as engaging.

The last episode contains some great stuff on the ageing process: mitochondria, antioxidants, free radicals, and caloric restriction. This is mostly common to the topic, though very well-presented. But watching this documentary taught me about: Synthetic catalytic scavenger, an artificial anti-oxidant that has extended life significantly in nematodes. Very exciting stuff!

Childhood's End

The pod bay doors were opened one last time.

Arthur C. Clarke died today.

Black Tar Heroin

Ever thought about planning a vacation in Tenderloin, San Francisco, California?

You may want to think again.

That's where the heroin action is at, in the documentary Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street. Watching this documentary is almost a challenge, so unforgiving and straightforward and matter-of-fact and naturalistic and methodical is it in pursuing the ruined lives of black tar junkies in San Francisco over the course of three abominable years. It is a brave documentary, but only as brave as the audience that stomachs it.

The Buddhist equations of desire and pain always balance out. Heroin causes an incomprehensible hunger for that once-felt pleasure, and the pain it causes is therefore equally immeasurable. The damaging nature of the experience becomes irreversible with astonishing speed. Suffering co-exists with ecstasy in the life of the junkie in a way we cannot grasp, and yet suffering always wins out in the end. With the exception of death, of course.

I experienced several phases of reaction watching this. Cringing horror at the hell chosen by these individuals. Empathy that ripped me open. Then a calm, detached sense of observation. Finally, a sense of wishing for them to go even farther. At some point, why maintain the pretense of wanting to kick the habit? Free yourself of hope and admit you are going to shoot yourself up until you cease to exist. Resign yourself to this, abandon the facade, and slowly up the grams of heroin you do everyday until you overdose. Problem is, as it's been well-documented, the ever resilient human body develops tolerance for the poison really fast, so to do what I'm suggesting you'd have to up the doses so quickly you probably wouldn't last a year. And, from a practical perspective, you'd have to have money saved up for the escalating insanity of heroin abuse, which of course isn't most junkie's situation. Barring that, I'd think suicide is a good option. But do it right. None of this "I tried to OD" bullshit. Gun to the head or equivalent. If I sound cynical right now, don't judge me harshly for it. I am still exercising empathy, wanting to see the suffering end. If you decide heroin is the way to go and you cross the no-going-back line, what I'm suggesting will ease suffering, on the whole. The problem with this line of reasoning, of course, is that it presents a logical attack on the problem and, more importantly, involves courage, the courage of admitting to oneself you are self-destructing and will be saying goodbye soon. And when you begin the transformation into the stringy, lifeless hollowed-out heroin fiend, you will lose all reasoning and courage, making you incapable of choice.

Book #8: Coriolanus, The Butterfly Killer

James Joyce wrote of the "the note of banishment, banishment from the heart, banishment from home" in reference to Shakespeare, and this tragedy, Coriolanus, seems like the ultimate expression of that note.

This is a fantastic play, and I found myself rereading many passages. Though there are fewer soliloquies than we usually get in a Bard tragedy (at least by the title character), there are fascinating, dynamic exchanges and an irrepressible sense of terrible energy and conflict.

I also had the pleasure of watching the BBC production of this play and really enjoyed it.

Einstein Lane

Great fun in Rutgers/NY!

My three friends from University, whom I hadn't seen in four years, remained largely unchanged, and we were all in fine spirits.

Thursday night we walked around Rutgers in search of food (late at night) and I ended up getting the largest tuna sub I have ever seen--it was about four times larger than a normal sub.

Friday was NYC day. Much walking, from Penn station on 5th, Times Square, Empire State Building, St. Patrick's Church, also Central Park, great late lunch, then the Strand bookstore (18 miles of books), then a massive Barnes & Noble, down 7th and back to the train. Pretty impressive acrobatic break-dancing as we walked out of Central Park. It was a full day.

Saturday morning was Princeton village, the Institute for Advanced Study (look, there's Einstein lane! Look, there's Maxwell lane!), nice lunch, and then Princeton campus (look, Nash lived there!). Saturday afternoon was preparations for my friend's engagement/birthday get together later that same day: and then it was upon us, guests starting to show up at around 6 pm and all the way through 10 pm, part-ay time!!! It was awesome, a really eclectic mix of about 40 guests, from all walks of life and nationalities. Food was tasty, and I found unexpectedly enjoyable conversation. Our friend Carlos made some delicious, authentic tortilla-de-patata. For the record, the carrot cake clearly oven over the cheesecake. And how do you order veggie pizza when you're buzzed and it's really late? Tell them you want "every veggie, just everything!" At about 3 am my buddies decided to play rugby in a nearby park and then strip to their underwear and jump into the adjacent river. I chilled at home while they got chilled. After much conversation and merrymaking we called it a night around 5 am.

And as of this time, I still have not found any evidence to support the claim by my friend Marcos that Sartre was voluntarily or involuntarily homeless for four years. Sorry bud!

Call Waiting: ET

BBC Horizon's Are We Alone in the Universe? offers a good synthesis of current findings and contains interviews with prominent SETI-related scientists. Two minor distractions were that rather than coming across as stylish, the program seems to be over-produced (a lot of camera tricks, including rapid motion, out-of-focus shots, 'creative' uses of circular lens etc.) and that it focuses a bit too much Gliese 581 c.

The star Gliese 581 received a lot of attention when it was announced that Gliese 581 c had been identified as an exoplanet that might satisfy the conditions necessary to make it habitable. It appears that particular planet may no longer be suitable to life due to a runaway greenhouse effect. (Though Gliese 581 d may now be a candidate.)

The concluding brief section on the Kepler mission is really interesting and, given the subject matter overall, how could one not watch this?

LRSF #36, Sanjeev and Robotwallah, Ian McDonald

Opening: Every boy in the class ran at the cry. Robotwar robotwar! The teacher called after them, Come here, come here bad wicked things. But she was only a Business-English artificial intelligence and by the time old Mrs. Mawji hobbled in from the juniors only the girls remained, sitting primly on the floor, eyes wide in disdain and hands up to tell tales and name names.

Capsule: I have not yet read McDonald's River of Gods or "Little Goddess" but this story, in the same universe, was certainly captivating enough as a standalone work. The attention to cultural detail was astounding, and there is more action than I'd imagined, as well. What initially appeared to be a straightforward if adorned coming-of-age story situated in a near-future India, where boys remotely steer AI-enhanced mechas and bots of destruction in ongoing local skirmishes, became a much more intricate, absorbing, psychologically complex portrayal of cultural norms, social emulation, and self.

Life in Cold Blood

Just finished watching a spellbinding 5 part, 5-hour documentary on reptiles and amphibians by the incomparable David Attenborough: Life in Cold Blood.

This is his last major documentary series (the previous one was the excellent, award-winning Planet Earth) and it's well worth your time--as are all the documentaries in the Life series.

Just one of the many astonishing facts on display in this marvelous production: Shingleback males and females often reunite after the first time they mate, returning to each other every year for up to 20 years, a rare example of social monogamy in lizards.

The Second Descent, Richard Paul Russo

Opening: A cold dense fog lay heavy on the mountain that morning. Rafael stood in the snow outside his tent and searched for the summit, which was only three or four hundred meters above them, but he could see nothing through the diffuse gray fog that hissed and crystallized into particles of ice, a kind of snowy mistfall.

Capsule: Death lingers in this superb, richly crafted story, penetrating the text in ways we don't anticipate and perhaps absent from the crevices where we might expect it. The story has been described by reviewers as "bleak" and "allegorical." I certainly agree with the latter, but perhaps it's revealing of my own sensibilities that while I can see that the setting and some of the imagery are bleak, I did not find the story as a whole bleak--in fact, more like uplifting.

The title is highly suggestive and as soon as we realize the characters are climbers in that first paragraph it raises obvious questions. The story consists of twenty scenes separated in two sections. These alternate between Rafael's present-day narrative (if, in fact, he is living in any kind of physically quantifiable time) and memories of past significant events of his life, as well as the earlier (and future?) climbs and attempts to descend (reach the summit?) of the nameless mountain and one of its mirage-like cities. RPR wisely lays out the obvious questions early on, in the second scene: "He doesn't understand why they're engaged in a second descent, or how it's even possible." Making an explicit reference to this conundrum so soon works well, serving multiple functions. For one, it lets us know that the character is wandering through an existential landscape, where there are no immediate or graspable answers. We quickly understand that the story will not offer a resolution to it, but rather explore the character's search for understanding. In addition, it signals to us that RPR is going to play fair and give us all the information it is possible for us to have while immersed in Rafael's universe. That is to say, the puzzles of the story won't result from an incomplete presentation of events. As much as Rafael perceives and experiences, so will we.

Death appears in the loss of three members of the original seven that formed the climbing expedition. Skeletons, crosses, graves, even a priest. But the rituals of death do little to dispel its presence or instill in us the sense that Rafael has dealt with it. In fact, they achieve the opposite effect, drawing attention to it. In the third scene Rafael sees "a thousand dead souls still on their final journeys" in the eyes of Yusuf, who may in fact be a walking dead, an apparition, or a metaphor for the ultimate release brought about by death. This seems to be confirmed by the statement that "for Yusuf nothing ever seemed to be personal," while for Rafael everything is. Rafael is engaged by the full immensity of life, while Yusuf, perhaps, has completely departed from it and is alive for Rafael only as a reminder of this engagement. The references to death continue, hardly how we might consider: for example, Agent Orange in the context of the Vietnam war, bacterial meningitis afflicting Rafael's daughter Leila when she is five, and putting her "close to death", and so on. I'd like to suggest here that perhaps the most weighty death is the death of Rafael's deep-seated anxiety and fear about the inscrutable future and the unknowability of what lies ahead. This, I think, is what comprises the central character transformation and offers us a philosophical perspective that does not evade the existential emptiness of reality but presents a way of coming to terms with it. If we pursue the metaphor, we discover that there is a physical-temporal metonymy at work; the descent down the space of the mountain is our motion through an unrevealed future, and the inability to see how far the climb is, the impossibility of knowing what is to come.

What is the way of coming to terms with this? Rafael receives an insight when attempting to prepare for the possible outcomes of his daughter's medical treatment. Interestingly, this scene transpires in the present tense, though it clearly does not belong to the mountain-present storyline. This suggests that the events in these scene are as emotionally significant as anything that is really happening "right now", and thus co-inhabit Rafael's notion of present. Also significantly, Rafael's insight is not one he is able to articulate in a way that his wife Kiyoko will understand. The central experience consists of a shift in emotion; at first, when confronting the darkest possibilities Rafael is physically "wrung out, exhausted" by the grief and pain. Next, he ponders the best case scenarios. And what does he feel? This is where RPR's technique shines through with genius. A linear, emotionally accessible approach would have been as follows: Rafeael considers dark possibilities, feels terrible, then considers optimistic possibilities and feels better. While logical and consistent, that sequence would have achieved but a fraction of what RPR's choice does. It is this: Rafael considers dark possibilities, feels terrible, considers optimistic possibilities--there is no stated emotional response to this--and then he returns to a consideration of the worst case scenarios a second time.

Why is this so effective? When Rafael revisits the darkest options, "the pain is muted, the dread fainter." This is the core of his experience. By opting for a cyclical consideration of possibilities, RPR is not only making the thought process lifelike (in difficult situations we often struggle to imagine outcomes, and the more painful the more we might obsessively revisit them), but infusing the psychological landscape with an almost Buddhist, meditative sense of depth. Simplifying grossly, Rafael has meditated profoundly, and this has allowed him to diminish his existential anguish. But there is another reason this choice is masterful. Rafael is imagining the worst "once again." This is a second descent into his own deep-seated fears. RPR's elegant technique sidesteps the identification I have presented, but the text makes it readily available to a close reading.

Rafael's inability to communicate his insight to his wife further amplifies the existential theme. "He stops trying, and they never speak of it again." The "never" here, with its finality, suggests that the experience cannot be communicated, and is a purely internal one that must be undergone to be understood.

The insight carries from one storyline to the other. The realization that provides Rafael some measure of calm is that while he will never know how true his fear is that the second descent is literally endless (that there is, perhaps, no assurance of meaning forthcoming), there is a chance that he might discover that it is false, and that possibility is motivation enough to continue the trek. Rather than succumbing to the "sense of futility" his companions seem to leave him behind for, he is able to alter his perception and rejoin them. That is much a victory as we can hope for, and encourages us to continue along our own internal descents.

Richard Paul Russo was interviewed regarding the composition of this story.

The Martians and Us

Really enjoyed this BBC three-part, three-hour documentary about British science fiction.

Much to recommend, specially for anyone interested predominantly in printed-word SF. A special treat is to see some great writers read from classic texts (eg Aldiss reading Wells), and share their thoughts candidly. We get not only luminaries such as Clarke and Aldiss, but other more modern speculative voices such as Christopher Priest and Will Self. Must SF see.