The Frozen One, Tim Pratt

Opening: Wait, don't run away, really, it's okay. No, I don't come from the future. The future isn't a place. I know I look exactly like you, but there's a reason—well, hell, it's because my stupid bosses thought it would make things simpler, if we showed you something straight-up impossible right up front, it would save time trying to convince you I'm telling the truth. More.

Capsule: How is it possible to not like this story? It's written in the casual vernacular of a character speaking (a neat feat, in and of itself), instead of any external narrative voice, so we immediately know we're in for an intense experience, highly personal and subjective. Amazingly, once the speaker starts to tell the parable of The Frozen one, the panorama widens. So much so, that is encompasses many fantasy tropes and disarms them--given the lightness of tone, humor, and length, this doesn't really feel like a deconstruction (but what on earth, I ask myself at a moment like this, does a deconstruction actually feel like?)--before returning for the conclusion.

The narrative cleft of present "Why am I here talking to you" with "the story of the Frozen One in The City" is bridged by the application of what we learn in the parable.

I really enjoyed the sense of breathless momentum towards the end and the final verbal strokes. The appearance of Howlaa inside the fable, I thought, was also a rich touch, since it perfectly paralleled the appearance of the narrator in the universe of the anonymous recipient of the story, who by extension becomes the reader.

This story by Pratt shows him in his usual high form, though it's certainly more divertissement than opera. The future may not be a place, but wherever it exists, this little tale should be a part of it.

The Oracle Opens One Eye, Patricia Russo

Opening: For her sins, they stripped her of her shift and bound her hands to the post in front of the men’s house. Jokla’s father and brothers watched as the priests laid fifty stripes on her bare back. Read more.

Capsule: The oracle in this story opens one eye as part of the significant emotional climax, and that's when the reader, alongside the protagonist Jokla, is able to open both, in understanding.

Much to recommend here: a restrained, mostly factual narrative voice (as exemplified by those opening sentences) which is perfectly suited to amplify the emotional impact of what we are witnessing, by divorcing it of undue sentimentality, a compelling protagonist, and a permeating sense of the unknown inextricably tangled with the familiar (we are familiar with the archetypes of oracles, supplicants etc--but what about this oracle? etc.).

I don't think it would be entirely unfair to Russo's captivating piece to interpret it as a postmodern (psychologically) portrayal of Thoreau's "quiet desperation", albeit applied to a trauma-heightened situation. Jokla's plight would be resolved through action, of any type. And yet it is the understanding that she is incapable, for the moment, of that first step towards action that casts her problem into existentialist terms--she has gained awareness of emptiness, but not resolved to attack it in any particular away. This final note is what really made the story work for me. The deliberate choice to prolong her consideration of emptiness is Sartrean and highly effective. The use of the word "began" in the last sentence is stunning, juxtaposing an end with a beginning, and thereby in reality defining a continuation, the thread of experience that has led her from her banishment (a classic tragic theme in literature) to her insight (or awakening, another classic theme). The construction of the story is also solidly grounded in believable details that transcend the story's universe into ours: for example, the resonance/significance of numbers. We all live in caves of our devising. When, if ever, shall we have the strength to abandon our own oracles and walk out into freedom? A real keeper of a story.

How To Live To 101

I know I want to, specially with the quality of life on display by all of the centenarians in this BBC Horizon documentary, for which you can find the summary page here.

That same page has interesting links to tips on how to live longer, the ageing process, etc. A few minutes of exploring those links may add years to your life :-)

I found this of enormous interest. I learned about the confirmed scientific correlation between "caloric restriction" and longevity, the role of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) as a marker for biological time, etc. This also confirmed and quantified certain existing notions of the benefits of regular exercise (not only strength and cardio, but also flexibility), diet (avoiding alcohol and smoking, eating plenty of anti-oxidant-rich, low-calorie high-nutrient vegetables, limiting meats and so on), and psychological disposition (finding a system that helps eliminate the cumulative effect of life's stressors, whether that be religion or something else).

This is a high-quality production presenting an excellent synthesis of longevity-related practices.

LRSF #29, Mrs. Zeno's Paradox, Ellen Klages

Opening: Anabel meets Midge for a treat. She enters a small cafe in the Mission District in San Francisco, bold graffiti-covered walls and baristas with multiple piercings and attitude.

Capsule: Or, Ellen Klages meets the Reader for a treat. That's exactly what this story is--as delicious as the brownie that is subjected to repeated Zenoesque division by the two protagonists. This story is really short but packs a beautiful punch. Interested in the limits of divisibility of spacetime? Are there any? Fem-lit perspective? Did one of the world's most famous physicists have any children we don't know about? All this and more in a few pages! Really enjoyed this sly, tightly crafted, entertaining tale.

LRSF #26, The Tomb Wife, Gwyneth Jones

Opening: "In Lar'sz' traditional society," said the alien, "a lady would often be buried with her husband. A rather beautiful custom, don't you think?"

Capsule: Note: The comments on this story are best considered in conjunction with those regarding the previous one. The Diaspora pieces work better as a whole, in my opinion, than as stand-alones.

Interesting story exploring ideas on relativity, subjective (non-linear) time, and relationships (both between beings of different races, and between beings and time). The premise, the various interpretations of which the tale ably explores, is delivered in that first sentence captured above. The highpoints were the sheer number of ideas explored, the fascinating glimpses of alien culture and spacefaring civilization, and an ending which spoke both to character transformation and conceptual breakthrough. However, I didn't think this story was particularly even, on the whole. The cast of characters seemed large for the length of the story, and their psychological development therefore compressed. Elen came fully alive for me, but only in the second half of the story. I also found the style a little jarring at times (exposition abruptly interrupting description, for example, but not really driving the story forward). A novella set in this universe might have been more satisfying.

LRSF #25, Saving Tiamat, Gwyneth Jones

Opening: I had reached the station in the depth of Left Speranza's night; I had not slept. Fogged in the confabulation of the transit, I groped through crushing eons to my favorite breakfast kiosk: unsure if the soaring concourse outside Parliament was ceramic and carbon or a metaphor; a cloudy internal warning --

Capsule: I read this story and the next one in reverse order, and a curious thing happened. They both take place in what, for lack of a better term (is there an already established one?), I'm going to call Jones' Diaspora Universe. I thing I enjoyed this more for having red "The Tomb Wife" before it.

There is a lot of sense-of-wunda stuff packed into the Diaspora universe, and here there is enough narrative space for these elements to breathe, to become differentiated, to stick in the mind. At the same time, having a sense of how things work in the Diaspora universe meant that I was more acutely aware of character development. Instead of having to process the assimilation of the world and the "peoples" inhabiting it at the same time, I had a little more energy to invest in the "psychological topography" (a phrase that inhabits the text of "The Tomb Wife"). As it turns out, I think this works to the story's advantage, since lighter character touches become infused with greater depth by this shift in reading attention, and on the whole the characters, though interesting, sometimes have a tough time competing with the background inventions and meditations (which cover the philosophical, linguistic, scientific, historical, political and sexual with surprising agility).

The resolution to the main ethical/cultural dilemma is well-handled, and the intrigue throughout is suspenseful without feeling manipulative. There is almost a sense of science-fictional narrative bravura that emerges from Jones' writing, I think in part because of her multi-hued thematic palette and her muscular prose (grammatically separate clauses joined by commas, use of hyphens to end scenes with abruptness, etc.)

I have a feeling that I'll enjoy each new story set in the Diaspora universe more than the ones before, and that a future collection of these someday might be a treat. Any glimpses into the Aleutian culture (the race responsible for developing mind/matter travel, and only keepers of its secrets) would be fascinating.

A review of this story and other pieces found in the anthology The New Space Opera is
available at: http://www.bestsf.net/reviews/thenewspaceopera.html

Also, the long and insightful piece on The New Space Opera by Dave Truesdale, "Off On A Tangent: F&SF Style," offers a juicy paragraph on this story and is well worth the read: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2007/dt0710.htm

10 Archetypes in 2000 Words, Cherie Priest

This story appeared in the February 2006 issue of Lone Star Stories. (I'm working my way through past issues of this speculative on-line magazine; many great, free stories that live and breathe well outside of the typical sf/fantasy realm, sometimes creating their very own, utterly unique realms).

We can expect the ten promised archetypes, but we receive much more than that. The brief sections (with allusions to Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel in their titles and text) each deliver the unique contextualization of an archetype in modernity, in contemporary sensibilities and setting. The underlying humanistic concerns are, however, universal, and so not only allow the reader to internalize these transformations (the general to the specific, the generic to the actual, the mythological to the pragmatic), but also to find the commonality between the various inner monologues. As a result, the combination of the ten re-dressed archetypes into a unit of storeytelling creates something new, something interesting beyond a merely additive summation of parts; an altogether new, anti-archetypical archetype.

The individual sections are richly textured in tone. I particularly enjoyed the plays on words and the ironic interpretations of standard words and phrases (this effectively amplified the larger- scale reinterpretation at work). This technique was used in subtle enough fashion to not become distracting or self-conscious.

Cherie Priest has here applied her considerable narrative skills to craft a fine speculative tale worthy of re-reading.

The Pile, Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop is one of the most accomplished science fiction writers, and has been a personal favorite since I was nineteen, when I read his astonishing A Funeral For the Eyes of Fire.

His son, Jaime Bishop, was shot dead on the Virginia tech campus on April 16, 2007, along with 31 others.

The Winter 2008 issue of Subterranean Magazine contains new a short story by Michael Bishop, titled "The Pile". It is dedicated to his son Jaime and is based on his son's notes.

It's an incredible read. Hard to categorize, the story is utterly unpredictable, riveting in its attention to detail and atmosphere, as well as succint characterization. It is amusing and disturbing at the same time. It is wisecracking and tinged with dread. It's not easy to forget.

LRSF #23, Unpossible, Daryl Gregory

Opening: Two in the morning and he's stumbling around in the attic, lost in horizontal archaeology: the further he goes, the older the artifacts become. The stuttering flashlight guides him past boxes of Christmas decorations and half-dead appliances, past garbage bags of old blankets and outgrown clothing stacked and bulging like black snowmen, over and around the twenty-year-old rubble of his son's treasures: Tonka trucks and science fair projects, soccer trophies and summer camp pottery.

Capsule: Second entry by Daryl Gregory--and he's surpassed himself with this story! The writing made me catch my breath from the first sentence. It's not enough to state that Daryl Gregory has short fiction writing chops. We might get closer to the truth by suggesting that he is the original skeletal framework from whence the chops were removed and bequeathed unto Readers. Better yet, make those royal lamb shanks.

The story delivers its Matheson-esque revelations (there was a pervasive Twilight Zone-ambience, and searching for lost youth or a return to innocence is a subject tackled explicitly by that series in some of its most memorable episodes) with emotional umph. While the premise, therefore, offers nothing startlingly interesting, the character development, technique and poignancy buoy this directly past our suspension of disbelief and into the evocation of genuine emotion. The UnCompass needle points straight at UnBetterable on this one.

LRSF #22, Dead Horse Point, Daryl Gregory

Opening: Twenty-three years of silence and all it takes is one call. Not even a conversation, just a thirty-second message on her voicemail.

Capsule: Daryl Gregory's sharp technique and human insight enable him to construct a moving story that surprises and stays with the reader, but is fashioned out of mostly unsurprising elements. When the premise was established I became wary of Awakenings-redundant explorations of pathos, and I was thankful Daryl steered clear of them. The flavoring of physics (the physics, while not cutting edge, is thematically apposite and well-considered, since this story after all relates to a deeper search for meaning) combines and complements the psychological drama nicely.

The pacing is gentle, perhaps a little too gentle for some reader's tastes, but the accumulation of detail and building sense of end to the status quo serve only to heighten the story's elegant and accomplished finale. Excellent story, another top-notch choice within 2007 year's best picks.

Interesting comments available here.

LRSF #20, Catherine and the Satyr, Theodora Goss

Opening: "You've come back," said the satyr.
Where was he? Somewhere in the shadows. She could identify him only by the intolerable stench. Read more...

Capsule: The review over at The Fix gives this one a high recommendation and though I enjoyed it my recommendation is a little more reserved. Theodora Goss does accomplish quite a bit in the short space (speech patterns used to great effect in character development and setting, for example, and the alternating scenes of social milieu and satyr-intimacy create an interesting narrative dynamic) but overall the sense of being trapped didn't come across very compellingly for me. The light tone of the social scenes did make the darkness of what Catherine is experiencing darker--but I still found myself at a remove from her plight.

I enjoyed the historical setting but it seemed to me mostly a device subject to the speculative premise, and since I didn't find that particularly new or absorbing, the resulting proportionality in the narrative weight left me a little underwhelmed. Still, a strong entry.

LRSF #19, Electric Rains, Kathleen Ann Goonan

Opening: Ella sat by Nana's body two days before she pushed it out the window.

Capsule: I appreciated certain elements of this story but overall it didn't entertain or move me much. The concepts of electric rains, personality uploads, the Metro subculture etc. were all intriguing but I'm not sure how convincing I found their juxtaposition. They seemed to provide a noir, cyberpunkish patina, but not the substance of that type of experience.

The twelve-year old protagonist was well developed, but at times I felt her perusal of the archived newspapers was a little too explicitly the framework for infodump and wasn't perhaps as seamlessly integrated into the narrative as might have been possible. There just didn't seem to be enough happening in this story. What there was held my interest, but at a distance.

LRSF # 18, Always, Karen Joy Fowler

Opening:

How I Got Here:

I was seventeen years old when I heard the good news from Wilt Loomis who had it straight from Brother Porter himself. Wilt was so excited he was ready to drive to the city of Always that very night. Back then I just wanted to be anywhere Wilt was. So we packed up. Read more...

Capsule: Preliminary Nebula Award Nominee. Immortality in science-fiction is a theme as old as ... well. Karen Joy Fowler brings us here a quiet, heartfelt meditation on it that while not offering anything terribly true still reads very finely and plays against our expectations. I really enjoyed the moments of ambivalence, the tone of the first-person narration, and the sense of communal life described and how it dissolved. A tale about personal choice and belief to linger on in the mind.

LRSF # 15, The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford

Opening: It came trickling in over the transom at first, but Hatch's bailing technique had grown rusty. The skies were dark with daily news of a pointless war and genocide in Africa, poverty, AIDS, desperate millions in migration. The hot air of the commander in chief met the stone-cold bullshit of Congress and spawned water spouts, towering gyres of deadly ineptitude. A steady rain of increasing gas prices, grocery prices, medical costs, drove down hard like a fall of needles.

Capsule: Hatch's "bailing technique" has grown rusty and he goes under, sinking into the Drowned World. This is the first story of the LRSF list that truly knocked the air right out of my fucking reading lungs. It's an extraordinary invention. It contains more mind-expanding newness, paragraph by paragraph, than any of the stories I've read so far, and it was emotionally arresting, a steamroller that flattened and squished me and left me arranged in a new shape when I re-assembled myself into quotidian three-dimensionality. This story contains the Other. It was so good I stopped reading it for a few moments just before the end and paced myself: You Know What I'm Talking About. It's already received multiple readings. Seek it out.

LRSF # 13, Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse, Andy Duncan

Opening: Father Leggett stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the three narrow stories of gray brick that was 207 East Charlton Street. Compared to the other edifices on Lafayette Square--the Colonial Dames fountain, the Low house, the Turner mansion, the cathedral of course--this house was decidedly ordinary, a reminder that even Savannah had buildings that did only what they needed to do, and nothing more.

Capsule: Preliminary Nebula Award Nominee. The fascinating, delightful premise is well-developed and the story, overall a captivating read, is fun. It's been receiving quite a bit of attention and high praise. At the risk of casting myself out of whatever readership community I was attempting to belong, I have to confess that from a stylistic viewpoint, I didn't enjoy it much. Maybe I missed something?

LRSF # 12, Café Culture, Jack Dann

Opening: "From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion." - Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

After six Baptist suicide bombers met their god in the fiery nave, aisles, apse, towers and main altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the cafes that crowded Fiftieth and Fifty-First Streets become de rigueur for writers, artists, actors, news personalities, wealthy dilettantes, activists, dissidents, tourists, the Christian left, and wannabes.

Capsule: I have to say this is the first disappointing story I've read so far in the LRSF list. It's not a science-fiction story; and though this, in and of itself, does not comprise a critical attack, it is in part a justification for the irritation I felt upon having finished it. My expectations were confounded by the fact it was a LRSF pick and that it was published in no less than Asimov's. Now, expectations can be redefined, and thus a second reading might have delivered the goods. Not so here. This story didn't work for me because, regardless of genre or non-genre categorization, I didn't find enough to hold my interest. The extrapolation seemed intellectually non-rigorous (considering the magnitude of what is happening here, how would the rest of this proposed society really function?) and the ending seemed inconsistent with the protagonist's earlier psychological development (or, perhaps more accurately, motivational sketch). Even barring an interesting plot or compelling characters, the aesthetic experience might have been enough to provide reading sustenance. Alas, it wasn't. I found the writing of a high professional standard, to be sure, but lacking in the ultracrafty stylings of a Shepard, Bisson, Link or Ford, for instance, which is what would have been required. This story is preceded by Asimov's disclaimer about some scenes being potentially disturbing to readers. I didn't find them disturbing; I did find them disproportionately violent/harsh in relation to the net effect of the story.

For condensed, literary, groundbeaking stylized visions of a hellish future, there is a venerable tradition of great work readily available, in and out of the field. Consider, for example, some of Ballard's "condensed novels" (e.g. in The Atrocity Exhibition) or Spinrad's midperiod short work or almost all of Malzberg's short fiction. Stories like "Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan" and "Love and Napalm: Export USA" do what "Cafe Culture" is attempting much better and in fewer words.

And of course there is Updike's novel Terrorist.

LRSF # 7, Tideline, Elizabeth Bear

Opening: Chalcedony wasn't built for crying. She didn't have it in her, not unless her tears were cold tapered glass droplets annealed by the inferno heat that had crippled her.

Such tears as that might slide down her skin over melted sensors to plink unfeeling on the sand. And if they had, she would have scooped them up, with all the other battered pretties, and added them to the wealth of trash jewels that swung from the nets reinforcing her battered carapace. Read more...

Capsule: Another great entry by Elizabeth Bear. The attention to detail in the robotic creation, the boy, and the seashore backdrop is exquisite. The development of action makes perfect sense in the context of the story's world, and the ending is emotionally significant and steers clear of being overwrought on the one hand or overly whismical on the other. This one really worked for me. An sf short story gem.

LRSF # 6, Orm the Beautiful, Elizabeth Bear

Opening: Orm the Beautiful sang in his sleep, to his brothers and sisters, as the sea sings to itself. He would never die. But neither could he live much longer. Read more...

Capsule: Elizabeth Bear's Story the beautiful.

The writing is elegiac and poetic in this short story dealing with death, sacrifice, renewal, unity, song and color--from the point of view of dragons and their communal Chord.

I was struck by the deep aesthetic of the imagery and really enjoyed the thoughtful, meditative tone of this story. It skillfully tackled heavy subjects without becoming weighty.

LRSF # 5, The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French, Peter S. Beagle

Opening: Once upon a time, there lived in California a Frenchman named George Moscowitz. His name is of no importance--there are old families in France named Wilson and Holmes, and the first president of the Third Republic was named MacMahon--but what was interesting about Mr. Moscowitz was that he had not always been French. Nor was he entirely French at the time we meet him, but he was becoming perceptibly more so every day.

Capsule: So THIS is what people are talking about when they speak in reverence and awe of Peter Beagle's short fiction. I've been living under Martian soil. There was clearly great delight in Beagle's working out of the consequences of his mystifying and ironic premise--an ordinary American mysteriously starts to become French, a cultural transformation that happens from the inside out--and there is more than delight in its reading. The story is wry, assured, quirky, clever, funny and touching all at the same time. Beagle surrounds the central conceit with such deft detail that we cannot help but believe it is true. 'Once upon a time' indeed.

Touching the Void

Rated 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, this is probably the most intense and viscerally engaging--as well as harrowing--documentary I've ever seen.

As the synopsis describes,

"In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to climb the 21,000 feet Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes—the only mountain in the Peruvian range that hadn't yet been conquered. They were young, fit, skilled climbers and were confident that they would succeed where others would fail..." (RT)

This 2004 docu/docudrama reconstructs the gripping true story of what happened to Simon and Joe on this astonishing rock climb.

With mind-boggling photography and re-enactments that illuminate crevasses of psychological depth, this is absolutely a must-see.

Things With Different Names

Tonight's reading involved short stories that aren't part of the fifty-seven LRSF picks. All were by writers previously unknown to me.

Two of the stories I'd like to mention, both by writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and both available at Lone Star Stories, are Things with the Same Name and Neighbors.

'Neighbors' is a very well-crafted short (approx 2,200 words) that with an economy of language depicts vivid characters in a seemingly mundane situation. I particularly enjoyed Hoffman's excellent skill in describing details that convey both information (avoiding obvious exposition) and evoke mood (avoiding obvious emotional description). Also, the choice of intimate setting and restrained action proved highly successful in accentuating the underlying morbidity of the goings-on. Conceptually, this story is not arresting, but again, I was captivated by the tight prose and expert storytelling.

'Things with the Same Name' provides another remarkable example of technique, this time in a longer composition (5,200 words). This story, told in the first person, starts off with the revelations by the protagonist that "My name was Charlie, which might have been my biggest problem. I died in one of those storms people called the Storm of the Century." Observe how, beyond the immediate interest this generates in the reader by sparking obvious questions (why is his name a problem? How does this relate to the title, if at all? Why is the storm relevant, if it is?) the grammar is noticeably simple. Again, Hoffman exercises great restraint in her word choices and grammatical constructions. As we adapt to the narrator's voice, we quickly sense a sadness to it, a sadness conveyed in part through this child-like telling. This is the perfect choice for the unbelievable events we are to witness, as dumb-struck as the protagonist, yet immersed in his world. Hoffman also achieves a different sort of counterpoint: that between physical impossibility and psychological plausibility. The character's reactions and motivations are so well-grounded and realized, they sweep past shortcomings we may think we have discovered in the space-and-time of the story. This story permits various levels of interpretation and provides an elegant, rich reading experience.

I will be paying close attention to Hoffman's short fiction from now on (and I know there's a bunch more of her stories available for free on-line, just waiting for me--delicious backlog, here I come...).

Masterpieces of Vienna

Today I watched the BBC’s three-part documentary series on The Masterpieces of Vienna, which explores the intriguing stories behind well-known works of art and moments of interest in Vienna’s vibrant history during the turn of the century.


Part I. The first documentary deals with one of the world’s expressionist masterpieces, the painting 'The Tempest' or 'Bride of the Wind' (1914) by Oskar Kokoschka, inspired by the young artist’s intense love affair with high bourgeois socialite and compulsive flirt Alma Mahler. Alma’s first marriage was to renowned composer Gustav Mahler—during which time she had an affair with architect Walter Gropius, which, upon discovering, drove Mahler to seek the counsel of…Sigmund Freud. She later married Gropius, and had an affair with novelist Franz Werfel. And so on. What I found most interesting is that Kokoschka started his painting in response to a challenge by Alma, but the work quickly gained a life of its own. Paint me a masterpiece, she said, and I’ll marry you. He painted the walls of his studio black and isolated himself to produce The Tempest, based on a real experience they’d both shared . Kokoschka started the composition in reds but throughout the rendering it was transformed into blues. The body language and distance between the lovers changes. In early sketches they’re together, in the final painting they are apart. It has been suggested that Kokoschka intuitively knew that his affair with Alma was doomed, and that even while he strove to produce the very painting that was to secure the prize of her lifelong betrothal to him, the work itself revealed the futility of the endeavor.


This is another historically documented case of an affair that starts exceedingly fast (the attraction was immediate, and they were lovers within days) and dissolves, unable to sustain itself, generating enough anguish and longing along the way to create, say, a masterpiece.


Famous expressionist poet Georg Trakl (a friend of mine during University was particularly fond of his work) was so inspired by Kokoschka’s painting that he composed a poem about it on the spot when he first saw it.

Here is the poem, which appeared in 1914, the same year Trakl committed suicide:

The Night

I sing you wild fissure,
In the night-storm
Piled-up mountains;
You grey towers
Overflowing with hellish grimaces,
Fiery beasts,
Rough ferns, spruces,
Crystal flowers.
Infinite agony,
Which makes you hunt down God
Soft spirit,
Sighing in the waterfall,
In billowing pines.

The fires of the people
All around blaze golden.
Over blackish cliffs
Drunk with death,
The glowing wind-bride plummets,
The blue wave
Of the glacier,
And the bell in the valley
Peals mightily:
Flames, curses
And the dark
Games of lust,
A petrified head
Storms heaven.

Part II. The second documentary deals with the most iconic image from Freud’s psychoanalytic revolution and is titled, aptly enough, Freud’s Couch. It appears the couch was actually donated to him by an early patient, Madame Benvenisti, in about 1890. Interestingly, we learn that the rug covering the couch is a colourful shekarlu rug made by one of the nomadic tribes of the Qashqa'i confederacy in Persia in the nineteenth century.

I found this next passage interesting. Freud writes here about the specific arrangement of furniture and therapist for the sessions (from his 1913 essay ‘On beginning the treatment’):

‘I hold to the plan of getting the patient to lie on a sofa while I sit behind him out of his sight. This arrangement has a historical basis; it is the remnant of the hypnotic method out of which psychoanalysis was evolved. But it deserves to be maintained for many reasons. The first is a personal motive, but one which others may share with me. I cannot put up with being stared at by other people for eight hours a day (or more).’

No kidding! This documentary lead me to the article “The week the couch arrived” by Robert F. Tyminski, which appeared in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2006, 51, 643–659 and contains some great stuff on the couch as a signifier of the analytic process and the ‘three most common patient responses that occurred: rejecting, ambivalent, and embracing.’

Part III. The third and last installment is on Egon Schiele’s expressionist masterpiece ‘Death and the Maiden’ (1915). Great segue from the previous episode on Freud, what with the whole sex-death theme. Memorable comment on Schiele’s narcissism (he painted hundreds of self-portraits, and was obsessed with sex in equal measure, resulting in depictions of naked young women and even himself masturbating): the word Ego is the start of Ego-n! Schiele was eventually arrested (one of his paintings was burned at the trial!) and spent twenty-one days in jail. The theme of the death and the maiden goes back a long way in classical art, but Schiele transposes it into an allegorical wasteland of contemporary sensibility. Again, this piece is based on the artist’s real relationship, in this case with a long-time lover he was planning to leave so he could marry a wealthier broad. Nice.


Schiele wrote in 1910 that everything was “living dead”—which, I think, provides an apt description of his painting.

LRSF #3 - Last Contact, Stephen Baxter

Opening:

March 15th

Caitlin walked into the garden through the little gate from the drive. Maureen was working on the lawn.

Capsule: Deeply moving SF story. By starting off with a date, Baxter is immediately signaling to the reader the importance of when events are happening, which can only be relevant in relation to something else that has happened previously--or something that is going to happen. We quickly find out that it is the latter. This story can almost be seen to start where Arthur C Clarke's famous "The Nine Billion Names of God" ends. Clarke's visionary techno-theological speculation ended with: "Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." In Baxter's "Last Contact" a field of antigravity is tearing the entire universe apart (aka the Big Rip), and so we're starting with the disintegration of everything. As though that weren't enough (and it might not be, considering the number of excellent apocalyptic visions sf has already produced), Baxter adds levels of meaning and emotion by placing the protagonist's confirmation of the end in the wake of humanity's discovery of a proliferation of ETs, albeit ones whose messages we are unable to decode. Discovering super-civilizations has, in fact, become so prevalent that Maureen gets alerted to each new one on her cell phone: it pings with the message. Talk about dramatic and yet conceptually sound juxtaposition of the quotidian with the transcendent! In fact, this is the technique that Baxter uses throughout the entire story, to astonishing effect, by focusing on the character's immediacy. The incomprehensible sense of loss and vastness of the changes-to-come are contrasted with quiet moments of conversation in Maureen's garden. A few pages in, for example, Maureen's daughter Caitlin tells her mom that she's always hated her coat, and that she should buy a new one. Maureen's beautifully understated response, which is chilling in the context: " 'This will see me out,' Maureen said firmly." I can't recommend this story highly enough.

LRSF #2 - The Ruby Incomparable, Kage Baker

Opening: The girl surprised everyone. To begin with, no one in the world below had thought her parents would have more children. Her parents’ marriage had created quite a scandal, a profound clash of philosophical extremes; for her father was the Master of the Mountain, a brigand and sorcerer, who had carried the Saint of the World off to his high fortress. It’s bad enough when a living goddess, who can heal the sick and raise the dead, takes up with a professional dark lord (black armor, monstrous armies, and all). But when they settle down together with every intention of raising a family, what are respectable people to think?

Capsule: A delightful story; whimsy delicately balanced with human insight. The tone, as should be made pretty apparent by the opening paragraph, is humorous, and while the narrative has a great deal of fun with fantasy tropes, and sometimes manages to sidestep them even while engaging them (!), it's never condescending or overtly satirical, and doesn't lose its focus. Kage Baker has crafted a fine, warm coming-of-age story with rich characters and lovely imagery. I'm not the biggest fan of fantasy, in general, but this mature tale won me over. A lot of fun.

LRSF #1 - Clockmaker's Requiem, Barth Anderson

LRSF = Locus Recommended Short Fiction, which I'll be using going forward in the post titles.


Opening: Krina nudged her clock, and it crept up her long neck, closer to her ear, tiny claws tickling. "Left. Left again," it whispered. "Forward." Read more...

Capsule: This story provides a highly entertaining and thought-provoking musing on one of my favorite sf themes, time, and the nature of its subjectivity/objectivity. Stylish writing. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions and metaphors of non-technological elements, which lent a mythological feel to the story's universe: water, light, shadows, etc. There was some beautiful continuity in a metaphor to do with light. I think the strengths of this story are the central conceit, the attention to detail and the elegance in the plot-driven, psychologically rich telling. The characters come alive and their motivations are clear. Only potential deduction: We do get told why what's going to happen is a bad thing several times, in different ways--this could be seen as heightening the dramatic tension through repetition, but might instead come across as diminishing dramatic suspense through overstatement.

Locus Recommended Short Fiction

The Feb issue of Locus contains the Year in Review feature (plus a ton of other great stuff) and the 2007 Recommended Reading List.

I've decided to start working my way through the 57 recommended short stories (which, for those of you too lazy to click on the above link, I've included below). The idea is to read a story and write a brief blog entry on it. Bring on the caffeine!

Short Stories:
"Clockmaker's Requiem", Barth Anderson (Clarkesworld 3/07)
"The Ruby Incomparable", Kage Baker (Wizards)
"Last Contact", Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
"Barrens Dancing", Peter S. Beagle (Wizards)
"The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French", Peter S. Beagle (Eclipse One)
"Orm the Beautiful", Elizabeth Bear (Clarkesworld 1/07)
"Tideline", Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's 4-5/07)
"Pirates of the Somali Coast", Terry Bisson (Subterranean 10/07)
"The Coat of Stars", Holly Black (So Fey)
"Paper Cuts Scissors", Holly Black (Realms of Fantasy 10/07)
"Among Strangers", Pat Cadigan (disLOCATIONS)
"Café Culture", Jack Dann (Asimov's 1/07)
"Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse", Andy Duncan (Eclipse One)
"The Dreaming Wind", Jeffrey Ford (The Coyote Road)
"The Drowned Life", Jeffrey Ford (Eclipse One)
"The Manticore Spell", Jeffrey Ford (Wizards)
"Under the Bottom of the Lake", Jeffrey Ford (Subterranean 10/07)
"Always", Karen Joy Fowler (Asimov's 4-5/07)
"Electric Rains", Kathleen Ann Goonan (Eclipse One)
"Catherine and the Satyr", Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons 10/07)
"Singing of Mount Abora", Theodora Goss (Logorrhea)
"Dead Horse Point", Daryl Gregory (Asimov's 8/07)
"Unpossible", Daryl Gregory (F&SF 10-11/07)
"Soul Case", Nalo Hopkinson (Foundation Summer '07)
"Saving Tiamat", Gwyneth Jones (The New Space Opera)
"The Tomb Wife", Gwyneth Jones (F&SF 8/07)
"Graduation Afternoon", Stephen King (Postscripts Spring '07)
"Save Me Plz", David Barr Kirtley (Realms of Fantasy 10/07)
"Mrs. Zeno's Paradox", Ellen Klages (Eclipse One)
"Art of War", Nancy Kress (The New Space Opera)
"By Fools Like Me", Nancy Kress (Asimov's 9/07)
"C-Rock City", Jay Lake & Greg Van Eekhout (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
"Jesus Christ, Reanimator", Ken MacLeod (Fast Forward 1)
"Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?", Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera)
"Osama Phone Home", David Marusek (MIT Technology Review 3-4/07)
"Sanjeev and Robotwallah", Ian McDonald (Fast Forward 1)
"Verthandi's Ring", Ian McDonald (The New Space Opera)
"The Lost Boy: A Reporter at Large", Maureen F. McHugh (Eclipse One)
"Fragrant Goddess", Paul Park (F&SF 10-11/07)
"Three Days of Rain", Holly Phillips (Asimov's 6/07)
"Artifice and Intelligence", Tim Pratt (Strange Horizons 8/6/07)
"Magic with Thirteen-Year-Old Boys", Robert Reed (F&SF 3/07)
"Holiday", M. Rickert (Subterranean 10/07)
"Memoir of a Deer Woman", M. Rickert (F&SF 3/07)
"Molly and the Red Hat", Benjamin Rosenbaum (Interzone 10/07)
"Stray", Benjamin Rosenbaum & David Ackert (F&SF 12/07)
"Objective Impermeability in a Closed System", William Shunn (An Alternate History of the 21st Century)
"Strangers on a Bus", Jack Skillingstead (Asimov's 12/07)
"A Trade in Serpents", Alan Smale (Realms of Fantasy 8/07)
"Stone and the Librarian", William Browning Spencer (F&SF 2/07)
"The Lustration", Bruce Sterling (Eclipse One)
"A Plain Tale from Our Hills", Bruce Sterling (Subterranean Spring '07)
"A Small Room in Koboldtown", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's 4-5/07)
"The Third Bear", Jeff VanderMeer (Clarkesworld 4/07)
"The Surgeon's Tale", Jeff VanderMeer & Cat Rambo (Subterranean Winter '07)
"The Great White Bed", Don Webb (F&SF 5/07)
"Abigail and Chang", Harvey Welles & Philip Raines (Challenging Destiny 8/07)

Cherry Cola

Writing update: Finished a new short story this week, 4,500 words in length. It relies on a somewhat fantastical element and is darker speculative fiction than any of my previous stories. After a couple of edits throughout the week I sent it out. I'm happier with this tale than any other in recent memory.

I also discovered a story I'd written back in 2003, the concept of which wasn't completely unappealing...so I went back and completely re-wrote it, slashing almost 500 words and adding a number of new details. Since no-one originally saw this piece and every line is different, I don't feel like a terrible person by counting it as a new work (albeit one with a very long gestation period!). Still needs some more editing before I submit it.

So, on the writing front, during '08:

• I've written three new stories.
• Nineteen submissions.
• Twelve rejections.
• One sale.

I think this entitles me to a cherry cola. On we march.

Documentary Attack!

I watched some tasty documentaries over the last week and thought I'd share them with y'all.

In no particular order of rollickin' awesomeness:

Discovery Channel - Understanding Time. Very well-produced, funny, slick, and actually of substance (or as much substance as you can have when you're dealing with something as weightless as time). I really enjoyed the unusually flippant tone of this documentary. In one sequence, after a physicist has been hypothesizing about wormholes etc, the narrator's voice-over literally takes over and pokes gentle fun: "Suppose we had a wormhole. Suppose that..." and she goes on. Then suddenly she says, "Suppose we saw Elvis." Awesomely stupendous!

National Geographic - The Life and Legend of Jane Goodall. Fascinating subject matter. Some choice historical footage, interspersed with interviews, explores this complex, brave, heroic, unconventional, iconic and compassionate scientist's life and her thirty year's work studying and understanding chimps.

National Geographic - Marco Polo, the China Mystery Revealed. Blah. Modern day photographer, an amiable enough guy, sets out to follow the route that Marco Polo describes in his famous book, a journey Marco Polo may have in fact never made. Arguments for and against the historical verisimilitude of Marky's travels are sometimes interesting, sometimes trivial-- and the fact that there is no surviving original copy of his text basically means his book can't be considered an authoritative reference, one way or another, casting this whole enterprise into the land of escapism. The photographer-host-dude is clearly having a good time as he visits the various places--but what's up with this guy's libido?? Pretty hilarious actually! Just about every town he visits he's saying something like "Oooh, some attractive women there" or "Let's check out some of the local beauties" etc. Worth watching just for that, but don't expect much compelling entertainment.

No Maps For These Territories. Must watch. (And if you like U2, even more, since it features The Edge and Bono). William Gibson, noted author, is driven around the country in a limousine with no destination, talking, talking. Conversation touches on just about everything. Some great moments have been captured in the corresponding section of http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson.

This quote from the above is priceless:

"I think of religions as franchise operations. Like chicken franchise operations. But that doesn't mean there's no chicken, right?"

And I really liked this one too, which I'll leave you to ruminate:

"All any drug amounts to is tweaking the incoming data. You have to be incredibly self-centered or pathetic to be satisfied with simply tweaking the incoming data."

My First Published Story

I made my first fiction sale!!

Earlier this week my short story "The Filigree" was accepted by on-line science-fiction publication Atomjack Magazine, and it has just been e-published in Issue 9, the February 2008 issue!

This is a thrilling experience and I'm delighted to be able to share the story with everyone. It may be found and ingested for free at:

"The Filigree"

I would love for you to read it leave your comments here or let me know what you think in some fashion. I really do hope you enjoy it!!