By the way, as I write this it is Srinivasa Ramanujan's birthday (December 22).
Ramanujan, as not-nearly-enough people know, was an amazingly intuitive, brilliant mathematician, whose tragically short life makes a remarkable story. One anecdote that illustrates the kind of observation he would just casually throw off now and then concerns the number 1729, now known as Ramanujan's number, which happened to be the number of a taxicab his friend and fellow mathematician G. H. Hardy took to visit him in the hospital one day. Apparently the pair were fond of working out "interesting" facts about numbers they randomly encountered, because Hardy mentioned 1729 to Ramanujan and added that he hadn't been able to think of anything particularly interesting about it.
Ramanujan at once countered that it was, in fact, a very interesting number, being the smallest number that is the sum of two squares in two different ways.
His insight was correct, as it often was (though not always): 1729 is 10 cubed plus 9 cubed (1000 + 729), and also 12 cubed plus 1 cubed (1728 + 1).
I actually make very brief passing reference to this anecdote in a story of mine that has been accepted into one of the upcoming Superversive Planetary anthologies, which I'll be writing more about later.
Meanwhile, here is a slightly curious fact relating Ramanujan's number to the coming new year, 2019, that AFAIK no one in the world is aware of, except me, and now you (if you're the first one to read this post, and to get this far... which is pretty likely). If you take the 14th root of 1729, and add 5, and raise the result to the 4th power, you get VERY close to 2019. Within about one-one hundredth, as I recall from when I worked it out. Plugging 1729 into this works better than either 1728 or 1730, too.
It also happens that 1729 to the power 6/7 (that is, raised to the sixth power and then extracting the seventh root) is quite close to the whole number 596.
Another original-with-me curiosity of modest interest: If you raise 12 to the 3rd power and add one, then of course you get 1729. But if you add one to 12 and then raise to the 3rd power (that is, take the cube of 13), you get 2197, which is a palindrome of 1729. There's another number smaller than 12 that has this property, that if you cube-and-add-one or add-one-and-cube you get two numbers that are palindromes: can you find it? As I recall there are several more such numbers, at least one of them below 100, and a few more below 2000.
Ah, well. Enjoy Ramanujan's Birthday!
Science fiction and fantasy author, published for the first time in 2017. Also into recreational math, chess variants, puzzles, doggerel.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
What's new in our corner of SFF
I want to start doing more blogging going forward, and less wasting time on media like Twitter (where I've recently joined the growing throng who have deleted their accounts). So after a long hiatus from Tarquin the Humble, it seems good to return with a quick roundup of some of what's new in "our" corner of the science fiction and fantasy (SFF) genre, whatever we're calling ourselves these days--the readers and writers who hope to enjoy speculative fiction as it used to be, focused on fun, inspiration, imagination, and the celebration of humanity, human achievement, human potential, and all that. You know, like the Sad Puppies, or PulpRev, or NobleBright. The Inklings, Chesterton, Dunsany, Merritt, John C. Wright, etc.
John C Wright has had a successful funder for a new series, STARQUEST, to be published by Superversive Press, and aimed at being a space opera of the sort that would not have disappointed Star Wars fans. AFAIK there's no projected publication date yet; if you know better, there's a comment section.
Out already are the first two books of Declan Finn's new Saint Tommy, NYPD series. Declan, of course, is the author of the Honor at Stake series, the Pius Man series, and wrote a terrific story in the underappreciated Tales of the Once and Future King , the anthology where (ahem) you can find one of my stories. Declan is also an editor in an upcoming Superversive Press anthology where another of my stories is slated to appear, which I'll be blogging more about later. So far I've only read the first Saint Tommy book, and I would recommend it heartily, as I did in my Amazon review.
If we really want to influence the course of SFF, how would we go about it? I recall reading in Frederick Pohl's autobiography that someone asked him a question around 1950 about how to get more or better writers for one of the pulp magazines, or something like that--sorry, my copy is in a box someplace--but what struck me was less the question than his answer, which for a leftist like Pohl was quite astute. He said simply, "Pay more." If I had a fortune at my fingers, that would be my strategy: I'd start about 20 monthly fiction magazines, priced low, that would each publish about 70,000 words each issue of fun, uplifting, religion-positive (or at least religion-neutral) SFF, mysteries, westerns, romances ... and I would pay the authors 15 cents a word.
That would do it, I think. Authors would look at that market, and instead of trying to get into Asimov's or Analog or F&SF would aim first at this market. The whole writing market would change as a result. Granted, I'd have to be ready to lose millions while the reading public shifts; but for those millions I'd get a wholesome change in the whole culture.
Could a market support fiction magazines paying that much? Actually, as a fascinating post at Emperor's Notepad reveals, the market once did. If you think the pulps underpaid the authors, go read that post. Actually go read it if you're interested in the history of SFF at all.
Misha Burnett, author of the Book of Lost Doors series, has been turning his attention to shorter fiction this year, and has a good blog post on his experiences also. I'm personally interested in short fiction markets because I have several ideas for short stories I want to get written in the near future; a few more short stories and then start adding some work on novels to the mix. Burnett also has a good story in the just-released (good bargain!) Utopia Pending anthology.
I'm going to have to do another roundup soon because there's so much going on in "our corner of SFF" (we really need to come up with a name).
John C Wright has had a successful funder for a new series, STARQUEST, to be published by Superversive Press, and aimed at being a space opera of the sort that would not have disappointed Star Wars fans. AFAIK there's no projected publication date yet; if you know better, there's a comment section.
Out already are the first two books of Declan Finn's new Saint Tommy, NYPD series. Declan, of course, is the author of the Honor at Stake series, the Pius Man series, and wrote a terrific story in the underappreciated Tales of the Once and Future King , the anthology where (ahem) you can find one of my stories. Declan is also an editor in an upcoming Superversive Press anthology where another of my stories is slated to appear, which I'll be blogging more about later. So far I've only read the first Saint Tommy book, and I would recommend it heartily, as I did in my Amazon review.
If we really want to influence the course of SFF, how would we go about it? I recall reading in Frederick Pohl's autobiography that someone asked him a question around 1950 about how to get more or better writers for one of the pulp magazines, or something like that--sorry, my copy is in a box someplace--but what struck me was less the question than his answer, which for a leftist like Pohl was quite astute. He said simply, "Pay more." If I had a fortune at my fingers, that would be my strategy: I'd start about 20 monthly fiction magazines, priced low, that would each publish about 70,000 words each issue of fun, uplifting, religion-positive (or at least religion-neutral) SFF, mysteries, westerns, romances ... and I would pay the authors 15 cents a word.
That would do it, I think. Authors would look at that market, and instead of trying to get into Asimov's or Analog or F&SF would aim first at this market. The whole writing market would change as a result. Granted, I'd have to be ready to lose millions while the reading public shifts; but for those millions I'd get a wholesome change in the whole culture.
Could a market support fiction magazines paying that much? Actually, as a fascinating post at Emperor's Notepad reveals, the market once did. If you think the pulps underpaid the authors, go read that post. Actually go read it if you're interested in the history of SFF at all.
Misha Burnett, author of the Book of Lost Doors series, has been turning his attention to shorter fiction this year, and has a good blog post on his experiences also. I'm personally interested in short fiction markets because I have several ideas for short stories I want to get written in the near future; a few more short stories and then start adding some work on novels to the mix. Burnett also has a good story in the just-released (good bargain!) Utopia Pending anthology.
I'm going to have to do another roundup soon because there's so much going on in "our corner of SFF" (we really need to come up with a name).
Friday, September 28, 2018
Spelling mnemonic
I before E,
Except after C,
Or when sounded as A
As in “neighbor” and “weigh”;
Or in “counterfeit”, or in
A word such as “foreign”;
Or when rhyming with “iced tea”
In words such as “feisty”;
Or things found in a bean
Like “protein” and “caffeine”;
Or in names from Westmeath
Such as “Deirdre” and “Keith”;
Or in “leisure”, to keep us from taking a breather,
And lest we forget about “either” and “neither”;
Or in words that describe something that might be feared,
Such as “kaleidoscopic”, “heinous” and “weird”;
Or borrowings got from the land of the Rhine,
Like “gesundheit” and “leitmotif”, “zeitgeist” and “stein”;
Or in “sheik”, “vein”, “reveille”, “heifer”, or “seize”;
But, apart from these few, put your I’s before E’s.
Except after C,
Or when sounded as A
As in “neighbor” and “weigh”;
Or in “counterfeit”, or in
A word such as “foreign”;
Or when rhyming with “iced tea”
In words such as “feisty”;
Or things found in a bean
Like “protein” and “caffeine”;
Or in names from Westmeath
Such as “Deirdre” and “Keith”;
Or in “leisure”, to keep us from taking a breather,
And lest we forget about “either” and “neither”;
Or in words that describe something that might be feared,
Such as “kaleidoscopic”, “heinous” and “weird”;
Or borrowings got from the land of the Rhine,
Like “gesundheit” and “leitmotif”, “zeitgeist” and “stein”;
Or in “sheik”, “vein”, “reveille”, “heifer”, or “seize”;
But, apart from these few, put your I’s before E’s.
Saturday, September 8, 2018
HEROES FALL by Morgon Newquist
Silver Empire, the rising small publisher of some fine SFF titles (see my mini-reviews here and here), is embarking on an exciting new project in the superhero fiction arena: Heroes Unleashed, a series of superhero novels by various authors all set in a common universe. (The link goes to a Kickstarter campaign that runs to Tuesday, so you can still get in on the ground floor.) So far there are five authors with novels in the pipeline, nearly ready for press, and I had the privilege of seeing a draft of the first of them—SERENITY CITY: HEROES FALL, by Morgon Newquist, a fast-paced, enthralling novel that fills in the reader on some of the tantalizing hints from her previous Serenity City stories (“Blackout”, which you can read in PARAGONS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF SUPERHEROES, and “The Gala”, which appears in HA! HA! HA: A SUPERVILLAIN ANTHOLOGY), while leaving plenty to look forward to in future installments.
Amatopia has an excellent review of HEROES FALL here, on which my meager reviewing powers cannot improve. I’ll just add a couple points of appreciation for this book: I loved how Serenity City itself gets more and more fleshed out as a backdrop for the action. The run-down Greycoast where amateur superheroine Victoria Westerdale (no supername for this unpretentious young lady) defends the underdogs with whom she sympathizes and identifies, and also the location of the abandoned Silver Coast Laboratories, where the mysterious Event that turned so many ordinary people into Primes with superpowers took place decades ago. Rhiannon Park, with its 20-foot-tall statues of two of the city’s great superheroes, dedicated by the still rather mysterious Riley Hirsch: who had erected no statue to her own father, the third superhero of the legendary Triumvirate. Northmill Heights Penitentiary, where Achilles, that third, is now incarcerated, following his Rampage of twenty years ago. The Argall Manor house where Riley, heiress to Rhiannon Argall’s fortune, began her life. The Fina Hill Cemetery, which—like so much in this book—turns out to have rather more in it than appears at first glance. As I got to know Serenity City I found myself wanting to see more of it, and more of the spots I know and like already. Seems like this bodes well for the series.
One of the circumstances that make Serenity City seem more real, and more intriguing, is there’s a lot about the superheroes that is not public knowledge: and not only points connected with their secret identities. Twenty years after Achilles’s Rampage, no one knows what really happened to trigger it. No one really understands what Pendragon’s superpower is, or how the supervillain Blackout was killed, or whence came Thanatos (his successor in supervillainy, who seems to have appeared about the time Blackout exited… hmmm, I wonder…), or what really motivates him to induce superheroes to their own destruction. Some of these things we find out in the course of the book, some may remain forever unclear; in a way it’s like real life, where we never get the answers to questions like what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, or who wrote the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times this past week, or how Harry Reid got so rich as a U.S. Senator. Why would we expect superheroes to make detailed information about their own challenges or limitation common knowledge?
Victoria Westerdale herself is an awesome character. She’s superstrong but not supertough, so superheroics carry serious risk for her. But she carries on in the most thankless job that Serenity City offers for a superhero, protecting the people least able to repay her, sacrificing the rewards of a normal life merely from her own sense of personal responsibility as the steward of her powers. The choice she makes at the climax of the book is both surprising and natural for her, and marks her transition to a new life as a mature superheroine. I’m eager to read more of her adventures.
Did I mention that this series has a Kickstarter campaign going? It still has a couple days left as I write this. It's fully funded (since about 11 hours into the campaign!), and as you can guess, I think it's highly worthwhile.
I’ve heard talk that someone may be working with Silver Empire on some kind of comic book version of these novels: I’m mainly a novel reader, but I’d be interested in those.
Amatopia has an excellent review of HEROES FALL here, on which my meager reviewing powers cannot improve. I’ll just add a couple points of appreciation for this book: I loved how Serenity City itself gets more and more fleshed out as a backdrop for the action. The run-down Greycoast where amateur superheroine Victoria Westerdale (no supername for this unpretentious young lady) defends the underdogs with whom she sympathizes and identifies, and also the location of the abandoned Silver Coast Laboratories, where the mysterious Event that turned so many ordinary people into Primes with superpowers took place decades ago. Rhiannon Park, with its 20-foot-tall statues of two of the city’s great superheroes, dedicated by the still rather mysterious Riley Hirsch: who had erected no statue to her own father, the third superhero of the legendary Triumvirate. Northmill Heights Penitentiary, where Achilles, that third, is now incarcerated, following his Rampage of twenty years ago. The Argall Manor house where Riley, heiress to Rhiannon Argall’s fortune, began her life. The Fina Hill Cemetery, which—like so much in this book—turns out to have rather more in it than appears at first glance. As I got to know Serenity City I found myself wanting to see more of it, and more of the spots I know and like already. Seems like this bodes well for the series.
One of the circumstances that make Serenity City seem more real, and more intriguing, is there’s a lot about the superheroes that is not public knowledge: and not only points connected with their secret identities. Twenty years after Achilles’s Rampage, no one knows what really happened to trigger it. No one really understands what Pendragon’s superpower is, or how the supervillain Blackout was killed, or whence came Thanatos (his successor in supervillainy, who seems to have appeared about the time Blackout exited… hmmm, I wonder…), or what really motivates him to induce superheroes to their own destruction. Some of these things we find out in the course of the book, some may remain forever unclear; in a way it’s like real life, where we never get the answers to questions like what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, or who wrote the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times this past week, or how Harry Reid got so rich as a U.S. Senator. Why would we expect superheroes to make detailed information about their own challenges or limitation common knowledge?
Victoria Westerdale herself is an awesome character. She’s superstrong but not supertough, so superheroics carry serious risk for her. But she carries on in the most thankless job that Serenity City offers for a superhero, protecting the people least able to repay her, sacrificing the rewards of a normal life merely from her own sense of personal responsibility as the steward of her powers. The choice she makes at the climax of the book is both surprising and natural for her, and marks her transition to a new life as a mature superheroine. I’m eager to read more of her adventures.
Did I mention that this series has a Kickstarter campaign going? It still has a couple days left as I write this. It's fully funded (since about 11 hours into the campaign!), and as you can guess, I think it's highly worthwhile.
I’ve heard talk that someone may be working with Silver Empire on some kind of comic book version of these novels: I’m mainly a novel reader, but I’d be interested in those.
Monday, September 3, 2018
Who owns a grassroots movement?
This is one of those questions that answers itself: nobody, obviously. The whole point of a "grassroots" movement is that it grows up from millions of separate roots, like grass, when there's a feeling throughout a wide section of a population that they need some new direction. It may have figureheads to rally behind, but they aren't the driving force of the movement, and they don't have any kind of authority over it. If they try to lead it in a direction apart from the general consensus, they'll fail.
Literary movements, like the Sad Puppies movement or the more recent ComicsGate movement, have this character as well. If they're destined to amount to anything, it's because there is a broad market being unserved by the established purveyors of their respective forms of literature: science fiction and fantasy, in the case of the Sad Puppies, or comics for ComicsGate. The existence of unserved markets is beyond dispute. Their size and interest is being tested by the creators aiming (like me, as an old Sad Puppy) to produce work we think will prosper. If the enemies of these movements are right, we who try to produce for this market will have little success. If we don't do a good enough job at producing or marketing we may have little success anyway, but the vehement and active opposition to both Sad Puppies and ComicsGate suggest that their opponents suspect the markets for such work are indeed out there, and success is possible.
Another way a grassroots movement, or at least its brand, can fail, is for some of its figureheads to get too puffed-up about their own importance. At the time a couple years ago when Sarah Hoyt tried to leverage her own role in starting out the Sad Puppies movement into ownership of the (untrademarked) name, there were a great many fans who called themselves Sad Puppies based on general sympathy with the ideas it represented. It was a grassroots movement; it meant different things to different people, but all of them had a general dissatisfaction with a direction SFF publishing had taken and wanted something new.
But then Hoyt wrote her blog post, sternly dissing a younger author of growing prominence to Sad Puppy fans, who had dared to publish his own set of recommendations for Hugo nominations using Sad Puppies in the title (you know, so people looking for Sad Puppy information could find it).
And she killed the movement. Suddenly it wasn't fun anymore. Suddenly everyone realized that calling yourself a Sad Puppy wasn't just something you could do casually, and define it yourself, and no one would care much: now it implied taking sides in a dispute--and against someone people liked.
Now ComicsGate looks like it's about to swirl down the same toilet. Vox Day has started a comic book imprint called ComicsGate: I presume he took the trouble of trademarking it before making the announcement. Ethan Van Sciver strongly objects to "his" hashtag being used by a figure he (and many others) strongly dislikes.
Now, I'm not a comics fan of long standing, but am growing more interested in the new voices in the medium; I supported the Alt-Hero comics, and some others, and rather look forward to seeing what they come up with. I see this as part of the movement to reclaim fantastic literature from the bleak, antihuman, antireligious nihilism into which it fell toward the end of the 20th century. But I read with sadness the same recriminations tearing ComicsGate today that sundered Sad Puppies a few years ago: the bitter invective thrown between the anti-Vox Day side and the pro-Vox Day side.
And I suppose the result will be that in their desire to claim the name of ComicsGate for their own, the two factions will turn it into something neither side will have any use for. There are pro-Vox parties "disavowing" ComicsGate, because they're upset with Mr. Van Sciver; which will make Vox's ComicsGate imprint worthless. Swell.
The consolation is that, with or without a name, the movement continues: the unserved markets are still there, and creators will continue their efforts to serve them. The grass continues to grow from its roots, perennially.
My own first effort was the story, "The Kings of the Corona", now close to its publication anniversary in TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. It got some good reviews on Amazon!
Literary movements, like the Sad Puppies movement or the more recent ComicsGate movement, have this character as well. If they're destined to amount to anything, it's because there is a broad market being unserved by the established purveyors of their respective forms of literature: science fiction and fantasy, in the case of the Sad Puppies, or comics for ComicsGate. The existence of unserved markets is beyond dispute. Their size and interest is being tested by the creators aiming (like me, as an old Sad Puppy) to produce work we think will prosper. If the enemies of these movements are right, we who try to produce for this market will have little success. If we don't do a good enough job at producing or marketing we may have little success anyway, but the vehement and active opposition to both Sad Puppies and ComicsGate suggest that their opponents suspect the markets for such work are indeed out there, and success is possible.
Another way a grassroots movement, or at least its brand, can fail, is for some of its figureheads to get too puffed-up about their own importance. At the time a couple years ago when Sarah Hoyt tried to leverage her own role in starting out the Sad Puppies movement into ownership of the (untrademarked) name, there were a great many fans who called themselves Sad Puppies based on general sympathy with the ideas it represented. It was a grassroots movement; it meant different things to different people, but all of them had a general dissatisfaction with a direction SFF publishing had taken and wanted something new.
But then Hoyt wrote her blog post, sternly dissing a younger author of growing prominence to Sad Puppy fans, who had dared to publish his own set of recommendations for Hugo nominations using Sad Puppies in the title (you know, so people looking for Sad Puppy information could find it).
And she killed the movement. Suddenly it wasn't fun anymore. Suddenly everyone realized that calling yourself a Sad Puppy wasn't just something you could do casually, and define it yourself, and no one would care much: now it implied taking sides in a dispute--and against someone people liked.
Now ComicsGate looks like it's about to swirl down the same toilet. Vox Day has started a comic book imprint called ComicsGate: I presume he took the trouble of trademarking it before making the announcement. Ethan Van Sciver strongly objects to "his" hashtag being used by a figure he (and many others) strongly dislikes.
Now, I'm not a comics fan of long standing, but am growing more interested in the new voices in the medium; I supported the Alt-Hero comics, and some others, and rather look forward to seeing what they come up with. I see this as part of the movement to reclaim fantastic literature from the bleak, antihuman, antireligious nihilism into which it fell toward the end of the 20th century. But I read with sadness the same recriminations tearing ComicsGate today that sundered Sad Puppies a few years ago: the bitter invective thrown between the anti-Vox Day side and the pro-Vox Day side.
And I suppose the result will be that in their desire to claim the name of ComicsGate for their own, the two factions will turn it into something neither side will have any use for. There are pro-Vox parties "disavowing" ComicsGate, because they're upset with Mr. Van Sciver; which will make Vox's ComicsGate imprint worthless. Swell.
The consolation is that, with or without a name, the movement continues: the unserved markets are still there, and creators will continue their efforts to serve them. The grass continues to grow from its roots, perennially.
My own first effort was the story, "The Kings of the Corona", now close to its publication anniversary in TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. It got some good reviews on Amazon!
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
Gatekeeping
Is what WorldCon employed!
Larry saw
The Hugos were all devoid
Of any but
Token picks.
And it sticks
Politics
In the mix.
Schadenfreude!
So much Schadenfreude!
Puppies picked
Good books that we
All enjoyed...
But No-Award
Was given, just to avoid
Our nasty con-
Tagion!
So we moved on.
We’ve all gone
To DragonCon.
Schadenfreude!
Darling, Schadenfreude!
That WorldCon is
So damn paranoid!
Del Arroz
Considered a Polaroid...
But they were too
Scared if Jon
Put camera on
Goings-on
At their con...
Schadenfreude!
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
All the times
WorldCon has annoyed!
Signaling
Their virtue was unalloyed!
But anyway,
Here’s the twist:
A panelist
That they missed
“E” feels dissed!
Schadenfreude!
Darling, Schadenfreude!
Hugo nom’s
They’re admitting no one enjoyed!
Now the swarm
Has their own con destroyed!
Watch them as they
All drop out!
And scream and shout!
No more clout!
What a rout!
(Fade out)
Schadenfreude!
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Darling, Schadenfreude!
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
Gatekeeping
Is what WorldCon employed!
Larry saw
The Hugos were all devoid
Of any but
Token picks.
And it sticks
Politics
In the mix.
Schadenfreude!
So much Schadenfreude!
Puppies picked
Good books that we
All enjoyed...
But No-Award
Was given, just to avoid
Our nasty con-
Tagion!
So we moved on.
We’ve all gone
To DragonCon.
Schadenfreude!
Darling, Schadenfreude!
That WorldCon is
So damn paranoid!
Del Arroz
Considered a Polaroid...
But they were too
Scared if Jon
Put camera on
Goings-on
At their con...
Schadenfreude!
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
All the times
WorldCon has annoyed!
Signaling
Their virtue was unalloyed!
But anyway,
Here’s the twist:
A panelist
That they missed
“E” feels dissed!
Schadenfreude!
Darling, Schadenfreude!
Hugo nom’s
They’re admitting no one enjoyed!
Now the swarm
Has their own con destroyed!
Watch them as they
All drop out!
And scream and shout!
No more clout!
What a rout!
(Fade out)
Schadenfreude!
Oh, the Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Darling, Schadenfreude!
Monday, June 4, 2018
Is the cake SCOTUS baked narrow—or deep?
Everyone’s saying today’s Supreme Court ruling is a “narrow ruling”. It was 7-2 but they mean narrow in impact, tailored to the circumstances in Colorado’s egregious treatment of this baker.
But as I read it (not being a lawyer) they’re pretty clearly saying that if the state tells a Christian baker he has to bake a pro-same sex marriage cake for a customer, then that state must also tell a pro-same sex marriage baker he has to bake an anti-same-sex-marriage cake for a customer. That sounds significant to me.
It makes me want to go find a foofoo bakery and order an anti-same-sex-marriage cake, just to see what they do; and report them to authorities if they refuse. Hopefully folks are thinking the same thing in all fifty states.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_new_d1of.pdf
It makes me want to go find a foofoo bakery and order an anti-same-sex-marriage cake, just to see what they do; and report them to authorities if they refuse. Hopefully folks are thinking the same thing in all fifty states.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_new_d1of.pdf
One of these day Ginsberg will leave the Court, and the next ruling on an issue like this is likely to give clearer direction.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Crystal, Brass, and Copper by Matthew X. Gomez
I'm reading Storyhack #2 during sessions on the exercise bike these days and enjoying everything in it so far. This magazine is a great asset to the PulpRev movement.
Not all of it is SFF but today's story, "Crystal, Brass, and Copper", by Matthew X. Gomez, is a fantasy in a magical Caliphate setting. Bahar and her brother are sneak-thieves who imprudently decide one night to rob a powerful wizard, who turns out to be better prepared than they expected; soon she's in the hands of an alchemist like a steampunk mad scientist, and must find a way to keep herself and her brother safe from powerful enemies.
Besides being a gripping short story, CB and C would be a good chapter one in a short novel about these characters.
Not all of it is SFF but today's story, "Crystal, Brass, and Copper", by Matthew X. Gomez, is a fantasy in a magical Caliphate setting. Bahar and her brother are sneak-thieves who imprudently decide one night to rob a powerful wizard, who turns out to be better prepared than they expected; soon she's in the hands of an alchemist like a steampunk mad scientist, and must find a way to keep herself and her brother safe from powerful enemies.
Besides being a gripping short story, CB and C would be a good chapter one in a short novel about these characters.
Little joke
Reading: Prospero Regained, by L Jagi Lamplighter; The Ship of Ishtar, by A. Merritt; Behind That Curtain, by Earl Derr Biggers.
Writing: “Social Skills” (working title), a short story that will probably come to 8000 words. Submitted a story for the Superversive Press Planetary: Luna anthology, still waiting to hear... it seems they were blessed with loads of submissions.
Christopher Lansdown (author of THE DEAN DIED OVER WINTER BREAK, good book and love that title) tweeted something about determinists that got me thinking about this old joke. Or maybe it’s a new joke that already sounds old, not sure...
A Calvinist, a Baptist, a High Church Anglican, an Episcopalian, and a Catholic walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What’ll it be?”
The Calvinist says “God only knows.” The Baptist says “Give me a minute, the choice is irrevocable.” The High Church Anglican points at the Catholic and says “I’ll have whatever he’s having. But not because he’s having it, mind.” The Episcopalian points at the Catholic and says “I’ll have the opposite of what he’s having.” The Catholic says, “I’ll have the usual, Scott. How’s your sciatica today?”
The Calvinist says “God only knows.” The Baptist says “Give me a minute, the choice is irrevocable.” The High Church Anglican points at the Catholic and says “I’ll have whatever he’s having. But not because he’s having it, mind.” The Episcopalian points at the Catholic and says “I’ll have the opposite of what he’s having.” The Catholic says, “I’ll have the usual, Scott. How’s your sciatica today?”
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Banned from Facebook!
On Monday it turned out I couldn't log in to my Facebook account anymore. I tried resetting the password, but to confirm my identity it said it would send a code to my phone, and it never did. I tried a few times with no success. Since a lot of people are being banned nowadays, I wonder if my account might have suffered the same fate? It gives me a warm, proud feeling to imagine that I was banned for trespassing against FB content-based censorship, so I'm going to go with that assumption.
That leaves the question of why I'd get banned, especially now. About the last thing I posted on FB was a link to this story, "The Thirtieth Amendment", a bit of science fiction flash fiction I dashed off lately. It's topical in that I make the gun-control proponent a young numbskull, though the real concept of the story isn't tied to the gun issue in particular. As I see it, it's more about the way strident politics is splitting our society into partisan factions that would rather separate than come to a compromise, and the likely result of allowing the most intolerant elements to leave and set up their own separate "safe space".
It ain't Shakespeare, but would such a story get me banned? Maybe. One thing that makes the Left so prickly, I believe, is their belief that they are "on the side of History": in other words, they take it for granted that the future belongs to them by rights. This is why so many on the Left have descended into gibbering madness at the election of Donald Trump, as so many did also at the election of George W. Bush. They can't stand the thought that their way of looking at things might lose.
And this in turn is why writing and reading science fiction that presents our vision of the future is so key: because the Left has been cranking out theirs for decades, and has taken enough control of publishers and networks and studios that the future where the Left has already won, where there are no more conservatives, no more libertarians, no more religious believers of any sort, but especially no Christians or Jews, or at least none whose religion is the most important part of their life: this becomes the standard way for many people to think about the future.
I don't mean that we should be writing "our own propaganda", that actively argues for our beliefs. I mean, unless we feel like doing that. But mainly, I mean that we should write stories where the future contains people who believe as we do, where religion is not presented as a ridiculous or despicable thing. As a dry little joke I once tweeted, "Oh, I remember this episode of Law and Order: it's the one where the fundamentalist Christians turn out to be the bad guys." I could multiply examples of the Leftward bias in SFF, but it hardly seems necessary... I remember, for instance, reading a story in one of the science fiction magazines set in a dystopian future where enemies of the state were taken off in police vans that the author called "ashcrofts", after a Republican then serving as attorney general. It was a completely gratuitous, unfair and unnecessary slam. Similar zingers, always aimed rightward, are what turned me off mainstream SFF for twenty years.
Simply writing stories that give religion, or businessmen, or patriots, or veterans, or conservatives, or Republicans a fair shake is mischievous enough to shake up the Left's monopoly.
And if they're set in the future--and if it turns out that conservative ideas have become the norm in the future--that's icing on the cake. Good stories with such backdrops are what I want to do as a writer.
I haven't tried getting back into Facebook. But it has given me an idea for a cartoon that I don't have the talent to draw. Perhaps someone else would care to. It goes like this:
First panel: Two guards in uniforms with the Facebook "f" on them are hustling a frightened-looking fellow forward, roughly holding an arm each, coming through an institutional corridor. There is a poster on the wall captioned "BIG ZUCKER IS WATCHING YOU", with Zuckerberg's face staring out. Word balloons: "That's enough out of you!" "It's off to Facebook Jail with you!" "B-but, guys, can't we talk about this?"
Second panel: They throw him through a barred door. "We don't have to explain anything to the likes of you!"
Third panel: They walk off laughing, the prisoner holding the bars, looking after them. Main word balloon: "W-wait! Wait! At least tell me--" Very small word balloon, from off to the right behind the bars, a musical note. A thought balloon with a question mark to the prisoner.
Fourth panel: The viewpoint pans far back to the right inside the "cell", and we see that it is not a cell at all: the "prisoner" is standing in an outside courtyard, open to the sidewalk and the street, where people are walking dogs, children are playing, etc. The prisoner is dumbfounded, his hands still on the bars of the door locked before him, which we now see leads to the inside of a prison.
Fifth panel: the viewpoint pans still further back and upward, and we see that the prison is a building shaped like a Facebook "f", and the "prisoner" is now running toward the street along the right crossbar.
Sixth panel: Back inside the jail, the two guards are intimidating another frightened person, who was just putting something up on a bulletin board, maybe with a heading like "New Facts About Benghazi!" Word balloons: "Hey, you! Yes, you! You better take that down if you know what's good for you!" "Yeah! You don't want to wind up in Facebook Jail like that other guy!"
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Nine Books
Minutes ago, Cedar Sanderson posted an interesting challenge on MeWe. (What, aren’t you on MeWe yet? Has the steady drip of revelations of malfeasance by the Twitter and Facebook people still not gotten to you? Well, please add me as a contact when you get around to joining.)
The challenge is simply: list the classic books you think people should read, and its occasion was a list at themanual.com which a commenter pointed out was “mostly crap”. I checked it out anyway, and found some of the proposals pretty odd. The listmaker was wise to save his suggestion of Joyce’s Ulysses till last, because I probably would have given up on him as soon as I saw it.
It so happens that I’ve finally begun the huge task of unpacking and organizing my books this past week, so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about literature lately. So here is a quickie list of seven books I think people who like reading fantasy and science fiction should read. Perhaps I’ll try to reread them all in the coming year: I haven’t been doing nearly enough rereading lately, and these are all old friends.
The Charwoman’s Shadow, by Lord Dunsany.
Winter’s Tales, by Isak Dinesen.
That Hideous Strength, by C. S. Lewis.
Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
The Worm Ouroboros, by E. R. Eddison.
The Odyssey, Homer.
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton.
The Castle, by Franz Kafka.
If you have suggestions of your own, please chime in. I always like to get comments.
The challenge is simply: list the classic books you think people should read, and its occasion was a list at themanual.com which a commenter pointed out was “mostly crap”. I checked it out anyway, and found some of the proposals pretty odd. The listmaker was wise to save his suggestion of Joyce’s Ulysses till last, because I probably would have given up on him as soon as I saw it.
It so happens that I’ve finally begun the huge task of unpacking and organizing my books this past week, so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about literature lately. So here is a quickie list of seven books I think people who like reading fantasy and science fiction should read. Perhaps I’ll try to reread them all in the coming year: I haven’t been doing nearly enough rereading lately, and these are all old friends.
The Charwoman’s Shadow, by Lord Dunsany.
Winter’s Tales, by Isak Dinesen.
That Hideous Strength, by C. S. Lewis.
Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
The Worm Ouroboros, by E. R. Eddison.
The Odyssey, Homer.
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton.
The Castle, by Franz Kafka.
If you have suggestions of your own, please chime in. I always like to get comments.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The Thirtieth Amendment
Someone (was it on one of the Superversive Press roundtables?) suggested that they do an anthology someday named MISTAKES WERE MADE. Even though as far as I know no one has definitely started work on it, this story I just wrote might fit in it.
I actually wrote it after a Tweet I put out last week sometime, describing the general idea at a high level. Jonathan Swift said of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS that once you think of the idea of big men and little men, the story practically wrote itself; this one has the same quality of following rather immediately from the basic concept.
Enjoy!
"The Thirtieth Amendment"
Larry Kellerman gritted his teeth as he listened to the youth sitting in his office. “I just feel like, if there were no guns, like, then everyone would be safe and stuff, you know?” the kid—his name was Nevish, Liam Nevish—said.
“I understand the idea,” the official said patiently. It was a pleasant office, decorated with dark-finished wood furnishings, and a lovely picture window looking over the park. The oil paintings were attractive portraits of famous people, representational art having come back into vogue even in government buildings in the last couple decades. Over his desk, he knew, was a motto of the Thirtieth Amendment in gold letters. Everything was designed to relax, but Kellerman always felt on edge with a client: largely, he thought, because the clients themselves seemed too calm about their purpose in coming for transference.
He drew in breath. “Well then, Mr. Nevish, you can certainly choose any alternity you prefer, and there are many that were founded with the intention of eliminating guns, some where that was the chief motivating principle, others where it was included in a menu of other policy choices. Actually, before we waste any time, let’s make sure of one thing: you are twenty-one, correct?”
“Yeah, I’m 21. Last fall.”
Damn, thought Kellerman. “Very good,” he said aloud. “And you wish to leave our time line, Alternity Zero, for another that was colonized by persons intending to eliminate guns, either entirely or from the citizenry, is that your idea?”
“Umm. Wait a minute, when you say ‘colonized’, does that mean the people already in the other worldline might have guns? How does that work?”
Great heavenly days. “No. There are no people native to any of the worldlines that we have designated for utopian alternity experiments, Mr. Nevish. The parameters our team sets up when we initialize a portal define a worldline that branched from Alternity Zero at a point twenty to thirty million years in the past, and in which human life never evolved. Nor any other intelligent life, nor any life elsewhere in the Solar System…we’ve taken care to avoid any complications, aside from those the colonists take with them. The founders of each alternity are literally colonizing a world of their own, presumably according to the principles they spell out in their charter.”
“Okay, but the way you keep using words like ‘presumably’ and ‘intended’, it sounds like you’re hedging. There’s no catch to this, right? I mean, you guarantee that there won’t be any guns in the alternity I choose?”
“No, Mr. Nevish,” Kellerman said firmly. “There can be no guarantee of what you will find on the other side of the portal. We have no information about the utopian alternities, other than what we knew of the original worldline query that designated it, and the stated intentions of the colonists who have gone there already. The transference is strictly one-way, sir: this is why we keep emphasizing that you should think carefully about your decision before you step through.”
“Oh, I’ve thought carefully, and all that. I mean, a world just like this one, but with no guns, has to be better, right? I mean, that guy in Missouri who shot those three people last week, I just couldn’t believe the vids. I kept thinking, if only he didn’t have a gun!”
Kellerman nodded sympathetically. “Yes, that was certainly horrific. Of course, statistically, the trend in gun violence has been downward—“
“But what if you’re one of those three people?” the young one shot back, with an air of making a conclusive point.
“Yes, then the statistics would hardly be comforting for you,” agreed the official. “However, you might still wish to take some time to study the alternatives available to you. As I say, there are a number of utopian experiments putting various levels of restrictions on guns, so you can also make a selection of other social parameters you prefer. The degree and kind of social safety net provided, versus the level and distribution of taxation required to pay for it, for example; or the toleration or lack of it for various recreational substances, forms of energy, religious practices, et cetera. I could give you some literature for you to study for a few days before you make your final selection.”
But Nevish was shaking his head. “No, I want to get this done today. I just want a place as much like Alternity Zero as possible, but without guns. Isn’t there one like that somewhere? I mean, they’ve founded hundreds and hundreds of these by now, right?”
Kellerman’s heart sank. “Yes, there are over a thousand alternities registered to various groups of utopian founders, to which more than one hundred fifty million people have emigrated. But surely, even on gun policy, you’ll want to give some thought to the exact plan that you prefer? Do you want a place where even the police have no guns? What would you want the government response to be if someone mischievously builds a gun of his own in a metal shop in his basement, or 3D prints a hundred of them and tries to take over the whole place? What if—“
“Okay, the police can have guns, no one else is allowed to. What have you got like that?”
Kellerman turned reluctantly to his keyboard and tapped keys for a few moments. Damn that lunatic in Missouri, anyway. “Well, Alternity 784 would seem to fill the requirements. Would you like specifications?”
“It’s just like here, but there aren’t any guns, right?”
Kellerman made one last try to get through to the boy. “Mr. Nevish. The people who founded Alternity 784 said that they wanted to set up a utopian community in which only the government would have guns. Their project was officially granted a worldline when one hundred thousand individuals agreed to this charter and presented themselves for transference. Robots and provisions were sent through adequate to create the physical infrastructure of the proposed society. Since that time, everyone who has transferred to Alternity 784 has stated the intention to live in such a world and signed an agreement to abide by this charter. Note, however, that their signature is purely a pro forma agreement, carrying no penalty of perjury nor possibility of the slightest repercussions: either for changing their mind later, or for straight-out dishonesty up front, because we will have no way of knowing what they do after their transference.” He put his hands on his desk and leaned forward for emphasis. “That’s all we know, Mr. Nevish.”
Nevish frowned, as if trying to look like he was thinking hard. Perhaps he believed he was thinking hard. At last he said, “Look, Mr. Kellerman, you’ve been doing this a long time, right?”
“Yes,” said Kellerman. “Ever since the program began, right after the Thirtieth Amendment was passed. Nearly forty years, now.”
“Well, the people you’ve sent through—aren’t they mostly just people like me?”
Kellerman looked sadly into the young man’s eyes, and said, “Yes, that would be a fair statement. I think nearly all of them, perhaps every last one, was someone very much like you.”
The boy sat back and nodded his head. “Then print out the forms. I’m ready to sign.”
After the paperwork was completed and young Nevish had gone on to the transference portal for Alternity 784, Kellerman stopped by the office of his supervisor, Jeffrey Waters. “Got a minute?” he asked, with a long face.
“Sure, Larry.” Waters sat back. “You look like you just served another client.”
His office was shaped much like Kellerman’s. The decorations were different, but there was the same gold motto of the Thirtieth Amendment on the wall behind his head. Kellerman sat down and looked bleakly up at it.
Congress shall make no law impeding any person from living under the government of his preference.
“Serving another client,” said Kellerman. “I just can’t think of it that way.”
“Larry, you know we have to do this. Not just by law, but by necessity.”
“Sure, once the alternity portals were invented, it’s inevitable that people would group into like-minded enclaves—“
“Not just the alternity portals, Larry. Even before then, as soon as it became possible to associate electronically with people who thought the same as you, and disassociate from people who thought differently, the centrifugal tendencies of the new age were set up. Think of the chaos before the Second Constitutional Convention, and then the even worse chaos in the fifteen years before the Third. The alternity portal system is the only thing that has finally saved us, and it’s really not so bad, is it?”
“But Jeff, this kid—and there have been others, all over the country, just this week, since that nutcase in Missouri. He has no clue what he’s getting into, just randomly reacting.”
“Well, Larry, that’s his right, isn’t it? Who knows, maybe his alternity will turn out great for him. And meanwhile, as the utopia-seeking tendency boils out of our own worldline, things here where the bulk of humanity lives get pretty good indeed, and each year we have fewer clients requesting transference.”
“True, true,” sighed Kellerman. “And after all, as I tried to point out to him, three homicides, in the entire nation, over the past two years, is really not that bad.”
“Not bad at all. And the figure I’m even happier about: no new alternities set up for four years straight now.” He stretched. “Why don’t you knock off early today, Larry? Beautiful afternoon.”
“Thanks, Jeff, think I will.”
Liam Nevish looked down the portal to Alternity 784. It was a corridor that receded from a large, high-ceilinged area, one of several dozen in this lobby. He found it hard to rest eyes upon, as it flickered and flashed in an irritating way. His escort, having accompanied him to the very foot of the portal, seemed to have no such problem gazing in. Probably long custom had desensitized him to it.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he said with a grin.
“No, thanks,” said Nevish. “So I just walk in?”
“Yep. Good luck.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling a bit nervous. “Here I go.” The escort nodded and turned to go back.
Nevish started into the flickering haze. As he walked, the part close to him stayed normal, and the zone of turbulence always seemed about five feet ahead of him. He looked back and saw that the same was true behind him. Swallowing, he continued into the portal. After a few more steps, he found it seemed to be pulling him forward, as if he were walking down an increasingly sloped hill.
At last he felt a rushing suction and almost lost his balance, then at once found himself standing on perfectly firm ground. He looked around at his new worldline, and his jaw slowly dropped open.
“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, nooooooo!”
I actually wrote it after a Tweet I put out last week sometime, describing the general idea at a high level. Jonathan Swift said of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS that once you think of the idea of big men and little men, the story practically wrote itself; this one has the same quality of following rather immediately from the basic concept.
Enjoy!
"The Thirtieth Amendment"
Larry Kellerman gritted his teeth as he listened to the youth sitting in his office. “I just feel like, if there were no guns, like, then everyone would be safe and stuff, you know?” the kid—his name was Nevish, Liam Nevish—said.
“I understand the idea,” the official said patiently. It was a pleasant office, decorated with dark-finished wood furnishings, and a lovely picture window looking over the park. The oil paintings were attractive portraits of famous people, representational art having come back into vogue even in government buildings in the last couple decades. Over his desk, he knew, was a motto of the Thirtieth Amendment in gold letters. Everything was designed to relax, but Kellerman always felt on edge with a client: largely, he thought, because the clients themselves seemed too calm about their purpose in coming for transference.
He drew in breath. “Well then, Mr. Nevish, you can certainly choose any alternity you prefer, and there are many that were founded with the intention of eliminating guns, some where that was the chief motivating principle, others where it was included in a menu of other policy choices. Actually, before we waste any time, let’s make sure of one thing: you are twenty-one, correct?”
“Yeah, I’m 21. Last fall.”
Damn, thought Kellerman. “Very good,” he said aloud. “And you wish to leave our time line, Alternity Zero, for another that was colonized by persons intending to eliminate guns, either entirely or from the citizenry, is that your idea?”
“Umm. Wait a minute, when you say ‘colonized’, does that mean the people already in the other worldline might have guns? How does that work?”
Great heavenly days. “No. There are no people native to any of the worldlines that we have designated for utopian alternity experiments, Mr. Nevish. The parameters our team sets up when we initialize a portal define a worldline that branched from Alternity Zero at a point twenty to thirty million years in the past, and in which human life never evolved. Nor any other intelligent life, nor any life elsewhere in the Solar System…we’ve taken care to avoid any complications, aside from those the colonists take with them. The founders of each alternity are literally colonizing a world of their own, presumably according to the principles they spell out in their charter.”
“Okay, but the way you keep using words like ‘presumably’ and ‘intended’, it sounds like you’re hedging. There’s no catch to this, right? I mean, you guarantee that there won’t be any guns in the alternity I choose?”
“No, Mr. Nevish,” Kellerman said firmly. “There can be no guarantee of what you will find on the other side of the portal. We have no information about the utopian alternities, other than what we knew of the original worldline query that designated it, and the stated intentions of the colonists who have gone there already. The transference is strictly one-way, sir: this is why we keep emphasizing that you should think carefully about your decision before you step through.”
“Oh, I’ve thought carefully, and all that. I mean, a world just like this one, but with no guns, has to be better, right? I mean, that guy in Missouri who shot those three people last week, I just couldn’t believe the vids. I kept thinking, if only he didn’t have a gun!”
Kellerman nodded sympathetically. “Yes, that was certainly horrific. Of course, statistically, the trend in gun violence has been downward—“
“But what if you’re one of those three people?” the young one shot back, with an air of making a conclusive point.
“Yes, then the statistics would hardly be comforting for you,” agreed the official. “However, you might still wish to take some time to study the alternatives available to you. As I say, there are a number of utopian experiments putting various levels of restrictions on guns, so you can also make a selection of other social parameters you prefer. The degree and kind of social safety net provided, versus the level and distribution of taxation required to pay for it, for example; or the toleration or lack of it for various recreational substances, forms of energy, religious practices, et cetera. I could give you some literature for you to study for a few days before you make your final selection.”
But Nevish was shaking his head. “No, I want to get this done today. I just want a place as much like Alternity Zero as possible, but without guns. Isn’t there one like that somewhere? I mean, they’ve founded hundreds and hundreds of these by now, right?”
Kellerman’s heart sank. “Yes, there are over a thousand alternities registered to various groups of utopian founders, to which more than one hundred fifty million people have emigrated. But surely, even on gun policy, you’ll want to give some thought to the exact plan that you prefer? Do you want a place where even the police have no guns? What would you want the government response to be if someone mischievously builds a gun of his own in a metal shop in his basement, or 3D prints a hundred of them and tries to take over the whole place? What if—“
“Okay, the police can have guns, no one else is allowed to. What have you got like that?”
Kellerman turned reluctantly to his keyboard and tapped keys for a few moments. Damn that lunatic in Missouri, anyway. “Well, Alternity 784 would seem to fill the requirements. Would you like specifications?”
“It’s just like here, but there aren’t any guns, right?”
Kellerman made one last try to get through to the boy. “Mr. Nevish. The people who founded Alternity 784 said that they wanted to set up a utopian community in which only the government would have guns. Their project was officially granted a worldline when one hundred thousand individuals agreed to this charter and presented themselves for transference. Robots and provisions were sent through adequate to create the physical infrastructure of the proposed society. Since that time, everyone who has transferred to Alternity 784 has stated the intention to live in such a world and signed an agreement to abide by this charter. Note, however, that their signature is purely a pro forma agreement, carrying no penalty of perjury nor possibility of the slightest repercussions: either for changing their mind later, or for straight-out dishonesty up front, because we will have no way of knowing what they do after their transference.” He put his hands on his desk and leaned forward for emphasis. “That’s all we know, Mr. Nevish.”
Nevish frowned, as if trying to look like he was thinking hard. Perhaps he believed he was thinking hard. At last he said, “Look, Mr. Kellerman, you’ve been doing this a long time, right?”
“Yes,” said Kellerman. “Ever since the program began, right after the Thirtieth Amendment was passed. Nearly forty years, now.”
“Well, the people you’ve sent through—aren’t they mostly just people like me?”
Kellerman looked sadly into the young man’s eyes, and said, “Yes, that would be a fair statement. I think nearly all of them, perhaps every last one, was someone very much like you.”
The boy sat back and nodded his head. “Then print out the forms. I’m ready to sign.”
After the paperwork was completed and young Nevish had gone on to the transference portal for Alternity 784, Kellerman stopped by the office of his supervisor, Jeffrey Waters. “Got a minute?” he asked, with a long face.
“Sure, Larry.” Waters sat back. “You look like you just served another client.”
His office was shaped much like Kellerman’s. The decorations were different, but there was the same gold motto of the Thirtieth Amendment on the wall behind his head. Kellerman sat down and looked bleakly up at it.
Congress shall make no law impeding any person from living under the government of his preference.
“Serving another client,” said Kellerman. “I just can’t think of it that way.”
“Larry, you know we have to do this. Not just by law, but by necessity.”
“Sure, once the alternity portals were invented, it’s inevitable that people would group into like-minded enclaves—“
“Not just the alternity portals, Larry. Even before then, as soon as it became possible to associate electronically with people who thought the same as you, and disassociate from people who thought differently, the centrifugal tendencies of the new age were set up. Think of the chaos before the Second Constitutional Convention, and then the even worse chaos in the fifteen years before the Third. The alternity portal system is the only thing that has finally saved us, and it’s really not so bad, is it?”
“But Jeff, this kid—and there have been others, all over the country, just this week, since that nutcase in Missouri. He has no clue what he’s getting into, just randomly reacting.”
“Well, Larry, that’s his right, isn’t it? Who knows, maybe his alternity will turn out great for him. And meanwhile, as the utopia-seeking tendency boils out of our own worldline, things here where the bulk of humanity lives get pretty good indeed, and each year we have fewer clients requesting transference.”
“True, true,” sighed Kellerman. “And after all, as I tried to point out to him, three homicides, in the entire nation, over the past two years, is really not that bad.”
“Not bad at all. And the figure I’m even happier about: no new alternities set up for four years straight now.” He stretched. “Why don’t you knock off early today, Larry? Beautiful afternoon.”
“Thanks, Jeff, think I will.”
Liam Nevish looked down the portal to Alternity 784. It was a corridor that receded from a large, high-ceilinged area, one of several dozen in this lobby. He found it hard to rest eyes upon, as it flickered and flashed in an irritating way. His escort, having accompanied him to the very foot of the portal, seemed to have no such problem gazing in. Probably long custom had desensitized him to it.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he said with a grin.
“No, thanks,” said Nevish. “So I just walk in?”
“Yep. Good luck.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling a bit nervous. “Here I go.” The escort nodded and turned to go back.
Nevish started into the flickering haze. As he walked, the part close to him stayed normal, and the zone of turbulence always seemed about five feet ahead of him. He looked back and saw that the same was true behind him. Swallowing, he continued into the portal. After a few more steps, he found it seemed to be pulling him forward, as if he were walking down an increasingly sloped hill.
At last he felt a rushing suction and almost lost his balance, then at once found himself standing on perfectly firm ground. He looked around at his new worldline, and his jaw slowly dropped open.
“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, nooooooo!”
Monday, March 26, 2018
Writing progress
I’ve written another story and submitted it for one of the Superversive Press Planetary anthologies: so I have my fingers crossed. It may need some more work including a title change but I think the basic story is pretty good. I’ll post an update when I know more.
Meanwhile I’m picking a next project from my notebooks: there are several I’d like to work on. One is a superhero/supervillain tale set in a major city that hasn’t been built yet, on the Gulf coast in Texas, with a futuristic dome over the city-center and the tallest building in the world (4000 feet) rising up at its center. It might grow into a short novel.
I also have a couple ideas for some other tales of Sir Sagredur, the Knight of the Round Table introduced in my first story. If I write a half dozen more of them perhaps I could do a collection one day.
Then I have an idea still at a very early stage of an old-style pulpy SF tale where a small team of adventurers in the near future set off for a planet orbiting a dwarf star that orbits Sol at about 40,000 AU, discovered by themselves and not yet revealed to the public.
Decisions, decisions...
Meanwhile I’m picking a next project from my notebooks: there are several I’d like to work on. One is a superhero/supervillain tale set in a major city that hasn’t been built yet, on the Gulf coast in Texas, with a futuristic dome over the city-center and the tallest building in the world (4000 feet) rising up at its center. It might grow into a short novel.
I also have a couple ideas for some other tales of Sir Sagredur, the Knight of the Round Table introduced in my first story. If I write a half dozen more of them perhaps I could do a collection one day.
Then I have an idea still at a very early stage of an old-style pulpy SF tale where a small team of adventurers in the near future set off for a planet orbiting a dwarf star that orbits Sol at about 40,000 AU, discovered by themselves and not yet revealed to the public.
Decisions, decisions...
Friday, January 19, 2018
Jordan Peterson interview: Chess vs Kriegspiel
If you’re interested in seeing how a mature, intelligent, professional scholar deals with a jingoistic liberal who thinks in platitudes, and you haven’t seen this yet, you’re in for a treat. It’s half an hour long and Peterson shows great aplomb and grace under fire. The most delicious part is after he’s endured about 20 minutes of the “interviewer’s” hostility, when he flummoxes her by referencing her own supposed principles ... you can see her sluggish mind creaking around to the idea she had never considered before: Oh! He means that if I apply this standard to him, then I should also apply it to myself! Huh!
There is a delightful chess variant called Kriegspiel , where each player plays without being able to see the other player’s moves. Usually they sit at separate boards, back to back or with a barrier, while a third person referees by rejecting moves that are illegal. It’s actually a fun game even for spectators to watch, which is a rarity for chess variants.
Anyway, what struck me watching that interview/debate was that while he was playing chess, she was playing Kriegspiel: flailing about making moves that had nothing to do with what was actually going on in the discussion. Such a handicap naturally turned out to be insurmountable.
There is a delightful chess variant called Kriegspiel , where each player plays without being able to see the other player’s moves. Usually they sit at separate boards, back to back or with a barrier, while a third person referees by rejecting moves that are illegal. It’s actually a fun game even for spectators to watch, which is a rarity for chess variants.
Anyway, what struck me watching that interview/debate was that while he was playing chess, she was playing Kriegspiel: flailing about making moves that had nothing to do with what was actually going on in the discussion. Such a handicap naturally turned out to be insurmountable.
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