(Scene: the board room of Kirk Spock & McCoy Enterprises, an investment firm with offices on the 87th floor of the Empire State Building. Or somewhere like that.)
KIRK: Star date twenty twenty zero three zero nine. The novel corona virus has spread terror through the markets, wiping out in a single morning gains that took (checks notes) months to accumulate. The death toll continues to mount, and every day brings word of new outbreaks, more and more draconian measures to halt the spread of the disease. There is as of yet no cure in sight, and tantalizing hopes of a vaccine remain months away in the most wildly optimistic scenario. I am meeting with my top advisors to plan a strategy for counseling our clients. … Did you get all that, Miss Uhura?
UHURA: Yes, sir. What was that word “star” for at the beginning?
KIRK: “Star”? Did I say “star”? No idea. Strike it out. Well, gentlemen: what is your prognosis.
SPOCK (adjusting his Stefano Ricci tie): The logical strategy for such a situation is indisputable: Buy. The market is now profoundly underpriced. Take advantage of it.
McCOY (staring at SPOCK with wild eyes): I can’t believe this. Are you out of your mind, Spock?! The bottom is dropping out of the market! We have to sell, sell! Sell like there’s no tomorrow! People are dying out there, I tell you!
SPOCK (politely): Will fewer of them die if your clients lose their nest eggs to a bear market?
McCOY: But this virus could crash the world economy! Italy has shut itself down! Practically the whole government of Iran is infected! Schools are making contingency plans to close, factories could shut down to try to contain the contagion!
SPOCK: The most pessimistic forecasts of the pandemic are—if you will pardon the pun—feverish. The mortality estimates we have seen so far are most likely inflated due to our inability to count the total infected population accurately, since many of them develop only mild symptoms. Respiratory illnesses do the most harm in the winter months, and the northern hemisphere is about to enter springtime. The disease appears to be more contagious in less-developed countries with inferior public sanitation infrastructure, and for all these reasons will probably do little harm to the regions responsible for the bulk of the world economy. The epidemic may peak very soon, and when it does the markets will rebound.
McCOY (passionately): And does that do any good for the people in quarantine? Or in the ICU’s?
SPOCK (with heavy irony): McCoy, if I had a cure for the novel corona virus in my vest pocket, I would certainly make use of it to help those people. But, alas (feeling his pocket), I do not have such a thing. Do you?
McCOY: Dammit, man, I’m an investment analyst, not a doctor!
SPOCK (pointedly): So am I. And my analysis is: buy.
McCOY: And mine is SELL, you green-visored Vulcan!
SPOCK: Green-visored what?
KIRK: Never mind. Gentlemen, I think I’ve heard enough. The final decision is mine. And … I know what I’m going to do.
McCOY: And what will that be?
KIRK (turns to the window and gazes for a moment out over the panorama of New York City stretching out before him): We’ll buy.
McCOY: Jim!
KIRK (rounds on him): We have to, Bones! This enterprise has to be guided by the Prime Directive!
SPOCK (quoting): “Buy low, sell high.”
McCOY: To hell with the Prime Directive! (He storms out.)
SPOCK: Jim, may I ask you something?
KIRK (smiling crookedly): What, Spock?
SPOCK: The stock market is essentially an engine for transferring wealth from excitable investors to more phlegmatic ones. McCoy seems temperamentally unsuited to the profession. I have analyzed our respective performances over the past five years and found that, while my advice has proven correct 70% of the time, McCoy’s has proven incorrect 90% of the time. Why do you keep him as a partner?
KIRK (grinning): I would think you could figure that out with your famous logic, Spock. If I follow your advice, I make money seven times out of ten, is that right?
SPOCK: Yes…
KIRK: But you see, if I do the opposite of what McCoy recommends, I make money nine times out of ten.
SPOCK (raises one eyebrow): Fascinating!
Justin Tarquin: Hope you enjoyed this experiment in transposition of characters. I wish I knew Photoshop well enough to make an illustration ...
Science fiction and fantasy author, published for the first time in 2017. Also into recreational math, chess variants, puzzles, doggerel.
Showing posts with label #writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #writing. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2020
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
The Hyland Resolution
Another story of mine is now published! Whew. Now I have two.
The story is “The Hyland Resolution”, and the anthology that includes it (and lots more) is PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY: LUNA, edited by Declan Finn.
I got the germ of the idea that became the story “The Hyland Resolution” about four years ago next month. I remember because I know what sparked it: it was the episode “For The Girl Who Has Everything” of SUPERGIRL, in which our heroine was attacked by a Kryptonian critter called a Black Mercy (because the Kryptonians used it as a humane method of execution). The Black Mercy’s venom or whatever induces a coma filled with dreams that fulfil the victim’s deepest desires, before ultimately killing him—unless he somehow rejects the happy fantasy.
I only watched the first five or ten minutes, because by the end of its first season I had had my fill of this series and was only tuning in occasionally for long enough to see if the basic idea seemed interesting. Sometime if I only see the beginning of a story, I can abstract out the basic problem that drives the plot and think of a completely different way to present and handle it that might make a good original story. (Perry Mason seems to inspire me that way sometimes.)
I’m probably not the only one who does this: this particular episode’s idea has been around the block many times. I see in Wikipedia that the Supergirl writers cribbed it from a Superman comic (“For The Man Who Has Everything”: even thriftily reusing 83% of the title), and my brother tells me there was an episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER on the same idea. Declan Finn, our worthy PAS LUNA editor, pointed me to an episode of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (a very good series I’d never watched till then) where Bruce Wayne is trapped in a dream in which he had never become Batman, because his parents had never been killed. The Nexus in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS is yet another iteration. How far back does this plot concept go, I wonder? Does it trace back to the scene where Odysseus loses some crewmen to the Lotus Eaters?
I don’t know how the SUPERGIRL writers handled it, though my guess would be that it involved a lot of emoting and sharing of feelings. But as I thought about it myself, I realized two things: first, that I did have an original idea how a person could be snapped out of such a fantasy; and second, that my protagonist would be a mathematician. To say more would be to give spoilers. I drafted a very short piece, set on Earth, about a math professor named Charles Hyland. But my first draft seemed to be lacking vitality; I shelved it without even giving it a title and went on with other things for awhile.
Then Superversive Press called for submissions for its Planetary Anthology series. When Jagi Lamplighter wrote me she was working on Luna, and did I have anything with themes of the Moon, loneliness, madness, dreams, and despair, I remembered my draft and returned to it.
It needed fleshing out, and the themes of the anthology provided direction for how I could proceed. Dreams, check. Madness, well, check. Loneliness and despair? What if my mathematician, Charles N. Hyland (the N is for Norbert, but that never comes up in the story), is a man of many troubles, who uses mathematics as an escape for thinking of things that upset him? The Moon … I moved my setting to a university on the Moon in the early days of its colonization, a university in a Lunar city, established by Christians from Central and South America, fleeing the religious persecution of the increasingly secularized governments on Earth, named El Redentor: Spanish for “The Redeemer”. (None of this comes up in the story, either.) The ubiquitous AI that Hyland consults sometimes, like an advanced web search application, I named Thoth, after the Egyptian god of wisdom, records, and the Moon; and I put in a couple other faint allusions (or Easter eggs) of moony lore.
As for the theme of despair, I pulled in an idea I have about the coming century of colonization of the Solar System, that I think SF writers have short-changed … namely, war. For some reason, as far as I know, everyone seems to imagine that the opening up of vast stretches of new real estate on the Moon and elsewhere will all be handled in as peaceful and orderly a fashion as a session of Congress devoted to voting themselves a raise. On the contrary, to me it seems natural that some spots on the Moon and elsewhere are going to be particularly desirable, and the colonizers will inevitably come into conflict over them and turn to their various governments on Earth to defend their interests. The Moon may be a pretty violent place for its first few decades … plenty of conflict for stories, and excuse for despair.
So how would my absent-minded Professor Hyland deal with wartime emergencies? He’d go through the motions while striving to keep his mind on his mathematics. That could give me a nice opening scene, developing his character in the midst of some intense action. At least for me, the opening scene is good for a chuckle.
By the way, for those who enjoy number puzzles (I can never understand why there aren’t more of us), the story contains one or two, understated and in no way essential to enjoying the story, but solvable. Nothing fancy—rather like figuring out why Spock said there were 1,771,561 tribbles in the grain bin that emptied out over Captain Kirk.
Declan and Jagi liked “The Hyland Resolution”, and then we had a long wait as the production of Superversive Press’s Planetary Anthology series slowed down to a halt, and ultimately the publishing enterprise that had produced a lot of good reading closed its doors. But Tuscany Bay Books picked up the project and has issued Pluto and Luna with a new look. “The Hyland Resolution” is one of 22 stories in this 600+ page volume. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read so far, and I hope you will too.
The story is “The Hyland Resolution”, and the anthology that includes it (and lots more) is PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY: LUNA, edited by Declan Finn.
I got the germ of the idea that became the story “The Hyland Resolution” about four years ago next month. I remember because I know what sparked it: it was the episode “For The Girl Who Has Everything” of SUPERGIRL, in which our heroine was attacked by a Kryptonian critter called a Black Mercy (because the Kryptonians used it as a humane method of execution). The Black Mercy’s venom or whatever induces a coma filled with dreams that fulfil the victim’s deepest desires, before ultimately killing him—unless he somehow rejects the happy fantasy.
I only watched the first five or ten minutes, because by the end of its first season I had had my fill of this series and was only tuning in occasionally for long enough to see if the basic idea seemed interesting. Sometime if I only see the beginning of a story, I can abstract out the basic problem that drives the plot and think of a completely different way to present and handle it that might make a good original story. (Perry Mason seems to inspire me that way sometimes.)
I’m probably not the only one who does this: this particular episode’s idea has been around the block many times. I see in Wikipedia that the Supergirl writers cribbed it from a Superman comic (“For The Man Who Has Everything”: even thriftily reusing 83% of the title), and my brother tells me there was an episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER on the same idea. Declan Finn, our worthy PAS LUNA editor, pointed me to an episode of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (a very good series I’d never watched till then) where Bruce Wayne is trapped in a dream in which he had never become Batman, because his parents had never been killed. The Nexus in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS is yet another iteration. How far back does this plot concept go, I wonder? Does it trace back to the scene where Odysseus loses some crewmen to the Lotus Eaters?
I don’t know how the SUPERGIRL writers handled it, though my guess would be that it involved a lot of emoting and sharing of feelings. But as I thought about it myself, I realized two things: first, that I did have an original idea how a person could be snapped out of such a fantasy; and second, that my protagonist would be a mathematician. To say more would be to give spoilers. I drafted a very short piece, set on Earth, about a math professor named Charles Hyland. But my first draft seemed to be lacking vitality; I shelved it without even giving it a title and went on with other things for awhile.
Then Superversive Press called for submissions for its Planetary Anthology series. When Jagi Lamplighter wrote me she was working on Luna, and did I have anything with themes of the Moon, loneliness, madness, dreams, and despair, I remembered my draft and returned to it.
It needed fleshing out, and the themes of the anthology provided direction for how I could proceed. Dreams, check. Madness, well, check. Loneliness and despair? What if my mathematician, Charles N. Hyland (the N is for Norbert, but that never comes up in the story), is a man of many troubles, who uses mathematics as an escape for thinking of things that upset him? The Moon … I moved my setting to a university on the Moon in the early days of its colonization, a university in a Lunar city, established by Christians from Central and South America, fleeing the religious persecution of the increasingly secularized governments on Earth, named El Redentor: Spanish for “The Redeemer”. (None of this comes up in the story, either.) The ubiquitous AI that Hyland consults sometimes, like an advanced web search application, I named Thoth, after the Egyptian god of wisdom, records, and the Moon; and I put in a couple other faint allusions (or Easter eggs) of moony lore.
As for the theme of despair, I pulled in an idea I have about the coming century of colonization of the Solar System, that I think SF writers have short-changed … namely, war. For some reason, as far as I know, everyone seems to imagine that the opening up of vast stretches of new real estate on the Moon and elsewhere will all be handled in as peaceful and orderly a fashion as a session of Congress devoted to voting themselves a raise. On the contrary, to me it seems natural that some spots on the Moon and elsewhere are going to be particularly desirable, and the colonizers will inevitably come into conflict over them and turn to their various governments on Earth to defend their interests. The Moon may be a pretty violent place for its first few decades … plenty of conflict for stories, and excuse for despair.
So how would my absent-minded Professor Hyland deal with wartime emergencies? He’d go through the motions while striving to keep his mind on his mathematics. That could give me a nice opening scene, developing his character in the midst of some intense action. At least for me, the opening scene is good for a chuckle.
By the way, for those who enjoy number puzzles (I can never understand why there aren’t more of us), the story contains one or two, understated and in no way essential to enjoying the story, but solvable. Nothing fancy—rather like figuring out why Spock said there were 1,771,561 tribbles in the grain bin that emptied out over Captain Kirk.
Declan and Jagi liked “The Hyland Resolution”, and then we had a long wait as the production of Superversive Press’s Planetary Anthology series slowed down to a halt, and ultimately the publishing enterprise that had produced a lot of good reading closed its doors. But Tuscany Bay Books picked up the project and has issued Pluto and Luna with a new look. “The Hyland Resolution” is one of 22 stories in this 600+ page volume. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read so far, and I hope you will too.
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...
Saturday, December 9, 2017
“The Kings of the Corona”
My first story, or anyway my first “real” story (with, you know, plot and characters with motivations and all), is “The Kings of the Corona”, and appears in the anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, along with about 20 other stories by other authors. I’ve read the collection with pleasure.
But for me, the experience of doing something I'd always wanted but never managed was thrilling. I’d wanted to write fiction, either science fiction or fantasy, for a long time, and in the past four or five years I've begun thinking more seriously about it. I had started reading John C. Wright's blog about how the culture wars are playing out in SF/F circles and the idea of contributing something to "building our own culture" attracted me. It was the fracas over the 2015 Hugos that stirred me into making preparations—like Mauregal, the hero of my story, I’m very big on methodical preparations—jotting down story notions that randomly occurred to me, and in a few months I had a list of ideas that could form the bases of many stories—but still no actual story begun.
About this time I read Anthony Marchetta's anthology, GOD, ROBOT. The theme of this anthology—a line of sentient robots that muse on matters of faith and take up religion, and the interactions they have with humanity over the centuries—intrigued me as much as the stories themselves (which are delightful and thought-provoking—if you haven’t read it yet, go get it), and got me thinking more seriously than ever about buckling down and writing.
Then, spring 2016, Declan Finn had Anthony Marchetta and several of the GOD, ROBOT authors on his Catholic Geek podcast, and I made sure to listen. The whole podcast had me enthralled: these were the writers of the stories I’d just read, some of them experienced authors, some (unless my memory is tricking me) only a little further along than I was—except that they’d actually done it while I was still only thinking about it!
But I was most excited when Anthony remarked that his next project would be an "Arthurian juvenile" anthology: tales of King Arthur and the knights of Camelot, but in any settings the author might like: they could be pirates, cavemen, as wild as you please: or even in the traditional Old England. He planned to invite submissions and make his selections that summer.
As soon as I heard about it, I knew I wanted to be in that anthology. I turned to my "story notions" notebook and looked at all the ideas I’d jotted down. Most of them I couldn’t imagine fitting into an Arthurian frame, even with the wide latitude Anthony had suggested, but there was just one that had possibilities. I still have it, exactly as I wrote it down when it had first occurred to me—please pardon the informality:
Fantasy world: the people are ruled by a king, who had a kind of halo. When king dies, halo moves to someone else, not predictable. If king orders someone to do something, and they don't do it, misfortune befalls them.
Alternative: world has magic, but con men tell that story to stranger when all they really have is the halo.
Alternative: Kingship transfers to a reluctant peasant. POV his brother? friend?
What other magic enters into the story?
Is the story about the end of the halo spell? Learning something about it? The effect it has on characters?
That was all. If you read "The Kings of the Corona", as I hope you will, you'll see that the final story differs from the original germ in many ways: the "alternatives" I played with in the note fell by the wayside, and I settled on "Corona" (Latin for "crown") as the preferred name for the thing, avoiding the religious charge of "halo". This was because, as I began to work on the story seriously, I realized that the power to make someone do something just by issuing a command would be so overwhelming that it had to be the bad guy who wielded it. If the good guy had the Corona, there'd be no story. The story has to be about fighting against the King of the Corona, and somehow winning, which meant I had to work out a back-story for the Corona, and then show how a Knight of King Arthur defeats it.
I started writing, first describing the little isolated kingdom of Palavel, ruled by a man made king by the Corona, from the point of view of a young man, a brewer's apprentice, named Mauregal. Then I would have the Knight, whom I named Sir Sagradur, arrive ... but as I wrote, I realized I was telling a different kind of Arthurian story.
Pardon me for a digression. A formula that many stories have used, from the Knights of King Arthur all the way to Star Trek, consists of presenting a place with a problem, and a good guy rides up in his horse or spaceship or whatever, solves the problem, basks momentarily in the gratitude of the people, makes a nice speech that shows how he's finer and better than they are, and rides off into the sunset, warp factor 6. Granted, I'm parodying here to make a point—the point that this formula is actually pretty anti-libertarian, anti-dignity-of-the-common-folk in its philosophical implications—but I think you will recognize this formula.
The Lone Ranger used it. Have Gun, Will Travel used it. James Bond used it, only without the "gratitude of the people" part because in the 007 adventures the general population is so benighted they never even know they've been rescued, or that they were in danger in the first place.
But, as I wrote, it turned out that I wasn't using it. I didn't really set out to write the anti-Paladin story, but somehow that's exactly what I did. Sir Sagradur is a noble character, he’s a much-needed inspiration for Mauregal, and he’s crucial for the plot: if he and his dipsomaniac squire Kincarius hadn't arrived, Christians among pagans, but totally focused on the mission King Arthur had given them, nothing would have happened to save Palavel. But in the end ... well, I’m trying to give up my bad habit of blurting spoilers, so enough already.
Another thing I didn't set out to do, but did anyway, was write a story that went over Anthony's length-suggestion (well, length-limit, originally). It was supposed to be up to 10,000 words, or not much more. I had started by writing a rough outline, like a detailed plot summary, and then working from that. The summary was about 2,000 words, and as I went along it seemed to be "inflating" at a good ratio of about five finished-words to one summary-word, so I figured I'd be fine. Then I got to the last quarter, and something happened to the ratio ... somehow, that last quarter of the outline took a whole lot more words to turn into final story than the rest of my outline did, and my first draft of the story weighed in at about 15,000 words, if I remember correctly. However, it was 11 PM of the last day of the submission period, so I sent it off with an apologetic cover note. I figured the worst Anthony could say was no, and if that was the decision maybe I could find some other use for it.
But to my great gratification, he liked it! He decided to forgive me the extra few thousand words. I did further revisions, and struck out some of the excess verbiage in that original version over the following few months, but also added others, so that the final version was, I think, around 17,000. As with the periodic attempts to cut the federal budget, somehow the net result of each round of cutting was to make it a little bigger. Oh well, as an e-book it hardly matters, I hope.
As I say, I hope you'll read "The Kings of the Corona", in TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. In the process of revising it I’ve read it many times myself and I still like it. Now that I’ve read the other stories in the anthology I have to say that it may not be the best story in the book, but it is still the longest. So any way you look at it, this is a book you should get.
And, if you've been giving any thought to doing some writing of your own, I hope you'll be as inspired by this anthology as I was by GOD, ROBOT, and start jotting down your own story ideas. I found writing to be a lot of work, but also great fun, and highly satisfying when you finish.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Pulpy Titles as Starting Points
I've always wanted to write science fiction and fantasy, but only recently had my first success at conceiving of a real story with plot and characters and everything, finishing it, and getting it accepted in an anthology. The story is "Kings of the Corona" and you can (and should!) read it in the anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. A friend who doesn't use Kindle bought the print edition and showed it to me, and it's very handsome. I was struck by what an excellent gift it would make to some book-lover for Christmas or any other holiday of your choice.
Okay, enough promotion for today. I'm currently working on several writing projects. One is a short story with a working title "The Stowaways" (I hope to rename it eventually) whose first draft I've finished. I'm taking my mind off of that for awhile so I can come back to review and revise it later with a fresh mind: based on how my work went on "Kings of the Corona", it seems to me that a lot of the magic comes in the revising and polishing stage. Meanwhile, I'm also about ready to start manuscript work on a story for Superversive Press's Luna anthology, and I have a pretty long line of other ideas I'm anxious to get cracking on after that.
Then there's this concept from Brad Walker on the Superversive website, of writing serialized fiction on one's blog. I've actually been considering that for awhile, and I'd like to do that too: I hope it would spur me to increase the regularity of both my blogging and my writing.
Where do ideas for good, pulpy SFF stories come from? There's lots of advice out there. One idea is to start with a title and make up a story for it. I decided to experiment with that, and loaded a database with a vocabulary taken from titles of Doc Savage stories, with a few I added myself that I thought had a similar flavor, and set up a routine to combine these at random (though with a few rules) and randomly interspersed with numbers and "of" and "of the". Then I let it crank out some titles.
Most of them were just nonsense, but I kept track of some that seemed interesting:
- The Swords of Saturn
- The Undersea Manhunt
- The Six Magic Moons
- The Poison War
- The Deadly Shadow
- The Mysterious Dimension
- The Two Fantastic Quests
- The Sky Tournaments
- The Disaster Comet
- The Child of Europa
- The Fearsome Labyrinth
- The Future Eagle
- The Crystal Dragon
- The Goblin Star
- The Green Portal
- The Caverns of Io
- The Avenging Pirates
- The Meteors of the Sargasso
- The Midas Ogre
- The Cloud Wizards
- The Fiery Castle
- The Encrypted Arenas
- The Four Suns of Mercury
- The Ocean Ambassadors
There are a lot here that seem suggestive enough that I'd pick them off the stand and thumb through them. "The Four Suns of Mercury"--what's that about? Does some evildoer create a space warp and swipe the whole planet out of the solar system to a new sun, where our heroes give chase and force him to flee to yet another sun, and another? Or could there be miniature artificial suns created to orbit the planet--and for what purpose? Perhaps some extra suns are INSIDE the (surprisingly hollow) planet of Mercury?
Or "The Undersea Manhunt": your fugitive flees in a submarine, in the dark and still mostly-unsettled three-quarters of the globe in the near future. How does the hero catch up with him? What's "The Goblin Star"? Perhaps a tiny white dwarf that's been approaching Sol without our noticing for centuries, and due to pass by shortly--but will the brutish inhabitants of its orbiting planet be content to pass along with it? How the heck can "The Encrypted Arenas" be a thing? Perhaps they're virtual? What's the point of encrypting them? Is something going on in them that the participants need to remain secret?
My evaluation: this is not a bad way to stimulate story ideas. As I say, I already have a longish list of "to-be-worked-ons", but please feel free to take on anything here that strikes your fancy. Maybe leave a comment if you do so I know the title has been done, when I look back on this years later.
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Sunday, Fun Day
Reading: DRACULA, for the first time. Astounding Frontiers #2. I’m torn: I want to read John C Wright’s NOWHITHER straight through, and it’s serialized. So I’m skipping it until more of it comes out, though it hurts.
Writing projects underway:
“The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. Anthony showed us a draft of the cover art, by Dawn Witzke, and it looks great. Probably not long now. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult
“The Stowaways” (working title) projected as 8000 word story, or maybe 6000 if I can whittle it down: work in progress. I have about 3000 words so far. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera
My weekends these days are mostly taken up with work connected with closing Mom’s estate, but I want weekends to be fun days. Here are a joke and a number curiosity.
A Joke
Remembered this old chestnut this afternoon. Modified it slightly:
A young man in the heart of the South wanted to instill his love of his region’s history in his young son, and walked through the park with him one day to the statue of Stonewall Jackson, flourishing his saber, mounted on his horse, frozen in a tableau of dramatic action.
“That, son, is Stonewall Jackson,” he said.
“Wow!” said the little boy.
The statue at once became the boy’s favorite spot in the park. His father noted with pride as the years passed that his son would still return there every Sunday to admire the memorial.
At last the boy graduated high school, and was about to set off for college far away. He and his father went for one last walk through the park to visit their favorite statue one more time, and they stood in silence paying their respects to it.
When they turned to go home again, the young man said, “Dad, I’ve always wondered something.”
“What is it, son?”
“Do you happen to know—who is that man with the funny beard sitting on Stonewall Jackson?”
Recreational Math
Here’s an arithmetical curiosity I noticed that has a pretty good “gee whiz” factor.
It begins with a pleasant little “find the number” puzzle: There is only one number (not counting 1, which is rather a ‘degenerate’ solution) that has this property: it is the product of the first and last digits of its square. Find the number.
To clarify the idea, if you’re not used to how I put these things (so few people are!), if you were to try the number 17 you would square it, 17 x 17 = 289, and then multiply the first and last digits, 2 times 9 = 18. We were hoping to get our 17 back: nope, close but no cigar. In case you want to try finding it, see Answer 1 is below, not to be confused with Answer 2 below.
For a second puzzle, kick the idea up a notch by taking two digits at a time: Find a number that is the product of the 2-digit number at the left and right ends of its own square.
Again, to clarify: if you were testing 2,656, you would square it: 2,656 x 2,656 = 7,054,336. Then you would take the two-digit numbers from the left and right of the square and multiply, hoping to get your 2,656 back: 70 x 36 = 2,520. Nope.
I would think you’d want to use mechanical help to work on this one. A spreadsheet is quite adequate, and it’s a nice little exercise in writing formulas.
The interesting thing is that the one number that answers this puzzle has a curious relationship with the number that worked in the first puzzle.
Okay, you've looked at the answers? Now here's what puzzles me, and I don't have an answer: Why in the world would the numbers that answer the one-digit and two-digit problems have this pattern, where the two-digit answer just repeats the digits of the one-digit answer twice? Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, or maybe there’s a mathematical reason I don’t see.
And no, repeating digits three times doesn’t work for the 3-digit version of the same puzzle.
ANSWER 1: The number is 28. 28 x 28 = 784 and 7 x 4 = 28.
ANSWER 2: The number is 2,288. 2,288 x 2,288 = 5,234,944, and 52 x 44 = 2,288.
Writing projects underway:
“The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. Anthony showed us a draft of the cover art, by Dawn Witzke, and it looks great. Probably not long now. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult
“The Stowaways” (working title) projected as 8000 word story, or maybe 6000 if I can whittle it down: work in progress. I have about 3000 words so far. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera
My weekends these days are mostly taken up with work connected with closing Mom’s estate, but I want weekends to be fun days. Here are a joke and a number curiosity.
A Joke
Remembered this old chestnut this afternoon. Modified it slightly:
A young man in the heart of the South wanted to instill his love of his region’s history in his young son, and walked through the park with him one day to the statue of Stonewall Jackson, flourishing his saber, mounted on his horse, frozen in a tableau of dramatic action.
“That, son, is Stonewall Jackson,” he said.
“Wow!” said the little boy.
The statue at once became the boy’s favorite spot in the park. His father noted with pride as the years passed that his son would still return there every Sunday to admire the memorial.
At last the boy graduated high school, and was about to set off for college far away. He and his father went for one last walk through the park to visit their favorite statue one more time, and they stood in silence paying their respects to it.
When they turned to go home again, the young man said, “Dad, I’ve always wondered something.”
“What is it, son?”
“Do you happen to know—who is that man with the funny beard sitting on Stonewall Jackson?”
Recreational Math
Here’s an arithmetical curiosity I noticed that has a pretty good “gee whiz” factor.
It begins with a pleasant little “find the number” puzzle: There is only one number (not counting 1, which is rather a ‘degenerate’ solution) that has this property: it is the product of the first and last digits of its square. Find the number.
To clarify the idea, if you’re not used to how I put these things (so few people are!), if you were to try the number 17 you would square it, 17 x 17 = 289, and then multiply the first and last digits, 2 times 9 = 18. We were hoping to get our 17 back: nope, close but no cigar. In case you want to try finding it, see Answer 1 is below, not to be confused with Answer 2 below.
For a second puzzle, kick the idea up a notch by taking two digits at a time: Find a number that is the product of the 2-digit number at the left and right ends of its own square.
Again, to clarify: if you were testing 2,656, you would square it: 2,656 x 2,656 = 7,054,336. Then you would take the two-digit numbers from the left and right of the square and multiply, hoping to get your 2,656 back: 70 x 36 = 2,520. Nope.
I would think you’d want to use mechanical help to work on this one. A spreadsheet is quite adequate, and it’s a nice little exercise in writing formulas.
The interesting thing is that the one number that answers this puzzle has a curious relationship with the number that worked in the first puzzle.
Okay, you've looked at the answers? Now here's what puzzles me, and I don't have an answer: Why in the world would the numbers that answer the one-digit and two-digit problems have this pattern, where the two-digit answer just repeats the digits of the one-digit answer twice? Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, or maybe there’s a mathematical reason I don’t see.
And no, repeating digits three times doesn’t work for the 3-digit version of the same puzzle.
ANSWER 1: The number is 28. 28 x 28 = 784 and 7 x 4 = 28.
ANSWER 2: The number is 2,288. 2,288 x 2,288 = 5,234,944, and 52 x 44 = 2,288.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Proofreading, writing, and reading
For much of January I was working on two volunteer proofreading projects. One was the fifth issue of Cirsova magazine, and the other was on portions of the upcoming young-adult Arthurian anthology, TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING (edited by Anthony Marchetta: the original description is here), which will include a story of mine: my very first story, in fact. It's called "The Kings of the Corona". I recommend both Cirsova and TOTOAFK.
I may start proofreading as a sideline one of these days. I'm also working on an outline for a second story, not yet titled. More on that later.
I also have lots of ideas for other stories in my notes. One thing that has given me half a dozen new ideas already is the new-last-month anthology FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS from Superversive Press, which I'm enjoying. There are 20 stories (and an introduction by Milo Yiannopoulis), of which I've read eleven. I've already had more than enough fun to feel the $4.99 Kindle edition was a great buy, so I recommend this one too.
All the stories in the anthology have in common the theme of presenting ideas that would be offensive to the kinds of troglodytes who rioted to prevent Milo from speaking at Berkeley last night. I love this concept, which is of course rich with potential, and I want to work in that field. I can think of lots of ways to include what are today avant-garde ideas (you know, like truth and beauty and justice--not the "social" kind of justice, but actual justice). But the trick will be to write stories that work very well as stories--entertaining, properly paced, developed characters that the reader can care about, and so on. There will be a temptation to luxuriate in the "forbidden" themes themselves, since even writing or reading the things the SJW establishment has declared out-of-bounds is a relief and pleasure in itself, but that's only half the job. We'll need really good stories if we're to attract readers who aren't already feeling stultified by the SJW nonsense, and that's the only way the culture will change.
I may start proofreading as a sideline one of these days. I'm also working on an outline for a second story, not yet titled. More on that later.
I also have lots of ideas for other stories in my notes. One thing that has given me half a dozen new ideas already is the new-last-month anthology FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS from Superversive Press, which I'm enjoying. There are 20 stories (and an introduction by Milo Yiannopoulis), of which I've read eleven. I've already had more than enough fun to feel the $4.99 Kindle edition was a great buy, so I recommend this one too.
All the stories in the anthology have in common the theme of presenting ideas that would be offensive to the kinds of troglodytes who rioted to prevent Milo from speaking at Berkeley last night. I love this concept, which is of course rich with potential, and I want to work in that field. I can think of lots of ways to include what are today avant-garde ideas (you know, like truth and beauty and justice--not the "social" kind of justice, but actual justice). But the trick will be to write stories that work very well as stories--entertaining, properly paced, developed characters that the reader can care about, and so on. There will be a temptation to luxuriate in the "forbidden" themes themselves, since even writing or reading the things the SJW establishment has declared out-of-bounds is a relief and pleasure in itself, but that's only half the job. We'll need really good stories if we're to attract readers who aren't already feeling stultified by the SJW nonsense, and that's the only way the culture will change.
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