Guy Stewart's Blog, page 34

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Spider-Man: No Way Home, Men In Black 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 2...and Other Tear-Jerkers…

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on the Social Security and Medicare…I WILL NOT use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

Do you find yourself tearing up or weeping uncontrollable whenever you watch Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Back To The Future Trilogy, AVENGERS: Infinity War, and Men In Black 3?

No? It’s only me?

Maybe if I just explain a bit, you’ll recall the time you found yourself crying during these emotionally charged movies and you’ll agree with me!

OK, I’m starting with Spider-Man: No Way Home (herewith: NWH) because my wife and I just finished watching it. First of all, we all know that Peter Parker is a young man with no real male role-model left in his life. His mom and dad were killed (mostly in a plane crash, though sometimes murdered) and he was raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. In NWH, we find three versions of Peter who show up in HIS universe via Ned creating multidimensional portals and them hopping through. Their meeting is convenient at first, until they start “sharing” and they all find out they’ve lost someone important to them. (PS: Apparently ALL the Spider-Mans in this movie are weepy, too). But the scene that gets to me is the very end when they all say “Goodbye” to each other Peter NWH knowing what’s coming. He tells Doctor Strange that he wants EVERYONE to forget that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, and the look Strange gives him – and the understanding on Peter NWH’s face make me weep harder, until I’m using my hanky to wipe my eyes.

In Men in Black 3 (MIB3), J (Will Smith) has been bitter his entire life because he grew up without a father. Sadly, the reason I never questioned this is because I fell prey to the “Black Father” meme – that “all black men are bad fathers and leave their families”. While patently NOT true, if you ask honest White people, they’ll usually admit that they’ve subconsciously bought into the lie.

It's so insidious that even J has bought into it.

MIB3 wouldn’t work if anyone watching it assumes that J’s dad is gone for the same reason we all think we know…What none of us THINK is that J’s dad, Colonel James Darrell Edwards Jr. died a hero, protecting his country. When J witnesses that, realizes that HE was the little boy that K neuralizes…I weep.

In the Back-To-the-Future Trilogy (BTTFT), Marty McFly’s dad is a spineless, fawning twerp whom NOBODY, not even Marty can respect. Instead, Marty has latched onto Doc Brown as a father figure and willingly follows him through alternate timelines (sensing a pattern here yet?) – and helps him fix the past, present and future that MARTY screwed up by creating a terrified by BRAVE George (his dad) and altering the timeline. He and Doc spend the rest of the first and the next three fixing the timeline…

The place where I find myself weeping every time is when Marty tries to keep Doc Brown from being murdered by the “Libyan terrorists”…but fails, even AFTER stealing the De Laurean and working so hard to fix everything. He sees Doc gunned down and runs up to the (bloodlessly) dead Doc Brown and break down, weeping. As I do…then Doc wakes up, show Marty his Kevlar vest, and shrugs off the slight tweak to the timelines…of course, saving Doc Brown from being murdered by Mad Dog Tannen merely changes the PERSON who dies. Horrified, Doc Brown sets out to save Marty…

In Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (GG2), Quill thinks he’s found his father, and has!

The problem is that his father is a psychopathic god who only wanted a child so he could create another creature that was half himself. The purpose of that, is to get his DNA and then recreate himself forever…or something stupid like that. Yondu, the alien with the head fin, who both told him the only reason he kept Quinn around was because he “was a runt and could get into small places” and constantly kept Peter in terror by threatening to eat him”. What we eventually find out is that Yondu saved Quill from certain death when he found out about Ego siring children on every sapient life form in the known universe, then murdering the resulting, “disappointing” child when they proved they didn’t carry his “god genes”. When he realizes the truth, he honors Yondu as his true father.

Lastly, there’s the relationship between Tony Stark and Spider-Man H: and this is one that BOTH of them became a true father and son team. Stark’s father, while he DID have strong feelings about Tony, was totally incapable of sharing them with his SON. He had no trouble sharing those feelings with the adult Tony when they shared a “two-men-whose-wives-were-expecting” moment in the past. Nor did he have any trouble sharing those feelings on a movie made about his “vision” of the future of humanity – but ending with “I built [Stark Expo] for you…it represents a whole lot more than people's inventions…one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is, and will always be, my greatest creation…is you.” Tony’s need to repair his relationship with his father was IMPOSSIBLE TO DO as his father was long dead by the time he found the film.

Spider-Man H/Peter Parker H was in desperate need of a strong father figure. The two of them were a match made in Heaven – or the Multiverse (feel free to choose according to your belief system!) And it worked. Tony Stark turned Stark Industries over to a much more caring and responsible Peter Parker H; and he saved the world by using the Infinity Stones he snatched from Thanos to putting it back to a time BEFORE Thanos had eliminated half of all life in the UNIVERSE…

That cost him his life, but he was almost happy to pay the price. He certainly “won over the Woman”, and he certainly received a son’s adoration from Peter Parker H. When he dies at the end of Infinity War…I cry every time.

So, there you go! Everything you need to know!

“Excuse me?” I listen, then reflect the question back to the Asker, “You still don’t know why I’m the one who weeps at all of these scenes?” (and I’m sure I’ve missed many others). I nod, then reply, “I was hoping that you hadn’t noticed me dodge that bullet.” Listen, then nod sagely, “I suppose I DO owe you that.” I purse my lips, breathe in deeply through my nose, release the breath slowly, conjure up a stool, sit and say:

My relationship with my own father AS SEEN BY ME was fraught. I was born when Mom and Dad didn’t have much money, and after mom quit (it WAS after all, 1957) to stay home and “raise the children”, Dad go another job. He was a general laborer, who’s someone in the construction job site hierarchy whose rank is virtually 0, with 10 being the Site Supervisor (aka The Suit In The Hard Hat). He needed another job to feed his growing family, so he worked oil changing and “whatever” at a local, NON-Chain garage (Tony’s, if you must know). He bowled in the winter, played softball in the summer, and all-in-all, put food on the table in the Best Of Times, and did scab work (non-Union carpentry) when we had to use food stamps in the Worst Of Times.

He didn’t seem to have much time for me; and as I loathed organized sports (after a DISASTROUS attempt at Little League Baseball when I was seven: I was always the right fielder (as it was the position that saw the least action). Remember the scenes in MEET THE ROBINSON’S when Goob (Michael Yagoobian) plays baseball, drops the catch in the Championship Game? That was me at 7…only our team wasn’t that great – and I was the worst of them. Even the coach was disparaging.

I’m pretty sure Dad was embarrassed. I have a picture of me at about two years. Mom and Dad had dressed me up in a baby-sized football helmet, shoulder pads, and put a football in my hands. Scrawled on the back in my mom’s feminine script are the words, “No interest at all!” Yep. Those words might as well have been tattooed on my forehead. My dad had played basketball and football; brother #1: football, hockey (school, traveling, college with scholarship), baseball; brother #2: (choir) football, hockey, track and field (State Record shot-putter); sister: ?, volleyball, softball, Mom: college fencing (!!!).

Me? Reading; just call me a square peg in a round hole.

Near the end, Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and because I was closest physically, much of the day-to-day contact with Mom and Dad fell to me. No problem, but by then, my feelings of animosity toward my dad was pretty much a hard shell. I find myself wishing the picture above was Dad and me reconciling...but by the end, he hardly knew me, and I was exhausted.

And then, to add insult to injury, I NEVER had a substitute Dad…no male figure ever tucked me under his wing and made certain I was being nurtured and he was genuinely interested in whatever it was I was doing. I became very bitter – and I’m quite certain some psychologist would find a goldmine of various and sundry psychological neuroses, etc. to dig up and confront me with and prescribe treatment. But, the fact is that, I’m not interested because I’ve found my own comfort.

Besides those I note above, IMDb lists some 1300 “sci-fi, father-son relationship” movies. If you drop the sci-fi, the number LEAPS to over 21,000. I’m clearly NOT the only person who has experienced and tried to reconcile this relationship. When I type in, “sci-fi, father-son reconciliation”, I get 70 hits…of which, three are sci-fi (two are actually horror), and one episode of an old TV show…and then the list repeats the 35 selections again to give a nice 70…FWIW, none of the entries are the movies above…

So, why did I write all of this? It’s all fantasy, right? I all of a sudden realized that
I’ve been looking for a reconciliation with my father most of my life. He died of complications of Alzheimer’s three-and-a-half years ago, so there’s no chance that I’ll EVER reconcile in reality, but now I understand why, when I see that happening in movies – and I react with grief.

Now that I know that, perhaps what I’ll start doing is WRITING my way into reconciliation by focusing my narrative on creating those kinds of stories. The kinds of stories I'd LIKE to see…

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_and_Mary_Parker#:~:text=Richard%20and%20Mary%20Parker%20appear,Uncle%20Ben%20and%20Aunt%20May's.,
Image: uploaded from personal file

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 560

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: Absolute xenophobes
Current Event: http://io9.com/what-will-human-cultures-be-like-in-100-years-453934475

Diandra Ngobogo and Guychel Kolchak walked side-by-side in the Mall of America. The Mall was crowded – more so than it had been in decades. The entire building had been renovated and vertical banners proclaiming, “Fifty Years Of Quality Shopping” floated from antigrav advert-eyezers, brushing shoppers with trailers of brilliantly colored silk.

It was just as effective as elaborate signage had been in the last century. Most of the people ignored them. While it was true people ducked into and out of shops, the majority simply walked, talking.

To themselves.

Even so, it was quieter. The near silence was broken only by the squeak of tennis shoes and murmuring voices, as if someone had stumbled into a Buddhist temple filled with saffron-robed monks doing their morning prayers.

Diandra said, “What could you possibly want with that?”

Guychel said, “Where would she go with someone like him?” He squeezed Diandra’s hand so hard, she yelped, yanking her hand away from his.

He didn’t notice even when she glanced at him. He did notice when she shoved him hard enough to stumble into a column that rose up all seven stories to support a semi-transparent roof panel. He said, “I’ll talk to you in a minute,” tapped his phone and glared at Diandra and exclaimed, “What was that for?” He tapped his phone again and muttered, “No, not you! I’m talking to Diandra.” He paused. “She’s my girlfriend.” Paused again then said, “Why would you think that?” and hung up on the caller. He finally looked at Diandra and said, “What?”

Balled fists on her hips, she jerked her head sideways once, calling Guychel. She murmured, “We haven’t said a word to each other since we got here.”

“We’re talking now,” he murmured back.

“You didn’t even notice when I stopped holding your hand!” she said.

He looked stupidly at the offending member then at her, murmuring, “So?”

“Why do we even go to the trouble of getting together if we’re just going to walk alongside each other and still talk to the rest of the world?”

He stared at her then swallowed hard. He hung up and said to her directly, “Are you breaking up with me?”

She hung up as well and said out loud, “I like you a lot. Why would I break up with you?”
“You’re not talking to me, though,” Guychel said.

“I’m talking to you.”

He gestured angrily, “You know what I mean! We’re not on the same circuit!”

Diandra stared at him for several seconds before he looked away. She said, “I skipped fifteen times from Jakarta to here just to be with you. Do you see any more couples here?”

Guychel looked. He frowned. Then he turned in a circle and finally said, “None that I can see. They’re all here by themselves for whatever reason, but they’re with their real friends, too. What’s wrong with that?”

She’d done the same thing, tracking various Mall walkers. She finally said, “I ain’t a genius…”

“You are, too. That’s what the datafile says. It’s why I texted you.”

She blinked in surprise then smiled, “You flirted me because I was smart?”


He grinned lopsidedly, “That and you’re a sexbag.”

She sniffed and slugged him on the shoulder and said, “You’re no outtrash yourself.”

He blushed under his pink dyed blond hair. The two colors clashed remarkably. He said, “So, what you’re saying is that we should like, really talk to each other?”

Diandra shrugged, “Could be new.”

Guychel grinned then looked up. Way up. He frowned. “What?” Diandra asked.

He jerked his chin up. “Someone was watching us.”

She touched her headset then said, “I ran it back. You’re right. Who was that?”

Names: ♀ Indonesia, Central African Republic; ♂ Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia (Siberia)
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

Slice of PIE: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" -- Science Fiction or Fantasy???

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in August 2022 (I retired from education, but I STILL couldn't go to CHICon because we're on a fixed income now. SO... I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. Today, I go back to an essay I wrote that was both Irritating and, for me, inspirational...

My wife and I re-watched the movie, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, starring Ben Stiller. The screenplay was based on a short story of the same name, written by well-known humorist, James Thurber.
Apparently they really have nothing to do with each other, so I’m going to treat the Stiller movie as a science fiction flick.

Why SF and not Fantasy?
It involves both psychology (soft SF) and technology (hard SF) – and advances in technology and how they affect society (classic hard SF)…

The premise is how advances in technology will affect society, in this case, how the internet affects the lives of people whose employ was in a paper magazine that depended on physical film images; at its heart, the kind of SF we all enjoy reading – the book I’m reading now is an exploration of what post-humanity will be like when our psyches can be uploaded to vastly more advanced computers and how that might overtake the biological Human. John C. Wright’s COUNT TO A TRILLION is no more hard SF than Stiller’s TSLOWM.

The psychology is obvious and where in Thurber’s TSLOWM, Walter never moves from his imagination to any kind of reality at all, Stiller’s Walter begins his life lost in a sort of fantasy world, he enters the real world and begins to bring some of those fantasies into reality.

Of course, the only way he can do that is by the application of everyday technology – a combination of jets, helicopters, ocean-going vessels, cars, subways, elevators, high-altitude/low temperature gear, and eHarmony (an online dating site)…

Most importantly to me, however, is that the movie is inspiring. While I can’t say exactly why, I do know that as a writer, I tend to live in my head as Walter did. I can also say, though, that I’ve had my fair share of adventures as a missionary in Nigeria (where we experienced a coup d’état) and I helped perform a puppet show on national TV; Cameroon where we experienced an attempted coup d’état, stepped on a scorpion in the middle of the night, and came down with malaria; and Liberia where nothing of “adventure” happened except that we traveled up and down the coast and I walked along a black sand beach. I was also in Haiti for two weeks, helping to lay the foundation of an orphanage. I guess traveling with a band counts – twice – counts too…two summers running a Bible camp in the center of the Chippewa National Forest and actually SEEING wild timber wolves. Having lunch with Newbery Award-winning author Kate di Camillo. Meeting Mary Grandpre, artist of Scholastic Book’s HARRY POTTER books and a cover of TIME magazine…I have a “real” letter from Madeleine L’Engle, a response to a letter I wrote her, as well as a different one from Anne McCaffery and another from David Brin…

I was the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year in 1997…

OK, so I’m not exactly an example of Thurber’s Walter Mitty; but I’m certainly not Stiller’s Walter Mitty, either. It’s Stiller’s Walter Mitty, though who is the character of a science fiction movie. While it doesn’t involve space or time travel, it does involve MIND travel as we got to see what he was imagining – saving the dog from a building about to erupt into a fireball; the guy who came out of a LIFE Magazine ad from the Himalayas to talk to Cheryl; being Benjamin Buttons to Cheryl's Daisy Fuller; plus a few others I can’t recall (and can’t seem to find listed anywhere). For a moment, we see what he sees – or where he goes when life isn’t going in the direction he wanted it to. It's a sort of...time travel or psychotic adventure that moves me to want more in my life.

So there you have it – why I think Stiller’s SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY is a science fiction film rather than a fantasy film and why it is SF in the very best of the tradition.

After reading Lisa Cron's book, WIRED FOR STORY, I started creating a framework for me to use her idea -- that we read stories to learn how to deal with real life. In an article my sister forwarded to me, Cron states: "The reader expects the story to revolve around one, single plot problem that grows, escalates and complicates, which the protagonist has no choice but to deal with...[which] is constructed to force the protagonist to confront, struggle with, and hopefully overcome a long standing internal problem. Story is about an internal change, not an external one...Can my plot problem...force my protagonist to struggle internally, spurring her to make a much needed internal change in order to resolve it?"

This is exactly what Walter Mitty does in the movie. Deep down, he feels he has no control over his life. So he creates fantasies in which he CAN control the situation to the extent that he becomes a hero. Real life is a lost job, a brutal boss, multiple relationship fails, a bossy sister, and the loss of an important film negative -- the only one on Earth. In his mind, he makes heroic decisions and people love him. Then he starts to make REAL (sometimes dumb!) decisions and gets hurt, nearly dies, and then hurts the person around whom his entire life has revolved...but he GROWS and then becomes a real man with a real woman who is interested in him. And he tells the boss off.

THAT is what story is supposed to do, and because we don't read (or even pay much attention to) stories anymore, we don't know what the HECK to do to make life better...“...we're wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world.”

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/07/d1/3b/07d13b89120aa69106d0410bd5671b52.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 559

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: Haunted Castle/Mansion
Current Event: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/31105/cold-spots-glensheen-mansion

“No! Really! I saw the ghost!” said Enzo Solem. His wild hand waving came more from the passion of his French forebears than the stolid formality of his Norwegian. First generation from both sides, he’d been born and raised just north of the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior.

He also had a wild passion for the paranormal.

Weayaya Aguirre sighed. Enzo was her best friend but sometimes he bugged the living daylights out of her. Shaking her head, she said, “Why can’t you just accept that the world is the world and that’s all there is?”

He stared at her incredulously and exclaimed, “You work here, too! How can you say that? You’ve seen the apparitions just like I have!”

Shaking her head, Weayaya – Wee-ah to the rest of the staff at the Glensheen Mansion – said, “I’ve told you a dozen times that I don’t know what you saw that night. I saw some kind of heat shimmer from the furnace.”

“And I’ve told you two dozen times that I talked with Elizabeth Congdon!”

“A woman who’s been dead for half a century?”

“She’s not dead...” he scowled. “Exactly. Her spirit is trapped here because her son suffocated her under a pillow and then banged the night nurse over the head with a candlestick.” Wee-Ah sucked in her lower lip and bit it gently to keep from responding how she wanted to respond. He added, “All I’m asking is that you come with me tonight. It’s the night of June 26...”

“You want to see her ghost, right?”

“Nope.”

Wee-Ah frowned and looked at him. This was not the answer she’d expected. “What?”

“I want to see the ghost of her son. He confessed to her murder and was sent to jail, getting out five years later. His ex-wife, Elizabeth Congdon’s sociopathic adopted daughter never gave him any of the money she inherited from her mother’s murder. He killed himself five years after his release from prison – though I’ve heard people whispering that Congdon’s daughter did him in.”

“So you want to see if the ghost of one of Congdon’s ex-son-in-laws comes back here?”

“Yep. Marjorie died in prison in 2022, five years before the fiftieth anniversary of her adoptive mother’s murder.”

“And you think that that is significant...how?”

“It’s obvious! Marjorie-originally-Congdon is buried in the family mausoleum.” Wee-Ah nodded. That much was true. “It’s now half a century after her mother’s murder by her second ex-husband Roger Caldwell.” Wee-Ah nodded, not even realizing she was encouraging him. He went on excitedly, “So I figure the psychic energy will be so powerful that not only will Roger’s ghost appear, so will Velma’s; her third husband Wally was murdered as well as his ex-wife; plus some old guy she defrauded of all his money in a nursing home in Arizona. His name was also Roger, though his last name was Sammis. Her first husband – with whom she’d had seven children – was Dick LeRoy and he died the same year she did – 2022. So it’s 2027, fifty years after someone murdered Elizabeth Congdon. I would say that Marjorie Congdon LeRoy Caldwell Hagen has some serious psychic reckoning coming.”

Wee-Ah found herself nodding in agreement before she could think things through. That was how she found herself kneeling in the bushes near the Congdon family stone marker in the Forest Hill Cemetery on this dark and stormy night, cold summer rain dribbling down the back of her hastily donned poncho.

Enzo leaned over to her and whispered, “It’s five minutes to midnight…”

Names: ♀ Sioux, Spanish; ♂ French, Norwegian
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

Slice of PIE: DISCON III – #11/Mining the Asteroids PART 7: Asteroid Mining and the Global Economy...Tales of Flying Mountains

Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared!

Panelists:

Geoffrey A. Landis: NASA, John Glenn Research Center, aerospace engineer, writerBob Vernon: Air Force, Department of Defense work
Peter N. Glaskowsky: computer architect, space elevator author, inventor
Keith Gremban: robotics, Department of Defense work

A long-time interest of mine has been mining the asteroids. I wrote a story that involved it, but haven’t been able to interest anyone in it.

I watched this session with lots of interest.

I’ll be grouping each person’s comments on the subject and add in anything else I think of at the end!

GEOFFREY LANDIS:

- [Are these] resources for EARTH, or resources in SPACE? Who’s there?
- Do we send Humans, robots, or both?
- Geological metals, soluble in iron. Platinum is dissolved in iron; metal ores; what about Psyche (asteroid in the Main Belt). Iron is mixed with rare-earths on the surface. Catalysts – catalytic converter. “All cars will be obsolete by 2032.” Gigatons will be used, highly abundant NOT on Earth. By refining the iron, nickel, and cobalt from the asteroids, we remove the “impurities” from 98.998% of the iron – about 25 parts per billion. That’s reasonable. Don’t go to carbonaceous chondrites = carbon, CO passed over iron and nickel = volatile gas. Transport: return to CO = rare metals, ferrous metals – bringing them to Earth would be too expensive. A PLATINUM FACTORY = that would be HUGE! Pl, Fe, Ni all come out pure. Economical – we do it on Earth, can we fo it in space?
- What else? H2O, carbon, precious metals, mining for space colonies, LUNAR mining?
- Science fiction gets asteroid and Lunar mining wrong
- The Moon’s short on carbon (a crazy writer, Asteroid Mega-Novel) Allow people to move out, mine iron, assemble for Earth. BUILD in space, drop onto Earth.
- Economical value of space junk? How about the little guy who can skip orbits? PROPELLANT BUDGET.
- Junk is boosted into GRAVEYARD ORBIT (???? Idea for a story title???)
- Telerobotics – but people still have to be NEAR. But Phobos controls them…

BOB VERNON:

- It’s hard, but it WILL happen. Should do: spinoffs to GET there; develop technology from the spinoffs
- once the volatiles are gone, take the iron
- Robotic prospecting, someone in a spacesuit pulling their robot “mule” behind them
- Legal aspects of space mining? “it’ll be the wild, wild west”, you just can’t land settlers on the ground
- TOURISM! BUT, you’ll need infrastructure in place.
- Build equatorial Earth colonies in space: L5, O’Neill, WITH RADIATION SHEILDING (maybe the waste scavengers sell the leftovers processed into a slurry, sort of like “space cement” that’s quick, cheap, and easy to do???)
- It WILL produce more resources than we can EVER USE (Hmmm…that’s what logging companies said about the giant White Pines along the St. Croix – they logged it out in 22 years, then headed West, leaving behind brush, weeds, and a devastated land…)[Picture from my personal files]
- Military will want to clean up junk (maybe like the old Works Projects/ProgressAdministration or the Civilian Conservation Corps????)
- can use ground-based, industrial lasers because they can’t focus very far out.
- can also use propellant to deorbit the smaller garbage
- we CAN’T do it with the tech we have. We need a Human mind closer to the stull. Drones have to have a Human to control them in the loop [DThomsen?]
- EFFORTS give us hope; robotics are advancing and we’re (supposedly????) moving toward AI.

PETER GLASKOWSKI

- We can and WILL mine asteroids, but for the purpose of argument: 99% of the stuff left over from mining will be thrown away. But we should use it in space…
- Rare Earths, metals, Platinum, radiation guns (that Jewelers use???)
- Carbon, H2O and H for propulsion
- Moons are covered with ice; the “ice line” [story title!] = rock on the outside, frozen water on the inside
- Asteroid Mining Winters – no longer interested; “bitcoin companies” are dead; “TransAsteroid Corporation”, talking about it. Economics are NOT “bullish”, thought they could get ahead
- Company that actually tries to do it…
- have to have BOTH asteroid and Lunar mining
- Trying to entertain, “Robot Mule” – Good story! BUT miner bots don’t TEACH people how to do it…
- How big are diamonds? What part of the world economy? Refining in space, eliminate pollution; create technology to refine without waste! CO resource…
- Move off for INCENTIVE might create a market for companies to IMPORT from space. What’s the environmental cost [My thought: WHY aren’t Climate Changists talking about moving industry off Earth? Why are they constantly talking about “give up, give up, do with less, do with less!” Why not get rid of the Chicken Little attitude?]
- Tethers Unlimited, Rob Hoyt ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLjxoscCi0A ), make a big ball of crap, with sticky stuff; poisons for industrial processes???

KEITH GREMBAN

- Economics of it SHOULD do; spinoffs to get there, develop the tech from the spinoffs.
- ROBOTS! NOT HUMANS!!! Need economic incentives to include Humans
- Mining the MOON provides resources to mine the asteroids
- can use Far Side mining to create radio telescopes funded by universities…
- focus on interesting BIG problems, we don’t look at small ones!
- refine metals, etc, IN SPACE
- We CAN get robots to do it, but WE want to be there!
- mining the asteroids is inevitable, but ROBOTICS is the key and competition is NECESSARY

So, there you go, the experts have weighed in, and the fact is that this is going to go into a series I’ve been writing on mining the asteroids. I suppose I should have led off with this, but I didn’t, so…there you go. You might want to check the previous posts in this series.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting back to writing stories!

Program Schedule: https://discon3.org/schedule/ Image: Personal File, Wild River [Minnesota] State Park, Exhibit, "A Vanished Forest" Copyright, Minnesota DNR

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 558

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Fantasy Trope: Fantastic Comedy
Current Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpIJNGMh0IQ

Aarav Tlak shook his head and said, “Horses don’t talk.”

Kyla Das sniffed and said, “Shows what you know.”

“There’s no such thing as magic; there’s no such thing as a talking ani...”

“To reiterate what I said, you’re showing your ignorance by making such a categorical and sweeping statement. Are you including animals who have been trained or recognize commands?”

“Of course not! Animals can be smart and trainable, they just can’t talk.”

She gave him a long look then said, “So you’re saying that no animal on Earth can communicate?”

“No! You’re twisting my words. Animals communicate in a thousand different ways – some we can’t comprehend, like elephants talking below our level of hearing. But you’re talking about...about...about...talking like we’re talking and animals don’t do that.”

“How do you know?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

“I could say that you’re a bit of an animal,” Kyla said with a smirk.

“I am not!” Aarav exclaimed.

She snorted then said, “You’ve never had to deal with yourself after you and your gf haven’t had a chance to make out.”

Sputtering, Aarav exclaimed, “That’s not fair!”

“That’s what criminals all say.”

He glared at her, took a deep breath, glared a while longer and finally said, “Proof would be you introducing me to some animal and then me and the animal having a conversation.”

“You’d accept that as proof?”

He gave her a funny look and she burst into laughter. Blushing furiously, he said, “Of course I’d accept it as proof! I’d hardly be a dispassionate scientist if I ignored an actual animal actually speaking to me.”

“Any animal?”

Aarav scowled, “I don’t like the direction this conversation is taking. What do you mean by that?”

She held out a stethoscope and said, “Put these into your ears.”

His eyes grew wide, he took them in hand, and said, “This isn’t funny anymore.”

“It’s not supposed to be. Warm up the end of that thing and put it on my belly – and prepare to be amazed.”

Names: ♀Philippines, Bangladesh; ♂ India, Croatia
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

Slice of PIE: Of Emperors, Queens, Republics, and OTHER Ways To Be Ruled...now and in the future...

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on Social Security, Medicare, and Savings…I WILL NOT use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

While this is absolutely OFF topic, it is strangely, at this time, point on Topic.

Some years ago, my wife and I started watching a Netflix series called “The Crown”. Apparently, it took the television world by storm – and generated an immense amount of criticism because, while taking History as a firm foundation, it (apparently) flew off the handle more than once.

Wikipedia summarized it thus: “The first season covers the period from Elizabeth's marriage to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947 to the disintegration of her sister Princess Margaret's engagement to Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955. The second season covers the period from the Suez Crisis in 1956 to the retirement of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963 and the birth of Prince Edward in 1964. The third season spans 1964 to 1977, includes Harold Wilson's two periods as prime minister, and introduces Camilla Shand. The fourth season spans 1979 to the early 1990s and includes Margaret Thatcher's tenure as prime minister and Prince Charles's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer. The fifth and sixth seasons, which will close the series, will cover the Queen's reign into the 21st century…” and as of nine days ago, I imagine it will now also cover her passing.

At first glance, it seems that the queen of a rather small island nation would have virtually no impact on the world.

At second glance, no only did the country she “ruled” have an impact on the planet – invading and claiming for its own uses every continent on the planet, it also claimed to rule some fifty-eight countries, including the Thirteen British Colonies, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, and had effectively a monopoly on the planet’s economy for some time – creating and expanding a Slave Trade that still sends shock waves across the Human homeworld today…

So, what does this have to do with science fiction?

Ask George Lucas about the roots of the Empire…or Isaac Asimov about the roots of the Empire…or Frank Herbert about the roots of the Empire…or Lois McMaster Bujold about the roots of the Cetagandan or the Barrayaran Empires…or…how many science fiction writers have created Empires to rule Humanity et al? Or Phillip K. Dick?

How about Police States? George Orwell? Phillip K. Dick (again)? Cory Doctorow? Suzanne Collins? Yevgeny Zamyatin? Margaret Atwood?

Consumer States? Paolo Bacigalupi? Ian McDonald? Max Barry? Robert A. Heinlein (TANSTAAFL, anyone?)

And how many have created Republics…that have lasted? Ursula K. LeGuin…sometimes. Kim Stanely Robinson, certainly. In fact, he’s become something of a hero of he Future. THE NEW REPUBLIC journalist Jeet Heer wrote almost a decade ago, “Robinson, in effect, sees science itself as a kind of utopia: a collaborative, cooperative, international, disinterested attempt to understand the world and make it a better place. He doesn’t deny that, in practice, science might be corrupted by everything from petty rivalry to cupidity, but the act of doing science carries with it values that need to be broadened out and made a part of political life.” And yet, we have a republic; we have the spotlight on the world stage, but the dysfunction of government can hardly be laid solely at the feet of obtuse Republicans. In fact, there seems to be dissent in the Party of Al Gore on how to do science and apply it to our lives. Jeet Heer concludes the article with the following: “To paraphrase Jameson once again, the lesson of [Robinson’s book] 2312 is that it is easier to terraform Venus than to reach an international climate accord. Even the most splendid utopian imagination has its limits.”

Yet, the statement seems to assume that scientists will save the day (as usual), but makes no mention at all of HOW THE NEWLY TERRAFORMED VENUS WILL BE GOVERNED… In Robinson’s RED MARS, BLUE MARS, AND GREEN MARS, there are troubles in paradise because people STILL don’t know how to get along.

As a science teacher for 40 years, and a science fiction reader and writer for fifty-three years, I can say with a bit of authority that the PROBLEM is not the science. The problem is – and always will be – the PEOPLE.

Oh, and in case you didn’t see it? In the NEW Star Wars, the New Republic is DISINTEGRATED by the New Police Order…

Resource: https://newrepublic.com/article/123217/new-utopians, https://best-sci-fi-books.com/21-best-political-science-fiction-books/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_EmpireProgram Guide: https://guide.chicon.org/; https://locusmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/chicon-8-twitter.png
Image: http://rechelon.github.io/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.png

Slice of PIE: My “Evolution By Star Trek” (Sort of Like Trial By Fire…)

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on the Social Security and Medicare…I WILL NOT use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

I was only 9 years old when STAR TREK premiered.

But my Dad watched it. I wasn't allowed to stay up that late until Season 3. I got to start when I was 11 and turned 12 in the spring of 1969.

From the moment I first watched it, I fell in love with Star Trek and it's been over half a CENTURY since then. I became a SCIENCE TEACHER because of Star Trek...and just retired after 40 years in the classroom. This (at the time) single show shaped my life.

How? I played Star Trek and Aliens instead of “Cowboys and Indians”…of course, I didn’t have the special effects crew to create beams of lambent light or make totally cool sound effects. (Wanna hear one? Click on this, but keep your volume low! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFeEcSuX5Y (OOPS! Sorry…*wink*) actually THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbFmzZPyKlk) So I ran around shooting aliens with a hand-carved phaser painted green with a yellow stripe down the side. I’d cut a bit of wood at an angle in order to make a handle, then nailed five finishing nails into the “barrel”. To simulate the phaser sound effect, I let forth with a squeal while vibrating my lips like a trumpet player.

Star Trek ignited in me a deep desire to leave Earth and go to the stars. In those days, you had to be an astronaut and take your life into your own hands every day. Apparently you also had to be an elite soldier in the military. I couldn’t even do a PULL UP to pass the Presidential Physical Fitness Test…how would I possibly pull myself up by my bootstraps when I couldn’t even pull my pudgy body up high enough for my chin to reach the bar. And in the midst of the Vietnam War, I wasn’t real keen on enlisting before I got drafted, so that route was closed by a decision on my part. Star Trek came along just as I was finishing up THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET and SPACESHIP UNDER THE APPLE TREE, and so I never completed the two series. But it was Star Trek (and growing up!) that launched me into the junior high library.

I started reading more science fiction. I blew through the juvenile works of Robert A Heinlein, Donald A Wollheim (who founded DAW Books), Andre Norton, A.M. Lightner (who I just now discovered was a woman!!!), Alan E. Nourse, and (of course), Madeleine L’Engle.

But, I’ll never forget perhaps the most influential of the YA science fiction novels I ever read: British author, John Christopher’s WHITE MOUTAINS Trilogy (eventually a quartet). I was in 7th grade when I first checked out the first book, THE WHITE MOUNTAINS – I give all kinds of details in SIX essays I wrote on my blog over the past nine years about the books. Needless to say, those books compelled me to keep the story going. They lit a deep desire in me to create my OWN worlds…( https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2013/05/slice-of-pie-no-new-writing.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/06/slice-of-pie-in-terms-of-my-writing.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2015/09/slice-of-pie-who-are-we-imitating-these.html; https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/slice-of-pie-teen-humor-combatting-grim.html; https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2012/09/possibly-irritating-essays-how-teenya.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2012/07/possibly-irritating-essay-on-this-tour.html)

Reading THOSE books compelled me to pick up my pencil and write a truly horrible piece called “The White Vines” it was also written in painstakingly neat cursive. I’m sure I reread the WHITE MOUNTAIN books several times (I have two sets in my own library today!), until I finally moved on when I discovered the adult SF section of the Public Library and a magazine that took my fledgling writing and set a fire under me to one day get a story published in a floppy, pulp magazine called ANALOG Science Fiction & Fact.

But when push comes to shove, it really comes down to the single most influential television show I was ever (allowed by my dad!) to watch. It introduced me to strange, new worlds that even the stories I was reading couldn’t quite match. I started writing science fiction because of ST. I teach a class called ALIEN WORLDS to gifted and talented kids during the summer and at other conferences and venues because of Star Trek. I teach a different summer school class called WRITING TO GET PUBLISHED…because of Star Trek, and it’s wonderful!

Admittedly, it's also sort of creepy – but in a cool way.

Program Guide: https://guide.chicon.org/; https://locusmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/chicon-8-twitter.png
Image: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cc3d1b051f4d40415789cc2/eef621ab-a509-4949-8717-d98cece8fa9e/james-bama-novelization-cover.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 557

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”
SF Trope: Benevolent Alien Invasion (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BenevolentAlienInvasion)
Current Event: http://fortune.com/2016/06/01/poverty-simulation-camps/

Landon Smith shaded his eyes as he looked up into the crystal clear Nebraska sky. September was an odd time for an Alien invasion. “What do you suppose this group wants to see?” he asked the girl next to him as he pulled off his cowboy hat and wiped at the band of sweat. Even though school had already started, it was still a scorcher. Clarkson in Omaha had drawn him from his hometown with the brass ring of the first full-scale Theoretical Alien Psychology and Philosophy PhD in the country.

Olivia Williams had come for the same reason, though she hated the fact that she’d also promised to the college place-kicker on the football team. She sighed. She STILL wished people wanted her for mind more than her extra-point record. She said, “The same as all of them – poverty-stricken Earth People.”

“Yeah, but…” he began.

“Why come here and not Harlem or…”

“Addis Ababa or Dakar…”

“Or any of a hundred other places?”

“Why here?” they said together.

“It’s not like they talk to anyone – or even pay us any attention. We could be stray cats as far as they’re concerned.”

“Have you ever watched one of their ‘poverty retreats’?” Landon said as the first pallet jack rolled past with a platform of weird aliens. He knew he wasn’t supposed to feel that way, but they were all but incomprehensible to him – or any other Human for that matter. Not one single alien conformed to a body layout that even remotely resembled something on Earth. The “parallel evolutionists” were rethinking their theories at an alarming rate. The Laws of Evolution were being seriously considered as totally outmoded and insufficient to explain, well…anything living. One of the reasons he’d decided to major in TAPP.

“They’re so weird, they aren’t even creepy. Even in my worst nightmare I wouldn’t have been able to imagine these intelligences.”

“That’s why they aren’t particularly scary.” Landon said, “They don’t remind us of ourselves in any way, so they CAN’T be frightening. They’re…alien.”

They said the last word together again. She shrugged, “Well, I for one am looking for some way of breaking through their indifference.”

“You don’t hold with Feng Youlan’s theory that they simply cannot see us – that we’re so far outside of their realm of experience that their brains can’t interpret us at all?”

She laughed and they walked away, arm in arm. Behind them, one of the aliens twitched something that might have been an eye and might have blinked in what could be thought of as interest.

Names: ♀ common Arkansas names, ; ♂ common Idaho names
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #18: Ted Chiang “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Without further ado, short story observations by – with a few from myself…

My wife and I saw the movie “Arrival”, so I found that the movie had come from a short story by a writer I’d never heard of before, Ted Chiang. The main reason I’d never heard of him is because I rarely read SF or F anthologies. He did have a story in ASIMOV’S and two in F&SF, but I didn’t hit the right issue.

At any rate, when I tracked down the story in STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS, I read it and promptly had no idea how the movie “Arrival” could have come from “Story of Your Life”.

According to Wikipedia: “Heisserer [screenwriter] read the story and started work on a screen adaptation. Villeneuve I eventually discovered that “Cohen [producer] and Levine [journalist and filmmaker] and Levy [director, producer, actor (“Stranger Things”), however, introduced Villeneuve to the novella, which the director immediately took to, Heisserer completed a first draft, which Cohen, Levine, Levy, and Villeneuve and reworked into the final script. Villeneuve changed the title, as he felt the original sounded like a romantic comedy and that the script had become very different from the short story.”

Well…DUH! You got five people working off of a science fiction novella – what’d you expect but “a script…very different from the short story.”

That movie and story though, introduced me to the rest of Chiang’s work – which turned out to be almost entirely short stories. So, I though he might have something to say about writing!

I read the story “Hell Is the Absence of God”, when I read the collection. I was surprised now to find out how HONEST Chiang is: “To write this retelling of the Book of Job, in which one might predict an angel’s movements using a kind of meteorology, Chiang immersed himself in the literature of angels and the problem of innocent suffering; he read C. S. Lewis and the evangelical author Joni Eareckson Tada.” I’ve experienced authors who have dismissed my own beliefs without reading to find out WHAT I believe. They just know I’m a Christian. Chiang notes, “I’m curious about what you might call discredited world views. It can be tempting to dismiss people from the past—to say, ‘Weren’t they foolish for thinking things worked that way?’ But they weren’t dummies. They came up with theories as to how the universe worked based on the observations available to them at the time. They thought about the implications of things in the ways that we do now. Sometimes I think, What if further observation had confirmed their initial theories instead of disproving them? What if the universe had really worked that way?”

The more I read, the more I think Chiang might be one of the most honest SF writers I’ve ever read. But HOW does he write?

First of all, though others might consider him a “pro writer” (I’ve always given the definition of “pro writer” as someone who has been PAID for their writing. Chiang sees it differently: “…I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, [I started when I was 13!]) but it was many years before I sold anything…Writing for publication was always my goal…”

So, to do THAT, what did he do?

He wrote. When questioned about his “writing style”, he said, “In general, if there's an idea I'm interested in, I usually think about that for a long time and write down my speculations or just ideas about how it could become a story, but I don't actually start writing the story itself until I know how the story ends.

Me: I recently read this in an evaluation of what “form responses” mean for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction: “Template 2 is the ‘didn’t work for me’ template. It means something like, ‘Your story was good, I read it all the way through, but some big thing didn’t work for me, usually the ending. I know, endings are hard. But the emotional payoff, what you remember most about a story, is how it makes you feel at the end.’ You have to be an Olympic gymnast and nail that dismount.”

Chiang continues, “Once I have the destination in mind then I can build the rest of the story around that or build the rest of the story in such a way as to lead up to that.”

I do it the opposite – while I DO know where the story is going, I write the opening. Sometimes over, and over, and over again, until it sets the hook in a reader’s “mouth”, and they charge on into the story, flying to the end. However, I never considered the fact that instead of the BEGINNINGS, I remember how the story ENDED much more clearly. Once I reflected on it, I saw clearly what he was saying.

Ted Chiang doesn’t think of himself as an expert or a famous writer or even as particularly gifted. He just thinks about things, then does what every science fiction writer does: he asks the question, “What if?”

He’s very much a humble person: “…he has published fourteen short stories and a novella. He has won twenty-seven major sci-fi awards; he might have won a twenty-eighth if, a few years ago, he hadn’t declined a nomination because he felt that the nominated story…was unfinished...[Based on THIS], he has become one of the most influential science-fiction writers of his generation.”

When he wins awards: “His story…was included in last year’s edition of ‘The Best American Short Stories,’ and Junot Díaz, who edited that volume, has said that Chiang’s ‘Stories of Your Life and Others’ is ‘as perfect a collection of stories as I’ve ever read.’ Chiang himself seems to find this kind of praise bewildering.”

To summarize then: start with the ending; ask philosophical questions; consider your opinion one of many and not particularly noteworthy AND actively consider other points of view when crafting a story. Then write! Seems pretty straightforward to me.

References: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fiction, https://boingboing.net/2010/07/22/ted-chiang-interview.html
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320