Guy Stewart's Blog, page 4

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 672

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: "It occurs to me that robot stories about naturally-occurring robots present an untapped sci-fi resource in terms of commenting on what constitutes life, or a meditation on the machine like nature of biological man, etc."
Current Event: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/scientists-create-life-like-cells-out-of-metal/

Ebony Jones pursed her lips, tweaking the landing jets of the surface ship. “I don’t like how it looks down there.”

Marquis Deonte ran another scan, tapping one of the readouts as he said, “It’s mechanical life, sure. Maybe the first time we’ve ever run across it naturally...”

“There’s nothing ‘natural’ about ‘mechanical life’. It’s an oxymoron,” she almost added “Like you...”, but decided against it. They’d butted heads enough times on the trip out from Earth – mostly because you could only live out virtual adventures so many times before you got bored. You could also only prep for landing on an alien world so many times before you were twitching in your sleep with the movements you’d repeated a million times.

You could only tell someone you just wanted to be friends so many times before you both started to... Marquis cut into her litany, saying, “Didn’t you come out here to find life as we DON’T know it?"

“Of course it’s what I want! Just because I question the possibility of some sort of metallic, mechanical...”

“Look! Down there!” he said, aiming the external sensors at the roiling surface.

Ebony said, “Besides, water mixed with just about any kind of salt would be corrosive to metal...”

“Our bones are metallic,” he said, his voice taking on the deadpan, lecture mode they’d fallen into after they’d first become fast friends. Since about ten months into the flight to HD 196944, a star rich in heavy metals when they’d stopped being best friends and become the banes of their separate existences.

“True, that. But...”

“There’s something moving under the surface,” said Marquis.

“I don’t see anything...”
“It’s not visible in our part of the spectrum. Change the frequency reception of your scanner. I’m getting lots of movement in the UV band. Also IR.”

She tapped the screen, slid a spectrum bar and watched as the imaged jumped into view. There were larger shapes deeper down. Smaller ones close to the surface. They were angular rather than rounded; mechanical rather than biological. “What kind of ecology would they have?” she muttered. After a moment, she said more loudly, “There’s something – cloudy – under the surface. Seems to be...” she paused, defaulted to a space-view of the lander, zoomed in then added, “The cloud is matching the shape of our shadow.”

“Huh?” Marquis said.

“Our shadow! A cloud is forming underneath us in the water.” Below them, something burbled, as if the water were boiling. A larger bubble burst beneath the surface, splashing the lander. Ebony swung the imager to the belly of the lander and cried, “The ship’s skin is boiling! I’m taking us up!” Without waiting for his confirmation, Ebony pushed the throttle to full...

Names: ♀, ♂ Top 20 Whitest and Blackest Names (http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2470131) Resource: http://io9.com/5628989/ten-tropes-youll-find-in-science-fiction---over-and-over-again
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

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 30: “Mining” of a DIFFERENT Type!

[image error] Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON 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…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it's become FASCINATING…

Imagine my AMAZEMENT when I met someone who has done real research on asteroid, 4179 Toutatis! It may very well be one of the defining moments of my life!
I met a scientist who works for the SETI Institute!!!!!!!

Why is that significant? Do I think there are aliens traveling on Toutatis?

No, of course not! You think I’m crazy or something???? ‘cause I’m not! My mom said so! (My wife, kids, spouses, siblings, in-laws, and outlaws) think I’m a little weird, but that’s not the same as CRAZY!) No…the reason it’s so crazy is that:

1) A scientist who works for SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute will be coming to speak to a class I teach called Alien Worlds!2) I used the asteroid 4179 Toutatis as the piece of space rock that NASA and several other world space agencies transformed into the Solar System Survey Ship, SOLAR EXPLORER in my 2024 YA/MS novel EMERALD OF EARTH!
So…I met the SETI Institute scientist at the recently completed MiniCon; and while I reported on the convention, I didn’t specifically mention meeting him.

When I did break away from my “sales table” to go see him, he was really nice AND totally normal! He sent me a link to the paper and I read it, understanding some of it, but not all of it. I DID read enough to know that it is NOT one of the asteroid that we’ll be mining any time soon.

I DO know that its orbit around the Sun takes it into the vicinity of Earth every four years or so, as well as approaching “fairly close” to Jupiter It also has a reasonable velocity and THAT is why I chose it. Below, you'll find a bit from my 2024 YA/MS novel, EMERALD OF EARTH

“…first glimpse of SOLAREX.”“What is it?”“Now it’s Humanity’s Last Greatest Adventure,” Rashida said as Emerald echoed word-for-word.“I mean, what is it? A silver rocket ship?”“It’s a hollowed out asteroid.”“A what?” They passed through a garden filled with dark green bushes and plants that all had white blossoms in half-a-dozen shapes and sizes. The air was redolent. Even Rashida fell silent until they were through it.“At one time, the asteroid was called 4179 Toutatis. We captured it, hollowed it out, and then turned around and smelted the metals from the rock into structural elements. Now it’s ready.”“How does it move?”Rashida smiled, leaned forward, and whispered, “It’s a secret, but I hear it has something to do with a subatomic black hole and a long fall.”“What?”  (bad photo of my daughter's interpretation of SOLAREX!)
The upshot of this is that Toutatis isn’t an asteroid we’ll ever mine. In fact, it’s been described as a “rubble pile”, that is, it’s a whole bunch of rocks that crashed into each other and stuck. It’s NOT a goldmine (or a palladium or silver or any other precious metal mine. Toutatis is a dump truck of rocks…which suits its use as an exploratory craft up for a remodel. It’s ALSO, however, not going to be terribly difficult to create a honeycomb of caves, hallways, and meeting places. Asteroids like Toutatis aren’t “soft” the way we think of soft…but they ARE soft in relation to say, an iron ore mine on the Cuyuna, or Mesabi, or the Vermillion Range.

My wife and I LOVE remodeling shows on various minor TV platforms. Maybe that’s why I love the idea of making Toutatis into a solar exploration ship – SOLAREX, in other words! So, this one isn’t about mining the asteroids for riches…so much as it’s about mining the asteroids – particular ones; of which Toutatis might be one; to carry us around the Solar System with relatively little effort. Which may be, in the long run, valuable in and of itself.

Today’s Source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/146/4/95/pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis#/media/File:Animation_of_4179_Toutatis's_orbit_around_Sun.gif ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis ; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103512004113#:~:text=Surface%20composition%20of%20near%2DEarth,content%20and%20a%20differentiated%20body.
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth
, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Interesting Stuff The Might Apply To Mining Asteroids: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgej7gzg8l0oImage: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Josep-Trigo-Rodriguez/publication/261287332/figure/fig4/AS:296933672407047@1447805912917/El-asteroide-4179-Toutatis-nos-muestra-que-se-encuentra-formado-por-dos-objetos-de-4-y.png

IDEA ON TUESDAY 671

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: auto-cannibalism
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-cannibalism

Kari leaned from behind him while the movie in Forensics flickered on the screen in front of the class, whispering in his ear, “You know, if you bite your fingernails, the pieces will poke through your intestines and you’ll get a bleeding ulcer.”

“Shut up,” Mark hissed back at her.

Mr. Stanton looked up from the paper he was correcting and scowled at the two of them.

After class, Kari tapped Mark on the shoulder and said, “You’re the one who asked me to bug you about it.”

“Yeah, but…” he stopped talking as a pair of freshmen boys ran like elementary kids down the hall, cutting between him and Kari. It was a good thing, Mark decided. He’d almost told her the real reason he wanted to stop biting his nails. Or horking his snot or sucking the blood from a hangnail or any of the other instances of him eating his own flesh and blood. It started out as accidental. He’d been playing boot hockey over Christmas break and he’d been whanged in the nose and gotten a fierce nosebleed. Swallowing the blood to keep from grossing everyone out by spitting it on the ice had started something inside of him.

“‘Yeah, but’ what?” Kari asked when they pulled together again.

Mark shrugged and said, “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

Inside, he heard his Inner Voice say, “No you won’t. You won’t tell anyone about me. You just keep feeding me and when I’m big enough, I’ll come out and we’ll take over the world…”

Name Source: Local, Minnesota
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

SLICE OF PIE: LIBRARY PASSPORT Leads To Surviving the Information Apocalypse!!!

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Eighteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose.

To that end, I thought I’d share the startling flow of ideas I gleaned from the results of my birthday present.

A few days ago, my son and his family presented me with a novel artifact: a HENNEPIN COUNTY LIBRARY PASSPORT. Everyone has a library card, right?
Or is that just a naïve assumption made by an old man (68 a few days ago) and foisted off on the world of the first quarter of the 21st Century.
Here are some numbers: “Some 61% of Americans ages 16 and older say they have a library card for a public library. These card holders are more likely to be female, white, under the age of 65, and suburban and urban residents, and are also more likely to have higher levels of education or live in higher income households. About 21% of library card holders did not visit the library in the past 12 months, and 17% of those who have used a public library in the past year say they do not have a library card.”
“According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, there are around 2.8 million libraries worldwide. Most of those (2.2 million) are school libraries, over 410,000 are public libraries, and a whopping 85,623 are academic libraries, like those found here at High Point University.”

OK – NOT everyone has one. BUT, it’s possible for everyone (pretty much) to GET one. So what happened on our first trip to eight different libraries listed on the passport?

First, something funny.

After walking through the library to our areas of differing interests, my granddaughter asked the librarian, “What’s with all the chickens on the columns?” Posted on every column was a picture of some breed of chicken – even the most outlandish: watch this YouTube for the silliest ones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daQ7-hi54_E)

The librarian replied, “Well, it’s CHICKEN month!”
My son asked, “What was last month?”
With a totally straight face, she replied, “Financial Literacy Month.”

I couldn’t help it. I busted out laughing, TOTALLY not expecting something so totally opposite from Chicken Month…”

Another fact: one of the Hennepin County Libraries was built out of a couple of buildings that they converted out of the Grain Belt Brewery building. THAT place has a rich history. The librarian and I got into a long discussion because she remembered how UNdeveloped the portion of the Twin Cities that she moved to was. I entered the discourse by telling her that not only was it undeveloped when SHE moved there, I remember when the city she now lives in was INCORPORATED and that there was nothing but potato fields and cows out that way! She tried to one-up-me by acting like she knew more about the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis than I did…and being who I am, I one-upped-HER…

Which does NOT lead to this following tidbit. She noted that there were, in fact catacombs underneath the old Grain Belt Brewery… (actually, “The Grain Belt name first appeared in 1893 as the "Golden Grain Belt Old Lager," then brewed by the Minneapolis Brewing Company. The Minneapolis Brewing Company was a conglomerate of four other Minneapolis-based breweries, formed in 1890 by the consolidation of the F.D. Noerenberg Brewery, John Orth Brewing Company, Heinrich Brewing Association, and Germania Brewing Association. It was one of the largest breweries in the United States at that time.”)

“CATACOMBS?” I exclaimed.

She leaned forward and said softly, “And they’re still there.”

THAT statement led to this idea: I have a very science fictional mind, and I thought, “Wouldn’t that be a fascinating place for a group to survive the Information Apocalypse?” (“The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has ignited a debate about its effects on the mis- and disinformation landscape. Some scholars foresee doomsday scenarios of epistemic and information apocalypse (Fallis, 2021; Schick, 2020), AI being used as a “weapon of mass disruption” (Bremmer & Kupchan, 2023), or a complete blurring of boundaries between true and false (Metz, 2023).”

And there, you go. Have fun with your imagination!

Inspiration: https://www.highpoint.edu/library/2023/06/12/16252/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20International%20Federation,here%20at%20High%20Point%20University.
Links: https://libguides.ala.org/librarystatistics/largest-public-libs, https://www.highpoint.edu/library/2023/06/12/16252/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20International%20Federation,here%20at%20High%20Point%20University. ,
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/12/11/section-1-an-overview-of-americans-public-library-use/#:~:text=their%20family%20does.-,Library%20card%20holders,not%20have%20a%20library%20card. , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_Belt_(beer) , https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/polp.12617#:~:text=While%20an%20%E2%9Cinformation%20apocalypse%E2%9D%20has,Vaccari%20&%20Chadwick%2C%202020). Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eXjZE9XyfnM/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEhCK4FEIIDSFryq4qpAxMIARUAAAAAGAElAADIQj0AgKJD&rs=AOn4CLD9BOGeXBu6-9FfdYmRzmKgq0iwJg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 670

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: Shapeshifting and Animal Creation https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/insects-invertebrates/biggest-spiders-in-the-world
Current Event: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-discover-a-rare-carnivorous-caterpillar-that-wears-dead-insect-parts-to-fool-spiders-180986506/

Huda crouched behind the wall of an American office building, staring at the surface. “It’s moving like bugs are crawling all over it.” She’d grown up in Gaza after the War.

Her best friend, Schlomo said, “You trying to make me run out of here screaming? You know how much I hate creepy-crawlies!”

“You sound like an American movie star.” She refused to admit that she loved the American movies when his Israeli-Administrator mother kept letting them watch.

“I do not!”

“Oh, you’re right. In American movies, the boys are brave and eat spiders for breakfast, and all the girls do is dress nice and scream when anything interesting happens.” Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to act more…feminine.”

“O. Ouch,” she deadpanned. “You’re just jealous because my clothes are nicer than yours.”

“And you’re always irritated that your future consists of an arranged marriage and the life of a scullery maid.”

She snorted, “As if!” She paused and lifted a finger. The immense spider began to glow.

Schlomo said, “It has to be slow. I can’t hold onto it if it starts to grow too fast.”

“I’ll just step on it…”

“Like you say? ‘As if’. This sucker’s going to inflate faster than a Martian Rescue Pod. I need to hold it in thrall until we get everything ready. Do it like we planned – slow and steady and we’ll have an enchanted spider big enough to climb the wall and slip through that open window.” He paused, rolled his eyes and said, “Which I have to admit, you did a nice job of getting that loud-mouthed soldier freak to do the dirty work. I heard he’s got a kill list as long as his arm,” he glanced at her. “That’s literally, by the way. He gets a tatt of each Israeli he snuffs.”

She nodded. “You’re welcome.” The spider continued to inflate until it was the size of a child. Concentrating, Schlomo made it stand up slowly, then take a step. “It looks like a spider trying to walk on its back legs!”

“It is!” he snapped. “You try making a spider look like its walking like a Human – even a little kid!” After several steps, it started walking and teetering less. “Good. You’re good at this.”

He glanced at her. The new generations of Israelis and Palestinians were tired of hearing how bad “the other side” was. With the first Apparation Spell opening a gate Humans could travel to the Red Planet. The manifesting spell that formed a breathable bubble of air ten kilometers across had held for the past Earth-year. The fact that it was too dangerous to adapt older adults into Humans who could not just survive there, but live there for good – colonizing fell to the young. They were grinning like idiots.

Huda scowled, then muttered, “What’s going on? There’s some kind of magical energy leaking into the Dome.”

“What?” Schlomo. Then he held his breath. Whispering, “I recognize the signature on that spell…”
Names: ♀ Palestinian, Huda ; ♂ Israel, SchlomoImage: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

SLICE OF PIE: Why Do the Avenger Movies Make Me So ANGRY; Part 1?

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Sixteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.
These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

This essay isn’t going to be funny. Actually, it’s sort of grim…

I grew up on the short, “average end” of the DNA strand. When I tell people I grew up in a family where my father had played football and basketball as a kid growing up in a poorer neighborhood of Minneapolis. I know anyone living in New York City, Chicago, Calcutta, or Port-au-Prince had it far tougher, probably deadly. Two younger brothers were football, hockey, then baseball and track-and-field; sister was softball and volleyball, and mom had been on the Fencing team at the University of Minnesota.

To say we ate, drank, and lived SPORTS was an adequate conclusion. I was pudgy after I had my tonsils out, and it seemed that what I WAS interested in (music was OK, Dad and one brother did it, Mom sang, too). Acting, swimming, and camping were WEIRD. Being a committed follower of Christ was even weirder. I was smart enough, but never EXCELLED at anything…

Bullies – from my brothers down to Tom, a neighborhood bully who physically slugged me; added to that all the guys who intimidated me at the slightest drop of a hat. The cherry on top was my name: Guy. The decade had arrived where calling me gay-Guy carried a truckload of sexual innuendo (and not ONLY innuendo – some was outright claim-that-it-was-a-fact.) and stigma.

I survived due to a complex protective mix of…well, I’ll stop there to say that after re-watching for the dozenth time, I discovered that the AVENGER movies – specifically, the SPIDERMAN movies, the IRONMAN movies, and finally, the THANOS movies were making me seethe with anger.

I discovered that the Avengers Universe (aka the MCU or Marvel Comics Universe) overflows with BULLIES. Every single one of the movies – these UNIVERSAL GOOD women and men – not only faced unfairness and persecution by bullies over and over – they also BULLIED characters (including each other – I think specifically of Antman, who appears to be a doormat more than a LOT of times…) in the movies. Even the highest and mightiest, the ones I MOST respected: Captain America, Spiderman, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Vision…are repeatedly bullied – and they respond with bullying others weaker than them.

Of course, the biggest and most powerful bully was Ironman. And yet, the writers and watchers worked hard to make us both feel sorry for him, and endear him to us, so that, despite how much bullying Spiderman and Ironman perpetrated, not only were they OUTBULLIED by Thanos, I wept at that last scene where Spiderman (aka Peter Parker) wept over the loss of his (abusive) father-figure, Tony Stark (aka Ironman)…

By definition I will use this one from THE ANTIBULLYING ALLIANCE: “The repetitive, intentional hurting (physically, emotionally, or spiritually) of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. Bullying can be physical, verbal, or psychological. It can happen face-to-face or online (or in the Spirit realm or in another dimension, or teleportation (whether actual or spiritual).” (https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/understanding-bullying/definition)

I’m not going to go through all of the Avenger movies; I will note some obvious instances – of course is in the first scene of the first movie: Steve Rogers is getting beat up by a kid in Queens in 1942.

After that, all you need to do is think a bit and you’ll find scenes from all of them of bullying. The ones that leap out to me are Wanda bullying just about everyone she comes into contact with for her entire tenure in the Avengers. She even bullies Vision.

Steve Rogers (himself a victim of brutal bullying) resorts to bullying what’s left of the Avengers when he repeatedly says that nothing anyone else says or thinks is important – his opinion is the only valid one.

King T’Challa, like all the other bullies in the MCU vacillates wildly between a (literarily pathetic) figure and a brutal bully, forcing his will on everyone in sight – including the woman he’s trying to woo…I could see the results of THAT one coming from a million light-years away.

The god Thor acts like Steve Rogers and pushes everyone around, even resorting to bulling his “girlfriend” to get his way…(isn’t that an actionable behavior…Oh! He’s a god, he’s exempt…)

Rocket Racoon continually bullies everyone he comes into contact with (and is excused because he was treated badly as a cyborg raccoon); also, Ego bullies the entire universe; Star Lord does some bullying, then retreats a bit…

OK – I’ve got both a point and a badly missed deadline. I’ll be back to finish this next week.

Inspiration: The Marvel Cinematic Universe, https://www.space.com/marvel-movies-in-order
Image: https://rchsprowler.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/il_794xN.2741269623_o55v-636x900.jpg

SLICE OF PIE: Why Do the Avenger Movies Make Me So ANGRY?

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Sixteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.
These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

This essay isn’t going to be funny. Actually, it’s sort of grim…

I grew up on the short, “average end” of the DNA strand. When I tell people I grew up in a family where my father had played football and basketball as a kid growing up in a poorer neighborhood of Minneapolis. I know anyone living in New York City, Chicago, Calcutta, or Port-au-Prince had it far tougher, probably deadly. Two younger brothers were football, hockey, then baseball and track-and-field; sister was softball and volleyball, and mom had been on the Fencing team at the University of Minnesota.

To say we ate, drank, and lived SPORTS was an adequate conclusion. I was pudgy after I had my tonsils out, and it seemed that what I WAS interested in (music was OK, Dad and one brother did it, Mom sang, too). Acting, swimming, and camping were WEIRD. Being a committed follower of Christ was even weirder. I was smart enough, but never EXCELLED at anything…

Bullies – from my brothers down to Tom, a neighborhood bully who physically slugged me; added to that all the guys who intimidated me at the slightest drop of a hat. The cherry on top was my name: Guy. The decade had arrived where calling me gay-Guy carried a truckload of sexual innuendo (and not ONLY innuendo – some was outright claim-that-it-was-a-fact.) and stigma.

I survived due to a complex protective mix of…well, I’ll stop there to say that after re-watching for the dozenth time, I discovered that the AVENGER movies – specifically, the SPIDERMAN movies, the IRONMAN movies, and finally, the THANOS movies were making me seethe with anger.

I discovered that the Avengers Universe (aka the MCU or Marvel Comics Universe) overflows with BULLIES. Every single one of the movies – these UNIVERSAL GOOD women and men – not only faced unfairness and persecution by bullies over and over – they also BULLIED characters (including each other – I think specifically of Antman, who appears to be a doormat more than a LOT of times…) in the movies. Even the highest and mightiest, the ones I MOST respected: Captain America, Spiderman, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Vision…are repeatedly bullied – and they respond with bullying others weaker than them.

Of course, the biggest and most powerful bully was Ironman. And yet, the writers and watchers worked hard to make us both feel sorry for him, and endear him to us, so that, despite how much bullying Spiderman and Ironman perpetrated, not only were they OUTBULLIED by Thanos, I wept at that last scene where Spiderman (aka Peter Parker) wept over the loss of his (abusive) father-figure, Tony Stark (aka Ironman)…

By definition I will use this one from THE ANTIBULLYING ALLIANCE: “The repetitive, intentional hurting (physically, emotionally, or spiritually) of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. Bullying can be physical, verbal, or psychological. It can happen face-to-face or online (or in the Spirit realm or in another dimension, or teleportation (whether actual or spiritual).” (https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/understanding-bullying/definition)

I’m not going to go through all of the Avenger movies; I will note some obvious instances – of course is in the first scene of the first movie: Steve Rogers is getting beat up by a kid in Queens in 1942.

After that, all you need to do is think a bit and you’ll find scenes from all of them of bullying. The ones that leap out to me are Wanda bullying just about everyone she comes into contact with for her entire tenure in the Avengers. She even bullies Vision.

Steve Rogers (himself a victim of brutal bullying) resorts to bullying what’s left of the Avengers when he repeatedly says that nothing anyone else says or thinks is important – his opinion is the only valid one.

King T’Challa, like all the other bullies in the MCU vacillates wildly between a (literarily pathetic) figure and a brutal bully, forcing his will on everyone in sight – including the woman he’s trying to woo…I could see the results of THAT one coming from a million light-years away.

The god Thor acts like Steve Rogers and pushes everyone around, even resorting to bulling his “girlfriend” to get his way…(isn’t that an actionable behavior…Oh! He’s a god, he’s exempt…)

Rocket Racoon continually bullies everyone he comes into contact with (and is excused because he was treated badly as a cyborg raccoon); also, Ego bullies the entire universe; Star Lord does some bullying, then retreats a bit…

OK – I’ve got both a point and a badly missed deadline. I’ll be back to finish this next week.

Inspiration: The Marvel Cinematic Universe, https://www.space.com/marvel-movies-in-order
Image: https://rchsprowler.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/il_794xN.2741269623_o55v-636x900.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 669

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: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForWantOfANail
Sparking Event: http://www.breitbart.com/video/2014/11/15/maher-if-obama-had-lost-us-wouldnt-have-fruit-or-jobs/ + A Prompt From My Niece-In-Law: wool, celery, parallel universe, dynamite, fireman’s ball, fishing tackle.

Jose Taylor-Perez shrugged his shoulders, settling his wool sweater more comfortably. “You eat that and it’ll be like someone lit a stick a dynamite and shoved it up your…”

Emily Patel-Kelly tossed the celery stick at him then punched Jose in the shoulder, “If you weren’t my best friend, that would have been hard enough to knock the humerus out of the ball park.” She snickered, “Not that anything short of a wrecking ball would be able to knock any of your face bones free of that fishing tackle in your mouth.”

“Hey! No fair! I can’t do anything about braces!” he said, shaking his head, “Besides, your premed jokes are only funny to you…added to that, you won’t even be able to BE premed until at the earliest your junior year.”

Ignoring the frustrating fact that she couldn’t start college until she could do College In The Schools, she said, “Like I can do anything about a celery allergy?” She lifted her chin, “Besides, I don’t exactly have a standard reaction to it.”

“You can say that again,” he said as he fiddled with his transparent computer tablet where it hovered over his lap. “You’re the only person I know that can use a V8 Harvest and Strawberry Smoothie as a gateway to a parallel universe.”

She shook her head, “I wish I could see into the universe where I passed this history final with flying colors.”

“That’s for sure,” said Jose. “I’ll never remember who came after President McCain.”

“Don’t be such a sexist – President Palin took over after McCain had his coronary two years after he got elected.”

“Right, the first lady...”

“No, it was the First Husband Todd…” she said, adding a smirk.

“I was gonna say, ‘President’.”

Shaking her head, Emily hunched over her own transparent tablet, setting it to project a holographic screen in front of her. Walking her fingers through a manipulation panel, she absentmindedly picked up a celery stick and shoved it into her mouth. After her eyes grew wide, she muttered, “Oh, crap...”

“What’s wrong?” Jose asked. Her tablet began to glow then flames flickered around the edges as she tried to shove the instrument away from her. “You ate the celery!” He exclaimed. “Why did you do that?”

“I wasn’t thinking! I was playing around with tensor calculus…”

“And you opened a door into a parallel universe!” Jose shouted as the fire alarms went off and a robot fireman’s ball floated out from its nook and began to sprout nozzles. “Now we’re gonna…”

An explosion cut him off…
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

IDEA ON TUESDAY 668

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: Attack of the Killer Whatever
Current Event: “In various Stephen King short stories, he has had people attacked by novelty chattering teeth, paintings, a toy monkey, evil toads... If it can be seen as even vaguely creepy by anybody in the Western world, chances are it's killed somebody in a Stephen King story.”

Liam Johnson held his Kindle, staring down at it.

Sophia Smith, sitting next to him, said, “What are you waiting for?”

The roar of voices in the lunch room was almost deafening. He didn’t hear her – or didn’t respond – until she nudged him

When he looked over at her, there wasn’t any color in even HIS usually pasty face. His freckles, even now that he was fifteen, still stood out on his face like spaghetti sauce blotches. At least he’d got his hair cut super short over winter break, Sophia thought with approval. The red stuff at shoulder length had been almost too much to stand! He said, “The last time I read a new Stephen King book, I almost died.”

Sophia shook her head and took a bite of her taco salad then made a face. “The food didn’t get any better over break, I’ll tell you that much. Why can’t they just order out from Taco Bell?”

“You’re not listening to me!” Liam said.

“Sure I am – the last time you read this guy’s book, you almost pissed yourself.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I almost DIED.”

Shaking her head, she toasted him with another forkful of salad and said, “Whatever.”

He stood up abruptly, looking down at her with the strangest look then said, “I gotta go.”

“Go where? It’s the first day of a new semester. You don’t have any homework.” She sighed, he could be almost as dramatic as her friends. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him down on his chair again. “OK – let’s start at the beginning.

The cafeteria was jammed and someone had been moving in on Liam’s seat when she pulled him back. If it had been another freshman, she wouldn’t have bothered, but the look the guy was shooting at her was deadly. She grabbed her lunch tray without letting go of Liam and said, “This was making me sick, anyway.” She tossed it into the nearby garbage can and towing him after her, made her way to the stairwell.

The supervisor knew them both and waved them through. When the door shut behind them, muted to a dull roar, she said, “The last story this guy wrote almost killed you…” she paused.

He wouldn’t meet her eye, looking down at his ereader. Finally he lifted his chin and said, “Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but his stories...they’re somehow linked to me.”

“You mean like ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ linked to you?”

He make as if he were thinking, then shook his head, “Not that closely linked.” He pursed his lips, sucked the top one between his teeth then said, “I love reading…”

“Duh!” she said, slugging him softly on the shoulder. “I do, too.”

“Nah, you like your Ebony and Essence,” he held up one hand defensively, “Not that that’s bad! You’re like my only friend that reads as much as me, but,” he looked down again, “When I read a Stephen King book or story, I get sucked into it. I can’t explain it, exactly. It’s like the book is about me, but not about me. That’s why I don’t dare read his newest one...which I got for Christmas...which I can’t NOT read...which, if I do is gonna kill me. Like, for real...”

She grabbed his Kindle, cussing, and thumbed it on. The cover of the book showed a guy who looked like he was delivering mail in a tornado. In bold, red letters across the bottom – smaller than Stephen King’s name in bolder, redder letters across the top, was the word, MAIL…”

Names: ♀ ; ♂ Most common US names 2014
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

Caring Over the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers and Fans!

Why Do I Care About the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Who Deeply Dislike Christianity?

Why not just ignore them?

Several reasons, but let's back up a little bit and look at WHO I'm talking about.

I've been writing science fiction since I was 13. I started reading it when I was 12. After a couple of kids' books, I graduated to The Big Folks, reading writers like Robert A Heinlein, Andre Norton (who was "a WOMAN in a man's genre" and I didn't find out until I was an adult), Asimov, Clarke, Nourse, MZ Bradley (who wrote as a woman)...

There were lots of others. The stories were absolutely written to take me off Earth! But they also exposed me to the philosophy of the men and women who had no interest in Christianity -- and sometimes other religions as well. Norton had telepathic cats, Heinlein thought organized religion was a waste of time and we should create a true "religion of Humanity", One science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard invented a religion entirely from scratch -- which has a huge following today: [Wikipedia: "Scientology claims over 8 million members worldwide, but independent estimates range from tens of thousands to potentially a few hundred thousand, with some studies suggesting around 25,000 in the US.]

My own faith upbringing was...lax at best, though nominally Christian. I was baptized Lutheran and remain Lutheran in much of my theology. That being said, at a young age, I started watching STAR TREK and have now watched it in every one of its versions -- and except for the Bajorans on Deep Space Nine, there's never been a serious effort to illustrate the religious side of aliens -- or Humanity for that matter. The religion in that universe is intentionally and clearly that of Gene Roddenberry, who invented the STAR TREK universe: "Gene Roddenberry was a humanist and an atheist. He rejected organized religion and believed in the power of human reason and cooperation to solve problems. He was also influenced by various philosophies, including humanism, rationalism, and socialism.

So, from a young age, I grew into the science fiction world. Iwatched movies, and continued to write SF (I prefer for people NOT to use "SciFi", "skiffy", or even -- from "Sing", "sky-fi"). I have absorbed literally tens of thousands of religiously neutral actively anti-Christian philosophies and beliefs. In my personal library, I have about 2500 books. Much of it is science fiction, and 10% of that is fantasy; a HUGE chunk is SCIENCE, as I spent 41 years teaching science from Astronomy to Zoology. I still read science magazines, articles, and talk to atheistic science people.

I'll move to the "now": Minnesota Science Fiction/Fantasy/Speculative Convention, aka as MiniCon. It's happened here in Minnesota for the past 58 years (along with two OTHER SF conventions, MarsCon (26 years) and Diversicon (33 years)). While it DID start off being on Easter Weekend, it missed a couple of Easters due to scheduling issues. But they picked Easter weekend for a particular purpose. A few years ago, at my second MiniCon, I overheard a couple of people talking about how they loved having it over Easter because, "it really limits how many of those Christians come to this!". That was the year I FIRST appeared on a panel with the incredibly famous science fiction writer, Harlan Ellison. He wrote what may be one of the best-known episodes of the Original STAR TREK series (and one of my favorites) -- "The City on the Edge of Forever", in which the life or death of one woman determined whether or not Hitler WON World War II or lost it. (Not quite THAT simple, but that's the basic outline).

Back to MiniCon last Easter. Many of the evangelical Christians I know would have been VERY uncomfortable at MiniCon. If you want the gruesome details, talk to me one-on-one. I even found myself a bit creeped out a couple times, but then, I knew what I was getting into, so I was girded in personal prayer, and I'd contacted my prayer network -- including some men in this group -- to hold me up and protect me from spiritual danger. (Thank y'all, you know who you are!)

What does THAT mean? Does it mean that there are NO evangelical Christians writing S/F/and SpecFic (Horror is sometimes included, though they have a separate convention). There are plenty:CS Lewis wrote THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, and while some of you may say, "Well that's OBVIOUSLY Christian!" if you DON'T have a Christian upbringing, it isn't obvious.JRR Tolkien wrote LORD OF THE RINGSKathy Tyers has written several novels with a Christian world view published by a regular publisher.Gene Wolfe of whom Neil Gaiman said, "He's the finest living male American writer of SF and F...possibly the finest living American writer."John C Wright writes galaxy-spanning war novels and a very conservative blog.Connie Willis writes marvelous science fiction HUMOR that plays with serious ideas.There are others, but my point today is that the science fiction/fantasy community, like all of us, is looking for answers to their life. Most of them HAVE tried religions -- not just Christianity but Humanism, Hinduism, totally alien religions, the Force, David Brin raises chance to the level of a "capricious goddess" in Ifni.

I feel called to be a missionary to these people -- not to ALL of them! I'm sure there are Christians in the field, believers like me. I look forward to meeting them and maybe even reaching out to the lost in this specific community.

That's who I am called to reach. That's who I finally feel that I am EQUIPPED to reach! And you, and my old friends, and my family are the ones who will hold me up in their prayers.

I don’t know how most of you view “prophecy”, especially when it’s spoken over an individual. I certainly know what I think of prophecy most of the time…I won’t elaborate, ‘cause that’s not what this Slice of PIE is about. Let it suffice to say that I’m unsure of how real contemporary prophecies are.

That’s why I hesitate to broach this subject, but feel a strong inclination to do it anyway.

So, ^deep breath^ and I’ll begin with a quote from a blog by an online friend of mine, Mike Duran: “As much as I remain conflicted, there are three ways I’ve come to believe a person can determine whether or not they’re called to write: 1) Do you have the raw talent to write? 2) ‘…only…those who say, “I’m not going to do anything else.” Do you have that kind of drive? 3) Do you have evidence from peers and professionals that you are ‘called’ to write?”

Determining that “call” on my life has taken a sizeable chunk of my “wondering about it” mental energy. I wonder if I’m just wasting my time. I wonder if I’ve been wasting the family’s money. I wonder if I’m inflating my ego beyond the “maniac” level. I wonder why God doesn’t bless me with more sales or an agent or a contract or a book or a series. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder…

So I went back to a series of prophecies that have been spoken over me during the past few years. I’m going to type them out verbatim then look at them individually, then look at them collectively.

First clear prophecy about my writing: a guest speaker at our youth retreat, well-known for her prophetic words (whatever that means), came to me on the night of February 15, 2004 and spoke two words: “longings fulfilled”.

The second time was on February 12, 2005, I spoke with the same woman (because OBVIOUSLY nothing had come of her two words!) and she had these words for me, “You are a wonderful teacher and God has you where you are because He wants you there now. You fear is that you have missed or will miss the opportunity to become a full-time writer. My ministry didn’t start until I was 54. Your writing will start later, but it will start in God’s time.”

The third incident/word was on March 11, 2005. Liz said to me that she felt right then and had always believed that we would earn our living by my writing someday.

The fourth and last prophecy came about on May 10, 2006. After sharing with the congregation that I had taken the word of Christ to the mission field of speculative fiction fans at 2006 MiniCon. That leading came about as a result of prayer and fasting during our church’s Lenten discipline of prayer, sermons and groups performing public service projects. Afterwards, Todd Wallace called the congregation forward to pray over me. Sixty people stepped up, prayed over my success, believed that my witness would be as Jabez, “‘…Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from evil that it not be to my sorrow!’ God granted him that which he requested.” 1 Chronicles 4:9-10

Todd prayed and asked that my witness would not only be blessed, but “ASTOUNDING”. It’s unclear if Todd knew exactly how that word is significant to me – but ASTOUNDING was the name of my favorite science fiction magazine, ANALOG.

So what does that mean here in 2025? I don’t know for sure, but according to my records, my average sales percentage from when I began to keep records in 1990 through 2005, was 3.35%. Since the prayers, my average sales percentage from 2006-2010, was 11.974%.

References: https://christianscholars.com/towards-a-robust-and-scholarly-christian-engagement-with-science-fiction/
Image: https://www.nplusonemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/cosplay0005-1.jpg