Guy Stewart's Blog, page 48

Slice of PIE: Does What We Read Say Anything About Who We Are?

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention; to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education – which I now have!)), I WOULD 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. 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 started to think about this when I texted a friend of mine, “Do you think your love of horror/apocalypse suggests a hesitation in yourself that drastic change leads to the loss of everything you love?”

Turns out what we love and why we love it WAY deeper than that! Neil Gaiman wrote: “Fairy tales are more than true: Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

If you think about it, ALL fiction is fairy tale. By definition, a fairy tale is “…any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not only is not true, but could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real; fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place ‘once upon a time’ rather than in actual times.”

The links below will take you to articles from WILDLY varying sources (WIRED, Mike Duran (a Christian writer and commentator), the BBC, NPR, Bookriot, All Women’s Talk, and Unflitered) – yet after reading them, I find they have some surprising things in common.

In general it seems, we read fiction to escape/for fun; to stretch our imagination; explore scary concepts and issues from a distance; see that when the lives and hearts of characters are broken they can be put back together; how to arm ourselves against a horrible world; to be empowered; be transported; and anchor us with its strong sense of place.

Let me look at each one briefly and a bit closer.

Escape and for fun: OK, this will be really brief because it’s self-explanatory!

To stretch our imagination: The book I’m reading now is a horror/apocalypse and it HAS stretched my imagination. People who read as well as watching TV/movies, are more interesting to talk to than people who don’t. As well, they MAY be more interested in thinking outside the box.

We can explore scary concepts and issues: We can think of the most horrific situation BEFORE we have to face it. There are times I wished that I’d read more novels where breast cancer and Alzheimer’s were an integral PART of the story. I don’t mean novels written to “deal with” those things, but novels in which dealing with debilitating or uncontrollable disease or conditions was part of the plot and showed possible ways to deal with it…

When people’s hearts are broken they CAN be healed: that is something that the novels in Lois McMaster Bujold’s VORKOSIGAN series has illustrated. He is physically handicapped, and he DWELLS on it much of the time. But, he does manage to break free with lots of effort.

The next two do well together: Fiction can help us arm ourselves against a horrible world and to be empowered when we face that real, horrible world. Lisa Cron, who has worked in publishing, as an agent, a producer on TV shows, a story consultant, a university instructor, and an author of several best-selling books, has said what I quote above: “We’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world.”

Reading in your chosen genre also gives you an anchor with its strong sense of place. I started reading science fiction when I was in sixth grade. I will tell you honestly here, that my 6th through 9th grade years were truly miserable. I hated myself, hated how I looked, hated what I felt,  hated how I was treated (even in my family at times, but absolutely by almost every kid around me). There was nowhere to turn but to story. Once I had an anchor, I was finally able to sail safely out of the harbor that it created. I went from LOATHING school, to becoming a teacher myself – and eventually becoming a counselor. I got the following comment from a former student of mine on the anniversary of my birth day: “Happy birthday!!! Stew stew!!! You are the reason I am such a powerful being today. Thank you for everything you’ve done for Cooper and AEF…” It would have been impossible for me to imagine that back then. But today, it made me feel warm all over – but NOT think it was only a dream. Reading changed me.

Reading – and it doesn’t matter much WHICH genre we choose – allows us to be transported beyond the “regular” world in a way that movies and TV can’t match. Watching TV, by definition is passive. Watching doesn’t require you to DO anything. You don’t even need to think – witness those people who leave their television on all day long without looking at it. It’s noise and very ignorable. When you read something you CHOOSE to read, you can’t read and cook supper. You can’t read and mow the lawn. You can’t even read and sleep at the same time. READING is an action verb. At its very best, watching is a weak action verb and doesn’t require us to do anything – at the very most – but react to what we see. Engagement is minor; and the importance of imagination is best left suppressed because the people who create TV and movies DEMAND that you have no input into what they are presenting. In fact, if you ADD something to what you’re watching…well it’s not even possible. When you watch, someone pours story, plot, image, set, character identity and appearance; into you.

When you read, you pour yourself into the fiction. At its very best, your favorite piece of fiction can anchor us with its strong sense of place. The writer spends thousands of hours creating a world, then inviting you into – at the same time knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that the world you create in your head will be DIFFERENT than the one they created in their writing. An example, when I do presentations to young people on writing, I ask them, “Where is Harry Potter’s scar?”

Every one of them can tell me exactly where it is.

Then I say, “Can you tell me exactly where JK Rowling tells you where the scar is?”

They can’t, because she DOESN’T! (As some of you won’t believe me, when you think you’ve found the passage where she tells EXACTLY where Voldemort’s scar on Harry is. Please email me the book, chapter, and paragraph of the description.)

*tapping foot patiently*

I’m waiting…

At any rate, I’ll leave you with this: “How can you dream big if you have no imagination? How can you strive beyond the everyday if you have no idea what the fantastical might look like? If you’ve never seen a hero embark on a quest for the impossible—and achieve it, where will you find the courage to try? If no one has ever told you stories of someone reaching for the unreachable, how will you ever know to reach for the stars? Or the moon? Or even past your current socio-economic circumstance?...How can you empathize with someone, if you can’t imagine what they must be feeling?”

How indeed – except by reading your choice of genre – science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, mystery, in fact ANY piece of fiction, you find that, “Put simply…[fiction] allows us to believe that we could all be [the one] who outsmarts the arrogant…though we have less formal experience and neither look nor dress the part… a silly notion, until you consider that a teenager in a hoodie created the largest social network in the world, and a research chemist and mother of two became an ‘Iron Lady’ and the most powerful woman in the world…”

References: https://www.mikeduran.com/2012/02/27/what-genres-do-you-refuse-to-read-and-why-you-shouldnt-refuse-to-read-them/
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200506-the-books-that-might-flourish-in-this-time-of-crisis
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/05/635052036/reading-horror-can-arm-us-against-a-horrifying-world
https://bookriot.com/why-women-read-romance-novels/#:~:text=Women%20read%20romance%20novels%20because%20they're%20in%20a%20relationship,through%20the%20pangs%20of%20love.&text=And%20occasionally%20keep%20a%20running%20commentary%20on%20their%20relationship.
https://www.wired.com/2010/09/why-fantasy-matters/
https://books.allwomenstalk.com/important-reasons-to-read-science-fiction-novels/
http://unfiltered.groupsjr.com/mysteries-trash-many-people-love/
Image: https://bookviralreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Literary-Fiction.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 596

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.

F Trope: dark lord
Current Event: “In November 2012, satellite photos revealed a half kilometer long propaganda message carved into a hillside in Ryanggang Province, reading, ‘Long Live General Kim Jong-un, the Shining Sun!’. The message, located next to an artificial lake built in 2007 to serve a hydroelectric station, is made of Korean letters measuring 15 by 20 meters, and is located approximately 9 kilometers south of Hyesan near the border with the People's Republic of China.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/23/north-korea-hillside-homage-kim-jong-un)

Ardian Goodpaster tapped on his tablet-computer – t-comp – and said, “Look, you have to read this!” He held it out to her.

Noemi Zweifelhofer grunted, hunched over her own t-comp. She said, “Doar stai un minut!”

Ardian’s eyes grew wide and he whispered in German, “Ich denke nicht, dass Sie Rumänisch in diesem Augenblick sprechen sollten! Wir sind in genug Schwierigkeiten, wie es ist!”

Noemi finally looked up, her dark eyes flashing and said, “Do you think speaking in English would be all right?”

Ardian snorted, “Better than speaking Romanian. We can get in trouble for that…”

“You don’t think believing that Kim Jong-un is an incarnation of The Dark Lord will keep us out of trouble?”

“I didn’t say I believed it – just that it seems…logical given what Mom and Dad say about how he acted when he went to school here.”

“Your mom and dad were his friends! He hated my dad!”

Ardian shook his head, “I’d probably dislike your dad, too if he stuck my head in a toilet and flushed it…”

“That was a kid’s prank!”

“…fourteen, fifteen and sixteen times on ten different occasions in honor of the illustrious North Korean leader’s birthdays?”

Noemi glared at her best friend, then burst out laughing. Finally she said, “All right, it wasn’t a kid’s prank. But all of our parents agree he was creepy and mean.”

Ardian tapped the t-comp and said, “You really believe that the inscription means what they say it means?”

“‘Long Live General Kim Jong-un, the Shining Sun!’?” He stared at it then slowly shook his head. Noemi continued, “I know my Korean is adequate…” Ardian snorted, but she overrode him, “But I’ve cross-referenced this in half a dozen dictionaries.”

“So what do you think?”

She zoomed in on the image of the inscription then swung to the right, saying, “When it’s written like this, left-to-right and with the order of the characters – and given that the archaic form was used intentionally, it reads, ‘Long dominate Kim Jong-un, Darkest of the Dark Lords’.”

“And no one else in the world reads it that way?”

She held out her t-comp, “I wouldn’t say that.” Their eyes met and for a moment locked. Ardian felt the blood drain out of his face. She handed him her own t-comp. “Read it.”

He kept his eyes on hers then finally looked down. The headline was in German, from a recent edition of Die Welt. “Different Interpretation of North Korea’s Paean of Praise?” He read, looked at her.

“Scroll to the next document. Two weeks later.”

He did and read, “Interpreter Found Murdered”…

Names: ♀; ♂ Today, both are entirely Swiss names
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: WHO is Human? Are you? Am I? Was Jesus? Is a Mobile Plantimal? Who decides?

Using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of 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 on Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 1300 hours (aka 1:00 pm).

What is Human?

It’s Alive!’: The Long Posthuman Shadow of Frankenstein in Rajaniemi, Chiang, Newitz and Winterson.

Mary Shelley’s seminal Frankenstein continues to provoke recent authors’ questions on what it is to be “human” and the role of possible posthuman future sub-creations to redefine this category: from “uplifted” animals and virtual “toy” children, to enslaved and sexed robots and transhuman subjects. How do we build a real/conscious/sentient AI? What discussions do we need to think of conditions and thresholds separating AI from sentience?

Sunny Teich: Moderator
David Powers/Marti Ward: Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science (SF author under several different names…)

Writing as Marti Ward, Powers says on Amazon: “What's critical about the stories of Clark, Asimov and McCaffrey, about Real Hard SF, is that they seek to explore the scientific and sociological implications of new, interesting, or plausible elements and the measures that are put in place to control them…I don't much like the authors whose eyes, like their characters', glaze over at the first mention of some overly simplistic pseudoscientific explanation. I don't think they are being faithful to the genre. Hard SF, Real SF, is about exploring the implications of what we currently know and hypothesize in science, projecting where that will take our technology and our society, and what problems will emerge...and figuring out how we will deal with them.

“If you're interested in what it's like to be a scientist, engineer, astronaut or whatever, then we are doing you no favours if we gloss over that process as 'boring' or 'complicated'. And as a scientist and author, I don't get to achieve my goal of understanding more about the actual science and technology, and its ramifications.”

WHEW!

Lately, I’ve noticed that that seems to be what I’m about – though at this point, I’m not doing a good enough job of it to SELL the stories.

My MARTIAN HOLIDAY novel looks at the idea of narrowly confining Human to being born naturally, a “uterine birth”…

In my RIVER series of stories, genetic engineering (gengineering) has created two entirely different societies – one in which you are Human ONLY if your DNA in 65% unaltered (as compared to the Original Human Genome Project – 2003) – and if you’re not, you are not Human, but a sort of smart animal.) The other society is one of “designer Humans” in which genetic engineers whose definition of Human is so broad as to be effectively useless, gengineer Humans for EVERY environment, but without regard to how many there are for each use. Who is Human in this society, and what happens when the line begins to blur? If you are a singleton, a unique Human, what kind of voice do you have at the highest level (NOTE: there could be a fascinating legal story here…)? It might be pertinent to note that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was incorporated in 1866; the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children wasn’t incorporated until 1875. Put more plainly, it took eleven years for a child to be treated THE SAME AS a horse, pig, cow, or chicken…

Sixty years later, child labor laws went into effect, banning children under 16 from working for “gainful employment” – in other words, to make a living. What hope do artificial Humans and Artificial Intelligences have in the face of that kind of history?

In a short story I’ve been unsuccessfully submitting, “The Murder of AutoTech #47369”, AIs are common and employed as police investigators. They DO have rights, but they are less than the rights of a full Human, because, after all, Humans created them. (an aside: animals had more rights than Human children When a biological, natural Human is murdered (even though he’s a piece of crap of a Human), and the evidence points to an artificial intelligence…then that AI is wiped…is it one murder or two, and “whodunit”?

As a teacher and counselor for 30 and 10 years respectively, I have seen parents treat their children with physical and emotional cruelty, neglect, and outright abuse. I have known children to survive that who became mirror images of their parents; I have seen children survive that who became wise, wonderful parents.

So, the question I’ve pondered for some time is “What makes us Human?”

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m a Christian – but as an atheist friend of mine told me once, “You’re not LIKE those other ones…”. OK, then. Human was once easy to define – or was it? For instance, what was Jesus? He was absolutely a Human, uterine-born. But he was also God. How about the others in Biblical history – the Nephilim, or angels, or even Balaam’s donkey. How would they be classified? The child of a highly circumscribed people, he was without doubt, a Hebrew of the lineage of David, an ancient king. But according to the Bible, he was both man and God…Was he Human? (BTW – dealing with a half-Human, half-God Savior, why do outsiders believe that Christians will curl up and die when we someday contact an alien civilization? NOT a clearly thought-out position…

At any rate, another universe I’ve been playing in for some time is the one where it’s Humans and WheetAh – animal and plantimal…are the WheetAh considered “Human”…nope, insulting to BOTH sides, where the ethnic slurs, Weed and Weasel are common and the tension between the two civilizations is highly charged at the best of times. What does it mean to be Human? How wide is the category?

Captain Kirk, of Star Trek “fame” expressed a bit of what I believe when delivering the eulogy at Spock One’s funeral in the movie, “STAR TREK: The Wrath of Khan”: “We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. And yet it should be noted that in the midst of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world; a world that our beloved comrade gave his life to protect and nourish. He did not feel this sacrifice a vain or empty one, and we will not debate his profound wisdom at these proceedings. Of my friend, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B7iu39c0-U)

Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BossyAmazingAmericanshorthair-size_restricted.gif

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 595

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.

H Trope: good vs evil, Goddess of Chaos Will Reign!
“Current” Event: THE DARK IS RISING series by Susan Cooper + https://www.rt.com/usa/348303-brexit-texit-texas-secession/, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-24/first-uk-then-scotland-then-texas

But this is just an idea day, so read the article above about the possibility of Scotland seceding from the United Kingdom (discussed this with my wife or daughter…there have been “disunity” tremblors in all sorts of countries at all sorts of times. From 1836-1846, Texas was an independent republic. Quebec continues a long history of attempting to break free of Canada. The USSR shattered (or reassembled itself) into its original annexed nations.

So – let’s take North America: the Republic of Vermont, the Republic of California, the Free State of Jones, the Republic of Texas, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), Deseret, and an Independent Quebec are all movements that are taking place or happened in the past and were efforts of smaller groups to separate themselves from the federal governments of the United States, Mexico and Canada respectively. Now, what if these separatists were being driven by a dark goddess of chaos and a group of teens from each place met at a camp to discover they were avatars of this goddess…and didn’t particularly WANT to stay that way?

Thomas Evans shook his head and said, “You don’t think we’ll go to Hell for doin’ this?”

Nancy Seddon shot him a disgusted look and said, “I thought you didn’t believe in God or Hell or anything like that?”

“Well, I don’t really, but just in case, isn’t summoning Kauket like a sin or something?”

Nancy laughed, “She’s already lose in this world, Tom. Look around you.”

They were in an abandoned barn in southern Missouri. “It’s no different than usual.”

“Yeah, but things have to change. We can’t go on like this!”

Tom looked down at her, where she was drawing marks in the packed earth. She’d made a big deal of sweeping away all the old, brittle, dry hay and clearing a circle. She’d also set out crude tallow candles which she’d lit with a laboriously struck flint. He glanced at his bloody knuckles. “It’s worth bloody knuckles for?”

Nancy glanced up at him as she finished the last line and stood up, rocking to the balls of her feet. She wore an expensive pair of shoes they’d pulled from the body of a white woman who’d been strangled to death and left by the roadside to rot. “It’s worth summoning the goddess Kauket for.”

“Why do you need to call some foreign ‘gyptian thing for? Don’t we have any chaos goddesses in the Confederacy?”

“We’re in the Union now, Tom. ‘member? We’re the Free State of Jones.”

He grunted. He hadn’t forgotten. He’d even shot a couple of Rebs for the good Mr. Knight. He just hadn’t the stomach for much more’n two. Nancy had dragged him away and said she had an easier way to knock down the Confederacy. “I forgot. No Choctaw goddesses…”

She surged to her feet and shoved him, “Nanishta is a powerful goddess! In fact, she will reign over the end of the world!”

“Why don’t you call her, then?” Tom said, fighting the urge to shove her back.

Nancy looked back at the ring she’d made, shrugged, and said, “All right, fine. I’m sure she’ll listen to me even though…”

Tom backed from the circle as a dark, thunderhead had appeared, roiling in the center of the circle. At first it looked as if it would begin to rain in the dilapidated barn, but before he could laugh, the walls all around them began to bleed…

Names: ♀,♂ Common Southern names during the American Civil WarImage: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OCWXw6InF70/TKigMBk87NI/AAAAAAAAAy4/tL7MhIfL9CM/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: A Glimpse Into How I Wrote (and am still writing) My Christian, Hard Science Fiction Novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, Julie Czerneda, and Lisa Cron. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all 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! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

On February 1 in 2009, I started what for several years was an entry on my blog: I wrote a novel in very small parts. It’s May 1, 2021…twelve years later.

What began as a vague idea, MARTIAN HOLIDAY 1: Paolo -- Robinson City
Roman holiday: entertainment acquired at the expense of others' suffering, or a spectacleyielding such entertainment (Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary @2009) and a paragraph 2200 words long, grew into a massive novel...

The current word count is roughly 170,000 words. There are a few bits and pieces left to write before I type out the Final Chapter. What started out with a single character in a single domed city on Mars now involves seven main characters (one set of four “modified” clones), plus at least one close friend. Also making an unexpected appearance are Artificial Intelligences (six of them, one for each Dome on Mars plus an extra who coordinates the Federation of Ice Miners, Mechanics, and Technicians…)

The novel is so far beyond what I expected, I am in fact, in awe of what I created. There are four million Humans and Artificial Humans on Mars; there’s an anti-religion called the United Faith in Humanity – an idea out of which grew a Manifesto: “UFiH (spoken, ‘You-fee’ banned Christians, molesters , Jews, rapists, Buddhists, murderers, Muslims, thieves, Hindus, and embezzlers. While it doesn’t say so specifically, an ardent UFiH-er implies that it is ‘of course’ against racists, sexists, or any other kind of ‘-ists. They’ll swear that the intent is to prevent fanaticism and taxing a young civilization – but the honest ones will admit that part of the injunction is against mind or heart, and the other part is against biology.”

Over the past twelve years, the civilization has expanded, technology arose that I’d never considered: sybils, mindbombs, gMod disks and transports, airships, and in addition to the Domes, there suddenly appeared Stations (which became Quianshao, as well as Outposts…

And people! Lately I’ve wondered if my intent was to write an antiracist novel. My Artificial Humans (the slang word is inti) are considered second class citizens and are made to be blue-skinned so they can’t hide from the natural-born Humans (aka utes)…the parallels are obvious and I hope I’ve written them with sensitivity and diversity. I’ve written elsewhere on the blog about my quest to become both a better writer and to not shy away from issues of race and racism: “POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: “It’s a Mistake To Write About People of Different Ethnicities…” (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/possibly-irritating-essay-its-mistake.html). Not only did I teach at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school, we (my wife and I, and at one time two kids and a foster daughter…and various long-term guests…) live in a city that was recently the headline new for both US news programs and on the BBC News headlines: Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, as of 2021, the MOST racially diverse city in the state (https://www.homesnacks.com/most-diverse-cities-in-minnesota/). Thinking of race is something that is, here, natural.

At any rate, my Mars, the Mars of the United Faith in Humanity is in crisis. As a result of a concatenation of events – intentional, as I threw together the Book of Esther, the Book of Daniel, the martyrdom of Stephen (as told in Acts chapters 6 and 7 (as well as Acts 8:2, 11:19, and 22:20), and various parts of the life of the Apostle Paul as told in the Pauline Epistles (and yes, I DID go to Bible College (at the time it was known as Golden Valley Lutheran College, which grew out of the old Lutheran Bible Institute).

I’ve been working on it for the past twelve years, but because I was stressing out, I stopped doing the story as blog entries and set it aside, combining all of the entries into one document. Then I stopped because I had NO idea what to do next. The file sat idle for another two or three years until, about a year ago, I set out to finish it.

Taking the raw story, I colorized everything I’d written about each of the characters. Daniel and his partners, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego became Artificial Humans – DaneelAH (in honor of Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw), HanAH, AzAH, and MishAH because the TRUE names of the four characters in the Book of Daniel were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego – and Ashpenaz, the Chief Official in charge of the captured Hebrews, gave them the Babylonian names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah – hence the names you see above. Oh, I also changed the gender of Azariah and Mishael to women; and Queen Esther became Consort Aster. Then Stephan became Stepan Izmaylova and Paul became Paolo Marcillon.

Paolo’s sections were all red, Aster’s all purple, Stepan’s green, and DaneelAH, HanAH, MishAH, and AzAH all became blue. After identifying all of the sections of each character (or set of characters), I grouped them all together. That was done about a year ago, at the beginning of the summer of 2020.

It was daunting because my plan was to rotate the story through the four storylines, occasionally crossing them, but with the intent of everyone being in the same place at the same time for one final event. But what event would that be? What could possibly bring such disparate characters to the same place at the same time? As the story had evolved, they were scattered across the surface of Mars – Aster was in Opportunity Dome; Paolo in Robinson Dome then Burroughs Dome, and finally Bradbury…then up to Ísgrunnur on the North Dune Sea…Stepan was in Burroughs, and DaneelAH, et al started in Malacandra and ended up everywhere else…I’d never thought far enough ahead.

So, I created a Revolution that Paolo first, then the others were working to turn into a Re-Formation of Martian society into one that would include Humans, Artificial Humans, and Artificial Intelligences as equal partners in the colonization and eventual terraforming of Mars. Of course, I had to include the Face on Mars – but not as something woo-woo. It’s really there, though not actually a “face”. It’s something more.

You’ll have to read MARTIAN HOLIDAY to find out – if I can sell it!

If you have specific questions, post them in the Comments below. I’ll answer them – directly if they don’t concern the plot; and in a roundabout way if they do!

Image: https://mechanteanemone.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/martian-chronicles500lgjpg.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 594

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: Fantasy Noir (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticNoir)
Current Event: http://theirturn.net/former-racehorse-breeder-unmuzzled/

I’m not from around here. In fact, where I’m from, the worlds you ascribe to authors like JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien are pale representations of life in OUR 21st Century…

Even so, we got one thing in common – there are scumbags in both places. My dad is a cop in a place I’ll call Rowkien. He works in the biggest city, the equivalent of your New York or Los Angeles, called Mohrpohrq.

The problem is that I’m NOT supposed to be here and it’s really, really hard for a teenager with a horse’s body and a human chest, arms, and head to hide out until the gate that let him through to here opens again. It’s a good thing I learned how to glamour in Rowkien and for whatever reason, that kind of low-level magic works here, so I can make it appear that I'm a regular horse. The other problem is that what are totally COOL names in Rowkien -- like mine -- are not very...um...powerful here. My name's Hokey Flemm. Yup. Cool in Rowkien. Not so much here.

Keeping up the glamour is hard work and it makes me incredibly hungry. I also like to eat a whole lot more than just oats. We aren’t a vegetarian people in Rowkien. Especially us centaurs. I was losing weight and starting to look pretty scrawny. Worst of all, I couldn’t keep the glamour up for more than a few hours at a time, so I mostly had to let it down when I thought I was alone.

That’s how Waqas Said and me met, which just so happened to be the night both of us almost died...

Names: ♂ Rowkien; ♂ Pakistan
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: In Space No One Can See You Hide the Evidence: Crimes in Space

Using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of 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 on Sunday, Aug 2, 2020 at 1100 hours.

In Space No One Can See You Hide the Evidence: Crimes in Space

Trish Matson: journalist, physicist
Valerie Valdes: writer
Carl Fink: instructional designer (creates, delivers materials to learners including paper materials like handouts, manuals, eLearning technologies, multimedia for all educational institutions and adult training)
Kat Clay: crime and horror author

I am a recent convert to the Mystery genre. I stumbled into it originally through reading the Hardy Boys as a kid, though I never really read many more than that. Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw’s stories fascinated me; but I didn’t really fall into the mystery genre until I read my first Longmire mystery a few years ago.

Once I did that, I found I was hooked. In fact, I find a novel dull if there isn’t some essence of mystery in it. It can be the “big idea”, as in Jack McDevitt’s ACADEMY series (where the nature of the mysterious Omega clouds is the backdrop for the series) and his ALEX BENEDICT books (Benedict is an antiquities dealer whose job often rubs up into mysterious disappearances…) or the origins of PERN, of the DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN series, as a colony of a space-faring civilization that met with disaster – and coped.

McDevitt led to Connie Willis’ books, and Bujold’s VORKOSIGAN novels, which always hinge on some kind of mystery.

Which eventually led me to the realization that LIFE is a mystery and every SF novel I have in my library has a mystery in it. My favorite series by my favorite author (Julie Czerneda) is the SPECIES IMPERATIVE books; the entire series depends from the unknown answer to two questions, “What created the Chasm, an expanse of dead worlds filled with the ruins of alien civilizations? Living worlds are dying again, how can it be stopped?”

I’ve finally started to experiment with including mystery in my writing. I DID write a science fiction mystery for kids…in 1997. “Mystery on Space Station Courage” was published in CRICKET: The Magazine for Children. It was even included in supplemental materials for an elementary school reading program.

But, as you might notice, I haven’t played around with mysteries since then – though “Road Veterinarian” is a…sort-of mystery in which an experimental, genetically engineered organism that digests and replaces asphalt roads, decides to cruise internationally all by its lonesome, which might spark war...The problem is WHY...and they bring in an innocent veterinarian to figure it out. (ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, September/October 2019)
 Science fiction and mystery or thriller have to be intimately woven together. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be much written along the “how to” lines, so I guess I’ll have to take the bits and pieces I can find and paste them together into a thoughtful whole!

1) The mix of SF and mystery has to be even – IOW, you can’t just tack a spaceship on to a murder. (Or make the murder victim a robot…though that’s what I did in “The Murder of AutoTech #47369”. An AI is killed by someone, and the police are confused. Of course, so is the suspect. They don’t remember anything about the murder, though there’s a suspicious gap in their memory where the details should be. I subbed it to all of the top markets…)

2) There’s got to be a legitimate mystery. As in: “the protagonist is trying to find out what happened during a night he blacked out, the location of a mysterious star stone, and who wants it enough to leave threatening or bizarre notes…” As in number one, you can’t just tack a mystery onto an alien world or in a starship.

3) The reader should be one step behind the investigator. “...became a war criminal at the age of six; investigates crimes for the Diplomatic Corps; tough, hard-nosed bureaucrat; more investigator than fighter; uses her intelligence to save the day, and they follow the mystery maxim that the reader should always be one small step behind the hero, but only one step behind; witness interviews, juicy red herrings, and a final reveal right out of Holmes.” Clues should be placed and discovered naturally. Convolution here isn’t welcome.

4) Create a place that is distinct and where the crime could occur. “gritty, hard-boiled detective story; sense of place you get from this story is as well realized as the characters living in it.” As always, the place should be a character as much as the Humans (or aliens as the case may be!)
5) The cop, sleuth, mystery solver, has to have a clear, clean voice. “When reaching for a detective story, it’s always the sleuth’s voice that draws me in and keeps me turning pages. I like my detectives quick-witted and cynical and, if I’m being honest, more than a little unlucky; not cynical; a hustler with a heart of gold; gritty, hand-to-mouth life; peace and determination.” My kid mystery solver does have a clear voice; I can’t remember the sleuth in “The Murder of AutoTech #47369”, though it might be an AI…hmmm.

6) The mystery has to be personal. In one of my favorite Miles Vorkosigan stories, “The Mountains of Mourning”, the main character, at this point a newly graduated officer, has to solve a murder. But it’s not just “some guy”…it’s an infant; and she was murdered because of a cleft palate. Even in the recovering world of Miles, such a birth defect is easily repaired…in the city. It doesn’t help that he LOOKS like he has a radiation-induced birth defect…

7) The main character has to act as if it’s a mystery. “Constantly questioning the angles of the case; becomes more embroiled in the criminal plot, the stakes raise on a personal level; ‘ticking time-bomb’ (sometimes literal in the SF/Mystery/Thriller); internal dialoging; shades-of-black view of the world.” This harkens back to the first key and the fifth – the mix of SF and mystery has to SOUND like a mystery to the reader. While it doesn’t have to be a professional, amateur sleuths have been overdone in the “simple past”…they would be hard to believe in 21st Century America, let alone on 24th Century Mars. Our Earthly societies have continued to grow more and more complex. You never read of “armchair sleuths” solving real mysteries…(https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/28/give-us-a-clue-inside-the-world-of-amateur-crime-solvers-and-sleuths, https://www.websleuths.com/forums/

8) With those commonalities though, SF mysteries are able to deal with current and even future mysteries – which would never have happened BEFORE. “Most detective novels deal with humans who have become monsters–and in SFF, this is often literal. But does PK Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" play with the idea that the monster might be more human than we’re comfortable with, which is what ultimately sets it apart?”

9) On the other hand…murder is murder… Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Retrieval Artist series have mysteries that are just that. Whether Humans murdering aliens – or not and still incurring the death penalty (for them or their children…), sapient beings that were living and are now dead is, by definition, murder (and others would consider the killing of ANY living thing as murder (fruitarians only eat things that have fallen from a tree and are, in fact, dead already…)

So, now what do I need to do? Re-reading “The Murder of AutoTech #47369” and see what I did wrong, and have some ideas...but they biggest need seems to be clarify the who and what...

References: https://www.sldirectory.com/libsf/booksf/mystery/sfmysteries.html, https://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/best-science-fiction-mystery-books, https://best-sci-fi-books.com/23-best-science-fiction-mystery-books/, https://www.wattpad.com/299996219-how-to-write-mystery-thriller-mixing-scifi-and,
https://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/07/mind-meld-favorite-sf-detectivemystery-novels/
Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/scheduleImage: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/04/77/23/0477230729bceb2af1a994c604a79e97.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 593

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: “One Big Lie: Authors of works in this class invent one (or, at most, a very few) counterfactual physical laws and writes a story that explores the implications of these principles.”
Current Event: http://www.gamesradar.com/10-lies-video-games-tell-us-about-outer-space/

Badria Al Busaidi shook her head and said, “If you could make one thing true about real space, what would it be?” She squirmed in her tiny tube. The two of them were the only ones awake in their pod and the side of the transport device pressed against her, massaging muscles that hadn’t moved in…she stopped that line of thought. They’d been in space ever since they left Earth. They were two among ten thousand who were on their way to the nearest star system to the Sun, Alpha Centauri A.

Mehrdad bin Abdullah squirmed as well. The transport device that held each of them was only transparent at the top. She could tell from the look on his face that he was pre-occupied at the moment. Eyes half-closed, she sighed and turned away, blinking up a three-dimensional image of what the ship looked like on the outside and where they were in relation to Earth and AC-A. Lots of stars.

Boring.

Badria found herself wishing that she could sleep the entire trip away. But the biologists had already brought everyone on the ship as close to death as possible. If they stayed that way, there was evidence that they would simply stay dead. After a short pause during which Mehrdad managed to keep his breathing regular until the very end, he said, “All right. Sorry.” She was about to tease him, but he said instead, “The one thing I’d change is that there’d be aliens waiting for us when we got to AC-C.”

“There ARE aliens, Mehrdad! Haven’t you been listening to the broadcasts?”

“Not aliens just like us! Real aliens. Something that’s different.”

“Different how?”

He shrugged and it made a squelchy sound she could have heard from a mile away. Another thing the ship’s captain-psychologists had made sure of is that when you were awake, you were supposed to have every sense stimulated. She’d already experienced the pain of a broken toe as it was set then healed. Mehrdad was nervously waiting for what was going to happen to him to stimulate his sense of pain.

She’d been lucky in that, though. She’d been assaulted by the smell of newly-mown hay. Mehrdad had to endure the smell of burning Human hair. He’d also experienced another version of things coming out of his body when he barfed not long after he’d had his olfactory senses overloaded.

Suddenly another voice broke into their conversation. Badria rolled her eyes and immediately decided she wasn’t going to talk when she heard the American accented English. She could speak English just fine – all of them could. The American could speak Arabic as well, but the ones who’d been awake when she was usually didn’t. Which was not exactly a bad thing – American English had absolutely no music to it. Arabic sounded so flat and dull whenever someone else tried to speak it. The voice said, “Hello? Anyone alive in here?”

She held her breath, hoping that for once, Mehrdad would hold his tongue.

“We’re all alive here, dickhead. Otherwise why would be going to AC-C?”

There was a long pause and the American voice said, “مهلا، أنا آسف. لم أكن أقصد أن تكون مهينة.” He was almost understandable and there was a sort of cute tone to his voice as he said, “Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be insulting.”

“Well, you were,” said Mehrdad.

Badria liked to keep her own counsel, but something compelled her today. She said in Arabic, “You say you want to meet real aliens – but you can’t even keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to an American! Our civilization is twice as old as his – ours is the one that should be graceful and forgiving. Ours is the parent, his is the child.”

She wondered briefly if the American was going to object or act offended or whatever she expected a child of a self-centered, declining civilization to do. But he said nothing. Mehrdad muttered under his breath and she was about to say something when she abruptly felt tired. “Oh, no!” she managed before she began to drift off into her interstellar slumber...

Names: ♀Afghanistan, Oman ; ♂ Afghanistan, Oman
Image: https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/49956692363_f73a7a6a69_k.jpg

Slice of PIE: James Thurber, O. Henry, M*A*S*H & Science Fiction

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention; to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education – which I now have!)), I WOULD 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. 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…

James Thurber was a well-known cartoonist and humorous short story writer. Most of his work was published in the New Yorker. Today, he’d be best known for his short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, which was released as a film starring Ben Stillerl years ago and has become one mf our favorites (though it has little to do with the short story except for the title...). He is still celebrated by “the annual Thurber Prize [which] honors outstanding examples of American humor”.

O. Henry is the pen name of William Sydney Porter. He chose the name – the choosing of which has three different tales but I like this one best! – when he began writing humorous short stories while he was in prison for embezzlement. He kept it and went on to write some 381 other short stories. He is still celebrated by “The O. Henry Award...a prestigious annual prize named after Porter and given to outstanding short stories”. (I wrote an essay about his influence on my writing: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/03/writing-advice-short-stories-advice-and.html
What does this have to do with speculative fiction and science fiction in particular?
Unfortunately not much.
From ANALOG, Stan Schmidt collected a few shining examples of humorous SF in ANALOG’S LIGHTER SIDE and BEST OF collections – most notably “The Dread Tomato Addiction”, though it wasn’t strictly a short story and it turned on the idea that you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say. Written by Mark Clifton, it was published in ASTOUNDING in 1958, and when I read it for the first time in left a deep impression on me.
Kelvin Throop was the star of several ANALOG short stories in the 1960s through the 80s and had numerous sayings attributed to him. Invented by R.A.J Phillips, several writers wrote stories about him and he became a sort of fall back for snarky sayings that were space fillers.
The website BestScienceFictionStories.com has more than 80 stories that they consider “Funny” – http://bestsciencefictionstories.com/category/funny/. I just discovered it when I started looking for humorous SF. Other recent forays into speculative short fiction humor come from a writer I first came across in an online writer’s group I’m a member of, CODEX’s Alex Schvartsman. The fifth UNIDENTIFIED FUNNY OBJECTS anthology is due out later this year and while I've tried several times, I guess I'm not able to transfer my moderate sense of humor to the page..
So I KNOW humorous short stuff is being written – but it doesn’t seem that there are many writers who have become closely associated with it any more. Gordon R Dickson and Poul Anderson wrote the Hokas series, Asimov’s sporadic funny stuff, even Haldeman wrote “A !Tangled Web”, Mike Resnick – but no one seems to have emerged as a regularly humorous  writer – and it seems “everyone” has written funny short stories as evidenced by Resnick’s THIS IS MY FUNNIEST: SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS PRESENT THEIR FUNNIEST STORIES EVER in 2006 and 2007.
Yet it doesn’t seem that the awards come to humor. An old friend of mine who is a prolific writer of YA humor (Gordon Korman) has never once been up for a Nebula, a Hugo, a Newbery, a Printz, Morris, Globe-Horn, or ALA Best...because none of the committees believe that serious issues can be dealt with humorously.
I think that this may also be the problem with speculative short fiction as well. When it comes time for the awards to be handed out, people say to themselves, “Wow! That was funny! But serious can’t be funny, so I’d better not nominate/vote for/write something funny because no one will take me seriously.”
Of course, we need only look at the accolades showered on the King of Television Dramedy, M*A*S*H: 12 Emmys, a Golden Globe, a Peabody, a Director’s Guild of America, several Humanitas Prize and Writers Guild of America nominations, an exhibit in the Smithsonian, and one of the highest ratings in the history of the Neilson’s for its final episode. The SF medical drama of James White tries to be funny in his SECTOR GENERAL novels, but the seriousness overwhelms the gentle comedy...where M*A*S*H usually managed to keep the drama and the comedy neatly separated by different story lines...
So where is science fiction’s short fiction version of M*A*S*H, O. Henry, or James Thurber, eh? 

Image: https://i.imgur.com/ZM4fDGk.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 492

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: creepy basements
Current Event: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175774/JonBenet-Ramsey-murder-New-clues-revealed-detective-shed-new-light-case.html

Mattie Capp Washington – I hated her. She was cute where I was ugly; she was short where I was tall; she was light where I was dark; she was popular where the world loathed me.

Everyone mourns her passing which the police and the rest of the country suspected was a murder. I’m the only one who actually saw anything, but if I talk about it, then I’ll be a suspect and even though their suspicions wouldn’t be entirely true, it would probably be enough to convict me.

It would certainly be enough to get me sent to the electric chair (if they had one any more) in the courtroom of public opinion.

I suppose I should back up a bit. I could probably start at the part where the world loathed me. I’m pretty sure you think I’m exaggerating when I say that, because there’s pretty much nothing that the world uniformly loathes. On the other hand, a paper I read once stated, “In virtually every culture there has existed some word for evil, a universal, linguistic acknowledgment of the archetypal presence of ‘something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity...’”
Even the etymological root of the word is practically prehistoric! “PIE *upelo-, from root *wap- ‘bad, evil’ (source also of Hittite huwapp- ‘evil’).

“this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement" [OED]. Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease (n.)”

So if every culture has a word for it, then the word must have been invented to describe something – ‘cuz that’s what Humans do. We put labels on stuff as soon as we want to get a handle on it. It’d be interesting to see which came first – the word for “evil” or the word for “God”.

I’m it – the thing that every culture has named. And almost without exception, I live in dark places. In the middle of the 21st Century, while there aren’t many caves left, there are lots and lots of basements. That’s where you’ll usually find me – evil lurking in basements.

It’s funny, ‘cuz bad guys always act like they’re looking for me. The real nut cases say that they’re seeking me to worship me. Those are the ones that amuse me the most because no matter how hard they tried to find me, no matter how many millions of dollars they spent or how many people they murdered to come to me face-to-face, the second they look at me, they completely lose it and beg to leave; they grovel, roll around on the ground, mess themselves and volunteer to sacrifice to me anything and everything they have.

And I’m not even Incarnate – I’m excarnate. I’m the one who DOES the dirty work because I am the one who is Unmade flesh. I was alive on Earth at one time and when I joined the ranks I became excarnate and now I serve. In basements. All the time.

Someone came down the stairs: thud, thud, thud; male heaviness. The young Ms. Washington was here, too. But there might have been a surprise or two in the offing.

I smiled an excarnate smile and opened my mouth.

Names: Multiple origins (see above) – “this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement”
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg