Guy Stewart's Blog, page 54

Slice of PIE Redux: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” As 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)), 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…This story first appeared in March of 2017...

My wife and I re-watched the movie last night, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, starring Ben Stiller. The screenplay was based on a short story of the same name, written by well-known humorist, James Thurber.

Apparently they really have nothing to do with each other, so I’m going to treat the Stiller movie as a science fiction flick.

Why SF and not Fantasy?

It involves both psychology (soft SF) and technology (hard SF) – and advances in technology and how they affect society (classic hard SF)…

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

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

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

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

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

OK, so I’m not exactly an example of Thurber’s Walter Mitty; but I’m certainly not Stiller’s Walter Mitty, either. It’s Stiller’s Walter Mitty, though who is the character of a science fiction movie. While it doesn’t involve space or time travel, it does involve MIND travel as we got to see what he was imagining – saving the dog from a building about to erupt into a fireball; the guy who came out of a LIFE Magazine ad from the Himalayas to talk to Cheryl; plus a few others I can’t recall (and can’t seem to find listed anywhere). For a moment, we see what he sees – or where he goes when life isn’t going in the direction he wanted it to. Ultimately however, Walter’s – and Cheryl’s – lives are changed forever by the change from one technology to another. Moving from physical photography to digital photography as well as moving from face-to-face dating to electronic dating and electronic friendships. The MESSAGE though is that the electronic cannot exist without the physical. Someone still has to GO to the Himalayas to take a picture, whether it’s digital or on film. You still have to MEET someone in order to fall in love with them and create a future with them…

Isn’t the impact of technology on the Human what SF is all about? I think the answer is, “Yes!”

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

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d2/11/e2/d211e25d9e9ea182a2912e594042d288.png

Slice of PIE: Terraforming and Alien Life – A Biochemist’s Perspective

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 Thursday, July 30, 2020 at 1800 hours (aka 6:00 pm).
Stephen Mulholland was introduced to science fiction at a young age by his father, an avid SF reader. Since getting his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in 1997, Stephen has been developing a hard SF universe. With the help of many friends, and their peer-review, they’ve been writing stories in a possible — plausible — future, addressing issues from how alien ecosystems might work, to how practical space combat might be executed. Since moving to New Zealand in 2003, Stephen has also been farming and researching issues of animal cognition, morbidity/mortality, and how to improve animal welfare. He’s also been team-leader for an Urban Search and Rescue team for the last decade, and has trained in eastern and western sword arts for over 20 years.

Long, long ago, with a burgeoning family and a shrinking pocketbook, I applied to teach Remedial Science Summer School.

The class was combined 7th and 8th graders who had failed their respective sciences – in Minnesota Life Science and Earth Science. After a few seconds, I realized that trying to teach both disciplines in a compressed format in the same way that they had failed to grasp in the first place would be, as a member of Al-Anon said (in October of 1981), “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” (No, Einstein did NOT say this. Or write it. Or anythinged it. See the reference below.)

The group was hostile and did everything but cross their arms over their chests, stomp their feet, and say, “You’re not the boss of me!”

What to do?

I designed a class called Alien Worlds. That first class happened three decades ago, and I’ve been teaching the class for gifted and talented young people for the past 27 years during the summer. Because of the pandemic, I didn’t do it this summer, but will (hopefully) do so next summer.

At any rate, in the original remedial class, I created teams of four students, two eight graders and two seventh graders. The eighth graders would be creating the alien star system and drawing maps from various perspectives; the seventh graders  would be creating life forms to populate the planets.

Because this was a remedial science class and I didn’t have enough time to teach two separate tracks, I laid a foundation of astronomy, added planetology, and finally layers on biology – with a supposition that neither group of kids gave a rat’s sorry behind for science as it had been taught to them in the past.

I created a totally different atmosphere (so to speak) by framing the science with creativity and included cartography, art, and research – and insisting that NO ONE could snap their fingers and “poof!” stars, planets, biomes, and life forms into existence. EVERYTHING had to be within the realm of real science. This often meant arguing with students about why “cubic planets” were impossible (including, of course “accidental” segues into math, fluids, condensation, heat, and cooling…or why life on a different world would NOT allow for talking kitty cats; sexy, green, multi-breasted alien women dredged up from adolescent fantasies, or flying humans…with “accidental” detours through biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, gravity, and evolution…

While teaching that class, I also included science movies – and science fiction movies, including “Devil in the Dark” from Star Trek: The Original Series, which discussed the possibility of life based on silicon and appearing to be “rocks”; and a film I lost, but found last summer called, “Mind-Slaughter”… (which you’ll find here, I hope…yep, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVj2mgrTtU8&feature=emb_title)

While ancient (1977, 43 years old…), it poses questions absolutely in line with what I would have expected to happen at this discussion.

In it, Humans dramatically/catastrophically terraform Venus using algae. I’ve heard and read about this for so long I can’t even tell you when I first heard it. At any rate, the Wikipedia entry, which giving details about the physical aspects of terraforming Venus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus#:~:text=The%20terraforming%20of%20Venus%20is,it%20suitable%20for%20human%20habitation.&text=Eliminating%20most%20of%20the%20planet's,conversion%20to%20some%20other%20form), speaks absolutely nothing to the “rightness” of doing that. Blindly. Without any kind of evaluation of if there’s even a chance of life on Venus.

Yet, we’ve been speculating on that possibility for over 200 years. (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hope-life-venus-survives-centuries-against-all-odds)

My favorite author, CS Lewis, even postulates what, while it seems patently absurd today, the surface might be like in his novel PERELANDRA ((1943)in which Venus is covered by a planet-wide ocean that (unlike the one in SOLARIS (1961, Stanislaw Lem)) is not intelligent but covered with moveable islands. More realistically, Sarah Zettel postulates a surface and atmosphere – and lifeforms – a bit more realistically in THE QUIET INVASION (2000) and even more recently, Derek Künsken’s, THE HOUSE OF STYX (2020, serialized in ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, March-August) – “Terraforming Venus was first proposed in a scholarly context by the astronomer Carl Sagan in 1961, although fictional treatments, such as ‘The Big Rain’ by Poul Anderson (Astounding/ANALOG, 1954), preceded it.”

“Mind-Slaughter” gives vent to the idea that “Just because we CAN, doesn’t mean we SHOULD” (which is a quote I can’t very the origin of, but anyway), maybe we’ll be able to terraform Venus someday. But should we? Even if we don’t see shining city lights, catch snippets of coherent radio transmissions, or contact a Venusian via the psychic friends network, is no proof that there’s nothing intelligent on the surface or in the skies of Venus. We are NOT the be-all and end-all of life in the universe, and despite what scientists say, it more often appears to me that they’re mouthing platitudes while still believing that if we CAN do a thing, we dang well SHOULD!

Even if we’re “absolutely certain” that “nothing could live there, certainly not life as we know it!” Especially since the only life we know is the life on Earth, and as scientists have hammered into our heads for the past hundred or so years, we aren’t that special. While at the same time, many of THEM act as if we are and they can pretty much do as we please on Earth…

Which may lead to our undoing in the long run.

References: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/#:~:text=The%20definition%20of%20insanity%20is,or%20spoke%20the%20statement%20above.
Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/026/298/513/large/eldar-zakirov-eldar-zakirov-2019-the-house-of-styx-analog-cover-art-1200px.jpg?1588409959

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 467

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.

SF Trope: Alien artifacts
Current Event: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/27/tibetan_alien_statue_discovered_by_nazis/

Hans Bonhoeffer and Sa’Niah Green pursed their lips as they leaned over the Plexiglas box protecting the ‘Pseudo-Tibetan Nazi Buddha’ under the lights of the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum.

His voice heavy with a German accent, Hans said, “Why would they carve it out of meteorite iron?”

“You’d think they’d just sell it. I’ll bet they coulda got twenty grand on ebay,” said Sa’Niah.

Hans snorted, straightening up. “Even so, it’s strange. Why would anyone go to the trouble carving it and then pretending it was collected by Himmler?”

Sa’Niah straightened up as well and looked at her friend. They were about as opposite as possible – he had blonde hair, blue eyes, almost two meters tall, lanky to the point of skinny with hands large enough to grip a basketball with just five fingers (if he cared, he was a European football fanatic). She was barely a meter and a half tall, her grandparents had come from Sudan, she was squat and round (her friends called her Black Winnie – after Winnie the Pooh) and she wanted nothing more than to play on the Minnesota Lynx.

Good thing he was gay, otherwise she’d live one frustrated life. They were also both history majors. Which reminded her, “Hans – how’s your book?”

He looked up and arched an eyebrow, “Why do you think I’m standing here with you discussing pseudo-Nazi alien artifacts?”

She snorted softly, “Because we’re best friends?”

“No, because you’re the only person I know of who’s read Harry Turtledove.” She grinned. They’d met in the Wilson Library during finals first semester of their freshman year the year before. They’d gotten into an argument over who would be able to check out the newest Turtledove novel. Ultimately Hans had won because he held the book over his head and there was no way for her to get at it. She said, “It’s a good thing you decide to share it with me at Caribou.”

He grinned at her and said, “Speaking of which.” He lifted his chin and made a motion toward Dinkytown proper.

She nodded and said, “I’ll even walk outside.”

Mock-amazed, he said, “What’s wrong? Have you contracted some spinal fungus you haven’t told me about and you are preparing to die?”

She laughed. Several other arts patrons glared at her. The Weisman wasn’t for giggling college sophomores. They headed for the exit then started up East River Parkway, heading for Southeast Fifth Street. Sa’Niah said, “So, what’s the story?”

Hans fell into one of his brooding moods. They’d almost reached Dinkytown when he said, “It’s not a story.”

“What?”

“It has to do with my family,” he said, his accent thicker than usual. She’d noticed that happened when he got emotional – which happened every time he broke up from his current love interest. She just listened and walked, huffing slightly. When he wasn’t paying attention, he took long, long strides and it was hard for her to keep up.

“What would a fake Nazi-Buddhist made out of meteorite iron have to do with your family?”

They reached the Caribou, ordered their favorites and settled in a booth that allowed him to stretch his legs before he said, “My family were Nazis.”

She blinked in surprise. “What?”

“My grandparents – both sides, except for one of my father’s uncles. His name was Dietrich and he was executed by the Nazis.” She didn’t know what to say. He continued, “They also dealt with the regime in antiquities.” He paused, scowling then said, “The Nazi Buddha? It’s legitimate.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I have a picture of my great-great-great grandfather holding it. And he does not look Human.”

Names: ♀ African American; ♂ Germany
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg/220px-Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #5: Paolo Bacigalupi “& Me”

It's been a while since I decided to add something different to my blog rotation. Today I’ll start looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers above...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!

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

“Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot smokier and less defined.”

― Paolo Bacigalupi

I first ran across his work when a YA novel came in the mail. I was on the SFWA Norton Award Committee, and in those days, seven or so of us read as many YA speculative fiction novels that came to us in the mail, then discussed them in an online forum, then agreed finally to a recommended list which the SFWA membership was SUPPOSED to vote on. That committee no longer exists because the membership mostly ignored our recommendations and voted for super star writers rather than writers who were creating superior works.

At any rate, I got a copy of his first novel, THE WINDUP GIRL (Nightshade Press, September 2009) for the Norton and while I didn’t recommend it for the award, the group did. Even I found it intriguing…

But this advice isn’t about writing novels! It’s about writing short stories, and Bacigalupi tested the waters, so to speak, with two shorter stories. The first, “The Calorie Man” was a novelette that appeared in the September 2005 issue of F&SF followed a year later by “Yellow Card Man”  in the December 2006 issue of ASIMOV’S.

During an interview with Allan Vorda in 2010 for the online journal, Rain Taxi, Bacigalupi said this about how these stories were created out of an idea for the novel: “[The stories] are precursors for characters and themes in TWG. When did these the ideas coalesce into the larger work? (PB) Actually, the novel's seed came first. I created a short story that just refused to work. When I showed it to a friend of mine, she commented that it felt like a dwarf star, with too many characters and too many plotlines all jammed against one another. It was more like a novel, compressed, and needed to be a novel, uncompressed…I went back to [it] and started harvesting interesting bits. ‘The Calorie Man’ [explored] the GMOs and peak-oil world—without anything else getting in the way. ‘Yellow Card Man’…[was] a character study, and fill in the back-story of one of the characters…It looked like there were at least a dozen other possible stories just waiting to be mined [from that story]…from the initial story idea to…the book…it was something like five or six years.”

He contends that these two stories were “…hand grenades of ideas…” that, in his case, exploded into a novel that catapulted him into SF “stardom”.

Whew! “hand grenades of ideas” is a tall order for your average short story!

Oops…we’re not talking about average stories here, though. We’re talking earthshaking stories. Paradigm-shifting stories.

Stories like “The Tides of Kithrup” (ANALOG May 1981), in which a Dolphin-Human crew intentionally strands their starship at the bottom of an ocean that has deadly metallic components that will kill the crew in the long-term. They have to repair their ship while powerful aliens orbiting the planets fight over the chance to take Humans, Dolphins, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and Dogs and genetically “finish” them…

Stories like “Weyr Search” (ANALOG October 1967) where a story that begins like a medieval fantasy with dragons and castles turns out to be story about teleporting, genetically engineered fire-breathing intelligences battling to keep a Human colony safe from a space-borne mycorrhizoid.

Stories like “Diving Into the Wreck” (ASIMOV’S December 2005) in which a wreck diver (like scuba divers who do this into sunken ships) “dives” into derelict star ships, researches them, then takes other “divers” into them. She finds “an enormous, incredibly old, Earth-made ship built before Faster Than Light technology this far from Earth. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her; but the ship won’t give up its treasures without a steep cost…” Old idea, new paradigm.

So – my challenge has always been personifying the “hand grenade”. I have ideas – Humans vs Plantimals; drastically genetically engineered Humans in the clouds of a puffy Jupiter gas giant; interstellar union of aliens whose entrance into the union is based on how “giving” a civilization is; but I haven’t been consistently able to take that grenade and load it with a situation that illustrates the foundational problem of the story.

My goal then is to reframe “May They Rest” and cast it (in light of the current political environment”) into a lost graveyard in Vietnam. Another goal will be to create a “brother story” in the skies of River. Also, I’ve got the background of a story that deals with someone who is accidentally injured and is unable to be an effective member of an advanced alien society – and a Human who suggests that while he may be handicapped in the main culture and about to be terminated; he might have the mind of a king in a parallel society of animals closely related to them…

Anyway, as always, I’ll keep you posted.

References: https://shortform.livejournal.com/33840.html, Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 466

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: Cobweb jungle
Current Event: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/spiders-in-pakistan-encase-whole-trees-in-webs

“I love spiders,” said Farzana Niazi.

Byron Neson shuddered and said at the same time, “I hate spiders.”

Farzana shot him an irritated look and said, “Why would you volunteer to come on this trip, then?”

Byron blushed and turned away, saying, “My therapist said that I needed to face my fears.”

Farzana shook her head, “Oh, I understand the concept – it’s just that there must be a…safer place to face it.” She gestured to the forest covered by the webs of a dozen different spiders. “Who knows what kind of spiders are on all those trees?”

He shuddered, “Thanks for helping me overcome my fear.”

She relented, “Fine – there’s obvious evidence that they’re not carnivorous.”“How would you know that?”

“Well, first of all, there are a zillion of the things and they’re all still alive. If they were carnivorous, they’d be eating each other.”

He sniffed, “I pretty much agree.”

“What other reason could there be?”

“An absence of their own kinds of food.”

“What?”

“Maybe they don’t like eating each other – maybe the different ones have different prey and right now they’re starving to death and waiting to drop on to something like…me, maybe.”

She shook her head and set up the capture traps. Each one had a ring of water in the center suspended from a Teflon, “no-stick” cone. Thirsty spiders would be drawn by the water then slide down the funnel through a scanning micro-camera with a computer chip that would identify each one and count them.

“It’s getting dark,” Byron said.

“Duh. That’s when the spiders are most active. They don’t sleep like us,” Farzana said.

“We’ll be heading back soon, right?”

She gestured at the wagon he was pulling and said, “What’s it look like you?”

He bit his lower lip then said, “So one trap for each of six trees?” He pointed at six nearby trees and counted. “So we should be able to leave in a couple…”

“Don’t be silly! What kind of sample accuracy would I get if I just took from the trees in one section?”

“A sensible one?” Overhead, Byron was sure he heard the webs rustle, as if something were moving around more than usual. A gentle breeze blew across the flooded land from off the Indian Ocean.

“No, a sample that would get me laughed out of grad school.”

He grunted and went with her as she tugged him along after her. They continued to set the traps, moving deeper into the web-shrouded forest. The sun set behind roiling clouds on the horizon, promising more rain even as the monsoon season came to an end.

“Are we there yet?” he asked.

“We’re not there,” Farzana said irritably. Overhead, the tent shivered like something was settling in for a night’s sleep. She didn’t appear to hear it.

Byron did.

Clearly.

He said, “We need to go now.”

“We’ll go when I say it’s time.”

The rattling overhead increased and Byron said, “How long has it been since these things have eaten?”

She shrugged as she set out and armed the last device and stood up, arching her back, fists in the small. Byron couldn’t help but ogle for a moment. Something moved over his head in the tent, making a sound like tearing crepe paper.

This time Farzana looked up and said, “That’s an odd sound. I’ve never...”

Names: ♀ Pakistani, Pashtoon; ♂ English, Spanish
Image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OCWXw6InF70/TKigMBk87NI/AAAAAAAAAy4/tL7MhIfL9CM/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

Slice of PIE: Robots Write – Would It Even Be Possible?

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 Wednesday, July 30, 2020 at 1400 hours (aka 2:00 pm).

Can AI Write a Story? Cases for and Against Human + Machine

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne: a Nebula-nominated science fiction author and data scientist from Colombo, Sri Lanka; runs fact-checking organization; started osunpoet to test human+AI collaboration; https://medium.com/@osunpoet

Just the title of this meeting sparked a story idea.

Let’s just say that it’s possible for an AI to write a story.

What would they write about?

Taking from my own life, I write SF because writing “realistic fiction” doesn’t let me escape; and one of the reasons I read and write is to “escape” this mundane existence. Not that my life is bad at all – I love my life. And the fact is that I DO read realistic fiction as well; Craig Johnson’s LONGMIRE mysteries; Jan Karon’s MITFORD series; Edwidge Danticat’s novels and collections; Gregory David Roberts’ novel SHANTARAM; I even read the occasional straight up romance, like LaVyrle Spencer’s NOVEMBER OF THE HEART; Colleen McCullough’s THE THORN BIRDS. Then there’s James Michener’s THE COVENANT, CENTENNIAL, and CHESAPEAKE; as well as  James Clavell’s SHOGUN and even Tom Clancy’s RED TIDE RISING…OK. So, I read a lot of stuff that’s not speculative fiction. So sue me!

At any rate, let’s say that we have an AI that want’s to write; would they write science fiction (as they ARE science fiction incarnate!); fantasy (while an AI would be able to draw on all of the very best fantasy Humanity has ever created, would it be able to have a new idea? Could an AI become the next JK Rowling? Or JRR Tolkien? What if they wanted to be the new CS Lewis?

Which raises another question, could an AI write a standard novel – because most of them include, somewhere in them, some aspect of faith (or not faith), be it through cursing or prayer. COULD an AI write such dialogue or even discussions? How would an AI’s writing come across as real if two characters got into a major fight and used vulgarities – because we all know that the use of vulgarities is strictly a matter of timing, in fact, very little different from the timing required to tell a joke.

Could an AI inject humor into their writing? Humor is so subjective that there are Humans who can’t even tell a joke, let alone write one!

Let’s look at one of the most famous “machine intelligences”; Data from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. Data freely admits that humor is a difficult concept. In fact, in a recent re-watch with my wife, of the “Q” episodes, the titular entity, after having his powers restored in “Déjà Q”, he decides to leave Data with a gift.

At first, Data thinks that Q will make him Human. But Q has quite a different intent:

“Q: No, no, no, no, no, no. I would never curse you by making you human. Think of it as a going away present. (Q vanishes, and Data turns into a quivering heap of helpless, contagious laughter.

“LAFORGE: Data? Data, why are you laughing?

“DATA: (stops abruptly) I…do not know. But it was a wonderful…feeling.”

Data is a marvelous character and while he only gains emotions when he places an “emotion chip” in his positronic brain – that was recovered from his evil twin brother, Lore – he has plenty to say about the Human condition. BUT: could he write a novel that would engage Human readers, or would his writing lack something?

Which raises another question, will someone try to write a novel someday using an AI – say a less-than-scrupulous editor who sets about to continue his/her lucrative career publishing, oh…Stephen King’s work…after the author’s death, proclaiming with great excitement that a treasure trove of unpublished King works have been discovered on some 100 disks stashed in his attic and the company is making plans to release them, once a year for however long it takes to get them all published. They ARE hiring an AI to edit and do any kind of revisions necessary…

Which of course, raises a hue and cry…or does it? What if the first one is really fantastic? What if it’s horrid? What then? Would this be a proof of concept?

Mr. Wijeratne runs site that features AI poetry. I’ll be going there for certain now!

Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: https://artistdetective.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/robotarmtyping.png?w=669&h=284

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 465

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: a sorcerer who is dead but his “soul” lives on trapped somewhere 

Current Event: http://www.alunajoy.com/2012-mar18.html

 Martin Jönsson stared at the blog and said, “You’ve read this stuff?” He scratched his scruffy blonde beard – little more than rough peach fuzz

Vukosova Gavrilović, long-time friends and NOT girlfriend, smirked. She learned the Swede phrase for her buddy’s newly sprouted beard was duniga skägg. She considered teasing him, but the look on her face warned her that he probably wasn’t in the mood tonight. Instead she said, “I read it. What about it?”

“It like, says that people can soak up ancient energy and transport it from place to place!”

Vukosova shook her head. Her friend was a philosophy major – she wished him luck in finding a job as something more than an intelligent garbage collector. She was a physics major, and if her freshman grades and undergrad presentation were any indication, she may have just written herself a ticket to the Cooperative Lunar Colony Fusion Research Center after she graduated. The CLCRFC – better known by its euphemistic name, The CooL Co. FuR Center and what NASA insisted on calling ClickerFick in its press releases – was every physicists dream. Nuclear fusion was a hop, skip and a jump away from becoming practical. All they needed to do was solve one or two containment issues...she yanked her attention back to Martin and said, “We’ve been soaking up energy and taking if from place to place since the evolution of the first life form.”

He finally looked up from the screen that showed some wackoid Egyptian goddess background overlain with a the foolish ranting of someone who was certain they’d been able to imbue and ancient Egyptian site with energy sucked up in their souls from Atlantis. He said, “This is amazing! It sounds like what you guys are doing in that science class you’re taking!”

She sighed and said, “It’s called Elementary Nuclear Fusion – and it doesn’t have anything to do with storing energy. It’s about creating energy.”

He frowned then said, “I had some science classes in high school...”

“That was last year, wasn’t it?”

“Hey! Just ‘cause I’m a prodigy doesn’t mean I don’t deserve respect!”

“You were a prodigy in acting, Martin! Now you couldn’t shake a stick at an T-comp without breaking into a cold sweat!”

He stood up abruptly, snapping the cover in his computer. “Shows how much you know! I’m gonna see if I can soak up some fusion energy from...from…”

She smirked and said, “Idfu – it’s on the east bank of the Nile in east central Egypt.”

He glared, “You think you know everything just because you’re a physics major! But there’s another world out there, too. One you can’t see! It inhabits the same realm as your gravitons.”

“Gravitons are real!” Vukosova exclaimed.

“Yeah? Show  me one!”

“Well, you can’t just open your eyes and see one! You need special equipment…”

“And then can you see one?”

“Well...not exactly. But we can see evidence that gives a strong indication of the properties and the effects of...”

“So your gravitons are as imaginary as my negative Atlantean energy.”

“They aren’t the same...”

Martin turned away and stalked out of the dining hall. He stopped just before he slammed the door and shouted, “We’ll see whose god is more powerful! The trapped sorcerers of Atlantis and Ancient Egypt or the trapped gravitons of the Unified Field Theory!”

She blinked in surprise as he finished his rant and stomped away. She muttered, “I didn’t know he knew anything about the Unified Field Theory!”

Names: ♀ Serbia; ♂ Sweden
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 5: THINKING Like an Alien

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, and Julie Czerneda. 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 of the professional writers above...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!

Part 1: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/01/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens.htmlPart 2: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens-part.htmlPart 3:  https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens.htmlPart 4: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogsp...

Being a Human, how can I POSSIBLY think like an alien? I mean, except for a few forays into the possibility of Humans as “prey”, I can’t think of a huge number of SF writers who have really, truly tried to think like an alien and the write a story from an alien point of view. 

One problem with doing such a thing is that – Why would I want to read about an alien that was so different I couldn’t possibly connect with it in any way. Writing such a story would fly directly in the face of Lisa Cron’s foundational paradigm, “We're wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world.”

If we are in fact biologically wired that way, then how can we possibly read a story that would catch our attention if it was written from a truly alien point of view? It wouldn’t meet the needs of our neural wiring.

Some notable attempts stick out to me:

In STAR TREK, there were two – first was from the original series episode called, “Devil in the Dark” in which a silicon life form appears out of the depths of a remote mining colony and begins to slaughter the colonists working in the mine. The upshot is that the miners have found veins of valuable ore along with piles of silicon nodules – which turn out to be Horta eggs. The alien reproduces on a scale Humans can’t imagine in a way that’s entirely alien. This episode cheats a bit when we realize that the Horta is killing Humans because she’s protecting her kids – an entirely Human and understandable situation.

Another Star Trek story, “Darmok” came out in the second TV series, Next Generation. This time, instead of strictly biological, it involves HOW the Tamarians phrase their conversation. They do speak words, which the Universal Translator translates into English, but they use some sort of referent system that makes what they say understandable – but entirely gibberish. It turns out that the speak in metaphors. (No idea how they communicate technical data – it seems to me that it would be clumsy talking about computer programs or starship construction using metaphors – though I suppose they could create a “dictionary” of specific technical jargon metaphors. At any rate, again the writers cheat having Picard be familiar with Human mythology, parables, and fables and eventually understanding.

Perhaps one of the most alien beings in SF is the sapient ocean in Stanislaw Lem’s SOLARIS. Lem himself, in commenting on two of the movies made from his book that “…none of these films reflected the book's thematic emphasis on the limitations of human rationality.”

This is what makes the alien ocean among the closest to incomprehensible aliens ever written – and I note as well that the story is told entirely from the POV of the Humans in the story.

More recently, the aliens from “Arrival” are very nearly incomprehensible. Based on SF writer Ted Chiang’s short piece, “Story of Your Life”, the aliens in both do not view time as linear but unitive – all at once. It plays with how we perceive time. [One thing I have had trouble understanding is why such a point of view is entirely acceptable when talking about aliens, but entirely UNacceptable when talking about God. I have long believed, along with CS Lewis, that God exists outside of time and sees all time from beginning to end simultaneously. (“Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty…is always the Present for Him… If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.” This is from MERE CHRISTIANITY, chapter 3 “Time and Beyond Time”. Rant over.]

I think, in the future, to create an alien alien, I need to stick with changing ONE THING. I tried to do in “Hermit” which morphed into “Cuyuna”. I need to work on this story more because the aliens in it are in a relationship called mutualism (BIOLOGY: symbiosis that is beneficial to both organisms involved). The Pak are immense creatures that dwarf blue whales by several sizes. The Gref are “humanoid” creatures. Both are intelligent, but the Pak are virtually incomprehensible to humanoids of the Unity, where the Gref are understandable – except in their relationship with the Pak.

The Gref live inside of the Pak which moves through space and time without technology – not using ESP or anything we can comprehend, but by manipulating the universe at a quantum string level. I suppose I cheated there, as well. The Gref are understandable to us because while they’re “alien”, they’re humanoid. On the other hand, their relationship with the Pak deserves some work as well…at any rate. Once I take this new insight to “Hermit”, I’ll let you know if I can sell it.

By the same token, another story I wrote and have been unable to place, “By Law and Custom”, has a Human and the alien WheetAh, plantimaloids who evolved from Euglena and out of pitcher plant and Venus flytrap and bamboo-types of ancestors. I’ve only been able to sell one story out of that universe (the Human-WheetAH universe) – perhaps because I haven’t been able to make them comprehensible to a reader…we’ll see how this grows!

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life, https://trueandpure.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/c-s-lewis-god-outside-of-time/
Image: https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1479508326l/33009823._SY475_.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 464

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.

SF Trope: Super Powers
Current Event: http://emgn.com/entertainment/15-people-with-real-life-superpowers/9/

The entire classroom was staring at Fajr Nazor. She said, “What’s wrong with you?”

Wiremu Song, the boy she liked, sat behind her, and whom she often wanted to drop dead, raised his hand. He didn’t wait for Mr. Beidelman to call on him though, saying, “We’ve never seen a real mutant before, Mr. B. It’s creepy. I was wondering if you could ask Fajr,” he always pronounced it “fudger” even though she’d corrected him a zillion times, “to demonstrate her super powers?”

Mr. B hooked a thumb over his shoulder as he said, “You, Mr. S., can take a short hike to the CoolDown.”

“Aw, Mr….”

Mr. B hooked his thumb again and touched his Bluetooth, sawing, “I have your dad’s number in my eye and all I have to do is blink.”

Wiremu – whom, Fajr admitted she often called “Wired Cow” – stood up and slouched out of the room, firing a venomous look at her. Once he was gone, she stood up and said, “I don’t mind talking about it, Mr. B. It is sort of interesting.”

 He nodded and said, “Go ahead if you want to.”

 “I do. My mutation is actually a pair of mutations. I can memorize anything anyone shows to me in a split second.”

A girl at the back of the room said, “I can do that!”

Fajr cleared her throat and said, “And then I can draw it with a pencil without looking at the paper.”

A boy by the window piped up, “I seen her do it! It’s amazing! But you can only do it if you seen that thing the first time, right?”

Fajr blushed. Only a few people had known that little wrinkle to her brain kink. She shrugged, “I never told anyone I was super.” She started to sit down then stood up again and said, “I never told anyone this, either, but it’s about the superist thing I can do.”

Both of Mr. B’s brows went up. The rest of the class leaned forward as she said, “I can make electrons slow down to almost zero velocity.”

Mr. B scowled then said slowly, “That’s quite a claim, Ms. Song. Do you have any evidence to back that up?”

She gestured to Wiremu who suddenly appeared in the classroom as she said, “I stopped his electrons from moving right after he started out of the room.” No one moved or seemed to breathe – the all of a suddenly the room exploded with screaming seventh graders…

Names: ♀ Egypt, Croatia ; ♂ New Zealand, Korea
Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg/220px-Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg

Slice of PIE: Reflections On Writing From the Viewpoint of the Poor and Powerless

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)), 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…

On July 11, 2020, I wrote the following Slice of Pie essay: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/slice-of-pie-science-fiction-fantasy.html

On reflection, I was wondering HOW I could possibly write a story in which the main character has a problem to solve, but no way to solve it. They will lack not only physical resources like food, water, and transportation; but the fact of the matter is that they’ll also lack imagination and connections.

Lacking imagination is NOT the same thing as being stupid. What I’m talking about is that they live in a world where not only is it circumscribed by limited opportunities to LEAVE their place, they have (most likely) no idea wherethey could go.

Absolutely, they watch television – HGTV, ESPN, or even TV shows on broadcast if they can’t (probably) afford cable or dish TV (and it’s unlikely that their cellphone minutes would be wasted on watching TV on a tiny screen.)

I do not, myself live in poverty, but come from a version of it – my parents and the four of us kids know all about food stamps, back when they were actual stamps; and while it isn’t recent, my wife and I received food stamps as well as living in a high lower class block of apartments. When my wife did daycare, it was for a single mother whose child was the product of rape…(who now has her PhD…by the way; Mom is a nurse and got her degree over a very long period of time).

So, I suppose I answered my own question: how can you have a protagonist live in abject poverty and expect anything to happen in the story? I think the answer is that unless a writer imbues their poor character with exceptional gifts or powers, there IS no story.

I recently commented on a novel I read through a review on Amazon.com, “Also, other than the sadness of his life story, the main characters suffers not even the slightest side effects of being a slave for twenty-some years -- except that he doesn't understand human slang. While the story doesn’t need to be a leaflet denouncing slavery, Vogel writes in the 21st Century while Heinlein wrote in the middle of the 20th. I would have liked to see a few peeks into his damaged personality and see more than [his fiancé’s]  comment when she finds out that [his] father sold him with the [starship]: “‘That's disgusting!’ I wanted to condemn [his] father more, then I remembered the approaching fleet...”                         

Robert A Heinlein’s CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY at least attempts to delve into the disastrous effect of slavery on a person. Alan Brown re-reviews the book here: https://www.tor.com/2019/08/29/duty-and-dystopia-citizen-of-the-galaxy-by-robert-a-heinlein/But again, the changes in the “universe” at large aren’t made by the powerless slave. They’re made by first his owner, then by himself…when he discovers he’s an immensely rich man.

This sends a sad message: the only way out of poverty is to get rich.

Even Barack Obama reinforced this paradigm: yes his mom was poorer than average; but he was smart and ended up using the smarts to attend private schools and colleges. He was by no means a child brought  up in poverty. Oprah Winfrey started life poor and became a billionaire…Abraham Lincoln was NOT wealthy, yet is one of the most fondly remembered and influential presidents in American history. So there’s one story…another might be former slave Josiah Walls was drafted a Confederate, captured by the Union and freed and eventually became a congressman in Florida.

There is, in fact, a huge list of people who began their lives enslaved and ended up having a profound effect on the world. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enslaved_people)

While I am not familiar with most of them, it might be instructive for me to do some reading and discover what allowed them to become who they LATER grew to be – and then perhaps take a stab at reimagining a story like CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY without the discovery that they’re the long missing child of someone rich, famous, or powerful.

And I’d need to examine what exactly happens to the soul, heart, and spirit of the individuals who come from poverty or slavery and become “someone”…

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Northup

Images: https://tipwink.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/citizen-galaxy-asf.jpg