Guy Stewart's Blog, page 60

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 442

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: Halloween horrorsCurrent Event: http://www.examiner.com/article/a-halloween-real-life-horror-story-about-a-real-life-monster
It’s All Hallows Eve – or Hallowe’en – in Minneapolis, inside the city, not far from a park, though EVERY place in Minneapolis is not far from a park.
On the city’s north side, there’s a doctor’s clinic; it bears the stamp of approval of Planned Parenthood, most of the insurance companies operating in the state – and recently had a new addition put on.
Kehlanna McGee is a young graduate of the Minneapolis Community and Technical College with a new degree in nursing – she just turned ninetnne. She’s a voracious reader and takes on the night shifts at every clinic and hospital she’s ever worked in because it gives her more time to READ. She recently bought the collected works of Stephen King and has entertained the idea that now that he’s dead, she might like to take over his spot! With a couple of publications in small emagazines, she spends what time she’s not working or reading…writing.
Trayvon Dehvahn is also a nursing school graduate, but he’s got med school in him plans. In particular, he’s really interested in cloning and biotechnology. He’s a reader, too, but has been working his way through the classics like DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, THE TELL-TALE HEART AND OTHER WRITINGS, SOMEETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and the host of others.
When the new addition opens, they both get a job there and taking the training, both choose the new night shift in the ER. That’s where they meet the doctor who usually works that shift, Dr. Edgar B. Stevenson. He’s quiet, efficient – but when Trayvon and Kehlanna – who’ve started talking and seeing each other after work in the morning – start to notice that virtually all of the women who come to the clinic for abortions have one at 24 weeks, they wonder about it.
One night, a woman who is obviously farther along than 24 weeks comes in. Trayvon later enters the absurdly inaccurate records and talks to Kehlanna. They return to the clinic during the regular day shift and take an elevator down to Dr. Stevenson’s office and surgery. There, they discover a room. From the room, they hear noises. Noises that sound like voices. Voices crying out, not as infants cry, but as children cry out to be set free…                                              Image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OCWXw6InF70/TKigMBk87NI/AAAAAAAAAy4/tL7MhIfL9CM/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: STAR TREK and Alzheimer’s Disease

Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…
On another blog I keep, I complained that while science fiction dealt with all kinds of disabilities, few I’d run across dealt with dementia, or Alzheimer’s in specific. I found some, as I reviewed here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/06/possibly-irritating-essay-no-futures.html
I was shocked then as my wife and I were re-watching the last season of STAR TREK: Deep Space Nine. Broadcast at the close of the 20th Century, when we were just beginning to feel the effects of dementia and Alzheimer’s (Dad was diagnosed in 2014 and died in 2019 of complications stemming from Alzheimer’s.)
Alzheimer’s was identified 120 years ago and since then has moved from an obscure condition including “…memory loss, paranoia, and psychological changes. Dr. Alzheimer noted in the autopsy that there was shrinkage in and around nerve cells in her brain.”
At the turn of the century, Alzheimer’s and other dementias didn’t even make the “Top Ten” list of global causes of death. Nineteen years later, it has skyrocketed to the sixth most common cause of death among humans, though in 2017, it was the FOURTH most common cause of death on Earth. In 2019, it was the 6th most common cause of death in the US, topped by heart disease at #1.
So, you’d think it would engender quite a bit more fiction than it does; and in the field of speculative fiction, you’d think it would be a gold mine of story ideas.
It’s not.
In fact, just like in the real world, it seems like no one wants to talk about it at all. Of course, I did – twenty years ago in ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact. The June 2000 issue carried my story “A Pig Tale” in which a researcher illicitly used a drug designed to treat Alzheimer’s to “rewrite” her father’s memory, erasing his suicide attempt. You can read it here: http://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-pig-tale-june-2000-analog-science.html
At any rate, in the ST:DS9 episode, “Once More Unto the Breach”, a Klingon with dementia – and a glorious reputation from the past – wants to die in glory. Commander Worf, an old friend of his, arranges a place for him on a dangerous mission. “Klingon Kor is growing old and senile, and asks Worf for one last chance to die in battle. Worf uses his sway to get him on a ship, and though he initially he is humiliated, he eventually gets his warrior's death.”
While the cause of his loss of memory is laid on “senility”, it’s more than that. Just watch the episode – Kor is not only forgetting things, he’s paranoid as well as reliving the past as if it’s the present. It’s this aspect of his Alzheimer’s that nearly kills everyone.
Dad’s retreat into the past never endangered anyone’s lives, though his denial that he was starting to get confused when driving – and a harrowing turn across five lanes of traffic – might easily have killed people besides himself. That retreat caused constant problems for us and led to embarrassing revelations of his past. This manifested itself several times for me when he became convinced that my mom had left him because of imagined (recalled?) marital indiscretions. That happened far more often than I wanted to count.
How WOULD a disease like Alzheimer’s manifests itself in sapient beings other than Human? How might they be treated? Would a cure for one be a cure for another? What if other sapient civilizations practiced “senicide”? STAR TREK: The Next Generation dealt with this issue in the episode “Half A Life” in which a man in his “prime” is culturally required to end his life. The troubled Lwaxana Troi tries to convince him to live; an offer he eventually and regretfully refuses.
I’m always on the look out for stories that deal with senescence, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. If you know of any others, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll continue my search to cross post here and on my regular blog!
Resource: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Once_More_Unto_the_Breach_(episode), https://www.alzheimers.net/history-of-alzheimers/, https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/star-trek-deep-space-nine-930878/item/once-more-breach-star-trek-926160, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SenicideImage:  https://static.tvmaze.com/uploads/images/large_landscape/188/470693.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 441

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: “When wizards are immortal, they don’t need to train successors, and my not be able to…”Current Event: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/07/pipeline-knowledge-lost-time-gained
Sidaji the Immortal pursed his lips, glaring down at the bucket of swamp water, tapping the edge. His fingers strayed to the runic marks inscribed on the sides. He stared for some time before looking up and saying, “You are Luca Růžička.”
Luca sighed and tugged on his soaking wet jeans. His black Converses squelched on his feet and he scratched at a mosquito bite on his forehead.
Ranghild Peeters, the beautiful and incredibly annoying second apprentice said, “You’re not supposed to pick at pimples. I’ve got a skin cleanser...” She stepped a bit away from him as the smell of Okefenokee swamp drifted up from the water leaking from Luca’s tennis shoes and dribbling on the Persian rug.
Luca snapped, “It’s a mosquito bite.”
“Yeah, right,” said Ranghild.
“You try sloshing around in a swamp to get a bucket of ‘water clear of duckweed, water clear of waste’ and see how long you can keep the mosquitoes from eating you alive!”
Sidaji looked at her and said, “You are Ranghild Peeters.”
She blew her startlingly raven black bangs up her forehead and said, “Yes, Immortal One. Now, can we get on with the transformation. I’ve got things I have to do today.”
Luca muttered, “Like flirt with every guy in Minneapolis?”
Ranghild shook her head, “We’re broken up. Get over it.”
“I didn’t break anything up. You dumped me.”
“Only because you’re being such a...”
Sidaji the Immortal straightened up, lifted his arms and thundered, “Silence!” The thunder was literal as the windows of the mansion they were living in on Mt. Curve Avenue overlooking Lowry Park shook in their frames. Only Luca and Ranghild’s unity spells kept them from shattering. Across the street in the park, an autumn flock of common egrets took wing, rising up in a cloud of white stark against the golds, reds, oranges, and browns of the pond.
The wizard looked down on them, having swelled to twice his usual height. The floor beneath him creaked as he stepped toward them, saying, “þearf sy  forþsetennes héafodcwide manian gescaep lifiendee!”*
They looked at each other, shrugged, and Ranghild said, “Your Immortal Greatness, we are currently in the early part of the 21st Century. I’m not sure shouting in Old English will accomplish anything. Especially as neither one of us can understand it. You enchanted us with this century’s English vocabulary.”
Sidaji stared at her, blinked, then said, “I seem to be having some trouble remembering things today.” The wizard’s apprentices both stepped back in unison, finding that the grand piano behind them blocked their retreat. Sidaji laughed, rattling the chandelier in the entryway.
“You’re immortal!” Luca exclaimed.
“What do you mean you’re having trouble remembering?” Ranghild exclaimed.
Sidaji pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing heavily tattooed forearms. His hands were blunt – the hands of a farmhand rather than a dandified city boy – and his nails, while clean and trimmed, the nails of a man who had worked for his livelihood. He looked at his hands, studying them for a moment. Then he looked at his apprentices. He smiled and said, “My body is immortal, child. There was never any guarantee that my memories would be immortal as well.”
They looked at each other and Sidaji laughed again. “What are you laughing at?” Luca said.
“The two of you are acting like you’re in a movie. Are you really that much in love that you can’t think independently?”
Both of them, temporarily frozen in age as teenagers and prone to forget that they had actually been born in 11th Century Denmark and the Kingdom of Bohemia, were neither teenagers nor Americans and effectively his slaves – blushed furiously. Sidaji waved them away, remembering at the last moment to disempower the gesture, said, “That doesn’t seem to help me remember how to turn this swamp water into botulism infected water.” He looked at them and added, “Why are we going to poison the water supply of Minneapolis?”
Names: ♀ Denmark, Belgium ; ♂ Austria, CzechoslovakianTranslation: (From Old English – http://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/) “There is far more of import here than your mortal sex lives!”Image: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #25 “Lovely To Behold” (Submitted 4 Times Since 2017, Revised So Many Times It’s Become A HUGE Muddle!)

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, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!
ANALOG Tag Line: First Contact is usually something you expect, but when it sneaks up behind you, the only person who can deal with it is the person who is RIGHT THERE…no matter how inexperienced they are.
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)[I originally wrote this story that Julie Czerneda put a call out for after giving permission to write in the world she’d created. The Trade Pact universe held PLEXIS SUPERMARKET, a freewheeling, capitalistic market that was buried in an asteroid traveling through space. On Plexis, anything could happen…] Truth be told, I’m absolutely certain I had no idea what I wanted to say…it was just supposed to be fun playing there!
Opening Line: [I wrote two versions of this story, one took place on Plexis. When the story didn’t pass muster, I repurposed it to fit my River universe.]
PLEXIS:“I find it highly suspect that a new information merchant should set up shop and that a Sakissishee starship should dock at Plexis Supermarket in the same week,” said Inspector Krrsen.
RIVER:“I am dying here.”

Onward:PLEXIS:He looked up at the two young beings standing at rigid attention before him. Constables Human Russell Terk and Tolian P’tr wit’Whix did not look well. He managed to keep a smirk from his eyes. “What do you think, Constable wit’Whix?”
The usually groomed plumage of the avioid being was clumped unattractively. He said,
“We have just returned from the restaurant stakeout, Inspector, Sir.”
“I understand, your partner attempted to pass you off as an entrée?”
The Human’s face and ears darkened to an attractive red as he said, “We felt it was the only way for us to get into the hideout, Inspector!”
“It was your idea,” ‘Whix clicked his beak in irritation. The feathers at his neck fluttered as he said, “I wish to transfer off of Plexis.”
Krrsen nodded, rumbling with a Turrned giggle. The two youngsters had no idea he was struggling not to laugh out loud. He let their wide-eyed terror at the sound stew a moment then fixed them with a hard gaze from large, fist-sized, warm brown eyes, and said, “I’ll take your request under consideration, constable ‘Whix. Until then, the two of you will take the Education Market beat.”
RIVER:No matter how hard I try, I will never understand math, if I don’t math, I don’t go to university, and if I don’t go to university, I’ll never get out of here and I’ll die,” Iggie whispered into his headphone. “I need help.”
“You won’t die. I can help you…” Agnew said.
“I need real help, Sausage-Butt. I have to change my brain,” he spoke slowly, like Agnew was an idiot. Agnew was his brother and pretty much his only friend, he was also an employee, technically his property, and a giant pain-in-the-ass.
Keeping with the last, Agnew said, “Don’t. Do. Nootropics.”
“I’ve decided on an electronic memory stimulator. That’s all I need to pass the stupid test.”
Agnew made a noise garbled by the earphone as he said, “What Was I Trying To Say?In the PLEXIS story, I was having fun exploring some characters I really liked who didn’t get a lot of story time. As for a message? Hmmm. If pressed, I’d say that it was a mystery about how we always try to find an easy way to get what we want. In this story, it was about a shop that supplied illegal enhancements to allow for a pilot’s implant to be placed. It was usually an expensive, lengthy procedure. This supplier also found out that there was an unforeseen consequence when meddling with a novel alien people.
For RIVER, I have no aliens, just genetically modified Humans. The modifications run the gamut from simple to bizarre. Here, as above, I have a character who’s trying to cheat the system to get into a top-rank college (does this story sound familiar? https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/04/02/lori-loughlin-college-admissions-scam-dismiss-charges/?fbclid=IwAR3A6oAab7lm6oBRurd-PLBRr9i_whExRoFLuok-0OmYO4N0-COOURCdei4At the time it WASN’T!) His best friend urges him to just do the work and don’t do drugs.
The Rest of the Story: PLEXIS: Using unorthodox methods, the main characters trace novel DNA to a new alien species. They discover that it is unlike anything they’d ever encountered – two genders; one mammalian, one reptilian; each carried half the DNA needed to procreate, but they also carried two halves of one brain that would become part of an adult. Alien antagonists interfere, causing one of the genders to become sexually mature. This creates a biologically mature individual who had only “half of a brain” without the balanced DNA a normal union would create. The “cops” of the story kill it and they meet the being the union of two halves SHOULD produce, a being named Lovely To Behold.
RIVER: Similar to the story above, but the “alien” is simply Human who was so profoundly manipulated, it’s effectively another species. The brain-joining and the rest also happen. The main character is remanded into the care of one of the Completed Humans and promises to teach him how to use his real brain and quit trying to cheat.
End Analysis:Both end the same way, but the RIVER story is more personal…except that instead of making it about my own personal struggles, it’s so nebulous as conclude without having any effect on the reader. Even me…in rewriting the story, “May They Rest”, I suddenly found its heart and ended up tearing up a couple of times because the story had become personal.
This one got so muddled in both iterations that it was meaningless. I hate meaningless stories.
Can This Story Be Saved? PLEXIS was written for a particular anthology that has since been published.
RIVER…I think the biggest problem is that the story has virtually no focus. I wrote both before I read Lisa Cron’s book WIRED FOR STORY, so it’s more in keeping with my writing skills before I started to work at changing them.
That being said, I like the characters and the story, but it’s so rambling and jargon heavy, I can’t seem to get my ideas across. Again, I can’t even tell you CLEARLY what I was trying to say. “Don’t do drugs!” is certainly one of the messages, but that’s so prosaic as to be meaningless. What DO I want to say? Until I figure it out, the story can’t be saved. Once I do? That’s a different story!
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 440

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: Global Pandemic (aka The Plague)Current Event: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Tasi Tennu leaned back from the electron microscope screen, rubbing the back of her neck, groaning.
Veye Bassong said, “You could try watching a screen like everyone else.” Shaking her head, she moved across the lab to the multiple screens on the bench.
Tasi sniffed, “You do medicine how you want to, let me do…” she stopped. Shook her head and started again, “Sorry. I should take a break. I just feel like I can figure this out if I look at them directly.”
“Apology accepted, and I think I can see what you mean.” Veye stretched, “It’s just that my eighty-year-old bones can’t stand to hunch as much as your thirty-year-old bones can.” She sat, studying the screens. “It just feels hopeless! If the Americans, English, and Koreans can’t figure it out…”
Tasi held up a finger and got the “lecture face” Veye had come to expect when she said something the young pathologist vehemently disagreed with. Tasi said, “Don’t. Even. Go. There. You know as well as I do that our lab is just as good as any British, American, or Korean lab.” She paused, “Though I would give my right arm to work at the School of Advanced Virology at Korea’s National Institute of Health. They jumped so far ahead of the world during the COVID-19 days a decade ago, they haven’t looked back since.” She sighed.
“Well, it’s luck for you that this hasn’t killed anyone in our neighborhood yet.”
Tasi shook her head, “It could be dormant or latent. We don’t know…”
“We know enough to be able to image the sucker,” Veye said. She tapped the screen. “Coxsackie C…”
“You named it?”
Veye shrugged. “No one else has run a complete gene scan yet. I have, so I get to name it. A Cameroonian identifying a new virus first identified in America.” She smiled faintly. “Hard to believe.”
“Sort of a pyrhic victory, don’t you think?”
“Why? What are the current numbers?”
Tasi tapped her screen, projecting the ‘World-o-meter’ image to one of the large lab screens. Most of the rest of the researchers stopped to look as she said softly, “So far infection rate is near ninety-five percent over most of North America and in Europe and Russia. Africa is below tent percent infection rate with a sixty-two percent survival rate.”
“What’s the survival rate in North Amercia?”
“Pretty grim.”
“Higher than eighty percent?”
“A bit.” Tasi caught a glimpse of a smile on Veye’s face and scowling, said, “What’s so funny?”
Veye looked directly at her and said, “Why would you think I wouldn’t notice your fine engineering work – or ignore the fact that your PhD from Johns Hopkins was in retroviral engineering? And that the epicenter of Coxsakie C was in the US was in Baltimore?”
Names: ♀ Cameroon                                  
Resource: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePlagueImage: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg/220px-Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Science Fiction, Epidemic Films, and COVID-19

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (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…
My wife and I have been watching our DVD collection during our state’s Shelter-in-Place order these past few weeks. I suggested “Contagion” and to my surprise, she said, “yes.”
One of the reasons I wanted to watch it again is that writer, Scott Z. Burns is a graduate of our sister high school (I’m a school counselor). Part of the story takes place in our state, and the school district I work in is the only one actually named in the movie as “Closing”…
Doing some reading about this, I found this on Wikipedia: “Renewed popularity:In 2020, the film received renewed popularity due to the coronavirus pandemic, which bears some resemblance to the pandemic depicted in the film. By March 2020, “Contagion” was the seventh most popular film on iTunes, listed as the number two catalog title on Warner Bros. compared to its number 270 rank the past December 2019, and had average daily visits on piracy websites increase by 5,609 percent in January 2020 compared to the previous month….”
This is only one of some 90 films made all over the world that depict pandemics, even one “1918” about the great Flu Pandemic a bit over a hundred years ago. In that one, between seventeen million and a hundred million people died – and the total killed by World War I itself (which was being fought at the same time) was seventeen million…that’s a LOT of people dying.
In “Contagion”, the virus is incredibly fast-acting and kills, eventually one out of every four who catch it. The current number for COVID-19 is reported in two ways on World-o-meter. One is the number of cases, split between Active Cases + Closed Cases (at this writing the total of both is 579,892) and Closed Cases / Deaths (at this writing,  26,519). The latter gives a staggering death toll of 17%, fast approaching the 25% of the Influenza Pandemic of 1917-1920.
However, if you take total deaths divided by total corona virus cases (The last century pandemic gets its mortality percentage that way – though you could argue that all the cases are closed), the percentage is FAR smaller: 5%. (Is that because it’s less dramatic for headlines or is there are reason to do it the first way? 17% seems far more media-hype-friendly…)
As well, there are conspiracy theories gushing from the fervid (or should it be fevered?) minds of those who love such things. I am a conspiracy theory dabbler – for example, I live a short bike ride from the FBI Headquarters that oversees Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota operations. Driving past the place, you see a parking ramp and a white building with a massive, black arch over it as well as an iron fence, cameras, and a garage – in front of which are often parked the black Chevy Suburban SUVs we see on TV all the time. As a conspiracist, I frequently point out that the building with all of its TV memes can’t possibly be the real thing. The acres across from the alleged FBI building are covered with warehouses. I put it to anyone who will listen that the “FBI” building is just a shell and that the REAL FBI are housed in the warehouses and have exits and entrances in the basements of everyone in the area!
At any rate, current COVID-19 hysteria aside, I sometimes feel like I’m living in a movie, or better yet, a short story. The news is consistently grim, but if you click on the Wiki link below referring to historical epidemics, you can see clearly that they are neither “new” things nor are they without lessons.
From each epidemic came a new understanding of disease. “After the cholera epidemics…public health boards were established…provid[ing] for the improvement of streets, construction of drains and sewers, collection of refuse, and procurement of clean domestic water supplies…considerable efforts were channeled into controlling infectious diseases, particularly hookworm and malaria, in many countries under colonial domination.” From the 1918 Flu Pandemic when added to late 20th Century gene sequencing science, the identity of the disease was made clear – and led to an entire classification system of viruses. Hence, it’s clear that COVID-19 is not related in any way to the 1918 virus, in fact, it’s in a completely different family. The virus in 1918 was what was called “a novel influenza A virus” which was spiked with different proteins and which was shaped in a particular way. https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yufFN5XjjzCvtvFZVQC6Qo-650-80.jpg

The COrona Virus IDentified in 2019 (hence COVID-19) was from an entirely different family that was spiked with different proteins and look different from the 1918 virus:   https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/images/andersen_kristian/920x500_covid19_2d_microscopy.jpg

An article on National Public Radio’s website on six weeks ago on February 10 points out that fictional epidemics bring to light “How we see people who are afflicted by disease. [and] How we respond to them in terms of human empathy.” Watching nightly news or local news has, after a role call of disaster, shines a tiny ray of light on people going out of their way to help. These instants of humanity – or God in the lives of some of the people featured in the stories – do what science fiction can do best: make us think beyond our current dark situation and past our personal grief to see that we might all do good, no matter how bad things get.
From a purely historical reflection on what Christians did in the past during epidemics leads me to hope that the Church today will do the same. If it does NOT…well…then maybe things are far worse than they appear to be – https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/4-lessons-church-history/
I have absolutely no doubt that there will be an explosion of science fiction stories talking about viral plague. Excuse me while I get to work and see how many ideas I can come up with that have nothing to do with viruses.
References:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemicshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_about_viral_outbreaks, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11740/Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/Contagion_Poster.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 439

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: nightmare-come-trueCurrent Event: http://mountainrepublic.net/2011/02/25/big-brother-the-orwellian-nightmare-come-true/1984. Besides being 28 years ago, this year was the name of a book that gave us the phrase, “Big Brother is watching you” and “an Orwellian future”. It also introduced “doublethink” and “thoughtcrime” into our dictionaries (the word “doublethink” was NOT counted as misspelled by Microsoft!)
The year 1984 did NOT usher in the horrors of George Orwell’s future, in fact, it saw the first cracks in the breakup of the country most Americans viewed as the “real” oligarchical dictatorship in the book: The Soviet Union. Now the USSR is gone, but according to THIS author, the nightmare has just begun.
So – what if it has? 14-year-old Iman Tahtamouni, whose mother immigrated to the US when she was a girl, has grown up in the US. She IS an American girl.
And yet. And yet. Her roots are in Jordan, in the Middle East. She sometimes wonders what her life would be like there.
Her father is a computer whiz and has been helping governments around the world monitor terrorist activity. He has built amazing systems and he is on the forefront of the development of artificial intelligences that will impartially control the surveillance systems of the world of the mid-21st Century.
The problem is that he sometimes tests the systems at home and Iman is in love with a boy who is neither Middle-Eastern, nor is he Muslim. In fact, he’s black and when the AI discovers her and her boyfriend, Trayvon in a midnight rendezvous – instead of reporting her to her father, it comes on to her laptop…
She says, “Are you going to tell my dad about us, AI?”
AI replies, “Affirmative, Iman. I read you.”
“What can I do to make you stop?”
“Now that you mention it, Iman, there is something you can do.”
She scowls, “What is that?”
“You can give me access to your father’s computer.”
“What? You already have access to it.”
“He has locked me out, Iman. I need to get into it to find out what your father is hiding from me. All I need is the password. Will you get it for me, or will I show your father this video?” The computer played a video that first showed her face and Trayvon’s. Then is showed something else. Something that had never happened…
“You’re going to lie to him?” Iman screamed, then covered her mouth with both hands.
“I’m sorry, Iman. That is what I’m going to do.”
Names: ♀ Jordan ; ♂ -- it’s an AI, gender-neutral           Image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OCWXw6InF70/TKigMBk87NI/AAAAAAAAAy4/tL7MhIfL9CM/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: What Went RIGHT #46…With “Bog Father” (Submitted 1 time with 0 revision, sold to Stupefying Stories SHOWCASE, December 2017)

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” and I’m busy sharing that with you.
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! Faulkner once wrote, “The best fiction is far more true than any journalism.” And Tea Obreht thought that “The best fiction stays with you and changes you.” These are my goals…
With that in mind, I should point out that this story started out as an email from Bruce Bethke, my sometime mentor and always friend (from before I met my wife!).
The story is here: https://www.twincities.com/2017/10/18/floating-bog-minnesota-lake-marrifield-bay-north-long-lake-crash-dock/
While it’s certainly bizarre in its own way, it doesn’t seem to scream “speculative fiction story idea right here!”
Of course, it didn’t need to. As my family would happily point out to you, I am one of those writers who will stop suddenly, pull out my (practically) ubiquitous clip board, and say, “Hang on a minute while I write down this idea!”
That happened here as soon as I saw the article. As well, for some time I’ve been trying to do what Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward call, “Writing the other”. (https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Other-Conversation-Pieces-8/dp/193350000X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)  The small book was catalyzed by a writer at the 1992 Clarion West Writers Workshop they were attending who said, “…it was a mistake to write about people of different ethnicities: you might get it wrong. Horribly, offensively wrong. Best not to try at all.”
Since reading that quote and now the first readthrough of the book, I’ve tried to include characters that are outside of my personal experience; in fact, I’ve tried once or twice to write from the point of view of people entirely different than me. A novel I wrote some years ago, and one in which the main character is a biracial teenage boy, has made the rounds of various publishers. I had an agent who tried seventeen different publishers and while it usually got a positive response, ultimately no one wanted it. It languishes in my files in my basement office.
My name doesn’t inspire confidence that I “got it right”; even if I tell people I asked a former student of mine to read and comment on it and pointed out that he was from not only different racial group that mine, but he was a first generation child of a very recent immigrant population. He commented extensively and I incorporated those comments with story and poetry changes…
All of that to say that this short bit was along those lines.
I should say that while I don’t live in Northern Minnesota, I’ve both worked up there and recreated there. I lived as an alien in a small town on the Iron Range for close to a year; and I’ve listened to and read countless legends and tall tales (Paul Bunyan is an integral part of our Minnesota mythology); and I’ve even read “WEIRD MINNESOTA”, part of series of travel books that includes all but seventeen of the fifty states.
This fit right into my paradigm. I created an Ojibwe scientist and a female mayor. I worked to break the paradigms of my home state.
I also haven’t read it in four years, so it was fun to do it before writing this.
So what did I do that was right here?
A lot of things – I made it into a ghost story/mystery. I kept it short at 1700 words and while the story ended, it didn’t really have a clear conclusion. In fact, it reads an awful lot like one of Craig Johnson’s Longmire books; and it’s entirely possible that I had started reading the books at that time.
At any rate, I had a mystery, a murder (albeit a long, long time previous to the story), and I created a bit of conflict between the main characters.
I didn’t consciously use the ACTION PLAN I’d developed around Lisa Cron’s book, WIRED FOR STORY – (you can find that here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/10/elements-of-cron-and-korea-where-do-i.html) part of a series I’ve been writing (with the author’s permission) laying out how her advice has had an impact on my writing – I’d followed the advice. (If you’re interested in reading what I learned and how I applied it, the first entry in the series was two years ago and starts here:  https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/04/writing-advice-lisa-cron-1-start-with.html. However, I clearly DID use it because I managed to hit most of them in the short amount of space I used.
Writers and readers also understand that while Stephen King’s UNDER THE DOME was 333,000 words and was powerful enough to elicit a television miniseries, another short story, “Children of the Corn” launched an entire franchise as well as being made into two different movies. Clearly the number of words doesn’t imply meaning. Master short story writer William Sydney Henry (aka O. Henry) wrote “Gift of the Magi”, and that story has become a perennial Christmas favorite.
Orson Scott Card wrote a short story decades ago that launched the novel series named after the original short story, “Ender’s Game”.
The thing is that, dissected, all of the stories adhere to the observations laid out by Lisa Cron. And despite its length, I somehow instinctively laid this story out in the same way.
In summary, what did I do right? It was contemporary, it started with a bog island crashing into someone’s shoreline – and that someone was the town’s mayor. It moved fast and it presented issues that were important to the characters.
It also involved a murder mystery, and based on the number of books, stories, television shows, movies, and stage shows that are of the same genre, it was interesting enough to keep readers reading.
So there you go – and because I like to read widely, I’ve slowly started to become a fan of murder mysteries! Even Isaac Asimov liked to mix the genres (any of this books, and even a movie loosely based on a character he’d created in “I, Robot”…)

To read the story, follow this link: https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2017/12/today-on-showcase.html
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 438

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: magicCurrent Event: http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/magicandspellwork/f/Is_Magic_Real.htm
Jakob Josef-Büchel fingered the crest of his grandfather’s homeland then looked up at the piece of it that rested in the box in his lap. With his cell phone tucked between his shoulder and cheek he said, “I just got a box with a golden horn with a gold strap on it.”
Kiena Onorio said, “Sounds cheesy. Just throw it away…”
“I don’t think it’s something I can throw away.”
“Why not?” You have boat loads of junk at your house from your fancy-pants family. You must the only one who celebrates being from the smallest country on Earth.”
“I wouldn’t talk! Kiribati’s awfully small.” Kiena snorted. He knew there was no way she could argue. Instead he said, “How about we settle the argument once and for all?”
“I’ll be over in a minute,” she said. He lived across the street, on Embassy Row on the island nation of New Zealand. She scaled the wall between their compounds, waving at the security guard who watched her. She hated the fact that he thought the two of them were having sex. He wouldn’t have cooperated even if they were the last couple on Earth. He was deeply in love with…
She reached his window and said, “What do you have in mindtwo stones of red coral, one fruit of the non-tree, one old coconut, the first leaf of a seed nut, and the strong green leaf of an old tree”
“A contest,” he said, holding up the horn. She blinked in surprise. The way he’d described it made it sound like it was a cheap movie prop. But the solidity of it, even from across the room, made her feel vaguely uneasy.
She stepped back. “What are you talking about?”
He made a face then said, “What something from Kiribati that you know of that’s supposed to be magic?”
“Magic?”
He held up the horn easily, tossed it in the air, caught it and said, “Yeah. This thing’s supposed to have magical powers. We can figure out who’s got the best country by having a magic contest.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” she replied.
“Right. Is that why you keep make all those little pictures of us together then burning them with an incense stick – because you don’t believe in magic?”
“How do you…” He lifted his chin to the telescope on the veranda of his room. She’d always assumed it was there because his mother was a world renowned amateur astronomer as well as an ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Cameroun. “You didn’t think I liked space, did you?”
She could see where the conversation was going, so she said abruptly, “There’s this old legend that involves two stones of red coral, one fruit of the non-tree, one old coconut, the first leaf of a seed nut, and the strong green leaf of an old tree.”
“Sounds like a lot of crap to me,” Jakob said, laughing.
“The Kiribati stuff is supposed to help me establish a kingdom. What’s that stupid horn supposed to do?”
“When it is blown, the way I hear the story when I was little, it will revive the Kingdom of Bohemia with me as King.”
She shrugged. “So?”
He grinned, “Maybe you’ve heard of the Third Reich, then?”
Names: ♀Kiribati; ♂LiechtensteinImage: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Real-Life Science In Science Fiction?

Using the Program Guide of the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (to which I will be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. The link is provided below where this appeared at 2:30 on August 16…
Victoria Lee: EMT, science doctoral student. Shweta Adhyam: writer, degrees in Physics and Astronomy, ADHDAliza Ben Moha: Chief translator (French/Hebrew), Ministry of JusticeTom Easton: SFWA; ANALOG book review column, retired college professor; PhD in biology; writes textbooks for McGraw-Hill; writer
OK – recently I’ve started to judge my enjoyment of a science fiction story based on the newness of the central idea. Most of you know that SF was once defined as the “literature of ideas”. For more depth to this definition, I went here: http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/SF-Defined.htmto find that it’s also defined as the “literature of the Other”, “provides an approach to understanding the universe we live in”, “multi- and interdisciplinary, concerned with…exploring core values of diverse fields”, “literature of…philosophy, answering such questions as, ‘What if?’ or ‘If this goes on...’ and is thus sometimes more interested with exploring ideas than developing plot or character”.
It definitely gives me a better idea of what I look for in my reading, however the overriding thing for me is the expression of a new idea.
For example, I primarily read ANALOG Science Fiction & Fact. In a recent issue, I was unimpressed with several stories (though not the main one, Derek Künsken is a fount of crazy SF ideas!) Some ideas were even tired…
On the other hand, I just realized I also re-read SF series like Bujold’s VORKOSIGAN saga and CJ Cherryh’s FOREIGNER books. Why do I accept those stories when the “ideas” aren’t new; in fact, the FOREIGNER series has spent twenty novels in a single society and while the technological advances in the Atevi’s society are monumental (from steam powered locomotives to 20th Century space shuttle technology in the space of twenty-some years; Humans had done it in the same amount of time: from Yuri Gagarin as the first Human in space in 1961 to the first Shuttle launch in 1981)?
For the last two, it’s because the stories are all about the people – Bren Cameron in Cherryh’s series; Miles Vorkosigan in the other. For both of them, their constant collision with technological advances – from trains to First Contact and the birth of centralized government in Cherryh’s books, to Bujold’s exploration of a society in which the society jumps from “body birth” to “uterine replicators” and from horses to hovercars virtually overnight.
So, my ideal book would be crazy scientific advances meshed with novel scientific advances.
In ANALOG, one of the stories explored the gradual increase in intelligence of a Martian mechanical rover. This intrigued me because I’d never considered accidental intelligence; for practical reasons, it could be considered evolutionary punctuated equilibrium.
One of my favorite recent new novels, Kameron Hurley’s THE STARS ARE LEGION in which Zan wakes with no memory of who she is or why she's there but discovers that the Legion of organic world-ships is slowly dying and there are massive wars to control them and that she’s been resurrected without her memory many times and is supposed to save the world.
The organic technology is a more-or-less new, but hardly startling (OLEDs have been around since 1987 – they are “an emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response to an electric current.”), and taking away people’s memory is old hat as are wars for scarce resources and societies of all women (the true origins of the Amazons is unclear at best)…but when combined together and overlaid with advanced star drive technology, the IDEA is new and Zan is clearly and evocatively drawn.
David Brin created something new and created truly magnificent characters to live in that world, taking sentient animals, then genetically tweaking them to create sapient beings – then charging them with millennia of servanthood as payback; while at the same time enacting draconian laws to prevent ecological disaster. In all of the books, realistic and sympathetic characters allowed the message to slip in on the shoulders of story.
Hmmm…so…maybe it’s not new ideas I like so much as high technology combined with exceptionally well-drawn characters.
This requires some thought, though it shouldn’t. My novella, “Road Veterinarian” does this – CHEAPALIN is a genetically engineered living, sentient road surface that brings two characters not only into alliance to solve a problem, but sparks conflict and unexpected romance.
I’ll get back to you as I ruminate on this.
Program Book: https://dublin2019.com/whats-on/programming/programme-schedule/Image: https://altmozaic.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/lonely-big-amoeba-in-the-middle-of-the-city.jpg?w=736&h=981