Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 130

Chasing the Phoenix: Advance Glimpse!

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Not long ago I was in Poland for Falkon, that nation's second-largest science fiction convention, where  I met David Weber for the first time and took an instant liking to the man. We were on a panel and somebody asked whether it's a good idea to post an excerpt from your novel on the Web.

"It depends entirely on the publisher," David said, turning a thumb upward. "Baen says always!"

I  turned a thumb downward. "And Tor says never!"

So it hasn't taken me at all long to be proved absolutely one hundred percent wrong.

Tor has just put the first two chapters of Chasing the Phoenix -- debuting in less than a month -- online. You can read them now, if you wish, and decide whether the rousingly entertaining adventures of Postutopian confidence artists Darger and Surplus are to your liking or not.

The excerpt can be found here.


And coming soon . . .

I've decided to resurrect Unca Mike's Bad Advice .  Watch these pages for further information.

If you wish to submit a question, you can write to AskUncaMike at gmail.com


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.Not long ago I was in Poland for Falkon, that nation's s...

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Not long ago I was in Poland for Falkon, that nation's second-largest science fiction convention, where  I met David Weber for the first time and took an instant liking to the man. We were on a panel and somebody asked whether it's a good idea to post an excerpt from your novel on the Web.

"It depends entirely on the publisher," David said, turning a thumb upward. "Baen says always!"

I  turned a thumb downward. "And Tor says never!"

So it hasn't taken me at all long to be proved absolutely one hundred percent wrong.

Tor has just put the first two chapters of Chasing the Phoenix -- debuting in less than a month -- online. You can read them now, if you wish, and decide whether the rousingly entertaining adventures of Postutopian confidence artists Darger and Surplus are to your liking or not.

The excerpt can be found here.


And coming soon . . .

I've decided to resurrect Unca Mike's Bad Advice .  Watch these pages for further information.

If you wish to submit a question, you can write to AskUncaMike at gmail.com


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The Evolution of the Martini (Part 5)

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Here at the American Martini Laboratory, we have been running a series of re-creations to track the evolution of the Emperor of Cocktails from its unlikely ancestor, the Manhattan, through the strange beauty of the Martinez, up to the austere and steely perfection that is the Martini.

Not everybody drinks Martinis, of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But let's be honest here. There are moments in life that call for nothing less. Immediately after winning World War II, for example, did your grandfather reach for a Fuzzy Peach Navel? We think not. Upon finishing "One Perfect Rose," did Dorothy Parker fix herself a Screaming Orgasm? She'd have thrown the thing in your face.

Today, after long and regrettable delay, we arrive at perfection.

Here's the recipe:

Martini 

Three to five parts London gin
One part dry vermouth
shake over ice
strain into a glass
serve with an olive or a twist of lemon peel

It's just that simple.

We at the Laboratory had a tasting, of course, and... it was a Martini. 'Nuff said.


And in days to come...

But does the story end here? It does not. Mankind, in its infinite pride, cannot keep from tinkering with perfection. The results will be posted here in a continuing series, so that future generations may learn from our tragic mistakes.


And for those who came in late . . .

Part 1:  Click here to discover the Ur-ancestor of the Martini.

Part 2:  Click here to witness the miracle that was the Martinez.

Part 3:  Click here to discover the first, not-entirely-convincing Martini.

Part 4: Click here to discover the last (and worst) of the pre-Martinis.


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Fannish Treasure

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John Costello, anthropologist, philosophical Objectivist, science fiction fan, Russophile, and many other things as well, died recently.  I never met the man, though I suspect I would have liked him.  In the wake of his passing, thousands of his books and boxes of his papers were put up for grabs at Readercon.

Cool, right?

It gets better.

The boxes of papers were a mixed lot.  Many were in Russian.  Some were TV Guides.  Much was kibble.  Most people didn't dig very deep. But some of the old hands scrounged up a Russian reader to go through the papers. He found Samisdat fanzines.  Lots of them.

And the cry went out:  "Seal those boxes!"  And now they are bound for whatever appropriate archive will be available to scholars of Soviet science fiction.

Astonishing, right?

It gets better yet.

A fan -- he would not thank me if I mentioned his name, I suspect -- dug deeper and more thoughtfully than the rest.  And he found... wait for it... A cache of letters from John W. Campbell!

Those things are worth money. More than that, the markets for such papers are libraries and archives. So by selling them, our Scavenger Hero will be performing a good deed for All Literature.

Especially since if he hadn't scrounged them up, they would have been thrown away.


And since you're wondering...

No. It wasn't me.

Darn it.

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Ambiguous Surveillance: An Afterthought

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Wednesday, I posted a presentation I gave on some of the implications of ubiquitous surveillance when it comes to warfare. One of my conclusions was that in the future soldiers would have to act as if they were always on camera because they could never know when this would be true or not.

The day after, I realized that the future had already arrived.

Consider the Abu Ghraib scandal. The photographs of human beings being cruelly humiliated did serious harm to America's image. I think it's safe to speculate that people who were on the fence as to whether or not to join the jihadis saw them and and made up their minds on the instant.

How did those photos get out? The guards took them with cellphones and shared them with friends. The friends shared them with other friends. It was the simplest and most natural process in the world.

We do not live in an age of ubiquitous surveillance yet. But we do live in an age where nobody can ever know for sure that there's not a camera pointed their way. And in an age of ambiguous surveillance, there's only one to keep from being caught with your pants down.

You have to behave ethically. Whether you want to or not.


And on a more cheerful note...

As always, I'm on the road again. This time I'm in Massachusetts for Readercon. If you're there, be sure to say hello.


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Ethical Weapons and Warfare in an Era of Ubiquitous Surveillance

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My liberal friends sometimes ask me why I'm a member of the science fiction think tank SIGMA, under the assumption that it's a right-wing organization. (It isn't -- you should hear the arguments the group gets into over dinner, coming from all parts of the political spectrum at once.) I tell them my reasons are twofold:

First, I despise terrorists more than I distrust the American government.

Second, I want to do my small best toward making the world a better place. Most of SIGMA's sponsors are looking for new things to be afraid of. My agenda is to offer up possibilities that will result in less oppression and greater freedom.

Buried deep within the following presentation, which I made at a conference on the future of small arms, is exactly that agenda.


Ethical Weapons and Warfare in an Era of Ubiquitous Surveillance
By Michael Swanwick
Ubiquitous Computing            You probably already know about ubiquitous computing.  But just in case…  UC envisions a future in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday life.  Small, robust, and inexpensive processors will be everywhere – in cars, refrigerators, lamp posts – and networked so that as much processing power as anybody needs will be available, essentially free.  Some go so far as to imagine that fogging machines will periodically go down all major streets, spraying nanocomputers into nooks and crannies as a public service.  There are many people working right now to make this happen.
Ubiquitous Surveillance
Similarly, ubiquitous surveillance – the presence of networked cameras and recorders in every imaginable public space – is looking more and more like the wave of the present.  Britain already has a national system in place, but even in relatively libertarian America, the quantity of surveillance is mushrooming as cameras grow smaller, cheaper, and easier to install.  It doesn’t matter whether people are working on it – it’s self-assembling right now.
Ubiquitous surveillance is usually imagined in the form of a unified system rigidly controlled by a central government authority – as in George Orwell’s 1984 – and for this reason, many governments think of it as an attractive anti-terrorism tool.  In fact, it will grow from what already exists – private security cameras, traffic cameras, web cams, and the like, in layer after layer of not-always-compatible technology.            This means that the surveillance web can never be perfectly controlled.  It is a resource available to everyone.
Transparent Combat
In a future war where both sides share common territory and ubiquitous public surveillance, a uniformed conventional army must always be at a disadvantage.  Not only can the entire surveillance web not be controlled but, worse, you can never know which parts of it are available to the enemy.
Therefore you must always assume yourself to be under surveillance and act accordingly.In such a scenario, likelihood of victory will be defined not by superiority of position or of information, but by control of the moral narrative.  The force that is popularly seen to deserve to win – either because they are more virtuous or because they are unstoppable– will be able to rely on the host population’s at least passive cooperation.
Enemy Response            One of the enemy’s primary objectives will be to get video of American soldiers committing atrocities.  If this does not happen in the normal course of war, an obvious tactic would be to provoke or trick the soldiers into war crimes.  If you go into the slums and give every kid who wants one a bright scarf in a color identified with the enemy and then offer twenty bucks to the first child who can reach a specific army checkpoint, the ensuing race will look like an assault.  If one of the slower children is carrying a disruptor device that will shut down local military surveillance cameras, you’ve got a frightening wave of blindness coming toward edgy men with weapons.  If the child with the disruptor is slow enough, the military’s own cameras can be used to capture the incident.
Imaginative Cowards            Many such ploys will be invented by self-appointed tacticians safely isolated by distance from their consequences.  Terrorism is, as a rule, an unimaginative act simply because imaginative people can visualize their own suffering and death too vividly to make good suicide soldiers.  But transparent warfare gives imaginative cowards the opportunity to actively contribute to their cause by monitoring the surveillance web for images that make American forces look bad, by searching out weaknesses in the surveillance and communication webs, and by inventing tactics, evaluating their effectiveness, and distributing this information via websites whose operators are connected only by ideology.            Thus, the advantage of conferences such as this one is negated, and the enemy can be expected to display greater ingenuity than has previously been the case.
A Camera for Every Gun (Passive Response)
In order to counter these disadvantages, the first thing to do is to place cameras on every weapon and vehicle, set to record whenever it is in use.   Initially, this will be as unpopular as the now-common practice of equipping squad cars with cameras was with the police.  In practice however, these cameras have proved useful tools not only in preventing abuse but also in showing the police officers’ true actions in situations that otherwise looked incriminating for them.  The soldier’s gun will quickly come to be seen as a fair witness, one that accurately presents his own point of view.
Two Worlds, Three Audiences            In such a scenario, taking down parts or all of the surveillance and communications webs will be a popular tactic of the enemy, either through spoofing, hacking, or physical sabotage. Thus, the effective soldier will be one who can easily toggle between two modes of perception and command.  The first is a fully integrated hierarchic system, in which civilians with no military experience will be able to micro-manage field operations via handheld from a bar in Georgetown.  The second, when such systems are down or unreliable, is in essence pre-electronic warfare, and requires soldiers who can read a map, keep their rifles clean, and continue their mission on their own.            To complicate matters, when the surveillance web is functional there will always be three audiences for all actions:  The enemy, the host population, and civilians back home.  Each of which will use the same information very differently.           
Ethical Weapons
The soldier fighting in two worlds and with three audiences will need weapons that are both independent and ethical.
By independent I mean not networked.  This prevents a weapon from being hacked and turned on its operator, of course.  But, more importantly, the weapon will behave identically in either mode of combat, thus providing a behavioral anchor for the soldier caught in a potentially confusing situation.
An ethical weapon is one which is designed to decrease the chances of an incident which would shock the conscience of noncombatants.  Such weapons include but are not limited to those which give the soldier the option of non-lethal force; those which can assess the conditions of combat and vary the velocity of projectiles, to limit the deadliness of stray fire; those which can deny their services to unauthorized users; those which can be programmed to recognize and refuse to fire on defined groups such as women or children; and those which will not fire at friendly forces.
It is easy to imagine recognition patterns or devices that would protect all noncombatants or friendly forces from misdirected fire, but difficult to imagine any that could not be cracked and replicated by a technologically-savvy enemy, leaving soldiers with guns that will not fire at anybody.  But with good biometric programming, it should be possible to at least identify babies, infants, and children up to a given age, and protect them from direct gunfire. 
Rethinking the Rifle            For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to be talking about the rifle from this point on.  But my observations are not necessarily limited to one weapon, and it is not necessary that all these functions be combined in a single device.            Nevertheless.  If a soldier’s best friend is his rifle, shouldn’t his rifle be more like a dog?  A dog is not only fierce in combat, but loyal and a good companion as well.            A rifle’s loyalty comes in three layers.
The first is simple operation.  As rifles grow smarter, they should be capable of recognizing at a minimum their user, members of his platoon, superior officers, and other individuals they have been “introduced” to.  Depending on how it is programmed, a rifle can either refuse to fire upon them under any conditions or else warn its  user about the target’s identity upon being aimed.   It  should be capable of seizing up if handled by a stranger without permission from somebody whose authority it recognizes.            The second is security.  In a mature electronic era – one in which everybody involved has a full grasp of the technology – networked robotic devices become enormous potential liabilities not only because they can malfunction but because they leave open the possibility of being hacked by the enemy.  For this reason, it is important that a combat soldier’s rifle be neither networked nor autonomous, but isolated, alone, and reliant upon its user.            The third is psychological.  For the soldier to operate at peak efficiency, the gun must be perceived as his, an ally, rather than as a means his superiors have of maintaining control over him.  His rifle’s recordings should never be accessed lightly, but only under clearly-defined conditions.  Its programming should be as little restrictive on his actions as possible.  Nor, save in extreme situations, should the rifle overrule him.  It should always be clear that it is the soldier and not his weapon who is in command and making the decisions.
The Rifle as Companion
Long before AI becomes a reality, a rifle should be able to converse with a soldier in a simple, natural manner, offer practical advice – such as “Don’t offer to shake with your left hand” or “That water will give you dysentery” – provide rudimentary translation, and make a good guess as to the emotional state of someone being interrogated.
It  should also be able to read a soldier’s emotional state and provide appropriate counseling in non combat situations.
By this, I do not mean psychotherapy. In ancient Rome, when a victorious general rode in a triumph, a slave stood in the chariot behind him to murmur from time to time, “Remember, you are only a man.”  This worked because the general knew it to be true and understood why it was being said.
I do not presume to know what truths should be loaded into a rifle’s knowledge bank, other than that they should be capable of being edited or deleted by the soldier, and that they should be recognizably not propaganda.  But a device which knows when to crack a joke or offer commiseration (and when to be silent) will be perceived as not only a useful tool but a good companion.
The Disadvantages of Robots            I want to make the distinction between this sort of device and a robot particularly clear, because in transparent combat, robots have several drawbacks.  The first is that most people feel a primal fear of them.  Video of self-propelled machine guns moving through a village immediately burdens you with the unstoppable alien invaders narrative.  Whether you want it or not, you’ve assumed the role of Darth Vader.
The second is if only a single weapon is hacked and turned on your own soldiers, they will all henceforth distrust their own weapons.            The third is that people who would not try to kill a human being will feel no such compunction toward a robot.  A farmer will feel perfectly justified shoving a hoe into the works of an autonomous mobile howitzer that’s tearing up his fields.  A mother who thinks an urban patrol unit is threatening her child will empty the bedpan into its electronics.  Nobody will have to tell underage boys to throw rocks at any robots they see.  If the robots fire upon any of them, the video will be posted on YouTube within the hour.  If they refrain but are destroyed, that video will be made available wherever bored young men are looking for something fun to do.
Man and Weapon as Cyborg            This is why the rifle should be designed as a sidekick, not as a player.  Its autonomy should be limited and its intelligence should be primarily advisory.  The gun should be completely dependent upon the man.            Simply by being a member of the military a soldier is always networked, even when he is alone and unable to communicate.  His weapon, therefore, need only answer to him.              When the soldier is well trained and his weapon supports him by protecting not only his life but his conscience, his self-respect, and his human dignity, the two form a single unit with all the advantages of man and machine acting in symbiosis.  They are in essence a hybrid creature, a cyborg.


And on Friday...

The day after making this presentation, I had an afterthought that shed new light on it. That notion will be posted here Friday. Don't worry, though. It's short.

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My Readercon Schedule

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Once again, it's time for that most eccentric of science fiction conventions (admittedly, it has rivals), Readercon.

And here's my Readercon schedule:

Friday July 10
4:00 PM    CR    Stop, Collaborate, and Listen. Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney (leader), Eileen Gunn, Malinda Lo, Michael Swanwick.
The speculative community is full of collaboration: writers who write a story together, musicians who work with writers to create incredible performances and multimedia experiences, artists who work with writers both to illustrate and to create original works. Our panelists will discuss their experiences with the benefits and challenges of collaboration. How many people can collaborate on a project before it becomes unwieldy? How do methods of communication, issues of dividing payment, and other practical considerations influence collaborative artistry? 

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China Daydreaming

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As always, I'm on the road again. There are ups and downs to traveling so much. The negative stuff everybody knows. But on the positive side, I'm constantly meeting new people and seeing new things.

A couple of months ago, I was on a boat on the Li river.  It was a moist and drizzly day, and when our boat reached Yangshuo, I took a snapshot of a woman cleaning the stone steps up to Old West street.

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The Oyster Has Landed!

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Dragonstairs Press, that delightful institution wholly owned and operated by a woman very dear to my heart, has just issued a tete-beche chapbook containing... well, I'll let you read Marianne's release notification:

     In 1917, on a day in late August, novelist, essayist, and journalist Christopher Morley went out to lunch.  His description of his walk down Sansom Street in Philadelphia was published as a column in the Philadelphia  Evening Ledger, under the title of "Meditations on Oysters".
     Ninety seven years later, Michael Swanwick retraced Morley's steps.  His essay. "Meditations on Meditations on Oysters" described what had and had not changed along Morley's route.
     These two essays are now bound together in a signed (by Swanwick only, alas) limited edition chapbook, available from Dragonstairs Press, at dragonstairs.

I posted about this book a couple of days ago. You can find out what I had to say about it here.


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Touring the Phoenix

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If I have a single flaw -- and most people feel that's understating the case -- it's that I never post my scheduled public appearances more than a few days ahead of time. So folks who are hoping to get an autograph from me frequently tell me that had they only known...

Mea culpa. And mirabile dictu, as well. For I have here a preliminary list of places I'll be appearing to support the publication of the new Darger & Surplus novel, Chasing the Phoenix .  There should be more, and I'll update the schedule as they come in. But for now, this should suffice.

Scheduled Appearances
Saturday, August 15 - Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh, NC
Sunday, August 16 - Oak City Comic Show, Raleigh, NC
Monday, August 17 - Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
There'll also be an appearance on WCOM with Samuel Mongomery-Blinn of Bull Spec and Mur Lafferty of Carolina Book Beat
Tuesday, August 18 - Malaprop’s, Ashville, NC
Friday, August 21 – Sunday, August 23 – Sasquan World Science Fiction Convention
Wednesday, September 9 – Philadelphis Free Library Central Branch, Philadelphia, PAA panel on the history and future of science fiction and fantasy in Philadelphia
Monday, September 21 - University of Pennsylvania (B&N College), Philadelphia, PA

I'll also be at Readercon in a week-and-some, July 10 through 12. But since Chasing the Phoenix won't be out by then, it doesn't count. If you see me, be sure to say hi anyway.


Above: The bust of Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux in my office. Also a globe of Mars.


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