Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 140
December 5, 2014
Free Story Idea -- Take It Away!
.
Two things writers hear a lot are: 1) "Where do you get your ideas?" and 2) "I have a great idea for a story. All you have to do is write it and we'll split the money fifty-fifty."
The answers to which are, 1) "I make them up." and 2) "Ideas are easy. Writing them up is hard work."
We also frequently hear unpublished writers complain that they just don't have any ideas. So, here for those of you who'd like an idea for a story is one I came up with this week and feel too lazy to write up:
"Community of Mind"
A psychiatrist checks in on a patient who had a neural stent implanted in her brain. This allows him to monitor her mental health from afar, look in on her periodically, and offer useful advice. This time, however, he discovers that she's connected her stent to the internet and shared input with a listserv of people interested in helping her run her mind. So her head is full of contradictory voices working in a loosely hierarchic cooperative manner.
(You'll have to read a few books on how the mind operates first. To all the obvious candidates I'd threw in When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase, the autobiography of a woman with multiple personality disorder.)
Some of the listserv personalities come and go. Others stay almost full-time because they are bedridden or for other reasons have nothing better to do. Most are hostile to the doctor, whom they see as trying to "cure" a woman great-spirited enough to share her own mind with them.
The doctor is genuinely trying to help her patient, but is hampered by the fact that professional ethics prevent her from discussing the case with the listservers. She is also distressed by the fact that her patient appears to be hiding from her.
Eventually, the doctor comes to realize that the woman's personalities (or voices; I'm oversimplifying here) are no longer in her head. She has replaced them with outsourced voices. In frustration, the doctor reveals that her patient (whom she now considers dead) was being treated for depression. She has found a way of committing suicide without being detected.
The community, still in her mind, decide that the best way to honor their great-souled host is to continue as they are, leading her life for her, knowing that is how she would have wanted it.
*
Structurally, this will be a tricky story. You'll want to establish two separate listservers as chief voices for the community. You'll need to make their voices distinctive, as well as the doctor's. And you'll need to come up with a scientifically plausible way for the original personality/ies to dissolve into nonexistence. But it can be done. I could do it myself if I didn't have many other things on my plate.
Above: Another place science fiction writers get their ideas from. Photo courtesy of NASA.
*
Two things writers hear a lot are: 1) "Where do you get your ideas?" and 2) "I have a great idea for a story. All you have to do is write it and we'll split the money fifty-fifty."
The answers to which are, 1) "I make them up." and 2) "Ideas are easy. Writing them up is hard work."
We also frequently hear unpublished writers complain that they just don't have any ideas. So, here for those of you who'd like an idea for a story is one I came up with this week and feel too lazy to write up:
"Community of Mind"
A psychiatrist checks in on a patient who had a neural stent implanted in her brain. This allows him to monitor her mental health from afar, look in on her periodically, and offer useful advice. This time, however, he discovers that she's connected her stent to the internet and shared input with a listserv of people interested in helping her run her mind. So her head is full of contradictory voices working in a loosely hierarchic cooperative manner.
(You'll have to read a few books on how the mind operates first. To all the obvious candidates I'd threw in When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase, the autobiography of a woman with multiple personality disorder.)
Some of the listserv personalities come and go. Others stay almost full-time because they are bedridden or for other reasons have nothing better to do. Most are hostile to the doctor, whom they see as trying to "cure" a woman great-spirited enough to share her own mind with them.
The doctor is genuinely trying to help her patient, but is hampered by the fact that professional ethics prevent her from discussing the case with the listservers. She is also distressed by the fact that her patient appears to be hiding from her.
Eventually, the doctor comes to realize that the woman's personalities (or voices; I'm oversimplifying here) are no longer in her head. She has replaced them with outsourced voices. In frustration, the doctor reveals that her patient (whom she now considers dead) was being treated for depression. She has found a way of committing suicide without being detected.
The community, still in her mind, decide that the best way to honor their great-souled host is to continue as they are, leading her life for her, knowing that is how she would have wanted it.
*
Structurally, this will be a tricky story. You'll want to establish two separate listservers as chief voices for the community. You'll need to make their voices distinctive, as well as the doctor's. And you'll need to come up with a scientifically plausible way for the original personality/ies to dissolve into nonexistence. But it can be done. I could do it myself if I didn't have many other things on my plate.
Above: Another place science fiction writers get their ideas from. Photo courtesy of NASA.
*
December 3, 2014
Dancing With Joy
.
I am, it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway), delighted. I've been to Russia only three times, but it's a country that tugs at the heart. And of course they have had more than their share of great writers, so the association, however tenuous, with Russian literature is one that any writer cannot help but savor.
Dancing With Bears is set almost entirely in Moscow, a destination that Darger and Surplus, my post-Utopian confidence artists, have been heading toward ever since they accidentally set fire to London in "The Dog Said Bow-Wow." So I'm really curious as to how Russians and Muscovites (not the same thing; the first joke I was ever told on Russian soil was, "Have you heard that Russia has just opened an embassy in Moscow?") will react to the novel. I fervently hope they'll like Dancing . Despite some of the things that happen to their great city in it.
But is that a great cover or what?
As is the cover for my short fiction collection. Azbooka-Atticus has also signed contracts for an omnibus volume containing The Iron Dragon's Daughter and The Dragons of Babel.
*
I am, it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway), delighted. I've been to Russia only three times, but it's a country that tugs at the heart. And of course they have had more than their share of great writers, so the association, however tenuous, with Russian literature is one that any writer cannot help but savor.
Dancing With Bears is set almost entirely in Moscow, a destination that Darger and Surplus, my post-Utopian confidence artists, have been heading toward ever since they accidentally set fire to London in "The Dog Said Bow-Wow." So I'm really curious as to how Russians and Muscovites (not the same thing; the first joke I was ever told on Russian soil was, "Have you heard that Russia has just opened an embassy in Moscow?") will react to the novel. I fervently hope they'll like Dancing . Despite some of the things that happen to their great city in it.
But is that a great cover or what?
As is the cover for my short fiction collection. Azbooka-Atticus has also signed contracts for an omnibus volume containing The Iron Dragon's Daughter and The Dragons of Babel.
*
December 1, 2014
Tolkien et Moi
.
Regarnis la pipe. Si je dois raconter cette histoire comme il faut j'aurai besoin de son aide. C'est bien. Non, inutile de rajouter une bûche dans le feu. Laisse-le mourir. Il y a pire que obscurité...
The only downside to having a story reprinted in Bifrost , the French magazine of fantasy and science fiction, is that when my contributor's copy arrives, I must bitterly regret having never managed to learn to read French. What a lovely magazine! Well made, generously illustrated, and crammed with reviews, essays, interviews -- and fiction, of course. Were I not illiterate in all languages but one, I'd spend a very pleasant afternoon with with it.
The latest Bifrost is a special J. R. R. Tolkien: Voyages in Middle Earth theme issue, and it contains my own "The Changeling's Tale." It's about . . . well, why don't I quote something I wrote earlier? In an essay entitled "A Changeling Returns to Middle-earth," which was a summation of everything I knew and thought and felt about Tolkien's great work, I wrote:
*
Regarnis la pipe. Si je dois raconter cette histoire comme il faut j'aurai besoin de son aide. C'est bien. Non, inutile de rajouter une bûche dans le feu. Laisse-le mourir. Il y a pire que obscurité...
The only downside to having a story reprinted in Bifrost , the French magazine of fantasy and science fiction, is that when my contributor's copy arrives, I must bitterly regret having never managed to learn to read French. What a lovely magazine! Well made, generously illustrated, and crammed with reviews, essays, interviews -- and fiction, of course. Were I not illiterate in all languages but one, I'd spend a very pleasant afternoon with with it.
The latest Bifrost is a special J. R. R. Tolkien: Voyages in Middle Earth theme issue, and it contains my own "The Changeling's Tale." It's about . . . well, why don't I quote something I wrote earlier? In an essay entitled "A Changeling Returns to Middle-earth," which was a summation of everything I knew and thought and felt about Tolkien's great work, I wrote:
Decades later, I wrote a story in homage to Tolkien, called “The Changeling’s Tale.” In it, a young tavern boy is swept up by a troupe of passing elves and carried away from hearth and home and all he knows and cares about. He pays a heavy price for the going, but he goes out of love for their beauty, their grace, and their strangeness, into a future of which all he can know is that it’s beyond his imagining. It was an honest story, I hope. But it also carried an autobiographical weight. Will Taverner was as close as I will ever come to a self-portrait. His story is not that different from mine. Long ago, I ran away with the elves, and I never came back.So now Will has made it all the way to France, a country I have never seen -- though I'm sure I'll visit it someday, to retrace the footsteps of Hope Mirrlees in Paris, if for no other reason. I wish the lad luck. It takes courage and bad judgment to run away with the elves, and I for one have never once regretted doing so.
*
November 28, 2014
Let Herman Melville Teach You How To Sleep
.
Winter is coming. The nights grow longer. The days grow colder. More and more, we find our thoughts turning to hibernation and the soft oblivion of sleep. And the weekend is almost here! It's possible -- indeed, almost a moral imperative -- to sleep late in the morning.
Here, from chapter 11 of Moby-Dick is Herman Melville's paean to sleep, and his recipe for enjoying it best. It goes without saying that it involves cold weather:
Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
*
Winter is coming. The nights grow longer. The days grow colder. More and more, we find our thoughts turning to hibernation and the soft oblivion of sleep. And the weekend is almost here! It's possible -- indeed, almost a moral imperative -- to sleep late in the morning.
Here, from chapter 11 of Moby-Dick is Herman Melville's paean to sleep, and his recipe for enjoying it best. It goes without saying that it involves cold weather:
Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
*
November 26, 2014
Mark Your Calendars! Start Saving Your Shekels!
.
Apparently a date has been set for Chasing the Phoenix , my second Darger and Surplus novel, and it is... drum roll, please!... August 11, 2015. That's the cover up above. The big fella would have to be Vicious Brute. And the little one? Maybe Little Spider, possibly even Surplus. Though that would make Vicious Brute very large indeed.
You can read an anticipatory review (based on the publicity material rather than the text, which is not available yet) over at Bibliosanctum by clicking here.
And at this very moment, I'm going over the copyediting . . .
Talk about a thankless job! No writer enjoys having somebody second-guessing his or her long-labored-over prose. And the fact that the copyeditor occasionally discovers actual typos doesn't make it any better. One blushes, stammers, looks away. (My least favorite? I had a character "reigning" in a horse. Twice.)
Still, it has to be done. Because mistakes find their way into the most tightly-written prose. They're like cockroaches in that respect -- they want in. And once in, they have to be stomped flat.
So I will take the opportunity to say: Thank you, Christopher. I mean that sincerely. Even if I do say it through gritted teeth.
*
Apparently a date has been set for Chasing the Phoenix , my second Darger and Surplus novel, and it is... drum roll, please!... August 11, 2015. That's the cover up above. The big fella would have to be Vicious Brute. And the little one? Maybe Little Spider, possibly even Surplus. Though that would make Vicious Brute very large indeed.
You can read an anticipatory review (based on the publicity material rather than the text, which is not available yet) over at Bibliosanctum by clicking here.
And at this very moment, I'm going over the copyediting . . .
Talk about a thankless job! No writer enjoys having somebody second-guessing his or her long-labored-over prose. And the fact that the copyeditor occasionally discovers actual typos doesn't make it any better. One blushes, stammers, looks away. (My least favorite? I had a character "reigning" in a horse. Twice.)
Still, it has to be done. Because mistakes find their way into the most tightly-written prose. They're like cockroaches in that respect -- they want in. And once in, they have to be stomped flat.
So I will take the opportunity to say: Thank you, Christopher. I mean that sincerely. Even if I do say it through gritted teeth.
*
November 24, 2014
Teaching At Clarions
.
I received a fund-raising appeal from Clarion West the other day and it got me to thinking about what it's like teaching at a Clarion -- West, South, or Old Original. I've taught at all three and Lucius Shepard was right, years ago, when he urged me to consider the experience. "It's a really satisfying thing to do, Michael," he said. "It makes you feel like Mr. Chips."
I realize that you're having trouble picturing Lucius as Mr. Chips, but that's what he said.
It's very hard work, but when you can see students becoming better writers because of things you said, that pays for all. The only negative I can think of is that no teacher can be what every student needs, and so there are students I did not help much. That bothers me, and I apologize to each one of them.
Recently, two of my former students, Ellen Klages and Andy Duncan, won the World Fantasy Award for "Wakulla Springs," originally published by Tor.com. Andy was a Clarion West student and Ellen was Clarion South. I no longer remember their years (Andy came first), but I vividly remember their stories and what I said about them. As do -- long story -- they both, I'm sure.
I have no idea what they said when they accepted the award but I am absolutely certain that neither thanked any of their CW or CS instructors. This is proper because for all the help those instructors gave them, those students who go on to be published turn themselves into writers. It's a long, difficult process and all credit belongs to them and them alone. But this silence is particularly satisfying to a former teacher because because it emphasizes the selfless quality of teaching. Writing is, alas, necessarily all tied up with the ego and that can be wearying. Not so teaching, which is all about the students. If anyone thought any of the credit for what they achieved belonged to me, it would taint the experience.
Mr. Chips would agree with me on this one. As would Lucius Shepard.
You can read "Wakulla Springs" here.
You can go to Tor.com and check out the potentially award-winning new fiction here.
And you can contribute to Clarion West here.
Above: That's Ellen to the left and Andy to the right. As if you needed to be told.
*
I received a fund-raising appeal from Clarion West the other day and it got me to thinking about what it's like teaching at a Clarion -- West, South, or Old Original. I've taught at all three and Lucius Shepard was right, years ago, when he urged me to consider the experience. "It's a really satisfying thing to do, Michael," he said. "It makes you feel like Mr. Chips."
I realize that you're having trouble picturing Lucius as Mr. Chips, but that's what he said.
It's very hard work, but when you can see students becoming better writers because of things you said, that pays for all. The only negative I can think of is that no teacher can be what every student needs, and so there are students I did not help much. That bothers me, and I apologize to each one of them.
Recently, two of my former students, Ellen Klages and Andy Duncan, won the World Fantasy Award for "Wakulla Springs," originally published by Tor.com. Andy was a Clarion West student and Ellen was Clarion South. I no longer remember their years (Andy came first), but I vividly remember their stories and what I said about them. As do -- long story -- they both, I'm sure.
I have no idea what they said when they accepted the award but I am absolutely certain that neither thanked any of their CW or CS instructors. This is proper because for all the help those instructors gave them, those students who go on to be published turn themselves into writers. It's a long, difficult process and all credit belongs to them and them alone. But this silence is particularly satisfying to a former teacher because because it emphasizes the selfless quality of teaching. Writing is, alas, necessarily all tied up with the ego and that can be wearying. Not so teaching, which is all about the students. If anyone thought any of the credit for what they achieved belonged to me, it would taint the experience.
Mr. Chips would agree with me on this one. As would Lucius Shepard.
You can read "Wakulla Springs" here.
You can go to Tor.com and check out the potentially award-winning new fiction here.
And you can contribute to Clarion West here.
Above: That's Ellen to the left and Andy to the right. As if you needed to be told.
*
November 21, 2014
My Philcon Schedule (and Apology)
.
I have just set a record for this blog by missing two posts in a row. Mea culpa! (For those unfortunate enough to not have had a Roman Catholic upbringing, that's Latin for my bad.) The reason for this was a combination of exhaustion and having lots of work to do. But there is no excuse.
Kind people, I beg your pardon.
Clearly, I should keep a backload of entertaining posts on hand to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again. And I promise to create exactly such a backload. Just as soon as Philcon and Thanksgiving are over.
And speaking of Philcon . . .
The distinguished thing begins in only a few hours. Here's my schedule:
Fri 7:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour)READING - MICHAEL SWANWICK (1998)
Fri 10:00 PM in Plaza II (Two) (1 hour)FANTASY WITHOUT ROYALTY (1892)
[Panelists: Anastasia Klimchynskaya (mod), Bernie Mojzes, Amy Fass, Meredith Schwartz, Michael Swanwick]
Much fantasy fiction seems to concern kings, princes, princesses and an occasional guttersnipe on his way up. What about the rest of society? Where are the fantasies about regular folks
Sat 11:00 AM in Crystal Ballroom Three (1 hour)LITERARY HARD SCIENCE -- IS THIS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS? (1821)
[Panelists: Michael Swanwick (mod), Michael F. Flynn, Tom Purdom, Bernie Mojzes, Anna Kashina]
Is there a fundamental conflict between literary writing and getting the science right? Is it too much to ask that language be used well and the realism of hard SF be extended to the characters
Sat 2:00 PM in Autograph Table (1 hour)
Sat 5:00 PM in Plaza IV (Four) (1 hour)THE HEINLEIN BIOGRAPHY -- OR IS IT HAGIOGRAPHY? (1813)
[Panelists: Michael Swanwick (mod), Jack Hillman, Tom Purdom, Steve Wilson]
William Patterson's two-volume authorized bio of Robert A. Heinlein is surely one of the most important works of SF scholarship in recent years. Our panelists will discuss it's strengths and limitations and what it tells us about one of the 20th century's great figures
Which is a good lineup of panels. If you're at the con and see me, be sure to say hello. Unless I killed your cat in a previous life. Then you should snub me like the cur I was.
Above: The beautiful Crowne Plaza Cherry Hill Hotel, where Philcon will be held. Either that or Wawel Cathedral in Krakow. I always get those two confused.
*
.JPG)
I have just set a record for this blog by missing two posts in a row. Mea culpa! (For those unfortunate enough to not have had a Roman Catholic upbringing, that's Latin for my bad.) The reason for this was a combination of exhaustion and having lots of work to do. But there is no excuse.
Kind people, I beg your pardon.
Clearly, I should keep a backload of entertaining posts on hand to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again. And I promise to create exactly such a backload. Just as soon as Philcon and Thanksgiving are over.
And speaking of Philcon . . .
The distinguished thing begins in only a few hours. Here's my schedule:
Fri 7:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour)READING - MICHAEL SWANWICK (1998)
Fri 10:00 PM in Plaza II (Two) (1 hour)FANTASY WITHOUT ROYALTY (1892)
[Panelists: Anastasia Klimchynskaya (mod), Bernie Mojzes, Amy Fass, Meredith Schwartz, Michael Swanwick]
Much fantasy fiction seems to concern kings, princes, princesses and an occasional guttersnipe on his way up. What about the rest of society? Where are the fantasies about regular folks
Sat 11:00 AM in Crystal Ballroom Three (1 hour)LITERARY HARD SCIENCE -- IS THIS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS? (1821)
[Panelists: Michael Swanwick (mod), Michael F. Flynn, Tom Purdom, Bernie Mojzes, Anna Kashina]
Is there a fundamental conflict between literary writing and getting the science right? Is it too much to ask that language be used well and the realism of hard SF be extended to the characters
Sat 2:00 PM in Autograph Table (1 hour)
Sat 5:00 PM in Plaza IV (Four) (1 hour)THE HEINLEIN BIOGRAPHY -- OR IS IT HAGIOGRAPHY? (1813)
[Panelists: Michael Swanwick (mod), Jack Hillman, Tom Purdom, Steve Wilson]
William Patterson's two-volume authorized bio of Robert A. Heinlein is surely one of the most important works of SF scholarship in recent years. Our panelists will discuss it's strengths and limitations and what it tells us about one of the 20th century's great figures
Which is a good lineup of panels. If you're at the con and see me, be sure to say hello. Unless I killed your cat in a previous life. Then you should snub me like the cur I was.
Above: The beautiful Crowne Plaza Cherry Hill Hotel, where Philcon will be held. Either that or Wawel Cathedral in Krakow. I always get those two confused.
*
November 16, 2014
My Monday Post
.
Okay, guys, here's the drill:
I'm tapping out this post from my phone in the Chopin Airport Marriott bar shortly before going to bed. Five a.m. in the morning, I make my way to Lufthansa, fly to Frankfurt, fly to Philadelphia, am driven home, and then collapse.
Shortly after which, God willing, I will share with you:
1) A free download of a song Janis Ian and I wrote.
2) My Philcon schedule, which I received today.
and
3) My opinion of the Polish version of Buffalo wings.
Any one of these would be worth tuning in for. Combined with the suspenseful question of whether I'll be able to rise up from the floor to post?
Priceless.
.
Okay, guys, here's the drill:
I'm tapping out this post from my phone in the Chopin Airport Marriott bar shortly before going to bed. Five a.m. in the morning, I make my way to Lufthansa, fly to Frankfurt, fly to Philadelphia, am driven home, and then collapse.
Shortly after which, God willing, I will share with you:
1) A free download of a song Janis Ian and I wrote.
2) My Philcon schedule, which I received today.
and
3) My opinion of the Polish version of Buffalo wings.
Any one of these would be worth tuning in for. Combined with the suspenseful question of whether I'll be able to rise up from the floor to post?
Priceless.
.
November 15, 2014
Back to the Old Salt Mines
.
It's been quite a month for racking up World Heritage Sites. A few weeks ago, I visited the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and the Aztec Ruins -- which is actually a Pueblo ruin, but never mind that. Here in Poland, we've seen Krakow Historic Center, Warsaw Historic Center, and -- just now --the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
Wieliczka Salt Mine gets over a million visitors a year. Its first shaft was sunk in the 13th century, and it was in continuous operation until mining ceased in 2007. (They still pump out brine and produce salt by evaporation, in part because the water must be removed to make tourism viable anyway.). The hours-long tour takes the curious down two levels, out of nine, takes in several remarkable caverns that are artifacts of mining, along with a few pretty cheesy attractions, culminating in the astonishing chapel which miners dug out the salt and decorated largely with their own carvings.
Copernicus visited the mine, as did Goethe. And now so have (among, as I said, over a million others a year) I.
.
It's been quite a month for racking up World Heritage Sites. A few weeks ago, I visited the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and the Aztec Ruins -- which is actually a Pueblo ruin, but never mind that. Here in Poland, we've seen Krakow Historic Center, Warsaw Historic Center, and -- just now --the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
Wieliczka Salt Mine gets over a million visitors a year. Its first shaft was sunk in the 13th century, and it was in continuous operation until mining ceased in 2007. (They still pump out brine and produce salt by evaporation, in part because the water must be removed to make tourism viable anyway.). The hours-long tour takes the curious down two levels, out of nine, takes in several remarkable caverns that are artifacts of mining, along with a few pretty cheesy attractions, culminating in the astonishing chapel which miners dug out the salt and decorated largely with their own carvings.
Copernicus visited the mine, as did Goethe. And now so have (among, as I said, over a million others a year) I.
.
Back to the Old Salt mines
.
It's been quite a month for racking up World Heritage Sites. A few weeks ago, I visited the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and the Aztec Ruins -- which is actually a Pueblo ruin, but never mind that. Here in Poland, we've seen Krakow Historic Center, Warsaw Historic Center, and -- just now --the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
Wieliczka Salt Mine gets over a million visitors a year. Its first shaft was sunk in the 13th century, and it was in continuous operation until mining ceased in 2007. (They still pump out brine and produce salt by evaporation, in part because the water must be removed to make tourism viable anyway.). The hours-long tour takes the curious down two levels, out of nine, takes in several remarkable caverns that are artifacts of mining, along with a few pretty cheesy attractions, culminating in the astonishing chapel which miners dug out the salt and decorated largely with their own carvings.
Copernicus visited the mine, as did Goethe. And now so have (among, as I said, over a million others a year) I.
.
It's been quite a month for racking up World Heritage Sites. A few weeks ago, I visited the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and the Aztec Ruins -- which is actually a Pueblo ruin, but never mind that. Here in Poland, we've seen Krakow Historic Center, Warsaw Historic Center, and -- just now --the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
Wieliczka Salt Mine gets over a million visitors a year. Its first shaft was sunk in the 13th century, and it was in continuous operation until mining ceased in 2007. (They still pump out brine and produce salt by evaporation, in part because the water must be removed to make tourism viable anyway.). The hours-long tour takes the curious down two levels, out of nine, takes in several remarkable caverns that are artifacts of mining, along with a few pretty cheesy attractions, culminating in the astonishing chapel which miners dug out the salt and decorated largely with their own carvings.
Copernicus visited the mine, as did Goethe. And now so have (among, as I said, over a million others a year) I.
.
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