Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 30

Grant Wahl, Dead in Qatar

 .

 

 

Another journalist had died. Grant Wahl probably thought himself safer than most because he specialized in soccer. But he was confronted by the Qatar government (and then received death threats and was followed) for wearing a rainbow shirt in solidarity with the LGBQT+ community. Not long after, he suddenly fell ill while covering a soccer match and taken by paramedics to a hospital where he died. He was 48.

Wahl's brother Erik believes he was murdered.

You can read about it on the Lawyers, Guns &Money blog here. Or read the NBC News account, which does not report anything suspicious about the death here.

Above: Image copied from Lawyers, Guns &Money.

 

 *

Feeling Sorry for the Illustrators? We're Next

  .

So how about those AI art programs--Dall-E and the like? Personally, I don't think anybody's said it better than the guys at Penny Arcade, above. (You can find the entire cartoon here.) There's been a lot of argument over whether the astonishingly convincing images created by something that isn't even self-aware are art or not. But nobody doubts that these programs are going to put a lot of illustrators out of work and seriously reduce the incomes of many or most of those who remain.

This prospect horrifies me, particularly since I know and like a like of those artists personally. But it's going to strike a lot closer to home a lot sooner than I thought.

I was talking with an editor at a science fiction convention recently and observed that sooner or later there were going to be programs that wrote fiction. 

"Oh, they're already here," he said. In fact, he knew a writer who routinely uses one to create his first drafts. He types in a few prompts and it spits out an entire story which he then revises into something that can be published. 

The writer in question produces formulaic fiction, of course. But the programs are only going to get better. A lot of marginal writers are likely to be forced out of the marketplace soon. And after that, better ones. And after that...

In the meantime, editors are consulting with each other on how to develop tools to detect artificially-created fiction. Because the means such programs employ--studying massive amounts of published fiction and writing imitations of it--leaves everyone involved open to charges of plagiarism.

So what can writers do?

Step one is to ditch Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Every time you write a story or book that recapitulates the twelve or seventeen or ninety-eight stages of heroism, you're doing your bit to program the reader to expect exactly that structure. And that structure is extremely easy to imitate. Hell, a machine could do that. If not today, then soon. 

Step two is to stop relying on all the other crutches that writers use to come up with an easy story: Retelling a classic story but making the villain the hero, rewriting fairy tales but giving the protagonist contemporary values, etc., etc., etc.

Step three is to dig deep and come up with stories that satisfy the readers without giving them what they're expecting. Human stories that no non-sentient machine could possibly write because they're not retellings of stories that came before.

I know that sounds difficult. It is difficult. But if you decided to become a writer because you thought it would be easy... boy, are you in the wrong place!

End of sermon. Go thou and sin no more.

Above: I'm not a gamer but I follow Penny Arcade (www.penny-arcade.com) to keep up on that portion of the culture that involves gaming--most of it, to be precise. Also, it can be pretty funny. I recommend it.

 

*

 

 

A Footnote to The Once and Future Rye

 .

 

 Not all that long ago, I wrote a history of rye whiskey as a metaphor for the history of America. (The Once and Future Rye: The Whiskey That Was America is still available for purchase at www.dragonstairs.com.) Just now, I found a passage in Bernard De Voto's essay/slim book The Hour, a jolly crank rant claiming that there are only two cocktails worth drinking: whiskey straight (by which he means rye or bourbon but not Scotch and how this is a cocktail is beyond me) and the Martini, which I wish I'd run across while writing my own chapbook. Here it is:

I don't know why but there are more brands of good rye than there are of bourbon. And I don't know why the God-damned Navy is permitted to monopolize so many of them--but here's a tip for you. Keep green your friendships in the service.

Now isn't that strange? De Voto's essay confirms one of my own central findings, which is that Prohibition turned America's palate away from rye to whiskey. But who would have suspected that for the longest time (The Hour was first published in 1948), bourbon was an also-ran? To say nothing about that weird observation about USN commissaries.e

It's clear that the history of American tippling has been sadly neglected. There's plenty of room our there for an amateur chronicler to make their mark. (To those reading this: That's a hint.)

Slainte!

*

Vacuum Flowers One-Day e-Book Sale!

.

 

My e-book publisher, Open Road Media, informs me that there will be a one-day e-book sale for my novel Vacuum Flowers. On November 30 (that's Wednesday), it will be available, in the US only, for $1.99.

 I know it seems like I post something like this, only for different books, rather a lot. But it seems to be Open Road's business plan. So if you like e-books and would like to read my novel... well, here's your chance.

 

And as long as I'm here . . .

I might as well tell you something about the ending of Vacuum Flowers. It ends with Rebel Elizabeth Mudlark, the protagonist, standing in the vacuum docks with her husband's coffin at her feet, waiting for transportation back to her home in the Oort Cloud. Her passage through the Solar System took her on a cometary orbit inward and then out, making various stops along the way. (This is a sub-genre of sf that was once called the Grand Tour.)  

Now, comets travel in one of two paths--either a hyperbolic orbit or a parabolic orbit. The hyperbolic orbit takes the comet in and then out, never to return. But the parabolic orbit is closed loop. Which means that sooner or later, the comet will return. All the time I was writing the novel, I was aware of both possibilities. In one possible ending she would return. In the other she would not. In one ending, her husband was alive. In the other, the coffin held a corpse.

I held both endings in my mind without choosing one up until I came to the very last page. Then I made my choice and the novel was finished.

Looking back, I am convinced I made the right choice.

But it was a close thing.

*

David Sherman

.

 

David Sherman is dead. Tom Purdom used to introduce him as "walking time bomb David Sherman" because that was the slur upon combat vets at the time, but of course he was nothing of the sort. He was a good man and excellent company.

David began his writing career by writing military fiction because as an ex-marine who had served in Vietnam that was something he knew well. He moved on to military science fiction, both solo and in collaboration with Dan Cragg. His work was highly regarded.

It has been a long, long time since I've seen David. Many years ago, he moved to Florida for the weather (and, he would have said jokingly, the women). But it was always comforting to know he was out there, writing and enjoying life.

Now he's not, and the world is a sadder place for that. David was solid stuff. He had a good sense of humor. You'd have liked him.

Above: I found this picture on Facebook. I believe it was taken by his friend Colin Wolfe.

 

*

My Philcon Schedule

.

 

 I've just received my tentative Philcon schedule. Since the convention begins in a week and a half, I'm pretty confident that this will also be my final schedule.  

Here it is:

Start Time      Duration       Room Name                                Title
Fri 7:30 PM    25 Min                204                      Readings: Michael Swanwick                       
Sat 1:00 PM    50 Min                217                      Autographs: Tom Purdom, Michael Swanwick         
Sat 2:00 PM    50 Min          Plaza 3                      We ARE Living in Philip K. Dick’s Future, Aren’t We?
Sat 4:00 PM    50 Min          Plaza 3                      The Excitement and Frustration of Exoplanets     
Sat 9:00 PM    50 Min          Plaza 3                      Women Speculative Fiction Authors Before 1970   

Sun 10:00 AM  50 Min        Crystal 2                    The Timey-Wimeyness of Time    

 

*

            

Opening Paragraph du Jour

 .

 

Herein begins an informal occasional series. The opening paragraph of Anais Nin's Collages:

Vienna was the city of statues. They were as numerous as the people who walked the streets. They stood on the tips of the highest towers, lay down on stone tombs, sat on horseback, kneeled, prayed, fought animals and wars, danced, drank wine, and read books made of stone. They adorned cornices like the figureheads of old ships. They stood in the heart of fountains glistening with water as if they had just been born. They sat under trees in the parks summer and winter. Some wore costumes of other periods, and some no clothes at all. Men, women, children, kings, dwarfs, gargoyles, unicorns, lions, clowns, heroes, wise men, prophets, angels, saints and soldiers preserved for Vienna an illusion of eternity.

 

Isn't that charming? Note the lack of specificity, the suppression of commas outside the lists, the quick turns of invention, the way the author keeps it lucid and interesting throughout. She really did know what she was doing.

*

My Worldcon Brunch-Interview with Scott Edelman

.

 

 One morning at the Chicago Worldcon earlier this year, Scott Edelman treated me to brunch and recorded a rambling-filled anecdote interview for his Eating the Fantastic podcast. At least, that's how I vaguely remember it. While I value what I've written immensely, I don't pay much attention to what I've said. It leave my mouth, enters the air, and disappears.

But here's how Scott remembers it:

We discussed his response to learning a reader of his was recently surprised to find out he was still alive, how J. R. R. Tolkein turned him into a writer, why it took him 15 years of trying to finally finish his first story, how Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann taught him how to write by taking apart one of his tales and putting it back together again, why it was good luck he lost his first two Nebula Awards the same year, the good advice William Gibson gave him which meant he never had to be anxious about awards again, which friend’s story was so good he wanted to throw his own typewriter out the window in a rage, the novel he abandoned writing because he found the protagonists morally repugnant, why he didn’t want to talk about Playboy magazine, the truth behind a famous John W. Campbell, Jr./Robert Heinlein anecdote, and much more.

So apparently I was pretty interesting. 

You can find Scott's blog and instructions on where to find the interview here. 

 

Above: Photo and copyright by Scott Edelman.

 

 *

A MID-AUTUMN NIGHT'S MADNESS Concluded

 .

Because love conquers all.

*

A MID-AUTUMN NIGHT'S MADNESS Part 30

.

This is your fate and you cannot avoid it.

*