Circa24's Blog, page 4

Just for Fun, A Silent Consent Word Search

I enjoy these when I get bored, but they also drive me nuts when I can’t find those last two words. Try you hand at the word search. I will publish the solution next week.

How did you come up with the term "Harrie?"

I recently received a question asking how I decided to use the term "Harrie" as a degrading term for the Nameless in Silent Consent.

The pejorative use of a universal name for an underclass or group of workers happens in multiple traditions. In the United States, African American railroad porters were called "boy" or "George." Irish maids were called "Bridgettes" in the US and England, and Irish men were often referred to as "Patties." (Think of Patty wagons, which may refer to the frequency of Irish arrests in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.)

It struck me that several oppressed populations around the planet were referred to with a word beginning with the letters "Har--." Remembering the above and how Irish women bristled at being referred to as " My Bridgette" by their employers, I was off and running.

Yes, the term is used by all characters, including the Nameless themselves and their allies. Such use and self-depreciation are common among the severely oppressed, and when I tried to write it out of their vocabulary, it felt forced and diminished the story of oppression. I had to include it.

Margot Hunt’s Lonely Girls is one of the best reads I’ve had this year.

Lovely Girls by Margot Hunt




The book would make a great movie. The bully characters are disturbing and very believable, as are the targets of the bullying. The author has done her homework and understands the dehumanizing nature of bullying and social exclusion. The story could easily have descended into horror, but the author kept control of the plot and kept it within the feasible, real realm, which may be even more disturbing. One of the best reads I’ve had this year.



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Just Read Going Zero!

Going Zero by Anthony McCarten

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I loved this page-turner, and I never saw the major plot twists (plural) coming, though afterward, they made sense. It's very well constructed and hard to believe this is a debut novel.



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What's next after Silent Consent?

I am currently polishing a prequel to Silent Consent. A few of the core characters will appear, but the central one will be a Gen who finds herself demoted to a "farm" on a trumped-up family demotion. If you've read SC, you probably remember that the "farm system" formed the prisons used to control the Nameless and torture political prisoners. Her experience will harken back to the Roman descriptions of two of the most dreaded sentences among the enslaved: the rock quarries and the bakeries.

I've recently completed another book that is not a dystopian Sci-Fi but a contemporary murder mystery. In contrast to Silent Consent, which is admittedly long, this one will be a novella. I hope to have it out soon.

My Silent Consent giveaway has ended!

The Silent Consent giveaway ended on September 15. Congratulations to those of you who snagged a copy! I hope the book moves you. I began writing it in an old notebook while waiting at a train station after visiting my cousin while he was in a physical rehab center. Then, it began to grow.

I had hoped to write a short story, but the characters demanded I tell more of their story, especially the Nameless. This changed the direction of the original story as I incorporated more history and biology into this future.

Is Silent Consent Really Science Fiction?

Science fiction has come a long way since the mid-20th century. Then, the words conjured stereotyped images of technological futures, bug-eyed monsters, and spacecraft written predominantly by white males. But even then, Sci-Fi struggled to break free from those narrow constraints with stories like 1984 and Brave New World. Pioneering women authors like Ursula Le Guin explored anthropology and gender identity (e.g., Left Hand of Darkness) and wish fulfillment (Lathe of Heaven) and blurred the boundaries between Sci-Fi and Fantasy worlds, and Octavia Buttler explored plagues, immortality, and mind control (Seeds to Harvest)

The writers and topics have become increasingly diverse. Authors like Mary Doria Russell have explored cultural misunderstandings (The Sparrow), and Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) has provided what may be the most chilling dystopian tale of the future since 1984 by Orwell. The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull used the medium to explore the experience of colonization by others, and Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason's Ill Wind explores how a random act can begin a chain of events that collapses civilization.

So, is Silent Event Sci-Fi? Yes, it is a novel of an ecological collapse that looks at the potential consequences of an extreme depletion of fuel reserves by overuse. The surviving society has had to find solutions to its energy crisis and deal with the depleted lands and toxic wastes left by their ancestors. It may not have the bug-eyed monsters and spaceships of some of the better-known works, but it falls well within the genre of dystopian worlds.

Fan of Silent Consent...

...then think about the tote
https://www.amazon.com/Withhold-Your-...

There are several products with the cover design that ask us to withhold our silent consent.

Beggars in Spain

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I loved this book, but I can't tell you why without spoiling the plot. It deals with people's reactions to genetic modifications (in this case, a modified need to sleep), but in ways that may surprise you despite their probability. This is the second novel I've read by this author (New Under the Sun is the other), and I've loved them both.



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Are we abusing our descendants?

Petroleum is a limited resource.  Period.  It takes millions of years to form.  There’s no question that crude oil derives from fossilized zooplankton and algae that died and created deposits and that 70% of deposits formed in the Mesozoic era between 256-66 million years before the present and another 10% before that in Paleozoic times.  Only 20% arose from deposits in the early Cenozoic period (66 MYBP to the present).  Most of our coal, another non-renewable resource, formed about 300 million years ago.  Natural gas deposits formed from decomposing plants and animals subjected to extreme heat from the earth; it also took millions of years to create and were deposited over the past 550 million years.

Whenever these deposits of long carbon chains formed, they removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  By removing CO2 from the air, they slowly reduced the planet’s temperature, gradually changing the environment in which we thrive.

About 35-40% of the world’s energy comes from crude oil.  Another 28% comes from coal, and another 23% comes from natural gas.  Together, these fossil fuels form the bulk of the energy used in the industrialized world and form the base of the global economy, and each takes millions of years to make.  These sources replaced most slave labor, not because we suddenly grew a conscience about abusing other humans, but because they are far cheaper to use.

We are spending more oil to find new deposits.  We’ve begun to extract oil from shale because we’re not seeing enough oil deposits to meet our needs.  Given the waning rate at which we are finding new sources and the increased energy needed to extract the remaining oil, we probably passed Hubbert’s peak (maximum petroleum production) near the beginning of this century.  Oil extraction has diminished, but the demand is still increasing, driving up the costs and fueling competition for the remaining reserves.  (For example, the first things the Russians secured during the war in Ukraine were the oil-producing regions.)

Most of the world’s governments fail to impose a legal responsibility for depleting or misusing our resources.  However, there remains a moral one and a dilemma that pulls us between providing for our immediate families and caring for our generations to come.  As we drain the oil, which should be shepherded as a resource for our children’s futures, we continue to pollute the air and alter the climate.  Generations of great-grandchildren will enter a world devoid of the oil that mass-produced crops, gifted us with cheap, accessible transportation, and fueled the wealth of the modern world.  Surviving without the wealth of energy we enjoy, they will also face a more hostile climate and polluted waters and land.

We do not yet know how to stop the juggernaut that drives this process forward.  A solution may exist, but it will require cooperation and time, two elements that may be lacking.  Can we stop our abuse of future generations?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not, but we can try.

For more information, see:

https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/79-world-energy-use

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-natural-gas-formed

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66637499