Edward Willett's Blog, page 56

Magebane shortlisted for Saskatchewan Book Award

Magebane has been shortlisted for the Regina Book Award in this year's Saskatchewan Book Awards.

The Regina Book Award is described this way: "In recognition of the vitality of the literary community in Regina, this award is presented to a Regina author (or pair of authors) for the best book, judged on the quality of writing."

Other shortlisted in the same category: Mark Cronlund Anderson & Carmen L. Robertson, for Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers (University of Manitoba Press); Wilfred Burton and Anne Patton for Call of the Fiddle (Gabriel Dumont Institute; illustrated by Sherry Farrell Racette and translated by Norman Fleury), Britt Holmström for Leaving Berlin (Thistledown Press), and Alison Lohans for Picturing Alyssa (Dundurn Press Ltd.).

The awards will be announced and presented at a gala dinner at the Conexus Arts Centre on April 28.

This is the fifth time I've been shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Book Award. Spirit Singer won the Regina Book Award in 2002 (that's when the photo is from). Soulworm was shortlisted for best first novel in 1997 and The Dark Unicorn for best children's book in 1998. J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Imaginary Worlds was shortlisted for (if I remember right) best children's book in…2005, maybe?

It's nice to be nominated. It's even nicer to win, since it comes with a substantial sum!

Saturday Special from the Vaults: Janitor Work

This was one of the first, if not the very first, science fiction short stories I ever sold. It appeared in the 1984 Canadian Children's Annual , the year I turned 25.

The photo of the lunar surface is from Apollo 17.

Darryl Norton looked glumly at the dust-covered object before him.  It seemed to him he had seen an inordinate number of dust-covered objects in his short life.

Yet he had been very pleased when his father had given him this job in the Lunar Survey and Exploration Corps.  Although Apollo City offered many kinds of entertainment, it was still a very small community, isolated by the void of space and the desolate lunar surface.  The Corps had seemed like the place to find some adventure.

Some adventure, Darryl thought.  He reached for the vacuum nozzle.  It was his job to clean dust from equipment that had been used on the surface, like this seismic charge.

Of course, it hadn't actually been used.  Someone had just set it on the surface and brought it back.  But any equipment like that had to be cleaned—by Darryl.

At least it was the last item.  Darryl finished going over it once and was starting to pry into some of the harder-to-reach places when his wristwatch alarm went off.  He looked at it, startled.  1800 already?  In just thirty minutes the Apollo City spinball team would be playing the L-5s for the off-Earth championship.

He quickly examined the charge.  Any dust left on it wasn't visible; no one would notice.  He grabbed it and spun away from the table.

As he turned, the charge slipped out of his hand.  He had given it enough momentum to send it crashing hard against the metal floor, but when he picked it up, he could see no damage.  He placed it with the rest of the clean equipment, logged "work completed" into the computer and left, whistling.

The next day Darryl's father, Philip Norton, surprised him by taking him to the crawler bay, where he and a geologist, Andy Davis, were getting ready for a two-day trip to set out seismographic equipment.  Then his father surprised him even more by telling him he was going to be the third crewmember.

As Darryl climbed in through the crawler's airlock he hoped he was done with janitor work for good.

A few hours later he stood at the bottom of a deep crater.  The crawler, his father and Davis were all out of sight beyond the crater wall.  Darryl had finished setting up his segment of the instrument package, and was simply enjoying the solitude, solitude as complete as though he were alone on an alien planet in another solar system.  The voices crackling in his helmet, after all, could be coming from the orbiting starship, where the captain awaited his report…

Abruptly the voices ceased.  A cloud of dust spurted over the crater wall and rapidly settled.  Frightened, Darryl scrambled out of the crater—and froze when he saw the crawler.

Something had torn a gaping hole in its side.

"Dad!" Darryl screamed, and ran toward the vehicle, awkward in his suit.  If the hole was in the crew room, everyone inside without a suit was dead—and he could see no one outside.  He called his father again, but only static answered.

He reached the crawler, slipping and falling as he tried to stop.  He got clumsily to his feet and hammered the airlock control with his fist.  Nothing happened.

He grabbed the wheel to open the lock manually and turned it.  The door slid slowly open, and he scrambled through, closed the door behind him, and opened the valve that would fill the lock with air from inside the crawler—if any air remained.

With relief he felt a blast of wind against his glove, and the moment the pressures had equalized he swung open the inside door and burst throught.

Smoke from shorting electrical equipment filled the room.  A shattered suit life-support pack lay against one wall.  Davis crouched on the floor, bent over…

"Dad!"  Darryl tore off his helmet and crashed to his knees beside his father.

"I'll take care of him," Davis snapped.  "You get a fire extinguisher and put out those electrical fires."

"But—"

"Move!"

Heartsick, Darryl did as he was told.  As soon as possible he was back.  "How is he?"

"Not good."  Davis injected something into the injured man.  "He was recharging that life support pack when the explosion happened.  All the electrical systems shorted out, and the suit's oxygen tank blew up.  He took a heavy shock and he's cut up, too."  He looked up at Darryl.  "I won't lie to you, kid…if he doesn't get help, he'll die."

"But what happened?"

"A seismic charge must have exploded in storage and ruptured one of the big, high-pressure oxygen tanks.  That blew out the side of the crawler and took the electrical systems with it.  But there's no reason a charge should just…What's the matter?"

Darryl had gone white, and he felt sick.  He could imagine only too well what might have set off a seismic charge prematurely—if the outer casing was cracked, and dust got into the mechanism.

Davis helped him to a chair.  "Are you hurt, too?"

Darryl looked up at him with eyes that didn't see.  "I caused the explosion," he whispered.

"What?"

"I caused it!" Darryl cried.  "I was cleaning a seismic charge yesterday—I was in a hurry—it slipped and hit the floor—and I didn't report it, or even check it closely.  It must have been damaged."

Davis, who had been bent over him in concern, straightened.  "You little fool!" he exploded.  Darryl cringed, certain the geologist would strike him.  He didn't, quite.  "I should toss you out the airlock.  But I guess there's no point, is there?  You've killed yourself as well as your father and me!"

"Can't you radio for help?" Darryl said faintly.

"The radio's ruined.  And since we just made our daily report, we won't even be missed for 24 hours.  Your father won't last that long, and neither will we.  We have exactly 15 hours before the emergency life support gives out." ¯Davis turned away from Darryl and slumped in another chair, his eyes closed.

Only 15 hours… "There must be something we can do," Darryl said desperately.  Then he saw his helmet where he had dropped it.  He got to his feet.

Davis opened his eyes.  "What are you doing?" he demanded sharply.

Darryl fastened his suit and picked up the helmet.  "I'm walking back to Apollo for help."

"You're crazy.  We're four hours out by crawler; that's close to twelve, walking."

"My life support pack is less than an hour used and we've got one full one.  Each one is good for six hours."

"That's not enough."

"That's just enough."

Davis jumped up and grabbed the helmet.  "I won't let you!  You'll just be killing yourself!"

With more strength than he knew he possessed, Darryl tore the helmet away.  "I caused the explosion," he said grimly.  "I'm responsible for Dad being hurt.  I have to do something, and I'm the only one who =can= do anything.  My suit is too small for you, and yours is damaged.  If I don't try, we're all dead, so if I try and fail…it doesn't make any difference."  But his heart pounded as he said it, and his palms were wet.

Davis looked at him, then down at Philip Norton.  "I can't stop you, short of tying you up," he said at last.  "So go ahead."  He lay a heavy hand on Darryl's shoulder.  "Forget what I said before.  Those charges shouldn't damage that easily.  It's not your fault."

"It's my fault for not doing my job," said Darryl, and clamped the helmet down.

At first he found the going easy, since the crawler had had to stick to level terrain.  But as foot followed foot for mile after mile and the hours passed, the pace began to tell.  His legs ached after the first hour; he had never walked more than a mile at a time in his life.

He rested briefly when he felt he had to, but after several hours there came a time when he felt he could walk no longer.  The pain in his legs was too much, and he couldn't get his breath¯.¯.¯. couldn't get¯.¯.¯.

His air supply was running out!  He fumbled with the pack, hit the cutoff and felt the flow of air cease.  He would have to breathe the air in his suit while he made the change.

If only he hadn't waited so long!  His hands were clumsy and his eyelids heavy.  The new pack was almost too heavy to lift, despite the low gravity, and his tingling fingers fumbled the connections.

But finally cool, fresh air flooded his suit and lungs, and with it came new energy.  He wondered how much of his fatigue had been due to his lack of oxygen.  With renewed hope, he pressed on.

Now, though, he knew the feel of the death that awaited his father and Davis if he failed—and if his father lived even that long.

Tears blinded him, and he blinked them away angrily.  Crying would do no good.  He had only one way to make up for his stupidity:  make it to Apollo and get help.

Time dragged on.  His footprints, sharp and clear in the harsh sunlight, stretched endlessly behind him.  The barren, blazing landscape seemed unchanging.  Darryl took to calling Apollo City constantly on his suit radio, but never got an answer.

Breathing became hard again, but this time there was no fresh air to be had.  He could only stagger on.

He tripped over a rock and discovered his eyes had been closed.  He tottered to his feet again.  Where were the crawler tracks?  He'd lost the—no, there they were.  How did they get over there? he wondered muzzily, but stumbled back to them.

Radio.  He should try the radio again.  "Apollo City—anyone!  Can you hear me?"  His voice came out in a croak.

He tripped and fell again.  His breath rasped in his ears as he struggled up.  The crawler tracks had moved again…it didn't matter.  He had failed.  He had killed his father, and Davis, and now himself.  And I matter least of all, he thought.

He sank to his hands and knees, chest heaving, futilely trying to strain more oxygen from his nearly-exhausted air.

"…and I tell you, I heard something!"  The voice crackled in Darryl's ears.  He found he was lying down again, and was faintly surprised at the softness of the rocky soil.

A different voice said, "You said you heard heavy breathing and someone mumbling.  I say you're nuts."

Darryl felt he was supposed to say something, something important.  But what?

"I know what I heard," the first voice said stubbornly.  "Hello?  Come in, whoever you are.  Do you need help?"

Help.  That was it.  The word triggered Darryl's sluggish brain.  "Help," he tried saying.  His voice was ragged and hoarse, but the sound encouraged him.  "Help"!  Help me…"

"There is someone!  Close, too!"

"Over there—by those crawler tracks!"

A moment later Darryl felt himself being gently lifted.  He opened his eyes, which had somehow sagged shut, and caught a glimpse of the skeletal frame of an unpressurized lunar sled.  "Crawler…explosion…" he croaked.

"An explosion on a crawler? ¯Where?"

The metallic sheen of a spacesuit faceplate floated in front of Darryl's eyes.  "What?" he said fuzzily.

"Where is the crawler?" the man said urgently.  The sled was underway.  A bump knocked Darryl's head to one side, and he saw the lights of Apollo City, just over the ridge on which he had collapsed.  "Where is it?" the man said again.  "Come on, boy, you've got to tell us…"

Darryl made a supreme effort to make sense of the demand.  Numbers…the man wanted numbers.  The coordinates struggled to the surface of his mind and he whispered them before darkness swallowed him.

Darryl recovered quickly once air was restored to him, but for four days his father fought for life.  The shuttle from the orbiting station had rescued him and Davis barely in time.  Only when the doctors told Darryl his father was out of danger did he surrender completely to the rest they had prescribed for him.

When at last he was allowed to visit his father, he went into the room with mixed happiness and dread.  How could he face seeing his father lying in a hospital bed when he was the one who had put him there?

His father looked pale and drawn, but he smiled when Darryl came in.  "Was that enough adventure for you, son?"

Darryl couldn't smile back.  "It was my fault," he blurted.  "I dropped a charge, and didn't check it or report it.  I could have killed you!"

His father quit smiling.  "You saved my life," he said quietly.

"It wouldn't have been in danger except for me!"

"We'll never know that for sure, Darryl.  A lot of things could have caused that explosion.  You can't be sure it was the charge you dropped.

"But what else—"

"It doesn't matter," his father said firmly.  "Come here."

Darryl went closer, and his father clasped his hand.  "Now, listen to me.  Not doing your job properly was irresponsible and stupid.  You know that better than I do after what happened.  And it may even have caused the accident as you say."  He squeezed Darryl's hand hard.  "But even if it did, you more than made up for it.  I'm proud of you, son.

Darryl couldn't speak, but he returned the squeeze: and, strangely, he felt not as if he had just ended a long, adventurous journey, but as if he were beginning one.

 

 

The Space-Time Continuum: These Are a Few of My Favorite Links

We already live in a science fictional future: your pocket, after all, probably contains a powerful communicator/computer with which you can log onto a world-spanning information network.

Not surprisingly, science fiction (though not overly successful at predicting its rise) has taken to this futuristic resource in a big way. But how to choose which sites to visit?

Here's one way: visit the ones I visit!

Let's start with general news sites. I've previously mentioned Locus Online, the website of the most important science fiction news magazine. Besides publishing news, links to interviews and reviews and more, there alone you'll find a links page directing you to more sites than you could possible visit without the assistance of an army of clones. Locus Online is always at the top of my list.

I also like SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo. I like many of its regular features, including SF Tidbits, which provides links to interviews, news, articles, art and more every day of the week. There's also a weekly roundup of free online fiction and the regular Mind Meld feature where writers are asked their opinion about some related topic (i.e., "The best opening scenes in science fiction," "How to create drama for posthumans.")

Then there's SF Scope, "your source of news about the speculative fiction fields," which is just what it says on the tin. Its many news and opinion features are edited by Ian Randall Strock (who bought two short stories from me back when he edited Artemis Magazine).

A third one is SF Site. This one is very focused on books, with tons of reviews, along with interviews and more. It has regular columns on both TV SF and graphic novels.

Moving on to writers' organizations, there are three to mention. First and foremost is the website of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, which includes news about members, publishing news and (most valuable for those wanting to break into the field) some well-worth-your-time articles on the practice of writing SF and fantasy.

On this side of the border, there's the site SF Canada, our homegrown equivalent of SFWA (I was president for a couple of years).

For those on the dark side, I should also point out the Horror Writers' Association, at the easy-to-remember horror.org.

Looking for places to sell your science fiction and fantasy? There are numerous market-listing sites. One I like goes by the unlikely name of Ralan's SpecFic and Horror Webstravaganza—or just Ralan.com for short. Ralan's website has been around since 1994, and breaks down markets by pay: pro, semi-pro, token and "expo" (i.e., no pay!). He lists both book and short-fiction markets, and also tracks response times.

Of course, just about everyone who is already selling science fiction and fantasy has a website. I have two: edwardwillett.com and leearthurchane.com. One you should definitely check out (besides mine!) is Robert J. Sawyer's, at sfwriter.com (Rob was a very early Web pioneer, which is how he landed such an awesome URL; SFWRITER is also his license plate!).

You should also pay a visit to Kristine Kathryn Rusch's site. Rusch is the author of the invaluable Freelancer's Survival Guide, and regularly posts long, thoughtful essays on the state of publishing today—and how writers can surf the waves of change and hopefully arrive safe on the other side of that dangerous reef we call electronic publishing.

There are some interesting group blogs run by science fiction writers, as well. Deadline Dames is a fun one: subtitled "Nine authors, one website, no excuses," it details the writing adventures of Devon Monk, Jackie Kessler, Jenna Black, Karen Mahoney, Keri Arthur, Lilith Saintcrow, Rachel Vincent, Rinda Elliott and Toni Andrews, working mainly in the field of urban fantasy.

I also like Science Fiction and Fantasy Novelists, an invitation-only group blog with an impressive list of contributors and always-interesting posts. (I particularly recommend "A Writer's Letter to Santa," which any writer, SF- or non, should find amusing.

Finally, no list of sites would be complete without Writer Beware, a publishing industry watchdog group sponsored by SFWA with additional support from the Mystery Writers of America. Writer Beware "shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls" and also provides "industry news, writing advice, and a special focus on the wacky things that happen at the fringes of the publishing world." If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Check it out at Writer Beware first!

This only scratches the surface. There are dozens more that could be listed. But the Web being the linkful place it is, any one of these sites will lead you to some of those dozens more.

And when you think about it, what better use could there be of today's science-fictional technology than using it to learn more about science fiction?

Saturday Special from the Vaults: A 1997 interview with Tolkien artist John Howe

John Howe is an artist particularly well known for his illustrations based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. He and Alan Lee served as the chief conceptual designers for The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, so you have well have seen his work without even knowing his name. But when I interviewed him for InQuest Magazine back in 1997, all that lay in the future. You can read all about his current work on his website, but 15 years ago, this was what he had to say…

(Photo: John Howe, 2003, by Stefan Servos)

***

Vital Stats

Name:  John Howe

Birth:  August 21, 1957, in Vancouver, B.C.

Occupation:  Illustrator

Base of Operations:  Switzerland

Family:  Howe's wife, Fataneh, is also an illustrator; they have one son, Dana, 9.

Career Highlights:  Best-known as an illustrator of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, including book covers for all three books in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the subsequent books released by Christopher Tolkien, maps, paintings for the annual Tolkien calendar and several cards for ICE's Tolkien CCGs.  Has also done covers and other illustrations for numerous other fantasy books.

Little Known Fact:  Could never get into art class in high school; had to take power mechanics, instead.

It all started with a cow.

Growing up on a farm in British Columbia, little John Howe, age three, wanted to draw one of his father's cows–but he just couldn't get it right.  Frustrated, he asked his mother to draw it for him.  It wasn't long, though before she couldn't draw well enough to suit him.  What choice did he have?  He had to become an artist.

Lucky for us.  Lucky for us, too, he didn't stick to cows, either raising them or drawing them.  Today John Howe is one of the best-known illustrators of the works of adult fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien.  His beautiful, evocative paintings have graced the covers of editions of all of Tolkien's books (and the collections of unfinished works released in recent years by Tolkien's son, Christopher) and have been a mainstay of the annual Tolkien calendar for years.  More recently, Howe has illustrated several cards for the Tolkien CCG's put out by Iron Crown Enterprises.  He hopes to do several more.

Howe's art, however fantastic, always seems solidly grounded in reality, thanks to his serious interest in medieval recreation, and to the fact that he lives in Switzerland, where the remnants of medieval times are never far away.  That sense of reality is what gives his works their power.  But all the same, he's never completely satisfied with a drawing.  Inside, he's still that same little boy who wanted to draw a cow but couldn't get it right.

Fortunately, Tolkien didn't write much about cows!

INQUEST:  How did you become an artist?

I've always drawn.  One of the first things I remember is asking my mother to draw a cow for me, because I couldn't draw this stupid cow and I was terribly disappointed and upset. Ever since, I still haven't been able to draw anything to my satisfaction.  Maybe when I can, I'll stop.

I grew up on farms around B.C.   We moved three times while I was in high school, so I only got into one art class.  I always arrived too late, and the art class was always the one where they used to stick all the guys who couldn't make it in typing.  I could never get a spot.  I had to do things like power mechanics, but I drew continuously.

When I was about 19, I wanted to get out of the very tiny town we were living in.  I had some scholarship money, and I was accepted at an American college in the outskirts of Strasbourg in eastern France.  I spent one year there, and then went to the Decorative Arts School of Strasbourg for three years.

Did you find work as an illustrator right out of school?

Yes.  We came down to Switzerland to work on a feature-length animated film for about a year and a half.  It went bankrupt, but in the meantime we'd had time to find other work.

Aside from the film, what was your first work as an illustrator?

It was all in children's books at the start, even though I was determined not to illustrate children's books when I was in art school.  I was still all tied up in American comics, but there's really no demand for it when you're right out of school.  The biggest consumers of illustrations are children's books, so that's where I got my first commission.

How did you get started illustrating Tolkien's work?

I got the first Tolkien calendar that came out about '74 from the Hildebrandt brothers. I'd never seen anything like that before. In art school I started running after the people that owned the rights to Tolkien, showing them artwork.  I finally got a couple of pictures in the 1987 calendar, and then in the 1988 calendar, and then I did the '91 calendar, and then '95 and '97.  And in the meantime I've done all these covers of the full series, and maps, and other things.

There are times when I do nothing but Tolkien pictures, and then there are times when I don't do any for a year or so.  I've been doing more with ICE recently, and with Harper Collins.  I just finished the cover for the last of the Tolkien books.  I'll be working on a Hobbit pop-up book this fall, which will be lots of fun.

When did you first read The Lord of the Rings?

I must have been about 12 or 13.  I read The Two Towers first, because The Fellowship of the Ring was never in the library and I got fed up waiting.  Then I read The Return of the King and then The Fellowship of the Ring.  I thought it was very good, but I didn't fall in love with it immediately.

Do you have favorite characters to paint?

I have unfavorite characters–there are lots I don't know how to draw yet.  Treebeard, for instance.  I don't know what the top of his head is like.  Nor has his nose been chopped off, like in that horrid Ralph Bakshi film, where he looks like a big lump of celery with leaves on the top.  And I don't know how to draw his feet and legs.

I have more trouble with the feminine characters. I've only done one picture of Galadriel, but I'd like to do three or four more and try to get it right some day. I've only done Eowyn once, and that was a very small figure.

I've never done Saruman.  And I'd like to do all these wonderful contingents of warriors that come into Minas Tirith before the big battle.  There's some wonderful descriptions in there.

I won't draw Sauron.  The thing to do would be to depict him without showing him.

Do you have any favorite scenes?

I like action, light, movement and life.  I'm less happy with empty landscapes, though they are a pleasure to do.

How did you begin working on ICE's Tolkien card games?

I did a couple of things for a gentleman in Holland who distributes products by ICE, and he put me in touch with the people at ICE.  I just finished four pictures for them.  I must have done at least a dozen by now, or more–maybe 15.

What's the biggest difference between illustrating cards and creating other Tolkien illustrations?

I end up doing scenes I would never dream of drawing spontaneously.  I've just done a barrow wight, for example.  I never thought I would draw a barrow-wight in my life!

I also work a lot smaller, but I try to treat the scene properly, even if it doesn't fit their format, and then they can crop the piece they need.  I think they reproduce quite well, considering, but they're so terribly small I don't see how people can even collect the things.

Have you ever played any of the Middle-Earth games?

No.  One, they're so time-consuming.  Two, I just can't imagine playing something so visually rich, and being stuck to things like cards and a playing surface.  It just seems so disappointingly limited.  I'm not attracted to it.

Will you be working on any future expansion packs for ICE?

As long as they want me to do pictures, I'll be happy to do it.  They're fun to do and they're good people to work with, very professional.

What media do you use?

Colored ink on paper, some water color, some pencil crayon and some airbrush. I used to use much more water color, but I gave up on it because the colors are so hard to keep alive. These inks move around, they're not indelible.  When I do a picture, things tend to shift about considerably.

What's your work routine?

I like to work in the evenings, although I usually have a very productive hour early in the morning.  You get up in the morning and the thing that took you hours before you went to bed the night before, you can suddenly sit down and do in five minutes.

We use one of the spare bedrooms as a studio.  My son has half of my table.  He really draws quite well.  I'm not just saying that because he's my son!

What sort of illustration does your wife do?

It's much softer and much rounder, much more pastel, much more feminine.  She does mostly children's books.  She hasn't even read The Lord of the Rings, though she's living with this guy who spends half his life drawing this stuff!

How long does it take you to complete a painting?

Between four and 10 days.  It depends on the picture.  There are times when you can work for 15 minutes and you've actually got a day's work done.  Then there are times when you have to sit down for 12 hours to do a day's work.  There are things that are very difficult, where there's a certain element of chance and luck and judgement involved.  It takes a long time to actually nerve oneself up to start, and then you've got the first five or 10 minutes to either make it or blow it.  If you screw it up you've got to start again, so when I've actually started a picture, I can rarely work on it for more than 10 minutes.  Then if I feel happy I can leave it and come back.

Aside from Tolkien, what sort of subjects do you most enjoy painting?

As long as it doesn't have a golf course or a kitchen, then I'm quite happy.  Anything a bit Celtic, a bit wild, a bit northern European, medieval or earlier, I'm very happy in.

Do you use a lot of reference material?

I do nothing without reference–actual documentation, actual objects, a mix of different things.  Most of the architecture I draw from very eclectic, but very definite, sources. I think it's extremely difficult to snap your fingers and do a sort of designer's dream city.  Cities aren't built like that.  It's got to be alive, it's got to be real, otherwise it's just not worth drawing it at all.

I'm very interested in the architecture of Mordor.  I make a huge effort to use the same architectural references for anything built by Sauron or enhanced by Saruman, to make it a sort of perverted copy of something actually built by the elves or by the Numenoreans.

I do a lot of medieval reenactment on a very serious level, which has been a big influence.  It's also been a bit of a burden because I'm a lot less spontaneous than I was before.  Now I'm determined to make things, if they can't be historically exact, then at least realistic.

I made a shield for a Rider of Rohan, one of these sort of Viking shields that are flat with a big shield boss in the middle.  I spent a long time figuring out what to paint on it.  I always end up drawing a nice running horse with a wavy mane, very modern.  Everybody does. I finally got back to that wonderful chalk figure of a horse on a hill in the south of England.  Now I feel a lot happier, because I can use this to actually draw a few of the characters properly. I'm trying to do that more and more, but it means a lot of extra time and effort.

Does living in Europe help?

Absolutely.  There's a much better chronological sense of what's around you.  In the American way of looking at images, you have this sort of vast image bank, out of which you pull any kind of image.  A 19th century copy of a 16th century print is considered of equal value to the 16th century print itself.  So you get a mix of the strangest references, and then these horrible sort of run-of-the-mill fantasy references that everybody uses–anything that's sort of vaguely medievally fantastic.

I get terribly annoyed when I read a lot of modern historical fantasy.  Most of it is so bad and takes itself so seriously, and it's based on nothing.  I did a cover for a book where a futuristic agent is transported back to the time of Shakespeare, in a kind of English Tudor costume, and she has to walk through the woods.  After a few miles her feet are blistered and bleeding, because, and this is a quote from the book, at that time people didn't know how to make left/right shoes. Nothing points to that!  Every pair of medieval shoes that's ever been dug up is very definitely either right or left.  A person should never use anything that's not the original source.

Who are some modern fantasy authors you do enjoy?

I like Lovecraft, Russell Hoban, and Julian Barnes.  I love Robert Holdstock. I thought Mythago Wood  was truly magical, a wonderful book.  He's written quite a lot since.  He's working on another which is not quite finished, but I think when it comes out I get to do the cover!

Who are the painters that have influenced your work?

Anything that comes from before the end of the 15th century or from the 1840s on.   There are lots of the turn-of-the century illustrators I love–a lot of Eastern European ones whose names I can neither remember nor pronounce. And all these wonderful people like Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth.

I have trouble keeping track of the more recent American publications because they're hard to find over here.

Did you ever think you'd be as successful as you are today?

I thought I'd be making a lot more money than I am!

Are there any projects you'd really like to do that you haven't had the chance to?

Definitely some Lovecraft.  I'd like to do an Arthurian cycle.  And I'd like to have time to do some pictures for myself.  The last time I had a chance to do a non-commissioned piece of artwork was in the mid-'80s.  There are tons of things I would love to draw just for their own sake.

What sort of feedback do you get from fans?

I'm always surprised by people who say, "Oh, so-and-so is not like that, an elf is not like that." "Well, what's he like?"  "Oh, I don't know, but he's not like that!"

It's such a funny world, this world of Tolkien admirers.  They're not apparent in the street, it's not written on their foreheads, but if you give them any kind of a chance to come out of the woodwork, it's amazing the people you meet.

There is a sort of secret enjoyment you have that you reach out by proxy and touch people, over any space and any distance.

What are the best and worst things about your success as an illustrator?

The best things are doing what I want to do and being paid for it.  The worst–no matter how successful you are, it doesn't help you get done the picture you're working on.  You might as well be named mud and never done a picture in your life if it's just not going the way you want. You're continually running after something you can never really accomplish.

My pet theory on why people draw is that it's not a gift at all, it's something missing.  Normal people are able to look at a lovely cloud or a wonderful tree and just be very happy with it, whereas the rest of us poor sods, the only way we can go through life is by trying to draw it.

But then, I'm also of the opinion that most illustrators, including myself, would do better to just shut up and draw.

 

SIDEBAR

Howe's Favorites

One painting I don't mind looking at is the one of Gandalf walking along.  It was on a one-volume printing of the trilogy, it was in the calendar, it's everywhere.  It just felt right. I would redraw his left hand if I could, but the rest I wouldn't touch.

Another one that I like is the painting of the Dark Tower, which was on The Two Towers, in the calendar (and everywhere else).   Again, it just felt right.  You're always aiming for something you can never really do, so the closer you get to that tiny inner circle, the happier you are.

I'm working on a book right now that I hope I'll be pleased with.  It's a children's book for a publisher in Brussels.  It's called The Abandoned City. It takes place in Bruges, one of these lovely northern Flemish towns all built of brick.  Brick is this funny thing that can be either a warm blue or a cold red depending on the color of the light, so it's magic to draw–and a printer's nightmare to reproduce.

Mind-reading through technology

Most of the time, we don't really want other people to know what we're thinking. When a friend starts spouting conspiracy theories or a relative asks what we think of her new tattoo, it's just as well that only our soothing platitudes are heard, while the words running through our heads remain unspoken

Outside of science fiction and fantasy, no one has ever been able to reach into another person's mind and extract those unspoken words. But that may change in the future, because modern technology is making it possible to see what happens in the brain when we hear someone talking—and because this activity is thought to be pretty much the same whether we hear someone say a sentence, or think that sentence ourselves, it may not be long before we are able to turn hidden thoughts into spoken words via computer.

(Sound familiar? Back in September, I wrote about similar work that used brain activity to recreate images people saw.)

New Scientist recently ran an article, written by Helen Thomson, on the work of a research team at the University of California, Berkeley. Led by Brian Pasley, the team presented spoken words and sentences to 15 people undergoing surgery for epilepsy or a brain tumor, while recording neural activity from the surface of a portion of the brain near the ear that's involved in processing sound. Then they tried to associate different aspects of speech to different kinds of brain activity in the recordings.

The brain breaks down speech in terms of frequency (pitch), frequency fluctuation, rhythm and more. And sure enough, the team was able to correlate many of these aspects of speech to the neural activity they recorded in their subjects' brains.

Next, they trained a computer program to interpret the neural activity and turn it into a spectrogram, a graphical representation of sound that shows how much of what frequency is occurring over a period of time. To test the spectrograms, they compared the ones they created from neural activity with spectrograms they created from the original sounds.

A second computer program converted the reconstructed spectrogram into audible speech. The result? "Coarse similarities" between the real words and the reconstructed words, says Pasley, that human listeners can kind of pick up on, but which computers were able to analyze more accurately.

Recording brain activity and turning it into spoken language via a computer would have one very obvious and very exciting application: helping those who have lost the ability to speak through paralysis or some other physical problem to once more communicate with the outside world.

Nor is Pasley's team the only one working toward this goal. At Boston University in Massachusetts, Frank Guenther interprets the brain signals that control the shape of the mouth, lips and larynx to try to figure out what a person is trying to say. So far, all they've managed to produce are a few vowel sounds; nothing more complex. But it's a start.

Steven Laureys at the University of Liege, Belgium, is seeking ways to distinguish brain activity corresponding with "yes" and "no" to help those who cannot speak.

Pasley is anxious to try to develop technology to make the thought-patterns-to-speech translation happen. He'd like to develop safe, wireless, implantable devices suitable for long-term use.

Of course, having anything implanted in your brain is going to be a tough sell, and to begin with, at least, only people already undergoing essential brain surgery would be likely candidates. And the words-from-brain-activity software is still in its infancy, anyway.

But the concept certainly seems viable, and exciting…although I don't think it's something most of us would want installed, no matter how safe, cheap or effective it might become.

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt," goes an old saying

If the day ever comes when our every passing thought is revealed to the world, the number of people revealed to be fools will surely astound.

Although, now that I think about it, hasn't that already happened with Twitter?

Saturday Special from the Vaults: Sins of the Father

[image error]OK, this is an interesting one. As I have often recounted, Marseguro, which won the 2009 Aurora Award for best Canadian science fiction novel in English, began with a single opening line penned as a morning exercise in the Writing With Style program at the Banff Centre, in a science fiction-writing class taught by Robert J. Sawyer (at 9:15 a.m. on September 20, 2005, to be precise–I love computers).

That opening was:

Emily streaked through the phosphorescent sea, her wake a comet-tail of pale green light, her close-cropped turquoise hair surrounded by a glowing pink aurora. The water racing through her gill-slits smelled of blood.

As the week progressed, I attempted to turn that opening into a short story. And did so–but I never submitted the story. Before I got back to it, DAW picked up Lost in Translation, and Ethan Ellenberg agreed to be my agent, and we needed something to propose to DAW for my next book. I constructed an entire novel around that initial opening sentence: Marseguro. Terra Insegura followed, and this April, the omnibus edition of the two of them together, The Helix War (that's its cover above, obviously).

But lo and behold, that never-submitted short story still lurks on my hard drive…and here it is. Those who have read Marseguro will see a lot of elements here that made it into the final book. If you haven't read Marseguro, well…you should! And you can, when The Helix War is released on April 4.

Without further ado…

***

Sins of the Father

By Edward Willett

As his hoverboat burst into flames, Richard Hansen plunged into the water.

Thanks to the envirosuit, he felt no shock of cold, no sensation of pressure as he let himself sink into the darkness. But he was shocked and under pressure all the same.

The hunterbot had fired on him!

By God, I'll have someone disfellowshipped for this when I get back to Safehaven, he thought.

He looked up at the bottom of the hoverboat's hull, outlined by the red glow of the fire consuming it. If I ever get back, he amended. Something cold wound its way down his spine, and for a moment he thought his envirosuit had sprung a leak. But then he recognized the sensation for what it really was:

Fear.

Without the hoverboat, the only way he was going to get back to Safehaven was to swim. He hadn't come more than twenty kilometers or so since he'd left the harbor that morning, so it wasn't impossible–but it wouldn't be quick, or easy. Especially not for him. He might be a Superior Deacon in the Office of Developing Omniscience, but he normally worked surrounded by dataspheres and holodisplays, not out in the field. He wasn't exactly fat, but he wasn't exactly fit, either.

Well, he'd do what he had to. One problem at a time, and his first concern was the hunterbot.

He needed information. "Jihad Revelation," he said, and his faceplate lit with the head-up display for his Indweller, the microputer implanted at the base of his neck. "Display Safehaven Purification briefing material relevant to term 'hunterbots.'"

Words appeared, apparently floating in the black water. "Despite the best efforts of the Holy Warriors, it is inevitable that some of the merpeople will escape; we have no technology on board capable of blocking the five-kilometer-wide mouth of the harbor. It is imperative that these escapees not be permitted to reach and warn other merpeople pods currently at sea or in other communities.

"In addition to warriors in hoverboats tasked with searching for and destroying any survivors, we will deploy a large number of hunterbots, programmed to detect, track and destroy merpeople, which they can locate through a variety of means, including infrared signature, visual recognition and DNA traces. To ensure maximum effectiveness, a positive ID through any one of these means will be sufficient to trigger an attack."

It must have been the envirosuit, Richard thought. It made me look like a merman to that stupid 'bot, never mind the fact I was driving an OHD hoverboat.

A stolen one, another part of his mind insisted on adding, but he argued it down. It all belongs to the Church of Humanity Purified, and I am a servant of the Church.

The argument would have held more water if he had bothered to tell the servants of the church actually responsible for the hoverboat that he was going to "borrow" it.

"Page," he said, and another screen of text appeared. "Hunterbots come in a variety of specialized forms. Aerial 'bots will identify targets and attack those that they can. Targets which cannot be attacked by the aerial 'bots will be tracked and attacked by submariner 'bots as soon as they can intercept."

"Jehovallah preserve me!" Richard whispered.

How close would the submariner 'bot be?

No way of knowing, but it wouldn't be far away, not if it was meant to support the aerial 'bot. It could arrive any minute.

He needed shelter. "Light!" he snapped, and his headlamp came on; it showed nothing but drifting white specks, thick as falling snow.

It might also show the aerial 'bot or the probably incoming submariner 'bot exactly where he was, he realized.

"Light off!" It wasn't doing him any good anyway.

"Sonar!" he said instead. It would give him away even more surely than the light, but it was his only hope of locating any hiding places that might–please Jehovallah, did–exist among the rocks of the nearby cliff or the seafloor blow.

His display lit with a sonar-generated image of the surrounding five hundred meters or so. His heart almost stopped when he thought he saw a moving blip, but it vanished before he was even sure he had seen it. If it had been a submariner 'bot, it wasn't homing on him yet.

Probably just some local wildlife, he thought. I've got bigger fish to fry.

"Analyze," he told his microputer. "Identify possible caves."

Instantly the display showed him two bright green spots. One was far below his current depth, but the other was above him–right at the water level. Perfect, he thought. The deep one was designated 1 and the higher one 2. "Guide me to Target 2," he said, and a spot of red light appeared in his faceplate, well off to the left. He turned until it was centered in the display, and swam toward it.

He kept the sonar sweep active–no point trying to hide now, he suspected–so he could see how close he was getting to his target. He was about twenty meters from it, and the red dot had grown into a ragged red, almost-circular opening sketched against the blackness, when the microputer beeped at him. "Moving target acquired," its uninflected male voice murmured inside his head. A red blip appeared on his display, tagged, "Submariner Hunterbot Mark III." Numbers below that told Richard the target had been acquired at 465 meters and was closing at 5.2 meters per second, and would intercept him in…

Less than two minutes.

Richard said a frantic prayer, but he said it silently: he needed all his breath for flight. He kicked as hard as he could, forcing his way through water that only pushed back harder the faster he tried to go, as though doing its best to hold him up for the hunterbot to catch.

The mouth of the cavern became visible in his helmet lamp–and at the same instant a red gleam like a single baleful eye appeared in the water behind him.

He hadn't thought to read far enough in the briefing material to find out what weapons the submariner hunterbot was armed with. Just as he swam in through the cavern opening and dared to think he might yet escape, the first torpedo caught up with him. Only the fact he had turned abruptly upward, following the path of the cavern entrance, save him. The torpedo impacted on one of the rocks outside the cave mouth.

The explosion hit him like a hammer blow, hurling him upward in a welter of bubbles and mud, spinning over and over, out of control. Dazed, he felt himself slam into a rock, then another–a knife-like pain stabbed him in the chest–he collided with something else, this time more yielding–and then he erupted into open air, tossed up in a fountain of water like a leaf.

He splashed back down, went under, then rose to the surface and floated, face down, dazed, consciousness fading.

In the last instant before he blacked out, he saw the face of a young girl, eyes closed, drift upward into the light of his helmet lamp.

#

An insistent beeping roused him, an indeterminate time later.

He opened his eyes. He was floating on his back. His helmet lamp reflected off a wet rock ceiling, just a meter or two above his head. He hurt all over, but the worst pains seemed to be coming from his chest–he must have broken a rib–and his shoulder, which he thought he must have dislocated. "Revelation Jihad," he whispered.

Nothing happened.

"Revelation Jihad," he said louder.

Still nothing.

The shockwave must have disabled my microputer, he thought, and felt the first budding of panic.

Those buds blossomed into full-fledged terror when a girl suddenly erupted out of the water beside him and stared down into his face.

He screamed, and her eyes widened and she screamed back, then disappeared under the water again. That didn't reassure him; she must be underneath him, and he knew what she was:

A mergirl. There could be no mistaking that strange face, with eyes the size of an old Earth anime character, a nose whose nostrils were sealed tight into almost invisible slits, a mouth filled with sharp, triangular teeth–and the triple-frilled gill flaps on each side of her shapely neck.

She was one of the very abominations he had brought the S.S. Simon the Zealot to this planet to destroy, and if she found that out…

He was hurt. He was unarmed. The merfolk were much stronger than ordinary humans, and they could breathe underwater. All she had to do was open his faceplate and drag him under, and she could finish the work of the hunterbots.

Maybe the hunterbots weren't after me after all, he thought. Maybe it was really chasing her, and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That might explain the sub-bot, but it didn't begin to explain the air-bot.

He couldn't stand the thought that she might be sneaking up on him from underwater, so he rolled over. The envirosuit, having gotten him to the surface (even if that surface was inside a cave) had no intention of letting him go under again without a fight. The buoyancy it had established made it possible for him to recline comfortably on top of the water; it also made what he intended to be a swift, decisive move into a clumsy, floundering, splashing struggle.

At the end of it, he was pointing face down…and there was the face again, looking up at him. Underwater, it looked less alien than it had in the air, more as if it belonged. The gill slits were open, pulsating gently as the frills weaved a slow, silent wave. The eyes glowed in his helmet lamp. A halo of close-cropped, green-tinged hair surrounded her skull.

He could see her body now, too, naked except for a silvery smooth belt around her hips. Her hands and feet were out of proportion to her body, bigger than they should have been. Her toes were almost as long as her fingers, and webbed; her fingers were also webbed. But the rest of her was disturbingly human–disturbing, because the sight of her nakedness woke in Richard a sexual urge that shamed him. It would be like mounting a sheep! he thought, deeply disgusted by his weakness. She may look human, but she's an animal.

And then the "animal" spoke. "Who are you?" she said.

The sound was high-pitched and inhuman–whatever method she used for producing it obviously didn't involve moving air over her vocal cords, since she didn't breathe air–but perfectly clear in his ears.

Don't answer, a wary part of him insisted, but, "Richard Hansen," he heard himself saying. I'm trapped in here with her, he defended himself to himself. (He wanted to think of her as an "it," but she was all-too-obviously female). I can't very well ignore her. He didn't give his title, though. She probably had no idea who had attacked her colony, or why–but some part of him, remembering those sharp teeth, seeing her sleek, muscular form, so at home in the water, thought it the better part of valor not to give her immediate reason to connect him to the slaughter of her friends and family.

"My name is Emily," she said. She paused, as though having her own second thoughts, then finished, "Emily Hansen."

Richard felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. "We have…the same last name?" he finally managed to squeeze out through his constricted voice.

"I am a descendant of the Shaper," Emily said. Her voice didn't change–or if it did, he lacked the skill to interpret it–but her face showed pride. "Direct in line from his grandson, the First."

Richard felt sick. His great-great-grandfather had not only polluted the human genestream, he had modified the gametes of his own son–Richard's great-great-uncle–and his wife so that they gave birth to the first of these monsters.

He swallowed, hard. Throwing up in an envirosuit was a really bad idea. "How old are you?" he asked instead, trying to regain his mental balance.

"Nine and a half."

Richard did the mental math. One Safehaven year equaled 1.42 Earth years, so that made her…it took him a few moments–he'd gotten used to having his microputer calculate things for him…

Oh, God. Not quite 13 1/2. Now he felt doubly ashamed of his lustful urges. She was only a child…

No. She was not a child. She was a monster–a young monster, perhaps, but a monster. And among monsters, she might very well already be a mother many times over. Maybe they gave birth to whole litters before they were ten and another one every year thereafter. He must not think of her as a human being…

…not when everyone she had every known was being turned into bite-sized bits of fish food back in the harbor.

She watched him closely, obviously wondering if he was going to say anything about her age. When he didn't, she said, "Why do you wear that thing? How can you breathe?"

She doesn't know, he thought. She doesn't know who or what I am.

"It's a…protection," he said. "Things here are different from my…home waters. This keeps me from…getting sick."

"Would it protect you from the machine thing outside?" she said, her voice going even higher. Eagerness? Fear? He couldn't tell. "Could you help me get past it? I have to get back home. My mother will be worried."

She doesn't know, he thought again. She doesn't know what has happened!

"Why were you out here?" he asked.

"Allie and I were camping," Emily said. "Down in the Featherbed Fish Canyon. It's a protected area, no large predators. My church has a cave down there. Allie and I are prayer buddies."

Richard heard the words, but couldn't believe he was hearing them. Didn't want to believe he was hearing them. "Church?" he said. "Prayer?"

"Are you all right?" Emily sounded concerned.

No. No, I'm not.

Animals don't go to church.

Animals don't pray.

Animals…

"Where's your friend? Allie?"

Emily's eyes blinked rapidly. For the first time, Richard saw that she had a nictitating membrane that slid back and forth from side to side. "I don't know," she said. "I'm so worried. When the machine thing came into the canyon we got separated…the machine went after her, first…I swam the other way. I was trying to get home, to get help, but the machine…" her voice trailed off.

Allie was almost certainly dead. Richard knew it, and suspected Emily knew it, too, but wasn't allowing herself to think it, yet.

"The machine chased you, too," Emily said. "What were you doing out here?"

"I was just…arriving. From my trip. My hoverboat–"

Suddenly remembering she thought he was a merman, he broke off, but she'd already noticed.

"Hoverboat?" She stared at him. "Oh! You're an air-breather! Why didn't you say so?"

"You're not…frightened by that?" he asked, taken off guard. Of course they had known there were surface dwellers here as well as the abominations, but they'd assumed the two groups had nothing to do with each other…

"Why should I be? I have many air-breathing friends."

There would be a great deal of work to be done in Purifying the land community, too, then, Richard thought, but did not say.

"I didn't know how you would react," he said truthfully. "I'm from…very far away."

"Do you know what those machines are?"

Tread carefully, Richard thought. She's still dangerous–and amoral.

"I think they came…from another place. Another…planet." Would that mean anything to her?

"You mean one of the other worlds settled by the Ten Thousand Ships?" she said, her eyes widening. "But why would they attack us? We're all of Old Earth."

Once again, she caught him off-guard. She knew so much. He'd always assumed the merfolk would be simple barbarians, barely intelligent enough to talk–more like glorified dolphins than anything else.

She has as much of Joseph Hansen's DNA as you do, his inner voice reminded him. Maybe more.

Modified DNA, he snarled silently back.

"I think…they came from Earth itself," he said out loud.

"But Earth was destroyed!"

"No…we…" He thought quickly. "Where I live, we recently were visited by a space trader. He said he had run into a ship from Old Earth. It seems there was a…" Miracle? No– "…extraordinary bit of luck. Another asteroid collided with the Killer before it struck. It hit the moon instead of the Earth."

"But…" Emily looked bewildered, insofar as he could interpret her strange features. "But why would Earth send machines to kill us? What have we done? Earth was our home…"

Not your home, Richard thought. Never the home of people like you.

He realized he had just thought of her as a person instead of a thing, and felt confusion again.

What to tell her?

Tell her the truth, he thought. See how she reacts. Valuable information for further Purification efforts.

He almost convinced himself.

"After the Ten Thousand Ships left…we were told…many of those left behind were convinced that the Killer was an act of God, a punishment for the wickedness and licentiousness that had descended on the planet." He had heard this story so many times he could tell it in his sleep. "And so it came to pass that they rose up against the irreligious, the irreverent, the immoral and the ignorant; rose up and Purified the Earth with blood and fire, and the smoke of the burning cities had a sweet savor in the nostrils of Jehovallah, and he repented of his decision to destroy mankind. He sent the Savior, the second asteroid, to strike the Killer. But as a warning, he sent the Killer into the moon, where it destroyed Apollo City, a haven of sinfulness, the place where many of the abominations of the bio-meddlers had fled the Purification of the Earth. And so was the Third Covenant sealed. God would withhold punishment so that mankind might have one more chance to Purify itself. And if we succeed, then Earth will never again be threatened with destruction, and Jehovallah will bless his Chosen People, Humanity Purified, through all of space and all of time, forever and ever, amen."

As he came to the end of the lesson, he realized what he had just done, but by then it was too late. Emily might be an abomination, but she was no fool, as she had already shown.

"My God," she said. "You're one of them. You're from Earth. You brought those machines!"

"No," he said. "But…I arrived with them." And I found your planet in the first place and told those with the machines where to bring them, he thought. And your family is dead, and you don't know it yet, and I brought the Holy Warriors who killed them…

He felt his heart pounding in his chest.

"How many of them are there?" she demanded. "Are they all over the planet? Are they in Safehaven?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying," Emily said flatly. "I can hear your heart pounding, hear the tension in your voice. You airbreathers have no control."

Think fast. "All right," he said. "It's true. They're in Safehaven. But they're not all over the planet." Not yet. "The Holy Warriors are attacking one community at a time."

"Holy Warriors? Is that the name of the machines?"

"No…there are humans, too. Soldiers."

Her reaction wasn't what he expected. She blinked. "Soldiers. Unmodified human soldiers?"

"Yes."

"Are they all wearing envirosuits?"

What an odd question. "No…the air here is breathable."

She suddenly flipped over and swam out of range of his light, then back again. "What have they done to the settlement?" she said. "If the machines attack on sight–what have these Earthlings done?"

Richard said nothing.

"Answer me!" she demanded, and then, faster than he would have thought possible, she darted forward and seized the suit's air hose. "I can rip this out and you will drown," she said. "What have these Earthlings done?"

Richard swallowed. "They have Purified the village," he said.

"Purified?" Her face was suddenly pressed against his faceplate. "Killed?" she shrieked, the sound so loud, so high that he tried to clap his hands over his ears even though it was pointless inside the suit. "My parents? My brother? My friends? They killed them all?"

"I don't know for sure…" Richard began, but she squeezed the air hose closed and his next breath failed. "Yes! Yes!" he choked out.

She released the hose and vanished again. "Jehovallah preserve me," he whispered under his breath. "Jehovallah preserve me as you preserved the Earth. I am pure, oh Lord, preserve me. I obey you, oh Lord, preserve me. I–"

Emily was back, fluttering her hands and feet, agitated. "Who is this Jehovallah?"

"The Creator. The Lawgiver," Richard said.

"Jehovah? Allah?"

Richard recoiled. "Those names are forbidden," he said. "They reflect an imperfect understanding. The Church of Humanity Purified worships the One True God behind the false gods of the past, the one they saw through a glass darkly, but we now see clearly: Jehovallah."

"I worshipped God," Emily said. "We have…" she grimaced. "Had…a large congregation. We are Christians here."

"That would not have saved you, even had we known," Richard said. "Christianity is anathema. Along with Islam, and Judaism, and all other religions from before the Miracle. If you were air-breathing humans, you would still have been Purified."

"You would have slaughtered non-modified humans the way you slaughtered my people? What kind of monsters are you?"

You're the monster, Richard wanted to say, but he didn't dare. "They would not have been slaughtered," he said. "They would have been detained and re-educated, taught the error of their ways."

"But because we breathe water instead of air, we're fair game?"

Richard swallowed. "Yes."

Emily shook her head, a human gesture beyond doubt.

"Great-great-grandfather was wiser than we knew," she said. "He warned us all. We didn't listen."

That got Richard's attention; her great-great-grandfather, after all, was also his. "Warned you? How?"

"He said that the rest of humanity might not understand what he had done here, that just as the Ten Thousand Ships fled the Earth to try to ensure humanity would endure among the stars, so his creation of the merfolk would help ensure humanity's survival by opening up entirely new worlds for us to inhabit. He said some humans might not be able to see that. And so he made sure that even the airbreathers of Safehaven were not unmodified humans. They all, every one of them, underwent a minor modification that has been passed down successfully since."

Richard shook his head. "I don't understand."

Emily swam close. "Great-great-grandfather also modified a local microbe. He made it lethal. And then, after everyone on the planet had the modification that made them immune, he had it spread around the planet–everywhere, from the seas to the air to highest mountain peaks. It is ubiquitous. It is deadly. Symptoms don't appear for about 36 hours. When they do, the progress of the disease is rapid. Most victims die within 12 of the onset of symptoms. And there is no treatment."

Richard swallowed. "I don't believe you."

"Wait a few hours." Emily swam even closer. "There is only one way to save you or any other human who has breathed the air of our planet," she said. "You must undergo massive genetic modification."

"You're lying!"

Emily's face was now only inches from his own, though separated by glass and water. "Am I? How are you feeling? Take stock, Richard Hansen. Are your lungs a little thick? Does your head ache, just a little? Are your joints feeling sore?"

In fact, all those things were true, Richard thought, with something approaching panic. The power of suggestion! he told himself. "No," he lied.

"Then you may have a little longer. But the infection, and the outcome, is certain." She suddenly flipped on her back and swam out of his headlight.

"Come back!" he yelled. He suddenly didn't want to be alone.

But she remained out of sight.

He swallowed. His throat hurt. There was a dull ache behind his left eye, an ache that had surely spread since he first noticed it. He took a deep breath, and felt a strange resistance in his chest.

She's telling the truth, he thought. Oh God, she's telling the truth!

He had to get out of the cave. Had to…

Had to what? He was many hours' swim from the harbor. Most victims die within 12 hours of the onset of symptoms, Emily had said. And he would most likely be too sick to swim within far less time.

And if she spoke the truth, if he did make it to the harbor, what would he find there? Dead and dying Deacons.

And on the ship…?

There had been constant traffic between the ship and surface since they had arrived, with no decontamination procedures–after all, they knew humans lived on the planet successfully, so there couldn't be anything here that could harm them, right?

We were fools, he thought. I was a fool.

Soon to be a dead fool.

Unless Emily's offer…

No! He recoiled from the thought. How could he accept genetic modification? How could he join the abomination?

The Christian scriptures were forbidden, but those in the Church hierarchy had studied them to know the heresies they must combat. He remembered something that was not forbidden, something that had made the transition to the Pure Book, the scripture of the Church of Humanity Purified: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"

If he saved his life by accepting the mergirl's offer, he would lose his soul. He would no longer be Pure, and he would be cast out of God's Kingdom.

He swallowed, hard. It hurt.

Great-great-grandfather Joseph must be laughing his head off in hell, Richard thought bitterly. He has had his revenge.

Emily reappeared in his helmet-lamp light so suddenly he gasped, which triggered a fit of coughing. When it subsided, he felt substantially weaker.

"So it begins," said Emily. "I came to tell you the machine has left. I cannot hear it within swimming distance."

"That…doesn't make sense," Richard said. But he felt cold. It did make sense…if the Deacons of Holy Destruction had realized something was wrong, if they were falling ill, and had already withdrawn from the planet.

No one would look for him, if that was the case. He was on his own.

"Nevertheless, it is true," Emily said. She swam up until her face was once again just centimeters from his. "There is still time for genetic therapy to give you a fighting chance for survival," she said. "I can take you back to Safehaven. The vector we use results in a rapid delivery of the necessary genes to enough cells to halt the reproduction of the disease virus. But you must decide now. If you wait much longer to begin treatment, nothing can save you."

And there it was. The martyr's choice. Die for what you believe in, or live–and kill the part of you that believes, or else live with guilt and the knowledge of certain damnation.

Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief, was another line from Christian scripture.

"Leave me to die," he said.

"As you wish," Emily replied. She flipped on her stomach and disappeared into darkness.

Almost Richard called out to her, begged her to come back…but he bit his lip, held in the cowardly cry, until he was certain she had left the cave and could no longer hear him.

Then he took a deep, painful and constricted breath, and followed her.

When he emerged into the open water, he tried his microputer again. It still wouldn't activate.

Well, he didn't need it to find his way back to the harbor. All he had to do was follow the coast north.

He set off.

He managed to swim fairly strongly for the first hour. But each breath and each stroke was incrementally more painful than the last.

The second hour, he moved much more slowly, and the pain increased.

The third hour, his forward progress slowed to a crawl, and every movement seemed torture. His breath crawled in and out through slime-choked channels in his lungs. Ground glass seemed to have been injected into his joints. Occasionally, his vision blacked around the edges.

Sometime in the fourth hour, he came to to find himself simply floating, face up, three or four meters beneath the sun-dappled surface of the water. His breathing seemed less painful, but he felt no desire to move. He watched the play of light and water until it blurred and faded and finally went black.

When he woke again, he was no longer wearing the envirosuit…or anything else.

He lay naked beneath a thick white blanket, staring up at a white ceiling. Air moved easily in and out of his lungs. There was a faint discomfort in his left wrist that after a moment he realized must be caused by an IV line, which explained the bottle of clear liquid hung on a shiny metal stand to his left.

With difficulty–he felt as weak as a kitten–he turned his head in that direction. Through a window, he could see purplish leaves and a cloud-flecked blue sky.

He turned his head the other way. He was in a plain white room. Aside from the IV, the bed, and a table beside the bed, there was nothing in it except a simple wooden chair…and in the chair, a woman he had never seen before.

He frowned. Or had he? Her face looked…familiar.

She rose when she saw his head turn toward her. She wore a white lab coat and simple blue shoes. She walked over to him and stared down at him. She didn't smile. "So, you're awake."

He licked his lips, tried to speak, failed, and tried again. "Where…where am I?" His voice was little more than a croak.

"Pinkshore Hospital," the woman said.

"Pinkshore…? " The name was familiar; after a moment Richard's brain, which seemed to be spinning up to speed with agonizing slowness, managed to attach additional information to it. "I'm still on the merpeople's world?"

"You are," said the woman.

"But…I'm alive."

"Brilliant deduction."

"But…" Many things came back to him. "You didn't–Emily didn't–I haven't been…modified, have I?"

"You have not," said the woman, her voice hard.

"But Emily said…"

"Emily," the woman corrected, "told you the truth. Every one of the murderers you brought to our planet is dead in orbit above us. But you survived."

"I don't–"

"I'll let her tell you herself," said the woman.

She went out without another word.

Richard's mind raced. Everyone else was dead? Was that true? She could be lying to him…after all, he was alive. Maybe the plague wasn't as fatal as they claimed. They might just be sick up on the ship. If he could get to a radio…

The woman–nurse? guard?–reappeared, pushing a cart with a vidscreen atop it. She positioned it at the foot of the bed. "Emily will be with you in a moment," she said, and went out again.

Richard stared at the screen. Nothing happened for several seconds, then it suddenly lit with the face he had last seen just centimeters from his own on the other side of the envirosuit faceplate.

"We meet again," the mergirl said.

"I didn't expect to," Richard said.

"Nor did I. I was more than willing to give you your wish, Richard Hansen. If you wanted to die, I wasn't going to stop you."

"So why did you?" Richard said hoarsely.

"I didn't. A patrol from Pinkshore pulled you from the water when they went to investigate what had happened at Safehaven. By then you were too ill to treat genetically. They took you back to the hospital and waited for you to die…but you didn't. And you won't."

"I guess your plague isn't as perfect as you thought," Richard said. "I think I see God's hand in that."

"Do you, Richard Hansen?" Emily smiled, showing sharp white teeth that reminded Richard of a shark. "Then God has a strange sense of humor." Her smile widened. "You lived, Richard Hansen, because you already have the genetic modification that protects you from the plague."

He felt cold. "You're lying."

"You're always telling me that, but you're always wrong. You became sick because you haven't grown up with the microbe, like we have, but you are every bit as much genetically modified as every other human on this planet. Great-grandfather Hansen modified all his children, Richard Hansen…not just the one who came with him here. You are not, and never have been, a Pure Human. You are, in your way of thinking, an abomination.

"You've come home, Richard Hansen. You've come home…and for the rest of your life, you will live here, among the people you despised, among the people whose friends and family were slaughtered because of you, because they were modified just as you have been, because they bear the same genes you did…because, in fact, they are of your own blood."

And then her shark-smile faded. "And here's the difference between us, Richard Hansen, between what we abominations believe and what you Pure Humans believe.

"We forgive you. You will walk out of that hospital a free man. Your identity will be known to only a few of us. You may tell people what you wish, or nothing at all.

"We forgive you. Whether you can forgive yourself, or whether your God can forgive you…only time will tell."

The screen went blank.

And Richard Hansen…wept.

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication

Do you talk to your car? I know I do (perhaps not as much as I, um, "talk" to other drivers, but some). I think I inherited the trait from my mother: all of the cars of my childhood, I knew from her, were named "Suzy."

These days, your car may even listen to you, if you have a voice-activated music system or phone. But generally, cars don't pay much attention to what you say to them.

It could be that you just don't have anything to say they're very interested in. Perhaps what cars would really enjoy is conversation with others of their kind…and it may not be too long before they get it.

It's called "vehicle-to-vehicle communication," or "V2V" for short.  It is, literally, cars and trucks talking to each other. And starting this August, automakers will take part in a year-long field trial of the technology, a study being undertaken in conjunction with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

For the trial, 3,000 cars will be outfitted with equipment that allows them to broadcast their position, speed of travel and direction to other vehicles, and receive signals from those other vehicles in return, over a Wi-Fi network.

In an article about the "digital car," Technology Review magazine compares the Wi-Fi signals to an alert passenger able to see in all directions at once. A V2V-equipped car could warn the driver if another V2V-equipped car was about to run a red light, or if there's a V2V-equipped motorcycle in the blind spot.

A study sponsored by the U.S.'s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration looked at the scenarios involved in police-reported crashes involving unimpaired drivers, and found that V2V systems could potentially address a whopping 79 percent of those kinds of crashes: 81 percent of light vehicle crashes and 71 percent of heavy-truck crashes.

Your car might not just talk to other cars, either. There is also something called V2I, which stands for "vehicle-to-infrastructure." That communication between vehicle and roadway, the study found, potentially dealt with 26 percent of all crashes: 27 percent of light-vehicle, and 15-percent of heavy-truck. Putting the two together raised the potential reduction in (or at least reduction in the severity of) all kinds of crashes to 81 percent.

If this year's field trial and other studies produce favorable results, the U.S. government could start developing rules as early as next year that would mandate the inclusion of V2V systems in all new vehicles: pretty much a necessity if the technology is to be as effective as possible, since a one-sided conversation between a V2V-equipped car and one that's effectively deaf and dumb won't help anyone.

Of course, "talking cars" may talk not only to other cars, but to the entire world, via the Internet. For example, Ford has a made a deal with Google to use the search engine's prediction algorithms, software that analyzes large data sets to spot trends. The idea, presented by Ryan McGee, a technical expert in Ford's Vehicle Controls Architecture and Algorithm Design research group at the annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco last year, is that your car would send data to Google's data centers, where software would predict where you are headed, based on past trips. Technology Review describes it this way: "Google might predict, say, that there's a 59.24 percent chance you're headed over to Bob's house. A hybrid car might use a map of low-emission zones to determine when to switch to battery power as you drive. Or the algorithm could pick a fuel-efficient path with few hills, no rain, and the least traffic."

This isn't coming soon, if it comes at all: it's probably four to eight years away. But it's only one example of the possibilities inherent in cars that are no longer big dumb objects, but essentially rolling computers with network connectivity.

K. Venkatesh Prasad, senior leader for open innovation at Ford Motor Company, puts it this way in that Technology Review article. "The first billion vehicles in this world are like [un-networked] desktops—each doing their own little thing. The next billion cars should talk to each other and share intelligence.

"Think of how the World Wide Web changed the world," he goes on. "The automotive sector is ripe for a similar change."

(The photo: A Ford Mustang California Special.)

 

Saturday Special from the Vaults: Close Encounters of the Science Centre Kind

Here's a blast from the past: my 1993 script for a half-hour science-fiction-flavored promotional TV show for the Saskatchewan Science Centre, which aired on Cable Regina (now Access Communications). I was communications officer of the Science Centre at the time. Since I voiced the alien, large portions of this consisted essentially of me talking to myself. An actor's dream come true! (Hmmm….since none of the staff members mentioned in here are still with the Science Centre, maybe I should contact the Science Centre and see if they want to film a remake. Or a sequel: Close Encounters of the Science Centre Kind II: The Exhibits Strike Back! )

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE SCIENCE CENTRE KIND

All shots are from POV of alien—half-height, maybe a manipulating device of some kind just visible in the lower part of the frame (i.e., Dalek POV in a Doctor Who episode).

1. INTERIOR: SPACECRAFT

We see the control panel of the spaceship of Imperial Scout Arkos 496, an alien. (Oddly, this control panel looks a great deal like the control panel of the Cable Regina master control.) We hear, with appropriate sound effects . . .

ARKOS

This is the Personal Log of Imperial Scout Arkos 496. I'm on my final descent to Earth. The target is in sight. I will land on the large flat surface next to it. Contact in five…four…three…two…one…

We hear an immense splashing noise. The lights flicker and go out, and we hear a glub-glub noise. Over black we hear…

ARKOS

Oops.

2. EXTERIOR: WASCANA LAKE SHORELINE

We hear the ARKOS's inarticulate disgruntled muttering as we rise, water streaming down in front of us, out of Wascana Lake. Pan from side to side; lock onto Saskatchewan Science Centre.

ARKOS

Target located. Proceeding.

We begin to move forward. Ominous background music.

3. INTERIOR: POWERHOUSE ENTRANCE

We advance through the automatic doors; stop, back up, make them swing open again, then proceed in.

ARKOS

Now why didn't we think of that?

We advance to the ticket counter, where VISITOR SERVICES CLERK reacts calmly.

VISITOR SERVICES CLERK

Can I help you?

ARKOS

Take me to your leader.

VSC

Sure! Uh—what's that little robot thing floating over your head?

ARKOS

This is my Questioning, Independent Reaper of Knowledge—QUIRK, for short. During my visit he will be roaming your building and transmitting the images he records directly to me.

VSC

You don't say? Just a second, kid.

VSC talks on phone as we hear…

ARKOS

Personal log: It appears human eyesight is poor. They have mistaken me for an immature member of a species of herd animal. No matter: I am about to meet their leader.

VSC

Our leader will be with you in a moment.

 

4. INTERIOR: FEATURE EXHIBIT

STEPHEN shakes manipulator device gingerly.

STEPHEN

How do you do? I'm Stephen Hall, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Science Centre.

ARKOS

Greetings, Exalted One! I am Arkos 496, a humble scout in the service of the Mighty Emperor Ugwump the Incredible. I come on a mission of great importance.

STEPHEN

Well, then, maybe we should go somewhere where we could talk sitting down . . .

ARKOS

I am not physically equipped for that action. This location is adequate.

STEPHEN

OK, fine. Well, Mr. 496—

ARKOS

Please, call me Arkos.

STEPHEN

Arkos. What can I do for you?

ARKOS

Our world is in serious trouble. Our people have lost all interest in science and technology. They think it is too hard. They think it is too boring. As a result, we no longer have enough scientists or engineers. Our children all want to be professional slime-wrestlers when they grow up. His Imperial Majesty fears our civilization will crumble if we do not get professional help. So we have come to you. We have heard that here in the Saskatchewan Science Centre you have found a way to make people appreciate science. We must know your secret.

STEPHEN gives a three or four-minute monologue on what the Science Centre is, how it came about, the philosophy of Science Centre exhibits and how they're created, and the future of the Science Centre.

During this, QUIRK begins exploring the exhibit floor . . .

ARKOS

This is very interesting. May I see more of your Powerhouse of Discovery?

STEPHEN

Of course. (Calls.) Ed! Just the man I'm looking for! (To ARKOS.) Edward Willett is our Communications Officer. He'll give you the grand tour.

(Enter Ed.)

ED

You called—oh! (To ARKOS, holding up famous Vulcan greeting.) Uh—peace! Live long and prosper!

ARKOS

What?

STEPHEN

Ed, I'd like you meet Arkos 469. I've told him you'll give him a complete behind-the-scenes tour of the Science Centre.

ED

Uh…right. OK. Fine. Why don't we start with exhibit design and production? Stephen, if you'll come along for this first part, too, since you're in charge of area…right this way, Mr. 469.

ARKOS

Please. Call me Arkos.

We follow Ed toward the elevator and hear…

ARKOS

Personal log: These humans have no sense of propriety. We've only just met, and already I'm just a number to them. At home you have to know someone for weeks before your comfortable calling them by their number.

 

5. INTERIOR: DESIGN DEPARTMENT

ED

This is the design department, and these are our designers. They determine how an exhibit is going to look.

DAVID YEE

Hey, man, I love your colour scheme! I've never seen anybody put orange, purple and green together quite so…boldly.

STEPHEN gives a quick tour of the department and explains what happens there.

 

6. INTERIOR: PRODUCTION SHOP

We pass through the connecting door between Graphics and Production…

STEPHEN

And through this door is the production department, where we actually build exhibits. We have complete metalworking and woodworking facilities, and an electronics workshop.

Shots of cabinetmakers at work, and a peek into ROB FULLER's workshop, where ARKOS gets sentimental over the pile of old equipment.

ARKOS

Awww…that's just the way my pet robot Sparkums looked after the isotope delivery truck ran over him when I was an eggling.

At the end of this STEPHEN makes his exit.

 

7. INTERIOR: LAUNCH PAD (BY ELEVATOR)

ARKOS

This is all very interesting, but I don't see how these things you build can be enough by themselves to interest people in science.

ED

Oh, but there's a lot more than just inanimate exhibits. There are also programs.

ARKOS

Ah! Artificial intelligences!

ED

No, people programs. Come on, I'll show you.

Strides off toward elevator, leaving ARKOS behind. Pauses and looks back.

Well?

ARKOS

I'm coming, I'm coming.

We move after the impatient ED.

Personal log: These aliens grow to ridiculous heights and have very long legs. I suspect genetic engineering. Warn the Interstellar Olympic Committee not to invite them to the games next millennium.

 

8. INTERIOR: DISCOVERY LAB

ED

Arkos, this is Kathryn Dotson, our Programming Director. Kathryn, this is Arkos 496.

KATHRYN

Hello, Mr. 496.

ARKOS

Please, call me Arkos.

KATHRYN: Three or four minutes on how programs are designed and implemented and what we try to accomplish with them, who our demonstrators and volunteers are and what they do, where our visiting exhibits come from and what kinds of exhibits they are. Might mention the problem of exhibit maintenance, too.

QUIRK continues to roam the exhibits while she's talking…

ARKOS

All of this is wonderful, but how do you let people know about these programs? Is it through telepathy?

ED

No, it's through sales and marketing.

ARKOS

I do not understand.

ED

Well, then, you'd better talk to . . .

 

9. INTERIOR: THIRD FLOOR, OVERLOOKING MAIN EXHIBIT AREA

ED

…Pat Brandino, our Sales and Marketing Director. Pat, this is Arkos 469.

PAT

Pleased to meet you, Mr. 469.

ARKOS

Please, call me Arkos.

PAT BRANDINO:

Three to four minutes on how we get the message of what we're about and what we're trying to accomplish out to the public; how we try to get the most "bang for the buck" through joint promotions, etc., the great interest media outlets have shown being involved with us.

QUIRK is still exploring…

 

 

10. INTERIOR: STAIRS BETWEEN THIRD & SECOND FLOORS

ARKOS

Very interesting—though I would still recommend telepathy. It costs far fewer fegwips.

ED

Fegwips?

ARKOS

Rodent-like creatures with ten legs. Our medium of exchange.

ED

I'd hate to be your banker…

ARKOS

Do you not have something similar?

ED

Uh, sort of. Our medium of exchange is called money. Fortunately, we have someone who raises it.

ARKOS

Ah! Like our fegwip-breeders at home.

ED

If only it were that simple…

 

11. INTERIOR: IN FRONT OF BUBBLE AREA

ED

Diana Choban is our fegwip-breeder—I mean, our development officer. Diana, this is Arkos 469.

DIANA

Pleased to meet you, Mr. 46 —

ED

Please, call him Arkos.

DIANA CHOBAN: Three to four minutes about how we're funded and how we go about gathering the funds we need to continue providing the service we provide—talk about exhibit sponsorships, special campaigns, etc.

QUIRK explores such things as donor wall, various signs for exhibit sponsorships, the skeleton & periodic table…

ARKOS

It sounds very difficult. I will make a note to have His Imperial Majesty send your Mr. Hall a breeding pair of fegwips, instead.

DIANA

Thank you so much.

ED

There is one other way we make some money.

ARKOS

And what is that?

ED

It's called the Kramer IMAX Theatre. Walk this way.

ED strides toward the theatre, leaving ARKOS behind again.

ARKOS

Personal log: Walk that way? Not without a lot of mutating . . .

 

12. INTERIOR: KRAMER IMAX THEATRE

ARKOS

That is a very large blank surface.

ED

It's called a screen. We show moving pictures on it.

ARKOS

Ah, yes. What you call television. We have intercepted your transmissions. I particularly like Hee Haw…

ED

Uh, no, it's not exactly television. It's—well, you'd better talk to Don Copeman, our IMAX theatre manager. This way!

 

13. INTERIOR: IMAX THEATRE LOBBY

ED

Don, this is Arkos 469—and don't call him Mr. 469. Arkos, this is Don Copeman. You can call him whatever you like.

ARKOS

Hello, Whatever-You-Like!

DON COPEMAN: Three to four minutes on IMAX, what it is, how films are selected, what kind of films we'll see, and how it benefits the Science Centre as a whole.

QUIRK roams the IMAX…

 

14. INTERIOR: IMAX PROJECTION ROOM

ARKOS

This must be a very powerful weapon.

ED

It's the IMAX projector.

ARKOS

A powerful projectile weapon?

ED

No, all it projects is light.

ARKOS

Ah! A powerful laser weapon.

ED

No! This is what projects the images on that big screen down there…

 

ARKOS

Oh…how?

ED

Just watch…

Visuals of the projector being loaded, or in operation, or something.

 

15. INTERIOR: IMAX THEATRE LOBBY NEAR CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

ED

Well, you'll have a lot to tell your Emperor, won't you?

ARKOS

If I am able to.

ED

What do you mean?

ARKOS

I have inadvertently landed in the large body of dihydrogen oxide adjacent to this structure. A critical component requires a large charge of static electricity in order for me to be able to retrieve my ship and take off again. At present I have no way of obtaining that charge —

ED

Wanna bet?

ARKOS

I fail to see what function gambling would serve at this juncture—

ED

Just follow me.

We move away toward the Powerhouse…

 

16. INTERIOR: POWERHOUSE – COCA COLA STAGE

We approach the Van Der Graaff Static Electricity Generator.

ARKOS

Greetings, robot! What is your function?

ED

It's not a robot. And its function is to generate static electricity.

ARKOS

Indeed?

ED

Sure. Watch!

We watch a kid get his/her hair stood on end. ARKOS is overjoyed.

ARKOS

I am indeed fortunate! Wait while I position myself…

We move closer to the generator, and we see a nice fat electrical spark jumping from the generator to the grounding rod, which can double as ARKOS's broken device.

ED

(Looking at watch impatiently.) Now can you leave?

ARKOS

Not yet! First I must gather images for transmittal to His Majesty! QUIRK!

Series of quick images from around the Powerhouse and IMAX.

 

17. EXTERIOR: IN FRONT OF THE POWERHOUSE

ARKOS

I thank you for your help. The Saskatchewan Science Centre may very well have saved our entire civilization.

ED

All in a day's work. Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you, Arkos—

ARKOS

Please, call me 496.

ED

Uh—sure. Whatever you say, 496. And, uh—QUIRK, was it? Have a safe trip home, and if you're ever in the nieghborhood again, be sure to drop by.

ED waves and goes back into the Powerhouse.

ARKOS

Don't worry—we will.

We move toward the lake…

 

18. INTERIOR: SPACESHIP

We see the control panel again.

ARKOS

Personal Log of Imperial Scout Arkos 496. Am preparing for takeoff from Earth. Mission accomplished. Launching—now.

The manipulator touches a button or lever. We hear splashing sounds, then rocket noises, and over it…

ARKOS

Feldercarb! I forgot to buy a T-shirt.

Music swells.

FADE OUT

On the naming of drugs

If you take a prescription drug, you've probably said to your pharmacist something like this. "Hi, I need a refill of the hydro… chloro… thoro… acti… zine? Zanc? Something like that."

At which point the pharmacist manfully chokes back his laughter at your pharmaceutical phonetics phailure, tactfully supplies the actual name of the drug, and the transaction continues.

So, why do drugs have such tongue-twisting names? Who comes up with them?

explains, in the context of failed efforts by Winston Pharmaceuticals to change the generic name of a compound chemically known as (deep breath) cis-8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide. Drahl reveals that drugs have something in common with T.S. Eliot's cats: each must have three different names.

First, there is the chemical name, sanctioned by the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Then there is the proprietary name, the brand name the manufacturer gives the drug for marketing purposes. But in addition, each drug must be assigned a generic name. Brand-name drugs eventually go off patent, after all. As well, generic names can be used in scientific literature, on package labels and in educational materials without running into copyright issues.

The current system of assigning generic names is half a century old. By the late 1950s drug compounds had become so complex that the IUPAC names were too unwieldy for general use, so in 1961 the American Medical Association, the U.S. Pharmaceutical Convention and the American Pharmacists Association created the U.S. Adopted Names (USAN) Council to select concise generic names. The Food & Drug Administration became part of the process in 1967.

In the States today, the USAN Council names the active ingredients in everything from drugs to vaccines to contact lenses and sunscreens. It recommends its names to the World Health Organization's International Nonproprietary Names (INN) program, and it's that organization that eventually settles on the generic name that will be used worldwide, including in Canada.

The international nature of drug names is why you'll never see a generic drug name containing the letters h, j, k or w: they lead to pronunciation problems in some languages. And some names put forward by the USAN Council, or other national bodies, are rejected by the INN program because they have bad or even obscene connotations elsewhere.

New generic names start with an established collection of name fragments called stems, each of which has a meaning connected to a particular class of drug, or a particular mode of action. For instance, the stem -ac relates to anti-inflammatory agents (derivatives of acetic acid), the stem -adox to a class of anti-bacterials, etc. The list of stems has slowly changed over the years as new drugs come on the market. There's also a set of prefixes.

C&EN's article gives as an example the popular drug Nexiuim, whose generic name is esomeprazole. The stem –prazole tells you (if you've memorized all the stems) that the drug is a benzimidazole antiulcer agent. The es- prefix, C&EN says, "describes the nature of the drug's chirality—esomeprazole is destrorotatory and contains a chiral center in the S configuration," an explanation I personally found less than helpful. But you get the idea.

Winston Pharmaceuticals' efforts to change the generic name zucapsaicin to civamide (because, they said, civamide was commonly used in hospitals and by pharmacists) failed because generic names are rarely changed, provided standard protocols were followed: unless, that is, there's a serious safety issue.

C&EN gives as an example the family of botulinum toxin drugs (which includes Botox), which underwent a generic name change in 2009 because under the old name dosage mix-ups had led to serious side effects and even deaths.

With prefixes, stems, and a few other conventions taken into consideration, the generic name is often three-quarters done. The originating company might then get to throw in a syllable or two of its choice. Often, it chooses to recognize one of the scientists involved in the drug's development. For instance, the experimental hepatitis C drug asunaprevir gets the "sun" part of its name from Li-Qiang Sun, the chemist who first made it for Bristol-Myers Squibb.

So the next time you struggle with a tongue-twisting drug name, don't take it personally. The name wasn't chosen solely to baffle you and amuse your pharmacist. Drug names have specific meanings. Learn their building blocks, and you, too, can tell at a glance what a generic drug should do.

Well, provided you know what chirality is.

(The photo: A medicine from the days before generic drug names.)

Nominations open for Aurora Awards for best Canadian science fiction and fantasy: Magebane eligible!

Nominations are now open for the Prix Aurora Awards, presented annually by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) for the best in, you guessed it, Canadian science fiction and fantasy. I was fortunate enough to win an Aurora in Montreal in 2009 for Marseguro (that's me holding the award, flanked by Betsy Wollheim, left, and Sheila Gilbert, right, publishers and editors of DAW Books), and Terra Insegura was a finalist in 2010. This year, Magebane by (ahem) Lee Arthur Chane is eligible. If you liked it, I'd be honored if you'd nominate it (and vote for it, too, of course, if ti comes to that!) But whether you want to nominate Magebane or not, I urge you to join the CSFFA* (it's only a $10 fee, and it's good for the whole calendar year) and nominate/vote for your favorites, as a way of showing your support for home-grown SF and fantasy.And here's the link to do so!

*Yes, that's a rule change: in the past, anyone could nominate but only members could vote. This year, you must be a member to nominate, as well.